Our sector is going to be from Leidos. With me on the stage is Chris Cage, who's the CFO. Chris, thanks so much for being with us today.
Always a pleasure, Noah. You guys do a great job here with this conference. We love coming to it every year.
Awesome. Glad to hear that. Let's maybe just start on the kind of government backdrop. What is it like to be someone selling to the government these days? It's been an interesting time. Are things normalizing at all, or is it still somewhat choppy out there?
Yeah, it's definitely been an interesting year, and certainly not one that we had anticipated. As we finished our year of deep strategic thinking at the end of last year, coming into the year, we thought it would be a little bit different environment. But we've, I think, proven how nimble we've been as a company and how centrally positioned we are to our customers' missions as we've navigated this environment earlier this year with DOGE. Then, obviously, kind of with the longest government shutdown in history that most recently wrapped up. Sailing through all of that, where we've been able to up our guidance a couple of different times this year, certainly on the bottom line side. Earnings and margins have been strong throughout, and we're in a position to close it out on a great note, so very interesting environment.
I think what we've seen is probably taken a little bit longer for some things to get up and running than we would have hoped from the government decision-making side. Certainly, the shutdown impacted that to a degree. But I think big picture, when you step back, it's actually very exciting because this administration is focused on getting things done. And as we really look at where we're positioned relative to that, there's just so many vectors that we should be participating in in a meaningful way in the years to come that we're very excited about that.
As we, or I guess earlier in the year, as the funding environment was slower, there was discussion in the industry of that being attributable to a change in administration. And these things happen when there's changes in administration. People are moving around different positions, different leadership roles, etc.
Shifting priorities.
But then there was also DOGE. And I still am not sure exactly where that's going. And then the 2026 request had total federal civilian spending down such that it seemed like there was just a prioritization shift inside of national security spending, or I guess total government spending. I guess my question is, are those debates and machinations still going on as we move into 2026, or are we kind of back to what 2023 and 2024 felt like as we go into 2026?
Yeah. Well, I think we'll see over the next few months. We generally feel like the funding dynamics aren't a concern for us as we look at, again, the portfolio and how we've positioned it over the years and where we're positioned with our customers on critical mission priorities, growth factors for the administration. Yes, there has been some strategic reprioritization in some of the federal civilian agencies over the course of this year and probably going forward have been more impacted. Those haven't been traditionally where Leidos has played a big role. In the areas that we are well-penetrated in civilian space like the FAA, there's obviously a demand signal that's robust for modernizing that particular platform. So the VA is another civilian agency customer that there's a clear demand signal to support our veterans and improve and increase throughput and timeliness.
So I feel like, again, this gets back to how are you positioned? What portfolio composition do you have? Yes, there always is some realignment of where those priorities are. And more of that now is going to pivot towards, we think, the Department of War and some of the priorities there in this administration and border security and other areas in the DHS front that we're excited about capturing.
Okay. That is helpful. In the third quarter, specifically, your organic revenue growth accelerated quite nicely, and the book-to-bill was pretty strong. Should we read that as the start of a reacceleration, or was that seasonality or random timing?
Yeah, I'd say we're obviously proud of the performance in Q3, proud of the whole team. We've been laying the groundwork this year, as we were just talking about, through changes in direction and DOGE and everything like that, and be able to come through that and demonstrate the resiliency of the portfolio and the growth acceleration, feel really good about that. I think the book-to-bill is indicative of some nice new wins and programs that will ramp up and help us on the growth front. I think that looking ahead, we still probably have a couple of quarters of key decisions that need to take place. The shutdown probably pushed things out just a little bit. But we're expecting the momentum to be picking up as we look to the back half of 2026 and really continue to accelerate into 2027 and 2028.
So like the quarter performance, definitely that shows that there's areas that are on a nice growth trajectory, but there's more to come to feel like we're on a consistent path across all parts of the portfolio.
Okay. And just to make sure we fully, or not fully, but just in a little bit more detail, discuss or touch on shutdown. Is the pace of activity or the operations of your customers coming out of the shutdown pretty quickly back to normal, or is it slow, or does it not actually matter because you were deemed critical across so much of your portfolio?
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things to unpack there. I mean, there's the support activity that we perform for our customers. And you're right, much of that was not impacted during the shutdown. So we didn't have active contracts that we had to ramp back up in many cases, some, but not very many. Right? And then we're getting all of our people that were impacted back ramped up and ready to go. And so that was contemplated within the guidance framework that we put out for the full year. And since the shutdown ended a little bit earlier than what we had accommodated for in our guidance, we feel obviously really good about the rest of 2025 outlook.
As it relates to getting on with some of the administration priorities and looking to everything we want to get done, they want to get done over the next three-plus years, that has to ramp back up. There's probably some award decisions that might have happened that maybe will be pushed out 30 days-60 days as we're up against the holiday period. So I think that's probably what you see is, yeah, you lost some time there with government customers not in the office making critical decisions. They're getting back to it. There's certainly a lot of engagement happening. But my expectation is some of the awards that we would have hoped would have been Q4, we're now looking at Q1.
Okay. Great. Okay. You've referenced the vectors and the priority areas, and you mentioned a few of them briefly. What are the two or three that are large for Leidos now but can grow at a high rate, and therefore they really move the needle for you? And then what are the two or three that are small for Leidos today but could become much larger?
Yeah. Well, on the larger front that move the needle, I mean, I'd say we have a large enough multi-billion dollar defense systems business that still 15-ish% of the portfolio, but that's sizable and certainly bigger in size and scale than some of the defense tech companies that are being talked about out there. So we can deliver at scale in that business, and there are substantial demand signals across a variety of our product portfolio from the detection side to the effector side, to the maritime autonomy side, and I think we have a role to play as we talk about Golden Dome and when we all understand what that reference architecture looks like, so I'm excited about that one growing at a high rate, again, looking ahead over a multi-year trajectory.
In the Digimod and Cyber Growth Pillar, especially the cyber part of that, that can grow, I think, at a sizable clip going forward. The demand signal there, I mean, the threat vector is evolving. AI is changing the dynamics of how you protect from cyber threats. It's also creating opportunities to advance your offensive cyber capabilities. And so definitely expect that. And we've had some nice wins in the cyber domain as we've looked back over the last 12 months. I expect that to be an area that can accelerate growth. On the smaller side, the one I'd feature is in our energy infrastructure business. We have quietly grown a formidable transmission and distribution engineering services business over the last decade. And it has been growing at a double-digit rate and has margins above our corporate average. So attractive part of the portfolio.
Obviously, there's a huge demand signal from energy infrastructure, protecting critical infrastructure, growing the capacity to serve the data centers and AI needs. And so we're seeing that the demand on that business is very robust. And we're also seeing the fact that Leidos can bring some of our investments in AI to that particular market to make our delivery model more effective and more efficient. And that's helping us compete and win effectively in that area. So I'm excited about that one continuing to grow sizably to become a more meaningful part of our portfolio.
Interesting. Okay. You didn't mention health in answering that. Is that because health is very large, has a large base, it will be hard for its growth rate to be much higher than the corporate average, or is it because I hit you with a random question and you have some of these?
Yeah, no, I mean, I could have talked about any number of them. Our health business, we're super proud of how that's performed over the last several years, right? And it's the leading grower and margin performer in the company. I think what you should expect, at least in the near term, is consolidate those gains has probably got a little bit more modest growth near term coming off of an excellent year. But we're very excited about extending those capabilities into the rural and behavioral area where we have some work today. We know the demand signal is robust. We know that there was a lot of reconciliation funding put into rural healthcare. And we've got, again, with the platforms that we've built and the reach that we have serving veterans, we think there's a role we can continue to play in a more meaningful way there.
That's going to take a little bit more time for that to accelerate the way we expect it to in the next few years. But it's a great part of the portfolio, and there's nothing wrong with consolidating at what we've got now, letting a few of the other areas tick up as that one continues to find its footing for the next year and look ahead to 2027 and 2028.
Okay. What would you say is the percent chance out of 100 or the likelihood that the health segment revenue has a down year over the next five years?
Over the next five years, I'm confident the demand signal writ large is high, and the opportunity set is robust. And we just have to continue to perform with excellence as we have. And we think that even if we look narrowly within one of our main customers in the VBA, we see a tremendous amount of opportunity where we can help them with parts of the end-to-end delivery that they're self-performing today. And this administration has been very open to great ideas that drive efficiency, even if it means that they need less VA workers to perform those activities. So I think, again, looking at that longer-term trajectory, we're very bullish on the health business and where it's going. And the teams have an attractive long-range plan associated with it. And we just have to go make it happen.
Okay. Over the years, as that business has grown at a very strong pace, you all have discussed some versions of recompetes or new competition, and then those would seem to just sort of not happen. I guess I've lost track of what competition even is there in the exam qualification business, and are there recompetes to be aware of in that business?
Yeah. We're in the business where there's always a recompete to be aware of. It's just a matter of when, right? Because the government doesn't give you lifetime contracts. They'll give you two, three, five, 10-year contracts sometimes. So this is a business that, yeah, it's inevitable that you'll be recompeting for your work. As we look ahead, we've got runway on some of our contracts through 2026. So there will be a competition that we'll have to undertake later next year. And there's some additional contracts that have more runway beyond that. But again, that's par for the course. That's what we do. All of our work comes up for rebid at various cycles. But we attack that as if it's the first time we're going to go win something, right?
We always take a fresh look at how are we showing up, what are our win themes, how competitive are we, what do the customers really need. And the good news about this particular customer is they have been an early migrator towards an outcome-based contract. We want these things performed at these price points. We'll incentivize you to meet critical delivery outcomes that they care about: timeliness, customer satisfaction, throughput, etc. We'll disincentivize you. You'll have penalties if you can't hit certain criteria. And we love to sign up for things like that. We'll bet on ourselves every time that we can meet those performance criteria that they're interested in. And we love the fact that they are willing to put skin in the game on achieving those outcomes. And I think that's helped propel the results that you see in that portfolio.
But as we look to the recompete, we know they'll be interested in somebody that can meet those performance criteria, have demonstrated success in that regard. So we think that's certainly something to our advantage. But we're hoping that they're even more interested in how technology can enable this whole end-to-end outcome because we think that's an area where Leidos has been investing, will continue to invest in ways that we can help them streamline things to be more efficient. And we fully expect to re-secure our position there going forward.
Okay. When is there next a major recompete in health or specifically recompeting within the VA disability qualification business?
Yeah. So back to what I was talking about. Later in 2026, I think you have to watch that space. So unclear exactly when that will come out, but there's always an opportunity to extend it. So for example, we've got two things to watch in health next year. One is on our Dim Sum program, which you're familiar with. That ran its course and was extended for another year last year. So sometime in 2026, call it summer, there's a re-award of the follow-on to that in the maintenance and operation and whatever else they want to put into that mix. They previously extended us one year. There's certainly a possibility they could extend us again. Same thing on the VBA side. There's always a possibility they could just extend the current contract performance.
But if things go according to plan, sometime probably third or fourth quarter, you're talking about a recompetition decision there. So those are the ones worth watching.
Okay. How long ago did this customer move to outcomes-based, as you just described?
Yeah. It's been years. I mean, certainly ever since we've been affiliated with this business. And the heritage here, this was a part of the Lockheed Martin acquisition that we did in 2016. So prior to that, this subsidiary had a position with the VA. And what the VA has done over time is moved to a more outsourced model. But they've always had kind of a fixed price per examination buying model because they kind of were able to evaluate themselves what it was costing them internally to do different types of examinations depending upon the condition that was present.
So they more recently added the incentives and disincentives probably a year, year and a half ago as they when the PACT Act legislation came about to say there was going to be a higher demand signal on veterans needing to be served. The VA wanted to make sure industry was stepping up their game, building out more capacity, focusing on the experience, focusing on throughput. So probably back in 2023 or 2024, I don't remember exactly when, those incentives and disincentives were put in place. And I think you can see from our track record of the last year and a half, two years, we've been able to benefit from meeting the criteria to allow you to achieve the incentives. Doesn't mean that's a given. You have to continue to.
You have to do it.
Stay on your game and do it.
But that's the main reason the health margins are much higher than that.
It is a reason. Volume helps too. Again, when you have fixed infrastructure that you put in place to serve a need, obviously the more throughput that you can drive through that, the better to capitalize on that fixed investment cost coupled with maximizing the incentives.
How can Leidos participate in Golden Dome? And is Golden Dome definitely even happening?
Yeah. Well, I think it's going to happen. I think this administration's dead set on moving forward in that. And they put real resources behind it. General Gutlein has been focused on this. There's a reference architecture that they're working on. I mean, in theory, it's done, but not been shared with industry yet. I absolutely.
It is done.
Yeah. That's our understanding, right? We eagerly await to learn more there. But we know and already talking with some of our key customers, we're obviously bidding on the major $150 billion multiple award IDIQ vehicle that they've let out to industry. So that's real as a one-buying vehicle to get access to Golden Dome capability. But even outside of that, there's plenty of avenues. And Leidos should participate in a meaningful way. And we think we've got capabilities that serve when you think about the upper layer and space, the underlayer, protecting critical infrastructure and bases, and then the C2 connectivity stitching it all together. Leidos has a role to play, we believe, in all of those aspects.
So we're excited because some of the products that we already have to offer that we've already invested in, a key aspect of this is, can you deliver capabilities within a timeframe that matters? I mean, Trump definitely wants to put points on the board around how can I demonstrate that we've actually delivered on this in his administration. So you're not talking about programs that you're going to be developing and delivering 10 years from now. What can you produce and deliver in the next few years? And so we think maritime autonomy is a big piece of that too. So there's a lot of things at play. And we've got our IFPC program, force protection capability that they've already got an IDIQ buying vehicle in place that they could up quantities there.
Satellite payloads, again, the upper layer, we've got proven capabilities on the wide field of view programs with SDA today. We've got detection capabilities for counter-UAS in our AirShield and MHR and ALPS capability for passive detection. So there's a lot of different offerings that we can bring to bear at speed. So we're excited about the role we think we can play here. There's going to be a lot of people that play roles in Golden Dome.
Have you had any funded awards into your funded backlog that are specific to Golden Dome?
Not that I could say that's a Golden Dome funded award.
But if you included, that's something they could buy otherwise, but there's a good chance it's long lead Golden Dome.
Oh, well, I mean, the indirect fire protection. I mean, there's a multi-billion-dollar award IDIQ vehicle that we won last year. We've had a couple of different task orders ordering real units underneath that IDIQ this year. We're already bidding and pricing on things that could be delivered next year. So that's one that I would point to. Certainly, there's other bids that are in the customer's hands right now under evaluation that they could make a determination on. And we would say those are capabilities that fit under that Golden Dome umbrella.
Okay. And then there's a large IDIQ vehicle that is basically just all of the requisite awards.
For industry mobile award.
They could award anything from it.
Yeah. TBD on how they solicit tasks for individual capabilities or products underneath that. But our bid's submitted there, and we expect to get a position on that. And again, one more avenue for them to potentially buy.
And that having not yet awarded specifics out from under it, it's just waiting on the finalization of the architecture?
I think that's a key aspect to it. Obviously, things will follow from there. But I don't know that that will hold up MDA from getting that particular IDIQ in place so they're ready to go. Everybody wants to be ready to go. And there's enough latitude in that buying framework for them to buy the things that they need that match the architecture that Gutlein's coming up with.
Okay. You mentioned the FAA. There's an ongoing process for modernization of FAA. There's a competition for a prime contractor role where you are not bidding. Why does that not make sense for Leidos? And how will you otherwise participate?
That's a great question. Well, we're a key partner to the FAA today and have been for 50 years. We're on a number of applications, some of which fit into where they want to go in the future and will be replaced by a modern system. Others that will continue to run and perform through that aren't impacted by what they're doing to modernize, right? So we're a critical provider. We understand, we believe the FAA mission, the airspace, the needs better than anybody. And we've got some commercial offerings that we've sold internationally to show we've got a modern air traffic management system. As it relates to the prime integrator role, I mean, it's an interesting way the FAA is going about this. I think they are really looking for somebody to be this lead integrator.
As we understood that particular opportunity, it made it very clear to us that if you were in that role, you couldn't also be a critical provider underneath that role for what is called the Common Automation Platform, the key software capability, and that's really where we think we have the strongest offering and capabilities and can add the most value. It just didn't seem like the right move for Leidos to sign up to some integration role where you're this orchestrator, I guess, especially overseeing a variety of towers underneath it, some of which construction projects aren't in our sweet spot, and then limit our ability to participate in the core software design development. That was our read of the situation and one that we confirmed our understanding with the customer.
Sorry, if you're the prime or the integrator, you can't sub anything or it's within the scope?
No, just as it relates to you couldn't self-perform that particular Common Automation Platform software development piece.
Got it.
This will evolve. In addition to that, I mean, just staring at the whole risk return profile of that particular role, we didn't feel like it suited us well. That being said, we are excited to have a role to play here. And we do expect to be a serious bidder for the Common Automation Platform. And that's something, again, you've got a multi-year development effort here, right? This is a capability that they want to deploy in this administration's time horizon. It's not going to happen overnight, but it's going to be a multi-year effort to get there. And so we're ready to go in that regard. And we look forward to hopefully playing a meaningful role in that area while serving the FAA well throughout this whole process on active programs today and ones that will continue in the future.
Got it. Leidos is primarily an advanced technology company, but you have some hardware, some products. You mentioned defense systems. We all see your name when we go through the airport. But you do things in autonomous. And we saw your counter UAS offering at AUSA. I guess, how do you think about in managing the business strategically, how much hardware and handheld product do you want in the business? And then as we see valuations, public and private, of defense tech and drone companies or companies that only do counter UAS that are higher than your valuation, are you thinking about attempting to monetize some of the things that you have, or do you want to just grow it?
Yeah. We got a question of that variation recently at our last call. But I would say this. I mean, it's not for us about hardware or software or IT. I mean, I think there's a thread that connects them all that we feel like they fit together, right? Our ability to stitch together and network key offerings or more and more of these hardware products rely upon a software component to that, or you talk about the physical cyber protection aspect that we can bring to bear. So we like products in the portfolio. I think the other thing is we've been able to demonstrate you can do that work effectively, get a good return, and do it in a way that's not overly capital intensive. I think that that's a balance that we're focused on striking appropriately. And I think we have been able to.
I think we can continue to be able to do that and have more hardware-oriented aspects of the portfolio. There's certainly a demand signal from customers on, "Show me something tangible," right? "Show me it's harder to." They want demonstration-ready things, outcomes, whether it's software or hardware. And so we've been prioritizing that. As it relates to evaluations, we agree with you. I mean, I think that that's an underappreciated aspect of our portfolio in our opinion. It's got great heritage. It's got size and scale. I mean, we've got multiple different pieces of that that on their own could be bigger than some of these defense tech companies that are getting crazy valuations. So we believe it belongs in the portfolio. We're going to scale that business up. We hope and expect that the valuation should ultimately reflect that.
But I mean, as with any part of the portfolio, you continuously evaluate what you have and what makes sense for the future. But right now, it's a growth pillar for us to focus on that particular area. And we're excited about the future prospects there.
Okay. We have about five minutes left. Let's check to see if there are any questions from anyone in the audience before I go through my final few. Any questions for Chris?
Back to you .
Don't be shy. Everyone's having salmon. All right. I'd love to hear you just talk about margins in general, and maybe it makes sense to go by segment. But you guys have been able to expand margins. A lot of that's in health, but other places as well, and when Tom came in and you and him as a team, I think I've heard you guys lay out a lot of new continuous improvement, long-term strategic planning around just running the business more efficiently and more profitably. So, how much—when I hear those, it sounds like there's still a lot of margin expansion ahead of you, but you also have now fairly high margins relative to your industry, so what are you doing on that front now, and where can margins go?
We're doing simple things. I would agree. I mean, we're proud of having industry-leading margins. This year, we've got it to high 13s%. I think what we're comfortable saying is, "Hey, sustaining margins in the 13s% is a priority for us, and we think doable, even with health, as you pointed out, performing exceptionally well." Consolidate those gains, keep those. As we look at the portfolio, we think a couple of areas in particular have gas in the tank on margin improvement over time. This doesn't happen overnight. We've been laying the groundwork in defense systems and talked about some of these things. As the volumes of some of these products ramp up more significantly, we're going to see improvement in those margins because structurally how we price them, the learning curves that we've come down, the investments that we've already made, etc.
So as that growth rate accelerates, and I think looking ahead to 2027 and 2028, I'm very excited about the margin potential in that part of the portfolio. In commercial internationals, probably the other one that has the most room to move up. Part of that is because of the energy business we talked about earlier. Structurally, it is, we're doing business with commercial companies on commercial terms. There is a reward for driving costs out of the delivery model, which we're proving out with the application of AI. And the demand signal is robust. They need this type of capability to meet the surging demand for bringing energy infrastructure online. So I see that as a tailwind for us on margin improvement. Those are the areas that have clear line of sight to kind of multi-year improvements.
Within our largest segment, national security and digital, I mean, the work is never done. It's probably a little bit more range bound there in the near term, but there is modest upside there that we're eking out through our own internal efficiencies, our own what we call repeatable offerings. We're a year into having consolidated all of our digital modernization work together under one umbrella, and under that leader, Steve Hull, the team has been focused on now as we cut across critical agencies like the Department of War, NASA, Social Security, etc., how are we doing some of these like-kind things the same way on a repeatable basis to drive efficiencies out, and AI is part of that equation, so I think there are some modest gains that will reap there as well.
Then what we haven't gotten after, but we are now, is looking internal to Leidos. We've got a big transformation agenda ahead of us in 2026. Tom has fleeted up a leader to take a role as leading that transformation efforts. We're focused on how do we apply AI and other technologies into our own processes to drive tremendous efficiencies. I think 2026 is a year where we will be priming that pump and making some investments to achieve that. You can expect that to pay dividends as we get to 2027 and 2028. I'm really excited about that. There'll be a real campaign around that. It's like with everything. The application of AI for us has historically been customer-facing. We're seeing real opportunities and early returns on how there's more of our business process re-engineering that could be undertaken and enabled by AI.
Look for that project to pay dividends. We'll have more to say about that as we advance through 2026.
Awesome. AI is an enormous long topic. But there's a lot of debate in your market as to whether or not it will help you improve your business internally, plus will the government buy AI from its existing technology company, industrial-based, or will AI do some of the things you do? What do you think of that?
I think all of the above. I mean, I think that we're certainly approaching it eyes wide open around. There are efficiencies to be gained. We're partnering with our customers. We're used to how do we help them? How do we apply AI to the mission outcome they're trying to achieve, and we've been doing that for a long time and have a track record of success. As it relates to as they just want to consume more AI internally, we're partnering with commercial companies. We have been, right? That's part of our ecosystem to how do we get into a big customer agency like that with complex mission outcomes where we understand that dynamic and we can bring a best-of-breed software or AI solution to the table to help that customer? So I think that creates opportunities too.
And then over time, there are some aspects of the work we do both internally and elsewhere that AI can help disintermediate. And that creates efficiencies. And that's our job to find efficiencies and to redeploy those resources on other things, capture that in savings of how we go to market. But again, I think we're in a great position with the breadth and scale of our portfolio to find a number of opportunities to do that optimally and help our customers and then redirect those resources to other priority areas.
Excellent. Okay. We're out of time. So we'll wrap up there. Chris, thanks so much for being with us.
Thanks .
Appreciate it.
My pleasure. Good to see you.
Thanks.
Thanks.