Star Equity Hldgs Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
Star Equity Hldgs (NASDAQ:STRR) reported third-quarter financial results on Thursday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.
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Summary
Star Equity Hldgs reported improved financial performance in Q3 2026, with revenue at $53.9 million, gross profit at $23.2 million, and adjusted EBITDA at $1.5 million, driven by the inclusion of the Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions post-merger.
The company realized $3.1 million in merger synergies, exceeding the initial expectation of $2 million, and reduced corporate costs by $0.8 million year-over-year.
The Business Services division faced a 9% decline in revenue due to pressures in the professional talent market, but investments in digital solutions and AI are expected to enhance future growth.
Building Solutions experienced softness in residential and multifamily markets, though backlog and new orders improved, with a notable $2 million contract for a Nantucket workforce housing project.
Energy Services showed strong performance, with gross profit up 17% and a strategic acquisition of a machine shop in Vernal, Utah, to enhance capabilities.
The company ended the quarter with $7.8 million in total cash and generated positive free cash flow, with a focus on share repurchases and asset monetization to unlock value.
Strategic priorities for 2027 include driving organic growth, improving profitability and cash generation, and disciplined capital allocation, including potential acquisitions and real estate asset sales.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Greetings and welcome to the Star Equity Hldgs third quarter 2026 results conference call. Please be advised that the discussions on today’s call may include forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to Star Equity Hldgs’ most recent 10-K, 10-Q and other filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these projections and assumptions.
The company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Please also note that on this call management may reference non-GAAP financial measures including EBITDA, adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share, which are all financial measures not recognized under U.S. GAAP as required by SEC rules and regulations. These non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled to their most comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release issued yesterday. If you didn’t receive a copy of the earnings release and would like one after the call, please contact Star Equity Hldgs at 203-489-9500 or its Investor Relations representative Lena Kati of The Equity Group at 212-836.
Also, this call is being broadcast live over the Internet and may be accessed at Star Equity Hldgs’ website via www.starequity.com. Shortly after the call, a replay will also be available on the company’s website. It is now my pleasure to introduce Star Equity Hldgs’ Chief Executive Officer, Jeffrey E Eberwein. Please go ahead, sir.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We greatly appreciate your interest in Star Equity Hldgs and we thank you for joining us today. I’ll begin by reviewing our third quarter 2026 results at the holding company level. After that, Jake Zabkowicz, CEO of Hudson Talent Solutions, will give us an update on the performance of that business, and Rick Coleman, our COO, will provide additional insights into the performance of our Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions.
Our third quarter results continue to reflect last year’s merger between Hudson and Star Equity Hldgs. On an as-reported basis, revenue, gross profit and adjusted EBITDA were all up year over year, driven by the full quarter inclusion of the Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions. Following the August 2025 merger between Hudson and Star Equity Hldgs, those divisions were included in our consolidated results, but they were only included for a part of the third quarter of 2025.
On slide 3 of our earnings presentation you can see that revenue was 53.9 million, gross profit was 23.2 million and adjusted EBITDA was 1.5 million. And on the merger synergies to date, we’ve realized 3.1 million on an annualized basis, and that exceeds our initial expectation of 2 million of merger synergies. On slide 5 of the earnings deck, you can see that our corporate costs were 5.4 million in the first nine months of the year, and that compares to 7.7 on a pro forma basis, and that’s how we calculate the annualized synergy number.
And when we’re talking about corporate costs, I just want to make sure that you know we’re talking about the numbers that can be found in the adjusted EBITDA reconciliation tables that are on pages 18 and 21 of the earnings presentation. At the division level, our third quarter results were mixed. There’s continuing to be pressure in the professional talent market in our Business Services division, and in Building Solutions we continue to experience soft residential and multifamily construction markets. Going back to Business Services, gross profit declined 2% year over year due to those pressures in the professional talent market. And we’re continuing to invest for growth. We invested 1.4 million in the third quarter.
Building Solutions were also below the prior-year quarter on a pro forma basis due to the market softness. In addition, one of our units, KBS Builders, had a project shift from 2026 to 2027, and notably we did receive a nonrefundable deposit on this project and so we do think it’s going to happen. In our Energy Services business, we did have strong gross profit and adjusted EBITDA and the results were up on a pro forma basis. And in October, we expanded this division by acquiring a machine shop in Vernal, Utah.
On slides 6 and 7, you can see that we ended the third quarter with 7.8 million in total cash, and that includes 1.6 million of restricted cash. During Q3, we generated 0.9 million of cash from operating activities compared with using 2.7 million of cash in the third quarter of 2025. Third quarter this year we had net CapEx of 0.3 million, so we did generate positive free cash flow. Working capital excluding cash was 19.9 million at the end of the quarter compared to 22.4 million at the end of the year, so we have made strides improving our working capital management.
Stockholders’ equity was 58.1 million. We repurchased almost 29,000 shares in the third quarter for 0.3 million under our share repurchase program, and we have 1.3 million remaining on this $3 million authorization that was approved last year. We continue to believe our stock is undervalued, so we view share repurchases as a very attractive allocation of capital. Before I turn the call over to Jake, just a word on corporate costs. And again, when we talk about corporate costs, we’re talking about the column in the adjusted EBITDA reconciliation table. In the third quarter, corporate costs were 1.8 million, and that compares with 1.2 million a year ago. But the 1.2 million is not a pro forma number, and so it only includes the Star Equity Hldgs operating businesses for part of the quarter.
On a pro forma basis, corporate costs a year ago were 2.6 million, and so we did reduce corporate costs by 0.8 million year over year, which reflects the elimination of duplicative public company and corporate overhead following the Hudson–Star Equity Hldgs merger. These corporate costs do exclude non-recurring expenses, which were 0.7 million in this year’s third quarter and 1.3 million in last year’s third quarter. Across the company, we remain focused on operational excellence, cost management and investing in growth initiatives, and we think this will enhance our competitive position and drive improved operating and financial performance going forward. I’ll now turn the call over to Jake to discuss our Business Services division.
Jacob Zabkowicz (CEO)
Thank you, Jeff, and good morning. Our Business Services division is building momentum through strong performance in the Americas, expanding our digital capabilities and increased engagement with prospective clients. While the professional talent market remains challenging, we are investing selectively to strengthen our competitive position and support future growth. Starting on slide 11, third quarter revenue was 33.8 million compared with 37 million in the prior-year quarter, a decline of 9%. Gross profit was more resilient, declining just 2% to 18.2 million versus 18.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA was 1 million compared with 1.7 million a year ago. The decline largely reflects deliberate investments in our digital solutions of SynFusion and expanding into new geographies and related growth initiatives. These investments totaled 1.4 million in the quarter, compared with 1 million in the third quarter of 2025.
Turning to slide 12 now, our rolling fourth quarter RPO new business total contract value was 121.3 million, including 12.9 million in new logo wins and 108.4 million in renewals and expansions with existing clients. The trailing twelve-month gross profit of 71.5 million has remained relatively stable over the past four quarters. Our trailing twelve-month adjusted EBITDA margin was 4.4% compared with 7.9% a year ago, reflecting the growth in investments discussed earlier.
On a regional basis, we continue to grow the Americas where the gross profit increased approximately 4%. Conditions remain more challenging in EMEA and Asia Pacific where the gross profit declined 9% and 5%, respectively. As shown in slide 13, Asia Pac remained our largest region, accounting for 62% of the divisional revenue and 45% of the gross profit. The Americas contributed 40% of the gross profit and EMEA contributed 15%. Across the business, we’re combining growth investments as well as focus on operational efficiencies. We’re expanding our use of agentic AI and automation to help recruiters work more productively, improve our candidate matching and deliver greater value to our clients. These initiatives helped us sustain gross profit despite a mixed regional environment and are essential to our technology-enabled delivery strategy. We are encouraged by our uptick in new customer conversations and new logo wins in recent months, supported by our broader geographical reach and enhanced digital offerings.
In November we added those capabilities with the acquisition of Cornerstone RPO, strengthening our U.S. presence and bringing established enterprise client relationships and experienced U.S. sales leadership to our platform. We’ve also advanced to number three globally in HRO Today’s 2026 Global RPO Baker’s Dozen customer satisfaction rankings, a significant improvement versus history. We believe this recognition reaffirms our continued commitments to our clients and strengthens our position as we compete for new enterprise RPO relationships. Our focus now is converting that interest into new business and expanding existing client relationships. We continue to execute our land-and-expand strategy, including leveraging our presence in Japan and Latin America, while we maintain discipline on how we invest and operate.
With our expanded capabilities, stronger customer recognition and growing geographical footprint, we believe we’re positioning our Business Services to capture opportunities as market conditions improve. Now I’ll turn it over to Rick to discuss our financial and operational performance of our Building Solutions and Energy Services divisions.
Richard K. Coleman Jr. (Chief Operating Officer)
Thank you, Jake, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide 10, our focus in Building Solutions is on growing orders and backlog and positioning the business for improved performance. Despite continued softness in both residential and commercial construction, we made progress during the quarter with sequential increases in both our backlog and our trailing twelve-month book-to-bill ratio. Third quarter revenue was 16.3 million, gross profit was 3.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA was 0.7 million.
These results compare with pro forma revenue of 21.4 million, gross profit of 5.3 million, and adjusted EBITDA of 2.6 million in the third quarter of 2025. In addition to challenging market conditions, the year-over-year comparison reflects the shift of a large KBS project from 2026 to 2027. As Jeff mentioned earlier, we received a non-refundable deposit for that project. Quarter-end backlog increased to 11.4 million from 10.6 million at the end of the second quarter.
Our trailing twelve-month book-to-bill ratio also improved, reaching 0.86 compared with 0.77 last quarter. New orders totaled 17.1 million, our second consecutive quarter with more than 17 million in new orders. While overall demand remains soft, we continue to add attractive projects and gain traction in workforce and affordable housing, assisted living, and senior housing. We expect these markets to become even more significant business drivers as conditions improve.
In the meantime, we’re maintaining discipline in project selection, execution, and margin management to strengthen the foundation for future growth. Turning to Energy Services on slide 14, the division delivered higher gross profit and adjusted EBITDA on stable revenue, demonstrating improved profitability on a pro forma basis year over year. Third quarter revenue was $3.7 million, up 1% from the prior-year quarter. On a pro forma basis, gross profit increased 17% to 1.8 million from 1.5 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased 4% to 1.1 million from 1.0 million. We continue to gain share in our core markets with particular strength in mining and geothermal applications.
Our exposure to a range of drilling applications, combined with disciplined execution, continues to support the division’s performance. To build on that performance, we’re investing in new tools and working closely with our largest customers to align those investments with their needs. Additionally, in October we acquired a machine shop in Vernal, Utah, which will operate as a bolt-on to our existing ADT business. We expect this acquisition to add in-house machining, repair, and rebuild capabilities to our existing operation and give us greater control over the maintenance of our tool fleet, help shorten turnaround times, and support greater utilization and improved margins over time. With these added capabilities and continued investment in our tool fleet, we see opportunities to deepen customer relationships and expand our presence across the markets and geographies we serve.
I’ll turn the call back over to Jeff now for closing remarks.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you, Rick. Our focus is on translating the broader platform that we’ve built into stronger earnings, cash flow, and long-term shareholder value. We’re making progress on several fronts: growing gross profit and adjusted EBITDA in Energy Services, sustaining resilient gross profit in Business Services, and growing orders and backlog in Building Solutions. We’re encouraged by our progress as we manage through ongoing macroeconomic challenges and position the company for sustained growth and profitability.
To that end, as we announced this morning, our KBS business signed a $2 million contract to manufacture a workforce housing project on Nantucket. Production has already commenced for this project, and delivery is projected before year-end 2026. Our recent bolt-on acquisitions in the Business Services and Energy Services divisions reflect our continued focus on growth opportunities and our disciplined approach to adding capabilities within our existing platforms.
We continue to evaluate additional acquisition opportunities across all three divisions, as well as potential new verticals where we can apply our operating model. Looking towards 2027, we’re focused on three priorities. First, driving organic growth by investing in the people, technology, and processes that help our businesses compete, scale, and serve customers. Second, improving profitability and cash generation through operating efficiencies, shared services, and continued realization of merger synergies. Since completing the Hudson Star merger in August 2025, we’ve made great progress in bringing our businesses together, strengthening collaboration, and putting our more diversified structure to work.
And third is disciplined capital allocation. Alongside our acquisition strategy, we’ve launched a process to monetize our non-cash-generating real estate assets as part of our broader effort to unlock value. The one asset is a factory in Colfax, Wisconsin, and we’ve signed a purchase and sale agreement for that facility, and that’s filed as an 8-K earlier this week. The second facility is in Oxford, Maine, where we also launched a transaction for that property.
We expect to generate over 9 million in gross proceeds from those two transactions, and we hope both close before the end of the year. In addition, I would just like to remind people that we have an NOL that’s 215 million, which is potentially a meaningful asset that will enhance after-tax returns on our growth initiatives and strategic transactions. As we enter this next phase with a strengthening Energy Services platform, a resilient Business Services franchise, growing Building Solutions backlog, and additional contributions from our recent acquisitions, we have, we believe, multiple paths to improve profitability in 2027 while navigating near-term market conditions. We remain very confident in the opportunities ahead and believe our shares are undervalued relative to the strength and potential of our businesses.
Our focus is on demonstrating that value through continued execution and improved financial performance. With that, operator, can you please open the line for questions?
OPERATOR
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question or make a comment may press star and 1 on their touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Participants are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. Our first question comes from Joe Gomes from Noble Capital.
Please go ahead.
Joe Gomes (Analyst)
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Morning, Joe.
Joe Gomes (Analyst)
Zach, I wanted to start out—Jake, maybe help with this over at Hudson. You know, what improvements have you seen so far with the automation, the agentic AI investments in terms of placements per recruiter, delivery cost, things of that nature?
Jacob Zabkowicz (CEO)
Yeah, Joe, great question. And one of the things that we talk about with a lot of our partners is what’s the ROI that we’re seeing as we continue to invest in further automation, agentic AI. And we’re seeing a couple different fronts. First and foremost, with some of the agents that we’ve had deployed within our partnerships, we’re seeing a greater intake and uptick of client satisfaction. And what I mean by that is hiring manager satisfaction, candidate satisfaction, because our recruiters are allowed to be more consultative with both the hiring managers and candidates and spending more time on understanding their needs and wants versus sourcing and screening and going through the normal processes with the recruitment team.
Where we’re seeing another uptick in ROI is on the coordination side. And what I mean by coordination side, it’s interview scheduling, Q&A with candidates, allowing candidates to understand what the hiring managers are looking for. And so we’re seeing a broad range of productivity, and it really depends on the client and their workflow, but also the region that we’re supporting and how we’re supporting them. It’s hard to quantify in an exact percentage right now because the adoption is still undertaking, and it’s actually workflow-driven and not specific to a broad function.
But we’re expecting further automation, further consistencies, and further ROI as adoption does happen. But when we think about AI and we think about the adoption of AI, we’re really workflow-driven in that regard versus a broad spectrum. So more to come. But one of the things with Hudson Fusion and our agentic AI strategy is to not only create that further automation and see efficiencies and recruiter productivity, but also bring that higher level of customer and client satisfaction to the table as well.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
And Joe, I would add to this—this is Jeff—I would add to that. We’ve had softer hiring conditions for three to four years now, and that’s coincided with increasing use and interest in AI. And so we felt it necessary, despite the market softness, to step up our investment in our technology, our digital offering, as well as sales and marketing. And we believe in our business there’s going to be more and more of a separation over time between those service providers who are facile with digital and AI and ones that are less so.
And in the HRO Today rankings, which are all based on client surveys, we have risen in the rankings. A few years ago, we ranked ninth globally, and in the most recent rankings that came out, we’ve moved up to third. And we think that’s the clearest indication that we’re on the right track and that there is benefit to the investments we’re making. And we think that improvement in reputational capital will ultimately translate into market share gains, improvements in revenue growth and profitability, and ultimately translate into improved financial performance.
Joe Gomes (Analyst)
Thanks for that detailed answer. And then kind of switching over to Building Services. If you look at some of the commentary coming out of the National Association of Home Builders, they’re talking elevated financing, construction costs will continue to constrain housing production in 2027. So how is that factoring into your demand assumptions for your budgeting for Building Solutions for 2027?
Matthew K Diamond (Chief Accounting Officer)
Yeah, that’s a really good point, Joe. And we do follow the nationwide trends as well as the trends that are in our particular geographies. And we would describe single family as weak and commercial multifamily as very weak. And what we have done in our businesses is a few different things. One is we’ve really made a focus on the theme of affordable housing, workforce housing, like the project we announced this morning, and the areas of senior living, assisted living, and we had a project along that theme earlier this year.
Those are markets where there’s a strong need. We have a great solution and they’re a little bit independent of things like interest rates and macroeconomic factors. It’s more driven by need. And when I think about it, there’s a lot of statistics out there showing that we’re underbuilt as a country. And it’s unfortunate that construction costs are up and interest rates are higher because we need more units being built, not fewer as a country. And if there’s one thing that would make an improvement, which is permitting reform, one of the reasons why this large project that we thought was going to happen in 2026 got shifted to 2027 is some permitting issues in an urban area.
But, you know, I would say we’re cautiously optimistic. We’re focused on the things we can control. And our new orders have improved the last two quarters versus where they were earlier in the year. So that’s somewhat encouraging. We would like new orders to be 20 million a quarter, if not higher, and get our book-to-bill ratio up above 1. And we would like this business to be generating 20 million of revenue a quarter. And it’s not there yet. Another thing I would say is that our sales teams have been spending more time on the road making new relationships, educating people about the benefits of building in a factory. The construction market is a big market and factory-built construction is a small share of the total. And we do think that share will grow over time. We do think that’s a secular growth theme in a cyclical business.
Joe Gomes (Analyst)
Hey, Jeff, this is Joe. Can you hear me?
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Yes, can you hear us?
Joe Gomes (Analyst)
We got lost for about 30 seconds, so I apologize. I don’t know if it’s my end or your end, but no, I did not hear your response to my last question.
Matthew K Diamond (Chief Accounting Officer)
Okay, well, the short version. The short version is we’re cautiously optimistic about things getting better. We’d like to see our new orders, 20 million a quarter or higher. And we’re doing a lot of things to get there.
Joe Gomes (Analyst)
Okay, thanks, Matt. Let me just ask one more question here. I don’t know if you can provide us any update either on Hart Hanks or G Group.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. On Hart Hanks, we filed our S-4 filing with the SEC. That’s our preliminary filing. And if one goes back and looks at all the documents, the filings we made in August and then that S-4 filing, there are some things that we’re waiting on. So in order to get to a closed deal, we need the SEC’s clearance of the S-4. And once we have that, we will file the final version and schedule the shareholder vote on the Hart Hanks side. And we also need some approvals from their bank.
And I would say all of those things are in process. We hope that we get to a closed deal by the end of the year or the very beginning of next year. But we’re working on the critical path items there. And then on G Group, they’ve publicly announced that they have hired a bank. They’re running a process, a sale process. And we have been public with our proposal and we’re waiting to see how that plays out.
Joe Gomes (Analyst)
Okay, thanks for that update. I’ll get back in queue.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
All right, thanks, Joe.
OPERATOR
Our next question comes from Michael Mathison with C30 and Company. Please go ahead.
Michael Mathison (Analyst)
Good morning, you guys, and thanks for taking my questions. My first question is for Jake. You guys described business services kind of being soft globally. I wonder if you could just give us a regional breakdown about the three regions you operate in.
Jacob Zabkowicz (CEO)
Yeah, Michael, thank you for that. So as I mentioned in the earnings, in the release, APAC is still our largest region that we support both from a revenue and from a gross profit standpoint. But we’re seeing different results in specific regions or specific countries within the APAC market. Right. Australia is still one of our largest areas that we support and some of the feedback that we’re getting with our clients, there is some hesitation on volumes on where they’re going to invest and where they’re going to grow this year and into next year.
However, we’re also seeing an uptrend in newly acquired geographies in the APAC region like Japan. And we’re seeing growth in our Japanese market, which we’re excited about. A recent acquisition a couple years ago, we bought a Singapore business and we’re still seeing that grow steadily, but also there’s some hesitations in that market. So APAC will still be a cornerstone for us and we are going to continue to invest in that market. But it is softer than previous years.
If you look at the Americas where I shared earlier that we are growing and as part of both from our investment strategy in Latin America and our recent acquisition of Cornerstone RPO in November here, the Americas, we do expect to see further significant growth because not only of our investments but also our land-and-expand strategy and growing some of our legacy clients from our APAC region into the Americas region. So really excited to see that growth this last quarter and hopefully into the next quarters.
EMEA is still hit and miss. With the geopolitical issues, with the ongoing pressures in EMEA, we’re seeing spotty results in certain areas. But we are tightening our strategy and our operational rigor in EMEA and it is still a pinnacle of our delivery excellence. But I do expect EMEA to be soft in the coming months, in the coming quarters and obviously focus our investments in the other regions. Mike, I hope that answers your question, sir.
Michael Mathison (Analyst)
Oh, it does. Thank you. Very informative, very thorough. Some other questions on the revenue side. You’ve spoken about building solutions and how you, you know, $17 million back-to-back quarters, that’s great. But you’re aiming for $20 million as kind of a target. Do you have a sense of how long the ramp to 20 would take? Is that a year from now?
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah. This is Jeff. Michael. You know, it’s really hard to predict because it’s a mix of a decent amount of the business is residential and smaller projects, repair and remodel type of projects and then the larger projects, the multifamily ones like the one we announced this morning, are lumpier. So it’s very difficult to predict. But if we continue to make progress in the areas of focus, so workforce housing, affordable housing, senior living, we’re hopeful that the new orders will get above 20 million at some point next year, maybe in the spring of next year.
And that’ll be a good leading indicator for getting revenue back up to 20 million a quarter, which is what we view to be normal. There’s been times that our revenue’s been above that, times we’ve been below that. But when people say, gee, this is a cyclical business, what’s mid-cycle? What should this business average over time? We would answer that by saying 20 million a quarter of revenue, 25% gross margin, and EBITDA margins in the 10% to 15% range. That’s what we view to be mid-cycle industry conditions. And we’re clearly below that right now. But we’re hopeful we can get there next year even without improvement in any macro conditions.
Michael Mathison (Analyst)
Okay, thank you. Very informative. Last one for me: for the transaction announced this morning, you sold the asset for 5.2 million, so that’s 5.2 million of incoming cash. Is there anything you can say about the lease obligation that will be taken on, you know, operating the asset going forward?
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Sure. So not to get into too much complexity, but the real estate assets that we own are held in our investments division. And so the business does pay rent to our investments division. In consolidated accounting, that gets eliminated at the holding company level. But you’re right, when we sell an asset, then the business that’s used to paying rent then pays it to a third party instead of paying it to our investments division. And what I would tell you is that the market for both of these properties, a typical cap rate is 8% to 9%.
And if you look at the 8-K that we filed earlier this week, I do think it has a rent figure in there. But if you just take the proceeds and multiply it times, call it 8%, that’ll get you approximately what the annual rent payments are.
Michael Mathison (Analyst)
Okay, terrific. Thanks. That helps a lot with the model. Well, again, thanks for taking my questions. Good luck in the coming quarter.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Thank you.
OPERATOR
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, you may press star and one. Our last question comes from Theodore O’Neill with Litchfield Hills Research. Please go ahead.
Theodore O’Neill (Analyst)
Thanks very much. So let me start with the building side of the business. I have looked for sort of statistical correlations between the business and stuff that’s going on in the rest of the world. And there isn’t any good correlation, I think because I really need New England, sort of northern New England or northern latitude construction metrics to bank off of. So if I look at your slide 10 for historicals, in trying to find something here, I can’t use the forecast because the numbers keep bouncing all over the place and it makes a difference between us having a sales number that you meet or don’t. It looks to me like whatever the ending backlog is of the previous quarter ought to be my revenue forecast for the next quarter. Do you have any thoughts on that?
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
I think that’s directionally right, but it’s not going to be a perfect correlation. A decent amount of business that we do is pretty short cycle and so it’s in the backlog, but it’s in the backlog for less than one quarter. So I think the better leading indicator is the new orders line. So I would encourage you to take, I say the new orders line like the last four quarters, like the average of the last four quarters. And that’s probably a better leading indicator than just the backlog number exactly.
But the backlog going down at the end of last year and in Q1, those were kind of leading indicators into the softness that we experienced really Q4 last year and the first half of this year. But we do think our revenue has bottomed on, say, like a trailing four-quarter basis and is improving going forward. And just remind people that because we’re in the upper Midwest and the Northeast, Q1 is always a very weak quarter for us. So I would encourage people to look at like a rolling four-quarter average.
Theodore O’Neill (Analyst)
Okay. All right, that makes sense. Refresh my memory on the KBS $2 million business for workforce housing in Nantucket, the timing of that is that—refresh my memory on this—the you can’t do the construction until the summer people leave and then you can bring the stuff in. Is that the timing?
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
That’s right. And then you have the winter to deal with. So there’s basically no deliveries—roughly Memorial Day to Labor Day is a good way to think about it. That’s peak season for them. No deliveries. We are past that. And even though we just got the contract signed, we’ve already been producing the project and it’s similar to other projects we’ve done before. And the current schedule has us delivering it on site before the end of the year.
Theodore O’Neill (Analyst)
Okay, thanks. And on the business services side of the business, the year-over-year decline, is that structural across sort of your business and it’s not a market share issue for you, or is there some idiosyncratic part of this by country or by the type of job you fill? That’s part of why it’s down year over year.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
Yeah, I would note a couple things there. So in our Hudson business, which makes up our business services, there’s really two businesses in there. One is the true RPO. And the way the accounting works is that there’s no cost of sales there, cost of revenue; all the costs are down in SG&A. And then contracting, which is a service we do for existing RPO clients — most of the time it’s only a service we do for existing RPO clients. We did lose a client that’s solely on the contracting side.
It never converted into full RPO. And so that’s about, I think, a 3% margin. And so we did have a revenue loss, but much less of a gross profit loss because of that one contracting client. So that’s kind of one thing. And then you’re right, if you look at gross profit, which is, we think, a better metric to look at for fee income, which is a term that a lot of people in the industry use. You know, we do have a different geographic mix than some of the peers. And our strongest area is, as Jake mentioned, the Americas. And we are growing from scratch in Latin America and starting to get traction there. So really good growth in our highest area of investment, which is the Americas.
And we think that will continue into next year. And as Jake mentioned, we’re more international than some of the peer group. And we did have some softness in areas of Asia-Pac and then in EMEA. The Middle East was much worse year over year, as you might expect. And continental Europe and the UK we would describe as the weak side of neutral. So we really don’t think we’re losing share. If anything, we are gaining share. And if we’re down in Q3 and a competitor happened to be up, I would say that’s because of geographic mix, not because we’re losing share.
Theodore O’Neill (Analyst)
Okay. And then energy services. So to understand, the machine shop acquisition is to try to support your broader geographic mix of customers. And if that’s the case, is there a limit to the number of machine shops you should be buying?
Richard K. Coleman Jr. (Chief Operating Officer)
Yes, in any one geographic area. So the original location of this business is Evanston, Wyoming. They added three other locations over time, and I think that’s in our materials and so happy to talk about those. The other three locations, let’s just say, aren’t as fully built out as the Evanston location in terms of the number of machines, in terms of the capability. And so in this instance, our existing shop in Vernal, Utah would have to outsource that work to that machine shop in Vernal.
So they were kind of like a subcontractor at times for us in a way. A business we’ve known for a very long time, have done business with, know them very well. They have their own clients as well, in addition to doing work for us. And the owners wanted to retire and so we ended up acquiring it. And it makes that Vernal, Utah location more capable. I’m not going to say quite as capable as Evanston, but more so. So it just enables us to better serve clients in that region.
And we’d like all four of our geographic locations to have improved capabilities over time. And we’d also like to add more. More geographic locations.
Theodore O’Neill (Analyst)
Okay, makes sense. That’s it for me. Thank you.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
All right, thanks, Theo.
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, this was our last question. I would like now to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.
Jeffrey E Eberwein (Chief Executive Officer)
All right, thank you, operator. So if anyone does have any follow-up questions, you can look at our website, starequity.com, and our investor deck and our materials all have our contact information and happy to schedule a call and answer your questions. So we thank you for joining us today and thank you for your interest in our company. We look forward to continuing to update you on our progress as we move forward. And so thanks again and have a great day.
OPERATOR
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.
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