Prompt:
Human: Total revenue was approximately $1.5 billion, representing a 7.5% decline versus last year, which exceeded our expectation and reflects continued sequential improvement.
As anticipated, our Aviation segment remains the primary driver behind the revenue decrease.
On both the GAAP and an adjusted basis, earnings grew by a 160% or more year-over-year.
GAAP continuing earnings per share grew to a $1.10 per share or $1.01 per share on an adjusted basis.
Adjusted EBITDA margins expanded more than 400 basis points to 8.3% compared to last year.
Anchoring these results was elevated demand for higher margin Work Orders for virus protection as well as our EnhancedClean services which are longer term in nature.
Effective labor management continued to be a lever for profitability.
As you may remember, the majority of our contracts are performance based, so any efficiencies we find in staffing as occupancy drops or schools are in a hybrid situation [Phonetic] in order to our benefit.
This is the advantage of having a flexible labor model.
Earl, will discuss our segments in more detail, but overall, our industry group drivers are similar to what we saw during the balance of last year.
Not surprisingly our Aviation and Technical Solutions segments were challenged by the pandemic due to decreased global travel and limited site access for retrofit projects and educational facilities.
Education as the segment though grew top and bottom line during the quarter, which shows how well our team has adapted operationally to the hybrid learning system and Business & Industry and Technology & Manufacturing are still strong outperformers.
We've been able to offset COVID related revenue compression with higher margin Work Orders, EnhancedClean contracts and labor management.
We're now almost at the one-year mark since the start of the pandemic and I've just summarized our fourth consecutive quarter of strong results.
This sustained performance suggests that we have reached a level of consistency in our results and stabilization across our client portfolio.
Let me now provide some thoughts on where we believe the operating environment is headed, especially in light of our full year guidance.
Before I dive into what momentum to normalcy looks like in 2021, I want to underscore that normalcy does not imply less vigilance around virus protection.
Over the past several months, there have been countless news and scientific journals reminding us that COVID-19 and its after effects will continue to linger over the foreseeable future.
Many believe it will be a permanent fact of life with people getting regularly vaccinated similar to how we handle flu vaccinations.
We are so enthusiastic that vaccine rollouts are under way across the country.
Most importantly, the vaccines will save lives, but the rollouts will also lead to momentum back to work, school, travel and attending entertainment venues.
However vaccine rollouts have not been uniformed on a state by state basis nor have stayed policies on masking, public gatherings and other factors that impact infections and new cases.
These factors as well as the ongoing discovery of new variants highlight how societies need to respond to COVID-19 on an elevated level, will not end in the near-term.
This is why it's so critical for us to partner with our clients and assess their evolving needs and engage our expert advisory panel.
In B&I, the vaccines will spur momentum back to work, which for us means a return of more traditional janitorial work as well as the continuation of disinfecting given higher occupancy.
Currently, average occupancy across the country is approximately 15%.
We anticipate this could increase to 25% by Labor Day and grow to 50% plus through calendar year-end.
As clients begin to plan their returns, they are focusing on building trust in their facilities through health and safety protocols, rigor around cleaning, disinfecting and especially physical spacing will be incorporated into their plans.
For this reason, we do not anticipate a near-term reduction space utilization across commercial real estate, especially with Class A buildings and blue-chip clients.
For a sector like education, we believe the hybrid models will be in effect for at least the rest of the school year.
Soon, if not already, institutions will start planning for the fall 2021 semester with a push for more in-person learning in the K through 12 segment and higher ed.
How this unfolds could vary by region.
We should have a better line of sight when we speak to you after Q2 earnings.
And I'm sure as vaccine adoption continues to expand, there's probably no sector more poised for a robust volume recovery than Aviation.
We are definitely hearing about pent-up demand for personal travel and minimally a modest return of business travel.
For ABM, our business portfolio consists of both airlines and airports.
As airports were opened during the pandemic, operations in areas like terminal cleaning, transportation and shuttle service enabled us to mitigate reduced volumes on the airline side.
And ultimately, this diversification helped us breakeven last year, which was a major achievement.
On the airline side, current travel volumes are approximately 50% of pre-COVID levels.
Assuming vaccine rollouts gain traction, we believe we could see that grow moderately by year-end.
As both airlines and airports see increased traffic, the need for disinfection, virus protection and EnhancedClean will grow.
On an enterprise level, we conducted a Pulse Survey of approximately 200 clients last month that largely aligned to our own full year expectations.
Most respondents are expecting their facilities to more fully reopen and their companies to be endorsing reoccupancy in varying forms by September and they plan to continue taking multiple measures to protect spaces against COVID-19 as they reopen primarily in the areas of surface and air disinfection.
And even with the increase in flexible work schedules and work from home protocols, the vast majority of our clients say that they expect the total amount of space utilization to remain largely the same.
Now, the size of our survey, it's just a subset of our client base, but it supports what we are hearing more broadly as we communicate with our customers on their future plans.
It also speaks to our confidence in providing full year guidance today.
For fiscal 2021, we are introducing full year guidance of earnings per diluted share of $2.85 to $3.10 or $3.00 to $3.25 on an adjusted basis.
Our outlook for adjusted EBITDA margins is 6.6% to 7%, which compares to 6% last year.
We also expect to return to growth by the second half of this year and consistent demand for high margin Work Orders and EnhancedClean services through year-end.
We also anticipate retaining most of our labor arbitrage through year-end.
Our success will not translate to complacency.
Based on how the pandemic has changed our trajectory, we have been capitalizing on our momentum to elevate our brand and business.
At the end of February, we launched ABM's first national TV commercial.
It was a celebratory moment for the entire firm and we could not be proud of.
If you've not seen it on CNBC or Bloomberg TV, you can find it on our IR website today.
As we discussed last year, we are going to be investing in our clients, team members, and infrastructure.
We're focused on providing technology and data analytics capabilities to enhance client and team member experiences.
We are also prioritizing areas like talent development to further empower our people and create even more consequential relationships with our clients.
We are committed to building upon our strong culture and fostering a community of belonging where team members feel connected, valued, and inspired.
This reinforces our mission and vision as an organization and will have significant long-term commercial outcomes for us.
Internal initiatives such as our culture and inclusion council are dedicated to driving meaningful social change and cultivating an inclusive environment for everyone at ABM and we are taking active steps to turn this vision into reality.
I'm excited to share that we have entered into partnerships with organizations that are focused on building a more equitable society.
ABM has made a commitment to support the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Funds, the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, the Afterschool Alliance, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
We are partnering with these organizations in an effort to make a difference in the areas of advocacy and civil rights, basic human needs, education, and workforce development.
We were just starting to discuss the coronavirus and its impact on the economy.
At that time I reiterated how our diversified portfolio coupled with our nimble operating model or hallmarks of our long-term success over the past 110 years.
Our results over the past 12 months has proven this beyond a doubt and with our solid liquidity and leverage, we are better positioned than ever to pursue growth and profitability that will unlock even greater shareholder value.
The dedication of the ABM team continues to fuel our performance quarter-after-quarter.
We have a culture like no other in our industry.
I'm proud that our results have been the greatest proof point of our resilience, agility and excellence.
Today marks my 100th day at ABM and my early impressions about the organization's drive to collaborate and execute have only grown.
As I continue to evaluate and assess our business needs, my main area of focus will be on helping to determine the appropriate enablers for both strategic growth and continuous improvement.
As I will discuss in more detail shortly, our strong results over the past several quarters coupled with our leadership position in the marketplace provides us with great opportunity to invest in our future growth potential.
I look forward to finalizing our thoughts on areas such as our internal investment strategy and sharing with all of you over the course of the year.
Now onto the results.
Revenue for the quarter was $1.5 billion, a decrease of 7.5% compared to last year.
The decrease in revenue reflects the continued impact COVID-19 has had across our business segments.
As a reminder, the pandemic had not yet impacted operations significantly until our second quarter last year and as such this quarter reflects the full year-over-year impact.
Partially offsetting this revenue decline was the ongoing demand for higher margin disinfection related Work Orders and EnhancedClean services.
Work Orders were particularly strong within our Business & Industry and Technology & Manufacturing industry groups.
On a GAAP basis, our income from continuing operations was $74.6 million or $1.10 per diluted share compared to $27.9 million or $0.41 last year.
In addition to our strong operational performance, the increase versus last year was driven by favorable development in prior year self-insurance adjustments.
We saw an $11.4 million benefit this year compared to $6.6 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2020.
Additionally, we saw our second consecutive quarter of current year positive insurance trend recording a benefit of approximately $3 million.
On an adjusted basis, income from continuing operations for the quarter increased to $68.3 million or $1.01 per diluted share compared to $26.2 million or $0.39 last year.
Our GAAP and adjusted earnings growth versus last year continued to be driven by significant increases in higher margin Work Orders and EnhancedClean services.
As our clients have incorporated health and hygiene services such as disinfection into their operation at higher levels, we continue to experience higher margin as a result of direct labor efficiencies, as our operators proactively manage the deployment of labor commensurate with COVID-19 related revenue decline.
Additionally, results also reflect one less working day, which amounted to labor expense savings of approximately $6 million.
Other items such as corporate discretionary expense, amortization, and interest were also lower compared to last year.
These results were partially offset by our planned infrastructure and organizational investment in areas such as IT.
However, I want to note that our investment spend for the quarter was approximately $4 million, which was lower than originally anticipated.
During the quarter, we generated adjusted EBITDA of approximately $124 million for a margin rate of 8.3% compared to $68.8 million or 4.3% last year.
I will now discuss our segment results.
As I referenced earlier, these results reflect the ongoing impact of COVID-19, which has resulted in revenue compression across our services.
As Scott discussed, our diversified segment structure has been a strength for us during the pandemic and each segment has been impacted by the pandemic in different ways, both positively and negatively.
In most cases though with perhaps the exception of Technical Solutions, our segment results reflect some combination of a mix shift toward higher Work Orders and EnhancedClean services.
Labor modulation on lower service demand as well as operational investments in areas such as EnhancedClean.
B&I revenue was $809.4 million, which was down just $11.5 million or 1.4% versus last year.
The parking and sports and entertainment businesses were the predominant drivers of the revenue decline due to the ongoing pandemic.
Almost entirely offsetting this decline was increased demand for higher margin Work Orders and EnhancedClean services at our national accounts and certain client in corporate sectors such as financial institutions.
Operating profit for the quarter reflected this more favorable mix of business resulting an $85.7 million or a margin of 10.6% compared to last year's $38.2 million and 4.7% respectively.
Technology & Manufacturing remains one of our most resilient segments.
T&M produced solid results for the quarter as it has since the beginning of the pandemic.
The segment reported revenue of $249.2 million, an increase of 6.5% versus last year with an operating profit of $26.9 million or a margin rate of 10.8%.
Work orders and EnhancedClean services drove demand for T&M particularly within the industrial manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and high-tech sectors.
We also experienced growth with our logistic clients as we supported them during the peak holiday season.
Our Education segment grew revenues of $209.4 million with operating profit of $21.5 million or 10.2% margin.
We believe these results reflect some stabilization as schools have continued the hybrid learning model that has been in effect since the back half of last year.
Performance was primarily attributable to direct labor management due to modified staffing levels and other expense savings as well as demand for disinfection and COVID related Work Orders.
Looking ahead, we anticipate some reinstitution of a traditional selling season in 2021, which did not really exist last year due to the pandemic.
We continue to monitor how schools are going to evolve their approach to teaching in the current environment particularly as vaccination rollouts progress.
Aviation reported revenue of approximately $143 million with operating profit of $3.2 million.
As anticipated, this segment remain most impacted by COVID-19 and its effect on global travel.
The quarter saw a modest sequential increase in travel due to the holiday, but also reverted quickly due to lockdowns in areas such as the UK.
We continue to operate according to flight and passenger demand, providing higher tech services such as electrostatic spraying as we managed variable costs and expenses on a real time basis to match demand.
Finally, Technical Solutions reported revenue of $113 million versus $142 million last year.
This decline was driven by site access issues as clients such as an education continue to limit traffic into their facilities in order to protect administrative staff, teachers and students.
However backlog remains healthy above $150 million and we remain focused on churning through these projects as soon as possible.
Operating profit was $6 million or 5.3% on a margin basis.
Turning to cash and liquidity.
We reported positive cash flow during the first quarter despite this traditionally being a cash flow negative period.
This even includes the deferral of approximately $31 million in payroll taxes from the CARES Act.
We generated more than $45 million in cash flow from operations and free cash flow of approximately $39 million for the quarter.
Our strong performance enabled us to end this quarter with total debt including standby letters of credit of $851 million and a bank adjusted leverage ratio of 1.8 times.
Additionally, we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $378 million.
Given the consistency of our leverage and cash position over the last several quarters, we believe we have reached a point of stability both operationally and financially.
As a result, we are evaluating our capital allocation priorities.
In addition to organic investments in our business, we are also exploring the M&A market for potential targets to drive growth and build on our current momentum.
While remaining cognizant of our reentry into M&A, we will also consider share repurchases opportunistically.
We currently have approximately $145 million remaining in our authorized share repurchase program and we'll balance any potential activity with our M&A efforts to ensure maximum flexibility.
During the quarter we paid our 219th consecutive quarterly cash dividend of $0.19 per common share for a total distribution of $12.7 million to shareholders.
Now turning to our guidance outlook.
We are introducing a fiscal 2021 GAAP guidance outlook range of $2.85 to $3.10 and on an adjusted basis $3.00 to $3.25 per share.
Scott shared with you some great context from an operating perspective that supports our guidance.
So let me now provide some additional assumptions behind our guidance.
Given our performance during the first quarter, we believe revenue will continue to improve sequentially with a return to growth in the back half of the year.
And as growth improves and turn positive we will have to staff back up accordingly.
Therefore there may be a partial reduction in the level of labor efficiencies we have experienced over the past year, but make no mistake, we do expect to retain a portion of these savings based on new opportunities and labor management practices we have adopted during COVID.
And as it relates to higher margin Work Orders and EnhancedClean services, we do not anticipate a material slowdown in demand for the balance of the fiscal year.
We expect our investments to pick up throughout the remainder of the year as we support the strategic initiatives namely in our IT transformation.
On a year-over-year basis, we do expect an increase in corporate expenses for the year although timing may vary from quarter-to-quarter as you saw in the first quarter.
Additionally, as a reminder, we undertook furlough and expense reduction efforts during the third quarter of last year.
And as such, expect to see year-over-year increase in expenses as we have resumed a portion of those expenditures.
We are still in the planning and design phase of our technology roadmap and we will update you as we finalize our plans.
I'd also like to remind everyone that we will see an extra working day in Q2 and one less working day in Q3.
Each working day should represent approximately $6 million of labor expense similar to Q1.
We continue to expect an effective tax rate of approximately 30% for 2021.
This tax rate does not include discrete tax items such as the work opportunity tax credit and the tax impact of stock-based compensation awards.
At the end of December, WOTC was formally extended by Congress through 2025 and current estimate suggest a $5 million or $0.07 impact on 2020.
And finally, while we are not guiding to free cash flow, until we can finalize the impact of our tech transformation on capital expenditures.
I want to express my enthusiasm for the strong start to the year.
Given our strong cash flow performance to-date, we believe we'll be able to achieve a range above our historical $175 million to $200 million and look forward to updating you as we finalize our longer-term plan.
In closing, we're excited about our performance for the quarter as well as our outlook for the year and we look forward to updating you on our continued progress next quarter.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q1 adjusted earnings per share $1.01 from continuing operations.
q1 gaap earnings per share $1.10 from continuing operations.
for fiscal 2021, company expects gaap income from continuing operations of $2.85 to $3.10 per diluted share.
for fiscal 2021, company expects adjusted income from continuing operations of $3.00 to $3.25 per diluted share.


Prompt:
Human: Regarding today's program, we will first review our fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2021 financial and operating results.
After that, we will take a short break, we will then begin the Investor Day portion of the program where we will provide an update on our strategic positioning, discuss our newly announced Elevate initiative and provide a multi-year outlook.
After that, we will host a Q&A session.
Following our comments, we are hosting a virtual Investor Day, where we will provide a long-range strategic update and financial outlook, including a comprehensive discussion of our Elevate investment initiative.
Fiscal 2021 was an exceptional year for ABM, highlighted by continued strong financial performance and the acquisition of Able Services, a key transaction that substantially expanded our geographic footprint and broadened our capabilities.
Throughout the year, our global team continued to execute at the highest level, successfully navigating a dynamic environment with agility, resiliency and dedication to serve our clients.
Fourth quarter revenue grew over 14% to $1.7 billion and adjusted earnings per share increased 23%, representing a great finish to our fiscal 2021 year, where revenue of $6.2 billion was accompanied by an adjusted earnings per share increase of 47% to $3.58.
Our strong revenue growth in the fourth quarter was driven by one month of contribution from Able, as well as organic growth in our B&I, Aviation and Technical Solutions verticals, which more than offset a modest decline in our Education segment.
I'm pleased with the progress we've made in enhancing our overall profitability as full year adjusted EBITDA margins reached a record 7.3% and fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margins increased 40 basis points from prior year.
Throughout the year, we continued to experience demand for disinfection and virus protection services as clients prioritized our EnhancedClean protocols to maintain hygiene in high traffic spaces.
In addition, we continued to manage our labor cost efficiently as office occupancy trends increased gradually through the year.
As anticipated, overall demand for our higher margin work orders and EnhancedClean services eased as the year progressed, yet we maintained elevated in the fourth quarter compared to pre-pandemic levels.
Going forward, we expect that ongoing concerns around COVID-19 variance will lead to incremental opportunities for our disinfection services, providing support for our adjusted EBITDA margins exceeding 6% in fiscal 2022 per our guidance.
Turning to our segment performance.
Fourth quarter revenue growth was led by a continued rebound in aviation.
This industry group, which was most impacted by the pandemic, generated 43% year-over-year revenue growth in the fourth quarter as air travel trends improved markedly over the prior year and we capitalized on new business opportunities, including the expansion of our parking operations at airports.
Our fourth quarter was also benefited from 21% growth in Technical Solutions revenue, reflecting growth in our emerging e-mobility business and improved access to client-site.
Technical Solutions backlog increased by 20% sequentially compared to the third quarter and reached a record level in the fourth quarter, driven by the transition to electric vehicles and the associated need for charging stations, our e-mobility business has significant long-term growth potential.
Key growth drivers for this business include federal stimulus funds designated for energy efficient projects as well as the recent passage of the federal infrastructure bill that included $7.5 billion toward deploying EV charging stations nationwide.
Our B&I segment continued to perform well as revenue grew at a double-digit rate in the fourth quarter, benefiting from the addition of Able, new contract wins and continued client demand for work orders.
While office occupancy trended higher over the past year, office occupancy levels remained low by historical standards, which should lead to a continued tailwind from labor efficiencies perspective in this segment during the first half of fiscal 2022 and possibly longer.
Fourth quarter revenue and margins declined compared to the prior year.
Earlier this year, we communicated that the return of students to school on a full-time basis with diminished Education segment labor efficiency, as increased staffing would be required to accommodate educational institutions reopenings in the fall.
This [Indecipherable] we expected, though the unusual rapid staffing ramp combined with the state of the labor markets resulted in higher labor costs, dampening segment margins in the quarter.
With this staffing increase now behind us, we believe Education segment profitability will return to more normalized levels starting in the first quarter.
Five years ago, we announced 2020 vision, a long-range strategic plan to drive profitable growth and shareholder value.
Today, we are building on the success of that initiative with Elevate, a multi-year comprehensive investment initiatives that will enhance our strategic and competitive positioning, leverage the advantages of leading-edge technologies, inclusive of data and analytics and enable us to capture incremental growth and profit opportunities arising from macro shifts in demographics, rapidly changing workplace dynamics and the heightened need for increased corporate sustainability.
Elevate will include strategic investments in revenue growth initiatives, team member development, workforce management and digital transformation.
These investments will accelerate our organic growth, strengthen profitability and create a more rewarding experience for both clients and team members.
The total Elevate investment is estimated to be $150 million to $175 million and the initiatives is expected to be largely completed by the end of fiscal 2025.
In fiscal '22, we expect to invest approximately $80 million in Elevate, enabling us to significantly advance the implementation of our digital transformation.
With these foundational elements in place, by the end of fiscal 2022, we anticipate lower levels of Elevate investments in subsequent years.
We are excited about the opportunities that Elevate will provide and we'll share more detail with you on this whole initiatives in a few minutes on the Investor Day portion of the program.
We are entering fiscal 2022 from a position of strength, supported by a healthy balance sheet, solid cash flow and favorable growth trends across our businesses.
We continue to support our clients by providing high value services and solutions that have enabled them to navigate unprecedented challenges over the past couple of years and with the recent acquisition of Able, we significantly expanded our capabilities to comprehensively address our clients' evolving needs across the spectrum of facilities management and engineering solutions.
Now I'd like to comment briefly on our guidance.
For fiscal 2022, we forecast GAAP earnings per diluted share of $2.05 to $2.30 and adjusted earnings per share of $3.30 to $3.55.
Within this guidance, we assume an easing of COVID related disinfection services and work orders, leading us to project fiscal '22 adjusted EBITDA margins of 6.2% to 6.6%, inclusive of synergies from Able Services acquisition.
While earnings per share and margins are projected to decline from fiscal 2021, they are significantly above pre-pandemic levels and above our targeted long-term metrics we outlined in 2019 when we signaled an aspirational margin range of 5.5% to 6%.
We'll provide more detail on our outlook and fiscal 2022 guidance later during our virtual Investor Day portion of the program.
I'll now turn over the call to Earl for a discussion of our financials.
Fourth quarter revenue increased 14.2% to $1.7 billion, primarily driven by one month of contribution from the acquisition Able Services, continued client demand for disinfection services and a generally improving economic environment.
GAAP income from continuing operations in the fourth quarter was $34.3 million or $0.50 per diluted share, compared to $53.1 million or $0.78 per diluted share in the same period last year.
The decrease in GAAP income reflects higher operating and corporate expenses, which included acquisition related costs of $19.7 million, initial investments in our Elevate initiative and a lower benefit from self-insurance adjustments related to prior years.
On an adjusted basis, fourth quarter income from continuing operations grew 25% to $58.2 million or $0.85 per diluted share compared to $46.7 million or $0.69 per diluted share in the fourth quarter of last year.
The increase in adjusted earnings per share reflects revenue growth and a benefit from the absence of a reserve for notes receivable related to a single project within the company's Technical Solutions segment recorded last year, partially offset by reduced labor efficiencies and disinfection work.
Corporate expenses were $40.9 million higher compared to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2020, due to acquisition-related expenses, a lower benefit from prior year self-insurance adjustments and costs related to hiring initiatives.
Corporate expenses in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 were also impacted by $10.3 million of initial investments in the Elevate transformation initiative that Scott mentioned, and that we will discuss more fully later on.
Now turning to our segment results in the fourth quarter.
B&I revenue increased 17.5% year-over-year to $933 million, driven primarily by a one-month contribution from Able Services, increased office occupancy and the expansion of key accounts.
Excluding the contribution from Able, B&I revenue increased 4.7% from the prior period.
Operating profit in B&I declined 3% to $82.1 million from the same period last year, reflecting an easing in higher margin work orders.
Aviation revenue increased 43% to $201.7 million, marking the second consecutive quarter of robust year-over-year revenue growth.
This improvement was driven largely by increased airline passenger volume and the expansion of our airport parking operations.
Aviation operating profit increased to $13.2 million, compared to $3.5 million in last year's fourth quarter, driven by the significant rebound in revenue as well as our efforts to emphasize higher margin airport facility services.
Revenue within our Technology & Manufacturing segment was essentially flat year-over-year at $245.5 million, as new business starts were offset by reduced client demand for COVID related work orders and EnhancedClean.
However, operating margins for T&M improved to 10% in the fourth quarter, up 40 basis points from last year's fourth quarter benefiting from efficient labor management and contract expansions.
Education revenue declined 3.7% to $204.4 million, largely reflecting the timing of contract rebids.
While client retention rates remain consistent on a year-over-year basis, certain contract rebids were not completed in the fourth quarter, impacting segment revenue.
Operating profit totaled $7.7 million, down from $15.1 million in last year's fourth quarter.
The decline in segment operating profit was in part due to normal seasonality.
However, the magnitude of the decline this year was amplified by the widespread reopening of educational institutions that necessitated a near instantaneous ramp-up of staff, as Scott has discussed.
Moving forward, we anticipate Education segment profit margins will be approximately 6% in fiscal 2022, representing an increase of more than 100 basis points compared to pre-COVID levels, resulting from a sustained uplift in labor efficiency and higher disinfection revenue.
Revenue within our Technical Solutions segment grew 21% to [Technical Issues] million, aided by continued strong growth in our emerging electric vehicle charging infrastructure business, improved access to client sites and strengthened client demand for energy efficient solutions.
Segment operating income returned to profitability and generated an operating profit margin of 12.8%.
We ended the fourth quarter with $62.8 million in cash and cash equivalents, compared to $394.2 million with total debt of $1.06 billion as of October 31, 2021.
Our total debt to pro forma adjusted EBITDA, including standby letters of credit was 1.9 times at the end of the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021.
As for our dividends, I am pleased to report the Board approved a 2.6% increase in our quarterly dividend to $19.5 to be paid out in February.
Now, I'll briefly discuss our outlook.
As Scott mentioned, our guidance for full year fiscal 2022 adjusted income from continuing operations is a range of $3.30 to $3.55 per diluted share.
Our adjusted earnings forecast reflects a favorable growth outlook across our business segments in fiscal 2022, as well as an expected easing in COVID-19 related disinfection work and a reduction in labor efficiencies from anticipated rising office occupancy rates.
Please note that our adjusted earnings guidance excludes approximately $72 million in Elevate related expenses that are planned in fiscal 2022.
These are general and administrative expenses for delivering and implementing technology and process solutions related to our digital transformation.
We plan to exclude these expenses from adjusted earnings to provide for more accurate comparisons regarding operating performance.
We expect that fiscal 2022 tax rate to be approximately 30% excluding any discrete items.
Fiscal 2022 will have one additional workday compared to fiscal 2021.
As a reminder, each workday represents approximately $7 million of labor expense.
In terms of the timing of quarterly workdays throughout the year, we will have one additional work day in both the first and fourth quarters versus the comparable periods in fiscal 2021 and one less workday in the second quarter.
Capital expenditures for fiscal 2022 are expected to be approximately $54 million, including $8 million related to Elevate investments.
We forecast depreciation to be approximately $50 million for the year.
I'm super excited to kick off the Investor Day portion of our program, especially in light of the incredible results we shared earlier.
Joining me are the members of our executive leadership team, who you'll be hearing from later today.
This team brings an incredible mix of industry experience and diverse backgrounds.
We'll share our strategic plan that will unlock significant long-term value for our shareholders and strengthen our industry-leading position through end market repositioning and building on our core services.
Our new strategic plan will transform ABM from a position of strength, using what we learned from 2020 vision and our COVID response to launch our organization into the next phase of our journey.
We're going to leverage the market trends that will impact our business over the next five years.
This will not only sharpen our focus, but also inform the investments we'll be making and we're going to optimize our portfolio of services and markets and geographies to better position our businesses to thrive as society evolves and moves forward, and we will innovate in the areas of technology and data to modernize service delivery.
This will improve the productivity of our frontline workforce and create digital connections with our clients and our teammates and will drive profitable growth, will accelerate organic revenue growth rates by close to 50% with sustainable adjusted EBITDA margins almost double where we started in 2015, while building on our significant cash flow.
Over the course of the next hour, we'll dive into each one of these elements.
But before we jump into our strategic plan and tell you how we're going to elevate ABM, we'll briefly lay the foundation for first.
So we're confident that we can implement our strategic plan because we've done it before.
In 2015, we launched 2020 vision, a watershed moment for ABM, driving long-term profitable growth and enhancing shareholder value.
These investments we'll make over the next few years are a direct result of learnings from the success of 2020 vision.
So let's start with a review of what we've accomplished.
First, our go-to-market strategy shifted us from a service-centric to a client-centric organization and created industry groups organized by end market.
This allowed us to focus on industries where we have a meaningful competitive advantage, like Business & Industry, with our unmatched commercial real estate portfolio.
It also gave us the opportunity to seek out segments where we knew we could build a leadership position, like we did with Education.
We are now clearly the number one facilities provider in that segment.
This approach was well received by clients and led to improved organic growth.
You see, having an established industry group structure makes it easier for us to cross sell multi service solutions to our clients, leading to stickier, higher margin contracts.
We were also aggressive in optimizing our portfolio by divesting non-core assets like security and government services and quickly reinvesting those proceeds into an emerging higher growth, higher margin service line, our Technical Solutions business.
Through the acquisition of GCA, we were able to take to sub-scale vertical markets, Education and Technology & Manufacturing and solidify them as stand-alone industry groups.
In a moment, we'll share the ways we'll continue to evolve our industry group mix toward high growth, high-margin sectors.
We also now have mature key corporate functions like centralized shared services for finance and HR.
We were able to improve productivity and we're now in a position to take advantage of our scale as we continue our growth trajectory through synergistic M&A.
A good example of the benefits of scale is how our procurement team continues to drive efficiencies in large dollar spend categories, as we have more meaningful relationships with our suppliers.
The power of this has never been more evident than during the pandemic when we were able to procure PPE and supplies, while others could not.
This provide a critical protection for our team members and our clients.
Procurement is among many key areas where we can find synergies from M&A, and our sales culture dramatically change through 2020 vision.
This resulted in a record five consecutive years of new sales growth and unparalleled achievement for us.
And in the field, we established standard operating procedures and a consistent service delivery approach, so our large-scale national clients knew what they can expect from market to market.
To fund our acquisition strategy during 2020 vision, we upsized our credit facility from $800 million to $1.6 billion.
We also consistently increased our dividend for over 55 years.
And this past quarter, we paid our 222nd consecutive dividend.
We'll continue to drive growth and create value by focusing on thoughtful capital allocation to fund organic investments, pursue M&A and distribute cash to shareholders.
We learned a lot through 2020 Vision and I'm proud of the financial results we delivered.
Our journey started with a 3.8% adjusted EBITDA margin.
By 2019, our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 140 basis points to 5.2%.
Revenue grew by 23% to $6.5 billion and adjusted earnings per share grew 27%, reaching $2.05 per share.
And we delivered these results during one of the worst labor crises in recent memory from 2018 to 2019.
And we displayed the resilience that investors have come to expect from ABM year-after-year.
We also continue to evolve on the executive leadership front.
Toward the end of 2019, we made a key hire bringing on Josh Feinberg, our Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer.
Josh helped guide our 2020 Vision as a partner at BCG.
And now, he is instrumental in developing our strategic vision and building a digitally enabled operating model.
I'll hand it off to Josh now to continue laying the foundation for our strategic plan.
Really appreciate the introduction.
I feel so fortunate to be here.
It's truly a pleasure to chart ABM's path forward from a position of strength.
And we have a lot to leverage our market leadership position in a large and still very fragmented industry, our unmatched footprint and service portfolio, our blue chip client base in our industry-leading team.
But perhaps more than anything else, our business continues to prove time and time again to be incredibly resilient.
We were tested in 2020 and 2021 as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
We acted quickly and decisively, rapidly building and deploying new capabilities and mobilizing our teams to lead our clients through the unpredictable shutdowns and reopenings we've all experienced over the past 20 months.
And throughout it all, we perform at record-breaking profitability.
So how did we do it?
And how has it further strengthened us for the path ahead?
We prioritized the health and safety of our team members and clients, always our top priority, by assembling an advisory council with some of the nation's leading experts in industrial hygiene and infectious disease and establishing the leading pandemic-specific health, safety and operations protocols that we quickly deployed across our client base.
We laser-focused on our cash flow and liquidity.
When many in our industry struggled, our cash position improved significantly.
We developed our own proprietary experts-backed solutions, EnhancedClean & EnhancedFacility to deliver healthy safe spaces and peace of mind to our clients and their employees, so buildings could reopen and stay open.
We've built and deployed a flexible labor model to accommodate the changing landscape.
And we shifted our growth to pandemic appropriate end markets, like manufacturing and distribution, which helped offset the revenue decline in more impacted areas like aviation.
These actions led to bottom line profitability beyond expectation, driving our pre-COVID adjusted EBITDA margin baseline from 5% up to 7.3% in 2021, while generating cumulative COVID-related revenues of $600 million over 2020 and 2021.
Our ability to perform during the pandemic clearly illustrates our agility and resilience.
But the structural enhancements we made during this time, particularly the installation of a flexible labor model and the conversion of higher margin disinfecting into permanent scope additions, will serve us well going forward.
Our world has fundamentally changed over the past 20 months.
Society's demand for healthy and safe spaces will continue well into the future, especially as new variants continue to emerge.
We are confident that this will translate into long-term margin expansion, whether new variants continue or not.
We have moved beyond being a trusted partner.
We are now a trusted and differentiated brand.
Today, we are well positioned to invest in our future and are fortunate to be launching our strategy from a position of strength.
We have unrivaled competitive advantage anchored in our market leadership across all end markets and industries we serve, unparalleled reach with a large distributed network of people and branch offices to serve our clients across the US and UK, a unique portfolio of services spanning janitorial, engineering, parking, technical solutions and aviation services, a trusted reputation that we have earned over the last 110 years of long-lasting client relationship and a strong balance sheet that we will use strategically and opportunistically as expansion possibilities arise.
Our performance during the pandemic afforded us the opportunity to look ahead and craft our longer-term strategy, while others struggle day to day.
We started by refreshing our deep understanding of the market and trends, impacting our industry now and for years to come.
Five trends rose to the surface.
First, societal shifts are leading to the demand for healthy, safe and efficient spaces as well as a renewed commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Changes in demographics, higher rates of urbanization and consumer preferences have accelerated the need for expanded logistics ecosystem from clients like Amazon, Walmart, FedEx and UPS looking to enhance the reach.
Second, the future of work is centered on drastically changing employee expectations, which are causing employers to rethink workplace design, assess the appropriate work models for their teams and create efficient collaboration tools to drive sustained improvements in employee productivity and satisfaction.
This trend highlights the need to invest in dynamic workforce capabilities and employ flexible operations to accommodate rapidly changing workplace dynamics.
Third, sustainability is no longer a consideration for the future.
It is required to operate a business responsibly right now.
Our recently published Sustainability Report reaffirms our commitment to leaving a healthier planet for the next generation and beyond.
More specifically, the demand for renewable energy, clean air, reduction in energy consumption and the elimination of harmful pathogens are just a few sustainability trends that directly align to our janitorial, facilities engineering and technical solutions businesses, all of which our strategic growth priorities.
Fourth, mobility is shaping various industries, leading to significant investments in autonomous vehicles and electrification, which is driving new infrastructure builds across the world.
This presents a substantial opportunity for our fast-growing EV charging segment in our Technical Solutions business, in our Smart Parking Solutions, in our B&I and Aviation segments.
It continues to accelerate with leading-edge technologies and data and analytics, becoming more prevalent in day-to-day use.
Smart buildings are evolving with artificial intelligence, cloud computing and IoT sensor technology.
This is leading to our investment in both workforce and client-facing technology at a time when clients are demanding innovation.
Our purpose, putting people above all else and amplifying what matters most to them has never meant more.
The value and demand for what we do has never been higher.
Our clients will benefit, our team members will benefit, society will benefit and our investors will benefit.
We've anticipated the seismic shifts ahead.
We're prepared to embrace these changes and capitalize on the future they've opened up.
This is our time.
Let me now pass it back to Scott to unveil our strategic vision.
To continue to win in the future, we must build on our positioning to capture the opportunity ahead and sustain the resilience our shareholders depend on.
Elevate is the next step in our journey.
We will elevate the client experience as a trusted advisor and innovate with multi-service solutions and consistent service delivery to drive sustained profitable growth.
We'll elevate the team member experience by training and developing the next generation of leaders and building on our inclusive culture and will elevate our use of technology and data to power client and team member experiences with cutting-edge data and analytics, processes and tools that will fundamentally change how we operate our business and result in significant financial returns.
This will separate us from our competitors that just don't have the financial resources to make these investments, w will elevate ABM.
Let's take a look at the Elevate launch video that brings our vision to life.
we are really inspired by this vision.
Rene is responsible for leading operations for all of our industry groups and has created an environment centered on collaboration, accountability and client focus.
He is now going to take you through the market landscape, our service line and industry group portfolio and a view into how we'll elevate the client experience.
We play in a large and diverse market with many different types of competitors.
The total addressable market although very large at $250 billion is highly fragmented.
Oftentimes our greatest competition comes from small regional players and local companies.
While we are well positioned from a competitive standpoint in each market, growth rates for our core services tend to be generally in line with GDP.
You'll see that we plan on investing in our platform in ways that our competition cannot.
We're also well positioned to ensure business continuity for our clients in response to new variants given our established protocols, expert advisory council and the essential services we provide to meet their needs.
Elevating the client and team member experiences through the use of technology and data will differentiate ABM in the marketplace and help us achieve above market growth.
We operate with a vast number of service lines to well-defined and diversified end markets and geographies.
While the diversity of our business is a strategic choice we want to preserve, we continue to evolve our focus.
We spent significant time and effort analyzing market trends, competitive intelligence, client needs and economics to assess both our current portfolio and potential adjacencies.
Let's take a look at how we're structured and provide you with an aerial view of our industry groups and service lines.
Let's start with our service lines.
Janitorial Services have always been the core of ABM service offering.
Our position as a market leader in the geographies we operate opens up tremendous possibilities for growing into new whitespace.
We will pursue organic initiatives to improve our client retention rates and maintain our market leading position.
We will also invest heavily in tools to unlock efficiencies in our frontline workforce.
We're excited to share more about these initiatives later on today.
We will also seek out M&A opportunities to grow our footprint in geographies with favorable economies of scale.
Our foothold in key markets provides a firm foundation for synergies.
Advances in technology and a focus on sustainability, particularly in energy efficiency and consumption have propelled engineering services to the forefront.
Preventative maintenance dictated by time based schedule is phasing out as facilities are now being outfitted with Edge networks sensors and other smart devices to drive data that allow our engineers to predict failures before they happen.
The demand for expert engineering services is high and the ability to lead with advanced processes and technology, one of our key areas of investment over the next few years is quickly becoming a place where we can differentiate.
We'll also continue to seek out opportunities to improve our scale in key markets through M&A like we did with Able Services.
Success in parking centers around technology and advanced revenue management capabilities as we seek to optimize our clients parking facilities operations and revenue.
We will continue to modernize our parking business and create a consistent operating model around technology and automation to drive value for our clients.
We've already begun to deliver first generation smart parking solutions to enhance the parking experience at LAX [Indecipherable] automation artificial intelligence and machine learning are some of the ways we can provide frictionless entry and exit, smooth way finding and automated payment solutions.
We can also offer a unique bundling opportunity with the installation and modernization of EV charging stations.
We are consolidating this data into a single analytics platform to drive revenue and over the next few years, we will invest in scaling these areas to become a unique solution provider for our clients.
We are increasingly pursuing client opportunities that include multiple services.
Our ability to self-perform engineering, janitorial and other maintenance services is a big differentiator with prospective clients.
Along with a strong strategic partnership network, these contracts require a dedicated technology platform to manage the full suite of services and advance procurement capabilities to negotiate service contracts where we need a subcontract.
There is a continuum between adding an additional service versus a fully integrated IFS contract and there is a lot of white across that spectrum.
Our goal is to move further along that continuum toward IFS.
The Able acquisition advanced our position in this area, as you'll see, when we dive deeper into that strategic move a little later.
These capabilities provide higher margin and increased retention or stickiness, a key to growing our business and profit profile.
Our industry group structure was similarly strengthened by this new strategic approach.
Let's start with a review of our Technical Solutions business.
Technical Solutions has been our highest growth and highest margin business for years.
Historically, we've achieved these results with our HVAC, mechanical, electrical and lighting services, which are often bundled together and packaged in a unique offering to our clients to generate cost savings, while yielding healthy margins for ABM.
We call that bundled energy solutions.
We're seeing greater demand for services in higher growth segments of the market related to electrification, sustainable energy savings programs and power and electrical, consistent with the long-term mega trends we discussed earlier.
Our team is poised to continue on a growth trajectory powered by the momentum we're seeing in the market for vehicle electrification, where we are one of the largest installers of electrical vehicle charging stations in the country; bundled energy solutions that guarantee energy savings and address critical aging infrastructure; power and electrical services that support the growth of mission-critical facilities like data centers for clients in technology, healthcare and the federal government.
The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that just passed will open doors for us.
In fact, it allocates $7.5 billion that could be used to construct EV charging stations.
We are planning investments in talent and technology to attract salespeople who can sell these complex solutions, highly skilled engineers and project managers, and hardware and software to build unique solutions and integrate data sources.
The revenue and margin potential for ATS continues to be very high, relative to other industry groups.
Investments in public infrastructure, the growth of electrification and the focus on energy and sustainability project significant market growth for years to come.
Next, let's turn to B&I, our largest industry group.
B&I is anchored by our commercial real estate client portfolio, which consists of both third-party managed and owner managed facilities.
Janitorial, engineering and parking are the primary service lines in B&I, which have generated solid margins and cash flow for ABM.
We are planning investments in workforce management that will increase the productivity levels of our onsite operations as well as our use of technology like sensors, autonomous equipment and data platforms.
To enhance our value proposition to clients by providing real-time insights to better run their facilities.
B&I fared extraordinarily well throughout the pandemic.
While we sustained some top line impact due to facility closures early on and more recently low rates of occupancy, our margins flourished as we were able to drive labor efficiencies and higher margin EnhancedClean services to our clients.
Revenue growth potential for B&I.
Is that a company average and remains a reliable source of organic growth year in and year out, given its overall size and impact on the organization.
The margin potential for B&I continues to be above the industry group average and will be further augmented by elevated investments.
The market for commercial office space is projected to grow at modest rates with the types of clients on the upper end of that growth range very much aligned to our operating model, skewing toward large national companies.
Next, let's cover our Education segment.
Education is operating a near pre-COVID levels as schools have largely returned to in-person learning across the country.
We expect both higher education and K-12 schools to continue to invest in disinfection programs, while also focusing on indoor air quality.
We are advising clients on different ways to pay for these services, including government funding through the CARES Act and other programs.
Our breadth of services in this segment makes us a true industry leader with janitorial, facilities engineering, landscape and ground services in all markets.
Our education clients have also been a major focus for cross-selling bundled energy solutions from the ATS group.
Revenue growth and margin potential for education is slightly below company average.
However, there is an upside as our team shifts focus to higher margin contracts with private higher-education institutions that have longer buying cycles.
The education market is primarily in-sourced, but we are well positioned to generate more first generation outsourcing opportunities with integrated service offering that includes janitorial, engineering and grounds.
This solution was bolstered by the acquisition of Able Services.
Now, let's switch gears and turn to Aviation.
Aviation was our most impacted industry group during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, our exposure to airports and not just airlines insulated us against the more severe impact as flight volumes dropped almost 90% during the peak.
Our breadth of service offerings in this space and our commitment to providing healthy and safe spaces for passengers both on-board and in airports helped us sustain a significant portion of our revenue over the last few years.
As flight volumes are returning to normal, we're also continuing to secure higher margin service contracts with airports and related facilities, which tend to be more stable.
We're an end-to-end provider of services in the aviation industry as we handle everything from parking and transportation, to wheelchair, to cabin cleaning and many below the wing services like baggage handling.
While revenue in our Aviation segment remains below pre-pandemic levels, we expect to see continued growth, driven in part by new airport parking, transportation and janitorial contracts.
Over the last few years, we've evolved from 45% airport clients and 55% airline clients to 55% airport clients and 45% airline clients as airports are less impacted by fluctuating passenger volume.
Revenue growth potential for aviation is projected to be high with the aviation sector recovering after the initial COVID shutdown.
While margin potentially is structurally lower than company average, we're expecting significant improvement in this area due to volume improvements and customer mix.
We believe the market potential is high, given the recently passed infrastructure bill.
Finally, let's discuss some key trends in our Technology & Manufacturing business.
Over the last few years, our presence in logistics, distribution and manufacturing has grown double-digits.
As we covered earlier, several mega trends are accelerating growth in these markets.
Consumer preferences have changed.
They now expect faster fulfillment without an increase in costs, which is leading to a boom in US distribution and warehouse space that is now reaching urban markets.
Estimates show that 1 billion square feet of net new US distribution warehouse space is needed to support e-commerce growth due to consumer demands.
This represents more than 100% growth in these types of facilities.
ABM has a strong presence in this high growth market and has client relationships with the likes of Amazon, Walmart, FedEx and UPS, who've experienced significant growth over the last few years.
Add to this robust end markets like food and beverage, auto, aerospace and other large industrial companies, and we are uniquely positioned to compete in this growing market.
Today, we're excited to announce the creation of a new industry group, Manufacturing and Distribution.
M&D will replace our T&M industry group and shift our incredible portfolio of technology clients into B&I where they're best served.
This will allow us to become even more client-centric in how we deliver our services to manufacturing and distribution clients who have similar business needs and are also essential service providers in our economy.
It will also leverage ABM's scale to drive service excellence, increasing density and proximity of support to all of our technology, manufacturing and distribution clients as well as position M&D for innovation and growth by putting our best operation around each client and focusing on large specialized client sites to give us a better chance to expand multiple service offerings to these accounts.
The accelerated growth of our technology clients with their expanded office footprint is best served by B&I and the branch network with roughly $300 million in annual revenue moving over.
This includes clients like Facebook, Google and Adobe.
M&D will maintain our large manufacturing clients and add distribution clients with roughly $400 million in annual revenue moving over.
Revenue growth potential for M&D is projected to be well above average as we leverage foundational client relationships with large organizations who are realizing exponential growth.
Margin potential is projected to be high due to the specialization required to perform service in these unique high demand facilities.
That variability makes it difficult to support how each team member can be most productive across the organization.
We will transform how we work together adopting industry leading smart processes and tools by investing in a new workforce platform with modern time keeping, scheduling forecasting modules, providing a simple user interface that our teams can manage and access via desktop, tablet or mobile.
Ultimately, our goal is to create a digital connection with our workforce to enable just in time and on-demand training and development, providing them with insights to get their jobs done more productively, which will deliver better client satisfaction.
We expect these investments to produce significant benefits due to increased labor productivity and will also provide us with better controls to help us comply with the ever-changing regulatory environment in these areas.
We are a people business.
Our team members will be a driving factor in our long-term success if we empower them to inspire, lead, manage and execute.
To accomplish this, we will strengthen our culture and reaffirm our commitment to an inclusive workplace.
Last year, we launched a culture and inclusion council and now this cross-functional, multi-level council is beginning to help in this area.
With the guidance of the council, we selected outside organizations to partner with.
As a result, we've entered into multi-year partnerships with respected organizations like the Hispanic scholarship fund, the after-school Alliance and The Thurgood Marshall College Fund.
All our focus on building a more equitable society for the next generation.
This not only resonates with our leaders, but directly to our team members at every level.
We will empower and engage workforce through improved talent acquisition capabilities and enhanced coaching and development programs, beginning with the frontline manager.
We will evolve our rewards by implementing a totally reward system and recognition program that enhances ABMs value proposition for team members and drives retention and productivity.
We will build stronger HR capabilities by enhancing our HR shared services center that provides team members with support in HR related information 24/7, while we continue to evolve our broader HR capabilities.
While we're excited about our vision to elevate the team member experience, we realize we are in the midst of a global labor shortage.
Our teams have been keenly focused on mitigating this risk by launching several targeted initiatives to keep our client facility staffed, including strategies to better attract and retain talent.
In this spring, we launched a rapid recruiting program that expands the reach of most of our impactful recruiting activities, like deploying local sourcing teams, hosting grassroots hiring events, opening new stand-alone brick and mortar recruiting centers in key markets, driving incentive programs and social media brand promotion across all our major channels.
These activities have driven a strong pool of candidates and we will continue to invest in these programs across all of our key markets.
Structural realignment of our centralized field recruiting model has significantly improved yield and accepted offers.
This is resulting in both improved time to fill and more hires with the same number of recruiters.
We expect to continue to realize staffing efficiencies as we scale these initiatives.
While we've improved our candidate flow, we've also started to build additional solutions to retain our team members.
We developed a predictive retention model to identify areas of the business that may experience higher levels of team member attrition.
This data coupled with strong HR and operational partnership has led to site-specific action plans.
Early results show reduction in turnover in half of all site where this approach has been deployed.
With a solid strategy in place to keep our facility staffed and the investments we're making and enhancing our workforce management capabilities, we feel as prepared as we can be considering the current tight labor market.
Now to introduce you all to the third pillar in our strategic plan is Melanie Kirkwood Ruiz, our Chief Information Officer.
Melanie is a visionary technology leader with more than 20 years of experience across diverse industries, including gaming, commercial real estate, manufacturing, healthcare and aviation.
Melanie will explain how we elevate ABM through the use of technology and data.
Elevating the client and team member experiences requires us to create a digital connection that links the buildings we service to our teams and our clients.
This connection will be enabled with technology and real-time data to promote visibility, it's a facility operations and insights to drive meaningful action.
This will result in increased productivity and improvements in client satisfaction and retention.
Leading-edge technologies such as AI, machine learning and advanced data analytics are radically changing the way we do business and deliver value to our clients and team members.
To effectively capture the opportunities in front of us and stay at the leading edge, we must embrace these trends and develop a digital platform consistent with our market leadership position.
We will elevate our use of technology and data by investing in our systems, tools, business processes and operating models to enable the following outcomes.
We will engage our clients and team members in new ways to further differentiate us in the industry.
This includes launching a new team member at that will serve as a one-stop shop to manage their schedules and shifts, access new training and development content and communicate with their managers and clients.
By developing and deploying client-facing technology and data platforms, we can drive actionable insights that improve service delivery and our ultimate value to the client.
We will expand our use of data by building and advanced data and analytics capability that will develop data products for high value use cases like some of the ones [Indecipherable] mentioned already, team member retention, hyper targeting for sales and recruiting among others.
This will establish data and analytics as a strategic asset for ABM.
We will modernize the digital ecosystem to support core activities and enable high value business outcomes.
Investments in this area will include upgrades to enterprise software like our ERP and payroll systems along with infrastructure and cyber security builds to support our new capabilities.
Technology data, and process will power our ability to provide best-in-class client and team member experiences.
We will undergo a fundamental transformation with careful pace and cadence.
And now to talk through our 2022 guidance and forward outlook is Earl Ellis, ABM's Chief Financial Officer.
I am so pleased to have the opportunity to share with you our fiscal 2022 guidance and the details of our strategic investments that will transform ABM over the years to come.
These investments will accelerate our organic growth, expand our profitability and significantly enhance both our client and team member experiences.
Over the next four years, we are confident these investments will drive substantial and sustainable improvements to our operational and financial performance, while improving both employee and client retention.
Now before I dive into the details of our fiscal '22 guidance and longer-term outlook, I think it's important to first ground us in what's transpired over the past year and a half.
Since the third quarter of fiscal 2020, we have experienced significant tailwinds from the dramatic impact of COVID-19.
The substantial increase in demand for disinfecting services combined with our team's continued strong operational execution and drive for labor efficiencies contributed to record adjusted EBITDA margins exceeding 7% in fiscal 2021.
This represents a more than 200 basis point improvement versus pre-COVID adjusted EBITDA margins in fiscal 2019.
Much of this improvement reflects COVID related benefits from increased work orders, EnhancedClean and labor efficiencies.
While we anticipate an easing of these tailwinds as we emerge from the pandemic, we are confident that we can retain approximately 50 basis points to 70 basis points of uplift over the long-term as we expect to maintain a portion of both the disinfection related revenue and profitability along with a higher baseline level of labor efficiency.
So turning to fiscal 2022 guidance.
As we build upon the improved positioning gained over the past 18 months, we are guiding to an adjusted EBITDA margin within a range of 6.2% to 6.6%.
This represents a meaningful improvement over our baseline pre-pandemic adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.2% reported in fiscal 2019, but lower than fiscal 2021 as the pandemic tailwinds ease and our business begins to normalize.
In addition, our adjusted EBITDA margin guidance includes the initial benefits of Elevate, which I will speak to shortly in more detail, as well as contributions from the initial synergies associated with Able Services acquisition.
As we look to fiscal '22 and beyond, we are excited about the topline and bottom line opportunities from Elevate.
Our Elevate strategy includes a series of discrete transformational investments that total between $150 million to $175 million.
These investments are wide-ranging, from workforce management, to data analytics, to the digitization of platforms that will support employee recruiting, development and retention.
In short, we believe Elevate is a game changer.
It will allow for the implementation of leading-edge processes, technology and tools that will drive a higher level of substantial financial performance and, at the same time, benefit our team members and clients by providing more digital tools and actionable data to enrich their experiences.
Ultimately, Elevate will enable ABM to grow faster and more profitably and provide a higher value proposition for our clients.
By design, the Elevate plan is front-end loaded as we plan to spend approximately $80 million in fiscal 2022 or by approximately $45 million in fiscal '23 and approximately $15 million in each of the following two years.
Of the $80 million planned in fiscal 2022, approximately $72 million will be a discrete expense and will be reported as items impacting comparability and as such will not be included in adjusted earnings per share guidance of $3.30 to $3.55.
The balance of approximately $8 million will be included in capital expenditures.
The relatively large investment in year one is necessary to meaningfully advance our digital transformation.
And with these elements in place by the end of fiscal 2022, we anticipate we can begin to scale the benefits across the organization with lower levels of investments in subsequent years.
Now, to help conceptualize the individual components of the Elevate program, let me categorize the investments over the next four years in three buckets; digital transformation, workplace and people and our go-to-market initiatives.
About half of our investments will be focused on digital transformation initiatives as we invest in client-facing technology, data and analytics and our enterprise IT infrastructure.
We will make our technology more robust and seamless as we better harness our data to create a competitive advantage while we upgrade and refine our business processes.
These enhancements will enable us to engage our clients in new ways, use our data to more effectively drive decision-making and modernize our digital ecosystem.
About 30% of the investments will be allocated toward workforce management and the investment in our people.
We will make significant investments in centralized workforce management tools and capabilities, including forecasting and scheduling solutions and standardize task management.
These investments will allow us to deploy labor more efficiently and deliver a greater value to our clients.
We will invest in on-demand and just-in-time training tools and advanced career development capabilities that will not only improve recruiting and retention, but also position ABM as an employer of choice.
The remaining 20% will be used to fuel our organic growth initiatives and our go-to-market strategies, including investments in centralized platforms to support capabilities such as hyper sales targeting, price optimization and strategic account management.
Elevate will drive revenue growth and increased profitability by supporting favorable business mix, increasing client retention, optimizing price escalations and driving cost efficiencies primarily through labor optimization.
Our goal is for Elevate to accelerate our organic revenue growth rate to the mid-single digit range, up approximately 50% versus our previous growth rate with potential upside from additional strategic acquisitions.
As revenue growth accelerates, we also anticipate a corresponding and gradual improvement to our adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 20 basis points annually starting in fiscal 2023.
In summary, we are confident that Elevate will enhance our potential to capture profitable growth.
The related investments are expected to generate $110 million to $130 million in incremental adjusted EBITDA on a run rate basis by fiscal 2025, driving a projected internal rate of return of 28%.
To put this in perspective, at the conclusion of Elevate in fiscal 2025, we envision ABM will generate annual revenue of approximately $9 billion with a sustainable adjusted EBITDA margin of 7%, representing a significant improvement from our baseline level of $7 billion in revenue with a normalized adjusted EBITDA margin below 6%.
We are also targeting annualized free cash flow at a run rate of approximately $400 million by fiscal 2025.
While these financial metrics are compelling, the benefits and strategic value of Elevate go well beyond financial returns.
We are confident Elevate will be a transformational initiative, strengthening our competitive position in the facility services industry and creating a more rewarding experience for all of our team members.
We couldn't be more excited about our future.
Our industry-leading position will be rooted in innovation and technology and enable us to drive significant long-term value for our shareholders.
By implementing our new strategic plan, we can ensure growth based on our commitment to transform from a position of strength, leverage our understanding of market trends, optimize the portfolio of services and end markets, innovate in technology and data to modernize service delivery and drive enhanced profitable growth.
Our goal is to be a roughly $9 billion business with [Technical Issues] sustainable adjusted EBITDA margins by the end of 2025.
To achieve this and build the capabilities to expand our position in the market, we expect to make investments in areas of the business that Earl just spoke about.
These investments will drive improvement across several key metrics.
From a growth perspective, our investments will drive organic growth rates, almost 50% higher than -- approaching 4% annually.
When factoring in our M&A strategy, we are targeting an overall compounded annual growth rate of over 10%.
The focus on the client experience through investments in customer-facing technology and innovation and a new retention strategy aim to improve our client retention rates to between 92% and 94%.
We believe these efforts, along with our strategic account management program, could double cross selling performance by the end of 2025.
Our people initiatives you just heard about will yield lower cost per hire and reduce team member turnover, which translates to operating margin improvement.
Our workforce management initiatives has one of the largest paybacks on our Elevate program, resulting in labor productivity, which will show up in higher operating profit at the industry group level.
And the impact of the digital transformation will be felt across the entire firm.
As you saw, technology and data are key components of our growth strategy, people strategy and how we execute on workforce management.
All the improvements that we'll experience throughout Elevate will be supported in some way by the investments we're making in our digital transformation.
Lastly, we'll continue to lean on the protocols that we put in place during the onset of the pandemic.
COVID is here to stay in one form or another and the emergence of new variant could be the new normal.
At ABM, we are prepared to support our client's ability to stay open, stay safe and be productive.
Before we start our Q&A session, we want to share a few housekeeping items.
So hang in there and we'll kick things off shortly.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
q4 adjusted earnings per share $0.85 from continuing operations.
q4 gaap earnings per share $0.50 from continuing operations.
q4 revenue rose 14.2 percent to $1.7 billion.
quarterly dividend increased by 2.6%.


Prompt:
Human: Factors, to our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020.
On today's conference call, as in the past, non-GAAP financial measures will be used to help investors understand Abbott's ongoing business performance.
These non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled with the comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings news release and regulatory findings from today, which are available on our website at abbott.com.
Today, we reported results of another very strong quarter.
Ongoing earnings per share were $1.40, reflecting nearly 45% growth compared to last year and sales increased more than 22% on an organic basis.
Excluding COVID testing-related sales, which totaled $1.9 billion in the quarter, organic sales increased 12% versus last year.
As we've seen since the start of the pandemic, our diversified mix of healthcare businesses continues to prove highly resilient.
Even as COVID case rates surged in the US and other geographies during the third quarter, strong growth in our more consumer-facing businesses, nutritionals, established pharmaceuticals and diabetes care, mitigated the modest impacts we saw from the surges in certain areas of our hospital base businesses.
This has been a consistent theme throughout the pandemic, as evidenced by an increase in total company sales, excluding COVID tests, of 11% on an organic basis through the first nine months of this year compared to our 2019 pre-pandemic baseline, which highlights that our growth is real and not simply a function of easy comps versus last year.
As a result of our strong performance and outlook, today, we increased our full year adjusted earnings per share guidance range now at $5 to $5.10, which reflects nearly 40% growth compared to last year.
I'll now summarize our third quarter results before turning the call over to Bob.
And I'll start with Nutrition, where sales increased 9% compared to last year.
Strong growth in the quarter was led by US pediatric and international adult nutrition.
In Pediatric Nutrition, sales grew over 8.5% in the quarter, led by strong growth in the US from continued share gains in our infant formula and toddler portfolio.
Sales of Pedialyte, our market-leading rehydration brand, once again grew strong double-digits, driven by market uptake of several recently launched new products as well as investments we're making in direct consumer promotion.
In Adult Nutrition, sales grew over 9% in the quarter, including mid-teens growth internationally, as we continue to see strong demand for our Ensure and Glucerna brands, including new users entering these categories and existing customers increasing their usage.
Sales increased more than 45% overall and 12.5%, excluding COVID testing-related sales.
During the quarter, as the Delta variant spread and COVID cases surged, particularly in the US, demand for testing increased significantly, most notably for rapid tests.
In total, during the quarter, we sold more than 225 million COVID tests globally and have now shipped over 1 billion tests since the start of the pandemic.
Over the of last several months, we've learned that COVID vaccines, while a powerful tool, are not the lone solution needed in our global fight against this virus.
Testing, particularly rapid testing, which is fast, affordable, and easy to use, is an important companion to vaccines and therapeutics.
Abbott has established a global leadership position in rapid testing, including a supply capacity of more than 100 million tests per month.
Moving to Established Pharmaceuticals, where sales grew more than 15%, driven by strong execution and a steady cadence of new product introductions.
Strong sales performance in the quarter was broad-based across several countries, including double-digit growth in China, Russia and India, which led to overall sales growth of 18% in our key emerging markets.
And lastly, I'll cover Medical Devices, where sales grew 13% in the quarter compared to last year and more than 16% compared to pre-pandemic sales in the third quarter of 2019.
Strong performance in the quarter was led by double-digit growth in Rhythm Management, Structural Heart, Heart Failure and Diabetes Care.
In Structural Heart, we continued to enhance our portfolio in large, fast growing markets with the recent US FDA approvals of Amulet, which closes the left atrial appendage in the heart to help reduce the risk of stroke in people with atrial fibrillation and Portico for transcatheter aortic valve replacement.
In Heart Failure, we announced results from the GUIDE-HF trial of our CardioMEMS System.
As with many other recent and ongoing clinical trials across the healthcare industry, a portion of the CardioMEMS trial overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic.
After adjusting for this impact, CardioMEMS demonstrated a 28% reduction in heart failure hospitalizations.
And we filed with the US FDA for label expansion based on the trial data in the middle of this year.
During the quarter, we also added an attractive growth platform to our vascular device portfolio with the acquisition of Walk Vascular, a commercial stage company with a minimally invasive thrombectomy system called JETi that removes peripheral blood clots.
Peripheral thrombectomy is a large high growth area where we can leverage our existing commercial presence.
And I'll wrap up with Diabetes Care, where strong growth was led by FreeStyle Libre sales of nearly $1 billion.
During the quarter, we added over 200,000 new users, bringing the total global user base for Libre to well over 3.5 million users.
So in summary, we continued to achieve strong well-balanced growth across all of our major businesses, which is being fueled by strong execution and a steady cadence of new products.
COVID testing, particularly COVID testing, remains an important companion to vaccines and therapeutics and Abbott has established a strong leadership position in this area.
And based on the strength of our performance and outlook, we're raising our earnings per share guidance for the year, which now reflects growth of nearly 40% compared to last year.
I'll now turn over the call to Bob to discuss our results and outlook for the year in more detail.
Turning to our results.
Sales for the third quarter increased 22.4% on an organic basis, which was led by strong performance across all of our businesses, you along with global COVID testing-related sales of $1.9 billion in the quarter.
Excluding COVID testing-related sales, organic sales growth was 12.1% versus last year and 11.7% compared to the third quarter of 2019.
Foreign exchange had a favorable year-over-year impact of 1% on third quarter sales, resulting in total reported sales growth of 23.4% in the quarter.
Regarding other aspects of the P&L for the quarter, the adjusted gross margin ratio was 58.8% of sales, adjusted R&D investment was 6% of sales and adjusted SG&A expense was 25% of sales.
Our third quarter adjusted tax rate was 15.5%, which reflects an adjustment to align our year-to-date tax rate with our revised full year effective tax rate forecast of 15%.
The revised full year forecast is modestly higher than the estimate we provided in July due to a shift in the mix of our business and geographic income.
Turning to the outlook for the fourth quarter.
We forecast $1 billion to $1.4 billion of COVID testing-related sales and forecast organic sales growth, excluding COVID testing-related sales, in the low double-digits versus last year.
And based on current rates, we would expect exchange to have an unfavorable impact of around one-half of 1% on our fourth quarter reported sales.
 Assistant:

Chosen response:
abbott sold more than 225 mln covid-19 tests globally in q3.
compname says company sold more than 225 million covid tests globally in third quarter.
compname says co has supply capacity of more than 100 million tests per month.
abbott forecasts $1 billion to $1.4 billion of covid testing-related sales in q4.