Aramark (NYSE:ARMK) Q3 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Good morning, and welcome to Aramark's Third Quarter and Fiscal twenty twenty six Earnings Results Conference Call. My name is Kevin, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, I'd like to inform you this conference is being recorded for rebroadcast and that all participants are in a listen only mode. We will open the conference call for questions at the conclusion of the company's remarks. I will now turn the call over to Felice Cassell, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Development. Ms. Cassell, please proceed. Thank you, and welcome to Aramark's earnings conference call and webcast. This morning, we will be hearing from our CEO, John Zillmer, as well as our CFO, Jim Tarantula. As always, there are accompanying slides for this call that can be viewed through the webcast and are also available on the IR Web site for easy access.

0:46 Our notice regarding forward looking statements is included in our press release. During this call, we will be making comments that are forward looking. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of various risks, uncertainties, and important factors, including those discussed in the Risk Factors, MD and A, and other sections of our Annual Report on Form 10 ks and SEC filings. We will be discussing certain non GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of these items to U. S. GAAP can be found in our press release and IR website. I will now turn the call over to John. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our fiscal third quarter earnings call.

1:35 Thank you for joining us. Jim and I are pleased to be here with you to review our financial results, provide an update on the business, and discuss our strategic growth agenda, which continues to drive strong sustained performance. We're heading into the fourth quarter with significant momentum across the portfolio, including industry leading client retention at record levels of approximately 98% underscoring the strength of our client relationships and the excellence of our service and execution accelerating organic revenue growth in every U. S. Sector absent the calendar shift in education and across all regions within international. New client wins totaling more than $1,600,000,000 fiscal year to date, 51% higher than the comparable prior year period, reflecting strong demand for our hospitality capabilities and the depth of our sales pipeline and the launch of operations just weeks ago under our recently awarded multi year engagement with a top global hyperscaler alongside the continued expansion of Aramark Nexus, which now includes providing premium hospitality services to workforce communities for an AI data center colocation leader.

2:49 In the third quarter, organic revenue for the company grew 9% to $5,000,000,000 and would have increased another approximately 2% if not for the calendar shift. Once again, our strong revenue performance was driven by broad based net new business and base business growth across sectors and geographies. These results are a testament to the dedication of our teams whose commitment to serving our clients, delivering exceptional hospitality experiences and performing at a high level every day has been instrumental in our success. Moving to the business segments, FSS US organic revenue grew 8% to 3,500,000,000 and would have increased more than 10% excluding the calendar shift.

3:36 Education would have achieved more than 7% growth absent the shift, which is expected to be fully recaptured in the fourth quarter. Collegiate Hospitality is benefiting from increased residential meal plan enrollment, record retention and the strongest selling season in recent history. U. S. Revenue growth in the quarter was further driven by Sports and Entertainment's strong year over year performance, which reflected higher revenue from the ongoing Major League Baseball season along with an expanded client portfolio, including in Major League Soccer and Collegiate Athletics. We demonstrated the strength of our capabilities during the 15 FIFA World Cup matches hosted at the stadiums we serve, delivering premium fan experiences amid unprecedented attendance and record per capita spending, with an additional four matches held after quarter end.

4:27 We also proudly supported our NHL and NBA clients throughout the playoffs and extend our congratulations to the San Antonio Spurs on reaching the NBA finals. Our SNE team was hard at work last month during the MLB All Star Game here in Philadelphia, providing hospitality services throughout the three day series of events with merchandise revenue a particular highlight. Healthcare Plus built upon the successful launch of Penn Medicine with our team actively mobilizing multiple lines of service across RWJBarnabas' health eighteen locations while continuing to deliver strong base business performance. And workplace experience and refreshments achieved double digit compounded growth for the nineteenth consecutive quarter, reflecting the contribution from new business, exceptional client retention and continued base business performance across the portfolio.

5:22 Now turning to Aramark Nexus, we began operations at our first Texas based site supporting a top global hyperscaler, which contributed to revenue and profitability late in the third quarter as we started scaling our service offerings. We're currently mobilizing a second site for this client and the scope of work across both locations is now expected to increase by approximately 40% from original estimates. In addition, the client has indicated we should anticipate supporting additional sites as new locations come online. We remain in active dialogue with other leading hyperscalers as well, reflecting the strong demand for our integrated suite of capabilities. We continue to expand the reach of Aramark Nexus, recently announcing a significant multi year engagement with a leading AI data center colocation provider to deliver premium hospitality services to workforce communities across multiple locations, including in Wyoming and Texas.

6:22 The initial site is scheduled to mobilize in the first half of our new fiscal year. Data center co locators develop, own and operate facilities that supply the power, cooling and infrastructure relied upon by technology companies. As these projects increase in scale and geographic reach, we believe that NEXUS is uniquely positioned to help clients attract and retain skilled labor through differentiated hospitality solutions and premium amenities that enhance the employee experience and support project success. During the quarter, FSS US continued to build on its strong momentum as we were awarded several additional client wins, including our first collaboration within the University of Colorado system at Colorado Springs, Grand Canyon University, Ohio Wesleyan University, and Texas State University in Collegiate Hospitality.

7:16 Texas State and Florida State University athletics and sports, the Camden City School District in student nutrition, and Paul Weiss in workplace experience as we expand our hospitality services into top tier law firms. The international segment continued its strong growth trajectory delivering another quarter of impressive results with organic revenue increasing 11% to $1,500,000,000 Performance was broad based across geographies and sectors led by Spain, Canada, The UK, and Germany. Concert and festival activity was especially strong with many of our venues further benefiting from major touring artists adding performances across Europe. We also successfully served more than 300,000 fans during the multi day Formula One Grand Prix in Barcelona, leveraging nearly 100 food and beverage locations across several event areas.

8:14 Every country within the international portfolio delivered strong new business performance, underscoring the breadth of our service offerings and focus on excellence. International was awarded nearly 200 client location accounts during the quarter, including continued expansion in the mining industry, providing remote hospitality services for Discovery Silver Mine in Canada, as well as Codelco's Chiquimada and AMSA's Los Pelombres copper mines in Chile. We also concluded our International Guest Chefs Cup in Dublin, celebrating the very best of Aramark's culinary talent from around the world, following a year of in country competitions. It was especially meaningful to see our host chefs from Ireland take top honors this year.

9:01 On to global supply chain. Our global supply chain and GPO business maintained strong momentum delivering more than $1,100,000,000 of annualized new spend globally fiscal year to date. This performance reflects the differentiation of our value proposition, market leading procurement capabilities and disciplined execution. We believe Avendra International is well positioned as a premier global hospitality procurement solution with multinational clients increasingly consolidating spend with us across regions and continents, leveraging our scale, local expertise and extensive global supply network. We're also seeing inflation trends remain slightly more favorable than our original expectations across regions. Lastly, I would like to welcome Tony Spring as the newest member of Aramark's Board of Directors.

9:51 As Chairman and CEO of Macy's, Tony brings deep executive leadership expertise and valuable strategic insights, particularly in integrating AI to enhance consumer experiences and leading a large diverse workforce. Before handing the call over to Jim, I want to reiterate that we are extremely confident in our ability to continue building on our strong results. We believe that the opportunities before us from the outperformance of our core business to the expansion of Aramark Nexus and our global supply chain platform position us well to capitalize on the substantial value creating actions underway at the company. Once again, I would like to thank our teams around the globe for embodying our culture and values, which remain the foundation of who we are as a company.

10:39 With that, Jim, I'll turn the call over to you. Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. We had another record breaking quarter, delivering impressive top and bottom line results driven by broad based performance across sectors and geographies. As John mentioned, we continue to experience strong momentum with the execution of our growth strategies creating significant opportunities throughout the company that position us well for the remainder of the year and beyond. Regarding profit growth in the third quarter, operating income grew 18% to two sixteen million dollars versus the prior year period. Adjusted operating income increased 13% to $261,000,000 with AOI margins expanding nearly 20 basis points.

11:26 The calendar shift reduced AOI by an estimated $20,000,000 AOI growth would have increased approximately 21% without the calendar shift, with margin expansion of nearly 50 basis points on a constant currency basis. This double digit profit growth and margin expansion were driven by higher revenue levels, expanded supply chain capabilities, and effective cost management. Turning to the business segments, FSS US reported AOI growth of 11% with AOI margins expanding more than 20 basis points. Excluding the calendar shift, AOI growth would have increased approximately 22% with margins gaining almost 65 basis points. Profitability and margin expansion in the quarter was the result of greater revenue from base and new business, particularly in sports and entertainment, the workplace experience group, refreshments and healthcare.

12:23 FSS US also benefited from supply chain efficiencies and productivity gains from effective cost management. The international segment delivered AOI growth of 24% with margins expanding nearly 60 basis points on a constant currency basis. AOI growth was driven by higher base business volume and net new business along with strengthened supply chain economics. Our strong quarterly performance resulted in GAAP EPS of $0.36 and adjusted EPS of $0.52 an increase of nearly 30% versus the prior year and almost 45 excluding the calendar shift, reflecting the successful execution of our growth strategies.

13:10 With respect to cash flow, net cash provided by operating activities in the third quarter grew 41,000,000 and free cash flow increased 42,000,000. These positive cash flow results were driven by strong business performance and earnings growth. As always, we expect to generate a large inflow in the fourth quarter, primarily from collegiate hospitality and sports and entertainment. The higher cash flow generation in the quarter enabled us to proactively repay 100,000,000 of term loans subsequent to the quarter end. We remain committed to achieving a leverage ratio below three times by fiscal year end. We will continue to pursue additional capital allocation opportunities with a focus on maximizing returns.

13:59 At quarter end, the company had over 1,400,000,000 in cash availability. And finally, let me wrap up with our performance expectations for the remainder of fiscal twenty six, with only a few months to go. We are benefiting from the consistent execution of our teams across the business, from industry leading client retention, to broad based revenue growth across The US and international, to record levels of new client wins, and the continued expansion of Aramark Nexus. Our sales pipeline remains substantial with first time outsourcing at elevated levels. As a result, we have raised our fiscal twenty six organic revenue growth outlook to an increase of 9% to 10%, reflecting continued momentum across Aramark's portfolio, as well as early contribution from commencing operations with a top global hyperscaler.

14:57 We are also reaffirming our expectations for AOI growth of 12% to 17% and adjusted EPS growth of 20% to 25%, both of which are aligned with Wall Street estimates as we look at the fourth quarter. We anticipate accelerated AOI growth and margin expansion in the fourth quarter, driven by our multiple operating levers and the early contribution from Aramark Nexus. We are mobilizing a record level of new business throughout the company and adding Aramark Nexus growth resources as appropriate to further capitalize on the significant new business opportunities before us. In summary, the strength of our financial performance this quarter, combined with the continued momentum we are seeing across the business, reinforces our confidence in Aramark's growth trajectory.

15:50 We believe the company is well positioned to drive significant shareholder value creation. Thank you for your time this morning. Operator, we will now open up the call for questions. Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Our first question comes from Curtis Nagle with Bank of America. Your line is open. Terrific. Thanks very much for taking the question. I guess, first, just focusing on that initial NEXUS contract, great numbers to hear, right, the 40% increase in scope, new sites.

16:41 I guess, would you be able to provide an update in potentially how much larger this contract could be? I think initially, we were thinking several 100,000,000. And would the duration of this contract also potentially expand longer than you might think? And then I'll have a follow-up. Sure, the initial contract we estimated at about $100,000,000 annualized over the life of the contract, I'm sorry, annually over the life of the contract. And with this 40% increase in scope, we expect it to be somewhere in the range of $140,000,000 per year. The life expectancy of the contract we continue to believe is somewhere in the range of four to five years dependent upon the speed of development and also determined ultimately by the total number of employees that they bring on board.

17:33 So very attractive contract, very attractive returns as we've talked about. This is a capital light strategy for us, immediately accretive to margins above company average and will be a strong contributor going forward. Just a quick clarification, just it's $100,000,000 I guess now 140,000,000 per site, right? Per site per year, that's the initial contract at that first site. The second site that we are currently beginning to mobilize will actually be slightly larger and approximately the same duration. So that would tend to be around $160,000,000 a year based on the expected size of the second site. Got it. Okay, very good. And I guess just more of a holistic question, just your confidence being able to maintain this, call it 9% to 10% organic growth range.

18:29 Just look at your current book of business, right, the 1.6%, the retention, normalized pricing, and then let alone perhaps more upside from data centers. It seems like it's pretty achievable into next year, but just, yeah, would be great to your level of confidence there. Yeah, again, the metrics on new business are great. Record levels of new business at this point in the year, exceptional retention levels. We're seeing broad based growth. As you mentioned, on top of that, the Nexus business that we are mobilizing. If you look at the underlying growth rate in Q3, excluding calendar shift, it's in the 10% to 11% range. I think you're seeing implied at a similar level for the fourth quarter, so it's all very sustainable, and that's exactly how we're thinking about the exit rate and the outlook as we think about 2027.

19:23 Okay, all right. Thanks very much, John, Jim. I appreciate it. Thank you. Our next question comes from Lucy Dove of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the question and I congrats on a great just wanted to ask more, now that you're kind of several months into this, some great updates on NEXUS. Like any latest thoughts on just how to think about the TAM that you have? And within that kind of addressable market, how you think about your kind of market share opportunity within that specifically? Sure. I think total addressable market is something we're still working on. But obviously, are hundreds of these projects that are currently under consideration for construction across The United States and elsewhere around the world. So I think to extrapolate to the total addressable market is a little bit difficult at this stage. We do think it's in the many billions of dollars in terms of the total addressable market and we'll continue to refine those estimates as we get a better understanding of actual construction pace and the implementation across The US.

20:41 But right now we feel like we're very well positioned in this segment. Are investing in resources to go ahead and bring this business to life. We've already established a very good leadership structure, committed sales resources against this business. And so I like our positioning. We currently have eight sites that are signed and under active development in various stages. So there is a lot of runway to this business. I also think that this business is going to be very large and I think we'll achieve very significant share gains very rapidly. But I do think this will be a competitive marketplace and there's more than enough room for all the companies who serve these industries to succeed given the demand that appears to be out there.

21:36 Great. And then great to hear that it sounds like the 9% to 10% range you feel is sustainable over the next year. I guess any way that we should think about margins specifically and the impact of that in NEXUS? It sounds like you said in the past that Nexus margins are accretive, they're higher than the total company right now, but then I guess there's still maybe a bit of a ramp phase. And so kind of putting those pieces together and not asking for guidance, but just any way to think about as we move into 'twenty seven and longer term, how we think about margin impact from all of this. Yeah, I think certainly the nexus opportunity and the above company margin certainly will be a tailwind to the longer term picture on margins. We've been consistently generating 30 to 40 basis points of margin accretion, and that's implied by the guidance.

22:26 For this year as well, as John mentioned, we're mobilizing two sites with a large hyperscaler, the co locator on top of that. The first site alone expects to add about $150,000,000 of revenue. So it's in the 400 to $500,000,000 of revenue that will ramp up over the course of fiscal twenty seven to twenty eight with above company margins. So that's how we're thinking about it, so it'll certainly be a tailwind to that picture. Yeah, and I would just add, Lizzie, that we're committed to, as we've said over the past, we're committed to seeing significant margin accretion in the core business without the impact of NEXUS. NEXUS will be additive and we feel very good about that positioning.

23:16 But we're also very much focused on continuing the margin expansion that exists in the core business that comes just through the normal growth of the organization as well as the supply chain discipline and SG and A leverage. So we continue to have expectations in that 30 to 40 basis point range on the core business in addition to the margin accretion that will come from NEXUS. Great, thanks so much. Our next question comes from Ian Zaffino with Oppenheimer. Your line is open. Hi, great. Thank you very much. Really good quarter. Question, I guess, if we could maybe move away from NEXUS for just a second here. It does seem like the broader portfolio in general has had just a ton of success here.

24:05 I don't know how to explain other than just kind of firing on all cylinders here, but maybe talk about what the greatest opportunities you're seeing out there, again putting NexSys aside and kind of focusing on the core business? Thanks. Sure, thanks for the question, Ian. We absolutely do see continued growth in the core business. We've had very strong selling season across the enterprise both domestically and internationally experiencing very strong growth and reactive pipelines across the range of the portfolio. I think we've maintained our commitment to each of the businesses, we're driving performance, we've got a great management team in place, and we're executing well in terms of serving our customers' needs through adding new solutions every day. So we continue to see great opportunities in the healthcare sector as continued self op conversion takes place.

25:04 We see continued expansion in the collegiate sports area, but we're experiencing growth in all of our businesses, even those that have been highly contracted for a long period of time. We're seeing exceptional growth in workplace experience both domestically and internationally. So feel very confident in the long term growth trajectory of organization and believe our long term prospects are excellent. Okay, thanks. And then I'm gonna ask a question here on Nexus. I just kind of want to be and I appreciate you guys being prudent and kind of disciplined in managing, I don't know, call maybe some expectations here. But when we think about just the business in general and maybe again the margins, why are the margins higher? Is it a factor of or maybe let me ask it differently, how do we expect margins to ramp?

26:04 Typically in the core business, we see some dilution as you win large contracts initially, and then it kind of ramps throughout the contract. Is that something similar we're going to see here? And how should we kind of wrap our brains around this so we kind of keep everything in check and expectations in line with Nexus and what you're seeing actually on the ground, etcetera? Thanks. Yeah, sure. So there is some moderate ramp with Nexus as we ramp up the number of folks that we are serving. But the primary underlying structure of these contracts is cost reimbursable. We don't want to get into too much detail for competitive reasons, but that's how we structure them. The margins are attractive, especially if you compare it to some of the smaller players in the industry. Margins are actually much higher than that on their model.

26:56 So it's low capital intensity with that cost reimbursable primarily. There are some moderate costs upfront, but it scales much faster than a typical, say, higher education or sports contract, so that we have very good visibility, into the margins, very predictable. So there's not significant startup costs like we see typically in a contract of that size. Okay, thank you very much and congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Leo Carrington with Citi. Your line is open. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Please ask some follow ups on the AI data center progress you've made. Firstly, that point about the scope of work on the hyperscaler contracts having increased 40%.

27:51 Could you give some more color on what kind of services you've been able to add, and and and how and this came about? Is there scope for further increases in terms of scope with the hyperscaler? Yeah, really, I'm sorry. Go ahead and finish, Leo. I was just going to ask a sort of similar question on the collocator side. Interesting just to hear the similarities and differences versus the hyperscaler contract. And if there was anything you could add in terms of the revenue opportunity for this co locator contract versus numbers for the Hyperscalar one you've already given us? Thank you.

28:37 Sure, typically what drives the difference in scale is the number of people expected to be employed on-site, which you can roughly translate into beds. Remember these are residential communities, these are workforce communities that are being created in remote areas. And so you can kind of think of the number of beds as being kind of an indicator of scale and scope. So our initial site was originally projected to be about 3,500 employees. The increase in size and scale is directly related to the number of beds that they will have on-site. So second location estimated to be 4,000 beds, the co locator site originally looking at like 4,500 beds.

29:33 So that's the primary driver. The scope of services that we'll be offering across communities is consistent. It's essentially hospitality, food, retail, housekeeping, facilities management, unarmed security which we will subcontract and not perform ourselves, but that's not included in our revenue estimates. So it's a full suite of amenities and services provided to those people who are residing in these communities in a remote environment. So scope is very broad. Think fitness centers, pickleball courts, basketball courts, volleyball. It's a community that we're building. So the best indicator of overall size of the scope of a contract is related to the number of people or number of beds that are affiliated with the site.

30:29 We currently have essentially under contract with those first three locations approximately 12,000 to 13,000 beds. And they can scale up or down based on the size of the facility that's being built. Okay, thank you very much, John. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Steinerman with JPMorgan. Your line is open. Hi. I just wanted to maybe touch on the medium term algo. I surely haven't heard the figures in maybe about a year's time. But for a long time, we were talking about a medium term 5% to 8% organic revenue growth algo.

31:15 Surely, you're growing faster than that now and into next year. My question is, has the whole portfolio evolved to a point where the medium term algorithm has to be increased? I'll start, Andrew. I mean, the algo, as you mentioned, 5%, has been five to 8%, right? That's the growth we need to fuel, the 30 to 40 basis points. We're obviously operating well above that this year as we exit into 'twenty seven as well. And we're evaluating and continue to update in terms of what that algorithm will be. If you look at the components of growth on that, the main change there is obviously the net new impact. If you look at the quarter, we're now realizing the five to 6% net new realized, continuing the pricing phase 3.5, volume one to two, minus calendar shift for this quarter obviously. But that's generally how we're thinking about the quarters and we're in the early stages of planning for fiscal twenty seven, but certainly the expectation is that we'll be operating above the algorithm that we initially established as part of Investor Day.

32:24 Okay, that's good. Could I just ask a real quick second one? New bookings that you just talked about, just give an update on the mix between your kind of self op conversions versus competitive one ways. Yeah, I think it's probably consistent with our past disclosures, or somewhere in the range of 40% to 45% of self op conversions. What will skew that number up is whether or not you would call NexSys, which isn't really included in those numbers yet, a self op conversion. It's a brand new site, first time outsourcing, so hard to really characterize it one way or the other. But I would say in the core business, we're still seeing that range of 40% to 45% self op conversion.

33:10 Thanks Sean, thanks Jim. Thank you. Our next question comes from Toni Kaplan with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Thanks so much. Wanted to start off on Nexus. Sounds like you have a really complete service offering there. I was hoping you could just talk about the differentiation that you're able to provide because I'm sure a number of your large competitors are also trying to go after that business. And so I was hoping you could talk about maybe what customers have really liked and what makes your offering more unique or differentiated. Yeah, sure, I'll take that Tony. First of all, yeah, there are smaller a couple companies that are currently competing in this space.

33:59 And I think the differentiated offerings that we brought to bear when we began to work with this global hyperscaler was a significantly differentiated hospitality approach that transition from a typical call it chaleline, if you will, to a much more retail oriented fine dining approach that offers a range of opportunities for those employees that are living there. So it's not just walking through a cafeteria line for breakfast, lunch and dinner, it's having multiple outlets and multiple opportunities to choose how you wanna be served, whether it's a full service restaurant, whether buffet style or whether it's some other kind of retail components.

34:52 So what we brought to bear was a very significant change in the approach and that's what they recognized and that's the kind of quality that they wanted to achieve. And their reason for doing so is pretty obvious. They want to recruit and retain high quality, high numbers of employees in remote environments. And to do that, they wanted to give them a solution that was significantly enhanced from the norm. And so we were able to deliver, design and deliver and execute against that kind of an approach. Including those other amenity offerings which are consistent with what we do for our own employees in the national parks, what we do in remote mines in Chile, in Canada.

35:43 So it was bringing to bear that full suite of capabilities. The other companies that focus on this segment have typically been construction oriented organizations that focus more on the build as opposed to the hospitality. We're not in the build business. We're there to support the build business through our infrastructure, but we're there to provide hospitality for the employees. And that was the key differentiator. Terrific. And shifting gears to sports, terrific quarter there. I know you called out World Cup in the release. Wanted to also understand how much of, you know, sort of the the growth there was attributable to World Cup, but also wanted to find out about any sort of recent wins because you also talked about expanding the client portfolio in sports. So any recent wins for new teams, that'd be awesome. Thanks.

36:37 Yeah. Was really a strong quarter in general for the sports group. The underlying performance in Major League Baseball is good. We have a number of teams vying for the playoffs at this point. In terms of the new business, Florida State University athletics and Texas State athletics were rolled out as part of the new business. We did have significantly more playoff games in the NHL and NBA this year with the Spurs obviously going, to the championship. As John mentioned, we did have about 15 World Cup games in the quarter as well. So all that combined really led to the strong double digit growth that we saw, excess of double digit growth in sports. This quarter. So really, the underlying strength is strong. The World Cup had a sort of a moderate impact as well, but all told, the combined business is really what drove the exceptional performance.

37:33 Thank you. Our next question comes from Jasper Bibb with Truist Securities. Your line is open. Hey, good morning, everyone. On Nexus, I just wanted to clarify how many sites you're signed up for right now. I think you said two with each, two on the hyperscale side, two with colocation, but I thought I heard eight sites total signed in response to an earlier question. So just wanted to clarify how many kind of total sites you have signed up on the Nexus side. And then if it's eight, I guess I'm wondering what the timeline might be looking like for the sites that are signed, but are active or mobilizing today. Yeah, we have the two sites that we're currently mobilizing with the top hyperscaler, and with the third under discussion.

38:27 And then there are five additional sites with the AI co locator that are in various stages of development, one which will begin to ramp up in early twenty seven. The total number of beds, if extrapolate you were the number of beds for those additional five sites, you would estimate around 2,000 per site. So somewhere in the range of between 12,020 thousand total beds under development at this point in time with the first three sites really under active engagement. Awesome, thank you for the detail there. My second question was just, I guess I'm wondering if you could bridge the increased organic growth guide against reaffirming AOI and EPS ranges.

39:23 Is that a little bit of new business startup on some of these wins? Is that some selling commission because new business is up so much? Just any detail there would be great. Yes, that's right. Yes, the increase in the guide, really just a general broad based favorable trends we're seeing in the business. And obviously, we put in the nexus impact into the fourth quarter as well on the top line. On AOI and EPS, as you said, we're rolling out and mobilizing record levels of new business, and the businesses that hit the fourth quarter in particular. So higher education, we've had one of the best selling seasons in recent memory, and those accounts will ramp up in August and September. In destinations, we have Stone Mountain, one of the largest accounts we rolled out in many years. And then in healthcare, we continue to ramp up Robert Wood Johnson. So with that, as we always talked about, there is some mobilization costs and those margins will ramp up into fiscal twenty seven.

40:21 Great, thank you for taking the question. Thank you. Our next question comes from Jafar Mustari with DMP Paribas. Your line is open. Hi, good morning. I just wanted to start by clarifying one thing. You mentioned in the release that your initial Aramark Nexus site has began providing revenue. But there's reasonable sources out there that would suggest that that's July. So just wanted to make it extra clear that in Q3, in the $0.11 organic growth, there is no contribution from Nexus. Yeah, they did ramp up at the first site with the hyperscaler did ramp up in late fiscal Q3, so it's just a very moderate amount, small amount affected July. Primarily, it's gonna be in the fourth quarter.

41:11 Okay, super. And I guess related to that, you've mentioned two clients, three firm sites, another five sites under discussion and you said 400,000,000 to $500,000,000 revenue that could be ramping up over the next two years. Just wanted to make sure they're all on the same definition. And if those figures 400,000,000 to $500,000,000 in particular are included in the signings figure, 1,600,000,000, how should we look at the signings ex Nexus? The core businesses ex Nexus last year in 2025 signed 1,600,000,000. So I know there's a few months left to the year.

42:00 But yes, if I do very quick math, is it 1,100,000,000, 1,200,000,000 of signings in your core segments of education, healthcare, corporate, etcetera? And is it a good figure if you did 1,600,000,000 with those same segments last year? Yeah, I'll start. In terms of again, we're not going into too much detail on the components of the 1.6, there's a portion of that $450,000,000 in there, a relatively small portion that's built in, that is in the 1.6. Just on the revenue question, just to confirm, right, we talked about three sites mobilizing, an active mobilization, and development, the two with a hyperscaler and one with a co locator. Those three sites is where I was referencing the 400 to 500,000,000.

42:53 And as John mentioned, there's additional sites and opportunities with a co locator. That's not part of the 400 to 500,000,000. Okay, clear. That's the annualized value. We're still planning in terms of when that will ramp up over the course of 'twenty seven. But no, the underlying new business is driven by the core excluding NEXUS. Yeah, and sorry to layer that point, but what's the definition reason why is the SEK400 million to SEK500 million are all based on three sites that are the most defined, the firmest? Why is it not all included in your $1,600,000,000 signings? Yeah, at this point, typically some of it has to get into the weeds, so some of has to do when we finalize contracts versus develop and roll them out. So there's just some particular things that we adhere to in terms of when we actually record the new business.

43:54 Thank you. Our next question comes from Faiza Alwy with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open. Yes. Hi. Thank you so much. I wanted to follow-up on Nexus also. I guess you talked about sales resources that you're putting into this particular business. And I'm just curious how kind of you're approaching the go to market and kind of how the competitive environment has evolved. It sounds like a lot of your, you know, core larger competitors are not participating in the same way that you are. And I'm just curious if that's how you're viewing that and if it's more related to just your go to market approach. Yeah, I think first of all, we recognized very quickly the attractiveness of the market began to frame an organization to serve it very, very quickly. So we installed a CEO for the business who's an experienced Aramark executive who's run multiple businesses and has an extraordinary background related to hospitality.

45:04 And so recognizing the attractiveness of it, we also committed resources from the sales organization to this go to market strategy, particularly related to this initial set of contracts. And as we began to explore the potential and the size of market, we began to add additional sales resources focused on the other hyperscalers as well as other key participants in the industry, whether that's construction and engineering or other related firms. I do expect that the other large companies will find a way into the business. They have divisions that do some of these things in other parts of the world. I just think we were first to move in recognizing the significance of the opportunity and established a business very quickly. But I fully expect that this will be a competitive marketplace.

46:07 As I said earlier, I also believe that the size and the scope of this total market is so large and the demand will be so significant that there's plenty of room for all the organizations to be successful competing in it. And we wanna be first, we wanna be the biggest, and we wanna get our fair share. But ultimately, I think this will be competitive. Understood. Thank you. And then, not to belabor the point around contribution from Nexus this year, but just want to understand in the fourth quarter, do you expect to fully ramp at least the initial two sites? Or is it a slower buildup? Just trying to get a sense of how much revenue contribution you're expecting from NexSys in the fourth quarter. Yeah, roughly in the fourth quarter, probably about 1% or so will come from NexSys.

47:08 None of the sites are fully ramped up yet, so they all will be ramping up to their peak during the course of fiscal twenty seven. Great, thank you so much. Sorry, I would just add a couple of comments on this. The ramp up schedule is really not something that we are in control of. It is based how these companies bring employment to bear in the site. So the ramp up schedule is one that we're still working to define. So we'll be able to provide more clarity as we get through the fourth quarter and into the planning for fiscal twenty seven. Understood, thank you. Our next question comes from Justin Happel, Baird.

47:55 Your line is open. Yes. Hi. Great. I just have one here. I guess just given the geographical concentration that you called out for Nexus and being in Texas and with the development pipeline that you have of those, I guess, the five additional sites, not so much the three that are kind of under a firmer commitment. But I'm just curious about the Texas governor recently putting in a moratorium or an audit on some of the new developments and just, I guess your thoughts on that and if there's any exposure on kind of that development pipeline you have right now? Thank you. Yeah, I would say there's no exposure on the development pipeline that we have under active development.

48:42 We expect that the regulatory environment will continue to evolve across multiple states. I do think the state of Texas is very committed to the business in particular and that these projects which are already under construction and already underway will comply with whatever regulatory requirements are established by the state. That's a risk that the hyperscaler has not us in providing service to them. So it could defer or delay a little bit implementation or the rollout of various projects. But we think in the long term, the demand for the services, the demand for compute capacity in addition to the AI compute capacity that's being built will have to be met. And so we wanna participate, we believe that it's going to be a strong marketplace and we think the regulatory risks will get managed.

49:45 These facilities have to be built over time. And so we wanna be there to support the customers as they build them. Thank you. Our next question comes from Josh Chan with UBS. Your line is open. Hi, good morning, John, Jim, great quarter. Maybe on NEXUS, could you talk about the hundreds of sites that are technically possible, but why you ended up with these locations? Are they the largest? Do they make the most sense geographically? Just kind of like how did you end up with these eight? Well, that would be, unfortunately that would be revealing some competitive insights and information that I really prefer not to do.

50:33 I will say that we began the relationship with this top global hyperscaler as a result of a reach out from them to us. And it was to focus on these sites that they had under active development and active planning. And so we pursued them aggressively and were awarded these sites by that top global hyperscaler. And so in addition to that, this co locator is developing sites and we are under contract or under an agreement with them for those five additional sites. And again, those relationships were established as a result of the competitive process.

51:24 So again, we're trying to take advantage of this marketplace in a very efficient way and we're also trying to keep our competitive advantage close to the vest, if you will. So I think that's about all I can say. Okay, yeah, appreciate that. Thank you, John. And then I guess on the retention side, 98% through Q3 seems to be quite good. I guess what's driving this? And then how does the retention pipeline look like as you kind of go into next year? I think it's execution and performance. Obviously, it speaks to the strength of our customer relationships and the quality of the performance that we bring to bear every day. We are hyper focused on doing the right thing in terms of serving our customers and our clients.

52:18 And this has been the focus of the organization for the last five years and we've continued to get better and better at it. It's something that we hold our people accountable for and hold accountable to compensate them for. So as you know, 40% of our incentive comp is related to net new which is a complete measurement which is focused on retention and growth. And when you focus incentives on something, it gets done. And so we're very proud of the retention rate. We look at this literally every month and we think it's service and execution that drives it. Congrats on a good quarter.

53:04 Thank you. Our next question comes from Shlomo Rosenbaum with Stifel. Your line is open. Shlomo Rasimam with Stifel. Your line is open. You can ask your question. Hi, sorry. I was on mute. John, thank you for taking my questions. There's a lot of focus on Nexus and for good reason. But I want to go back to one of the questions about the rest of the business that seems to be getting a little bit overshadowed about the fact that you seem to be having really good bookings and really good execution there. I was wondering if you could parse out the 51% of growth year to date in bookings. If you were to strip out those Nexus bookings, what kind of growth would we be looking at just on the core business? And I know you talked a lot about the strength in the education business and we've been through the strongest selling season. Is that continuing as well? Then I have a follow-up.

54:06 Yeah, I'll start. Like I said, the increase in new business, the record levels of new is primarily driven by the core business, right? So there's only a small piece of nexus in that. But as you said, it's been broad based. BNI, we continue to see record levels of new business, both in the underlying corporate business, as well as the vending and refreshment services. Collegiate, as we talked about, had a record, selling season and mentioning opening the accounts that we talked about. Healthcare, second year in a row, right? Last year we had Penn, this year RWJ, Barnabas. So healthcare has really picked up the levels of net new business. In Destinations, as I mentioned, Stone Mountain, one of the largest wins they've had in recent memory as well. And then broad based growth across the international portfolio, right? It's nearly, I think it's over five years of double digit growth, strength across all the large countries, Europe in particular, from an industry perspective, done really well in broadening out our sports and entertainment business in Europe, both in terms of underlying soccer and then now festivals and concerts.

55:20 And then remote services, strength in Canada, the sands, in the mining business, in Chile, and then the offshore business in Europe. So broad based across the portfolio in terms of geographies and sectors. Okay, great. And then just getting back to free cash flow, that is a metric you used to give out in terms of guidance and you haven't given it out recently. And was wondering if you can just give us some direction on what to expect because clearly the revenue is outperforming, the margin is expanding. And how should we think about where the free cash flow should go this year and how should we be thinking about it over the next several years? And you're going to get to your target of below three times the leverage.

56:09 How should we be thinking about that? Is that going to be funneled more into driving additional organic growth in terms of pursuing more Nexus contracts? Should we see dividend raises? Should we see more share repurchases? Just how should we think about the scope, magnitude of free cash flow and what you're going use it for? Yeah, I'll start. Really the foundation for the capital structure strategy has been to be under three times leverage. It's a clear line of sight to achieving that by year end. I think it's the lowest I've been with the company over twenty years. I think it's the lowest leverage we've had during my tenure. So, we like where we are in terms of the capital structure. On free cash flow, I've talked about targeting a conversion rate of about 40% of AOIs, that gives a sense of where that will be.

57:00 As we grow levels we are, there may be a little bit more of a moderate use of working capital, again a good problem to have. Capital expenditures has been in the three, I think it's closer to 3.5% this year as a result of the record levels of new business. And as you model that out over the coming year, ample capital there to continue to invest in growth. But again, it's been pretty consistent capital of 3.5%. With respect to M and A, we'll continue to be targeted and disciplined, and then we'll have capital to potentially accelerate share repurchases the coming year as well as we balance that all out. But again, the foundation of all that is really getting under three times levered. Thank you.

57:48 There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Zilmer for closing remarks. Well, thank you everybody for the support of the company and for joining us this morning. I'd like to say thank you again to the dedicated Aramark family around the world. Thank you for all your performance, for everything you've done for the organization and your commitment to serving your customers and each other. Again, thank you very much and good day. Thank you for participating. This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.