Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc. (NYSE:HII) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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So a lot of activity there, which will continue us leading the working capital, getting rid of the retention that we have and helping in the free cash flow lift as we go forward. Also, I would tell you that, as much as we finished up at 6.1% on working capital, it will just grow a little bit. We have got a couple of advancements on incentives that we have had. So we will go from 6.1% to about 6.5-ish working capital in 2023. So more deliveries helped slight rise in working capital in 2023 slightly hurts. We re-guided on CapEx from 2.5% to 3%, so a couple of dollars of headwinds there. So two things against us, but with all those deliveries and launches, we will see working capital finish up around $425 million. And mind you, 2023 has to repay COVID, which right now is about $125 million, right?

The way I look at it and give you confidence on where we are going with that. We have three years in the whole now against the five-year commitment, $757 million, $449 million and $494 million, that averages out to $567 million straight stick at BSC about $600 million a year that you need. So we are running behind for the first three years, but we knew there was a natural grant with retention with revenue and margin expansion. And also we have Alion on board now. 2022 we had them onboard for the first year. I was happy with the contribution they made. If you recall, we took the $3 billion to $3.2 billion with Alion and I am happy with the contribution they made in 2022 and Alion will be on board for 2023, 2024. As we look — going forward, right, EBITDA margin stay flat from 2021 to 2022.

We are foreshadowing some margin expansion into 2023. We have the topline growing in Shipbuilding right now that we gave you in the guidance $486 million and we expect we will continue incrementally guiding higher revenue and margin into 2024. And also I’d ask you to take a look at the three years that we have had, the $757 million, $449 million and $494 million free cash flow. That $757 million really had two things that actually helped it, and if you normalize it out, how to make sense of how we are marching to be north of $700 million in free cash flow as we get out to the 2024 timeframe, but the $757 million had the FICA release, which was $130 million and it also has the COVID repayment benefit for $160 million. So $160 million and $130 million is $290 million.

$290 million of the $757 million is about $467 million is really how I look at the first of the three years, $467 million. The $449 million to 2021 has the FICA repay in it. So you throw another $65 million in that, that’s about $510 million for a normalized 2021 and now for 2022, $494 million, there’s $65 million of FICA in that too, that’s $550 million. So I really look at it, we have normalize for what we have seen because of COVID with FICA and repay, it’s more like a match of $460-ish million to $510 million last year to $555 million, $550 million this year. The guide we gave you is $450 million for 2023 only because I have the COVID repay. So it’s another with $125 million on top of the midpoint, that’s a $550 million year and I have the year in front of me to burn down risk and pulling cash.

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