Crawford & Company - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning. My name is Sylvie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Crawford & Company third quarter 2023 earnings release conference call. In conjunction with this call, a supplementary financial presentation is available on our website at www.crawco.com under the Investor Relations section. Note that all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. Instructions will follow at that time. Should anyone need assistance at any time during this conference, please press Star then zero, and an operator will assist you. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Tuesday, November 7, 2023. Now, I would like to introduce Tami Stevenson, Crawford & Company's General Counsel.

Tami Stevenson (General Counsel)

Thank you, Sylvie. Some of the matters to be discussed in this conference call and in the supplementary financial presentation may include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may relate to, among other things, our expected future operating results and financial conditions, our ability to grow our revenues and reduce our operating expenses, expectations regarding our anticipated contributions to our underfunded defined benefit pension plans, collectibility of our billed and unbilled accounts receivable, financial results from our recently completed acquisitions, our continued compliance with the financial and other covenants contained in our financing agreements, our long-term capital resource and liquidity requirements, and our ability to pay dividends in the future. The company's actual results achieved in future quarters could differ materially from the results that may be implied by such forward-looking statements.

The company undertakes no obligation to publicly release revisions to any forward-looking statements made in this conference call to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of the call or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. In addition, you are reminded that the operating results for any historical period are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected for any future period. For a complete discussion regarding factors which could affect the company's financial performance, please refer to the company's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2023, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, particularly the information under the headings Risk Factors and Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations, as well as subsequent company filings with the SEC. This presentation also includes certain non-GAAP financial measures as defined under the SEC rules.

As required, a reconciliation is provided for those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures. I would now like to introduce Mr. Rohit Verma, Chief Executive Officer of Crawford & Company. Rohit?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

Thank you, Tami. Good morning, and welcome to our third quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me today is Bruce Swain, our Chief Financial Officer, Tami Stevenson, our General Counsel, and Joseph Blanco, President. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for your questions. Before I review our results, I would like to take a minute to acknowledge the heightened conflict currently ongoing in the Middle East. Our thoughts are with all of those directly impacted, and we join the world community in our desire for peace in the region. Let's turn to our results now. This was an excellent quarter for Crawford, where we achieved record consolidated revenue and saw continued growth and profit expansion. We still have a lot of work to do, but this is a clear indication that our operational strategy is working, and we're making progress on our strategic initiatives across our business.

As a reminder, Crawford is one of the world's largest providers of claims management. We operate globally, manage over $18 billion in claims annually, and have approximately 10,000 employees and thousands of field resources. Our customer base is diversified and growing, including a wide spectrum of brand names who increasingly rely on Crawford as a claims solution provider. Our established partnerships are strong and getting stronger, and we have made meaningful strides acquiring new clients and establishing a leadership position. This has further reinforced my belief in the long-term growth opportunity for the business. There are multiple reasons that we're optimistic about our long-term growth prospects. First, globally, weather-related catastrophes are becoming more prevalent as floods, wildfires, hurricanes, and other serious weather activity are increasing in both severity and frequency. That said, some years include multiple severe weather events, and other years do not see any severe events.

For example, in the back half of 2022, there were several damaging weather events, including Hurricane Ian, Winter Storm Elliott, historic floods in Australia, and a winter freeze in the UK. Conversely, as we move through the final few months of 2023, we have yet to see similar severe events this year. Nonetheless, we are always at the ready to support the recovery of affected communities from all types of weather-related events with the highest level of compassion and excellence. We are focused on executing our operational strategy to grow and touch as many of these claims as possible to improve the customer experience. Second, we expect to see a long-term trend of carriers outsourcing claims as they contend with increased volumes, staffing challenges, and continued pressure of a complicated technology environment.

Third, the independent loss adjusting market is very fragmented, and we believe our growing scale is a considerable competitive advantage in the market landscape, particularly with the reliability and resiliency of service providers becoming more and more critical. Fourth, the depth and breadth of our relationships with key clients across our segments, including carriers, brokers, and corporate customers, continues to be a valuable attribute of our business. I continue to spend much of my time building these strategic partnerships, and we have significantly advanced our customer base over the past few years. And finally, insurance technology or Insurtech, is a key element in the future of claims management. We are at the forefront of technological innovation for our clients, whether it's machine learning, data visualization, or other SaaS-based offerings, improving the claims process and experience. Okay, now let's get into the results for the third quarter.

We delivered another quarter of strong results. Revenues grew by 10% on both a reported and Constant Currency basis to a new quarterly record, and both net income and operating earnings more than doubled year-over-year. This quarter, we achieved revenue growth and profit expansion across three out of our four segments. Our underlying operational strategy remains solid, and our business this quarter reflects the success of our operational execution. In fact, these were our highest quarterly earnings since 2018, fourth quarter. We added $24 million in new and enhanced business in the third quarter, with all segments announcing new partnerships and client wins this quarter. These new clients have driven our revenue growth, which has in turn contributed significantly improved cash generation with $68 million in year-to-date operating cash flow.

We will continue to strategically allocate our capital by investing in innovation at Crawford and returning capital to shareholders. As a reflection of our commitment to returning value to shareholders, we paid a $0.07 dividend in the third quarter and resumed our share repurchase program. Lastly, I am pleased to provide an update on our NPS, which has increased 3 points from the last quarter to 49. NPS, or Net Promoter Score, measures customer loyalty and satisfaction, and it remains a priority at Crawford to provide excellent service. We continue to see progress on our commitment to grow organically and improve margins across our business. While we may see anticipated quarterly fluctuation due to weather, our operational strategy remains strong and continues to produce improved financial results.

In our North America Loss Adjusting segment, we focused on driving low- to mid-single-digit revenue growth and improve margins through efficiency on the volume side and investments in expertise on the major and complex side. We have added approximately 60 new expert adjusters year to date, which has increased our coverage density and market share in the U.S. The significant margin expansion achieved in the third quarter was driven by the addition of multiple new accounts and improved utilization. I am pleased with our third quarter results, but want to reiterate that we currently have a relatively benign weather trend in the second half of 2023. Accordingly, we do not expect a similar overperformance in the fourth quarter of 2023 as compared to the fourth quarter of 2022. Our international business has significantly improved this year.

We have made excellent progress on our goal to get international to a mid-single-digit growth target, as revenues have increased 6% year to date, 11% on constant currency. In the third quarter, we saw 14% growth or 12.5% growth on a constant currency basis, and we delivered improved operating earnings of $2.2 million compared to an operating loss in the third quarter of last year. We have successfully turned around Latin America, UK, and Europe, although we still have work to do in order to reach our targeted margins. We have demonstrated progress in executing our strategy to address pricing and productivity, and I look forward to continuing to improve our margins as we grow our international business. The third quarter was a record quarter for Broadspire, featuring best-ever revenues, gross profit, and operating earnings.

We continue to see tremendous growth in medical management and workers' compensation clients, while we also benefit from a shift in mix. It is likely that 2023 will be our strongest ever sales year, and I'm very optimistic about Broadspire's outlook as our high-performing teams continue to capture share in alternative markets and leverage data to offer cutting-edge analytics services to our clients. Platform Solutions achieved growth in our Contractor Connection and Subrogation businesses related to changes in mix, but faced some comparative pressure related to the benign hurricane season and the absence of other significant weather events as compared to 2022 in our Networks business. Platform's operating margin remains solid at mid-double digits. In summary, our business has had a tremendous third quarter.

While we do anticipate some softness in North America Loss Adjusting and platform solutions due to continued benign weather in the fourth quarter, we expect to deliver record revenues for full year 2023. Bruce will provide some additional detail around our outlook during this discussion of our financial performance. Turning now to capital allocation. We continue to maintain a disciplined and prudent capital allocation strategy. Continuing the efforts of the second quarter, we once again saw improved cash generation in the third quarter. Our stated goal was to have our leverage ratio between 2x EBITDA by the end of 2023, and we have surpassed that goal and are now at 1.4x EBITDA at the end of the third quarter. We are pleased with our progress and early achievement of our financial goals.

Our capital allocation strategy remains focused: invest in Crawford to foster technological evolution for the long-term benefit of the company, while returning capital to the shareholders. This quarter, we raised our dividend to $0.07 from $0.06 per share for both CRD-A and CRD-B, and bought back more than 60,000 shares of CRD-B as part of our share repurchase program. I'm proud to tell you that we have returned more than $131 million of capital to shareholders through share buybacks and dividends since 2019. With that, I'd like to hand the call over to Joseph, who will discuss our business line results for the third quarter.

Joseph Blanco (President)

Thanks, Rohit. As most of you know, we report our business in four operating segments. North America Loss Adjusting encompasses primarily our loss adjusting business in the U.S. and Canada. Our international operations is comprised of all reported service lines outside of North America. Broadspire is our TPA in the U.S., and Platform Solutions includes Contractor Connection, our Networks business, including Catastrophe and WeGoLook, as well as our Subrogation business. As you can see, revenue contribution is fairly evenly spread across the reportable segments. Beginning with North America Loss Adjusting, we achieved revenues of $79.4 million, representing 19% year-over-year revenue growth. Operating earnings were $10.5 million, and we expanded our operating margin by 758 basis points. Strength in the quarter was driven by specialist adjuster additions.

We have added approximately 60 adjusters year-to-date, which has enabled us to increase our coverage density in the U.S. and subsequently capture market share. Additionally, third quarter revenue increases are attributed to a meaningful increase in new account nominations and increased utilization of both GTS and Field Ops. Our international segment achieved strong results, indicating that the business has bounced back to a stable and healthy level post-pandemic. Third quarter revenue was $98.1 million, and operating earnings were $2.2 million. Our revenue growth was a very strong 14% over the prior year, third quarter, and operating margins expanded by 680 basis points.

We are seeing the result of our actions to improve pricing and productivity in our international business, in addition to continued growth in our U.K. TPA and major loss businesses, large loss performance in Latin America, and growth in high-margin countries in Europe. We have room to improve volumes and grow in Asia, which saw a weaker quarter, and our Australian business faces a tough comparison to 2022 Cat activity. Overall, a strong quarter, and we remain committed to revenue and margin improvements in our international segment. We are excited about the market opportunity ahead of us, and we will not be taking our foot off the gas. Looking at our Broadspire business, third quarter revenue grew by 13%. As Rohit mentioned, this was a record quarter for Broadspire in revenues, gross profit, and operating earnings.

We are on track for our best ever sales year, fueled by successful new business development efforts that have expanded the revenue base. Revenues in the quarter were driven by strong performance by medical management services, which grew 16%, largely related to workers' compensation. Our innovative technology and excellent service continue to drive our ability to capture market share, and we retained over 94% of our business year-to-date. Platform Solutions had a tough comparison due to less weather-related activity, and third quarter revenues decreased by 6% from the prior year quarter. We saw some remarkable growth from our Subrogation business, which grew revenues by 24%. Contractor Connection revenues grew 9% and continued to benefit from shift in mix. As some carriers rely more heavily on their internal adjusters during this pattern of mild weather, we anticipate a challenging fourth quarter for our Networks business.

With that, let me turn the call over to Bruce for a deeper look at our financial performance.

Bruce Swain (CFO)

Thank you, Joseph. Company-wide revenues before reimbursements in the 2023 third quarter were a new quarterly record of $325.6 million, up 10% from $294.9 million in the prior-year third quarter. Foreign exchange rates increased revenues before reimbursements by $600,000, or less than 1%. GAAP net income attributable to shareholders totaled $12.3 million, increasing more than $27 million from a loss of $15.1 million in the same period of 2022. GAAP diluted EPS in the 2023 third quarter was $0.25 for both CRD-A and CRD-B, compared to a loss per share of $0.31 for both share classes in the 2022 period.

On a non-GAAP basis, diluted EPS was $0.35 for CRD-A and $0.36 for CRD-B, compared to $0.15 for both share classes in the prior year period. The company's non-GAAP operating earnings totaled $29.9 million in the 2023 third quarter, or 9.2% of revenues, more than doubling the $13.7 million or 4.6% of revenues in the prior year period. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $38.6 million in the 2023 third quarter, or 11.9% of revenues, compared to $21.4 million, or 7.2% of revenues in the 2022 quarter. I will now review the third quarter performance for each of our segments.

North America loss adjusting revenues totaled $79.4 million in the 2023 third quarter, increasing 18.8% from $66.8 million reported in last year's quarter, due to new account nominations and increased utilization of our expert adjusters. The segment reported operating earnings of $10.5 million in the 2023 quarter, increasing from $3.8 million reported in last year's quarter. The operating margin was 13.2% in the 2023 quarter, compared to 5.6% in the 2022 quarter. International operations revenues totaled $98.1 million in the 2023 third quarter, up 13.9% from the eighty-six point one million reported in last year's quarter. On a constant dollar basis, international revenues were $96.8 million, growing 12.5% over last year's quarter.

The segment reported operating earnings of $2.2 million in the third quarter, improving significantly from losses of $3.9 million reported in last year's quarter. The operating margin was 2.2% in the current quarter, compared to negative 4.6% in the 2022 quarter. Broadspire revenues were $88.3 million in the 2023 third quarter, increasing 12.7% from $78.4 million in the 2022 period, driven primarily by new account nominations and continuation of increased medical management revenues. Broadspire operating earnings were $13.5 million in the 2023 quarter, more than doubling last year's third quarter operating earnings of $6.2 million. The operating margin in this segment was a company-leading 15.3% in the quarter, improving from 7.9% in the 2022 period.

Revenues for Platform Solutions were $59.8 million in the 2023 third quarter, decreasing 6% from $63.7 million in the prior year quarter. We saw growth in our Subrogation and Contractor Connection revenues, which were offset by Networks due to the benign hurricane season, resulting in a difficult year-over-year comparison. Operating earnings in Platform Solutions totaled $8.5 million, or 14.2% of revenues in the 2023 quarter, compared to operating earnings of $10.1 million, or 15.8% of revenues in the prior year quarter. Unallocated corporate costs were $4.8 million in the 2023 third quarter, compared to costs of $2.4 million in the same period of 2022. The increase was primarily due to increased incentive compensation and an increase in unallocated payroll tax and benefit costs.

During the 2023 third quarter, nonservice pension costs were $2.2 million, compared to a $500,000 credit in the 2022 period. We recognized a pre-tax contingent earn-out expense of $2.1 million in the 2023 third quarter, compared to $900,000 in the 2022 quarter. This was related to the fair value adjustment of earn-out liabilities arising from certain acquisitions. Both nonservice pension costs and credits and contingent earn-out expenses are excluded from operating earnings and are added back for non-GAAP earnings and EPS. During the first 9 months of 2023, the company did not repurchase any shares of CRD-A, but repurchased approximately 63,000 shares of CRD-B at an average share cost of $9.24.

As a reminder, approximately 1.7 million shares are eligible to be repurchased under our 2021 share repurchase authorization. The company's cash and cash equivalent position at September 30, 2023, totaled $49.2 million, compared to $46 million at the 2022 year-end. Our total receivables were up $15 million from the 2022 year-end, primarily due to increased U.S. revenues. The company's total debt outstanding at September 30, 2023, totaled $218.4 million, down from $238.9 million as of December 31, 2022. Net debt stood at $169.2 million as of September 30, 2023, while our leverage ratio under our credit agreement closed at 1.4 times EBITDA.

Additionally, our pension liability was $25 million at the end of the third quarter, reflecting a funded ratio of 91.1%. We made no discretionary contributions to our U.S. defined benefit pension plan for the quarter, and we do not intend to make contributions during the remainder of the year. Cash flow from operations for the first nine months of 2023 totaled $68.1 million, with free cash flow of $40.4 million. This compares to cash used in operating activities last year of $16.2 million and negative free cash flow of $41.1 million. This significant improvement in cash flow was driven by increased earnings and an improvement in working capital, as receivables related to the 2022 weather events were collected during 2023. I would like to provide a bit more context around the upcoming fourth quarter.

Although we are experiencing long-term trends of increasing severity and frequency of weather events, these trends ebb and flow. As Rohit mentioned, we expect the North American weather-dependent businesses to face continued headwinds in the fourth quarter, given the absence of the significant storm activity which favorably impacted the fourth quarter of 2022. Last year, we saw extreme weather activity in the fourth quarter, including Hurricane Ian, Winter Storm Elliott, historic floods in Australia, and a winter freeze in the U.K. This resulted in $40 million-$50 million in weather-related revenues and $10 million-$15 million in operating earnings contribution that we do not expect to see repeated in the fourth quarter of 2023.

That said, we are on pace to report a very strong full year across our business, with record revenues, margin improvement, strong earnings, and cash flow, reflecting the strength and growth in the underlying fundamentals across our segments. We remain confident in our long-term growth outlook. With that, I'll turn the call back to Rohit for concluding remarks.

Rohit Verma (CEO)

... Thank you, Bruce. This quarter has demonstrated that our operational strategy is clearly working. Crawford has exhibited unwavering resilience and adaptability, fostering a culture of innovation and efficiency, which has continued to drive our sustainable growth and reinforce our position as a leader in the industry. Our strong financial results and liquidity provide us with the flexibility to grow our market share as we continue to invest in our industry-leading capabilities. Our remarkable new account wins have resulted in a record quarter for our U.S. businesses, and our international business has demonstrated a strong turnaround. We will continue to leverage these new and existing customer relationships in order to create deeper and more durable partnerships. Our robust financial results underscore our commitment to strategic execution and operational excellence as we remain steadfast in our dedication to delivering exceptional value to our clients and shareholders.

Thank you for your time today. Sylvie, please open the call for questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, sir. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then number one on your telephone keypad, and to withdraw your question, please press star then number two. And if you're using a speakerphone, please lift up your handset before asking your question. We will pause for just a moment while we compile the Q&A roster. And your first question will be from Mark Hughes at Truist. Please go ahead.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director, Equity Research)

Yeah, thank you very much. Good morning. The Broadspire segment, some real standout performance this quarter, that this gross profit, was this an unusual mix of business, or is this kind of a little bit double-digit profitability that's sustainable?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

We believe it's sustainable. I mean, as Broadspire, as you know, is one of our more resilient businesses, from a weather perspective, obviously, there is almost no dependence on weather. And then, as you know, we've been investing significantly in technology. We're starting to see those results. Also, we're starting to see a return of our medical management business, which is almost at the same level this year, back to where it used to be pre-pandemic. We still believe that there's more room to gain on the medical bill review side, but the overall medical management business is roughly on par with what it used to be in 2019. So we believe that, you know, this is a pretty durable profitability number.

Obviously, there is some help from the interest rate environment in that, and we expect that to continue in the near term. But overall, we feel a good trajectory and trend on our Broadspire business.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director, Equity Research)

But, likewise, North America, the loss adjusting margin was as good as we've seen in quite some time. Anything unusual about that mix? I hear that your point about hiring more technical adjusters and the higher utilization, is this likewise, is this something that's sustainable?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

Yeah, and Mark, you'll recall that when we had discussed our strategy back in 2020, we had talked about specifically focused on our North America Loss Adjusting business, growing the bench of experts on the complex side, and then deploying technology on the volume side, as well as other efficiency gains on the volume side. You know, all of those things are starting to take effect. As you know, obviously, this business gets impacted significantly by weather, but we're seeing that on our large and complex business that we call GTS, that we've got pretty good strength in that business and sustainability in that business. The volume business will fluctuate a little bit with weather events.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director, Equity Research)

And then, on Broadspire, any comment on the frequency or severity around workers' comp? I think you're certainly being helped by new business, but is the medical case management, is it being driven by uptick in, I guess, either frequency or severity with your existing clients?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

I don't know if I can comment on the frequency and severity. I think it's hard for me to do that, but we're definitely seeing that, you know, the slowdown in the medical case management that happened during COVID, that has certainly gotten better, and we're seeing a lot more people now going back into the medical offices than they used to. And then we've also been leveraging quite a lot of our technology to make sure that we are identifying cases where an early medical intervention can actually help the case move faster and better through the process. Bruce, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

Bruce Swain (CFO)

No, I think that's. I think that covers it.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director, Equity Research)

Yeah. And then, on the pension, any thought of doing any kind of risk transfer with that? You're not fully funded as of yet, but $25 million feels like something that could be manageable. Is that, is that something that you even consider or that you're happy to progress as you have been?

Bruce Swain (CFO)

Yeah, it's certainly something that we've considered. What we have done over the past several years is annuitize certain portions of the pension plan. So we've kind of systematically been cutting the tail off of the plan and transferring liabilities to insurance companies along the way. So I think we'll continue to do that as we go forward to, you know, reduce the amount of the benefit obligation and reduce some of the volatility associated with the plan. Although, having said that, I mean, the plan is fairly well immunized from interest rate changes, we feel good about the position of the plan relative to market risk.

Mark Hughes (Managing Director, Equity Research)

Great. Thank you very much.

Bruce Swain (CFO)

Thanks, Mark.

Rohit Verma (CEO)

Mark, if we don't speak with you, have very happy holidays,

Mark Hughes (Managing Director, Equity Research)

Yeah, thank you. Same to you.

Operator (participant)

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. Your next question will be from Kevin Steinke at Barrington. Please go ahead.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Good morning.

Rohit Verma (CEO)

Yeah, hi-

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

I wanted to follow up on the North America Loss Adjusting business and, you know, the strength there. You mentioned new client wins and new account nominations. Just wondering how we should think about that in terms of, you know, how broad-based those wins were. Are we talking about addition of large clients? You know, seeing some new business activity in the small and mid-sized market?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

Yeah, Kevin, this is Rohit. So we've, yeah, particularly in our large and complex segment, which we call our GTS business, the account nominations have been very, very strong. It's something that we focused on, and adding the experts gives us the bench to go after these account nominations. So we feel that that business is strong, and we see trajectory of that business to grow. On our field operations business as well, we believe that there is significant opportunity for us. We are still in the low to mid-single digits in market share, and we have a very pronounced strategy there to continue to penetrate what we call the regional company America.

So we believe that we will continue to see growth in that business, and as I've stated before, that business is quite susceptible to the changes in weather. The third element in that business is Canada, and Canada has been going through a very low-frequency environment. We did see some Cat activity there, but really did not result in too many claims. And we believe that there's an opportunity in Canada as well for us to continue our strategic position there. You know, overall, if you go back to our strategy that we shared in 2020, we had talked about you know, margin expansion as well as mid-single-digit growth. So far, we've exceeded on both fronts, and we expect that over the cycle, we'll get there, we'll get there somewhere.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay, thanks. And yeah, you mentioned there, I was going to ask about that, you know, longer term, kind of mid-low to mid single digit growth for North America Loss Adjusting. Clearly, you've been exceeding that, growing more at, like, mid- to high-teens. And, you know, outside of the upcoming fourth quarter here, where we have some, just, you know, weather-related comps, I mean, do you think there are some legs to sustaining growth above that, you know, low to mid single digit target, you know, over the next few quarters or the next year?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

I believe so. I mean, notwithstanding the tough comparisons because of weather, I believe that there is still quite a lot of gas left in the engine for us to throttle it up.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay, great. And also following up on Broadspire, you know, certainly strong performance there. And you mentioned new business development efforts driving that growth. You know, what stood out to me was the strong sequential growth in both revenue and operating earnings and operating margin for that segment. So, what was there some sort of new business wins, larger contracts ramping up in the quarter that led to that strong sequential increase?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

I would attribute it to three things. One, we have had some initiatives to improve profitability by the use of technology that certainly is starting to gain some critical mass, so you're starting to see it in the numbers. Second, we have had a strong sort of new business-- several quarters of strong new business wins, which is what is leading to a full year of our largest, almost largest new business win year. And then third is that we've also been working on right pricing some accounts that needed the pricing shift, and we've been successful in doing that. So we believe the profitability is coming back in line with where we expect the profitability for this business to be.

And then obviously the fourth, which, you know, is not something that we control, but is the interest rate environment that has helped us.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay. Yeah. How meaningful is the interest rate piece when thinking about the profitability of Broadspire?

Bruce Swain (CFO)

It's a contributor, but the majority of the increase in profitability is coming from the core underlying business.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay, great. You know, certainly another nice profitability and improvement year-over-year for the international operations. You know, just on a sequential basis, there was a bit of a step down in the operating earnings. I don't know if that there's anything to call out there, or, you know, kind of what what the pattern might be like going forward. You know, if we should expect some just quarterly ups and downs with the, you know, continued up into the right over the long term?

Rohit Verma (CEO)

... That's how I would look at it. I think over the long term, it would continue to be on, you know, on an upward trajectory. You might see, you know, some quarterly ups and downs as an example. You know, we had a pretty large event in Australia that we worked through all through the year, and that event is largely been tailing off. So you'll see some impact of that. We also had some events early in the year or late last year and early this year in UK, which were also starting to tail off. So I think it's more that than anything.

We still believe that there is more room for us to improve international, and that's what we're going to continue to work on, and that's what gives us the confidence that we'll continue to move it in the, as you said, the upper right quadrant.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay, thank you. Just, just on the comments around the, the fourth quarter we're in here and the, difficult weather-related comps. Bruce, I think you said $40-$50 million of revenue, $10-$15 million of operating earnings in the year-ago fourth quarter, that won't recur. You know, if I look at the more, weather, sensitive segments, North America Loss Adjusting had an $11 million sequential revenue increase in the year-ago fourth quarter, and then the Networks line was about, I think, $15 million sequential increase. So should we think about those, those two particular, business lines seeing sequential declines in, this fourth quarter of 2023? Or, you know, where, I assume that's kind of where the, weight of the, absence of revenue is going to fall.

Bruce Swain (CFO)

Yeah, that the $40-$50 million and the $10-$15 million in operating earnings is related to the North America Loss Adjusting business and the Networks component within platform. So it's not our international business. It's certainly not the Broadspire business. So-

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Right.

Bruce Swain (CFO)

That's how you should think about that.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay, yeah, lastly, I wanted to ask about, you know, you had a, you had a favorable adjustment to contingent consideration, which is indicative of, you know, that prior acquisitions that you made are, are performing well or better than expectations. So I don't know if there's, there are any particular businesses to call out there that, that have been performing well or, you know, what, what if there's anything in particular you'd, you'd want to highlight there.

Bruce Swain (CFO)

Yeah, I mean, I think one to call out that's been a strong performer for us and was a strong performer in the third quarter is the Subrogation business that we purchased a few years ago. They've been performing very well, but a number of our acquisitions have done well, and that adjustment that we made in the quarter just wasn't related to the Subrogation acquisition. It included other businesses that we've purchased as well.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay, that's good. Well, I might as well ask then just about your view on acquisitions and, you know, the acquisition pipeline. I guess it's, you know, been a little bit of time since you've done a deal, but just, you know, what you're seeing out there, and what might be attractive.

Rohit Verma (CEO)

We're, you know, the acquisition pipeline, you know, I wouldn't say it's as robust, right now as it used to be, say, two years ago, and that's mainly reflective of the deal flow in the market than a change in our posture. We continue to look for acquisitions which will add a specific capability to us that we can scale across our platform, and the valuation is attractive from our standpoint. So we'll continue to have a very discerning attitude towards acquisitions as we've had. And, you know, we've got plenty of capital capacity to make the acquisition if we need to, but it needs to be the right acquisition. So that's the discipline that we'll continue to maintain.

Kevin Steinke (SVP and Senior Equity Research Analyst of Business Services)

Okay, thanks for taking the questions and for all the insight. I'll turn it back over.

Bruce Swain (CFO)

Thank you, Kevin.

Rohit Verma (CEO)

Thanks, Kevin.

Operator (participant)

At this time, we have no other questions registered, so I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Verma.

Rohit Verma (CEO)

Thank you, Sylvie. Let me first thank all our employees, our clients, and shareholders for your continued commitment to Crawford & Company. Looking ahead, we are resolute in our efforts to navigate the dynamic landscape of the industry, leveraging our expertise and harnessing emerging opportunities for continued success and sustainable growth in the quarters to come. Thank you, and God bless.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Thank you for participating in today's Crawford & Company conference call. Note that this call will be available for replay beginning at 11:30 A.M. Eastern today through 11:59 P.M. Eastern on December 7, 2023. The conference ID number for the replay is 766677#. The number to dial for the replay are 877-674-7070 or 416-764-8692. Thank you again. You may now disconnect.