Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Granite Construction Incorporated (NYSE:GVA) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript May 2, 2024

Granite Construction Incorporated beats earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $-0.21, expectations were $-0.49. Granite Construction Incorporated isn’t one of the 30 most popular stocks among hedge funds at the end of the third quarter (see the details here).

Operator: Good morning. My name is Megan and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Granite Construction Incorporated 2024 First Quarter Conference Call. This call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. And after the speaker’s remarks, there will be a question and answer period. [Operator Instructions]. Please note, we will take one question and one follow-up question from each participant today. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to Vice President of Investor Relations, Mike Barker.

Mike Barker: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I’m pleased to be here today with President and Chief Executive Officer, Kyle Larkin, and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Lisa Curtis. Please note that today’s earnings presentation will be available on the Events and Presentations page of our Investor Relations website. We begin today with a brief discussion regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. Some of the discussion today may include forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are estimates reflecting the current expectations and best judgment of senior management regarding future events, occurrences, opportunities, targets, growth, demand, strategic plans, circumstances, activities, performance, shareholder value, outcomes, outlook, guidance, objectives, committed and awarded projects, or CAP, and results.

Actual results could differ materially from statements made today. Please refer to Granite’s most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these forward-looking statements. The company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Certain non-GAAP measures may be discussed during today’s call and from time to time by the company’s executives. These include but are not limited to adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted net income, and adjusted earnings per share. The required disclosures regarding our non-GAAP measures are included as part of our earnings press releases and the company presentations which are available on our website graniteconstruction.com under investor relations.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Kyle Larkin.

Kyle Larkin: Good morning and welcome to our first quarter conference call. I am pleased to report that we are off to a strong start in 2024. Before diving into our first quarter results, I would like to share an update on our organizational structure. During the quarter, we reorganize our operations to more closely align with our reportable segments, construction, and materials. We believe that this new structure better positions our leadership team to manage the performance of these segments. As a reminder, we previously organized into three operating groups, California, Mountain, and Central. In the prior structure, our leaders manage both construction and materials operations within their respective groups. Our new structure results and our construction experts overseeing construction operations and our materials experts overseeing materials operations.

Of course, our teams will continue to work together, but we believe the new structure will allow us to better leverage our expertise to drive top and bottom line growth. Construction leadership is focused on supporting regions with growth strategies and project execution while leveraging resources across the company to better serve our national clients. For our material segment, we always centralized management functions such as sales and quality control should drive consistency and improved financial performance. Granite has invested significantly in the material segment over the last several years with both acquisitions and strategic investments. And our material segment leadership will be tasked with identifying opportunities to build shareholder value from further organic investments and M&A.

Importantly, this new structure does not change our vertical integration strategy in our home markets. Regional leadership in both construction and material segments will maintain the partnership that has differentiated Granite for decades. I believe this organizational change sets the foundation for Granite’s next chapter and will accelerate our ability to provide shareholders with higher levels of return. Moving to the construction segment, I’m very pleased with the strong start to the year. Minor weather means the first quarter is typically our slowest, but our teams are off to an outstanding start in part because of more favorable weather conditions in 2024. So far in 2024, we have bid and won more work than in 2023, but CAP remains flat from the fourth quarter, but increases significantly year-over-year.

While CAP is unchanged during the quarter, the market has been consistent with our expectations. Our markets in the public and private sectors continue to be strong in California and across our geographies. We expect CAP to grow in 2024. Best value projects continue to be a focus and represent $2.5 billion or 46% of our total CAP. The collaborative delivery methods captured in this number, like construction to manage your general contractor or progressive design build, better position us for success by allowing us to collaborate with our clients to mitigate risk. Larger best value projects are often separated into smaller work packages that are reviewed through multiple project workshops. This provides more opportunities to assess and address risk for large bid-build projects.

In the last 15 years, we have completed or have under contract 87 best value projects. Generally, these projects are constructed more quickly and with fewer claims. In the first quarter, construction revenue increased 18% year-over-year led by our teams in California, Utah, and the Midwest. This was primarily a result of the higher CAP entering the year and the more favorable weather conditions compared to the first quarter of 2023. With our strong start to the year, our current CAP and the bidding opportunities ahead of us, we are on track to win the work needed to meet our revenue guidance in 2024 and continue our organic growth in 2025.

% : Over the past three years, we have significantly invested in our material segment. We expect this pattern to continue in 2024 with approximately $50 million of planned strategic investments in further automation projects, plants, new reserve expansion, and a new aggregate plant that is expected to come online later this year. We ended 2023 with 1.3 billion tons of reserves, an increase of 294 million tons or 30% since 2021. This includes 140 million tons reserves added through acquisitions in 2023. In 2024, we will continue to explore M&A options for both bolt-on pportunities and possible expansion into new geographies. We remain very selective in our pursuits, but I’m hopeful we will complete additional materials M&A transactions in 2024. Now, I’ll turn it over to Lisa to review our financial performance for the quarter.

% : Over the past three years, we have significantly invested in our material segment. We expect this pattern to continue in 2024 with approximately $50 million of planned strategic investments in further automation projects, plants, new reserve expansion, and a new aggregate plant that is expected to come online later this year. We ended 2023 with 1.3 billion tons of reserves, an increase of 294 million tons or 30% since 2021. This includes 140 million tons reserves added through acquisitions in 2023. In 2024, we will continue to explore M&A options for both bolt-on pportunities and possible expansion into new geographies. We remain very selective in our pursuits, but I’m hopeful we will complete additional materials M&A transactions in 2024. Now, I’ll turn it over to Lisa to review our financial performance for the quarter.

Lisa Curtis:

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% : The improvement in gross profit margin was largely due to a decrease in negative net revisions and estimates. The increase in gross profit was offset by $5 million of seasonal gross losses from acquired businesses, including purchase accounting related depreciation and intangible asset amortization of $3 million. In the material segment, revenue increased $20 million year-over-year to $77 million, with gross profit increasing $2 million to a gross loss of $3 million. The increase in materials revenue was primarily due to acquired businesses as well as increases in sales prices and volumes. The increase in gross profit was led by higher sales prices in both aggregates and asphalt, which was offset by losses from acquired businesses of $3 million, including $2 million due to purchase accounting related depreciation and intangible asset amortization.

Building on the momentum from the second half of 2023, cash flow significantly improved over the first quarter of 2023, with operating cash flow of $24 million or $101 million improvement. We have made significant strides in this area and our teams remain focused on cash generation.

%: The improvement in gross profit margin was largely due to a decrease in negative net revisions and estimates. The increase in gross profit was offset by $5 million of seasonal gross losses from acquired businesses, including purchase accounting related depreciation and intangible asset amortization of $3 million. In the material segment, revenue increased $20 million year-over-year to $77 million, with gross profit increasing $2 million to a gross loss of $3 million. The increase in materials revenue was primarily due to acquired businesses as well as increases in sales prices and volumes. The increase in gross profit was led by higher sales prices in both aggregates and asphalt, which was offset by losses from acquired businesses of $3 million, including $2 million due to purchase accounting related depreciation and intangible asset amortization.

Building on the momentum from the second half of 2023, cash flow significantly improved over the first quarter of 2023, with operating cash flow of $24 million or $101 million improvement. We have made significant strides in this area and our teams remain focused on cash generation.

% : With our cash and marketable securities of $337 million and availability under our credit agreement of $333 million, we have the liquidity to continue to invest in growing our operations, both organically and through M&A. We are continually reviewing opportunities for bolt-on acquisitions to infill our existing footprint, as well as expansion opportunities into new geographies such as the Lehman Roberts and Memphis Stone and Gravel Transactions that closed late last year. While we continue to be very selective, I expect that we will pursue further M&A in 2024 that will add to our cash flow generation and lead to increased shareholder value.

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% : Now, I’ll turn it back over to Kyle.

%: Now, I’ll turn it back over to Kyle.

Kyle Larkin: Thanks, Lisa. I’ll close with the following points. We started 2024 strong with significant growth in revenue, adjusted EBITDA and operating cash flow compared to 2023. This builds upon momentum carried into 2024 from the growth experienced in the second half of 2023. Our CAP supports this growth remains high at $5.5 billion. We see a continued strong public and private market environment supported by the IIJA and healthy state budgets across our geographies. Hitting opportunities ahead of us are robust and should provide excellent opportunities to continue to grow CAP, meet our growth objective in 2024 and continue organic growth in 2025.

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% : Operator, I will now turn it back to you for questions.

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Q&A Session

Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. [Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Brent Thielman: Hey, thanks. Good morning.

Kyle Larkin: Hi, Brent.

Lisa Curtis: Good morning.

Brent Thielman: Kyle or Lisa, I guess maybe just first on the construction segment. Could you just talk about what you see in terms of performance of the new portfolio of work versus the old portfolio? Doesn’t appear to be any meaningful drag from kind of legacy stuff this quarter, but maybe you can just parse those two areas at and how you see things progressing there in that business segment?

Kyle Larkin: Sure. Well, certainly we’re off to a good start in the first quarter, certainly in the top line and the bottom line relative to where we were in 2023. And I think as you mentioned, it’s the first year we haven’t had the drag of really the ORP projects that we’ve focused out in the past and really good CAP. So we came in, we’ve been building a high-quality CAP and we continue to do that and so we’re seeing kind of the benefits of that, certainly as we get going here in 2024.

Brent Thielman: Okay. And I guess second, just the material business group, I know you’ve been doing a lot within that segment internally, just in terms of investments, obviously externally as well. It’s always a little difficult to see the effects of that in the bottom line for the first quarter, just because of the seasonality, obviously, but maybe you could talk about the impact you’re seeing from some of those investments you’ve made in that business group, what that’s having on productivity efficiencies, those sorts of things would be interesting to hear, Kyle?

Kyle Larkin: Yes. So it’s a good question. And really, we’ve been reinvesting that business, as you all know now, for a couple years. We’ve focused a lot on reserves and reserve expansion. And so, lot of that’s replacing reserves that we had under-invested in probably in previous years so we’re getting caught up in many ways. We’re starting to see the acquisition of Brunswick Canyon, CMR up in Canada start to play in late last year into this year, we’ll start seeing those ramp up. So the last is where the automation effort, we’re making a lot of investments in automation. The first plant that’s fully automated came online this year in Arizona. So we’ll really start to see that ramp up for us in 2024 and beyond. And then we have another one coming online in Bakersfield in June.

So I think it’s still a little bit to come. I think we’ve been making a lot of those incremental investments that are going to pay off over really the long haul. And I think from a structure perspective, the timing is right for us. Our materials team has done a really nice job of growing the materials business. And it’s a big part of our business today. And as you mentioned, we continue to reinvest in our materials business. And we want to ensure that we’re really maximizing the value in the materials business and getting return on those investments. And that’s why we did this organizational change, is to really let our teams do what they do best. And overall, this is part of our transformation as a company and our journey. I don’t think we have the organizational readiness to do this a couple of years ago, but we certainly are a really good place today to make it happen.

And so we believe that change will again help drive top line and bottom line growth beginning in ’24, but in the future years.

Brent Thielman: Okay, very good. Thank you.

Kyle Larkin: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Steven Ramsey with Thompson Research Group. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, everyone. It’s John calling in for Steven. Thanks for taking my question. So digging a little bit more to the material side, is there any kind of price volume factors you could discuss for this year, decent pricing? Do you kind of see that continuing? And then on the volume side, kind of what your just general thoughts are there?

Kyle Larkin: Yes, pretty consistent with what we shared on the last call. We see this year aggregate volume being relatively flat, which is healthy, really, really compared to 2023. So the asphalt size where we saw improvement coming, which we can still believe is going to be the case, primarily in California on the volume side. We have seen the pricing take hold that we said we’re going to do, which was 10% on ag and 5% on asphalt. So that’s good news there. And we’re going to continue to kind of keep a pulse on the market and see those further opportunities for us to adjust pricing accordingly.

Unidentified Analyst: Got you. Okay. And then on the CAP side, project, the big environment right now, are you guys seeing any changes there? I think, we’re hearing that, it might be getting a little bit more crowded on some projects in some areas. Just curious as to kind of what your thoughts are as the years progressed and then the rest of ’24, do you see any changes?

Kyle Larkin: Well, our CAP has stayed fairly consistent sequentially. Obviously, we’re up about $400 million year-over-year. We still feel really good about the CAP we have. We feel really good about the quality of the CAP that we have in place today. But I can tell you through April, we’ve been bidding more work this year than last year. So we’re seeing a better market from an activity perspective. We’ve been picking up more work through April of this year than where we were last year at the time and our margins on that work has increased as well. So we think the market is a very healthy and that remains healthy, both in the public and the private side. So maybe bursting a few things a little bit different than others.

Unidentified Analyst: Got you. Great. Okay. Thanks.

Kyle Larkin: Thank you.

Lisa Curtis: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, this is Adam on for Jerry today. Thanks for taking my question. Historically, I think 2Q EBITDA margin steps up to above where four-year margins end up for the year. How are you thinking about the margin cadence over the course of 2024 versus normal seasonality, any puts and takes that we should keep in mind there?

Kyle Larkin: I don’t know. I think you could probably go back and look at our typical seasonality. I think the hard part is we’re a lot different business than we have been historically. So, certainly our risk profile of not having these mega projects. Our goal has been now for the last couple of years really de-risking our organization and our portfolio and providing more consistent financial performance. And so I think we’re going to start to see that work itself through and we’ll start to see a little bit less volatility certainly in our EBITDA margin moving forward. So I’d probably look back at maybe some of the seasonality and then we’d have to take out some of the abnormal, kind of the bigger movement items that we’ve had to deal with.

Unidentified Analyst: And then can you just talk about what level of material cost inflation you’re factoring into your bid today?

Kyle Larkin: Well, on the construction side, we bid every single project and we get coverage on inflationary items through subcontractors and suppliers. And then our owners also cover escalators and de-escalators. So those are already factored in. It’s hard to give you an overall number from that perspective. And then on the material side, we have been able to increase our pricing as I mentioned on how we’re getting asphalt, but we’ve also kept the energy escalator that we put in place in April of 2022. So that really covers us on the natural gas and diesel on those cost fronts.

Unidentified Analyst: Great. Thanks so much.

Kyle Larkin: Thank you.

Lisa Curtis: Thank you.

Operator: This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Kyle Larkin for any closing remarks.

Kyle Larkin: Okay. Well, thank you for joining the call today. As always, we want to thank all of our employees for the work they do every day. I look forward to seeing many of you next week during the Construction Industry’s Safety Week. Thank you for joining the call and your interest in Granite. We look forward to speaking with you all soon.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.