Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the second quarter 2023 HII 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, please dial star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you need further assistance, please dial star 0 to speak with an operator. I would now like to turn the call over to Christy Thomas, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Thomas, you may begin.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the HII Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today on the call are Chris Kastner, our President and CEO, and Tom Steele, Executive Vice President and CFO. As a reminder, any forward-looking statements made today that are not historical fact are considered our company's estimates or expectations and are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of federal securities law. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For additional information regarding factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expected results, refer to our SEC filings. Also in the remarks today, Chris and Tom will refer to certain non-GAAP measures. For reconciliations of these metrics to the comparable GAAP measures, please see the slides that accompany this webcast, which are available on the Investor Relations website at ir.hii.com. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Chris Kastner.

Chris? Thanks, Christy. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. The HI team delivered another solid quarter. Our results demonstrate continued top-line growth and steady operational performance. We continue to make progress on our strategy, executing on our significant shipbuilding backlog and growing mission technologies. Not only are we executing on our shipbuilding backlog, we are also delivering all domain solutions through our unique capabilities to connect the different platforms that our customers use to perform their missions. Now let's turn to our results on page three of the presentation. Top line growth was 4.7% from the second quarter of 2022, resulting in second quarter revenue of $2.8 billion. Diluted earnings per share was $3.27 for the quarter, down from $4.44 in the second quarter of 2022. New contract awards during the quarter were approximately $2.6 billion, which resulted in backlogs of approximately $47 billion at the end of the quarter, of which $24 billion is currently funded. In the second quarter at Ingalls, we laid the keel for LPD 31 Pittsburgh and successfully completed builder's trials for NSC 10 Calhoun. We also successfully completed acceptance trials and delivered the first flight three Arleigh Burke destroyer DDG-125 Jack H. Lucas. We expect to launch DDG-128 Ted Stevens and LHA-8 Bougainville and deliver NSC-10 and LPD-29 Richard M. McCool Jr. later this year. At Newport News, we christened Virginia-class attack submarine SSN-798 Massachusetts and re-delivered the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, CBN 73 USS George Washington. Later this year, Newport News expects to float off SSN 798 and deliver SSN 796 New Jersey. As I previewed last quarter, CBN 79 Kennedy received the contract modification intended to optimize its construction schedule and deliver a more capable ship to the fleet earlier which updates the expected ship delivery to 2025. Slide four summarizes the projected shipbuilding milestones for 2023 and 2024, reflecting the updates for the CVN 79 contract modification and an update for the expected shipment of the final module of Virginia Class Submarine Block 4, SSN 801 Utah, which is moved to 2024. At Mission Technologies, we saw the second straight quarter of record high revenue of $645 million, with sales growing 7.5% over the second quarter of 2022. Mission Technologies had multiple wins in the quarter across its business units, capped off with the early third quarter win of JNEO, a $1.4 billion contract vehicle that serves the National Security Innovation Network and its mission partners by enabling the transition of innovation in both speed and scale from the lab to the battle space. In addition to these accomplishments, we recognize and are committed to the broader international opportunities represented by the AUKUS agreement, which directly align with our capabilities in nuclear submarines, as well as other emerging technologies as set forth in Pillar 2 of the AUKUS agreement. Turning to activities in Washington, the President's budget request for fiscal year 2024 is under consideration by Congress, and as bills progress through both chambers, we continue to see bipartisan support for our programs. We are pleased that the Armed Services Committees have shown strong support for shipbuilding to include authorizing funding for LPD-33 and multi-year procurement authorization for the next block of Virginia-class submarines. Both authorization bills, which have been passed by the respective chambers, authorized funding for the requested procurement of two Virginia-class submarines, one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, and two DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers. Both House and Senate appropriations committees include multi-year procurement authority for Block 6 Virginia-class submarines and fund the procurement of two Virginia-class submarines, one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, and two DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyers. The Senate Appropriations Bill provides advanced procurement funding for LPD-33 in FY24 and a third DDG-51 in FY25. And the House Appropriations Bill includes language supporting a stable rate of procurement of amphibious warfare ships. Final outcomes will depend on respective conference negotiations between the appropriations and the authorization committees. Now moving to labor, through the second quarter we hired over 3,200 craftsmen and women on a solid pace to meet our full-year plan of approximately 5,000. Although we are meeting our hiring targets, attrition remains high, and labor is still the greatest risk to meeting our plan. We are continuing to devote substantial effort at both shipyards in the areas of recruiting, robust training, and retention of our workforce in this very challenging labor environment. In summary, the strong demand for our products and services coupled with continued progress on our strategy of executing against our backlog and growing mission technologies sets the foundation for HII to continue to fulfill our mission to deliver the world's most powerful ships and all the main solutions in service of the nation. And now, I will turn the call over to Tom for some remarks on our financial results. Tom?