All right. Good morning, everybody. Our next session is with APi Group. I'm Josh Chan, Business Services Analyst here. We're pleased to have APi Group join us. They inspect, service, and install building systems, such as fire security, HVAC, and elevators. They also provide infrastructure services to utility and telecom markets. With us from the company are Russ Becker, CEO, Adam Fee from IR. We're gonna do a fireside chat, so feel free to send in your questions, or you can raise your hands as well, and we'll incorporate them as we go along. But with that, Russ, great to have you here.
Thanks for having us, Josh. Excited to be here. So, it's a little nicer here than it is in Minnesota.
Yeah. Quite a bit warmer, I would think. Yeah. So, yeah, thanks for being here. So to kinda level set everybody here, perhaps maybe you can give a brief intro about APi Group and talking about some recent developments, and then we can kinda go into different topics here.
You wanna do that?
Sure.
Go ahead. First, just thanks to everybody for spending some time with us and learning more about APi, and spending the next half an hour or so with us. I guess just quick history. APi, about 20 years ago, was $600 million in sales, and today we're pushing $7 billion in revenue, as a public company. And we go to market in Safety Services and Specialty Services as our 2 segments, and 54% of our revenue today is in inspection service and monitoring with a goal of taking that to 60%, in the medium term. Our core purpose as a company is building great leaders, and that's been a core purpose of our company for the last 20 years and a key factor to how we've grown our business over that time.
And in a business where you're providing services, taking care of your people, we feel like, and investing in your people is a really important part of what we do at APi. In terms of recent developments, earlier this year we closed on the acquisition of Elevated and entered the elevator and escalator space, which we're really excited about that space. It is accretive to our desire to become more service-oriented and reach that 60% target. And it's a space that we feel like has a lot of similarities to the existing fire protection space we're in in terms of fragmentation, and regulatory-driven demand for our services.
We feel good about where we're at as we turn our focus to 2025 and feel like we're gonna be able to take a next step forward in the company and return to a more normalized organic growth and take another step forward in margins.
Great. Yeah, that's a good overview. Thanks, Adam. So you often talk about leading with inspection. And so could you give us an overview for why, what benefit that brings you? Why, why do you wanna go after the inspection business first?
Yeah, thanks. I would say that this whole idea of inspections first and selling inspections first is really a differentiator for us, you know, in the space. You know, in the traditional sense, like if there's a 50,000 sq ft office building being built and you're doing the fire protection work on that building, when the project gets to 95% complete, you know, the installing firm makes a decision to try to go sell that customer a service and an inspection contract, and at APi, we have flipped that model on its ear, and we are actually building out a sales team that is selling inspections first to the already built environment.
So as an example, for those of you that are newer to the story, like, again, using this hotel would be a more difficult example 'cause it's just bigger and complicated. But a 50,000 sq ft, you know, commercial office building, the fire protection system has two components to it. It has a sprinkler system, and it has a fire alarm system. And those systems are required by law to be inspected for functionality and operability at least once a year and in some cases, more often than that. And so we have this mindset that we're gonna sell that inspection first to the already built environment.
And the reason we wanna do that is that for every $1 of inspection revenue we generate, we know that we're gonna generate someplace between $3 and 4, on an annualized basis in service work, from pull-through from that inspection client. And we also know that if we do a really good job of executing on that inspection and service work, that when that customer has expansion needs in the future, that we're more likely than not gonna win that project-related work, and we're not gonna be competing just on price for the work. And so we'll be able to get a higher gross margin on the project work. So it's a model that really works for us. We've been after it for a long period of time, so we've built out the infrastructure to support it.
And, I do think it's something that makes us unique.
Great, so as you go out and compete and try to win these inspection business, what are your competitive advantages? How does the sales process typically work for these types of contracts?
The sales process is simple. It's like building a relationship with the property manager, and it's like actually having boots on the ground, calling on customers, getting to know those folks, and being in a position that you're ready to pounce when the opportunity, you know, presents itself. And I think that what most people don't understand is that, like, the whole process of doing an inspection on a life safety system is a team sport. And so, like, it's very coordinated with the building owner. You know, like, oftentimes you're flowing water into the parking lot, which means they have to, you know, rope off parts of the parking lot and all of the level of coordination. You're tripping fire alarms and all of that stuff that comes with it.
And if when you're doing that, if you're not doing it in a highly coordinated fashion with the customer, you can create problems for them, especially in occupied facilities and things like that. So, oftentimes, you know, most of the time our competitors in the space are family-owned, small family-owned businesses. And the level of infrastructure that they have to support the work isn't the same as, say, a company like us who's committed and focused to it. Oftentimes they're taking people from their project work and trying to have them do inspection work. And that just doesn't, you know, we've found from experience that that just doesn't work. And we have dedicated people doing inspections. We have dedicated people doing service work. We have dedicated people doing project work. And if you try to intermix them, it gets to be really, really difficult.
Having that infrastructure to support that work is truly it. It makes us different, and it makes it more scalable for us as we continue to build that piece of our business.
Sure. What are some of the typical hurdles you have to overcome to usually win the business? Is there a reluctance? Do they have an existing provider? How do you kind of overcome those?
It's gonna sound really simple. Number one, you show up on time, and like I said, you know, it's like highly coordinated. And if you tell the facility manager that you're gonna be there at 7:00 A.M., ready to go, you need to be there at 7:00 A.M., you know, ready to go. And then the other component of it that typically gets people in trouble is, when you do the inspection work, they have an NFPA form. It's called a deficiency report. And you know, you fill out the deficiency report, and when you complete the deficiency report, like in our case, that deficiency report typically will go to the building owner or the building's property manager. It'll go to what they call the authority having jurisdiction, so like the fire marshal as an example.
And then for us, it goes to the service department to prepare, you know, as quickly as we can take that deficiency report and generate a service proposal to do the repairs that are needed. And oftentimes, you know, for us, it's all like on iPads and so people are filling it out. And you know, we have dedicated people then to take that deficiency report and turn it into that proposal. But like how quickly you submit that deficiency report matters. Like, so if you do the inspection and as a customer, we don't give them the deficiency report for three months, four months, that's a problem, you know? And so the timeliness of the deficiency report, the timeliness of the repairs, it all works kind of in conjunction with each other.
And it's something that I think we have the recipe book and, you know, kind of down and know how we need to execute on that.
Great. Yeah, thank you for that, so how do you measure this business in terms of, you know, metrics? Do you have retention, new business metrics that you strive towards each year? How do you think about that?
We have a number of different, you know, we call them ODUs, but that we measure, you know, our businesses by. I think the most important thing, like if I'm sitting in the audience today, and I'm thinking about what's important to me is like listening, like if you listen to any of our earnings calls or read any of our transcripts, talking about double-digit inspection growth. You know, we've had double-digit inspection growth on a quarter-by-quarter basis since the pandemic.
Yeah, 17 quarters.
And you know, that's kind of the bellwether, you know? If I was an investor in APi, I'd be continuing to listen like how are they growing inspections? Because again, knowing that for every $1 of inspection revenue that we generate, we're gonna get $3-4 of service work coming from that. So as we continue to grow that, that means we're growing our service business, you know, right alongside that inspection business. And that's what's, you know, ultimately the most important for us. You know, we're measuring probably too much stuff, you know? And you know, it's you know, it's just so it's like don't have to complicate it, you know? But you know, we have our customer retention rates are above 90%, so.
Okay. Yeah, that's great. How does lead generation work at the branch level? You know, do you feel like you have an edge versus your competition in generating those leads that lead to inspection and then service?
Well, I think we do have an advantage because we actually have a dedicated sales force, you know, that's out pounding the pavement, you know. And most, again, going back to this idea that the industry is highly fragmented, most $10 million family-owned businesses, they don't have a dedicated sales team to go out and pursue the work. And, you know, so we've, you know, we have a woman who's our national sales leader, well, North American sales leader, and that's focused on, you know, helping our businesses build out that sales team. And she's got a playbook. I mean, and it's like, you know, here, well, number one, here's the profile of the type of person we wanna hire.
Number two, then here's what they should do year one, you know, here's what they should do year two, here's what they should do year three. She's just got it laid out, you know, like if you follow it, you're going you're gonna win. And it's literally get out and pound the pavement, and they have, you know, their prior high-priority customers that they're, you know, focused on calling on. And but it's actually having a dedicated sales team. And most of our peers do not.
That's right. That's right. So I guess how sustainable do you feel like high single-digit growth within, you know, life safety is? And how much share gain does that require you to generate to get those growth levels?
Yeah, I mean, high single-digit growth in life safety we feel like is very sustainable. From the Great Financial Crisis to the pandemic, we grew the entire business at 7% organic, and life safety was a leader of the kind of growth algorithm then, and we expect it to continue to be. It's really led by the inspection service and monitoring part of the business, which we've been able to grow high single digits and led by the inspection part that's been coming in double digits consistently. That's really the, you know, the, the stable piece that is really driving that growth every, every quarter in, quarter out, and the project piece of our business is usually coming in low to mid-single digits, and that's on purpose.
We're controlling the growth there because as you drive more of the revenue towards inspection service and monitoring, you can be more selective on the project side.
Right.
So that's how we think about the growth algorithm to get to kind of that, you know, mid-single digit plus as a whole company, but high single digits within Safety Services.
Okay. That makes sense. So we talked about the inspection service monitoring business. There's also the project mix. And so as you think about your most profitable branches, what's the typical mix of projects? Is there a certain ideal percentage of projects that would make a branch profitable?
Boy, I don't know. I don't know if I would say that there's, you know, an ideal, ideal mix. I mean, you know, we obviously have this goal that we want 60% of our revenue to come from inspection service and monitoring, so 40% to come from project-related work. And, you know, the reality of it is when we get to 60%, we're just gonna move the goalpost to 65%, you know? But the more important metric for us is really when our inspection service and monitoring business covers 100% of our SG&A in our branch, then that branch is like bulletproof. And what I think people maybe miss a little bit in the story is that this whole idea of customer and project selection, and mix of, you know, inspection service and monitoring, they go hand in hand.
So the more robust your inspection service and monitoring business is in the branch, then it allows you to be more and more selective on the project work that you pursue. And it then your project gross margins go up, you know, as well. So they work really, really together, and you can't do one without the other. And so growing your inspection business is really important, but then being disciplined in your customer and your project selection goes right alongside it. And as you, once you get that flywheel turning, then you're gonna get a branch that, you know, is not only growing its top line, but it's growing its bottom line, and it's growing EBITDA as a percentage of revenue, right alongside it.
Sure. So what value do projects bring to a branch? Because I guess somebody could ask, why don't you just target 100% inspection service and monitoring?
I think we're always gonna do project work. I mean, I don't think. I know we're always gonna do project work. When you have really good customers, you wanna be able to do the project work. I mean, it's kinda like inviting the enemy into your home, you know what I mean? If we have a really good client, you know, we want to be able to execute that project work to kinda keep our competitors at bay. You know, when you again going back to the comments earlier, when you have a robust inspection and service business, that allows you to price your project work accordingly, and then it works hand in hand, and it's complementary.
Sure.
Your project work does absorb some of your SG&A as well.
Yeah. That's right. That's right. Okay, so kinda zooming out a little bit, you know, recently there have been some project delays that have impacted your kinda total company growth. I guess, are delays an inherent part of the business, or are we just seeing a higher than normal level of delays now?
I think for us, it was more about a confluence of events that just happened, you know, kinda simultaneously. You know, the projects that we've, you know, been calling out, so to speak, every one of them has boots on the ground. Every one of them is moving forward. They're just moving forward at a slower pace, you know, than necessarily anticipated. One good example was. There's a large infrastructure. It's actually a high-voltage line that's coming down from the northeast, through New York, New Jersey that, you know, we're involved with. That originally started off with permitting issues. Once the permitting issues got resolved, then there was a conflict in the right-of-way, where there was an unanticipated conflict with a natural gas distribution system and where this duct bank was supposed to go.
And so like in this particular situation, we were supposed to have 5 or 6 crews working. And right now today we have, I think, one, only one. So it's moving, and it's moving forward, and it's gonna go forward. It's just moving forward at a slower pace than, you know, what was, was anticipated. So, you know, we have really good confidence that we're just working our way through it. And, but for us at this, it was just really kind of a confluence of events that just happened at kinda simultaneously.
It's kind of a timing issue at the end of the day.
More or less, yeah, for sure.
Okay. So I guess what's the confidence level that the delays will kind of lessen or maybe become more normalized as we go into next year?
Well, the confidence level is high because we have boots on the ground, you know what I mean? So and as we move into next year, maybe kind of expanding my answer to your question, is confidence level in FY as it relates to 2025 starts with our backlog. You know, our backlog is up organically 5%, year on year, and it's healthier. And so we feel really good. When you look at, you know, 54% of our revenue today comes from inspection service and monitoring, and that revenue is essentially booked and locked and loaded for next year. And then the fact that our backlog is, you know, up 5% and healthier, we typically burn our backlog in 9-12 months. So that gives us confidence that we're in a really good place for our project work as we move into 2025.
So we feel good about, you know, where our plan is rolling up and the outlook as we move into, you know, the end of the year and into next year.
Sure. Maybe that's a good segue to talk about kind of a sustainable growth. I think Adam mentioned a little bit earlier, but what do you feel like is the right growth, organic growth rate for the company on an ongoing basis? And is there any more pruning to do, in the year ahead?
Yeah, I think I touched on it a little bit earlier, but led by that high single-digit growth in the service side of life safety, the total company growth expectation is a mid-single digit plus type growth organically, and we'll supplement that with our ongoing bolt-on M&A strategy, which we've been executing on for the past 20 years or so, or longer than that even, but and in terms of pruning, you know, we've been doing some intentional pruning over the course of the last, you know, 18 months or so in specialty HVAC, and I guess for different reasons in the international business, we inherited some contracts that weren't priced the way we would price them, inherited some loss-making branches that we've gone to work on. I would say all of those factors are largely in the rearview mirror as we turn our focus to 2025.
So we feel like we'll take a step forward more towards that and more normalized organic growth in 2025 as we're still doing our planning, but that's kinda the way we think about it.
Yeah. No, that's, that's great to hear.
Yeah, the only thing I would add to that, Josh, is that, you know, we've guided our businesses to, as they work on their 2025 plan, that we wanna see high single-digit growth in their inspection service and monitoring business, and we wanna see low single-digit growth in the project piece of their business, knowing that, you know, from a revenue mix, we're about 50/50. That gets you to kinda that mid-single digits organic growth. And I would say directionally in what we're seeing, you know, as we, you know, kinda finalize our plans and move into our board meeting next week, that's directionally what we're seeing.
Okay. Yeah, that's really good color. So I guess from a cycle perspective, we're in kind of a mixed macro conditions, I suppose. So how would you characterize the cyclicality of your business as a whole? You know, which, which parts are more economically sensitive and which parts are more resilient?
I think our business in general is resilient. You know, and if you go back and, I joke about Adam's slide decks all the time. You know, he's got like 78 of them out there someplace. If you go back and look in some of the presentation material we have on our website, in the IR section, you can see like back in 2008 and 2009, you know, when the Great Recession hit. You know, maybe 20% of our revenue came from inspection service and monitoring. And today, you know, with 54% of it coming from inspection service and monitoring, that's gonna be there, you know, regardless of what the economic conditions are. So that element is, you know, has really helped, you know, kind of the company, from a resilience perspective.
I would also tell you that the end markets that you play in matter, you know, and you know, you can't hardly open up a newspaper without reading about the next data center and, you know, how hot that market is, but there's other end markets that remain really robust as well, you know, semiconductor, advanced manufacturing, including pharma and things like that, you know, that continue to provide opportunities, healthcare, and so if you're playing in the right space, you know, your business in general will have a higher sense of, of resilience. We have never been, you know, like the high interest rate environment has had a negative effect on, say, developer-led projects, right, and we've never done well in developer-led projects because you have to compete on price.
For us, you know, when interest rates went up, it didn't really affect our business, you know, like it, say, did other companies, because we just don't do well in those end markets, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Yeah, it does. So you, you mentioned the really attractive markets, data, data centers, semiconductors. What, what's your exposure to however this group of like really attractive, you know, markets, I guess, roughly?
I mean, Adam's probably got better actual finite financial data on how much data center. I mean, we don't do like we're not exposed to any one end market. We're not exposed to any one customer. I think, you know, from a customer concentration, I think, I mean, I think our largest customer is probably 3% of revenue or something like that. So it's like we just don't have that kind of exposure. We've got really good, diverse, you know, customer base, and we have good diversity in our end markets. So that is not something that keeps me awake at night. I don't know if you have any more.
Yeah.
Specific data points that you can share.
Yeah. I mean, for like the data center specifically, we're somewhere, but a couple of years ago, we were about 5%, and we've grown it since then. We don't have a freshly updated number. We're gonna roll that up at the end of the year and have something for next year. It's been one of the, you know, and there's opportunity on both segments in that space, both installing the fire protection equipment for the data center and that system, which is more complex than a normal system, and only a few competitors can really propose on that work with us. Then on the specialty side, all these data centers you hear about, the utility infrastructure that's needed to power them, and there's opportunity for the specialty segment there to participate also.
Okay. And government exposure is fairly modest, would you say?
Yeah, it's fairly modest. Direct kinda government exposure on the specialty side is, I think, right around 5% in terms of customer. Less visibility on, you know, how customers fund certain projects. And there's probably, you know, likely some of our customers are using some of the federal funding programs, that are, you know, gonna drive spend over the next handful of years that'll benefit our business. But direct customer-wise, it's right around 5%, I'd say.
Okay. Thank you. In terms of pricing, I guess how does pricing work in the business, and is this a business where you can usually price to cover your inflation?
Yeah. We think about pricing on the inspection service and monitoring side of the business, as an area where we think we can certainly take price in a sustainable way and cover our inflation. Take a step back with the inspection, which is required by law, is a really small percentage of the annual spend for a facility. So, and it's a mission-critical application. It's fire and life safety. So typically what the customers prioritize the most and what Russ kinda touched on earlier is, being there when you say you're gonna be there and kinda creating a frictionless experience for them. So getting them that deficiency report, getting them that service proposal, doing the follow-up service work so they're back in compliance with their insurance company. That's what they care about the most.
So if you give them a frictionless experience, pricing is not, you know, a hurdle that we're having to overcome. They're happy to, you know, pay us a fair price increase, 'cause they know we're also paying a fair wage increase to our, men and women in the field.
Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. And on wages, what are you seeing in terms of wage inflation, and is there any key cost to call out other than wage or labor, I guess?
From an inflation perspective, it'll vary depending on, you know, which union agreement it is. But typically it's ranging from 2%-4 and probably more in the 3%-4 range, and that's really our biggest input costs. Outside of that, it's materials, and those will vary by segment. But on the safety side, it's, you know, pipe. We're a large buyer of pipe that is used in these sprinkler systems. But labor's really the biggest, you know, piece of our cost structure, and that's kinda how we think about it.
Okay.
It's inflation.
Okay, so if I look at your portfolio, you're in a lot of different building systems. You know, you're in fire security, HVAC, and you've gotten to elevators. How do you think about the relative attractiveness of those markets? Do they have slightly different growth rates or margins within your portfolio?
Well, I would say that if you look where we're investing in our business, you know, so like we'll give you some idea of priorities. You know, fire security and elevators are, you know, no, they're tied for one. And you know, we just recently got into the elevator and escalator space. You know, the primary driver for that is they have the same statutory requirement. Elevators are required by law to be inspected at least annually, just like a fire protection system is. And so we've had our eye on, you know, entering the elevator space, and we did that with Elevated this year. Elevated is a relatively small business in the scheme of things. It's, you know, just north of $200 million in revenue for us. We think it's a billion-dollar platform.
So we think that there's opportunity for us to really, you know, invest in growing in the space. If you look at like our business, North America, like we don't have a significant security presence in North America. We're probably doing less than $100 million, plus or minus. Don't quote me on that. So there's a huge opportunity for us to grow in the security space in North America. While we continue to grow, you know, our fire business and we don't have any shortage of opportunities there, either. So then, you know, you look at, you know, with the acquisition of Chubb in 2002, you know, we've opened up the international market as well for us to grow. And Chubb's business was built a little bit differently.
It, you know, originally started off as a security company and then added fire and, you know, like one aspect of their business they don't actually do a lot of fire sprinkler work. And so there's a few things that are interesting for us in that space that we're kinda dabbling with and looking at now. And as we feel like we've got the business for the most part right-sized, we feel like we're now moving into a period of time where we can actually do some M&A internationally, and that business can support it. So, that's something that's very important to us is that when we do do M&A, the company that we're gonna integrate the business with has to have the capacity to take it on. So, and we feel like Chubb is kind of at that place today.
Okay. Yeah. Maybe we talk about a little bit about acquisitions then. How would you describe kinda the acquisition pipeline as you stand here now? You know, how reasonable are seller expectations to those kind of discussion points?
Robust.
That's good.
So lots of opportunity in the space. There's, you know, we look at M&A through kinda really two separate lenses. We look at it. I'll say first, and I'm not gonna spend as much time on it, but we look at it more transformational M&A. That's your bigger acquisitions like a Chubb Fire & Security would be more transformational, right? It was a $2 billion company when we bought it. I put Elevated in that bucket, you know, because it's a new platform for us. You know, and obviously the price of admission was higher, and that's more of a pure transaction than, say, our bolt-on activity. So then I look at bolt-on M&A and, you know, where we have a really robust pipeline.
You know, we've, I think through the third quarter, we spent roughly $200 million, you know, on bolt-on M&A, with more to happen here in the fourth quarter as well, but you know, there, you know, we're looking for businesses that complement our footprint geographically. We're looking at businesses that complement the services that we offer. So we may have a robust fire sprinkler business, but not a robust fire alarm business. And so if something came for sale, we would be interested in that and bolting it on. So services in that are offered, are they complementary? Can the business that we're gonna bolt it onto handle it and integrate it, and then for us, it's culture, values, and fit, and so we're looking for sellers that are really, their concern's not the right word, but they care about their legacy.
They care about their employees and their employees finding the right home. They care about who they sell their business to. Those types of sellers aren't as focused on price. They want a fair price, but they're not as focused on price. If all they're focused on is the highest price and getting the hell out of the business, they're not for us. It doesn't. It's not gonna align with us culturally. They should go sell their business to private equity. So that's the reason that, you know, if you look at some of Adam's information, I think the average multiple that we've paid on our bolt-on M&A acquisitions this year is less than 6 times .
That's right. Yeah. That's pretty good. And so once you own the acquired businesses, how do you go about creating value? You know, how does the combined business become worth more than they were separately?
Well, I would say that it goes back to this whole idea of inspections first. Most of these, you know, most of these, whether it's fire, whether it's fire and security, most of these businesses, you know, when they tell you that, you know, if they tell you that 70% of their revenue is project and 30% is service and inspection, it's probably 85% is projects and 15% is service and inspections. You know, it's like, it's really, it's never really that you very rarely find something that's a true, like, say, 50/50. Most of the time it's heavy project weighted. And so for us, how you really get the value is like when you buy that business and it's, it's overweight projects is getting the focus, growing inspections and service work.
And, you know, we know what that recipe book looks like, and it's just going in and executing on that recipe. And I think you heard this morning when you sat in on one of our meetings. You know, we have a good example of a business that we bought in Boston, that was like 85% project work, and it was a 7% business. And this was just three short years ago, three and a half years ago. That business grown from $25 million of revenue at 7% EBITDA margin to $30 million in revenue at a 15% EBITDA margin, which doesn't include 3% in corporate allocation. So it's actually improved from 7% to 18% in, you know, three and a half years. And that's a combination of finding the right business that culturally aligns with you.
You know, they have really good people who bought into this idea that we gotta change how we do things, and then it's just going to work and building out a robust inspection service monitoring business. It's actually, not trying to oversimplify it, but it's not that complicated.
Okay. That's good.
Not everybody listens, but it's not that complicated.
As long as you can, as long as you can run it well, then that, that's all that matters.
Yeah.
I guess for the existing businesses, do they have to meet certain criteria to remain in the portfolio and any businesses that could become non-core over time?
For sure. I mean, you know, we have a 13% EBITDA margin goal by 2025. We're on pace to meet that. We were having an investor day for those who are interested on May 21st, this next year at the New York Stock Exchange where we're gonna kinda lay out what kind of next level APi looks like, with, you know, again, setting some improved margin expectation goals, and we have to every day evaluate whether businesses fit our portfolio or not, and you've seen us do some pruning, you know, over the, you know, past 18 months or so. We will continue to prune, as necessary, but we're pruning all the time.
I mean, it's not just like, yeah, we sold, you know, a couple businesses in our specialty, but we've closed down branches in our fire protection business too because they, you know, for whatever reason can't make money. We don't have the right branch leader. You know, we evaluate kinda every aspect of our business, you know, all the time.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. You mentioned, you know, you're about to kinda move past your 13% EBITDA margin target. So I guess what are some levers that remain in terms of driving further margin improvement? I know that the mix will continue to be a tailwind as you pursue that, but what are some levers that you have?
Yeah. So, what I, the way I would characterize that is that like the, it doesn't change. You know what I mean? So it is improving mix. It is, you know, disciplined customer and project selection. It is continuing to right-size Chubb and improve, you know, our international business's margin. And we have a 15% goal, in, you know, in our international business by 2025. We're on track to meet that. That business, if you look at our North American safety business, you know, that business should perform on par from a margin perspective. So you can see further improvement coming internationally. It's business process transformation, which is like shared services. It's procurement. It's pricing. It's accretive, you know, M&A. And then I always finish it by saying we have the opportunity to just be better.
I think some of that comes with just having high expectations, and setting high expectations for your business and where you expect your businesses to perform. One of my favorite stories is back when we were a private, privately held company. I was up meeting with the owner, a guy named Lee Anderson, and we're having a couple. We got done talking about what we had to talk about, and I was gonna spend the night at his place. So we're having a couple of Scotches. I looked at him and, believe it or not, APi's financial goals at the time were 5%.
And I looked at him and I said, "How the hell did you come up with 5%?" And he looks at me and he goes, "I don't know." He goes, "I guess Jeff set that goal." And I'm like, I'm like, "Doesn't seem like enough." And, for all the risks we take and everything we do. And he goes, "Well, what should it be?" I said, "I don't know. 10%." So we changed our goal from 5%- 10%. And I went back the next day and I sent a note out, you know, probably by fax, you know, and said, "Here's our new goal." And everybody bitched. You know, everybody's like, "Can't be done. Can't be done.
Can't be done." And then it's kinda like when Roger Bannister, some of you guys are probably too young to know who Roger Bannister is, but he's the first person to break the four-minute mile running. And nobody could do it. And then as soon as Roger Bannister got it, like 30 people did it in the next, you know, three months. And it was no different in our business. Like we had David Dickon, who runs security fire for us, was the first company to get to 10%. And then all of a sudden people are looking around and it's just like boom, boom, boom, boom. We publish financial results every month. So every one of our companies sees each other. Oh, we stack rank them, highest performance to lowest performance. We do that with every one of our branches.
Like as soon as he made it, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, then we increased the goal again. Guess what? David Dickson's the first person. Now David's business is 20% every year for 10 years. So when you compare notes and you share and you stack rank people, if you've got one competitive bone in your body, you don't wanna be on the bottom third of the list. We color code it too, so.
Look forward to seeing the increased goal then, but with that, we're out of time. Please join me in thanking Russ and Adam for being here. Yeah.
Yeah.
Thanks.
Thanks for coming.