Our group later in the day.
We have Jeff MacLauchlan and George Price. Jeff is the senior, excuse me, the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of CACI International, and head of investor relations. So, guys, thanks for being here.
Thank you.
So, maybe a good place to kick off, A&D investors here. Can you maybe give a quick overview of the business and the key markets you work in for the folks that aren't as familiar with your company?
Sure. We've only been a government IT services contractor. I'll explain here in a few minutes how we're sort of moving away from that, over the last number of years. We're a little over 60 years old. We've been public for about 50 of those years. Six or eight years ago, we found ourselves. We were competing in a marketplace that was very, very focused on low-price, technically acceptable method. And rather than do what many did in that timeframe, we actually. I say we. This predates my involvement with the company, but for a couple of years at that point, reacted to those circumstances in a different way by saying, "We're actually going to focus on a fewer number of larger opportunities, look for places where we can technically differentiate ourselves.
Compete on a different basis." That also went along with building out the technology part of the business so that we were not kind of a traditional expertise. Focusing on technical infra technical capability and bringing that to bear on similar kind of problems and customer priorities. That had, in that it let us engage in the business development process earlier and have a greater amount of time to sort of shape our pitch, the pipeline, and bid in accordance with the strategy fewer and larger opportunities, but also what became higher-quality opportunities because of the approach. What we're really seeing today is the fruits of that strategy, where, you know, this is a process that takes years, two, three, four years, to really work.
And that's sort of the, you know, the situation we're enjoying today, where we've had really good visibility over the last eight or 10 quarters, about $28 billion of backlog, is really reaping benefits for us.
Yeah. It was a follow-on that same path. And you alluded to this a little bit, but can you give us more color on the transformation from, like, to more agile technology-focused work? And maybe an example of what, maybe, something the company used to do to something the company does today that it didn't do before.
Well, I should also have mentioned that that shift did not mean that we were moving away from our expertise business, but that we were looking for ways to inform the technology part of the business. And so what that means is that we're able to take the domain expertise for some really deep relationships on the expertise side and use that to identify areas to invest and invest ahead of need and provide technology. That means that we have been able to get to the second part of your question, to take our support, for instance, of some deployed personnel in some pretty bad neighborhoods. Those people are deployed around the world and use that insight to generate handheld SIGINT and EW instruments, for instance. So it's actually we shy away from using the word product. We actually deliver a thing.
That's the way the government buys. There's not really a good way to deliver software. But what we're really delivering, and the real magic, is software. So it would be a little bit like putting our iPhone. Then I sell you the iPhone, but the iPhone is not really the point. The point is what you can do with the iPhone. So the ability to characterize. Decide what you want to do with lets others, and as well as you, decide what you want to do with them. Do you want to jam them? Do you want to spoof them? Do you want to, you know, do whatever you choose to do? But if I could extend the iPhone analogy for a second, the thing that's exciting about that is it's entirely a software-enabled situation. So we have the largest SIGINT, which is changing constantly.
So what that means is, you know, you get a new signal in the morning, and, you know, you can push it out in an update in a, you know, traditionally has not been available in the government acquisition realm.
Gotcha. And then just for folks who might not know. Is.
Sorry.
Yeah. No, no. It's okay.
Signals intelligence.
Yeah.
So everything is an emitter. So think about this as everything from a phone, to a garage door opener on your television, to anyone in an urban warfare scenario, anyone who is in a building that's collecting data about where someone is receiving a radio signal, you know, any, any kind of RF energy, basically.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Between the expertise and the technology?
Yeah. We spent a lot of time, thinking and talking about this. We most recently when we started the strategy. We're about 80% expertise and 20% technology as we were defining as we define it now. I think in our most recent quarter. 55% technology, 45% expertise. I think we don't actively manage it this way, but we like the balance. Help each other. And, you know, the technology, you know, I think has a natural tendency maybe to, to want it we wouldn't probably want it to be more than, you know, kind of two-thirds, 60%-70%.
Mm-hmm.
Something on that order. And they, they actually. I gave you an example about how identified a need we could use for technology, but they actually go the other way too. So we have used some algorithms, actually. Jargon here, but used some artificial intelligence tools to characterize imagery data, which then we can use back in our expertise business where we're analyzing data that's been collected and sorted and processed and prioritized for analysis and intelligence.
Yeah. I think to kind of give everybody a sense. Tell me if I'm doing this right.
Yeah.
We met up with you guys. I think it was AUSA, and they had a computer room.
Right.
I think that was, yeah.
Right.
Yeah. So, just to give you a feel for, you know, kind of.
Don't, don't creep everybody out.
Yeah. So wait. admissions.
Everyone , it's just to mention one.
Mm-hmm.
Additional thing, right? Expertise is a good business. It tends to have some elements that are a little bit more competitive, expertise, work that we pursue, but it has advantages in that it tends to be pretty sort of sticky ongoing work, real requirements, so, you know, good return on capital. You don't really need much capital at all. And it facilitates us learning more about customers so that then, you know, we can meet needs and, you know, down the road, talk to them different ideas, different opportunities, technology opportunities, basically introduce some of these concepts to them as we better know them and they better know us and our performance. Synergies between it and reasons to have both.
Well, it seems like a really virtuous cycle, right? I mean.
Right. Yeah.
You know, the expertise informs the technology, and the technology informs expertise, right, kind of.
Very much so.
Can you maybe mention a couple opportunities or contracts that you're able to win or new markets you would be able to penetrate into because of this change in strategy and the balance between?
I would say probably the most notable reason, one would be our Spectral program for the Navy, where we will be assembling and deploying the sensor suites for all of the Navy's surface combatants, and maintaining that signals library to collect, prioritize, process signals intelligence as they pick it up. And this is a case where this is a traditional primes that are actually on our team as suppliers. Some of them were also competitors on the program. And one of the things that are pursuant to the iPhone analogy, one of the things we were able to do in our approach was bring an open architecture to it so that for the things that we provide, but it can also be expanded to include particular niches or expertise that others might have.
So if you can have this service and the library and the more or less continuous updates from us. But if there are things that the Navy wants to incorporate, whatever, they can easily be absorbed in the system, which in the architecture, which in a traditional, you know, government defense environment, you know, sort of not the strategy. You know, and one of the reasons one of the things the government liked about our approach was that it avoided block that they've become very frustrated with, where you have a large investment in a big deployed system, and you buy it from company X. And it's very hard to company X.
Uh-huh.
You know, and in our situation, we're, you know, we're relying on our skill and develop the system and maintain our position, but, you know, it has to be you maximize the utility by being open to whatever the best on your iPhone.
All right. So I would I would argue as a taxpayer, thank you, right? That's how do you offset, though? I mean, just kind of think about, and I'll just give you the big model, right? Boeing delivers a bunch of tankers. They lose money on all of them, but they're going to win it back maintaining them. So kind of same thing where if you have this vendor lock. Be down the road. How do you offset that economically? How do you offset not having vendor lock and return your investment? And I don't know. You know what I'm saying?
I think you are.
Yeah.
Well, I think the short answer is because I'm not losing money on the Spectrals I'm delivering.
Okay.
Yeah. So I'm being paid a fair price and making a reasonable margin on what I'm delivering. That, you know, I've got to rely. I got to compete. I got to rely on our ability to maintain our leading signals library, and, you know, maintain our leadership position to continue to manage it in the long term. But the short answer to your question. So I don't, you know I don't.
It's just my sense.
I don't need to make it up on the back because I didn't lose it on the front.
Yeah. It's my sense right now that there's an acute sensitivity.
Right. No question.
Multiple vectors, not just the market you're in.
No question.
Right. Yeah. So good, good for you guys.
And, you know.
Yeah.
That also provides us. Others can bring in their, you know, their solutions and their applications, make it part of the overall solution. But it, you know, first of all.
Yeah.
Good reliability. So the areas many of the areas we're focused on, the Electromagnetic Spectrum is a great example, Signals Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, basically. Are they, and what do you do about them?
Yeah.
Right? That is very broadly applicable, right? So we make the Navy happy, and it just happened that party to come in and add to that system, okay? The need to address challenges and priorities in the electromagnetic spectrum, that's everywhere. That's every service. That helps our competitive, you know, our referenceability and our competitive advantage. That's a good thing for us in the long term.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So, CACI best positioned in terms of just, you know, current national security priorities? You know, are there areas where you're looking for additional exposure?
I would say that our tanks currently are in a couple of sort of macro conditions that we see as being pretty durable for the. One of those things would be in the expertise part of our business would be the idea of cloud migration, particularly when it is catalyzed by security exposure. You know, legacy systems that are remotely hosted in data centers, you know, with particular agency and department-specific kind of applications, are inherently riskier than things that are in the cloud. We have a real migration that is showing up, you know, in a lot of ways. Related to that, because they often are, our skill in agile software development. We actually operate, have delivered, and are executing two of the largest programs in the government today. Both of those have met with delighted customers and, you know.
Both for us and for customers. Beyond that, I would probably point to some of the things we've been talking about already today, which is the current geopolitical and the events in Gaza, and Hamas, Russia and Ukraine, and of course, the Indo-PACOM, the Indo-Pacific Command, you know, situation and continued stress there relative to China, and some of the other. Like the Philippines. So those sources of friction, and our EW intelligence capability, and our network modernization, are places where we're going to see, I think, some pretty durable demand. And we had several questions today in our one-on-ones about this, and I think they were interesting questions, relative to the election. Some obviously, some policy differences among us as a nation, but they tend to be more about larger platform program.
A year or two? How many F-35s should we buy? You know, when do we need another aircraft carrier? No one thinks that we are defending ourselves against drones, for instance. So the places where we are in the budget, in terms of exposure, counter-UAS and the other things that are really pretty durable and not friction not, not points of friction between some of the competing political interests that you see other.
Gotcha. And are there any other places that you'd want to have more exposure, kind of as the follow-on?
You know, there is a lot of headroom, I think, in the EW and signals intelligence world to do circle around some of the things we do. That would be a place we would certainly be interested in expanding our footprint. We have made 3 acquisitions this year. Quadrint that does digital applications for a couple of intelligence community customers where we did not have a strong. That is enterprise or expertise work that we would certainly be happy to do more of. So yeah, there certainly are. I don't think as they're deeper in terms of what we're already doing.
Gotcha.
You know, our total addressable market is about $250 billion. Everything about our guidance.
Yeah.
We've got it to $7.5-$7.6 billion a year for FY for this year. You know, $7.5 billion in a, you know, it's a lot of headroom.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good. That's great. When you think about, just kind of, you know, capital deployment, what's your what's the framework?
So we have, not surprisingly, a very disciplined way that we evaluate share repurchases, as well as acquisitions. Although we've had some gratifying share price appreciation recently, we still have quite a bit of room analysis of our shares, so that remains on the table as an available option for us. We also see some targets in the pipeline, which we'd, you know, I expect we'll probably take some action on here over the next, you know, number of quarters.
Yeah.
At the same time, our leverage is about 2x trailing 12 months EBITDA, which is a little lower than I would like it to be.
Yeah.
to be and we have been quite active over the last year or two, as you know, in both regards, share repurchases and acquisitions. So, you know, we have plenty of opportunity. And opportunistic in either, either capital deployment option or both.
Gotcha.
You know, so we're continuing to pay close attention to force there.
What's the ideal mix between organic and inorganic growth?
Well, you know, there's an organic growth. Budgets, that is sort of a you know, sort of a figure of merit for the health of the franchises. You know, organically kind of flattish or struggling, and all the growth comes from acquisition, that's not a place to be in.
Yeah.
But, you know, if we're growing sort of mid-ish single digits organically, and we're making smart acquisitions that fill in gaps, which is generally our strategy. You know, I. We're in it now, and it's a good place that I would expect us to stay in.
Gotcha. And then you must kind of—I think you referred to this question before. So I'll ask it. Thinking about, you know, the funding environment as we move into the election and post-election and our, you know. Briefly with one candidate versus the other? I mean, I don't think so, but I'm just curious what you guys think. Yeah.
You know, my realm here a little bit.
Yeah.
Predicting political reactions. It's difficult for me as a citizen and as a business person. Look at the landscape and see cyber threats and see the geopolitical situation in, you know, two or three of the spots around the world and conclude that we're not going to stay on top of those. You know, I just have a hard time understanding how we could walk away from. I think the short answer to your question is I don't see that as a major risk. You know, on the other hand, you know, we'll have to see how things unfold. It's not difficult for me to think that we would fail to address some of these really pressing threats.
Yeah.
A lot of our allies are, you know, I guess, better appreciating the threats that may be close by and are doing. From a spending perspective.
Yeah.
You know, and that creates some opportunities for us, too, over time, you know, even though that's not a, you know, a large part of time.
Yeah. There's been an intellectual discussion in Poland this afternoon.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah. Absolutely not.
They got a very different perspective.
Yeah. So when, when you think about the business, and on the expertise side, it's really people, really important.
Yeah.
not that the other side's not, but you know what I mean. Like.
Yeah.
How's it been, you know, retaining people, hiring people too?
Yeah. You know, there are a couple of observations I'd make about that. First of all, it's always challenging to find good people, you know, so. A new phenomenon, not a recent phenomenon. There are a couple of things that we have done and are doing that give circumstance of being able to sit here today and tell you that we have below-industry-average attrition, which we're proud of and look forward to continuing. But there are a couple of things. One is that we have a very large percentage of veterans who are particularly mission-focused. Technology parts of the business. And they're working; they're obviously working to be paid, but they're also working because they recognize it's important work and it, you know, it satisfies other things that are important to them.
We consistently rank as one of the better places for veterans to work. I would also point out. We have embarked on a couple of HR initiatives that have been really well received. We have a flexible time-off program, so amount of time-off they can take. It's between you and your supervisor. That's similarly applied that sort of local applied to performance appraisals and to merit budgets, so people get to have a conversation with their boss about what they like, what they don't like, how couched in a "I had to rate you a two i nstead of a three" kind of thing. And that applies, again, to budgets also, without forcing or compelling any kind of distribution. We have also a very robust referral program, and I think 40% or so year were hired because they were referred by a friend or a current employee.
So when you do that, it says a lot. But it also sort of changes the stakes for the people that you hire, right? Because if I recommend you for the job, you get hired, you know, you have a slight.
Yeah.
You know, so we have a little different dynamic and a little different cultural dimension to that, probably. We've also been a little bit gentle on our return to work. So we clearly want people to come to work. Work happens at work. We recognize the importance of being at work. Collaboration is important. People, you have to be in the office six hours a day, four days a week, you know, or whatever. Because actually, what that does is recognize that, first of all, you need to be in the office all the time. If you're writing code or something, I don't really care necessarily if you do that from midnight to 10 o'clock. Whenever you work. So accommodating those kind of differences has also been helpful in this whole idea of flexibility.
We're actually happy. We're sort of organically realizing work happens at work.
Yeah.
You know, people are just sort of naturally finding. I think all those things sort of coalesce around the fact that we've sort of consciously done things that make CACI a good place to want to work and do important work, and they do.
Yeah.
Yeah. Add to that too, just we're doing a lot of really cool things, and we're winning.
Yeah.
You know, a lot of work and buzz and some excitement and some desire to, you know, for people to participate in that. And all the things Jeff mentioned, you know, have helped to keep attrition lower, right? Attrition this year versus last, it was, you know, it's still lower than it was pre.
Yeah.
Pandemic. Yeah, we're really happy about that. We gained great talent.
Yeah. That's great. So just I have my personal reasons for asking this question. So if you have a team with all good people, they're not forced on a distribution.
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. That's good to know. Yeah.
So what you have to do as a supervisor in that situation is you have to decide because you have a budget, not in.
Yeah.
You have to decide how to do that, and how you decide to do it is, and how you decide to explain it is up to you, right? We're not going to tell you you have to treat two or three people really well, and you have to have two or three that you treat in a really. Right, to force that curve.
Yeah.
You do it. If you think everybody deserves equal treatment, that's fine. If you have a couple of people that Association, too, that's fine too.
Yeah.
You know, but you manage your group.
Yeah. Yeah. Refreshing. Yeah. Get you guys here.
It's not.
Yeah. No. Shouldn't be. Yeah. So in our last minute and a half left, why don't we kind of walk through your guidance so you can.
Yeah. I would like George to kind of refresh everybody on where we are for the year. No news. Remember that.
Yeah. No. Just to clarify, look, we're a June fiscal year, right? So we have one more quarter. But for the year, you know, we've said $5-$7.6 billion. In terms of profitability, underlying profitability, right, underlying EBITDA margin, which is, it excludes the $200 million of staff. You know, that was in the high 10% range. We've said, we expect that to be about 10.7%. For the year. And just to, you know, to calibrate everybody's expectations.
All right. Cool. Well, thank you, guys. That was a lot of fun.
Yeah. Our pleasure. I feel obliged to.