Ameresco, Inc. (NYSE:AMRC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Joseph Osha: Thank you. It is a . Following on what Kashy was asking, I’m wondering as we think about that EBITDA run rate, which obviously comes out of 2023 at a considerably higher rate bank goes in. Is this just a straightforward cost absorption? Are there some mix shifts on a quarter-by-quarter basis in terms of the revenue mix that we should think about? I just– I want to understand what the walk from Q1 to Q4 EBITDA looks like.

Doran Hole: I don’t know that we have anything really granular to share with you there, Joe. The push out that George talked about where kind of going back and recalculating some things we are expecting, contract signing, some of those larger projects carried with them a good amount of costs in preparation for signing. So we get a little bit of revenue charge once the contracts get signed. And this is where having push outs that go not just from one quarter to the next, but maybe one quarter to two quarters later. We are seeing a little bit of that here and that kind of explains some of that ramp, and especially as you start to work on full execution in those projects in the latter half of the year. I don’t think there’s anything really meaningful to share as far as mix though.

For the balance of the year, again, we’ve got our typical seasonality where we’re going to see the ramp-up over the course of the year just kind of progressively moving from the Q1 up to what we expect to be a more back end to Q3 and Q4.

George Sakellaris: Yes. What I might add that compounded some of the projects that I said they got delayed, which happens to say, you lose 3 months on a particular project, especially the large ones. It takes you a couple of months to mobilize, and that’s why I made the statement we go to two quarters. It takes time to — for those projects not only to get signed, but then to mobilize and then see some revenues — real revenues coming through in the construction side. That’s why it has .

Joseph Osha: Okay. Thank you. And then as a — okay. As a follow-up, obviously, you’ve got some additional storage projects in the backlog that we’ve been talking about. I’m wondering what you all feel like the lessons learned are from SCE and how that’s changed your approach to how you source sales for future projects? How you contract? How are you going to come with this next round of storage products — projects differently to hopefully maybe avoid replaying what’s happened with SCE? Thank you.

Doran Hole: I will start with the — we think that was actually a really well done contract. The lessons that we learned well, how well are you prepared for a force majeure event? How well are you prepared for supply chains to be shut down in Shanghai or shipping et cetera. So I think that’s what’s been causing us the most of the delays. As we talked about the other delays associated with this is related to SoCal’s desire to have those projects go into great sync in 2023. So one of the — well, I will call it a lesson learned, but it’s actually an important thing that we’ve got to carry through to our future projects is, there is no — while there’s no — there’s nothing more valuable than having a very solid, open and honest relationship with your customers.

I mean that’s a theme that this company follows with a lot of projects, but our relationship with SoCal Ed has been open and honest from the beginning. We have continuous high-level executive meetings. I think that, that’s a critical importance. So when we are approaching new proposals, new opportunities, that’s one of the important pieces of the puzzle is to ensure that some of us on the executive management team get involved early on, get to know the management teams at our counterparties and our suppliers to ensure that we can manage a smooth process for what sometimes can be large projects. So at the end of the day, we feel really great about the project that we’ve built. We feel like its adding a lot to our resume, and I think we are spending a lot of time looking at the way that was executed and using the resources that are working on those projects and that worked on the contracting on all of the proposals that we’re working on going forward to ensure that there’s a mind share with respect to the way we approach the new projects.

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