Quanta Services Inc (PWR) — Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you and welcome everyone to the Quanta Services first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. This morning, we issued a press release announcing our first quarter results which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at quantaservices.com, along with a summary of our 2020 outlook and commentary we will discuss this morning. Additionally, we will use a slide presentation this morning to accompany our prepared remarks, which is viewable through the call's webcast and is also available on the Investor Relations section of the Quanta Services website. Please remember that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, May 7, 2020, and therefore, you're advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of any replay of this call. This call will include forward-looking statements intended to qualify under the Safe Harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include all statements reflecting Quanta's expectations, intentions, assumptions or beliefs about future events or performance or that do not solely relate to historical or current facts. Forward-looking statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict or beyond Quanta's control, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. For additional information concerning some of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, please refer to the cautionary language included in today's press release along with the company's periodic reports and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission which are available on Quanta's or the SEC's website. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Quanta does not undertake any obligations to update such statements and disclaims any written or oral statements made by any third-party regarding the subject matter of this call. Please also note that we will present certain historical and forecasted non-GAAP financial measures in today's call, including adjusted diluted EPS, backlog, EBITDA and free cash flow. Reconciliations of these measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release. Lastly, if you would like to be notified when Quanta publishes news releases and other information, please sign up for email alerts through the Investor Relations section of quantaservices.com. We also encourage investors and others interested in our company to follow Quanta IR and Quanta Services on the social media channels listed on our website. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Duke Austin, Quanta's President and CEO. Duke?

Thanks, Kip. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Quanta Services first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. On the call today, I will provide commentary about our first quarter results, the operational steps we are taking to successfully navigate the current environment and resiliency and sustainability of Quanta's customers and business model. Derrick Jensen, Quanta's Chief Financial Officer, will provide a review of our first quarter results and 2020 financial expectations. And then, I will provide additional remarks before we turn it to your questions. Quanta is operating in an unprecedented health and economic environment with no predeveloped process or playbook to guide us through. This is when our people, who are the very core of Quanta, have demonstrated their tenacity and instincts over the past several weeks, which has been nothing short of inspiring. We believe our core competency is our ability to safely execute in a challenging environment. Our people work in harsh conditions every day, and we have managed through economic cycles and other challenges throughout our history. While each circumstance is different, our people rising to the occasion is nothing new to Quanta. We have remained vigilant and have adapted to the unforeseen nature of this pandemic. We have remained committed to our operating and business model and to the successful execution of our objective. We believe our resilient business model and strong financial position provide us with the opportunity to not only navigate through times of uncertainty, like we are currently experiencing, but to come out the other side better positioned. First and foremost, we remain focused on the health and safety of our employees. We implemented our existing pandemic plan in response to COVID-19 in February to protect our employees in the field and subsequently initiated work-from-home policies where appropriate. We developed our pandemic plan to be comprehensive, and we are confident it has been effective. We have collaborated with our customers and continue to enhance our plan as we move forward as shelter-in-place orders ease and the density of the general public in proximity to our work areas increase. At the end of the first quarter, we had approximately 39,500 employees and, to date, have not experienced any meaningful health impacts on the availability of our workforce or key personnel as a result of COVID-19. Quanta, our customers, and the end markets we address are all considered critical infrastructure per government guidelines and are needed to continue to work during periods of community restriction, which most states and localities have adhered to. Our proactive steps have not only protected the health and safety of our employees, but have allowed us to provide continuity of service to our customers. Our services are needed, perhaps more than ever, as tens of millions of people are now working from home and sheltering in place and require reliable electricity, communications, Internet, heating, and cooling services. Our first quarter results were solid and would have put us on track to meet our pre-pandemic 2020 outlook. We ended the quarter with backlog near record levels. We expect record backlog during the year as we renew various master service agreements and secure additional projects, which demonstrates the resiliency of Quanta's business and our favorable positioning going forward. Demand for our services during the quarter remained high in most service lines; however, in the later part of March, we began to experience some impacts from COVID-19 and challenges in the energy and industrial market. Shelter-in-place restrictions in some areas have created disruptions to portions of our operations, particularly in major metro markets that have been significantly impacted by COVID-19. This dynamic has also compounded challenges that the broader energy market is experiencing, which is affecting portions of our Pipeline and Industrial segment. We believe April will prove to be our most challenging month of the year due to shelter-in-place declarations throughout North America and their impacts on our operations in some areas. However, cities and states are beginning to ease community restrictions. As a result, we are planning with our customers for the disruptions to our work to moderate. We have been and continue to communicate closely and collaborate with our customers while we are experiencing some minor permitting delays. We are not experiencing and do not expect to experience significant supply chain disruptions or workforce availability issues. We have proactively implemented certain steps to manage costs, given the uncertain macro environment. Some of the cost management steps we have taken include suspension of hiring and raises at various operations, discretionary spending, non-essential travel, and deferral of non-essential capital expenditures. We have also taken tough but necessary actions to manage headcount at operations that are facing challenges and uncertainty under the current environment. While we believe Quanta's business will remain resilient and flexible, and we continue to see opportunity for profitable growth going forward, we believe these prudent actions are appropriate, given the circumstances. We have worked diligently over the past several years to create a more repeatable and sustainable business model. Our portfolio of companies, geographic and service diversity, and focus on growing our base business give us confidence in the resiliency of our business. We estimate that 80% to 90% of our revenues are derived from utility, communications, and certain pipeline and industrial infrastructure services that we believe will be resilient even in today's environment. The remaining less resilient portion of our revenues, some of which are currently under pressure, could stabilize in the second half of this year and provide multiyear growth opportunities and reasonable returns. Derrick will provide additional details in his commentary regarding our outlook. Demand for our electric power services remains solid, and we have not seen meaningful reductions in the utility CapEx budgets. Utilities continue to actively deploy capital into their systems to modernize, harden, expand, and adapt to current and future needs. Long-time Quanta utility customers across our service offerings are investing tens of billions of dollars to modernize and create sustainable systems for end-users over the medium term. Work on our Watay and East-West Tie Line electric transmission project in Canada is proceeding and to date is not meaningfully impacted by COVID-19. Additionally, throughout our service territories, we continue to actively pursue billions of dollars of larger electric transmission projects, some of which have recently made incremental progress toward final permitting and construction. We are confident we are well positioned for many of these projects. Our communications infrastructure services operation, which are included in the Electric Power segment, had a good first quarter with double-digit revenue growth and solid profitability. Our projects are moving forward with minimal disruption, and we continue to see strong demand for overall fiber densification to reach homes and businesses and for the early stages of 5G deployment. Utilities and electric cooperatives also continue to evaluate opportunities for their involvement in 5G and fiber capacity, and we are actively collaborating with them on solutions. Turning to our Pipeline and Industrial segment. In the first quarter, our gas utility operations performed well in what is seasonally the weakest quarter of the year. Utilities are in the early stages of multi-decade modernization programs to replace aging gas distribution infrastructure to meet regulatory requirements aimed at improving reliability and safety. However, as shelter-in-place orders were implemented across North America, community restrictions impacted our operations in certain metro markets beginning in the last week of March, which continues to date. As a result, we have managed headcount in those markets to match meaningfully reduced utilization rates. However, these restrictions are beginning to lift, and our activity and utilizations are gradually increasing as we rehire employees and get back to work. Our industrial and services operations had a record first quarter, driven by broad demand for our services, primarily from refinery customers. Our core catalyst services are a critical path and necessary for our customers to efficiently refine product. As we entered the second quarter, demand for our catalyst services remains solid. However, due to COVID-19 and challenging overall energy markets, customers began restricting onsite activity for our other services and deferring maintenance and certain turnaround projects to later this year or 2021. We believe our industrial services operations will be significantly impacted in the second quarter due to these factors, and we have been implementing initiatives to manage costs to the current environment. However, we're confident that this delayed work will return in the future as economic and market conditions improve, and we are cautiously optimistic that there is opportunity for stability in the second half of this year. Certain portions of our midstream ancillary services operations in the United States and Canada began to experience softness in the later part of the first quarter, primarily due to challenging energy market conditions, which have been amplified by COVID-19 and have continued into the second quarter. Quanta has some, but not significant, midstream services exposure to oil-focused areas. At this point, we expect midstream activities in oil-focused areas to be impacted through at least the balance of this year. As a result, we have reduced headcount and are actively implementing cost management initiatives at impacted operations. On the plus side, we continue to actively pursue billions of dollars of larger pipeline project opportunities, most of which are for natural gas transportation. These larger pipeline projects are needed for long-term transportation of hydrocarbons, are underpinned by long-term commercial agreements with producers, and tend to be resilient to the short-term fluctuations in commodity prices. However, permitting and regulatory approvals remain the gating factor for when these larger pipeline projects move forward. Over the past five years, we have executed on our strategy to mitigate risk inherent in our business and to prepare for unexpected events through diversification and maintaining a strong financial profile. We have a diverse, high-quality customer base with low customer concentration, a broad and diverse geographic presence, and a diverse and expanding line of services. We believe our diversification strategy, favorable and resilient industry dynamics, and the strategic investments we have made will continue to benefit Quanta during both favorable and challenging times and will allow us to continue to serve all our stakeholders. I will now turn the call over to Derrick Jensen, our CFO, for his review of our first quarter results and 2020 expectations. Derrick?

Thanks, Duke. And good morning, everyone. I'm going to talk briefly about the financial highlights of the first quarter and spend more of my prepared remarks discussing the current environment and our forward-looking financial expectations. Today, we announced first quarter 2020 revenues of $2.8 billion. Net income attributable to common stock was $39 million or $0.26 per diluted share, and adjusted diluted earnings per share – a non-GAAP measure – was $0.47. From an operational perspective, the first quarter results largely met our expectations. Our Electric Power revenues, excluding Latin America, were $1.8 billion, an 8% increase when compared to the first quarter of 2019, reflecting continued base business strength prior to COVID-related disruption. Electric segment margins were 7.3%, and excluding Latin American operations, were 8.2%, in line with our previous commentary which anticipated lower margins in 1Q due to seasonality as well as fire hardening activities being weighted toward the second half of the year. Recall that these fire hardening activities were running at substantial levels throughout every quarter of last year, and the back half weighting in 2020 resulted in some level of cost absorption pressure in the first quarter. Our communications operations, which are included in our Electric segment, grew revenues almost 40% compared to the first quarter of 2019 and delivered operating margins in the mid-single digits. Our Pipeline and Industrial revenues were $1 billion, 13% lower than 1Q 2019 due to an expected reduction in revenues from larger pipeline projects, the contribution from which was $170 million less than 1Q 2019. Partially offsetting this decline were increased levels of base business activity, including approximately $100 million from acquired companies. Operating margins for the P&I segment were 3.1%, lower than 1Q 2019, but within our range of expectations for the quarter despite having been impacted by adverse weather across our Canadian pipeline operations. The orderly exit of our Latin American operations progressed during the first quarter. However, the $16.3 million of operating losses exceeded our expectations. The losses primarily relate to early termination and closeout costs associated with projects in the region, exacerbated by stringent COVID-19 stay-at-home orders in the second quarter, necessitating loss recognition on certain projects in 1Q. We received no tax benefit for losses in Latin America, so the approximately $16 million in losses impacted the quarter by approximately $0.11, $0.04 more than what we had originally anticipated. Our total backlog was $14.7 billion at the end of the first quarter, slightly below year-end, but $2 billion higher than 1Q 2019. The 12-month backlog at $7.6 billion is approximately $685 million higher than 1Q 2019. We continue to see opportunities for backlog growth. However, the timing of awards for certain customers could be delayed in the current environment. For the first quarter of 2020, we generated free cash flow, a non-GAAP measure, of $164 million, which included $82 million of insurance proceeds associated with the settlement of two pipeline project claims, as we mentioned on our last quarter's call. Days sales outstanding, or DSO, for the quarter was 85 days, a decrease of 3 days compared to the first quarter of 2019 due to lower levels of retainage balances associated with larger projects, but slightly higher than the 81 days at year-end. We had experienced some administrative impacts throughout the business at the end of March, which have continued into the second quarter due to various stay-at-home dynamics. However, we haven't seen any significant pressure on extending payment terms thus far. Due to volatile capital market conditions in March, as a cautionary measure, we borrowed $250 million against our revolving credit facility to ensure we had adequate access to cash to fund our operations in what was a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment. As a result, we had approximately $380 million of cash at the end of the quarter. Our net interest expense was slightly higher in the first quarter due to this drawdown and, to a lesser extent, due to the deployment of $200 million for the repurchase of 6 million shares of our common stock during the quarter. As the capital markets improved and risk associated with daily liquidity requirements moderated, we reduced our cash position substantially by paying off outstanding borrowings on our revolver at the end of April and resumed routine funding of daily cash requirements. From a balance sheet and liquidity perspective, we believe we are well positioned to handle the disruptions to our operations associated with COVID-19 and the challenging energy market environment. As of March 31, 2020, we had total liquidity of approximately $1.7 billion. Our debt facilities do not mature until October 31, 2022. And as of March 31, 2020, we had a debt-to-EBITDA ratio, as calculated under our senior secured credit agreement, of approximately 1.7 times, within our preferred range of 1.5 to 2 times and well below the 3 times maximum provided for in our credit facility. At the end of the first quarter, we were comfortably in compliance with all of the financial covenants in our credit facility. The combination of COVID-19 and the challenging energy market environment represents an unprecedented economic impact in the modern era. However, Quanta successfully navigated through the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 and through the challenging energy market and operating conditions of 2015 and 2016. In both circumstances, Quanta remained solidly profitable, maintained a strong balance sheet, generated solid cash flow, and came out of these periods a stronger and better competitively positioned company. Turning to our guidance. I'll start by saying that our decision to provide guidance and our approach was developed through much internal debate. We concluded that the value of providing a level of meaningful commentary and financial expectations to the investment community outweighed the risk that doing so implies certainty in a very uncertain environment. Given the circumstances, our outlook commentary should be considered directional and is meant to be helpful to understand the nature of what we see today. Currently, our expectations for the Electric Power segment remain largely intact. We expect revenues for this segment between $7.5 billion and $7.7 billion and operating margins between 9% and 9.3%, with Latin America contributing operating losses of $25 million to $30 million. Excluding Latin America losses, margins are expected to range between 9.4% and 9.7%. Certain markets have seen some level of COVID-19 impact to operations in the second quarter, both in our electric and communications services operation, and our slight reduction in annual revenue and margin guidance is largely expected to occur in the second quarter. Annual margins are also somewhat impacted by reductions in electrical work in certain industrial facilities and by slightly higher than previously expected Latin America costs in 1Q and the rest of the year. Having said that, we see the opportunity for this segment to be at or near our double-digit target margins in the third and fourth quarters. Our largest change in expectations is within our Pipeline and Industrial segment. As opposed to the Electric Power segment, where we've had limited impacts from stay-at-home orders, for the P&I segment, COVID-19 has impacted certain metro markets such as New York, Detroit, and Seattle, where despite our services being deemed essential, local governments are restricting and shutting down our work which is creating a material impact. The exacerbating effect of COVID-19 on the challenged energy market is resulting in a meaningful revenue reduction in almost all of our pipeline and industrial services in the second quarter. Revenues for the second quarter are expected to be as low as $700 million to $800 million, roughly 40% lower than our original expectations, likely resulting in a small operating loss for this segment in the second quarter. The combined impacts of COVID-19 and the challenged energy market are expected to continue to negatively impact segment margins in our third and fourth quarters. This is particularly true for our industrial services operations as customers are reducing and deferring regularly scheduled maintenance and turnaround activities due to a lack of demand for their refined products, which is pressuring budgets. For the remainder of the year, we have assumed a substantial pullback in these areas. We also expect reduced revenue from smaller pipeline and industrial capital projects throughout 2020 to weigh on segment margins as we expect to experience a prolonged effect from the current energy market and its impact on our customers' capital budgets. For the remainder of the year, we see the opportunity for segment revenues to exceed $1 billion in each of the third and fourth quarters and for our margins to range between 6% and 8%. Our annual expectations are for approximately $4 billion of revenues, with operating margins not likely exceeding 5% for the full year of 2020. However, for this to occur, it assumes we have ramped to normal activities early in the third quarter within the metro markets currently impacted by stay-at-home orders, and that normal activity levels continue for the remainder of the year. We are aware that investors have at times had difficulty assessing the repeatable and sustainable nature of the Pipeline and Industrial segment, specifically. We believe the complexity of the current landscape only adds to that difficulty. As such, we've attempted to aid investors by providing additional service-level detail within this segment in our earnings release and slide presentation, which is viewable through the webcast and is also available on the Investor Relations section of Quanta's website. We've defined these service areas as gas distribution, maintenance and integrity, larger pipeline projects, and other pipeline and industrial infrastructure services. Importantly, the revenue range associated with each area is directional and intended to provide a deeper understanding of the activities performed within this segment, but is not meant to provide a precise view of the revenue expectations by category. Our expectations for reduced gas distribution revenues and most of the reduced maintenance and integrity revenues are COVID-19-related, either by the previously discussed stay-at-home orders or reduced fuel demand. These services represent the largest component for segment revenues and are the largest component of our base business activity in the segment. We consider these portions of our work as highly resilient and have not changed our confidence in their multiyear repeatable and sustainable contribution. We think it is valuable to consider that, although the COVID-19 dynamic did not exist during the 2015 and 2016 commodity price collapse and we did not own Stronghold at the time, they are our largest provider of industrial maintenance and integrity services today. During that period, Stronghold was able to grow revenues each year at a double-digit compound annual growth rate and achieved margins within their historical ranges despite the challenging energy market. We remain comfortable with our expectations to generate approximately $500 million of larger pipeline project revenue in 2020. Although additional project awards are needed to achieve these expectations, we are in advanced discussions with customers on several opportunities that provide us with good visibility. The timing and potential award of these projects is not currently anticipated to be impacted by the economic factors we have discussed. Our other Pipeline and Industrial revenues represent the portion of the segment that is most impacted by lower oil prices and therefore, we would consider it to be the least resilient. This includes industrial capital projects, midstream work, and certain less critical maintenance work. Turning to cash flow. We are maintaining our free cash flow expectations for the year, expecting to generate between $400 million and $600 million. While a reduction of revenue would normally result in increased cash flow due to working capital converting to cash as well as lower levels of capital expenditures, that dynamic is primarily being offset by the expected reduction of earnings due to COVID-19. Additionally, given the uncertainty across our end markets and the broader economy, we're taking a cautious approach to working capital expectations for the remainder of the year. I'll close my guidance commentary with the reiterated point that our expectations are as of today and are based on our ability to ramp to normal levels early in the third quarter. Those and other factors are not within our control, and prolonged or reinstituted restrictions on our ability to perform services or the implementation of new restrictions for COVID-19 hotspots that may develop in other metro markets or at project sites, could negatively impact our EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA expectations. As we described throughout our commentary, the combination of COVID-19 and the incremental pressure that's applied to already unstable oil prices makes it difficult to quantify the distinct impact each of these factors has had on our revised outlook. That being said, we would estimate at least 70% of the change in our expectations can be attributed to COVID-19-related disruptions, with the remaining 30% largely associated with the residual effects that low oil prices have on our pipeline and industrial customers' capital budget and, to a lesser extent, the increased losses attributable to our Latin American operations. Overall, maintaining a strong balance sheet remains a foundational principle for us as we execute our operational strategies and navigate uncertain market dynamics. Our strong balance sheet has supported our growth, opportunistic deployments of capital, and now will be relied upon for resilience through these challenging times. We see the opportunity for strong cash generation now and in future periods and we will continue to prudently manage our balance sheet and capital deployment to maintain our current strength, provide stability to employees and customers, and to ensure we deliver long-term shareholder value. I'll turn it back to Duke for closing comments.

Thanks, Derrick. Though we expect our second-quarter results will reflect the near-term disruptions we are experiencing and will be the most challenging quarter of the year, we are optimistic that the activity levels and near-term visibility will improve as community restrictions ease and the economy begins to reopen. As Derrick discussed, we have taken a prudent approach to our outlook for the year based on what we know today. However, we are pursuing opportunities in the marketplace that are not incorporated into our expectations, but that we believe we are well positioned for. We are just as positive and confident today about Quanta's multiyear opportunities as we were on our year-end 2019 call just a couple of months ago. We believe our operating leadership and employees are the best in the business and that we will continue to successfully perform through the current environment. Importantly, we remain focused on the successful execution of five key objectives: focus and grow our base business; improve margins; create growth platforms through service line expansions in the utility, communications, and industrial industries and adjacent industries where craft-skilled labor is critical to providing cost-certain solutions; be the industry leader in safety and training by investing in craft-skilled labor; and finally, deploy capital in a disciplined and value-creating manner. When considering our commentary about the repeatable and sustainable nature of our operations, we believe our adjusted EBITDA, before the effects of Latin America operations and COVID-19 on our 2020 expectations, continues to trend towards the $1 billion level that we have spoken about the last several years. Quanta was built for times like this, and we are confident in the resiliency and sustainability of our business model. Despite the near-term challenges, we believe Quanta has a long runway for generating repeatable and sustainable earnings ahead as we execute on strategic initiatives. Considering our organic growth opportunities and the levers available to us to allocate future cash flow generation into value-creating opportunities such as stock repurchases, acquisitions, and strategic investments in dividends, we believe Quanta has the opportunity to generate meaningful stockholder value over time. As we have discussed many times in prior investor communications, our people are the heart of Quanta, and it is their hard work and dedication that has produced several years of record results and will be critical to our success going forward. I again want to recognize and thank them for their hard work and dedication during this challenging time. We are focused on operating the business for the long term and expect to continue to distinguish ourselves through safe execution and best-in-class field leadership. We will pursue opportunities to enhance Quanta's base business and leadership position in the industry and provide innovative solutions to our customers. We believe Quanta's diversity, unique operating model, and entrepreneurial mindset form the foundation that will allow us to continue to generate long-term value for all of our stakeholders. With that, we're happy to take your questions.

Duke, if we look at the breakdown of your expected revenue for 2020, given that gas distribution and maintenance and integrity are now big businesses for you, it appears a little more than half of the revenue hit is expected to come from these businesses despite them being relatively resilient. So, my question is, given the critical nature of this type of work, is this really just pushing this revenue and its relatively high margins into 2021 and you should get it back or could some of it actually be lost revenue for you guys?

Yeah. Good morning, Andy. Thanks for the question. I think when you look at our business and you consider that part of the business, in the quarter as well as in our guidance, you had the light-switch effect of cities closing. For instance, in our New York business, the majority of that work essentially shut down because of the COVID-related impacts. We worked with the governor and our clients in that area. That work required customer interaction, and due to the shutdown, we had to adjust our operations. What we've seen is that work start to come back and ramp up gradually. It won't be like a switch turning on completely; the ramp will be gradual. We believe that most of the impact in our projections comes from the second quarter. You also had lower fuel pricing on oil, and then you had demand-side challenges as well, which we are projecting will impact our business in the outer quarters. The original impact, as we noted, and the majority of that 70% of our revised guidance going forward is COVID-related.

Yeah. Actually, I want to come back to part of Andrew's question on the relatively high margins. It's important to recognize that these are contribution margin dynamics, not necessarily the overall margin profile of the work. When you have a light-switch effect on the revenue side, the cost structure doesn't shift as quickly. The contribution margins become quite high because costs are held on to due to the expectation of a quick turn. As you deal with costs and attempt to hold on to them, you think you’ll be turning around. And to Andrew's point, ramping back up in 2021.

Derrick, they can't really cancel this stuff, right? They can just defer it or can they just like push an inspection or something like that and not do it, right? It's more deferred than canceled, right?

Yeah. When you think about our gas distribution business, we have provided guidance of well over $1 billion. That business, we feel, is very resilient and it will recover in the outer quarters. The issue we're dealing with now is the decisions made by local governments, as we experienced in New York when the governor mandated a shutdown across the city. We look at what can be done to protect our employees moving forward so that we can get back to work efficiently. The forecast for recovery is strong.