Tutor Perini Corporation

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Tutor Perini Corporation first quarter 2019 earnings conference call. My name is Tim, and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, we will be opening the call for a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Jorge Casado, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for your participation. Joining us today on the call are Ronald Tutor, Chairman and CEO, and Gary Smalley, Executive Vice President and CFO. Before we discuss our results, I will remind everyone that during today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements which reflect management's current assessment of existing trends and information. There is an inherent risk that our actual results Thank you, Jorge. Good afternoon and thank you for joining us. Our first quarter

of 2019 featured 3.2 billion of new awards, the strongest quarterly volume of new awards ever, which resulted in a new record backlog of 11.6 billion, an increase of 37% year over year. Our book-to-burn ratio for the quarter was 3.39. Backlog growth was once again broad-based across all three segments and was particularly robust in the civil segment driven by the award of the $1.4 billion Purple Line Segment 3 Stations Project in Los Angeles and the $253 million Culver Line for the New York Transit Authority in New York City. Other major awards in the quarter that contributed to our backlog growth included the Choctaw Casino and Resort Project in Oklahoma, the specific value of which is undisclosed but well over $400 million, a new hospitality and gaming project in California, which is valued at well over $300 million, and the $200 million Southland Gaming Casino and Hotel in Arkansas. For perspective, our civil segments backlog now stands at an all-time high. While the building segments backlog is as high as it's been in 10 years, and specialties backlog is approaching a record level. Importantly, nearly three-fourths of our total backlog is comprised of higher margin civil and specialty projects. In addition, the strong demand environment for our construction services continues as evidenced by the large pipeline of very significant project opportunities across all our segments. Accordingly, we believe that our backlog growth should continue later this year as we pursue various other large projects and that our significant backlog combined with a sustained market demand will fuel strong revenue growth, continually improved operating margins, and increased earnings over the next several years to come. We are optimistic that the federal government will finally agree upon and implement their long-awaited infrastructure program, which is now being bandied about at a $2 trillion level. However, the creative manner in which they reach $2 trillion is by seeding federal money with private and public, and I don't know that that's a completely accurate summary. However, any significant investment by the federal government which adds to the states, counties, and local agencies currently forcing work out at record levels will just add more pressure to an industry struggling to keep up as we speak with the amount of work to be built. As I have mentioned previously, we're focusing our bidding efforts on pursuing larger, more complex civil projects simply because they present Far fewer competitors and consequently much higher margins. At the end of June, we will be bidding a $400 million 8th Avenue Communications train control project in New York City. Very similar to the Culver Line that we were recently awarded. Other bids we are looking at this year is Los Angeles MTA and their three and a half to $4 billion West Santa Ana line. Santa Ana line, which is in the format of a P3. The $2 billion Brooklyn Queens Expressway in New York City, a triple cantilever bridge, and the $400 million Amtrak tunnel phase three at Hudson Yards, wherein we built phases one and two already. In addition, $1,400,000,000 portal swing bridge replacement and the $450,000,000 Raritan River Bridge lift replacement both in New Jersey. The building segments larger opportunities include three large healthcare projects in California, the total of which exceeds $800,000,000, a $700,000,000 airport cargo facility in Florida, a $300 million courthouse via P3 in Miami, and $150 million cruise ship terminal all in Florida. The specialty contractor segment is bidding on more than $600 million of mechanical electrical projects, primarily in New York, but secondarily in Texas, California, and Florida. In addition to already having booked $500 million of pending awards. We continue to see very strong demand in both New York and Los Angeles on our specialty groups as well as our civil operations. Next, I will review certain key projects that contribute to our first quarter results, starting with the civil segment. Work is progressing on the Purple Line Section 2 extension in Los Angeles as we excavate the tunnel launch pit in Century City and begin construction of the tunnel shaft literally 1,000 feet east. As the launch pit completes, which we expect by September, the two tunnel boring machines will be assembled, lowered into the launch shaft and would expect to begin to mine in November. In Beverly Hills, we are preparing to relocate utilities on Wilshire Boulevard and are setting our staging sites, preparing to start with soldier powers the latter part of this year. In British Columbia, Frontier Kemper is progressing significantly on the Kamano Second Tunnel project. In the Midwest, Lunder remains active on their I-74 bridge project, and it's just begun work on the $800 million Minneapolis Southwest Light Rail in the Northeast. In New York City, our most active project is the CMO-7 subway completion in New York City, coupled with a balance of the Eastside Access CS-179 contract as well as the New Jersey Newark Airport Terminal 1 which is commenced steel framing which should complete by October. The building segments most significant contributors included a large technology campus in Silicon Valley, the Rosewood Miramar Beach Resort in Montecito, California, the El Camino Hospital Integrated Medical Office Building in Mountain View, and of course the Newark Airport Terminal 1 in New Jersey. Given the anticipated significant ramp of activities later this year on many of our larger projects, including Purple Line 2 and the Purple Line 3 station segment, which we believe will be awarded at the end of May or by mid-June, We expect significant revenue growth and higher margins across all those segments for the year 2019. Once again, based on our current backlog and outlook, we're reaffirming 2019 earnings per share guidance of $2 to $2.30. As a reminder, because of the timing of the project ramp-up activities, our earnings are expected to be significantly weighted. George's second half. With that, I turn the call over to Gary Smalley to present the details of our financial results.