Leidos Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:LDOS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Chris Cage: Yes, Josh, I think it’s a little premature. Obviously, we all know that with the COVID pandemic and worldwide aviation travel not where we thought it would be, that we’re quite a bit under on the topline where that business was expected to be, but the growth rates over the last couple of years have been improved, and we’re optimistic as we look ahead we’ll continue to see that. So, when you look at Civil, I mean, what we’re focused on is raising the floor of performance. Q1 was below our standards. Q2 much improved. Over time, we expect the Civil business to be on average a 10% plus margin business. And in the best quarters we’ll see it 11% and above. And if we raise the floor of performance, which we’re focused on in security products, that’ll allow us to do that and achieve significant upside, hopefully over time.

So, again, I think that just gives you a sense that there is room for that to grow going forward, and our job is to take out the variability that you’ve seen more recently

Tom Bell: And on the top line and bottom-line expansion of our security business, as I have said, security is a vexing problem that’s not going away. And in fact, more and more Civil customers, don’t think government, civilian customers, are thinking about the security of their premises and the need for them to be more guarded on what goes in and what comes out. This is a great opportunity for market expansion for the team at very good margins. So, I like our bet on security, and I think it’s going to be a good place for us to be as we prosecute the next five years.

Jasper Bibb: Thanks for that. I’ll stick to just one question today so we can get some more people going.

Stuart Davis: Thanks, Josh. Hey, Rob, it looks like we’re coming pretty close to the top of the hour, so I think we have time for one more question.

Operator: Sure. That question will come from the line of Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs.

Noah Poponak: Hi, good morning, everyone. Chris, last quarter with security products, you provided a lot of detail on where the challenges were. You talked about customer schedule delays where they couldn’t accept product, supply chain disruption, and then you said there were service agreement penalties and product investments. I was wondering if you could just quickly update each of those. I mean, how many customers are delayed and how many are on schedule? And then I guess those other three, are they just kind of fully behind you or not?

Chris Cage: Yes. Hey, thanks, Noah. And I hit on this a little bit earlier on one of the questions, but just to reiterate, on the customer, it’s predominantly a large program with a single customer that we’ve been – it’s a multi-year arrangement to deliver a number of products. We are still not on the original schedule that we had laid out with them, and the team is working hard to get units accepted and progress was made in the second quarter. That will continue to be something we’ll work through the third quarter and the fourth quarter this year. And again, with the guidance range we gave you, we’re comfortable that if we’re not able to get all the way back, we’re still solidly in our range. So, that is ongoing, improving, but, but not resolved.

The supply chain side of things, several things are going on there. Number one, setting up our capability to perform light manufacturing in the future. That commitment was made. We’re full speed ahead on outfitting that Charleston facility, and we’ll be well positioned beginning in 2024. In the meantime, we have improved our ability to get the component parts that we need. We’ve insourced certain circuit board repairs. We’ve seen OEMs step up with better response times. And as I mentioned, we’ve positioned one of our senior leaders in that organization to focus on critical supplier management and part obsolescence. So, again, that’s shown improvements, which is not fully resolved, but significantly improved the service level penalty situation.

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