Iron Mountain Inc (IRM) — Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Thanks, Rocco. Good morning and welcome to our fourth quarter 2023 earnings conference call. On today's call, we will refer to materials available on our Investor Relations website. We are joined here today by Bill Meaney, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Barry Hytinen, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After prepared remarks, we'll open up the lines for Q&A. Today's earnings materials contain forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our expectations. All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please refer to today's earnings materials, the Safe Harbor Language on Slide 2, and our annual report on Form 10-K for a discussion of the major risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ from those in our forward-looking statements. In addition, we use several non-GAAP measures when presenting our financial results. We have included the reconciliations to these measures in our supplemental financial information. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Bill.

Thank you, Gillian. And thank you all for joining us today. We are pleased to report another outstanding year for Iron Mountain. We achieved record revenue and adjusted EBITDA in both the fourth quarter and the full year. Our record results are a testament to the devotion and hard work of our team and our resilient and growing business model. In the fourth quarter we achieved revenue of $1.42 billion, yielding 8.7% total organic revenue growth and record adjusted EBITDA of $525 million, up 11%. For the full year we delivered record results across the board: revenue of $5.5 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $2 billion, and AFFO of $1.2 billion. I'll now discuss some ways in which we have been working with our customers, which has led to this growth. Let's begin with our records management business. A win of note was with one of the largest health systems in the US awarding Iron Mountain a contract to significantly enhance its management of records across 140 hospitals and 2,600 care sites. Building on a strong long-term relationship with the customer, we are now implementing a rigorous compliance program that will reduce the cost and meet records retention requirements, leading to a more efficient service. This win is particularly representative of our focus on cross-selling through Matterhorn as this customer is utilizing a variety of our products and services across our business lines, including digital services along with traditional records management and shredding. Another win showing Iron Mountain's cross-selling power occurred with a Hungarian industrial gas supplier. We are helping this customer to create space at its facilities by storing and then digitizing its records. We are also exploring opportunities to deploy our digital mailroom solution as our partnerships develop, thereby expanding this relationship across our product suite. The last win to highlight in our records management business is a new contract with the Swiss Division of a British multinational asset management company to relocate its physical records to one site and digitize them over time. In addition to freeing up physical space, our solution will ensure our customers' records are stored safely and compliantly, and enables more efficient access to the digitized information. Moving now to some wins in our digital solutions business, we won a contract from a large aerospace customer to deploy our InSight platform to manage and translate invoices from 22 languages into English. The customer chose our solution ahead of competing proposals, thanks to InSight's embedded AI engine, which gives it the ability to not only store, but to automatically classify a range of documents in a highly secure manner. Another win this quarter was with a Canadian government agency. This agency, which manages workplace compensation claims, has been a customer of our records management services for more than 15 years. Our successful delivery of digital mailroom and imaging on-demand solutions during the COVID pandemic has led to a new Master Services Agreement for digitizing services worth more than $10 million over the contract length. We will preserve and scan around 47,000 rolls of microfilm to produce 240 million images on our InSight platform, helping the agency to process compensation claims faster than ever and delivering a solid recurring revenue stream to drive our growth. In Brazil, a major television network that has been a records management customer for almost 25 years has asked us to manage the indexing and digitization of 50,000 boxes of records stored at its locations in Iron Mountain's facilities in the country. Our InSight platform is at the heart of our solution, enabling the customer to manage requests to digitize from all parts of the business in one place effectively and efficiently. Finally, the Hong Kong division of a major multinational bank has chosen Iron Mountain to be its partner in a major transformation of its finance operations. This customer manages a large volume of finance documents and has outsourced this work to Iron Mountain with a goal of streamlining the process of checking and scanning these files. We see the potential to scale the solution for the bank in other locations including Singapore, India, the US, United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates. Now let's turn to our data center business. We continue to be pleased with the growth trajectory of our data center business, which has only accelerated with the rapid adoption of AI-enabled services. We are pleased to have signed 124 megawatts well ahead of our initial plan for the year. We continue to see tremendous opportunity in serving both hyperscale and co-location customers and significant growth potential for our footprint. An example in the quarter, we signed a seven-year agreement to provide capacity at our New Jersey data center for an automated trading technology company that is expanding in the US. Our reputation for compliance and sustainability were key to winning this business and it was important for our customer to receive 100% traceable and verifiable energy and carbon records in support of its sustainability goals. Also in the U.S., we were pleased to win a data center deal with a secure cloud storage company that is growing rapidly across North America. Our reliability and close relationships since first doing business with this customer a year ago helped to seal this new deal as did the strategic location of our facility in Northern Virginia. Moving to India, we continue to see strong demand for capacity. We closed a data center contract with a major bank in the country in the fourth quarter. This customer chose our Mumbai facility specifically and Iron Mountain more broadly for our ability to provide a secure data center for its large domestic branch platform close to its headquarters. Turning to our Asset Lifecycle Management business, or ALM, we secured a significant contract with a global financial services company. Our ability to integrate our secure ALM services with the customer’s existing business management platform was critical and has enabled them to streamline how they order, complete, and report on their IT asset disposition activities. Our solution was an excellent demonstration of how deeply we understand the needs of our customers, especially in the highly regulated world of financial services. Staying with our ALM business, in the quarter we won a contract with a U.S. vehicle insurance company that has been an existing customer of ours for many years. Having shifted its employees to a remote working model, our customer needed to partner with the capacity to retrieve over 37,000 devices from more than 240 locations nationwide, then process, refurbish, and return them for distribution. Our solution provides our customer with better visibility of its IT assets and enables them to manage this activity more efficiently. I should also highlight the synergy between our ALM and data center business when it comes to data center renewal and decommissioning. We are now in a position to not only provide co-location and cloud migration services, but we can also securely and responsibly dispose of obsolete IT equipment. An example of such an opportunity in this quarter was a major win with one of the world's leading producers of business process management software. We managed the secure decommissioning of over 40 data centers globally, sanitized the IT assets and remarketed them to deliver a significant return in value. Also in the quarter, we were awarded a contract by one of the oldest financial institutions in the US for a similar data center decommissioning project. Both wins demonstrate that Iron Mountain is uniquely positioned to minimize risk and maximize savings as a single source partner for these activities. Finally, let me take a moment to highlight our acquisition of Regency Technologies. Regency's team makes a great addition to the leadership of our rapidly growing ALM business and gives us additional capabilities to serve this fast-growing sector at the heart of the circular economy. Furthermore, this acquisition together with the momentum we have been building in ALM through the strengthening of component pricing and cross-selling sets us up well for continued success. To conclude, I would like to thank our team for their resilience, hard work and dedication as we continue our Matterhorn climb and continue to serve over 225,000 customers. We are thrilled to progress ahead of expectations and it is due to the commitment of our Mountaineers. As we look to 2024 and beyond, the momentum we have built will continue to drive the opportunities ahead, with another year of double-digit top-line growth expected. Barry will speak in detail about our financial guidance for the year ahead. With that, I'll turn the call over to Barry.

Thanks, Bill. And thank you all for joining us today to discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2023 results and our outlook for 2024. Turning to our financials, in the fourth quarter our team continued the trend of delivering record performance on all of our key financial metrics. On a reported basis, revenue of $1.42 billion grew 11% year-on-year or 10% on a constant currency basis, reflecting a new quarterly record. On an organic basis, total organic revenue grew 8.7%. A key highlight in the quarter is our organic storage revenue, which grew 10.4% as a result of strong performance in both our records management and our data center businesses. Total service revenue increased 8% to $549 million. This was driven by Global RIM at 10% on a reported basis and 9% on an organic basis. Project Matterhorn's focus on selling our entire range of products and services has driven these strong results and are a testament to our commercial team's efforts. Adjusted EBITDA was $525 million, a new record, up 11% on a reported basis and 10% year-on-year on a constant currency basis. Adjusted EBITDA margin was better than we projected at 37% and improved 100 basis points sequentially, driven by strong mix and cost productivity across all of our businesses. As we've stated in our earnings press release, effective in the fourth quarter of 2023, our AFFO definition has been updated to exclude amortization of capitalized commissions. In light of the growth of our data center business, we conducted a benchmarking analysis of other companies in the industry and as such, have aligned our AFFO reporting accordingly, which provides investors better insight into the funds available to support the growth of our business. AFFO was $328 million or $1.11 on a per share basis, up $29 million and $0.09 respectively from the fourth quarter of last year. To allow for comparison to our guidance and consensus, we are reporting our prior methodology as well. On our previous calculation, AFFO was $317 million or $1.07 on a per share basis. This was $7 million better than our AFFO guidance and $0.02 better than our guidance on a per share basis. Now, let me briefly summarize the full year. Revenue of $5.5 billion increased 7% on a reported basis and 8% on a constant currency basis. Adjusted EBITDA increased 7% year-on-year to $1.96 billion, an increase of $135 million. AFFO increased over 5% to $1.2 billion or $4.12 on a per share basis. On our previous calculation, AFFO was $1.168 billion or $3.97 on a per share basis. And now turning to segment performance for the quarter. Our global RIM business delivered revenue of $1.19 billion, an increase of $108 million from last year or 10% on a reported basis. On an organic constant currency basis, revenue increased 8.5%. Global RIM adjusted EBITDA was $534 million, an increase of $48 million year-on-year. Global RIM adjusted EBITDA margin was 44.7%, up 100 basis points sequentially, driven by strong services mix and productivity. Our data center business continues to grow and deliver strong performance. From a total revenue perspective, we delivered 32% year-on-year growth on a reported basis and 30% year-on-year growth on a constant currency basis. Our data center storage revenue grew 34% year-on-year or 32% on a constant currency basis, driven by new development coming online. Data center EBITDA was up approximately $10 million year-on-year and EBITDA margin was up 80 basis points sequentially. Moreover, pricing trends have continued to be strong and we have seen returns expanding 100 basis points to 150 basis points in advance of higher interest rates. Turning to new and expansion leasing, we completed 4 megawatts in the Q4. For the full year, we leased 124 megawatts, exceeding the projection we provided on our last call. Nearly 100% of those leases resulted from cross-selling, which you know is a key initiative in our Project Matterhorn plan. Our pipeline is at record levels. We are expanding our relationships with key hyperscale clients and our team is executing well. So we are pleased to project new and expansion leasing of 100 megawatts for 2024. Incidentally, that represents a 25% increase from our initial 2023 projection at this time last year. Turning to our Asset Lifecycle Management business. In the fourth quarter, we delivered improved performance for both revenue and EBITDA, achieving the expectations we set on our last call. Our team drove strong operating productivity and we saw component pricing beginning to trend up modestly on a sequential basis. Similar to data center, cross-selling activity has been particularly strong in our ALM business with nearly all deals coming in as a result of it. We completed our acquisition of Regency Technologies early in January. This acquisition strengthens our ability to serve an expanding ALM customer base and broadens our capability in the category, especially in the enterprise segment. Regency brings robust remarketing and recycling capabilities to better serve our customers and help them achieve their environmental and data security goals. We have long admired the leadership at Regency and are thrilled to welcome their entire organization to our team. Turning to capital, for the full year 2023, we invested $1.2 billion of growth and $140 million of recurring, consistent with the expectation we shared on our last call. For 2024, we are planning for capital expenditure to be approximately $1.35 billion of growth and approaching $150 million of recurring. Given our strong pre-lease activity, the vast majority of our growth capital will be dedicated to data center development. Turning to the balance sheet, with strong adjusted EBITDA performance, we ended the quarter with net lease-adjusted leverage of 5.1 times and our leverage remains at its lowest level in a decade. For 2024, we expect to exit the year at similar levels to year-end 2023. Our Board of Directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.65 per share to be paid in early April. On a trailing four-quarter basis, our payout ratio is now 62%, in line with our long-term target range of low to mid-60s percent. Now, let me provide an update on our progress as to the Project Matterhorn growth objectives we shared at our Investor Day in September of 2022. You will recall that we introduced tighter targets for growth between the period of 2021 through 2026 of approximately 10% for revenue, approximately 10% for adjusted EBITDA and approximately 8% for AFFO. Two years into our Matterhorn journey, we are well on track, even ahead of those commitments, having achieved 13% annual revenue growth from 2021 to the end of 2023 on a constant currency basis. We have achieved 11% annual adjusted EBITDA growth and in excess of 10% annual AFFO growth. The dollar has been particularly strong over this period and despite this, we have been delivering on our commitments on a reported basis as well. Now let me share our projections for the full year 2024. We expect total revenue to be within the range of $6 billion to $6.15 billion, which represents year-on-year growth of 11% at the midpoint. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be within the range of $2.175 billion to $2.225 billion, which represents year-on-year growth of 12% at the midpoint. We expect AFFO to be within the range of $1.3 billion to $1.335 billion, which represents year-on-year growth of 9% at the midpoint. And we expect AFFO per share for the full year to be $4.39 to $4.51 and this represents year-on-year growth of 8% at the midpoint. In terms of foreign exchange, we are using a forecast based on those of several major financial institutions. Compared to 2023, this results in a full year FX headwind of $25 million to revenue and approximately $10 million to EBITDA and AFFO. Turning to the first quarter, we expect revenue of approximately $1.45 billion, adjusted EBITDA in excess of $510 million and AFFO of approximately $310 million and AFFO per share of approximately $1.05. To conclude, we are pleased to have delivered a strong year in 2023. I am confident that we will build on our momentum and continue to drive strong growth in 2024. We are well on track to achieve our Project Matterhorn goals. I'd like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to our entire team for delivering a successful year and their continued dedication to serving our clients. And with that, operator, will you please open the line for Q&A?

Hi, thanks. Good morning. In the ALM business, you mentioned component prices trended up quarter-over-quarter. Can you elaborate on how ALM volumes and component prices performed on a year-over-year basis in the quarter? And what assumptions for component prices you're factoring into your 2024 guidance?

Good morning, George. Thanks for the question. So let me kind of answer at a higher level on the strategic outlook where we see the trends going and then Barry can provide more specifics in terms of the numbers. Regarding your macro point about the trends on the component prices, it aligns with the analyst reports currently, and you can see that reflected in the Q4 results building into Q1. We expect the component prices to continue to strengthen throughout the year. The trends observed in Q4 are expected to carry forward into Q1, benefiting from the overall market dynamics in the semiconductor and memory sectors. In terms of volumes, we have continued to report increases throughout the year, although that translated into revenue was muted due to the low component prices we dealt with earlier in the year. However, we expect the trends we saw in Q4 to continue into Q1, aligning with the broader OEM market for memory, disks, CPUs, and GPUs. Barry?

Yes. Hey, George. Good morning. Thank you for that question. I'll give you a little bit more detail on how we're thinking about ALM in total. In 2023, in light of those trends that Bill mentioned, we delivered $177 million revenue from ALM. For our guidance at the midpoint, we're assuming about $355 million of total revenue for ALM. Note that Regency brings in $115 million right there, meaning it's sort of $240 million against the $177 million. Looking at Q4 specifically, the run rate exceeded $200 million, actually around $205 million to $206 million, assuming no improvement from all the enterprise bookings we've been doing over the last half, as Bill referenced, and with pricing remaining steady. Last year we faced challenges with declining component pricing, but we have assumed a modest improvement in component pricing as we progress into the year. We've been conservative in our approach, assuming a slow ramp compared to many industry prognostications. With our organic ALM business, we are looking at an incremental increase of about $35 million, and we feel very good about our positioning. Thank you.

Hi. Thank you very much. Could you talk a little bit about the pricing environment and how that contributed to revenue growth in the quarter? How much you're expecting pricing will contribute to guidance in 2024? We're seeing an uptake in some of the RIM organic revenue growth and I was wondering how much of that might be directly pricing versus anything else?

Hi, Shlomo, this is Barry. Thank you for that question. In our results, as you noted, our global RIM storage rental revenue was up over 8% in the quarter on an organic basis, while for the full year, it was about 8.5%. We observed strong storage rental revenue growth in 2023 due to positive volume trends, good mix, and effective revenue management. Our revenue management philosophy focuses on providing value. Our customers benefit from value-added services, such as rapid digitization on demand, Smart Sort, and various other value-added services. Additionally, service revenue saw a notable increase in Q4 within our Global RIM segment. Our expectation for the new year is approximately 6% growth for Global RIM at the midpoint, considering factors such as revenue management actions and enhanced service offerings. We feel quite optimistic about achieving the midpoint target. Thank you.

Hey, good morning. Maybe one related to that previous question is, I know you don't give a formal guide, but what are you expecting in terms of overall RIM volumes for Q1 and the remainder of this year? And if I could just ask one on data center pricing and leasing. How much of that 100 megawatt guide is already in the pipeline? I believe cash mark to market was 5% for 2023. How do you see that playing out this year? Thank you.

So Nate, I'll take the pipeline question on the data center and then Barry can tackle yours on pricing. The pipeline remains strong going into the year, especially with hyperscale clients, which you are very familiar with. We have a robust pipeline that supports our targets. Our previous targets indicated growth north of 20%, which is reflecting our continued business expansion. Big contracts may further accelerate our progress against these targets. We are confident about maintaining this growth trajectory on a rapidly expanding base. Barry?

Nate, thanks for the question. It's Barry. Regarding physical volume, similar to our forecasts from prior years, we're expecting slightly increased physical volume for the year, with Q1 aligning accordingly. Therefore, the primary drivers of growth in Global RIM will stem from services and revenue management initiatives. Regarding the mark to market on data center, we have observed positive trends regarding the mark to market over the last several quarters. We're eager to see continued upward momentum, particularly in the co-location segment, which is trending even higher. Thank you.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe on Matterhorn, you highlighted some recent wins there, but I'd imagine it's a very long sales cycle for many of your engagements. Could you discuss where you see yourselves in the overall process with individual customers? How much additional benefit do you expect to derive from Matterhorn initiatives over the next four to five years?

Thanks, Brendan. You're right; these are typically longer than our traditional sales cycles. If you reflect on the services we were offering five or six years ago and the proportional growth since then, along with today’s enhanced digital offerings: the revenue from our digital services is now more than 10 times its prior size. The shift to solution-oriented sales has contributed to the larger pipelines backing our growth. We are maintaining double-digit growth rates, which is promising. On the flip side, many of these services are transitioning into recurring long-term projects. Although the sales cycle is extended, the revenue from these collaborations is also more sustainable and long-lasting. Currently, about 30% to 40% of our incoming revenue is derived from highly recurring or long-term projects, which enables ongoing momentum and growth in this business segment.

I would add, Brendan, that our cross-selling opportunities within this business segment remain substantial. With over 200,000 clients, many of whom we have engaged with for decades, we are witnessing significant expansion in our cross-selling activities, which has shown year-on-year growth. Nonetheless, we believe a large opportunity persists. Matterhorn initiatives are already ahead of expectations, and we remain optimistic about our trajectory.

Great. Thanks so much. It appears that total volumes have increased over time for storage, but retention has slipped a bit. What drove this acceleration? It seems like a promising outcome.

Yes. Kevin, I would say, if you review our retention rates over the last 15 years, you would notice that the data available shows consistency, with only minor fluctuations quarter-to-quarter. We are satisfied with our retention and customer satisfaction scores. The notable improvement in volume reflects our commercial team's success in acquiring new business. The storage revenue growth the team is achieving is robust, and including the acceleration is impressive. Thank you for the question.

Great. Thank you. I just wanted to touch on data centers and capital allocation. You mentioned pricing continuing to ramp in the data center ecosystem, and we've observed demand surpassing supply. Can you discuss your targeted development yields for the $1.3 billion of CapEx, primarily associated with data centers? Also, do you see opportunities to expedite the 100 megawatts of leasing even further? Could you touch on other funding sources like joint ventures, that might give you additional capital to capitalize on the hyperscale opportunity?

Thanks, Eric, for the question. Regarding the returns we are generating and as Barry mentioned in his script, while interest rates and capital costs have increased, we have seen pricing improve by 100 to 150 basis points, even exceeding our previous returns. The pricing trends have evolved positively, particularly for hyperscale clients. The demand associated with AI has driven substantial power requirements in our industry, which we are satisfied with. The pipeline supports our target for this year, which is significantly higher than last year's expectations. We have a fully funded plan, ensuring no capital shortage. Our records management business, with gross margins exceeding 70%, produces significant cash, granting us greater flexibility compared to pure data center operators for our growth and dividends to shareholders.

Eric, the only point I would emphasize is that with the growth in EBITDA we're generating—over $230 million at the midpoint, nearly $240 million—with our leverage targets, we maintain ample capacity. Alongside the strong cash flow of our business, we confidently issue robust guidance, invest heavily in spatial data center development, and maintain our leverage year-on-year. If you consider our construction versus pre-leased activity, it's extremely favorable at high levels. We're poised to ramp our data center development to match signed contracts while maintaining stable leverage.

Thanks. I'm just interested in Regency; could you share any early impressions since the acquisition? What approaches do you consider for achieving top-line synergies and growth opportunities in this segment?

Thanks, Jon, for your question. As I noted in my script along with Barry, we’re genuinely excited about the acquisition of Regency, not only for the additional scale it provides within the United States but also because of the expertise introduced by their leadership team. We are thrilled to work with the strong leaders, including Mark Kidd. The acquisition also translates to an expanded client base, some overlapping while others are new opportunities. For instance, Regency includes a substantial portfolio in both federal and local government projects. We're already exploring synergies that leverage Iron Mountain's resources and vast team to amplify their reach. Furthermore, their capabilities around end-user devices complement our current offerings, enhancing efficiency and service to our customers.

Yes, Jon, I would add that we had some insight during the acquisition process, however, it has become quite evident that Regency possesses significant processing capabilities. As Bill mentioned, their eight U.S. facilities broaden our reach and our ability to respond to client needs expeditiously. They have built a highly profitable business over decades, demonstrating robust knowledge and operational efficiency. Thus, we believe the integration will yield fruitful results. Thank you for your question.

Hi. If you don't mind, I’m going to get a little more into the weeds. Barry, on gross margin changes, we saw some notable shifts like a sequential increase in the services margin of 260 basis points. It seems costs were maintained while revenue climbed. However, in storage, all other costs rose by $11.5 million, dropping the gross margin by about 80 basis points sequentially. I understand that these metrics fluctuate but could you elaborate on what constitutes those 'all other storage costs' that rose this quarter?

Sure thing, Shlomo. I'll address the services point first. In the prepared remarks, I pointed out strong mix within our services. As you know, when we handle services—particularly with larger, more significant contracts—the mix and timing can vary. While we initially anticipated a lower margin forecast for the services portfolio, some anticipated deals pushed into the first quarter. However, we successfully won some high-margin contracts. Moreover, our team's continued productivity has improved overall service economics. Regarding the storage gross margin, it combines all our storage businesses. The Records Management Physical Storage Business remains very high margin and continues to perform well. However, the shift in rates can also be attributed to data center operations. As you may have noticed, gross margins in the data center industry are generally lower than for our records management business. Consequently, even as our margins expanded year-on-year and sequentially, the overall mix influences the metrics. As for 'all other storage costs,' one significant driver is power usage. As we acquire more clients, their initial ramp-up draws more power, impacting gross margin without altering EBITDA dollars. Good questions, and I hope this clarifies things. We're very pleased with the company’s gross margins overall.

Hi, thanks. A quick follow-up. It looks like your dividend payout ratio has dipped below the 65% LTM target, where you previously raised the dividend. Can you discuss your thoughts on raising the dividend again now that the payout ratio is below the threshold?

Yes. Thank you, George. You're correct that we are maintaining a target payout ratio in the low 60s, specifically 60% to 65%. We have been trending in that range recently. Consequently, decisions regarding dividends are left to the Board. Nonetheless, as our trends and guidance suggest, it is reasonable to anticipate that the board will consider another increase soon, potentially in the not-too-distant future.