Quest Resource Holding Corporation (NASDAQ:QRHC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Greg Kitt: Yes. Sorry if I said it poorly. I think that you have been reticent to give a lot of detail about that specific company, this new customer that you have because there are other competitors in their same market, that you are going to try to win as customers. And so I think that, my takeaway has been that you’re pursuing those customers. Are any of those kind of in that later stage? In your prepared remarks, you talked about some of your customers being chunky and later in the pipeline. Are any of those competitive players to this new mystery customer? Are they furthering the pipeline? Or how would you characterize where they are in the pipeline? Sorry, I rambled. Hopefully, that was clear.

Ray Hatch: I understand your question, Greg, and I think you are going to understand that I continue to be reticent, for competitive reasons to speak to that much detail. But there is a lot of opportunities that are created by other competitors, frankly, that aren’t taking care of their clients as well as we think we can. But I am probably not going to mention anything specific relative to that. I think you understand that.

Greg Kitt: Yes. And my last one, and sorry, I will hop off and you see the floor. Have you explored, I think on the last quarterly call, you talked about, exploring opportunities to maybe refinance your debt? I can’t — I believe that you said that, but I could be wrong. And I would love to hear, Brett’s remarks sounded like you guys are focused on reducing your interest expense by managing your cash well, and you have done a good job of that this year and by reducing the principal on your debt. I would love to hear how you think about your refinancing plans?

Brett Johnston: Hey, Greg. This is Brett again. Yes, I will take that. We did talk in Q2 that we were having conversations and we have continued to have conversations, and continue to be excited about the opportunities that we have for refinancing. We are taking a really slow, deliberate approach to it, because we have got a lot of exciting growth opportunities that we have talked about during the call. And we want to make sure that whatever we set up is in place to really help to support that growth over the longer-term. So we are taking a little bit more time. It’s certainly not because we don’t have really good options. We continue to be really excited about potential partners that we have got out there. But just going to take a little bit more diligent time in making sure we get the right thing in place.

Operator: The next question is from [Greg] (sic) [George] Melas with MKH Management. Please go ahead.

George Melas: Hi, guys. I would like to extend and then maybe a more sort of detailed question. On the growth question, Ray, you talked about doubling over the last, three years and about one-third of that coming from existing customers. So I would suffice with some very simple math that suggests that you should have grown with your existing base by roughly 10% per year. But it seems a little high to me. And I wonder if that’s about how where the numbers fall around 10% in terms of organic growth.

Ray Hatch: George, I am going to answer your question that I believe I heard. Unfortunately, the connection is not good. But I think your question was around the doubling of our business and one-third came from existing clients in essence. But the fact that you did the math, and it sounds like 10% is a little high. Is that what you’re thinking? Is that what you’re asking, George?

George Melas: Yes, exactly. And is that the goal going forward?

Ray Hatch: Yes. It does seem, I bet it is actually what this team has been doing. And that’s growth in gross profit dollars not revenue necessarily. And so we talked about the procurement initiatives about continuing to leverage and optimize the waste services and create more value from the commodities. And the team has been doing that. So they have been doing that for many years. So yes, George, those numbers are accurate and we are really thankful to have those long-term relationships with these great clients, and we are able to do that.

George Melas: So as you go, as you look forward to ’24 and ’25 with the improvements in the platform that you are making, is that still what you expect in terms of gross profit dollars, in terms of organic growth? Are you sort of targeting 10%? Or how do you think about it?

Ray Hatch: We are targeting 10% overall in growth and plus — 10% plus. But we expect pretty consistent contribution from the existing clients. The improvement in the platform is going to do a number of things for us, but it is probably going to impact SG&A quite a bit because of the automation type of elements of it and those types of things. So not necessarily as much of a gross profit type of indicator, but there are some gross profit pieces there, too. Like, we mentioned the procurement tool the guys are able to use, and identify better pricing and better locations in a shorter period of time. But I would look for the — I guess, I will answer your question with two answers. One, we have no reason to expect that contribution growth from existing clients to really change over the pattern it had several years.