Kingsway Financial Services Inc. (NYSE:KFS) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Kent Hansen : Yes. I touched on this briefly with Adam. I do think more importantly, Drew thinks. He’s the President of the company. We run a very de-centralized operation here. I fundamentally believe in the power of de-centralization both in the ability to attract and more importantly, retain really great people, and Drew, absolutely believes that he has the ability to grow that organically. This is mission critical software for its customers, and so the sales cycle is a little longer. But I think in terms of concrete examples, I think that some early successes with some new client ads that they’re on-boarding now. And I’m very sanguine about his opportunity to grow that organically.

James Carbonara: I see no further questions coming in on the email, operator, I’ll turn it back to you to close that the what — I apologize JT and Kent, if you guys are still there, there is one question on the email. It does say, due to the shortage of nursing staff available — how does the demand for nurses how does the demand for nurses that benefits SNS compare with the challenge SNS faces in hiring travel nurses?

JT Fitzgerald: I would say, the demand challenge in 2023 was sort of a post pandemic hangover — during the pandemic hospital systems had to be very reliant on contingent labor, which is obviously a lot more expensive, and they pushed back very hard to eliminate contingent labor in those hospitals maybe overly so. And that impacted the, in the near term, the demand for travel nurses for SNS, they have contracts with several 70 or so hospitals in the state of California, and there is demand that is unmet. And so hiring recruiters to bring more nurses onto our platform to satisfy the, the requirements and criteria for those open positions is Charles’s strategy to rebuild the travel business. In the meantime, the per diem business, which is harder to fill, is something that the company has done very effectively for a very long time. And he’s done a nice job of continuing to grow that per diem business. So I don’t know if that fully answers the question, but –

James Carbonara: Appreciate that and I’ll Ron sent that in, so I’ll reply to him and see if it, it does. There was one that kind of was hanging over from the email question that you may have answered with Adam, but it asks about the cardiac monitoring business. It says, how are you working towards managing the potential strong growth of the business?

JT Fitzgerald: I think it’s just sort of crawl, walk, run there, right? New manager, new company, get in, understand your team, your people, your customers, their needs and desires. And we talk a lot about glass balls and rubber balls, and just make sure you don’t drop any glass balls. And he is building and professionalize his background in as a nuclear engineer. And he is building all kinds of processes and protocols around safety. And so as he builds that foundation, I think that he will be able to lean into that growth that the demand is there. And it’s about sort of being very deliberate about how quickly you want to onboard new hospital locations while still delivering a very high standard of care, given that patients’ lives are being monitored. Peter’s background — he is going to do a great job.

James Carbonara : Perfect. Thank you so much, JT. And that does conclude the email questions. Operator, I’ll turn it back to you to close out the call.

Operator: Thank you. Absolutely. This concludes today’s conference and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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