FirstService Corporation (NASDAQ:FSV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Frederic Bastien : Hi, good morning guys. I appreciate it’s difficult to call out the restoration volumes you’re going to get from the weather events, but when referencing the 20% growth we need — we don’t really have the revenue base from which to extrapolate the actual amount of the revenues you’re going to get. So — and I kind of recall last maybe six months ago talking about restoration being now like 800 million to 900 million buck’s revenue business. Is that kind of the ballpark that we’re still at given the recent acquisitions?

Scott Patterson : Jeremy, over to you.

Jeremy Rakusin : Yes. Absent significant weather events layer on top 800 million to 900 million is a good number, Frederic, baseline annualized.

Frederic Bastien : Okay. And then, so that 20% growth, would apply that to half of that 800 million to 900 million bucks, is that correct?

Jeremy Rakusin : Yes.

Frederic Bastien : Okay. Just wanted to double check. Cool. Thanks for that. Working capital, obviously with the restoration activities and the growth of that particular business you’ve been investing in working capital, how should we think about deployment of working capital in 2023?

Jeremy Rakusin : I’ve made the point before, Frederick that, your restoration has changed the working capital profile and it does, we’ve got great clients that will pay, but it takes time as these projects work through, and it’s on the back of insurance carrier coverage. So, it’s hard to dictate the timing of when we’re going to start to see positive working capital swings. Although in Q4, I think you could see that it was a lot better than Q3 where we were in the mobilization phase. I think, you got to take a multi-year view on working capital usage across our businesses, and I think, because of the moving parts and the seasonality, and I think 2% of revenues, 20% of EBITDA on a multi-year or protracted period measurement basis is the way to look at it. And looking at pre-cash over conversion before working capital is something that I would kind of emphasize and to take out the volatile swings on working capital.

Frederic Bastien: Okay, thanks. Just housekeeping for me, last few ones, what tax rate should we be working with and similarly non-controlling interest as a percentage of after pre-tax profit? Just that percentage number would be useful?

Jeremy Rakusin: Tax rate we see for €˜23, in around 26%, so a little bit higher. We were at 25% in 2022. And non-controlling interest share of earnings 6% to 7% is a good number. Sort of where we came out in the middle of that for €˜22.

Frederic Bastien: Thank you. Great to see earnings and results improve heading into the year. So quite encouraging. Thanks.

Operator: I’m showing no additional questions in the queue at this time. I’d like to turn to conference back over to Mr. Patterson for any closing remarks.

Scott Patterson: Thank you everyone for joining this morning and we look forward to reporting on our Q1 towards the end of April. Have a great day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the fourth quarter investors conference call. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.

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