Parsons Corporation (PSN)
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Apr 29, 2026, 4:00 PM EDT - Market closed
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UBS 2023 Industrial Summit Investor Conference

Nov 29, 2023

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Fisher, UBS Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst. Welcome to the UBS Industrial Summit. We're really pleased to have the management of Parsons Corporation with us. We have the CEO, Carey Smith. We have the CFO, Matt Ofilos, and we have Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Dave Spille. Again, really pleased to have them.

A lot of discussion topics to cover here, but just before we get started, one disclosure, as a research analyst, I am required to provide certain disclosures relating to the nature of my own relationships and that of UBS with any company on which we express a view on this call today. You can find these disclosures at ubs.com/disclosures, or if you can feel free to reach out to me, and I can provide them to you after the call. With that, welcome, team.

Really appreciate your being here. Carey, for those who aren't as familiar with Parsons, maybe you can just provide us with a bit of a brief background on the company, how you think you're differentiated, relative to your peers.

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah, thank you very much, Steve, for hosting us today. We appreciate it. So first, the company was founded in 1944. We're very proud that we're going to be celebrating our 80th anniversary as we go into next year. Today, when you look at the company, we've changed quite a bit.

First, I would say starting going public in May of 2019, and we've also shifted our portfolio. If you look at Parsons' kind of legacy, we were more of an architecture and engineering firm, and starting in about the 2011 timeframe, we got into the federal marketplace. So, if you fast forward over the last couple of years, we've made 10 acquisitions over the last six years. Today, we have a 55% federal business and a 45% critical infrastructure business.

We'd like to look at this in terms of six end markets, and those markets include cyber and intelligence. That falls under our federal group. Within cyber and intelligence, we're one of the top providers of offensive cybersecurity. That makes up about 75% of our portfolio, and we do about 25% defensive. We're involved in everything with cyber relative to platform development, tool development, and as well as performing cyber operations. The next group is Space and Missile Defense.

There we're the number one technical advisor for the Missile Defense Agency, a customer that we're very proud to have supported over 40 years, involved in every aspect of their mission. Right now, very focused on defense of the homeland, defense of Guam, and countering hypersonic missiles.

In our space business, we're involved in several areas, starting with space situational awareness, where we track everything going on in space. That's become quite a busy domain these days. We do space resilience of satellites, networks, and ground systems. We're a ground system developer, where we have some unique offerings, such as selling satellite operations as a service, and we provide assured position, navigation, and timing. So if you lose your GPS signal, you'll still have location information. In each of those areas, I would say we've carved out very top positions in each of those markets.

The next market area is Critical Infrastructure Protection, and that's where the predominant amount of our work is for the Department of State and Department of Defense, specifically the Army and Air Force, providing electronic security systems.

We're the number one provider for Department of State, number one with the Army, number three with the Air Force. We also do counter unmanned air systems, so it basically from level one handheld UAVs all the way up to level five UAV systems.

We put together a system of systems approach to identify, detect, track, and we can also return those UAVs or drop them at their point. We also provide biometrics capabilities so that we can capture people that are improperly trying to enter over 280 embassies and consulates around the world, and we're the number one provider of that system for the Department of State. If I move over to the critical infrastructure segment, again, we have three end markets there, starting with transportation.

We've designed and built over 10,000 miles of roads and highways across six continents worldwide. We're a leader in long-span bridges, having designed over 4,000 bridges worldwide. We're also involved in intelligent transportation systems.

We have the most globally deployed advanced traffic management system, which is called the Intelligent NETworks. And we're involved in aviation and rail and transit, having performed work for over 400 contracts and customers in those two domains, once again, worldwide. Moving on to the second market within critical infrastructure, that would be environmental remediation, where we're involved in areas such as emerging contaminant elimination, specifically PFOS, PFAS. We have seven patents, either four are approved and three are in process.

We've had a water treatment facility established up in New York State, since the 1990s, and that's a quite exciting market area for us that's going to continue to evolve. We're involved in mine reclamation. We do two of the world's largest abandoned mines up in Canada, Giant Mine and Faro Mine.

And we're involved in oil plugging and abandonment, where we've developed a methane filter that basically prevents methane leakage, from, abandoned mines. And then the final area I'll call urban development, which is largely the work that we do in the Middle East, and it's very focused on how we're helping the Middle East diversify away from dependence on oil.

And so, we're involved in most of the major projects that are going on today in Saudi Arabia, the new builds of the industrial cities, world's largest entertainment center, and a lot of mixed-use development. And I'll just wrap up that brief summary with one comment. We're particularly proud that within Engineering News-Record, we were ranked number three for program management, construction management, program construction management at fee, as well as professional services. So four categories for a company of our size. Again, we're kind of punching above our weight class.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

That's fantastic. Thank you for that. So, in terms of building on that, you know, a lot of areas of differentiation there, then how would you define your competitive set? Who are your biggest competitors? How do you differentiate, and how is that competitive landscape evolving?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah, so our competitors vary by marketplace because we do have a diverse portfolio. So if I look at an area like cyber and intelligence, we tend to run up against mostly companies like ManTech and Northrop Grumman. If I move to missile defense, we've only had one company try to compete against us for the missile defense work in the past, and that was KBR. Within the space domain, we run up against companies like Booz Allen Hamilton, General Dynamics, and SAIC. Within critical infrastructure protection, it's more of your electronic security companies.

That would include firms like M.C. Dean, Johnson Controls. If you move over to the infrastructure side of the house, within transportation, it would be more companies like AECOM, Jacobs. Urban Development, likewise, it would be AECOM and Jacobs, a little bit of WSP.

And then areas like environmental remediation, it's more of companies like Stantec, Tetra Tech, and WSP. So quite a broad set of competitors. I would say how we differentiate and what is really key with the company, we stay involved in our customer's emerging problems. So we look to the future, and we try to find solutions.

We call it Imagine Next. How do we look at things with a clean sheet of paper to where they're heading in the future, not where they've been in the past? And in that regard, we try not to go after people's recompete takeaways, so it's really focused on that new, new business where we win and lose on technology differentiation.

Very proud of the fact we've had a 70% win rate this year, which shows, I'm going to say, the culmination of all of our acquisitions coming to fruition and our ability to move up the value chain as a solutions integrator.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Great. In terms of growth outlook ahead, you laid out very nicely the, the different components of the federal solutions business. Can you talk maybe about each of those and, and what the growth trajectory and opportunities are, or how that's developed in 2023 and then for the next few years?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Sure. So, first, I'll say we're pleased that all of our markets are growing between 5% to 12% compound annual growth rate. So if I start with cyber and intelligence, that comprises 13% of Parsons business today.

By the way, when I joined the company back in November 2016, we only held one cyber contract for $50 million. So, the fact that it's now 13% of our business is terrific. That's growing at a rate of 7% to 9% compound annual growth rate. Space and missile defense comprise 14% of our business. That's growing at a rate of 4% to 5% compound annual growth rate in our markets. Critical infrastructure protection comprises 13% of Parsons business, and that's growing at a rate of 7% to 9%.

If I move over to the critical infrastructure side, transportation makes up 30% of our business, and that's also the largest compound annual growth rate at 10% to 12%. Within environmental remediation, that makes up about 13% of our business, and that's growing at about a rate of 6%. And then urban development, also about a rate of 6% growth, and that makes up about 11% of our business.

So, we've been very fortunate over the last couple of years to position our portfolio very thoughtfully in market areas that have high growth, that are sustainable, that are very profitable, and where we can be in the top one, two, or three companies in those different end markets.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Okay, that's super interesting. As we think about, you know, maybe on the critical infrastructure side, you talked about it a little bit already, but maybe just to dig in a little bit deeper on some of the drivers. And then to the extent that the infrastructure bill, IIJA, is relevant in terms of that as a driver, can you talk a little bit about, you know, kind of how that is factoring into the growth opportunities and where you are in terms of those opportunities materializing?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah. So first I'd say, this is unprecedented global infrastructure spend, whether you're talking about United States, Canada, or the Middle East, which are the three regions that we play in. So, starting with the US, when the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was approved in November of 2021, that was for $1.2 trillion. Out of that, $550 billion is new. What is really nice is it directly aligns with Parsons' portfolio, with the majority of that new funding, $284 billion of $550 billion, going towards transportation.

But other market areas that we play in, including utilities, rail and transit, aviation, we're also involved in broadband capabilities, we do electrification and environmental remediation, have all received funding. So quite delighted that there's a really good alignment to our portfolio with the IIJA.

In the Middle East, that's an even bigger market area. That's a $1.5 trillion market area, and out of the $1.5 trillion, 60% to 70% of that is new funding, and out of that, 50% is in Saudi Arabia. We're very proud that we've been in the GCC countries for 60 years. Within Saudi Arabia, we have a 50/50 joint venture with a Saudi company that's been in place for over 50 years. Probably one of the best branded, if not the best branded, infrastructure company within the region.

It makes you really proud when you travel around, and you look at some of the projects we've done recently, like being involved in the Qatar World Cup, being involved in the World Expo that occurred in the UAE, and some of the projects that we're currently involved in in Saudi Arabia.

We're on all five of Saudi Arabia's giga projects, and those are just amazing programs. When you look at a project like NEOM The Line, you're building a brand new city out of the sand, off the Red Sea, you know, that's gonna be as tall as the Empire State Building, as long as Long Island, run on 100% renewable energy.

And to be involved in a project like that, that is truly a first of a kind, and we can take those best practices, transfer those back to the United States. And then moving on to Canada, where we have 7% of Parsons business. They passed their federal infrastructure bill back in the 2016 timeframe, so they're already well along on their spend, and that also included quite a bit of new spend.

So it's kind of good timing for the company, it being in the right three geographies. I will mention also, Steve, that our geographic split is 83% North America. Out of that, 76% US, 7% Canada, 17% is Middle East.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Excellent. So maybe just digging a little bit more into the IIJA piece of that, where do you think we are in. You touched upon some of these different areas, to what extent is that money flowing, do you think now, versus, you know, we still have a lot of it ahead of us to ramp up? And if that does, when do you see that happening?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yes, I would say, we're still at early stages. The rollout, if you look at the Infrastructure Coordination Office, they've said that they've rolled out about $184 billion out of the $1.2 trillion, but that's at various stages because it has to go to federal government, then get to state and local. We saw our first funding in the 2022 timeframe, and specifically on our Federal Aviation Administration contract, and also some federal rail work that we do. I'll mention the FAA just a little bit further.

The FAA, so we don't just get infrastructure funding on the critical infrastructure part of the company, but we also get it on the federal part of the company. The FAA, for example, got $25 billion in the infrastructure bill.

Out of that, $5 billion is going towards facilities work, and we are the facilities contractor for the FAA, a repeat that we secured for the next seven years. So we see a benefit to the portfolio across the business. I would say that peak in our estimate was originally we were estimating around 2026, but that's probably now moved to the 2027 timeframe due to the rollout timing.

60% to 70% of funds come through formula funds, so it does get a little hard to separate out a dollar of IIJA versus a dollar of formula funds and tell how much is coming from where, 'cause both projects really have kind of the legacy funding coupled with the new funding. And then you also have states investing quite a bit.

As an example, Texas is gonna have a total of $30 billion spent between FY 2022 and FY 2026, a state that we're very well focused on and just made a recent acquisition there. And then if I move to the Middle East in terms of timing, too, that's even later because they have Saudi Vision 2030, and they really want to get things in place, both because they're gonna be holding the Expo in 2030, but they've won also the World Cup for 2034, so they want to make sure everything's established for those.

And then if you move to the UAE, they have Projects of the 50 in Abu Dhabi, they have a Vision 2040 for Dubai, and then Qatar also has a national vision for 2030. So, we're again looking at very long-term funding across our infrastructure business.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Well, that's great. Okay, now maybe turning to a little bit more near term or recently, you know, you just had your, your third quarter financial results. So, can you just talk a little bit about sort of the revenue drivers there, Adjusted EBITDA, and your adjusted EPS outperformance, and kind of what were the key surprises during the quarter?

Matt Ofilos
CFO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah, I'm happy to take that one. Carey, you've been doing a lot of talking, so I'll take my best at these. But yeah, I think everybody was really happy with third quarter performance. Obviously, over 20% organic revenue growth is very strong, 9% EBITDA margin, so it was really a great quarter for us. So the biggest drivers for us were continued staffing success through, you know, the first half of the year.

The first three quarters of the year, we've done a great job, both hiring and retention. So net hiring is ahead of plan. I think somewhere in the third quarter, we exceeded our total year initial goal for headcount adds, so it's a great position for us to be in with, you know, a few months to go.

Secondly, Carey talked about the 70% win rates that we've had, so new awards and, and driving headcount to those new awards and ramping up on those jobs has been a big part of our outperform. And then finally, just execution. We've had really strong backlog, almost $9 billion worth of backlog. We have almost $14 billion worth of work to be awarded.

You know, things that were already awarded that are waiting to, you know, it's awaiting award. It, it's awarded to Parsons, but we're waiting for them to come onto contract. So, you know, the backlog position is really strong for us at the end of the quarter, and so just continuing to drive work to those contracts. On the execution side, you know, programs continue to perform.

We've been tracking the change order for a bit, and it came in. We had a really strong change order on a, on a new job that drove $10 million of additional profit for the quarter. So all in all, just a really great third quarter for us, so really happy with the quarter.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

That's fantastic. And you did mention that you had 13 contract wins over $100 million in the first nine months of the year, which has been, from what I understand, the most in Parsons history. Anything, you know, specifically noteworthy that you want to call out driving that?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yes. So last year, 2022, for the full year, we had 11 wins greater than $100 million. This year, to your point, Steve, we've had 13 through 2Q's greater than $100 million. I'd say the biggest drivers are, again, focusing on where our customers' biggest challenges are and solving those emerging challenges. Nine of the 13 wins were on the federal side. We tend to see larger jobs on the federal side, with the exception of the Middle East, which also has large jobs on critical infrastructure. But I'd go back to highlighting our win rate. Our win rate is at 70%, up from 49% last year.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Oh, that's great. Now you still have a range for fiscal 2023, so anything you could talk about that would get you at sort of the high end or the low end of that range?

Matt Ofilos
CFO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah, probably a lot of the same things I talked about. If we were to get to the high end, it would be continue to execute to exactly what we're doing today, sustain the hiring momentum that we've had, continue to win in our fair share work, driving work to the IDIQs that we have in place. So those would be the things that would drive us to the high end. From a low end, obviously, guidance was about a month ago, almost. So, you know, we're uncertainty around the budget environment.

Hopefully, we've seen some progress there, but, you know, the budget environment and then, you know, staffing, if there was some sort of significant change in the staffing. But all in all, we feel really good about the guide.

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

I'd probably say another macro environment factor we always watch is inflation and what's happening there.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Yeah, we definitely will, come back to that in, a little bit. So maybe looking a little bit, longer term now, you know, you had Investor Day, back in March, three-year growth targets calling for about 4% to 6% annual revenue growth and 20 to 30 basis points of Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion annually. How should we think about, you know, sort of revenue growth and margin targets, given that you've had some really nice outperformance this year, and, and kind of how to think about that, that outperformance in general?

Matt Ofilos
CFO, Parsons Corporation

Yes, I'll take that one also. That you know, Carey and I recently have said, like, we would use the new midpoint of guide and continue along the mid-single-digit growth rates. We are intending to provide updated longer-term guidance at the February call, the year-end for us. And so all in all, to your point, 4% to 6% was the guidance we provided. We're going to far outperform that for this year on the top line.

Margin expansion is on track, so we're going from 8.4 to 8.6, so about 20 basis points this year, followed by 20 at 30 basis points for the next few years. If I break it up into the two major segments, and I think about federal versus critical infrastructure, federal business is really strong.

We're running mid-nines this year, given the volume of cost-plus work that we do and kind of the front-end R&D type work. We're always going to be structurally limited in terms of margin expansion there, just because of the cost-plus environment. So we're pretty comfortable with that federal business continuing to run in the mid-nines. Maybe there's a you know 10 or 20 basis points there over time, but you know a lot of that will come from acquisition and acquiring companies with greater than 10% margin. On the infrastructure side, that's really where we see the opportunity.

We expect the infrastructure business will, you know, get up into the mid to low-nines in the short term and hopefully target double digits, over time, as, you know, obviously, demand is coming up significantly and number of suppliers is kind of limited, so we're having some pricing power, and obviously, efficient growth is the key focus for us. So great opportunity from a margin expansion perspective.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

That's fantastic. You know, you did have a couple of legacy programs in your critical infrastructure segment. Can you just give us maybe a little bit of an update there? And I imagine as you move on from those, that would also be a tailwind to your margin opportunity, maybe just a little bit of an update on those couple of things.

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah. So the first program is where we're a minority partner in a joint venture, and that program is 98% complete, and it's still on track to complete this year. The second program, we are the prime contractor for, and that program is 85%, and we expect that to complete at the end of 2024. And just as a reminder, we don't do any kind of hard bid construction anymore as a business. That was a strategy change that we made back in the late 2018 timeframe. So these are legacy projects that were bid back in the 2015 timeframe.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Okay, terrific. So I mentioned we'd come back to the topic of, of inflation, and so, you know, some of the companies in your broad critical infrastructure market have been impacted by wage inflation or supply chain issues. I guess, can you talk a little bit about how, to what extent you're able to pass through these inflationary pressures and any of these supply chain costs to your customers?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah. So first, at the Parsons level, our portfolio mix is about 56% fixed price, time and material, 44% cost reimbursable. If you break that down by segment, federal is about 2/3 cost reimbursable, 1/3 fixed price, time, and material, whereas critical infrastructure is about 3/4 fixed price, time, and material, 1/4 cost reimbursable. So on the federal side, the majority of the costs are passed through. On the critical infrastructure side, it would be less. If you look at inflation, we look at two things.

One is we're largely a labor-based business, so we try and make sure that we keep up with competitive wage increases depending on market demand. We're very pleased with the fact that our hiring has been strong, as we've reported, across quarters for the last couple of years, and as well, our retention has been, improving.

We measure our retention against PwC industry benchmarks, and we are better than those benchmarks across our market areas. I will say on the supply chain side, with the exception of one program, the bulk of our business does not have, supply chain constraints. We do have one that we're looking at inflationary pressures and we're currently working through with our customers.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Excellent. One of your peers recently announced plans to merge their government services business with Amentum. How are you thinking about your segment mix and structure as it stands today? Are there opportunities for the two segments to work together on projects, or are your offerings more typically kind of siloed amongst those different segments?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

We love our portfolio the way it is, 55/45 federal to critical infrastructure. We have a lot of synergies across the portfolio, starting with people. We have a common design engineering group that supports both of the organizations. We move program management talent back and forth between the two organizations. In fact, our president that runs our Engineered Systems group came from the critical infrastructure segment...

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Mm.

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

So all the way from bottom to top, we move people around. We have common centers of excellence. So if you look at, like, artificial intelligence, that supports the entire company. If you look at cybersecurity, that's another area that supports the entire company, just as important on the critical infrastructure side. In fact, becoming increasingly important as on the federal side of the house. If you look at critical infrastructure protection, specifically physical security, electronic security, that supports both sides.

We have a common aviation center of excellence, where we sell to airports on the critical infrastructure side, but the FAA on the federal side. We do PFAS, PFOS engineering as a common center of excellence. We will sell to industrial customers on the critical infrastructure side, but we'll sell to the FAA and Department of Defense on the federal side.

The technologies, the underlying technologies are all the same, whether you're talking about cybersecurity, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, data video analytics, those are all drivers across the entire business. So, I'm really happy that we've been able to capitalize on such a great portfolio and drive the synergies across.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Sounds pretty well integrated. Great. So, moving on to another financial question. So given that your leverage stood at about 1.4 times exiting third quarter, and, and considering that, you've got a three-year target of two acquisitions annually on average, can you talk a little bit about your appetite for M&A over the near to medium term? Are these acquisitions that you have planned focused on either segment, or would it be kind of across the business?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah, we're going to continue to focus across the business. Out of the 10 acquisitions we've made, eight of those have been in the federal segment. This year we announced two that were in the critical infrastructure segment. On the federal side of the house, we've been doubling down on end-to-end cyber solutions and end-to-end space solutions, and I'd say the culmination in all of those has led to those significant wins that we've had. Nine of the 13 being greater than $100 million came out of the federal side of the house, including a win with GSA.

That was a $1.2 billion win, where we were fortunate and beat some Tier One companies. It really shows how our strategy of moving up the value chain has worked. And then on the critical infrastructure side, we're focused on two areas.

One is, digital transformation. We're a pioneer in leading digital transformation of critical infrastructure, and the acquisition of IPKeys showed that, in that we're doing cyber monitoring, cyber compliance for utility and water companies, and we're also doing distributed energy research management systems and working with renewable energy sources. And then secondly, we're focused on geography. So our acquisition of I.S. Engineers showed that, where we doubled down in Texas, I mentioned they're getting $30 billion from the infrastructure bill between FY 2022 and FY 2026.

So, we had a presence in Houston, but neither one of us, we didn't feel like we were strong enough necessarily to prime some of these major jobs coming up, and together we're able to do that. Pipeline is good, pipeline's robust. We have a very high financial bar that we have for acquisitions.

We look at companies growing greater than 10% top line, greater than 10% EBITDA on margin, and we have not been factoring in cost or revenue synergies as we've bought the target. We've been able to get the targets generally at about a 10x to a 13x multiple with I.S. Engineers being at a 7.7.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Great. Wanted to just ask you about that sort of two acquisitions annually, on average target. How did, how do you get to that, that number? I know it's an average, so it could always be more or less. Is there something, like, scientific about kind of the how many acquisitions, like, you can integrate? Is it an operational thing?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah, there's really not. It's about keeping that high bar on the financial, having companies that have technology differentiation. We passed on 100 companies in the last 12 months, so we're always very active in looking at an M&A, but it's got to meet that very high bar. Two just happens to be an average. We did more than two this year, but any given year could be around that.

Matt Ofilos
CFO, Parsons Corporation

Typically, we see, you know, really strong free cash flow from the company, so maintaining leverage somewhere in the, you know, ones. We could creep up into the two range, but bring it right back down to 1.4 at the end of third quarter was our goal, is to kind of utilize the free cash flow and capital deployment focused on M&A, but not driving leverage up significantly.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Got it. Makes sense. Carey, you did talk a little bit about AI. I wanted to just dig in a little bit more about that, and ask you if you're experiencing any sort of increased interest in the AI capabilities, and can you talk a little bit about, you know, which specific mission problems you're solving, with those AI capabilities?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

Yes. So first, we've been, I'm going to say again, one of the pioneers in artificial intelligence going back to around the 2000 timeframe. It started on our federal side of the house, where we were trying to find counter improvised explosive devices out of video analytics, and we were also one of the first company leaders in how you pull together open source intelligence. Fast-forwarding to today, we have 100 contracts that involve artificial intelligence across both sides of the business, almost split 50/50, and we have about 30 internal use cases that we're applying.

Some quick examples on the federal side would be how do you determine when an adversary's next move is gonna be in cybersecurity, is one application. We use it, artificial intelligence for counter unmanned air systems, for identifying, tracking, and detecting.

If I move over to the critical infrastructure side, some of the applications there would be for asset management. We're also using it for intelligent transportation. So how do you predict if you have an incident occur, how quickly you can reroute, how you perform the rerouting and do the optimization?

Internal use cases are kinda neat. I guess Matt and my's two favorite, Matt likes it for cash flow forecasting, as example. And then the other one, that's important for us, we actually predict whether or not we're gonna win bids through artificial intelligence. There was a recent LinkedIn note somebody published that said we're one of the three most overlooked companies in artificial intelligence, and I probably agree with that because we try to embed it throughout.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Ah, fascinating. Interesting. Okay, maybe just a little bit about kind of your capital structure here. Parsons is a little unique, and then you have an employee stock ownership program, the ESOP. Can you talk a little bit about this program and how fast those ESOP shares are gonna convert into the public float? And is your share liquidity improving? And maybe you can just talk a little bit about the advantages of having an ESOP and how you use it today.

Matt Ofilos
CFO, Parsons Corporation

Yeah, sure. I'll take that one. So, when we went public, it was just about 80% of the total flow was ESOP related. And so now we're down to, at the end of third quarter, 57% to 58%, so about 23% of the shares have come to market, which is a great position for us to be in. We expect it to be 3% to 5% per year, continues to come to market.

Out of the 57% at the end of third quarter, 40%, almost two-thirds of the shares, are current active employees, and so that, that will kind of remain constant, we believe. So, it'll kind of probably start to stabilize around the 50% range, we think, but it's really tough to model. So, we're, but we're really happy with the way it's going.

We want to get those shares to the public market, and it's a, you know, increased drive, liquidity up, obviously. And, you know, I think we're really happy with the ESOP program from a retention perspective. You know, we're, we're different in the way that we, you know, retain folks through the ESOP and have them as owners of the company, and so we're really happy with it.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Terrific. I think we're pretty much coming to the end of the time here, so I want to just ask you, any other last comments you wanted to make or any kind of other message you want to leave? I know we covered a lot, so not necessary, but is there anything you want to cover before we wrap it up?

Carey Smith
CEO, Parsons Corporation

I'd just say, obviously, we're very excited about the position of the company, very excited about our successful end markets all growing. Pleased with our win rates and our very strong organic growth this year, and plan to continue driving that trajectory.

Steven Fisher
Machinery Engineering and Construction Analyst, UBS

Excellent. Well, best of luck with that. I really want to thank you for being here, and thanks, everyone, for listening. If you have any other follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to any of us, and have a...

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