Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I'm Brian Gesuale, Senior Analyst of Raymond James. Thanks for joining us today. We have Parsons Corporation here to take us through their story. This has been an absolute engine of growth, fastest grower in the government services space this last year, and the stock has more than doubled. We have the CEO, Carey Smith, here to take us through the story, and Chief Financial Officer, Matt Ofilos. We're gonna do a presentation, and then we'll do some Q and A in the audience, and then we'll adjourn to the breakout room. But Carey, take us away.
Thanks, Brian. Thanks for having us at the conference, and I appreciate everybody attending today. I'm very excited to tell you about a very exciting company, so I hope that you'll be as enthusiastic as I am after we're done with the presentation. Forward-looking statements? Okay, so start off with giving you an overview. We report in two segments. We have a federal segment where we're very focused on countering the near peer threat and specifically outpacing the near peer threat. And then we have a critical infrastructure segment where we're focused on digitally transforming infrastructure. How do we design it for the future, for 100-year life? When you look at our revenue breakout of $5.4 billion, it's 55% federal, it's 45% critical infrastructure. Both units are growing. You'll hear me say this a few times throughout the presentation.
We had record contract awards last year of $6 billion, with 54% of those in federal, 46% in infrastructure. We're proud to be celebrating our 80-year anniversary as a company this year, founded in 1944 by Ralph M. Parsons. Obviously, the company's transformed throughout the years, and I'll talk more about that coming up. We had 30% revenue growth in 2023, and out of that, 23% of it was organic, and that was a record for the company. We also had 32% adjusted EBITDA growth, a record for the company. We're proud of the fact that our EBITDA is growing faster than our revenue. On cash flow, also a record for the company. We had $408 million cash flow from operations. Our book-to-bill is strong at 1.1 times, trailing 12 months.
I will note that the book-to-bill does not include $14 billion of work that Parsons has been awarded as a single contractor that's not yet reflected in our bookings or our backlog. We have a backlog of $8.6 billion. Out of that, 59% of it is funded backlog, so that'll be the quick conversion for the next 12 months. And 18,500 employees working in 25 countries around the world in all 50 states. When you look at how we're geographically split, we have 76% within the United States, 7% within Canada, 7% 17% in the Middle East. So what's our investment thesis? First and foremost, we have an experienced management team, most importantly, one that delivers on commitments every quarter, quarter after quarter, and year after year. And you can count on us for that. Second is we have a people-first culture and a mission focus.
It's that mission-plus culture that attracts what we call destination employees. We're different than any other company out there. I get asked a lot, "Who do you aspire to be like?" My answer is nobody. We've been paving our own way. We're gonna continue to pave our own way. We have programs that are unique within the company. We have a technical fellows program, 60 technical fellows. We have a dual technical career path that goes up to a Chief Technology Officer, six employee business resource groups. And it's just a fun place to work. And I think the testament to that is the fact that we had our best retention in 2023. And over the last two years, we've had record hiring. And you can see that, obviously, in our organic growth. We're focused on six end markets, and I'll talk more about those later.
Each of those are growing between 5%-12% compound annual growth rate over the next three years. We've been successful in winning business in all six market areas. We have a distinguished national security portfolio. We're focused on cyber, electronic warfare, space, missile defense, and information operations, and specifically the convergence of those, working across the all-domain battle space to be able to outpace near peer threats. There's unprecedented global infrastructure spending. Starting in 2016, Canada passed its federal infrastructure bill for $140 billion of funding. In November 2021, the United States passed the IIJA, which is for $1.2 trillion. And out of that, $550 billion of funding. And out of that, $284 billion focused on transportation, Parsons' largest revenue area. Look at the Middle East. The Middle East is $1.5 trillion of funding.
Out of that, 80% of that is new, 50% of that is focused on Saudi Arabia. I would say we're the best-branded company in the Middle East. We have a favorable financial outlook and proven effective capital deployment strategy. We have a low leverage ratio of 1.0x. We've been making, on average, 1-2 acquisitions a year. We're increasing that to 2-3 acquisitions a year as we've really seen the benefit of those acquisitions in helping us to drive that organic growth. When you look at the macro environment, this is why our portfolio is so well positioned. When you look at the intersection between both sectors, cyber is a threat, whether you were talking about for the Department of Defense, the intelligence community, or the critical infrastructure as we're seeing attacks on areas such as utility companies, water companies, and our transportation systems.
Digital transformation is everywhere. Parsons is a leader in artificial intelligence. We've been doing artificial intelligence for over 20 years as a company. We have over 100 external contracts focused on artificial intelligence, as well as 30 different use cases. Some of the areas that we're applying those are in the identification, detection, and tracking of counter-unmanned air vehicles on the federal side. We also use it to determine if there's anti-tampering that's occurred on printed circuit boards on the federal side of the house. And then on the critical infrastructure side of the house, we're using it for advanced traffic management systems. How do you reroute traffic, for example, if an incident has occurred? Climate change is affecting the nation. And again, that affects both of our business segments, federal and critical infrastructure.
On the federal side, the national defense strategy has cited China as the number one threat and Russia second. That's exactly what we've been building our portfolio up since 2016, is to counter that threat. Research and development budgets are at an all-time high in FY2024. That's predominantly where we play because we're focused on solving our customers' emerging challenges, not going after other companies' market shares, but how do we focus on the future and how do we imagine next for our customers? Then there's shifting global security requirements and, obviously, a very dynamic world that we're living in right now. On critical infrastructure, I talked about that global infrastructure demand. That is unprecedented, probably something we won't see in our lifetime. There's also talk already in the U.S. of a second IIJA that may follow.
We're seeing demographic shifts, particularly post-COVID, and trying to imagine next what the world looks like. Cities are being reimagined. Airports are being reimagined. You're creating bypass. You're creating pedestrian walkways. So we like to think about the future that way. Areas like electrification are becoming increasingly important. And then there's the need for social and equitable growth. So one thing we do in a lot of our infrastructure projects, such as in Syracuse, New York, on the I-81 freeway, is connect communities that were previously separate. This shows our six market areas, and I'll just talk to each one for a minute. Cyber and intelligence spans all four of our business units. And you can see our four business units across the top. That is a business that today represents 13% of Parsons' revenue. I'm very proud of the fact.
Joining the company back in November 2016, we only had one cyber contract at that time. Today, 13% of the company. Critical infrastructure protection represents 17% of Parsons' revenue. That also spans all four business units. And this is very important to us as a company because we're uniquely positioned. We understand how the infrastructure works. We have the domain knowledge of how an airport operates, but we also have the cyber and physical security capacity to be able to protect that airport. Transportation comprises 27% of our business. That happens to be the fastest growing compound annual growth rate over the next three years. And as I mentioned earlier, it makes up the majority of the new funds coming from the infrastructure bill. Environmental remediation makes up 13% for Parsons.
We're focused in areas such as mine reclamation, oil plugging, and abandonment, PFOS, PFAS, which I'll talk about in a little bit. Urban development represents 12% of Parsons' revenue. That's areas that we do predominantly in the Middle East. If you think about some of the new cities that are being designed, like NEOM, The Line that's gonna be on the Red Sea, as tall as Empire State Building, as long as Long Island, driven by 100% renewable energy, we're the program manager for that. Or if you think about Qiddiya, the world's largest entertainment city, being built outside of Riyadh, we're the program manager for that. And then Space and Missile Defense represents 14% of Parsons' revenue. And we're the number one contractor there for the Missile Defense Agency that we've held for over 40 years.
So our growth strategy has been to play at the top of the pyramid, be able to invest in software and integrated solutions to move up the value chain and win larger, more profitable contracts. And I think as a testament, we won 15 contracts in 2023, greater than $100 million, also a record for the company, exceeding 11 contracts that we previously won in 2022. We've been focused on creating what I call an exquisite federal company that can operationally deliver relevant solutions in cyberspace, missile defense, and convergence with information operations. And the key there is agility and speed. Our customers need solutions, but they need them now. You can't have companies that are slow to get innovative solutions out to the field. You have to be able to deliver quickly.
And I think as a testament to that, we won our largest federal award last year in the first quarter, $1.2 billion, focused specifically on that problem. We wanna be the Build Back Smarter pioneer, exploiting digital technology. We're leveraging artificial intelligence today, whether it's in our advanced traffic management system or whether it's in our PFOS, PFAS, where we perform investigations, we gather data, and then we apply artificial intelligence to gather trends. So that's a big area for us. I talked about cybersecurity. Every component that gets funded in the infrastructure bill needs to be cyber and resilient. Parsons is a single company that can vertically integrate because we have both those capabilities. We're also doing digital twins in areas, in fact, one of the biggest airports in the United States. We're applying a digital twin to not just do asset management but also run the operations.
We're leveraging our unique portfolio for critical infrastructure protection. The Department of Homeland Security has 16 critical infrastructure sectors. We're focusing on five of those. So we're focusing on the transportation, the utility, the water, and the facility sectors, as well as healthcare. Finally, we wanna be the preferred acquirer and integrator of selective and accretive assets. We set a high financial bar. Companies that are growing greater than 10% top line and greater than 10% EBITDA margin. We look at a lot of companies. We passed on 100 companies in the last 12 months, so we are extremely selective. What we're planning on acquiring on the federal side are thickening in those end-to-end near peer solutions and, on the infrastructure side, doubling down in the key states that are gonna receive a lot of funding from the infrastructure bill. We anticipate doing two to three acquisitions a year.
Again, we have a very low leverage ratio. So what do we do in each of these areas? Within cybersecurity, we're very strong in both offensive and defensive, but we're 75% offensive, 25% defensive. You can draw a pyramid in cybersecurity where the toughest barrier is offensive. That's the top of the pyramid. The middle layer is defensive. The bottom layer is infrastructure and services. We don't play in that bottom layer, so we're focused on staying at the top of that pyramid. We also provide tools, so we developed cyber tool sets. We can perform cyber operations, both offensive cyber operations and defensive. And we develop cyber platforms where we can connect everything on a platform. And I talked about critical infrastructure protection and really doubling down there because we're vertically integrated in that area. Space and Missile Defense, we do small satellite launch integration.
So we basically attach small satellites to a large satellite vehicle. And we've been four for four in mission successes for satellite launches. We perform space situational awareness where we track everything going on in space. Today, for the Department of Defense and the intelligence community, we're also looking at doing unclassified for Department of Commerce. We're involved in counter-hypersonics, and we've been doing this work for nearly 20 years in support of the Missile Defense Agency. One of the key areas the missile defense agencies focused on, besides defense of the homeland and defense of Guam. We have space ground systems. We came up with an innovative concept here, kind of a first of a kind. How can we buy the infrastructure? And we're selling back to the government on an as-a-service basis commercially.
So we have four government customers signed up where we're commanding and controlling the satellites on a commercial basis. And we provide assured positioning, navigation, and timing. So if you lose your GPS, you can still get location information. Under transformation, we've designed and built over 17,000 miles of roads and highways across 6 continents. We've been involved in 450 rail and transit projects. Very pleased to announce, as we did this week, we were selected for the Critical Gateway Hudson River Tunnel Project as the program manager. We have 400 airport projects all over the world, not just in the United States and Canada, but also in the Middle East, including Qatar. And we just completed the Abu Dhabi Terminal 1 expansion. We're a world leader in bridges. 4,500 bridges won the leaders in long-span bridge design. And then intelligent transportation systems.
We have the most globally deployed intelligent transportation system. It's called the iNET. Under critical infrastructure protection, we're the number one provider of electronic security systems for the Department of State, the Army, and number three for the Air Force. We're also the number one provider of biometric systems for the Department of State, where we've stopped 411 people from improperly trying to enter our 285 embassies and consulates all over the world using our systems. We provide counter-unmanned air systems where we identify, detect, track, and defeat anything from a small handheld Group 1 all the way up to a large Group 5 UAV, number one provider for the Department of State. And we also provide capabilities for the FBI and Customs and Border Protection. And then we perform biosurveillance capabilities.
How do we prevent future pandemics from occurring and have tool sets that we can track and monitor and manage those pandemics if they do occur? Under environmental remediation, we're reclaiming two of the largest mines in the world. They're abandoned, Giant Mine and Faro Mine, up in northern Canada. We're involved in water and wastewater treatment plants. I talked about PFAS. We think this represents a significant opportunity for the company. We estimate it to be a $50 billion addressable market that will peak in the 2032 timeframe. We've had a laboratory in Syracuse, New York, focused on research and development since 1990. So a key growth area for us where we do everything from investigation, remediation, treatment, to follow-on operations and monitoring. And we do oil plugging and abandonment. We have a filter that basically detects methane leakage and prevents it. Under urban development, we play three roles.
We either act as the owner's engineer, where we're supporting the customer technically and delivering a project, or we're the program manager, such as NEOM, The Line that I mentioned earlier or Qiddiya, the world's largest entertainment center, or we're doing planning and design work. We were involved in the World Cup that just took place in Qatar. We did all the traffic management there in the Middle East. We were also involved in the Expo, where we did the Dubai Metro system. So what's driving the organic growth? This company has transformed quite a bit. We decided to take our IPO in May 2019. I'd say for the next couple of years, it was really about how do we de-risk the portfolio and get back to our core. So, for example, we got out of base operations support.
We got out of training on the federal side. We got out of areas like construction on the critical infrastructure side. We focused on moving up that value chain, bidding and winning larger contracts, and driving profitable growth. I took over in July of 2021 and immediately set out our strategy of being at that top tier of the pyramid as an integrated solutions provider in both of our segments. Brought in a new management team. Only myself and our general counsel were on our executive leadership team. So that was a complete transition and really laser-focused on those six core end markets because if you're in the right markets and you double down and focus and execute, you are gonna grow. That's what we've done. So we've delivered the strong results.
And now you look and say, "What's next?" Well, at Parsons, we like to say, "Imagine next." Who would've thought we'd be building a city on the sea, in the Red Sea, and a floating city called NEOM Oxagon? I mean, these are projects that have never been done before, using artificial intelligence to determine a cyber adversary's next move and prevent that from happening. Thinking about PFOS, PFAS, how do we remediate that and do it well? It's gonna be a demand, not just in the United States, but also worldwide. Looking at areas like electrification, how do we set up the infrastructure to be able to electrify fleets, which we hold patents in and we're applying to the work that we do in the United States? For us, it's about imagining next. What does the future need and how do we create that future?
That's where we've been headed as a company, and we plan to keep heading as a company. FY23, terrific year for the company, record total revenue, organic revenue, Adjusted EBITDA, operating cash flow, and contract awards. Contract awards were up 40% from FY22, maintaining a very strong book-to-bill of 1.1 times. Again, that doesn't include the $14 billion that's been awarded to Parsons that I mentioned earlier. Each of the business segments delivered. When you look at Federal, we increased 36%, 25% of that organically. Critical Infrastructure, likewise, increased 22%, all organic. We're not just hitting on the two segments in all four business units, but all six of those core end markets are delivering. Guidance, as we look forward, you can see in the middle are 2024 guidance. Growth at the midpoint, we're planning on 7% organic, 8% total. Adjusted EBITDA, we're gonna increase by 13%.
Cash flow from operations will be slightly down only because we had such a big overdrive in 2023. Top line drivers include our backlog, the six end markets that are all growing, the fact that we've been able to deliver record hiring, record retention, and our strong contract win rates. We had a record of 66% win rate in 2023, and we continue to increase every year. Bottom line drivers, we have operating leverage. We've been managing our cost as our revenues increase. Our SG&A as a percent of revenue was 16% in 2023, and that was a decline from 18.5% the prior year. We're also seeing demand much greater than supply. So we get premium pricing power as we look across the business. And we have a lot of discipline that we've put into our bids. And then I talked about M&A.
Companies that we buy have greater than 10% EBITDA margin. As we look long term, we were getting a lot of desire from folks on what are your long-term targets? So our long-term targets for organic revenue growth in 2025 is mid-single digit or better. We're gonna continue to buy two to three companies per year. We're planning on expanding our margins. It'll be 40 basis points from 2023 to 2024, and then an average of 20-30 basis points thereafter. And a free cash flow conversion of greater than 100%. Capital deployment priorities, although we do have a share repurchase plan in place authorized up to $100 million, our number one priority remains M&A. So financially, what's that mean? Awards. We're coming off a record award year, $8.6 billion in backlog, record wins, and a low re-compete.
We only have 5% of our business up for re-compete in 2024. Revenue, strong execution, and tailwinds from a macro environment perspective. All four businesses continue to deliver solid results. Margin expansion, we expect to see most of that in our critical infrastructure segment. That's where we have about three quarters fixed price time and material, one quarter cost reimbursable, whereas in federal, we're 55% cost reimbursable, 45% fixed price. So you'll see the margin expansion largely in critical infrastructure. Cash flow will continue to be above 100% free cash flow conversion. Again, we've got ample capacity on our balance sheet to continue to do M&A. We look to do M&A in both segments. So imagine next. Imagine next with Parsons. That's what we like to think about. What's our customer's problems tomorrow that we can solve? We can solve in a creative way.
Most importantly, we can solve in an operationally relevant timeframe. All six markets growing, enduring, and profitable, 5%-12% compound annual growth with our largest market, transportation, growing at 10%-12%. Unprecedented global infrastructure spending, which we won't see again in our lifetime in the geographies that we operate, Canada, U.S., and Middle East. Distinguished national security portfolio that's intentionally been put together to outpace near-peer threats. Demonstrated M&A track record and a unique approach to M&A, not just from a perspective of making sure we have strong financial criteria and a fit for mission and culture, but we generally do M&A on a preemptive basis. We don't like to go into auctions. We've been very good about what we've been paying, which has been about a 10-13x.
The other thing we do on M&A is we keep the leadership of the companies we buy. We often promote the leadership of the companies we buy. Why? Because then the people stay with our company. And it helps us adapt our culture and keep that entrepreneurial spirit because we've got the leaders from those companies helping to shape the Parsons culture. We have an experienced management team that delivers on commitments and will continue to deliver on commitments. And finally, a favorable financial outlook with effective capital deployment strategy. And that's the end of the charts. And we'll turn over to Brian for Q&A.
Great. Thanks, Carey. Very comprehensive. Maybe just a couple of questions here while we have a minute or two. Would you talk a little bit about the budget environment? We're operating under a CR that's obviously not new to the industry.
This process is a little bit new this year. Customers seem more willing to spend this year than they have during other CRs. Maybe just talk about what you're seeing from a macro.
Yeah, you're quite right. To your point, yeah, we've gotten unfortunately used to dealing with CRs. The average duration of CRs runs from one day to 147 days if you look between FY2010 and FY2022. We did get the minibus package to Omnibus for the six bills, but March 22 now tends to be the new deadline. I would say just because we are so used to it, I don't see much of an impact. For Parsons, we're a little unique from others in the industry. 50% of our portfolio, it does not rely on the federal government because it's international or state and local. And then I'd say the 50% that does, we're positioned in the right places. We've got that $8.6 billion of backlog. 59% of that's funded and another $14 billion that we've already been awarded to Parsons.
So I think the CR will go through the process like we do every year, and then we'll get back to business.
Fantastic. I wanna talk a little bit about M&A because you've done so well with it. Can you maybe give a few examples of how you've tucked a business into the Parsons portfolio and you've really seen synergies both on revenue and the cost side? You've had a couple of real home runs in that area.
Yeah, I'll start. Matt, I'll add to this. I'm sure we bought 11 companies in the last six years. Nine have been in the federal segment, two in the critical infrastructure segment. We look for capabilities. So we do a technology gap assessment. We're not buying for scale. We don't need the scale. What we need is the capabilities to continue to move up that value chain and win more than our fair share of work. Probably the most recent example I would share is we bought a company called Sealing Technologies last year, which does defensive cyber operations. And they basically build flyaway kits that they deploy around the world in support of Department of Defense and Intelligence Community customers. They're coupling their capabilities with a company we bought called IPKeys, which does cyber monitoring and compliance for water and utility companies, into a new product called CyberZcape.
We're now gonna be able to take these two segments that we have, deliver synergistic products now out to the commercial that we've previously done before in Department of Defense and Intel.
Yeah, the only thing I'd add, Brian, is one of the things we focus on is we buy companies that are successful. We're not betting on the come. We're not looking for big jobs that are gonna recover the margins. Like Carey said, 10%+ margins, strong cash flow, strong revenue. So to your point, really great synergy stories. We bring companies like Xator in, and we either get access to their customers or they get access to our contract vehicles that Carey mentioned and just see a ton of great opportunity there.
Culturally, they've been a great fit. I think it's a testament to your turnover levels being so low as well. It really proves that out. Last one before we adjourn to the breakout, I wanna talk about the pipeline of contracts out there. 11 contracts north of $1 billion a year ago, 15 last year. What does that pipeline look like for this year? Obviously, you've gotta go win them. They've gotta get adjudicated. Maybe just tell us about the vitality of that pipeline.
Yes, we have our largest pipeline ever, $58 billion. We track awards greater than $100 million. Again, so that's really where we're focused on, moving up that value chain. And so we have 110 opportunities greater than $100 million. So it's very robust. You know, we keep moving up the value chain. I talked about the federal job we won in $1.2 billion, our largest ever that we've won for federal. Critical infrastructure, I mentioned the Gateway Program. We were also awarded the JFK roadways. Anybody in New York, we are gonna fix it. And then we were awarded the Newark Bay Bridge as well. So people living in New Jersey will be very happy about that. But those were the three largest engineering design jobs we've been awarded.
What we're seeing in both federal and in critical infrastructure are larger jobs, more opportunities, and the fact that both our organic investment and our inorganic investment are coming to fruition.
Your win rates have been absolutely spectacular as well. Carey, Matt, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Everyone, thanks for your interest.
Thanks, Brian.