Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Corporation

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2025 Great Lakes Dredge and Dot Corp. Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question,

please press star 11 again please be advised that today's conference is being recorded i would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today eric burge vice president of investor relations please go ahead thank you ari good day and thank you everyone for joining us welcome to great lakes dredgen docs third quarter 2025 financial results conference call before we begin please note that certain statements made during this call are forward-looking in nature and are subject to various risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. These factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. For a detailed discussion of these risks, please refer to our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We will also be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations of these measures to the most direct comparable GAAP measure can be found on our earnings release or on our investor relations section of our website at investors.gldd.com, along with other supplemental operating information. Joining me on today's call are Lhasa Patterson, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Kornblau, our Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Lhasa will begin with a review of our quarterly key developments, followed by Scott, who will provide a detailed overview of our financial performance. Lhasa will then conclude with commentary on the business outlook and market trends. With that, I will now turn the call over to Lasse.

Thanks, Erik. Following strong financial results in the first half of the year, the momentum continued into third quarter with high utilization and strong product performance through the execution of complex port deepening and coastal restoration projects, leveraging the capabilities of our team and our fleet. We ended the quarter with revenues of 195.2 million and adjusted EBITDA of 39.3 million. Our dredging backlog remains strong at 935 million with 84% in capital and coastal protection projects, plus an additional 194 million in awards and options pending. During the third quarter, we were awarded new projects totaling 136 million. A successful bid strategy from last year resulted in a large number of projects wins, which resulted in a high quality backlog, which will support full utilization and revenues for the remainder of 2025, as well as providing a good base and revenue visibility for 2026. Our current backlog includes three major port deepening LNG projects. The Port Arthur LNG Phase 1 project, the Brunswell Ship Channel project, part of next decade's corporations Rio Grande LNG initiative, and Woodside Louisiana LNG, which is expected to commence dredging early 2026. We have seen no interruption to our business during the current government shutdown. Our operations remain unaffected, and we continue to conduct business as usual, maintaining full schedules both in bidding, awards, and we received payments on time. Our support to the Corps would proceed without disruption, and our backlog of projects are fully funded. During the third quarter, our offshore energy team commenced rock placement operations on Equinox South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. And during the fourth quarter, installation of Armor Rock commenced on Empire Wind 1. utilizing a chartered vessel until delivery of the Arcadia in Q1 of next year. At the end of October, we completed the refinancing and upsizing of our revolver credit facility, increasing capacity to $430 million and extending the maturity to 2030. With the increased capacity, we elected to repay our $100 million second lean term loan. Scott will provide more details later on. Moving on to our new build program, in the third quarter we took delivery of our sixth hopper dredge, the Amelia Island, marking a significant milestone in our dredging new build program, which is now complete, leaving us with the largest and most advanced hopper dredge fleet in the United States. Upon delivery of the shipyard, the Amelia Island was straight to work and is performing extremely well. The Amelia Island and her sister ship, the Galveston Island, have been specially designed for shallow and narrow waters in the United States coastlines and are effective tools for us to work on coastal protection projects such as beach restoration, wetlands improvements, and barrier island construction. The final vessel in a new build program, the Acadia, the first U.S. flag Jones Set compliant subsea rock installation vessel, is also currently under construction and hit a key milestone with a launch from the dry dock in July. Delivery is expected in the first quarter of 2026, at which time she will go straight to work on Empire Wind 1. The target markets for the Acadia include domestic and international offshore work, protecting critical subsea infrastructure, such as oil and gas pipelines, power and telecommunication cables, and offshore wind installations. I now turn the call over to Scott to further discuss the results of the quarter, and then I'll provide some commentary around the market and our business.

Thank you, Lasse, and good morning, everyone. I'll start by walking through the third quarter, which resulted in revenues of $195.2 million net income of $17.7 million and adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin of $39.3 million and 20.1% respectively. Despite having three dredges at the dock at various times during the quarter undergoing regulatory dry docking and repairs, revenues of $195.2 million increased $4 million from the prior year's third quarter as every active DREAD was working for the majority of the quarter in addition to the newly delivered Amelia Island, which commenced work in August. Current quarter gross profit and gross profit margin increased to $43.8 million and 22.4% respectively, compared to $36.2 million and 19% respectively in the third quarter of 2024. The increase in gross margin is primarily due to improved utilization and project performance and a large number of capital and coastal protection projects which typically yield higher margins. These projects accounted for over 85% of our third quarter revenue. Current quarter's operating income of $28.1 million increased $11.4 million compared to the prior year's quarter's operating income of $16.7 million. The year-over-year increase is driven by higher gross profit and lower general and administrative expenses. Net interest expense of $4.6 million for the third quarter 2025 was down slightly compared to $4.9 million in the third quarter of 2024, and net income tax expense of $6.1 million increased from $3.2 million in the same quarter of 2024 due to the stronger results. Rounding out the P&L, net income for the third quarter 2025 was $17.7 million, up from $8.9 million in the prior year quarter. Total capital expenditures, including capitalized interest for the third quarter, were $32.8 million, made up of $8.3 million for the completion of the Amelia Island, $18.6 million for the construction of the Acadia, with the remaining $5.9 million for maintenance and growth CapEx. Full-year CapEx guidance of between $140 and $150 million, including capitalized interest, remains relatively unchanged from the prior quarter. Turning to our balance sheet, we ended the quarter with $12.7 million in cash and nothing drawn on our revolver. And as Lhasa mentioned earlier, on October 24th, we upsized our revolving credit facility to $430 million and extended the maturity out to October 2030 at lower borrowing rates than the previous facility. With the increased capacity, we elected to immediately repay our $100 million second lien notes in full, reducing interest expense by almost $6 million per year. Our balance sheet is in great shape with a trailing 12-month net leverage ratio of 2.5 times, liquidity of nearly $300 million, no debt maturities until 2029, and a weighted average interest rate on our total debt now under 6%. For the first nine months of this year, we've had positive free cash flow of $52 million despite the new bill payments. And as our new bill program will be substantially complete at the end of this year, we expect to be significantly free cash flow positive starting in 2026. Looking forward to the fourth quarter, we expect to end the year on a high note, even with two hopper dredges in the shipyard undergoing the regulatory dry docking, as every other active dredge will be working the majority of the quarter, including a full quarter of utilization for the Amelia Islands. With the strong fourth quarter we're on pace to achieve, our expectation is that 2025 will be the highest EBIT a year in company history by a large margin. With that, I will turn the call back over to Lhasa for his remarks on the outlook moving forward.

Thank you, Scott. Our business operations continue without disruption during the current government shutdown. We remain fully operational, maintaining regular project schedules, We're responding to ongoing bid activities, receiving the contract awards, and we receive timely payments. All current and upcoming projects in our backlog are fully funded. Our $935 million backlog includes a robust mix of large and complex projects in the beach restoration and port deepening markets, enabling us to continue operations on our very busy 2025 and provides clear revenue visibility extending well into 2026. As we predicted at the beginning of the year, the 2025 dredging bid market has been normalized after coming off a very strong port deepening bid market in 2023 and 2024. We expect the 2025 bid market to come in about $1.8 billion, more focused on coastal protection projects, which are funded by the 2023 Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriation Act and dredging maintenance projects funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As we look ahead, we're beginning to see meaningful progress on the next phase of four deepening projects, including New York, New Jersey, Tampa, New Haven, and Baltimore, amongst others, with work most likely to commence in 2027. Turning to the U.S. offshore wind market in May, we saw the reversal of the temporary pause from the Bureau of Ocean Management, and Equinox's Empire Wind project has resumed in accordance with its original schedule, which is part of our offshore energy backup. Between Empire Wind 1, Ørsted's Sunrise Wind, and the additional scope for Sunrise Wind we were awarded last week, we have secured full utilization for the Arcadia in 2026. In response to early signs of potential delays in the US offshore wind market, we proactively adjusted our strategic outlook for the Arcadia. Over the past couple of years, we have looked at and include for the safeguarding of critical subsidy assets, including oil and gas pipelines, power transmission lines, telecommunication cables, and international offshore wind farms, increasing our opportunity into a broader range of services that we now refer to as offshore energy. The Arcadia is engineered to precisely deposit rock for the protection of subsea infrastructure against environmental forces, such as weather and potential acts of sabotage by hostile entities. We are actively pursuing engagement across these sectors and are making good progress in securing full utilization of the Acadia in 2027. In conclusion, building on strong performance in the first nine months of 2025, the company continues with great momentum and expects to achieve outstanding results for the remainder of 2025 and continuing into 2026. The success is a result of excellent project execution, the strength of our modernized fleet, and our competent and excellent teams. And with that, I turn the call over for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 1 again. Our first question comes from the line of Julio Romero of Sidoti and Company. Your line is now open.

Thanks. Hey, good morning, Lassa, Scott, and Eric.

Morning, Julio.

I wanted to start on just thinking about bidding trends and the trajectory of orders for dredging expected for the remainder of 25 and in 26. And, you know, kind of given the end of that capital project cycle, just talk about, you know, your expectations about bidding and winning coastal protection orders through 26 to help you kind of bridge you to the next East Coast deepening cycle expected in 27?

Yeah, as I said, we are under a CER that is now extended to November 21st. See what happens when Congress get together. Probably we get an extension of the CER to the end of the year and maybe into 2026. And under the CER, The Corps can bid out the same amounts as they had for the previous years. The only change is that new start projects cannot start up, and there hasn't been that many new start projects, so we expect bidding to continue as normal for maintenance dredging projects and for coastal protection and restoration projects. as I said, the bid market for 2025 is a reduction from 23 and 24.

That was very active with poor deepening projects, but it's getting back to more normal bid market size.

Understood.

And congratulations on upsizing and expanding your revolver a few weeks ago. Going forward, does cash interest expense and gap interest expense converge? And if so, what's your estimation of kind of a good quarterly run rate to use going forward.

Yeah, so as I mentioned, just taking the 2L out, putting on the revolver, that by itself saves $6 million of cash interest a year. As you know, Julio, and I'll kind of walk through the next few quarters, we're still capitalizing interest while the Acadia is being finished up. So when I look forward to fourth quarter, we will have a one-time non-cash expense to interest, and that's for the extinguishment of the financing costs on the 2L. We ended up paying it off three and a half years early. So you see about a $7.5 million charge. Again, I reiterate, non-cash. In addition to that, we will start seeing interest coming down. We'll probably have, in addition to that, $3.5 million of interest expense down from about $4.5 million, as we'll still be able to capitalize, but we have the reduced rate. So looking at probably about $11 million of interest expense in Q4, but about three to three and a half being the non-cash, excluding the non-cash charge. Looking forward to Q1, we're probably in about the $3 million interest expense. Then the Acadia gets delivered. So going forward, that is when cash interest and interest expense will be the same. But as we've talked about on prior calls, our priority next year is to start paying down the revolver. So the $6 million savings that we're seeing, I expect to increase quarter over quarter as we pay down and eventually pay off that revolver balance.

Super helpful. I'll pass it on. Thanks very much.

Thank you. Our next question from the line of Joe Gomez of Noble Capital. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Congrats on the quarter.

Thank you, Joe.

Maybe you can just walk me through this just because it's different from a number of other companies that I cover that are in the government space. I understand the whole continuing resolution stuff, but With the shutdown, many of the other government services companies are saying they aren't getting paid because so many of those people in those offices have been laid off or are not coming to work. So maybe just clarify how you guys are getting paid.

Yeah. You have to realize that the Corps of Engineers has about more than 30,000 employees in and only 1,000 of those are furloughed. And that is a consequence of that only 3% of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers workforce is funded through annual appropriations. Most of the Corps staff is funded through project-based accounts. And you can see that this works out. We have not had any issues with getting paid. Ongoing projects are being executed as normal. And we also see the bidding going on at a reduced rate because of the reduction in the overall bid market. But, yes, we have not been affected by the shutdown.

And we don't expect to beat it up either going forward.

Okay, great. Thanks for that clarity. Much appreciated. Lasse, what... Kind of early days, but what are you seeing as the 26 bid market? I know you said 25 is coming back to a more normalized rate, but what do you think your 26 outlook is looking for?

That's a good question, and it depends on a lot of things. We have a CR that is ongoing. Congress is discussing whether to extend that to the end of the year. Some want to extend it into 2026. Some are predicting extensions all through 2026. Anyway, under SCR, the budgets are remaining the same as it was in 2024, which was at a high level. So the core is funded. and can bid out work that is more maintenance related. But the only thing we cannot see is new starts going forward. So what I expect to happen is that we continue the CR into 2026. And then towards the end of 2026, these new port deepening projects that have been in study phase up to now, will probably be bid out, and then with operations starting in 2027. We will see a lot of coastal protection projects being bid out that is not affected by the CR as long with more maintenance stretching.

Okay, and then one more.

You know, we've talked about this in the past, you know, So the Acadia has got 26 fully booked, 27 we're working on with some of the other markets that you've talked about, the cables for power transmission, telecom, oil and gas. Have you had success, I mean, contracts signed with those other non-win-oriented customers for the Acadia, or is this still more of a work in progress?

It's still a work in progress, but we have, as I said, for the last two years been very active in Europe because we saw a reduction in activity in the United States. And there is a market for cable protection in Europe, which is expanding as a consequence of the political uncertainties surrounding us. And then the offshore wind market is continuing in Europe. We have bid several projects for execution in 27 and 28 and onwards. But in Europe, this market is a more mature market. So, contrary to what we saw here in the United States, where the developers wanted to secure capacity very early on, and so our contracts on Empire and on Sunrise In Europe, it's a more mature market, so the time between contract award and execution is shorter, more like six to nine months to a year. So we have bid a lot of work, and we are waiting for the outcome of those bids, but none awards as to now.

Okay, thanks for that. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Thalheimer of Thompson Davis. Your line is now open.

Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on a great quarter.

Thank you, Adam.

Scott, I can't help myself. You sounded so good on Q4. I'm just curious, maybe you can compare your expectations for Q4 to the high watermark for the year of Q1.

Yeah, I knew if somebody tried that, it would be you, Adam.

I'm glad I didn't disappoint.

You didn't. I mean, again, as you know, I mean, the Q1 we had was, you know, one of the best, if not the best in a company history. Q4 is going to be extremely, extremely strong. Now, again, I did say we do have two hopper dredges in dry dock during the quarter, and you know the the impact of that, the additional cost, and, of course, the zero in the revenue line. We did not have the same cadence of dry dockings in the first quarter on those type of vessels. That being said, just as we typically do, the bookend quarters are really, really strong, Q1 and Q4, and we're going to see that again in the fourth quarter.

Okay. I'll take that, and then... The next one, I'm a little, so you started booking offshore energy revenue in Q3 and your backlog has grown, you know, grew in Q2, grew again in Q3 for the offshore. It seems like that work is starting earlier. You talked about, you know, leasing a vessel to get to work. Is it starting earlier? Maybe you can just level set what's going on there.

Well, what is going on as scheduled. We were planning to use the Acadia for executing the work this year, but the delay at the shipyard resulting in to perform the scopes, that is our scope on Empire 1, we have charted in a vessel and that work is ongoing right now. Scott?

Yeah, and in addition to the work that's ongoing on Empire 1 that started in the fourth quarter, We did, right at the beginning of the third quarter, win an additional scope of work for Equinor, and it's on the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal. So that we began executing, again, with a chartered vessel. That was never contemplated to be the Acadia, but it is to support the Empire Wind Project. So that's the revenue that you're seeing in the third quarter. That project will continue into the fourth quarter. along with the commencement of the armor layer of work on Empire One. So you will see Q4 revenue on offshore energy increase from the third quarter. So the increase that you saw in backlog is related to that South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, which was not in Q2 backlog.

Okay. So next year, does it stay at that Q4 rate, Scott, or is there a further step up?

Well, no, next year, oh, you're saying on a quarterly basis? Yeah, it runs around that because we will then take delivery of the vessel. We will go straight on to Empire, do some work there. Then we'll go straight on to Sunrise, and then you may have heard Lhasa mention post-quarter end, so it's not in the backlog. We did win a little additional scope on Sunrise, so that is what fills out 2026.

Okay. Last one for me, just high level, what are you seeing in the coastal protection market and potentially upcoming bidding opportunities?

Yeah, we see a number of beach restoration and coastal protection projects coming out to bid as we go into Q4 and into Q1 next year. It's different funding streams, as I mentioned in my brief remarks. So it's a funding stream that is different from the normal appropriations to the Army Corps of Engineers, and that's why it continues during the CER. As you know, we like to do these complex and difficult projects because we perform well under those circumstances. And then we see the... maintenance dredging being bid out from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. I just want to say that also part of what we've been able to do is to diversify our client portfolio. So we are now 50% private and 50% federal government funded, the work we do, and that gives us a good balance in a backlog.

Good update. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Rigel of Texas Capital Securities. Your line is now open.

Alex, are you there?

Yes, sorry about that. Very nice quarter. Thank you for taking my question. Can you talk about bit about your very strong cash flow as we look into 2026 and beyond, and maybe what some of the uses of the cash flow is going to be?

Yeah, I mean, so as I mentioned, even this year, despite writing some really big checks to finish the new bill program, we are cash flow positive, and that will grow even more so next year as the new bill program is over. Priority one right now to look at it is to delever. You know, we just did one of the maneuvers, which was to take out the second lien and greatly reduced interest expense. By putting it on the revolver, we have the flexibility to pay that off when we want as cash flow from operations come in. So priority next year, finish the Acadia, use the excess cash to start paying that down. And then we'd just be left with the $325 million notes. Those don't mature until 29, and they've got a fixed interest rate at five and a quarter.

Thank you very much.

Yep. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of John of CJS. Your line is now open.

Hi, good morning, guys, and thank you for taking my questions. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about Q4. I think you guys mentioned it ending the year on a high note. Maybe give us a little bit more color on what is currently scheduled to revenue from a backlog perspective and given the dry docking schedule and how margins are likely to compare to Q3.

Yeah, again, I'm not going to give specific guidance, but I'll reiterate, every vessel is working the majority of their quarter with the exception of the two hopper dredges that will spend, you know, a part of the quarter within dry dock, but they'll work up until the dry dock and then when they come out. Typically, and I don't see the fourth quarter being really any different, we are starting to work on some environmental window work, and those usually do come with higher margins. So revenue will be extremely strong despite having the two vessels in dry dock, and margins will be extremely strong based on the work that we plan to be executing during the quarter.

Okay, great. That was helpful. And then just in Q3, can you help break out the offshore margin contribution so that maybe we can back into the dredging margins?

Yeah. And again, we're not going to, you know, give or ever give project by project. And there was only one project, you know, being executed. You know, it was $6 million of revenue. Again, we just commenced the project. And I'll just tell you, it's The expectations we had going into this market, which were really healthy margins, this project did not disappoint.

Got it. So we shouldn't expect a change in the margin profile as you bring the Acadia online, if that's the case. Is that fair to say? That's correct. Okay, great. And then last one for me, just, you know, given the outperformance this year at an EBITDA level, and maybe the changes in mix as you head into next year, is it possible to meet or beat the EBITDA that you're generating this year in 27, you know, with two new ships coming online, or is that going to be hard to do with the mix coming off and the hard comp from Q1?

Yeah, I mean, so, yeah, we definitely, you know, have entered this year with well over a billion dollars of backlog. We're still going to enter next year with healthy backlog, and the mix of projects are still going to be strong. You know, what we have in backlog now, the $934 million post-quarter end, we've had some additional awards. There's also about $190 million in low bids and option pending. One of those options, or two of the options are on the LNG projects, which have very high margins. Our expectations are Those do get exercised sometimes next year, and we'll execute those. So I do think when we look at 2026, we will have a similar mix of revenue like we saw this year. So, again, I'm not going to give guidance as to how next year compares to this year, but we see no reason why next year won't be an extremely strong year as well.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to Eric Burge for closing remarks.

We appreciate the support of all our shareholders, employees, and business partners and want to thank everybody for joining the discussion today about the developments and initiatives of our business. We look forward to speaking to everybody next quarter. Thank you.

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.