Orion Group Holdings, Inc.

Thank you for holding and welcome everyone to the Orion Group Holdings third quarter 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw the question, again, press star one. Thank you. I will now turn the call over to Frances Okoneski. Vice President, Investor Relations. Mr. Okoneski, please go ahead.

Thank you, Jack, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to Orion Group Holdings' third quarter 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. Joining me today are Travis Boone, Orion Group Holdings President and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Thanish, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Regarding the format of the call, we've allocated about 10 minutes for prepared remarks in which Travis and Scott will highlight our results and update our outlook. We will then open up the call for questions. During the course of this call, we will make projections and other forward-looking statements regarding, among other things, our end markets, revenues, gross profits, gross margin, EBITDA, EBITDA margin, backlog, projects, and negotiation and pending awards, as well as our estimates and assumptions regarding our future growth, administrative expenses, and capital expenditures. These statements are predictions that are subject to risks and uncertainty, including those described in our 10-K that may cause actual results to differ materially from those statements. Moreover, past performance is not necessarily an indicator of our future results. By providing this information, we undertake no obligation to update or revise any projections or forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new developments or otherwise. Also, please note that adjusted net income, adjusted earnings per share, EBITDA, and EBITDA margin are non-GAAP financial measures under rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Regulation G. Please refer to reconciliations and definitions inclusive of the most comparable gap measures and reconciliation tables accompanying this earnings conference call within the press release issued last evening. The press release can be found on our website at www.OrionGroupHoldingsInc.com. Also, for additional discussion of risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations, please refer to our quarterly and annual filings with the SEC, which are also available in the investor section of our website. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to Travis Boone, President and Chief Executive Officer. Travis?

Good morning. Thank you all for joining. I'm happy to be talking to you for the first time today from this seat. Thanks to Austin for leading the business for the past couple of quarters and for helping me make this transition into the role. He did a great job of setting Scott and I up for success. Also, thanks to our people who have endured a lot of uncertainty over the past year or so and remain committed and kept working hard through the challenges. We wouldn't have a business without them. I'm very excited to be leading this team at Orion. We have great people, a robust market, and opportunities to build our business and grow organically in the coming years. I came here because this company has extraordinary potential. and is uniquely positioned to be so much more than we are today. I've been in the construction and engineering industry my entire life, from my start working for my dad as a teenager to leading a business with thousands of employees and billions in revenue. I'm well suited and prepared to address the challenges we've seen as a company and refocus our business to build a strong foundation and a healthy future. Scott and I have spent the last six weeks listening and learning the business with the teams on the ground. We've been at most of the offices and at multiple project sites. We've also been talking to our investors and analysts. We've been soaking in all that we can in order to build the strategy for the next year and beyond. Our confidence in this business comes from the strong base that exists in the markets that we have and will expand into. We will continue executing on operational improvements and know we can deliver strong and predictable results. My observations have been that we have an environment and are in markets that will lead to successful outcomes. We're winning high-quality work, and we're winning more of it. We have tremendous people who are loyal and doing very good work every day, and we have opportunities to expand our business. Some of our areas for improvement, we will be working on our processes, systems, and tools. We will continue focusing on rigor and discipline in both project bidding and delivery to bring in higher margins. We are looking at our costs and have already identified some ways to reduce our overhead burden. And lastly, we have opportunities to grow and improve with targeted investments into the business. We have a qualified team to transform this business. We aren't looking at it short term. This is going to take some time to get it right. We are building something that will be successful year in and year out for the long haul. We have been working aggressively toward a stronger business with higher returns and making the necessary investments to achieve success for our business. I'll turn this over to Scott Danish, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss our results for the quarter.

Thanks, Travis. Before turning to our financial results, I'd like to introduce myself and, like Travis, give my first impressions from the six weeks that Travis and I have been on board. I joined Orion because I see a tremendous potential in this company. Having served as chief financial officer of a Texas commercial construction services company and a transport services company, I'm operationally focused and I have a passion for this industry. Over my nearly 30 years as a finance professional, I've been fortunate to work in organizations that recognize the value of finance leadership that is deeply engaged with the operations. Travis and I share this view of the finance functions role. and I'm prepared to apply the same discipline and rigor to my role here at Orion, with finance and operations working hand in hand to achieve results. Throughout the past few weeks getting to know the team, I'm encouraged that we have a group of talented finance professionals with the capability and the experience to effectively partner with operations to capture the transformational opportunities on the horizon. Another thing that excites me is the opportunity to transform Orion's business performance by leveraging data to provide business insight. Orion generates a wealth of operational and financial data in day-to-day operations. World-class finance teams can turn data into business intelligence, intelligence that is critical to making strategic and timely moves in a dynamic environment. I believe our finance organization at Orion has the ability to be a crucial business partner to Travis and to our operational leaders. Throughout my career, my passion has been to create high performing finance teams that help transform business results. Here at Orion, I will be focused on developing our people, retooling our processes, and aligning our systems to drive value for our business. Over the past few weeks, as Travis and I have traveled to meet many of our team members, customers, investors, and financing partners. We've heard from our stakeholders about areas where we can improve, and we've also heard a great deal of optimism about our business. For me, one of the most impactful of these interactions was our opportunity to join the TAS team in Dallas on a recent Saturday for our annual safety barbecue and awards. Carrying the passion and commitment of our frontline team members, some of whom have been with the company over 40 years, really brought home our ability to deliver safe, high-quality work for our customers. We have the right attitude and the right capabilities. Our focus will be on improving our planning, managing excellent execution, and delivering consistent results. Now, turning to our quarter, revenues for the quarter were $183 million, compared to $140 million in the third quarter of 2021, and 195 million in the second quarter of this year. The year-over-year increase was primarily driven by the contribution of large marine projects that were awarded in the fourth quarter of 2021, higher volume in our concrete segment, and the impact of claims and unapproved change orders related to work performed in previous periods. Third quarter gross profit was $13.4 million, compared to $6.6 million in the prior year period. This increase was the result of the claims and unapproved change orders recognized in the quarter, lower discretionary project bonus expense, and increased dredging activity compared to the prior year. Third quarter gross profit was down 6.3 percent as compared to the second quarter. And year to date, 2022 gross profit of $40.5 million is up 18 percent compared to year-to-date 2021. As a percentage of revenues, gross profit margin was 7.4 percent in the third quarter, up from 4.7 percent in the prior year period and in line with the second quarter's gross margin. Turning to the segments, in the third quarter, the marine segment had revenues of $76 million and adjusted EBITDA of $11 million, equating to an adjusted EBITDA margin of 14%. And our concrete segment had third quarter revenues of $107 million, an adjusted EBITDA loss of almost $2 million, and an adjusted EBITDA margin negative 1.7%. During the third quarter, we continued our focus on closing out concrete jobs in Central Texas. This region contributed less than 15% of our concrete segment revenue in the quarter, but at significantly lower margins than we achieve in other markets. We expect to complete most of the remaining Central Texas backlog during the fourth quarter. SG&A expenses for the third quarter were $15.4 million, or 8.5 percent of revenues, compared to 15.7 million, or 11.2 percent of revenues, in the prior year period. And net income for the third quarter was 0.2 million or one cent diluted earnings per share. Excluding a half a million dollars of non-recurring items, adjusted net income was 0.8 million dollars or two cents diluted earnings per share. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was 8.8 million dollars, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 4.8 percent. This compares to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $5.5 million in the prior year and adjusted EBITDA of $5.7 million and adjusted EBITDA margin of 2.9% for the second quarter. Turning to our bidding metrics, in the third quarter, the company bid on $1.2 billion worth of opportunities and were successful on $128 million of new work. This resulted in a win rate of 10.5% and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.7 for the quarter. At the end of September, backlog was $549 million, down from 573 at the end of the prior year period. Of the quarter-end backlog, 280 million was in the marine segment and 268 million in the concrete segment. We will burn 83% or 456 million of the quarter-ending backlog during the next 12 months. In addition to this backlog, there's $39 million of new work that has either been awarded subsequent to the end of the third quarter or for which the company is the apparent successful bidder. Of this, $36 million is related to the marine segment, while $3 million is related to the concrete segment. As Travis mentioned, our increased bidding discipline is yielding results. We want to win jobs on the basis of our ability to deliver quality, timely projects at a good price not merely by being the low-cost bidder. Our recent wins in both segments are benefiting from this discipline, and we will continue to focus on those opportunities where we have higher job margin potential. Moving to the balance sheet, the company ended the quarter with $31.1 million of outstanding debt and $2.7 million of cash, resulting in a net leverage ratio of 2.88 times adjusted EBITDA as measured under our credit agreement. The company is in compliance with our credit agreement covenants, and at the end of the quarter, we had almost $11 million of available capacity under our revolver. We have initiated discussions with current and potential financing partners as we evaluate options for the extension or replacement of our existing credit facility.

With that, I will turn the call back to Travis for his closing remarks. Thanks, Scott.

There are a few items about which I'd like to provide an update. As Scott commented, we are continuing our exit strategy in Central Texas, which will enable our refocused concrete business to perform better in our Houston and Dallas markets. Our new dredge, the Lavaca, will be operational and working in the next couple of weeks. This was a major investment for us over the past year or so. We have a signed purchase agreement for sale lease back of one of our Port Lavaca properties, which will close in December. We are continuing to make progress with interested parties on the East West Jones property on the Houston Shipping Channel. We're also looking at ways to monetize some of our other assets to further reduce our debt. As we turn our attention to delivering fourth quarter and planning for next year, Scott and I and the team will be developing a strategy for this business to facilitate growth deliver better returns more efficiently, and diversify our portfolio to help safeguard our business. We will be focusing on strong project delivery, disciplined decisions on pursuits to make the best use of our BD dollars, continuing to bid with strong margins, expanding our client base, identifying overhead efficiencies, streamlining our systems tools and reporting, evaluating opportunities to assist with Hurricane Ian recovery, and capitalize on the IIJA, which is the Infrastructure Act, as it comes online. And finally, building contingency plans for supply chain issues and inflationary and recession concerns. I'd like to say thank you to our longstanding customers, suppliers, and vendors. Your support of our business and our relationship with you are crucial to our success. In closing, I'd like to reiterate my excitement about joining Orion and leading this team to reach the huge potential that we have as a company. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us. We have investments to make, and we have some things we need to do better. But I'm very confident in our ability to maximize the potential that we have. I'll turn it back over to the operator for your questions.

Certainly. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Joe Gomes with Noble Capital, your line is open.

Good morning, Travis and Scott. Congratulations on the quarter.

Thanks. Thanks, Joe.

So first question in the press release, you mentioned a couple of times, uh, about the impact from claims and unapproved change orders. I was wondering if you kind of maybe give us a little more color detail, how much impact those have on revenues and gross profit in the quarter and, Maybe kind of as a follow-on to that one, you also had about a $3.4 million gain on disposal of assets. Maybe you could just give a little more color on what assets that came from.

Sure. In terms of our customer contracts, we're not going to comment on details of some of the workings of those, but these were change orders and some claims that we have related to some large projects. On the marine side, they were, you know, costs that were recognized in previous quarters, so these are essentially the impact of those claims and the margin from those claims flowing through on the quarter. In terms of the gain on sale that is recognized in the quarter, we sold a couple of assets. One was a spud barge, I believe, and the other was a ringer crane, Those were assets that were not being utilized in our operations, and it was a great opportunity for us to turn those assets into cash.

Okay. Thank you for that. And the concrete segment, last quarter, I know you guys weren't in charge then, but Austin had talked about how the concrete segment in June had had turned profitable and expectations were that in the third quarter we could see profitability on the concrete segment. And looking again at the press release, it wasn't on an operating income level profitable. Instead, it reported about a $4.1 million loss. I was wondering what kind of change between the second quarter call and the rest of the quarter in that segment was not able to show profitability.

Yeah. So, Joe, I think part of that pertains to our business in Central Texas that we've continued to kind of work on, as we said, getting out of that market. We're trying to wrap up some projects and get those completed as quickly as we can, as profitably as we can. But that's continued to be a drag on our concrete business. So that's the general, the main attributor to that. I would say also that there's some projects that we bid at, you know, a while back in the last year or so that we're still wrapping up that they weren't quite at the margins that we had where we have guidelines now. And I would say we're trying to get those wrapped up as well. So I think it's just continued drag from previous work that we're trying to get out of the pipeline here.

Yeah, and as we continue our efforts to exit that business, you know, there are costs that are associated with the equipment and people that are... The Central Texas business. The Central Texas business, right. There's that, you know, we'll need to reallocate to other parts of our business or find some other way to shed those costs. So, Yeah, that will be a continuing impact as we continue exit. But, you know, our plans are essentially to reallocate where we can those assets to much more profitable use.

Okay. And obviously, you know, at the end of the quarter, you know, we had Hurricane Ian come through. Florida, I know you guys had a number of projects scheduled to start in the fourth quarter or were started in the third quarter. Just maybe give us a high-level detail, what kind of impact the hurricane had on your business, either positively or negatively?

Uh, so it was, uh, it was, I would say neither positive nor negative. We didn't, uh, for for the impacts during the storm, we were prepared and braced for for the hurricane to hit hit the Tampa area where we had quite a bit of work going on. Unfortunately, for Fort Myers, it took an abrupt turn and and didn't hit Tampa as as expected, and we didn't have a ton going in the Fort Myers area. So we were we were braced for it, but we're relatively unimpacted and we're back to work, you know, pretty quick after the storm went through. We are looking to, you know, obviously assist with hurricane recovery in the coming months and probably years. So we are doing a lot of work preparing for assisting in the recovery down there.

And there's a number of governmental organizations and private organizations that we've been in contact with that we see positive developments coming out of those conversations.

Okay, and one more for me, if I may, and then I'll step back in queue. And I know, again, you guys have early days in your tenure, but I'm sure you guys are familiar with you know, Kiewit purchased, you know, week stretching, I would call it a month, six weeks ago. Just wondering, you know, how do you see that impacting, you know, the competitive environment for you guys?

We're still evaluating that. We're not, you know, Kiewit is a, is a, teaming partner as well, and as well as competition in some cases. And we're still evaluating whether or not that's kind of what the impacts to us will be. Obviously, Weeks is a competitor as well. So we've been talking about it. We don't see any drastic change anything anytime soon. I know there's been very public statements that Kiewit and that WEEKS is not planning on changing how they operate for the foreseeable future. So at this point, not anticipating major impacts to anything at this point.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate the answer to the questions. I'll pass it along.

Thanks, Joe. Alex Arguello with B Reilly. Your line is open.

Great, good morning. This is Min Cho for Alex. Welcome, Travis and Scott. Look forward to your leadership and turning and growing this business going forward. I just wanted to get your general thoughts on, I mean, Travis, maybe your general thoughts on the concrete business longer term. I know you talked about more discipline, bidding, but are you thinking about new geographies or just focusing on the two areas in Texas right now, any new industries, different type of contracts, just any thoughts that would be helpful.

Sure. First of all, I'll say we have a lot of confidence in our concrete business going forward. I think there's numerous opportunities that we have. As far as the markets go, we will continue to focus primarily on Houston and Dallas. We'll be opportunistic in other locations as it comes along if there's opportunities in other locations that make sense for us. We've got some great teaming partners in that business that if they ask us to come help in another location, we're ready to go. I'll also say that that business, we have historically always worked on private developer-driven projects. My background is heavy public sector experience and anticipate that we will start working on expanding more into some public sector work to help supplement the private sector work that we do already. And I think that's a big opportunity for us to grow that business in a place that we have historically not worked. So I think there's great opportunity there for us and look forward to helping drive that business in an additional direction.

Okay. And then this is for Scott, kind of staying with the concrete business. As we get through these problem projects and some of the legacy projects that have the lower margins, are you suggesting that fourth quarter concrete margins should see sequential improvement or could it be worse as some of these projects wrap up? Any guidance for the fourth quarter would have to be helpful.

Yeah, I appreciate the question. I think it's probably too early for me to say that there's a significant change in our expectations for the fourth quarter from what you've heard before. I do think that as we roll forward and start to bring on some of the newer work that's been bid at higher margins, that will help. We're also, as Travis mentioned in his remarks, looking at ways in which we can lower our overhead costs across the board, and that includes in the concrete segment. So those are going to be positive tailwinds that help us. And, of course, the thing I mentioned earlier of making sure that we reallocate assets, that we shed expenses, that's going to be key for our execution to improve the margins of that business as quickly as we can.

All right. And then also, I mean, the prior questions about the claims. Are you expecting any more claim settlements in the fourth quarter? And without them, I'm assuming margins could be a little bit softer in the fourth quarter, just overall?

I don't have any specific expectations for claims in the fourth quarter. Of course, it's always a part of our business, and it can arise at any time. So... We continue to work with our customers, and just as in the concrete business, we're very focused on making sure that we're bidding and executing at the right margins. So those are going to be the factors, I think, that are driving our performance going forward. Change orders and claims, those just kind of go in and out with the flow of the business.

Okay. And you talked about supply chain. I mean, obviously there have been some headwinds. If you can give kind of an update on where the headwinds are or just what the supply chain situation is on the concrete steel rebar and how you can mitigate some of this going forward if you're seeing increased headwinds with increased infrastructure projects coming forward.

I guess I'll say we don't have any, you know, other than the general concerns that everyone has globally about supply chain issues, we don't have any specific instances of something that's impacting us currently. You know, there's been some talk in the last few days about diesel shortages and things like that. That's concerning specifically because it's kind of fresh and new, and we do burn a lot of fuel in our fleet and across our company. So that's probably the one that's freshest on our mind at the moment. We are looking at ways of teaming with some of our partners and vendors about being kind of supporting the supply chain and helping them find ways to alleviate these concerns. But we're not... Other than the general concerns that people have globally about supply chain issues, there's not a lot of new or anything we haven't talked about in the past.

Yeah, but another thing that we're obviously going to be focused on, like everybody, is making sure that we have appropriate escalation clauses in all of our contracts. So that's an important part of our discussions with future and existing customers.

Okay. And then I think you mentioned a little bit about the east-west property. Can you just give us any timing on that and just talk about how it's progressing?

As far as timing, I think it'd be pure speculation at this point, but we have made some good progress with some interested parties that, you know, we're hopeful on. I know you guys have been hearing this for... quarter in and quarter out, but it's, it is something that I think we've, we've made continue to make progress on here in the recent, uh, in the last, uh, last few months that when, uh, you know, it's, it's, we're in a, we're in a time that, uh, selling property is, is uncertain for, for anybody, uh, with a recession and things like that. Fortunately, we have some, some interests from some parties that, uh, that would be, you know, uh, in a position to move forward even at a time of recession. But we probably won't comment on that too much more, but we're hopeful that we'll be moving towards something here in the coming months.

And we are actively engaged. They conduct their due diligence in answering questions. We're prioritizing that process as much as we can.

Great. Thank you. That's it for me. And good luck, gentlemen.

Thanks.

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Julio Romero with Sudoti & Company, your line is open.

Thanks. Hey, good morning, Travis, Scott, and Perrin. Hi, Julio. Hey, morning. I'd like to start by digging more into your thoughts on strategy. You identified some items in your prepared remarks, process systems, better discipline on bidding and delivery. If you could just speak more to what Orion needs to change from an operational perspective, and if you could give us a rank order of sorts.

Yeah, I mean, you've heard from Austin for the last couple of quarters about discipline bidding. I think that's something that we're going to be continuing to focus heavily on to make sure that we're capturing the appropriate margins when we bid work. We're focusing on quality, not quantity. And so that will continue. going forward. I think from the perspective of the overhead costs and things like that, that's part of running a business and every company that should be evaluating costs and how we're delivering our business to make sure we're doing it as efficiently and as profitably as we can. So we'll be looking at that you know, pretty heavily here in the coming weeks and months to find ways to do our business more efficiently. And then as far as processes, systems, and tools, you know, that's something that we have been working on for some time in our company and got a good head start on it, but we need to get some things, you know, kind of finished up over the next year or so, some some internal projects on how we do our processes and systems. And so we're working on getting those fully executed.

And I would add that one of the things that's going to be a critical success factor for us is our ability to execute well. And so our project controls process and the way in which we manage projects, that's something that Travis and I are digging into deeply to to see how we can improve that and really deliver our projects in a way that can delight our customers.

Got it. That's very helpful. Thank you. On the concrete side, you talked about increasing the mix of public sector projects going forward. I guess, how do you weigh the benefit of taking on more public sector work for the greater funding certainty, I assume, versus the downside of potentially lower bid margins on the public side?

Yeah, I think there's a couple of aspects of it, Julio. I think there's, you know, not only, you know, in times of recession and things like that when developers tend to be a little more constrained on what they're able to do, public sector tends to continue forward through some of that. So it'll help us kind of ride out some storms, so to speak, with the economy. And I think additionally it will help kind of, again, it's not in lieu of the private sector where it gets in addition to, and that'll give us another section of business in order to help grow our concrete business in a profitable way without distracting us too much from our core markets.

Okay, got it.

And you mentioned in the quarter, Central Texas made up 15% of the concrete sales. Would you happen to have what that percentage looked like either on the prior year quarter or maybe 2021 in general?

It was less than 15%, and I don't have the number handy, but certainly we can get back to you on that. But the emphasis that we have on the concrete business is going to be to continue that process. Like I said, it's less than 15% of the current revenue quarter. It's, I think, less than 8% of the remaining backlog. So it will continue to decline, and then we'll push forward in markets where we've been more successful.

So last year it made up less than 15%, is what you're saying?

No, no. I don't have the number handy with me, but I'll let you know on the next quarter if we can give you more detail there.

Okay, no, no, all good. And then maybe just last one is just, you might have touched on it, but on the asset sales, just if you could reiterate maybe the expected use of funds there.

Yeah, we use the proceeds from those asset sales to reduce our revolver balances, and so it It's now sitting in revolver availability and available to us as general corporate uses might dictate. But, you know, our strategy really is to delever the business over time through some of these asset sales. So as we proceed with additional opportunities, I think that's going to be reflected on our balance sheet in that way.

Appreciate the color, and thanks very much for taking the questions. You bet.

Dave Storms with StoneGate, your line is open.

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call. Just a soft skills question, as we're getting to know you, Travis and Scott. You have your background in the construction industry. Is there anything that you're seeing, given your background, as you're going out doing your meet and greets, that is just kind of low-hanging fruit for you guys to improve on called in your first 100 days?

Thanks, Dave. I think I'll... One of the things that I've seen is we're a company that's built of numerous acquisitions. And I'll say we haven't been as integrated as I would like us to be in the respect of sharing best practices and how we deliver our projects. We have a lot of great people doing great work in multiple markets. And there hasn't been a lot of sharing of resources or processes between the different groups. And I think that's something that we'll be focusing on doing more going forward. You know, just I think that's the first thing that comes to mind. I don't know if Scott has something to add to that.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I think that, you know, there's low-hanging fruit that we've seen in some of our overhead expenses, as Travis mentioned earlier. just some renegotiations with vendors, some opportunities to maybe consolidate locations would be able to recognize in a pretty rapid way some real benefits for the business. And that's something that I've told Travis one of my favorite meetings of the week is the invoice review session that I do with our IT team because it's a great opportunity to see how the business has been spending its money and and I see ways in which we can spend it better. So, you know, there are low-hanging fruit opportunities, and we're going to get out there and execute them quickly. That's perfect. Thank you.

Kind of in that regard, I'll add one more thing, if that's okay. I would say kind of one of the things that we're looking at pretty hard is how we procure materials. I think historically we have procured materials by, you know, project-by-project basis, and I think there's – There's some economy of scale opportunities here where we could, for example, whether it's rebar or concrete curing compound or whatever it might be, I think there's some opportunities for us to get some good efficiencies by buying more in bulk than we have historically instead of buying project by project like we have done.

And that would also help in a time when we're concerned about supply chain delivery to de-risk some of our operations as well.

Perfect. Thank you. So would it be fair to say that a lot of the opportunity for growth is more organic than external at this point?

Yeah, absolutely. We are focused on the organic growth potential of the business, which we think is tremendous. Perfect.

Thank you. And then, Scott, this might be a little more for you. As we think about the infrastructure bill and the Hurricane Ian potential for more bids coming up, do we have an expectation on timing for that? Are we going to start seeing that coming through in the fourth quarter? Are we already seeing it? How would that bell curve kind of look?

No, unfortunately, I don't think we have a strong view on timing. Certainly, There are a lot of elements of hurricane recovery that are going to be more urgently needed than others. As Travis and I mentioned earlier, we're engaged in conversations with potential customers that need those services, and I think that there's an opportunity to realize some of those quicker than others. On the Infrastructure Act, that's going to be a long tail. is just a tremendous amount of money that needs to be spent. It's going to take some time. So I think that that's going to be more of a lift of our business over a period of time that extends out fairly into the medium to long-term range. So they're both going to be able to deliver value for our business short and long-term, and we just need to kind of execute and prioritize appropriately.

That's perfect. One more for me, if you don't mind. When you talk about your leverage ratio and your asset dispositions, are you thinking of that from a more point where you want to get rid of certain assets? Or are you thinking of it from you want to get your revolver down to a certain spot? Are you thinking of it from the assets located in certain geographies that you're more inclined to get rid of? How are you thinking about the end goal there?

Yeah, so, you know, in terms of our existing debt, I don't think that we're highly levered right now. We have, you know, I think a comfortable level of debt, but it is more about making the best use of our assets. And so we have items where it could be used across both of our segments, where we might be able to share things better and drive utilization higher. And that may free up assets that no longer have use for us. We also have some assets where, you know, as we mentioned, moving out of the Central Texas business, there just may be things that we don't need as we continue to do that. So it's going to be more focused on getting the right asset base to drive the growth of our company forward than it is to, you know, kid a particular leverage point on the balance sheet.

That's perfect. Thank you very much. You bet.

Poe Frat with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.

Great. Good morning, Travis. Good morning, Scott. Good morning, Fran. Just a couple of quick ones. If you wouldn't mind, I know that you seem hesitant to offer an actual number for the change order impact during the quarter. Can you just give us a ballpark number and what kind of impact from a dollar value standpoint that had?

What I can tell you is it was a significant contribution to our earnings and our revenue in the quarter. And we'll have that from time to time as we work with our customers around changes that happen on work that we're working on. That's about as much as I can give you, but certainly happy to answer any other questions you've got.

Got you. Okay, so when you're looking at, you know, you had 100 days or so, you've identified potentially from a cost standpoint some improvements there. Can you just maybe give us a ballpark number that you think as far as what you can squeeze costs down by And then I noticed the ERP spending was down. Does that imply that the timing of the ERP project is either put on hold or you're going to see less emphasis there? It would seem to be integral to integrating the different parts of the concrete business to improve the bidding process there. But can you just give us an idea of sort of what you're looking at from a cost standpoint and squeezing costs?

Yeah, so in terms of what kind of potential there may be, I could probably hazard a guess, but I would almost certainly be wrong, and I don't know if that would be high or low, because I see that there's a lot of potential, but quantifying and figuring out what the cost to achieve those savings might be, that's going to be really the next step to figure out where our priorities are. And as we kind of think about our long-term plans in the business and ERP and where we're spending money there. Certainly, systems are going to be an important part of how we leverage the data to drive better decisions and execute more profitably on our contracts. And so, I would expect that we'll continue to see some investment there. I think that what Travis and I are going to be focused on initially or where we can get some quick wins, and that may be through relatively small investments that can drive a benefit for the business quickly. So ERP and other spending to drive cost improvements I think will be metered to where we kind of have the ideas and are able to deliver things in a short time that can really benefit the business, that low-hanging fruit that we've talked about. We want to start getting a few wins under our belts so the team gets that experience of winning that then kind of carries forward into performance and looking for all kinds of opportunities that we can improve.

Yeah, so we've been here just right at six weeks or so in the business, and we've been focusing on getting our arms around what all is here. And I think the next step for us will be identifying more opportunities more specifically what those savings might be able to be achieved. And so we'll probably be better positioned here in a few months to give you better, you know, more direct answers on how much we think we can save. But we have, you know, in the short amount of time we've been here, we've learned a lot. But we've got some more to go before we can speculate on how much we can save.

You just seem to imply that you've been further down the road on that. So, if you look at sort of one of the, you know, the Achilles heels has been the bidding discipline. Is there one business or is it both that you think need improvement from a bidding standpoint?

I think both have already improved significantly, Poe. I think Austin instituted some, you know, guidance a while back that has been followed and will continue to be followed. I think both businesses have made improvements over the past couple of quarters on how we bid our work. We'll continue focusing on that and finding ways to be even more disciplined about how much we pursue, what we pursue, the quality of the work that we're going after.

Can you give us an idea of sort of the margin targets that you have for both businesses and then I'm not sure you have this detail, but for Central Texas, would concrete have been profitable during the quarter, either from an operating standpoint or an EBITDA standpoint?

I'll answer the first part and let Scott answer the second part. I think from the perspective of competitive advantage, I think it would be foolish of us to start advertising too much about margins and things like that. So I'll hold back on that. I'll say it's a you know, we're confident that we're bidding projects with healthy margins.

Yeah, and in terms of the concrete business and our exit of Central Texas, yes, that's been a drag on the business in the quarter. In the absence of that drag, that would have been a profitable segment.

Great, that's helpful. And then, you know, you put in your press release, you know, we've been hearing about Port Lavaca for the last, I want to say, five or six quarters. Um, my recollection was that that targeted the targeted proceeds from Portland locker were sort of in the 5 million range. Did the scope of that transaction change at all? And, you know, did it go from an outright sale to a sale lease back? Can you just give us sort of flavor on that? And then also, you know, what's your confidence integral in that closing, you know, considering the history there?

Um, I'm not entirely sure what the previous plans were on the property. What I do know is it is a sale-leaseback. We do need that property to operate our dredge business. So we will continue to work off of, you know, as a leaseback on that property. As far as the scale of it, as far as I know, it's always been more than $5 million. So I'm not sure. you know, honestly, what historically has been talked about, quite frankly. But I think we're confident that we got a good price on it. And, you know, I don't know, Scott, if there's more that you want to add to that.

No, I think that it's, you know, kind of as you said, we think that we got a good price. It's a good transaction for us. I have a good deal of confidence that we can execute that in a timely way. So that's our focus is really getting that done and then finding those other opportunities that we can go execute on.

We do have a signed purchase agreement that says we'll close in December of this year.

Okay, great. And then on East West Jones, has the target, you know, the working assumption there was it would generate, you know, in the mid-30s as far as proceeds. Is that still a reasonable target, or is it just too early to say because, you know, you pretty much had to restart that process.

Yeah, I think we're looking at what we're doing in terms of the marketing of that property with our partner, CBRE, on that transaction. And so as we kind of move forward and are engaged with the interested parties that we're currently engaged with, I don't know that we're going to make a shift in value other than in response to any kind of negotiation with them. If it were to go longer than that, then we would, of course, reevaluate the current economic environment and our position in the marketplace and determine how we should proceed at that point. But right now, we're just focused on the buyer that we have in hand and trying to get that transaction closed.

Great. And just one last one to squeeze it in. Your outstanding bid levels are, I think you said, $1.8 billion. Can you break that down between marine and concrete? And then, you know, successful bids to date, $36 million on the marine side, $3 million on the concrete side. The concrete side seems a little light so far as far as successful bids, you know, a third of the way into the quarter. Any cause for concern there?

I think that what you're seeing there is that more discipline in bid margin that we're putting in there. It is intrinsically going to lead to fewer wins when we're being disciplined about our minimum bid margin. So we're focusing on working with quality partners and where we have great relationships and moving forward with doing work that is a healthy margin.

And in terms of the outstanding bids and how that mix looks between the segments, it's more tilted towards concrete. Maybe two-thirds of that outstanding bid total is concrete. But, you know, our bid activity is always ongoing, and I would expect that as we report our next quarter, the mix of that bid, our outstanding bids could change pretty significantly. The current shift is towards towards concrete, but we'll see how things progress going forward.

Great.

And I appreciate.

Sorry. One more one more thing I'll add, just since we're talking about bids, we we are. In the process of submitting the the the largest bids in our history in both concrete and marine currently.

The largest bids ever. Can you sort of quantify that?

No, they're ongoing bids, Poe. I can't talk about them. But I did want to put that out there. We're being aggressive about what we're going after and finding projects that are good fits for us. And these are both great fit projects, and we're aggressively pursuing them. So I'd prefer not to talk further about it. Hope to have good news for you later. Hopefully we can tell you about good news.

You sort of dangled some red meat out there. Can you just maybe give us a time frame on when you expect the bidding to wrap up or the bid process to wrap up? And are these negotiated situations or are they competitive bids?

let's say their competitive bid, one of them will take a few months for us to know. The other one will be a little more, a little sooner than that. And there may be some negotiation on one of them. Got you. So, Sachin, we'll really appreciate your time.

Thanks for your help.

Again, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1. David Wright with Henry Investment Trust. Your line is open.

Good morning, Travis and Scott, and welcome to Orion. I'll try to be concise. Travis, in your remarks, you talked about wanting to deliver strong, consistent results. Just briefly, what's success a year from now from your perspective?

From my perspective, a year from now, it's that process. When we start telling you what we're going to do in the next quarter and it's having these calls with you and delivering what we told you we would do or better, that's success for me. That's my focus. My goal is for us to tell you what we're going to do and deliver it or exceed your expectations every time.

And then that would infer providing guidance, forward guidance. Is that correct?

I think that as we start to build consistent results, you'll be able to rely on the things that we tell you about the future.

Great. Scott, you've just done the sale lease back. I wonder, are you happy with the company's working capital? Do you need more capital? You talked about renegotiating the lines. Are you then looking just for debt capital? How do you feel about working capital?

Yeah. So obviously if, If we are able to identify opportunities to grow the business, that's going to require some investment in working capital as you ramp up new projects and grow revenues. So, obviously, working capital is a focus of ours. Making sure that we manage it well is important. And as you alluded to, making sure we've got the right capital structure is important. So, we're really considering the whole picture as we think about what our needs are going forward and how we want to implement our strategy. But I would just say that working capital as a management effort is always going to be a focus of our finance team because efficiency in managing our assets and resources is how we can improve our margins and be a better business.

So do you feel you have enough working capital presently?

At present, I think that we are able to deliver on our commitments to our customers and we'll continue to move forward like that.

Okay. I wanted to ask quickly about the backlog. You've got a large out project with the Space Center. How do you feel about the quality of the backlog with respect to margins and is the existing backlog going to be a drag over the next year?

There is some of our existing backlog that will be a bit of a drag as we wrap it up. Some of this work was won prior to, you know, guidance on our bids that we instituted. And so we'll be continuing to work through those projects. So it will, you know, some of those projects have a little bit of a longer tail on it, as we mentioned earlier. So we'll be continuing to work through those projects. And then, you know, some of the better margin work that we've been winning more recently, we'll start overcoming the drags that we have.

Okay. And then lastly, where are you on completing the 2023 budget?

Yes, we're actively thinking about next year and working through with our team and developing our numbers for what we expect the business can do. And as we do that, as Travis had mentioned, we're looking at what investments are needed in the business, what expenses we need to incur as the cost of delivering improvements. And so there's obviously a lot of inputs in that process, and we're engaged in it right now. And hopefully when we come back to you the next quarter, we can give you an update that is a little more down the road and gives you better insight into where we're headed.

Super. Thank you for taking my questions, and good luck going forward.

Thanks. We have a follow-up question from Poe Fratt with Alliance Global Partners. Your line is open.

Sorry, I should have asked this before, but can you just refresh our memories as far as the largest bids or projects that have been awarded both on the concrete and the marine side?

Yeah, I think 160 on the marine side.

And on the concrete side, I think it would be Double digits, 40 million range in concrete.

Great.

Thanks for your help.

I will now turn the call back over to the management team for closing remarks.

Thanks, everyone, for joining and your interest in our third quarter earnings conference call. We look forward to speaking with you again in February to discuss our fourth quarter and year-end results.

have a great day this concludes today's conference call we thank you for your participation you may now disconnect