Iron Mountain earnings down in 2020 fiscal year

Iron Mountain Inc., a storage and information management services company based in Boston, has released its fourth-quarter and full-year 2020 financial results.

According to the company’s latest earnings report, its total reported revenue for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $1.06 billion compared with $1.08 billion in the fourth quarter of 2019, which is a decrease of 1.8 percent. For the full year, total reported revenues decreased 2.7 percent, or 1.7 percent excluding the impact of foreign currency. The company says declines were driven primarily by a 10.8 percent decline in service revenue in 2020 compared with 2019, but that has been partially offset by a 2.9 percent increase in storage revenue this past year.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the fourth quarter of 2020 was $374.2 million compared with $393.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2019, a decrease of 4.8 percent.

William L. Meaney, president and CEO of Iron Mountain, says the company is very “pleased” with how its team navigated the pandemic in 2020.

He says, “Throughout the pandemic, we were laser-focused on execution and controlling those factors that we could, leading to outperformance against our own internal expectations through the last three quarters of 2020. This resulted in continued strength in total storage rental revenue, which grew nearly 4 percent on a constant-currency basis and 2.4 percent organically in 2020.”

Meaney reports that Iron Mountain’s service revenue declines offset the company’s strong storage performance. He adds that the company grew its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) by 1.3 percent when adjusting for currency, while its margin expanded 110 basis points. However, he says, revenue was down $115 million in the year due to service activity declines.

“I want to especially thank our teams across the globe who stayed focused in the face of so many obvious distractions,” Meaney says. “Finally, as we look to 2021 and beyond, I’ve never been more optimistic about our opportunities for growth at any other time in our history, even with the anticipated continued headwinds due to COVID-19 impacting the revenue from our traditional service areas. This is in large part due to our decision not to dial back on our investment in innovation and new product development, so that we could provide more solutions to our customers, not just in the COVID crisis, but postcrisis.”