Southland Holdings, Inc.

a question and answer session if you would like to ask a question during this time simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad if you would like to withdraw your question please press the star followed by number two thank you alex you may begin your conference good morning everyone and welcome to the southland first quarter 2024 conference call this is alex murray

Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Joining me today are Frank Renda, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Cody Gallarda, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are neither historical facts nor assurances of future performance. Forward-looking statements are uncertain and outside of Southland's control. Southland's actual results and financial condition may differ materially from those projected in forward-looking statements. Therefore, you should not rely on any of these forward-looking statements, and we do not undertake any duty to update these statements. For a discussion of some of the risks that could affect results, Please see the risk factor section of our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31st, 2023 that was filed with the SEC on March 4th, 2024. And discussion on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31st, 2024 that was filed with the SEC last night. We will also refer to non-GAAP financial measures and you will find reconciliations in the press release relating to this conference call, which can be found on the investor relations page of our website. I will now turn the call over to Frank.

Thank you, Alex. Good morning, and thank you for joining Southland's first quarter 2024 conference call. Before discussing our quarterly results, I'd like to extend gratitude to each of our employees for their contribution to maintaining our commitment to delivering high-quality work while prioritizing safety. This past week was National Safety Week, and our teams across the country took a moment to celebrate our safety successes. As an example, our team working on the SELA project in New Orleans just celebrated successfully working 1,350 days without a lost time incident. Congratulations, team. We are proud to have an exemplary safety record and are always focused on what more we can do to protect our people. Now to discuss our quarterly results. We reported $288 million of revenue up 5% from the same quarter last year. Gross profit was $20 million in the first quarter compared to $19 million last year. Consolidated gross profit margin was 7.1%, up slightly from 6.9% in the prior year. Our quarter was highlighted by continued strong results in our civil segment, offset by challenges in our transportation segment from legacy projects. Civil segment gross profit margin was 21% compared to 12% in the same period last year, despite more severe weather than typical in the quarter. Our civil segment groups are executing very well. We're also seeing the benefit from newly awarded civil segment projects that were won with higher bid margins, ramping more quickly than our new transportation projects. Our transportation segment's gross profit margin was 1% compared to 5% in the prior year. We faced challenges in the quarter due to schedule delays, increased project costs, and impacts from weather in some key geographical areas in our transportation segment. We've brought the remaining M&P backlog down to approximately $200 million, or 8% of our backlog. We continue to expect to complete a substantial portion of the remaining work in 2024 with a smaller amount of work to be completed in 2025. Every day we get closer to putting this work behind us. We ended the quarter with $2.64 billion of backlog. We booked approximately $100 million of new awards during the quarter. This included a $56 million wastewater treatment plant in the southwest. We've already announced over $350 million of new awards in the second quarter that were not included in the $2.64 billion backlog we had at the end of the first quarter. This includes the $202 million Bull Run Filtration Facility project in Portland, Oregon, and three new water resource projects totaling $150 million. We expect backlog to increase sequentially from the first to second quarter, given the strong start of new awards. We also have several proposals that we have submitted on and are waiting to hear back from our customers on. This includes packages from the Galveston-Maytox-Sabean Pass, the Stanley Park Tunnel, the San Juan Lateral Water Treatment Facilities, and Ansall Tank Farm Facilities. Demand from both public government agencies and private clients remains extremely healthy across our end markets. On the public side in the U.S., we are seeing strong demand from the IIJA and robust state and local programs. Among numerous other opportunities, we expect to submit proposals on the SR 30 DuPont Bridge for the Florida Department of Transportation and the Montgomery Lock Project for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. We are also tracking several tunnel and bridge projects that we expect to bid in the coming months. Our primary focus is to capitalize on the incredible opportunities in the U.S. and our core end markets. We expect these opportunities to drive our business over the long term. As a reminder, we also have a presence in major metro areas in Canada. We are currently in the final stages of the Ash Bridges Bay upfall tunnel in Toronto. which is one of the largest wastewater outfalls in Canada. We are also currently working on phase one of the North End Treatment Plant in Winnipeg and several emergency projects in Vancouver. Although it is a relatively smaller portion of our total business today, we believe public work in Canada presents a unique opportunity for us over the next several years. Similar to the US, the Canadian government is focused on improving and maintaining their aging infrastructure. We are tracking various water resource tunnel and rail programs in the country. We expect to submit our final proposal on phase two of the North End Treatment Plant in Winnipeg in the coming weeks and are shortlisted on a $750 million water program in Vancouver. On the private client side, we continue to see our Blue Chip private clients make investments in marine and land developments. This includes several upcoming opportunities for our existing private clients in the travel, leisure, and entertainment sector. We're also monitoring trends and longer-term opportunities from the strong demand for manufacturing facilities and data centers in the U.S. We believe there will be opportunities for civil packages on the front end of these facilities over the coming years. In summary, we had a good start to the year demonstrated by strength in our civil business. We continue to get closer to getting our challenge projects behind us. We have announced over $350 million of awards early in the second quarter and expect backlog to grow from the first to second quarter. Demand in our end markets remains very strong, and I am optimistic about new award potential as we progress through the year. With that, I will now turn the call over to Cody for a financial update. Thank you, Frank, and good morning, everyone.