Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you for attending this conference call to review our fiscal third quarter 2022 results. Going to slide two. During this call, we will be referring to a slide presentation which can be found on our website's investor center main page. Relevant slides will be identified by number throughout our presentation. Today, we have on the call Drew DeFerrari, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ryan Urness, our General Counsel. Now, I will turn the call over to Ryan Urness.
Thank you, Steve. All forward-looking statements made during this call are provided pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include all comments reflecting our expectations, assumptions, or beliefs about future events or performance that do not relate solely to historical periods. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results to differ materially from our current projections, including those risks described in our annual report on Form 10-K filed March 5th, 2021, together with our other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We assume no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Steve.
Thanks, Ryan. Now moving to slide four in a review of our third quarter results. As we review our results, please note that in our comments today and in the accompanying slides, we reference certain non-GAAP measures. We refer you to the quarterly report section of our website for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their corresponding GAAP measures. To begin, I want to express my sincere thanks to our employees who have served our customers with real fortitude in difficult times. Now for the quarter. Revenue was $854 million, an organic increase of 6.6%. As we deployed 1 Gb wireline networks, wireless wireline converged networks, and wireless networks, this quarter reflected an increase in demand from two of our top five customers.
Gross margins were 17.34% of revenue, reflecting the continued impacts of the complexity of a large customer program, revenue declines year- over- year with other large customers, and fuel costs. General and administrative expenses were 7.8% of revenue, and all of these factors produced adjusted EBITDA of $83.1 million, or 9.7% of revenue, and adjusted earnings per share of $0.95 compared to earnings per share of $1.06 in the year ago quarter. Included in adjusted earnings per share are incremental tax benefits of $0.10 per share for credits related to tax filings for prior periods. Liquidity was solid at $314.7 million, and operating cash flow was strong at $104.3 million, reflecting a sequential DSO decline of 12 days.
During the quarter, we repaid our remaining 2021 convertible notes in full, and subsequent to the end of the third quarter, we received three-year awards for construction services in a number of states valued in excess of $500 million in total. Now, going to slide five. Today, major industry participants are constructing or upgrading significant wireline networks across broad sections of the country. These wireline networks are generally designed to provision 1 Gb network speeds to individual consumers and businesses, either directly or wirelessly using 5G technologies. Industry participants have stated their belief that a single high-capacity fiber network can most cost-effectively deliver services to both consumers and businesses, enabling multiple revenue streams from a single investment. This view is increasing the appetite for fiber deployments, and we believe that the industry effort to deploy high-capacity fiber networks continues to meaningfully broaden our industry set of opportunities.
Increasing access to high-capacity telecommunications continues to be crucial to society, especially in rural America. The recently enacted Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act includes over $40 billion for the construction of rural communications networks in unserved and underserved areas across the country. This represents an unprecedented level of support. In addition, an increasing number of states are commencing initiatives that will provide funding for telecommunications networks even prior to the initiation of funding under the Infrastructure Act. We are providing program management, planning, engineering and design, aerial, underground, and wireless construction and fulfillment services for 1 Gb deployments. These services are being provided across the country in numerous geographic areas to multiple customers. These deployments include networks consisting entirely of wired network elements as well as converged wireless wireline multi-use networks. Fiber network deployment opportunities are increasing in rural America as new industry participants respond to emerging societal initiatives.
We continue to provide integrated planning, engineering and design, procurement and construction, and maintenance services to several industry participants. Macroeconomic effects and potential supply constraints may influence the near-term execution of some customer plans. Broad increases in demand for fiber optic cable and related equipment may impact delivery lead times in the short to intermediate term. In addition, the market for labor continues to tighten in regions around the country. It remains to be seen how extensive these conditions will be and how long they may persist. Furthermore, the automotive supply chain is currently challenged, particularly for the large truck chassis required for specialty equipment. As we contend with these factors, we remain confident that our scale and financial strength position us well to deliver valuable service to our customers. Moving to slide six. During the quarter, organic revenue increased 6.6%.
Our top five customers combined produced 65.4% of revenue, decreasing 3.5% organically. Demand increased for two of our top five customers. All other customers increased 32.5% organically. AT&T was our largest customer at 23.4% of total revenue, or $199.5 million. AT&T grew 68.3% organically. This was our third consecutive quarter of organic growth with AT&T. Revenue from Comcast was $121 million, or 14.2% of revenue. Comcast was Dycom's second-largest customer. Lumen was our third-largest customer at 12.1% of revenue, or $103 million. Verizon was our fourth-largest customer at $93.4 million, or 10.9% of revenue. Finally, revenue from Frontier was $41.3 million, or 4.8% of revenue.
Frontier grew 118.6% organically. This is the 11th consecutive quarter where all of our other customers in aggregate, excluding the top five customers, have grown organically. Of note, fiber construction revenue from electric utilities was $53.7 million in the quarter, and increased organically 75.3% year-over-year. We have extended our geographic reach and expanded our program management and network planning services. In fact, over the last several years, we believe we have meaningfully increased the long-term value of our maintenance and operations business, a trend which we believe will parallel our deployment of 1 Gb wireline direct and wireless wireline converged networks as those deployments dramatically increase the amount of outside plant network that must be extended and maintained. Now going to slide seven.
Backlog at the end of the third quarter was $5.896 billion versus $5.895 billion at the end of the July 2021 quarter, essentially flat. Of this backlog, approximately $2.938 billion is expected to be completed in the next 12 months. We continue to anticipate substantial future opportunities across a broad array of our customers. During the quarter, we received from Frontier fiber construction agreements in California, Texas, Indiana, New York, Connecticut, and Florida. For Consolidated Communications, a construction and maintenance agreement for New Hampshire. From Windstream, construction agreements for Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, and Alabama. From Lumen, construction and maintenance agreements in Oregon, Minnesota, and Iowa, and various rural fiber deployments in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia. Headcount increased during the quarter to 14,905.
Now I will turn the call over to Drew for his financial review and outlook.
Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Going to Slide eight. Contract revenues were $854 million, and organic revenue increased 6.6% for the quarter. Storm work performed in Q3 of last year was $8.9 million, compared to none in Q3 2022. Adjusted EBITDA was $83.1 million, or 9.7% of revenue. Gross margins of 17.3% decreased 140 basis points from the year ago period. As expected, this decrease reflected higher fuel costs of approximately 50 basis points, as well as the impact from revenue declines from several large customers. G&A expense was at 7.8% of revenue and came in approximately 40 basis points better than our expectations from improved operating leverage.
Non-GAAP adjusted net income was $0.95 per share compared to $1.06 per share in the year-ago period. Q3 2022 included approximately $3 million or $0.10 per share of incremental tax benefits for credits related to tax filings for prior periods. The total variance in net income resulted from the after-tax decline in adjusted EBITDA, higher interest expense, and lower gains on asset sales, offset by lower stock-based compensation, depreciation and amortization, and income taxes. Now going to slide nine. Our financial position and balance sheet remain strong. In September, we repaid the final balance of $58.3 million of the convertible notes at maturity. We ended the quarter with $500 million of senior notes, $350 million of term loan, and no revolver borrowings.
Cash and equivalents were $263.7 million, and liquidity was solid at $314.7 million. Our capital allocation prioritizes organic growth, followed by opportunistic share repurchases and M&A within the context of our historical range of net leverage. Going to slide ten. Operating cash flows were strong at $104.3 million in the quarter. Capital expenditures were $44.1 million, net of disposal proceeds, and gross CapEx was $45.1 million. For the full year of fiscal 2022, capital expenditures net of disposals are now expected to range from $135 million-$150 million, an increase of $10 million-$25 million compared to the high end of approximately $125 million in the prior outlook provided in Q2 2022.
The combined DSOs of accounts receivable and net contract assets were at 113 days, an improvement of 12 days sequentially from Q2 2022 as we made substantial progress on a large customer program. Now going to slide 11. Each year, our January quarterly results are impacted by seasonality, including inclement weather, fewer available workdays due to the holidays, reduced daylight work hours, and the restart of calendar payroll taxes. These and other factors may have a pronounced impact on our actual results for the January quarter compared to our expectations. Q4 of last fiscal year included 14 weeks of operations due to the company's 52-, 53-week fiscal year, and also included $5.7 million of revenues from storm restoration services. Non-GAAP contract revenues adjusted for these amounts in Q4 2021 was $691.8 million.
For Q4 of fiscal 2022, there will be 13 weeks of operations, and the company expects contract revenues to increase modestly as compared to the non-GAAP organic contract revenues of $691.8 million in Q4 2021. The company expects non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA to range from in line to modestly higher as a percentage of contract revenues as compared to Q4 2021. Total interest expense is expected at approximately $8.8 million during Q4, and we expect a non-GAAP effective income tax rate of approximately 27%. Now I will turn the call back to Steve.
Thanks, Drew. Moving to slide 12. Within a recovering economy, we experienced solid activity and capitalized on our significant strengths. First and foremost, we maintain significant customer presence throughout our markets. We are encouraged by the breadth in our business. Our extensive market presence has allowed us to be at the forefront of evolving industry opportunities. Telephone companies are deploying fiber to the home to enable 1 Gb high-speed connections. Increasingly, rural electric utilities are doing the same. Dramatically increased speeds to consumers are being provisioned, and consumer data usage is growing, particularly upstream. Wireless construction activity in support of newly available spectrum bands is beginning and expected to increase next year. Federal and state support for rural deployments of communications networks is dramatically increasing in scale and duration. Cable operators are deploying fiber to small and medium businesses and enterprises.
A portion of these deployments are in anticipation of the customer sales process. Deployments to expand capacity as well as new build opportunities are underway. Customers are consolidating supply chains, creating opportunities for market share growth, and increasing the long-term value of our maintenance and operations business. As our nation and industry continue to contend with the COVID-19 pandemic, we remain encouraged that a growing number of our customers are committed to multiyear capital spending initiatives. We are confident in our strategies, the prospects for our company, the capabilities of our dedicated employees, and the experience of our management team. Now, operator, we will open the call for questions.
As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star then one. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, press the pound key. Our first question comes from Sean Eastman with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hi, team. Thanks for taking my questions. I just wanted to start on the margins. If we build in the fourth quarter guidance, it looks like you guys are trending somewhere around 8% for fiscal 2022. I just wanted to check back in on the bridge from there to that historical average that we've been anchored to. Is that entire, you know, roughly 400 basis points tied to the challenged customer program, or is there another component of that bridge that we need to be contemplating in our forecasts over the next year?
Yeah. I think, Sean, we've always thought about kind of the long-term EBITDA margin in the mid-11s. I think in this quarter and in this year, if you control for that large customer program, you're in line with that long run average.
Okay. How did the receivables and contract assets balance trend on that challenge program in the third quarter?
Yeah. As you'll see when we file the Q with that customer, the accounts receivable and contract asset came in about $100 million. We actually had about $100 million of free cash flow out of that one customer and program.
Okay. Very, very helpful. Last one. If you just look back over the last 12 months, how much would you say DY's three- to five-year total addressable market has grown around these fiber commitments and, you know, of course, the rural broadband funding that we've seen come through? I'm just curious, you know, are you seeing those, you know, that incremental activity reflected in bid activity currently, or have we not yet seen, you know, the big inflection in bid opportunities, you know, that should be following through from what we're seeing in the, you know, infrastructure deployment commitments that are coming through.
Sean, lots in that question. We'll try to break it down into pieces. If you think about in the core telco cable world over the last year, we talked about this last quarter.
Yep.
Since fiber to the home really became a real way to deploy networks, there's been something on the order of, call it 45 million homes that have been passed with fiber. If you take all of the programs that have been announced, let's say, to be completed over the next five-eight years, you get to a similar number, right? What took 17 years to accomplish, customers would like to get accomplished in the next five-eight years. I think what was also interesting about that in the last 90 days, we've had a number of smaller customers who have actually taken up their long-term plans to pass more homes than even they expected to pass, say, six months ago.
In one case, a customer that had a fixed wireless program decided to convert that to a fiber deployment program. That is before we get to the impact on addressable market of the federal and state support. So there's really three pieces there. One, which is not as widely heralded, but a number of states have kicked off their own broadband support programs and made grants available. We've already seen that impact the business. Probably the largest program is one that California enacted last summer, which is something like $4 billion or $5 billion. You have state level programs that are significant. You have the RDOF program, which so far has just gone through a phase one. There's another $16 billion left for phase two and beyond.
Of course, the big number you have is coming out of the Infrastructure Investment Act, which depends on how you calculate it, but let's call it just $40+ billion of support. I think the highest-level way to think about this is to say, in rural America, the industry said, historically, the industry has said that without support, 20% of America didn't make sense to deploy high-capacity networks in. I think if you look back from 10 years from now, the government support will effectively have addressed, if not all of it, the vast majority of it. That market that's never been in the industry is now going to be funded.
I think you also see in the rest, the other 80%, that the telcos in particular and the cable operators, although through different technologies, have all acknowledged that high-capacity 1+ Gb networks is where the world will be. All of those initiatives require services from people like us.
Very helpful, Steve. I'll turn it over there.
Our next question comes from Alex Rygiel with B. Riley Financial. Your line is open.
Good morning, Steve, very nice quarter.
Thanks, Alex.
The accounts receivable still running a bit higher than historically. Do you think you can continue to monetize accounts receivable for additional cash, or is the company at a sort of a new norm?
Alex, if you look at excluding the working capital tied up in the large customer program that remains, although we've made great progress on that in the third quarter. If you look at the DSO and the rest of the business, it kind of runs in that mid-90s. That's also in a quarter where sequentially we had about, call it $70 million of growth. I think that's in line. We did make good progress or great progress. We expect that progress to continue in the fourth quarter. Then I think as we get into the next fiscal year, you know, we don't see any reason in the rest of the business to be outside of our normal range.
That's great. 12-month backlogs up real strong. Can you talk a little bit about if you're seeing a mix shift away from the top five customers and how that could impact margins moving forward?
Yeah. I think we had, you know, we certainly had great growth with Frontier and AT&T, and you know, when you have your largest customer growing, call it 68% in the quarter, I think that augurs well. Looking ahead, I mean, if you deconstruct that AT&T number, wireless was still down a little over 10%, but the wireline portion of the business was up over 110%. I think we see good opportunities across the top five. That being said, the business is as broad now as it's ever been, about 35% of revenues from other than top five customers, and I think we feel good about those growth opportunities.
The electric utilities grew about 75%, and I think there are others that we also see real opportunity with.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, guys. Nice quarter.
Hey. Good morning, Adam.
Steve, what's the chance the large customer program is launched before fiscal 2023?
Fiscal 2023. Look, we made good progress in the third quarter. We expect that progress to continue in the fourth quarter. There'll be some, you know, there continue to be margin impact, we believe, in the fourth quarter. We really do think that diminishes pretty significantly as you work through next year.
Okay. Earlier this year, we were a bit concerned about Windstream insourcing, but you had some new contracts from Windstream this quarter. I was just looking for an update on, you know, the outlook for that customer.
Yeah. We continue to have opportunities there. I think we talked last quarter that we had signed an agreement last quarter. We signed some additional agreements this quarter that we'd like to be part of their forward solutions. They've got a lot of work to do, and so we're encouraged with the activity we had with them this quarter.
Lastly, can you give us a little more color on the $500 million of incremental awards in October?
Yeah. It was across a number of states with a single client, so a nice sized expansion with that customer, primarily geographically.
Okay. An existing top five customer or somebody new?
Yes.
Okay. Great. I'll turn it over. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks. Hey, Steve, I haven't heard you talk as much about fiber supply constraints on this call. Maybe you could just update us where you're seeing the impacts in the business. You had nice growth here with a couple of key customers. Doesn't appear it's holding them back, but where are you seeing that impacting you the most?
Yeah. Look, customers are working hard to get in front of their supply chain issues. There are extended lead times on fiber, but they're carrying more inventory, they're ordering earlier, and we're working hard with our customers. As quick as the cable comes in, we put it in service. I think the whole industry is working hard to contend with those issues. If you haven't got your order in today and haven't planned for that, it may be a while before you see it.
Okay. Maybe to flip that, I guess I'm wondering if you're seeing some signs in the business that, you know, some of these broader supply chain constraints plus inflation, are you getting new awards, new wins because of your scale, maybe because some of the smaller regionals can't compete with what you can provide there? Just curious if you're seeing any evidence in the business of that.
Yeah. It certainly, Brent, I mean, managing in a period of inflation means you better stay on top of moment to moment what's happening in the supply chain and the capacity to grow labor. I think we have probably the advantage we have there is really that we have a national perspective on what's going on. I think last quarter I talked about where we were literally moving resources from one quarter of the country to another to help a customer get a program started. I don't know that there's a particular advantage to scale in a period of inflation other than we've got an experienced organization that sees lots of inputs, and I think we see emerging trends across the industry as quick as anybody.
Okay. Are you starting to see Lumen ramp back up? It looks like some new award activity in a couple quarters here of sequential sales growth.
Look, we were encouraged that we had some sequential growth with Lumen. That's a good thing. We're also encouraged about the recent announcement from Apollo, who's acquiring a portion of that footprint. We work extensively throughout the footprint that Lumen's selling to Apollo, and we think that's future opportunities, as you can see by their recent announcement.
Okay. Last one, Steve, just any color around the increases in CapEx and also, you know, should we start to see an increase in D&A at some point here?
Well, certainly CapEx will drive D&A, Brent, so that's right. From a modeling perspective, it certainly will follow. Look, we started off the year basically where we're ending the year in terms of our CapEx expectations. We were pleased that during the quarter that our suppliers were able to deliver probably a little bit earlier than they had forecast for us four or five months ago. I think that's a testament to the you know to the scale that we have and the relationships and the history with our suppliers. It's still uncertain. You know, if we order equipment today, you know, we know we're gonna get it. When exactly we're gonna get it is still a little bit of a guessing game.
We're just happy we got what we did.
Okay. Thank you.
Our next question comes from Eric Luebchow with Wells Fargo. Your line is open.
Great. Thanks for taking the question. Steve, maybe you could talk about your cable business. Comcast was down, you know, for the second straight quarter. I guess, how much of it do you think is timing related? How much of it might be related to some of the pivots away from, you know, Fiber Deep towards some of the mid-split and high split that they've talked about? Do you have any thoughts on cable spending in your footprint, maybe picking back up, particularly
You know, as more of these fiber overbuilders come into new markets and start competing for share with the big cable operators.
Look, we're still pleased. I mean, I think the Comcast revenue was in line sequentially where we were last quarter. As you highlighted, they've certainly been public in their evolving plans on how to create more upstream capacity on their path to 2 Gb to 5 Gb. They and others in the industry are all working through kind of similar technology changes at the same time.
Yep. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. On the wireless side, I think you said it was down, maybe it was just with AT&T, 10%. I was just wondering if you could just aggregate what percentage of revenue it was. There have been some recent announcements about C-band deployments being delayed at least a month and some question whether that elongates. Have you seen any impact from the FAA dispute on the C-band side within your business, or nothing to note?
Yeah. I think, Eric, we continue to have good levels of activity in wireless. It's certainly down as they look ahead to the C-band deployments. We have begun C-band deployments for a number of customers. We see that as a good opportunity. You know, with respect to the discussion between the FCC and the FAA, our customers seem to be confident that that's gonna resolve itself in the near term, and we really don't have anything to add.
Fair enough. Just one last one for me, Steve. On the cost inflation side, I think you had talked before about looking at the forward cost curves and trying to, you know, appropriately account for future cost inflation in your business. Just wondering if you have any color on recent contract awards, how those discussions have gone, and if customers are generally understanding if you have to kind of reset rate to account for, you know, some of the higher labor cost inflation and component cost inflation that's come through the industry?
Sure. Because it is coming through the industry, I think everybody's looking at those impacts on everybody's business. I think we owe it to customers to make sure that we have the right economics to sustainably attract employees that are new to the industry, as well as encourage subcontractors to grow with us. I think as we're booking new work, that's our objective, and not a perfect science, but we feel pretty good about where we've been coming out.
Okay. Thanks, Steve.
Our next question comes from Jon Lopez with Vertical. Your line is open.
Hey, thanks very much. I have three hopefully quick ones. The first one, I'm wondering, just in the second half of your fiscal year, if there's anything unusual that you'd wanna call out. I guess why I ask it is because fiscal Q3 came in pretty strong, relative to the seasonal pattern, like best in several years. The fiscal Q4 guide implies some deceleration organically. Is there any, like, logic to that or anything you'd highlight?
Yeah. Jon, I think the growth, as you can see, with the customer data that we provided, was pretty broad-based. Not everybody grew, but we had certainly substantial growth in two of the top five and then everybody else. I think it's always difficult in this January quarter to forecast trends for organic growth, Jon. We have, you know, five holidays. We have the week between Christmas and New Year's, and it's highly sensitive to weather, particularly at the end of January. Work always gets done, but it may not get done in this quarter. We don't see any diminished appetite across any of the customers to get less work done. It's just the uncertainty around our ability to get it done given the seasonality in the quarter.
Gotcha. That helps. Second one, I just wanna come back to something I think I heard you say, but just to make sure I'm clear. I think historically you've had a pretty good presence in the footprint that one customer's in the process of divesting. As that, or I guess those assets, as they change hands next year, is that an opportunity you feel pretty comfortable that you'll be attached to or you have the opportunity to be attached to?
Yeah. Jon, we're not gonna go into discussions with specific customers other than to say that we've been through lots of mergers and acquisitions. As long as we continue to provide good service to the new owners, we think we'll get fair consideration and win our fair share of the work. No guarantees, we know the new management team, and so we'll work hard to do Lumen a good job until it transfers and then hope that that continues with the new owners.
Gotcha. Helpful. My last one is the obligatory backlog question, so I'm gonna come at you this way. If I look pre-pandemic to now, so like end of 2019 to now, your short-term backlog is higher. It was highlighted earlier. It's like $200 million higher. It's actually pretty close to the highest nominal level it's ever been. It's not the case with your long-term backlog. That's down like $1.5 billion versus the end of 2019. That seems counterintuitive when we consider what your customers are planning and committing to. Walk us through like what are the puts and takes there or just recenter me on why that makes sense.
Well, Jon, as a good example, right? We've highlighted on this call the two-year awards with Frontier. I don't think that they just have two years worth of work. They've actually laid plans out, but for them, and for us, two years was the right duration for the initial agreement, and so that's what's in there. I don't think for that particular client as an example, given that they've got four-year objectives, that's all the opportunity is. It's just that's all we could record in backlog right now.
Gotcha. Sorry, just to be clear on one thing in my own mind, does the inflationary environment that we're operating in now, excuse me, does that change at all the mechanics of backlog? Like, does that make you less willing or the customers less willing to engage longer term? Is that a factor at all?
Well, it doesn't change the mechanics of the calculation, Jon, but it does tell you, I mean, it's a good question, that again, we owe it to our customers to make sure that we've got the economics to perform during the term of an agreement. We've got to make sure that we can contemplate future cost inflation. If a customer wants to do a two-year contract versus what another customer might do three years, we're fine with that. I mean, we'll do our best to perform and meet their expectations. When the contract comes up for renewal, we hope that we'll be successful.
Understood.
We're certainly not pushing duration in an inflationary environment unless we've got the right terms to handle future cost increases.
Yep. Nope, that makes sense. I appreciate the thoughts. Thanks, Steve.
Our next question comes from Noelle Dilts with Stifel. Your line is open.
Hi, thank you. Steve, you mentioned in your comments that your customers and just generally with the federal money coming into the market, that the amount of work planned in the next five-eight years is essentially more than double than the last, I think you said 17. I'm just curious, you know, given the supply chain constraints that we're seeing right now around chassis and obviously the well-known labor challenges, like how realistic is it that the industry can scale to meet that demand? Curious how you're thinking about that from an industry standpoint and then Dycom's ability to ramp as well. Thanks.
Well, I think anytime that you have kind of a pronounced priority placed on a certain economic activity by the government, that as long as the economics are right, you could create supply. I mean, this is a country where people will be attracted to opportunity as long as the economics work for them to grow capacity. We've had, you know, the ability to grow headcount year-over-year, call it 5%. We think that we can continue to do that. The challenges are always such that there's lots of things in the industry that have to work together to grow the capacity. Maybe near term, sometimes people overestimate how much it can grow. I think long term, programs get built and as long as the economics are right.
Okay. Along those same lines, in the past, you've talked about, you know, during these types of periods where there is a lot of work to pick from that the company, that you tend to be a little bit more focused on returns than just revenue. Could you speak to how you're thinking about sort of balancing revenue growth versus margin expansion over the next few years? Thanks.
Yeah, I think, Noelle, we've always been much more focused on margins and top line. We know that growing the business is important to create value, but we got to make sure that we're earning proper returns. Again, it goes back to when you're trying to create or where you need to create capacity, you want to create an environment that's a sustainably attractive for new employees and for subcontractors to either enter the market or grow. I think that's what we're focused on. We're not sitting here just kind of picking through the opportunities. Based on returns, what we're trying to say is, where can we do the customer the best job to meet their needs and do it in a sustainable way?
Makes sense. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum. Your line is open.
Hey, guys, solid quarter. Steve, I'm just wondering what you guys' current thoughts are on potential M&A. You know, given, you know, a consolidating supply chain, and the fact that, you know, labor is extremely tight, large equipment is extremely tight. Have you guys had any new thoughts about, you know, to your point that people will follow substantial opportunities, but, you know, it's tough to follow substantial opportunities if you don't have strong relationships with the leading customers spending all the money who are consolidating their supply chain. It seems like it's a market, that, you know, given especially the labor tightness, might be time to make more acquisitions, or am I thinking about that wrong?
Christian, we always think about acquisitions first and foremost about acquiring good relationships and good management teams. We can buy equipment as well as anybody. I think this quarter we spent something like $44 million on CapEx. It's primarily looking for those attributes, and we've always been opportunistic about that. I think we're encouraged in the current quarter that we've been able to grow organically as well as we have been, I think, as well as anybody of our size in the industry. If you think about it, revenue with AT&T is up about $80 million year-over-year. If you annualize that, there's not a lot of M&A opportunities that would be attractive to us at that level.
Those all come at a multiple of earnings, and we'd much rather just invest in our people and equipment to really build on the relationships that we have. That doesn't mean that we won't contemplate some, 'cause we've done lots of M&A here over the years. We always think about capital as an opportunity to invest in our customers or invest in ourselves. We'll just see where that leads us.
Great. No other questions. Thanks, Steve.
Our next question comes from Alan Mitrani with Sylvan Lake Asset Management. Your line is open.
Hi. Thank you. I just wanted to be clear on one thing. You talked about a long-term average, call it in mid-elevens in terms of EBITDA, which is, that's accurate. It's been your long-term average. That's not your peak, right? I mean, you've had much higher peaks since then and since we're coming out of a meaningful downturn the last few years and starting to head into what seems like a very big expansionary period the next few years. I wanna know that shareholders can be comforted that you have plenty of ability to go above what your long-term, call it, 20-year average has been on EBITDA.
Well, Alan, we've certainly had EBITDA in periods of sustained and broad growth in the mid-teens. We're not sitting here saying, "Mission accomplished," if we get back to average. We try not to be average. We'd like to be better than average. We're gonna keep working on it. We have gone through a difficult period of time. We're encouraged that the cash has come in. Cash creates opportunity. We do think all the ingredients are in place for broad growth, given the number of both public and privately funded opportunities that we see.
Can you talk a little bit more specifically about how inflation is impacting you? You're obviously your main cost is labor. Just can you tell us what you're seeing in terms of what competitors are doing, hiring crews, new people coming into the industry? Have you made any changes in your ordering patterns as it relates to buying CapEx sooner, affordable F-150s, other things, other things like that, things like that that you're doing sooner, or how you've changed in response to the inflationary environment?
I mean, certainly in most regions, not all regions of the country, it's a tight labor market, particularly on the entry-level and the, you know, the semi-skilled or entry-level workers. We're addressing. We're offering more money. I mean, we're doing what we have to be attractive. We're ramping up our recruiting efforts. We continue to get lots of applications in every week, so we're still an attractive place to work. But I think we're doing what everybody else is doing. In my experience, that's the way these things have worked out in the past. Then on CapEx, Alan, I think you hit it right on the head. We're doing what everybody else is doing. We're carrying more inventory. We're ordering earlier. We're providing visibility out.
We've even talked about with some of our equipment suppliers, "What if we gave you two years' worth of visibility?" 'Cause we know what we own, we know what we need to replace, not only next year, but the year after. I think we've generally been a good partner to our CapEx suppliers. I think that they appreciate that and they're working with us.
Okay. Lastly, can you just update us on the share buyback? How much do you have left, and what'd you do this quarter?
Go ahead, Drew.
Hey, Alan. There's $100 million that remains through August of 2022. There were no repurchases in Q3.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no further questions. I'd like to turn the call back over to Steven Nielsen for closing remarks.
Well, thanks. Before we have closing remarks, Drew, just a couple of statistics to add.
Sure. Thanks, Steve. For the customer split, telco was at 68.4%, cable was at 20.4%, facility locating was at 7.9%, electrical and other was at 3.3%. Steve.
All right. Thanks, Drew. Thanks to everybody for joining the call. Again, thanks to all of our employees and the hard work this year. It's been a tough year for everybody, and we really appreciate what you've done and wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving, and look forward to the new year. Thank you.
This concludes the conference. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.