FTI Consulting, Inc. (NYSE:FCN) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Steve Gunby : Look, I’ve got a lot of confidence in that business trajectory. I will say that I hope I’ve said this in the past, but I always hate it when somebody looks at 2019 as a benchmark for our company or our business because that was a place where we got caught short on headcount, and we had to make it up on a couple of years later. And so I can’t remember what the utilization was for FLC. But I know we were like sold out in Europe, and we weren’t answering the phones on new leads for some places because of the business we had. So look, it’s a weird thing because you say 60% or 65% utilization and you say, how can we be sold out? Well, part of it is — I mean, I can tell you how we account for it differently than other people, but part of it is just the sub parts of our business.

And so you can have people who are just 100% utilized or 90% utilized and when you have that. And so I think we’re on the right trajectory in FLC. It’s one of our growth engines, and it is making progress on it. I think the upside is enormous. So if you’re asking me, is just as good as it gets? No, and do I have in patience for us? Of course, I do. But so do the team leading it, and I feel pretty good about it. Does that at least talk to the point, Andrew?

Andrew Nicholas : Absolutely. And then maybe if I could just wrap-up with one last one on M&A-related businesses. A really good quarter seemingly on that front. But if you could talk to the momentum in M&A and maybe the M&A environment broadly to start 2024. You talked, Ajay, about narrowing spreads and its impact on the restructuring environment. But are you seeing kind of an offset there in M&A to this point? Or is the potential for some sort of air pocket between those two dynamics to persist for a little bit here as everyone finds their footing? Thank you.

Ajay Sabherwal : So the key words again, are proceeding carefully. It’s — this is not the time to be definitive. There are folks out there. I think maybe interest rates will not come down as much. There’s also an election cycle this year. So to say, we are now definitively on an M&A growth curve would be premature. We are seeing, I mean transactions was up a little bit. That, as you know this on the technology side, the second request piece was up. In our economic consulting, we do the real hard stuff. So that can happen in either cycle. So this is not based on any major trend one way or the other.

Steve Gunby : Andrew, let me close. I think we’re out of time. Let me just maybe add to that and say, look, let me express sympathy for all the analysts on this call, buy side, sell side anybody, you guys try to figure out where we’re going to be in the next quarter. And it’s hard, as Ajay said, in the next — each of the next quarters, it’s very hard to be definitive on that. What I think we can be definitive on and I think the last 10 years have shown is if you focus on getting the right people, the right attitudes, and the right capabilities, and you support them, you don’t know what the damn quarter excuse me that don’t know what the quarters are going to look like. But what you can put the company on is a multi-year trajectory that is up.

And that is something that is predictable. And we’ve predicted it and we can deliver on. We’ve delivered on it and we can so I’m sorry, we can’t be. I wish you luck on the on the quarters. It’s just hard. It’s hard, but I just want to make sure I underscore the definitiveness of our conviction around the multi-year trajectory.

Andrew Nicholas : Absolutely. Thanks Steve, thanks Ajay.

Steve Gunby : All right. And thank you all for joining the call. We really appreciate your attention and support.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today’s conference call and presentation. We thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

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