ARC Document Solutions, Inc. (NYSE:ARC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Jorge Avalos: Yes. But I mean, we don’t see us reducing the level we did at ’23. I mean, we think cash flows we generate, obviously, stay pretty stable and will allow us to do that and more. Like I mentioned on my script, I mean, even with everything we did and returning to shareholder value, we still grew cash by almost $4 million after all that. So future is bright for us. We have options, which is a good thing.

Gregory Burns: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: And we’ll go to our next question, which comes from David Marsh, Singular Research.

David Marsh: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions and congrats on the year. So it looks like you used a little over $600,000 to repurchase equity in the fourth quarter. Can you just give us an update on where that puts you with regard to your share repurchase program? And can you give us a sense of kind of what the average…

Kumarakulasingam Suriyakumar: Sorry, could you repeat that question? It is not very clear.

Jorge Avalos: I think it’s about share repurchase. And if I don’t answer the question right, just clarify. But I think you were saying the repurchases we did, we did $3.5 million worth of share repurchases. We still have another $9 million-ish available under the Board-approved plan. Every quarter is a little different. Sometimes there’s more opportunity to buy more in the third quarter versus another one. Think about the first quarter. open window doesn’t open until March. So we have two, three weeks to buy shares, very truncated period of time. But overall, for the year, we expect to be in that $3.5 million range for 2024, barring other opportunities that Suri mentioned earlier. Did that answer your question?

David Marsh: Yeah. Just to ask you, the other part of it was, could you just give us a sense for what the average price per share was at repurchase?

Jorge Avalos: The repurchase, it was under $3, and it was in that $2.80 to $2.90 range. Don’t quote me exactly, but it’s pretty close to that.

Kumarakulasingam Suriyakumar: Yeah.

David Marsh: Got it. Yeah. That’s helpful. And then just turning to more kind of the business fundamental side. Are there particular industry verticals that have started to show incremental strengths here in the back half of ’23, early ’24 that maybe you didn’t have as strong of a performance from during the earlier part of ’23? And are there any other particular verticals that — away from the construction side, which, obviously, we know hinges a little bit on interest rate movements. But are there any other verticals that you could talk about that you have kind of particularly strong expectations for in the coming year?

Kumarakulasingam Suriyakumar: Yeah. So I mean, obviously, based on the market sentiments right now, it sure looks like we’re going to have a positive impact on the market going forward. Nothing shows that the market is going to deteriorate. It’s going to — it sure seems like it’s stabilizing. And if that is the case, obviously, the other segments of the business is going to be much more active. And we are thinking that, that will be a positive. Dilo, what’s your perspective on that?

Dilantha Wijesuriya: Yes. I think if you’re looking at the business segments of the company, there was one or two specific business segment that really helped us in Q4 because different seasons, different customer types get busy, obviously, towards the holiday season, retail, retail mall, mall operations. Those of our customers are very, very strong in the fourth quarter. But overall, when we track all our verticals, as you know, we track about 53 verticals in the organization. We see a bump in almost all categories. Because one of the things that we see is that every company is marketing. They are marketing, they are trying to grab back extra market share. A lot of trade show work is continuing to bump up. So I think that’s the positive sign that we see pretty much in all business verticals because everybody is looking for that new business. So that’s where our digital marketing and digital color graphics services bode well with those customer verticals.

David Marsh: That’s very helpful. And then just last one for me, just another kind of housekeeping type item. Jorge, just looking at the liability side here, balance sheet, it looks like — it kind of looks like the operating leases bumped up a bit and the debt and finance leases kind of bumped up a little bit long term. Can you just talk about what’s going on there and what your expectation is for the next 12 months?

Jorge Avalos: Yes. I’ll start off with the easy one. In regards to the finance leases, that actually went down. 2022, end of the year, we were at $26 million. We ended the year at $22 million. So I foresee that kind of staying either in that range or potentially dropping a little bit more. So not a big shift there from a balance sheet perspective. In regards to the operating leases, this is just a product facility renewals. Our annual rent expense is going to stay pretty stable. But the new accounting rules say, okay, if I’m in a building, say, it’s one of my bigger buildings and I renew it in December, now I have a seven-year lease for the next seven years. That all shows up as a liability on my books, but my annual rent stays the same. So it’s kind of just like a balance sheet gross up on your financials there. Nothing that I would be worried about from a — this is going to have an impact on my P&L. Does that make sense?