Thank you, everybody, for joining us. My name is Ryan Fenske. I cover high-yield services here at B of A. You know, here with me today, we've got ASGN and, from the company, thrilled to have Ted Hanson, Chief Executive Officer, and Chris Donnini, Vice President and Treasurer. Guys, you know, thanks for taking the time and being with us today.
Thank you, Ryan, for having us.
Thank you.
All right, great. So, and to kick us off, can you just provide a quick overview of ASGN for anyone less familiar with the story?
Sure. So, best way to think about ASGN is IT services to large enterprise accounts. About 70% of our business is in the commercial marketplace, serving clients that are in the Fortune 500 and 1000. 30% of the business is in the federal government space. There, we provide high-end IT solutions to the Department of Defense, Intel, and a few key Fed Civilian agencies. We grew up as an IT staffing business, which is the heritage of our service offering, but we have been on a pivot to build off of that and serve the customer at a higher level with more consultative capabilities. And so now that consulting, total consulting part of our business is about 60% of revenues, and our traditional legacy IT staffing is about 40% of revenues.
Okay, great. And, you know, as you just mentioned, the business has evolved, you know, quite a bit over time to, you know, really focus on that, you know, longer-term, higher-margin consulting work. You know, the majority of your revenues are now in IT consulting. I guess, can you speak to how this transition has taken place over the years and, you know, where you're at in the journey today?
Sure. So, you know, one of the things that we saw through these customer relationships that we've had for years and decades is that we had built trust and through our capabilities to provide technical resources through the IT staffing program. But our end customer, who's the CIO, CTO, or IT directors across large enterprise organizations, began to pull on us to do more and said, "You've got really rich technical capabilities and resources. Could you step in, put bigger teams together, wrap it with some project management and engagement management, and help me get to certain deliverables?" and so it was an organic pull from the customer, so seven, eight years ago, we began to do that. We built a business in commercial that was organically upwards of $500 million in revenues.
We began to make a few key small strategic tuck-in acquisitions to put certain solution capabilities in the mix that were better bought versus built over a long period of time. And today, we do about $1.2 billion in revenues in commercial. And along that journey, we also made our entry into the federal government space with our acquisition of ECS in 2018. And so that's really how our consultative capability here has come together.
Okay, excellent, and then, you know, sticking with IT consulting, I guess, can you explain how ASGN's go-to-market strategy differs from the traditional consulting players, and, you know, what advantages does this strategy have to both, you know, ASGN's operations as well as to your customers?
Yeah, I think that's the key. I mean, obviously, there's a lot of traditional consulting firms that have been out there a long time. They run a bench model where all their resources sit on their bench, and as they win work, they begin to unload that bench, if you will, onto the projects that they're performing for the customer. We're differentiated from them in the fact that we really don't carry a bench to speak of. It's very thin. All of our, you know, 80% or more of the players on every project team comes from our IT staffing capability. And that means we're building a just-in-time team, and we can get started very quickly. The resources on that team are much more custom-fit to what the need is because we're not just deploying who's on the bench. We're actually purposefully building a custom-fit team.
And then last, because we're not carrying a bench and the cost of that bench and underutilization, we're not having to charge the customer for that. So our price points come in at an advantage, if you will, over the big traditional consulting firms.
All right, that's excellent. And, you know, getting a bit more granular on the go-to-market, I mean, you have customers across five key commercial verticals, you know, and the sixth vertical being the federal government. I guess, you know, Ted, you often say that your customer base is one of, you know, the gold nuggets of the ASGN business model. I guess, can you speak to that topic a bit further and maybe provide a brief update on some of the positive industry vertical trends that you guys saw in the most recent quarter?
Yeah, so look, I mean, I think our belief is, and the data supports it, that most of the IT dollars are spent by large enterprise accounts. So they're the biggest spenders. They're the most consistent spenders over time and adopter of new technologies. And so when you have a customer that's a large enterprise, Fortune 500 or 1000 account, that's not just a customer for this project. That's a customer for life. If you build the right relationship and perform at a high level on all the various work that you do, so that's been critical, if you will, to the critical pillar, if you will, here inside of the company. And I think importantly, if you think about accounts, large enterprise accounts, you want to have them be diverse and spread across multiple industry segments because it gives a portfolio balance.
You know, typically, financial services and big banks are the first and fastest adopters of new technology, followed by TMT, certain Consumer Industrial, healthcare, and then eventually you get to the federal government, but it goes in a wave like that. And so, again, when one industry or two are down, the others are up. And so having a balanced portfolio of large enterprise accounts, I think, is a key way to build the business over a period of time. Today, in the commercial marketplace, we're still in a place where the customer's been restraining spending that's not critical. So if it's discretionary, they've been pulling back because they've been worried about the macro. Are we going to have a recession? Is it going to be a hard or soft landing?
How might the election, you know, play in all of this as it relates to the macro for each one of these customers? So there's been a lower level of spend on the IT services part of things here for the last 18 to 24 months. I think now that we have the election behind us, I think customers also see that the macro is probably more stable than how they felt, you know, over previous few quarters, that as we get into 2025 and into 2026, we're going to see more normal levels of spending. And we're starting to see certain industry segments emerge back to growth, starting with TMT. That was a double-digit grower for us in the last quarter.
Our Consumer Industrial business was slightly up, so that instead of having no industries in commercial growing year over year, we now have two in the third quarter. Then, I think, very importantly, we saw our banking industry, I'll say, find stability. For the first time, quarter- over- quarter, it was stable, and we didn't see a further sequential decline. That was a positive thing. I think here, as we go forward, we'll see some of these other industries begin to emerge, you know, back towards growth year over year and sequentially.
Okay, great. You know, so you mentioned some of the industries and verticals where you're seeing growth. I guess, you know, in terms of, you know, specific capabilities that you're offering, AI has been very topical this year. I guess, you know, what does that opportunity set look like today for ASGN, and how do you see that evolving over time?
Yes, so certainly AI is the topic of conversation, but it's not an area of big spend yet for the end client. I think most of the spend that you're seeing in the AI area is the explosion of the data center to get compute power and the, you know, requirement around chips from NVIDIA and others in order to harness that processing power. And so that's the first part of the cycle, if you will. Now emerging, you're starting to see large software enterprises begin to enable some AI features like virtual assistants into their software, so some native AI capabilities. But none of this has yet gotten to the customer and the point where they begin to implement any of these either software packages or services with us to really begin to put AI into play inside of their organization.
That'll definitely happen here, but it's, you know, typically this technology investment cycle goes in stages, not too dissimilar to this.
Okay, makes perfect sense. And, you know, what are some of the other areas that have been, you know, most in demand by your client base? I mean, you spoke a lot about data and analytics, you know, as well as cybersecurity projects on the most recent earnings call. As you know, you've mentioned a number of key federal government task orders in Q3 that are progressing nicely as well.
I think, I mean, I think those are the areas. I mean, customers are on the front end of doing data and data modernization activities in order to get ready for AI. It's a growing piece of spend. It's not full throttle yet, but it's definitely starting. Cyber has been very strong for us, both in the government and commercial too. Areas of application development have been strong. Migration to the cloud has been good and consistent. Our work in ServiceNow, we're an elite partner to ServiceNow in North America. That continues to be a growth area for us off of an acquisition that we made in July of 2022. And I think that those, I would say, both in the commercial marketplace and the federal marketplace are areas where we're kind of gaining strength and growth and traction.
Okay, great. And you briefly mentioned, you know, kind of some post-election activity in, you know, one of your prior comments. I guess, you know, do you feel like now that we, you know, have election results and that's not an overhang anymore, you know, are you seeing some customers get the ball rolling on pent-up IT spend? You know, have you seen that kind of come through yet?
I wouldn't say that we're seeing that come through yet. I think it'll kind of manifest itself in 2025 customer budgets, and then we'll begin to see them release those budgets and get into what I call a more normal spending habits here as we go forward. I think in Q4, it's difficult to have an upward trend because it's seasonally the time of the year where customers are wrapping things up. They're thinking about budgets for next year. So what we're seeing is kind of stable demand environment from Q3 to Q4. But I don't think we'll really see a ramp up until we get into, you know, new budgets and understand what customers want to do and when they're ready with the right confidence around their own business to step on the gas pedal harder.
Okay, got it. You know, another area that's been topical lately, you know, investors have been focused on has been the impact of, you know, the new Department of Government Efficiency on government contractors. I guess, you know, what can you say about the potential impact of this, you know, agency on ASGN?
Yeah, so it's been quite a conversation. I think it's the unknown of what, you know, DOGE really will be or could be, and there's been a lot of arm waving around, you know, well, what will this do to budgets and spending, and I think, look, we, from what we can hear from our customer and what we see, there'll be a top-down view of where across the federal budgets and agencies are there opportunities to attack fraud and waste and abuse and maybe spending that there's not a real return for, so I think there'll be that top-down view, and then they'll come at it from the bottom up and say, well, where can we reduce headcount? Where can we reduce spending from the ground up?
As it relates to us, most of our services in the federal government are around cybersecurity, AI, machine learning, digital transformation, and modernization around data and other things. So I think we're honestly the answer to some of the questions with DOGE because the government is definitely going to have to modernize its IT systems in order to be more efficient and productive. And we play a critical role there. And the agencies that we serve, I think, are less in the crosshairs maybe of the DOGE effort. I mean, most of our work is in Department of Defense, Intel, and Department of Homeland Security, which are all agencies that are serving kind of mission-critical things in the national interests. But there'll be some of the regulatory agencies on the federal civilian side where I think there'll be an effort to find some savings.
You know, I think for us, we're in a pretty good place in all this. That's our take.
Okay, great. We'll see how it evolves. You know, you've done a great job of protecting margins over the past year in the face of, you know, a tougher sales environment. I guess, you know, can you walk us through the variable nature of your cost structure and, you know, I guess what has allowed you guys to flex the cost base so effectively?
Yeah, I think, look, one of the most attractive attributes of this business are its free cash flow characteristics and the way the P&L will kind of reset itself if we're growing slower or not growing at all. Most of our SG&A is variable or variable-like. And so if we have less revenue, it kind of resets itself to the gross profit line. So we don't really have a loss of margin there. And that's what we've seen here. Actually, our gross margins have been improving, you know, over the last 24 months. And then on the unit by unit, and then on the SG&A side, our model is less fixed compensation, high incentive compensation. And so that regulates itself, if you will. So we do a pretty good job of maintaining EBITDA margin through times like this.
And we do a great job on the cash flow side because obviously when you're financing less receivables in advance, you have a wave of cash that comes in. And so we've been generating 100% free cash flow, yeah, here. And so, again, another attractive attribute of the business model.
Okay, great, and maybe we can kind of shift to, you know, kind of some capital allocation and financial policy questions, you know, what you guys are going to do with that free cash flow. I guess maybe starting with, I guess, you know, the balance sheet specifically just to kind of set the stage. I mean, you've done a really strong job maintaining a conservative leverage profile. I guess, you know, is there a target that you're managing to or a range in which, I guess, you guys are comfortable operating the business?
You want to take that one?
Yeah, I can take that. We haven't disclosed a target leverage range, but I think if you look at the way we've handled it over a period of time, you know, we're sitting right now at net leverage just south of 2, 1.9 actually. And so it gives us the flexibility when opportunities arise to lever up for the right strategic M&A. So we like that flexibility and we'll manage that accordingly.
Okay, great. And then, you know, similarly, I guess on the topic of, you know, leverage, I guess, how do you think about, you know, your credit ratings? So, you know, are investment-grade ratings a goal over time? Is that something you guys are interested in?
We're comfortable with the flexibility that our current credit rating profile gives us. So we do not have an aspiration at the time to be investment-grade. Again, it's tied to, you know, we maintain a modest leverage profile that allows us to execute on the strategies that we see fit, but give us the flexibility and the ability to overdrive with that strong free cash flow, you know, in periods of higher leverage following M&A.
Okay, great, and then, you know, I mean, back to the EBITDA theme for a second, I guess, you know, can you give us an update on, you know, what you've been seeing in terms of the pipeline? I guess any changes in, you know, the quality of opportunities that you guys are seeing out there in the market?
I'd say still not a lot of change. There's been, you know, we've been in a period here for 18 or 24 months where there's been less quality assets coming to market because of all the reasons we've talked about earlier. And I think really good businesses, whether they're owned by private equity or founders, they've been able to hang on and just say, "I'll wait for a better day." And the processes that have come out over the last 18 months, many of them have not gotten to a conclusion. So I think that's been a concern for sellers. I do think, again, get back to what we said, I think as we get into 2025 with more certainty about the macro, with the election behind us, you know, the M&A markets are going to get more productive and we're expecting to see a pickup in flow.
Okay, great. And then, you know, when you see that pickup, I guess, you know, there's specific opportunities or, you know, priorities that you guys are targeting or looking to address?
Yeah, you know, so one of the great things about this business and our client relationship with these large enterprise clients is where we're sitting with them. We know what their needs are and we can position for those needs. We don't have to guess at it. And so most all of those needs that they have, we can position for organically, which is what we've been doing over the history of the business. But every now and then you run into something that's better done through M&A, you know, buy it versus build it. And the reason may be you need to be at scale in this solution area today. You can't wait three or four years. It may be a long road to build it because it may require a critical technology partnership that comes with it.
And a good example of this would be what we did with ServiceNow. I mean, we knew two years before we bought GlideFast in July of 2022, we knew that ServiceNow was a critical piece of our customer's strategic roadmap in IT. And it took us a little while to identify the right opportunity, but we bought GlideFast. It was the, at the time, like a two-year running elite partner of the year with ServiceNow and had a very strong technology partnership, which was critical. They had a wonderful relationship with ServiceNow. We did too. And it kind of gave us immediate credibility in the marketplace. And then we can take that solution capability and we can pull it across our existing account portfolio, which is really what the strategy is here.
If we're doing M&A, what they bring to the table in terms of solution capability and their own clients is important, but the most important thing is can we expand on that by pulling it across our commercial and government account portfolio, and that was a great example of, you know, something that's probably better done by acquisition than it is organically.
Okay, got it. And if you guys find an opportunity like that where, you know, it makes sense to go out and do something bigger, you know, via M&A to grow versus doing it organically, is there a, you know, how should we think about where you're comfortable taking leverage? Is there kind of a ceiling that you guys would want to stay under?
Yeah, so multiple times in the past, we've levered up to about 3.8 x funded debt to EBITDA in order to do a platform acquisition. And then quickly de-levered because of the cash flow characteristics of the business down below two and a half. And we'd always say, "Hey, below two and a half, we're kind of acquisition ready again." I really don't think it takes that kind of leverage today for us at our size and scale in order to accomplish the M&A things that we have on our list. So we may take on a little bit of leverage to do a piece of M&A. I don't expect it would be near the levels that we've done in the past, our 3.8x , which we did in several instances around platform acquisitions.
And look, we're generating, you know, not quite, but almost $100 million of free cash flow a quarter. And so, you know, if you take a look at that with just a modest amount of leverage, we can accomplish a lot of things.
Definitely. And then I guess, you know, so given kind of where the M&A pipeline is today and kind of that you haven't seen really actionable opportunities this year, I guess, you know, how should we think about, you know, how you guys are allocating that capital in the near term? I mean, obviously you've been active in terms of share repurchases, but you'd have to, you know, it'd be great to get your thoughts, you know, more broadly on these things.
Yeah, well, look. I think, and Chris can jump in here, but we have always said after a strategic M&A that, you know, repurchasing our shares at these valuation levels are super attractive and the best use of capital allocation in the moment. And so our board supported that. We put in place a $750 million authorization, of which we spent about $250 million. So we still have $500 million out there. And we've been putting to work about a quarter of free cash flow every quarter and reducing share count. And I think through the third quarter, it's down, share count's down 7%-8%.
That's right. Yeah.
Okay. And then, you know, on that topic, I guess, how do you guys think about, you know, the trade-off between, you know, deploying that cash, you know, given, you know, your view on the attractive equity valuation there versus, you know, building up a war chest, you know, to deploy, you know, later on for M&A?
I think the idea of building a war chest sounds, you know, on the surface like, you know, a good idea. But I think it's not in the best interest of shareholders because to build cash, to do something where we could leverage our balance sheet in the future and do it in a very efficient way to make an acquisition isn't really required. And it, too, kind of misses the short-term and near-term opportunity here to make really accretive repurchases of shares at what we think is a pretty attractive valuation point. And then the other thing is, you know, by doing this, not only is it the right return of capital to shareholders in the moment, but we're going to create the opportunity for earnings surges in the future as we have, you know, earnings growth against a lower share count.
So I think in all those ways, you know, while there, you know, might be an idea around building a war chest, it's not really required and not in the best interest of shareholders.
Okay, got it. And maybe, you know, taking a step back, I guess, you know, as we look out to next year, obviously, you know, I guess I haven't provided guidance yet, but, you know, as you think about, you know, 2025, I guess, you know, what are you most excited about in the business? Like, what are you viewing as the biggest opportunities to capitalize on?
Yeah, look, I'm more excited than ever about the underpinnings of growth for the future. You know, set AI aside for a minute. The customer is only part of the way to the cloud. Cybersecurity is a more important pressing need all of the time. Our nearshore capability in Mexico is on a huge upswing. So ServiceNow is another area where we can do a lot of bigger things in the future. So there are all these areas that are on customer roadmaps, and we're sitting at the intersection of knowing that, meeting those needs, bringing the talent to bear on all of those opportunities. That is, you know, an underpinning of growth for the future, which is very strong. And I think now, layer on top of that, what's going on with AI.
While the investment from the end client is not all the way there or really started today, it's, you know, it's very clear to us that there's a return in this for clients and that this is going to be, again, another underpinning of growth for a long time. And it's all going to start with data, you know, and there's going to be some big spending on data to get ready for AI use cases. And then the AI will run across this data and provide productive outcomes for customers, whatever those use cases might be. And we're going to be right there. Part of that is they begin to implement those things.
Awesome. I guess maybe with, you know, a few minutes left, we'll see if there are any, you know, questions in the room before, you know, before I keep going, but. Okay. I just, you know, love to follow up on, you know, your point to ServiceNow. I guess, you know, you mentioned how, you know, getting into the ServiceNow ecosystem was, you know, a key motivator for the GlideFast acquisition. I guess, you know, what are you viewing as, you know, kind of, I guess, how would you frame that opportunity set with ServiceNow specifically going forward?
Yeah, so, you know, like I said, we could see in all of our customer environments, they were either using ServiceNow already and trying to proliferate it further across the organization, or they were trying to implement it for the first time. So it was clearly a place that we thought we could be, differentiate ourselves and meet whatever the customer's need was. ServiceNow started as IT service management, so it was a pretty focused product in streamlining IT operations inside of the CIO shop. But it's really proliferated now into the digital layer that can lay across all enterprise applications and give you a single point of entry, and it can give you a better user outcome as you navigate through various systems. And it can provide really strong workflow optimization across those individual systems. So that's all in front of us with ServiceNow.
And you can see the adoption of it vis-à-vis the performance of the ServiceNow business as they're selling more and more licenses to their product. And we're seeing customers continue. That's one area where customers continue to spend and invest because there's a real productive return, if you will, in the short run on automating and optimizing all of those activities so they can be that much more productive.
Okay, great, and then you also, you know, when you're looking out to 2025, you mentioned, you know, some further opportunities in terms of nearshoring. Can we dig into that a little bit deeper and, you know, what you guys are seeing there? I know, you know, I think Mexico has been a big focus in that strategy.
Yeah, I think that, you know, clients have always had an offshoring capabilities, and the big traditional consulting firms or the India outsource firms have been there with tens and hundreds of thousands of workers to kind of meet those needs. That's not really us, and while that's a part of the marketplace within IT, it's not growing quickly, the winds kind of shift back and forth onshore and offshore to India, but the most exciting thing going on is nearshore because you get a lot of the advantages that you're looking for, which might be a lower price point and really good technical skills, and you get it right here in our own time zone where there's really rich technical talent, and clients can even go there for the day.
If you live in the central part of the country, you can go to sit with our teams in Guadalajara and work on a project and be back for dinner, you know, sometimes. And so I think you get a lot of the advantages that you were shooting for with offshore, but you don't have to deal with kind of all the baggage that comes with it. And you get it right here in our local time zone and communication, and all those things are really rich.
That's great. Well, you know, Ted, Chris, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate you guys making time and attending the conference. Thank you.
Yeah, thanks, Ryan. Yeah, it's been our pleasure. Thank you.
Thank you, Ryan.