Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the MYR Group third quarter 2022 earnings results conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to David Gutierrez of Dresner Corporate Services. Please go ahead, David.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to the MYR Group conference call to discuss the company's third quarter results for 2022, which were reported yesterday. Joining us on today's call are Rick Swartz, President and Chief Executive Officer, Betty Johnson, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Tod Cooper, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of MYR Group's Transmission and Distribution segment, and Jeff Waneka, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of MYR Group's Commercial and Industrial segment. If you did not receive yesterday's press release, please contact Dresner Corporate Services at 312-726-3600, and we will send you a copy. Or go to the MYR Group website, where a copy is available under the Investor Relations tab.
A webcast replay of today's call will be available for seven days on the Investors page of the MYR Group website. Before we begin, I want to remind you that this discussion may contain forward-looking statements. Any such statements are based upon information available to MYR Group's management as of this date, and MYR Group 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. These risks and uncertainties are discussed in the company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December thirty-first, 2021, the company's quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the third quarter, and in yesterday's press release. Certain non-GAAP financial information will be discussed on the call today.
A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most comparable GAAP measures is set forth in yesterday's press release. With that said, let me turn the call over to Rick Swartz.
Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our third quarter 2022 conference call to discuss financial and operational results. I will begin by providing a summary of the third quarter results, and then we'll turn the call over to Betty Johnson, our Chief Financial Officer, for a more detailed financial review. Following Betty's overview, Tod Cooper and Jeff Waneka, our Chief Operating Officers for our T&D and C&I segments, will provide a summary of our segment's performance and discuss some of MYR Group's opportunities going forward. I will then conclude today's call with some closing remarks and open the call up for your questions. Our strong market position and consistent performance contributed to our third quarter results. We continue to have a steady backlog and acquire new work in competitive markets, which positions us well for consistent success moving forward.
Electrical infrastructure across North America continues to see significant investment and expansion. The 2022 North American Electric Transmission Forecast by the C3 Group, released in September, indicates a strong potential for healthy growth moving forward as electricity demands continue to increase across the country. A pivot to clean energy is largely dependent on new and upgraded transmission lines and an integrated grid where carbon reduction and clean energy targets could be spending drivers. We continue to track this and other major transmission expansion projects that may lead to future work opportunities. A greater demand for clean electricity and focus on electric vehicle charging infrastructure, as well as the need for upgraded facilities in target markets such as transportation and vehicle dealerships, are signs of potential growth in our C&I segment.
Long-standing relationships with our preferred clients continue to benefit our C&I segment as we work together to mitigate supply chain challenges. We continue to see consistent bidding activity, including distribution, transmission, and clean energy projects in our T&D segment. Similarly, our C&I segment is experiencing steady opportunities in our core markets, such as data centers, clean energy, and healthcare. Our continued training and investment in our people allows us to remain at the forefront of the industry and provide our clients with excellent service and customer experience backed by safe and reliable execution. Now, Betty will provide details on our third quarter 2022 financial results.
Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, I'll be reviewing our quarter-over-quarter results for the third quarter of 2022, as compared to the third quarter of 2021. Our third quarter 2022 revenues were $799.8 million, another record high, which represents an increase of $189.6 million, or 31.1% compared to the same period last year. Our third quarter T&D revenues were $452 million, an increase of 47.5% compared to the same period last year. The breakdown of T&D revenues was $264 million for transmission and $188 million for distribution.
The T&D segment revenues increased primarily due to an increase in revenue on transmission and distribution projects, including the incremental distribution revenues from Powerline Plus Companies. Approximately 50% of our third quarter T&D revenues related to work performed under Master Service Agreements. C&I revenues were $347.8 million, an increase of 14.6% compared to the same period last year. The C&I segment revenues increased due to higher revenue in certain geographical areas. Our gross margin was 10.8% for the third quarter of 2022, compared to 13.8% for the same period last year. The decrease in gross margin was primarily due to overall cost increases, mainly associated with supply chain disruption and inflation. Gross margin was also negatively impacted by labor inefficiencies and inclement weather experienced on certain projects.
These margin decreases were partially offset by a favorable change order adjustment and better than anticipated productivity on certain projects. We also experienced higher than normal margins in the third quarter of 2021. Third quarter 2022 SG&A expenses were $58.9 million, an increase of $5.8 million compared to the same period last year. This increase was primarily due to higher employee-related expenses to support the growth in our operations and the acquisition of the Powerline Plus Companies, partially offset by a decrease in employee incentive compensation costs. Third quarter 2022 interest expense was $1.1 million, an increase of $800,000 compared to the same period last year.
The increase was due to higher outstanding debt as well as interest rates during the third quarter of 2022 as compared to the same period last year. Third quarter 2022 net income was $18.4 million or $1.09 per diluted share, compared to $23.2 million or $1.35 per diluted share for the same period last year. Total backlog as of September 30, 2022 was $2.48 billion, a record high and was 51.6% higher than a year ago. Total backlog as of September 30, 2022 consisted of approximately $1 billion in our T&D segment and $1.45 billion for our C&I segment.
Moving to liquidity in our balance sheet, we had approximately $249.8 million of working capital, $85.9 million of funded debt, and $303.9 million in borrowing availability under our credit facility as of September 30, 2022. We have continued to maintain a strong funded debt to EBITDA leverage ratio of 0.5x leverage as of September 30, 2022, even after over $31 million of share repurchases this year. We believe that our credit facility, strong balance sheet, and future cash flow from operations will enable us to meet our working capital needs, equipment investments, growth initiatives, and share repurchases. I'll now turn the call over to Tod Cooper, who will provide an overview of our transmission and distribution segment.
Thanks, Betty, and good morning, everyone. The T&D group performed solidly in the third quarter and consistent bidding activity produced project wins throughout our markets. As Rick mentioned, we are seeing significant investments in electrical infrastructure throughout North America, including many transmission and extra-transmission expansions and upgrades, as well as distribution hardening programs throughout regions that could have been or could be impacted by storms or fires. The 2022 North American Electric Transmission Forecast by C3 Group released in September, forecast $152 billion in additional transmission infrastructure and upgrade spending by utilities during the next five years. This investment is expected across the country with Texas and California, two focus areas for MYR Group, forecasted to see the most near-term spending.
Texas' forecasted spend is driven primarily by capacity issues stemming from the integration of clean energy sources, while California's is driven by clean energy integration and fire mitigation. This aligns with findings from our strategic insight survey of existing clients, in which our customers said the direction of their business will be most impacted by the pivot to clean energy. They also indicated the largest challenge moving forward is transmission capacity needed to integrate clean energy sources into the grid. A stronger focus on clean energy nationwide and the need for new and upgraded transmission lines to integrate the grid has the potential to create future opportunities for our business. Our T&D segment is seeing steady bidding and project work across all operating companies.
However, a couple of our long-term alliance customers are currently facing budget constraints for the remainder of the year, which may lead to some crew reductions in these areas. We believe, however, that there is the possibility to offset the reduction by moving crews to areas that are not impacted and are expanding their workload to close out the year. At the close of Q3, multiple MYR Group companies mobilized to the Southeast to assist clients impacted by Hurricane Ian. The impact of Ian was vast, and utilities throughout the region were severely impacted. Initial restoration to a large number of customers has been completed, and assessments are currently underway to determine a path forward, which we anticipate will include a more permanent rebuild of many distribution circuits.
MYR Energy Services, or MYRE, is experiencing growth by expanding into regions we are currently working in, as well as the services we are providing to our customers. The group is building on strategic relationships to support clean energy, EPC, and large project work with many key customers. In summary, our consistent focus on safety and project execution has enabled us to grow our customer base through new contract wins while bolstering current partnerships. By striving to leverage all of our capabilities and experienced teams across our companies, we continue to contribute to our customers' success. We are excited about the outlook of the T&D industry and look forward to playing a key role in helping to meet the future energy demands in North America. I will now turn the call over to Jeff Waneka, who will provide an overview of our Commercial and Industrial segment.
Thanks, Tod. Good morning, everyone. We are pleased that C&I experienced an increase in backlog in the third quarter as procurement opportunities picked up pace in many of our markets. We believe our clients are turning to MYR Group for their contracting needs during these challenging times due to our depth of resources, quality communication, and proven performance. Project execution, however, was again slightly hampered by continuing supply chain issues and labor restraints impacting the performance of all trades. Our employees continue taking decisive actions to mitigate the cost impacts caused by constantly fluctuating conditions. Their tireless efforts and continued flexibility to support our clients are keeping our projects moving in a positive direction. While inflationary issues and supply chain disruption are becoming somewhat less erratic, both continue placing a burden on project procurement.
To better understand how others in the industry are dealing with inflation and supply chain, MYR Group engaged our most valued vendors and subcontractors in our 2022 supply chain survey. Our goals were to gauge the level of impact supply chain disruptions are having on the industry and to gain insights on the strategies and solutions being developed to manage supply chain conditions. We also gathered feedback on how we're doing as a business partner. The responses from our business partners were positive and indicated strong alignment in our approach to solve these industry-wide disruptions. Nearly all respondents are offering preferred pricing to our MYR Group companies due to our company size, early engagement, continued collaboration, and transparent management style. The information gathered was valuable and is being used with our clients and partners to continue delivering successful projects.
I've mentioned in prior reports that the timeline to bring projects to reality has grown as some construction schedules continue to push to the right. We had one large solar project that had a substantial scope reduction due to permitting issues. This lost revenue was quickly replaced by several other clean energy projects awarded during the quarter that are expected to significantly offset the scope reduction of this project. We are pleased that our clean energy portfolio continues to flourish in meaningful ways. Nearly every division of C&I has increased its backlog or is pursuing opportunities in the clean energy space. The projects range in size from electric vehicle charging stations to more significant battery-powered peaking stations designed to manage brownout conditions in California. Recent awards in solar and battery storage have pushed our backlog to another record high.
In addition to our clean energy awards, additional backlog was gained in healthcare, data centers, water wastewater treatment, and industrial. We remain optimistic about the company's long-range outlook and our opportunities for future growth as funding from Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act becomes a reality. Clients across the country are excited about the potential of modernizing roads, bridges, transit, rail, ports, airports, broadband, and water infrastructure, and are starting to step up their partnering efforts in preparation of this work. We're equally excited about the CHIPS Act and the sizable impact it could have on many of our markets. We are currently engaged in two large chip manufacturing expansions underway in Arizona. Recently, New York announced the approval of a $100 billion Micron semiconductor manufacturing plant that is expected to drive growth in that region for years to come.
MYR Group's resume in high-tech semiconductor and industrial facilities should keep us in a prime position for many opportunities to come. Even though these historic investments in our future have not yet contributed to significant design activity, the major construction indices have remained in positive territory. The AIA Consensus Forecast Panel is projecting a 9.1% increase in spending for nonresidential buildings this year and an additional 6% next year. The ABI has been positive every month since February 2021, and for more than half of these months, the ABI score was at least 55, considered to reflect very healthy growth in revenue at architectural firms. The Dodge Momentum Index also remained elevated in the third quarter. On a year-over-year basis, the DMI was 26% higher than September 2021, and the institutional planning was 28% higher.
The design and planning momentum demonstrated by the positive indices should drive construction growth for years to come. To conclude, we are proud of how our employees are responding to the unique challenges facing the industry. They continue providing the proactive and customer-focused communication that we believe will enable MYR Group to maintain a leading position in the markets we serve. Thanks, everyone, for your time today. I will now turn the call back over to Rick, who will provide us with some closing comments.
Thank you for those updates, Betty, Tod, and Jeff. Thanks to the resiliency of our core markets and our ability to bolster and broaden our customer relationships to create growth opportunities, we are proud of our third quarter performance. Our focus remains on projects and bidding opportunities that reflect our operating principles and breadth of capabilities, and meeting the needs of our customers as they adapt to dynamic market conditions and a shifting energy landscape. This is supported by our continued investment and development of our teams across the company as our people enable us to maintain our status as an industry leader by the work they perform every day. A commitment to our employees and customers is the foundation we build from to remain a strong and an agile partner for clients and prospects.
The invaluable contributions from our employees and the continued support of shareholders does not go unnoticed, and I would like to thank you on behalf of MYR Group. Operator, we are now ready to open the call up for your questions and comments.
Thank you. If you have a question at this time, please press star one one on your touch tone telephone. Again, that's star one one to ask a question. One moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question will come from Alexander Rygiel from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions.
Morning.
Good morning. To start on C&I, obviously the supply chain and inflationary environment continues to be a challenge. I guess my question is, like, do you see a dynamic where your old backlog burns off and the newer and more recently priced backlog begins to flow through the model with higher margins? If this is the case, like should we expect like a snapback in margins to like a 4%-5% range? Is it more of like a gradual progression back to the target margin range from here?
Yeah, I think when you really look at our backlog and the burnout of those older projects and you look at where we're at, we really see that as more of a gradual progression getting back up to that range. I think it's gonna take us through the first half of next year to get there. A lot of these supply chain issues continue to be out there, and we don't see them being solved in two months or three months. We see it a little longer, but we see that progression taking place quarter by quarter going forward.
Got it. Shifting over to T&D, the revenues were over 40% organic this quarter. I guess the growth was stronger in transmission, but distribution was also very strong. Like, can you talk about what is driving the revenue growth in this segment? Is it the MSA portion of the revenues, that 50%, or is it the project-based business? I guess I have a follow-up. I guess my follow-up on that would be like, any thoughts on like your ability to grow off this T&D revenue comp into next year given this year has been so strong?
Yeah, this is Tod. You know, the growth has primarily been driven by the, you know, it's the drivers that we've been talking about for the past couple of years with hardening and getting clean energy integrated into the grids as well as the EPC model, which we jumped on a couple of years ago as well. Some of that work's starting to come to fruition. You know, that's where it's at today, and that's, you know, what's driving it. Some of the MSA work has picked up, but as I mentioned, there's been a little bit of a pullback recently due to budget constraints, and we believe it's temporary. We're able to mitigate that.
We've mitigated it with one client by working and being awarded some other projects in the region. You know, the outlook is positive. We're gonna continue to see clean energy integration take place, hardening in areas such as California for fires in the southeast. As a result of the most recent storm, we expect to see some work there as well. The long-term forecast, as mentioned, you know, by the C Three Group and what we're finding out on our own, client surveys, looks good right now.
Thank you.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question will come from Justin Hauke from Baird. Your line is open.
Yeah, good morning. I guess maybe I wanted to piggyback and just starting off here on the response there on the last question, and you said that on the prepared remarks as well. The budgetary pressure that seems like that's a new issue. I guess I'm a little surprised to hear that on the T&D side from utilities, given the amount of funding that's, you know, been funneled into supporting all this grid investment. Maybe if you could just talk a little bit about, you know, what specific budgetary issues you're facing and why you believe it's temporary. I think that'd be helpful.
Well, right now, I think utilities are really working on trying to figure out where the capital's going. They have a plan and the switch from the hardening and the integration of new transmission, which has to be ongoing, has the third component now of clean energy and getting clean energy onto the grid. During the course of this year, there was quite a bit of work that's done. You're right. In the past, what we've seen, more often than not is a Q4 where utilities have some spend left and are looking to increase the amount of hardening work that they're doing. This year, just a couple utilities that are still working around some of those issues as to where that capital spend goes.
We've seen the reduction or the temporary cutback, which we believe, and we've been told by those utilities, that it is temporary for the remainder of this year's budget. We expect it to be back to normal loads at the beginning of the year or shortly thereafter.
Yeah. As Todd said, it's not all our clients, it's a couple of them, and it's something we've seen in past years where it's more of a budget levelizing issue than anything else.
Okay. It's not like a structural funding issue, it's more just kind of the timing of how that plan comes in place and just the nature of how the work rolled out this year. It's maybe pressured here a little bit in fourth Q.
Correct. It's mainly a fourth quarter.
Yes
event, just as they levelize their budget and try to keep their spend in line with what they had allocated because they may have overspent in the first part of the year.
Okay. My next one, I guess this question for Betty, but you know, Powerline Plus has had a lot of intangible amortization that's been running through the P&L and, you know, you guys have called that out in the previous quarters and, you know, have been running at a higher run rate. It fell off a lot here. I think previously your commentary was that it would continue to be a headwind and it would run at kind of the level first half through the balance of the year. Was there anything that changed in there or why was there such a large decrease in the intangible amortization?
That is right. This quarter had a reduced amount of amortization for Powerline. We actually finalized essentially all the valuation work for Powerline this quarter. It's just now subject to the final third-party reviews. As part of that, there was a change this quarter, as we kind of note in our footnote too, about the finalization of that. What happens is there's less being allocated in that valuation work than previously estimated to the non-amortizing assets, kinda like, you know, like goodwill, and then also less to the shorter amortized period assets like backlog. In the end, it resulted in our amortization estimate for the full year of 2022 being reduced and the catch-up coming through in Q3.
I know everybody takes and wants to be able to model out this, the amortization impact. You can take what we have in our year-to-date cash flow of intangibles, whether it's Powerline or the total, and that would be, you know, the same ratable over the, if you take the year-to-date for the balance of 2022. Just remember that we talked about the amount dropping off as it relates starting in the beginning of 2023 as it relates to backlog. We've identified that allocation is now in our footnote 2, and that's $4 million of amortization tied to backlog that will drop off starting 1/1/2023. Hopefully that helps.
No, it does. Thank you. I will, I'll yield the floor here and maybe jump in later. Thank you.
Thank you, Justin.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one. Our next question will come from Brian Russo from Sidoti. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning.
Good morning.
Hey, just to follow up on some of utility customers cutting back on their budget near-term issues that you alluded to. You know, should we think about that as impacting your top line or the T&D margin or both, you know, as we look at the fourth quarter and possibly into early 2023?
Well, I think when you look at early 2023, it's, it'll be back to normal spend. I think this year, I mean, the rest of the year, we said it could be affected. I mean, I think our T&D group's done a good job, as Todd said, of picking up other projects and being able to levelize that out. We did have, you know, increased spend in the third quarter that was fairly high and probably elevated a little above what we'd see as a normal run rate just due to the burn of some of our what I call fixed price projects out there. I think that'll levelize back off a little bit. Overall, going into next year, we see it as a good year going into next year.
Really no impact from that, from what we were talking about on the utility spend.
Okay. Then on the T&D operating margins, looks like below 8% or both in this third quarter and followed sequentially also below 8% in the second quarter, kind of at the you know lower end of that 7%-10.5% kinda target range. Given the supply chain issues which seem to be now spilling over into T&D, how should we look at the trajectory of those margins maybe as we look you know through the first half of 2023, like your commentary on the C&I margins?
I think they'll continue to incrementally climb back up. None of these are long-term issues out there. Our backlog's very strong. When you even look at the make of our backlog on margins, it's very strong. When I look at that side, there's really no change in our backlog, you know, margins from this year to what we're carrying next year for backlog. It's a good market overall. You know, when you really look at this quarter, we didn't have what I'd call any strong closeouts. We did have some weather issues that we identified, some other stuff that we've talked about. You'll see that incrementally climb back up, and we expect that, you know, long term to be on the upper end of those margin profiles that we put out there.
Okay, great. Just a longer term question on the MISO transmission plan for 2030. You know, I think over $10 billion. Looks like a lot of your MSA customers might be involved in those projects. You know, are you sensing that the development stages are starting, you know? And when do you think, you know, EPCs are chosen for that, you know, type of work? Obviously longer term opportunity.
Yeah. Yeah, this is Tod. It's gonna be pretty well dispersed out from, let's say, early 2023 through 2030. We're gonna anticipate starting to see some proposals hit the street for the FERC Order 1000 jobs in early 2023. A lot of these, the work embedded with this MISO Tranche 1 is with incumbent utilities that have right of first refusal that you're right, we do work for and we do have MSAs for. It will be kinda evenly spread out from a bidding perspective and a planning perspective maybe for the next few years. The work, you know, I'm guessing will start sometime in 2024 and be kinda levelized throughout 2030 for all of those projects that are in Tranche 1 right now.
Okay, great. Just lastly, you mentioned EV infrastructure early on. Can you give us a sense of how much work you're actually conducting on EV infrastructure now or, you know, what's implied in the backlog, you know, versus just, you know, what's also a longer term growing opportunity for MYR Group?
It's definitely a growing opportunity. We've put, as we spoke in the past, you know, a lot of our focus. We've been in kind of the clean energy market since the, you know, I guess early 2000 timeframes, and we've been growing that business. Even with our acquisitions, we've grown it. As a percentage of our revenue, we really don't break that out, and it's very difficult to at this time because a big percentage of the work that Todd does every day on our T&D side, it has to do with that clean energy side coming in to play. The utilities really don't release what lines we're working on that just have to do with pure clean energy. We haven't broken that out, but it's a good percentage of our business.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Again, as a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one. Our next question will come from Noelle Dilts from Stifel. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks. I was wondering if there's any way that you could help us understand, when we're looking at the margins in the quarter, how much of the compression year-over-year was related to more temporary factors like, you know, specifically like the weather impacts, you know, versus the more inflationary impacts?
Well, I think if you took, I guess, a higher percentage of that when you look at our margin profiles over the past few quarters and you look at it this quarter, I mean, we really. It was more directed towards probably weather and no strong closeout on Todd's side, on the T&D side than anything else. It did. He does have some pressures due to higher costs on things and inflationary things, but for the most part, those were the draws on it. As we close out future quarters, we see part of that coming back.
Okay. Okay, great. Then for the fourth quarter, I guess I'm just trying to understand some of the short-term dynamics here. You know, obviously you've talked a lot about the budgetary pressures here on the call, but then you have some, you know, potentially, I would think, offsetting storm work, at least from a margin perspective. You know, is that something we should think about in terms of, you know, I guess is the storm work something we should think about in terms of maybe providing some offset to a temporary budget pullback?
I wouldn't look at storm as being that offset there. I think it's more of the bread and butter work we do every day. Some of the big projects he has will be an offset to that storm. We participate in storm work, but we're not a storm-chasing contractor. We like that bread and butter work that we get every day, and we like that reliability on continued revenues and profitability from those long-term arrangements rather than just one-off storm work. Though we do participate, it's not a major driver for us.
Okay. I guess one last one from me. In terms of the labor inefficiency that you discussed. Is that more related to general disruption associated with the supply chain that results in, you know, suboptimal utilization as folks are kind of waiting around for components and things to come in? Or is it more related to competition for labor and say, folks, you know, moving to other jobs? How should we think about those dynamics?
Competition for labor hasn't been an issue with us. I mean,
Okay.
We do a lot of training and development for our people, and we do a lot, and we're able to retain our people. That hasn't been the issue. It's more of the issues surrounding kind of that supply chain issues. It's not so much with the material we receive every day.
Mm-hmm
What we're working with at this point. It's really how projects are being built with other components. There may be concrete shortages in certain areas. There are steel shortages. The sequencing of that material and how it comes in with other components of the builds is what really causes us to resequence our work.
Mm-hmm.
We're just not working as efficiently as we would have in the past. You're moving around a little bit.
Yeah.
It's not something you can capture in change orders, especially when, you know, about 90% of our business is return clientele. We work with these people long term, and we wanna continue that relationship. These little microaggressions or these little, you know, macroeconomic challenges that are out there.
Mm-hmm
Affect our projects and the flow of the work. That's really where our impacts have been.
Okay, great. Yep, that makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one. Thank you. I am showing no further questions from our phone lines at this time. I'd now like to turn the conference back over to Rick Swartz for any closing remarks.
To conclude, on behalf of Betty, Todd, Jeff, and myself, I sincerely thank you for joining us on the call today. I don't have anything further, and we look forward to working with you going forward and speaking with you again on our next conference call. Until then, stay safe.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a wonderful day.