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Text: We appreciate your time today.
Before we review our first quarter financial results, I'd like to take a moment to talk about Robert Half's response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We've been working for many weeks now to ensure the health and welfare of our employees, while also maintaining our service commitments to customers.
The safety of our employees remains our first priority.
Early on, we gave all staff the unconditional right to work from home, and this will remain so.
We also agreed that time taken off due to illness or the care of loved ones who are sick would not be charged to employees.
As we navigate through this crisis, preserving the long-term intrinsic value of Robert half is our guiding principle.
The key focus is retaining our best people, who've proven time and again their ability to grow and sustain the organization.
They are critical to maintaining the culture that's been an essential part of our success.
Given the magnitude of the COVID-19 impact on our business, we fully understand that we must also adjust our cost structure in all other areas.
To reinforce that we're all in this together, I've cut my base pay by 100% until the end of the year and the other executive officers across the enterprise have also taken substantial pay cuts.
Our previous cloud and other infrastructure investments positioned us extremely well to seamlessly transition our employees to work-from-home status with access to all essential technology tools and communication options.
Virtually all employees across the globe are currently working remotely.
We've weathered many downturns over Robert Half's 70-plus year history, owing to our strong balance sheet and cash flow, unparalleled brands, professionally focused business model and what we believe is the most driven and tenured workforce in the industry.
We are confident that we will emerge from this too with the ability to compete effectively and win in the post-COVID-19 world, maintaining and enhancing our industry-leading brand.
Now let's take a look at first quarter 2020 financial results.
Companywide revenues were $1.507 billion, up 3% from last year's first quarter on a reported basis, and up 2% on an as-adjusted basis.
Net income per share for the quarter was $0.79 compared to $0.93 in the first quarter one year ago.
Cash flow from operations during the quarter was $125 million and capital expenditures were $14 million.
In February, we raised our quarterly cash dividend to shareholders from $0.31 to $0.34 per share.
We paid the dividend in March for a total cash outlay of $40 million.
We also repurchased approximately one million Robert Half shares during the quarter for $51 million.
We have 1.5 million shares available for repurchase under our Board-approved stock repurchase plan.
While results through the first half of March were strong and above plan, the second half of March began to reflect the COVID-19 impact on our business, particularly our staffing operations.
Our Robert Half Technology and Robert Half Management Resources divisions turned in solid results, notwithstanding this.
Protiviti had another very strong quarter, posting double-digit, year-on-year revenue gains for the eighth consecutive quarter.
It saw broad strength across its diversified service offerings, including internal audit, technology consulting and regulatory compliance consulting as well as services provided jointly with staffing.
Return on invested capital for the company was 32% in the first quarter.
Let's start with revenues.
As Keith noted, global revenues were $1.507 billion in the first quarter.
This is an increase of 3% from the first quarter one year ago on a reported basis and an increase of 2% on an as-adjusted basis.
Also on an as-adjusted basis, first quarter staffing revenues were down 1% year-over-year.
U.S. staffing revenues were $944 million, down 0.2% from the prior year.
Non-U.S. staffing revenues were $269 million, down 4% year-over-year on an as-adjusted basis.
We have 327 staffing locations worldwide, including 88 locations in 17 countries outside the United States.
In the first quarter, there were 63.1 billing days compared to 62.2 billing days in the same quarter one year ago.
The current second quarter has 63.4 billing days, unchanged from the second quarter one year ago.
Currency exchange rate movements during the first quarter had the effect of decreasing reported year-over-year staffing revenues by $9 million.
This decreased our year-over-year reported staffing revenue growth rate by 0.7 percentage points.
Now let's take a closer look at results for Protiviti.
Global revenues in the first quarter were $294 million, $233 million of that is from business within the United States and $61 million is from operations outside the United States.
On an as-adjusted basis, global first quarter Protiviti revenues were up 15% versus the year ago period.
The U.S. with U.S. Protiviti revenues up 20%.
Non-U.S. revenues were up 2% on an as-adjusted basis.
Exchange rates had the effect of decreasing year-over-year Protiviti revenues by $2 million and decreasing its year-over-year reported growth rate by 0.6 percentage points.
Protiviti and its independently owned Member Firms serve clients through a network of 86 locations in 27 countries.
Turning now to gross margin.
In our temporary and consulting staffing operations, first quarter gross margin was 37.8% of applicable revenues compared to 38% of applicable revenues in the first quarter one year ago.
Our permanent placement revenues in the first quarter were 9.9% of consolidated staffing revenues versus 10.8% of consolidated staffing revenues in the same quarter one year ago.
When combined with temporary and consulting gross margin, overall staffing gross margin decreased 70 basis points compared to the year ago first quarter, to 44%.
For Protiviti, gross margin was $78 million in the first quarter or 26.3% of Protiviti revenues.
One year ago, gross margin for Protiviti was $64 million or 25.3% of Protiviti revenues.
Companywide SG&A costs were 31.8% of global revenues in the first quarter compared to 31.4% in the same quarter one year ago.
Staffing SG&A costs were 35.3% of staffing revenues in the first quarter versus 34.2% in the first quarter of 2019.
The increase in staffing SG&A as a percentage of revenue was significantly impacted by negative leverage as revenues decreased in response to the pandemic.
First quarter SG&A costs for Protiviti were 17.3% of Protiviti revenues compared to 17.9% of revenues in the year ago period.
Moving on to operating income.
Companywide operating income was $131 million in the first quarter.
Operating margin was 8.7%.
First quarter operating income for our staffing divisions was $105 million with an operating margin of 8.6%.
Operating income for Protiviti in the first quarter was $26 million, with an operating margin of 9%.
Our first quarter tax rate was very high at 32% compared to 26% a year ago.
The primary driver was the lower-than-expected tax deduction for the annual vesting of stock compensation, which was valued after recent stock price declines.
At the end of the first quarter, accounts receivable was $854 million, and implied day sales outstanding, DSO, was 51 days.
Given the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on global economies, we are not offering overall guidance this quarter.
We will, however, review with you some of the monthly revenue trends we saw in the first quarter and so far in April, all adjusted for currency and billing days.
Our temporary and consulting staffing divisions exited the first quarter with March revenues down 6% versus the prior year compared to being flat for the full quarter.
Revenues for the first three weeks of April were down 25% compared to the same period one year ago.
Permanent placement revenues in March were down 33.3% versus March of 2019.
This compares to a 9% decrease for the full quarter.
For the first three weeks of April, permanent placement revenues were down 63% compared to the same period in 2019.
Protiviti's pipeline remains strong, particularly for technology and regulatory compliance engagements.
Protiviti expects second quarter revenues to be in the range of flat to down 10% versus the prior year.
As a result of these staffing trends and the continuing social distancing lockdowns across the globe, we took actions in March and early April to reduce our operating costs by approximately 20% compared to the first quarter of 2020.
Also, we are currently taking further action to reduce SG&A costs by an additional 10%.
These actions have been focused on eliminating all nonessential costs, such as travel and events, as well as laying off our less-experienced and lower-performing staff.
Impacted corporate staff were furloughed with paid benefits, awaiting a return to higher activity levels.
Given the timing of these reductions and certain severance costs, reported results in the second quarter will only reflect savings of approximately 25% versus the first quarter of 2020.
We entered this period with a very strong balance sheet.
At the end of the quarter, we had $250 million in cash and $854 million in receivables, both of which will be a significant source of ongoing liquidity and financial resilience.
As noted earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic is having a significant impact on global economies as a result of stay-at-home orders and business closures to stop the spread of the virus.
Our staffing clients, most of which are small and midsized businesses, are feeling the crisis most acutely, and the downstream effect is a much tougher business climate for Robert Half.
I'm extremely proud of how our teams have been responding to this pandemic.
Even in the current environment, we see opportunity.
We're aggressively pursuing significant opportunities in financial services, government and public education and outsourced reshoring many times jointly with Protiviti.
We're already seeing many successes in these areas.
Protiviti has also successfully transitioned its existing and new client work to a remote delivery model, which makes it even more possible to bring the most relevant deep-subject-matter experts to the table for its client.
We believe the factors that drive typical recovery patterns are still very much in place.
Companies get lean and defer projects during downturns, particularly nimble, small and midsized businesses, Because they start lean, employers need help as business picks up and they resume projects that were put on hold.
Variable cost labor models are ideal in the early stages of a recovery until the business stabilizes.
As the recovery accelerates, there is typically pent-up demand, especially for specialized skills.
The quality of the available labor pool is never better than in the early part of a recovery.
Many people who lost their jobs during the downturn did so because of business conditions, not performance.
Some companies will tap into this talent pool by hiring full-time as their business picks up.
Others will upgrade existing staff, and some will tap into the high-quality temporary and contractor pool because they're reluctant to hire full-time.
Either way, Robert Half gets a lift in permanent placement and temporary and contact revenues.
What's particularly good news this time is that employers have seen that remote work can be effective.
With fewer geographical constraints, we can find an even better fit on the candidate side, which effectively raises the quality of the candidate pool that much further.
We're already seeing examples of this.
In short, as business picks up, demand for our services also picks up because clients start with lean staffs.
Likewise, the quality of the candidate supply benefits from high unemployment and fewer geographic limitations, which provides further incentive for our clients.
During early periods of recovery, clients particularly need our help to avoid becoming overwhelmed with the massive volume of candidate responses to their open positions.
They're ill equipped to handle the interviewing, vetting, follow-up and consummation of their employment requirements.
They also need our help persuading fully employed candidates to make a job change at a time when they value the security of their existing jobs and to get access to candidates who are only known to us confidentially.
In the past two downturns, once the trough was reached, our revenue growth was very robust for the next three to five years, with permanent placement outpacing temporary and consulting.
Much of the current unprecedented monetary and physical policy response to this crisis, including this week's $484 billion extension, is targeted at our client base.
This gives us cause for optimism.
We're confident that Robert Half will participate fully in any recovery as business conditions improve.
[Operator Instructions] If there's time, we'll come back to you for additional questions.

user
compname reports q1 earnings per share of $0.79.
q1 earnings per share $0.79.
q1 revenue $1.507 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $1.45 billion.

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