We are really pleased to have management of MasTec with us. We have CEO, José Mas, and CFO, Paul DiMarco. There's a lot of topics to cover, so we're gonna get right into it. But just before we get started, as your research analyst, I am required to provide certain disclosures relating to the nature of my own relationships and that of UBS with any company in which we express a view on this call today. These disclosures are available at ubs.com/disclosures, or you can reach out to me anytime, and I can provide them to you after this call. So welcome, José and Paul. I wanna give you the opportunity to just offer some background or opening remarks.
You can really take this in whatever direction you'd like, but maybe to frame it, it's been about a month since you released your Q3 results and guided to Q4 and with your preliminary outlook on 2024. How are you feeling about the message you provided back then? Is there any other message you just wanna make sure you get across today?
Sure. So, Steve, thank you very much for having us. We're happy, happy to be here. It's been about a month. I think, a couple of things, right? We talked a lot about, as we gave guidance for 2024. You know, historically, we think we've done a really good job at, at hitting our numbers, beating our numbers over time, being very consistent. We know that that hasn't been, where we've been. So as we reset our look for the balance of this year and the next year, we wanted to make sure we gave ourselves the ability to be as conservative as we could, so that we could get back to being a company that's considered to be consistent relative to its earnings and its profile. So that's very important to us.
I think in the last month, I think we have a lot of confidence around our plan on a go-forward basis. I think if anything, I think the market has improved over the course of last month, and we're feeling comfortable relative to the guidance that we've given, and we're looking forward to getting the balance of this year done and 2024 started. 2023 was challenging for us for a bunch of reasons that I know we'll get into, but very encouraged about early signs for 2024 and what we're seeing.
Excellent. So I wanted to just ask a general question. I know there's a lot that you have going on in the near term, but really, as we think about medium to long term, wondering how you feel about the mix of your revenues versus what your long-term ideal is? And I'm thinking really more about kind of discrete projects versus recurring revenue sources. What do you think the right mix is, and have you kind of factored even this question into your planning?
Yeah, we have. I think we're blessed to be in the markets that we're in. I think the markets afford us tremendous opportunity across all the businesses that we operate in. So if you think about, you know, the long-term trends in communications, the long-term trends in the pipeline business with some of the alternative energy sources that we think are gonna flow through pipelines, when we think about power delivery, when we think about our clean energy and infrastructure business, have tremendous tailwinds behind them, all of them. So we're really encouraged that from a market perspective, we're in good industries that afford us the opportunity for growth.
I think one of the big changes of MasTec since 2020 has been, you know, the fact that, you know, whether we call them MSAs or not, I think that the level of recurring revenues of the company has substantially increased. So if you think about our comms business, it's predominantly a recurring revenue business. If you think about what we're doing in oil and gas today, you know, we have a lot less project work. We have a lot less project work going forward, a lot of relationship-based work. I think the recurring nature of that business has substantially increased. I think our power delivery business today, which we're bigger in distribution and substations than we are in transmission, is also predominantly a recurring revenue model business.
Even when you think about our clean energy and infrastructure business, right, we've got a civil component that, for all intents and purposes, is work that happens every single year for the same customer sets. From a renewable side, you know, we've worked really hard at building relationships with customers that, you know, hopefully mean recurring projects. While they may be different projects, they're gonna be relationships that we think, you know, generate business over the long term. We think we've done a great job at really focusing our revenue growth on consistency, which is really important for us, on being able to measure and understand the growth opportunity we're gonna have. Then I think our real focus as a company needs to be around the execution on the projects, right?
Is how do we mine the highest level of margins out of the business as we can with the opportunities that we're given, and that's our focus today.
Great. Well, maybe we'll dig into that point right now. MasTec is obviously a much bigger company than it was just a few years ago. And so with that in mind, how has your operating structure changed? Can you manage the business in the same way you did before, or do you need to implement different sort of operating procedures?
So look, I think the company always evolves. I don't think you stay stagnant relative to how you operate. Today, we've got four segments that we report into. Each of those segments has a group president, has its own leadership teams, its own financial teams. I think we've done a lot at improving the talent within all of those segments, growing a deeper bench. We focus a lot on our people, so we feel really good about the leadership that we have in the field. We are a larger business, no question about it. You know, at the end of the day, we still think we manage projects well, we understand our business well, and I think we just got to continue to do that.
We're always in search of adding talent to the organization at all different levels, and we'll continue to do that.
Okay. As we talked about or alluded to before, you know, 2023 has been tough. What would you say kind of the main things you think need to be improved to kind of reestablish consistency of performance and rebuild investor confidence? I mean, is it just a different approach to guidance? Is it, you know, a number of other things?
Well, I think 2023 was unique in that, you know, we had a lot of issues across the business, right? And I think, you know, many of them, unfortunately, weren't in our control, some were in our control. We take responsibility for everything that we could have and should have done better. But I do think when I think about 2023, unfortunately, it's a year where just about, you know, everything that you think could have gone wrong, went wrong for us. With that said, there was a lot of positives in the year, right? I think that, you know, today, even with the acquisition of IEA, with the challenges we had with IEA, I think the relationships that we've been able to build with the new customer base that we brought on has been tremendous.
I think that I think irrespective of the financial challenges we've had versus expectations, the reality is that the market, our customers, view us very favorably. So I think the work that we do on a day in, day out basis for our customers and on the field is highly regarded. And because of that, I think we've been able to grow and establish really strong relationships that are going to pay dividends over the long term. You know, there's been a lot of questions about the customer base that we bought at IEA. And, you know, one of the things that we've been trying to explain is, you know, we're actually really comfortable with the IEA customer base. We think that it's some of the top-tier developers and utilities in the country relative to renewables.
Again, with the challenges that we've had, we've gotten to spend a lot of face time with those customers. We've spent a lot of time talking about, you know, the challenges that we had in 2023, the challenges that specific projects had in 2023, and how the business for us needed to change in 2024. And we've found our customers to be incredibly receptive. We found our customers to really want us to succeed, and have really worked with us to set up a plan in 2024 that we think is highly achievable. So, you know, with all the negativity, you know, a lot of good things are happening in our business. You know, we've been very bullish about what's been happening in our pipeline business relative to, you know, the growth that we're seeing, especially in the southern shales.
You know, the growth that we're seeing, albeit a little further out on alternative fuels and some of the alternative pipeline activity that we expect to see in the coming years that we think is going to be really additive to our business. In telecom, you know, the wireline business remains really strong. You know, we announced a relatively large maintenance award in our wireless business that I think really shows the precedent for a lot of our customers looking to consolidate their vendors, especially as they navigate through these times. I think that's going to be a tremendous opportunity for MasTec. And then on the power delivery side, right, two years into the integration of Henkels & McCoy , we think we've ... You know, we're at a great base level.
We're at a base level where, you know, the contracts that we felt we needed to exit or move on from, we've done. We think we have tremendous growth opportunities that have come to us from both of those acquisitions. And, you know, 2024 is all about executing on that, taking advantage of that, and mining margins out of that. So again, you know, while we've had tremendous challenges in 2023, we think we're set up, you know, really well for 2024 and beyond. As we think about 2024, it's important to note that, you know, the guidance levels that we have put out there aren't by any stretch of the imagination, you know, what we think is optimal for MasTec.
We think we've got, you know, a tremendous amount of opportunity to significantly increase our earnings base, but we think it was a good place to kind of level set. But we've got, you know, our long-term goals relative to the goals that we've laid out over the last couple of years are completely unchanged. And I think that's important because I think it speaks to the strength of the markets that we're in, and our belief of the ability that we have to grow those markets and to grow our profit.
Step by step.
Step by step.
Okay. Another macro question perhaps: you know, the 10-year Treasury yields have come down over the last month, really since the time of your earnings. And I know cost of capital pressure was something you had cited within your utility customer base. And I'm curious if over this past handful of weeks, if you've heard any customers sounding a little bit more positive, as a result of changing cost of capital dynamics, or is that just too soon and not enough of an impact?
No, I do think there's been – there's more optimism in the market today than there's been. I think also with the challenges that we've seen across renewable projects, you know, people are starting to figure out other ways to get their projects financed. I think transferability in the last couple of months has made a huge impact in the industry. But look, we're of the belief that the interest rate environment is going to improve in 2024. We've been sitting on a lot of floating debt, which is going to be important for us to manage through. I think we're going to have an opportunity to significantly lower our interest costs as we think about, you know, the coming quarters.
So, you know, we're pretty excited about what's happening with interest and what it means to our customers, right? Because I think they're going to see the same impact. Paul, you want to talk a little bit about transferability?
Yeah, well, I think one, you know, we talked a lot about the tax equity environment and the impact we were seeing from customers. And I think this is indicative of broader trends in the renewable space as they collectively are dealing with the influx of a lot of new project development activity. The support services and the ancillary activities that go into any project moving to construction all have to reset to the right level of activity, whether that's construction financing or the tax equity side, interconnect, permitting, procurement. It's all kind of the same reset and underlying support and capacity. What we're seeing on the tax equity side is, you know, the market was waiting for some clarity on certain provisions of the IRA. They were comfortable doing that for a finite period of time.
That clarity is still not there, right? There's turmoil in Washington. Hopefully, we're moving through that. But with that uncertainty, the market's found ways to structure deals with more runway around finalization, right? One of those is transferability. So we're talking with players in the industry, large providers of tax equity financing, utilizing transferability on the back end of a traditional tax equity investment to provide supplemental capital is an alternative that's becoming a much more common model. And even structuring the provisions of the investment to give more flexibility as to the ultimate valuation are solutions that the industry is putting together to solve for any continued period of uncertainty.
So, you know, rather than over the summer, we were hearing from customers, "Hey, we're going to wait this out into the, into the fall." We're not really hearing that anymore. Now it's, you know, we've found solutions with different providers that are going to help move projects forward. There's still challenges, right? There is an unprecedented level of, of development activity that has stretched- stressed the system. But again, we're seeing continued efforts to mitigate that, which we think will now have a little bit of noise in 2024, but it will rightsize as we get to the level of, of the balanced level of demand, and then, you know, we'll get a much more effective cadence going forward.
Great. So maybe kind of sticking with the solar side and renewables and IEA, I wanted to just talk a little bit about the integration. Can you just give us a little bit of an update on what's going on right now? In Q3, your integration costs went up again. So I guess I'm curious, you know, what your kind of stage you're up to on that, and have we seen the last of, you know... What drove that next step level up, and have we seen the last of the material increases in those integration costs?
Yeah. So to the last question, yes, right? We think we're largely past, and maybe a little bit that bleeds into Q4. But Q3, frankly, was when we really brought together the ultimate structure and effected the most change in from an integration perspective, you know, which is kind of commensurate with what you saw from a cost perspective. You know, some things have a little bit of a longer tail as they're being wound out of the system. But, you know, by and large, the costs that we've identified to, you know, exit or properly integrate the business have been incurred. Again, there might be a little bit in Q4, but we expect it to be down meaningfully from the Q3 level.
I think more importantly are the changes that we've made in the business, right? So, I mean, if you think about the bulk of our challenges in 2023, really had to do with the revenue opportunity around our renewable business, right? IEA went from $2.4 billion in revenue in 2022 to $1.7 billion in 2023. And that's, you know, when you get down to basically the majority of our issues this year have been around that, right? Because it's impacted margins, it's impacted our ability to keep our workforce working and utilization rates high. So it's been a big impact.
So, you know, for us, a lot of the issues that we've talked about, whether it's, whether it's, you know, the tax equity issues or the financing of our customers or interconnect issues, the most important thing has been understanding our 2024 plan, the projects that we expect to work, and how do we ensure our success so we're not in a similar situation in 2023. And I think that we've done great planning around. Today, I think we have an incredible understanding around every project that we've been awarded, that we're negotiating, that our customers are planning for 2024. We understand every risk, we understand what the, what the opportunity for each of those projects is, and we've built a plan around that, right? So I think we've built a level that we're really comfortable is going to actually execute in 2024.
As these issues get resolved, that we've talked about at great length, I think that will definitely help the industry, and will create upside opportunities for us. But I think our, our base business plan that we've laid out for 2024 is solid. I think we've got-- I think we have a great understanding of the projects that are going to make that up. I think the majority of that is, you know, we're in deep discussions with our customers on. We know exactly the projects that we'll be working for them. Some have already been awarded, some are- will be awarded shortly. But I think we-- I think our confidence level in the last month related to that plan, has also significantly increased, and I think that's, that's important.
Great. So maybe to dig into that in a few more levels of questions. You mentioned on the Q3 earnings call that you have made significant changes on how you go to market and how you assess the project risk. Can you just talk about those things in more detail? How do you assess the risk differently now and the market differently?
Yeah. So I think today we have one MasTec Renewables business, right? It doesn't matter whether it gets executed from a legacy MasTec business or IEA. For us, it's about having one face to the customer. It's about having a relationship with the customer and understanding their portfolio. One of the challenges in 2023 wasn't that, you know, we had-- you know, again, we get a lot of questions about the customer base at IEA, but, you know, these, these customers had multiple projects. You know, there's a lot of customers where we built one project for, but had an issue on another project, or might have had a project that got built by somebody else or another contractor, but then had projects that we were slated to build that didn't get done.
So at the end of the day, this business is a lot about at the project level, understanding the specific project. Obviously, the customer is important, but, you know, customers have good projects, bad projects, or projects that have potentially more issues than others, and it's truly about understanding the portfolio mix that, that you're working with in that customer. And I think one of the big changes that we've done, right, is we've spent a lot more time with our customers, talking about the challenges that we had in 2023, talking about the challenges of specific projects, and then making sure as we look at 2024 and the projects that we were looking at or we are looking at, is to understand, to have a higher level of confidence in the ability for those projects to move forward. And I think we've done that.
I think we've done that with, you know, multiple customers. I think the industry and our customers have significant targets. They've got, you know, large levels of work, and I think we're gonna be, I think 2024 is gonna be a very different year from us than 2023 relative to our revenue generation capabilities, right? Then it all comes down to how do we execute on these projects, which is just as important, right? So I think I'm not as worried anymore about the revenue side, which has been our big issue in 2023. Now it's our ability to generate that revenue and execute at a high level, and I think we're well prepared to do that.
Terrific. And so I know you talked about $500 million of bookings that you expected in—I don't know if that was Q4. And then you have $2 billion of solar LNTPs. I guess, you know, how did you handle the $2 billion of LNTPs in your 2024 outlook? And then I assume your $500 million that you're talking about for the near term, that has gone through that whole level of filtering and extra detailed process on risk assessment. Is that fair to say?
Yeah, I think one of the really important things to think about in 2023 was the work that we had in backlog outperformed, right? So when we talk about issues on projects, it wasn't projects that were in our backlog that didn't get finished. It, it never made it to backlog. It actually never hit our backlog numbers. So I think what, what investors should understand is when we say something's in backlog, that project's moving forward, right? There's no, there's no risks anymore associated with those projects. You know, obviously, something, something could happen on a particular project, but for the most part, those projects get completed and done. And I think you will see a significant increase in backlog as we report Q4 in that business. You know, we're not gonna have our entire year booked by Q4, obviously.
I don't think that would be realistic, but I think we have incredible visibility onto our whole year, which is important. I think, again, if everything gets settled, if all of the rules get written, whether it's year-end, whether it's Q1, Q2, we built the plan not dependent on that. So we built the plan that we think with projects that are going to go forward, irrespective of what's happening on the tax equity language. If the tax equity language gets fixed, there's gonna be a lot more projects. There's gonna be a lot more projects that we can hopefully build in 2024. And again, we think that'll be upside to what we've communicated to the street. But we've built a base-level plan of projects that we think move forward.
I think we've got, again, great visibility into what those projects will be. It's not that every project is completely de-risked, but we don't think there's a lot of risk on the projects that we're contemplating completing in 2024.
Excellent. That answered my next question, which was really gonna be about the expectations on the clarity of the tax incentives, and my question was really gonna be: what if we get to your Q4 earnings release, and we have not had clarity yet? What does that mean for your guidance that you've given? It sounds like you're being fairly clear that it's not going to have an impact. Is that what we can take away?
That's what you can take away. Our hope is that you won't even hear us talking about it, right? I hope at some point that, you know, the communication around this issue is, one, a finality, right? Where the rules are completely understood. But again, I don't think you'll see us talk about a 2024 plan that's dependent on that. One of the things that I'm really excited about, because, again, when we think about 2024 and our revenue targets for 2024 and our earnings targets for 2024, I don't think they're representative of the business that we're building or trying to build.
So I do think that as we continue to win work in 2024, as these issues get resolved, what you're gonna see is such a large increase to backlog, that it's gonna give you tremendous visibility into what 2025 will look like and the growth rates that we actually think we can achieve in 2025, which we think will be substantial. And I think that's not gonna take till the end of 2024 for you to be able to see. I think as 2024 starts to roll and we start booking work, a lot of work, which might have some tail-end work in 2024, but a lot of 2025 work, I think that's where you're gonna see a lot of stacking and backlog happening, which is gonna give you great insight as to what our future years are gonna look like. And I think that's really important for our story.
For sure. And to be clear, are we talking really here mostly about solar, or how do we think about wind in 2024 in terms of bookings and backlog?
I think we're talking about both.
Okay.
I think obviously the bigger growth opportunities are on the solar side. I think wind will have a strong 2024 vis-à-vis 2023. And I think the wind business is growing, right? So one of the great adders of the IRA Act was what it did for wind. And obviously, we knew it wasn't gonna have an immediate impact. We're starting to see the impacts of IRA on wind, but we actually think that'll significantly increase in the coming years. So 2024 is gonna be a good year relative to wind, but it'll be improving, and again, I think as we lay out our backlog and we start winning projects and putting in the backlog, you're also gonna be able to see the growth profile of what wind's gonna do in 2025 and beyond.
One other question on renewables in terms of sort of the end game on how you structure your customer relationships and how you go to market. Do you want to have a small number of customers with just a repeat amount of solar and wind business that you just sort of, like, keep on the same just kind of recurring nature? Or does it make sense to just identify what are the most likely projects in the marketplace and then go after those? How do you see the kind of structure?
Yeah, it's actually a great question, and I think that the answer is going to change. Because I think we're in a, we're in a time today where projects are highly dependent on certain things, whether it's interconnect, whether it's financing. And I think over time, as these issues resolve, that won't matter anymore. So then it will all be about customers and their long-term portfolios... That's still our focus, right? So, so if you were to ask me longer term, our focus is to have a smaller subset of customers with a lot of recurring business, fully understanding what we're gonna be working on, on, on an expectation of a year-over-year. And by the way, a big chunk of our business is already like that. I, I'd say the majority of our business already falls into that bucket.
But because those customers, as good as they are, still have some potentially troubled projects, you know, we've got to understand and find projects that we don't think have any issues, and that may not come from a customer that's got, you know, consistent work over a long, long period of time. So today we're doing a little bit of both, but the propensity of what we do today is really focused on big customers with big plans, with large portfolios, large expected portfolios, and that's what, that's what's driving our business.
Great. Maybe one last one on the clean energy side of the business. The industrial projects, you still had a little bit of noise in the last quarter. Can you just talk about the status of those projects and how we think about that particular element of your clean energy business going forward?
Yeah, I mean, the types of projects we've been working on that we've been vocal about over the past couple of years are out of the portfolio at this point, right? The amount of work that we're expecting from that component of the clean energy segment is relatively small for 2024, and the types of work we'll do is, you know, smaller projects, lower risk, you know, largely cost plus, if we think there is challenges that we can't price. And, you know, we don't expect to be talking about any significant impact from those going.
Excellent. Before we maybe touch upon some of the other segments in a little more detail, I wanted to make sure we addressed cash flow. So can you just talk a little bit more about... You did frame this on the conference call, but just to come back to it, your expectations for free cash flow and debt reduction in Q4, and then how to think about free cash flow conversion in 2024 and debt reduction?
Sure. So for the fourth quarter, we expect to generate around another $200 million of cash flow from operations. So net of CapEx, probably gonna be in the, you know, $150 million range from a free cash flow perspective, which gets us to kind of 400 or so for the full year. You know, relatively it is lower than we expected, really driven by the, the earnings impact. You know, from a working capital perspective, you know, we're, we're performing well, and from a net debt reduction, you know, we expect to be relatively in line with where we forecasted at the end of the year. For 2024, looking at, you know, our preliminary view on the, on, on, on our earnings performance, you know, we think we have a, a roughly $600 million opportunity for cash flow from operations.
We think there's some opportunity there as we get growth in the clean energy space. It has a favorable working capital profile relative to some other parts of the business. And so we think there's some opportunity to leverage that into additional free cash flow generation. And we expect CapEx; we haven't given specific guidance yet, but as we're working through the plans there, we do expect that to remain relatively low compared to recent periods. Again, really just based on where the demand's coming from, right? With less demand in oil and gas, which are our most capital-intensive business, we don't see as much need for further investment in the fleet.
Okay, that's great. So should we-
We really should have a strong year of paydown in 2024.
Yeah. And, you know, structured with the seasonality of the business. So Q1 should be strong, you know, probably a little bit flatter from a, you know, working capital investment requirement as it ramps up in Q2 and Q3, and then more cash flow generation in the fourth quarter.
Okay.
Between that and the increase in EBITDA that we're expecting, right, we get to the same kind of leverage ratios that we've been talking about. So we've committed to the credit agencies that we'd, you know, we'd be under 2.5x from an investment grade perspective, and we think we comfortably get there in 2024.
Okay, I think that pretty clearly addresses that, but I suppose just as a caveat question to that, I know one of the rating agencies added you to a sort of a negative outlook right after earnings. And again, we've talked about things have changed since then, but, you know, what in the event that a downgrade would come to pass, is there any sort of practical implication to that?
Not really, no. I mean, listen, we want to remain investment grade. There's no... I'll say it differently. There's no structural implication from the various debt instruments. You know, there's some additional reporting requirements that if there were two downgrades on some of the legacy IEA bonds, but nothing that can't be handled in the ordinary course. But then, you know, any of our other debt instruments don't have any implications. You know, listen, we want to remain investment grade for access to capital, for cost of capital, you know, for the position it puts us in with our customers, with our surety providers, and we're committed to doing that. But, you know, if there is a hiccup, we don't feel that it'll have a significant impact on us in the short term.
Great.
We expected the outlook change as we spoke to the-
Yeah
... credit agencies. We don't expect a downgrade, so, and we expect to deliver on our 2024 plan, which kind of takes care of these issues.
Yeah, I think importantly-
Hopefully, we're talking about an outlook upgrade.
Yeah. I think importantly is the runway that they cited in their credit opinion. You know, they've, they've kind of put out the balance of 2024 for us to get to where we need to be, and I think we've made the same commitments to them that we've said to-
... number of times, and, you know, towards that.
Great. We have a few minutes left, so maybe to touch upon some of the other segments. So oil and gas, I know you've talked about kind of a $1.5 billion-$2 billion range of revenues going forward. I'm just kind of curious about your confidence that you can kind of keep delivering that level, and, and how much of that is actual oil and gas production related versus kind of local gas distribution, maintenance, and kind of R&M work?
Well, I mean, our maintenance business has dramatically grown over the course of the last few years. It's a big percentage of what we're doing today. You know, obviously, one of the concerns that we always had is we knew when we'd have MVP, there'd be a spike in revenue. The fact that MVP is kind of playing out through 2023 and 2024 is kind of offset by we're seeing a lot of demand. I mean, we're currently seeing a lot of demand in that business. We feel really good about the revenue target that we've laid out. We kind of laid out a slight reduction to revenue with EBITDA being flat on a year-over-year basis, so flat EBITDA, which meant slightly better margins.
You know, if things continue to play out the way that they're playing, we feel that that might be a conservative number. So we're actually seeing a lot more activity here recently than we've been seeing. We've been saying that for a while, too. We think we're lining up right now for 2025 to be a really good year. We're actually seeing a lot of activity for 2025, which... So I feel really good about being at the upper end of that range for the next few years. So I think if anything, that 1.5 is, I don't think that 1.5 is probably the low end of the range anymore.
But, you know, we've talked about a $1.8 number for next year, and we'll do about $2 this year, and I think if it goes well, we could probably stay flat with this year.
Great. And as we think about the next couple of years, how would you describe sort of the opportunity set? Is it kind of more that, that bull on it? I think you've talked about having better margins from the new work coming in. Is that LNG-related pipelines? Is it carbon capture? Is it a, a mix of, of various things?
Yeah, look, it's a mix. You know, we've actually been thinking that, you know, our pipeline business is going to convert more to alternatives over time. You know, with the level of activity that we're seeing, we think alternatives are going to play a much higher role. And in alternatives, I'm talking about carbon capture and hydrogen and things like that. But where we were probably expecting a little bit of the decline in our historical-based business, I don't know that we're feeling that, right? So I think that as we get into some of these alternative opportunities, I think they're going to give us a lot of upside to the business. And, you know, hopefully, we see that start playing out in 2025, so we're pretty encouraged by that right now.
Great. And maybe, one on communications. You talked about doing engineering work on a good amount of wireline things that you expect to move forward in the next year. What's going to determine whether those programs move forward?
No, those programs are moving forward. Those projects are funded. So they were, they were full awards, but we started with engineering. So engineering, while it's super important, doesn't drive a lot of revenue. So as we complete engineering and move into construction, that's where really the revenue starts to kick in, and that's kind of how we've built our plan. So we have great visibility into that. In some cases, we've started some construction, but the reality is the bulk of the construction starts post-engineering and permitting, which we expect toward the latter half of the Q1.
Okay, so there's no final investment decision that has to be made after-
There isn't. It's already been made.
Okay, got it. And then on the wireless side, I know you've talked about kind of the expectation of flat next year. Can you just talk about, you know, what drives the confidence in that being flat?
Yeah, look, we actually, we actually said flat with the award of about a $100 million maintenance contract, right? So it is probably, you know, slightly down from the view that we gave to the street. I also think this is an area where our visibility is improving. I think that, you know, just like in that maintenance contract that we saw, we're seeing customers begin consolidation efforts around vendors. And I think that there's opportunities for some of the wireless carriers to reinvest in their systems. And I think we'll, you know, we'll see more of that and hear more of that in the coming months from some of the carriers. So I think we've got a very solid, conservative plan as we look at 2024. And, you know, hopefully, if things play out well, it you know, a lot better.
Excellent. Well, that comes to the end of our time. I want to thank you very much. I don't know if there's any last words you want to kind of share, but go ahead.
Look, appreciate being here, and we look forward to further updating everybody over the next months.
Terrific. Well, thanks, everyone, for listening in, and if you have any other questions, feel free to follow up with us afterwards. Thanks a lot. Have a great day.