FirstService - Q4 2020
February 9, 2021
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Welcome to the fourth quarter and year-end investors conference call. Today's call is being recorded. Legal counsel requires us to advise that the discussion scheduled to take place today may contain forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Actual results may be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements contemplated in the forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in the forward-looking statements is contained in the company's Annual Information Form, as filed with the Canadian Securities Administrators, and in the company's annual report on Form 40-F, as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. Today is February 9, 2021. I would like to turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Scott Patterson. Please go ahead, sir.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter, and year-end conference call. Thank you for joining. Jeremy Rakusen, our CFO, is on the line with me today, and together, we will walk you through the very strong quarterly results we released this morning, which again reflect the resiliency of our business model, the strength of our market-leading brands, and the dedication of our teams. I will start with a high-level review of the numbers and some highlights for the quarter, and then Jeremy will go through the quarterly financials and summarize the full year results. Total revenues for the quarter were up 15% over the prior year, with the organic revenue growth at an impressive 11%. We consider ourselves an organic growth company first and are very proud to finish a crazy year like 2020 with organic growth in the double digits.
The balance of our growth for the quarter came from tuck-under acquisitions, primarily in our commercial restoration platform, but also under Century Fire. EBITDA was up 25% year-over-year and reflects 80 basis points of margin improvement, driven primarily by higher margins at FirstService Residential, but supported by a positive uptick at FirstService Brands also. Jeremy will break it down for you in a few minutes. Finally, earnings per share were up 55% to $1.02. At FirstService Residential, revenues were up a solid 4% versus the prior year, all organic, reflecting continued positive sequential momentum over the last three quarters. We were down 9% in the second quarter, flat in the third quarter, and now up 4%. The year-over-year increase was enhanced this quarter by very strong ancillary revenues, including transfer and disclosure income and project management-related services.
Home sales in our managed communities, and the related services we provide were up in excess of 20% compared to the prior year. In addition, we saw increases in the services we provide relating to maintenance, project management, and construction, particularly in the Midwest, where many of our communities suffered wind, and hail damage during the year. The relative sequential improvement from a flat year-over-year comparison in the third quarter to up 4% in the fourth quarter is in part due to seasonality, as many of our amenities, which have been impacted by COVID-related lockdowns, are seasonal and normally shut down in the fourth quarter, reducing the negative year-over-year impact relative to the third quarter. Looking forward, we believe Q1 will be flat to up modestly relative to prior year. We continue to be impacted by amenity closures across many regions, including California, the Northeast, and Canada.
We did see some openings of year-round facilities in the fourth quarter, but most have since been shut down again. Longer term in this division, as we exit the pandemic, we expect to settle back into that low- to mid-single-digit organic growth rate on average. A highlight at FirstService Residential during the quarter was our acquisition in New York City of Midboro Management. Midboro is one of the leading management companies in New York City with a complementary footprint and a particular focus on co-ops. We now manage more than 600 properties, comprising almost 100,000 units in the important New York City market. We welcome the Midboro team to the FirstService family and look forward to leveraging our respective strengths in the coming months.
Moving on to FirstService Brands, revenues for the quarter were up 26%, with organic growth at 18% and the balance from tuck-under acquisitions over the last year. Global Restoration, our commercial and large loss platform, led the way in terms of growth, with revenues up over 60%, 45% organically. Global benefited during the quarter from the significant backlog of work relating to Hurricane Laura and the Iowa windstorms that impacted our customers in August. Organic growth for Global, adjusted for these specific weather events, was low double digit for the quarter, with strong momentum in national account work and our healthcare vertical, more than offsetting weakness in our hospitality and retail verticals.
Although we have worked through substantially all of the storm-related work, we did finish the year with a solid backlog relative to a year ago and expect our Q1 to be up modestly from 2020. Our FirstService Brands, including California Closets, CertaPro Painters, Paul Davis, Floor Coverings International, and Pillar To Post, generated top-line revenue approximately flat with a year ago and right in line with our expectation. Leads and sales activity were solid through the quarter, while we continued to build back service capacity after significantly scaling back in Q2. We obviously continue to deal with COVID, and understandably, there remains a reluctance in many areas to open the home to installation and service crews. Until this changes, we expect our results with this group to remain relatively consistent with current levels. For Q1 on a year-over-year basis, that means flat to up modestly.
As we get into Q2, we will start lapping the beginning of COVID in 2020, and we will see year-over-year increases with this group. Century Fire was up low single-digit versus the prior year. The service and inspection side of the business is almost back to pre-COVID service levels and reflected year-over-year growth driven by new national account wins. This growth was tempered by flat year-over-year results in sprinkler, and alarm installation, as increases in warehouse and multifamily construction were offset by declines in commercial construction in the office, retail, and education verticals. Similar to the home improvement brands, we expect Century to remain approximately at current levels until we emerge from the pandemic. We were excited during the quarter to announce two tuck-under acquisitions for Century.
Aegis Fire Protection, which is a market-leading player in the Kansas City area, and Cornet, a full-service fire protection company serving the Washington, D.C., market. These deals expand our footprint into two key markets that we had prioritized. We are excited to partner with the teams at Aegis, and Cornet and believe we have an opportunity to significantly grow in these new markets. Before I pass the baton to Jeremy, I want to take this opportunity to again recognize our operating teams and frontline staff. Most of our employees are essential workers on-site at a community or construction job or in homes or businesses delivering an important service. The collective commitment and work ethic across the company is amazing. We grew organically on a full year basis versus 2019.
That is impressive, given where we were after Q2, and it's a reflection on the culture and level of talent we have working at this company. Jeremy, over to you.
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Great. Thank you, Scott, and good morning, everyone. As you've just heard, we closed out 2020 with a strong kick to the finish line in the fourth quarter. Our consolidated results included quarterly revenues of $775 million, adjusted EBITDA at $79.9 million, and adjusted EPS of $1.02, up 15%, 25%, and 55% respectively, versus last year's fourth quarter. Financial results for the full year also showed impressive growth over 2019, particularly given the COVID-19 challenges since last March. More specifically, we reported annual revenues of $2.77 billion, up 15%, including 4% overall organic growth.
Our adjusted EBITDA came in at $283.7 million, a 21% increase with a 10.2% margin, up 40 basis points over the 9.8% level in 2019. The bottom line impact was adjusted EPS of $3.46, up 15%. Our adjustments to operating earnings and GAAP EPS to arrive at our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS results, respectively, are disclosed in this morning's release, and are consistent with approach in prior periods. I'll now break down our segmented results within our two reporting divisions, FirstService Residential and FirstService Brands. Leading off with FirstService Residential, revenues for the fourth quarter were $363 million, up 4% versus the prior year period.
The division reported EBITDA of $35.5 million, a 19% increase, together with 120 basis points of margin improvement quarter-over-quarter. The strong growth in home resale activity, which benefits our transfers and disclosure services and drives higher margin revenue, had a pronounced impact on our fourth quarter margin expansion.... a continuation of what we saw in the preceding third quarter. For the full year, revenues were in line with 2019, and we saw improved profitability, with 6% EBITDA growth and a 9.8% margin, up 60 basis points year-over-year. These results reinforce, once again, the resilience of our property management business, and its recurring contractual revenue base in navigating through the pandemic.
Turning to our FirstService Brands division, fourth quarter revenues were $413 million, a 26% increase, and EBITDA was up 28% to $48.6 million, with margins slightly up year-over-year. For the full year, performance was also strong, including 36% total revenue growth, along with a 31% increase in EBITDA. Robust organic growth at Global Restoration underpinned this top line strength for both the fourth quarter and the year, and reflected increased storm and large loss claims activity in the second half of 2020 versus prior year. The annual revenue growth also benefited from full year contribution of the Global acquisition and other tuck-under acquisitions. Our segment EBITDA margin modestly contracted 50 basis points to 11.4% for the year, largely due to the increased weighting of our lower-margin Global Restoration operations within the Brands division for 2020.
Free cash flow during 2020 was also exceptionally strong. Operating cash flow after working capital for the fourth quarter was $97 million, and for the full year, surged to $292 million, both significant increases over 2019. We benefited from strong operating earnings growth and a positive swing in our working capital as we focused on harvesting cash in the face of COVID-19. We expect to revert back to a modest level of working capital investment as we gradually emerge from the pandemic, and as our businesses resume their normalized growth path. In terms of capital expenditures, we incurred $39 million in 2020, lower than our most recent guidance and also lower than the prior year. CapEx was reduced by roughly 30% from our original budgeted level at the outset of 2020, to once again manage cash flow during the pandemic.
For 2021, we are targeting maintenance capital expenditures at around $60 million, reflecting a more normalized level of annual spend. We also had a solid year on the acquisition front in 2020. We deployed almost $100 million during the year on 6 tuck-under acquisitions, which in aggregate, generate roughly $120 million in additional revenue on an annualized basis. We are pleased with our activity level for the year, particularly given that the M&A market was closed for roughly half the year during the height of the pandemic. Currently, we continue to see a solid transaction pipeline. Turning now to our 2020 year-end balance sheet, net debt was $405 million, with our leverage at 1.4x net debt to adjusted EBITDA, one turn lower than at 2019 year-end.
The strong free cash flow that I just highlighted was a significant contributor in this debt reduction. We have previously indicated our comfort of running leverage in the mid-2x range, and so we currently have ample headroom to deploy capital prudently towards future growth. Our liquidity is also at record levels, exceeding $600 million, reflecting significant cash on hand, and almost full draw capacity under our revolving credit line. We have always believed that maintaining a conservative capital structure and maximum financial flexibility is a cornerstone of the FirstService business model. In light of this balance sheet strength, our board of directors yesterday approved an 11% dividend increase to $0.73 per share annually in US dollars, up from the prior $0.66.
We have now hiked the annual dividend by 10% plus for the past six consecutive years since our 2015 spinoff into a new public company, for a total of more than 80% cumulative dividend growth. Looking forward, Scott has provided some commentary on the near-term top-line outlook for some of our business lines. Putting it all together on a consolidated basis for Q1 2021, we expect that our revenues will be up mid-single digits versus last year's first quarter. We also see a likely modest year-over-year improvement in our consolidated margins, which help drive further profitability for the upcoming first quarter. This concludes my prepared comments, and I would now ask the operator to please open up the call to questions. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Certainly, at this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of George Doumet from Scotiabank. Your line is open.
George Doumet (Analyst)
Yeah, good morning, guys. Congratulations on a very strong quarter.
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Thank you.
George Doumet (Analyst)
Just to clarify, Jeremy's comments on the guidance for Q1, does that exclude all restoration activity, or is that inclusive of it?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
It's inclusive of it, but there's very little spillover from the activity that we saw in Q3 and Q4 in terms of, you know, storm and large loss claims work relating to those storms.
George Doumet (Analyst)
Okay, that's helpful. And maybe, you guys alluded to kind of the rebranding efforts in restoration and, you know, expecting a higher cadence of organic growth, ex weather-related events in the first half. Can you, can you maybe provide us with an update on, on how that's going?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Sure, George. It's in process. We're in the middle of it. The name was unveiled a couple of weeks ago, and the official brand, logo, and messaging will be formally launched in March, next month. The name will be FirstOnSite, two words. Very similar to the brand we operate under in Canada, which is one word, First OnSite. So we're, as I said, in the middle of it. It's a big step, a lot of work bringing together seven brands as one. But it's also very exciting, and there is a lot of momentum internally, as the teams learn more about the logo and the launch and coming together as one company. So it's, in the future, you will hear us refer to our platform as First OnSite.
George Doumet (Analyst)
Okay, thanks for that. And maybe looking, you know, ahead, you know, beyond Q1, can you maybe talk a little bit about margins, Jeremy? Like, you know, as we anniversary, maybe the higher ancillary piece, and as we, you know, reembark in terms of hiring some folks that we let go, how should we think of the margin expansion for the remainder of the year?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
George, I wouldn't ascribe too much margin improvement for the year on a consolidated basis. Well, first of all, for Q1, I said margins a little bit higher, and I would skew that towards FirstService Residential because there is, you know, we're only partway through the quarter, but a continued momentum on some of that higher margin, and ancillary revenue. But assuming that normalizes, you know, FirstService Residential, and FirstService Brands should see pretty flat margin profiles year over year. You know, pre-pandemic, we said this was a top-line growth story, primarily, and each business continues to try and grind out margin improvement, and that would continue to be the case going forward.
You know, in terms of the cost savings, we talked about that, a lot of that coming back on, as we reopened facilities, as we brought some of our labor-driven services back in place. A lot of our costs are labor and variable cost-driven, and, you know, we do have some savings in other areas like travel, entertainment, and so on, but it's less material to the top line. We continue to evaluate our staffing models, and if we can continue to optimize costs, we will. We will always look to do that.
George Doumet (Analyst)
Okay, thanks. And just one last one for me. You know, in your prepared remarks, you've been obviously talking about a full pipeline and also what seems to be a, maybe a historically underlevered balance sheet. As COVID restrictions maybe ease into the back half of the year, should we expect accelerated M&A activity?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
George, you know, we're back into a rhythm on the M&A front, and so I don't really see emerging from the pandemic as changing that, honestly. The market is very active right now, despite the pandemic, and the competition for acquisitions has probably never been greater. So, but we're holding our own, and as Jeremy said, our pipeline is solid.
George Doumet (Analyst)
Okay. Thanks for your answers. Great quarter.
Operator (participant)
Thanks. Your next question comes from the line of Stephen MacLeod from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Stephen MacLeod (Analyst)
Thank you. Good afternoon, or sorry, good morning, guys.
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Morning.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Morning.
Stephen MacLeod (Analyst)
I was just wondering if on the FirstService Brands side, if you could just provide some color, as you've done in the past couple of quarters, about what the dollar in EBITDA impact may have been from the outsized weather-related and large loss claim activity.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Jeremy, why don't you handle that?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Yeah, Steve, that's $60 million of revenue. So when you combine that with the $45 million in Q3, you know, back half of this year, storm-related activity, a little over $100 million. Margin's pretty in line with, similar to Q3, in line with the overall margin profile for the, for global, you know-
Stephen MacLeod (Analyst)
Mm-hmm
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Which is in the area of 10%. You know, there were some lower margin jobs scattered within there, sprinkled within there.
... but, it pretty close to the, you know, the margin profile that we articulated in Q3, which again, is around 10%.
Stephen MacLeod (Analyst)
Yeah. Okay. Okay, that's, that's great. Thank you. And then just as you think about the storm activity levels going forward, I mean, obviously nobody has a crystal ball, but when you look back on Q3 activity, you know, does it, does it seem like a potential outlier in terms of the magnitude of activity, or is that maybe too hard to pin down at this point?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Gotcha. Yeah, when we looked at this opportunity, and looked at Global and its history, on average, between 15 and 20% of annual revenues come from the large storms, the type that we saw this year. And that's where we're gonna end up. That's where we ended up in 2020. So it was right in line with that long-term average. But you will have years where you have more or less. In 2019 was a year where we saw, you know, well less than 10% in storm activity. Jeremy, anything to add to that?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
No. Echoes echo your sentiments.
Stephen MacLeod (Analyst)
Okay. That's, that's helpful. Thank you. And then just maybe within, within the FirstService Brands, business, did I understand correctly that when you think about home improvement, Century Fire, Global Restoration, or maybe now First Onsite, you would expect those businesses each to be up sort of low single digit in the first quarter. Is that, is that right? Or were there some other movements that I didn't quite catch?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
I think that's, I think that's fair. The, Century Fire and, and Home Improvement brands will certainly be below single digit. We do have a, solid pipeline on the restoration side, and that would be... That will be single digit, and it's just unclear where it'll fall at this point.
Stephen MacLeod (Analyst)
Mm-hmm. Okay. Okay, that's great. And then, maybe just finally, on the residential business, and you've had some strong, strong resale activity helping the ancillary services. You know, as you think about amenities sort of opening back up as the, as the, you know, vaccinations take hold, do you see an opportunity to, for organic growth to accelerate beyond kind of that 3%-5% range in 2021 or even beyond?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
That's not clear to us. You know, the amenity management business will come back, but I think will also change. The capacity levels at many of these facilities will not immediately get back to where they were pre-COVID, and perhaps they never will, and that will impact our staffing levels. So, there's some uncertainty around that side of the business, I would say, right now and where we finally end up with it. And in terms of the long-term growth rate, you know, the low to mid, the 3-5, whatever it is, that's where we believe we will be on average.
Stephen MacLeod (Analyst)
Yeah. Okay. Well, that's, so that's great. Thank you very much, and congratulations on a strong quarter.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thanks, Steve.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Frederic Bastien from Raymond James. Your line is open.
Frederic Bastien (MD)
Hey, good morning, guys. You've addressed some of those questions already, but obviously, your, your 2020 results were far better than what you and all of us had anticipated at the onset. But it does raise the bar for 2021, 2022. How are you feeling about your ability to tack on additional organic growth, especially on the FirstService Brands side, over the next couple of years?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
I think, Frederic, if you normalize for storms, we expect to grow in every business organically. The storm activity will influence quarter to quarter, year to year, as we've discussed in the past. But we expect all our businesses to grow in the future, and our long-term goal is mid-single digit on average.
Frederic Bastien (MD)
Right. But given how strong the housing market has been in the U.S., would you expect brands to outpace that type of growth in the short term?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Well, the housing market has helped us on the FirstService Residential side with the transfer and disclosure income, particularly in the third and fourth quarter, and then I think we'll get a little boost in the first quarter. It you know, on the home improvement brands, certainly home sales benefit us, but it it's offset by this, by the COVID and the reluctance on the part of homeowners to bring crews into their homes. So there's... As we emerge from the pandemic, we would expect to see organic growth with those home improvement brands, and we you know, we haven't in 2020.
Frederic Bastien (MD)
Right. Okay, that's all I have. Thanks, guys.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thanks, Fred.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Sheldon from William Blair. Your line is open.
Stephen Hardy Sheldon (Analyst)
Hi, thanks. On a comment, I think you talked about adding service capacity in the home improvement businesses. Any commentary on when you began to add those resources and maybe what that reflects in terms of your outlook for those businesses? Are you maybe expecting activity to pick back up later in 2021 or, and are investing a little bit ahead of it? Just any detail there.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Well, we cut back in Q2, significantly. In retrospect, perhaps we were too severe in our cutbacks, but we just didn't know what was in front of us. In terms of building back that labor force and getting our capacity back online, designers, installers, painters, you know, we run into a labor market that has tightened. Because a lot of companies are looking to do the same, and in new home construction, in particular, is very, very strong right now, which creates competition for painters and frontline staff at Paul Davis and Global and installation talent at California Closets. So, we are hiring and building back our capacity. We do have solid leads and sales activity.
You know, as we begin to emerge from the pandemic and homes open up, we do expect to see stronger performance with the home improvement brands.
Stephen Hardy Sheldon (Analyst)
Got it. That's, that's really helpful. And then congrats on the, on the fire acquisitions in the quarter. As you continue to complete tuck-in acquisitions in that business, I, I guess, what types of synergies do you realize? Is there anything similar to what you see on the restoration side, where more scale drives a stronger ability to win national accounts? Or with California Closets, where you have the ability to shift manufacturing more to company-owned operations, where you have incremental capacity? Just any detail on how we should think about the synergies as we continue to scale that business.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Yeah, I think it's very similar to Global Restoration, and National Accounts. The, you know, these, these tuck-ins actually worked with us on our national account program. They were, you know, valued companies, part of our vendor network. And so anytime you can bring that in-house, I think you benefit. But you know, having them close to us, we got a great sense for the cultures and the quality of the organizations. So it does help us in terms of selling future national accounts. But I think there's also an opportunity to fill out their service line. You know, one of the priorities at Century Fire from day one is to have a full service capability at each and every branch location.
There's an opportunity for us to build out the service side of these, of these two tuck-ins, Aegis and Cornet.
Stephen Hardy Sheldon (Analyst)
Great. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the results.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thanks, Steve.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Logan from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
Thank you, and good morning.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Morning, Matt.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
Scott, when you talked about the storm revenues within Global Restoration being in line with the long-term average, about 15%-20%, can you confirm that that was on a revenue basis?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Yes, revenue.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
And maybe just for some color in terms of how we're thinking about the long-term effect of storm revenue, would the long-term average margin on those storm revenues be around that 10% mark, or would that be higher?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Jeremy?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Yeah. Again, Matt, I think I commented on this last quarter. It really varies depending on the types of storms, the customers that we're dealing with, and the types of jobs. And even within the jobs that were done these last two quarters, some were higher margin, some were not. You know, mitigation tends to be higher margin than the bigger reconstruction work. So it really also depends on the type of damage that's been done. Very hard to ascribe it, but I would say 10% is a good, middle-of-the-fairway type margin to ascribe to whatever we call out on the revenues. And if there's anything unusual that deviates from that, we would specifically flag it.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
So that 10% would be in line with, say, the five-year average for the business?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Yeah, roughly. Yeah.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
Okay. And, maybe turning to acquisitions. You talked about an M&A pipeline and having just a high degree of activity, both for yourselves and for your competition. What business lines are the focus of acquisitions? Are there any that really stand out to you that you'd like to build out more than others?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Well, we've certainly been more active in commercial restoration and in Century Fire. And I think that part of the reasoning, certainly strategically, we have very specific ideas on where we want to grow geographically and what service lines we want to focus on. But those are both markets that are consolidating. And so I think a lot of the families, and small business owners are recognizing that, and so there are more opportunities, I would say, than some of our other lines.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
In terms of the other opportunities to bring in service providers that you're already doing business with, would that be one of the channels for acquisitions going forward? Are there more opportunities like that?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Sure. I mean, that's certainly when we're, when we're looking at a particular area, geographically, I mean, who do we know? Who's servicing us, today? Who do we partner with? For sure, that's how we start.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
The multiples for those acquisitions, can you give us a sense for the general range of what you're seeing for buyer and restoration acquisitions today?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
They're certainly going up. There's a lot of private equity capital prowling around our markets. And that is tending to drive purchase prices up. So you know, if we've averaged in the five range two years ago, that will be higher in 2020 and higher in 2021 and go forward, I expect. Sorry, I can't—I'm not gonna give you a number because they're all, you know, there's a lot of variability.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
Fair, fair enough. In terms of the cadence of deploying capital on the balance sheet, would you expect to have leverage in the mid-2x range in 2022?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
It depends on the size of the acquisitions. Those would be pretty sizable, Matt, 'cause again, you know, when we acquire a business, you get credit for the acquired EBITDA. So going from 1.4 times to mid-2s would be... It'd have to be a lot of acquisition activity or upsize to move it that significantly over the next 12-15 months.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
Any sense for how we should be thinking about that? Would this be in and around two turns? Would that be a better estimate for thinking about leverage?
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
You know, it really depends. If we just deploy and add acquisitions to the tune of kind of 5% revenue growth, I don't see our leverage, you know, increasing much from where we are today. Maybe it goes to high ones. But it really depends on how many deals we close and the size of them.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
So certainly if the right deal came along, there could be a larger acquisition that's more than the 5% of revenue. But otherwise, kind of leverage in the steady state to, you know, kind of 1.5 turn range.
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Yeah, it's just the nature of, of the industries we're playing in. They tend to be smaller, more fragmented, so the acquisitions tend to be smaller. But we've got the capacity, as I said, in our comments, we've said it before, you know, we, we'd feel comfortable being at 2-2.5 times, but it's just the landscape of acquisitions. We, we don't really build those, you know, more sizable acquisitions into our default thinking.
Matt Logan (Analyst)
Well, I appreciate the commentary. That's all for me. Thank you very much.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thank you.
Jeremy Rakusin (CFO)
Thanks, Matt.
Operator (participant)
Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Daryl Young from TD Securities. Your line is open.
Daryl Young (Analyst)
Morning, guys.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Morning.
Daryl Young (Analyst)
Maybe one quick one for me, and following up on Stephen Sheldon's question about Century Fire. Coming at it a little bit of a different way, I can't help but see the kind of overlap in the strategy there of winning national accounts and moving, expanding geographically, compared with what you're doing at Global Restoration. Is there an opportunity there to effectively merge those businesses in the future and benefit from sort of a cross-sell of customer base and full service offering?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Well, I don't think merge, but certainly collaborate. The national account programs are very similar. The clients are similar. And, you know, one of the things in particular in the last year, the virtual selling environment can be a challenge, particularly around new relationships, new introductions, and it can be very helpful to get a warm handoff or a warm introduction. So that's where we're focused, particularly in the last quarter. So there is collaboration around national accounts with Global and Century.
Daryl Young (Analyst)
Okay, excellent. And then, on the restoration side, about a year ago, we saw Intact enter into the restoration space. Just wondering if there's been any sort of evolution there in terms of their desire to get bigger in the space, or if you're seeing in the U.S. any insurance direct entry similar to that?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
We have not seen any other acquisitions of restoration companies by insurance carriers, at least I'm certainly not aware of it. And not terribly close to the strategy and what's happening at Intact and Onsite. I mean, we certainly took note of the acquisition when it happened, and it's been pretty quiet since then for us.
Daryl Young (Analyst)
Okay. And you're not seeing sort of any indications of that happening in the U.S. as well?
Scott Patterson (CEO)
No. No, no, we're not at all.
Daryl Young (Analyst)
Okay, great. That-that's it for me. Great quarter, guys. Thanks.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Mark Riddick from Susquehanna. Your line is open.
Mark Riddick (Analyst)
Hi, good morning.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Hi, Mark.
Mark Riddick (Analyst)
So, a very strong way to finish the year. I did wanna sort of touch a little bit, and first of all, I really appreciate all the color that you've already given and the detail there, so it's greatly appreciated. I did wanna touch a little bit on maybe sort of bigger picture thoughts around the branding effort and sort of how on the brand side, sort of bringing everything under that brand. How are you sort of thinking about the way that might be unveiled to customers, as well as educating your own workforce to sort of get that collaboration, build that national account opportunity, and, you know, the warm hand, as you described it?
Sort of maybe the kind of timeframe that you're thinking about as far as that, 'cause generally, branding efforts can, you know, sometimes take a couple of years to fully get to where you want them to be, as far as the benefits of it. I was wondering if you sort of think about that from a bigger picture standpoint and how you're looking at that.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Well, certainly our experience with FirstService Residential, you know, when we rebranded in 2013, we began that effort probably two years in advance, and we've been building on it to this day and expect to continue to. So it, you know, we expect the same kind of incremental path at First Onsite. You know, we've been working on it for 18 months now, and the formal launch will be March 29. The name's been unveiled, but the, you know, the work, what we do know is that the work is just beginning.
Mark Riddick (Analyst)
Right.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
We'll have a kickoff with lots of excitement and communication so that all our customers and everyone knows, you know, what we stand for and who we are. And then we've gotta get out and deliver on that brand promise every day. And certainly, that's... there's awareness around what we need to do and but great excitement around it also.
Mark Riddick (Analyst)
That's certainly understandable. I guess one other part for me is, I wonder if you could touch a little bit as far as technology IT spend, as far as needs and kind of where you wanna go. Maybe if you could give a bit of an update there as to what we may be looking at and some potential target areas as far as, you know, improving any data analytics contributions that might be helpful.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
I would say, I mean, the technology platform... Are you talking about restoration? I'm assuming you are, at First Onsite.
Mark Riddick (Analyst)
Correct, correct.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Yeah. Well, it really goes hand in hand with the brand. I mean, we're gonna come out and as First Onsite, one organization across North America, and we need our platform to behave and deliver on that, on that brand promise. So we have to behave like one company across North America, and we're working hard on implementing that platform today. And again, it'll take some time, a few years, but the path is clear, and we're on it. In terms of dollars, there's really no CapEx or operating expense that will materially move our numbers. It becomes a steady investment, really, you know, which we started last year and will continue for the next several.
Mark Riddick (Analyst)
Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions. I turn the call back to management for closing remarks.
Scott Patterson (CEO)
Thank you, everybody, for joining. Just, you know, once again, we're, we're very pleased with where we ended up and extremely grateful for our 24,000 FirstService employees that, you know, that are bringing it every day. So, it's really, it's really all related to them and what they've been able to accomplish in the last year. We look forward to connecting at the end of April, after Q1. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the fourth quarter and year-end investors conference call. Thank you for your participation, and have a nice day.