Item 1. Business
ITEM 1. BUSINESS
Overview
CBIZ, Inc. is a leading national provider of financial, insurance and advisory services designed to help our clients and their businesses grow and succeed. Founded on the simple idea that growing businesses of all sizes wanted and needed access to best in class professional services with a personalized, local approach, CBIZ is now one of the largest accounting, insurance brokerage, financial and advisory services providers in the country. Over the years, CBIZ has grown to a team of more than 6,700 professionals working through more than 120 offices located in 33 states and the District of Columbia. Shares of our common stock are traded on the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) under the symbol “CBZ.”
Business Strategy
Since our founding in 1996, CBIZ set out to build a company that would provide a breadth of services and depth of expertise that is unmatched in our industries to assist our clients' with their most pressing needs and greatest opportunities. CBIZ pursued this vision by establishing a national platform of core services that our clients rely on to support their day-to-day business. Our core services include accounting, tax, government health care consulting, employee benefits, property and casualty insurance, payroll, human capital management, retirement plan services and a host of similar services. Over time, CBIZ strengthened this model by adding advisory services that help our clients with specialized needs they may have from time to time. These services include financial advisory, transaction advisory, risk advisory, valuation, technical accounting, litigation support, preparation for IPO, actuarial, executive search and compensation consulting services. This combination of the core essential services our clients rely on us to provide on a regular basis and the more specialized advisory services that our clients need from time to time are fundamental to our ability to perform well in both favorable and less favorable business climates.
Acquisitions are a key part of our growth strategy. We pursue acquisitions to enter attractive geographic markets, strengthen our presence in an existing market, add services or deepen our expertise for our existing offerings, expand into higher growth industries and service niches and access top talent. We seek to acquire the most highly regarded, best in class financial, insurance, and advisory firms that demonstrate a desire for a greater national platform and enhanced client service capabilities, possess strong leadership, cultural fit and a client base with cross-serving potential.
Available Information - Our principal executive office is located at 5959 Rockside Woods Blvd. N., Suite 600, Independence, Ohio 44131, and our telephone number is (216) 447-9000. Our website is located at https://www.cbiz.com . We make available, free of charge on our website, through our investor relations page, our annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K, and any amendments to those reports as soon as reasonably practicable after we file (or furnish) such reports with the SEC. In addition, the SEC maintains an Internet Website that contains reports, proxy and information statements and other information about us at https://www.sec.gov . Our corporate code of conduct, corporate governance guidelines, code of professional conduct and ethics guide and the charters of the Audit Committee, the Compensation and Human Capital Committee and the Nominating and Governance Committee of the Board of Directors are available on the investor relations page of our website, referenced above, and in print to any stockholder who requests them.
Business Services - We deliver our services through the following three practice groups: Financial Services, Benefits and Insurance Services, and National Practices. A general description of the services provided by each practice group is presented in the table below.
Financial Services Benefits and Insurance Services National Practices
Accounting and Tax Employee Benefits Consulting Information Technology Managed Networking and Hardware Services
Financial Advisory Payroll / Human Capital Management Healthcare Consulting
Valuation Property and Casualty Insurance
Risk and Advisory Services Retirement and Investment Services
Government Health Care Consulting
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Financial Services
Financial Services is comprised of core accounting services including traditional accounting, tax compliance, advisory, and specialty services, like transaction and risk advisory services, litigation support, valuation, and federal and state government health care compliance and consulting. The leader of each service line reports to the President of Financial Services.
Restrictions imposed by independence requirements and state accountancy laws and regulations preclude us from rendering audit and attest services (other than internal audit services). As such, we maintain joint-referral relationships and administrative service agreements (“ASAs”) with independent licensed Certified Public Accounting (“CPA”) firms (the “CPA firms”) under which audit and attest services may be provided to our clients by such CPA firms. At December 31, 2023, we maintained ASAs with four CPA firms. Most of the members and/or stockholders of those CPA firms are also our team members, and we render services to the CPA firms as an independent contractor. One of our ASAs is with Mayer Hoffman McCann, P.C. (“Mayer Hoffman”), an independent national CPA firm headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Mayer Hoffman has 211 stockholders. Mayer Hoffman maintains a nine member Board of Directors. There are no board members of Mayer Hoffman who hold senior officer positions at CBIZ. Our association with Mayer Hoffman offers clients access to the multi-state resources and expertise of a national CPA firm. We also have an ASA with Myers and Stauffer LC (“MSLC”), an independent national governmental health care consulting firm headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. MSLC has fourteen equity members, all of whom are also our team members. MSLC maintains a five-member executive committee, none of whom hold senior officer positions at CBIZ. Although the ASAs do not constitute control, we are one of the beneficiaries of the agreements and may bear certain economic risks. As such, the CPA firms with which we maintain ASAs qualify as variable interest entities.
The ASAs have remaining terms ranging up to 22 years, are renewable upon agreement by both parties, and have certain rights of extension and termination. Under these ASAs, we provide a range of services to the CPA firms, including (but not limited to): administrative functions such as office management, bookkeeping and accounting; preparing marketing and promotional materials; providing office space, computer equipment, systems support and administrative and professional staff. Services are performed in exchange for a fee. Fees earned by us under the ASAs are recorded as revenue in the accompanying Consolidated Statements of Comprehensive Income and totaled approximately $259.6 million, $235.4 million and $174.8 million for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021, respectively, a majority of which is related to services rendered to privately-held clients and governmental agencies. In the event that accounts receivable and unbilled work in process become uncollectible by the CPA firms, the service fee due to us is typically reduced on a proportional basis. Refer to Note 1, Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies, to the accompanying consolidated financial statements for further discussion.
Benefits and Insurance Services
Benefits and Insurance Services provides brokerage and consulting expertise for group health benefits and property and casualty insurance in addition to retirement plan advisory and investment services, payroll, human capital management, and other related services. The leader for each service line reports to the President of Benefits and Insurance Services.
The Benefits and Insurance Services practice group maintains relationships with many different insurance carriers. We do not assume underwriting risk. Some of these carriers have compensation arrangements with us whereby some portion of payments due to the Company may be contingent upon meeting certain performance goals, or upon our providing client services that would otherwise be provided by the carriers. These compensation arrangements are provided to us as a result of our performance and expertise, and may result in enhancing our ability to access certain insurance markets and services on behalf of our clients. The aggregate compensation related to these arrangements received during the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021 was less than 2% of consolidated CBIZ revenue for the respective periods.
National Practices
Our National Practices group provides two services: information technology focusing on managed networking and hardware services and healthcare consulting. The information technology business has been serving one client in the United States and Canada for more than 20 years.
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The healthcare consulting business, with expertise in revenue management, reimbursement optimization and managed care contracting, serves hospitals and other healthcare providers.
Revenue
Revenue by practice group for the years ended December 31, 2023, 2022 and 2021 is provided in the table below (in thousands) along with a discussion of certain external relationships and regulatory factors that currently impact those segments.
Year End December 31,
2023 2022 2021
Financial Services $ 1,160,686 72.9 % $ 1,010,068 71.5 % $ 734,026 66.4 %
Benefits and Insurance Services 382,605 24.1 % 358,007 25.4 % 332,323 30.1 %
National Practices 47,903 3.0 % 43,904 3.1 % 38,576 3.5 %
Total CBIZ revenue $ 1,591,194 100.0 % $ 1,411,979 100.0 % $ 1,104,925 100.0 %
Our revenue growth model includes three components: internal organic growth, cross-serving additional services to our existing clients, and strategic acquisitions.
• We capitalize on organic growth opportunities by creating value for our clients to help them achieve their goals, take advantage of their greatest opportunities or address their biggest challenges. We focus on building long-term relationships with our clients. We do this by offering our clients a personalized service experience that is backed by national resources. This approach enables our clients to access a breadth of services and depth of expertise typically not available through smaller, regional professional services providers but with a more tailored client experience than what is delivered by many national firms. Our ability to coordinate services and offer more comprehensive solutions enables us to provide additional value to our clients.
• Cross-serving provides us with the opportunity to offer and deliver multiple services to our existing clients. Cross-serving opportunities are identified by our professionals and then through internal coordination, we can offer a more comprehensive solution that may engage different business service lines. Being our clients’ preferred partner allows us the opportunity to respond to our clients’ needs with diverse and integrated services and solutions.
• From the time of our founding, we have pursued growth through strategic acquisitions. We pursue acquisitions to enter attractive geographic markets, strengthen our presence in an existing market, add services or deepen our expertise for our existing offerings, expand into higher growth industries and services niches and access top talent. Using clear criteria, we seek to identify, cultivate and pursue acquisitions of the most highly regarded, best in class financial, insurance, and advisory firms that demonstrate a desire for a greater national platform and enhanced client service capabilities, possess strong leadership, positive market reputation, cultural fit, commitment to exceptional client service, and a client base with cross-serving potential. In 2023, we completed five business acquisitions. From time to time, we divest, through sale or closure, business operations that do not contribute to our long-term objectives for growth or are not critical to our service offerings or markets. In 2023, we sold one technology asset in the Financial Services practice group. For further discussion regarding acquisitions and divestitures, refer to Note 18, Business Combinations, to the accompanying consolidated financial statements.
Clients
We provide multi-disciplinary and comprehensive solutions and professional services to over 100,000 clients across more than 25 industries. Our client base is made up of approximately 60,000 business clients and 40,000 individual clients. Our business client base is geographically dispersed across the country and includes small, middle market, and large businesses and organizations ranging from less than 10 to more than 10,000 employees. Our largest client generated approximately 2.3% of our consolidated revenue in 2023 and is included in the National Practices group. Management believes that the diversity of our client base helps insulate us from a downturn in a particular
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industry or geographic market. Nevertheless, economic conditions among select clients and groups of clients may have an impact on the demand for the services that we provide.
Regulation
Our operations are subject to regulation by federal, state, local and professional governing bodies. Accordingly, our business services may be impacted by legislative changes by these bodies, particularly with respect to provisions relating to payroll, benefits administration and insurance services, pension plan administration and tax and accounting. We remain abreast of regulatory changes affecting our business, as these changes often affect clients’ activities with respect to employment, taxation, benefits, and accounting. For instance, changes in income, estate, or property tax laws may require additional consultation with clients subject to these changes to assist these clients to comply with revised regulations.
We are subject to industry regulation and changes, including changes in laws, regulations, and codes of ethics governing our accounting, insurance, registered investment advisory and broker-dealer operations, as well as in other industries, the interpretation of which may impact our operations.
We are subject to certain privacy and information security laws and regulations, including, but not limited to those under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, Financial Modernization Act of 1999 (the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, and other provisions of federal and state laws which may restrict our operations and give rise to expenses related to compliance.
As a public company, we are subject to the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 to reform the oversight of public company auditing, improve the quality and transparency of financial reporting by those companies and strengthen the independence of auditors.
With respect to CPA firm clients that are required to file audited financial statements with the SEC, the SEC staff views us and the CPA firms with which we have contractual relationships as a single entity in applying independence rules established by the accountancy regulators and the SEC. Accordingly, we do not hold any financial interest in an SEC-reporting attest client of an associated CPA firm, enter into any business relationship with an SEC-reporting attest client that the CPA firm performing an audit could not maintain, or sell any non-audit services to an SEC-reporting attest client that the CPA firm performing an audit could not sell, under the auditor independence limitations set out in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and other professional accountancy independence standards. Applicable professional standards generally permit us to provide additional services to privately-held companies in addition to those services which may be provided to SEC-reporting attest clients of an associated CPA firm. We and the CPA firms with which we are associated have implemented policies and procedures designed to enable us and the CPA firms to maintain independence and freedom from conflicts of interest in accordance with applicable standards. Given the policies set by us on our relationships with SEC-reporting attest clients of associated CPA firms, and the limited number and size of such clients, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 independence limitations do not, and are not expected to, materially affect our revenues.
The CPA firms with which we maintain ASAs may operate as limited liability companies, limited liability partnerships or professional corporations. The firms are separate legal entities with separate governing bodies and officers. Neither the existence of the ASAs nor the providing of services thereunder constitutes control of the CPA firms by us. The Company and the CPA firms maintain their own respective liability and risk of loss in connection with the performance of their respective services. Attest services are not permitted to be performed by any individual or entity that is not licensed to do so. We are not permitted to perform audits, reviews, compilations, or other attest services, do not contract to perform them and do not provide the associated attest reports. Given this legal prohibition and course of conduct, we do not believe it is likely that we would bear the risk of litigation losses related to attest services provided by the CPA firms. Although the ASAs do not constitute control, we are one of the beneficiaries of the agreements and may bear certain economic risks. As such, the CPA firms with which we maintain ASAs qualify as variable interest entities. Refer to Note 1, Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies, to the accompanying consolidated financial statements for further discussion.
As of December 31, 2023, we are in compliance with all governmental and professional organizations regulations relevant to the services we provide.
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Liability Insurance
We carry insurance policies, including those for commercial general liability, automobile liability, property, crime, professional liability, directors’ and officers’ liability, fiduciary liability, cyber liability, employment practices liability and workers' compensation, subject to prescribed state mandates. Excess liability coverage is carried over the underlying limits provided by the commercial general liability, directors’ and officers’ liability, professional liability, cyber liability, and automobile liability policies.
Seasonality
Core financial services (traditional tax and accounting services) are impacted by seasonality given the nature of tax season due to a heavier volume of activity during the first four months of the year. Seasonality is most evident in the quarterly earnings per share ("EPS") as most of the annual EPS is earned during the first half of the year. Like most professional service companies, a large portion of our operating costs are relatively fixed in the short term, which generally results in higher operating margins in the first half of the year.
Competition
The professional business services industry is highly fragmented and competitive. We compete with national, regional and local professional services firms including accounting and tax firms, insurance brokers, payroll advisors and consulting firms. While many of our competitors tend to be mono-line in their offerings, we offer multi-disciplinary, holistic solutions that we believe are comprehensive and provide higher value to our clients while eliminating the need for coordination between multiple service providers. We are also embedded in local and regional markets and build meaningful relationships to foster deeper understanding of our clients’ businesses and industries.
We believe that our strong client relationships, breadth of professional service offerings, and depth of expertise, as well as our ability to provide national expertise on a local level give us a competitive advantage.
Human Capital
At CBIZ, our value proposition to our clients is the breadth of our services and the depth of our expertise, including our unique ability to provide multi-disciplinary, coordinated solutions that respond to the complexity and uncertainty of today’s business environment. CBIZ brings value because of the talent, expertise and commitment of the over 6,700 professionals that make up our team nationwide.
We are diligent in our efforts to attract, retain and develop talent. Recruitment is managed at the national level and supported by national and local resources based on a process that consistently and fairly utilizes best practices and various recruiting tools to source top talent. CBIZ recruiters cultivate relationships to establish strong networks of candidates, and are full life-cycle recruiters who stay with their candidates from first contact through their first 60 days as a CBIZ team member. Our recruitment team sources candidates through proactive research across multiple channels including professional associations, career websites, community organizations and social media networks, as well as schools, universities and institutions with a special emphasis on those entities that attract a diverse population.
CBIZ is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in hiring or employment in accordance with the requirements of all applicable state and federal laws, including race, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, gender identity, marital status, military status, sexual orientation, disability, or medical condition. The CBIZ Human Rights Policy demonstrates our commitment to respecting human rights throughout CBIZ. We believe the protection of human rights is fundamental to conducting great business, and believe we have both the ability and responsibility to drive positive change through our culture and business practices.
CBIZ is proud of its efforts to be a learning organization that provides opportunities for education, technical training, professional development, leadership development, coaching, and mentoring at every step in a team member's career. These opportunities are offered through in-person, virtual and on-demand programs. Most recently, CBIZ expanded our mentoring program to provide opportunities to team members.
At the foundation of our culture and approach to employee experience and engagement are our core values. We recognize that our uncompromising commitment to our values starting with ‘we do the right thing’ is important to our team. CBIZ views our commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion as an extension of our core values. At CBIZ,
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diversity and inclusion are a business imperative as we strive to become an employer of choice for attracting, retaining and developing diverse talent.
In 2023, CBIZ was certified as a Great Place to Work® for the eighth consecutive year and has been honored with numerous workplace awards based on feedback gathered directly from our team members. In 2023, CBIZ was awarded 100 workplace awards, including the following:
• 2023 Top Workplaces USA by Energage – This award celebrates nationally recognized companies that make the world a better place to work together by prioritizing a people-centered culture and giving employees a voice. This award is based entirely on feedback from our team members.
• 2023 Early Talent Award by Handshake – The Early Talent Awards recognize the best places for Gen Z to start a career. This award recognizes CBIZ as an industry leader and a great place to work for Gen Z jobseekers in the areas of flexible work environment, networking opportunities, and impactful work.
• 2023 Campus Forward by Ripplematch – CBIZ was selected for our commitment to hiring career talent, emphasizing diversity and inclusion, and investing in the next generation of talent for the organization. The winners of the Campus Forward Award represent the best in the country and winning the award highlights our recruitment efforts and overall experiences of our interns.
• 2023 Eddy Award by Pension & Investments – This award recognizes companies for financial wellness, ongoing investment education, and pre-retirement preparation. CBIZ was recognized for best practices in financial education and communication surrounding defined contribution plans in the plan transitions category.
• 2023 Best Places to Work in Insurance by Business Insurance Magazine – CBIZ was selected and honored for the ninth consecutive year as a “Best Places to Work in Insurance” based on our commitment to attracting, developing and retaining great talent through employee benefits and other programs. We were recognized for this award based on core focus areas such as leadership and planning, corporate culture, communications, work environment and overall engagement with our employees.
• 2023 Best and Brightest Companies in the Nation Top 101 by National Association of Business Resources ("NABR") – For the eighth year in a row, CBIZ was honored as a “Best and Brightest Company” based on our commitment to human resource practices and employee enrichment.
• 2023 Best and Brightness in Wellness by NABR – CBIZ was honored for the seventh consecutive time, as an organization that promotes a culture of wellness.
• 2023 Top Workplaces Culture Excellence Awards for Appreciation, Clue-in Leaders, Employee Value Proposition, Employee Wellbeing, Empowering Employees, Formal Training, Professional Development, Work-Life Flexibility by Energage – CBIZ was recognized for the third time as an outstanding organization across business-relevant culture categories.