Please stand by. Your program is about to begin. If you should need any audio assistance during your call, please press star zero. Good day. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the U.S. Physical Therapy 1st quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. In order to ask a question during the session, please press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star zero. I'd now like to turn the call over to Chris Reading, President and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much. Good morning and welcome everyone to our U.S. Physical Therapy first quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me on our call this morning from our executive team are Carey Hendrickson, our CFO, Rick Binstein, our Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Eric Williams and Graham Reeve, our COOs, Jake Martinez, the Senior Vice President of Finance and Controller. Before I make some opening remarks, I'll ask Jake to cover a brief disclosure statement. Jake, if you would, please.
Thank you, Chris. This presentation contains forward-looking statements which involve certain risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements are based on the company's current views and assumptions. The company's actual results may vary materially from those anticipated. Please see the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for more information.
Thanks, Jake. I'm gonna make some brief high-level comments this morning on various aspects of the business. Then I'm gonna turn it over to Carey to cover the numbers. She does a great job with that. I wanna start out by just thanking our team. You know, middle of last year, really probably beginning in late May into June, seemed like the world changed. Having come through a couple of years of the pandemic and working our way through that well, then, you know, we got hit in the head with massive inflation. It affected everybody. Employee scarcity largely affected everybody. It was a tough year. Just wanna thank our team for keeping their head down, working their way through it, being very positive.
Our partners, our staff, our leadership team, marketing support group, everybody's just done a phenomenal job, and I really think that that showed up quite well this first quarter. Volume's been excellent. It's been as strong as it's ever been. Interestingly, this time first quarter in 2022, at that point was our best ever first quarter visits per clinic per day quarter in the history of the company. We blew last year's first quarter away. Our partners, our staff, the care that they're giving the patients, marketing folks, all of the support that is helping us drive strongest volume ever in the history of the company, it's just exceptional right now. We've made progress. We're not done. We've made progress in our salary and our total cost per visit.
Carey's gonna share some of those, numbers progressions with you. Again, just helped by volume, still in an inflationary period, but we're making progress, as you'll note in a couple of the key areas, that definitely I think ultimately impact these cost numbers as well. On the rate side, our rate renegotiation continues to progress. Our team is doing a very good job. It's kind of a process that takes some time. We're working our way through a very large portfolio of contracts, but we're getting some good, really nice increases. While it might not seem, you know... It might not seem to some of you that rate has been impacted, particularly when you look at this first quarter number.
You have to remember that, you know, we're in another year where we're in the middle of a Medicare cut, couple percent. We've had the sequester relief phase out, which was done, you know, last year. That's another 2% this quarter. If all things had been equal, and you look at our rate this quarter, really up 2%, you know, against the backdrop. Again, we're making progress. We're not done. More work to happen there. We've had, you know, mid-teens, upper teens revenue growth before, but considering the market that we're in right now and considering some of the macro influences, to come away with nearly 16% revenue growth in PP, along with double-digit operating income improvement and the highest ever Q1 EBITDA, I'm really pleased with that right now.
There's been a tremendous amount of work to get us there and more, more work, more opportunity actually to happen. Some of that revenue growth has come from our most mature facilities. In fact, our same store this quarter, again, benchmarking against probably the best first quarter we've ever had a year ago, our same store numbers are up 6%, which is a really strong number for us. When you combine that with the really good acquisitions that we've done, we've done some phenomenal acquisitions with great people. I got to see some of them last Friday when they were in for Masters.
were here last week or are still in the field just working really hard to expand and to grow and to make a difference, I've been really, really pleased with the people and really pleased with the progress and the effort. We spoke a little bit last call about us no longer going to accept low margin business or no margin business, and particularly pointing to some of our Medicare Advantage contracts that I think are kind of a plague to our industry right now, particularly considering how much money these managed care payers are making to take care of Medicare patients under their Advantage plans. And they're not paying providers enough. Some of them are in some markets, sure, but some of them are not.
We've undergone a process to drop those contracts. For those of you who listen from other places, other companies, industry, somewhere within the industry, I would just encourage you to continue to evaluate your contracts. We do, as a profession, a phenomenal job for our patients. We should be the musculoskeletal gatekeepers, and we should be paid accordingly in order to do and produce the kind of care and results at the cost levels, frankly, that we produce. The only reason that these companies will continue to pay us at low rates is because people accept low rates. It's kind of the status quo, and that really, frankly, needs to change. We talked about volume. Again, even through the quarter, on the other side of this first quarter, volume continues to be very strong.
I'm hoping and expecting we can keep that going. We've made progress on our front desk automation rollout. It's nicely underway. We'll be rolling out and expanding as the year goes on. It's gonna take a little time to do that, but we think that that is also going to help with our employee retention at the front desk, which has improved also dramatically. In fact, our turnover for clinical positions, licensed clinical positions, is as low as I can remember in many, many years. It's gone down a lot. While our front desk in a related hourly turnover is not at that level yet, it's improved considerably from where it was last year. Let's shift gears for a second and talk about our injury prevention business. You know, that business has been incredibly strong and incredibly resilient.
We've added to it over the period with a number, a handful really of really nice acquisitions. That business continues to be a very important part of our company, gives us some diversification, and it makes a difference to these customers. We're gonna slow a little bit this year, I think, just as I look out. We're seeing some, particularly in the tech sector, CEOs and CFOs of some of these large companies be concerned about whether the economy is gonna have a hard or soft landing. Some of those are pressing pause on contracts or pending, the rollout or the start of contracts. We're getting new business. Some of our business incredibly resilient, with a number of our customers, and not just resilient, but continuing to expand.
That'll happen regardless of what happens with this economy as we look forward. This year, we're gonna have some wins and losses, and that's gonna level us out a little bit more than we've seen in the past. That's already built in. That's, you know, as Carey will cover the first quarter numbers, that's kinda where I expect this year's gonna look like. I think we'll achieve our budget for the year, but we'll be a little lighter on the growth side than we have been unless we can get a deal done. I'm gonna kick it over to Carey. This feels like a really good start to the year. Again, I wanna thank my team. We're excited about it.
We have some great things we're working on that we're not gonna talk about yet today, but will be a little bit later in the year that I think, will be meaningful for our company. With that, Carey, I'd ask you to go ahead and cover the results in more detail.
Great. Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone. You know, as Chris's remarks reflected, we had an outstanding first quarter by most any measure. We had record high volumes. We had strong growth in revenue. We had a continuing downward trend in our salaries and in our total operating costs on a per visit basis. We had growth in our physical therapy operating income and in our operating income margin. Year-over-year growth in our total company adjusted EBITDA. A really good start to the year. We reported adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter of $18.5 million, which was an increase of $1 million over the $17.5 million that we reported in the first quarter of 2022. Our operating results, which includes the impact of the higher interest expense, was $0.59 per share in the first quarter of 2023.
Our total company revenues increased 12.8% in the first quarter, growing from $131.7 million last year to $148.5 million in the first quarter this year. Our total company operating income increased $2 million. From $15 million in the first quarter of 2022 to $17 million in the first quarter of 2023. Our average visits per clinic per day in the first quarter was 29.8. That's the highest first-quarter volume in the company's history, and it's the second highest volume for any quarter, vested only by the second quarter of 2021, when our average visits per clinic per day was 30.0. Each month in this first quarter was a record high for that respective month.
Our average visits per clinic per day was 28.9 in January, it was 29.8 in February, and then 30.7 in March. That 30.7 in March was the highest volume for any month in the company's history. Our net rate that Chris referred to was $103.12, which was an increase of $0.12 over the first quarter of last year. Despite differences in Medicare rates year-over-year, we had a 2% Medicare rate reduction that was put in place at the beginning of this year. In the first quarter of last year, we still had 2% sequestration relief on Medicare rates, which was phased out as the year went along last year.
The Medicare rate differences were more than offset by a 3.2% increase in our commercial rates versus the first quarter of last year. As Chris noted, we still have a lot of work to do here, we expect to continue making progress in increasing our commercial rates. We're continuing with our plan to renegotiate or terminate contracts that reimburse us at a rate that's less than what it costs us to serve our patients, which is primarily related to a subset of our Medicare Advantage contracts. We expect the impact of that work, the reduction of the Medicare Advantage contracts that are at low rates to begin showing up in the second half of 2023. Our physical therapy revenues, they were $127.4 million in the first quarter of 2023.
That's an increase of $17 million or 15.6% from the first quarter of 2022. The revenue increase, as Chris noted, at our same store clinics was 5.8%, driven by an excellent 6% increase in our visits versus the prior year. Physical therapy operating costs were $100.6 million, which is an increase of 13.9% over the first quarter of last year. We were very pleased to see our physical therapy operating costs per visit decrease versus the first quarter of last year, declining from $83.09 per visit in the first quarter of 2022 to $81.97 per visit in the first quarter of 2023. Our physical therapy operating costs per visit peaked in the third quarter of 2022. They've come down each quarter since then.
Our total operating costs were $85.14 in the third quarter of 2022. They decreased to $84.05 in the fourth quarter of 2022, excuse me. They declined further to $81.97 in the first quarter of this year. Our salaries and related costs per visit were up just 0.7% in the first quarter of this year versus last year, and they've also continued to trend down since the third quarter of 2022. From $60.99 in the third quarter, down to $60.04 in the fourth quarter of 2022, and then down further to $59.14 per visit in the first quarter of this year.
The increase in physical therapy volumes and revenue, coupled with our stabilizing expenses, resulted in improvement in our physical therapy margin as well, improving to 21.0% in the first quarter of 2023, compared to 20.0% in the first quarter of 2022. Chris provided color on our industrial injury prevention business in his remarks. Our revenues for that business were $19.4 million in the first quarter, up $300,000 from the first quarter of 2022. Our expenses in that business were $15.6 million, which is an increase of $700,000, resulting in industrial injury operating income of $3.8 million. Our margin in that business was 19.5% in the first quarter of 2023 as compared to 21.8% in the first quarter of 2022.
Our interest expense was $2.6 million in the first quarter of 2023, which was an increase of $2 million over the first quarter of last year. Of course, higher interest rates in the first quarter of this year than they were last year. Our balance sheet remains in an excellent position. We have a $150 million term loan with a five-year swap agreement in place that fixes the one-month Term SOFR rate on that $150 million at 2.815%.
Including the applicable margin based on our leverage ratio, the all-in rate on our $150 million of debt was 4.915% in the first quarter, a very favorable rate in today's market and below the current Fed funds rate. In the first quarter of 2023, the swap agreement saved us $700,000 in interest expense. At March 31, our swap agreement had a mark-to-market value of $3.6 million, meaning that the current expectation is that we will pay $3.6 million less in interest expense over the remaining approximate 4 years of our swap agreement than we would have paid without the swap.
In addition to the term loan, we also have a $175 million revolving credit facility. That had $38 million dollars drawn on it at March 31. We had cash on our balance sheet of $32.6 million at March 31. The borrowings on the revolver, that $38 million, that's at a variable rate. The weighted average variable interest rate on our debt on that facility in the first quarter was approximately 6.8%. That put our total overall effective interest rate for the first quarter at 5.5%, including the term loan.
The strength of our results in the first quarter and the continuing strong volumes we're seeing in April give us continued confidence in the adjusted EBITDA guidance range we provided at the beginning of the year of $75 million-$80 million. That guidance excludes the impact of potential acquisitions in the remainder of the year. In closing, we've had a very solid start to 2023, and we'll continue to work hard to produce the best results possible for all of our stakeholders this year. With that, Chris, I'll turn the call back to you. Hello, Chris?
I'm sorry, K. I had muted. Operator, go ahead and open the line for questions.
Certainly. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your touch tone phone. You may withdraw your question at any time by pressing the pound key. Once again, that's star one. We'll take our first question from Larry Solow with CJS. Please go ahead.
Morning, Larry.
Good morning.
Good morning, guys. I have that problem with the mute button sometimes here. Really, really good start to the year. Obviously, you know, I think weather, you know, or lack of bad weather across most of the country. I know some parts had some bad weather, but probably certainly helped you guys was a, was a good guy for you. But, again, you know, 6% change to our volume growth is really, really remarkable, coming off of a great comp, too. You know, just looking at it, I know you don't guide quarterly, but we're kind of in the heart of a good part of the year, right? You did almost 31 visits per day per clinic.
You know, any reason to think that wouldn't continue at least, you know, assuming weather remains fairly, you know, on your side?
Yeah. You know, I'm not gonna. I'll say this. Volume continues to be very strong. I'm not gonna go out and predict. We absolutely certainly shouldn't have major weather events, certainly not winter weather events going forward. You know, I am hopeful that we can continue to grow as we have most every year since I've been here, with the exception of the second half of last year. We're certainly gonna work to do that. We'll have to see how it shakes out, but, you know, we like where we sit right now.
Do you think labor, you know, obviously labor still a, still a higher price, of course, but feels like your access to and availability is a lot better. Did that help? You know, were you leaving some revenue on the table or just, you know, unable to, you know, serve as many patients per day just because of labor issues that have gotten better? Is that part of the, you know, the year-over-year improvement, do you think?
Yeah, sure. absolutely. I will say this, first quarter of last year, we weren't feeling the labor issues that we began to feel late in the second quarter and certainly into the third and fourth quarter. I think, you know, the quarterly comparison, access to labor was not as much of an issue a year ago. I will also say that right now, our time to fill open positions has decreased dramatically from where it was in the second half of last year. It's improved a lot. I think it will continue to improve. That's my sense. That's both for clinical positions as well as front desk positions.
I have to believe, you know, that some of the 20,000 people who left the profession at some point in the pandemic or during the pandemic, a lot of those folks, I think, you know, I said early on, I thought they all wouldn't stay out forever. I think a lot of those folks will come back. And, and, yeah, certainly I think that will help us as the year progresses, on a comparative basis.
Got it. Just last question, one follow-up. Just on the total clinics, it looks like I think you grew 7 sequentially, and I think there's only 1 acquisition of the 1 larger clinic, right? Looks like 6 net new clinics, if I'm not mistaken. That's pretty good de novo activity, at least to start the year, if my math is right.
Yeah. We've got good de novo activity. We've got across, you know, a swath of great partnerships. We've got more acquired activity which is coming, and it should be another very good year. At least that's what we're working to produce and expect that that will happen, you know, by the time we, you know, we lap this year. Development right now, we feel confident that we can deliver a good year, both de novo as well as acquired.
Excellent. Thanks, Chris. I appreciate all the color.
Yeah. Thanks, Larry.
Thanks, Larry.
We will take our next question from Brian Tanquilut with Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, guys. Congratulations.
Good morning. Thank you.
Good morning. I guess, Chris, I'll start with, you know, obviously strong quarter here. Larry said strong start of the year. It's really nice to see that. Do you think you're gaining market share, or is the whole industry seeing kinda like a recovery and an uptick in demand for physical therapy services right now?
Yeah. I don't, I don't know yet, Brian. I mean, you know, I think Select reports tonight after the market closes. I think ATI reports next week. You know, we'll see how they do. You know, I have a lot of friends who are, who are CEOs of these other companies, but we tend not to put each other in a position where we're sharing, you know, detailed inside baseball. Look, I think last year was a tough year, and last year was one of the first years that we didn't grow our visits per clinic per day. It, it was a little bit more muted, more flattish. I think with staffing improving, you know, we're seeing some pickup. Whether we're moving that from competitors or not, I got to believe that in some cases we are.
Look, when we do acquisitions, and we bring on really good companies to begin with, you know, one of the reasons that people come with us is because of the resources that we can provide. Some of those resources are directionally enabling these companies to grow at a faster rate than they would have otherwise. I think that's coming from market share, but I don't have a good way to measure it to be absolutely precise, and so it's just my guess.
Got you. Yes, Gary, as we think about rates, just curious, you know, you talked in your prepared remarks about how you're gonna walk away from some of these underpaying contracts. You've already been vocal and public about it, you know, since the last quarter or so. Just curious what those conversations are like or what the feedback or reception has been from those payers, as you're having those conversations.
Yeah, I'd say it's mixed. you know, in some cases, they're willing to come back and renegotiate rates with us, and sometimes they're not, and that's fine with us. you know, we're gonna move forward. It's not good business for us. as Chris noted, we're just not gonna take that any longer. we're fine with walking away from it. They don't represent that much volume for us, and it's volume that we can easily replace, especially with the strong volumes we're having, you know, this year. we feel good about it.
Got you.
look,
And then Nick-
In a tight-
Yes, go ahead.
No, I'm sorry. In a tight labor market, it's still a little tight, it's getting better, but it's, you know, it's not easy. You just can't afford to be looking and hiring staff to take business where you don't have a margin profile. When we talk about market share movement, we're gonna move that market share to our competitors. We're gonna let them take it at, you know, $0.60 on the dollar, and there's gonna be no margin there. We're gonna replace that with much better margin business. You know, whether they come back or not, they have in some cases, they haven't in other cases. I'm okay with that right now.
No, actually, the very next question, Chris, was related to that. I mean, you called out in your prepared remarks how, you know, your turnover at a clinician level is at its lowest. Just curious, I mean, I know you're very in touch with a lot of folks in the industry, and we're hearing turnover rates that are higher, notably higher than yours, from some of your competitors. Just curious, you know, what are you hearing from your own clinicians as maybe you do survey work to that allows you to maintain this industry low turnover rate for clinicians?
Look, you know, again, I can't say absolutely with precision, but I do definitely feel like it has to do with a partner model. It has to do with what they hear from leadership in terms of our values and what's important. I think that resonates with people, helps people be stickier in terms of, you know, understanding the big picture. I think when we have challenges, we go about those challenges in a certain way. We're not beating people up. You know, we're not slamming fists on the table and it's not a threatening environment. It's a supportive environment. I think all that ultimately filters through.
I have to believe some of it is the fact that, you know, when you look throughout the organization from a leadership perspective, whether it's our regional presidents or COOs, or even, you know, maybe to a lesser extent, me having long-term industry experience and not just coming, you know, from, you know, another business segment or working with a private equity group that, you know, flipped the business in another totally different kind of an area. I think it resonates with people that we're about this from a care perspective first and foremost. You know, I think I have a good team, and they do a good job carrying those messages and embodying those things that are important. I think ultimately it makes a difference.
I hope that's what it is.
Awesome. All right. Thank you, guys. Congrats again.
Thanks, Brian.
Thanks, Brian.
Once again, as a reminder, to ask a question, that's star one. We will take our next question from Matt Larew with William Blair. Please go ahead.
Hi, this is Madelyn Mollman on for Matt.
Hey, Madeline.
Hey, Madeline.
Hi, guys. On the net rate, trying to think about how do you expect the net rate to change throughout the year, especially as, like, sequestration impact rolls off in the second half of the year? I think in the past you said you expected it to be kind of roughly flat with the fourth quarter and wanted to see if you were still thinking that way?
I think for the full year, Madeline, that's where we would still expect to be. You know, we'll grow from where we would expect the rate to move up from here, for sure. I mean, we feel really good about the fact that our net rate was up over the first quarter of the prior year despite that 4% cumulative Medicare rate differential year-over-year, so that's good. Our commercial rates were up over last year by 3.2% in the first quarter, first quarter to first quarter. They were relatively flat from the fourth quarter to the first quarter. You know, they're always a little lighter in the first quarter of the year, and then we'll grow from here. I think we're still in good shape from a rate standpoint.
We've got a lot of work to do, as we've mentioned. I mean, that's this is not easy work, you know, doing these rate negotiations and pushing for increases. You know, you'll push for them, you'll get them, but it'll take a little while for them to come into effect. You know, but we're on a good trajectory, I think, Madeline.
Great. Thank you. I think you mentioned last quarter that, your Group Purchasing Organization was rolling out in February for your pilot. Any insights from the pilot or takeaways that you can apply as you roll it out more broadly?
Graham, do you want to take that?
Yeah. We've got it active right now in about 200 locations, and it's really too early yet to give you any analytics feedback on it. That would probably be more at the end of this quarter to the end of 3rd quarter. We're rolling it out in a systemic fashion, and we're gonna continue to do that.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Madeline.
Once again, that's star 1 for your questions. It does appear that we have. Oh, I do apologize. We do have a question from Mike Petusky with Barrington Research. Please go ahead.
Hey, Mike.
Good morning, Mike.
Good morning. Man, I pressed star one 3 times. I. We're about to hang up. Anyway. Finally got it. Okay. Now that I've learned to operate a phone, let me ask a couple questions.
Yeah, me and you both.
Yeah.
We'll both learn phones.
That's right. That's right. I make very good company. All right. On renegotiations, you know, Chris, you know I'm a baseball fan. I mean, in terms of, it's just a nine-inning baseball game, how far along are you guys in terms of what you're trying to accomplish there?
I mean, we're early in the second inning, I think-
Yeah, that's what I think.
... at this point.
Yeah.
You know, it's, we're a little farther along than we were, you know, 9 months ago, so I can't continue to say first inning. You know, I think we've got a lot of baseball left to go.
Yeah. I mean, considering you sort of called out a 3% op comparison in your commercial rates, I mean, that's great that there's still that much-
Yeah
... left to you know, get after.
We have a lot of contracts. We have a lot of partnerships that are individual. They're, you know, across a 40-state network. It's a lot to get through, and we are still early. That's a reality, but that just means that we're gonna be at this for a longer period of time, and it should have effect for a while.
I wanted to ask on the revenue that you guys are sort of willing to walk, you know, I know you don't want to, but you're willing to walk away from on certain MA contracts, maybe some other contracts as well. I mean, Carey, I think you may have alluded to, hey, it'll start to impact second half. I mean,
Yeah.
Is there any way to sort of think about magnitude? I mean, are we talking a few million dollars? Are we talking more than that? I mean, what, you know, just from a modeling perspective, I don't want to not sort of take that into account. Is there anything you can say to help on that?
I mean, they're not big dollars, but there's, I mean, it's, I would say several million, something like that in revenue. But on every one of those dollars, the margin is 0 to slightly negative, right?
Got it.
You know, I'm absolutely willing to walk away from that. We've, as Chris has noted and we've talked about, you know, we're gonna be able to replace that volume with better paying volume, and that'll make a difference. That's all kind of baked into, if you will, into our, into our guidance and kind of our expectations for the year. You know, it takes a little while for the termination notices, once you provide the termination notice, for it to take effect. They're usually about 90 days. That's why I said we'll probably see more impact from that in the second half of the year, because we've done that in the first quarter. It'll mostly be in effect by kind of June, July, where we're no longer taking that business.
I, and I know, you didn't want to predict blue skies, for the foreseeable future, but just in terms of what you guys said about April, would you be willing to share, did patient visits stay, you know, a-above 30 or near 30, if you have that data?
Yes. We, I mean, we do weekly visit reports and that, and it's been, I'd say, Chris, pretty similar to what we saw in March.
Above 30.
Above 30.
Above 30.
Okay. That's fantastic. Outstanding. Then I guess, just in terms of your commentary around the injury prevention business, Chris, I mean, does the sort of the state of things make it less likely that, you know, you guys might engage in any kind of, you know, M&A, in that area? Or does it make it more likely maybe there's some opportunities that open up? Can you just speak to that?
Yeah. I don't know that I can hand you. It certainly doesn't make us less likely. We love this business. We love the teams. We love what it does. Understand that over the, what, 6 years that we've had it, we've added to programs and products and services in a pretty considerable way. Some of those are cyclical, some of those are countercyclical. Right now, for instance, and last year even, our testing business, which the year that we bought the testing business, which I want to say was 2019, the year we bought that business, testing was slow, and everybody was kind of nervous, and we just asked everybody to hang on. We knew that there was going to be some cyclicality with this. Since then, last year and this year, testing's been on fire.
Our injury prevention business, by virtue of some expansion that we've had among existing clients, has been really strong. There are parts that have been affected that we've got to make some adjustment for. You know, one of those is office ergonomics. It's lost on nobody that, you know, the offices right now, many are not full anymore, at least not on a five-day-a-week basis. We're making some adjustments there to be able to do more things remotely and in people's homes and adjust that business a little bit. Nobody can control, you know, when I say nobody, I mean us. We can't control what the Fed does, and we can't control whether this ends up being, you know, a plane that lands softly or a little bit of a harder landing in terms of the economy.
CEOs and CFOs, they're trying to judge for themselves what that looks like in the coming period. It's a, you know, people are kind of waiting to see before they make big investments in some cases, particularly newer customers. Existing customers' business has been pretty strong. We continue to look for, we're having discussions with, you know, opportunities in this space. We like it just as much as we ever have. We're just trying to guide you toward our expectation for this short-term period, which we think will be a little bit more tepid than it has been. It's literally, since the time we've acquired, it kind of been on fire. It's grown at a really, really fast pace, and this year will slow a little bit.
Doesn't mean it's bad business, and I think we'll get it picked back up again, but for right now, it's going to be a little slower.
Can I just ask real quick, on the agreements that you have in place in that business, are they annual renewals or how does that work?
Yeah, they're mostly annual renewals. Look, the reality is when things happen and a company that you've had a good relationship with asks you to pause. I'll give you a great example of this. This, you know, beginning of the pandemic, we were to roll out a big contract with Uber. We all know that Uber, you know, kind of disappeared that first year in the pandemic. Nobody was out ride-sharing a whole lot. We paused it. Now, we had a contract, but it doesn't make sense to force the customer into something that they don't want. You know, there's definitely a balance there. These are longer-term contracts, usually annual.
When there are major points of inflection, we tend to defer to the customer and make adjustments accordingly, and it keeps business around for a long time. That Uber story, which got paused at the beginning of 2020, was massive for us in 2021 and 2022. Again, we're trying to do the right thing and trying to be good stewards, and so we have to make adjustments when the customer wants to make adjustments. We may not have to, but we do.
That story is a perfect example of why you guys have been as successful as you have the last 20 years. Great job. Thank you.
Thanks, Mike.
Mike?
There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back over to the speakers for closing remarks.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody, for your time today. Appreciate all the questions. Sorry for my early fumble on the, on the phone. We look forward to talking with you. I know we have some post-call follow-up with some of you. If you have any questions, just give Kerry and I a shout, and we'll be happy to tackle those offline. Thanks. Have a great day.
Thank you, and this does conclude today's program. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect at any time.