Star Equity (STRR) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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DATE

Thu, Nov. 12, 2026

CALL PARTICIPANTS

• Chief Executive Officer - Jeffrey Eberwein
• CEO of Hudson Talent Solutions - Jacob Zabkowicz
• COO - Richard Coleman

TAKEAWAYS

• Revenue -- $53.9 million, representing a 12.4% increase year over year driven by the full-quarter inclusion of the Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions.
• Gross Profit -- $23.2 million, an increase of 12.6% year over year reflecting the expanded business structure following the 2025 merger.
• Merger Synergies -- $3.1 million on an annualized basis, which management noted exceeds the initial expectation of $2 million in synergies from the Hudson and Star merger.
• Adjusted EBITDA -- $1.5 million, compared to $1.3 million in the prior year quarter, though pro forma adjusted EBITDA was $3.1 million in 2025.
• Business Services Revenue -- $33.8 million, a 9% decline year over year due to ongoing pressures in the professional talent market.
• Business Services Gross Profit -- $18.2 million, which management indicated was resilient with only a 2% decline as regional growth offset global market challenges.
• Growth Investments -- $1.4 million focused on digital solutions, geographic expansion, and the TalentFusion platform in the third quarter.
• RPO New Business TCV -- $121.3 million in rolling four-quarter total contract value, which includes $108.4 million in renewals and expansions with existing clients.
• Regional Performance -- 4% gross profit growth in the Americas, while EMEA and Asia Pacific gross profits declined by 9% and 5%, respectively.
• Building Solutions Revenue -- $16.3 million, down from a pro forma $21.4 million in the third quarter of 2025 due to soft residential and multifamily construction markets.
• Building Solutions Gross Profit -- $3.3 million, representing a decline from $5.3 million on a pro forma basis in the prior year quarter.
• Building Solutions Backlog -- $11.4 million at quarter end, an increase from $10.6 million at the end of the second quarter.
• Book-to-Bill Ratio -- 0.86x for the trailing 12 months, reflecting a sequential improvement from 0.77x in the previous quarter.
• Building Solutions New Orders -- $17.1 million, marking the second consecutive quarter with new orders exceeding $17 million.
• Energy Services Revenue -- $3.7 million, representing a 1% increase on a pro forma basis year over year.
• Energy Services Gross Profit -- $1.8 million, a 17% pro forma increase driven by share gains in core mining and geothermal applications.
• Energy Services Adjusted EBITDA -- $1.1 million, a 4% increase on a pro forma basis due to disciplined execution and tool fleet investments.
• Corporate Costs -- $1.8 million, representing a $0.8 million reduction on a pro forma basis due to the elimination of duplicative public company overhead.
• Operating Cash Flow -- $0.9 million generated in the third quarter, compared to a use of $2.7 million in the prior year period.
• Real Estate Proceeds -- Over $9 million in gross proceeds expected from the sale-leaseback of facilities in Colfax, Wisconsin, and Oxford, Maine.
• NOL Tax Asset -- $215 million in usable net operating losses in the U.S., which management considers a strategic asset to enhance after-tax returns.
• Nantucket Housing Project -- $2 million contract signed for a workforce housing project with delivery projected before the end of 2026.
• Cornerstone RPO Acquisition -- Completed in November 2026 to strengthen the company's presence in the U.S. recruitment market and add sales leadership.
• Utah Machine Shop Acquisition -- Completed in October 2026 to add in-house machining, repair, and rebuild capabilities to the existing operation in Vernal.
• Share Repurchases -- 28,736 shares repurchased for approximately $0.3 million in the third quarter, with $1.3 million remaining on the current authorization.

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RISKS

• Zabkowicz stated, "The professional talent market remains challenging," which contributed to the year-over-year decline in Business Services revenue and adjusted EBITDA.
• Eberwein noted, "We would describe single-family as weak and commercial/multifamily as very weak," referring to market conditions that have impacted demand in the Building Solutions segment.
• Zabkowicz warned that EMEA results are currently spotty due to geopolitical issues and ongoing regional economic pressures.

SUMMARY

Star Equity Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:STRR) reported third quarter results that reflected the impact of its 2025 merger and subsequent transition into a diversified holding company. Management reported that headline revenue and gross profit grew due to the inclusion of new operating divisions, though underlying market conditions in construction and professional talent recruitment remained soft. The company is actively executing a capital allocation strategy that includes share repurchases, bolt-on acquisitions in the Energy Services and Business Services segments, and the monetization of non-operating real estate assets to generate gross proceeds exceeding $9 million. Strategic focus remains on realizing merger synergies, which have already exceeded initial expectations, and leveraging a significant $215 million tax asset to enhance future after-tax returns.

• The company moved up to #3 globally in HRO Today's 2026 Global RPO Baker's Dozen rankings, which CEO Eberwein noted should improve reputational capital and lead to future market share gains.
• The acquisition of Cornerstone RPO in November 2026 adds established enterprise client relationships and expands the company's footprint in the U.S. recruitment process outsourcing market.
• Management noted that Energy Services achieved higher profitability on a pro forma basis through share gains in the mining and geothermal sectors.
• A $2 million project shift in the Building Solutions segment from 2026 to 2027 was mitigated by the receipt of a nonrefundable deposit, and management expects delivery in the upcoming year.
• Management identified mid-cycle industry targets for the Building Solutions business at $20 million in quarterly revenue with gross margins of 25%.
• CEO Eberwein reported that the Harte Hanks merger process is advancing with the preliminary filing of an S-4, targeting a deal close by the end of 2026 or early 2027.

INDUSTRY GLOSSARY

• RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing): A business process where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment activities to an external service provider.
• TCV (Total Contract Value): The total projected revenue from a contract over its entire duration, including recurring and one-time fees.
• Book-to-Bill Ratio: The ratio of orders received to units shipped and billed, used as a leading indicator of demand.
• NOL (Net Operating Loss): A tax asset created when a company's tax-deductible expenses exceed its taxable income, which can be used to offset future tax liabilities.
• Agentic AI: Artificial intelligence systems capable of acting autonomously to plan and execute complex tasks or workflows.
• HRO Today Global RPO Baker's Dozen: An annual ranking of recruitment process outsourcing providers based on verified customer satisfaction surveys.
• ADT: The specific business unit within the Energy Services division focused on downhole tools and machining.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Operator: Greetings, and welcome to the Star Equity Holdings Third Quarter 2026 Results Conference Call. Please be advised that the discussions on today's call may include forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to Star's most recent 10-K, 10-Q, and other filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these projections and assumptions. The company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Please also note that on this call, management will reference non-GAAP financial measures, including EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, and adjusted earnings per share, which are all financial measures not recognized under U.S. GAAP. As required by SEC rules and regulations, these non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled to their most comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release issued yesterday. If you don't receive a copy of the earnings release and would like one after the call, please contact Star at (203) 489-9500 or its Investor Relations representative, Lena Cati of The Equity Group, at (212) 836-9611. Also, this call is being broadcast live over the Internet and may be accessed at Star's website via www.starequity.com.

Shortly after the call, a replay will be also available on the company's website. It is now my pleasure to introduce Star's Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Eberwein. Please go ahead, sir.

Jeffrey Eberwein: Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We greatly appreciate your interest in Star Equity, and we thank you for joining us today. I'll begin by reviewing our third quarter 2026 results at the holding company level. After that, Jake Zabkowicz, CEO of Hudson Talent Solutions, will give us an update on the performance of that business; and Rick Coleman, our COO, will provide additional insights into the performance of our Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions. Our third quarter results continue to reflect last year's merger between Hudson and Star. On an as-reported basis, revenue, gross profit and adjusted EBITDA were all up year-over-year, driven by the full quarter inclusion of the Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions.

Following the August 2025 merger between Hudson and Star, those divisions were included in our consolidated results, but they were only included for a part of the third quarter 2025. On Slide 3 of our earnings presentation, you can see that revenue was $53.9 million, gross profit was $23.2 million and adjusted EBITDA was $1.5 million. And on the merger synergies, to date, we've realized $3.1 million on an annualized basis, and that exceeds our initial expectation of $2 million of merger synergies.

On Slide 5 of the earnings deck, you can see that our corporate costs were $5.4 million on the first 9 months of the year, and that compares to $7.7 million on a pro forma basis, and that is how we calculate the annualized synergy number. And when we're talking about corporate costs, I just want to make sure that you know we're talking about the numbers that can be found in the adjusted EBITDA reconciliation tables that are on Pages 18 and 21 of the earnings presentation. So at the division level, our third quarter results were mixed. There's continuing to be pressure in the professional talent market in our Business Services division.

And in Building Solutions, we continue to experience soft residential and multifamily construction markets. Going back to Business Services, gross profit declined 2% year-over-year due to those pressures in the professional talent market, and we're continuing to invest for growth. We invested $1.4 million in the third quarter. Building Solutions were also below the prior year quarter on a pro forma basis due to the market softness. In addition, one of our units, KBS Builders, had a project shift from 2026 to 2027. And notably, we did receive a nonrefundable deposit on this project, and so we do think it's going to happen.

In our Energy Services business, we did have a strong gross profit and adjusted EBITDA, and the results were up on a pro forma basis. And in October, we expanded this division by acquiring a machine shop in Vernal, Utah. On Slides 6 and 7, you can see that we ended the third quarter with $7.8 million in total cash, and that includes $1.6 million of restricted cash. During Q3, we generated $0.9 million of cash from operating activities, compared with using $2.7 million of cash in the third quarter of 2025. Third quarter this year, we had net CapEx of $0.3 million, so we did generate positive free cash flow.

Working capital, excluding cash, was $19.9 million at the end of the quarter, compared to $22.4 million at the end of the year. So we have made strides improving our working capital management. Stockholders' equity was $58.1 million. We repurchased almost 29,000 shares in the third quarter for $0.3 million under our share repurchase program, and we have $1.3 million remaining on this $3 million authorization that was approved last year. We continue to believe our stock is undervalued, so we view share repurchases as a very attractive allocation of capital. Before I turn the call over to Jake, just a word on corporate costs.

And again, when we talk about corporate costs, we're talking about the column in the adjusted EBITDA reconciliation table. So in the third quarter, corporate costs were $1.8 million, and that compares with $1.2 million a year ago, but the $1.2 million is not a pro forma number, and so it only includes the Star operating businesses for part of the quarter. On a pro forma basis, corporate costs a year ago were $2.6 million, and so we did reduce corporate costs by $0.8 million year-over-year, which reflects the elimination of duplicative public company and corporate overhead following the Hudson Star merger.

These corporate costs do exclude nonrecurring expenses, which were $0.7 million in this year's third quarter and $1.3 million in last year's third quarter. Across the company, we remain focused on operational excellence, cost management and investing in growth initiatives, and we think this will enhance our competitive position and drive improved operating and financial performance going forward. I'll now turn the call over to Jake to discuss our Business Services division.

Jacob Zabkowicz: Thank you, Jeff, and good morning. Our Business Services division is building momentum through strong performance in the Americas, expanding our digital capabilities, and increased engagement with prospective clients. While the professional talent market remains challenging, we are investing selectively to strengthen our competitive position and support for future growth. Starting on Slide 11, third quarter revenue was $33.8 million, compared with $37 million in the prior year quarter, a decline of 9%. Gross profit was more resilient, declining just 2% to $18.2 million versus $18.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $1 million compared with $1.7 million a year ago.

The decline largely reflects deliberate investments in our digital solutions, Hudson Fusion (sic) [ TalentFusion ], and expanding into new geographies and related growth initiatives. These investments totaled $1.4 million in the quarter, compared with $1 million in the third quarter of 2025. Turning to Slide 12 now. Our rolling fourth quarter RPO new business total contract value was $121.3 million, including $12.9 million in new logo wins and $108.4 million in renewals and expansions with existing clients. The trailing 12-month gross profit of $71.5 million has remained relatively stable over the past 4 quarters. Our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA margin was 4.4% compared with 7.9% a year ago, reflecting the growth in investments discussed earlier.

On a regional basis, we continue to grow the Americas, where the gross profit increased approximately 4%. Conditions remain more challenging in EMEA and Asia Pacific, where the gross profits declined 9% and 5%, respectively. As shown on Slide 13, Asia Pac remained our largest region, accounting for 62% of the divisional revenue and 45% of the gross profit. The Americas contributed 40% of the gross profit, and EMEA contributed 15%. Across the business, we're combining growth investments as well as focus on operational efficiencies. We're expanding our use of agentic AI and automation to help recruiters work more productively, improve our candidate matching, and deliver greater value to our clients.

These initiatives help us sustain gross profit despite a mixed regional environment and are essential to our technology-enabled delivery strategy. We are encouraged by uptick in new customer conversations and new logo wins in recent months, supported by our broader geographical reach and enhanced digital offerings. In November, we added those capabilities with the acquisition of Cornerstone RPO, strengthening our U.S. presence and bringing established enterprise client relationships and experienced U.S. sales leadership to our platform. We've also advanced to #3 globally in HRO Today's 2026 Global RPO Baker's Dozen Customer Satisfaction Rankings, a significant improvement versus history.

We believe this recognition reaffirms our continued commitments to our clients and strengthens our position as we compete for new enterprise RPO relationships. Our focus now is converting that interest into new business and expanding existing client relationships. We continue to execute our land-and-expand strategy, including leveraging our presence in Japan and Latin America, while we maintain discipline in how we invest and operate. With our expanded capabilities, stronger customer recognition and growing geographical footprint, we believe we're positioning our Business Services to capture opportunities as market conditions improve. Now I'll turn it over to Rick to discuss our financial and operational performance of our Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions.

Richard Coleman: Thank you, Jake, and good morning, everyone. Starting on Slide 10. Our focus in Building Solutions is on growing orders and backlog and positioning the business for improved performance. Despite continued softness in both residential and commercial construction, we made progress during the quarter with sequential increases in both our backlog and our trailing 12-month book-to-bill ratio. Third quarter revenue was $16.3 million, gross profit was $3.3 million and adjusted EBITDA was $0.7 million. These results compare with pro forma revenue of $21.4 million, gross profit of $5.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $2.6 million in the third quarter of 2025.

In addition to challenging market conditions, the year-over-year comparison reflects the shift of a large KBS project from 2026 to 2027. As Jeff mentioned earlier, we received a nonrefundable deposit for that project. Quarter-end backlog increased to $11.4 million from $10.6 million at the end of the second quarter. Our trailing 12-month book-to-bill ratio also improved, reaching 0.86x compared with 0.77x last quarter. New orders totaled $17.1 million, our second consecutive quarter with more than $17 million in new orders. While overall demand remains soft, we continue to add attractive projects and gain traction in workforce and affordable housing, assisted living and senior housing. We expect these markets to become even more significant business drivers as conditions improve.

In the meantime, we're maintaining discipline in project selection, execution and margin management to strengthen the foundation for future growth. Turning to Energy Services on Slide 14. The division delivered higher gross profit and adjusted EBITDA on stable revenue, demonstrating improved profitability on a pro forma basis year-over-year. Third quarter revenue was $3.7 million, up 1% from prior year quarter on a pro forma basis. Gross profit increased 17% to $1.8 million from $1.5 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased 4% to $1.1 million from $1.0 million. We continue to gain share in our core markets with particular strength in mining and geothermal applications.

Our exposure to a range of drilling applications, combined with disciplined execution, continues to support the division's performance. To build on that performance, we're investing in new tools and working closely with our largest customers to align those investments with their needs. Additionally, in October, we acquired a machine shop in Vernal, Utah, which will operate as a bolt-on to our existing ADT business. We expect this acquisition to add in-house machining, repair and rebuild capabilities to our existing operation and give us greater control over the maintenance of our tool fleet, help shorten turnaround times and support greater utilization and improved margins over time.

With these added capabilities and continued investment in our tool fleet, we see opportunities to deepen customer relationships and expand our presence across the markets and geographies we serve. I'll turn the call back over to Jeff now for closing remarks. Jeff?

Jeffrey Eberwein: Thank you, Rick. Our focus is on translating the broader platform that we've built into stronger earnings, cash flow and long-term shareholder value. We're making progress on several fronts: growing gross profit and adjusted EBITDA in Energy Services; sustaining resilient gross profit in Business Services; and growing orders and backlog in Building Solutions. We're encouraged by our progress as we manage through ongoing macroeconomic challenges and position the company for sustained growth and profitability. To that end, as we announced this morning, our KBS business signed a $2 million contract to manufacture a workforce housing project on Nantucket. Production has already commenced for this project and delivery is projected before year-end 2026.

Our recent bolt-on acquisitions in the Business Services and Energy Services divisions reflect our continued focus on growth opportunities and our disciplined approach to adding capabilities within our existing platforms. We continue to evaluate additional acquisition opportunities across all 3 divisions, as well as potential new verticals where we can apply our operating model. Looking towards 2027, we're focused on 3 priorities: first, driving organic growth by investing in the people, technology and processes that help our businesses compete, scale and serve customers; second, improving profitability and cash generation through operating efficiencies, shared services and continued realization of merger synergies.

Since completing the Hudson Star merger in August 2025, we made great progress in bringing our businesses together, strengthening collaboration and putting our more diversified structure to work; and third is disciplined capital allocation. Alongside our acquisition strategy, we've launched a process to monetize our noncash-generating real estate assets as part of our broader effort to unlock value. The one asset is a factory in Colfax, Wisconsin, and we've signed a purchase and sale agreement for that facility and that's filed as an 8-K earlier this week. The second facility is in Oxford, Maine, where we also launched a transaction for that property.

We expect to generate over $9 million in gross proceeds from those 2 transactions and we hope both close before the end of the year. In addition, I would just like to remind people that we have an NOL that's $215 million, which is potentially a meaningful asset that will enhance after-tax returns on our growth initiatives and strategic transactions. As we enter this next phase with a strengthening Energy Services platform, a resilient Business Services franchise, growing Building Solutions backlog and additional contributions from our recent acquisitions, we have, we believe, multiple paths to improve profitability in 2027 while navigating near-term market conditions.

We remain very confident in the opportunities ahead and believe our shares are undervalued relative to the strength and potential of our businesses. Our focus is on demonstrating that value through continued execution and improved financial performance. With that, operator, can you please open the line for questions?

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Joe Gomes from NOBLE Capital.

Joseph Gomes: Jeff, I want to start out -- Jake, maybe you can help with this -- over at Hudson, what improvements have you seen so far with the automation, the agentic AI investments in terms of placements per recruiter, delivery costs, things of that nature?

Jacob Zabkowicz: Yes, Joe, great question. And one of the things that we talk about with a lot of our partners is, what's the ROI that we're seeing as we continue to invest in further automation, agentic AI. And we're seeing it on a couple of different fronts. First and foremost, with some of the agents that we've had deployed within our partnerships, we're seeing a greater intake and uptick of client satisfaction.

And what I mean by that is hiring manager satisfaction, candidate satisfaction, because our recruiters are allowed to be more consultative with both the hiring managers and candidates and spending more time on understanding their needs and wants versus sourcing and screening and going through the normal processes with the recruitment team. Where we're seeing another uptick in ROI is on the coordination side. And what I mean by coordination side, it's interview scheduling, Q&A with candidates, allowing candidates to understand what the hiring managers are looking for. And so we're seeing a broad range of productivity and it really depends on the client and their workflow, but also to the region that we're supporting and how we're supporting them.

It's hard to quantify in an exact percentage right now because the adoption is still undertaking and it's actually workflow-driven and not specific to a broad function. But we're expecting further automation, further consistencies and further ROI as adoption does happen. But when we think about AI and we think about the adoption of AI, we're really workflow-driven in that regards versus a broad spectrum. So more to come. But one of the things with Hudson Fusion (sic) [ TalentFusion ] and our agentic AI strategy is to not only create that further automation and see efficiencies and recruiter productivity, but also bring that higher level of customer and client satisfaction to the table as well.

Jeffrey Eberwein: And Joe, I would add to -- this is Jeff. I would add to that. We've had softer hiring conditions for 3 to 4 years now and that's coincided with increasing use and interest in AI. And so we felt it necessary, despite the market softness, to step up our investment in our technology, our digital offering, as well as sales and marketing. And we believe in our business, there's going to be more and more of a separation over time between those service providers who are facile with digital and AI and ones that are less so. And in the HRO Today rankings, which are all based on client surveys, we have risen in the rankings.

A few years ago, we ranked 9th globally and in the most recent rankings that came out, we've moved up to 3rd. And we think that's the clearest indication that we're on the right track and that there is a benefit to the investments we're making. And we think that improvement in reputational capital will ultimately translate into market share gains, improvements in revenue growth and profitability and so it'll ultimately translate into improved financial performance.

Joseph Gomes: And then kind of switching over to Building Services. If you look at some of the commentary coming out of the National Association of Home Builders, they're talking elevated financing, construction costs will continue to constrain housing production in 2027. So how is that factoring into your demand assumptions for your budgeting for Building Solutions for 2027?

Jeffrey Eberwein: Yes. It's a really good point, Joe, and we do follow kind of the nationwide trends as well as the trends that are in our particular geographies. And we would describe single-family as weak and commercial/multifamily as very weak. And what we have done in our businesses is a few different things: one is we've really made a focus on the theme of affordable housing, workforce housing, like the project we announced this morning and the areas of senior living, assisted living and we had a project along that theme earlier this year.

Those are markets that are -- where there's a strong need, we have a great solution and they're a little bit independent of things like interest rates and macroeconomic factors. It's more driven by need. And when I think about -- there's a lot of statistics out there showing that we're underbuilt as a country and it's unfortunate that construction costs are up and interest rates are higher because we need more units being built, not fewer, as a country.

And if there's one thing that would make an improvement, which is permitting reform, one of the reasons why this large project that we thought was going to happen in 2026 got shifted to 2027 is some permitting issues in an urban area. But we're -- I would say we're cautiously optimistic. We're focused on the things we can control. And our new orders have improved the last 2 quarters versus where they were earlier in the year, so that's somewhat encouraging. We would like new orders to be $20 million a quarter, if not higher, and get our book-to-bill ratio up above 1.

And we would like this business to be generating $20 million of revenue a quarter and it's not there yet. So another thing I would say is that our sales teams have been spending more time on the road, making new relationships, educating people about the benefits of building in a factory. The construction market is a big market and factory-built construction is a small share of the total and we do think that share will grow over time. And so we do think that's a secular growth theme in a cyclical business.

Joseph Gomes: Jeff, this is Joe. Can you hear me?

Jeffrey Eberwein: Yes. Can you hear us?

Joseph Gomes: We got lost for about 30 seconds, so I apologize. I don't know if it's my end or your end, but no, I did not hear your response to my last question.

Jeffrey Eberwein: Okay. Well, the short version is we're cautiously optimistic about things getting better. We'd like to see our new orders $20 million a quarter or higher and we're doing a lot of things to get there.

Joseph Gomes: So let me just ask one more question here. I don't know if you can provide us any update either on Harte Hanks or GEE Group.

Jeffrey Eberwein: On Harte Hanks, we filed our S-4 filing with the SEC. That's our preliminary filing. And if one goes back and looks at all the documents, the filings we made in August and then that S-4 filing, there are some things that we're waiting on. So in order to get to a closed deal, we need the SEC's clearance of the S-4. And once we have that, we will file the final version and schedule the shareholder vote on the Harte Hanks side and we also need some approvals from their bank. And I would say all of those things are in process.

We hope that we get to a closed deal by the end of the year or the very beginning of next year, but we're working on the critical path items there. And then on GEE Group, they've publicly announced that they have hired a bank. They're running a process, a sale process, and we have been public with our proposal and we're waiting to see how that plays out.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Michael Mathison with Sidoti & Company.

Michael Mathison: My first question is for Jake. You guys described Business Services kind of being soft globally. I wonder if you could just give us a regional breakdown about the 3 regions you operate in.

Jacob Zabkowicz: Michael, thank you for that. So as I mentioned in the earnings release, Asia Pac is still our largest region that we support, both from a revenue and from a gross profit standpoint. But we're seeing different results in specific regions or specific countries within the Asia Pac market, right? Australia is still one of our largest areas that we support. And some of the feedback that we're getting with our clients there is some hesitation on volumes on where they're going to invest and where they're going to grow in this year and into next year.

However, we're also seeing an uptick in newly acquired geographies in the Asia Pac region like Japan and we're seeing growth in our Japanese market, which we're excited about. A recent acquisition a couple of years ago, we bought a Singapore business and we're still seeing that grow steadily, but also there's some hesitations in that market. So Asia Pac will still be a cornerstone for us and we are going to continue to invest in that market, but it is softer than previous years.

If you look at the Americas, where I shared earlier that we are growing -- and it's part of both from our investment strategy in Latin America and our recent acquisition of Cornerstone RPO in November here -- but the Americas, we do expect to see further significant growth because not only of our investments, but also our land-and-expand strategy and growing some of our legacy clients from our APAC region into the Americas region. So really excited to see that growth this last quarter and hopefully into the next quarters. EMEA is still hit and miss.

EMEA, with the geopolitical issues, with the ongoing pressures in EMEA, we're seeing spotty results in certain areas, but we are tightening our strategy and our operational rigor in EMEA and it is still a pinnacle of our delivery excellence. But I do expect EMEA to be soft in the coming months, in the coming quarters. And obviously, focus our investments in the other regions. Mike, I hope that answers your questions there.

Michael Mathison: It does. Very informative, very thorough. Some other questions on the revenue side. You've spoken about Building Solutions and how you -- $17 million back-to-back quarters, that's great. But you're aiming for $20 million as kind of a target. Do you have a sense of how long the ramp to $20 million would take? Is that a year from now?

Jeffrey Eberwein: Yes. This is Jeff, Michael. It's really hard to predict because it's a mix of -- a decent amount of the business is residential and smaller projects, repair and remodel type of projects. And then the larger projects, the multifamily ones, like the one we announced this morning, are lumpier. So it's very difficult to predict. But if we continue to make progress in the areas of focus, so workforce housing, affordable housing, senior living, we're hopeful that the new orders will get above $20 million at some point next year, maybe in the spring of next year.

And that will be a good leading indicator for getting revenue back up to $20 million a quarter, which is what we view to be normal. There's been times that our revenue has been above that; times we've been below that. But when people say, "Gee, this is a cyclical business. What is mid-cycle? What should this business average over time?" We would answer that by saying, $20 million a quarter of revenue, 25% gross margin and EBITDA margins in the 10% to 15% range. That's what we view to be mid-cycle industry conditions and we're clearly below that right now. But we're hopeful we can get there next year, even without improvement in any macro conditions.

Michael Mathison: Very informative. Last one for me. For the transaction announced this morning, you sold the asset for $5.2 million, so that's $5.2 million of incoming cash. Is there anything you can say about the lease obligation that will be taken on, operating the asset going forward?

Jeffrey Eberwein: Sure. So not to get into too much complexity, but the real estate assets that we own are held in our Investments division. And so and the business does pay rent to our Investments division. In consolidated accounting, that gets consolidated out at the holding company level. But you're right, when we sell an asset, then the business that's used to paying rent pays it to a third-party instead of paying it to our Investments division. And what I would tell you is that the market for both of these properties, a typical cap rate is 8% to 9%.

And if you look at the 8-K that we filed earlier this week, I do think it has a rent figure in there. But if you just take the proceeds and multiply it times, call it, 8%, that will get you approximately what the annual rent payments are.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our last question comes from Theodore O'Neill with Hills Litchfield Research.

Theodore O'Neill: So let me start with the building side of the business. I have looked for sort of statistical correlations between the business and stuff that's going on in the rest of the world. And there isn't any good correlation, I think, because I really need New England -- sort of, Northern New England or Northern latitude construction metrics to bank off of. So if I look at your Slide 10 for historicals and try to find something here I can use as a forecast, because the numbers keep bouncing all over the place and it makes the difference between us, me having a sales number that you meet or don't.

It looks to me like whatever the ending backlog is in the previous quarter ought to be my revenue forecast for the next quarter. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Jeffrey Eberwein: I think that's directionally right, but it's not going to be a perfect correlation. A decent amount of business that we do is pretty short cycle. And so and it's in the backlog, but it's in the backlog for less than 1 quarter. So I think the better leading indicator is the new orders line. So I would encourage you to take, let's say, the new orders line, like the last 4 quarters, like the average of the last 4 quarters. And that's probably a better leading indicator than just the backlog number exactly.

But the backlog going down at the end of last year and in Q1, those were kind of leading indicators into the softness that we experienced really Q4 of last year and the first half of this year. But we do think our revenue has bottomed on a, say, like a trailing 4-quarter basis and is improving going forward. And I'll just remind people that because we're in the upper Midwest and the Northeast, Q1 is always a very weak quarter for us. So I would encourage people to look at like a rolling 4-quarter average.

Theodore O'Neill: That makes sense. Refresh my memory on the KBS $2 million business for workforce housing in Nantucket, the timing of that. Refresh my memory on this, you can't do the construction until the summer people leave and then you can bring the stuff in? Is that the way -- Is that the timing?

Jeffrey Eberwein: That's right. And then you have the winter to deal with. So there's basically no deliveries. Roughly Memorial Day to Labor Day is a good way to think about it. That's peak season for them, no deliveries. We are past that. And even though we just got the contract signed, we've already been producing the project, and it's similar to other projects we've done before and the current schedule has us delivering it on site before the end of the year.

Theodore O'Neill: Okay. And on the Business Services side of the business, the year-over-year decline, is that structural across sort of your business and it's not a market share issue for you? Or is there some idiosyncratic part of this by country or by the type of job you fill that's part of why it's down year-over-year?

Jeffrey Eberwein: Yes. I would note a couple of things there. So in our Hudson business, which makes up our Business Services, there's really 2 businesses in there: one is the true RPO and the way the accounting works is that there's no cost of sales there, cost of revenue. All the costs are down in SG&A. And then contracting, which is a service we do for existing RPO clients. Most of the time, it's only a service we do for existing RPO clients. We did lose a client that's solely on the contracting side. It never converted into a full RPO. And so that's about, I think, a 3% margin.

And so we did have a revenue loss, but much less of a gross profit loss because of that one contracting client. So that's kind of one thing. And then you're right, if you look at gross profit, which is, we think, a better metric to look at for like fee income, which is what a term that a lot of people in the industry use. We do have a different geographic mix than some of the peers. And our strongest area is, as Jake mentioned, is the Americas, and we are growing from scratch in Latin America and starting to get traction there.

So really good growth in our highest area of investment, which is the Americas and we think that will continue into next year. And as Jake mentioned, we're more international than some of the peer group and we did have some softness in areas of Asia Pac. And then in EMEA, the Middle East was much worse year-over-year, as you might expect. And Continental Europe and the U.K., we would describe as the weak side of neutral. So we really don't think we're losing share. If anything, we are gaining share. And if we're down in Q3 and a competitor happened to be up, I would say that's because of geographic mix, not because we're losing share.

Theodore O'Neill: And then Energy Services, sort of I understand the machine shop acquisition is to try to support your broader geographic mix of customers. And if that's the case, is there a limit to the number of machine shops you should be buying?

Jeffrey Eberwein: Yes, in any one geographic area. So the original location of this business is Evanston, Wyoming. They added 3 other locations over time, and I think that's in our materials and so happy to talk about those. The other 3 locations, let's just say, aren't as fully built out as the Evanston location in terms of the number of machines, in terms of the capability. And so in this instance, our existing shop in Vernal, Utah, would have to outsource that work to that machine shop in Vernal. So they were kind of like a subcontractor at times for us, in a way, a business we've known for a very long time, have done business with, know them very well.

They have their own clients as well, in addition to doing work for us. And the owners wanted to retire and so we ended up acquiring it, and it makes that Vernal, Utah location more capable. I'm not going to say quite as capable as Evanston, but more so. And so it just enables us to better serve clients in that region. And we'd like all 4 of our geographic locations to have improved capabilities over time and we'd also like to add more geographic locations.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this was our last question. I would like now to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.

Jeffrey Eberwein: All right. Thank you, operator. So if anyone does have any follow-up questions, you can look at our website, starequity.com, and our investor deck and our materials, all have our contact information and happy to schedule a call and answer your questions. So we thank you for joining us today and thank you for your interest in our company. We look forward to continuing to update you on our progress as we move forward. And so thanks again and have a great day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

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