Q1 2024 Brightview Holdings Inc Earnings Call
Participants
Dale Asplund; President, CEO & Director; BrightView Holdings Inc
Brett Urban; Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President; Brightview Holdings Inc
Bob Labick; Analyst; CJS Securities
Andrew Wittman; Analyst; Robert W Baird & Co.
Andrew Steinerman; Analyst; JPMorgan Chase & Co.
George Tong; Analyst; Goldman Sachs
Presentation
Dale Asplund
Fourth, as we achieved meaningful progress on our objectives outlined under one BrightView. On our last earnings call, we set a clear and refreshed strategy, prioritize our employees, align our core businesses while ensuring our customers come first focus on profitable growth and unify the company under one BrightView. During the quarter, we began to successfully execute on this strategy by aligning our sales force to our local operating branches, reintegrating quarter self-perform businesses back into our branches, deemphasizing non-core portions of our business and continuing to focus on pursuing higher quality, profitable business. While these actions led to a modest impact on our maintenance revenue for the quarter. I am confident we are taking the necessary steps to ensure growth in the medium and long term.
I'm also pleased to report that for the sixth quarter in a row, our development business once again showed significant growth and margin expansion. Additionally, we are proving our commitment to becoming more efficient and removing cost with improvement in our corporate segments. I'm encouraged by the underlying momentum in our business, as we execute our renewed strategy. And as a result, we are reiterating our financial guidance for the full year.
Additional evidence of our strategy in action with the sale of our US launch franchise business in January for roughly $52 million. This was a non-core business that did not align with our strategy around self-performance and capital allocation. This move underscores our focus on the core business, but also highlights the value of achieving profitable and reoccurring growth. We have attained a substantial valuation in the private markets, well above our current trading multiple, providing proceeds that we intend to reinvest in our core business.
The enhancements we have made in our business align with our overarching initiative to operate as a unified BrightView. Throughout the quarter, we made progress implementing our strategy across the entire organization. We believe successful execution of our one BrightView strategy will unlock significant long-term shareholder value. This starts by focusing on the tenant from employer of choice, and we are doing this by reinvesting in our core businesses and our employees.
We are making investments in our fleet and investing in the health, safety and development of our team. We are also streamlining and optimizing organizational structures at the branch level, resulting in a revitalized go-to-market strategy. Every new renewed focus on improving how we service our customers with the goal of increasing retention and growing profitably alongside these efforts, we took measures to better align our capital allocation priorities with our branch level needs and our broader initiatives throughout the organization.
On slide 5, we show one BrightView in action and provide a few specific examples of the improvements we have made in the early stages of this value creation journey. Under this, we realigned our sales effort efforts and implemented incentive plans to ensure the entire organization from the branch to our corporate office is focused on driving profitable growth, furthering the collaboration throughout the organization. We put in place a cohesive Customer First go to market strategy.
We also enhanced our customer survey, which resulted in improved response rates and is helping us to gain an even deeper understanding of our customers and their needs. We are leveraging these findings to further refine and strengthen our go-to-market approach. An example of this go-to-market strategy was the reintegration of our tree and golf services into our core maintenance franchise.
This streamlined operations internally, but also helps us deliver more efficient, collaborative and unified services for the customer. We are focused on becoming the partner of choice and taking actions to enhance our positioning, which will allow for opportunities to grow our business with existing customers and win new guests as the nation's largest provider in our industry. There is tremendous opportunity to leverage our size and scale to drive efficiencies across the business while improving central functions such as safety, training and the centralization of operations to better align and support our core business.
Moving to slide 6 and before turning the call over to Brett to discuss our financial results for the quarter, I want to remind everyone that the focus of one BrightView begins with becoming the employer of choice. We do that by putting our employees first and by developing a culture where people seek to achieve individual and group success. We prioritize our employees. So, they have the capabilities, training and equipment required to do their jobs at a high level, doing this materially impact the level of service provided to customers and leads to an exceptional customer experience.
By making these investments in our employees and in turn, employees taking care of our customers, we will become the partner of choice in our industry. We are focused on improving customer retention and accelerating profitable growth by bringing on new customers and expanding relationships with existing customers. Once we have established a strong foundation for profitable growth in new and unified BrightView, we will be in a position to expand strategically M&A can be a powerful lever for growth and generate meaningful returns on capital. But only when it fits strategically culturally and financially as one BrightView, we have the best of what we do, and I'm confident that we can continue to deliver on these goals.
With that, I will turn it over to Brett, who will discuss our financial performance and outlook in more detail. Brett?
Brett Urban
Thank you, Dale, and good morning, everyone. I'll start on Slide 8. I'm pleased to report that fiscal '24 is off to a good start with our strategy towards one BrightView showing positive signs in the first quarter, a continued focus on profitable growth and land maintenance. Another quarter of strong performance in development and execution of our cost efficiency plan led to quality revenue and EBITDA margin expansion for the business.
Important to note, during the quarter, our performance was impacted by the year-over-year decline in snowfall. When normalizing for snowfall, consistent with the prior year, our overall profitability and margins would have shown significant improvement more to come on that later in the presentation. Our enhanced net working capital, coupled with the timing of capital intensity and reduced interest expense, resulted in a meaningful increase of free cash flow compared to the prior year. This resulted in a net leverage ratio of 2.9 times, allowing for financial flexibility for ongoing execution of our profitable growth strategy and investment in the business.
Moving to slide 9. Total revenue during the quarter decreased 4.5% year over year to $627 million. Maintenance was impacted by snow that decreased $22 million due to lower snowfall, a decline in ancillary services and a continued focus on core self-perform business. Partially offsetting these headwinds was the solid demand in our development business, which grew by an impressive 6.3% compared to the prior year due to our ability to convert our strong backlog into higher project volume developments. Performance in recent quarters reflects the appealing nature of the business model while also creating momentum and opportunities for future growth.
Turning now to profitability and the details on slide 10. Total adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $46.7 million, a decrease of roughly $2 million, reflecting early benefits from our one BrightView initiatives and improved profitability offset by the impact of lower snowfall. As I mentioned before, on a similar snowfall to prior year, Q1 EBITDA would have exceeded the prior year results in the maintenance segment for adjusted EBITDA of $42 million compared with the prior year, driven by the previously mentioned revenue shortfalls for primary aluminum smelter and the developer partners.
Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $19.6 million, an increase of approximately 19% compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points, which marks our sixth consecutive quarter of development margin expansion. This is a result of a quality backlog conversion while simultaneously reducing our costs ultimately resulting in accretive growth.
In our corporate segment, expenses for the first quarter decreased year-over-year as we made significant progress with our one bright new strategy to increase efficiencies across our core functions and reduce overhead.
Turning now to slide 11 to discuss the timing impact of snow. As I alluded to earlier and in an effort to enhance transparency in evaluating our quarter's performance, we have normalized Q1 results for snowfall, assuming comparable levels with the previous year comparison highlight increase in EBITDA and additional margin expansion, underscoring the effectiveness of our initiatives and commitment to achieving more profitable growth. Also, this emphasizes the importance of evaluating our business on a full year basis as the timing and magnitude of snowfall changes year to year. For example, this year we didn't see snowfall in late December, but we did see meaningful snowfall in January.
Let's now turn to slide 12 to review our free cash flow capital expenditures. And yes, for the quarter, we are extremely pleased with our free cash flow generation of $17 million compared to a usage of $55 million in the prior year period. As we communicated on our prior call, we are committed to reinvesting back into the core business and executing our renewed capital and capital allocation strategy. With this said, we are maintaining our cash flow and CapEx guidance for the full year.
Net leverage for the quarter came in at 2.9 times compared to 4.9 times in the prior year period. A lower leverage reflects the significant reduction in our debt as a result of one-offs, investment, improved liquidity and profitability growth in the business. Our leverage profile allows for financial flexibility for ongoing execution of our profitable growth strategy and investment in the business.
Moving to slide 13, and as Dale mentioned earlier, in the call, we are executing on our strategy by focusing on our core business. A positive example of this action is the divestiture of our non-core US launch franchise that we sold this business for roughly $52 million in proceeds, reflecting a double digit EBITDA multiple. This opportunistic transaction generated meaningful returns. It allows us to better focus on our core business and reinvest proceeds into driving further efficiencies and profitable growth. We plan to use these cash proceeds to accelerate the execution of our capital investment plan by replacing aging fleet buying new lawn mowers and continuing to make significant investments in health and safety of our employees.
Let's now turn to slide 14 to review our outlook for fiscal '24 for profitable growth will continue to be our guiding factor and key focus. I am pleased to handling that we are reaffirming our full year revenue, EBITDA and free cash flow guidance. We expect total revenue of $2.225 to $2.975 billion, reflecting a range of flat to 5% revenue growth. We continue to assume the following underlying assumptions we expect our focus on profitable growth from leasing to continue to have a near-term impact. I remain encouraged by the underlying health of the market and recent trends in our business personnel.
Our fiscal 2012 guidance range assumes flat at the low end and a five year historical average at the high end. While Q1 started slow, we saw a meaningful pickup in snowfall events in January. As we move into the second quarter and for development for growth and conversion of our strong backlog of projects, we'll continue to benefit revenue.
Moving to adjusted EBITDA. One bright here will be the key drivers of growing profit and expanded margins in fiscal '24, we continue to expect margin expansion in both maintenance and development segments. Benefiting from new initiatives and disciplined management of the business. We expect these improvements to generate total margin expansion of 40 basis points and adjusted EBITDA of $310to $340 million in fiscal '24.
We expect a continuation of healthy cash flow generation, driven by profitable growth and improved operating performance. Our outlook reflects our commitment to growth and investment in our core business. Contributions from reduced interest expense will be managed alongside the ongoing requirements to optimize the business. Altogether, we continue to expect to generate free cash flow of $45 to $75 million, supporting the financial flexibility we maintain today while enhancing our ability to generate future profitable growth.
With that, let me turn the call back to Dale to wrap up on slide 15.
Dale Asplund
Thank you, Brett. Before opening the call for questions, I would like to provide a few final thoughts. We are making significant progress on our goals, and we are seeing the returns on these efforts begin to materialize in our results and gaining traction across the company as we transform this business.
I continue to believe there are tremendous opportunities ahead of us. We are moving this business forward and we are strategically positioned to accelerate profitable growth and to create meaningful value for our shareholders. We will now open the call for question.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions)
Bob Labick, CJS Securities.
Bob Labick
Thank you. Good morning. Our very excited for the transformation you're driving BrightView.
Dale Asplund
Thanks, Bob.
Bob Labick
I know I wanted to start you gave us some great details in the introduction for sure. Maybe you could start with some of the key metrics, key operating metrics. You're focused on improving this year, fiscal '24 and how you'll share that progress with investors throughout the year?
Dale Asplund
Yes, that's great. I would just say it's the number one message that we're monitoring is profitable growth. I think that's a reoccurring theme that we keep talking about, but we want to make sure as we grow this business on the bottom line. So, expanding margins, making sure we see growth in our EBITDA is critical and our path forward.
We have a lot of internal metrics, Bob, that we're monitoring and some of the work that we did over the summer during the transition, as Jim stepped in to help the business and we transform. So Project Liberty really got us going on a lot of internal work such as customer retention and conversion rate we're monitoring that on a daily basis, but we won't be sharing that externally. I think from the external view, profitable growth should be that North Star that you guys stay on top of. But Fred, you want to add anything about?
Brett Urban
I would just say and yes, absolutely profitable growth. Moving towards one BrightView, as you've seen the strength aligning the business aligning our sales force, aligning incentive plans and making sure everyone is marching towards the same profitable full growth goal, absolutely part of hard drive.
I'd say the other thing is core business focus and a huge highlight in the quarter or subsequent events of the quarter was us divesting our non-core US lawn franchise business. And as we move forward, I think if we were to share any more data or information publicly and proudly on our non-core businesses and some of the impact they have on the total. But it's really, really excited as you think about the quarter and you think about that subsequent event for US launch, I think if we're going to share more can be more things like US launch type non-core businesses that we're focused on evaluating and figuring out fit long term in the portfolio.
Bob Labick
Okay. Super. And then you touched on this in one of your bullets as well, but maybe expand a little on how do you get the benefit of scale as the largest operator in the US, but it's a decentralized business, so it's kind of like opposite ends there. So how can you improve operations and get the benefit of your scale based on where you stand today yet?
Dale Asplund
So, I think obviously, leveraging our size and scale and the more we can look to centralize the more we can leverage and create consistency across our business and allow all of our frontline operators to really focus on the customer. So, we have so many things that today we might still have out in the field with our branches focused on the we've got to rethink and centralize and leverage the size and scale. So we not only do more consistently, we can do more efficiently. So, I think a good one that we're working on right now.
Bob, as an example, we just started the process of taking our field finance partners and centralizing them to drive that efficient and more consistent support of our field operators. You can see this and even the way we're doing it, Bob, if you look at our numbers that we just reported, our corporate cost structure came down by $3.5 million year over year in Q1. So, there's a huge opportunity to centralize and do it more efficiently. So, it's a double benefit when we do it. Right. So I hope that gives you a little more detail.
Bob Labick
Yes. No, that's great. And last one for me, and I promise. I think I know the answer, but I just wanted to kind of hear you guys say it again in terms of if you look out three to five years and the growth or the profitable growth of BrightView, will it be more account growth and retention, so or will it be more higher margins per account as the key drivers, where is the focus on? Is it pricing and margin per account? Or is it more accounts, better retention, et cetera? How would you distinguish between those two things driving your growth?
Dale Asplund
Yes, I think it's all of the above we can start with. I think the first and foremost focus we have and our partners at one rock are helping us as we tried to set focus on this. And we actually saw a modest little improvement in Q4 year over year is the retention of existing customers. And we have to make sure that the customers that are our customers today see the value we provide and continue to be our customers long term.
And if perhaps the service they're getting doesn't match the level of price they're paying. We've got to work with them and figure out how we can provide the service that matches the price or figure out a way to make sure that the price gets adjusted to the right level. But obviously, keeping our existing customer base is key to driving growth in this business. But it's also making sure, Bob we're going after the target customer segment, we have the franchise business we sold was more focused that a little bit of the residential business, which is not our focused end market we want to go after the commercial business.
That's our target customer that the size and scale of BrightView, we can add value across the nation. So it's going to be both make sure we retain every account. We can make sure our customers see the value we provide and then grow as many new accounts that fit our target audience at the right price that we can. And when we do that, you'll see that organic growth start coming back.
Bob Labick
Yes. Super. Thanks so much.
Dale Asplund
Thank you, Bob.
Brett Urban
Thanks, Bob.
Operator
Andrew Wittman, Robert W Baird & Co.
Andrew Wittman
Great. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions, guys. And this whole strategy about kind of focusing on the core but even exiting things that are seen as non-core. Obviously, the franchise a transaction here subsequent to quarter end is a good example of that. And I think you guys have also talked about sort of your national account business is something that you're looking at as well. And then there's the whole just kind of basic thing of there's some customers that you're probably servicing right now that aren't very profitable.
So, I guess taken as a whole, maybe Dale, could you talk about one a little bit more of the detail behind why franchise business was noncore and how that computes and what the thought process is on the national account business there, too, block some of that business that kind of talking national account. I'm talking about externally serviced national account business, I think you call it BES or something like that.
Maybe you can talk about what that means and what kind of work that's getting and then where you are, how far along are you on portfolio customer review and exiting those customers, which really don't give you the return of the profit margin that your services should should deserve kind of a long question, but I think they're all kind of thematically relevant together.
Dale Asplund
I think I've got them all we have in my head. So let's start to get through Mandy. So first of all, why is why is the US launch noncore to us? We are transforming this business and we are trying to develop better ways to support our branches and our sales force out in the field. Our US Blondes non core franchise business was getting all the benefits that we're providing our branch managers by being part of our franchise network, yet they really were not targeted it going after the same customer base.
But over time, unfortunately, as they transition from some of the residential customers to more of the commercial, we began to see those direct franchisees competing against our local branches using the similar playbook and toolbox, leveraging our estimating skills, leveraging our purchasing power to run their businesses.
That's not what we wanted to do. We wanted to make sure that the investments we make to improve this business goes to the benefit of our branch managers and the branches out in the field and the added value was we were able to get a significant multiple above our trading level today to divest this business. So, it was a great choice for us to divest an $11 million of revenue business and get $52 million roughly for now.
The other area that you talked about, you classified it correctly, not really national accounts. We still believe we can add huge value to our national account group, but more of the non-core business that we outsource and we really act as a broker on. And we we are an aggregator for customers to come to and then we work with local providers to provide that service there.
Again, that business is going to fall into one or two buckets, and we're evaluating this right now. It's going to be business that we want to self-perform and we can add value and we can be the service provider and control the quality of the customer gets. And the other part is going to be customers that we don't target on a daily basis and we're 100% dependent upon those local providers too, our service the customer. That is too much of a risk for us. And we don't want to jeopardize our relationship with big accounts that we don't control the end service. So, we are going to evaluate that aggregator business and we're going to decide how that will make sense for us on a go forward basis.
And we'll give you guys everybody on the call an update at the end of Q2, and that business today is broken broken into both snow and land, and we're working with all of partners on snow this year. And then we're making determinations on land, which will be coming up for the summer in most markets. So, I think that has to evolve. You have another piece of it.
Andrew Wittman
Well, the whole idea of just putting a hole or review of your underlying customers and customer access, the whole idea of addition by subtraction And anything you could do just maybe clarify this or make a little finer point. Is there is there a revenue number that like seems like a minimum that like just needs to not happen next year, and we should be thinking about in our models as we look at them.
Dale Asplund
Yes, good question. I think I would just say overall with roughly, let's just call it 50, 50, 60 40 depends on how much it snows. Our brokerage businesses, like we have said in the past is roughly about 100 million or so. And we'll give you an update on Q2 that gives you exactly how much we think we can self-perform and how much we'll look at transitioning out on the other larger accounts. I think our team has done a pretty good job continuing to mitigate some of the ones that as inflation worked through the business, they weren't priced, right? So the team continues to make some progress there.
We do have some larger contracts that were done at a time that maybe it wasn't of focus to be profitable growth and it was more to grow the business so we've done some adjustments, a few large municipal contracts with multiple years that we still have that we've got to work through. But I would tell you, Andy, we should be able to. So I'll run that business just with our sales efforts that we're doing, if we're going to give you any headwinds from our revenue is going to come really from that aggregator BDS business that you mentioned. And we promise we'll get through the snow season with our customers and we'll give a full update once our branches decide where and where they can best self-perform the work that we have a great question.
Andrew Wittman
Okay. Yes, that's super helpful. And then just a follow-up here, and it has to do with snow. So you guys, obviously December is what it was to get to the low end of your guide. You need $170 million effectively here in the March quarter. And so I guess as you sit here with a big snowstorm that hit out through January, how much more do you need in these last two months to get to that low end Yes.
Brett Urban
So, we don't want to obviously give inter-quarter numbers, but what we can indicate to everybody, we have confidence in our range and we feel like Brett had said in his opening comments, Andy, where we are as we work through Q1 and January, we feel we're pretty close to where we were last year, which makes us feel very comfortable that we will land in that range.
And I just remind everybody last year, February and March were relatively low snowfall and that still got us to $210 million of revenue so we actually think there could be more of that upside. That's why we kept that range with a midpoint somewhere around 240. But we're very, very comfortable, Andy, we're going to get in the low end minimum and probably more towards the the midpoint of that range. When we think about it, if it snows like what we've seen in the past in February and March.
Andrew Wittman
Thanks. Have a good day.
Operator
Tim Mulrooney, William Blair.
Yes, thanks. Good morning, Dale and Brett. Morning. Tim will attempt So up, Brett, if I'm doing the math right, it looks like the maintenance land business was down about 5% organically, if you exclude that 3.2 and then acquisitions. And am I doing the math right there?
Brett Urban
Yes, on the total, you're doing the math right, Tim is down about $10 million for land for maintenance plan.
So my question is, did that hit your expectations or was it a little softer than you expected? And I'm asking because based on the midpoint of your guide for this segment for about flat organic for the full year, you're starting the first quarter down five at flat for the full year at the midpoint, it looks like you'd be expecting a pretty strong second half of the year. Am I thinking about that the right way?
Dale Asplund
You are thinking about that the right way, Tim, as you as you look at our first quarter, we did we are not giving quarterly guidance. We came out last at the end of Q4 gave annual guidance. And we we tried to say the first couple of quarters may be a little choppy and on more towards the negative two or a little bit more than that ended in the back half of the year would be flat to the positive end.
But a couple of things to call out there in Q1, we did expect and right around where we landed the biggest piece that we really didn't talk a lot about at the end of Q4, and we're not really talking a lot about now. But as the hurricane we had last year, we had hurricane the hurricane income through the south eastern part of the United States. That was roughly half of our land miss came from that hurricane year over year comp and the other half is essentially what we expected by focusing on our core business, deemphasizing our non-core business and continuing to work through the profitable growth.
Brett Urban
Tim, I think as you move into the last nine months of the year, I think you'd expect there won't be a comp for hurricane in Q2, but there will be some of that work still on ongoing with focusing on our core business deemphasizing, as Dale mentioned, our non-core business, specifically our aggregator business called DES. and we are working through snow now. But when it comes to land, we'll have a fulsome update here at the end of Q2 has are actively working through negotiations with clients now. And we expect those to be done primarily done here by the end of Q2, and we'll give an update on if any impact will come from that business what that looks like for Q2 three and four.
Okay. I understand that was very clear. Thank you for walking me through that. I wanted to ask about your switching gears here a little bit to the ancillary work, which I know you highlighted some softness in the clay business this quarter and maybe you even made reference to it last quarter, too. I don't I don't remember, but my questions on the ancillary are number one, curious what you think is driving that decline in demand would just be interested in your perspective?
And because I know that was out of scope work can sometimes be helpful to margins and would assume that's something you'll see more of the numbers you have, but number two is what percentage of your maintenance plan business would you estimate is a player revenue for US based contract revenue? I think I remember on the IPO was like 75, 25. I don't know if that ratio still relevant. I'm sorry to cut you off there, but.
Dale Asplund
Yes, no problem, Tim, sorry to cut you off. I'll start with the second question, your answer to the total land revenue is about 75, 25, maybe even 70 30 and brains are what's contract other specialty services versus pure ancillary so that's kind of generally the way if you take the full land, the land revenue. But back to your original question, we did see declines in Q1.
Majority was even as you think about the total hurricane that happened last year, think about the total Q1 comp. All that hurricane revenue was ancillary revenue that came through the southeastern part of United States and as you sit here today, we really didn't have any ancillary issue in Q4 coming out of last year. We don't expect to see any ancillary challenges in the back half of this year or back three quarters of this year. Our ancillary backlogs are at an all-time high and we know some of that's dependent on seasonality and weather as we put it in the ground. If it snows a lot more here in Q2.
We may do a little bit less ancillary in Q2, but the backlogs are at an all-time high. If you look at that number, which we track, we don't disclose total, but it's off are up roughly about 10% year-over-year. And what we're bidding and customers are buying and that's specifically in the land business.
Got it. Okay. So, actually that's going to be here because I kind of think about that as a good sign that Matt, generally folks are willing to spend a little bit more on this or that throughout the year. So so there's no no signs of a decline in demand. It's just some.
Dale Asplund
Yes, Q1 to hurricane comp issue for ancillary. That's why we called it out in the. But how do you think about the health of the business as the market. We see no, no signs of any type of weakness in the market. We see ancillary backlogs in our land business up about 10% year over year. We see our new sales pipeline in the land business up year over year. And if you look at our development business, we are seeing IQstream positivity in that business, not only on the margin side, but from a revenue growth side, it's been six quarters in a row of really growing that business at mid single digit growth rates and our backlog for development is essentially stalled through this year, and we're selling into the first half of 2025 at this point. So we see really positive signs of momentum not only on the upselling on the land side of the business, but also on the development side of this.
Got it. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Operator
Andrew Steinerman, JPMorgan.
Andrew Steinerman
Hi, guys. This is Andrew Steinerman. I just wanted to dive into sort of the tension between centralizing and decentralizing here in the business. I know this isn't the first time that BrightView has has made structural changes in what what roles become centralized what roles become decentralized, they'll be maybe helpful to hear your thoughts on that. And then I have a follow-up question on capital allocation.
Dale Asplund
Yes, it is the number one way that we can add value to our field operations people by taking noncustomer-facing work away from and centralizing and allow them to spend more time with customers, which will inevitably help us be a better partner to our customers. So there are things, Tim, when we talk about interacting with the customer as per I'm sorry, Alex, that we definitely we want to do at our branches.
And I want every branch focused on those customer facing activities. And then there's the non-value things that you have to do to process, whether it be a P. or collect day our support financial functions. So we don't want our operators distracted by. We want them focused on customer facing were so high. Now that the company has gone back and forth from centralization, the decentralized.
But even when they did decentralized stuff, a lot of the area was just decentralizing into different markets. It wasn't giving everything directly back to the brand. So, if we're going to centralize, we're going to put the right way and we're going to bring it all the way top side, we can get the maximum value prop. Got it. That's very helpful.
Andrew Steinerman
Got it. That's very helpful. And then thinking about capital allocation at BrightView, obviously, there have been some some priorities here that maybe got you into some non-core businesses and with some acquisitions that tend to scale the way that they were desired.
Just from like a metric standpoint, how are you sort of thinking about measuring success in capital allocation return on invested capital framework. Is there anything sort of your thinking of how to measure success that maybe moves beyond consolidated measures that you guys?
Dale Asplund
I think the thing that you mentioned some of the challenges we've had as we've deployed capitals, and we haven't traditionally been great stewards of that capital as we've deployed it. So our M&A process that the first thing I did with the team and I am so happy with the progress we've made is tapped the brakes on M&A because like I've said, M&A is not just a financial move. It has to fit the Company strategically and culturally as much as just making the math work and even the process for integrating that M&A that we've done in the past when we buy a company we have to own the company and be a better owner of that asset immediately. We can't have earn-outs. We can't just let the asset linger out there for a period of time before they become part of the BrightView team.
So, our M&A process is going to drastically change and our field operators are right now, Rich clean, we have over $700 million of potential M&A. And our group has reviewed it to say which one of these potential targets make the most sense for us to bring into our company that we can be a better owner and they can help us if we can grow their revenue faster or drive more efficiency and create bottom line returns. We haven't done that in the past, and that is a major shift for us.
I am a huge believer in M&A, but M&A has to be done the right way. It can't be a financial calculation that nobody that understands the business and the people that work there actually are involved in the decisions. So it is changing and look, we've got to monitor M&A and how we're a better owner. We've got to make sure post deals. We know what improvements we're making to make more EBITDA and more revenue and the business that we acquire
Andrew Steinerman
Got it. That's very helpful. And then maybe to wrap up on. Can you highlight any sort of tangible or intangible strategic assets that when you look at BrightView now from your sort of outside or becoming an insider vintage. You say these are these are these are true strategic and competitive assets that are distinct from our competitors and distinct from the market?
Dale Asplund
It's a great question and I would tell you what excites me most about this is the closer I'm I've visited, you know, not quite a third of our branches but I've been spending most of my first 120 days out interacting with our frontline team for closer you get to the customer, the more dedicated they are to what they do every day to make sure they deliver the right service. We as a corporation as a company have to provide them the tools and resources they need.
We have to upgrade some of our fleet. We have to get them better mowers. We have to get them tools and training and safety equipment. So every day when they're out servicing our customers. Our customers understand why we're the best provider in this industry. That's why you heard from Brett, we're going to take those proceeds that we got from US loans. We're going to reinvest that back in the business to make sure those frontline employees get the benefits that they deserve and they can service the customers.
And that's the most positive part of this business. And yes, we had some different segments of our business that might have been a little siloed with as we announced, we're integrating golf and tree. But even those businesses have dedicated people that are experts in what they do. But when we bring all the resources we have together and they all work seamlessly going to market to our customers, nobody can compete with BrightView.
We have experts from turf to development to tree care to irrigation to general and maintenance. We have the best people in the industry, and I see that every day when I visit branches. So that is our secret sauce. We just have to support those people so they can spend more time doing what they do best every day Thank you, Hubert.
Andrew Steinerman
Thanks, Alex.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Steffen [Meister], Jefferies.
Hello. This is (inaudible) And yes, so developments are some particular strength in the business, but just wanted to get an idea of what are some of the drivers of the strength in the development business this year? And how do you expect this to be carried over throughout the rest of the year?
Dale Asplund
So Harold, I think I think it was Harold, you broke up a little bit, but our development business obviously has been the benefactor of what the country's seen on the construction cycle over the last couple of years and some of those mega projects that you heard a lot of people talk about as they come towards the end and will continue to come towards the end for the next year and a half.
We offer one of the top 50 specialized construction companies in North America that can actually support the final stages of those projects. So, that team is he's very hit the stride right now. They have a great backlog. We're winning new jobs every day, and we'll continue to see that demand, as Brett said, well into 2025 as we continue to bid work. So that business has been a huge, huge benefactor of all the construction that's gone on over the last 24 months. So we are very optimistic about development.
Turning and then on just on the EBITDA margin on how should we think about the cadence of EBITDA margins throughout the rest of the year for you to know that 40 to 80 basis points higher. And you know, just any insight on that on the cadence for the rest of the year would be helpful.
Dale Asplund
Thank you. Yes, great. Great question. Like I think when you look at when you look at Q1, if not for the timing of snowfall our margin would have been right at our our guided range of the total company for the year of 40 to 80 basis points would have actually been at the higher end of that range of 60 to 80 basis points. So, a little bit is just the timing of snow in Q1 and how that what are but our guide would be then for the full year, snow holding it to tended to 70 would imply that that's no shortfall in Q1 have come back in Q2 and therefore, we see that margin rebound here in Q2.
As you think about quarter to quarter, we're not again providing quarterly guidance. But as we look at the full year, we feel strong sitting here today with some of the actions we've taken towards one BrightView and to align the business and the momentum we're seeing in the underlying core business and land and the momentum we're seeing in our development business and some of the cost structure changes we've made in corporate that for the full year guide, we feel confident in that 40 to 80 basis points total margin expansion for the business.
Thank you. That's all my questions for today.
Dale Asplund
Thank you.
Operator
George Tong, Goldman Sachs.
George Tong
Thanks. Good morning. You've reiterated your full year guide despite the sale of US lawn and the shortfall in snow revenue in fiscal 1Q. Can you elaborate on some of the assumptions around snow in the land business for the rest of the year that you're incorporating into your full year guide?
Dale Asplund
I think, George, great question, Mike. Reiterating our full guide we also feel exactly where we felt after we've worked through January on now with that range of 210 to 270 million snow. So we will update everybody where we finish once we get past the snow season. But like I said earlier, where we sit today, we still feel that the guide we gave you will come in despite shortfall, we felt in Q1, but the activity we saw in January. So snow, we feel good about.
And overall, with US land, US loans was a strategic sale with $11 million of revenue at a double-digit multiple. We have $52 million for. So you can do some quick math there. We believe we can still step over that incremental three quarters of the EBITDA that that business would have generated. It's somewhat diminimus with the multiple we got.
So we feel good about the momentum that we have as we go through the year. So we are not concerned that that's going to have a negative effect either on revenue or on EBITDA for our full year guide overall.
Andrew Steinerman
Great, that's helpful. And then development revenue growth of 6% came above your full year guide range of 2% to 5% for the segment. Can you discuss your growth expectations for development for the rest of the year, any timing considerations or comp issues to be mindful of.
Dale Asplund
So I'll start with and I'll let Brett just at a high level. The one thing I would say the benefit that or the fee, the lack of benefit we saw on snow that we told everybody we didn't see a lot of snow until January. That means that the construction season can actually be running a little longer into the year. So our development group gets the benefit of that. So, they did have an outstanding quarter with that growth. And I would just say in Q2, depending on what we see for snow that could trim that down year over year, especially last year, like I said, snow in February and March was relatively light. So, But Brett, do you want to add anything to add?
Brett Urban
George, that typically development slowest quarters, Q2, same with our land business. So, as you think about seasonality, and snow, et cetera. Q2 is a bit lower. If you think about last Q2, we were essentially flat in the business, just given timing of projects and seasonality. So we do still expect that side that full year revenue guidance of 2% to 5% for the year, Q2 being a little bit, little bit less than Q1. And then as you look back in the back half of the year being right kind of in the middle that guide.
So, again, I feel bullish about that business. We are essentially sold through 2024 and our backlogs were selling into 2025. There could be some quarterly noise, just getting projects in the ground. But at the end of the day, we feel we feel great about that business and really the momentum in the overall company. And as you think about us reaffirming guidance, we sit here today excited by the fact that this will be a breakthrough year for BrightView, especially with EBITDA and EBITDA margin expansion.
And despite what happened in Q1, timing of snow or despite what happened with stepping over a tough comp with the hurricane. We really feel confident that getting EBITDA had a breakthrough year this year for the company. It's where we're reaffirming and we feel we feel optimistic about that.
George Tong
Very helpful. Thank you.
Dale Asplund
Thanks, George
Operator
This concludes our Q&A. I will now hand back to Dale. I'm CEO for closing remarks.
Dale Asplund
Thank you, operator. As everyone can tell, we are very excited about the opportunities ahead, and I'm thrilled to be leading this great company through this important period. Our objectives are clear. We are committed to becoming one BrightView growing profitably and creating meaningful shareholder value.
With that, thank you, and operator, you may end the call.
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, today's call is now concluded. We would like to thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines.
