Orion Group Holdings, Inc.

Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call

3/15/2023

spk20: Good day and welcome to the Ryan Group Holdings 4th Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by the zero. On today's call, management will provide prepared remarks and then we will open up the call for your questions. To ask a question, analysts may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your headset before pressing the key and to withdraw your question. Please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Margaret Boyce, Investor Relations for Orion. Please go ahead, ma'am.
spk01: Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss Orion Group Holdings' fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. We issued our earnings release after market last night. It is available in the investor relations section of our website at oriongroupholdingsinc.com. I'm here today with Travis Boone, Chief Executive Officer of Orion, and Scott Banish, Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, management will provide prepared remarks and then we'll open up the call for your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's comments will include forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as will, be, intend, believe, expect, anticipate, or other comparable words and phrases. Statements that are not historical facts such as statements regarding the current and expected status of our negotiations regarding a replacement credit facility and our expectations regarding the filing of our audited financial statements tomorrow with a going concern or forward-looking statements. Our actual financial condition and results of operations may vary materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Discussion of the factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are contained in our SEC filings, including our reports on Form 10-Q. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Travis. Travis, please go ahead.
spk15: Thank you, Margaret, and thank you all for joining our fourth quarter and year-end 2022 conference call. Here with me today is Scott Banish, our Chief Financial Officer. We have a lot of ground to cover today, so let's get started. I'll begin with our strategic plan to put Orion on the right course for improved performance, and then Scott will discuss operations and financials. In the six months since Scott and I joined Orion, we've formed a great partnership and have been busy dividing and conquering our workload. We both continue to be impressed by the talent and energy of our team and are excited about the enormous opportunity ahead of us. Today, we have a much deeper understanding of our company's strengths and our opportunities for improvement. We believe our recent financial results barely scratched the surface of Orion's potential, and we are confident our business will continue to improve in 2023. In fact, 2023 is off to a great start. We are building great momentum. Since the beginning of the year, we announced contract wins totaling over $582 million. including on Friday afternoon when we were awarded a $448 million contract with the United States Navy to build a dry dock at Pearl Harbor as part of a joint venture. The overall contract for the JV is $2.8 billion. We've secured concrete winds in our Dallas and Houston market of around $100 million and won our largest diving services contract in our history, a $20 million project. Our year-end backlog, combined with our recent winds, comprises almost a billion dollars of work to complete in the next few years. You may recall on a November earnings call, I mentioned that we were bidding on our largest projects ever in both concrete and marine. And with the win on Friday, we won both of those projects. We are very proud of the focus of our teams to secure higher margin wins over the past few months. Since assuming the role of CEO, I've been able to validate the potential that first drew me to Orion. We're a vital provider of services to mission-critical infrastructure projects within the marine and building sectors in some of our nation's fastest-growing areas. We have long-tenured relationships with Blue Chip clients across the government and private sectors in both our marine and concrete segments, including the U.S. Navy and Army Corps of Engineers, many of the largest ports in the U.S. and the Caribbean, Metro Petrochem owners, and in our concrete division, significant general contractors in the Dallas and Houston markets. The talent pool we have is especially impressive to Scott and me and the willingness of our people to adapt and learn to achieve greater growth and success both for Orion and professionally is essential to executing our strategy. Lastly, we have a highly engaged and supportive board of independent directors with diverse backgrounds and complimentary expertise to guide us. We are confident that Orion has all the elements for success and the right team to unlock the value of our assets and deliver improved financial performance. That said, we have a big shift to turn around. It won't happen overnight, but we know what needs to be done to maximize the profitability and potential of this business. As announced in yesterday's press release, we have a three-point strategic plan, which we believe will unlock Orion's potential for long-term sustainable growth to the benefit of all of our stakeholders.
spk25: Now I'll take a few minutes to break it down for you.
spk15: The first step of our plan is to improve the profitability of the concrete business. We have appointed new leadership for our concrete segment, tapping one of our senior leaders from the marine business with many years of experience successfully and profitably delivering complex projects. We are refocusing on our core markets of Dallas and Houston, where we have robust markets and track records of success and a runway to improve profitability. And finally, we are investing in additional experienced project managers and giving our project teams the training and tools to drive efficiency, and improve business outcomes. The second point of our plan is to strengthen business development to drive growth. We will build on our successful sales efforts and capitalize on industry dynamics, such as the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, the U.S. Navy investments in the Pacific, port expansions and maintenance resulting in the expansion of the Panama Canal, and strong construction demand in both private and public sector of the rapidly growing Texas market. We are continuing to sharpen our business development focus, putting our efforts into pursuing those opportunities where our capabilities and expertise differentiate us. Our aim is to win quality projects with improved margins. Our marine business has been very successful working on both public and private projects. By leveraging our experience elsewhere in the business and the public infrastructure construction market, we'll be able to penetrate this more predictably funded sector with our concrete segment as well. We are building and deepening our client relationships to gain actionable insight into their future pursuits by investing in additional business development resources. And the third step in our strategic plan is investment in resources to realize Orion's potential. We're strengthening the balance sheet and improving liquidity to fund future growth. We are working to complete the refinancing of our credit facility to extend our debt maturities and provide us with the capital to take advantage of our market opportunities. We're optimizing to improve our return on assets. With the completion of our Central Texas concrete jobs in 2023, we can dispose of some underutilized equipment, and we will continue our efforts to monetize non-core real estate assets this year. We're investing in our dredging fleet to better service our growth. Supporting our commitment to the environment, Orion's fleet upgrades will also include investing in more efficient engines to achieve lower carbon emissions. We're fostering collaboration between our concrete and marine operations. We have the opportunity to drive synergies, leverage best practices, and cross-sell work. Finally, we will continue to enhance and build our target zero safety culture, practices, and systems. While we believe it's premature to provide annual guidance, there's a number of ways to measure our progress, including additional project WANs in Dallas and Houston, new project WANs with public sector concrete clients in our concrete business. In marine, we expect to see larger size projects. This very recent win in Hawaii is a good example. And in both segments, we'll begin to see incremental margin improvement as we execute our business improvement strategy and deliver our projects successfully. Turning to the market, we've seen a bit of slowing due to the macroeconomic environment. Capital is more expensive, which can lead to project delays and cancellations where we are working for private sector clients. With the passing of the infrastructure bill, agencies have been focusing on securing these funds rather than advancing near-term projects in the development pipeline. While we finish the year with lower backlog, we have started the year with a strong number of wins and expect to see improved performance as the year continues. The funds related to the infrastructure bill will take some time to begin flowing. We may see a few projects funded from the IIHA in 2023, but expect to see higher volumes of projects in 2024 and 2025. In our marine segment, we will leverage Orion's highly respected reputation and additional BD resources to identify new opportunities in the public sector at the federal, state, and local levels, including port expansion projects, Navy facilities, and environmental and coastal resiliency projects. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will provide a multi-year catalyst for public sector projects, such as transportation funding, ports, waterways, water infrastructure, and bridges, among other things. While it will take some time for these projects to start flowing, we expect to see a few in the back half of 2023. We expect to see a steep ramp up in volume in 2024 and 2025, and the investments we are making to improve fleet efficiencies, our systems, and our teams will give us a competitive advantage. In our concrete business, we are seeing an increased volume of bid opportunities in our Houston market. Projects continue to come in from a variety of end markets such as tech, e-commerce, and large retail distribution. Demographic trends will continue to provide project opportunities in our Texas market, one of the fastest-growing states. We see a long runway ahead in the public sector, and we're accelerating our focus and will be bidding on projects such as airports, whose outdated aviation infrastructure cannot keep pace with growing demand. We enter 2023 with solid backlog, increased quota work outstanding, and a strong bid pipeline and long-term tailwinds driving our markets. Now I'll turn this call over to Scott, to discuss our operational initiatives and financial results. Then I'll return with some closing remarks.
spk25: Thank you, Travis, and good morning, everyone.
spk17: We believe there is significant opportunity to generate profitable growth and create value for all of our Orion stakeholders. To achieve that, we are focused on optimizing our concrete operations, fixing what's not working, and continuously improving the things that are. At the same time, we're employing a business development strategy designed to win good projects at attractive margins. And finally, we are investing in our people and our assets to be ready for the growth opportunities in front of us. As Travis mentioned, we're implementing a disciplined project bidding and delivery strategy, and we're pursuing opportunities where our capabilities and expertise differentiate us. By focusing on our strengths, we will be better positioned to win quality projects at strong margins. And the enhancements we are making in our project management practices will enable us to deliver these projects with improved financial performance consistently. We recognize that good information is critical to making strategic and timely decisions in a dynamic environment like the one we operate in. We're making the necessary investments in systems, tools, and training to achieve better business outcomes. This includes investing in upgraded project management systems that will promote visibility to project-level performance and provide consistent and effective controls across our segments and our projects. We're implementing PM training and hiring experienced individuals to run projects more effectively. And we will leverage our vast operational and financial data repository to identify trends, spot issues, and provide business intelligence to our teams at every step in the project lifecycle, from business development to final delivery. As Travis indicated, we're acting swiftly to put the right structure and processes in place. Many of our new initiatives are underway, and we are beginning to see positive results. One of the changes that I'm particularly excited about is the promotion of one of our senior leaders from the marine business to head up our concrete business and lead that team forward. He's been instrumental in instilling discipline and operational rigor in the marine business, and both Travis and I are confident that he will do the same for concrete. Moving on to our financial results, fourth quarter revenue increased 21% to $196.2 million, primarily driven by the progression of large jobs awarded last year in the marine segment and higher volume on light commercial jobs in the concrete segment. Fourth quarter gross profit increased $10.2 million, or 5.2 percent of revenue, compared to $6.6 million, or 4.1 percent in the prior year period. This 110 basis point improvement was due to lower indirect expenses related to better equipment and labor utilization, partially offset by higher project costs in the marine segment. Turning to our segments, our marine segment had a solid fourth quarter with revenues increasing 32% to $96.3 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.9 million, or 5.1% adjusted EBITDA margins. This compares with $73.1 million of revenue, adjusted EBITDA of $5.2 million, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.1% in the fourth quarter of 2021. This decrease in adjusted EBITDA was related to higher project costs on a marine construction project. In the fourth quarter, we made progress improving the financial performance in our concrete segment. Revenues for concrete increased 21% to $99.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $1.8 million or negative 1.8% of revenues compared to negative $4.3 million or negative 4.9% of revenue last year. SG&A expenses for the fourth quarter were $13.7 million or 7% of revenues compared to $16.1 million or 9.9% of revenues in the prior year period, reflecting lower ERP implementation costs and lower expenses related to the management transition. Net loss was $4.9 million, or a loss of 15 cents per diluted share, an improvement from the net loss of $8.8 million, or a loss of 29 cents per diluted share in Q4 last year. This included $1.2 million of non-recurring items primarily related to an adjustment for the valuation allowance on taxes. Adjusted net loss was $3.7 million or a 12 cent loss per diluted share. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA increased to $3.2 million compared to an adjusted EBITDA of $800,000 in the prior year period. Turning to bidding metrics, In the fourth quarter, we bid on approximately $840 million worth of opportunities and won $96 million. This resulted in a win rate of 11.5% and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.49 times for the quarter. As of December 31, 2022, our backlog was $448.8 million, down from $590 million
spk25: at year-end 2021. Breaking out our year-end backlog, $216.7 million was in our marine segment and $232.1 million was in our concrete segment.
spk17: Approximately $396 million of the year-end backlog will burn during 2023 with the remainder associated with longer-term projects which extend into 2024. Additionally, we are pleased to have been awarded over $582 million of new work subsequent to the end of the fourth quarter. Of this, approximately $482 million is related to the marine segment, while $100 million is related to the concrete segment. Moving on to the balance sheet, we are taking several key steps to strengthen our balance sheet for future growth. We are in productive discussions to secure a new credit facility, the proceeds of which will be used for general corporate purposes and to retire our existing credit facility, which matures on July 31st, 2023. These discussions are progressing, and we are very confident in our ability to successfully complete a new financing arrangement. However, in the event that we are unable to agree upon the terms of a new credit facility by the March 16th 2023 filing deadline for our 2022 annual report on Form 10-K, that annual report will include a going concern comment. We have already obtained a consent from our existing lenders for the delivery of this report, and we remain in compliance with the financial covenants of our credit agreement. We have been pleased both with the support we have received from our existing lenders for our refinancing process and with the level of interest we have seen from debt capital providers. As you know, we are in discussions to sell or complete sale leaseback transactions on some of our non-core real estate assets. The signed agreement for the sale leaseback of our Port Lavaca South Yard did not close as the buyer's financing fell through. While the buyer remains interested and is working to put together an all-cash transaction, we are concurrently in discussions with additional interested parties. Discussions for the sale of our East and West Jones property are progressing well, and we are encouraged by the interest we are seeing from the market. As Travis mentioned, monetizing our non-core real estate assets is an important element of our strategic plan. Our view is that real estate is nice to own, but even better to sell when we can reallocate those proceeds into operational assets that will generate cash returns. As of December 31, 2022, we had approximately $3.8 million of cash and $6 million of availability under our revolving credit facility. We ended the year with $35.7 million of outstanding debt, $35 million of which is related to our revolver. As we free up capital with the sale of assets, and see increased returns with strict margin controls over our bidding process, we are confident that we will increase our cash flow and realize improved returns on capital from investments in our business lines.
spk25: With that, I'll turn the call back to Travis.
spk15: Thanks, Scott. You can probably tell that we are excited about what is going on in our business. We are building strong momentum. Many of our strategic initiatives are well underway and real progress is happening every day. Our people share my enthusiasm and they are embracing change. There is a whole new excitement in the business. Our leadership team and our board are fully committed to generating greater levels of profitability and value creation for all of our stakeholders. I want to thank our shareholders for your support and our many dedicated employees for their efforts as we work together to execute our operational transformation.
spk20: The floor is now open for your questions. To ask a question at this time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point you'd like to withdraw from the queue, please press star 1 again. You'll be provided the opportunities to ask one question and one further follow-up question. We'll now take a moment to render our roster. Our first question comes from the line of Julio Romero from Sidoti & Company. Please proceed.
spk24: Hey, good morning. Thanks very much for taking the questions.
spk00: I guess to start on the three-point strategic plan, very encouraging to hear, can you maybe elaborate on any hard timeline or quantifiable targets for the strategic plan, either from a margin or dollar perspective? And then secondly, how do you guys think about measuring progress for investors relating to that plan?
spk25: As far as the, you know,
spk15: Timeline where, you know, this is going to be an ongoing process. You know, it's a, as we said a few minutes ago, there's a lot of work to do. It's going to take some time to get the ship turned around, so to speak. So we're not being too specific on how long it's going to take us. But for sure, you know, in the next, we're working on it right now and we're going to continue working on it. It'll be a continual process, let's say, for for several months here as we make these changes in how we do things and work toward the goals that we've set.
spk17: I guess I'll add for metrics in terms of how to track progress, I would say that we're really trying to improve all of the metrics associated with our business. This quarter, we've had some great wins that will display an increasing backlog, which is certainly a good sign of things to come. You should see increases in our gross margins as we execute our plans to improve the concrete business and as the higher margin business that we've won recently begins to be worked through our results. And then, you know, we will see increasing cash flow as we work to execute our jobs with precision and without taking on additional cost that were not included in our original plans. And we'll see, you know, our cash improve also from the benefit of some cost optimization as we grow our business and really improve the efficiency and scale of our operations.
spk22: Got it.
spk20: Our next question comes from the line of Joe Gomes from Noble Capital. Please proceed.
spk19: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to talk a little bit more. Maybe we could drill down some into the new contract over at Pearl Harbor. Maybe you could kind of give us what, what is the, you know, the, the scope of work there, uh, for you guys, um, Is the backlog Orion's total portion of the $2.8 billion award, or could there be more there? Is it front or back-end loaded? And is there potential for additional wins under this IDIQ?
spk15: Yeah, so first of all, our piece of it is roughly $450 million. And the scope that we're doing as part of the JV is – is very specific. We're working early on on a large amount of temporary works to set the project up to be completed. Generally speaking, the portion that we're doing is pile driving, something that we do day in and day out every day. It's pretty normal work for us, and we're really good at it. So it's a lot of pile driving that we're doing on the project. and as far as uh you know the expectation of of other work in this contract absolutely yes there'll be there'll be other task orders that uh that come along that if it makes sense to pursue we will and uh we'll we'll we'll definitely uh definitely be looking for opportunities under this contract over over the coming years okay one more oh sorry
spk17: Sorry, Josh, just going to add on that another thing is that the Navy plans to make a lot of investment, especially in the Pacific theater. And this is one project that's starting off some of those investments. Executing this project well sets us up well to compete for other business in that overall program of the Navy. So that's another aspect of this that we're excited about.
spk19: Great. And then One more, you mentioned that you completed all the contracts in Central Texas in the fourth quarter.
spk25: No, we haven't completed them yet. Those contracts do kind of continue.
spk17: Most are being worked in the first quarter of this year, but there's some that continue to about mid-year. So over the course of the first couple of quarters, we'll be finishing those out, and then the Central Texas results will be completely behind us at that point.
spk34: Okay, great. Thanks.
spk25: Thanks, Jeff.
spk20: Our next question comes from the line. of Alex Regal from B Reilly Securities. Please proceed.
spk25: Hey, Alex.
spk22: Your line is open, sir.
spk25: Mr. Alex Regal.
spk21: Sorry about that, guys. Good morning. As it relates to the higher cost on a marine construction project, is that project finished? And can you be more specific on what the higher costs were due to?
spk17: Yeah, so that project's not quite finished, but it's very near completion. In terms of what drove the higher costs, our expectations on the site conditions there were a little bit different. And so that's an aspect that really drove cost. But also some of the project controls that we'll be investing in are designed to catch and track cost and make sure that we're on top of what we know. And on that particular project, you know, we don't have those systems yet. And there were some bills that we, you know, had that kind of lagged our overall pace of work there. So we had some of those kind of concentrated at the end there that really pulled down the margins on that job.
spk21: Very helpful. And then kind of to follow up on that last comment or question, Is it related to the Navy drive dock? I understand this is sort of a new market for you. Can you talk about establishing a workforce over there and how you're going about doing that? And what kind of contract risks are there in this?
spk15: So a couple things. When Orion first started back in 1994 as Orion – a lot of multiple of our first contracts that we completed were actually in hawaii so it's not necessarily a new market for us but it's new in recent uh in recent years let's say um so we have worked we have worked in in hawaii um before now as far as established kind of let's say re-establishing our our presence there we we have a team going over to hawaii this week um and their you know their their sole focus is preparing this job. We're using a lot of our current resources that we have already in the company, but we're over there right now looking for additional resources to kind of bolster the team at the local level because working in Hawaii is different than working in Washington or somewhere else. So we know we need to be there locally. We're also going to be relying on Mike Nygren, On our partners, you know Hawaiian judging as part of our part of our team they're a local company so we'll be we'll be working with them pretty extensively as as we're you know kicking off the project and that sort of thing. Mike Nygren, So it's a it'll. Mike Nygren, kind of an all hands on deck at this point there's a lot of a lot of work to do to get get the get the project kicked off and and working successfully.
spk21: And then just to follow up on that, can you help us to understand sort of the credence of revenue recognition from that project?
spk17: Yes. As Travis kind of mentioned, we're all hands on deck right now getting ready for mobilization and thinking about procurement and people and resources. And I guess percentage of completion accounting on the project and looking at that's a little further down the list. But certainly as soon as As soon as we develop a better idea of the start dates and how we're collaborating with our joint venture partners on the timing, we'll have a better view of that. But it's just a little early right now to know exactly how much of that contract will fall in 2023.
spk25: Very helpful. Thank you. Good luck. Thanks, Alice.
spk20: Our next question comes from the line of Dave Storms from Stonegate Capital Markets. Please proceed.
spk02: Morning, gentlemen, and thank you for taking my call. Just hoping we could start with how you're bringing some marine leadership over to concrete, and if you could talk a little bit more about any other synergies you see between the two segments that you might be able to take advantage of going forward.
spk15: Sure. Yeah, so we... You heard us mention we recently moved over our kind of our number two person on the marine side of the business over to lead the concrete business. And that happened actually fairly naturally. It was, he was already kind of leaning in and working with the concrete team and it was going very well. And so, and we've decided we're going to leverage his his, uh, kind of expertise in, in, uh, establishing rigor and discipline on the Marine side of things that, that he's done over the last few years into, into the concrete side of the business. And, um, he had great rapport with the team. And so we, we, uh, moved, moved him over and, and he's, uh, he's done a, he's off to a great start, um, has done, done a great job of, uh, you know, working, working with the team on the concrete side of the business and, and bringing some of the, the as I said, the rigor and discipline that he had helped to establish on the marine side of the business into the concrete side of the business. So I think we're going to see great results there. Some of the issues we had in concrete, it's tweaks here and there with how we were delivering projects, how we were doing some things.
spk14: And I think we're well on our way to seeing results from him being in concrete.
spk17: Yeah, and I'll add just in terms of other synergies we see as opportunities in that business, probably one of the most exciting ones is revenue synergies because those businesses have historically not really pursued joint projects or been working together a lot. And certainly the marine business does have projects where a lot of concrete is laid. more opportunity to grow our concrete business with those joint explorations and pursuits. And on the cost side, there's a lot of opportunity for us to do things more efficiently in our corporate offices as we start to standardize and use the same systems and processes between the two segments. There's opportunities to leverage a better mix of our equipment as we, with our equipment team, manage two businesses instead of just the marine business, which is where most of their attention is focused today. And we see plenty of opportunity for us to identify additional cost savings within our concrete and our marine business by joining up our procurement function and really driving material and input savings through better procurement practices. So I think it's a pretty large set of opportunities, and we'll be going after all of them.
spk03: That's very helpful. One follow-up, if I could, just with those cost savings, is there a role where that helps
spk02: drive your bids to be more competitive and secure more wins, or is that going to probably translate more to just strictly margin enhancement?
spk17: I think it'll be able to contribute to both. We're out there really pricing our bids based on market dynamics and the services that we're offering. It's not just a cost plus view. When we achieve cost savings in our delivery cost, then there's a margin benefit that we can realize from that. But it does also give us, you know, the flexibility to, at the same margin, you know, give a lower price to the customer. And there are certainly ways which we can leverage that ability in the marketplace in certain situations. So I think you'll see some of both, and there's an opportunity for us to, you know, really push forward with those cost savings really quickly. We've got ideas and plans to execute.
spk25: That's very helpful. Thank you.
spk20: Again, the floor is now open for your questions. To ask a question at this time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We do have a final question from John McDermott from ASI. Please proceed.
spk07: Yeah, gentlemen, thanks for the call. Generally, could you give me some feedback on the Corps of Engineers' letting of beds presently under our administration? with the push for ESG, the environmental social push, has it affected dredging bids because of the macro events of large dredging jobs and they're looking at backwater wash and how that's affecting going at it the way it was done before. How do you see the whole ESG and what is the corporate philosophy getting involved in the push from the top of our government on that, please?
spk15: Sure. Thanks, John. That's a great question. I think the first part of your question was kind of on the timing of the Corps getting out dredging contracts. It's no secret there's been a bit of a lag in getting some of the contracts out here in the last few months. I think that's been well documented by some of our competition as well as other sources. So things have been a little slow on the contract side of things with the Corps of Engineers, as I think everyone knows. We have been working with the Corps. There's contracts coming. We think there's we should see some more regularity in the contract starting to hit here in the near future, in the next few months. We did just win a dredging contract a couple of weeks ago, so we're excited about that and looking forward to seeing more of those contracts hopefully get a little more regular here going forward. And then as far as the ESG side of things, I think one of the things that you know, on the way it's affecting dredging is kind of the way it's a couple of things. One, the Corps would like to see more beneficial use of the dredge spoils and instead of just dumping it, finding ways to use more of it. And we're working with them on helping try to find more beneficial use of those dredge spoils. So I think that's, you know, whether it's using it for beach replenishment or for marsh creation or other kind of ways of using the dredge spoils instead of just, like I said, just dumping it. So that's one way it's affecting dredging. And then the other way is on our equipment. As we mentioned earlier, that's something we gotta be making sure that we're trying to keep up with the the carbon production of our engines and making sure that we have more, you know, keep our engines up to date and as efficient as we can. So that's really the two ways we're seeing it affecting the dredging business as of now. There's lots of parts and pieces of the beneficial use side of it, but it's, I would say it's not a, the focus on ESG is not a, you know, hindrance to proceeding with, with dredging projects or a hindrance to, uh, to this business in any way. Yeah.
spk17: I think if anything, it's, it's an environment where we can build an Orion story that, that resonates with people that are interested in investing in ESG friendly, um, investments because of all the work that we do to, um, to, to, uh, maintenance on our beaches be able to point to the things that we're doing as some of those coastal restoration projects come down so we think that down the road it can be a good story for us as we start to do more of that work and the last hurricane down in florida do you anticipate that opening up a lot more and it's been a slow process because of what you've described
spk25: As far as recovery work?
spk07: Recovery work from the storm that went through Florida, one of the worst in a long time.
spk15: Definitely. We're anticipating seeing some opportunities later this year as the recovery money starts flowing and work starts happening there. There was the immediate response with emergency response, and now it's working into more of the recovery stage. And as that goes on, we'll see some opportunities to pursue down there.
spk07: The margins look like they could be healthy in the future in the dredging area?
spk25: We believe so.
spk17: Yeah, I think that we've seen that slowdown that we've talked about in some of the dredging opportunities coming out of the Army Corps. But as that starts to break loose and we get back to work and our competitors are getting back to work on a lot of those delayed maintenance projects, we expect to be able to realize those consistent margins as our past experience.
spk25: Thanks.
spk20: I would now like to turn the call over to Travis Boone for closing remarks.
spk15: Thank you all for joining. We appreciate everyone being here. Just kind of in closing, I'll say we're excited about the momentum we're building on the wind side of the business. We're excited about getting our banking arrangements sorted out here in the near future. and we we've got a and and we're well on our path here to get get our projects uh to be delivering our projects as we expect so um we're we're we're excited we we have the great momentum and we're looking forward to uh to um working through 2023 and and uh having having a successful year so everyone have a have a great day and appreciate your time
spk20: Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. you you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good day and welcome to the Ryan Group Holdings 4th Quarter and Full Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by the zero. On today's call, management will provide prepared remarks and then we will open up the call for your questions. To ask a question, analysts may press star then one on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your headset before pressing the key and to withdraw your question. Please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Margaret Boyce, Investor Relations for Orion. Please go ahead, ma'am.
spk01: Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining us today to discuss Orion Group Holdings' fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial results. We issued our earnings release after market last night. It is available in the investor relations section of our website at oriongroupholdingsinc.com. I'm here today with Travis Boone, Chief Executive Officer of Orion, and Scott Banish, Chief Financial Officer. On today's call, management will provide prepared remarks and then we'll open up the call for your questions. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today's comments will include forward-looking statements under the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements are identified by words such as will, be, intend, believe, expect, anticipate, or other comparable words and phrases. Statements that are not historical facts such as statements regarding the current and expected status of our negotiations regarding a replacement credit facility and our expectations regarding the filing of our audited financial statements tomorrow, with a going concern, our forward-looking statements. Our actual financial condition and results of operations may vary materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. Discussion of the factors that could cause our results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are contained in our SEC filings, including our reports on Form 10-Q. With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Travis. Travis, please go ahead.
spk15: Thank you, Margaret, and thank you all for joining our fourth quarter and year-end 2022 conference call. Here with me today is Scott Banish, our Chief Financial Officer. We have a lot of ground to cover today, so let's get started. I'll begin with our strategic plan to put Orion on the right course for improved performance, and then Scott will discuss operations and financials. In the six months since Scott and I joined Orion, we've formed a great partnership and have been busy dividing and conquering our workload. We both continue to be impressed by the talent and energy of our team and are excited about the enormous opportunity ahead of us. Today, we have a much deeper understanding of our company's strengths and our opportunities for improvement. We believe our recent financial results barely scratched the surface of Orion's potential, and we are confident our business will continue to improve in 2023. In fact, 2023 is off to a great start. We are building great momentum. Since the beginning of the year, we announced contract wins totaling over $582 million. including on Friday afternoon when we were awarded a $448 million contract with the United States Navy to build a dry dock at Pearl Harbor as part of a joint venture. The overall contract for the JV is $2.8 billion. We've secured concrete winds in our Dallas and Houston market of around $100 million and won our largest diving services contract in our history, a $20 million project. Our year-end backlog, combined with our recent winds, comprises almost a billion dollars of work to complete in the next few years. You may recall on our November earnings call, I mentioned that we were bidding on our largest projects ever in both concrete and marine. And with the win on Friday, we won both of those projects. We are very proud of the focus of our teams to secure higher margin wins over the past few months. Since assuming the role of CEO, I've been able to validate the potential that first drew me to Orion. We're a vital provider of services to mission-critical infrastructure projects within the marine and building sectors in some of our nation's fastest-growing areas. We have long-tenured relationships with Blue Chip clients across the government and private sectors in both our marine and concrete segments, including the U.S. Navy and Army Corps of Engineers, many of the largest ports in the U.S. and the Caribbean, Metro Petrochem owners, and in our concrete division, significant general contractors in the Dallas and Houston markets. The talent pool we have is especially impressive to Scott and me and the willingness of our people to adapt and learn to achieve greater growth and success both for Orion and professionally is essential to executing our strategy. Lastly, we have a highly engaged and supportive board of independent directors with diverse backgrounds and complimentary expertise to guide us. We are confident that Orion has all the elements for success and the right team to unlock the value of our assets and deliver improved financial performance. That said, we have a big shift to turn around. It won't happen overnight, but we know what needs to be done to maximize the profitability and potential of this business. As announced in yesterday's press release, we have a three-point strategic plan, which we believe will unlock Orion's potential for long-term sustainable growth to the benefit of all of our stakeholders.
spk25: Now I'll take a few minutes to break it down for you.
spk15: The first step of our plan is to improve the profitability of the concrete business. We have appointed new leadership for our concrete segment, tapping one of our senior leaders from the marine business with many years of experience successfully and profitably delivering complex projects. We are refocusing on our core markets of Dallas and Houston, where we have robust markets and track records of success and a runway to improve profitability. And finally, we are investing in additional experienced project managers and giving our project teams the training and tools to drive efficiency, and improve business outcomes. The second point of our plan is to strengthen business development to drive growth. We will build on our successful sales efforts and capitalize on industry dynamics, such as the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, the U.S. Navy investments in the Pacific, port expansions and maintenance resulting in the expansion of the Panama Canal, and strong construction demand in both private and public sector of the rapidly growing Texas market. We are continuing to sharpen our business development focus, putting our efforts into pursuing those opportunities where our capabilities and expertise differentiate us. Our aim is to win quality projects with improved margins. Our marine business has been very successful working on both public and private projects. By leveraging our experience elsewhere in the business and the public infrastructure construction market, we'll be able to penetrate this more predictably funded sector with our concrete segment as well. We are building and deepening our client relationships to gain actionable insight into their future pursuits by investing in additional business development resources. And the third step in our strategic plan is investment and resources to realize Orion's potential. We're strengthening the balance sheet and improving liquidity to fund future growth. We are working to complete the refinancing of our credit facility to extend our debt maturities and provide us with the capital to take advantage of our market opportunities. We're optimizing to improve our return on assets. With the completion of our Central Texas concrete jobs in 2023, we can dispose of some underutilized equipment, and we will continue our efforts to monetize non-core real estate assets this year. We're investing in our dredging fleet to better service our growth. Supporting our commitment to the environment, Orion's fleet upgrades will also include investing in more efficient engines to achieve lower carbon emissions. We're fostering collaboration between our concrete and marine operations. We have the opportunity to drive synergies, leverage best practices, and cross-sell work. Finally, we will continue to enhance and build our target zero safety culture, practices, and systems. While we believe it's premature to provide annual guidance, there's a number of ways to measure our progress, including additional project WANs in Dallas and Houston, new project WANs with public sector concrete clients in our concrete business. In marine, we expect to see larger size projects. This very recent win in Hawaii is a good example. And in both segments, we'll begin to see incremental margin improvement as we execute our business improvement strategy and deliver our projects successfully. Turning to the market, we've seen a bit of slowing due to the macroeconomic environment. Capital is more expensive, which can lead to project delays and cancellations where we are working for private sector clients. With the passing of the infrastructure bill, agencies have been focusing on securing these funds rather than advancing near-term projects in their development pipeline. While we finish the year with lower backlog, we have started the year with a strong number of wins and expect to see improved performance as the year continues. The funds related to the infrastructure bill will take some time to begin flowing. We may see a few projects funded from the IIHA in 2023, but expect to see higher volumes of projects in 2024 and 2025. In our marine segment, we will leverage Orion's highly respected reputation and additional BD resources to identify new opportunities in the public sector at the federal, state, and local levels, including port expansion projects, Navy facilities, and environmental and coastal resiliency projects. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will provide a multi-year catalyst for public sector projects, such as transportation funding, ports, waterways, water infrastructure, and bridges, among other things. While it will take some time for these projects to start flowing, we expect to see a few in the back half of 2023. We expect to see a steep ramp up in volume in 2024 and 2025, and the investments we are making to improve fleet efficiencies, our systems, and our teams will give us a competitive advantage. In our concrete business, we are seeing an increased volume of bid opportunities in our Houston market. Projects continue to come in from a variety of end markets such as tech, e-commerce, and large retail distribution. Demographic trends will continue to provide project opportunities in our Texas market, one of the fastest-growing states. We see a long runway ahead in the public sector, and we're accelerating our focus and will be bidding on projects such as airports, whose outdated aviation infrastructure cannot keep pace with growing demand. We enter 2023 with solid backlog, increased quota work outstanding, and a strong bid pipeline and long-term tailwinds driving our markets. Now I'll turn this call over to Scott, to discuss our operational initiatives and financial results. Then I'll return with some closing remarks.
spk25: Thank you, Travis, and good morning, everyone.
spk17: We believe there is significant opportunity to generate profitable growth and create value for all of our Orion stakeholders. To achieve that, we are focused on optimizing our concrete operations, fixing what's not working, and continuously improving the things that are. At the same time, we're employing a business development strategy designed to win good projects at attractive margins. And finally, we are investing in our people and our assets to be ready for the growth opportunities in front of us. As Travis mentioned, we're implementing a disciplined project bidding and delivery strategy, and we're pursuing opportunities where our capabilities and expertise differentiate us. By focusing on our strengths, we will be better positioned to win quality projects at strong margins. And the enhancements we are making in our project management practices will enable us to deliver these projects with improved financial performance consistently. We recognize that good information is critical to making strategic and timely decisions in a dynamic environment like the one we operate in. We're making the necessary investments in systems, tools, and training to achieve better business outcomes. This includes investing in upgraded project management systems that will promote visibility to project-level performance and provide consistent and effective controls across our segments and our projects. We're implementing PEM training and hiring experienced individuals to run projects more effectively. And we will leverage our vast operational, and financial data repository to identify trends, spot issues, and provide business intelligence to our teams at every step in the project lifecycle, from business development to final delivery. As Travis indicated, we're acting swiftly to put the right structure and processes in place. Many of our new initiatives are underway, and we are beginning to see positive results. One of the changes that I'm particularly excited about is the promotion of one of our senior leaders from the marine business to head up our concrete business and lead that team forward. He's been instrumental in instilling discipline and operational rigor in the marine business, and both Travis and I are confident that he will do the same for concrete. Moving on to our financial results, fourth quarter revenue increased 21% to $196.2 million, primarily driven by the progression of large jobs awarded last year in the marine segment and higher volume on light commercial jobs in the concrete segment. Fourth quarter gross profit increased $10.2 million, or 5.2 percent of revenue, compared to $6.6 million, or 4.1 percent in the prior year period. This 110 basis point improvement was due to lower indirect expenses related to better equipment and labor utilization, partially offset by higher project costs in the marine segment. Turning to our segments, our marine segment had a solid fourth quarter with revenues increasing 32% to $96.3 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $4.9 million, or 5.1% adjusted EBITDA margins. This compares with $73.1 million of revenue, adjusted EBITDA of $5.2 million, and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.1% in the fourth quarter of 2021. This decrease in adjusted EBITDA was related to higher project costs on a marine construction project. In the fourth quarter, we made progress improving the financial performance in our concrete segment. Revenues for concrete increased 21% to $99.9 million. Adjusted EBITDA was negative $1.8 million or negative 1.8% of revenues compared to negative $4.3 million or negative 4.9% of revenue last year. SG&A expenses for the fourth quarter were $13.7 million or 7% of revenues compared to $16.1 million or 9.9% of revenues in the prior year period, reflecting lower ERP implementation costs and lower expenses related to the management transition. Net loss was $4.9 million, or a loss of 15 cents per diluted share, an improvement from the net loss of $8.8 million, or a loss of 29 cents per diluted share in Q4 last year. This included $1.2 million of non-recurring items, primarily related to an adjustment for the valuation allowance on taxes. Adjusted net loss was $3.7 million, or a 12-cent loss per diluted share. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA increased to $3.2 million compared to an adjusted EBITDA of $800,000 in the prior year period. Turning to bidding metrics, In the fourth quarter, we bid on approximately $840 million worth of opportunities and won $96 million. This resulted in a win rate of 11.5% and a book-to-bill ratio of 0.49 times for the quarter. As of December 31, 2022, our backlog was $448.8 million, down from $590 million
spk25: at year-end 2021. Breaking out our year-end backlog, $216.7 million was in our marine segment and $232.1 million was in our concrete segment.
spk17: Approximately $396 million of the year-end backlog will burn during 2023 with the remainder associated with longer-term projects which extend into 2024. Additionally, we are pleased to have been awarded over $582 million of new work subsequent to the end of the fourth quarter. Of this, approximately $482 million is related to the marine segment, while $100 million is related to the concrete segment. Moving on to the balance sheet, we are taking several key steps to strengthen our balance sheet for future growth. We are in productive discussions to secure a new credit facility, the proceeds of which will be used for general corporate purposes and to retire our existing credit facility, which matures on July 31st, 2023. These discussions are progressing, and we are very confident in our ability to successfully complete a new financing arrangement. However, in the event that we are unable to agree upon the terms of a new credit facility by the March 16th, 2023 filing deadline for our 2022 annual report on Form 10-K. That annual report will include a going concern comment. We have already obtained a consent from our existing lenders for the delivery of this report, and we remain in compliance with the financial covenants of our credit agreement. We've been pleased both with the support we have received from our existing lenders for our refinancing process and with the level of interest we have seen from debt capital providers. As you know, we are in discussions to sell or complete sale leaseback transactions on some of our non-core real estate assets. The signed agreement for the sale leaseback of our Port Lavaca South Yard did not close as the buyer's financing fell through. While the buyer remains interested and is working to put together an all-cash transaction, we are concurrently in discussions with additional interested parties. Discussions for the sale of our East and West Jones property are progressing well, and we are encouraged by the interest we are seeing from the market. As Travis mentioned, monetizing our non-core real estate assets is an important element of our strategic plan. Our view is that real estate is nice to own, but even better to sell when we can reallocate those proceeds into operational assets that will generate cash returns. As of December 31, 2022, we had approximately $3.8 million of cash and $6 million of availability under our revolving credit facility. We ended the year with $35.7 million of outstanding debt, $35 million of which is related to our revolver. As we free up capital with the sale of assets, and see increased returns with strict margin controls over our bidding process, we are confident that we will increase our cash flow and realize improved returns on capital from investments in our business lines.
spk25: With that, I'll turn the call back to Travis.
spk15: Thanks, Scott. You can probably tell that we are excited about what is going on in our business. We are building strong momentum Many of our strategic initiatives are well underway and real progress is happening every day. Our people share my enthusiasm and they are embracing change. There is a whole new excitement in the business. Our leadership team and our board are fully committed to generating greater levels of profitability and value creation for all of our stakeholders. I want to thank our shareholders for your support and our many dedicated employees for their efforts as we work together to execute our operational transformation.
spk20: The floor is now open for your questions. To ask a question at this time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If at any point you'd like to withdraw from the queue, please press star 1 again. You'll be provided the opportunities to ask one question and one further follow-up question. We'll now take a moment to render our roster. Our first question comes from the line of Julio Romero from Sidoti and Company. Please proceed.
spk24: Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions.
spk00: I guess to start on the three-point strategic plan, very encouraging to hear. Can you maybe elaborate on any hard timeline or quantifiable targets for the strategic plan, either from a margin or dollar perspective? And then secondly, how do you guys think about measuring progress for investors relating to that plan?
spk25: As far as the, you know,
spk15: Timeline where, you know, this is going to be an ongoing process. You know, it's a, as we said a few minutes ago, there's a lot of work to do. It's going to take some time to get the ship turned around, so to speak. So we're not being too specific on how long it's going to take us. But for sure, you know, in the next, we're working on it right now and we're going to continue working on it. It'll be a continual process, let's say, for for several months here as we make these changes in how we do things and work toward the goals that we've set.
spk17: I guess I'll add for metrics in terms of how to track progress, I would say that we're really trying to improve all of the metrics associated with our business. You know, this quarter we've had some great wins that will display an increasing backlog, which is certainly a good sign of things to come. You should see increases in our gross margins as we execute our plans to improve the concrete business and as the higher margin business that we've won recently begins to be worked through our results. And then, you know, we will see increasing cash flow as we work to execute our jobs with precision and without taking on additional cost that were not included in our original plans. And we'll see, you know, our cash improve also from the benefit of some cost optimization as we grow our business and really improve the efficiency and scale of our operations.
spk22: Got it.
spk20: Our next question comes from the line of Joe Gomes from noble capital. Please proceed.
spk19: Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to talk a little bit more. Maybe we could drill down some into the new contract over at Pearl Harbor. Maybe you could kind of give us what, what is the, you know, the, the scope of work there, uh, for you guys, um, Is the backlog Orion's total portion of the $2.8 billion award, or could there be more there? Is it front or back-end loaded? And is there potential for additional wins under this IDIQ?
spk15: Yeah, so first of all, our piece of it is roughly $450 million. And the scope that we're doing as part of the JV is – is very specific. We're working early on on a large amount of temporary works to set the project up to be completed. Generally speaking, the portion that we're doing is pile driving, something that we do day in and day out every day. It's pretty normal work for us, and we're really good at it. So it's a lot of pile driving that we're doing on the project. and as far as uh you know the expectation of of other work in this contract absolutely yes there'll be there'll be other task orders that uh that come along that if it makes sense to pursue we will and uh we'll we'll we'll definitely uh definitely be looking for opportunities under this contract over over the coming years okay one more oh sorry
spk17: Sorry, Josh, just going to add on that another thing is that the Navy plans to make a lot of investment, especially in the Pacific theater, and this is one project that's starting off some of those investments. Executing this project well sets us up well to compete for other business in that overall program of the Navy, so that's another aspect of this that we're excited about.
spk19: Great, and then One more, you mentioned that you completed all the contracts in Central Texas in the fourth quarter.
spk25: No, we haven't completed them yet. Those contracts do kind of continue.
spk17: Most are being worked in the first quarter of this year, but there's some that continue to about mid-year. So over the course of the first couple of quarters, we'll be finishing those out, and then the Central Texas results will be completely behind us at that point.
spk34: Okay, great. Thanks.
spk20: Thanks, Joe. Our next question comes from the line. of Alex Regal from B Reilly Securities. Please proceed.
spk21: Sorry about that, guys. Good morning. As it relates to the higher costs on a marine construction project, is that project finished? And can you be more specific on what the higher costs were due to?
spk17: Yeah, so that project's not quite finished, but it's very near completion. In terms of what drove the higher costs, you know, our expectations on the site conditions there were a little bit different, and so that's an aspect that really drove cost. But also, some of the project controls that, you know, we'll be investing in are designed to catch and track cost and make sure that we're on top of what we know. And on that particular project, you know, we don't have those systems yet, and there were some bills that we, you know, had that kind of lagged our overall pace of work there. So we had some of those kind of concentrated at the end there that really pulled down the margins on that job.
spk21: Very helpful. And then kind of to follow up on that last comment or question, is it related to the Navy Dry Dock? I understand this is sort of a new market for you. Can you talk about establishing a workforce over there and how you're going about doing that? And And what kind of contract risks are there in this?
spk15: So a couple things. When Orion first started back in 1994 as Orion, a lot of multiple of our first contracts that we completed were actually in Hawaii. So it's not necessarily a new market for us, but it's new in recent years, let's say. Um, so we have worked, we have worked in, in Hawaii, um, before now, um, as far as established kind of, let's say reestablishing our, our presence there. Um, we, we have a team going over to Hawaii this week. Um, and they're, you know, their, their sole focus is preparing, preparing this job. Um, we were, we're using a lot of our current, um, resources that we, that we have already in the company, but we're, over there right now looking for additional resources to kind of bolster the team at the local level because working in Hawaii is different than working in Washington or somewhere else. So we know we need to be there locally. We're also going to be relying on our partners. Hawaiian Dredging is part of our team. They're a local company. So we'll be working with them pretty extensively as we're kicking off the project and that sort of thing. So it's kind of an all hands on deck at this point. There's a lot of work to do to get the project kicked off and working successfully.
spk21: And then just to follow up on that, can you help us to understand sort of the credence of revenue recognition from that project?
spk17: Yes, as Travis kind of mentioned, we're all hands on deck right now getting ready for mobilization and thinking about procurement and people and resources and I guess percentage of completion accounting on the project and looking at that's a little further down the list but certainly as soon as we develop a better idea of the start dates and how we're collaborating with our joint venture partners on the timing we'll have a better view of that but it's just a little early right now to know exactly how much of that contract will fall in 2023.
spk25: Very helpful. Thank you. Good luck.
spk20: Thanks, Alice. Our next question comes from the line of Dave Storms from Stonegate Capital Markets. Please proceed.
spk02: Good morning, gentlemen, and thank you for taking my call. Just hoping we could start with how you're bringing some marine leadership over to concrete. And if you could talk a little bit more about any other synergies you see between the two segments that you might be able to take advantage of going forward.
spk15: Sure. Yeah. So we, you heard us mention, we recently moved over our, our kind of our number two person on the Marine side of the business over to lead the concrete business. And that, that happened actually fairly naturally. It was a, he was already kind of leaning in and working with the, the concrete team and it was going very well. And, uh, so, and we've decided we're going to leverage his, his, uh, kind of expertise in, in, uh, establishing rigor and discipline on the Marine side of things that, that he's done over the last few years into, into the concrete side of the business. And, um, he had great rapport with the team. And so we, we, uh, moved him over, and he's off to a great start, has done a great job of working with the team on the concrete side of the business and bringing some of the, as I said, the rigor and discipline that he had helped to establish on the marine side of the business into the concrete side of the business. So I think we're going to see great results there. Some of the issues we had in concrete,
spk14: it's tweaks here and there with how we were delivering projects, how we were doing some things, and I think we're well on our way to seeing results from him being in concrete.
spk17: Yeah, and I'll add just in terms of other synergies we see as opportunities in that business, probably one of the most exciting ones is revenue synergies because those businesses have historically not really pursued joint projects or been been working together a lot and certainly the marine business does have projects where a lot of concrete is laid and so more opportunity to grow our concrete business with with those joint explorations and pursuits and on the cost side there's There's a lot of opportunity for us to do things more efficiently in our corporate offices as we start to standardize and use the same systems and processes between the two segments. There's opportunities to leverage a better mix of our equipment as we with our equipment team manage two businesses instead of just the marine business, which is where most of their attention is focused today. And we see plenty of opportunity for us to identify additional cost savings within our concrete and our marine business by joining up our procurement function and really driving material and input savings through better procurement practices. So, I think it's a pretty large set of opportunities, and we'll be going after all of them.
spk03: That's very helpful. One follow-up, if I could, just with those cost savings, is there a role that that helps
spk02: drive your bids to be more competitive and secure more wins, or is that going to probably translate more to just strictly margin enhancement?
spk17: I think it'll be able to contribute to both. We're out there really pricing our bids based on market dynamics and the services that we're offering. It's not just a cost-plus view. when we achieve cost savings in our delivery cost, then there's a margin benefit that we can realize from that. But it does also give us, you know, the flexibility to, at the same margin, you know, give a lower price to the customer. And there are certainly ways which we can leverage that ability in the marketplace in certain situations. So, I think you'll see some of both, and there's an opportunity for us to, you know, really push forward with those cost savings really quickly. We've got ideas and plans to execute.
spk25: That's very helpful. Thank you.
spk20: Again, the floor is now open for your questions. To ask a question at this time, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We do have a final question from John McDermott from ASI. Please proceed.
spk07: Yeah, gentlemen, thanks for the call. Generally, could you give me some feedback on the Corps of Engineers letting of beds presently under our administration? with the push for ESG, the environmental social push, has it affected dredging bids because of the macro events of large dredging jobs and they're looking at backwater wash and how that's affecting going at it the way it was done before. How do you see the whole ESG and what is the corporate philosophy getting involved in the push from the top of our government on that place?
spk15: Sure. Thanks, John. That's a great question. I think the first part of your question was kind of on the timing of the Corps getting out dredging contracts. It's no secret there's been a bit of a lag in getting some of the contracts out here in the last few months. I think that's been well documented by some of our competition as well as other sources. So things have been a little slow on the contract side of things with the Corps of Engineers, as I think everyone knows. We have been working with the Corps. There's contracts coming. We think there's we should see some more regularity in the contract starting to hit here in the near future, in the next few months. We did just win a dredging contract a couple of weeks ago, so we're excited about that and looking forward to seeing more of those contracts hopefully get a little more regular here going forward. And then as far as the ESG side of things, I think one of the things that you know, on the way it's affecting dredging is kind of the way it's a couple of things. One, the Corps would like to see more beneficial use of the dredge spoils and instead of just dumping it, finding ways to use more of it. And we're working with them on helping try to find more beneficial use of those dredge spoils. So I think that's, you know, whether it's using it for beach replenishment or for marsh creation or other kind of ways of using the dredge spoils instead of just, like I said, just dumping it. So that's one way it's affecting dredging. And then the other way is on our equipment. As we mentioned earlier, that's something we got to be making sure that we're trying to keep up with the the carbon production of our engines and making sure that we have more, you know, keep our engines up to date and as efficient as we can. So that's really the two ways we're seeing it affecting the dredging business as of now. There's lots of parts and pieces of the beneficial use side of it, but it's, I would say it's not a, the focus on ESG is not a, you know, hindrance to proceeding with, with dredging projects or a hindrance to, uh, to this business in any way. Yeah.
spk17: I think if anything, it's, it's an environment where we can build an Orion story that, that resonates with people that are interested in investing in ESG friendly, um, investments because of all the work that we do to, um, to, to, uh, maintenance on our beaches be able to point to the things that we're doing as some of those coastal restoration projects come down so we think that down the road it can be a good story for us as we start to do more of that work and the last hurricane down in florida do you anticipate that opening up a lot more and it's been a slow process because of what you've described
spk25: As far as recovery work?
spk07: Recovery work from the storm that went through Florida, one of the worst in a long time.
spk15: Definitely. We're anticipating seeing some opportunities later this year as the recovery money starts flowing and work starts happening there. You know, there was the immediate response with emergency response, and now it's working into more of the recovery stage. And as that goes on, we'll see some opportunities to pursue down there.
spk07: The margins look like they could be healthy in the future in the dredging area?
spk25: We believe so.
spk17: Yeah, I think that we've seen that slowdown that we've talked about in some of the dredging opportunities coming out of the Army Corps. But as that starts to break loose and we get back to work and our competitors are getting back to work on a lot of those delayed maintenance projects, we expect to be able to realize those consistent margins as our past experience.
spk22: Thanks.
spk20: I would now like to turn the call over to Travis Boone for closing remarks.
spk15: Thank you all for joining. We appreciate everyone being here. Just kind of in closing, I'll say we're excited about the momentum we're building on the wind side of the business. We're excited about getting our banking arrangements sorted out here in the near future. and we we've got a and and we're well on our path here to get get our projects uh to be delivering our projects as we expect so um we're we're we're excited we we have the great momentum and we're looking forward to uh to um working through 2023 and and uh having having a successful year so everyone have a have a great day and appreciate your time
spk20: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's call. Thank you for your participation.
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