Q4 2023 Kelly Services Inc Earnings Call
Participants
Peter Quigley; President and Chief Executive Officer; Kelly Services Inc
Olivier Thirot; Chief Financial Officer; Kelly Services Inc
Joe Gomes; Analyst; Noble Capital Markets
Kevin Steinke; Analyst; Barrington Research Associates
Kartik Mehta; Analyst; Northcoast Research
Marc Riddick; Analyst; Sidoti & Company
Presentation
Operator
Good morning and welcome to Kelly Services' fourth-quarter earnings conference call. (Operator Instructions) Today's call is being recorded at the request of Kelly Services. If anyone has any objections, you may disconnect at this time. Our fourth-quarter webcast presentation is also available on Kelly's website for this morning's call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host, Mr. Peter Quigley, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
Peter Quigley
Thank you, Kaylee. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Kelly's fourth quarter conference call. Before we begin, I'll walk you through our Safe Harbor language, which can be found in our presentation materials.
As a reminder, any comments made during this call, including the Q&A may include forward-looking statements about our expectations for future performance. Actual results could differ materially from those suggested by our comments, and we have no obligation to update the statements made on this call. Please refer to our SEC filings for a description of the risk factors that could influence the company's actual future performance. In addition, during the call, certain data will be discussed on a reported and on an adjusted basis. Discussion of items on an adjusted basis are non-GAAP financial measures designed to give insight into certain trends in our operations.
Finally, the slide deck that we're using on today's call is available on our website. With that, let's get started.
In a moment, I'll invite our Chief Financial Officer, Olivier Thirot to share our results for the fourth quarter. I'll then share my reflections on what has been a transformative year, defined by decisive action and rapid progress on our growth and efficiency objectives. Finally, we'll provide our preliminary expectations for 2024 before taking your questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Olivier.
Olivier Thirot
Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everybody. Before I provide more details on our Q4 results, some brief comments on our full year performance. First full year revenue was down 2.6% as reported or 3.2% on a constant currency basis. This reflects the challenging staffing market conditions we saw across a wide range of specialties and geographies. Amid those challenges, our education business demonstrated resilience and delivered another year of excellent revenue growth, up 32% in 2023, achieving over $840 million in revenue, almost doubling the level of revenue from the pre-COVID 2019 period.
Overall gross profit rate for 2023 was 19.9%. This is a 50 basis point decline from the prior year, driven primarily by lower permanent placement fees.
Our 2023 results also reflect the significant efforts made as part of our transformation initiatives to lower our cost base and position us to benefit from our improved efficiency moving forward. On an adjusted basis, we lowered our SG&A expense expenses by 5.4%. That allowed us to deliver adjusted earnings from operations of $69.1 million, consistent with 2022 in spite of difficult market conditions. And finally, our full year 2023 adjusted EBITDA margin rate improved by 20 basis points.
Now looking at the fourth quarter of 2023 in more detail, revenue totaled $1.2 billion, essentially flat with the prior year, including 120 basis points of favorable currency impact. So revenues were down 1.3% on a constant currency basis.
As we now look at revenue in the fourth quarter by segment, as noted in my earlier remarks.
Our education segment's revenue growth continues to be strong, up 27% year over year. The continued double-digit growth reflect led by strong fill rate and demand from existing customers as well as net customer wins. Overall, the education business delivered more than $50 million of year-over-year revenue growth in the quarter. In the SET segment, revenue was down 5% during the fourth quarter, we continued to see the impact of challenging market conditions with year-over-year revenue down 6% in our staffing specialties as well as lower revenue trends in our outcome-based business, which were flat year-over-year. Permanent Placement fees in S.E.T. continued to be impacted by lower market demand and declined by 41%. In our OCG segment, revenue declined 3% year-over-year declines in RPO continued due to slower hiring in certain market sectors. Year-over-year. MSP revenues also declined while PTO year-over-year revenues improved. Revenue in our Professional and Industrial segment declined 11.5% year over year. In the quarter, revenue from our staffing product declined 15%, reflecting continues challenging market conditions. The segment's outcome-based revenue was flat year-over-year in the quarter, growth across most of our outcome-based specialties was offset by a contraction in the year-over-year demand from our call center specialty. And finally, revenue in our international segment improved 5% on a reported basis and was down 2% on a constant currency basis. Overall gross profit was down 4.7% as reported of 5.7% on a constant currency basis, our gross profit rate was 19.3% compared to 20.3% in the first quarter of the prior year. Lower perm fees continued to unfavorably impact our GP rate by 60 basis points in Q4. And for the quarter, our GP rate was also impacted by unfavorable business mix by about 60 basis points. This reflects growth in specialties with lower GP rates, increasing education and PPO and lower GP rate in set education and national due to product customers and country mix, respectively. Partially offsetting those impacts were 20 basis points of lower employee-related costs as G&A expenses were down 2.2% year-over-year on a reported basis. Expenses for the first quarter of 2023 include 7.9 million of charges related to our ongoing transformation efforts as well as $6.9 million related to activities associated with the Q1 2024 sale of our European staffing operations. So on an adjusted basis, constant currency basis expenses declined by 9.5%, similar to Q3. The reduction reflects the positive impact of our transformation efforts, which are designed to reduce cost on a structural basis.
Our reported earnings from operations in the fourth quarter was $7.3 million compared to $4.6 million in Q4 of 2022. As noted, our 2023 results include $7.9 million of charges related to our transformation activities and $6.9 million of charges related to the sale of our European staffing operations, our fourth quarter 2022 included the $10.3 million goodwill impairment charge. So on an agile on an adjusted basis, Q4 2023. Earnings from operations were $22.1 million, a 59% improvement over the prior year. And adjusted EBITDA margin also improved 60 basis points to 2.6%. Income taxes for the fourth quarter were a $6.5 million benefit compared with our 2022 income tax expense of $5.2 million. Income taxes in 2023 include the impact of nontaxable gains on the cash surrender value of Company owned life insurance and the benefits of work opportunity tax credits, which are recurring. In addition we recognize deferred tax valuation allowance adjustments, the tax benefit from outside basis, differences on the held-for-sale assets and other tax impact from the legal entity, restructuring of our European subsidiaries and anticipate no anticipation of the Q1 2020 for completion of the European staffing transaction.
And finally, the reported earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2023 were $0.31 per share compared to a loss per share of $0.02 in 2022. Earnings per share in 2023 include $0.46 of unfavorable tax adjustments transaction costs and an RIA and unrealized loss on a forward contract, all net of tax and all related to sale of our European staffing operations and $0.16 related to restructuring charges. Net of tax loss per share in 2022 includes the impact of goodwill impairment charge net of tax, partially offset by a gain on sale of real property net of tax. So on an adjusted basis, Q4 2023 EPS was $0.93 compared to $0.18 per share in Q4 of 2022. The significant improvement is driven by year-over-year change in income taxes as well as business perform.
Now moving to the balance sheet. As of year-end 2023, our European staffing operations are now classified as held-for-sale and those assets and liabilities are now included on separate line items on our balance sheet. At year-end, cash totaled $126 million, and we have no debt outstanding. Of course, this cash position doesn't include the more than $100 million of proceeds from the sale of our European staffing operations received early in 2024 or additional proceeds expected under the terms of the sales agreement in the third quarter of 2024. So when combining our strong balance sheet with our existing borrowing capacity, we continue to have ample capital available to fund our organic and inorganic strategy and navigate an uncertain market environment at year-end.
Accounts receivable as reported total $1.2 billion and represents accounts receivable generated from our North American Staffing and outcome-based businesses, as well as our global MSP and RPO practice receivables from our European staffing operations are now included in asset held-for-sale. Our global DSO, which includes all receivable, including those generated by our yard and staffing operations, was 59 days. This is down two days over year-end 2022 and reflects continued efforts to manage our working capital investment in customer accounts receivable, primarily in the US. For the year, we generated $61 million of free cash flow compared to using $88 million in free cash flows in 2022, given the onetime items in the 2022 period, including the final repayment of approximately $87 million of federal payroll tax balances, which we deferred in 2020 under the CARES Act and also $48 million of income taxes few in Japan following the sale of our investment in Persol common stock comparisons from year over year as challenging. But on a like-for-like basis, free cash flow did improve from careful management of working capital.
And now I'll turn it back over to Peter for additional comments.
Peter Quigley
Thanks for those insights, Olivier. When we began 2023, we did so with a clear vision for the company's future, defined by significantly improved profitability, sustainable growth and greater value creation for all our shareholders stakeholders.
As the year progressed, macroeconomic uncertainty persisted fueled by inflation, higher interest rates and geopolitical volatility. In general, employers continued to proceed cautiously with hiring both full-time and temporary workers while taking a measured approach to workforce reductions. While some signs of cooling emerge, the labor market remained relatively resilient and the supply of talent for open roles continued to be constrained diverging from the trend our industry has typically experienced during periods of uncertainty. Notwithstanding these unique dynamics, we focused on what we can control and executed on our vision with urgency and agility. We set out to align our cost base with our strategic priorities, operating environment and performance. And we have swiftly implementing efficiency actions across the enterprise that have delivered and sustained a structural reduction to SG&A expenses, we said we would significantly improve our net margin to create greater financial flexibility to invest in Kelly's future, and we had delivering 60 basis points of adjusted net margin expansion in the second half of the year. We committed to finding new avenues of growth and we have refreshing our go-to market strategy with innovative offerings to meet the evolving needs of both customers and talent. This includes a comprehensive approach to delivering the full suite of KELLY solutions to our large enterprise customers to capture a greater share of wallet as of January. We are now executing on this strategy with an initial set of focus accounts that represent a meaningful portion of Kelly's revenue base. Of course, we remain committed to providing the highest quality of service to all our customers regardless of spend or size in our P. and I. segment. Our enhanced localized delivery model continues to generate positive momentum with both clients and talent benefiting further from our KELLY now mobile app, the app is now live nationwide and actively serving up tailored job opportunities in commercial and light industrial to thousands of highly qualified candidates with an eye trained on the future. We continue to drive growth and value in the near term as well. We remain focused on capturing demand in more resilient markets, including higher margin, higher growth, outcome-based business as well as in education, which, as Olivier mentioned, continues to be a high-performing growth engine within our portfolio, we unlocked additional value-creating opportunities entering an agreement to sell our European staffing business and unlocking more than $100 million in capital to redeploy in pursuit of organic and inorganic growth. And we successfully completed a $50 million share repurchase program in the third quarter, returning value directly to KELLY shareholders Taken together, these accomplishments form a strong foundation upon which we will continue to build. We enter 2020 for a more efficient, profitable and focused enterprise and with further streamlined operating model now comprising four business units with market-leading positions in North America, staffing and global MSP and RPO solutions. We'll continue to realize more of the benefits from these changes throughout the year. For more details on our expectations for 2024. I'll turn the call back over to Olivier.
Olivier Thirot
Thank you, Peter. As Peter mentioned, the staffing market and underlying economic trends have not moved in the same patterns we have seen in other economic cycles and that has made it more difficult to know how quickly the staffing market could improve as we move into 2024. As a result, we'll share our outlook for the first half of 2020 for only a period where we believe that staffing market conditions will remain relatively consistent with what we have experienced over the past several quarters. But before I dive into 2024, I will give you some color on the impact of the sale of our European staffing operations on our historical results and flow for clarity, we have retained our Mexico operations, which were included in our international report, the reportable segment through 2023 revenue for Mexico has been reported separately in the revenue tables of our earnings releases, so you can get more information, including quarterly revenue impacts from our historical filings for the full year of 2023, our European staffing operations generated approximately $810 million of revenue, $120 million in gross profit and add $119 million in SG&A expenses. So reported revenues be approximately 17% lower as we move into 2024. On a like-for-like basis, GP rate should improve by 100 basis points and our EBITDA margin should improve by 40 basis points.
As a result of the say, the remainder of my my comments on our outlook for 2024 will exclude the European staffing operations from the 2023 base for the first half of 2024. On a like-for-like basis, we expect nominal revenue to be flat to up 0.5% with no significant FX impact impact, resulting in a midpoint revenue expectation of $2.09 billion. Our outlook reflects an expectation that Q1 revenue trends will be consistent with Q4 of 2023. And then the transformation related growth initiatives that Peter has mentioned start to gain traction. As we moved into Q2, we expect our GP rate to be 20.5% to 20.7% on a like for like basis, the 30 basis point decline in the midpoint of our range, reflecting the change in our business mix, primarily because of our education business, is expected to continue to deliver significant revenue growth. Also, we expect to see a continued improvement in efficiency as the impact of our transformation related actions continue. On a like-for-like basis. We expect adjusted SG&A expenses to be down 5% to 6% for the first half of 2024 at the midpoint of our outlook. That's an expected run rate of about $190 million per quarter for the first half of the year. Overall, we expect adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 3.3% to 3.5%. In addition to the 60-basis point improvement we made in our cost structure in the second half of 2023 and the 40-basis point favorable impact from the sale of our European staffing operations. We expect an additional 30 to 50 basis points of net margin improvement in the first half of 2024. And we believe that when establishing market recovers, we'll be well positioned to take further advantage of our improved efficiency.
Finally, as we move into 2024 beginning with our first quarter results, we'll report the operating results of our segments, utilizing revised segment earnings from operations and EBITDA margin measures. We'll allocate a greater share of the cost we have previously reported as corporate costs to our business units. This aligns with feedback from investors and others that they would value greater transparency on the financial results. Each business unit generates and how they contribute to Kelly's overall performance.
And now back to you, Peter.
Peter Quigley
Thanks, Olivier. With the decisive action and rapid progress our team delivered in 2023, we have laid the groundwork for 2024 to be an inflection point in Kelly's 77-year history. Our efficiency measures are delivering sustained results. Our growth initiatives are now in the implementation phase. And we entered the year with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 3%, a step change from our historical net margin average of around 2%. As Olivier shared the stage is set for the Company to achieve our previously disclosed expectation for net margin of 3.3% to 3.5%. With these structural improvements in place, I'm confident that Kelly is well positioned to capture increased customer demand when the macro-economic environment improves and convert a greater share of top line gains to bottom line growth.
I'm very proud of the way our team has kept their sights set on dual horizons, definitely steering KELLY through a challenging external environment and delivering results in the near term.
All while embracing the change that's necessary to position the Company for the future.
Finally, I'm grateful to our customers, talent and shareholders who have been with us on this journey, placing their trust in Kelly to deliver on our commitments and create value over the long term. While there is work to be done, I'm confident that 2024 is the start of a new era of growth for Kelly a year in which we'll begin to reap the full benefits of the work we've done to transform this company and reward all our stakeholders.
Kaylee, you can now open the call to questions.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press one then zero on your touch tone phone. You will hear an acknowledgement that you've been placed into queue and you may remove yourself from queue at any time by repeating the one zero command. If you are on a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the numbers. Once again for questions, please press one and then zero at this time. Our first question will come from the line of Joe Gomes with NOBLE Capital.
Peter Quigley
Morning, Joe. Good morning.
Joe Gomes
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. So Peter, just kind of wanted to start off. You guys are doing everything you can what and what can we do to trying to attract more candidates in order to be able to fill whatever opportunities there are. I mean, what is there any more levers there that you can pull?
Peter Quigley
Yes, Joe, we're continuously Uhm-hmm finding new ways to reach talent on social media is obviously a key component of that, but not the only one of our revised geo structure that we've announced for our P. and I. segment. It is designed to establish a greater personal connection for those individuals that want to contact with a person and our Kelly now app is designed to connect with more people over a broader geographic area for those people that prefer to do something electronically. So and we're continuously exploring new ways in all of our businesses. And I think and the improvement in fill rates in our Education segment is a great example of how we've been successful.
Joe Gomes
Okay. Thank you for that and just a quick kind of technical question here, Olivier. So yes, glancing at the balance sheet, you've got assets held for sale at year end of 291 million, you sold the international got, let's call it 100 and plus million for that. What else is included in that asset held for sale? Or is there something else there on the accounting side that suggests maybe we're going to see a write down at some point this year?
Olivier Thirot
No, I think when you look at the held-for-sale, you have about EUR290 million of assets, EUR170 million of liabilities. So the net book value is about one 20, of course, as you know, and we did receive the proceed at least the first tranche of about EUR110.6 million on January 3rd of this year. But there are still Europe pending points that I would like to mention the transaction should be cash-free, debt-free with a normalized level of working capital, and there is also another earn-out. So all that is under review and we expect to get, you know, additional proceeds likely from all these items in the course of probably late Q2 or early Q3. And that's going to be in addition to basically the USD110.6 million equivalent we did receive at the time of the signing So early January.
Joe Gomes
Okay, great. Thanks. Thanks for that clarity.
And one more if I may kind of more big picture here, Peter. So you've been CEO since October of 2019, I believe kind of dealt a tough hand. We have to deal with COVID and recession and footprint inflation in this uncertain economic environment. But you in that time, we've monetized assets done M&A, the transformation and restructuring effort. And yet the stock really is below from when you took over and just trying to get an idea of what else do you see can you what other can you do that would attract investors in to help drive the stock higher? Or is the fact that we have the two share class just an impediment to attracting more investors and more eyeballs KELLY story?
Peter Quigley
Yes, Joe. So I think in prior conversations I've avoided trying to get into the head of prospective investors. So but what I would say is I think based on our conversations with investors and potential investors the improvements that we made last year are going to be a wake-up call that we're on a different trajectory. And then what we have been for the past 20 years, obviously, we have to deliver those results. But entering the year at a 3% net margin versus our past 20-year average of about 2%, I think is a major step in that direction. I think our focus on growth, our growth in the past several years and even longer than that has been relatively flat. So it's a combination of net margin improvement and top line growth that is behind the transformation that we initiated last year. And I think that the fact that we're now a more disciplined focused, the company given the portfolio revisions that we've made will be set.
It will be a simpler to understand business for many investors. And I think you know, as we deliver the financial results will begin to attract more attention and engage more potential shareholders in interest in being along on our journey.
Olivier Thirot
I would add probably inorganic. You know, it's a big focus, and Peter did discuss about it several times. You know that post the EMEA staffing transaction, we are going to have have cash in excess of $200 million, probably more in the $25 million to $30 million, we have $300 million of available capacities and with a very strong balance sheet and we are continuing to actively looking at properties as we did in the past but I think in terms of capabilities now financial capabilities, we can basically look at properties that probably were not affordable for us even a couple of years ago.
Joe Gomes
Great. I also manage as I appreciate that and really look forward to seeing how 2024 unfolds. Thanks for taking the question.
Olivier Thirot
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, Joe. We'll go next to the line of Kevin Steinke with Barrington Research.
Olivier Thirot
Good morning, Kevin.
Kevin Steinke
Good morning, Peter and Olivier. Thanks for taking the questions. So just wanted to circle back on the gross margin outlook. You discussed for the first half of 2020 for COGS and Olivier, you talked about the mix shift to education there and the expected impact. But what are you thinking or factoring in in terms of the perm placement outlook? Or is it you mean a meaningful part of it as you think about how gross margin will trend in the first half?
Olivier Thirot
So Kevin, the first thing you need to think about is is a mechanical improvement of 101 hundred basis points, right? So what I would guide 20.5 to 20.7 basically eats I kind of like for like-for-like pro forma comparison.
Right. The second thing is if you think about our expectations for fee business on, I would say in the first half of this year. It's what I would call a stabilization. So more of an improvement being linked to a lower base of comparables. So something that I would say is kind of neutral.
And the main factor we really did compute is this mix that I was referring to, especially related to the growth we have in education and basically the type of overall pressure that it's putting on our GP rate, not on our GP dollar growth. So I would say neutral for fees, mix would be the biggest.
The thing that would compress our margin, especially driven by education. That's that's our assumption for the moment, which is what we have seen also in Q4.
Also in Q4, you know that we have also 60 basis points of the coming from the fee business, but now the comps are much lower. So I don't see it seems that it's going to have the impact we have seen all over 2023.
Kevin Steinke
Okay, great. That's helpful. And obviously, education continues to be a one for FORMER and really impressive growth there. Maybe just talk about the continued runway or opportunity you see there for new customers, penetration of existing customers, et cetera? And how how it's sustainable the runway is that you see there in terms of the growth outlook?
Peter Quigley
Well, clearly, as Olivier was talking about comps, the comps get more and more difficult for education, which has had a very good, a very good run. But the business is operating extremely well and both with existing customers as all as well as generating interest from new school districts, both large and small, the we've seen a steady improvement in fill rates in some in many of the school districts, which is very positive. We've seen some improvements in pay rates. Those last two items, the bill rates and pay rates do have a sort of a natural ceiling. But other than that, the fact is the business is responding to a dynamic in the market or there's not enough instructors in classrooms. And we have demonstrated that we're the best in the business at filling those instructor physicians. So we think the future is very bright for education.
Kevin Steinke
Okay, great. Just also on education, the Q4 gross margin was was a bit lower than we had seen historically over the last now federal quarter. I don't know if there's anything to call out there in terms of mix or something like that, but just curious, obviously.
Olivier Thirot
Yes, I probably issue a few things to call out. I would say it was a little bit of a challenging quarter, but not I mean more for phasing reasons on our fee business, but we don't see that as a deceleration. It's more that our fee business in education on like energy business going up going down. We don't see that as a pattern like what we have seen in the fee business and said.
Okay. And I am the second factor is a little bit of mix. And we don't see our spreads moving down and there is a little bit of pressure, but it's more the mix, especially because very recently, we have welcomed pretty big customers new wins and the mix is a little bit more challenging, but I don't see that as a as a kind of long-term issue. So honestly, looking at Q4, I see that more whether it's on the fee side or on the mix side as something that is more temporary and the normal fluctuation we see, you know, quarter-over-quarter.
Kevin Steinke
All right. Understood. That's helpful. Maybe just a couple of more here. So you talked about the revenue outlook for the first half of 2024 and first quarter expected to be pretty consistent with the trend you saw in the fourth quarter. But then as you mentioned, you're looking for an improvement in revenue trends in the second quarter and you link that to your transformational growth initiatives. So maybe just give us an update on the traction you expect there and the various initiatives that that you see contributing to that today traction in the second quarter?
Peter Quigley
Well, as we've discussed, Kevin, as you know, in 2023, we delivered significant improvements in our SG&A through efficiency gains and pivoted to focus on growth later in 2023 the time it takes for those to materialize and show up a little bit longer than the SG&A benefits that we saw, but were anticipating that sometime in the second quarter, the the steps that we've taken to grow our market share within our large enterprise customers will begin to come take hold, and we're approaching a very significant portion of our revenue through that program. And we think there's opportunity for revenue growth again, starting sometime in the second quarter.
Kevin Steinke
Okay. That's great. And lastly, on the M&A front, you talked about your actively and we're continuing to look at properties and others.
Olivier, you mentioned with the additional capital you now have from the European staffing sale, maybe being able to afford some properties that you might not have before or are you just talking about in terms of targets of a larger size or maybe paying a little more on the valuation side? Maybe you could just delve into the to that comment and the overall pipeline you're seeing?
Peter Quigley
Yes, I think it's more of the former than the latter. We're not going to we're going to continue to be very disciplined in terms of what we pay for properties. And we're going to be looking for the kinds of high-quality, high-growth properties that we've demonstrated that we've found in the past. And so that's where we're going to spend our money. The pipeline is still not what it was in the post-pandemic period. There is deal flow, but the quality is still not as good as we'd I'd like it to be, but we're not we're not just relying on active sales. We're proactively evaluating and engaging companies that we think would be a positive addition to the to the KELLY portfolio.
Olivier Thirot
And we still have, as you might remember, were disclosing and discussing the fact that in terms of valuation and so on, we have we use amongst other things.
And on a rate of return, we are still on the 25%. I was I was referring to some time ago, so that clearly you know the approach we have in terms of valuation.
Kevin Steinke
Okay. That all makes sense. I appreciate all the commentary. I'll turn it over.
Olivier Thirot
Thank you, Kevin.
Operator
Thank you. We'll go next to the line of Kartik Mehta with Northcoast Research.
Peter Quigley
Good morning.
Kartik Mehta
Good morning, Peter. I was hoping to maybe get your thoughts a little bit about what you're seeing in January I realize I'm sure the guidance reflects of what you've seen, but any change you're seeing outside of seasonality in January or early parts of February compared to what you saw in the fourth quarter or December.
Olivier Thirot
So two things on that. So the one one is when you look at a revenue exit rate and end of Q4 of 2023, overall, we were at minus 0.1. So I call it flat on a constant currency basis.
So that's that's where we ended up, you know, at the front end of 2023. When I look at the first weeks of January, what we have seen so far, and I've heard that also from many sources, but we have seen it a very light start in manufacturing, at least for the first couple of weeks of January and then some ramp-up. We have started to see a little bit later for the rest of the business education, as Peter was saying, still still on the high growth mode and I would say for OCG and and set a stabilization versus use a little bit similar to what we have here at the front end of 2024, 2023, sorry.
Kartik Mehta
And then as you look at I think, Peter, you said a deal flow, maybe the quality isn't as good as you would like. Is it just quality or is that maybe a number of opportunities considering the environment we're in? Are you getting to see enough opportunities where you can make a good decision or do you think they'll come a little bit later and maybe as people get a better feel for what the economy is going to eventually do this year?
Peter Quigley
Yes, I think the big damper right now is continues to be interest rate environment and the participation of certain investor communities. But I think as that either stabilizes or we actually get into a rate reduction environment on that money is going to come off the sidelines in companies that might be in the part of their cycle that they want to and or into an exit transaction, we'll see we'll see greater deal flow based on the folks we talk to them.
Kartik Mehta
It's this we're not in a permanent state of view, though low quality M&A properties, it's just that the current environment for the past year or so has been it's not conducive to a lot of companies coming on the market and just one last question, Olivier, when you report first quarter results, you know right now you have the Americas in Europe and dot AP. and obviously the media business was about $864 million for the year of 2023. Will will you still keep that a European region segment or will that so what's the remainder or left kind of move somewhere else, as I mentioned during our prepared remarks, so the perimeter of what we have sold is Europe.
Olivier Thirot
So it is excluding Mexico from from the from the perimeter. And basically the Mexican business is going to be under the leadership of PNI, but just to make sure it was it your question there was something else?
Sorry, I may have missed something.
Kartik Mehta
No, I was just making sure. I think Europe reported $864 million.
Olivier Thirot
You talked about $810 million and kind of as a comparison, yes, showed the $810 million was to make sure externally you can capture the perimeter, right? It's lower than the total revenue of the segment International The main difference is because basically our Mexican business is not part of the deal with that we are referring to and our OCG. business is going to continue to operate in a globally.
Yes, and go right to go there. Okay. Right.
Kartik Mehta
So that but we see G. business will then be just reflected in your international segment, right?
Olivier Thirot
So in OCGNOCJ. is already known as G. while we keep a footprint in Europe a little bit similar than the one we have in Asia in Asia Pacific through our OCG business, namely MSP, RPO and to some extent FSP. or BPO when relevant.
Kartik Mehta
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Olivier Thirot
Thank you.
Operator
And we'll go next to line of Marc Riddick with Sidoti when you Mark and good morning, everyone in London.
Marc Riddick
So a lot of my questions have been answered, and I want to thank you for providing greater clarification on that breakdown that That's super helpful. I wanted to circle back around to your thoughts around the acquisition pipeline and potential targets and the like. Are you getting the sense that and while it may not be quite where you'd like it to be, are you getting the sense that there are any particular pockets that may sort of emerge or or be are relatively actionable sooner rather than later, whether it be regionally or by industry vertical?
Peter Quigley
Well, we're focusing, as I've said previously in science, engineering, technology and telecom and our education practice, others would be opportunistic. And we think that the because of the size of the technology staffing market in the US North America, that that's a very fertile area to continue to pursue and we think it will it be an excellent complement to the acquisition we made in Softworld so that we will continue to focus on on science, engineering technology and telecom and think that there's historically been enough deal flow that when things ease up a little bit that we will begin to see the kinds of high quality assets that we'd be looking for.
Marc Riddick
Excellent. And then shifting gears, I was wondering with everything that's going on with the client demand environment and what we're sort of navigating through. I was wondering if you could share any thoughts as to if you see any, but potential changes for any particular go-to-market market strategies or approaches and or and sort of how you feel about the general pricing environment, if there are any sort of tweaks or adjustments that we bid that you're looking at engaging in as we are begin the year?
Peter Quigley
I don't think anything of consequence that I would point to Mark, I think there are pockets where there are pricing challenges due to due to cut the competitive land scape and the decline in demand in certain areas. But we I think historically have demonstrated that we're able to navigate through that and and also take a get price where the environment is cold storage and the labor market continues to be tight. So well, demand hasn't necessarily. We haven't seen it show up in demand yet as the macroeconomic conditions improve. Large and small enterprises are going to continue to struggle finding people. And that is something that they'll often turn to Kelly to help them win.
Olivier Thirot
Yes. I mean, when you look at the spreads and it's something we look at to make sure that we understand where our margins are. Our spread in P&I and SET are pretty much stable and even up a little bit. So we have not seen anything in terms of pricing pressure that to translate into and basically some erosion in our spreads.
Marc Riddick
Great. And then I would be remiss if I didn't bring this topic up, but I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about if you've heard any on a relatively speaking, any changes or updates of client thoughts around AI driven revenue opportunities and demand opportunities? Or if there's any update you can provide there, that would be great.
Peter Quigley
Thank you. Yes. Well, so we're spending a lot of time talking with customers about AI. I would say there is some activity, but it's still very early, early innings in that in that game. But we're not we're not waiting. So we're using AI in a lot of our operations, particularly to improve the productivity of our recruiters and salespeople. And we have we used a eye in other parts of our operations as well as I'm in technology that we have that customers face off with and use like our Helix analytics portal and PLXUX. in our OCG practice. But it's still KELLY operative. It's not a customer driven activity right now, but there are a lot of conversations, a lot of interest. We're I've launched a program to connect customers who have demand for experts in the AI space, a Kelly Ark program, our platform. And we've got customers who are on that platform because they're looking for talent that can help them with their internal AII., but all of this is still relatively small and early on relative to other technologies and solutions.
Olivier Thirot
Thank you very much.
Peter Quigley
Thanks, Mark.
Marc Riddick
Thank you, banks.
Operator
Thank you once again for questions, please press one then zero this time.
And presenters, there are no further questions in queue from the phones at this time.
Peter Quigley
Okay, Kelly, thank you very much. I think you can terminate the call.
Operator
Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this conference is available for replay beginning at 1130 Eastern Time today and running through March 13th at midnight. You may access the AT&T replay system by dialing eight six two zero seven one zero four one and entering the access code of five eight five six nine seven one. International participants may dial (402) 970-0847. Those numbers again are one eight six two zero seven one zero four one or four zero two nine seven zero zero eight four seven with the access code of five eight five six nine seven one.
It does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for your participation, and thank you for using AT&T Event Conferencing. You may now.
