KBR, Inc.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to KBR's second quarter 2024 earnings conference call. My name is Kiki, and I will be your conference operator today. During the presentation, you will have the opportunity 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. I will now hand you over to your host, Jamie Dubre, Vice President of Investor Relations to begin. Jamie, please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to KVR's second quarter fiscal 2024 earnings call. Joining me are Stuart Brady, President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Mark Soft, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Stuart and Mark will provide highlights from the quarter and then open the call for your questions. Today's earnings presentation is available on the investor section of our website at kvr.com. This discussion includes forward-looking statements reflecting KVR's views about future events and their potential impact on performance, as outlined on slide 2. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ significantly from these forward-looking statements, as discussed in our most recent Form 10-K, available on our website. This discussion also includes non-GAAP financial measures that the company believes to be useful metrics for investors. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure is included at the end of our earnings presentation. I will now turn the call over to Stuart.

Thanks, Jamie, and welcome to our second quarter earnings presentation. I will start on slide five. As you've heard me say many, many times, KBR is a company that puts its people first. We strive to ensure our people have a strong sense of belonging, that they feel connected to each other and the company, of course, and can grow within an environment where they can bring their whole selves to work every day. Now to test that we're actually delivering for people in a broader sense, we regularly do a people survey, which is in fact anonymous. And the feedback ensures we are focusing in the right areas as we seek continual improvement And it really helps us avoid any complacency. The summary results are also important, particularly as we bring new entities into KBR or new employees into the company. This year, the participation levels increased 10%, and we're over 70%, which is actually our highest to date, and we feel gives a solid representation of how our people are feeling about being part of KBR. I'm pleased to share with you that we've been certified as a great place to work in 13 countries, and over 84% of our team members feel KBR is indeed a great place to work. And they would recommend KBR to friends. From an inclusion perspective, 85% feel they can be themselves, are heard, and that this is very much a value I hold very, very dear, so good performance there. Obviously, we are not perfect, but hopefully this gives you a good feel that we walk the talk when it comes to our people. And a big shout out to our people, in fact. So let's move on to slide six and discuss the quarter a little. So Q2, similar to the first quarter, was a clean quarter with the businesses performing at or above expectations across all key metrics. As you can see, the revenue is up 6% year on year, But more importantly, adjusted EBITDA was up 13%, won 3%, with margins at the group level up 75 bits. Year-to-date cash conversion was a terrific 121%. So following on from a strong Q1, this gives us confidence to raise guidance, which Mark will cover in a moment. But in short, our people, and thus KBR, continue to deliver. On the business growth side, our group book to bill on a trailing 12 month basis was 1.0 and after adjusting for the large LNG project was 1.2 times. Which considering we also have substantially increased bid volume and awards awaiting decision, this really represents a strong quarter. We've got circa $2 billion at the group level and currently sit at 92% of work under contract for 2024. And this is an important takeaway, especially with continued volatility, both politically and geopolitically. Now onto slide seven. Firstly, we'll start on STS. The book to bill after adjusting for the large LNG project sits at 1.1 for the quarter, so good performance, and 1.2 on a trailing 12 month basis. And as you can see from the awards highlighted below, we continue to lead the market in green ammonia with our first project in India and 10th project overall. Blue ammonia, however, continues to be more prominent due to affordability, and the contract with OCI reflects this. It's critical that we continue to ensure there is value add by delivering solutions that drive efficiency and improve yield. And this enables the energy transition, and I really think it's a key area of differentiation for KBR. In fact, there's actually only two blue ammonia projects in the world that have actually FID'd, final investment decisions. Both are using KVS technology. These are the OCI plant in Bowman, Texas, and FertiGloves in the UAE, which will make KVS proprietary process technology the first to produce blue ammonia. So this, in addition to our industry position in green ammonia, as measured by licenses awarded, puts us in a very, very strong position. We're also very, very excited about the award of a five year contract to help the Iraqi government develop their future plans across infrastructure, energy and sustainable development. I believe this demonstrates a strong position in the Middle East that we highlighted at Investor Day and ensures we are very much part of the early development conversations. Onto the government side, our book to bill sits at 1.1 times in the quarter. and at 1.2 times on a trailing 12-month basis. Again, terrific performance. Awards under the IAC-MAC IDIQ contract vehicle continued to be solid, and we've highlighted in the slide the re-compete win on the B52 program that we've had actually for eight years, which had a significantly increased value and additional scope for cybersecurity. It's a bit of a trend. Now, we do expect award volume to pick up in Q3 in this area with over $2 billion worth of bids submitted and awaiting award under the IAC MAC program alone. Quite substantial in that area. We've highlighted two large multiple award contract wins also in the quarter. Both are effectively a license to hunt and to enable rapid response mobilization if required. Now, notably, MQS2 is with a new customer, which is always positive, the Defence Health Agency. And we'll report ongoing progress as we move on to task orders under these contract vehicles in the coming months. As we highlighted at Investor Day, our volume of bids overall in the government business and across that whole portfolio has increased significantly in 2024 and currently sits at over $8 billion. I will now hand over to Mark, who will give more detail on the financial performance. Mark.