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F500-2021-410-Cintas

Starting out as the acme Industrial Laundry Company in 1929, the corporation now outfits America's workforce with uniforms and cleaning supplies.

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Cintas provides uniform rentals, floor care, restroom supplies, first aid and safety products, and fire extinguishers to businesses, primarily in North America.

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Cintas specializes in providing businesses with essential products and services to ensure their operations are clean, safe, and professional. Serving over 1 million customers across the U.S. and Canada, Cintas offers a comprehensive range of solutions, including uniform rental, facility services, first aid and safety products, fire protection services, and compliance training. Its products and services encompass uniforms, mats, mops, restroom supplies, workplace water services, safety products, eye-wash stations, safety training, fire extinguishers, sprinkler systems, and alarm services.

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Cintas (CTAS): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

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Cintas

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Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Cintas Corporation announces fiscal 2026 third quarter results conference call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Jared Mattingley, Vice President, Treasurer & Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Ross, and thank you for joining us. With me are Todd Schneider, President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Rozakis, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, and Scott Garula, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. We will discuss our fiscal 2026 third quarter results. After our commentary, we will open the call to questions from analysts. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor from civil litigation for forward-looking statements. This conference call contains forward-looking statements that reflect the company's current views as to future events and financial performance. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those we may discuss. I refer you to the discussion on these points contained in our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I'll now turn the call over to Todd.

Thank you, Jared. We are pleased to have delivered another successful quarter, showcasing the resilience and strength of our value proposition. Cintas achieved record revenues and strong operating margins while continuing to invest for future growth. Third quarter total revenue grew a strong 8.9% to $2.84 billion. The organic growth rate, which adjusts for the impacts of acquisitions and foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, was 8.2%. Each of our three route-based businesses continues to grow at attractive rates. Turning to profitability, we achieved all-time high gross margins in each of our three route-based businesses. Strong top-line growth, along with benefits from our strategic investments and cost-saving initiatives, continue to help drive margin expansion. Gross margin as a percent of revenue was 51%, a 40 basis point increase over the prior year.

Operating income grew to $659.9 million, an increase of 8.2% over the prior year. When you adjust for the one-time gain we recognized in the third quarter of last year, operating income would have grown 11%. Diluted EPS of $1.24 grew 9.7% over the prior year. When you adjust for the one-time gain we recognized in the third quarter of last year, diluted EPS would have grown 12.7%. Turning to guidance, we are raising our fiscal 2026 financial guidance. We expect our revenue to be in the range of $11.21 billion-$11.24 billion, a total growth rate of 8.4%-8.7%.

We expect adjusted diluted EPS to be in the range of $4.86-$4.90, a growth rate of 10.5%-11.4%. The adjusted EPS guide does not include the impact of non-recurring transaction expenses related to UniFirst. Before I turn the call over to Jim, I'd like to provide some comments on the recently announced merger or agreement to acquire UniFirst. We remain excited about this opportunity and the long-term value creation for Cintas and its shareholders, our employee partners, and the team partners of UniFirst, the benefits to our collective customers. When we announced the transaction two weeks ago, we indicated that the merger was subject to approval by UniFirst shareholders, regulatory clearance in both the U.S. and Canada, and other customary closing conditions. We and UniFirst have begun the process for satisfying these closing conditions.

In order to avoid creating speculation, we will not be providing any additional commentary on the process. We will, however, update the market as appropriate. With that, I'll turn it over to Jim to discuss the details of our third quarter results.

Thank you, Todd. Our business continues to perform exceptionally well. We're adding new customers who rely on us for image, safety, cleanliness, and compliance needs, while successfully cross-selling additional solutions to our existing customer base. Retention remains at record levels, while pricing is consistent with historical levels. Turning to our business segments. As Todd mentioned, we delivered attractive growth rates across all of our business segments. Organic growth by business was 7.3% for Uniform Rental Facility Services, 14.6% for First Aid and Safety Services, 10% for Fire Protection Services, and 3.1% for Uniform Direct Sale. Gross margin percentage by business was 50.3% for Uniform Rental Facility Services, 58.1% for First Aid and Safety Services, 50.5% for Fire Protection Services, and 41.4% for Uniform Direct Sale. Gross margin for the Uniform Rental Facility Services segment increased 30 basis points from last year.

The 50.3% gross margin is the highest gross margin ever for this segment. We executed a high level in the third quarter, and our continued strong top-line growth helped drive results. We've been laser-focused on managing the many inputs we control effectively. We've invested in technologies like SAP to improve our capabilities, and the strong performance of our supply chain continues to be a significant strategic advantage for us. Gross margin for the First Aid and Safety Services segment was 58.1%. This is also an all-time high. We are investing in route capacity to serve more customers, leadership and management trainees to build our talent pipeline, advanced technologies to drive efficiency, and we're adding selling resources, all of which are fueling the attractive double-digit growth we are seeing.

It's important to remember that margins of all our businesses can fluctuate from quarter to quarter based on several factors, including things like revenue mix and the timing of our investments. Incremental margins were effectively 28% for the quarter after adjusting for the one-time gain on the asset sale last year. Right in line where we like to be. The current macro environment is certainly complex. We help businesses navigate this environment by letting them focus on running their business. Delivering consistent excellence in a complex environment is never easy, but customers want reliable partners with proven solutions. Now, a diversified customer base and strong value proposition continues to resonate, particularly in our core verticals, healthcare, hospitality, education, and state and local government.

In addition to being aligned with resilient sectors of the economy, our addressable market is very large, and our solutions remain essential for businesses of all sizes, regardless of how complex the economic environment. We have consistently shown ability to convert businesses over to a management solution, typically around 2/3 of all of our new customers. In addition, we've shown ability to grow in multiples of job creation and GDP. Lastly, we're very enthusiastic about integrating UniFirst and team partners into our organization, which we believe will strengthen our ability to better serve our customers. As a reminder, we anticipate that transaction will close in the second half of calendar 2026. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott to discuss our operating income, capital allocation performance, and 2026 guidance assumptions.

Thanks, Jim, and good morning, everyone. The exceptional results we delivered in terms of revenue growth and gross margin expansion translated into continued strength in operating margins and cash flow. Selling and administrative expenses as a percentage of revenue was 27.8%, which was a 60 basis points increase from last year. When you adjust for the one-time gain on the asset sale last year, SG&A would have been flat year-over-year. Third quarter operating income was $659.9 million compared to $609.9 million last year. Operating income as a percentage of revenue was 23.2% in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 compared to 23.4% in last year's third quarter.

Adjusting for the one-time gain last year, operating income as a percentage of revenue would have increased 40 basis points year-over-year. Our effective tax rate for the third quarter was 20.6% compared to 21% last year. The tax rates in both quarters were impacted by certain discrete items, primarily the tax accounting impact for stock-based compensation. Net income for the third quarter was $502.5 million compared to $463.5 million last year. This year's third quarter diluted earnings per share was $1.24 compared to $1.13 last year, an increase of 9.7%. Earnings per share increased 12.7% after you adjust for the one-time gain last year.

Our disciplined approach to capital allocation has positioned us well to finance the recently announced agreement with UniFirst. With leverage expected to be about 1.5x debt to EBITDA at closing, we maintain flexibility for deploying capital across each of our priorities. During the first nine months of fiscal 2026, we have returned $1.45 billion in capital to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share buybacks. Earlier, Todd provided our updated guidance for the remainder of the fiscal year. In addition, please note the following in the guidance. Both fiscal 2025 and fiscal 2026 have the same number of workdays for the year and by quarter. Our guidance does not assume any future acquisitions.

Our guidance assumes a constant foreign currency exchange rate, the fiscal 2026 net interest expense of approximately $101 million, a fiscal 2026 effective tax rate of 20%, which is the same compared to our fiscal 2025, and the guide does not include the impact of any future share buybacks or significant economic disruptions or downturns. As both Todd and Jim have mentioned, we are excited about the recently announced UniFirst acquisition. While the deal is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2026, we expect to incur non-recurring transaction costs related to the acquisition. The adjusted diluted earnings per share guide excludes the estimated impact of these transaction costs.

Transaction costs expected to be incurred during fiscal 2026 are estimated to have an impact on diluted earnings per share in the range of $0.03-$0.04. Beginning with the fourth quarter, we will break these costs out on our income statement as a separate line item to provide visibility to these transaction-related costs. With that, I'll turn it back to Todd for some closing remarks.

Thank you, Scott. In closing, our strategic investments in technology, capacity, talent, and sales capabilities are driving solid growth and margin progression. These commitments position us to sustain long-term performance while helping customers achieve and surpass their image, safety, cleanliness, and compliance goals. We're maximizing returns on every dollar invested to maintain our momentum and deliver superior service to our customers. I'd like to thank our employee partners for their exceptional dedication to our customers and the outstanding work they do for Cintas every day. I'll now turn it back over to Jared.

Thank you, Todd. That concludes our prepared remarks. Before opening it up for questions, I'd like to reiterate Todd's earlier statements about the UniFirst acquisition process. In order to avoid speculation, we will not provide any additional commentary on that process. We will update the market, however, as appropriate. Now, we are happy to answer questions from the analysts. Please ask just one question and a single follow-up if needed. Thank you.

If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. Please be prepared to ask your question when prompted. You'll also be allowed to ask one follow up question. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your phone now. Our first question comes from Tim Mulrooney from William Blair. Please go ahead, Tim.

Just two procedural ones. Scott, I just wanted to follow up on the guidance thing that you were mentioning at the end. How much of that $0.03-$00.4 of EPS related to the UniFirst transaction was incurred in the third quarter versus expected in the fourth quarter? I didn't see a reconciliation table for the third quarter. I just wanted to make sure everyone's aligned on their models. I also noticed SG&A was a little bit higher in the third quarter than what folks were expecting, so I thought maybe there was a little bit of deal-related expense there in the third quarter. I'm not sure.

Yeah. Tim, good morning. Good question. The estimate that we provided of that $0.03-$0.04 Is related to the fourth quarter and the fiscal year guide. Any costs that were incurred in Q3 were immaterial. You know, as far as that the comment on SG&A being a little higher, just to you know, remind everyone of that one-time gain last year, that represented about 60 basis points. So when you take that into consideration, you know, SG&A was effectively flat year-over-year. If you go back really over the last three fiscal years, Q3 is typically elevated due to the timing of certain expenses like the reset of payroll taxes.

In fact, when you go back to last fiscal year, and you back out the adjustment for the one-time gain, we were up 100 basis points sequentially last year, and actually 70 basis points sequentially if you go back to fiscal year 2024. We feel really good where we are with SG&A expenses. When you back out the one-time gain, it's flat year-over-year.

Yeah, good point, Scott. I think maybe consensus didn't fully factor in everything because of the one-time gain last year. That's a good reminder. Thank you. Then, just as my follow-up, apologies if I missed it, but you know, how much were energy costs as a percentage of revenue in the quarter, and what's your expectation for next quarter, given the increase we've seen in oil prices over the last few weeks? I think this is an important question for investors.

Yes. Tim, good question. Energy for the quarter was 1.7%, which was flat year-over-year and up 10 basis points over the previous quarter. You know, certainly the increase in gas prices will have an impact. But just, you know, I wanna remind everyone that you know, only 60% of our energy costs are related to fuel for our vehicles, which when you do the math on that equates to about 100 basis points. If you just look at you know, fuel's been you know, continuing to increase, but if you assume a 30% increase in fuel cost that would be sustained over an entire quarter, that would add 30 basis points of cost to our results.

You know, yes, it has an impact, but not something that we feel that we can't overcome. We have contemplated this in our guide.

Our next question comes from George Tong from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, George.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. Can you provide an update on higher level customer purchasing behaviors in the current macro environment? If you're seeing any changes, any increases or reductions?

Good morning, George. This is Todd. I'll take that question. It is Scott and Jim has spoken about it. It is certainly a complex environment. Our customer base has been quite resilient. I think it ties back into our value proposition continuing to resonate. You know, when you deal with these types of complex environments, it can create opportunity for you as well. You know, we help our customers run a better business. By outsourcing items to us, in most cases, they were solving that somehow, some way, in their own fashion and their own business.

By outsourcing it to us, it allows it to free them up to focus on running their business and taking care of their guests or their patients or their customers, however you wanna phrase it. No real change in the customer base. Pretty resilient. I think our value proposition continues to resonate.

Got it. That's helpful. Going back to an earlier point on fuel, you mentioned that fuel expectations are contemplated in your full year guide. Can you elaborate on what exactly you're assuming for the remaining quarters of the year in terms of how fuel will trend and how you plan to pass along any changes in fuel costs to customers in the form of pricing?

Yeah, thank you, George. You know, as Todd mentioned, I mean, clearly this is a dynamic environment. Our guide includes our best estimate of the increase in energy cost. You know, as far as, you know, our approach to mitigating this, or I think you said pass along, I'll let Todd answer that.

Yeah. You know, George, it is certainly a dynamic environment. Hence the, you look at what oil prices were doing last night and then what they're doing this morning. They're changing by the minute. That being said, we've got it contemplated in our an increased level of gas prices at the pump into our guidance. As far as how we handle that, we do not have a fuel surcharge. That historically is not how we handle it. As Scott correctly pointed out, if you think about the fuel at the pump, it accounts for about 100 basis points of our total as a percent of sales.

It's not our largest cost. We also take the approach that we think long-term about this, and we find other ways to extract out inefficiencies. We don't just look at it and say, "Well, this happened, we've just got to pass it on." We want to, we wanna be better than that, and we wanna focus on being consistent for our customers and extracting out inefficiencies in other ways that we have in our business, and still hitting our financial goals as a company while we're doing that.

Our next question comes from Justin Hauke from RW Baird. Please go ahead, Justin.

Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. I guess I had one question just kind of on the CapEx expectations. You know, your CapEx as a percentage of revenue has historically been a lot lower than UniFirst has been. Obviously, you guys are much bigger, so that's part of it. I guess just philosophically, you know, looking at their assets and the systems to kinda get to Cintas levels, just, you know, thinking about, you know, do you expect the CapEx to kind of trend a little bit higher as a percentage of revenue in the first couple of years of integration? Thank you.

Yeah, Justin, a good question. I would just say, you know, we just announced the agreement a couple weeks ago. We'll know a lot more as we close the deal. But you know, when we you know close this merger, you know, we still expect you know, not only will we continue to generate strong cash flow, UniFirst generates strong cash flow. We'll have a strong balance sheet. You know, we talked on our UniFirst call about you know, at closing, we would expect debt to EBITDA being 1.5x. So we're in a great position, and I don't see our capital allocation priorities really changing.

You know, our first priority has always been, you know, reinvesting back into the business through CapEx, you know, followed by, you know, strategic M&A. We'll continue to, you know, look at returning capital back to our shareholders in the form of dividends and buybacks. More to come on, you know, what we would look at in the future with CapEx as a percent of revenue as we close the deal. I would really not anticipate any material changes in our capital allocation priorities.

Justin, I'd just like to add to that, you know, UniFirst's CapEx was higher. They were certainly trying to catch up on the technology subject and other areas. We're in a really good position from a technology footprint. We will continue to invest in there because we have to make sure that we're positioned to compete in the marketplace. That being said, you know, one of the uniquenesses about UniFirst versus most companies that transact like this is they were not for sale. As a result, they ran their business very much thinking in the long term. They invested for the long term.

It's we're not acquiring an asset that needs a significant amount of a CapEx investment into facilities and to get it up to standard. They run a really good business. They think about how to run a business very similar to us. The cultures are very similar. They think long-term, think about investing for the long term for their people and their customers. As a result, we think that positions us incredibly well for the future.

Yeah. No, certainly, I agree on all that. I think that's it. My other questions have been answered on the items that you already addressed. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from Manav Patnaik from Barclays. Please go ahead, Manav.

Hi, this is Ronan Kennedy in for Manav. Good morning, and thank you for taking our questions. You commented on retention at record levels, pricing at historic levels. Could you please provide some further color as to how we should think about what those levels are as a reminder? The trends and drivers versus your expectations for new business and cross-sell, and then anything to call out from specifically strong organic drivers at a respective segment level, please.

Yeah. Hey, Ronan, this is Jim. Good morning. I'll take that question. I'll start with it. If we start to think about our growth formula and what we're attempting to achieve every quarter, you know, we do like to target that mid- to high-single-digit total growth rate. As an organization, the major contributors to that growth, as you correctly pointed out, is our new business acquisition. And a reminder, you know, 2/3 of that new business acquisition comes with that no programmer or do-it-yourself or space, and that continues to perform very well for us, and we really like the trend line there. Retention levels for us has stayed around that steady, that 95% rate, and we are really comfortable where that is, at this point.

Pricing is at our historical levels, which we've consistently said is in that 2%-3% range. Then the remainder of the growth, if you kind of put all those together, you know, you start with a -5%, you add in 2% for pricing, and you want to get up to 8%. The majority of that's new business, but then the remainder is that cross-selling opportunity, selling into the current customer base, which has been highly effective for us this year. We think that there's a long runway of opportunity within our current customer base, as we continue to provide great value. We think about it in long term. We've made nice investments in the product line, and the technology and try to make it easier to do business with us.

The customers in this type of environment are looking for steady answers, and they know they can rely on us. We've had a lot of success this past year. I would say new business and cross-sell slightly continuing to improve, and the others right where we're expecting them to be.

Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Appreciate it. For my follow-up, kind of a follow-up to Tim and George's questions, beyond gas prices, I guess focusing on the all-time high gross margins in each of the segments, can you just further unpack the drivers there? I know it's strategic investments, cost initiatives, and assess the sustainability of them. I know there may be a potential immediate impact if there is inflation, but also unpack the other components of your key cost buckets from a gross margin standpoint beyond gas, whether that's materials or the production expense, the labor, et cetera. Drivers of gross margins and sustainability in near term and longer term, given the current dynamics.

Hey, Ronan, I'll start on that and see if anybody wants to add color. I'll start at the consolidated level and say that, you know, the gross margin at 51% for the quarter, obviously a great quarter for us. The team did an excellent job at execution for the quarter. I think a little bit of that is a demonstration of our culture and the belief that nothing is ever as good as it can be, and that there's always an opportunity to improve processes and work at inefficiencies. If we look at and we think about, you know, the quarter in and of itself, first of all, there was no one-timers, nothing significant from a one-timer perspective that helped the quarter.

The key drivers of that is our primary focus, which is revenue growth. We like strong revenue growth to continue to create leverage. That certainly contributed in all three of our route-based businesses. We are always looking for initiatives to remove inefficiencies and expenses out of the business. You can see that across all of our businesses. Certainly, in our Rental business is a big focus for them. Maybe the other one to call out is revenue mix in both our First Aid and Fire Protection businesses. That's important for us. Revenue mix can fluctuate a little bit quarter to quarter. This was a good quarter for us on that revenue mix. Then of course, timing of investments and what those investments look like.

All around a strong quarter of execution. The team did a fantastic job and those were the key inputs. Just a quick reminder that it can fluctuate quarter to quarter. Running a business isn't linear, and that we're gonna continue to make investments in the business for short-term delivery of results and then long term to be able to set ourselves up for long-term continued success.

Thank you. Anything to be mindful of from the other cost buckets and potential inflation there on, whether it's materials, labor or otherwise?

Ronan, thanks for the question. This is Todd. You know, certainly it's a dynamic environment on tariffs as well. Our supply chain team has done a magnificent job of navigating that. We've said in the past we're not immune to tariffs. Any increase in tariff or decrease in that is gonna take time to run through our system, whether we have to get into our supply chain and then amortize that. I would say nothing material there to factor in.

Got it. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Our next question comes from Josh Chan from UBS. Please go ahead, Josh.

Hi, good morning, Todd, Jim, Scott, Jared. In terms of your investments, how do you feel about, you know, your level of investments kind of exiting 2026 and into 2027? Just thinking about, you know, how well funded do you think your growth initiatives are at this point? Thank you.

Yeah, good morning, Josh. You know, one of the things about our culture here at Cintas is we are constantly investing. As a result, yeah, certain years you might see more than others. We think we're in a really good spot from a what we have been investing and what we will continue to do, invest. I wouldn't say anything, no material change there. You should expect us to continue to invest because we look at the future and it looks incredibly bright.

We look at the opportunity out there in the white space of converting over new programs and we wanna go after that. We're competing in an environment where, you know, there's 16 to somewhere maybe up to 20 million businesses in the U.S. and Canada, and there's 180 million people that go to work every day in the U.S. and Canada. That opportunity is immense. We're investing for the future because we think the future looks really bright, and we have to position ourselves to be able to compete in those areas.

Sure. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Thanks for the color, Todd. I guess in terms of your comment about the good balance sheet position, does that imply that you can continue to perhaps repurchase stock as you desire even through this process? Or how should we think about sort of the pace of buybacks? Thank you.

Josh, good morning, thanks for the question. You know, as I mentioned, you know, we continue to generate strong cash flow, strong balance sheet, and, you know, certainly we're not gonna be limited due to our capital allocation. However, you know, there are restrictions from the time that we sign the agreement with UniFirst through the expected UniFirst shareholder votes. You might also guess that we were, you know, limited during Q3 with share buybacks just to being in a quiet period as we negotiated the UniFirst agreement and completed confirmatory due diligence. Once those restrictions are lifted, we'll continue to be opportunistic with our buyback strategy.

Okay, great. Thanks for the color, and thanks for the time.

Our next question comes from Jasper Bibb from Truist Securities. Please go ahead, Jasper.

Hey, morning, guys. Just wanted to ask what you're seeing in wearer levels at existing customers in Uniform?

Jasper, I'll start. As I mentioned, our customer base is quite resilient. You know, it's if anything our you know growth from our current customers is slightly improved. Wearer levels are, you know, we see the jobs reports, but that means that, you know, they're not as robust as what we would like, but nevertheless, our customers are still quite resilient and hanging on to their people. We just see an amazing opportunity to sell other items, cross-sell other items into those, into that customer base. Things are pretty steady.

Nice. That makes sense. Then I know we just got UniFirst, but after that closes, I imagine you're gonna be looking for more acquisitions outside the uniform business. Any thoughts on what might be next for you after that point and maybe how you're thinking about the consolidation opportunity in the fire business would be interesting.

Sure, Jasper. You know, we're acquisitive in each of our route-based businesses. We'll certainly be busy in our rental business here shortly. But the strength of our balance sheet, the strength of our infrastructure and our other businesses allow us to be acquisitive in all those. We will continue to go down that path and you know, those are tough to pace, tough to predict on deal flow, but it won't change how we think about it. That being said, in the fire business, you asked specifically, you know, the mix of business really matters to us. We try to think long term about that.

We prefer service business much more so than installation type business. It just has to be the right deal and but we have been very acquisitive in that business over the past you know months and years, and we'll continue to with that approach.

Got it. Thanks for taking the questions, guys.

Our next question comes from Andrew Steinerman from JPMorgan Securities. Please go ahead, Andrew.

Hi, this is Alex Hess on for Andrew Steinerman. Good morning, everyone. Wanna touch on a couple recent initiatives you have. First is the recently announced three-way contract with you guys, Ford and Carhartt. The second being the launch of what I think is a new personalized Apparel+ program on your website. Both of those seem to be targeting the trades and manufacturing a bit more. Just wanted to maybe start, is there something you're seeing in those goods providing industries that maybe you're leaning into those a little more for sales growth near-term?

Alex, thank you for the question. I'll start. You know, our relationship with Carhartt and with Ford goes back many years. We have a great relationship with both organizations. You know, this is about providing products that people want to wear. In the case of Ford, I know Jim Farley was passionate about providing the products that his people want to wear and would be proud to wear. Our relationship with Carhartt was an absolute natural. We're excited about that. Certainly the trades are something that we think is growing in demand and is an incredible opportunity for us.

Those are people that frankly we don't have nearly as many people in the trades in our uniform program as we should. They're all wearing garments. They're in jobs that are perfectly positioned for us to tap into. We're excited about that, and we see the future looks really bright in that area as far as Apparel+. Jim?

Yeah, I'll add a little color there, Alex, and I appreciate the question. You know, Apparel+ really goes back to the core of our company culture and values, which is a culture of innovation and continuing to be dynamic and move to where the opportunity is and where the opportunity will present themselves in the future. Apparel+ is just another movement towards that. We wanna be able to outfit any job imaginable across North America. We wanna make sure that we have the right apparel in those industries for what people want to wear, what they choose to go to work in, and it's been very successful for us. Regarding especially trades, I think Todd outlined the fact that that market is really a large employment market.

They resonate well with our value proposition, and there's a tremendous amount of opportunity. In fact, I have an example of one that I brought here for our call today, and as we always speak about, 2/3 of our new customers come from the unserved market. We always wanna illustrate what does that look like? Why do customers continue to partner up with Cintas, and what would they see as a main driver of the value proposition? I have a property maintenance example here, and this company was gone ahead and they were buying uniforms for their employees, combination of retail and e-commerce, with the primary objective that they wanted to look professional and they wanted to look good and cohesive in front of their customer base.

What they found out over time was that they weren't able to accomplish that objective. As they bought year after year, the styles would change. They would be inconsistent on an annual basis. What employees determined was clean and what represented the company well would vary depending on the individual employee. The management team was spending a bunch of time administering the program in ordering, in size changes, and anytime things were worn out. It took them a bunch of time. Of course, budgeting was all over the place. Sometimes they had big spikes in budgets, other times they had very little, made it really hard for them to manage their P&L.

When they were introduced to the fully managed rental program for Cintas, they saw all the things that they wanted out of the program. They were able to get higher quality uniforms that were very comfortable, that were branded with specifically the Carhartt name, things that their employees really wanted to wear. They got a nice, consistent image across the board because all their employees were wearing exactly the same thing, and they were in good and usable and presentable conditions because of our professional laundry service that was provided with them. They were able to get time back in their day 'cause they were no longer in a uniform business. They were in the business of taking care of their customers, which they certainly appreciated, and it made budgeting a whole lot easier.

That's exactly why we wanna continue to expand the product line, to be able to show other industries the benefits here of a rental program, and why we think that we have such a massive market opportunity.

Got it. That's awesome, guys. Maybe as a follow-up, obviously, you guys are in the midst of implementing SAP into the fire segment, and you guys have implemented SAP into a host of acquisitions over the years. Maybe you can just highlight, you know, on fire, the progress and prospective benefits, but also just sort of learnings from running that ERP implementation successfully over the years and what you might be able to do with that going forward.

Yes, Alex. We are preparing to implement our SAP into our technology into the fire business. We're excited about that. We think it's going to bring standardization with that allows for a better customer experience. With that, it also allows for a better employee partner experience. We focus on these technologies to allow us to make it easier to do business with us and make it easier for our employee partners to do their jobs. We think it'll do just exactly that. That shows up in all kinds of different ways, retention of customers, retention of our employee partners, productivity, those types of things. That being said, it takes time.

Technology is certainly never easy to implement. We have really good muscle memory there, and we're well prepared to roll that out. Once we close on our deal with UniFirst, we're highly positioned to do the exact same thing. I think we'll see the same experience. I think the team partners at UniFirst will be excited about it, make it easier to do their jobs, make them more valuable to the customers, make it easier for the customers to do business. We think long-term about those subjects as you go through the challenges of integrating technology, but the long-term impact is powerful for our business.

Our next question comes from Jason Haas from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead, Jason.

Good morning. This is Joon Lee on for Jason Haas. Thanks for taking our questions. Can you walk us through some of the key puts and takes to consider for 4Q organic revenue growth by segment? I believe you guys had some one-time benefits in 4Q last year in Uniform Direct and First Aid & Safety. Could you remind us how big those impacts were and any other factors to consider across the board? Thank you.

Thank you for the question. I'll start, and I appreciate you pointing it out because the comparative for Q4 is significant on revenue growth. It was our highest revenue growth quarter last year. The organic was at 9%. We did have some one-time benefits, specifically in our first aid business, that ran 18.5% organic growth. We certainly do not anticipate that again. Then in our Uniform Direct Sale business as well. In first aid, we had an increase in the training business that helped us as it relates to AED training.

That was a spike that we again don't think is going to occur at those levels. The Uniform Direct Sale business can be a little lumpy, but it had a really good quarter. Yeah, hopefully that gives you a little bit of color around the tough comparative in Q4.

Yeah, Todd, I might just add, like, first off, I'd just say, you know, we had an outstanding quarter this quarter. You know, Jim mentioned that we continue to execute at a high level. We feel that the guide for Q4 is not only a good guide, but it's also consistent with the guide that we gave at the end of the second quarter. I guess let me kind of walk through a little bit of math there that you know, last quarter, the organic growth at the high end of the range was 8%. If you look at the guide for this quarter, this quarter is also at 8%.

If you even take it a step further and look at it another way, last quarter, we issued a guide for the second half of the year to grow organically 7.8%. In Q3, we just delivered a growth rate of 8.2% organically. When you combine that with the Q4 implied of 7.6%, you get an average of 7.9%. Really effectively right in line with the guide that we gave last quarter.

Great. That's really helpful. As my follow-up, I understand that most of your new business comes from no programs, but I want to see if you've seen any change in the competitive environment recently following your acquisition and also given changes in the macro and geopolitical environment?

Well, thank you for the question. It is the geopolitical environment is certainly have a dynamic impact on things. But from a competitive set standpoint, no real change. Keeping in mind, as you referenced, 2/3 of our new customers come from that no program market. You know, when you're competing with e-commerce and you're competing with retail and you're competing with other managed programs, you know, relative to all that, we also have traditional competitors. No real change to that competitive set. It's incredibly competitive, and that's the way it always has been and will be.

That being said, we are focused on delivering value to that set of prospects out there. There's so many businesses. We do business with a little over 1 million businesses, and there's, you know, whatever, 16 million-20 million businesses in the U.S. and Canada. The opportunity out there is immense, and we're focused on delivering our message and getting our team positioned to better serve that market and get the word out better to that market because so many of them don't realize what we can do for them.

Many of them also think that they're not a big enough business to have a program like we offer, which is incredibly contrary to how we make a living, which is servicing Main Street USA, and our average size customer you know spends about $10,000 a year with us. Trying to get that message out to that prospect base is incredibly important to us.

Our next question comes from Ashish Sabadra from RBC. Please go ahead, Ashish.

Hey, good morning, guys. This is Will Chi for Ashish Sabadra. Appreciate you guys taking our question. I just wanted to ask on route density and the incremental opportunities there around footprint, especially with the UniFirst acquisition in mind. Retention is still at highs. Will any retention dips result in kind of reorganization there? Or do you still see a lot of opportunity kind of increasing the sell-through on those routes, and just further fleet optimization?

Why don't I start on that one, and then I'll see if anybody else wants to add color. I think, Ashish, you all are probably aware of our SmartTruck technology and how we approach routing and routing efficiency. The first thing that we try to do with routing and routing efficiency is be as little disruption as possible, whether that's within our own facilities or when we make an acquisition. Especially when we make acquisitions, we recognize that the most important component of the acquisition are the customers and the new employees that we brought on board. We try to be as little disruption as possible to those two constituents.

Cintas (CTAS) Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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