Huntington Ingalls Industries, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the fourth quarter 2024 HII earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. During the presentation, you can register to ask a question by pressing star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you need further assistance, please press star followed by zero. I would now like to hand you the call over to the Vice President of Investor Relations, Christy Thomas. Mr. Thomas, Mrs. Thomas, please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone to the HII first quarter 2024 earnings conference call. Joining me today on the call are Chris Kastner, our President and CEO, and Tom Seeley, Executive Vice President and CFO. As a reminder, statements made today that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to be materially different from future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Please see our SEC filings for important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from expected results. Also in their 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 our website's Investor Relations page at ir.hii.com. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Chris Kastner. Chris?

Thanks, Christy, and good morning, everyone. Today, we released quarterly results that were characterized by steady performance in shipbuilding and strong growth of mission technologies. We saw record first quarter revenues reflecting the continued strong demand from our customers for our products. As we discussed at our investor day in March, we remain focused on delivering the advantage to all our stakeholders, our customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and communities. Now let's turn to our results. Record first quarter revenue was $2.8 billion and diluted earnings per share was $3.87 for the quarter, up from $3.23 in the first quarter of 2023. New contract awards during the quarter were $3.1 billion. which resulted in backlog of $48.4 billion at the end of the quarter, of which $27 billion is currently funded. Turning to an update on our shipbuilding milestones, in the first quarter at Ingalls, we completed builders and acceptance trials on LPD-29, Richard M. McCool, Jr., which led to delivery of the ship last month. At Newport News, we delivered the first Columbia-class stern, floated off SSN 798 Massachusetts, and completed acceptance trials for SSN 796, New Jersey, which also delivered in April. We were also awarded the Advanced Planning Contract for CVN 75, USS Harry S. Truman's RCOH, and undocked CVN 74, USS John C. Stennis, as part of its RCOH in April. In addition, last month we announced the first integration of an Australian company into the Newport News Shipbuilding supply chain with the purchase of steel from Australian manufacturer Bisselloy Steel. The steel will be used for training and testing to enable us to begin the qualification process for the incremental steel volume required for AUKUS. This is a critical first step toward an integrated U.S., U.K., Australian supply chain under AUKUS. At Mission Technologies, we saw record first quarter revenue with sales of $750 million, 20% over the first quarter of 2023. In addition to very strong sales growth, Mission Technologies won strategic competitions in the quarter, including a $305 million contract to protect U.S. regional interests in the Republic of Korea, a $74 million contract to research, analyze, and develop enhanced capabilities for vertical launching systems onboard US Navy surface ships and in order to build a Remus 620 unmanned underwater vehicle for an international customer. Now, shifting to activities in Washington for a moment, we were pleased that the fiscal year 2024 budget cycle ultimately concluded in March. We saw continued bipartisan support for our programs reflected in the final Defense Appropriations Act, including funding for two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, two Virginia-class attack submarines, and one Columbia-class ballistic submarine. Additionally, the appropriations measure provided $500 million for advanced procurement funding for LPD-33. The final appropriations bill also provided funding for the submarine industrial base and large surface combatant shipyard infrastructure and authorized the Navy to enter into a multi-year procurement contract for Virginia-class submarines. Also in March, the President submitted the fiscal year 2025 budget request, now under consideration by Congress. The proposed budget reflects continued investment in our shipbuilding programs, requesting funding for two Arleigh Burke-class surface combatants, one San Antonio-class amphibious warship, and a lead Block VI Virginia-class submarine. Additionally, the budget request funds the first year of the three-year refueling and complex overhaul of CBN 75 USS Harry S. Truman. The budget request also continues funding for investment in the submarine industrial base and research and development efforts for the next generation large surface combatants, DDGX, and nuclear submarines, SSNX. From an operational standpoint, the access to skilled manufacturing labor coupled with our supply chain experiencing the same labor challenges continue to impact our programs. In that regard, we hired over 1,700 craft personnel in the first quarter, which puts us on track to achieve our full-year plan of approximately 6,000. Also in the first quarter, both of our shipyards held apprentice graduations, celebrating over 230 graduates across HII who are and will become the leaders in their crafts. We continue to maintain our focus on workforce retention and development and are working closely with our customers and state and local governments to solve this challenging issue. We continue to use overtime, contract labor, and outsourcing to mitigate risk and strengthen the opportunity for progress and schedule stabilization. In summary, we remain focused on meeting our commitments to our customers and will continue to invest in our people and our facilities to ensure we meet the demand we forecast for our products and services. And now I will turn the call over to Tom for some remarks on our financial results. Tom?

Thanks, Chris, and good morning. Today I'll briefly review our first quarter results. For more detail on the segment results, please refer to the earnings release issued this morning and posted to our website. Beginning with our consolidated results on slide three of the presentation, our first quarter revenues of $2.8 billion increased 4.9% compared to the same period last year and represent a record first quarter result for HII. This increased revenue was attributable to growth at Mission Technologies and Ingalls. Operating income for the quarter of $154 million increased by $13 million, or 9.2% from the first quarter of 2023, an operating margin of 5.5% compared to operating margin of 5.3% in the same period last year. Net earnings in the quarter were $153 million compared to $129 million in the first quarter of 2023. Diluted earnings per share in the quarter was $3.87 compared to $3.23 in the first quarter of the previous year, and backlog increased to end the quarter at $48.4 billion. Moving to slide five, Engel's revenues of $655 million in the quarter increased $78 million, or 14% from the same period last year, driven primarily by higher volumes on surface combatants and amphibious assault ships. Ingalls operating income of $60 million increased 9% from last year, and operating margin was 9.2% in the quarter, primarily due to the higher volumes I just mentioned. At Newport News, revenues of $1.4 billion decreased $72 million, or 5%, from the same period last year, primarily driven by lower volumes in aircraft carriers and the Virginia-class submarine program. Newport News operating income for Q1 was $82 million, and operating margin of 5.7% were relatively flat with the prior year. Shipbuilding operating margin in the first quarter was 6.8%, slightly behind the outlook we provided for the quarter. Our shipbuilding revenue and operating margin outlook for the full year remains unchanged. And as we've previously noted, our expected shipbuilding milestones for 2024 are concentrated largely in the second half of the year. At Mission Technologies, revenues of $750 million increased $126 million, or 20% compared to the first quarter of 2023, primarily due to higher volumes in C5ISR and cyber electronic warfare in space. Mission Technologies operating income of $28 million compares to operating income of $17 million in the first quarter of last year. The increase in operating income was driven primarily by higher volumes I just mentioned. First quarter results for Mission Technologies included approximately $25 million of amortization of purchased intangible assets. Mission Technologies EBITDA margin in the first quarter was 7.7%. Turning to slide six, cash used in operations was $202 million in the quarter. Net capital expenditures were $72 million, or 2.6% of revenues. Free cash flow in the quarter was negative $274 million. This compares to cash used in operations of $9 million, net capital expenditures of $40 million, or 1.5% of revenues, and free cash flow of negative $49 million in the first quarter of 2023. The use of cash in the first quarter was expected and was due to timing of collections. We reaffirm our free cash flow outlook for 2024 of $600 to $700 million and our five-year free cash flow outlook of $3.6 billion. Cash contributions to our pension and other post-retirement benefit plans were $10 million in the quarter. I would also like to note that we made the remaining $145 million in debt payment on our term loan associated with the Alliant acquisition in Q1. Also, during the quarter, we paid dividends of $1.30 per share, or $51 million in aggregate. We also repurchased approximately 223,000 shares during the quarter at a cost of approximately $62 million. To summarize, we delivered strong year-over-year revenue growth in the first quarter, driven by mission technologies and angles, and expect Newport News volumes to ramp up throughout the remainder of the year. In addition to its very strong sales, mission technologies continue to win new contracts and has a robust opportunity pipeline that has grown now to $80 billion. We're off to a solid start for the year in revenues and operating income, and as typical, we expect free cash flow to ramp up throughout the year. Looking forward, we are confident in reaffirming our 2024 outlook and our five-year free cash flow outlook of $3.6 billion. Before I end my remarks, I'd like to thank you again for attending and for watching the webcast of our Invest Today on March 20th. Chris and I and the HI leadership team appreciated the opportunity to showcase the details of our strategy, investment thesis, and financial plans. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Christy to manage Q&A.

Thanks, Tom. As a reminder to everyone on the call, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up so we can get as many people through the queue as possible. Operator, I will turn it over to you to manage the Q&A.

Thank you, Chrissy. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Scott from Deutsche Bank.

Hey, good morning. Hey, Chris, sorry if I missed this, but where is CVN 79? Yeah, where is CVN 79 at in terms of percent complete?

It's right around 90%. It's progressing well. They're into the test program. We're actually seeing dead loads fired off emails off the ship, so that's a positive sign. So, yeah, they're progressing very well.

Okay. And then, Tom, you know, to hit the midpoint of the shipbuilding margin guide, it looks like you'll need to do second-half margins about, I guess, 150 basis points above the first half. It sounds like it's driven by better milestones. Maybe you can just walk through in a bit more detail as to where that uplift comes from. Thank you.

Yeah, so we do have – thanks, Scott. I appreciate the question. And we do have a shape of our margin, and it's backloaded in the year because of the milestones – And we got it to 7%. We came in at 6.8 here, just a little light on the margin there. And then on the operating income, the sales being under 2.2. Timing on that, cost and labor is here. Working ourselves through progressing on that front. But on the back half of the year, as we make our milestones, I do anticipate a ramp. We're guiding for Q2 to be a 7% quarter as well in shipbuilding. And then obviously the back half of the year, we'll kind of lift that up.

All right, thank you.

Our next question comes from Robert Spingarn from Milius Research.

Hey, good morning. Good morning, Rob. You know, Chris, this is going to touch on the labor situation, but the Navy controller was saying recently that the Navy just can't simply buy its way out of programmatic challenges and delays. I assume that has to do, you know, the delays, of course, we've talked about this a lot, are just driven by labor constraints. I was wondering if you could expand a little bit on that. And is there any possibility that maybe some subsidies to shipbuilders might relieve the situation?

Yeah, that's interesting. Obviously, subsidies would help. More important than that is the summary industrial-based funding that's been appropriated in 24, where there's a real line of sight on projects that are going to improve performance within the industrial base, in the supply chain, in the labor force, and in capacity. So I think that targeted effort by the Navy and the shipbuilders to identify opportunities um, spaces where we can make investments and get improvements is, is appropriate. The teams are working very hard to do that.

So is it, it sounds like it's really then not just labor. There are these other, other things you can do.

Well, there are other things you can do, but labor is the, the primary issue is manufacturing labor in the United States and then, uh, shipbuilding labor in the United States. Um, uh, simply, uh, the, um, the amount of labor that's necessary to build the ships, the access to labor, and then the labor rates that we need to develop to be able to access more labor. We're working very hard on the apprentice schools in workforce development with the state of Virginia and Mississippi and the community colleges. And it's really kind of a change in approach relative to ensuring that manufacturing labor is a good job and a good paying job that people want to do coming out of high school. So I don't think it's a one-size-fits-all sort of solution to this, but labor is, I believe, the most contributing factor. And when you think about the supply chain, it's labor in the supply chain as well. So manufacturing labor is definitely a priority that needs to be fixed for the nation, I believe.

Okay, and then just quickly on mission technologies, You know, Andy had real good sales in the first quarter here ahead of the guidance run rate. So I was just wondering if we could talk about what's expected for the rest of the year there. You know, what drove the quarter, and then do we fade a little bit in the rest of the year? Is that just being conservative?

So, Rob, I'll give you some color on that. Yeah, it was a strong quarter again here. Came in at $750,000 following Q4 last year at $745,000. Yeah, we are being conservative in the guide. We're still holding it at 275. I mean, if you do the quick math, the run rate for the remaining of the year is 650 and holding to the guide there at the midpoint. There is opportunity, I think, for him to do better than that, but we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. It's about awards that he has in the plan this year, changing contracts that we have that we have backlogged on those contracts into sales. And then him continuing his team to continue to stay on his labor plan and is hiring in that. So I do think there's some potential tailwinds on that front, but we'll just have to let the year play out right now. I'm really comfortable. We saw, you know, he finished last year at 13% growth from 23 over 22. And then you see a quarter here where it's over 20% quarter over quarter. So fantastic start to the year. And he's got the, pipeline has grown from $60 billion to $80 billion, so the opportunity set and scope of what's in play there has grown as well. I'm looking for a strong back half of the year here from MT, but we'll have to see how it plays out.

Okay. Thanks so much.

Our next question comes from David Strow from Barclays.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. uh chris one to ask you you know you you've now you know in q1 and q2 you're going to knock off a lot of these milestones that were supposed to happen late last year um but at the same time we really haven't seen any of that perceived upside come through in terms of the the margins based off of what you did in ship you know for shipbuilding q1 and what you're forecasting for q2 so if you could just square that why we're not seeing some of that upside that we would think would be there not coming through with these milestones being completed?

Yeah, well, no doubt that when you miss milestones and you extend schedules, there's going to be additional cost. So, unfortunately, as we came through those and missed the end of the year and then got them done, 798 we floated off in the first quarter. We got the two deliveries in the second quarter. There's just less opportunity. So, yeah, unfortunately, schedule equals cost. We've got to make our milestones. You think of the balance of the milestones in the year, they're all holding. I would say the VCS milestones of the back half of the year are going to be a challenge, but the team is committed to getting those done, and they're holding now. But that's why we give you the milestones so you can get a barometer of how we're executing.

Okay. Thanks. That's helpful. And then, Tom, could you maybe, I mean, you guys for, you know, a free cash flow burn in Q2. I mean, it seems like obviously going to be a very back-end loaded year. How should we think about the pacing of the, you know, CapEx step up? We didn't really see it in Q1. So when do we really start to see a pickup in CapEx and then what I would assume would be a big, you know, working capital recovery on the other side?

Yeah, so from a cash perspective, you know, we came in at 274 here. We're guiding another minus 100, so we'll work ourselves through that. Not uncommon. We burned cash at the beginning of the year and not unanticipated here, so we wanted to make sure everyone aligned with us on that front. From a CapEx perspective, we spent 2.6% of sales in the first quarter here, and as we get into those projects this year, we'll ramp on the back half of the year. So we held the guidance at 5.3% of CapEx sales for the entire year. And you'll see that ramp as we get into the back half of the year here.

Okay. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Doug Hartnett from Bernstein.

Good morning. Thank you. Morning, Doug. On, you know, There has been, the Navy has commented on the Columbia class issues with the work on the bow at Newport News. Can you comment on that in terms of what the status is and how that can affect your workflow on Columbia class?

Sure. So, yeah, widely reported on that issue. The team has come through the first-to-class issues on the bow that impacted the schedule. Those are essentially behind us now, and now there's volume work to get the bow complete. We're actually a bit ahead of schedule to the recovery plan. The team's very focused on it. It's really our top priority. It's the top priority of the Navy. So unfortunate that we encountered those first-of-class issues, but we think the specific issue that drove the schedule delay is behind us at this point.

Okay, well, good. And then on Virginia class, you talked about the milestones this year. What I'm trying to understand is kind of where everything is in the flow in terms of eventually getting to that, you know, two deliveries per year level. You had this letter come out of the House with a lot of members of Congress saying arguing that there should be two Virginia class in the 2025 budget, the president's budget. But does that matter? In other words, what I'm trying to understand is getting to two looks so difficult right now. Does it matter to have the second one in the 2025 budget? And where do you stand on that pathway to get to two when you look at the milestones ahead here?

Yes, I'll tell you, there has been incremental improvement as we've moved through the first part of the year on improving the rate on the VCS program. It's not good enough. There needs to be additional improvement. On regard to the budget, I think the most important thing relative to the discussion on one or two boats procured in 25 is the signal that sends to the supply chain is we need to make sure that We buy a full boat of material so we keep the supply chain healthy so that we eliminate that risk for them. The last thing we want to do is create risk within the program. So I think we've communicated that with the customer and the Congress. They understand it. And as you know, we're just at the beginning of the budget discussions, so ultimately we expect it to get resolved. But it's very important that we get it. the supply chain under order for both of the boats.

Okay, very good. Thank you.

Thanks, Doug. Our next question comes from Ronald Epstein from Bank of America.

Good morning, everyone. This is Mariana Perez-Mora for RON today.

Good morning.

So this first question is going to be related to Australia. As you see this first order for a steel delivery from an Australian company, how should we think about in the near term, you benefiting from this early investment to actually make the Australian submarine supply chain stronger?

That's an excellent question. From an AUKUS standpoint, as I previously indicated, we view this as opening of two markets for us. So it's a really good opportunity for us, and we think we're taking all the right steps to prepare for some ultimately pretty material impact to the corporation. This is a really critical first step because we're flexing muscles in our supply chain to qualify a vendor in Australia that will ultimately potentially be part of a supply chain. We're starting small, but it'll ultimately grow from here to make them a sovereign, ready submarine provider. So this is just the first step. I don't believe material revenue will flow from this immediately, but it's an important step to be prepared for us to support Australia.

Perfect. And also in the line of AUKUS, there has been talks that South Korea would like to join this trilateral agreement. If that goes through, how do you see this impacting the potential of the program, demand, and even supply? chain environment.

Well, obviously, there'd be further upside related to that. I think there are discussions about that, but I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Let's focus on AUKUS at this point, and I'll leave those sort of discussions to the Pentagon and the Navy.

Thank you so much.

Our next question comes from Gautam Khanna from TD Cohen.

Hey, guys. I was wondering if you could, A, give us the EACs by segment in the quarter and have a follow-up.

Okay, yeah. So it was 53 up, 51 down for net two, and the makeup of that was Ingalls was positive 13, Newport News was negative 12, and MT was one.

Okay. At NNS, the margins were a little light of our expectation. I'm just curious... Any step-backs in productivity or labor to speak of broadly at NNS or elsewhere?

Yeah, so I'll start, then Tom can jump in. Yeah, as you know, Gautam, we evaluate our EACs every quarter, and if we have to take step-ups or step-backs, we do that. None were material in nature, but you saw the slip of the milestones, which impacted some programs. So there were minor step-ups and step-backs throughout.

But nothing material on that. Yeah, nothing material. I'll comment, too, here. So, yeah, you know, 6A versus a guide of 7.0. A year ago, this quarter, it was 6.7 portion of the building, so not that far off. You know, from a news perspective, again, it's 5.7 for the quarter. A year ago, there were 5.6. They finished off last year at 6.2, so, you know, slightly off of that. You know, just working through getting that production line working, material and labor on the deck plate at the same time. trying to get that rework down and keeping the production line going here. So we're fighting through it and really not that far off the guide.

And then just lastly on LPD 29, was that EAC taken in the first quarter or was the delivery actually in the second quarter and therefore it's more of a second quarter event?

Yeah, so we obviously assess the EACs in the first quarter, but it's a second quarter event. And it's included in our guide for the second quarter and our expectations for the second quarter.

Perfect. Thanks a lot, guys.

Sure, Galen.

Sure.

Our next question comes from Seth Safeman from J.P. Morgan.

Hey, thanks very much, and good morning. Tom, just first a quick clarification.

You mentioned the CapEx really stepping up in the second half along with the cash generation. So I assume you're also expecting a step up in the Navy support for that CapEx in the second half as well?

It's aligned. It's all baked into the plan we have and the guidance that we give. Yes. All right.

Okay. Okay. And then just on the margin rates in the shipyards, Q1, similar to last year, slightly higher. Q2, though, around 7%. If we look at the Q1 margin rates, it seems probably at the lower end of what you might expect for each of the yards. And so we'd normally expect some sequential improvement in each of the yards, maybe to something like above six at Newport and Ingalls is often in the double digits. Is there something to be aware of that's weighing on margins in the second quarter? I know you mentioned one milestone, but maybe a lack of overall milestones that's driving the 7% for the second quarter? It's tough.

to look at the margin rates from quarter to quarter, and we do try and forecast so that you can land about where we think that we will be. Behind the scenes is the maturation of where we are on our EACs, where the milestones are going to fall, where we see the potential risk burndowns, where we can take the step-ups in the booking rates. And it's just the first half of the year. We've had this for a couple of years now. The first half of the year is lighter than the back half. Obviously, the major milestones, the deliveries and the launches are back half loaded. We expect to see that there. I'm not surprised on where we are. You know, a couple of tents here or there is not a huge deal overall. And, you know, we're working through our risks and opportunities going forward here.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from George Shapiro from Shapiro Research.

Yes, good morning. Just following up a little bit on Seth's comment, but trying to get into some more detail. To get to the low end of your 7.6 margin guide for shipbuilding for the year would imply something like 8.3 or 8.4 in second half margins, which would imply an incremental $70 to $75 million in profit. Are the milestones that you're projecting for the second half going to give us all that 70 to 75 million, or is there something else?

It's a mix of the milestones that we have, incentives, all the aspects that we have in our burning down risk. So all that plays out. I will tell you from a margin perspective, if you look over the last three years, whether it's shipbuilding at 7, 7, 7, 7, last year was 8, 3, even when you take the claim out that we had that recovery rate, It was 7.5 from a Newport News perspective, which is the preponderance of where the risk is right now. We were 6.2, 6.1, 6.2. So that margin rate has been stable. What we're talking about is a lift here kind of going forward. And as long as we stay on pace, the tempo of hiring, the material, and the cost efficiency, as we've said in the past, we expect that incrementally to improve annually here. So we'll keep you informed right now. 6.8 versus 7.0 was pretty much on top of what we thought we'd expect, and we're guiding to 7% right now, yes. So the back half of the year, George, will be a lift.

Okay, and a follow-up, a different question on the working capital. I mean, receivables were up like 253 million, contracts, assets up 124 million in a quarter. That was well above last year's first quarter, so can you just kind of talk as to what caused it

Yeah, so it's the working capital timing, trade working capital between the buildings and the receipts, the AR and the AP that we have right now. We have the cost in hand. At times, it's either making the progress or being able to bill, working ourselves through incentives for collections, as well as progress restrictions that we have. So it's a little bit higher than we got it to at minus 200 here. and up minus 100 for Q2. Not uncommon, like in 2022, we ran the first three quarters in a deficit in cash, and then we came back strong in Q4. So we're watching that closely, and I think we're on plan right now kind of going forward.

Okay, thanks very much, Tom.

Our next question comes from Miles Walton from Wolf Research.

Thanks, good morning. I was wondering if we could ask a question first on the milestones as it relates to, I know you don't size them individually, but there's not a milestone chart in this slide deck, so just was going to refresh. The Massachusetts, is that the most important milestone for this year for Newport News, and also any of the 25 milestones you had in the deck last time, have those shifted at all?

No, 25 has not shifted, and all the milestones are important. It is critical on the VCS program that they meet their commitments because it is an assembly line and you need to roll crews to the next boat. So, yeah, those VCS milestones are important.

Okay. And then on the supply chain, I guess some of the testimony emerging is talking about merchant suppliers of propulsion systems for ships. And I'm curious, Chris, if you could just give us a little baseline of where – where you are in terms of the whack-a-mole game here of containing issues. And is it supplier components? Is it workforce? And I know you're going to say all of them, but maybe you can just give a little bit more color as the Navy Secretary was willing to offer up Northrop as a source of issues. It's a little bit of an incremental step in the direction of emerging of where the supply chain constraints might be.

Yeah, so thanks, Miles. Workforce is a significant issue. We think we've solved the hiring part of that issue. We're hired over 1,700 in the quarter to our commitment or to our goal of 6,000, and we're working very hard on attrition. There are some pilot projects that we have within each of the organizations, each of the shipyards relative to attrition surrounding pay, where you recruit from, and flexibility. those are starting to yield some fruit, but not enough where I can really take it to the bank. So some positive indicators, but not good enough yet. And we're going to continue to work on it. From a supply chain standpoint, we are being impacted by some major equipment within a number of our programs. The overall supply chain is definitely more stable than it was a couple years ago and even 12 months ago, but some of our major suppliers are impacting the erection of our ships, and we're working hard to resolve that with those subcontractors.

Okay. Is it concentrated to just a couple, or is this really widespread?

You know, let's say two to five. Okay.

All right. Thanks so much. Thanks so much.

Sure, Mal.

Our last question comes from Nola Pupanak from Goldman Sachs.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Tom, you've referenced with the shipbuilding margin kind of being essentially flat year over year and close to the guide in the quarter. And I understand and appreciate all of that and how it can move around quarter to quarter. But I guess last year, the full year did come in below the original full year outlook. And you've cited the movement of milestones out of the end of the year into the beginning of this year. I guess maybe could you frame it as your level of visibility into the back half milestones this year compared to what you saw when you sat there at this time last year?

I think both years kind of mirror pretty closely expectations, both from where we were on the margin side and the cash that's going to follow that. So it is a year where there's more milestones in the back half. It will be highly dependent that we get those done. You know, last year, the three events kind of slipped right from Q4 into Q1 and essentially the very beginning of Q2. So we had talked about staying attentive to us making our schedules. You know, two, three, four months slip, although we don't like that, is not huge. And I think the milestones we have right now, we have plans in place to make it by the end of the year. But there's risk on a couple of them, so we'll just have to see how that plays out here. I think it mirrors a very similar profile year as 2023. As far as your comments about kind of missing, last year we guided in the upper sevens. We finished A375. I tell you, the year before that was a couple of ticks off, too, a couple of tenths. So I think the guide is realistic. We have a plan in place to hit it. And it's just about execution here now with eight months to go in this year.

Okay. Makes sense. And how should we think about the pacing of the buyback through the year? And I guess also what's the minimum cash balance just given the shape of the free cash flow through the year?

Yeah, so we did buy back $62 million in the first quarter. We talked about a target of $300 million by the end of the year, so you can do the math on that. That should ramp up as we go through the back half of the year. We follow a very disciplined buying grid. We have algorithms against that when we see value, so we'll continue to employ that process. It has served us well. We reiterated our targets, so I don't see a change in that going forward right now. And then from a minimum on the cash balance, It's not per se a minimum from time to time. We will dig into our revolver or our commercial paper. So that's not uncommon. We've seen that in the past here. And as we're into the seasonality of Q1 in the first half of the year, being cash users, that's not a concern or problem right now. So there isn't like a threshold or minimum balance of cash that I have that would tie to being opportunistic and seeing value in the repo. So they're kind of independent. Okay.

Got it. And, Chris, you've touched on labor and attrition here. I think at the investor day you quantified that attrition improved around 20% last year. It sounds like that continues to get better. I don't know if there are any numbers you can put around, you know, how much better that needs to get to be kind of fully normal or stable or what you've seen year to date.

Yeah, we don't. you know, publish our target there. It's definitely not back at pre-COVID levels, so we still need to improve our performance from a retention standpoint.

Okay. All right. Thanks very much. Appreciate it. Thanks.

I am not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to hand over to Mr. Kessler for any closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you, everyone, for your interest in HII, and we will continue to focus on the fundamentals of our business in support of our customers. Have a good afternoon.

And this concludes today's conference call. You may not disconnect your lines.