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Text: The third quarter marked a nice sequential improvement in our financial performance with results coming in above the high end of our expectations.
You will recall that based on early signs of recovery at the end of the second quarter, we raised our guidance for the year.
Based on stronger-than-expected performance in the third quarter, we are again raising our full-year guidance ranges for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted EPS.
We are expecting a continuation of this recovery trends in the fourth quarter.
This, of course, sets us up well for next year.
As we promised back in April at the onset of the pandemic, we will talk to you today about our outlook for 2021.
Based on what we currently see, we think the most significant COVID impacts to our business are behind us and our outlook for 2021 indicates strong performance next year and a return to our growth trajectory.
Ron will discuss 2020 and 2021 guidance in more detail later.
Before we review the quarter, a quick operational update.
We continue to experience a gradual improvement in the accessibility of clinical research sites in the R&D Solutions business even with the localized flare-ups we've seen around the world.
We are seeing a return to onsite monitoring visits and similar to last quarter onsite visits exceeded the number of remote visits.
In instances where sites remain physically inaccessible for clinical monitoring, remote monitoring and virtual solutions are proving to be effective workarounds.
The pace of start-up activity picked up significantly during the third quarter and we are pretty much back to baseline levels for site initiation visits.
Of course, patient recruitment trends have started to follow as well.
Moving to Technology & Analytics.
As expected, TAS has remained resilient throughout this crisis in almost every area.
We've had very little interruption in data supplier demand.
Our information services continue to be mission critical to our clients and are therefore very insulated from the impacts of the pandemic.
The analytics and consulting businesses have performed remarkably well despite business development being hampered by the lack of in-person interactions.
One area we discussed before that has experienced significant disruption is the event management business, which relies almost entirely on face-to-face interaction.
And, of course, as you know, that business is essentially on pause for now.
Demand for our technology offerings remains strong.
We've added 45 OCE clients this year, bringing our total number of clients to 125.
During the quarter, we successfully rolled out OCE Optimizer, a real-time map-based territory and sales rep alignment solution.
This tool will save management team significant amounts of time previously spent planning and assessing sales data to ensure resources are effectively focused on the appropriate client base and product.
Finally, our CSMS business.
Demand for field reps continues to be soft, which of course impacts revenue.
But as we said before, while business development has also slowed due to the lack of in-person interactions, so far the business has performed modestly better than we would have expected as existing clients have largely retained field reps and have been continuing their engagements with us.
Now against that backdrop, let's now review our third quarter results.
Revenue for the third quarter came in at $2,786 million, which was $11 million above the high end of our guidance range.
This revenue beat came from strong organic operational performance.
Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $604 million with a $22 million beat versus the high end of our guidance range.
The EBITDA beat was due to better operational performance and productivity.
Third quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share was $1.63 reflecting the EBITDA drop-through because the below the line items essentially netted out to zero.
Third quarter R&DS contracted backlog, including pass-throughs, grew 18.5% year-over-year to $21.7 billion as of September 30th, 2020.
We had broad based booking strength, but full-service clinical and lab were particularly strong.
The contracted net book-to-bill ratio, including pass-throughs, was 1.71 for the third quarter of 2020 and 1.42 excluding pass-throughs.
The LTM contracted book-to-bill ratio at September 30 was 1.55, including pass-throughs and 1.45, excluding pass-throughs.
Let's turn first to revenue.
Third quarter revenue of $2,786 million grew 0.6% reported and was flat at constant currency.
Revenue for the first nine months of the year was $8,061 million which was down 1.6% reported and 1.2% at constant currency.
Technology & Analytics Solutions revenue of $1,207 million grew 10.2% reported and 9.2% at constant currency.
Year-to-date Tech & Analytics Solutions revenue was $3,433 million, up 4.9% reported and 5.6% at constant currency.
In R&D Solutions third quarter revenue of $1,400 million was down 4.5% at actual FX rate and 5.1% at constant currency.
Excluding the impact of pass-throughs, R&D Solutions third quarter revenue grew 2.6%.
Year-to-date revenue of $4,076 million was down 5.6% at actual FX rate and 5.4% at constant currency.
Contract Sales & Medical Solutions revenue of $179 million was down 13.9% year-over-year reported and 14.4% on a constant currency basis in the third quarter.
Year-to-date revenue was $552 million, down 8.6% at actual FX rates and 8.3% at constant currency.
Now moving down to P&L, adjusted EBITDA was $604 million for the third quarter, which represented growth of 1.9%.
Year-to-date adjusted EBITDA was $1,649 million.
Third quarter GAAP net income was $101 million and GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.52.
Year-to-date GAAP net income was $160 million and GAAP diluted earnings per share was $0.82.
Adjusted net income was $318 million for the quarter and $841 million year-to-date.
Our adjusted diluted earnings per share grew 1.9% in the third quarter to $1.63.
Year-to-date adjusted diluted earnings per share was $4.32.
Now turning to the R&D Solutions backlog.
As Ari mentioned, R&DS new business activity remains quite strong.
Consequent on the robust booking activity that Ari talked about, our backlog grew 18.5% year-over-year to close at $21.7 billion and we expect $5.8 billion of this backlog to convert to revenue over the next 12 months, which is an increase of over $400 million versus where we were at June 30th.
And I would add that the outlook remains quite positive as RFPs are growing low double digits in both volume and dollars.
Moving to the balance sheet now.
At September 30th, cash and cash equivalents totaled $1.5 billion and debt was $12.3 billion, resulting in net debt of $10.9 billion.
Due to our strong EBITDA and cash flow in the quarter, our net leverage ratio at September 30th was 4.7 times trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA, which was down a tad [Phonetic] from where we were at June 30th.
Cash flow was a bright spot as it was last quarter.
Cash flow from operations was $574 million in the third quarter, up 74% over last year.
Capital expenditures were $157 million and that resulted in free cash flow of $417 million.
M&A spending, as you saw, was negligible in the quarter.
For the first nine months of the year, free cash flow was $769 million, which is about double the same period last year.
As you know when the COVID-19 outbreak became the pandemic in March, we temporarily suspended our share repurchase program.
We did not repurchase any shares in the second or third quarters, but the business is recovering well from COVID-19 disruptions.
Underlying demand is robust and cash flow is as well and we have a very solid liquidity position closing the quarter with an undrawn revolver of almost -- undrawn revolver and almost $1.5 billion of cash in the balance sheet.
And as a result of all this, we lifted our suspension on share repurchase program and we're expecting to opportunistically resume share repurchase activity.
And as a reminder, we currently have about $1 billion of share repurchase authorization remaining under the program.
Now let's turn to guidance.
Given the continuing momentum in the business, we're raising our full year guidance range for revenue, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted diluted EPS.
Our guidance for the fourth quarter and full year of 2020 assumes that business conditions will continue to improve during the fourth quarter.
And specifically, we assume that localized flare-ups of COVID-19 will not have a material impact on fourth quarter results.
We now expect 2020 revenue for the full year to be between $11,100 million and $11,250 million, which is an increase of $125 million over our prior guidance at the midpoint of the range.
For profit we now expect full-year adjusted EBITDA to be between $2,335 million and $2,360 million, which represents a $27 million increase over our prior guidance at the midpoint of the range.
And adjusted diluted EPS, we are expecting to be between $6.25 and $6.35, which is an increase of $0.10 over our prior guidance at the midpoint of the range.
This full-year guidance implies fourth quarter revenue of $3,040 million to $3,190 million, representing growth of 5% to 10.2%.
Now this is a wider range than we would normally guide to at this point in the year due to the uncertain timing of pass-through revenues associated with the COVID trials that we're working on.
From a segment perspective, we expect Technology & Analytics Solutions revenue would be in the high-single digits at the midpoint of our guidance range, R&D Solutions revenue growth to reach double digits, with the caveat that this growth rate could move up or down based on the timing of pass-through revenue and CSMS revenue growth to be similar to what we saw in the third quarter.
For fourth quarter profit, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be between $685 million and $710 million, representing growth of 6.7% to 10.6% and adjusted diluted earnings per share to be between $1.93 and $2.03, or growth of 10.9% to 16.7%.
This guidance assumes that foreign exchange rates at September 30th, 2020 remain in effect for the rest of the year.
As we indicated at the start of the pandemic, we've decided to advance our planning process versus prior years.
And as a result, we're now in a position to provide our 2021 outlook and this is much earlier than we would have done in the ordinary course.
For the full year 2021, we expect revenue in the range of $12,300 million to $12,600 million.
This represents growth of 10.1% to 12.8% versus the midpoint of our 2020 guide.
We expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $2,725 million to $2,800 million, representing growth of 16.1% to 19.3% compared to the midpoint of our 2020 guidance.
And finally, we expect adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $7.65 to $7.95, which would represent growth of 21.4% to 26.2% compared to the midpoint of our 2020 guidance.
A little bit more detail for you.
The adjusted diluted earnings per share guidance assumes interest expense of approximately $420 million, operational depreciation and amortization of about $400 million and other below the line expense items such as minority interest of approximately $50 million and also the continuation of our share repurchase activity.
The effective tax rate we are assuming will remain largely in line with 2020.
Our 2021 guidance is predicated on the assumption that business conditions will continue to improve to the fourth -- in fourth quarter and that majority of our business will return to normal during 2021.
Our outlook for 2021 also incorporates our view that there will be some tail of COVID work, the growth in R&DS will come primarily from our base business.
So in summary, we're pleased with our team's ability to navigate the challenges that COVID has presented throughout the year and we're proud to be a critical contributor to the solution to this public health crisis.
Our R&DS business has adapted well returning to growth in services revenue and achieving another record quarter of bookings.
Our Technology & Analytics Solutions business improved sequentially and has returned to pre-COVID growth rates despite the headwinds of the event management business.
Our solid year-to-date overall Company performance has enabled us to raise our guidance for the full year for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted EPS.
And now this performance combined with our strong free cash flow and liquidity position has enabled us to lift the suspension of our share repurchase program.
And finally, we are expecting a continued recovery in the fourth quarter and a very strong 2021.
So with that let me hand it back over to the operator for Q&A.

user
q3 adjusted earnings per share $1.63.
q3 gaap earnings per share $0.52.
sees fy 2020 revenue $11,100 million - $11,250 million.
sees fy 2020 adjusted earnings per share $6.25 - $6.35.
lifting temporary suspension of its share repurchase program.
for full year of 2021, expects revenue of between $12,300 million and $12,600 million.
for fy 2021, sees adjusted earnings per share of between $7.65 and $7.95.

assistant