Republic Services Management Discusses Q2 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

We remain committed to an efficient cash utilization strategy, which includes increasing cash returns to our shareholders through share repurchase and dividends. Total cash returned to the shareholders was $223 million during the second quarter. Our Board of Directors has approved an increase in the quarterly dividend to $0.235 per share which is a 7% increase.

Some of our achievements during the second quarter include: Our safety performance continues to improve with a 3.5% favorable reduction in our frequency rate. We have closed around $73 million of acquisitions through June 30, that represents $47 million of annual run rate revenue. We remain on track to complete $100 million of acquisitions for the full year which was the high end of our guidance range. Our pipeline remains strong for future growth acquisition.

We continue to invest in fleet automation and converting the fleet to CNG. As of June 30, 61% of our residential routes are now automated, and we have placed 223 CNG vehicles into service. In April, we opened a single stream processing facility in Jacksonville, Florida, that increased our capacity in that market by 90,000 tons per year.

Our largest single stream recycling facility, which services the San Jose market, went into operation in July. This startup coincides with converting the city of San Jose commercial and industrial collection service offerings from open market to franchise. In May, we completed a debt refinancing and renewed our 5-year bank facility at lower rates, which together reduced our annual interest expense by approximately $25 million. Republic does not have a material debt maturity until 2016.

Tod and Ed will now update our financial performance.

Tod C. Holmes

Thanks, Don. As Don indicated, second quarter revenue of approximately $2.1 billion reflects the following components of internal growth: First, core price growth of 0.6%. This level of core price was consistent with our Q1 performance and is also in line with our expectations. Core price is positive in both the collection and disposal businesses, [indiscernible] higher prices in the disposal business due to landfill MSW price increases of 2.4%. We expect price levels to be comparable between the first and second quarters, which was the case, and we expect prices to modestly rise in the second half of the year as the impact from higher CPI-based pricing takes hold on a restricted customer base.

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