Montrose Environmental Group - Q2 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, welcome to the Montrose Environmental Group Inc. Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance during today's call, please signal for a conference specialist by pressing the Star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press Star, then two. Please note that today's event is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Rodny Nacier, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Rodny Nacier (Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator. Welcome to our second quarter 2023 earnings call. Joining me on the call are Vijay Manthripragada, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Allan Dicks, Chief Financial Officer. During our discussion today, we will be referring to our earnings presentation, which is available on the Investors section of our website. Our earnings release is also available on the website. Moving to slide 2, I would like to remind everyone that today's call will include forward-looking statements that are subject to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ in a material way due to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that should be considered in evaluating our operating performance and financial outlook.

We refer you to our recent SEC filings, including our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2022, which identify the principal risks and uncertainties that could affect any forward-looking statements as well as future performance. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. In addition, we will be discussing or providing certain non-GAAP financial measures today, including Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted Net Income, and Adjusted Net Income per Share. We provide these non-GAAP results for informational purposes, and they should not be considered in isolation from the most directly comparable GAAP measures. Please see the appendix to the earnings presentation or our earnings release for a discussion of why we believe these non-GAAP measures are useful to investors, certain limitations of using these measures, and a reconciliation thereof to their most directly comparable GAAP measure.

With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Vijay, beginning on slide 4.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Thank you, Rodny. Welcome to all of you joining us today. I will provide you with business highlights. Allan will provide you with financial highlights. We will then open it up to Q&A. I will speak generally to the second quarter earnings presentation shared on our website. Before we speak to Q2 specifically, I would like to reiterate that our business is best assessed on an annual basis, given demand for environmental services is typically not being driven by quarterly patterns. We manage our business on an annual basis. It is how we recommend you view our results as well. I would also like to thank our approximately 3,500 colleagues around the world to whom these stellar results belong. Without their efforts, we wouldn't be here today. To all of you listening, thank you.

With that context, 2023 is off to a very strong start, which is a core part of why we are taking up guidance for the full year. Allan will expand on that further in a few minutes. Our Q2 revenue was $159.1 million. Our Q2 Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was $21.2 million. The second quarter saw continued outperformance, which built on our first quarter strength and momentum. The strength in our business is due to several key factors and themes, which I'd like to highlight further. First, given our highly accelerated organic revenue growth over the past few years, we have focused 2023 on optimizing Adjusted EBITDA margins. Our long-term organic growth opportunities are just as attractive as they have always been. Our objectives and strategy have not changed.

During Q2 2023, operating segment Adjusted EBITDA and consolidated Adjusted EBITDA margins were 19.3% and 13.3%, respectively, which represent an approximately 2% increase in margins versus last year. This improvement in our Adjusted EBITDA margins is the result of strong revenue growth in most of our service lines. In addition, we have further refined our service portfolio and focused on technology advantages, which differentiates us in the marketplace and enhances margin opportunities as our businesses scale. The discontinuation of non-core or low-margin services and our investment in TreaTech in June to bolster our renewable energy offerings are examples of these efforts. The second theme is continued tailwinds, given new and anticipated environmental regulations and our clients' voluntary focus on environmental stewardship. These tailwinds continue to create attractive growth opportunities across our business.

The third theme is the increase in demand for the environmental response services provided by CTEH. CTEH remains elevated this year compared to their typical $75 million-$95 million per year revenue cadence due to several prominent environmental emergencies. The fourth theme is the continued benefit to our business from investments we made in prior years in organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Our investments into R&D and software have had a notable impact on our testing business so far this year. The recent acquisitions of Matrix, GreenPath, and Vandrensning, which was just announced, will continue to provide great opportunities for our teams and clients. Finally, our balance sheet remains strong, and we continue to convert well over 60% of adjusted EBITDA into operating cash flow, which is giving us ample flexibility to continue investing in our people and our business.

Our balance sheet remains hedged against rising interest rates, insulating us from the current uncertain rate environment. I will now discuss our second quarter performance by segment. Within our Assessment, Permitting and Response segment, excluding CTEH, we were pleased to see very strong organic revenue growth as well as positive contributions from our acquisitions. We remain bullish on the outlook for our environmental advisory services through 2023 and opportunities longer term, given client focus on environmental stewardship and compliance. CTEH, which is in the segment, performed above run rate levels during the quarter as they engaged in numerous high-profile emergency response projects. Our CTEH team has delivered exceptional service as always. Our margin increase in the segment was driven by, 1, organic growth in our advisory services, and 2, CTEH's shift to higher margin environmental response services.

Within our Measurement and Analysis segment, demand and organic revenue growth for our testing services remains very strong, particularly in areas such as greenhouse gas measurement and mitigation. Our expanding technical and commercial partnerships, such as the one with Thermo Fisher, announced in May, are increasing our market reach. Given the building regulatory pipeline, we remain upbeat about continued opportunities in this segment. Though quarterly segment margins are elevated and increased compared to prior years, annual margins in this segment are expected to remain in the high teens to 20-ish %, as we have previously discussed. Finally, within our Remediation and Reuse segment, revenue was flat due to the contribution of acquisitions and organic growth in our soil and subsurface remediation business, which offset the expected moderation in our ECT2 technology services, which encompass our water treatment and renewable energy services.

Within our renewable energy or biogas business, we have shifted away from higher revenue, lower margin opportunities for which there is notable demand. We are pivoting to a model that more resembles our approach to water treatment, anchored on intellectual property and therefore more differentiated and more scalable at higher margins. This is why we invested in TreaTech, as we have conviction in their team and we plan to help apply their proprietary technology to transform various client waste streams into valuable resources. This shift in approach will temporarily depress year-over-year revenue growth in the segment in coming quarters, but it will enable us to scale and capture the market opportunity in the medium to long term in more margin accretive ways. Within our PFAS water treatment business, the recent regulations have been highly favorable to our technology and approach.

However, the newly proposed contaminant levels, along with Hazard Index values, are in many cases so low that they are creating near-term uncertainty and challenges for our clients. As a result, our clients are assessing their options, and project timelines have shifted out slightly, reflecting the complexity of complying with these new standards. The acquisition of Matrix in June also depressed margins temporarily in the segment, but as we noted earlier, we will use Matrix as a case study of how Montrose increases margins and creates cross-selling opportunities for teams that join us. Allan and I look forward to sharing more details with you about the transition of Matrix into Montrose in the next few quarters. I'd now like to discuss a few recent regulatory updates and industry trends that support our long-term growth outlook.

The U.S. EPA continues to focus on PFAS, and in June, finalized a rule incorporating 9 PFAS chemicals into the Toxics Release Inventory program, which triggers additional annual reporting requirements and is likely to increase future demand for our consulting and testing services. With regards to methane emissions, the EPA and Bureau of Land Management have new rules targeting methane emissions such as flares, vents, and leaks. These rules are slated to become final in the third quarter, which should support incremental demand for our emissions measurement, monitoring, and assessment services. Regarding demand for our environmental consulting services, in July, the EPA launched a $20 billion campaign to advance clean technology and to cut emissions and promote environmental justice in underserved communities across the country. We anticipate these efforts will drive increased demand for our advisory and testing services.

These recent actions, as well as those we've highlighted over the past several quarters, reflect the growing environmental regulatory pipeline impacting our clients. While many of these proposals are in the early rulemaking phase, they further underpin the anticipated growth in demand for our services. Before I conclude, I would also like to take a moment to highlight the publication of our 2022 sustainability report, which we issued last week and can be found on our website. Many of you, our investors, have asked for more reporting and details on our activities in this realm, so we endeavor to progress our efforts. We look forward to engaging with you on this further. In summary, I would like to once again thank the Montrose team for their efforts on behalf of our clients. I remain incredibly grateful to all of you....

As a result of our strong first and second quarter performance in 2023, and our positive start in this third quarter, we are increasing our full year outlook and guidance for revenue and Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA. Looking ahead, we remain optimistic in our business and our continued ability to create shareholder value. Thank you for the opportunity to continue doing so. With that, I will hand it over to Allan. Thank you.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Thank you, Vijay. The strong organic growth across most of our service lines continued in the second quarter, reflecting strong economic and regulatory tailwinds, and the success we're seeing with our integrated environmental services business model. We continue to see the themes we've discussed since our IPO three years ago, play out as the need for environmental solutions has gained significant momentum around the world. Our growth drivers remain intact as we continue to harvest the benefits of our M&A and cross-selling strategies, which helped drive our strong revenue growth and margin expansion during the quarter. Moving to our revenue performance on Slide 8, we saw growth across most of our business lines drive revenues to record levels in the second quarter. Our second quarter revenues increased 13.7% to $159.1 million compared to the prior year quarter.

Year-to-date revenues were up 5.8% versus the prior year period to $290.5 million. The primary driver of revenue growth in both periods was organic growth in our Assessment, Permitting and Response, and Measurement and Analysis segments, an increase in CTEH revenues, and the positive contributions from acquisitions. This was partially offset by lower revenues in a specialty lab we are discontinuing, and the timing of projects in our Remediation and Reuse segment. Growth in our year-to-date revenue was also impacted by our planned exit from legacy O&M contracts in 2022. Excluding revenue from discontinued businesses, revenue was up 14.8% to $156.7 million in the second quarter, and was up 7.9% to $286.6 million year-to-date.

Looking at our Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA performance on Slide 9. Second quarter Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was a record $21.2 million, or 13.3% of revenue. This compares to Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA of $15.6 million or 11.2% of revenue in the prior year quarter. The year-over-year improvement was driven by higher revenues and higher business line margins, driven in part by the benefit of pricing as well as the favorable mix shifts in CTEH. Excluding revenue and EBITDA loss from the lab we are discontinuing, Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was 13.5% of revenue, compared to 12.1% in the prior year, representing a 140 basis point improvement.

Year to date, Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA was $37.8 million or 13% of revenue, compared to Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA of $31.3 million or 11.4% of revenue. Excluding revenue and Adjusted EBITDA from the lab we are discontinuing, Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA in the first six months of 2023 was $37.8 million, compared to $30.9 million in the prior year period, which represented 13.2% and 11.6% of revenues, respectively, a 160 basis point improvement. With that said, I'll reemphasize that Montrose's performance needs to be assessed annually, as quarterly results are not always indicative of annual performance. Turning to our business segments on Slides 10 and 11.

As we highlighted last quarter, we remain focused on balancing our absolute dollar targets for Adjusted EBITDA, operating cash flow generation, and growth, with an eye towards optimizing longer-term margins. With that in mind, we were pleased to see the impact of shifts to our service portfolio, which helped contribute to the 150 basis point increase in operating segments Adjusted EBITDA margin to 19.3%. In our Assessment, Permitting and Response segment, revenues increased 22.7% year-over-year to $61.4 million. The year-over-year increase was driven primarily by organic growth and, to a lesser extent, the positive contributions from acquisitions. CTEH is entirely in this segment, so that business's increase in environmental response revenues are fully captured here.

APNR segment Adjusted EBITDA increased 28% year-over-year to $13.8 million, or 22.5% of revenue, up from 21.6% in the prior year quarter, reflecting the benefits of organic growth, favorable CTEH revenue mix, and higher aggregate margins across our other businesses within the segment. In our Measurement and Analysis segment, revenue increased 18.5% to $50.1 million, primarily attributable to strong organic growth, as well as the benefits from acquisitions completed subsequent to the end of the prior year quarter. M&A segment Adjusted EBITDA increased 53.1% to $10.8 million, or 21.6% of revenue, up from 16.7% in the prior year quarter. reflecting strong demand for our testing services and the benefits from our pricing actions.

In our Remediation and Reuse segment, revenues were flat year-over-year at $47.6 million, with the benefit of the Matrix acquisition in June, fully offsetting the anticipated decline in our ECT2 water and biogas business, as well as the exiting of discontinued O&M contracts in the prior year quarter. The decrease in R&R segment Adjusted EBITDA as a % of revenue was a result of the shift in revenue mix, including the dilutive impact of Matrix. Our margin optimization efforts are on track at Matrix, which is set to improve from the mid-single digits to low to mid-teens Adjusted EBITDA margins by the end of 2024. Moving to our capital structure on Slide 12. Year-to-date, cash flow from operating activities was $24.5 million, which improved compared to cash used in operating activities of $2.9 million in the prior year period.

Cash flow from operations includes the payments of acquisition-related contingent consideration of $0.6 million in the current year and $19.5 million in the prior year. Excluding these acquisition-related payments, cash from operating activities was $25.1 million in the first six months of 2023, compared to cash from operating activities of $16.6 million in the first six months of 2022, an increase of $8.5 million. This increase was driven primarily by a lower working capital build and higher earnings before non-cash items compared to the prior year period. These strong operational cash flows reflect our ongoing focus on balancing the generation of cash with investments in technology, R&D, and corporate infrastructure to ensure continued scalability.

Our leverage ratio as of June 30, 2023, which includes the impact of acquisition-related contingent earn-out obligations payable in cash, was at a healthy 1.9 times. During the quarter, we entered into a second interest rate swap on an additional $70 million of borrowing. At quarter end, we had total debt before debt issuance costs of $170.6 million and $148.3 million of liquidity, including $23.3 million of cash and $125 million of availability on our revolving credit facility.

At our current leverage ratio and inclusive of our fixed rate on $170 million of debt under our interest rate swaps, our weighted average interest rate under our credit facility was 4.2% as of June 30, 2023, with no exposure to rising interest rates at current borrowing levels. Our Series A-2 preferred stock has no maturity date. We have the option, but not an obligation, to redeem the preferred shares at any time for cash. The prepayment penalty expired in April of this this year. We view this preferred equity instrument as favorable to the value creation potential in the business, given its flexible dynamics and the fixed nature of the dividend in a rising interest rate environment.

If you include the $182 million balance of the Series A-2 equity in our market cap, our total equity capitalization stands at approximately $1.3 billion. Moving to our improved full year outlook on Slide 14. Based on our strong performance in the first half of 2023, we are raising our full year growth outlook for revenue to be in the range of $590 million-$640 million, up from previously issued guidance range of $550 million-$600 million. We are raising our full year outlook for Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $75 million-$81 million, up from the previously issued guidance range of $70 million-$76 million. Our higher revenue and Consolidated Adjusted EBITDA outlook for the full year represents double-digit growth and margin expansion over the prior year.

In addition, looking at the remainder of the year, we expect revenues and Adjusted EBITDA to be stronger in the third quarter compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. We remain optimistic about the momentum in our business and our ability to sustainably create shareholder value, given the resiliency of our business model and the expanding need for our differentiated environmental solutions. Thank you all for joining us today and for your continued interest in Montrose. A big thank you to our team members for all their hard work in driving our solid results. We look forward to the opportunities we see ahead and updating you on our progress next quarter. Operator, we are ready to open the lines to questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using your speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press Star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Today's first question comes from Jim Ricchiuti with Needham & Company. Please proceed.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Good morning. Yes, good morning. I was hoping to get a better sense of the expected contribution from, from Matrix and the legacy Montrose, if you will, just as it relates to the changes in your full year guidance.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Yeah, Matrix, Hey, Jim, this is Allan.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Allan.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Matrix runs at $75 million-$80 million of revenue on an annual basis, and about $4.5 million of EBITDA. That tends to be back-end weighted, just in terms of the seasonality of that business. A little more than half of that 4.5 is baked into the updated guidance. The same for-

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

You may, you may have given it. Did the, did you provide any contribution number for, for Matrix and, you know, the, the portion, the portion of the quarter it was in? I think it was 1 month, right?

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, 1 month. It's about $8 million-$9 million of revenue-

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Okay

Allan Dicks (CFO)

running at 4-5% margins, in the month of June.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Got it. Just a follow-up question, just as it relates to the timing issues around some of the projects and the Remediation and Reuse segment, I'm, I'm wondering if you could elaborate on that a little bit.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Yeah, Jim, this is Vijay. We have, we're primarily referring to the ECT2 business, when we talk about that, which is a combination of our water and biogas business. So, you have to look at that more on an annual basis because quarter in, quarter out, some of these projects would either roll on or roll off, which may cause, some slight variance in what the quarterly comparisons look like.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Got it. You know, as you think about the ECT2 business, looking out over the balance of the year, you know, how, how are you feeling about that? I also wanted to just to follow up, as it relates to ECT2, is just on the acquisition you announced yesterday in, in Denmark. Even as I went through the Google translation function, I'm sure the combined benefits of this business in ECT2 are maybe more apparent than the, the cursory look that I had on their website. I wonder if you could just give us a sense as to what you're seeing in that part of the business, Vijay.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Sure. Yeah. Let me take the first question, the first part of the question, which is, when we provided guidance at the beginning of the year, Jim, we talked about that business being flat this year, right? The combination of our water and our biogas business. We spoke over the last couple of quarters about our desire to pivot the biogas part, in particular, towards more of a technology-anchored, long-term solution. We're kind of doing exactly that. That business will be flat, and if, if we fully pivot to the technology solutions, the biogas part, in particular, will be down year on year. The long-term outlook for us is as bullish as ever, Jim. And that's just part of our ongoing margin optimization efforts.

As it relates to Vandrensning, which we just announced, it's a very small team, slightly outside of Copenhagen, and they're just a very complementary group to our ongoing efforts already on the ground in Scandinavia. We're really excited about not only what they're doing with PFAS today, but how they can continue to grow with our team, utilizing the technology that we have that we've talked about with you before.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Got it. I'll jump back on the queue. Thanks.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Thanks, Jim.

Operator (participant)

Our next question comes from Tim Mulrooney with William Blair. Please proceed.

Sam Kusswurm (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Hey, this is Sam Kusswurm up for Tim Mulrooney. Thanks for taking our questions here, guys. I guess to start, I know you've shared you expect to bring Matrix margins up to a low to mid-teens range by 2024. Now that you've had some time to work with the acquisition more, would you mind sharing what changes specifically you're trying to make that drive that margin expansion?

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Sure. Yeah. Hey, Sam, it's Allan. The Matrix business is very similar to many businesses we have in the U.S. and to a lesser extent, a smaller business that we run in Canada. The margin profile really should be similar to those businesses, and they tend to run in the mid-teens. Aligning pricing, we've done a pretty deep dive on pricing, aligning KPIs, and then the benefit of cross-selling and cross-utilization should enable us to improve some of those Key Performance Indicators for them. If you combine all of that, you get their margins up to where we run all of our other businesses.

That obviously early days, but we've been incredibly impressed by the caliber of the Matrix team, and the innovation activities are on track and going well.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Sam, I would just add, Allan's exactly right. I would add that, you know, we've historically talked about how this is a revenue synergy story, and not a cost story. What's particularly compelling about the Matrix narrative is that the management team there is not only exceptional, but 100% aligned with these efforts. This is a very collaborative effort, and we're really excited to share more of this with you, and we expect to do so when we report Q3 earnings.

Sam Kusswurm (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Gotcha. Appreciate that. Maybe pivoting to the biogas. Just in relation to the biogas business, I was wondering if you or, or your clients even had any thoughts on the EPA's recent finalization of the Renewable Fuel Standard and what that might mean for your business going forward through the year and, and, maybe even beyond?

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Yeah, they, that has a broader effect on the market right now, Sam, our business today is primarily the conversion of ag waste to, the negative CI RNG. With the investment in TreaTech, we are pretty excited about the fact that that gives us access to many more waste streams, including industrial waste streams. So we just see broader, you're exactly right, we see broader kind of tailwinds in the market, and a broad-based demand cycle here, which is why we've been in it, and we've been talking about it. We're pretty bullish on what that looks like for us over the next couple of years.

Sam Kusswurm (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Gotcha. I'll leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Thanks, Sam.

Operator (participant)

Today's next question comes from Andrew Obin with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

Yes, good morning. Can you hear me?

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Hey, Andrew. Yep.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

Hey, how are you? Just switching to PFAS. I think recently there's been these settlement talks in the news, DuPont, Chemours, and of course, the big one, 3M, with water authorities, right? I think the structure of the settlements, that they're upfront loaded, in terms of state water authorities actually want to do remediation sooner rather than later. Are you having any conversations with the water authorities about these sort of cleanup projects and any sense of the timeline? I appreciate this is not sort of next quarter, but, you know, we're finally starting to see large amount of money coming into the system, notwithstanding, you know, the issues you sort of highlighted about the fact that nobody can detect PFAS. That aside, there are, you know, actual money for remediation coming in.

Can you just give us some color how you expect this to play out over the next two, three years? Thank you.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Yeah, we. A couple of themes that I think are worth highlighting, Andrew. We are close to many of the folks you talked about. We are engaged more broadly in treatment efforts. The settlements primarily impact municipal drinking water matrices, and that's just not an area we've historically been focused in. No, the short answer is that's not a key focus for us, Andrew, and hasn't been and likely won't be. Where our technology will really play well is when there's high concentrations of PFAS and concerns around short-chain or long-chain molecules, and a desire to kind of focus on a lower footprint and impact as part of the treatment process. The short answer is that's not a key focus.

Hasn't been and is not a key focus for us. we do-

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

Got you.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Think there's gonna be a sustained push. You know, one of the interesting themes, that Allan, Todd, and I, have been talking about is, the, the regulations that have come out are, have very much been in favor of kind of our broader technology portfolio. How our clients, react to the uncertainty on the regulations and the ability to measure it, is gonna be, you know, something we watch closely. Short answer is no. The, the settlements don't really swing our outlook all that much this year or next.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

Got you. No, thank you. Just to follow up for Remediation Reuse, I think just looking at our model, you know, just implies material acceleration into the second half. You know, just sort of I, I think you've touched on it, but just to confirm, you, you, you have visibility obviously on the projects to sort of support this view. A, is that the right way of thinking about it? B, you know, how is the pipeline near term?

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Yeah. Hey, Andrew, it's, it's Allan. Yes, we-

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

How are you?

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Good, thanks. We do expect the back half of the year for that segment to be up over the front half. It's Matrix is driving, a pretty substantial part of that. As Vijay has said, our biogas business with the Pivot, will likely be down, year over year. Then the ECT2 business, the water business, is likely to be, have a similar back half to the front half of the year.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

Okay.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

So no-

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

Yeah.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Yeah, that, that how the building block.

Andrew Obin (Managing Director)

Yeah, I'll take, I'll take it offline. Thanks so much.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Thanks, Andrew.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Stephanie Yee with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed.

Stephanie Yee (Lead Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Hey, Stephanie.

Stephanie Yee (Lead Equity Research Analyst)

I wanted to ask about the comment around some of the PFAS projects being pushed out by the clients. I think maybe I missed it last quarter, but I thought some of the project timing shifts was due to the tremendous growth that you guys saw in the prior year, giving the team time to kind of absorb some of those projects. I was just wondering if kind of the project timelines that we're hearing about this quarter, it was something that developed in the quarter, or was it just something that was ongoing that you didn't necessarily call out in the prior quarter?

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Hey, Stephanie, this is Vijay. Why don't I take the, take that one? You're exactly right. We grew, you know, call it over 100% organically, in 2022. When we talked about, at the end of last year and the early part of this year, even as part of the, the guidance discussions, what this year would look like, we wanted to make sure that that team got their legs under them, just given the incredible growth last year and the fact that, that they, you know, the, the team size almost tripled and the project scale and scope and geographies expanded materially. Our desire was really not only for team reasons, but also for, you know, quality and systems, control reasons. That is absolutely still true.

What we were alluding to, regarding the regulations is that as the certainty around those, continues to expand, which has happened, right, not only in Q1 but also in Q2, and there's more clarity on how the EPA is going to regulate it. Being able to measure at 4 parts per trillion, or lower or getting down to, all the short-chain and long-chain compounds, the, the analytics capability there, is a little stretched. What our clients are talking to us about is, you know, even with these compliance standards, how do I know I'm there? How is this going to get regulated? How do I think about these solutions going in?

A result of that, even though our demand cycle is higher, the execution and start of these projects is slower, if that makes any sense.

Stephanie Yee (Lead Equity Research Analyst)

Okay.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

It's largely around, it's largely around trying to react to not only what the standards are, which absolutely favors us, but now a more practical question of, like, how do I get there, and how do I even measure it and know that I'm there?

Stephanie Yee (Lead Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you. Just on the acquisition that, you announced in Denmark, does that kind of double the size of ECT2's presence in Europe? Does it kind of give you a platform for further in Europe?

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Yeah, our European footprint is still very small. We're talking about, you know, kind of a 12 people or so, working on very select projects. You know, we've been very cautious, Stephanie, as you know, expanding into the European geography, more for operational reasons, really. There's a lot of demand there, clearly, and they're very forward-leaning on regulations, particularly PFAS regulations. The short answer is yes, it does increase the size of that team, our project, reach, and our ability to continue expanding there. Absolutely.

Stephanie Yee (Lead Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Thanks, Stephanie.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Wade Suki with Capital One. Please proceed.

Wade Suki (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, everyone.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Hey, Wade.

Wade Suki (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

I've been called worse. Just hate to dwell on Matrix too, too much, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about revenue, top-line synergies. I gather there may be parts of the business, and I might, I might be misunderstood on this, but maybe parts of the business that are, that are more or less attractive. Just trying to think about that sort of in the context of growth looking out to 2024.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Yes. I'll talk conceptually about the, the, the revenue side, and then Allan can certainly jump in on kind of, what the outlook looks like. This team is an exceptional team of scientists and engineers, Wade, a lot like, what we have on the remediation and consulting side here in the United States. So as we look at... I'll give you a couple of, you know, simple examples. As we look at our energy and utility companies on the west and some of the expertise that we need as we continue to meet demand cycles in the United States, or we look at some of the energy companies and the work we're doing, both stateside and in Canada, these teams are very complementary to each other, right?

In terms of the depth of expertise, and understanding as to how the, the hydrogeology works or how the, the environmental regulations work. When we talk about revenue synergies, we're talking about cross-utilizing staff for our clients in projects that kind of switch between both the Canadian and the U.S. marketplace. Does that make sense?

Wade Suki (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Yes, absolutely. That's great.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Okay. They also via-- When you say parts of the business that we find attractive, they are... We find all of the business attractive. I mean, they are not only, you know, remediation experts, but they also have a depth of expertise, and a growing portfolio, with things like greenhouse gas, assessment and mitigation, with water and water resource management. We know, we talked 2 quarters ago about acquisitions we had made, small but very strategic ones, in Northern California, focused on very similar issues. That's an, another example of where there's going to be complementarity between the 2 teams.

We're, we're really bullish for a host of reasons, and we continue to see that as a platform for us to expand, both in the Canadian and US markets. Far as outlook for next year, our focus right now, Wade, is really more on getting their margins to where the rest of our business is. The revenue synergy is already in flight. The teams are already working really well together, and we expect that to continue.

Wade Suki (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, perfect. Thank you. just, just switching gears a little bit here. You put, you've put a couple of teasers out here in the press release and presentation on software. I'm wondering if you could expand a little bit more on what you're doing on that front? That would be fantastic.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Yeah, it's a, it's a fair question. We haven't talked about it as much. We, you know, With the acquisition of Sensible IOT, we began more formally talking about the aggregation of data and the presentation of environmental data for our clients across environmental media, starting with air, Wade. What we're seeing is that on the real-time measurement of greenhouse gases and other contaminants like ethylene oxide, that capability is really playing to our advantage. What I mean by that is, you know, we are one of the largest air testing firms in the world, and we're able to put together our source leak-

... fence line ambient capabilities, and we're able to present that information in real time to our clients and as needed, to communities that the clients are around. That's a pretty substantive technological advantage, and it's manifesting itself in our numbers. The reason we talk about it more now is because it's starting to show up in a more meaningful way, and it's moving the dial on our Measurement and Analysis segment. Does that make sense?

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Absolutely. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Congrats, guys.

Vijay Manthripragada (President and CEO)

Thanks, Wade. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

As a reminder, if you do have a question, please press Star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. The next question is a follow-up from Jim Ricchiuti with Needham and Company. Please proceed.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Hey, Jim.

Operator (participant)

Hello, sir. Your line is live.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

sorry about that. Allan, I just wanted to ask about the step-up in SG&A in the quarter. How much of that is, you know, just possibly due to the, the increase in M&A activity or just in, maybe in broad strokes, how we might be thinking about SG&A going forward?

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Yeah, Jim, there's a, there's a pretty robust breakdown in the the Q that'll be filed later today. At a high level, it's driven by G&A from acquisitions. It's driven by. There was a change that we've made in the classification of certain of our back office folks that used to be very decentralized, and as we've centralized those functions, they're acting more like G&A than as an operational cost of sale. So there is a switch this year versus how it was classified in the prior year. Again, that-- those numbers are broken out. Then, yes, acquisition costs are higher than, than last year, just given the higher activity this year.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Then on a go-forward basis, is there anything we should keep in mind about your SG&A, just with the scaling of the business?

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Yeah, again, the way we look at it, Jim, is it's separating out kind of the corporate SG&A. Again, our commitment has been to keep that at or below 6%, and, and for the full year this year, we do expect it to be lower than 6% and declining, as we've said, in the future years. The SG&A that resides within operations, that is slightly more fixed, right? Again, given, given the nature of, you know, fixed rentals, and the, the back office support folks that still reside in operations, those, they've really just got inflationary increases that drive those. It's not, not so much driven by an increase in revenue.

You should see that also be a more modest increase year-over-year, going forward.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Final question from me, and I apologize if you gave this. I've got a couple of calls going on, but just wondering about if you gave any color on the nature and the contribution of the emergency response work that contributed to the performance of CTEH in the quarter. I, I, I guess the other thing to keep in mind here is the profile, the margin profile of this business, the, the work that they're doing is better margin, certainly than we've seen in the recent past. Is that correct?

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Yeah, that's right. That's right, Jim. The environmental response work is higher margin than last year, right? Particularly in the first half, when we had COVID. That was a more prominent service stream. I mean, these numbers are in the queue, Jim, but, you know, if you think about kind of their typical cadence at an 85 midpoint of kind of low twenty-ish million dollars of revenue a quarter, they were closer to $38 million for the quarter, right? They're substantially elevated, and those margins are much more similar to the normalized 25% margin levels that we would expect for them. We do, do expect them to return back to that normal cadence of kind of 20 to 25 a quarter in the back half of the year, Jim.

Jim Ricchiuti (Analyst)

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Thanks, Jim.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Vijay Manthripragada for any closing remarks.

Allan Dicks (CFO)

Thank you. Thank you all for the time and for the interest in Montrose, and we're really excited about the rest of the year, and we're looking forward to our next conversation with you. Thank you again.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.