Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE:J) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Robert Pragada: Yes, Bert. And are you saying independent of advanced facilities to the other kind of non-advanced facility sectors or to inclusive of.

Bert Subin: No. I think inclusive of, I guess, from what you were saying, Bob, in your earlier comments, it sounds like you feel like you’re more on that upslope and you’re seeing sort of the path of some of that CapEx will be beneficial for you. So including that and thinking about what you just mentioned about IIJA and some of the other programs, it seems like your visibility is quite good. If you were to say, several years from now, look at you and you were growing at 9% or faster than your 6% to 9% growth range. I’m just curious if that’s more a function of winning some of those larger projects that are out there? Or is it just the funding needs to flow sort of on time?

Robert Pragada: I would say it’s probably more of winning those projects in the market that I would index towards is water. The pipeline growth in water, and I mentioned it last quarter, Bert, and it actually has continued this quarter. It’s not as big as transportation, but if transportation continues at the same kind of clip even with the IIJA comment, but water continues at the rate that it is right now, and we’re having this conversation 6 to 8 quarters from now, water and then water and environmental for those 2 are kind of interdependent on each other. I’d say, is the one where we’re seeing not only the projects being announced but the funding be applied, and a lot of that is being driven around water scarcity. And look at what’s going on in California right now, it’s either we got too much and we got to figure out where to put it or we don’t have enough and we got to figure out how to find it and treat it.

And so I’m oversimplifying, but that’s probably what I’d say.

Bert Subin: Got it. Okay. That’s super helpful. Maybe just a cost side question. If we look at that bridge that you guys put in the deck going from 10.8% to 13.8%, can you just help us think through how much of that is cost cutting related and how much of that is just improved mix? Sounds like you’re pretty bullish on the margin opportunity in P&PS. So is that a function of just you’re getting better projects? Or is it more cost cutting? Or is it sort of 50-50?

Robert Pragada: I’d say it’s balanced. Probably 50-50. There’s a 50% mix, but 50% is a leaner organization with now and we’ve started as of Q1, a level of recoverability and optimization of our cost structure rather than the straight variability of, if you’re busy, you spend and if you’re not, you cut, right? We want to get more of in the steady state.

Operator: And there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the conference over to Bob Pragada for closing remarks.

Robert Pragada: Yes. Thank you, everyone, for joining us on the call. A lot of exciting things happening in the business right now, and we look forward to giving you further updates in quarters to come.

Operator: And this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.

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