ITEM 1: Business
Unless otherwise specified, the terms “we”, “our”, “us” and the “Company” refer to Agiliti, Inc. and, where appropriate, its consolidated subsidiaries. The term “THL” refers to Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P., our principal stockholder, and the term “THL Stockholder” refers to THL Agiliti LLC, an affiliate of Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P.
Our Mission
Agiliti, Inc. is an essential service provider to the U.S. healthcare industry with solutions that help support a more efficient, safe and sustainable healthcare delivery system. We ensure healthcare providers have the critical medical equipment they need to care for patients—wherever and whenever it’s needed—with a service model that helps lower costs, reduce waste and maintain the highest quality standard of medical device management in the industry. We are motivated by a belief that every interaction has the power to change a life, which forms the cornerstone of how we approach our work and frames the lens through which we view our responsibility to make a difference for the customers, patients and communities we serve.
Overview
We believe we are one of the leading experts in the manufacturing, management, maintenance and mobilization of mission-critical, regulated, reusable medical devices. We offer healthcare providers a comprehensive suite of medical equipment management and service solutions that help reduce capital and operating expenses, optimize medical equipment utilization, reduce waste, enhance staff productivity and bolster patient safety.
We commenced operations in 1939, originally incorporated in Minnesota in 1954 and reincorporated in Delaware in 2001.
In our more than 80 years of experience ensuring healthcare providers have high-quality, expertly maintained equipment to serve their patients, we’ve established a nationwide operating footprint that supports our offering. This at-scale, local market service and logistics infrastructure positions us to reach customers across the entire healthcare continuum—from individual facilities to the largest and most complex healthcare systems. Our ability to rapidly mobilize, track, repair and redeploy equipment during times of peak need or emergent events has made us a service provider of choice for city, state and the federal government in the management of emergency equipment stockpiles.
Our diverse customer base includes more than 10,000 national, regional and local acute care hospitals, health systems and integrated delivery networks ("IDN") and alternate site providers (such as surgery centers, specialty hospitals, home care providers, long-term acute care hospitals and skilled nursing facilities). We serve the federal government as well as a number of city and state governments providing management and maintenance of emergency equipment stockpiles, and we are an outsourced service provider to medical device manufacturers supporting critical device remediation and repair services. We deliver our solutions through our nationwide network of more than 150 service centers and Centers of Excellence, a majority of which are certified to ISO 13485:2016. At our facilities, we employ a team of more than 800 specialized biomed repair technicians, more than 5,000 field-based service operators who work onsite within customer facilities or in our local service centers, and over 200 field sales and account managers. Our fees are primarily paid directly by our customers rather than by direct reimbursement from third-party payors, such as private insurers, Medicare or Medicaid.
Industry Challenges
The U.S. healthcare industry continues to face transformative pressure that affects how provider organizations conduct business and serve their patients. Across the healthcare system, providers face compounding financial and operational challenges, including cost pressure from payors, nursing and clinical staff shortages, rising costs of drugs and supplies, increasing regulatory oversight, and advances in medical technology that generally result in higher prices for newer equipment and a higher cost of managing that equipment over its lifecycle. Given there is little that providers can do to change external dynamics, there is increased focus on areas within their enterprise that they can control. In our experience, one area that most hospitals and health systems identify for operational and cost improvement is the management and maintenance of medical equipment.
Healthcare facilities have been shown to own large quantities of reusable capital equipment ranging from multi-million dollar highly technical devices (e.g. MRIs) to lower cost, high volume devices (e.g. infusion pumps) required for patient care, treatment and diagnosis. In our experience, providers often face challenges in managing their medical equipment inventory effectively. For example, hospitals typically utilize roughly 42% of their owned medical equipment inventory at any given time, yet caregivers report that they routinely lack access to readily available patient-ready equipment. Nurses report spending an average of 20 minutes per shift searching for equipment, and often less than 37% of their time on direct patient care. Operational silos that naturally occur among hospital departments create inadvertent breakdowns within equipment management workflows, from the administrators who order equipment, to the support staff who clean/reprocess and deliver the equipment, to the nurses and doctors who use the equipment.
Further, the repair and maintenance of this highly technical equipment continues to increase in complexity and cost. Over a period of 15 years from 1995 to 2010 there was a 62% increase in the number of medical devices per hospital bed and a 90% increase in costs related to maintaining this equipment. Given the increasingly complex nature of these devices and stringent regulatory mandates guiding their upkeep, specialized technical knowledge is required to repair and maintain them. Most healthcare facilities struggle to employ the in-house capabilities and resources needed to ensure timely, routine maintenance and rapid testing, repair and turnaround of their medical inventory which may impact time-to-therapy and patient safety, while driving up capital replacement costs on equipment that could have otherwise been kept operational with proper maintenance.
Finally, the healthcare system experiences seasonality in patient volumes, resulting in peak-need demand for specialized medical equipment (e.g. ventilators, specialty beds, infusion pumps). Given the common breakdowns in managing and maintaining their inventory during times of normal operation, hospitals face additional burden on equipment availability during times of peak need and will procure supplemental equipment through additional acquisition channels to fill this gap.
These challenges drive up significant costs and time delays within individual hospital facilities, but when multiplied across several hospitals and alternate site facilities within an integrated delivery network, the losses increase significantly. An average 2,500 bed IDN has been shown to waste more than $11.0 million annually on inefficient equipment maintenance and unnecessary capital purchases, while clinicians lose valuable patient time and productivity hours managing equipment needs.
These dynamics, supported by the following trends, further support the essential nature of our work:
Focus on reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities continue to experience substantial pressure to conserve capital, reduce operating expenses and become more operationally efficient. We expect these pressures to continue in the future and believe that we will always be on the right side of healthcare reform. Our comprehensive, end-to-end solutions offer customers a way to realize costs savings while enhancing operational improvements for medical equipment access and availability, thereby improving their organizational efficiency and financial viability.
Demand for better patient safety and outcomes. Hospitals across the U.S. are focused on improving patient safety and outcomes, which includes efforts to minimize hospital-acquired conditions (e.g. infections, patient falls and pressure injuries) and increase nursing time at the patient bedside. Hospitals turn to us to assist them in managing their equipment in ways that have been shown to help them to minimize these incidents and ensure equipment is available when and where it is needed for patient care, thereby improving patient safety and time to therapy, and supporting optimal patient outcomes.
Caregiver retention and satisfaction. Hospitals continue to experience pressure and risk related to nursing and other caregiver retention and job satisfaction pressures. According to McKinsey & Company, the United States is expected to face a nurse shortage of between 200,000 and 450,000 nurses by 2025. Adding non-patient care duties, such as searching for, cleaning and managing equipment, adds to nurse workload and contributes to clinician dissatisfaction and turnover. We expect that with these internal pressures, hospitals will increasingly turn to our programs to outsource healthcare technology management duties and related management processes to allow nurses more time to spend on patient care, resulting in improved job satisfaction.
Increased capital and operating expense pressures and regulatory compliance. Hospitals continue to experience restricted capital and operating budgets, while the cost and complexity of medical equipment increases. Furthermore, the increasing complexity and sophistication of medical equipment brings with it more recordkeeping requirements and regulatory scrutiny in its use and maintenance. We expect that hospitals will increasingly look to us to support the
management and maintenance of their capital equipment inventory to achieve capital and operating expense savings, operating efficiencies and regulatory compliance.
Our Value Proposition
As a critical outsource partner to more than 10,000 U.S. healthcare customers, including most leading providers nationwide, we’ve tailored our solution offering and service model to address the unique challenges and opportunities we witness among our customers related to the effective management of medical equipment.
Our services help eliminate significant capital and operating costs associated with the ownership and lifecycle management of mission-critical medical equipment. In addition to optimizing use of providers’ owned equipment, we provide ready access and increase the on-patient utilization of supplemental medical equipment to address fluctuations in patient census and patient acuity. By partnering with Agiliti, providers have the benefits of:
Cost savings and lower total costs of equipment ownership
•Increased utilization of both customer-owned and supplemental equipment
•Lower overall total cost of equipment ownership by combining our solutions to solve challenges across the end-to-end equipment management process
•Optimized management and logistics of provider-owned equipment through tracking, monitoring, reprocessing, maintaining, and ensuring equipment is safety-tested and redeployed for use
•Reduced maintenance and repair costs through the use of our proprietary technology, flexible staffing models, parts pool, equipment capabilities and diverse skill mix of knowledgeable equipment technicians and our commitment to quality
•Benefits of specialized technician labor to augment clinical biomed staff, having been shown to help reduce service costs and provide required technical proficiency to address more complex equipment types
•Access to our extensive data and expertise on the cost, performance, features and functions of all major items of medical equipment
•Assistance with capital planning, vendor management and regulatory compliance
More time to spend with patients and confidence in the availability of patient-ready medical equipment
•Increased productivity and satisfaction among nursing staff achieved by eliminating certain non-clinical work tasks and saving an average 300-bed hospital over 28,000 caregiver hours annually, allowing more time to focus on patient care responsibilities
•Improved time-to-therapy for patients at risk for falls, skin breakdown and bariatric safety by expediting delivery of therapeutic equipment direct to the patient room
•Access to supplemental moveable medical equipment, surgical equipment and next generation technology without the expense of acquisition on a pay-per-procedure basis
Improved regulatory compliance, risk management and extended use life
•Optimal maintenance intervals and parts replacement to extend equipment use life, reduce waste and lower obsolescence risk
•Compliance with regulatory and recordkeeping requirements and adherence to manufacturers’ specifications on the reprocessing and maintenance of medical equipment
•Equipment quality assurance through the use of our comprehensive quality management system (“QMS”) based on the quality standards recognized worldwide for medical devices: 21 CFR 820 and ISO 13485:2016
•Risk mitigation and lower costs associated with product recalls or device modifications
Technical expertise and supplemental staffing to sustain optimal equipment workflow
•Reduced administrative and time burdens on clinical staff related to managing and locating available equipment and coordinating among multiple vendors
•Specialized technical and clinical specialists that directly interact with and work alongside customers to optimize equipment outsourcing solutions
Our Market Opportunities
We participate in the U.S. medical equipment services market comprised of the services we offer through our onsite managed services, clinical engineering services and equipment solutions service lines.
Per the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”), as of 2021, healthcare spending reached $4.3 trillion, or $12,914 per person and accounted for 18.3% of the U.S. GDP. Spending is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 5.1% from 2021-2030, due to secular tailwinds including an aging population, rising acuity, and prevalence of chronic conditions.
There is a fundamental shift in the needs of health systems, hospitals and alternate site providers to move from supplemental and peak need sourcing of medical equipment toward more comprehensive onsite inventory management and maintenance solutions. As healthcare facilities look to balance the challenge of providing better care at lower costs, they are more open to third party partnerships that outsource critical but non-core support functions. The move toward full outsourcing is not unlike trends in similar services at hospitals including food service, laundry, professional staffing and technology.
We believe there are several key macro trends that will drive increased demand for our products and services:
Favorable demographic trends. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, individuals aged 65 and older in the United States comprise the fastest growing segment of the population. This segment is expected to grow to approximately 95 million individuals by 2060. This represents a 93.9% increase in the 65-and-older segment of the population as compared to 2016. As a result, over time, the number of patients and the volume of hospital admissions are expected to grow. The aging population and increasing life expectancy are driving demand for healthcare services.
Increase in chronic disease and obesity. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”), six in ten Americans live with at least one chronic disease, like heart disease and stroke, cancer, or diabetes. These conditions often require specialty equipment to support therapeutic intervention in inpatient and outpatient care settings. In addition, obesity in the U.S. increased to 41.9% of the population between 2017-2020, up from 30.5% between 1999-2000 (CDC). This population demands greater access to specialty bariatric equipment to support care and minimize the incidence of injury during a hospital stay.
Increased mergers & acquisitions. We have seen that hospitals and healthcare systems continue to expand their covered network and acquire alternate care delivery settings in order to care for patient populations in the most cost-effective way. In our experience, providers are increasingly seeking partners that provide comprehensive services and that can quickly adapt to changing health system infrastructure and growth. Working with one vendor that can operate at a nationwide and system-wide scale is attractive to cities, states, and IDNs who operate, manage, and maintain equipment inventories across multiple locations.
Centralizing shared services across the IDN. Health systems with duplicate services across multiple facilities in close proximity have an increased risk of unnecessary variation, greater costs, and suboptimal outcomes. Many health systems have centralized and consolidated non-clinical services as a shared service, including billing, reimbursement, supply chain, human resources, IT, etc. We have witnessed a growing trend among IDNs to centralize and consolidate equipment maintenance and logistics among member facilities. In our experience, because most health systems do not currently have the storage, technical or transportation resources for managing a shared equipment management function, they will seek third party support to optimize equipment utilization, redeploy equipment where needed and reduce overall equipment costs.
Increase in infection control risks. Infection control remains an essential priority for hospitals and health systems as a way to limit the spread of hospital-acquired infections. This has further escalated as a top priority due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Most focus in this area is around hand hygiene, the proper use of personal protective equipment ("PPE") and the reprocessing and sterilization of critical and semi-critical medical devices (e.g. surgical instruments, endoscopes). Often overlooked is the reprocessing of non-critical medical devices, such as infusion pumps and ventilators, that are commonly touched by caregivers and patients. If not properly cleaned and sanitized between patient use, these devices can pose increased infection control risks. We expect an increase in demand of onsite equipment management programs to address proper reprocessing of these types of devices and help lower infection risks and allow clinicians to spend more time at the patient bedside and less time cleaning equipment.
Our Solutions
We provide a comprehensive offering for the manufacturing, management, maintenance and mobilization of critical medical devices, built on an integrated service platform. Our solutions help reduce the cost and complexity of acquiring, managing and maintaining medical equipment inventories. The integrated nature of our offerings within our end-to-end service framework ensures we maximize value to over 10,000 customers nationwide as we address more aspects of the equipment lifecycle continuum.
While customers may initially engage with us across one aspect of our service lines within this framework, we employ a variety of land-and-expand tactics to grow our relationships and customer share-of-wallet over time. These tactics include:
•Gateway solutions which offer an entry point to the economic buyer and include peak needs equipment, surgical lasers and equipment, specialty beds and surfaces and supplemental clinical engineering services;
•Vertical solutions which provide a deeper level of service with clinical offerings tailored to specific patient needs (e.g. bariatrics, wound management, falls management) and clinical engineering programs for broad equipment categories (general biomedical devices, diagnostic imaging equipment, surgical instruments);
•Comprehensive, connected solutions through onsite managed services and outsourced clinical engineering services that connect previously fragmented customer workflow processes to drive operational efficiencies, realize improved clinician and equipment productivity, lower total cost of ownership, ensure regulatory compliance, reduce waste, improve time to therapy and allow customers to effectively lower costs; and
•Comprehensive logistics, management and clinical engineering solutions that allow IDNs to manage equipment inventories across multiple locations, and supports city, state and federal government agencies in managing and maintaining equipment stockpiles.
We deploy our solution offering across three primary service lines:
On-Site Managed Services: Onsite Managed Services are comprehensive programs that assume full responsibility for the management, reprocessing and logistics of medical equipment at individual facilities and IDNs, with the added benefit of enhancing equipment utilization and freeing more clinician time for patient care. This solution monitors and adjusts equipment quantities and availability to address fluctuations in patient census and acuity. Our more than 1,300 onsite employees work 24/7 in customer facilities, augmenting clinical support by integrating proven equipment management processes, utilizing our proprietary management software and conducting daily rounds and unit-based training to ensure equipment is being used and managed properly, overall helping to optimize day-to-day operations and care outcomes. We assume full responsibility for ensuring equipment is available when and where it is needed, removing equipment when no longer in use, and decontaminating, testing and servicing equipment as needed between each patient use. Revenue attributable to such customers for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 represented 23% and 29% of our total revenue, respectively.
Clinical Engineering Services: Clinical Engineering Services provides maintenance, repair and remediation solutions for all types of medical equipment, including general biomedical equipment, diagnostic imaging equipment and surgical equipment through supplemental and outsourced offerings. Our supplemental offering helps customers manage their equipment repair and maintenance backlog, assist with remediation and regulatory reporting and temporarily fill open biotechnical positions. With our outsourced offering, we assume full management, staffing and clinical engineering service responsibilities for individual or system-wide customer sites. The outsourced model deploys a dedicated, on-site team to coordinate the management of customer-owned equipment utilizing our proprietary information systems, third party vendors of services and parts, and a broad range of professional services for capital equipment planning and regulatory
compliance. We leverage more than 800 technical resources from our over 150 local market service centers and Centers of Excellence to flex staff in and out of customer facilities on an as-needed basis, ensuring customers pay only for time spent directly servicing their equipment by an appropriately qualified technician. We use flex staffing for our supplemental clinical engineering solution and to augment support when additional technicians are needed to supplement our outsourced services during peak workload. We contract our Clinical Engineering Services with acute care and alternate site facilities across the U.S., as well as with the federal government and any medical device manufacturers that require a broad logistical footprint to support their large-scale service needs. Revenue attributable to such customers for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 represented 38% and 37% of our total revenue, respectively.
Equipment Solutions: Equipment Solutions primarily provides supplemental, peak need and per-case rental of general biomedical, specialty, and surgical equipment to acute care hospitals and alternate site providers in the U.S., including some of the nation’s premier healthcare institutions and integrated delivery networks. We contract for Equipment Solutions services directly with customers or through our contractual arrangements with hospital systems and alternate site providers. We consistently achieve high customer satisfaction ratings, as evidenced by our Net Promotor Score ("NPS") of 47 for the year ended December 31, 2022, by delivering patient-ready equipment within our contracted equipment delivery times and by providing technical support and educational in-servicing for equipment as-needed in clinical departments, including the emergency room, operating room, intensive care, rehabilitation and general patient care areas. We are committed to providing the highest quality of equipment to our customers, and we do so through the use of our comprehensive QMS which is based on the quality standards recognized worldwide for medical devices: 21 CFR 820 and ISO 13485:2016. This commitment ensures that customers have access to patient-ready equipment with the confidence of knowing it has been prepared and maintained to the highest industry standard to deliver optimal patient safety and outcomes. Revenue attributable to such customers for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021 represented 39% and 34% of our total revenue, respectively.
Many of our customers have multiple contracts and have revenue reported in multiple service lines. Our contracts vary based upon service offering, including with respect to term (with most being multi-year contracts), pricing (daily, monthly and fixed fee arrangements) and termination (termination for convenience to termination for cause only). Many of our contracts contain customer commitment guarantees and annual price increases tied to the consumer price index. Standard contract terms include payment terms, limitation of liability, force majeure provisions and choice of law/venue.
Because we work closely with customers to provide a long-term, value-based solution versus a product-based, transactional approach, they are motivated to expand their relationships with us over time. We have demonstrated an ability to grow revenue up to 5-6x with existing customers as they move toward our full suite of highly complementary services. From the year ended December 31, 2015 to the year ended December 31, 2022, our top 50 customers that experienced the largest growth in revenue over the same period increased in revenue from an aggregate of approximately $21.8 million to approximately $153.9 million (with increases at each customer ranging from $1.5 million to $12.6 million and an average increase of $2.6, and with consistent growth across our three primary service lines), primarily driven by our efforts to expand our share of wallet within our existing customer base.
Further, the infrastructure and capabilities required to provide connected, responsive equipment lifecycle management is typically cost-prohibitive, even for large IDNs. Our nationwide network of clinical engineers, storage and repair facilities, vehicles and analytics tools gives us scale to provide cost-effective services for individual facilities, systems, regional IDNs, governments and device manufacturers.
Competitive Strengths
We believe our business model presents an attractive value proposition to our customers and that our comprehensive medical device management solutions and ability to work in partnership with and across Original Equipment Manufacturers (“OEMs”) as a device-agnostic service provider have contributed to our growth in recent years. Our unique framework for end-to-end medical equipment management, delivered through our nationwide service and logistics infrastructure, differentiates us in the marketplace and is without comparable peers. We believe our more than 80 years of experience, extensive employee base of trained technicians and our reputation for service excellence has earned us a leading position in our industry. We attribute our historical success to our:
Strong value proposition. With our focus and expertise in connected, end-to-end medical equipment management and service solutions, we offer a compelling customer value proposition. We believe that many of our customers have come to rely on our ability to respond quickly to their needs with reliable, high quality products and service expertise. We believe our ability to provide this level of service distinguishes us from our competitors. It also requires us to maintain inventories
and infrastructure that we do not believe our competitors currently maintain. Our comprehensive solutions focus on helping customers:
•lower total cost of device ownership by reducing capital and operating costs related to owning and managing medical equipment;
•enhance operational productivity and staff satisfaction by ensuring equipment is available when and where needed; and
•maintain high standards of quality and regulatory compliance related to medical equipment use, maintenance and end-of-life disposal.
Large, nationwide infrastructure. We have a broad and specialized nationwide staff, facility, and vehicle service network coupled with focused and customized operations at the local level. Our extensive network of service centers and Centers of Excellence and our 24-hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year service capabilities enable us to compete effectively for large, national contracts as well as drive growth regionally and locally.
We employ a number of technical, clinical and surgical specialists that engage directly with our customers to drive improved cost, efficiency and clinical outcomes. These include over 800 biomedical repair technicians, more than 5,000 field-based service operators, and over 200 field sales and account managers. Our specialized teams, large equipment fleet, and quality assurance programs have been built over 80 years serving provider customers and represent a significant investment in infrastructure over time. This places us in a unique and hard-to-replicate position with the scale to serve the most complex acute care hospitals, such as teaching, research or specialty institutions, that demand access to current and preferred technologies to meet the complex needs of their patients.
Proprietary software and asset management tools. We have used our more than 80 years of experience and our extensive database of equipment management information to develop sophisticated software technology and management tools. These tools enable us to meet unique customer demands by supporting sophisticated onsite managed services that help drive cost efficiencies and equipment productivity for caregivers. We believe that our ongoing investment in new tools and technology will help continue to distinguish our offerings to the healthcare industry.
Commitment to quality. Class I and II medical devices are designed, manufactured, and distributed from our Sizewise manufacturing facilities. Each of the United States-based facilities that produce finished goods is registered with the United States Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") and follows strict quality guidelines in accordance with 21 CFR 820 and ISO 13485:2016.
Agiliti also services and repairs medical devices manufactured by other OEMs. Third-party service providers like Agiliti are not required to register their sites with the FDA; therefore, there are no regulations that specifically apply to our maintenance of medical devices. We’ve made a commitment, however, to do the right thing for our customers and their patients by staffing a dedicated Quality team and implementing a QMS based on the quality standards recognized worldwide for medical devices: 21 CFR 820 and ISO 13485:2016. This commitment to quality ensures that patient safety and risk management are at the center of every product decision, and that our equipment is serviced to the highest standards in the industry. We have elected to have independent accredited registrars certify our robust QMS at over 110 of our local market service centers, government service centers, and Centers of Excellence to ISO 13485:2015. British Standards Institute (“BSI”) has certified over 110 of our local market service centers, government service centers, and Centers of Excellence to ISO 13485:2016. The Surgical Equipment Repair and Imaging Centers of Excellence are certified by Deutscher Kraftfahrzeug-Überwachungs-Verein e.V. (“Dekra”) and National Quality Assurance (“NQA”). Our manufacturing facilities are certified by Intertek. We believe that ISO 13485:2016 provides the stringent guidelines specific to medical devices to ensure that our fleet of equipment, as well as the equipment we service, is maintained to the highest quality standards. Our commitment to quality extends to our exclusive use of OEM parts to repair FDA 510(k) registered medical devices that we own, whenever available. Implementing optimal maintenance intervals and parts replacement extends equipment use life, thereby reducing waste and lowering risk of obsolescence. We believe that our robust QMS policies set us apart in our industry from those who may use less stringent quality practices on the equipment they own or maintain.
Superior customer service. We believe we have a long-standing reputation among our customers for outstanding service and quality. This reputation is largely attributable to our strong customer service culture, which is continuously reinforced by management’s commitment to, and significant investment in, hiring and training resources. We strive to seamlessly integrate our employees and solutions into the operations of our customers. We believe that our aggressive focus on the
overall customer experience has helped us achieve high customer satisfaction ratings, as evidenced by our NPS of 47 for the year ended December 31, 2022.
Low direct third-party payor reimbursement risk. Many healthcare providers rely on direct payment from patients or reimbursement from third-party payors. Our fees are primarily paid directly by our customers, rather than by third-party payors, such as Medicare, Medicaid, managed care organizations or indemnity insurers. Accordingly, our exposure to uncollectible patient or reimbursement receivables or Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement changes is reduced, as evidenced by our bad debt expense of approximately 0.3%, 0.2%, and 0.3% of total revenue for the years ended December 31, 2022, 2021, and 2020, respectively.
Values driven culture centered on doing the right thing for our many stakeholders. Our team operates on a set of shared aspirations that reflect the manner in which we approach our work and serve the needs of our customers, team members, shareholders and local communities. We believe these aspirations that underpin our culture, strategy and service model help contribute to a safer and more sustainable healthcare system and frame the cornerstone of our success:
WE ARE BUILDING THE PREMIER CLINICAL EQUIPMENT SERVICES COMPANY. We ensure clinicians have the equipment they need, when they need it, with the confidence it is maintained to the highest industry standards. We never waver from doing what is right for our customers, our team members, and our shareholders.
WE ARE ESSENTIAL TO CUSTOMERS. We are dependable, trusted advisors—steadfast in our commitments and ready to serve. We deliver a unique and valuable offering that helps customers improve their business and prioritize patient care.
WE ARE EMPOWERED AND ENGAGED. We lead by example, inspiring one another to be at our best, to be accountable, and to develop with purpose. We value our diversity, knowing different perspectives lead to better outcomes. We share a common drive to make a difference and take pride in being part of something bigger than ourselves.
WE ARE OPERATIONALLY EXCELLENT. We demonstrate a tireless commitment to quality, reliability, and continuous improvement. We demand of ourselves the highest degree of accuracy, efficiency and integrity in order to deliver exceptional service to our customers and their patients.
WE ARE CREATING A CATEGORY OF ONE. Together, we are building a highly differentiated service company that is the vendor of choice for customers and an employer of choice nationwide.
Highly engaged team. We believe a strong and sustainable company begins with an engaged and empowered team. We are committed to investing in our team’s development and to fostering a culture of diversity, inclusion, trust and transparency. Approximately 41% of our total work force is comprised of minorities and approximately 29% of our team members are female. We offer competitive compensation and benefits programs, and we ensure our team members share in the success of our business with a company wide annual bonus program and an Employee Stock Purchase Plan. We strive to ensure Agiliti is a place where our people are proud to work, and we achieve that by listening to feedback and taking active steps to improve. In 2022, we achieved a 72 employee engagement score rating.
Proven management team. Our diverse and industry leading management team brings decades of executive-level healthcare expertise from across the sector and has successfully supervised the development of our competitive strategy, continually enhanced and expanded our service and product offerings, reinforced our nationwide operating footprint and furthered our reputation as an industry leader in our category.
Key Elements of our Growth Strategy
Retain and expand existing customer relationships. While our overall market opportunity is large, there is also significant expansion opportunity within our existing customers. We have demonstrated the ability to grow our wallet share among existing customers by expanding the services we provide to them over time. From the year ended December 31, 2015 to the year ended December 31, 2022, our top 50 customers that experienced the largest growth in revenue over the same period increased in revenue from an aggregate of approximately $21.8 million to approximately $153.9 million (with increases at each customer ranging from $1.5 million to $12.6 million and an average increase of $2.6 million, and with consistent growth across our three primary service lines), primarily driven by our efforts to expand our share of wallet within our existing customer base.
Grow our customer base among customers that outsource. We believe there is a significant opportunity to further grow our business by winning new customer contracts for medical equipment management services in the U.S. Due to increasing pressures that providers are facing, we expect outsourcing to significantly accelerate. As a leader in our industry, we believe we are poised to take advantage of this continued shift.
Grow our serviceable market by contracting with those that insource today. We believe that as we reach additional potential customers with demonstrated value both in improved patient care and reduced costs, we can grow our total addressable market by contracting with new clients that were not previously outsourcing device management services. Further, this market is also experiencing tailwinds that make the total addressable market, the total contracted market, and our own contracts with ongoing customers poised to continue to expand. These tailwinds include increasing overall provider volumes, increasing use and complexity of medical devices, increasing outsourcing by hospitals, and additional factors that we believe will continue to drive growth.
Invest in complementary offerings that enhance customer relationships. As the medical device field becomes increasingly complex and the number of devices used per patient on average increases over time, we are constantly evaluating additional services and methods of approaching service delivery that increase value for our clients. As an example, this has recently taken the form of expanding our work with federal, state, and local governments to help them maintain and mobilize strategic stockpiles of ventilators and other critical medical equipment.
Opportunistically pursue accretive M&A. Due to our high and sustained value creation for customers and significant white space with existing customer relationships, we believe that pursuing opportunistic M&A will drive increasing returns through embedded customer relationships. From 2016-2022, we have successfully integrated ten acquisitions and will continue to opportunistically pursue additional inorganic growth.
Business Operations
Service Centers
As of December 31, 2022, we operated more than 150 local market service centers which allow us to provide our end-to-end healthcare technology management and service solutions to customers in virtually all markets throughout the United States. Each service center is responsible for supporting the equipment management needs of its local healthcare market across all sites of care. Each service center maintains an inventory of locally demanded equipment, parts, supplies and other items tailored to accommodate the needs of individual customers within its geographical area. Should additional or unusual equipment be required by one of our customers, a local service center can draw upon the resources of our other service centers. With access to more than one million owned or managed units of medical equipment (over 300,000 owned) available for customer use as of December 31, 2022, we believe we can most often obtain the necessary equipment within 24 hours.
Depending on market size and demands, our service centers are staffed by multi-disciplined teams of sales professionals, service representatives, customer service technicians, clinical engineering (biomedical) equipment technicians and surgical services technologists trained to deliver on our complete portfolio of customer solutions. Employees providing resident-based services through our on-site managed programs are supported by local site managers and/or the service centers in the markets where those customers are located.
Centers of Excellence
Our local market service center network is supported by strategically located Centers of Excellence. These centers focus on providing highly specialized clinical engineering service and support. The Centers of Excellence also provide overflow support, technical expertise, training programs and specialized service functions for our local service centers. All specialized depot work required by our manufacturer customers resides within these Centers of Excellence. Our Centers of Excellence are certified to ISO 13485:2016 by BSI, DEKRA, and Intertek as a quality commitment to our customers.
Centralized Functions
Our corporate office is located in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. We have centralized many of the key elements of our equipment and service offerings in order to create standardization and to maximize our operating efficiencies and uniformity of service. Some of the critical aspects of our business centralized within our corporate office include contract administration, marketing, purchasing, pricing, logistics, accounting and information technology.
Medical Equipment Fleet
We acquire, manufacture, or manage medical equipment to meet our customers’ needs in some of the following product areas: respiratory therapy, infusion therapy, newborn care, critical care, patient monitors, specialty beds and therapy surfaces (which includes fall management equipment, bariatrics equipment, pressure area management and wound therapy equipment, stretchers and wheelchairs) and surgical equipment. We believe we maintain one of the most technologically advanced and comprehensive equipment fleets in the industry, routinely acquiring new and certified pre-owned equipment to enhance our fleet. Our specialized equipment portfolio managers evaluate new products each year to keep abreast of current market technology and to determine whether to add new products to our equipment fleet. In making equipment purchases, we consider a variety of factors, including manufacturer credibility, repair and maintenance costs, anticipated user demand, equipment mobility and anticipated obsolescence. We generally do not enter into long-term fixed price contracts with suppliers of our equipment. As of December 31, 2022, we owned or managed more than a million units of medical equipment available for use by our customers of which over 300,000 were owned.
In 2022, our ten largest manufacturers of medical equipment supplied approximately 55% (measured in dollars spent) of our direct medical equipment purchases. In 2022, three of our largest medical equipment suppliers accounted for approximately 32% of our medical equipment purchases (measured in dollars spent).
COVID-19
COVID-19 placed our customers, business, teams and communities in uncharted waters. As demand for emergent acute care increased around the country, the global pandemic highlighted the importance of resilient supply chains and service networks and magnified the importance of our solutions. We are proud to have rapidly developed and deployed a response plan to ensure the safety of our team, while continuing to meet our customers’ evolving needs for patient-ready medical equipment when and where it was needed; notably, doing so without service interruptions.
We believe our value proposition now resonates with an even broader audience of customers as providers, IDNs and governments prepare for potential future surges in demand for acute care and the required equipment necessary to care for patients.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Matters
Our environmental, social, and governance ("ESG") strategy is rooted in our belief that every interaction has the power to change a life. We are committed to making an impact through our work, managing ESG risks and opportunities, and shaping the long-term sustainability of our business.
Our progress in 2022 was guided by our inaugural third-party materiality assessment conducted in 2021. This assessment helped define our ESG priorities and enhance our strategy for ESG governance, disclosure, and performance.
In 2022, we published an ESG fact sheet tracking a series of metrics—both quantitative and qualitative—that we believe address our most significant areas of impact and opportunity. These priorities, along with a more detailed account of our strategy, approach and progress, will be further addressed in our upcoming 2022 ESG Report, which we expect to publish mid-year 2023.
Our Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee has formal oversight of ESG-related matters, and our executive team has responsibility for driving ESG strategy and reporting.
More information about our commitments to ESG can be found on our investor relations website at https://investors.agilitihealth.com/esg/corporate-citizenship/default.aspx
Human Capital
We believe a strong and sustainable company begins with an engaged and empowered team. We are committed to investing in our team’s training and development, and to open, two-way communication. Our culture is underpinned by our core belief, our Code of Conduct and our strong commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
As of December 31, 2022, we employed more than 5,500 employees throughout the United States including one location that is represented by a union. We believe we generally have good relations with our employees.
Talent Acquisition
Diversity and Inclusion: We foster a diverse company culture where all backgrounds and perspectives are welcomed, valued, and respected equally. As of 2022, ethnically diverse talent represents more than 40% of our workforce. Read more in our Equal Employment Opportunity & Affirmative Action policy.
Talent Development: We offer to our team members role-based and career development training covering a broad curriculum each year—from leadership development courses, to role-based skills development and high-touch onboarding experiences, we strive to offer the tools and resources our team members need to perform at their best and grow their careers. Over 25% of our positions are filled internally year over year and roughly 50% of our leadership roles were filled internally in 2022. We enjoyed a 78% employee retention rate in 2022. In addition, we offer dynamic online training through our Quality Management System covering all dimensions of operations, safety, quality, and compliance across the company.
Engagement: We believe a strong and sustainable company begins with an engaged and empowered team. We are committed to investing in our team’s training and development and to fostering a culture of trust and transparency. We constantly strive to make Agiliti a place where people are proud to work, and we achieve that by listening to feedback and taking active steps to improve. In our most recent survey (2022), we achieved a 72 employee engagement score rating.
Health & Safety
Compensation & Benefits: We ensure Agiliti is a safe place to work where team members feel supported and protected. We offer comprehensive health and wellness benefits and our team members are trained annually on safe work practices and procedures. Find more information in our policy on PTO during workplace infectious disease outbreaks and our COVID Flex Holiday policy.
Intellectual Property
We have registrations with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”) for the following marks: Asset360® and BioMed360®; “Universal Hospital Services, Inc.,” ‘‘UHS®’’ and the UHS logo; “OnCare,” “Harmony,” “Quartet,” “Agiliti” and the Agiliti logo. Sizewise has registrations with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the following marks: Carewise, Comfort Turn, Designed to Heal, Envy, Mighty Rest, Sapphire Series, Sizewise, and SW Low Boy. We have applications pending with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the following marks: “Vityl.” United States service mark registrations are generally for a term of 10 years, renewable every 10 years if the mark is used in the regular course of business. Sizewise owns twelve issued patents and has two published patent applications pending with the PTO.
We have a domain name registration for agilitihealth.com, which serves as our main website. In 2011, we registered the domain name OnCareMedical.com featuring our OnCare™ sub-brand for patient handling products. In 2012, we registered UHSSurgicalServices.com. In 2016, we acquired resxray.com. In 2021, we acquired Sizewise.com.
We have developed a number of proprietary software programs to directly service or support our customers including “inCare™” which is a medical equipment inventory management system that allows us to track the location and usage of equipment we are managing at a customer’s location in our 360 Solutions. “MyAgiliti™” is our online ordering and reporting site which accesses our proprietary programs specifically designed to help customers meet medical equipment documentation and reporting needs under applicable regulations and standards, such as those promulgated by the FDA and The Joint Commission. Additionally, this tool provides detailed reporting on utilization, compliance, and analytics for management. “Vityl™” is our equipment maintenance and planning system which houses our work order system and assists in our customers regulatory compliance recordkeeping. “Scheduler™” is our web-based scheduling, tracking, reporting and physician preference system for Agiliti Surgical solutions. “inCommand™” encompasses the proprietary software tools that allow our employees to manage and maintain our extensive equipment fleet and serve our customers more effectively and efficiently. We primarily rely on trade secret, copyright and other similar laws for the protection of our proprietary software. Our employees who access such proprietary software sign confidentiality agreements and receive training on protecting the security of our data systems, and any independent contractors who assist with development of our proprietary software are required to sign non-disclosure and work product assignment agreements.
Marketing
We market our programs primarily through our direct sales force, which consisted of over 200 sales representatives as of December 31, 2022. We support our direct sales force with technical, clinical, surgical and financial specialists, who lead new business selling efforts to deliver comprehensive solutions for our customers. Our national accounts team also supports our direct sales force through its focus on securing national and regional contracts.
Our sales force uses a structured and consistent process to target customers where we can deliver significant financial and operational value over time. Each sales team member is responsible for identifying and prioritizing customer opportunities in their territory through the use of segmentation tools and market intelligence, leading to short- and long-term sales pipelines balanced across our comprehensive solutions. The sales force then engages customers directly with insights and tailored solutions that address specific customer challenges while using tools to demonstrate financial and operational savings. Our goal with this approach is to help customers with their most pressing challenges first and measure their return on value for each solution. We then work to connect additional solutions that add incremental and synergistic value for our customers, leading to an end-to-end approach to medical equipment management. Each activity our sales force initiates is aligned to our customer’s buying process and is designed to move the opportunity quickly through the sales process. Every step in the process is documented in a customer relationship management ("CRM") system, where we continually monitor and manage sales pipelines, balanced opportunity mix and sales forecasts.
The members of the sales force are compensated with a combination of base pay and variable incentive pay. The percentage of each individual’s overall compensation that is comprised of base pay versus variable incentive pay is dependent on the individual’s position. Sales force members whose primary responsibility is account management receive a higher percentage of base pay, while sales force members whose primary responsibility is the generation of new business receive a higher percentage of variable incentive pay. The actual variable incentive pay received by an individual is based on his or her achievement of certain performance metrics, including revenue, earnings and/or new business milestones.
We also market our end-to-end solutions through our website at www.agilitihealth.com and various social media and digital marketing channels, including a variety of trade publications and organizations with subscribers and members who are key decision makers for our solutions. In addition, we participate in numerous national and regional conventions where we interact with industry groups and opinion leaders. Information presented on our website is not incorporated by reference and should not be considered a part of this Reporting Statement.
In our marketing efforts, we primarily target key decision makers such as administrators, chief executive officers, chief financial officers, chief technology officers, chief medical officers and chief nursing officers as well as physicians, directors and managers of functional departments, such as supply chain, materials management, surgery, purchasing, pharmacy, biomedical services, and clinical engineering. We also promote comprehensive solutions to IDNs, hospitals, surgery centers, manufacturers and alternate site provider groups and associations.
Seasonality and Business Interruption
Quarterly operating results are typically affected by seasonal factors. Historically, our first and fourth quarters are the strongest, reflecting increased hospital census and patient acuity during the fall and winter months. However, COVID-19 has impacted the seasonality of our business. Our business can also be impacted by natural disasters, such as hurricanes and earthquakes, which affect our ability to transfer equipment to and from our customers, and equipment recalls, which can cause equipment to be removed from market use. We also see declines in our business in down economic cycles with high levels of unemployment. Our customers typically see weaker census and higher levels of indigent patients during these times, causing them to use fewer of our solutions.
Regulatory Matters
Regulation of Medical Equipment
Our customers are subject to documentation and safety reporting regulations and standards with respect to the medical equipment they use, including those established by the FDA, CMS and the National Fire Protection Association (“NFPA”). Various states and municipalities may also have similar regulations.
We monitor changes in regulations and standards to accommodate the needs of customers by providing specific product and manufacturer information upon request. Manufacturers of medical equipment are subject to regulation by agencies and
organizations such as the FDA, Underwriters Laboratories and the NFPA. We believe that all medical equipment we outsource conforms to these regulations.
The Safe Medical Devices Act of 1990 (“SMDA”), which amended the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (“FDCA”), requires manufacturers, user facilities and importers of medical devices to report whenever they believe there is a probability that a medical device has caused or contributed to a death, illness, or injury. In addition, the SMDA requires the establishment and maintenance of adverse safety and effectiveness data and various other FDA reports. Manufacturers and importers are also required to report certain device malfunctions. We also work with our customers to assist them in meeting their reporting obligations under the FDCA, including those requirements added by the SMDA.
Besides the FDA, a number of states regulate medical device distributors and wholesalers either through pharmacy or device distributor licensure. Currently, we hold such licenses in 26 states. Some licensure regulations and statutes in additional states may apply to our activities. Although our failure to possess such licenses in these states for our existing operations may subject us to certain monetary fines, we do not believe the extent of such fines, in the aggregate, would be material to our liquidity, financial condition or results of operations.
In addition, we are required to provide information to manufacturers regarding the permanent disposal or any change in ownership of certain categories of medical outsourcing equipment. While we believe our medical equipment tracking systems are in compliance with these regulations, these regulations are subject to change and such changes could have an impact on how we conduct our business.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”) applies to certain covered entities, including health plans, healthcare clearinghouses and healthcare providers, as well as to business associates such as us. HIPAA regulations protect individually identifiable health information, including information in an electronic format, by, among other things, setting forth specific standards under which such information may be used and disclosed, providing patients’ rights to obtain and amend their health information, requiring notification to individuals, federal and state agencies and media outlets in the event of a breach of health information and establishing certain administrative requirements for covered entities. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health ("HITECH") Act created legal obligations for business associates and extended criminal and civil sanctions to business associates for violations of HIPAA requirements.
Because of our self-insured health plans, we are also a covered entity under the HIPAA regulations. Also, we may be obligated to comply with certain HIPAA requirements as a business associate of various healthcare providers. In addition, various state legislatures have enacted and may continue to enact additional privacy legislation that is not preempted by the federal law, which may impose additional burdens on us. Moreover, other federal privacy legislation may be enacted. Accordingly, we have made and, as new standards go into effect, we expect to continue to make administrative, operational and information infrastructure changes in order to comply with these requirements.
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the “Affordable Care Act”) has and will result in significant reforms to the U.S. healthcare system and the structure of the healthcare provider delivery system. The Affordable Care Act calls for additional transparency around payments made by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to doctors and teaching hospitals, which may include gifts, food, travel and speaking or consultancy fees. All U.S. manufacturers of drugs, devices, biologics or medical supplies, including distributors who hold title to such drugs, devices, biologics, or medical supplies, for which payment is available under government-funded health insurance programs (i.e., Medicare, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program) must report annually to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services any payment or gift, which represents a “transfer of value,” to a physician or teaching hospital, including detailed information about the nature and value of remuneration provided, and the identity of the receiving physician or teaching hospital. Additionally, states may require manufacturers to report information that is not required or is exempted under the federal reporting requirements. For example, a state may require manufacturers to report advertising expenditures, loans of medical devices, in-kind gifts to charities and payments to other recipients, group purchasing organizations ("GPOs") and retailers. We identify applicable state reporting requirements as they become effective.
We are subject to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits the knowing and willful offer, payment, solicitation or receipt of any form of “remuneration” in return for, or to induce, the referral of business or ordering of services paid for by Medicare or other federal programs. “Remuneration” has been broadly defined to include anything of value, including gifts, discounts, credit arrangements, and in-kind goods or services. The Anti-Kickback Statute is broad and prohibits many arrangements and practices that are lawful in businesses outside the healthcare industry. Violations can result in imprisonment, civil or criminal fines or exclusion from Medicare, Medicaid and other governmental programs. Contracts
with healthcare facilities and other marketing practices or transactions may implicate the Anti-Kickback Statute. We have attempted to structure our contracts and marketing practices to comply with the Anti-Kickback Statute along with providing training to our employees. However, we cannot ensure that we will not have to defend against alleged violations from private entities or that OIG or other authorities will not find that our practices violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.
Although our business is not currently extensively regulated under healthcare laws, we are subject to certain regulatory requirements as discussed above and our customers are subject to direct regulation under the Federal False Claims Act, the Stark Law, the Anti-Kickback Law, rules and regulations of the CMS, and other federal and state healthcare laws and regulations. Promulgation of new laws and regulations, or changes in or re-interpretations of existing laws and regulations, could affect our business, operating results or financial condition. Our operations may be negatively impacted if we have to comply with additional complex government regulations.
Third-Party Reimbursement
Our fees are primarily paid directly by our customers rather than through direct reimbursement from third-party payors, such as Medicare or Medicaid. We do not bill the patient, the insurer or other third-party payors directly for services provided for hospital or alternate site provider inpatients or outpatients. Sometimes our customers are eligible to receive third-party reimbursement for our services. Consequently, the reimbursement policies of such third-party payors have a direct effect on the ability of healthcare providers to pay for our services and an indirect effect on our level of charges. Also, in certain circumstances, third-party payors may take regulatory or other action against service providers even though the service provider does not receive direct reimbursement from third-party payors.
Hospitals and alternate site providers face cost containment pressures from public and private insurers and other managed care providers, such as health maintenance organizations, preferred provider organizations and managed fee-for-service plans, as these organizations continue to place controls on the reimbursement and utilization of healthcare services. We believe that these payors have followed or will follow the government in limiting the services that are reimbursed and in exerting downward pressure on prices. In addition to promoting managed care plans, employers are increasingly self-funding their benefit programs and shifting costs to employees through increased deductibles, co-payments and employee contributions. Hospitals and healthcare facilities are also experiencing an increase in uncompensated care or “charity care,” which causes increased economic pressures on these organizations. We believe that these cost reduction efforts will place additional pressures on healthcare providers’ operating margins and will encourage efficient equipment management practices such as the use of our outsourcing and 360 on-site managed solutions.
Liability and Insurance
Our business entails the risk of claims related to the manufacturing, outsourcing, sale and service of medical equipment. In addition, our instruction of hospital and alternate site provider employees with respect to the use of equipment and our professional consulting services are sources of potential claims. We have not suffered a material loss due to a claim. However, any such claim, if made, could have a material adverse effect on our business. While we do not currently provide any services that require us to work directly with patients, expansion of services in the future could involve such activities and subject us to claims from patients.
We maintain a number of insurance policies, including commercial general liability coverage (product and premises liability insurance), automobile liability insurance, worker’s compensation insurance and professional liability insurance. We also maintain excess liability coverage. Our policies are subject to annual renewal. We believe that our current insurance coverage is adequate. Claims exceeding such coverage may be made and we may not be able to continue to obtain liability insurance at acceptable levels of cost and coverage.
Facilities
Our corporate headquarters are in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, where we lease 75,978 square feet of office space as of December 31, 2022. We also have domestic offices in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Road Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin
We lease all of our facilities. We believe that our facilities are adequate for our current needs and anticipate that suitable additional space will be readily available to accommodate any foreseeable expansion of our operations.
Our Principal Stockholder
Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P., our principal stockholder, is an affiliate of Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. (“THL”). THL is a premier private equity firm that invests in middle market growth companies, headquartered primarily in North America, exclusively in three sectors: Financial Services, Healthcare and Technology & Business Solutions. The firm couples its deep sector expertise with dedicated internal operating resources to transform and build great companies of lasting value in partnership with company management. Since 1974, THL has raised $35 billion of equity capital, invested in more than 170 companies and completed more than 600 add-on acquisitions that represent an aggregate enterprise value of over $250 billion.
General Corporate Information
We commenced operations in 1939, originally incorporated in Minnesota in 1954 and reincorporated in Delaware in 2001. Since the Business Combination (as defined below), we have been controlled by THL Agiliti LLC (“THL Stockholder”), an affiliate of THL. We completed our initial public offering (“IPO”) in April 2021.
Agiliti, Inc. was formed on August 1, 2018 in order to consummate a merger with Federal Street Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company affiliated with THL (“FSAC”) pursuant to the Amended and Restated Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated as of December 19, 2018 (the “A&R Merger Agreement”), by and among Agiliti, FSAC, Umpire SPAC Merger Sub, Inc., Umpire Cash Merger Sub, Inc., Agiliti Holdco, Inc. (“Agiliti Holdco”), solely in their capacities as Majority Stockholders, IPC/UHS, L.P. and IPC/UHS Co-Investment Partners, L.P., solely in its capacity as the Stockholders’ Representative (as defined in the A&R Merger Agreement), IPC/UHS and, solely for the purposes stated therein, Umpire Equity Merger Sub, Inc. Pursuant to the A&R Merger Agreement, (i) FSAC became a wholly owned subsidiary of Agiliti and the holders of Class A common stock, par value $0.0001 per share, of FSAC (the “FSAC Class A Common Stock”) received shares of common stock, par value $0.0001 per share, of Agiliti (our “common stock”); and (ii) Agiliti Holdco became a wholly owned subsidiary of FSAC and the equity holders of Agiliti Holdco received cash and/or shares of our common stock and/or fully-vested options to purchase shares of our common stock as merger consideration (the transactions contemplated by the A&R Merger Agreement are referred to herein as the “Business Combination”).
Available Information
The Company’s Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to reports filed pursuant to Sections 13(a) and 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended (the “Exchange Act”), are filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). Such reports and other information filed by the Company with the SEC are available free of charge at investors.agilitihealth.com/financials/sec-filings/default.aspx when such reports are available on the SEC’s website. The Company periodically provides other information for investors on its corporate website www.agilitihealth.com, and its investor relations website, investors.agilitihealth.com/overview/default.aspx. This includes press releases and other information about financial performance, information on environmental, social and corporate governance and details related to the Company’s annual meeting of shareholders. The information contained on the websites referenced in this Form 10-K is not incorporated by reference into this filing. Further, the Company’s references to website URLs are intended to be inactive textual references only.
ITEM 1A: Risk Factors
Certain factors may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, and results of operations. You should carefully consider the following risks, together with all of the other information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, including the sections titled “Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements” and “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our financial statements and the related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Any of the following risks could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results, or prospects and could cause the trading price of our common stock to decline, which would cause you to lose all or part of your investment. Our business, financial condition, operating results, or prospects could also be harmed by risks and uncertainties not currently known to us or that we currently do not believe are material.
Risk Factor Summary
Some of the principal risks related to our business include the following:
•Political and policy changes could materially limit our growth opportunities.
•The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and/or other pandemics or epidemics, could continue to materially and adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects including the potential inflationary impact and supply chain disruption.
•We may be unable to maintain existing contracts or contract terms or enter into new contracts with our customers. This risk is heightened as it relates to customers on whom we rely for a substantial portion of our revenue.
•A substantial portion of our revenues come from customers with which we do not have long-term commitments, and cancellations by or disputes with customers could decrease the amount of revenue we generate, thereby reducing our ability to operate and expand our business.
•If we fail to maintain our reputation, including by adequately protecting our intellectual property, our sales and operating results may decline.
•If our customers’ patient census or services decrease, the revenue generated by our business could decrease.
•Our competitors may engage in significant competitive practices, which could cause us to lose market share, reduce prices or increase expenditures.
•Consolidation in the healthcare industry may lead to a reduction in the prices we charge, thereby decreasing our revenue.
•We have substantial indebtedness which may require us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our indebtedness, thereby reducing the availability of our cash flow to fund working capital, capital expenditures, research and development efforts and other general corporate purposes, and increase our vulnerability to general adverse economic, industry and competitive conditions.
•If we are unable to fund our significant cash needs, including capital expenditures, we may be unable to expand our business as planned or to service our debt.
•THL controls us, and its interests may conflict with yours or ours in the future.
•We may fail to realize all of the anticipated benefits of our recent acquisitions, or those benefits may take longer to realize than expected. We may also encounter significant difficulties in integrating the businesses of our recent acquisitions.
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Political and policy changes could materially limit our growth opportunities.
Our business may be impacted by political and policy changes. Geopolitical issues, the availability and cost of credit and government stimulus programs in the United States and other countries have contributed to increased volatility and uncertain expectations for the global economy. Additionally, political changes in the United States and elsewhere in the world have created a level of uncertainty in the markets. If the markets experience any economic slowdown, recession or prolonged stagnation, there may be a profound impact on the financial condition of our suppliers and our customers, resulting in a negative impact on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Healthcare costs have risen significantly over the past decade. There have been and continue to be proposals by legislators, regulators and third-party payors to keep these costs down. Certain proposals, if passed, would impose limitations on the prices the Company will be able to charge for the Company’s products, or the amounts of reimbursement available for its products from governmental agencies or third-party payers. These limitations could have a material adverse effect on our financial position and results of operations. Changes in the healthcare industry in the U.S. and elsewhere could adversely affect the demand for our products as well as the way in which we conduct business. The 2010 Affordable Care Act provides that most individuals must have health insurance, establishes new regulations on health plans, and creates insurance pooling mechanisms and other expanded public health care measures. The Company anticipates that the healthcare reform legislation will further reduce Medicare spending on services provided by hospitals and other providers and further forms of sales or excise tax on the medical device sector. Various healthcare reform proposals have also emerged at the federal and state level. We cannot predict what healthcare initiatives, if any, will be implemented at the federal or state level, or the effect any future legislation or regulation will have on the Company. However, an expansion in government’s role in the U.S. healthcare industry may lower reimbursements for the Company’s products, reduce medical procedure volumes and may thereby materially adversely affect the Company’s business, financial condition and results of operations.
The full effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is still uncertain and cannot be predicted, and could continue to materially and adversely affect our business, operating results, financial condition and prospects.
We continue to closely monitor the impact of COVID-19 (and any evolutions thereof or related or associated epidemics, pandemics or disease outbreaks, “COVID-19”). The continued evolution of COVID-19 and its variants, as well as periodic spikes in infection rates, local outbreaks on our sites or supplier, customer or vendor sites, in spite of safety measures or vaccinations, could cause disruptions to our operations or those of our suppliers, customers or vendors.
Our business may be more adversely impacted by the effects of COVID-19 in the future. We source equipment from different parts of the world that have been affected by the virus, which could have an adverse impact on our supply chain operations and ability for manufacturers to obtain materials needed to assemble the products we offer. Additionally, certain ancillary effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have arisen, including inflation in the U.S. and elsewhere as well as a tightening labor market. The current outbreak and continued spread of COVID-19 as well as the prolonged duration and severity of these ancillary effects could cause an economic slowdown and potentially lead to a global recession. There is a significant degree of uncertainty and lack of visibility as to the extent and duration of any such slowdown or recession. Given the significant economic uncertainty and volatility created by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult to predict the nature and extent of impacts on demand for our products.
The extent of the impact of COVID-19 on our operational and financial performance will depend on future developments, including, but not limited to, efficacy of vaccines and the duration and spread of the outbreak, including new variants, and related travel advisories and restrictions, all of which are highly uncertain and cannot be predicted. Government shutdown orders or a change to our business classification as an “essential business” may result in a closure of operations for an uncertain duration impacting our business results. Preventing the effects from and responding to this market disruption or any other public health threat, related or otherwise, may further increase our costs of doing business and may have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
The extent to which disruptions to the global supply chain, inflationary pressures, including the accompanying higher interest rates, and a tightening labor market will impact our operational and financial performance depends on the duration and severity of such factors and on our ability and the ability of various governments to combat and/or mitigate such pressures. Some of these economic factors have increased and may continue to increase our costs, and we may not be able to offset such increases. There may also be further impacts on our operational and financial performance if such trends continue.
Additionally, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our customers including the federal government and certain state and local governments have purchased significant amounts of medical equipment of the type we offer in our rental fleet. These purchases by our customers including federal, state and local governments of medical equipment that previously would have been rented have and may continue to reduce the demand for our rental equipment.
The severity, magnitude and duration of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and its ancillary effects continue to be uncertain, rapidly changing and hard to predict and depends on events beyond our knowledge or control. These and other impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic could have the effect of heightening many of the other risks described in this “Risk Factors” section, such as those relating to our reputation, sales, results of operations or financial condition. We might not be able to predict or respond to all impacts on a timely basis to prevent near- or long-term adverse impacts to our results. As a result, we cannot at this time predict the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, but it could have a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, financial condition and cash flows.
We may be unable to maintain existing contracts or contract terms or enter into new contracts with our customers.
Our revenue maintenance and growth depend, in part, on continuing contracts with customers, including through GPOs and IDNs, with which certain of our customers are affiliated. In the past, we have been able to maintain and renew the majority of such contracts and expand the solutions we offer under such contracts. If we are unable to maintain our contracts, or if the GPOs or IDNs seek additional discounts or other more beneficial terms on behalf of their members, we may lose a portion or all of existing business with, or revenue from, customers that are members of such GPOs and IDNs. In addition, certain of our customers account for large portions of our revenue. From time to time, a single customer, depending on the current status and volumes of a number of separate contracts, may account for 10% or more of our total revenue. As a result, the actions of even a single customer can expose our business and operating results to greater volatility.
On December 14, 2022, the Company entered into a new agreement (the “Agreement”) with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) and the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (“ASPR”) for preventive maintenance services (“PMS”), management and storage for ventilator and powered air purifying respirator (“PAPR”) systems. The Agreement’s performance period commences on August 28, 2023 and is anticipated to have a period of performance of four years and six months, consisting of a base period of twelve months, three one-year option periods and an additional six-month option period. The Agreement is valued at up to $491 million over its expected term. Additionally on December 14, 2022, the Company received a modification to the Company’s current HHS/ASPR agreement that expires on February 27, 2023 incorporating Federal Acquisition Regulation (“FAR”) 52.217-8, which allows the government to extend the term of this current agreement by up to six months. For the year ended December 31, 2022, approximately 10.5% of total revenue related to contracts with HHS and ASPR. To the extent the Agreement or other contracts with significant customers are not renewed or are terminated, or the timing of any such renewal is substantially delayed, our revenue and operating results would be significantly impacted.
A substantial portion of our revenue come from customers with which we do not have long-term commitments, and cancellations by or disputes with customers could decrease the amount of revenue we generate, thereby reducing our ability to operate and expand our business.
For the year ended December 31, 2022, approximately 63% of our total revenue was derived from customers that purchased equipment or services from us through a GPO that contracted with us on behalf of its members. The remaining 37% of revenue was derived from customers that contract with us directly. Our customers are generally not obligated to outsource our equipment under long-term commitments. The short-term services we provide could be terminated by the customer without notice or payment of any termination fee. A large number of such terminations may adversely affect our ability to generate revenue growth and sufficient cash flows to support our growth plans. In addition, those customers with long-term commitments may have contracts that do not permit us to raise our prices, yet our cost to serve may increase. Any of these risks could have a material adverse impact on our ability to operate and expand our business.
If we fail to maintain our reputation, including by adequately protecting our intellectual property, our sales and operating results may decline.
We believe our continued success depends on our ability to maintain and grow the value of our brand. Brand value is based in large part on perceptions of subjective qualities. Even isolated incidents can erode the trust and confidence of our customers and damage the strength of our brand, if such incidents result in adverse publicity or litigation. Challenges or reactions to action (or inaction) or perceived action (or inaction), by us on issues such as social policies, compliance related to social, product, labor and environmental standards or other sensitive topics, and any perceived lack of transparency about such matters, could harm our reputation. The increasing use of social media platforms and online forums may increase the chance that an adverse event could negatively affect the reputation of our brands. The online dissemination of negative information about our brand, including inaccurate information, could harm our reputation, business, competitive advantage and goodwill. Damage to our reputation could result in declines in customer loyalty and sales, relationships with our suppliers, business development opportunities, divert attention and resources from management, including by requiring responses to inquiries or additional regulatory scrutiny, and otherwise materially adversely affect our results. Any failure to offer and maintain high-quality customer support, or a market perception that we do not maintain high-quality customer support, could similarly adversely affect our reputation, our ability to sell our products and services, and in turn our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, we are currently implementing a new information technology business systems platform. The implementation process could result in system wide delays or failure. Because we depend on information technology systems to operate our business, failure or delay of any or all information technology systems could impact our ability to operate and meet customer demand, resulting in reputational harm.
Further, our ability to protect our brand depends in part on our ability to protect our confidential information, including unpatented know-how, technology and other proprietary information, maintaining, defending and enforcing our intellectual property rights. We rely on our agreements with our customers, non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with employees and third parties, and our trademarks and copyrights to protect our intellectual property rights. However, any of these parties may breach such agreements and disclose our proprietary information, and we may not be able to obtain adequate remedies for such breaches. In addition, third parties may allege that our products and services, or the conduct of our business, infringe, misappropriate or otherwise violate such third party’s intellectual property rights. Moreover, although we try to ensure that our employees do not use the proprietary information or know-how of others in their work for us, we may be subject to claims that we or these employees have used or disclosed intellectual property of any third parties, including such individual’s former employer. If we fail in defending any such claims, in addition to paying monetary damages, we may lose valuable intellectual property rights or personnel. Even if we are successful in defending
against such claims, litigation could result in substantial costs and be a distraction to management. Furthermore, any of our trademarks may be challenged, opposed, infringed, cancelled, circumvented or declared generic, or determined to be infringing on other marks. We may not be able to protect our rights to these trademarks, which we need in order to maintain name recognition by potential collaborators or clients in our markets of interest.
A global economic downturn could adversely affect our customers and suppliers or have new, additional adverse effects on them, which could have further adverse effects on our operating results and financial position.
We believe our customers could be adversely affected by further global economic downturn. The impact of further downturn on our customers may result in, among other things, a decreased number of patients our customers serve at any time (which we refer to as “patient census”), decreased number of non-essential patient services, increased uncompensated care and bad debt, increased difficulty obtaining financing on favorable terms and tighter capital and operating budgets. Many of our customers depend on investment income to supplement inadequate third-party payor reimbursement. Further disruption in the capital and credit markets could adversely affect the value of many investments, reducing our customers’ ability to access cash reserves to fund their operations. If economic conditions worsen, our customers may seek to further reduce their costs and may be unable to pay for our solutions, resulting in reduced orders, slower payment cycles, increased bad debt and customer bankruptcies.
Our suppliers also may be negatively impacted by further economic downturn and tighter capital and credit markets. If our key suppliers experience financial difficulty and are unable to deliver to us the equipment we require, we could be forced to seek alternative sources of medical equipment or to purchase equipment on less favorable terms, or we could be unable to fulfill our requirements. A delay in procuring equipment or an increase in the cost to purchase equipment could limit our ability to provide equipment to customers on a timely and cost-effective basis (e.g., supply chain issues arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic). Any of these occurrences, all of which are out of our control, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition.
If our customers’ patient census or services decrease, the revenue generated by our business could decrease.
Our operating results are dependent in part on the amount and types of equipment necessary to service our customers’ needs, which are heavily influenced by patient census and the services those patients receive. At times of lower patient census, our customers have a decreased need for our services on a supplemental or peak needs basis. During severe economic downturns, the number of hospital admissions and inpatient surgeries declines as consumers reduce their use of non-essential healthcare services. Our operating results can also vary depending on the timing and severity of the cold and flu season, local, regional or national epidemics and the impact of national catastrophes, as well as other factors affecting patient census and service demand.
Our competitors may engage in significant competitive practices, which could cause us to lose market share, reduce prices or increase expenditures.
Our competitors may engage in competitive practices that could cause us to lose market share, reduce our prices, or increase our expenditures. For example, competitors may sell significant amounts of surplus equipment or sell capital equipment at a lower gross margin to obtain the future repeat sales of disposables for a higher gross margin, thereby decreasing the demand for our equipment solutions. Our competitors also may choose to offer their products and services to customers on a combined or bundled basis with reduced prices, and if we are unable to offer comparable products or prices, we may experience reduced demand for our solutions. Additionally, the overall market for our services is very competitive and our competitors often compete by lowering prices, thus impacting our ability to maintain our gross margins. Any actions we may be required to take as a result of increased competitive pressure, including decreasing our prices, renegotiating contracts with customers on more favorable terms or increasing our sales and marketing expenses, could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Consolidation in the healthcare industry may lead to a reduction in the prices we charge, thereby decreasing our revenue.
Numerous initiatives and reforms initiated by legislators, regulators and third-party payers to curb rising healthcare costs, in addition to other economic factors, have resulted in a consolidation trend in the healthcare industry to create new companies with greater market power, including hospitals. As the healthcare industry consolidates, competition to provide products and services to industry participants has become, and will likely continue to become, more intense. In addition, competitive bidding also emphasizes the importance of relationships with both the payors and others in the space that
impact reimbursement of our clients and customers. All of this in turn has resulted, and will likely continue to result in, greater pricing pressures and the exclusion of certain suppliers from various market segments as GPOs, IDNs, and large single accounts continue to use their market power to consolidate purchasing decisions for some of our existing and prospective customers. We expect the market demand, government regulation, and third-party reimbursement policies, among other potential factors, will continue to change the worldwide healthcare industry, resulting in further business consolidations and alliances among our customers and prospective customers, which may reduce competition among our existing and prospective customers, exert further downward pressure on the prices of our implants and may adversely impact our business, financial condition or results of operations.
We have relationships with certain key medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers, and adverse developments concerning these manufacturers or suppliers could delay our ability to procure equipment or provide certain services or increase our cost of purchasing equipment.
We purchased medical equipment from over 500 manufacturers and suppliers in 2022, ten of which accounted for approximately 55% of our direct medical equipment purchases in 2022. Additionally, we purchase repair parts, supplies and disposables from medical equipment manufacturers and suppliers that are necessary to our business. Adverse developments concerning key suppliers or our relationships with them could force us to seek alternative sources for our medical equipment or repair parts or to purchase such equipment or repair parts on less favorable terms. A delay in procuring equipment or repair parts or an increase in our cost to purchase equipment or repair parts could limit our ability to provide equipment and/or services to our customers on a timely and cost-effective basis. In addition, if we do not have access to certain parts, or if manufacturers and suppliers do not provide access to the appropriate equipment manuals or training, we may not be able to provide certain clinical engineering services.
If we are unable to change the manner in which healthcare providers traditionally procure medical equipment, we may not be able to achieve significant revenue growth.
We believe the direct purchase or capital lease of medical equipment, and self-management of that equipment, by hospitals and alternate site providers significantly competes with our solution offerings. Many hospitals and alternate site providers view equipment rental primarily as a means of meeting short-term or peak supplemental needs, rather than as a long-term, effective and cost-efficient alternative to purchasing or leasing equipment. Many healthcare providers may continue to purchase or lease a substantial portion of their medical equipment and to manage and maintain it on their own. If we are unable to influence healthcare providers to increase the proportion of medical equipment they rent rather than purchase, our ability to achieve significant revenue growth will be materially impaired.
We depend on key personnel and our inability to attract and retain key personnel could harm our business.
Our financial performance is dependent in significant part on our ability to hire, develop and retain key personnel, including our senior executives, sales professionals, sales specialists, hospital management employees and other qualified workers. We have experienced and will continue to experience intense competition for these resources. The loss of the services of one or more of our senior executives or other key personnel could significantly undermine our management expertise, key relationships with customers and suppliers, and our ability to provide efficient, quality healthcare solutions, which would have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
We may be unable to make attractive acquisitions or successfully integrate acquired businesses, and any inability to do so may disrupt our business and hinder our ability to grow.
From time to time, we may evaluate acquisition candidates or other strategic relationships within the healthcare industry that may strategically fit our business objectives, as opportunistic acquisitions are part of our growth strategy. However, there is no guarantee we will be able to identify attractive acquisition opportunities. In the event we are able to identify attractive acquisition opportunities, we may not be able to complete the acquisition or do so on commercially acceptable terms. We may not be successful in acquiring other businesses, and the businesses we do acquire in the future may not ultimately produce returns that justify our related investment.
Acquisitions may involve numerous risks, including:
•difficulties assimilating personnel and integrating distinct business cultures;
•diversion of management’s time and resources from existing operations;
•potential loss of key employees or customers of acquired companies;
•exposure to unforeseen liabilities of acquired companies; and
•liabilities that may exceed indemnification caps provided in acquisition agreements.
We may fail to realize all of the anticipated benefits of our recent acquisitions or those benefits may take longer to realize than expected. We may also encounter significant difficulties in integrating the businesses of our recent acquisitions.
The success of our recent acquisitions will depend, in part, on our ability to integrate the businesses of our recent acquisitions in an effective and efficient manner, which is a complex, costly and time-consuming process. The integration process may disrupt business and, if we are unable to successfully integrate acquired businesses, we could fail to realize the anticipated benefits of our recent acquisitions. The failure to meet the challenges involved in the integration process and realize the anticipated benefits of our recent acquisitions could cause an interruption of, or a loss of momentum in, our operations and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, the integration of our recent acquisitions may result in material unanticipated challenges, expenses, liabilities, competitive responses and losses of customers and other business relationships. Additional integration challenges may include:
•diversion of management’s attention to integration matters;
•difficulties in achieving anticipated cost savings, synergies, business opportunities and growth prospects from our recent acquisition;
•difficulties in the integration of operations and systems;
•difficulties in conforming standards, controls, procedures and accounting and other policies, business cultures and compensation structures;
•difficulties in the assimilation of employees;
•difficulties in managing the expanded operations of a materially larger and more complex company;
•challenges in attracting and retaining key personnel; and
•the impact of potential liabilities we may be inheriting from our recent acquisitions.
Many of these factors are outside of our control and could result in increased costs, decreases in the amount of anticipated revenue and diversion of management’s time and energy, each of which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
In addition, even if the integration of acquired businesses is successful, we may not realize all of the anticipated benefits of our recent acquisitions, including the synergies, cost savings, or sales or growth opportunities. These benefits may not be achieved within the anticipated time frames, or at all. Further, additional unanticipated costs may be incurred in the integration process. All of these factors could cause reductions in earnings per share, decrease or delay the expected accretive effect of the transaction and negatively impact the price of shares of our common stock. As a result, it cannot be assured that our recent acquisitions will result in the realization of the anticipated benefits and potential synergies.
Impairment charges for goodwill or other long-lived assets could adversely affect the Company’s financial condition and results of operations.
We monitor the recoverability of our long-lived assets, such as amortizing intangibles and equipment, and evaluate their carrying value for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets may not be fully recoverable. We annually review goodwill to determine if impairment has occurred. Additionally, interim reviews are performed whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that impairment may have occurred. If the testing performed indicates that impairment has occurred, we are required to record a non-cash impairment charge for the difference between the carrying value and fair value of the long-lived assets or the carrying value and fair value of the reporting unit, in the period the determination is made. The testing of long-lived assets and goodwill for impairment requires us to make estimates that are subject to significant assumptions about our future revenue, profitability, cash flows, fair value of assets and liabilities, weighted average cost of capital, as well as other assumptions. Changes in these estimates, or changes in actual performance compared with these estimates, may affect the fair value of long-lived assets or reporting unit, which may result in an impairment charge.
We cannot accurately predict the amount or timing of any impairment of assets. Should the value of long-lived assets or goodwill become impaired, our financial condition and results of operations may be adversely affected.
We may incur increased expenses related to our pension plan, which could impact our financial position.
We have a defined benefit pension plan covering certain current and former employees. Although benefits under the pension plan were frozen in 2002, funding obligations under the pension plan continue to be impacted by the performance of the financial markets. If the financial markets do not provide the long-term returns we have assumed, the likelihood of us being required to make additional contributions will increase. The equity and debt markets can be, and recently have been, volatile, and therefore our estimate of future contribution requirements can change dramatically in relatively short periods of time.
Our cash flow fluctuates during the year.
Our results of operations have been and can be expected to be subject to quarterly fluctuations. We may experience increased revenue in the first and fourth quarters of the year, depending upon the timing and severity of the cold and flu season and the related increased hospital census and medical equipment usage during that season. Because a significant portion of our expenses are relatively fixed over these periods, our operating income as a percentage of revenue tends to increase during the first and fourth quarter of each year. If the cold and flu season is delayed by as little as one month, or is less severe than in prior periods, our quarterly operating results for a current period can vary significantly from prior periods. Our quarterly results can also fluctuate as a result of such other factors as the timing of acquisitions, new on-site managed solution agreements or new service center openings.
A portion of our revenue is derived from home care providers and nursing homes, and these healthcare providers may pose additional credit risks.
Our nursing home and home care customers may pose additional credit risks since they are generally less financially sound than hospitals. In addition, such cost pressures have increased due to temporary and permanent closure of nursing homes and home care agencies caused by the spread of COVID-19. These customers continue to face cost pressures. We may incur losses in the future due to the credit risks, including potential bankruptcy filings, associated with any of these customers.
Our business entails the risk of claims related to the medical equipment that we outsource and service. We may not have adequate insurance to cover a claim, and it may be more expensive or difficult for us to obtain adequate insurance in the future.
We may be liable for claims related to the manufacture or use of our medical equipment or to our maintenance or repair of a customer’s medical equipment. Any such claims, if made and upheld, could make our business more expensive to operate and therefore less profitable. We may be subject to claims exceeding our insurance coverage or we may not be able to continue to obtain liability insurance at acceptable levels of cost and coverage. If we are found liable for any significant claims that are not covered by insurance, our liquidity and operating results could be materially adversely affected. In addition, litigation relating to a claim could adversely affect our existing and potential customer relationships, create adverse public relations and divert management’s time and resources from the operation of the business.
We may incur increased costs that we cannot pass through to our customers.
Our customer contracts may include limitations on our ability to increase prices over the term of the contract. On the other hand, we rely on third parties, including subcontractors, to provide some of our services and supplies and we do not always have fixed pricing contracts with these subcontractors. Therefore, we are at risk of incurring increased costs that we are unable to pass through to our customers.
Any failure of our management information systems could harm our business and operating results.
We depend on our management information systems to actively manage our medical equipment fleet, control capital spending and provide fleet information, including equipment usage history, condition and availability of our medical equipment. These functions enhance our ability to optimize fleet utilization and redeployment. The inability of our management information systems to operate as we anticipate could damage our reputation with our customers, disrupt our business or result in, among other things, decreased revenue and increased overhead costs. Any such failure could harm our business and results of operations. Our results of operations could be adversely affected if these systems, or our customers’ access to them, are interrupted, damaged by unforeseen events, cyber security incidents or other actions of third parties, or
fail for any extended period of time. In addition, data security breaches could adversely impact our operations, results of operations or our ability to satisfy legal requirements, including those related to patient-identifiable health information.
There are inherent limitations in all internal control systems over financial reporting, and misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.
While we have taken actions designed to address compliance with the internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls and other requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the rules and regulations promulgated by the SEC implementing these requirements, there are inherent limitations in our ability to control all circumstances. We do not expect that our internal control over financial reporting and disclosure controls will prevent all error and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. In addition, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints and the benefit of controls must be relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, in our Company have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision-making can be faulty and that breakdowns can occur because of simple errors or mistakes. Further, controls can be circumvented by individual acts of some persons, by collusion of two or more persons, or by management override of the controls. The design of any system of controls also is based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions. Over time, a control may be inadequate because of changes in conditions, such as our growth or increased transaction volume, or the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.
Social unrest may materially and adversely impact our business.
We have over 150 offices located in cities across the country, and such social unrest could materially affect the ability of certain of these offices to operate. Prolonged disruptions because of such social unrest in the markets in which we operate could disrupt our relationships with customers, employees and referral sources located in affected areas and, in the case of our corporate office, our ability to provide administrative support services, including billing and collection services. Future civil insurrection, social unrest, protests, looting, strikes or street demonstrations may adversely affect our reputation, business and consolidated financial condition, results of operations and cash flows.
If we do not respond to technological changes, our products and services could become obsolete, and we could lose customers.
To remain competitive, we must continue to enhance and improve the functionality and features of the technology that forms part of our service offering. The healthcare industry is rapidly changing, and if competitors introduce new products and services using new technologies or if new industry standards and practices emerge, our existing products and services and our systems and our proprietary software may become obsolete. Our failure to respond to technological change or to adequately maintain, upgrade and develop our products, services and systems used to process customers’ orders and payments could harm our business, prospects, financial condition and results of operations.
If we do not successfully coordinate the management of our equipment, we could lose sales.
Our business requires that we coordinate the management of our equipment over a significant geographic range. If we do not successfully coordinate the timely and efficient management of our equipment (for example, if equipment is lost, missing or misplaced), our costs may increase, we may experience a build-up or shortage in inventory, we may not be able to deliver sufficient quantities to meet customer demand and we could lose sales, each of which could seriously harm our business.
Challenges to our tax positions, the interpretation and application of recent U.S. tax legislation or other changes in taxation of our operations could harm our business, revenue and financial results.
We operate in a number of tax jurisdictions, including at the U.S. federal, state and local levels, and we therefore are subject to review and potential audit by tax authorities in these various jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in determining our provision for income taxes and other tax liabilities, and tax authorities may disagree with tax positions we take and challenge our tax positions. Successful unilateral or multi-jurisdictional actions by various tax authorities, including in the context of our current or future corporate operating structure and third-party and intercompany
arrangements, may increase our effective tax rate, result in additional taxes or other costs or have other material consequences, which could harm our business, revenue and financial results. Our effective tax rate may also change from year to year or vary materially from our expectations based on changes or uncertainties in the mix of activities and income allocated or earned among various jurisdictions, changes in tax laws and the applicable tax rates in these jurisdictions (including future tax laws that may become material) and the valuation of deferred tax assets and liabilities.
We may from time to time be subject to litigation, which may be extremely costly to defend, could result in substantial judgment or settlement costs or subject us to other remedies.
We are currently not a party to any material legal proceedings. From time to time, however, we may be involved in various legal proceedings, including, but not limited to, actions relating to breach of contract, employment-related proceedings, anti-competition-related matters and intellectual property infringement, misappropriation or other violation. Claims may be expensive to defend, may divert management’s time away from our operations, and may impact the availability and premiums of our liability insurance coverage, regardless of whether they are meritorious or ultimately lead to a judgment against us. We cannot assure you that we will be able to successfully defend or resolve any current or future litigation matters, in which case those litigation matters could have a material and adverse effect on our business, financial condition, operating results, cash flows, and prospects.
Risks Related to Healthcare and Other Legal Regulation Affecting Us
Uncertainty surrounding healthcare reform initiatives remains. Depending on the scope, form, and implementation of final healthcare reform legislation, our business may be adversely affected.
The healthcare industry is undergoing significant change. In March 2010, the Congress adopted and President Obama signed into law the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act increased the number of Americans with health insurance and employer mandates and subsidies offered to lower income individuals. While the increase in coverage could translate into increased utilization of our products and services, healthcare reform and political uncertainty have historically resulted in changes in how our customers purchase our services and have adversely affected our revenue. In addition to healthcare reform, Medicare, Medicaid and managed care organizations, such as health maintenance organizations and preferred provider organizations, traditional indemnity insurers and third-party administrators are under increasing pressure to control costs and limit utilization, while improving quality and healthcare outcomes. Provider revenue per service may decline with reductions in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. Furthermore, the implementation of the Affordable Care Act may impose changes in healthcare delivery, reimbursement, operations or record keeping that are not compatible with our current offerings, which could force us to incur additional compliance costs. So far, starting in 2013, our business, along with that of some of our suppliers and customers that are manufacturers, came under direct regulation of the Open Payments Law, specifically the Physician Payments Sunshine Act. The Open Payments Law requires the annual reporting and publishing of all transfers of value to physicians and teaching hospitals to give greater transparency to financial relationships between manufacturers, physicians and teaching hospitals. Federal and state governments also continue to enact and consider various legislative and regulatory proposals that could materially impact certain aspects of the healthcare system. We cannot predict with certainty what additional healthcare initiatives, if any, will be implemented at the federal or state levels or what the ultimate effect of federal healthcare reform (including, but not limited to, the Affordable Care Act) or any future legislation or regulation will have on our operating results or financial condition. We cannot predict with any certainty the result of proposed regulation in the healthcare space, such as the Department of Health and Human Services initiative to accelerate a transformation of the healthcare system, with a focus on removing “unnecessary obstacles” to coordinated care (the “Sprint to Coordinated Care”). Finally, we cannot quantify the repeal of the individual mandate, effective in 2019, under the Affordable Care Act, nor can we predict with any certainty the impact of the composition of the U.S. Supreme Court on our business model, prospects, financial condition or results of operations.
We are subject to federal and state privacy and data security laws and regulations in connection with our collection and use of personal information, including recently enacted amendments to federal privacy laws which make us subject to more stringent penalties in the event we improperly use or disclose protected health information regarding our customers’ patients.
HIPAA regulations apply national standards for some types of electronic health information transactions and the data elements used in those transactions to ensure the integrity, security and confidentiality of health information and standards to protect the privacy of individually identifiable health information businesses receive, maintain or transmit. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (“HITECH Act”) expanded the scope of the
privacy and security requirements under HIPAA and increased penalties for violations to “Business Associates” such as Agiliti Health, who are required to comply with certain of the HIPAA privacy standards and are required to implement administrative, physical and technical security standards. In addition, the HITECH Act enacted federal breach notification rules requiring notification to affected individuals and the Department of Health and Human Services (and in some cases, relevant media outlets) whenever a breach of protected health information occurs. In addition, the HIPAA rules now involve increased penalties, including mandatory penalties for “willful neglect” violations, starting at $100 per violation subject to a cap of $1.5 million for violations of the same standard in a single calendar year. To meet these requirements, as well as the requirements of other federal laws and regulations governing the collection and use of personal information, we may need to expend additional capital, software development and other resources, including to modify our products and services. Furthermore, our failure to maintain confidentiality of sensitive protected health information or other personal information in accordance with the applicable regulatory requirements could damage our reputation and expose us to claims, fines and penalties. Our operations could also be negatively impacted by a violation of the HIPAA privacy or security rules or any other applicable privacy or data security law.
Many states in which we operate also have state laws that protect the privacy and security of confidential, protected health information or other personal information that have similar or even more protection than the federal provisions. State attorneys general are also authorized to enforce federal HIPAA privacy and security rules. Furthermore, state data breach notification laws continue to expand the type of protected health information and other personal information they encompass, and in many cases are more burdensome than the HIPAA/HITECH breach reporting requirements. Some state laws impose fines and penalties upon violators in addition to allowing a private right of action to sue for damages for those who believe their protected health information or other personal information has been misused.
Our relationships with healthcare facilities and marketing practices are subject to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and similar state laws.
Although we do not receive a significant amount of direct reimbursement from the U.S. federal government in the normal course of our business, we are subject to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, which prohibits the knowing and willful offer, payment, solicitation or receipt of any form of “remuneration” in return for, or to induce, the referral of business or ordering of services paid for by Medicare or other federal programs. “Remuneration” has been broadly defined to include anything of value, including gifts, discounts, credit arrangements, and in-kind goods or services. Certain federal courts have held that the Anti-Kickback Law can be violated if “one purpose” of a payment is to induce referrals. The Anti-Kickback Statute is broad and prohibits many arrangements and practices that are lawful in businesses outside the healthcare industry. Violations can result in imprisonment, civil or criminal fines or exclusion from Medicare, Medicaid and other governmental programs. The Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) issued a series of safe harbors that if met will help assure healthcare providers and other parties will not be prosecuted under the Anti-Kickback Law. Contracts with healthcare facilities and other marketing practices or transactions may implicate the Anti-Kickback Statute. We have attempted to structure our contracts and marketing practices to comply with the Anti-Kickback Statute along with providing training to our employees. However, we cannot ensure that we will not have to defend against alleged violations from private entities or that OIG or other authorities will not find that our practices violate the Anti-Kickback Statute.
Our contracts with the federal government subject us to additional oversight.
Since entering into our initial contract with HHS for the comprehensive maintenance and management services of medical ventilator equipment in 2020, the U.S. government has been our largest customer. In addition to our current long-term agreement with HHS, we have other agreements with the U.S. government. For the year ended December 31, 2022, we derived approximately 10% of our revenue from multiple contracts with agencies of the federal government. As such, we must comply with and are affected by laws and regulations relating to the award, administration and performance of U.S. government contracts. Government contract laws and regulations affect how we do business with our customers and impose certain risks and costs on our business. A violation of specific laws and regulations, by us, our employees, others working on our behalf, a supplier or a venture partner, could harm our reputation and result in the imposition of fines and penalties, the termination of our contracts, suspension or debarment from bidding on or being awarded contracts, loss of our ability to export products or services and civil or criminal investigations or proceedings. In some instances, these laws and regulations impose terms or rights that are different from those typically found in commercial transactions.
For example, the U.S. government may terminate any of our government contracts and subcontracts either at its convenience or for default based on our performance, which may result in a loss. In addition, as funds are typically appropriated on a fiscal year basis and as the costs of a termination for convenience may exceed the costs of continuing a program in a given fiscal year, occasionally programs do not have sufficient funds appropriated to cover the termination
costs were the government to terminate them for convenience. Under such circumstances, the U.S. government could assert that it is not required to appropriate additional funding.
A termination arising out of our default may expose us to liability and have a material adverse effect on our ability to compete for future contracts and orders. In addition, the U.S. government could terminate a prime contract under which we are a subcontractor, notwithstanding the quality of our services as a subcontractor. In the case of termination for default, the U.S. government could make claims to reduce the contract value or recover its procurement costs and could assess other special penalties.
Additionally, the U.S. government may not exercise an option period for various reasons, or, alternatively, the U.S. government may exercise option periods, even for contracts for which it is expected that our costs may exceed the contract price or ceiling.
U.S. government agencies routinely audit and investigate government contractors. These agencies review a contractor’s performance under its contracts, its cost structure, its business systems and compliance with applicable laws, regulations and standards. The U.S. government has the ability to decrease or withhold certain payments when it deems systems subject to its review to be inadequate. Additionally, any costs found to be misclassified may be subject to repayment.
Changes in third-party payor reimbursement for healthcare items and services, as well as economic hardships faced by other parties from which our customers obtain funding, may affect our customers’ ability to pay for our services, which could cause us to reduce our prices or adversely affect our ability to collect payments.
Most of our customers are healthcare providers that pay us directly for the services we deliver, and these customers rely on third-party payor reimbursement for a substantial portion of their operating revenue. Third-party payors include government payors like Medicare and Medicaid and private payors like insurance companies and managed care organizations. Third-party payors continue to engage in widespread efforts to control healthcare costs. Their cost containment initiatives include efforts to control utilization of services and limit reimbursement amounts. Reimbursement limitations can take many forms, including discounts, non-payment for certain care (for example, care associated with certain hospital-acquired conditions) and fixed payment rates for particular treatment modalities or plans, regardless of the provider’s actual costs in caring for a patient. Reimbursement policies have a direct effect on our customers’ ability to pay us for our services and an indirect effect on the prices we charge. Ongoing concerns about rising healthcare costs may cause more restrictive reimbursement policies to be implemented in the future. Restrictions on the amounts or manner of reimbursements or funding to healthcare providers may affect the financial strength of our customers and the amount our customers are able to pay for our solutions.
In addition, a portion of our customers derive funding from state and local government sources, some of which are facing financial hardships, including decreased funding. Any limitation or elimination of funding to our customers by these sources could also affect the financial strength of our customers and the amount they are able to pay for our services.
Our customers operate in a highly regulated environment. Regulations affecting them could cause us to incur additional expenses associated with compliance and licensing. We could be assessed fines and face possible exclusion from participation in state and federal healthcare programs if we violate laws or regulations applicable to our business.
The healthcare industry is required to comply with extensive and complex laws and regulations at the federal, state and local government levels. While the majority of these regulations do not directly apply to us, there are some that do, including the FDCA and certain state pharmaceutical licensing requirements. Although we believe we are in compliance with the FDCA, if the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) expands the reporting requirements under the FDCA, we may be required to comply with the expanded requirements and may incur substantial additional expenses in doing so. With respect to state requirements, we are currently licensed in 26 states and may be required to obtain additional licenses, permits and registrations as state requirements change. Our failure to possess such licenses for our existing operations may subject us to certain additional expenses.
Our success depends on the ability to service medical equipment safely and effectively. We are required to comply with the Food and Drug Administration Reauthorization Act (“FDARA”), which requires us to evaluate quality, safety and effectiveness of medical devices with respect to servicing. Our quality management system has not been fully extended to all of our programs and services, and the lack of controls may result in issues related to compliance and patient safety. In addition, our suppliers may not be able to fulfill service or product commitments, resulting in delays or failure to repair medical devices, and our manufacturers may be reluctant to provide the service manuals, training, equipment or parts
needed to repair medical devices. The use of inadequate or substandard parts during the repair of medical devices may also result in the inoperability of medical equipment and malfunction that results in harm to patients and employees.
In addition to the FDCA, FDARA and state licensing requirements, we are impacted by federal and state laws and regulations aimed at protecting the privacy of individually identifiable protected health information, among other things, and detecting and preventing fraud, abuse and waste with respect to federal and state healthcare programs. Some of these laws and regulations apply directly to us. Additionally, many of our customers require us to abide by their policies relating to patient privacy, state and federal anti-kickback acts, and state and federal false claim acts and whistleblower protections. Since the Affordable Care Act provides for further oversight over and detection of fraud and abuse activities, we expect many of our customers to continue to require us to abide by such policies.
Given that our industry is heavily regulated, we may be subject to additional regulatory requirements. If our operations are found to be in violation of any governmental regulations to which we, or our customers, are subject, we may be subject to the applicable penalty associated with the violation. While we believe that our practices materially comply with applicable state and federal requirements, the requirements might be interpreted in a manner inconsistent with our interpretation. Also, if we are found to have violated certain federal or state laws or regulations regarding Medicare, Medicaid or other governmental funding sources, we could be subject to fines and possible exclusion from participation in federal and state healthcare programs. Penalties, damages, fines, or curtailment of our operations could significantly increase our cost of doing business, leading to difficulty generating sufficient income to support our business.
In addition, although our business is not currently extensively regulated under healthcare laws, we are subject to certain regulatory requirements that continue to come under greater scrutiny and regulation. Our customers are subject to direct regulation under the Federal False Claims Act, the Stark Law, the Anti-Kickback Statute, rules and regulations of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and other federal and state healthcare laws and regulations. Promulgation of new laws and regulations, or changes in or re-interpretations of existing laws or regulations as they relate to our customers and our business, could affect our business, operating results or financial condition. Our operations may be negatively impacted if we have to comply with additional complex government regulations.
We own a large fleet of medical equipment, which may be subject to equipment recalls or obsolescence.
We incur significant expenditures to maintain a large and modern equipment fleet. Our equipment may be subject to recalls that could be expensive to implement and could result in revenue loss while the associated equipment is removed from service. We may be required to incur additional costs to repair or replace the equipment at our own expense or we may choose to purchase incremental new equipment from a supplier not affected by the recall. Additionally, our relationship with our customers may be damaged if we cannot promptly replace the equipment that has been recalled. We depend on manufacturers and other third parties to properly obtain and maintain FDA clearance for their equipment and products and their failure to maintain FDA clearance could have a material adverse effect on our business.
Our success depends, in part, on our ability to respond effectively to changes in technology. Because we maintain a large fleet of equipment, we are subject to the risk of equipment obsolescence. If advancements in technology render a substantial portion of our equipment fleet obsolete, or if a competing technology becomes available that our customers prefer, we may experience a decrease in demand for our products, which could adversely affect our operating results and cause us to invest in new technology to maintain our market share and operating margins.
Risks Related to Our Indebtedness
We have substantial indebtedness.
As of December 31, 2022, we had approximately $1.1 billion in borrowings outstanding under our First Lien Term Loan Facility (as defined herein) (together with the Revolving Credit Facility (as defined herein), the “Credit Facilities”), respectively, and $6.8 million of letters of credit outstanding under our Revolving Credit Facility.
This is a significant amount of indebtedness which could have important consequences. For example, it could:
•make it more difficult for us to satisfy our debt obligations;
•increase our vulnerability to general adverse economic, industry and competitive conditions;
•require us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our indebtedness, thereby reducing the availability of our cash flow to fund working capital, capital expenditures, research and development efforts and other general corporate purposes;
•limit our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in our business and the industry in which we operate;
•place us at a competitive disadvantage compared to our competitors that have less indebtedness;
•limit our ability to borrow additional funds;
•limit our ability to make investments in technology and infrastructure improvements; and
•limit our ability to make significant acquisitions.
Our ability to satisfy our debt obligations will depend on our future operating performance. This, to a certain extent, is subject to general economic, financial, competitive, legislative, regulatory and other factors that are beyond our control. Our business may not continue to generate sufficient cash flow from operations and future borrowings may not be available to us in an amount sufficient to enable us to repay our indebtedness or to fund our other liquidity needs. If we are unable to make our interest payments or to repay our debt at maturity, we may have to obtain alternative financing, which may not be available to us.
We are vulnerable to interest rate risk with respect to our debt.
We are subject to interest rate risk in connection with the issuance of variable and fixed-rate debt. In order to maintain a desired mix of fixed-rate and variable-rate debt, we utilize interest rate swap agreements to fix a portion of our variable-rate debt. There is uncertainty in our ability to enter into additional swap agreements upon the expiration of our current arrangements in June 2023. In the current environment of high interest rates, we may not be able to manage our interest rate risk effectively, which could adversely affect our business, earnings and financial condition.
If we are unable to fund our significant cash needs, including capital expenditures, we may be unable to expand our business as planned or to service our debt.
We require substantial cash to operate our healthcare technology solutions and service our debt. Our healthcare technology solutions require us to invest a significant amount of cash in medical equipment purchases. To the extent that such expenditures cannot be funded from our operating cash flow, borrowings under our Credit Facilities or other financing sources, we may not be able to grow as currently planned. We currently expect that over the next 12 months, we will make net investments of approximately $85 to $95 million in new and pre-owned medical equipment, leasehold improvements and other capital expenditures. This estimate is subject to numerous assumptions, including revenue growth, the number of on-site managed solution signings, and any significant changes in customer contracts. In addition, a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations must be dedicated to servicing our debt and there are significant restrictions on our ability to incur additional indebtedness under the credit agreements governing our credit facilities.
Primarily because of our debt service obligations and debt refinancing charges and elevated depreciation and amortization charges we have incurred, we have had a history of net losses. If we consistently incur net losses, it could result in our inability to finance our business in the future. We had net income of $30 million and $24 million for the years ended December 31, 2022 and 2021, respectively. We had a net loss of $22 million for the year ended December 31, 2020. Our ability to use our United States federal income tax net operating loss carryforwards to offset our future taxable income may be limited. If we are limited in our ability to use our net operating loss carryforwards in future years in which we have taxable income, we will pay more current taxes than if we were able to utilize our net operating loss carryforwards without limitation, which could harm our results of operations and liquidity.
We may not be able to obtain funding on acceptable terms or at all as a result of the credit and capital markets. Thus, we may be unable to expand our business or to service our debt.
Depending on the global financial markets and economic conditions, the cost of raising money in the debt and equity capital markets may increase while the availability of funds from those markets may diminish. Without adequate funding, we may be unable to execute our growth strategy, complete future acquisitions, or take advantage of other business opportunities or respond to competitive pressures, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our revenue and results of operations.
Risks Related to Ownership of our Securities
THL controls us, and its interests may conflict with ours or yours in the future.
For so long as the THL Stockholder continues to own a significant portion of our stock, THL will be able to significantly influence the composition of our board of directors (our “Board”), including the approval of actions requiring shareholder approval. Accordingly, for such period of time, THL will have significant influence with respect to our management, business plans and policies, including the appointment and removal of our officers, decisions on whether to raise future capital and amending our charter and bylaws, which govern the rights attached to our common stock. In particular, for so long as the THL Stockholder continues to own a significant percentage of our stock, THL will be able to cause or prevent a change of control of us or a change in the composition of our Board and could preclude any unsolicited acquisition of us. The concentration of ownership could deprive you of an opportunity to receive a premium for your shares of common stock as part of a sale of us and ultimately might affect the market price of our common stock.
In connection with our IPO, we entered into an amended and restated director nomination agreement (the “director nomination agreement”) with the THL Stockholder whereby, so long as the THL Stockholder beneficially owns at least 5% of our common stock then outstanding, the THL Stockholder has the right to designate: (i) all of the nominees for election to our Board for so long as the THL Stockholder beneficially owns 40% or more of the total number of shares of our common stock beneficially owned by the THL Stockholder upon completion of our IPO, as adjusted for any reorganization, recapitalization, stock dividend, stock split, reverse stock split or similar changes in our capitalization (the “Original Amount”); (ii) a number of directors (rounded up to the nearest whole number) equal to 40% of the total directors for so long as the THL Stockholder beneficially owns at least 30% and less than 40% of the Original Amount; (iii) a number of directors (rounded up to the nearest whole number) equal to 30% of the total directors for so long as the THL Stockholder beneficially owns at least 20% and less than 30% of the Original Amount; (iv) a number of directors (rounded up to the nearest whole number) equal to 20% of the total directors for so long as beneficially owns at least 10% and less than 20% of the Original Amount; and (v) one director for so long as the THL Stockholder beneficially owns at least 5% and less than 10% of the Original Amount. In each case, the THL Stockholder’s nominees must comply with applicable law and stock exchange rules. In addition, the THL Stockholder shall be entitled to designate the replacement for any of its board designees whose board service terminates prior to the end of the director’s term regardless of the THL Stockholder’s beneficial ownership at such time. The THL Stockholder shall also have the right to have its designees participate on committees of our Board proportionate to its stock ownership, subject to compliance with applicable law and stock exchange rules. The director nomination agreement will also prohibit us from increasing or decreasing the size of our Board without the prior written consent of the THL Stockholder. This agreement will terminate at such time as the THL Stockholder owns less than 5% of the Original Amount.
THL and its affiliates engage in a broad spectrum of activities, including investments in the information and business services industry generally. In the ordinary course of their business activities, THL and its affiliates may engage in activities where their interests conflict with our interests or those of our other shareholders, such as investing in or advising businesses that directly or indirectly compete with certain portions of our business or are suppliers or customers of ours. Our certificate of incorporation provides that none of THL, any of its affiliates or any director who is not employed by us (including any non-employee director who serves as one of our officers in both his director and officer capacities) or its affiliates will have any duty to refrain from engaging, directly or indirectly, in the same business activities or similar business activities or lines of business in which we operate. THL also may pursue acquisition opportunities that may be complementary to our business, and, as a result, those acquisition opportunities may not be available to us. In addition, THL may have an interest in pursuing acquisitions, divestitures and other transactions that, in its judgment, could enhance its investment, even though such transactions might involve risks to you.
We are a “controlled company” within the meaning of the rules of the NYSE and, as a result, we qualify for, and may in the future rely on, exemptions from certain corporate governance requirements. As such, you may not have the same protections as those afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to such governance requirements.
THL Stockholder controls a majority of the voting power of our outstanding common stock. As a result, we are “controlled company” within the meaning of the corporate governance standards of the NYSE. Under these rules, a company of which more than 50% of the voting power for the election of directors is held by an individual, group or another company is a “controlled company” and may elect not to comply with certain corporate governance requirements, including:
•the requirement that a majority of our Board consist of independent directors;
•the requirement that we have a nominating and corporate governance committee that is composed entirely of independent directors with a written charter addressing the committee’s purpose and responsibilities;
•the requirement that we have a compensation, nominating and governance committee that is composed entirely of independent directors with a written charter addressing the committee’s purpose and responsibilities; and
•the requirement for an annual performance evaluation of the compensation, nominating and governance committee.
We do not currently rely on these exemptions but may choose to do so in the future. As a result, we may not have a majority of independent directors on our Board and our Compensation Committee and Nominating and Governance Committee may not consist entirely of independent directors and our Compensation Committee and Nominating and Governance Committee may not be subject to annual performance evaluations. Accordingly, you will not have the same protections afforded to shareholders of companies that are subject to all of the corporate governance requirements of the NYSE.
An active, liquid trading market for our common stock may not develop, which may limit your ability to sell your shares.
Our IPO occurred in April 2021. Therefore, there has been a public market for our common stock for a short period of time. Although we have listed our common stock on the NYSE under the symbol “AGTI,” an active trading market for our common stock may not be sustained. A public trading market having the desirable characteristics of depth, liquidity and orderliness depends upon the existence of willing buyers and sellers at any given time, such existence being dependent upon the individual decisions of buyers and sellers over which neither we nor any market maker has control. The failure of an active and liquid trading market to develop and continue would likely have a material adverse effect on the value of our common stock. The market price of our common stock may decline below the public offering price, and you may not be able to sell your shares of our common stock at or above the price you paid for our shares, or at all. An inactive market may also impair our ability to raise capital to continue to fund operations by issuing shares and may impair our ability to acquire other companies by using our shares as consideration.
Operating as a public company requires us to incur substantial costs and requires substantial management attention.
As a public company, we incur substantial legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. For example, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the applicable requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the rules and regulations of the SEC and the listing standards of the NYSE. For example, the Exchange Act requires, among other things, we file annual, quarterly and current reports with respect to our business, financial condition and results of operations. We are also required to maintain effective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting. Compliance with these rules and regulations has increased and will continue to increase our legal and financial compliance costs, and increase demand on our systems. In addition, as a public company, we may be subject to stockholder activism, which can lead to additional substantial costs, distract management and impact the manner in which we operate our business in ways we cannot currently anticipate. As a result of disclosure of information in filings required of a public company, our business and financial condition will become more visible, which may result in threatened or actual litigation, including by competitors.
In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time as new guidance is provided by regulatory and governing bodies. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters and higher costs necessitated by ongoing revisions to disclosure and governance practices. We intend to invest resources to comply with evolving laws, regulations and standards, and this investment may result in increased general and administrative expenses and a diversion of our management’s time and attention from sales-generating activities to compliance activities. If our efforts to comply with new laws, regulations and standards differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to their application and practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and could have a material adversely effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations.
If we fail to maintain an effective system of disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting, our ability to produce timely and accurate financial statements or comply with applicable regulations could be impaired.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires, among other things, that management certify financial and other information in our quarterly and annual reports and provide an annual management report on the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting. In addition, our independent registered public accounting firm is required to attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting annually. We are continuing to develop and refine our disclosure controls and other procedures that are designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by us in the reports that we will file with the SEC is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in SEC rules and forms and that information required to be disclosed in reports under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to our principal executive and financial officers. We are also continuing to improve our internal control over financial reporting. We have expended, and anticipate that we will continue to expend, significant resources in order to improve the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting.
As described in Item 9A. “Controls and Procedures,” management has concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was ineffective as of December 31, 2022 because of materials weaknesses in our internal controls over financial reporting due to: (i) insufficient trained resources and expertise in implementation and operation of internal control over financial reporting and information technology systems and, (ii) as it relates to information technology general controls, ineffective provisioning, change management, and segregation of duties, within its systems supporting the Company’s accounting and reporting processes. Based on this evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer also concluded that our disclosure controls and procedures were not effective due to these material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting
Our independent registered public accounting firm was required to formally attest to the effectiveness of our internal controls over financial reporting pursuant to Section 404 as of December 31, 2022. As described in Item 9A. “Controls and Procedures”, our independent registered public accounting firm has expressed an adverse report on the operating effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2022. In the future, our independent registered public accounting firm may issue a report that is adverse in the event that it continues to not be satisfied with the level at which our controls are documented, designed or operating.
We have begun to implement a number of steps to remediate the material weaknesses as described in Item 9A. “Controls and Procedures." However, remediation of material weaknesses may be a lengthy process and any difficulties encountered in remediation efforts or our implementation of new controls could harm our results of operations or cause us to fail to meet our reporting obligations and may result in a restatement of our financial statements for prior periods. Any continued failure to implement and maintain effective internal control over financial reporting could also adversely affect the results of periodic management evaluations and annual independent registered public accounting firm attestation reports regarding the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting. Ineffective disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting could also cause investors to lose confidence in our reported financial and other information, which would likely adversely affect the market price of our common stock. In addition, if we are unable to continue to meet these requirements, we may not be able to remain listed on the NYSE.
Any continued failure to maintain effective disclosure controls and internal control over financial reporting could have an adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations and could cause a decline in the market price of our common stock.
Provisions of our corporate governance documents could make an acquisition of us more difficult and may prevent attempts by our shareholders to replace or remove our current management, even if beneficial to our shareholders.
In addition to the THL Stockholder’s beneficial ownership of 73% of our common stock, our certificate of incorporation and bylaws and the Delaware General Corporation Law (the “DGCL”) contain provisions that could make it more difficult for a third party to acquire us, even if doing so might be beneficial to our shareholders. Among other things:
•these provisions allow us to authorize the issuance of undesignated preferred stock, the terms of which may be established and the shares of which may be issued without shareholder approval, and which may include supermajority voting, special approval, dividend, or other rights or preferences superior to the rights of shareholders;
•these provisions provide for a classified board of directors with staggered three-year terms;
•these provisions provide that, at any time when the THL Stockholder beneficially owns, in the aggregate, less than 40% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, directors may only be
removed for cause, and only by the affirmative vote of holders of at least 662/3% in voting power of all the then-outstanding shares of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class;
•these provisions prohibit shareholder action by written consent from and after the date on which the THL Stockholder beneficially owns, in the aggregate, less than 35% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors;
•these provisions provide that for as long as the THL Stockholder beneficially owns, in the aggregate, at least 50% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, any amendment, alteration, rescission or repeal of our bylaws by our shareholders require the affirmative vote of a majority in voting power of the outstanding shares of our stock and at any time when the THL Stockholder beneficially owns, in the aggregate, less than 50% in voting power of all outstanding shares of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, any amendment, alteration, rescission or repeal of our bylaws by our shareholders requires the affirmative vote of the holders of at least 662/3% in voting power of all the then-outstanding shares of our stock entitled to vote thereon, voting together as a single class; and
•these provisions establish advance notice requirements for nominations for elections to our Board or for proposing matters that can be acted upon by shareholders at shareholder meetings; provided, however, at any time when the THL Stockholder beneficially owns, in the aggregate, at least 10% in voting power of our stock entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, such advance notice procedure do not apply to it.
Our certificate of incorporation contains a provision that provides us with protections similar to Section 203 of the DGCL, and prevents us from engaging in a business combination with a person (excluding THL and any of its direct or indirect transferees and any group as to which such persons are a party) who acquires at least 15% of our common stock for a period of three years from the date such person acquired such common stock, unless Board or shareholder approval is obtained prior to the acquisition. These provisions could discourage, delay or prevent a transaction involving a change in control of our company. These provisions could also discourage proxy contests and make it more difficult for you and other shareholders to elect directors of your choosing and cause us to take other corporate actions you desire, including actions that you may deem advantageous, or negatively affect the trading price of our common stock. In addition, because our Board is responsible for appointing the members of our management team, these provisions could in turn affect any attempt by our shareholders to replace current members of our management team.
These and other provisions in our certificate of incorporation, bylaws and Delaware law could make it more difficult for shareholders or potential acquirers to obtain control of our Board or initiate actions that are opposed by our then-current Board, including delay or impede a merger, tender offer or proxy contest involving our company. The existence of these provisions could negatively affect the price of our common stock and limit opportunities for you to realize value in a corporate transaction.
Our certificate of incorporation designates the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain litigation that may be initiated by our shareholders, which could limit our shareholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us.
Pursuant to our certificate of incorporation, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the sole and exclusive forum for (1) any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf, (2) any action asserting a claim of breach of fiduciary duty owed by, or other wrongdoing by, any of our directors, officers or other employees or agents to us or our shareholders, or a claim of aiding and abetting any such breach of fiduciary duty, (3) any action asserting a claim against us or any director, officer, employee or agent of the Company arising pursuant to any provision of the DGCL, our certificate of incorporation or our bylaws, (4) any action to interpret, apply, enforce or determine the validity of our certificate of incorporation or bylaws, (5) any action asserting a claim against us or any director, officer, employee or agent governed by the internal affairs doctrine or (6) any action asserting an “internal corporate claim” as that term is defined in Section 115 of the DGCL; provided that for the avoidance of doubt, the forum selection provision that identifies the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware as the exclusive forum for certain litigation, including any “derivative action”, does not apply to suits to enforce a duty or liability created by Securities Act, the Exchange Act or any other claim for which the federal courts have exclusive jurisdiction. Our certificate of incorporation also provides that, unless we consent in writing to the selection of an alternative forum, the federal district courts of the United States shall be the exclusive forum for the resolution of any complaint asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act. Our certificate of incorporation further provides that any person or entity purchasing or otherwise acquiring any interest in shares of our capital stock is deemed to have notice of and consented to the provisions of our certificate of incorporation described above. The forum selection clause in our certificate of incorporation may have the effect of discouraging lawsuits against us or our directors and officers and may limit our shareholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us. Alternatively, if a court were to find the choice of forum provision
contained in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation to be inapplicable or unenforceable, we may incur additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions, which could adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.
Our operating results and stock price may be volatile, and the market price of our common stock may drop below the price you paid for our common stock.
Our quarterly operating results are likely to fluctuate in the future. In addition, securities markets worldwide have experienced, and are likely to continue to experience, significant price and volume fluctuations. This market volatility, as well as general economic, market or political conditions, could subject the market price of our shares to wide price fluctuations regardless of our operating performance. Our operating results and the trading price of our shares may fluctuate in response to various factors, including the factors mentioned throughout this section.
A significant portion of our total outstanding shares may be sold into the market in the near future. This could cause the market price of our common stock to drop significantly, even if our business is doing well.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market could occur at any time. These sales, or the perception in the market that the holders of a large number of shares intend to sell shares, could reduce the market price of our common stock. We currently have 133,792,048 outstanding shares of common stock based on the number of shares outstanding as of February 28, 2023. The market price of our stock could decline if the holders of shares sell them or are perceived by the market as intending to sell them.
Because we have no current plans to pay regular cash dividends on our common stock, you may not receive any return on investment unless you sell your common stock for a price greater than that which you paid for it.
We do not currently pay any regular cash dividends on our common stock. Any decision to declare and pay dividends in the future will be made at the discretion of our Board and will depend on, among other things, our results of operations, financial condition, cash requirements, contractual restrictions and other factors that our Board may deem relevant. In addition, our ability to pay dividends is, and may be, limited by covenants of existing and any future outstanding indebtedness we or our subsidiaries incur, including under the credit agreements governing our credit facilities. Therefore, any return on investment in our common stock is solely dependent upon the appreciation of the price of our common stock on the open market, which may not occur.
If securities or industry analysts do not publish research or reports about our business, if they adversely change their recommendations regarding our shares or if our results of operations do not meet their expectations, our stock price and trading volume could decline.
The trading market for our shares is influenced by the research and reports that industry or securities analysts publish about us or our business. We do not have any control over these analysts. If one or more of these analysts cease coverage of us or fail to publish reports on us regularly, we could lose visibility in the financial markets, which in turn could cause our stock price or trading volume to decline. Analysts who cover our stock have issued adverse reports with respect to our stock in the past and if additional analysts who cover us downgrade our stock or if our results of operations do not meet their expectations, our stock price could decline.
We may issue shares of preferred stock in the future, which could make it difficult for another company to acquire us or could otherwise adversely affect holders of our common stock, which could depress the price of our common stock.
Our certificate of incorporation authorizes us to issue one or more series of preferred stock. Our Board has the authority to determine the preferences, limitations and relative rights of the shares of preferred stock and to fix the number of shares constituting any series and the designation of such series, without any further vote or action by our shareholders. Our preferred stock could be issued with voting, liquidation, dividend and other rights superior to the rights of our common stock. The potential issuance of preferred stock may delay or prevent a change in control of us, discouraging bids for our common stock at a premium to the market price, and materially adversely affect the market price and the voting and other rights of the holders of our common stock.