Q4 2022 Custom Truck One Source Inc Earnings Call
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: The struck
Speaker 1: As the we pro con to.
Speaker 2: this conference call is being recorded.
Speaker 2: I would like to hand the conference call over to your host today, Brian Perman, Vice President of Investor Relations for Custom Truck.
Speaker 3: Thank you and good afternoon. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's call may include forward-looking statements which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results may differ
Speaker 3: For discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the risk factor section of the company's filings with the SEC. Additionally, please note that you can find reconciliations of the historical non-GAAP financial measures discussed during the call in the press release we issued today.
Speaker 3: The press release we issued this afternoon and our quarterly investor presentation are posted on the investor relations section of our website. We filed our 2022 10K with the SEC this afternoon.
Speaker 3: Today's discussion of our results of operations for Custom Truck One Source Inc. or Custom Truck is presented on an historical basis as of or for the three and twelve months ended December 31st, 2022 and prior periods.
Speaker 3: While our reported results can only include Custom Truck on-source LP for the period since the April 1st 2021 date of the business combination, we have presented and will be discussing today pro forma combined results as if NESCO and Custom Truck had operated together for all periods.
Speaker 3: All references and comparisons to 2021 results are made on a pro forma basis. We believe such combined information is useful to compare how the combined company has performed over time.
Speaker 3: Joining me today are Fred Ross, CEO , Ryan McMonagle, President and COO, and Chris Edwards, SE CFO . I will now turn the call over to Fred.
Speaker 4: Thanks Brian and welcome everyone to today's call. I'd like to begin by thanking all of our employees, customers, and suppliers who supported our business and helped us achieve our fantastic results as we navigated the challenges our industry faced last year.
Speaker 4: The entire team continues to work tirelessly to maintain record levels of production so we can fulfill our goals of providing unrivaled service to our customers.
Speaker 4: growing our market share and creating value for our shareholders.
Speaker 4: Last quarter we delivered record revenues, adjusted gross profits, and adjusted EBIT out.
Speaker 4: We generated $487 million of revenue and $124 million of adjusted EBITDA in Q4.
Speaker 4: 37% and 30% respectively.
Speaker 4: versus Q4 of 2021.
Speaker 4: We sold 244 million dollars of new equipment in the quarter.
Speaker 4: which is a quarterly record for the sales organization. Additionally, we continue to grow the fleet adding $27 million of net OEC to the quarter.
Speaker 4: While our supply chain continues to improve, we are working closely with our vendors to continue to address remaining issues and have 2023 be a better year than the last year.
Speaker 4: Our ERS business continues to perform very well with utilization increasing by 250 basis points over the prior quarter. Our TES business continues to see very strong demand with backlog growing to a record of $754 million.
Speaker 4: more than 83% higher than a year ago.
Speaker 4: Strong demand for both rental and new sales provide us the opportunity to focus on improving profitability through margin expansion.
Speaker 4: Finally, we remain well capitalized on our focus on reducing our net leverage, which Chris will discuss later.
Speaker 4: Our fourth quarter results provided continued momentum for us and a strong foundation for this year.
Speaker 4: We are confident that our team will continue to execute well and deliver strong results.
Speaker 4: during 2023.
Speaker 4: We expect to see continued strong revenue, adjusted gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA gross across all our business segments.
Speaker 4: As you know, after founding Custom Truck more than 25 years ago, I will retire from CEO role next week.
Speaker 4: Building this business has been one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.
Speaker 4: Leading our employees and serving our customers is something I have been passionate about my entire career.
Speaker 4: I have worked with Ryan for more than eight years and I am confident in his leadership ability in the rest of the Custom Truck Leadership team.
Speaker 4: look forward to seeing what they achieve in the years ahead. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Ryan.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Fred. I am tremendously grateful for your leadership and guidance.
Speaker 4: I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to build upon the enduring legacy that you created here at Custom Truck. As CEO , I want to continue to serve our customers, create more opportunities for our employees to grow and develop, and push forward our objective to establish Custom Truck OneSource as the leading provider.
Speaker 4: specialized trucks and heavy equipment solutions in North America.
Speaker 4: Demand remains strong in each of our strategically selected four primary end markets, TND, telecom, rail, and infrastructure. We continue to believe that these markets offer compelling long-term growth opportunities.
Speaker 4: well in excess of GDP and should for the foreseeable future. This can be seen in the reported backlogs of the utility and telecom contractors, our largest customer base, which continue to be extremely strong and at or near record levels. We see this reflected in both our new sales backlog.
Speaker 4: the rental fleets performance. Additionally we continue to experience strong demand from our customers to both rent and purchase assets in the rental fleet which we see as a positive leading indicator for sustained demand.
Speaker 4: Strong investment in the rental fleet and sales of certain aged assets in the quarter resulted in the reduction of our fleet age to 3.7 years.
Speaker 4: which we believe remains the youngest in the industry.
Speaker 4: Continued supply chain issues were the only significant headwind to our ability to meet customer demand last year.
Speaker 4: During Q4, we saw solid improvements in the number of chassis and attachments we received, which was reflected in our near-record production and growing levels of inventory.
Speaker 4: Overall, our inventory increased by $41 million versus Q3, which we see as a positive indicator in positions as well for 2023.
Speaker 4: Because of our strong vendor relationships and the efforts of our team, we continue to experience increased inventory flows from our suppliers, with deliveries up more than 50% during Q4 compared to Q4 last year.
Speaker 4: We met our target of adding more gross capex to the rental fleet in the second half of last year than we did in the first half.
Speaker 4: deploying $214 million into the rental fleet in the second half versus $127 million in the first half.
Speaker 4: We also met our stated goal of both sequential quarterly and year-over-year revenue growth in our TES segment in the fourth quarter.
Speaker 4: Strategically, we remain focused on optimizing our production and investing to ensure we deliver the service levels our customers expect from CTAS.
Speaker 4: Our production team performed very well in the fourth quarter and continues to deliver strong results so far in 2023.
Speaker 4: Our sales organization was able to deliver record volumes in the 4th quarter in the infrastructure and system investments we have made.
Speaker 4: provide confidence we can deliver our expected 2023 volumes. We will continue to invest in our footprint and service organization to ensure we can support our rental fleet growth.
Speaker 4: As we look ahead to this year, we believe that favorable in-market tailwinds, robust customer demand, improving supply chain, and continued solid execution by our team all position custom truck to deliver strong revenue, adjusted gross profit, and adjusted EBITDA growth.
Speaker 4: While Chris will discuss our 2023 outlook in greater detail, we are currently projecting 2023 total revenue in the range of 1.61 billion to 1.73 billion and adjusted EBITDA from 415 to 435 million.
Speaker 4: We know our employees are the key to delivering the record financial results and unmatched customer service we saw last year, and I'd like to extend a sincere thank you to them. I will now turn it over to Chris.
Speaker 5: Thanks Ryan. As Fred and Ryan have indicated Q4 was a record quarter despite the supply chain challenges we continued to face.
Speaker 5: Total revenue of $487 million was up 37% compared to Q4 2021, and 36% versus the prior quarter.
Speaker 5: Adjusted EBITDA was 124 million dollars, a 30% improvement compared to Q4 2021 results and 36% sequential growth. For all of 2022, adjusted EBITDA was up 18% compared to 2021. Net income for the quarter was 31.1 million dollars.
Speaker 5: the highest since the combination.
Speaker 5: Gross profit excluding rental depreciation was $169 million, representing an adjusted gross margin for the quarter of 34.7%, down marginally from 35.1% for Q4 2021, and down from 36.6% last quarter, both solely as a result of mix.
Speaker 5: ERS and TES segments both experienced significant improvement in adjusted gross margin versus last year, driven primarily by our strategic focus on pricing across all of our operating segments.
Speaker 5: SG&A was $59 million for Q4, or 12% of revenues, which is down from almost 14% in Q3. Turning to our segment results, Fred referenced our continued strong utilization within our ERS segment for the quarter, which was more than 86%.
Speaker 5: up from 84% for Q4 2021 and up 250 basis points compared to last quarter. Average OEC on rent increased by more than $85 million compared to the previous quarter and was up $116 million for 2022.
Speaker 5: On-rent yield was 39.5% for the quarter, up from 39.1% for Q4 2021, and up 100 basis points versus Q3. The total yield was 39.5% for Q4 2021, and up 100 basis points for Q4 2021, and up 100 basis points for Q4 2021.
Speaker 5: Our OEC ended the year at $1.46 billion, up by more than $27 million in the quarter and $92 million for the year.
Speaker 5: We deployed $117 million of new equipment into our rental fleet in the quarter, which is the most capex we have ever deployed in a quarter, and we expect to continue to invest heavily in the fleet in 2023.
Speaker 5: For Q4, ERS rental revenue was $123 million, a 13% increase versus Q4 2021, and a 10% increase versus Q3. are now only removable due to nature, their funding, or who is interested in working on
Speaker 5: Reflecting our comments from last quarter regarding strong demand for rental asset purchases, ERS equipment sales for the quarter were a record 78 million dollars up more than 120% versus Q4 2021 and up more than 110% from Q3.
Speaker 5: ERS gross profit, excluding rental depreciation, was a record $118 million for Q4, up 33% from Q4 2021 and up 24% from Q3.
Speaker 5: Adjusted gross margin was 58.3%, a decrease from Q3 solely as a result of revenue mix as rental adjusted gross margin continued to improve and rental sales adjusted gross margin was essentially flat to Q3.
Speaker 5: For TES, we achieved a quarterly record with revenues of $247 million, which were up more than 42% sequentially from $174 million in Q3, as this segment benefited from record backlog, continued strong inventory flows, and near record levels of production. The gross profit increased by more than 90% in the quarter compared to Q4.
Speaker 5: growing by more than 6% sequentially from Q3 to $754 million. This strength was very broad-based across our product portfolio.
Speaker 5: While supply chain issues, albeit at a moderated level, are resulting in near-term headwinds to our ability to fully take advantage of this strong demand, we believe that continued growth in TES sales backlog reflects growing demand for equipment indicative of our favorable end market dynamics, our strong market share gains, and our pricing discipline.
Speaker 5: We have been successful in countering inflationary pressures through the implementation of ongoing production efficiency initiatives in addition to gaining favorable price increases with our customers. As this quarter's TES results show, we are confident we will be able to hold or improve margins over the coming quarters even with elevated levels of inflation.
Speaker 5: Our APS business posted revenue of $38 million, up 9% versus Q4 2021, and up 8% over Q3. Gross profit margin in this segment was negatively impacted by higher inventory costs due to shifts in product mix. Having a strong liquidity position and improving leverage remained prior to the pandemic.
Speaker 5: by $9 million with the outstanding balance ending the year at $438 million.
Speaker 5: As of December 31st, we had $309 million available and $189 million of suppressed availability under the ABL with the ability to upsize the facility.
Speaker 5: With LTM adjusted EBITDA of $393 million, we finished 2022 with net leverage of just over 3.5 times.
Speaker 5: improvement of more than a turn since the close of the transaction and down from just under 3.8 times last quarter.
Speaker 5: Achieving leverage below three times remains our target and one that we believe we can achieve by the end of fiscal 2023.
Speaker 5: We will continue to seek to make incremental investments and prudent acquisitions when we believe they create long-term shareholder value.
Speaker 5: With respect to our 2023 outlook, we believe ERS will continue to benefit from strong demand from our rental customers as well as for purchases of rental fleet units, particularly older equipment in 2023. We also expect to further grow our rental fleet, NetOEC, by mid to high single digits.
Speaker 5: Regarding TES, supply chain improvements, improved inventory levels exiting 2022, and record backlog levels should improve our ability to produce and deliver more units in 2023.
Speaker 5: We are providing guidance for our segments as follows.
Speaker 5: We expect ERS revenue of between $665 and $705 million.
Speaker 5: TS revenue in the range of $800 to $870 million dollars and APS revenue of between $145 and $155 million dollars.
Speaker 5: As Ryan mentioned previously, this results in total revenue in the range of $1.61 billion to $1.73 billion, and we are projecting adjusted EBITDA from $415 to $435 million. In closing, I want to echo Fred's and Ryan's comments regarding our record 2022 performance.
Speaker 5: Despite the significant challenges that we experienced, we have executed a transformational integration with NESCO, delivered double-digit adjusted EBITDA growth, expanded margins in an inflationary environment, reduced leverage, and continued to deliver the highest levels of customer service.
Speaker 2: With that, I will turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions. Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad.
Speaker 2: The confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue.
Speaker 2: You may press star 2 if you would 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.
Speaker 2: One moment please while we poll for
Speaker 2: Thank you. And our first question is from Scott Shinberger with Oppenheimer. Please proceed with your question. Thank you very much. Good afternoon all. My first question, you know, it still feels like the most important question.
Speaker 2: out there is the supply chain. Demand was excellent in 2022, yet there were the constraints on the supply end of it. You guys highlighted it a bit here on this call, but I'd love to just talk a little bit more about what you're seeing from the suppliers. You said it's gotten better.
Speaker 2: both chassis and attachments, but if you just take us a level or two deeper into what you're seeing and what gives you confidence for that clearing up and allowing you to give the guy that you have for 23. Thanks.
Speaker 4: Sure. Scott, good to hear from you. And it's Ryan, I'll start. But we are seeing good improvement on the supply chain side, Scott. So it's, you know, we referenced it in two comments that we made. One about inventory. Our receipts in Q4 was up 50% over where it was last fourth quarter..
Speaker 4: So we take that as a really positive sign and then inventory levels are up as well sequentially. And so we're seeing, you know, we're seeing that flow and then we're seeing the production side of things continue to improve too. So and I'd say right now we're feeling good with the chassis, with our chassis partners. We're seeing good inflows on the chassis side and on the attachment side of things too where we have
Speaker 4: continued to have good relationships with our partners there. So I think we're seeing good flows in both the attachment and the chassis side. And then with bodies as well, we've continued to identify additional partners who can help us with our bodies as well. So we're feeling good and sitting here in the middle of March, I think, as we said in some of the prepared comments, the year is off to a good start.
Speaker 4: you know, from a supply chain standpoint as well.
Speaker 2: Can we speak a little bit or discuss a little bit what you're seeing across the end markets? Have you seen any discernible benefits from the infrastructure bill funds flow yet and just kind of end market perspective on
Speaker 4: It sounds like broad base demand, but maybe a little bit more from each of the areas. Thanks. Yeah, I'll start and then Fred, you want to... Well, yeah, so basically, if you look at our dump trucks and water trucks, which is usually part of pure infrastructure, are really up and doing well, demand is high.
Speaker 4: Sales are high and the rental fleet is also expanding with those with those products So I think we're starting to see the beginning of the infrastructure lift that we've been talking about for a year and a half or so and I think it is beginning now.
Speaker 4: So I think that's that's where we see the infrastructure bill the most Immediately Scott is and then utility or still we still are very bullish on utility broadly both transmission and distribution Distribution made that comment in the prepared remarks around our customers backlog. So we're continuing to see strong demand for equipment
Speaker 4: from both transmission and distribution. And then railroad continues to be a good area for us, both from an in-market demand standpoint and then just from a share gain standpoint in that segment. And then telecom continues to perform well, which again is a smaller segment for us, but we're continuing to see growth in telecom. And as Fred said, on the infrastructure bill, we're seeing the most.
Speaker 4: in infrastructure. Hard to say if there's any shovel-ready projects on the utility or telecom side. Those typically take longer to permit. But we're still seeing good demand in all four of the end markets.
Speaker 2: It sounds good and it sounds like record CapEx as a combined company. How are you thinking about CapEx? I would imagine higher with the constraints easing in 2023 versus 2022. How are you thinking about CapEx?
Speaker 5: into 2023 and probably towards the higher end of that range. In terms of free cash flow, you know, we've said that our goal is to get below the 3x. You can kind of do math on our guidance in terms of where we are in terms of debt, so you should see some positive free cash flow absent any significant M&A activity or, you know, any additional investments we make in the rental fleet beyond the guidance we just gave you.
Speaker 2: But you should definitely see positive free cash flow this year. Thanks. I appreciate it. I'll turn it over to just one more quick one, kind of a nuanced question. In the prepared remarks, there was comments from the rental fleet expecting older equipment to be purchased, particularly older equipment. What is...
Speaker 2: What what? What's the context of that comment is that day? Is that just where you think in this inflationary environment customers will be be looking the most? I think that's a good development for you all but just a little bit more on what that comment was.
Speaker 4: Yeah that's, Scott, that's really just a continuation of some of what we've talked about in terms of bringing the legacy CTAS and legacy NESCO fleets together of, you know, of disposing of some of the older assets. So I think partly is just a function of what the combined fleet looked like and then to your point because residual values have stayed strong.
Speaker 4: you know, and continue to stay strong for our used equipment. It's, you know, it's been a good time to dispose of assets. Plus the fact that now that supply chain is improving, we have more new equipment available to continue to replace and then to grow the rental fleet also.
Speaker 2: Thanks for the context. Appreciate it guys. I'll turn it over. Thanks Scott.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Our next question is from Mike Schliske with DA Davidson. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 7: Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. When I get a feel for the out of utilization for 2023, you're going to be growing the fleet quite a bit, it looks like. And I guess I'm kind of wondering whether all those new units are already spoken for from customers that need them.
Speaker 7: And do you think you can maintain the visualization at the end of the year into most of 2023 here?
Speaker 4: Yes, Mike, good to talk to you. Yes, we're feeling good about utilization. So I think we mentioned that utilization Q4 was up to 86%. Right? So we finished the year very strong from an overall utilization standpoint and strong utilization has held so far through Q1.
Speaker 4: And so, you know, we're feeling good from a demand standpoint. We have, you know, a significant portion of the new equipment we're adding has a reservation against it. We don't work quite that far forward that we have visibility the whole year from a new equipment reservation standpoint, but we see utilization staying strong.
Speaker 4: through the full year of 23.
Speaker 8: full year of 23. OK.
Speaker 7: Also, in your comments, you had mentioned investing in your footprint. I'm curious if you can update us on whether you have your eye on any new locations coming in 2023 at all..
Speaker 4: We mentioned, I think in our investor deck, we mentioned six broad markets, the Pacific Northwest and Northern California, and the Southwest and the Carolinas, and New York and New Jersey, where we know that we need to add to our footprint. So those are certainly the target markets that we're focused on.
Speaker 4: you know nothing imminent to report from a new location but you know we're actively working in all those markets to look at both opening up a greenfield site and then also looking at kind of local or regional M&A opportunities in those markets as well. Okay and maybe the last one for me is on the pricing of new...
Speaker 4: let's let the market kind of dictate pricing. And so, you know, as backlogs continue to grow, you know, we've tried to work closely with our customers to be able to, you know, pass along cost increases where we see them and then just also react to how the market seems to be pricing equipment.
Speaker 8: Okay, I'll leave it there guys. Thanks so much. Thanks Mike.
Speaker 8: Okay, I'll leave it there guys. Thanks so much. Thanks Mike.
Speaker 2: Thank you. Our next question is from 10. Fine with city group please proceed with your question. Thank you guys. Good afternoon. The 1st question just done on. If there's any help you can provide as to from a full year perspective, you know, the quarterly cadence and the seasonality has been.
Speaker 2: Disrupted by all kinds of factors, especially in 22 given the supply chain issues, but, you know, we're almost halfway through March. Can you just give us a sense that any kind of hand holding that you would. Provide in terms of any just rough parameters and from a seasonality perspective in 23, you know, from either revenue and or even.
Speaker 5: second half, I think revenue split was similar in 2022. We would expect a similar kind of flow and cadence in 2023. You know we just had extremely strong fourth quarter and so our expectations for Q1 are probably more in that mid single-digit in terms of EBITDA growth for Q1.
Speaker 5: But that's probably about as much as I can give you right now. So 45, 55, first half, second half, and kind of mid-single digit growth on EBITDA in Q1 versus Q1 of last year.
Speaker 2: Got it, thank you, that's good, that's helpful. And then on another one, just going back to the rental fleet, so the expectation to grow mid to high, closer I guess to the high single digits, any help there in terms of gross versus net CapEx? I would...
Speaker 2: Should we assume that the use sales continue at a faster pace than they did in the past?
Speaker 5: 22 or actually think about that? Yeah so we're I think our expectation right now is you know in the neighborhood of 400 million in terms of close capex and you can calculate the kind of the net on that to get to that mid to high single digit and I think in terms of you know the rental asset sales is going to be directional similar to what you saw this year. Got it okay very good. And then just lastly and
Speaker 2: The backlog, I mean, that's like 90. Of the midpoint of your guidance, the backlog, the ending backlog is 90% of your. Revenue guide does some of that extend beyond 23?
Speaker 2: or obviously it speaks to, I would assume, a fairly good level of visibility, but are there things within that backlog we should be mindful of that.
Speaker 4: You know, they would call out. Some of it will extend beyond 23, just depending on the spec of the truck that's in backlog. But I would say the majority of that, the far majority of that will be delivered.
Speaker 5: this year in 23, but some of it, if you really expect a unique product, could extend out into 2024. Okay, but not a big deal, not a material amount. Okay. And the pricing and the backlog, you feel that
Speaker 9: I mean, hopefully we don't have the same level of...
Speaker 9: inflationary factors we have, but presumably that's all price protected?
Speaker 4: majority of it anyway? Yes, I mean we've reprised the backlog kind of as we've seen any cost increases that have come through. And that's, you know, as we need to we'll continue to work with our customers.
Speaker 4: majority of it anyway? Yes, I mean we've reprised the backlog kind of as we've seen any cost increases that have come through. You know, and that's, you know, as we need to, we'll continue to work with our customers to figure out what makes the most sense there.
Speaker 6: Okay, very good. Thank you guys for the time. Thanks, Tim. Thank you. Our next question is from Noel Diltz with STIFL. Please proceed with your question. Hi guys, good afternoon and congratulations to both...
Speaker 6: Fred and Ryan on your respective changes.
Speaker 6: So first I was just wondering if you're seeing any shift in the buy versus rent decision at your utility contractor customers given that there seems to be a lot of conviction in a very long runway for investment in the grid. Thanks.AH
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll start and Fred can certainly chime in, but we're still seeing strong demand both ways. Noelle to both buy equipment and to rent equipment. You know, and so I think we're feeling strong demand on both the ERS and TES segment with utility customers. Some of what we saw in the 4th quarter in terms of buying out some of the utility gear. We see that as another kind of.
Speaker 4: another bullish indicator in terms of the demand cycle that contractors have a meaningful amount of work that they want to own that equipment. As well, we're not seeing a lot of shift between buying and renting where we're seeing any, we're seeing a slight shift.
Speaker 4: Towards renting more equipment right now with some of the contractors too. But again, that's where we think the one-stop shop model Really is dynamic and allows us to pivot You know between how customers want to consume the equipment But you know right now certainly in the utility space all the indicators we're seeing are certainly strong demand for you know For both buying and renting gear Yeah, I'd say it continues to stay strong. I
Speaker 4: I do think that the rental may pick up some. There's no doubt that because of interest rates and so forth, some people may feel that it's a better deal to rent than to put the
Speaker 5: add the equipment to their balance sheet, but both sides are doing really well, but I do think it might be leaning slightly towards or towards more towards rental. Okay, that's helpful. Thanks, and then I'm just curious, it looks like you're continuing to buy back some shares.
Speaker 6: How are you thinking about the relative attractiveness of share repurchase with the stock at current levels? How are you thinking about the relative effectiveness of share repurchase with the stock at current
Speaker 5: Yeah, hi, Noel. This is Chris. You know, we really view it as an opportunity to show support for the stock. You know, obviously we're very bullish on our performance in 2022 and the outlook for 2023. And so we're, you know, we really look at it opportunistically. As you know, we have 30 million approved by the board.
Speaker 5: I think we've, in the queue, or sorry, at the K we disclosed we've purchased a little over 10 million, and so we'll, you know, we'll continue to look at it and buy stock as we think it makes sense to support this talk.
Speaker 5: In the queue or the sorry the K we disclose we've purchased a little over 10 million And so we'll you know we'll continue to look at it and and buy stock as we think it makes sense to support this time Great, thank you
Speaker 6: Thank you. Our next question is from Justin Hawk with Robert W. Baird. Please proceed with your question.
Speaker 6: Yeah, good evening, guys, and I guess I'll echo the statement of congratulations on changing all the new goals, and good luck. I guess my question...
Speaker 2: I'm kind of surprised that the rental segment is growing less than the sales segment. And the reason why I asked that is because I guess I kind of assumed while you guys supply everything that there was more of a mix to doing more rental, it seems like.
Speaker 2: you know, the sales side is driving more of the revenue growth outlook. And so I guess, commenting or your comments on that, and then also within the rental segment specifically, is it the same dynamic of the sales portion is expected to grow faster than the rental portion within the rental segment.
Speaker 4: We've got a couple dynamics going on. One is just capital allocation and balance sheet management in terms of gross capex and how much capital do we want to deploy because of how much the fleet's grown. So in that ERS segment, there's really two things. There's the rental fleet, which drives rental revenue, and then there's the rental sales side of that business. And so Chris already kind of gave you that.
Speaker 4: allocation and capital deployment more than anything and then you know we're doing them both in the context of supply chain is improving and so you know as we've seen backlog grow and kind of you know the fact that backlog is now at north of seven hundred and fifty million dollars we're just trying to begin to make sure we've got
Speaker 10: CAFEX deployment. Okay, I understand on the to the the ERS segment then.
Speaker 10: If you're looking at your guidance is 3% growth at the midpoint. So I guess what you're saying is the rental fleet within that segment you're assuming. You grow that mid high school digits, so the sales out of that segment would be flat to.
Speaker 4: to down a little bit earlier. That's kind of, I think Chris said close to flat right is how we we've kind of thought about it. Yeah, exactly. And then and then your other assumption there is utilization. And so it's just you know, we've run at incredibly high utilization levels in entire 2022.
Speaker 4: And so we see nothing saying utilization's going to slow down in any meaningful way. So we still see very good indicators in terms of utilization and demand, but just as we're thinking about budgeting, I think it's important that we're managing that as best we can. Okay, and that kind of brings me to my next question, or my final question here is that
Speaker 10: term. It was kind of flattish year over year here in the quarter up 10 basis points. Are you thinking that it stays kind of at that a level for 23 or is there opportunity for more rate yield?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think as you look at that, Justin, I don't know that I would be modeling any significant expansion. Certainly there's a lot of things we're doing that are in terms of efficiencies within the business in addition to just the availability of units and utilization that can drive that.
Speaker 5: So, not anything specifically we want to guide you to, but I wouldn't necessarily model any significant movement in either direction. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you. Our Hooker. Okay?
Speaker 5: we want to guide you to, but I wouldn't necessarily model any significant movement in either direction. Okay. Fair enough. Thank you. Thanks, Justin. Thank you. Thank you, Justin.
Speaker 6: As a reminder, it is Star 1 if you would like to ask a question. If there are no further questions at this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Ryan McMonagle for closing comments.
Speaker 4: Great, thank you. Thanks everyone for your time today and your interest in Custom Truck. We look forward to speaking with you on our next quarterly earnings call. And in the meantime, please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions. Thank you again and have a good evening.
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