ABM Industries Incorporated (NYSE:ABM) Q3 2020 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

three years from now, will you have more than 140,000 employees and now 5.5% or 6% margin, or will you have fewer and a higher margin than what the current target was? Thank you.

Yeah, it really is tough to speculate. I would suspect we'd be growing on all levels, revenue, but I think we'll be growing on margin. We are going to be making investments in our IT infrastructure and digital. I think this is going to give us an opportunity to kind of leapfrog our competition on client-facing technology and analytics. Again, we learned through COVID, right, how our scale matters, and I said it before on supply chain and on our advisory council, and now we're recognizing if we could put technology in place, digital technology to connect with our customers to get stickier, we think that's going to really drive some incredible value, especially as Internet of Things starts taking shape.

So we are going to stick with our operational proficiency, that's going to be super, super important for us. We're going to stick with the rigor and discipline around standard operating practices like cash collections, but we are going to invest in this Company in sales people and in our IT platform.

And David, this is Dean. Just wanted to add onto Scott. We'll continue to be focused on our capital allocation strategy, which has historically been organic investment, looking at or maintaining our longstanding dividend policy, and being opportunistic and thoughtful about M&A and share buybacks. So, as we look into the three-year period, looking at our capital allocation holistically, we'll continue to do that.

That's great. Great point.

Okay, thanks very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you. That does end the question-and-answer session. I will now hand the call back over to management for any closing remarks.

I just want to thank everyone for their time, and again hopefully you got the tenor of this call. We are super enthusiastic about where this firm is heading and our value proposition through this pandemic and our brand elevation. I mean, I just can't say enough about it. And the way this team has performed, I mean, it's across all platforms whether it's maintaining the resiliency of our revenue, our profit margins, our free cash flow, our new sales, EnhancedClean initiatives. We just feel like we're firing on all cylinders and the management team has just really risen up. I'm just so impressed with what our team is doing and so excited, so more to come in Q4.

And we're heading into a lot of parts of the country, to the colder weather, so you're going to be more indoors. Don't let your guard down. Stay safe and healthy, practice social distancing, it's super, super important. I appreciate the patience on this call and going through with us, and again have a great fall, everybody. Thank you so much.

[Operator Closing Remarks]