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Text: What we will say today is based on the current plans and expectations of Comfort Systems USA.
Those plans and expectations include risks and uncertainties that might cause actual future activities and results of our operations to be materially different from those set forth in our comments.
Joining me on the call today are Brian Lane, President and Chief Executive Officer; Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer; and Bill George, Chief Financial Officer.
Brian will open our remarks.
We are pleased to report a strong start to 2021.
Earnings improved substantially but earnings per share of $0.73, compared to $0.48 in the pandemic impacted first quarter of last year.
Our backlog has also strengthened sequentially, and we see good trends in underlying activity levels, especially in our industrial, technology and modular markets.
Overall, we are optimistic about our prospects for the next several quarters.
As Brian said, our results were again very strong.
First quarter revenue was $670 million, a decrease of $30 million, compared to the same quarter last year.
Our same-store revenue declined by $83 million.
However, our recent acquisitions added approximately $53 million in revenue this quarter.
You may recall that last year we had large data center work ongoing in Texas and that created high revenue in the comparable period.
We will continue to face a tough revenue comparison in the second quarter of 2021, but to a lesser extent than this quarter.
Gross profit was $123 million for the first quarter of 2021, an increase of $6 million and gross profit as a percentage of revenue rose to 18.4% in the first quarter of 2021, compared to 16.7% for the first quarter of 2020.
The improvement in gross margin results from stronger margins in electrical.
SG&A expense was $88 million, or 13.2% of revenue for the first quarter of 2021, compared to $93 million, or 13.3% of revenue for the first quarter of 2020.
On a same-store basis, SG&A declined by $6 million -- $11 million.
That decrease included a $6 million reduction in bad debt expense as last year's collectability concerns for retail and other customers are trending better than we predicted.
The remainder of the decline in SG&A was the result of cost discipline.
Our 2021 tax rate was 24.8%, compared to 27.6% in 2020.
Our current year tax rate benefited from permanent differences related to stock-based compensation, and we expect it to trend upwards into our normal range for the full-year.
Overall net income for the first quarter of 2021 was $26 million, or $0.73 per share, as compared to $18 million, or $0.48 per share in 2020.
For our first quarter, EBITDA was $51 million, a 39% improvement over last year and our trailing 12-month EBITDA is a record $264 million.
Free cash flow in the first quarter was $80 million, as compared to $15 million in Q1 2020.
This year's -- this quarter's free cash flow is far higher than we've ever achieved in the first quarter as we received advance payments on large projects that are commencing and our lower same-store revenue led to some temporary harvesting of working capital.
As we execute these projects over the next few quarters, and if organic revenue improves in the second half as expected, we will see some absorption of working capital.
Our free cash flow over the trailing 12-month period is $330 million and that strong performance has returned our leverage to well under 1 times EBITDA despite our many ongoing and recent acquisitions.
That's all I have, Brian.
I'm going to spend a few minutes discussing our backlog and markets.
I will also comment on our outlook for the remainder of 2021.
Backlog at the end of the first quarter of 2021 was $1.66 billion.
We believe that the effects of the pandemic are beginning to subside as same-store backlog increased sequentially by nearly $150 million, or 10%.
Although we expect some delays in bookings will continue through the second quarter, we remain optimistic about trends for the second half of the year.
Overall, we are very comfortable with the backlog we have across our operating locations.
We are seeing good trends in underlying activity levels, especially in our industrial, technology and modular markets.
Our industrial revenue was 40% of total revenue in the first quarter.
We expect this sector to continue to grow as a majority of the revenues at our newer companies of TAS and TEC are [Phonetic] industrial and industrial is heavily represented the new backlog.
Institutional markets, which include education, healthcare and government were 35% of our revenue and that is roughly consistent with what we saw in 2020.
The commercial sector is now about 25% of our revenue.
For the first quarter of 2021, construction was 77% of our revenue, with 45% from construction projects for new buildings and 32% from construction projects in existing buildings.
Service was 23% of our first quarter 2021 revenue with service projects providing 9% of revenue, and pure service, including hourly work providing 14% of revenue.
Year-over-year service revenue is up approximately 4% with improved profitability.
We are seeing good opportunities in indoor air quality, which has helped many of our service departments return to pre-pandemic volumes.
The high move [Phonetic] interest in IAQ plays to our strength of solving problems for our customers and air quality considerations help us differentiate ourselves in both service and construction.
Our mechanical segment continues to perform extremely well.
Our electrical gross margins improved from 5.5% in the first quarter of 2020 to 14.7% this year.
Our backlog strengthened this quarter and the effects of the pandemic are fading.
We expect some continued organic revenue declines in the second quarter of 2021, but less than we experienced in the current quarter.
We continue to see strong project development and planning activity among our customers, especially in technology and other industrial verticals.
Our large operations are in place where companies continue to invest, such as Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Virginia.
It was one year ago that we reported our first quarter at a time when everyone was adjusting to the risk and uncertainty of the pandemic.
We will continue to work hard to keep our workforce and our community healthy and safe.
We look forward to continued strong profitability and good cash flow in 2021 and our strong pipeline makes us optimistic about activity levels in the second half of this year and into 2022.
We will continue to invest in our workforce and to improve our formidable mechanical and electrical businesses in existing and new geographies.

user
q1 earnings per share $0.73.
backlog as of march 31, 2021 was $1.66 billion as compared to $1.51 billion as of december 31.

assistant