Good morning. My name is Sylvia, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the EMCOR Group fourth quarter and full year 2016 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. Mr. Bradley Battu with FTI Consulting, you may begin.
Thank you, Sylvia, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to the EMCOR Group conference call. We are here today to discuss the company's 2016 fourth quarter and full year results, which were reported this morning. I would like to turn the call over to Kevin Matz, Executive Vice President of Shared Services, who will introduce management. Kevin, please go ahead.
Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to EMCOR Group's earnings conference call for the fourth quarter of 2016. For those of you who are accessing the call via the internet and our website, also welcome, and we hope you have arrived at the beginning of our slide presentation that will accompany our remarks today. We are on slide two. Slide two depicts the executives who are with me to discuss the quarter and full year 2016 results. They are Tony Guzzi, our President and Chief Executive Officer, Mark Pompa, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Maxine Mauricio, our Senior Vice President and General Counsel, and our Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Mava Heffler. For call participants not accessing the conference call via the internet, this presentation, including the slides, will be archived in the investor relations section of our website under presentations.
You can find us at emcorgroup.com. Before we begin, I want to remind you that this discussion may contain certain forward-looking statements. Any such statements are based upon information available to EMCOR management's perception as of this date, and EMCOR assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, these statements are no guarantee of future performance. Such risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, adverse effects of general economic conditions, changes in the political environment, changes in the specific markets for EMCOR services, adverse business conditions, increased competition, mix of business, and risks associated with foreign operations.
Certain of the risks and factors associated with EMCOR's business are also discussed in the company's 2016 Form 10-K and in other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that said, please let me turn the call over to Tony. Tony?
Yeah. Thanks, Kevin. Good morning. Thanks for joining us this morning. I will be speaking to pages three to five. I'm going to speak about 2016, and I'm going to leave it to Mark to cover the quarter and year in detail. My comments will use pro forma results that add back the Ardent/Rabalais transaction costs and the small impairment loss reported this fourth quarter. Taking a step back, we had a record-setting 2016 at EMCOR. I now will share some of the highlights overall for the year, and then I will provide some highlights by reportable segment. We had record-setting revenues of $7.55 billion and earned $3.09 per diluted share from continuing operations. Cash flow from operations was strong at $265 million. Our revenue growth was exceptional in 2016, driven primarily by strong organic growth in our electrical, mechanical, and industrial services segments.
Overall, we grew revenues by 12.4%, with almost 70% of that being organic growth. Our electrical and mechanical segments grew revenues 18.6% overall and had over 13.1% organic growth. Our industrial services segment had 15.8% revenue growth, all of which was organic. Building services had 3% revenue growth, most of it through a very good tuck-in acquisition in mechanical services, and the U.K. had negative growth, driven primarily by FX post-Brexit. We had decent pro forma operating income margins at almost 4.2%. Overall, we had a lot more go right at EMCOR in 2016 than go wrong. We did well this past year, but we should have done better. As many of you know, we don't spend a lot of time making excuses.
When bad things happen, we fight hard for our rightful entitlements when we have issues, because as a specialty contractor, we have already spent the cash. We work to complete the work, regardless of how difficult the conditions our customers have us work under or how demanding they are. That is what makes us who we are. In 2016, however, we had three significant issues that total about $47 million of losses. Mark is gonna cover in detail the financial impact of these projects and contracts, but I wanted to provide a broader operational view of what impacted us on each of these projects and contracts. One of these projects was almost a completely a fourth quarter event from an execution and completion perspective in our mechanical construction segment.
This was a time and material contract performed with a large crew of pipe fitters working very heavy overtime on a compressed time schedule on a fast-paced process facility project. These sets of circumstance are usually in our sweet spot for success. However, in this case, our customer expanded our scope and mismanaged this high-intensity event, and the customer significantly overran the budget on this work. That overrun for us totals almost $18 million. Now that the work is complete, they do not want to pay us our rightful entitlement. The second project contract issue resulted in $9.6 million of project write-downs on an institutional project due to unfavorable site conditions and project delays not driven by us.
Finally, our issues on the large Northeast transportation project have been communicated throughout the year, and were a result of a highly accelerated project in its final stages, and it cost us $19.4 million in 2016. All three of these projects are substantially complete, and we are demobilized and working small punch list items. To place this in context, this year we executed many large, complex projects like these projects and contracts that went extraordinarily well. We don't spend much time discussing these successes, and it's clear in the underlying strength of our results that despite these discrete negative issues, we could still deliver a record year for our shareholders. Now, with those details of those projects behind us, I want to talk about the strength of our underlying business, and I'm going to give you some highlights by segment.
In the Electrical Construction segment, the underlying business is very strong. As we built backlog through the year, despite significant organic revenue growth. We executed well across our portfolio on some demanding projects across commercial, data centers, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, and institutional work. In the Mechanical Construction segment, we had exceptional revenue growth and strong execution across almost all of our contracts and projects. We deliver well across the majority of our end markets, with particularly strong execution in commercial, hospitality, manufacturing, data center, and water and wastewater end market sectors. We had executed well across all of our mechanical trades and have delivered strong results across all of our geographies. We have and are executing some of the largest food processing work that we have ever done. We expect our growth, and we should expect our growth in Mechanical Construction to generate growth in operating income.
Outside of the issue mentioned above, earlier, we had strong correlation between revenue growth and operating income growth. In our Building Services segment, we had a very good year, led by very strong execution and performance in our mechanical services business. Our mechanical services business had strong performance, not only in its service agreement and repair service activities, but also had very good overall performance in our retrofit projects. We continue to see strong demand for retrofit projects, and EMCOR is able to package these projects, and in many cases, deliver strong energy savings to our customers. We held steady in our commercial and government site-based services business, and in these businesses, we continue to work to exploit our niche in self-performed technical services, leveraging a nationwide footprint. We provide vendor managed solutions for interior and exterior services. Overall, Building Services had a good year.
Our industrial segment had a stellar year, despite significant headwinds in our shop business that we have discussed many times. Our shop heat exchanger services have historically been one of the most profitable revenue streams at EMCOR. However, our backlog, revenues, and operating profits are down over 50% over the last two years as a result of the decline in integrated oil company cash flows, which drives deferred maintenance and reduced capital expansion spending. We made up for that and still grew revenues by 15.8% and operating profit by 37.9% as we executed well across our field services business, especially in our specialty services. In 2016, we executed some of the largest turnarounds that we have ever executed. We not only had that turnaround work, but we had several large projects that we were able to execute for our customers that were complex and demanding.
On these large projects, we were able to mobilize in short order over 1,000 highly skilled trades people. Not many of our competitors could execute the work we did, as it required extraordinary supervision, labor management, and financial resources to mobilize and management. We can do this at EMCOR, but these type of project activities are usually not planned, and we react to our customers' needs. Although this created a headwind for us in subsequent periods for comparison, it is important, profitable, and very good work for us. We like our position in these markets and have been able to not only service our refinery customers well, but have built a very good petrochemical services business since the acquisition of RepconStrickland, Inc.. The U.K. segment has steadied and now has had three straight years of solid contribution to our results.
Our 2013 restructuring worked, and the U.K. is ready to grow in a measured way. We have added some nice maintenance contract wins over the past year. We leave this year with a very strong backlog that despite the record organic revenue growth, grew 3.5% versus the same year ago period, and most of that growth is in our construction segments. We continue to have a strong and liquid balance sheet, supported by consistently strong cash flows, even when we have double-digit organic revenue growth. We've had very good acquisition integration over the past three years also. We had a very strong 2016, and sure, it could have been better, but it was still a record performance. With that, I will turn it over to Mark to cover the fourth quarter and 2016 in detail, and I will be back to discuss backlog and the outlook for 2017
Thank you, Tony, my good morning to everyone participating on the call today. For those accessing this presentation via the webcast, we are now on slide six. As Tony indicated in his opening commentary, I will begin with a detailed discussion of our fourth quarter 2016 results before moving to our full year 2016 performance, some of which Tony just outlined during his executive summary and is included in our consolidated financial statements within both our earnings release announcement and Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this morning. Let's review our fourth quarter performance. Consolidated revenues of $1.95 billion in quarter four are up $172.1 million, or 9.7%. All reportable segments are reporting increased revenues quarter-over-quarter, other than our U.K. Building Services segment.
Incremental revenues attributable to businesses acquired of $71.1 million, pertaining to the period of time that such businesses were not owned by EMCOR in last year's fourth quarter, positively impacted our U.S. Electrical Construction, U.S. Building Services, and our U.S. Mechanical Construction segments. Excluding such acquisition revenues, our organic revenue growth in the quarter is 5.7%. U.S. Electrical Construction revenues of $476.9 million increased $119.3 million, or 33.4%, from quarter four 2015. Excluding acquisition revenues of $54.5 million, this segment's revenues grew $64.9 million, or 18.1% organically. Quarterly revenue growth was primarily driven by project activity within the transportation and commercial market sectors, inclusive of certain large-scale telecommunication projects, partially offset by quarter-over-quarter revenue declines within the healthcare and water market sectors. U.S. Mechanical Construction fourth quarter revenues of $722.3 million increased $62 million, or 9.4%. Excluding acquisition revenues, this segment grew organically 9%.
Consistent with this segment's revenue activity during late 2015 and throughout 2016, revenue growth continues to be broad-based from a market sector perspective. Specifically, during the quarter, commercial water, industrial, and healthcare contributed the largest dollar revenue growth. EMCOR's total domestic construction business fourth quarter revenues of $1.2 billion increased $181.3 million, or 17.8%, of which 12.2% was generated from organic activities. U.S. Building Services quarterly revenues of $438.5 million increased $2.7 million or 0.6%. Excluding acquisition revenues of $14 million, this segment's revenues decreased organically 2.6%. Revenue gains within their mechanical services division were offset by revenue declines within their commercial site-based and government services divisions due to maintenance contract attrition, as well as contract scope reductions, including lower indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity project volumes. Although the majority of contract attrition occurred earlier in the year, we remain selective in evaluating new maintenance contract sales opportunities.
U.S. Industrial Services revenues of $237.3 million increased $15 million due to increased turnaround activities from our industrial field services operations, which were partially offset by reduced revenues from this segment's shop services operations due to low levels of capital spending by our customers. This reduction in capital spending is a continuation of a trend that began to affect us in late 2015 as a result of crude oil price volatility. United Kingdom Building Services revenues of GBP 75 million decreased GBP 26.9 million or 26.4% due to the GBP 16.6 million impact of the continued weakening British pound, as well as a reduction in small project and capital project activity when compared to 2015's fourth quarter, as our U.K. customers are still assessing the short and long-term implications on their business models as a result of the Brexit vote earlier in 2016.
My last comment on quarterly revenues is that our fourth quarter revenues of $1.95 billion eclipsed our previously established quarterly revenue record, which we achieved in 2016's second quarter. Please turn to slide seven. Selling, general, and administrative expenses of $194.9 million represent 10% of revenues and an increase of $26.4 million from the $168.5 million reported in 2015's fourth quarter. As a percentage of revenues, the current year quarter increased 50 basis points from the 9.5% reported last year. The current year's quarter includes approximately $9.3 million of incremental SG&A, inclusive of intangible asset amortization from businesses acquired. Therefore, our quarterly organic SG&A increase is approximately $17.1 million and is due to increases in employment costs as a result of larger incentive compensation awards earned as a result of the improvement in full-year operating performance.
Additionally, increased headcount to support our strong organic revenue growth as well as higher medical insurance expenses were significant cost drivers in our fourth quarter. Lastly, we experienced a greater level of bad debt expense, which was concentrated within our U.S. construction businesses. With regard to our quarterly SG&A as a percentage of revenues, the 50 basis point increase is due to the true-up of incentive compensation awards in the quarter as a result of the overperformance of certain of our operating companies. For those of you on the call who regularly follow us, you may remember that in early 2015, our SG&A percentage was high due to the impact of the same item, but for the opposite reason. Despite a slow start to 2015, we were accruing both short-term and long-term incentive compensation awards based on anticipated improved annual results over full year 2014.
As operating performance improved throughout the latter part of 2015, we saw a decline in our SG&A as a percentage of revenues since those incentive awards are expensed ratably over the calendar year. Conversely, in 2016, certain operating companies experienced better than anticipated operating performance in the last two quarters of the year, resulting in incremental expense to true up for actual year performance, resulting in our fourth quarter SG&A percentage exceeding our reported annual percentage of 9.6%, which is down from full year 2015. Reported operating income for the quarter of $74.5 million represents 3.8% of revenues and compares to $84.1 million and 4.7% in 2015's fourth quarter. 2016's fourth quarter operating income includes a $2.4 million non-cash impairment charge as a result of the diminution in value of a trade name of a business previously acquired.
Our U.S. Electrical Construction Services segment operating income of $31.1 million increased $16.4 million or over 100% from the comparable 2015 period. Reported operating margin of 6.5% represents a 240 basis point improvement over last year's fourth quarter. This segment experienced $8.2 million of losses on several transportation projects during 2015's fourth quarter. As a result, there was a substantial quarter-over-quarter improvement in gross profit contribution from this segment's transportation market sector activities. These projects were either complete or substantially complete by December 31st, 2016. In addition, this segment experienced increased gross profit contribution from commercial and industrial market sector project activities led by certain telecommunication projects. 2016's fourth quarter U.S. Mechanical Construction Services segment operating income of $32.2 million represents a $26.3 million decrease from last year's quarter. Reported quarterly operating margin is 4.5%, which is significantly less than 2015's fourth quarter.
This segment incurred a loss of $20.5 million in the current quarter on a project at a process facility as a result of a contract dispute with their customer. This project negatively impacted the segment's operating margin by over 300 basis points. The job was substantially complete at December 31st, 2016, and we will seek recovery for our losses. As a reminder, during the fourth quarter of 2015, this segment benefited from a $12.1 million of revenues as a result of the settlement of a claim on an institutional project for which we had recorded significant losses in reporting periods prior to 2014. Our total U.S. construction business is reporting a decrease of $9.9 million in operating income or 13.5% over last year's fourth quarter with an operating margin of 5.3%, which represents a decline of 190 basis points over 2015's fourth quarter.
Operating income for United States Building Services of $21 million increased $5.4 million or 34.8% over 2015's fourth quarter. Reported operating margin of 4.8% represents 120 basis point improvement over last year's quarter, which reported 3.6% operating margin. The improvement in quarter-over-quarter operating income and operating margin is due to higher revenues and gross profit margins from this segment's Mechanical Services division, along with improved quarterly performance within their government services operations. Our United States Industrial Services operating income of $11.2 million decreased $600,000 or 5.4% compared to 2015's fourth quarter, with an operating margin of 4.7% or 60 basis points less than last year's 5.3% operating margin. The decrease in operating income and operating margin quarter-over-quarter is partially attributable to costs associated with the closeout of a large field services capital project, which project revenues were predominantly recognized over the prior fourth quarters.
This unfortunately masked strong turnaround activities executed in the current quarter. U.K. Building Services operating income of $2.8 million or 3.7% of revenues represents a $300,000 reduction period-over-period, which is due to a $600,000 headwind from a weakened British pound. Quarterly operating margin improved 70 basis points from 2015's fourth quarter operating margin of 3% due to a more favorable mix of revenues. The impact on consolidated quarterly operating margin of the previously mentioned loss project within our United States Mechanical Construction and Facilities Services segment is a negative 120 basis points. We are now on slide eight. The table on slide eight lays out those discrete items that impact quarter-over-quarter comparability. The only item to address is the identifiable and tangible asset impairment loss impacting the current quarter of $2.4 million.
After giving effect to the add back of this item, 2016's fourth quarter adjusted operating income would have been $76.9 million or 3.9% of revenues, which represents a decline of $7.2 million and 80 basis points in operating margin from last year's fourth quarter. We have not included any project loss activity reported in the quarter as a pro forma adjustment as project gains and losses represent our normal business activity. Tony previously referenced our strong operating cash flow for the annual period during his commentary, and from a quarterly perspective, we generated $135.6 million of operating cash flow, which is good performance in another reporting period of significant revenue growth. Please turn to slide nine.
Additional key financial data for the quarter not addressed on the previous slides are as follows: quarter 4 gross profit of $272 million represents 13.9% of revenues, which has improved from the comparable 2015 period by $19.3 million, while gross margin decreased 30 basis points. The quarter-over-quarter improvement in gross profit is largely due to our substantial growth in quarterly revenues. The quarter-over-quarter decrease in gross margin resulted from the $20.5 million loss recorded within our United States Mechanical Construction and Facilities Services segment, as previously referenced. Restructuring costs during the most recent quarter were immaterial and do not warrant an in-depth discussion at this time. Diluted earnings per common share from continuing operations for the fourth quarter is $0.69 as compared to $0.80 per diluted share a year ago.
On an adjusted basis, reflecting the add back of the non-cash impairment loss in 2016's fourth quarter, diluted earnings per common share from continuing operations would have been $0.72, which represents a decrease of $0.08 or 10% from the comparable 2015 amount. We are now on slide 10. With the fourth quarter discussion complete, I will now augment Tony's 2016's annual commentary. Consolidated revenues of $7.55 billion are up $832.8 million, or 12.4%, as compared to $6.72 billion of consolidated revenues in 2015's annual period. Acquisitions contributed incremental revenues of $250.8 million pertaining to the period of time that such businesses were not owned by EMCOR in the prior year and positively impacted our U.S. Electrical Construction, U.S. Building Services, and U.S. Mechanical Construction segments. Excluding the impact of businesses acquired, year-to-date revenues grew organically $582 million, or a strong 8.7%.
All of our reportable segments are reporting year-over-year revenue increases other than our U.K. Building Services segment. U.S. Electrical Construction revenues of $1.7 billion increased $337.3 million or 24.7%. Acquisitions contributed $158.5 million, resulting in organic revenue growth for 2016 of 13.1%. Increased project activity within the commercial, transportation, and hospitality market sectors were partially offset by revenue declines within the industrial and healthcare market sectors. U.S. Mechanical Construction 2016 revenues of $2.66 billion increased $349 million or 15.1% compared to 2015. Acquisitions contributed $45.9 million of revenues, resulting in year-over-year organic revenue growth of 13.1%. Higher projected revenues across the majority of the market sector in which we participate was the driver of the segment's strong annual organic revenue growth, and this revenue trend has been evidenced through all four quarters of 2016. U.S. Building Services revenues of $1.79 billion increased $52.5 million or 3%.
The majority of the segment's revenue growth is attributable to the acquisition of a mechanical services company in April of 2016. The modest annual organic revenue growth is due to increased activities within the segment's remaining mechanical services and energy services operations. U.S. Industrial Services 2016 revenues of $1.1 billion increased to $145.2 million or 15.8% compared to 2015. This segment's annual revenue increase is due to capital and maintenance project activity from our industrial field services operations, inclusive of turnaround activities despite revenue contraction within the segment's shop services operations as a result of lower customer demand. Our U.K. segment 2016 revenues decreased $51.2 million, primarily to a $41 million headwind as a result of negative exchange rate movements year-over-year, as well as a reduction in revenues from institutional service project activities. Please turn to slide 11.
Selling, general, and administrative expenses of $725.5 million represent an increase of $69 million as compared to $656.6 million in 2015. This increase includes $30.3 million of incremental SG&A related to businesses acquired, inclusive of intangible asset amortization. Additionally, our year-to-date selling, general, and administrative expenses include $3.8 million of transaction expenses incurred in connection with our acquisition of Ardent and Rabalais. As a percentage of revenues, SG&A is 9.6% in 2016 compared to 9.8% for the 2015 annual period. This 20 basis point reduction in our annual SG&A percentage demonstrates good cost control in a period of exceptional revenue growth. Year-to-date operating income is $308.5 million or 4.1% of revenues and represents a $21.4 million increase over 2015's annual performance. 2016's performance includes two discrete items that unfavorably impacted reported operating income by $6.3 million, which we adjusted for purposes of pro forma presentation.
Therefore, on an adjusted basis, the year-over-year change in operating income is an increase of $27.6 million. All reportable segments are reporting higher operating income year-over-year other than our U.S. Mechanical Construction Services segment. Our U.S. Electrical Construction Services segment operating income of $101.8 million increased $19.5 million or 23.8% over 2015 levels and represents 6% of revenues for both periods. This segment generated higher gross profit from commercial, transportation, and hospitality project activity. Additionally, acquisitions favorably impacted operating income by $8.1 million for the year. This positive performance was partially offset by $19.4 million of losses incurred on a transportation construction project in the Northeast due to productivity issues attributable to unfavorable job site conditions for which we will seek recovery. This project, which is substantially complete, negatively impacted this segment's annual operating margin by 120 basis points.
U.S. Mechanical Construction operating income of $133.7 million or 5% of revenues decreased $4.9 million or 100 basis points over 2015's full-year performance. This segment's operating results were negatively impacted by aggregate losses of $27.9 million incurred on two construction projects, including an $18.3 million loss on a project at a process facility as a result of a contract dispute with our customer, and a $9.6 million loss on an institutional project due to unfavorable job site conditions and delays. Such projects negatively impacted the Mechanical Construction segment's annual operating margin by 120 basis points. These projects were substantially complete at the end of 2016, and we will seek recovery for our losses here as well.
Additionally, as previously mentioned during my quarterly commentary, this segment benefited from the settlement of a $12.1 million claim in 2015, which resulted in a favorable 50 basis point impact of operating margin improvement in the prior year. Total U.S. construction operating margin of 5.4% decreased 60 basis points year-over-year, primarily due to the combination of current year project losses and the impact of 2015's favorable claim settlement within U.S. Mechanical Construction. U.S. Building Services 2016 operating income of $75.8 million increased $5.2 million or 7.4% due to increased profitability within their mechanical services division. Additionally, businesses acquired during 2016 favorably impacted operating income by $2.8 million. The operating margin improved 10 basis points year-over-year to 4.2%. U.S. Industrial Services 2016 operating income increased $21.4 million or $77.8 million or 7.3% of revenues.
The year-over-year increase is due to strong turnaround activities during both spring and fall seasons, as well as strong demands for some of our specialty field services. Additionally, this segment experienced significant headwinds during 2015 due to the impact of the nationwide refinery operator strike. This improved performance was somewhat muted by the continuation of soft demand for our shop services due to a lack of capital spending by our customers for the reasons previously mentioned during this call. EMCOR U.K. Building Services operating income of $11.9 million or 3.7% of revenues, increased $300,000 due to an increase in gross profit from service activity within the commercial market sector as a result of recent contract awards. The increased gross profit was partially offset by a decrease in operating income of $1.5 million related to the effect of unfavorable exchange rate movements during full-year 2016.
For the sake of completeness, the impact on EMCOR's consolidated annual operating margin of the three previously mentioned loss projects that occurred within both of our U.S. Construction Services segment is a negative 70 basis points. We are now on slide 12. Consistent with the reconciliations discussed previously on slide eight, this page reflects the operating income reconciliation for the two annual periods from GAAP to pro forma adjusted earnings for the two items that impacted 2016. Additive to this reconciliation from the quarterly reconciliation previously discussed are the transaction expenses related to the acquisition of Ardent and Rabalais that occurred in April 2016. Adjusted operating income reflecting the add back of these two discrete items listed as $314.7 million or 4.2% of revenues as compared to $287.1 million or 4.3% of revenues in 2015, an increase of $27.6 million or 9.6%.
The annual tax rate for 2016 is 37.5% as compared to 38.1% for the 12-month 2015 period. The improvement in the 2016 tax rate is due to the favorable impact of the adoption of the new accounting pronouncement, which requires the income tax benefits associated with share-based compensation to be recognized in the income statement when the awards vest. These income tax benefits were recognized in previous years as a component of stockholders' equity. With regard to 2017 planning, I anticipate a normalized income tax rate between 37.5% and 38%. However, as I have previously mentioned in past calls, this rate can fluctuate if any discrete tax events occur during 2017. Please turn to slide 13. Additional key financial data on this slide not addressed during my 12-month summary are as follows. Year-to-date gross profit of $1 billion is higher than 2015 by $93.4 million.
However, gross margin is down 40 basis points year-over-year. Total restructuring costs of approximately $1.4 million are higher than 2015's activity due to consolidation of certain back-office functions within our U.S. Building Services segment and the closure of an underperforming subsidiary within our U.S. Mechanical Construction Services segment. Diluted earnings per common share from continuing operations for the year is $3.02 compared to $2.72 per diluted share a year ago. On an adjusted basis excluding the impact of acquisition transaction costs and the non-cash impairment loss on identifiable and tangible assets, 2016's year-to-date adjusted diluted earnings per share would have been $3.09 as compared to 2015's reported $2.72 per share, representing a 13.6% increase year-over-year. Please turn to slide 14. EMCOR's balance sheet continues to build upon its strength and liquidity.
Our cash balance has decreased since year-end 2015, primarily to funds expended for acquisitions, common stock repurchases, and dividend payments, net of incremental borrowings from our amended credit facilities. Such decreases were offset by strong operating cash flow performance during the year. Working capital levels have improved primarily due to an increase in accounts receivable as a result of our organic revenue growth. Changes in goodwill and identifiable and tangible asset balances reflect the impact of acquisitions made during 2016, net of $40.9 million of intangible asset amortization expense and the impact of the identifiable and tangible asset impairment loss recorded during the fourth quarter. Total debt of $423.3 million represents a net increase of approximately $108 million from year-end 2015 due to funds drawn against a revolving credit facility to facilitate our closing of the Ardent Rabalais acquisition previously mentioned.
As a result of our outstanding borrowings, we currently have a debt to capitalization ratio of 21.6%, which is down on a sequential basis from the third quarter as we have paid down $100 million of principal outstanding under our term loan at the end of 2016. We remain happy with our balance sheet and our exceptional cash flow conversion during the year. As a result, we continue to be in a good position to capitalize on all opportunities. With my extended portion of this presentation concluded, and with much relief, I would like to return the presentation back to Tony. Tony?
Thanks, Mark. You deserve some water. I'm on page 15, which is Backlog by Market Sector. Our strong year is also reflected in our backlog. Total backlog at the end of the fourth quarter is $3.9 billion, up $132 million or 3.5% from December 2015, and flat with backlog at the end of the third quarter. Book to bill for the quarter was 1, and for the year was 1.02. Similar to the third quarter, project bookings remained strong in the fourth quarter, demonstrating strong ongoing construction and mechanical service demand consistent with our generating record revenue levels. When you focus on the market sectors, we have seen strong demand from the commercial sector all year as commercial backlog increased close to 10% to a little over $1.3 billion, and it's pretty much on par with our highest level ever.
Healthcare backlog, while just 10% of total backlog, increased every quarter this year, and in the fourth quarter, we won multiple pharma projects in the New York area, as well as a large healthcare facility project in Cincinnati. We remain long-term positive on the healthcare market, mainly driven by changing demographics, aging facilities, advancing technologies, and underlying all that is HIPAA requirements and privacy. However, there's going to continue to be some dislocation in this market as Congress and the administration figure out what changes to the Affordable Care Act need to be made for whatever's going to happen with repeal and replace. Our institutional work is down a bit with backlog off about 14%. However, this is in line with the general trend in the public non-residential market. Again, this could perk up a little bit under the new administration.
With regard to total private non-residential market, generally speaking, we believe the market still has legs after a pretty good 2016. We remain where we were a quarter ago, being cautiously optimistic of mid-single digit growth in 2017, which align with most market forecasts we've seen. We might be a little bit more conservative, but the election has led to a more positive view on potential business investment. Let me provide you an anecdote. We are seeing that specifically with some of our auto and high-tech customers, and we are positioned to benefit from significant work as they look to invest more in what they believe will be a more favorable business environment. What creates that more favorable business environment? Specifically, the new administration has discussed the following: infrastructure revitalization, pro-U.S. energy complex, expatriation of overseas cash, tax reform, potential change in labor regulations.
All this could potentially elongate and add momentum to the non-res construction cycle and could create positive momentum throughout 2017 and into 2018 and beyond for companies like us. Now moving to page 16, Backlog by Segment. Our electrical and mechanical segments have been the main contributor to the company's backlog growth in 2016. Backlog for our domestic construction segments is up $215 million or 7.6% from December 2016, as we have been and are well positioned to benefit from continued growth in the non-residential construction market. The mechanical construction segment backlog grew $139 million or 8.3% year-over-year, while the electrical construction segment ended the year with backlog up $75 million or 6.5%. Again, backlog growth with corresponding record revenue for the year is a testament to the velocity we're seeing in the construction segments.
Backlog in our building services segment is down just over $100 million with all that reduction in our site-based and government businesses. Backlog in our mechanical mobile services division, on the other hand, is up about 7%. Our industrial services backlog stands at $51 million, unchanged from the third quarter and $5 million lower than December 2015. I currently don't expect any change in our shop backlog as the refineries led by the integrated oil companies continue to recalibrate capital spending. However, we do believe we are at the bottom in our shop services business, and with the high levels of utilization in the refineries, we believe that spending eventually has to pick up again. Again, I'll remind you that this backlog in industrial services is our shop backlog.
However, we continue to see strong demand for our field services, and as we said before, this time and material work is therefore not in backlog. U.K. backlog is up on the back of a few large service project and contract awards. Our backlog reflects positive demand as we head into 2017. With that, I'll turn to 2017 on page 17 and 18. Now turning to 2017, our initial guidance will be $3.10-$3.50 per diluted share from continuing operations on $7.5 billion-$7.6 billion in revenues. We do expect a growing non-residential market in the mid-single digits, and we expect a decent refinery and petrochemical market. We do not have visibility that we would like to have yet in the second half of 2017 overall, but especially in our industrial services segment.
We also have a gap to fill, especially in the second and third quarter in our industrial services segment, as we had very good success, as we discussed several times over the course of the last few quarters in the second and third quarter of 2016 on some large project work that we currently do not have a near-term replacement for in early 2017. The question is: how do we move to the top end of the range in 2017, much like we did in 2016, where we actually exceeded the top end of our initial guidance range? Some of the actions depend on us, and some of it will depend on our end markets and customers.
We have good backlog in our electrical and mechanical construction segments. For us to move to the top end of the range, we need to expand markets through the year. We cannot have the level of sizable disputes write-downs that we had in 2016. Overall, we executed well. We need to have more of an absence of badness in our portfolio to the move to the top end of the range. We do expect a decent market. It will be very difficult for us to achieve the level of organic growth we had in 2016, again in 2017. With our acquisition of Ardent/Rabalais last spring, we bought an option that we did not have on midstream and upstream oil and gas segments.
We are seeing some stirring of activity. An interesting anecdote is that prior to the election in the midstream market, our end customers were talking with lawyers about how they would complete and permit projects. To now after the election, they are re-engaging contractors engineers about how they can accelerate pipeline projects. Although rig counts are up, drillers are largely returning to places that have the electrical infrastructure to drill in place. The next round of increases should occur in areas that will need that infrastructure. If this happens in the mid and upstream markets, we will have the opportunity to move to the top end of our range. Further, we need to continue to show the steady improvement we have had in building services over the last four years. We will need to have mechanical services lead the way.
We expect to continue to see opportunity in our retrofit energy savings projects. We expect to have growth in our self-performed site and government offerings. In the Industrial Services segment, we have clearly gained share over the last three years in this market. Our biggest challenge will be replacing our success from last year on some work. It is likely to take more projects and increase turnaround scope versus what we now see to have the same strong performance this year as last year. The work in this segment can turn quickly and can expand or contract with limited visibility. Outside of the strike two years ago, we have largely benefited from our expanding our services scope to our customers. To move to the top end of the range, we will need to see that happen again in 2017.
We don't expect and aren't planning any significant rebound in our shop services. We do think we have reached the bottom to the market. If oil prices continue to stabilize and have some increases, we should see spending return. It will also be helpful for this segment that the regulatory environment may not be so punitive to some of our customers. The U.K. segment needs to continue to have steady improvement. Across our portfolio, we continue to have cost discipline. We need to continue on focus on execution that we are all well known for. As for the deployment of cash, we will continue to grow the business organically first, add acquisitions across our portfolio. In January, we executed a nice fire protection acquisition. We will return cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.
We have a pretty good track record of executing all of the above. As for acquisitions, we would add to any of our segments at this time, from establishing a new geography or capability in our construction segments, new geography or increased presence to our mechanical services business, or additional services or capabilities to our broader building services portfolio and industrial services portfolio. With that, I'll take questions and turn the call to Sylvia.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. If you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypads. Your first question comes from the line of Tahira Afzal from KeyBanc.
Morning, T.
Thank you very much. Hey, Tony Guzzi, how are you doing?
I'm doing fine. How are you?
I am doing fine. If I look at I know this year you have tough comps, but at the same time, it seems just based on potentially everything that's being proposed by the new administration, it seems there could be a longer lag to even your private commercial cycles than you were probably anticipating last quarter.
I would agree with that. I think private investment is starting to feel more confident, and those anecdotes I gave on oil and gas, some of the high tech spending we're about to see, some of the auto investment we're about to see, I think all bode well for us. The question is timing, T. These things need to be designed. They need to be bid. Clearly, they are in markets that we perform very well in. We think at a minimum, it elongates the non-res cycle, and it could give it a boost going into the end of 2017 into 2018. I do agree with that.
Got it. I mean, 2018, it sounds like your organic growth could be the same, potentially even higher.
Potentially
If all of this plays through, right?
Yeah, it could. If it were the same as it was in 2016, I think we'd be satisfied. I think what we're seeing right now, we have good backlog growth in our electrical and mechanical segments. We're seeing continued pace of recovery, and I don't think anywhere baked in those numbers yet is positive momentum from all the things we talked about, which people are seeing post-election. We may have a little bit of a wall here in 2017 between these two periods, but if business investment and large complex projects continue to gain legs, and things that need very highly skilled manpower in a short period of time, they are clearly in our sweet spot and we will be there to take advantage of it.
One of the reasons we can take advantage of it is not only in the organic investments we made over the last five, eight years, but also the acquisition investments have put us in markets today that five or eight years ago we couldn't be in. Whether that be industrial markets in the southeast oil and gas markets, upstream and midstream, or even our more significant investments over the last 10 years we've made downstream. We feel good about all that. We have to navigate that. We've got to pick the right projects, and we've got to execute, which we do fairly well most times.
Got it, Tony. I guess second question, how should we be thinking about inflation and labor bottlenecks for your businesses? You've had a very strong year. We've seen inflation in essence and labor pricing remains fairly decent over the last few years. Do you think that might change?
Yeah, labor pricing has stabilized. We really don't see anything in the near term, say, 12 to 18 months that would change much. If we see another surge in activity overall in the market, and if it starts going towards a higher mark, you may see some labor inflation. Now realize our folks are pretty well paid now. They get that and in some ways they'd rather have the work. In reality, whether it be a union or non-union environment, the trades people that we've dealt with over the last five years have been fairly pragmatic about what they're looking for.
Right.
We have a couple of places, not so much, you could probably guess where they're at, in some of the bigger union markets. When you get outside of there, the people are pretty pragmatic. They want to work. Wages are good right now. Demand's good right now. They want to work. We're one of the better people to work for. Even when we get in disputes like we got in some of these jobs, the folks know they're going to get paid. The dispute's our problem, not their problem. That we're going to be able to get the job done safely, and we're going to be able to technically get the job done correctly, and really that's what trades people care about.
Got it, okay. Thank you very much, and I'll hop back in the queue.
Thanks, T.
Your next question comes from Brent Thielman from D.A. Davidson.
Thanks for taking my questions. Hey, on Industrial Services, you look at the last couple of quarters. Is this sort of level of profitability you'd expect for the shop business going forward, mid-single digits until we see a little bit more going on in that business?
Yeah. I think we had a very successful execution on some specialty work. But yeah, mid-single digits is about right. For us to get back up into the higher single digits, below double digits mark, we need to see the shops return.
Okay. Also in that business, do you see other projects like the one you did earlier this year, these sort of field services projects that could potentially play out in 2017?
Yeah. You never know, Brent. There's things that happen. We know there's some things going on right now that could potentially take us there. I guess, guys, if we looked over the last five years, we've had three of those events. Better than average odds we'll see something, maybe not that big. One thing we have seen is our folks have gotten better and better at large turnarounds. We've become, in some ways, the go-to contractor for that. The other thing we've seen is we've really got more significantly into the petrochemical business since the acquisition of RepconStrickland, Inc..
We might not make it up with a specific project or two, but building that footprint out, being in more facilities, being known as someone that can marshal very skilled people in a very short period of time, allows you to be the person when those opportunities come around, to be the person that they turn to. That's all we can hope for. Then we got to win the work and go execute.
Okay. That's great. Then Tony, I'm curious how you're thinking about the U.K. business in the context of your outlook for 2017. It seems like a fair amount of uncertainty right now in that area.
What we do in the U.K., I'll ask Mark to help me with this because he spends a lot of time thinking about the U.K.. He helped drive the restructuring. We shouldn't see a lot of variation because one is the overall impact in our numbers is not that big, right? It's less than 3% or 4% of any one of our numbers, revenue or operating profit. We also have some very significant long-term customers that we're in more critical facilities. Some of them are government, quasi-government or large industrial type customers. The uncertainty is there, but I think our folks are focused on what they can control, and I don't expect big bumps from there. Mark, do you?
Yeah, Brent, I think when you look at the composition of that business, the core maintenance contracts that we're executing under is all very good contract work. Where you're able to get a little improvement in margin is on the project side. Clearly we saw everybody hit the pause button post-Brexit with regards to any kind of significant small project or even small capital spending. I suspect that will free up at some point. It's just a question of what's going to be the indicator that our customers are going to need to be able to start to execute underneath what their plans are. Ultimately, at some point, like what we experienced in our Industrial Services space in the U.S., you can only suspend maintenance spending or small capital spending for so long before you run into a break or fix.
You're not at break or fix, you're at replace. I don't think we're at that point yet, but I think if we have another year like we saw this year, they're going to be there pretty soon.
We really saw that in our Mechanical Services, right Mark?
Okay. Last one, if I could, just the project in Mechanical this quarter, anything unusual about the project or the work performed, I guess, in context of what you tend to do in that business?
Yeah, something very unusual. Our customer decided not to pay us when they overran their budget. We will be looking for a full entitlement on it. That's what's so unusual about it.
Okay. Thanks for the color, guys.
Your next question comes from Noelle Dilts from Stifel.
Hey, Noelle. How are you?
Hey. Doing well, thanks. Good morning. First question, I just wanted to expand a bit on Brent's question on industrial services. If you look at some of the, I guess, industry sources out there, they're indicating a pickup in general turnaround activity in the spring season. My question is, do you think you are seeing a fundamental change in how refiners are acting? Second, could you talk about just what the split is of that business at this point between refinery and petrochem, and how you're thinking about the outlook for each of those sort of customer sets as we head into next year?
Yeah. Let's go split overall right now is still more probably 85% film, 15% shop. It used to be 70/30. Let's go there. Now let's go to the 85%, which is where most of the petrochem business is. It's probably 70% refining, 30% petrochemical. The revenue's bigger. That mix years ago would have been 90/10, so we've added some nice mix there. One of the larger turnarounds we did in the fall was actually in a petrochemical plant. I think we see them very similar, right? A lot of things are set up favorably for both of them. We also believe that the spring turnaround season is good, and the fall will firm up.
What we have the benefit of, this is what makes the comparison so hard, is we jump in there, we'll do either capital work, time and material, some capital work, small capital work, fixed price in that segment, very little of that. When you do those larger projects outside of the turnaround activity, it can skew your results. You almost have to look at this as like a two-year window, and if you look at over three years, we've clearly gained share because the market's been growing very low single digits, and we've been up way above that, two or three, four times that on any given quarter.
One of the trends we've seen, it could be the selection of services we offer or the capability of our field folks, our project managers, the superintendents, and our CEOs that run these companies, is we've seen a trend towards larger turnarounds for us. That could just be more confidence in us to be able to execute the work. We believe maintenance spending will be strong. It's lumpy. It could be just our selection of customers either succeed or don't succeed, we don't see a real negative market over the next 18 months. With our continuing to fill in the petrochemical market, we continue to build stability in the market. For us to perform at very high levels like we did last year, we need that icing on the cake of the project work.
Right. Okay. For my second question, I wanted to shift over to the construction side. Here, I guess one thing I wanted to touch on is when you look at some of the general, again, industry forecasts, I think as we look out to 2017, Dodge, et cetera, are looking for a bit of a shift toward institutional spending.
It doesn't sound like you're necessarily expecting that. It sounds like you're kind of expecting more of the commercial side to remain strong. First, I'd be curious if you have any thoughts on that. Second, I'm always interested in your thoughts on particular geographies and if you're seeing cities or states that are either showing some improvement or slowing down a bit.
First question is, we are seeing some institutional opportunities out there, and we've balanced those against the private opportunities. Some of the best work we've ever done has been institutional. Some of the best work we've ever done has been private. Some of the worst work we've ever done has been institutional. Some of the worst work we've ever done has been private. We look at them opportunity by opportunity. I don't disagree that institutional should come back, but I think it's going to be a lot less than people think just sitting here today, because as government is the people that actually let the contracts are sort of frozen in place right now for the next three months as they figure out who's in charge to actually sign the authorizations. Shifting gears, I'll give you a little color on geographies.
The Northeast is pretty good. Especially Boston. I do expect New York to slow down some, not so much on the infrastructure side, but on the commercial and high-rise residential. I think that will slow down from 2017 into 2018. The South continues to be strong, especially industrially. Maybe that's because that's where we operate. We continue to see strong demand for our industrial services through the Southeast. We think South Florida is going to be strong for us for the next three years at least, as we have a very good position in water and wastewater projects. With the consent decree in Miami-Dade, we think that creates opportunity for us, and there's only a couple contractors that can really do the work well, and we all should get our share.
Texas is remarkably resilient in the sense that previously, if oil prices would adjust to the way it would've fell off the face of the earth. Parts of Texas continue to be strong, and with our acquisition of the fire protection company, we actually bought ourselves more of an option into the commercial and healthcare and data center market through the Southwest and even nationwide. California's been strong. I think part of that is strong for us because of the position we have in each of the markets. There's going to be some infrastructure work done in Southern California, transportation wise. We have benefited from the port work. There's been some high tech, for lack of a better word, manufacturing is more high tech R&D and development in Southern California around San Diego that continues to be strong. Northern California continues to be strong.
We're very selective in what we will do in Northern California on the commercial side. It can be very difficult building environment with all the rules and regulations. The Midwest is holding its own. Chicago, we have a nice position in the Chicago market. We continue to do data center work there as well as in the Pacific Northwest. We have an electrical contractor in the Northwest. Randy and his team do a phenomenal job serving our customers throughout the Pacific Northwest, and we couldn't be more proud of them. Then as you go towards other sectors, we've had a very good run here in food service and food process, and we expect that to continue.
Very helpful. Thanks.
Your next question comes from the line of Adam Thalhimer from Thompson Davis.
Hey, Adam, welcome back.
Hey, good morning. Congrats on a good 2016. Thanks. Lots of questions on industrial services. I just wanted to ask one more. As it relates to your guidance, I guess you're assuming probably a double-digit revenue decline there this year?
Well, what we're saying at the low end of our guidance is we don't successfully refill that project in any substantial way. That's really what we're saying.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Oh, well, I was going to switch gears to the three jobs where you had a loss this year. Are you assuming any recovery in the guidance?
We never assume any recovery in our guidance. We don't know when it will happen, how it will happen, what the legal costs will be. Yeah, we have an idea of that part, but we don't assume any recovery because one of the benefits of being us is we can hang in there, and we don't have to accept substandard settlements, and we won't. That's one of the big reasons we don't even try to project when this will happen. Our General Counsel and our CFO here can be pretty hard-headed, as is our segment people, to making sure that we get to something that resembles a rightful entitlement.
Okay. You referenced a telecom project a couple times in the prepared remarks. Not something you normally talk about. Just hoping you could provide some color.
Right, Mark. We're seeing great demand right now for data centers.
Yeah. In multiple geographies.
In multiple geographies, we're well-positioned to continue to do that.
Okay. Well, I just wanted to take one more stab at the top line because I guess I'm confused that you'd be guiding to basically flat revs.
Let me take a stab at it for you, Adam Thalhimer. I'll save you the imaginations. We do expect some weakness industrially. I don't know if it's as severe as what you're saying, but that's an issue for us because we did so well last year and so well over the last three years. You can't keep growing the level we were. When you put a large project in there, it can have an outsized impact on your revenue. The second thing is go back to our backlog discussion. We talked about $100 million coming out of our building services backlog year-over-year. That is really driven by a couple large site-based contracts, where one of them we had for 15+ years, and it's more than half of that backlog decline. What happened there was outstanding performance by us.
I think the customer would acknowledge we had outstanding performance. The shape and size of their portfolio is going to change. Generationally, they had a change in leadership. They've decided to insource a bunch of things that were outsourced. They've decided outtask instead of generally facility manage. We bid that contract to make money. We had seen declining margins and the like, which is not uncommon in something you've had that long that's that large. We were probably on our way out of there in a year or year and a half based on just margins alone from us. They accelerated it. We'll leave friends, we'll probably do some great mechanical service work for them over the next three years. That could be, and two other ones like that had gone from very profitable to rebid, not profitable, takes $100 million out.
We're winning other things, but the ramp-up on those, once you win something, can take a year and a half to get to full ramp, much like it did with this one 13 years ago when we finally won the whole thing. That's part of it. That's not the most profitable part, hence why we have an upper range. Then you have industrial services. We do expect growth in mechanical services, we expect growth in our electrical and mechanical segments.
Structured.
Yeah. Healthy growth.
Okay. That's good color. Thanks, Tony.
Yep.
Your next question comes from John D'Angelo from Macquarie.
Morning, John. Welcome to the call.
Good morning.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Most of my questions have already been answered, just two short questions from me. Which states performed best for the electrical and mechanical segments in 2016? Which states do you see performing better in 2017 than 2016? Thank you.
Did you say states?
Yes.
We don't really think about it that way. I guess I could give you regions. The West performed very well electrically. Really, other than our large Northeast infrastructure project, we performed well everywhere electrically last year. One project, take that out, it was broad-based, strong performance mechanically. I'd offer the same thing. We had one project out West, that we discussed here in the fourth quarter, that we'll seek our rightful entitlement for. We had an institutional project. It all came to a head at the end, but it really wasn't in 2016. You look at our portfolio across the country, our guys knocked it out of the park, and these are two isolated incidents. We had maybe a little bit outsized performance in a couple places, but we didn't have really any bad performance outside of that across the company.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Okay.
Your next question comes from Tate Sullivan from Sidoti.
Hey, thanks for getting me in. I haven't heard you mention any sources of potential pent-up demand if you do get everything that might happen in terms of taxes and less regulation. Is there any pent-up demand related to ongoing energy efficiency effort in our country?
Yeah, look, I'm not a big pent-up demand kind of guy. I think you probably could go back and look at our transcripts over a long period of time. I don't talk about it a lot. I think I did mention it last year in mechanical services and retrofit business. Mark used it today a little bit, to talk about why some of the trends are happening in industrial services. I think in general, I think there's something there, Tate. As more money becomes available, you ask something very specifically about energy savings projects. I happen to believe this would be an easy win. There was some legislation they tried to get through. It got so watered down, I'm not sure it was particularly effective. I'm not even sure it passed. What Senator Portman was pushing with Senator Shaheen.
We were a little bit involved in that years ago on the front end. We certainly didn't recognize what came back out of the other side. If you have more cash, most energy savings projects are sort of 15%-20% return projects. They are air conditioning and lighting focused, that and controls. That's how you make the money in them. Yeah, I think people would look to invest there. I think you look to invest there even beyond just the energy savings. Even here, the level of comfort you can achieve with some of the technology that is available now is pretty substantial compared to what some of the old systems were. I think that is a place that tax reform, more cash in owners' pockets, looking for projects to invest in infrastructure, why not invest in your own infrastructure?
Okay. Thank you.
Okay.
Your final question comes from Nick Coppola from Thompson Research.
Go ahead.
Morning, Steve. On for Nick. Quick question on the energy end markets around the country, just the regions exposed to it. Is non-res activity still depressed in those areas, or is that coming back at all?
The only non-res market that we participate in that's exposed to those energy markets in any substantial way is Houston. I guess we're going to pick it up now with our fire protection. They never had depressed because of the other things going on. In Houston, it was depressed, and it has not started to come back in a substantial way.
All right.
You got to remember, just taking a side, though, a lot of these folks, when times were flush, they put a lot of money into their facilities. Part of it's a natural pause. We were involved in four major campus expansions for integrated oil and gas or campus consolidations for integrated oil and gas companies and petrochemical companies from 2011 to 2016. Even if there was no downturn, they likely wouldn't be spending at the same level they were during that time period because they've already built out their infrastructure.
Right. That makes sense. Then, last question. Has the Brexit impact and the continuing uncertainty there made acquisitions enticing for you guys in the U.K.?
No. Anything else?
Nope. That's it. Thank you.
Okay.
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to management for any closing remarks.
Hey, look, we look forward to performing for you in 2017. We're off to work. We've had a great 2016. Could've been stronger, but that's behind us. Look forward to talking to you in April at the end of first quarter. Thanks a lot. Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation.