Tutor Perini Corporation

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Tudor Perini Corporation's first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. My name is Sheri, and I will be your coordinator for today. All participants are currently 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, Jorge Casado, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With us today are Gary Smalley, CEO and President, Ron Tuner, Executive Chairman, and Ryan Soroka, Executive Vice President and CFO. Before we discuss our results, I will remind everyone that during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are based on management's current assessment of existing trends and information. There is an inherent risk that our actual results could differ materially. You can find our disclosures about risk factors that could contribute to such differences in our Form 10-K, which we filed on February 27, 2025, and in our Form 10-Q that we are filing today. The company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements whether due to new information, future events, or otherwise, other than as required by law. Thank you, and with that, I will turn the call over to Gary Smalley.

Thanks, Jorge. Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining us. We're off to a great start in 2025 with outstanding first quarter results that highlight our strong growth and performance across all key metrics and that were, quite frankly, better than expected. Specifically, Year over year, our first quarter revenue grew 19% to $1.25 billion. Operating income was up 34% to $65 million. Earnings per share increased 77% to 53 cents. And our backlog grew 94% to a new all-time record of $19.4 billion. In addition, our operating cash flow was $23 million, a solid result for the first quarter considering that historically, Our first quarter cash flow tends to be low and often negative due to seasonality. All in all, our first quarter EPS was the second best of any first quarter in TutorPrinti's history, and our operating cash flow was the third best first quarter result ever. Our business is performing well, and I'm pleased to report that it was a clean first quarter with solid project execution and no material project adjustments, even for dispute resolutions. Ryan will go over the specifics of our financial results, but overall our revenue and earnings were driven by increased project execution activities on certain newer higher margin projects that all have substantial scope of work remaining. Our operating cash flow for the first quarter of 2025 was driven by collections from newer and ongoing projects, unlike last year's first quarter cash flow, which included a large amount of collections related to dispute resolutions. We still expect to make progress this year resolving various other disputes and collecting significant associated cash, but those collections are expected later in the year. During the first quarter, we continued to win new projects, booking impressive $2 billion of new awards and contract adjustments, adding to our already record backlog. Our book-to-burn ratio for the first quarter was a solid 1.6x. Backlog for the civil and specialty contractor segments also set new records. The most significant new awards and contract adjustments in the first quarter included the $1.18 billion Manhattan Tunnel project in New York, which is a component of the broader Gateway program that includes critical rail infrastructure along the northeast corridor between Newark and New York Penn Station. $241 million of additional funding for the Apra Harbor waterfront repairs project in Guam which brings the current value of this project to more than $570 million, $111 million of additional funding for certain healthcare facility projects in California, an electrical project in Texas valued at more than $100 million, and $99 million of additional funding for an existing electrical project in Texas. The outlook is excellent for strong, sustained backlog this year with the potential for further backlog growth Our new award bookings continue to be healthy in the second quarter, as we have already won a $500 million healthcare project in California that was recently awarded funding for the construction phase after having been in pre-construction for the past year. In addition to this project, there are several other building segment projects currently in the pre-construction phase that we expect will soon also advance to the construction phase, including another healthcare project also in California valued at $1 billion. Our bidding pipeline continues to be full of opportunities this year and over the next several years. Our record backlog enables us to be even more selective than before as to which of the opportunities we will pursue and to focus on bidding projects that have favorable contractual terms, limited competition, and higher margins. Also, the Indo-Pacific region continues to be a major area of project opportunities. driven in large part by the U.S. military's Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which aims to enhance U.S. military infrastructure and readiness. Black Construction, our Guam-based subsidiary, has had tremendous success in capturing new projects and continues to be well-positioned to win other major projects in the region. Tutti Perini and Black Construction together have been successful in capturing four recent Multiple Award Construction Contracts, or MACs, with a combined contract capacity of more than $32 billion over the next eight years. This capacity will be shared among us and the other firms that have been awarded these MACs, and the MACs essentially put us on the bidder's list, enabling us to pursue the numerous project task orders that will be ultimately awarded. Ron, would you take a couple of minutes to discuss some of our other civil bidding opportunities on the horizon? and also what you are seeing in the early stages of project execution as we kick off work on the major projects that have been awarded over the last few quarters.

Certainly, Gary, we're about to submit our bid for the multibillion-dollar Midtown Bus Terminal Replacement Project in New York, and we'll await contractor selection by the owner during the next 30 days. If we are successful, this will add substantially to our existing record backlog. Apart from this, the most significant upcoming project opportunities include the $12 billion Sepulveda Transit Corridor, the $3.8 billion Southeast Gateway Line, the $1 billion North Valley Rail Project, the $900 million Foothill Gold Line light rail project, all of which, by the way, are in California, and the $1.8 billion South Jersey light rail Glassboro to Camden line in New Jersey. I continue to work with Gary and our operations executives to help ensure that our newer major projects, including the Brooklyn project, and Manhattan Jails, the Honolulu Rail Transit Line, the Kensico and Manhattan Tunnels, the Apra Harbor Breakwater, and the Newark Air Train are properly set up to maximize the likelihood of success. We're still in the early stages of many of these projects, but they are all going extremely well, and I anticipate this will continue to be the case. Thank you, and I will now hand it back to you, Gary.

Thanks, Ron. As a result of a strong start to the year and continued confidence in what we expect to achieve for the rest of this year, we are increasing our 2025 EPS guidance to the range of $1.60 to $1.95, up from the initial guidance of $1.50 to $1.90 that we provided in late February. It is important to note that our increased guidance continues to factor in a significant amount of contingency for various unknown or unexpected outcomes and developments in 2025, including the potential for slower ramp-ups on our newer projects, project delays for existing or prospective work, lower than expected win rates for future bids, and settlements or adverse legal decisions associated with the resolution of disputes. The future continues to look very bright for Tudor Perini beyond 2025, and we are still anticipating that our earnings in 26 and 27 will be more than double our increased EPS guidance for 2025. We also continue to expect strong operating cash flow for 2025 and beyond. Now, with respect to potential concerns regarding U.S. trade policy and various federal spending programs, I will reiterate that we do not currently anticipate any significant impacts to our business related to these factors. From a project funding perspective, we do not currently foresee the risk of any of our major projects and backlog being canceled, delayed, or defunded. Most of our major projects are funded at the state or local level or with some combination of federal, state, and local funding. For projects that are wholly or partly funded with federal dollars, the funding for these projects has already been committed and or these projects are strategically important to the United States. Specifically related to potential tariff impacts, we utilize a pre-award and post-award strategy. As part of our pre-award strategy, our detailed estimating process includes consideration of anticipated cost increases over the performance period of our contracts, as well as additional contingencies to address other potential incremental costs related to unforeseen risks. Prior to our bid or proposal submission, we also work to negotiate favorable contract provisions that provide entitlement for certain compensable events, which may include price escalations and allowances. Once a project is awarded, our strategy shifts to entering into purchase orders or buyouts of materials such as steel and concrete, as well as large pieces of equipment, which mitigates the risk of future equipment and commodity price increases. Also at the onset of projects, we enter into fixed price contracts with our key project subcontractors, whereby the risk of unforeseen escalation is transferred to the subcontractor. Thank you. And with that, I will now turn the call over to Ryan to discuss the details of our first quarter results.

Thanks, Gary. Good afternoon, everyone. I will begin by discussing our results for the first quarter, after which I will provide some commentary on our balance sheet and our updated 2025 guidance assumptions. Revenue for the first quarter of 2025 was $1.25 billion, up 19% compared to $1.05 billion for the first quarter of 2024. Civil segment revenue was $610 million, up a strong 29% compared to $472 million last year. Building segment revenue was $460 million, up 12% compared to $412 million last year, and specialty contractor segment revenue was $177 million, up 7% compared to $165 million last year. Our revenue growth was broad-based and driven by increased project execution activities on certain newer, higher margin projects that all have substantial scope of work remaining. These projects included the Brooklyn Jail, which contributed to the revenue growth across all three segments, the Honolulu Rail Project, and certain mass transit projects in California. Civil segment income from construction operations was $80 million in the first quarter of 2025 compared to $71 million for the first quarter last year, with the increase driven by contributions related to the strong revenue growth I mentioned for the segment. Building segment income from construction operations was $10 million in the first quarter of 2025 compared to $16 million last year, with the decrease primarily due to the absence of a prior year immaterial favorable adjustment that resulted from a legal ruling related to a completed hospitality and gaming project, offset by contributions associated with the higher first quarter revenue for the segment this year. The specialty contractor segment posted a loss of $7 million in the first quarter of 2025 compared to a loss of $18 million last year. The improvement was primarily due to the absence of a prior year immaterial unfavorable adjustment pertaining to an arbitration ruling on the completed electrical project in New York and, to a lesser extent, contributions related to the higher first quarter revenue for the segment this year. We still anticipate improved operating income over the course of this year for the specialty segment, as our revenue volume is expected to gradually increase, which will help to cover the segment's G&A costs. Segment operating margins were 13%, 2.3%, and negative 4% for the civil, building, and specialty contractor segments, respectively. These margins are trending well, and we anticipate further margin improvement ahead this year, especially for the building and specialty contractor segment. Other income was $5 million, level with the other income reported for the first quarter last year. Interest expense was $14 million, down 26% compared to $19 million for the same period last year due to our substantial debt reduction completed since last year. Income tax expense for the first quarter of 2025 was $13 million, with a corresponding effective tax rate of 23.2%, compared to $7 million for the same period last year, with a corresponding effective tax rate of 21%. Net income attributable to Tutor Perini for the first quarter of 2025 was $28 million, or 53 cents of earnings per share, compared to $16 million, or 30 cents of earnings per share, in last year's first quarter. As Gary indicated, our operating cash flow for the first quarter was solid at $23 million. Looking back historically at the period between 2009 and 2024, on average, we have reported a usage of cash of approximately $22 million in the first quarter. So a positive cash flow of $23 million for the first quarter this year was certainly another highlight, and it was our third best first quarter result ever. We expect that our operating cash flow will be strong for 2025, as well as for the next several years, driven largely by organic cash collections, that is, from new and existing projects, and augmented from time to time by collections related to dispute resolutions. Now I'll address the balance sheet. Our total debt as of March 31st, 2025, was $406 million, down 24% compared to $34 million at the end of 2024. As we mentioned on last quarter's earnings call, we paid off the remaining balance of our Term Loan B in February. With our near-term debt reduction goals now completed, our balance sheet remains healthier than it has ever been. And as we mentioned last quarter, as we accumulate more cash this year, we will be looking at shifting our capital allocation priorities towards returning capital to our shareholders. All the assumptions we provided last quarter regarding our guidance remain the same. Thank you. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Gary.

Thanks, Ryan. To summarize, we delivered excellent first quarter results that exceeded our expectations with strong revenue, operating income, and earnings growth, solid operating cash flow, and backlog that nearly doubled year over year to a new all-time record of $19.4 billion. As I mentioned last quarter, our record backlog has been largely built on new awards with better margins and improved contractual terms, and we believe that this backlog will drive significant double-digit revenue growth and generate strong earnings for the foreseeable future, while also serving as a catalyst for continued strong cash flow as our newer projects progress through design and into construction. Our strong performance to date, combined with our confidence in how the rest of the year should unfold, has enabled us to increase our 2025 EPS guidance while still maintaining what we believe is an appropriate amount of contingency for unknown or unanticipated developments. Our business is performing well, and I am encouraged by what we have accomplished in the first quarter and excited for what should be a very bright future. Reiterating what I recently stated in my shareholder letter published with our annual report, There has never been a better time to be a Tudor Perini shareholder, as we believe we are at the dawn of a new era for the company. Thank you, and with that, I will turn the call over to the operator for your questions.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. And for participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Stephen Fisher with UBS. Please proceed.

Thanks. Good afternoon and congratulations on the strong results. Carrie, I thought I heard you say that this quarter was clean and there wasn't any kind of particular closeouts or kind of contract settlements or arbitration awards or anything like that. Can you just confirm that? Because I thought you were supposed to have maybe one that was coming to fruition there. And if not, if it was clean, then I guess I'm curious how, as we compare Q1 with what you might expect for Q2, given that it sounds like more of the closeout activity might be later in the year, What do you think would be different between Q1 versus Q2 other than typical seasonality where, you know, Q2 should theoretically be even better than Q1?

Yeah. Thanks, Steve. Excuse me. When I was talking about the quarter being clean, it's really clean from any significant impact of the dispute resolution activity that we had underway. We actually made very good progress on some of our larger claims We settled up some things. The cash didn't flow in the first quarter. That's coming in the second quarter. But we were able to do that with, in some cases, a slight uptick in earnings. In one case, a slight downtick in earnings. But net neutral impact to earnings for really three fairly sizable resolutions. So quiet from, again, the impact on earnings. but not quiet from effort and progress being made. Also, on the second quarter, a lot of that is continuing. A lot of the progress is continuing. We would expect we're close in a couple of matters. We expect to resolve some more things in the second quarter. Our expectation is similar with respect to the earnings outcome. We feel really good about how things are progressing there. You know, I'd like to say one other thing that's a little off from your question, but make sure that everyone understands this, is that the profits that we budgeted by quarter for the year, the progress that we made in the first quarter is not from an acceleration of the profits later in the year bringing them forward. The quarter really was strong on its own. You know, the strength is real. So it's not a shift forward of profits to come. much of the improvement over budget is really due to the large projects that are cranking up, you know, ramping up a lot faster than we expected. And that, as well as we were, you know, maybe a little bit more conservative with what we expected on these dispute resolutions. All those things together, you know, provided this type of quarter. And we hope to have, you know, similar type results, if not better, in the second quarter.

That's really helpful. And then you mentioned you have a number of things in pre-construction. And I guess I'm wondering just generally what has to happen to get those moving to construction phases. We know in the broader construction economy today, there is a lot of things in pre-construction. And given some of the uncertain macro environments, And costs, I guess there's some hesitation in some parts of the market. And maybe, I think, as you pointed out in your release, some places where there's more confidence. So I guess what has to happen to get those projects into actual construction phase? How much kind of concern from your customers is there? And I guess I'm curious, related to this, what are you seeing in terms of construction costs? in the last, you know, let's say since the end of March, have those been kind of rising in line with what we're seeing in terms of materials and tariff impact, and how is that affecting these decisions kind of moving from pre-construction into construction?

Yeah, okay, good. I'll do the first part of the question, Steve, on the pre-construction, then let Ron comment on the cost. But on the pre-construction, I don't want to trivialize it, but it's almost like just the passage of time has to occur. You know, we've got, you know, we do certain pre-construction activities, but these are solid projects that we expect with the passage of time to, for those to materialize into backlog. As an example, the last half of 2024, we had about $1.5 billion in total of projects that moved into backlog. In the second quarter, what we said on our earlier comments in the second quarter we have already recorded from out of pre-construction into construction and into backlog over half a billion dollars in in one of the projects we we also expect the latter part of the second quarter and it could shift um you know could slip a little bit into the third quarter but we anticipate a project um close to a billion dollars to to come out of pre-construction into construction so We're not seeing in this market, and these are all building segment projects, we are not seeing the concern about these projects not materializing that you might be concerned about. We are not. And then on the cost side, Ron, I'll let you address that if you want.

Well, costs are constantly rising, particularly in New York, which is one of our biggest markets. But I can say heavy. Just turned in a bid for a multi-billion dollar project this week in New York. There's nothing to do with tariffs that is affected as of yet other than threats. Our pricing remains the same. We have favorable contract terms that we believe protect us even if there was tariff impact. And there just hasn't been anything in a negative tone on any of our existing work. Now, I can't predict... what impact, if any, it'll have on future work that we're tracking coming out to bid the latter part of this year and next. But with the existing work programs, we're under contracts or purchase orders on most of the work and haven't felt any pain from tariffs or any major increases that were unanticipated.

Okay, I'll turn it over. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Our next question. is from Adam Pallheimer with Thompson Davis. Please proceed.

Good afternoon, guys. Great quarter. Hi, Adam. Thank you. Can you give a little more color on the comment about doubling the EPS guidance for 2025 and 2026 and 2027? Is that basically based on the timing of existing projects?

Yeah, it's really the new projects as they continue to ramp up and, you know, these new larger projects with the better margins, better contractual terms that we've been talking about, as they really get going, then they're going to contribute even more. And, you know, we're building backlog, and so that will contribute to some of it as well. But, you know, look, the best way to look at that is to look at the midpoint and then, you know, then double that. Obviously, if we continue to perform like we expect to, in future quarters, then we'll have to soften that charge because we can't keep saying we're going to be doubling what the midpoint is right now. That still is the case, similar to what we had said last quarter. We still feel that when we look at 26 and 27, where we are right there, we would expect to double what our midpoint is with this guidance.

Okay. And then So that would imply EPS obviously above $3 per share. What segment level operating margins would you expect to see associated with that level of EPS?

I'm sorry, could you repeat that, please?

Oh, I'm just curious. So the 26 and 27 guidance would imply EPS above $3. And I'm just curious, to get to that level,

Where the segment level of margins need to be so the civil margins the building margins and specialty margins Yeah, the the margins are similar to what we have talked about in the past Of course civil margins have been been building from you know Before we used to guide at 8 to 10 and then we were 8 to 12 and and now we're seeing north of that the the building margins will be be higher than the 1 to 3 percent that we have historically had. We've been guiding toward 3 to 5% now, and some of that is due to some of the work that we're doing is more complex. The margins are better, and also some of it is fixed price in nature with some of the building work that we're doing with the jails. On specialty, we hope to make those margins positive, which would be a big positive since they've dragged down earnings for some time now, but we're looking at... you know, somewhat around, you know, a percent or two, something like that, as we go forward into the end of 25 and into 26.

Okay. So one to two percent for now is your thought on specialty.

Yes, that's right. And, you know, I should say, Adam, that more than half of our expected earnings in 2025 will be in the second half of the year. That's similar to what we have always seen in the past. Sometimes it's two-thirds, but we're looking at somewhere around half at this point because we're out of the gate so strong with the first quarter.

Okay. And then, Gary, I think it was a comment, I think you made it, about deploying cash to shareholders. Can you just expand on that? Because obviously, You know, the net debt at the end of the quarter was only $129 million, and I think you said strong operating cash, particularly in the back half of this year. Maybe just talk about the options there.

Yeah, well, really there are two major options. One would be to pay dividends, and the other would be to buy back shares. And we're not quite at that point yet. We need to accumulate more cash before we feel comfortable. We've had conversations with the board. We have a board meeting next week, and we'll talk further about that. It's on the agenda. So those are the options available, and we are, you know, we want to do the right thing, but we also want to make sure that we don't go down a path and have to pull back because we want to make sure that we have cash reserves in hand that make it a long-term place.

I'll turn it over. Thank you. Thank you.

Our next question is from Liam Burke with the Riley Securities. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Gary. Good afternoon, Ryan. Good afternoon. Hi. Gary, everyone's talking about tariffs and regulatory uncertainty, but flipping the coin, the current policy now is less regulation. Are you seeing any speed up in project planning due to less regulation in

No. No, we haven't seen any speed up in planning, engineering, or anything in the process as of yet. But remember, no matter how decisive government is, it takes a certain period of time before the words become impact in real life. I'm sure it's impacting many of the environmental restrictions, but we haven't seen any speed up. But yet at this point, We're so selective in what we're bidding, we're not looking for any speedo. Our challenge over the next few years is to manage the huge backlog that we've already got.

William, one thing that is somewhat related to that, but really more on the tariff front, one of the things that we've seen is that with the talk of tariffs and where tariffs are, we've seen a few projects, some of our smaller ones, actually the timeline has sped up as tariffs as our owners, our customers have wanted to push those along at an even quicker pace. So that's interesting, right?

Great. Thank you. And on transit, mass transit, has there been any sentiment change on funding either repairs or new builds on mass transit?

No, there has not been. What? Any funding changes as it relates to mass transit? No.

Great. Thank you.

Our next question is from Michael Dudas with Vertical Research Partners. Please proceed.

Good afternoon, gentlemen. Hi there. How are we doing, Mike? Great. Gary, great. Thank you. I know you guys are doing well, given the results you just put forth. Maybe you talked about Guam, and I think the Indo-Pacific region, certainly for several reasons, could be a lot more active as we move forward. how has the visibility or the appetite for black to continue to really maybe step change some of the opportunities in that part of the world? Has it fit into what you have in capacity and where you are relative to your new opportunities elsewhere and some of the discipline you guys put forth?

Well, there's tremendous opportunities in Guam and throughout the islands. We're monitoring $700 million and $800 million jobs on the island of Palau and Crozeroy, all U.S. government funded. So there's no question the amount of major jobs as well as the routine government jobs that contribute to the multi-billion dollar fundings that's taking place. There's almost no limit to what we can do there other than our capacities to hire and train people and management. But make no bones about it, between Diego Garcia, the entire Pacific, and even the Philippines, we're inundated with opportunities. In fact, Gary and I are making a trip with management to Guam in the near future to discuss how we man and support Guam as they face more and more demands in a marketplace where they're by far the most dominant player.

James Meeker- And invite you in our prepared comments, you know we talked about for Max and that was four out of four Max that we have qualified for. James Meeker- But the total $32 billion of potential work for those contractors that are participants in the MAC I think that's indicative of the type of work that's you know the volume of. James Meeker- of work that's going through glom but also our capabilities to be able to qualify for all four of those obviously we can't. support that much work, but we're not going to get that much work. That's just, you know, the total amount of programs that we feel like we're well positioned, better positioned than anybody else in the region.

I agree.

Thank you for that.

As you look through new bookings, these project bids that are coming in as a port authority for a month or so, maybe a mix of like the pre-construction flow that you talked about in this quarter and some of what you have versus the new business and how that can structure what backlog could be as we move towards year end and for that baseline to move forward for 26 beyond.

Yeah, the 19.4 billion, based on the activity that we've seen so far, we think that it's likely to grow from the 19.4 at the end of the first quarter. It depends on success on on the award that Ron indicated that we, the multi-billion dollar bid that we released this week. Look, we have the potential to hold where we are probably long term in the year. We could also grow it. It really depends on some of these bidding opportunities. But look, if it does grow, it's not going to grow significantly. If it does, it has more chance to grow significantly than it does to decline significantly. We think that the more likely scenario is that we're going to maintain backlog where it is, somewhere within maybe a billion or two as we go into 26. Does that answer your question?

Yeah, that's fair. No, that's very helpful. Thank you, Gary. And then maybe my final one is, as you look at the backlog and you're ramping up on some of these earlier projects with long scope, as you look at the rollouts today, Where do you see a kind of peaking or a real strong period of revenue conversion relative to where you're positioning in that?

This is Ron Tudor. There's no question that 2025 is the beginning of ramping up revenue. 26 should be considerably more, 27 even more than 26. I think we'll see peak revenues in 27. with significant increases in 26 as those billions of dollars of lump sum high margin work ramps up and generates the revenue. And if you've got a five to six year contract and there are 3 billion a piece, you don't have to be great with numbers to see they generate five to 600 million of revenue, each of them. So that's what's taken place. So you'll see that ramp up in 26 and again in 27. And then it levels into 28 and 29. Well said.

I think the math works, Gary and Ron. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Mike.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Gary Swelley for closing comments.

Thank you very much. I appreciate everyone's time and your patience over the years with us. Look, this is the first time we've ever raised guidance at Tudor Perini, first time ever, and we hope it's not the last time this year. We look forward to talking to you again next quarter when we hope to have more good news to share with you.

Thank you. This will conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.