Republic Services Class A Earnings Call Insights: Last Quarter’s Outlook and Market Pressure

Republic Services Inc Class A (NYSE:RSG) recently reported its fourth quarter earnings and discussed the following topics in its earnings conference call.

Last Quarter’s Outlook

Corey Greendale – First Analysis: First wanted to ask about the guidance and last quarter you provided some kind of initial thought on the year and it sounds like the EPS range you’re giving here is a little lower than that and the free cash range is a little higher and I just wonder if you could bridge what the reasons are for the differential?

Donald W. Slager – President and CEO: Well, our preliminary outlook that we provided last quarter, you sort of encased in this – I think we gave you $1.90 to $1.92 as per our outlook and we are now saying $1.86 to $1.91. So, we’re still in that range. We had a little softness in special waste that we built into our plan and for 2013 I would tell you that makes up the bulk of it.

Edward A. Lang, III – SVP, Treasury and Risk Management: On the cash flow, we have already talked about $650 million and bringing that number up to the $675 million to $700 million is the in-year benefit from the extension of bonus depreciation for calendar ’13. Also keep in mind, when we talked on the November 1st call, that was more of a preliminary outlook, not detailed guidance because we had not completed our full year budget planning process. So, it was just kind of a preliminary outlook, not the financial guidance which we’re providing today.

Donald W. Slager – President and CEO: That’s right.