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

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Operator: Unfortunately, we are not getting any audio from the line. So we will move on to the next question. And our next question comes from George Shapiro from Shapiro Research. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.

George Shapiro: Yes. Good morning.

Tom Stiehle: Good morning, George.

George Shapiro: I was curious that you wound up with 7.7% Shipbuilding margins and when you did the third quarter call in early November, you were looking for 8% to 8.1%. So just wondering what you missed here in two months, because I thought that Shipbuilding would be somewhat predictable sort of business?

Tom Stiehle: Yeah. It was just the drag that we talked about at the end of the year. We had a strong first half of the year over 9% and we guided to 7% for the back half of the year and even Q3 was in that lane and we thought that the remaining 13 weeks of the year, we had that. But the shortfall of labor that we saw, a couple of the overhead or the non-programmatic issues drove hit boat yards actually on the cost that we talked about, on medical and just that shortfall as we go through and take a look at EAC performance and then the cost and how overheads flow through there, there’s a little bit of a drag on where we thought we would land. So if you call it on the call, I was focused on saying I want to see how the year plays out.

We did stay on the guide at 8% to 8.1% and we thought we could get that home. But as the EACs kind of rolled up, there was just a little bit of a drag. I would say both to this question, George, and the previous one. From a Newport News perspective, 6.2% last year, 6.1% this year, about the same type of performance overall, if you think about it, another year with some drag upfront, with the effects of COVID and then supply chain, inflation, big year on inflation and then the hiring demands that we had here. So I am quite comfortable with promise as far as what the Newport News team accomplished it. But to your point, we thought we would get that home and Q4 came in a little flattish on Newport News than we expected.

George Shapiro: And Tom, did you give the EACs for the quarter?

Tom Stiehle: Not yet, but I can. No. I did, yeah. I referenced them, just that we didn’t have a tremendous downside. We just didn’t have upsides at Newport News. But from a — for the quarter perspective, what we saw was the gross favorable were $29 million, the gross unfavorable were $56 million. That was a net of $27 million. And effectively, about 100% of that was at Newport News, basically Neutral Ingalls and Mission Technologies. So it was quiet at the other two divisions and Newport News saw a net down of that unfavorable for the corporation of 27 now.

George Shapiro: Okay. Thanks very much.

Tom Stiehle: Thanks, George.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Seth Seifman from JPMorgan. Please go ahead, Seth. Your line is now open.

Seth Seifman: Hey. Thanks very much and good morning.

Chris Kastner: Good morning, Seth.

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