Okay. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Chad Dillard. I'm the lead analyst here at Bernstein, covering the machinery sector, as well as engineering and construction. And I'm really excited today to have Quanta Services. It's the largest contractor that builds utility-scale renewable facilities, as well as transmission distribution infrastructure. And joining me today is Duke Austin, the CEO, and Jayshree Desai, the CFO. So if you have any questions, please feel free to write them down in Pigeonhole, and I can ask them on your behalf.
So before we actually get into, like, the full Q&A, I just wanted Duke to, like, really quickly just give a high-level, you know, kind of 30- to 90-second overview of how to think about Quanta.
Yeah. Thanks, Chad, and thanks everyone. Appreciate the interest in Quanta. So when you think about Quanta, really, we're around craft-skilled labor, and so that nucleus is why we believe we can provide solutions to utility customers, renewable developers, our industrial business. As everyone transitions away from carbon footprint and, you know, we're also seeing many different things around data centers and load growth that, you know, we believe we sit in a really unique spot to provide certainty. We've bolted on engineering, we've bolted on technology, different kinds of things around the nucleus of the craft. Uniquely, we self-perform about 85% of the business. I think, you know, that really separates us. And Some call us a contractor, it's a dirty word for me. We're a solution provider. Totally.
In general, I think that is right. That's the evolution of what we've become, is we were a contractor 10 years ago, and what I believe is how we differentiate, is we provide that solution in a collaborative manner to the client, and that's where Quanta sits today.
Okay, great. So Duke, I remember, I think it was back in, like, 2022, during your Analyst Day, you talked about, like, the long-term growth algorithm of Quanta being, you know, +6% to +8%. So at that time, we were in a world of zero electricity demand growth. Obviously, things have changed, right? We're starting to see an inflection in electricity demand growth. So in that world, how should we think about Quanta's new revenue growth algorithm?
Yeah. So I do think you're right. It was the whole, like, two decades of negative load growth were some of the reasons why you've seen decoupling of T&D assets versus generation, was around negative load growth. And when we went through Investor Day, we talked a lot about it. Fundamentally, I don't think the business has changed on how we think about it from a strategy standpoint. I do think all those things are intact. Yes, lately, you know, you've seen IRA, for example, came in to wind and solar. I think that's helped, it's benefited, it's given certainty to our development customers. You know, it created demand. We've seen. Now, we've seen hyperscalers come in.
We had been talking about data center development for a long period of time, never at this pace, never at this kind of demand. I don't even think we understand yet what that means, as far as how much is that. EV penetration, has it stopped? Has it started? Where is it? We sit on the front row of that. We see it every day. We see it from west to east. We're able to really talk to the clients about what we see in that demand and the way... You know, I think it's there. We have decades of growth in front of us. It's probably the most prolific time, four generations in the business, came up through the field. Never seen, from my standpoint, more change in front of us.
And when you look back, we have a, you know, a unique position to really sculpt the way the energy infrastructure looks over the next 20, 20, 30 years. And so you can't be more excited about being in the business. And then from a utility standpoint, and then where they stand, the demand on them, yes, it's difficult, yes, it's hard to change, but it's necessary to meet what's in front of you. And I think it comes at you daily, you know, just every day, it's something new for us, and how we get involved, and how we get involved in the infrastructure and really try to provide solutions. Exciting times for us.
So, I mean, if you listen to, like, the regulated utilities on their earnings calls, it feels like, you know, a switch was flipped overnight, about, you know, them waking up and realizing that you're seeing this, this new level of demand. Duke, you've been in, you know, across the table from, like, all these utility executives. Can you give us, like, a good sense for, you know, what they're saying, what are their pain points, and how Quanta is, you know, helping address them?
Yeah, I mean, we do sit in a unique position, and it's really... I think what happened, you first saw it show up in Virginia, and you saw load, and, well, we can't meet load in Virginia, which is pretty much unheard of in the business, to say you can't meet load. I was shocked by it, honestly. But when I started to see what the demand was, it was like, "Wow!"... then it was in Arizona, and same thing. And so you really just sat back and went, "Wow, this is getting real." So you're looking at it and you're trying to see, okay, what is really causing this? And then, you know, you could get your head around, everyone's moving around.
And then, I guess, probably, I would say third quarter, end of third quarter, NVIDIA came out with a new chip, everyone started talking about AI, the impacts, and then all of a sudden, you know, across from Tennessee to California, everywhere in between, Texas, it doesn't matter where, there was 3 gigs showing up, 4 gigs, 5 gigs, 7 gigs of demand, like now. And it was about data center development around AI. Everyone, like, just went, "Whoa!" Including me. I, I thought from my standpoint, I've never seen something show up so fast. And now how do you deal with that? Becomes a challenge if you're sitting in a CEO from a utility and you're seeing this, you, for me, I'm jumping up and down going, "Oh my God, I got 24/7 demand. Let's go. Let's go, let's go, let's go." Right.
Except you have a regulatory—a state regulatory body that you have to get structure around, that you don't want your customer to pay for the infrastructure necessary to have a redundant system, meaning two directions of load, to serve a client that, you know, the demand's spotty after four years, and it creates some inefficiencies. Saying that, that was the issue, really. I still think today, when I think there's affordability at the consumer, like, what does that mean? Do I pay for the data center as a customer of XYZ utility? I've seen it in pipe, I've seen take or pay, I've seen all kinds of things. But essentially, I think when we think about tech and we think about our utility customer, we've said all along, you have to collaborate.
Like, there has to be even EV, how does GM collaborate with the utility industry? It's necessary for everyone to sit down and say, "Okay, how do we build this infrastructure the right way for the client? Have good policy." But states were in the middle of it, and I, I do believe what I saw in the first quarter was the utilities really lay out how they were gonna. You know, one of them was 26 gigs in Ohio, and I, I saw how it laid out that demand and how they were gonna pay for it for the first time, and, and talk about how it's neutral to the, to the ratepayer. It has to be a neutral design to the ratepayer. I do think the more demand you have, it's certainly your bill becomes less. It becomes cheaper.
And that is the case, but still early on and throughout, you have to make sure you cover off that infrastructure. And we're seeing that show up in almost all the rate cases in the rate. And I think tech and utilities are working very well together now. So I'm optimistic that that kind of piece of it is out of the way at this point. For the most part, it'll continue. You do have a semblance of a roadmap of how you do this within the industry, and it usually falls into place fairly quickly. So I like where we're going as far as that goes, but the concern was very real early.
When you look at everyone's budget, which I think for us, the easiest way to kind of think about Quanta is, first off, you start looking at utility budgets, and are they moving up or down? If they're moving up, our backstop is those budgets. We're really supporting them and collaborating with them on those budgets. All the budgets and all the movement upward, no one's seen the impacts yet of what it means for AI to come on the system. So I do think ultimately, you'll see some incremental demand, I know you will, incremental demand from us and our clients because of the capacity constraints, and that you're going to need significant amount of transmission.
Okay, so I guess if we kind of think through, like, the time frame, we had our whoa moment, you know, in the last, like, six months, right? And then, you know, you've evolved into having conversations about, like, how to pay for it. And so how do we think about when that translates into, you know, actual contracts, awards, revenues? Can you just, like, lay out that time frame?
I mean, it's ongoing. It's a, it's when we you walk back through our MSA business, and when you see our backlog may be flatter, it may, you know, go down a little bit, whatever it may be, quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year, even. It's ultimately the way that our MSAs fall into place and what that looks like. On the demand, our headcounts are rising, all those kind of things are there. And I think it shows up now. I think it's already showing up. You're seeing some switching. I think EV's kind of moved out a bit, but you're seeing some switching from transmission into distribution. But the demand side, there's no mistake that load's, you know, growing, will, I believe, double fairly quickly. And I call it 10, 15 years, you'll see load double.
That's hard to say from someone that's seen negative load growth for 20 years, and to say it's gonna double. You know, we've been calling it for a bit, and Elon would say probably triple or more, I will say. But we can see it, certainly, and I think us to get our head around, how do we, how do we get enough generation to cover this off? You know, us being renewables, so a lot of, lot of conversations around primarily tech with like renewables, we build about 25% of the renewables in North America. How does that interrelate into transmission and all the way back to the data center? So we're in a really unique place to, you know, kind of bridge some gaps here from a developer standpoint into the utility.
Got it. Okay. And so in terms of, like, the CapEx mix for the utilities, you've got generation, you've got transmission, you've got distribution. Do you see that, that pool of capital moving from one area to the, the other? And, you know, does it matter, at least from, like, Quanta standpoint, you know, where that- where that ends up?
It doesn't matter. You know, from our standpoint, we saw two or three customers this year have big transmission builds, and call it the first month, and then immediately switched into transmission. We immediately moved distribution resources and pulled in transmission resources, and I think that's and gained some market share, by the way, on the way out. So I think it's really good for us. You know, it doesn't matter either way. I do think when you look back, the West has all because you have fire hardening, you have EV penetration, about probably 70% of all EVs are sold in California. So West. Well, in the U.S. And so that said, you know, you're really penetrating at the distribution level, plus fire hardening, plus interconnections, and load growth and data center.
So there's, like, six things coming out of it at once. And I so that is, like, the place for me, it's kind of the epicenter of the transition. They're farther along than anyone else, and the mandates are there. And so when I'm watching them, I'm watching what it's doing to the distribution system, it's certainly pressing. There needs to be capital spent there. So it's a finite amount. Everything is necessary, and, you know, you have affordability coming at you all at once, and I think you have to be real creative here, and really work with the regulator at the state level, on how to get this spend done. And, you know, we're certainly a part of those discussions.
Got it. Okay. So can you just talk through how Quanta gets involved in the development of a data center, from, like, a front-of-meter perspective? So maybe you can talk about, like, what your scope is, when does the dialogue begin, and, you know, are you actually starting to see, like, conversations directly with hyperscalers?
I mean, I think for us, primarily how we get involved today is it'll be with a customer, around renewables, siting, we'll get involved. Our transformer and vertical supply chain, something, you know, if we want to pull something in, we can absolutely, like, help with, a transformer capabilities. But really supporting, one of our renewable customer developers to... Because everyone wants the renewable piece of it, and, you know, that's how it first starts, and then how do you get the line, and then how do you interface into the utility? So all those things, you're constantly talking to, either directly at the hyperscaler or, with the developer, and we really play the role from... We'll build the generation typically around it, and then all the way up to call it the substation that goes into your, your data center.
We can build the industrial piece, some inside. That's not been something that we've really focused on at this point, but we really stop at the high voltage side of the hyperscaler.
Got it. Got it. Okay. So it's been about two years since the IRA has been signed into law. So based on your conversations, like, where are we in terms of, like, deploying funds? You know, are we, like, you know, 10% deployed, 15, 20, 30? Just from your perspective.
I want to see what Jayshree says. What, what do you think?
So, my perspective of the IRA is in place. I think, so much of the IRA... There are several facets of it, but so much of it was around extending what was already a great way to incentivize renewable development on the solar and wind side. They gave - that IRA bill gave certainty around the timeframe of what that credit can be, took away sort of the worries of fits and starts around PTC and ITC extension. That was put aside, and so you've got developers who have a great pipeline, 20 years, sometimes 10 years in the making. They've got projects now that they have line of sight and visibility around, what the value prospect of that project is.
So I think that part of the IRA is already in the works, and because it wasn't a big shift in what was how the industry grew up, there wasn't a big change in how developers thought through it, right? They're just using those credits as they've always done, figured out they have the financing around it. I think the transferability rules around the IRA have really finally started taking shape. You're hearing the big developers, NextEra's of the world, et cetera, who have figured out or really worked hard in making that a much more liquid market, and that transferability allows for just more liquidity around credits. It's just gonna help drive more work, and ultimately, hopefully, should drive some costs out of the system around the financing of those things.
So that's starting to happen, which I think is a big benefit. And then you finally have all the rules around what the adders around the tax credits, like domestic content and what that means. That's come out too, and come out pretty favorably for the developer. So I think all that is good, good, good news, and is allowing the market just to continue to have that visibility. There are some aspects of the IRA that haven't quite yet sunk in. I think that's around the newer technologies, whether it's some of the hydrogen plays or some of the even the manufacturing credits, maybe some of the RNG plays. Those are, those are, those are not necessarily because the IRA isn't effective, it's just the commercialization around those technologies still have to mature.
Once those do, then it's just taking advantage of the credit. I think they designed the IRA actually quite effectively, but the market has to be ready to be able to absorb them, and that's why I think you see more success around the wind and solar side than some of the others.
Got it.
I do think the, the more mature developers, your larger developers are, are way farther along than others in how their thought process. The transferability piece of this dwarfs everything else, in, in my opinion, because you already knew you had ten years. It's how you got the PTCs and the tax credits, and where they're going, I think really starts it in a meaningful way. Not to say it's not already started, but pushes it much quicker, faster, now that you have some guidelines on tax credits. I, I just think we're very early.
Mm-hmm.
Good. So I have to ask because it's an election year. Let's just assume there's a change in administration from-
Mm-hmm
... Democrat to Republican. You know, how do you think, you know, and this is, you know, just through the lens of IRA. You know, if some or part of that, you know, goes away, how does that change your growth algorithm in the medium term?
You know, I'm primarily thinking 2026, 2027 already. So I feel good about 2024, I feel good about 2025, I actually feel good about 2026, 2027. But I think it's gonna be outer years if you're impacted because, and then we're not in, like, marginal things around the IRA. Offshore wind, you know, look, we support it. We're building some onshore capacity there with lines, but they're ongoing. So I think through, like, what, where's the line in the sand gonna be? And we had tax credits before. I don't see an administration would come in and takes tax credits away, 'cause it would really, that would be the worst thing they could possibly do to the industry is those tax credits.
I think everything else, I'm not too concerned with, and I— It's been 15 years under separate administrations-
Or more, yeah.
... or more, that have operated through this. Yes, we're a little farther along. Yes, it seems to be a political football, but there's a lot of political football always and a lot of rhetoric. In an election year, I'm not too concerned at this point, what it means for us. Utility backlog, the tech push, there's so much demand for energy, electric energy right now. I think it's just a catalyst, per se, for anyone. And if you wanna make an election around, whether you're EV or combustion, things like that, I mean, I just like... I don't think it's something that bothers us at this point. I think we push through these kind of things in North America.
Okay. So, maybe now is a good time to talk about, you know, some of the bottlenecks. We talked a lot about the growth. So I guess maybe first on labor, how has the tight labor environment changed the conversations you're having with, like, your utility customers? Maybe you can talk about, you know, if there's any change in, like, hard bid contracts. And, you know, you talked about, you know, 2026, 2027, but, like, how far out are you actually having discussions about just labor availability?
You know, I mean, significant discussions, longer term, around builds and unknowns. I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, you're starting to see MISO, you're starting to see all your RTOs, your regional transmission authorities, start to allocate work and start to think about transmission load, interconnections, plus what they already have ongoing in their systems. So as that becomes more and more prevalent at those levels, we need to align, you know, from a constructability standpoint, and we like to be early on in the projects. So it continues to get, you know, I would say, at a good pace for us. And the discussions are much earlier than they were in the past, and, you know, I like that part of it. I think it allows us to plan.
It doesn't mean you won't get the if we can be nimble, if we can stay nimble as a company and think through it and just stay aligned with the client, understand, then we can move, and we can be efficient. That'll be the key to it. Longer term, longer term contracts, different players within the your competitive markets, I think, are there. You know, you're starting to see things show up with... you know, your corridors come out from DOE, your allocations from FERC. I think all that really just stacks on, and 85% of our business is off MSAs. You don't even... You know, it's every day occurring.
We're talking to them on a daily basis, and now you start stacking on your larger dynamic projects that, you know, a lot of times the existing customer is in a competitive environment, and, you know, so it's different, you know, from our standpoint and their standpoint. The way they finance it looks different, and a lot of different things when you're in those environments. So I do believe we sit in a really nice position to collaborate with them and build capacity around, you know, what we see, and stay in front of the markets with the labor that, you know, we believe we need to train. You know, when you get down to distribution, I think it's more difficult for us to pivot.
From when I say that, it's a different. I mean, you're training something that is inherently dangerous. You're in, you're inside hot corridors all the time. Transmission's just heavy. Not to say you don't have some hot corridors, but it's easier to train in transmission, you know, just dead transmission, than it is in distribution. So it's different on each one of them, I do believe. We haven't ran into a place. I said this morning, I was like, please let me say mercy one time in my career. And I've been in 30 years and four generations, I've never seen one time where we haven't been able to meet the demand. So labor, I believe, we'll be able to meet the demand with labor. I worry more about manufacturing capacity, rate structures, anything else, permitting.
Any of those things would get in the way before, I believe, labor, from our standpoint, would. I think we've done a nice job as a company, with our colleges, with the things that we've done, from unions to trade associations, to prepare ourselves to provide certainty to the client. We know, we know our role in this. We know where we're supposed to be here, and we can stay behind and collaborate. As long as they can give us a little bit of guidance on where they're going, we can certainly meet the demand. And I, I like tight labor markets. Please bring them on. Love it.
So I guess, like, with that, with the tight labor market, I mean, for the part of the business that's not MSA, are you able to, you know, push a little bit of price or... You know, maybe not necessarily that, maybe more on, like, the contract terms in terms of like, you know, just risk, like, who shares the risk? Can you give us a little insight into how that's changed?
I mean, I think the terms, you know—I mean, it depends on what the market is, and where you're at, and what you're doing. Utilities, you can deviate a little bit, you know, but in general, we're a little bigger, so we got all kinds of different issues. And so we'll, we'll certainly get in there and have a good conversation and get a fair contract with them. That said, they know that we have to get out a little farther with equipment, things like that, so we have to work together on who's buying what. We see more EPC, engineer, procure, construct, where we're, you know, certainly buying heavy equipment.
We're not gonna buy something and not have payment upfront, things like that, and good terms, back-to-back, don't like commodity risk, all those kind of things. So that piece of the business, we don't wanna get—I mean, risk shifted to us that we can't handle. And so I think we've been there, done that, not doing that again. And so I think that part of it's something that's changed a bit. How we contract through EPC is much different than an MSA, so that's there. But it's incremental to the MSA. And you just continue to get things thrown at you. "Can you do this? Can you do that?" And our answer is usually yes.
Our vertical supply chain that we're working through today will certainly be something that I think is incrementally positive to the client, like how we manage supply chain. We call it top five, six buyer of HV equipment. So when you think about that, really have a chance here to internally work on vertical supply chain and create margin for ourselves, and as well as help our client manage that supply chain. And we've learned a lot about it. I do believe that's certainly a catalyst for us, and it's necessary for the client and us to have flexibility in this whole build that we see.
Okay. So I guess maybe, like, a two-part question. First of all, you know, how many people could you recruit today? And then secondly, can you talk about just, like, the avenues, right? So I think we've talked a lot about Northwest Lineman College and how that's, like, a great tool, but maybe you can elaborate beyond that. You know, what sort of tools do you have to recruit people?
I mean, we're not struggling with recruitment. I think we have a list, probably a waiting list to get through. The colleges will sponsor some of it. Some of it is GI Grant. It's accredited college. You know, we'll fill Boise Stadium, basketball stadium up with 3,000 parents that are really happy to see their kids go through a full graduation after 18. It makes you feel good. It's a great trade. Our median wage is $70,000+, pension, health and welfare. I'm proud of it. I'm proud of— If you don't want an education, it's a perfect place to go.
To spend a lot of time coming from, you know, the field as well and making sure that we want to be a place that craft wants to come, and we value that. I've not seen us have that struggle yet, and I think we can put on. We're putting on around 3,000-4,000 a year organically. If you look at year-over-year, you have some seasonality. You don't hold everyone when you don't have the work for it. It will fluctuate a little bit, but on average, 3,000-4,000 people a year. We struggle more with engineering, honestly, than I do with craft, and it's like 1 to 100, but I still struggle with engineering capacity. I worry about that more so than I have craft.
Got it.
I'm sure the engineers would say the opposite, but it's fine.
So let's talk about the other big bottleneck, transformers. You recently acquired Pennsylvania Transformer Technology. Can you talk about just, you know, where you are in integrating that asset into your business and what sort of advantage that provides you?
Yeah, we worked on for a couple of years around supply chain, and we were struggling ourselves to... Our people were inefficient, primarily around transformers. So when I sort of think through it, and you could see what was in front of you, we wanted to source a US-based transformer company, and we found PTT. The facility is a 100-year-old facility. It's been through three different name changes, but goes all the way back to McGraw Edison. And I think when you think about today, where we're at, I mean, we're large, 300 MVA-type transformers, UL codes that have been through most utilities, so there's not really an issue with quality. We meet spec for the most part with everyone.
That, that really is something that I think we can, we can incrementally increase demand. Ravi, the owner, was 84 years old. He if he spent a dollar, he wanted two. And like, he it was, that's how it was. And I, I think now we can invest in it, we can increase capacity a little bit, probably call it 20%. And that incremental the incremental build internally, I mean, we really wanna pull through, pull through substations, pull through line, help someone bring in a job quicker. And that would be, for me, like, that's how we see the strategy with it is, can we, with transformer breakers, pull in projects that are on the bubble or whatever it may be? They wanna bring them in, and then we certainly wanna build.
So fundamentally, we wanna build whatever they're bringing in, and that, that's kind of where we're at in discussions. I think it's gone very well. We like where we sit. I like the business independently, but we're probably less than 3% of manufacturing and only about this class, and only, call it, less than 20% is made in the US. So not something I believe we're a transformer manufacturer by any means. We are learning around it and working with our clients in a more collaborative manner around transformers. So I do think there's opportunities to do a lot of things, but manufacturing, you wouldn't see us go vertical and start manufacturing everything. That's just not who we are.
Got it. Got it. So I guess, how does this change the conversation you have with your customer in terms of just competitive advantage? And I guess, how much can you—like, by how much can you pull forward the project now that you have your, that capacity?
We just had it, call it six months, and I... So I would say the first kind of, when you, when you think through it, when we're talking to the client, and we've had success. How significant? It's meaningful, and I think it gets better and better for us to have this capacity. You know, it certainly separates us in many ways. There's a lot of things that we can do here. All of us are learning a little bit more around how do we manage a supply chain, and I like that part of it, and I do like having things... We can build high transmission as well.
So when you start thinking about corridors staying live at 500 kV, and we have transformers, so we gotta check a lot of boxes if we're gonna be a solution provider. If you really say you can provide something as a solution, everyone says, "Don't say that." I say, "Yeah, that's who we are." And because I think we can check a lot of boxes here and provide these solutions that are necessary to get us where we wanna go. And it's not... You know, once we face the fact that it's gonna cost $ trillions, and once we face the fact that you're probably gonna need natural gas to balance the load, probably around 20%, we'll go a lot farther, a lot faster.
Okay. So how fast can you add capacity?
As far as transformers?
Yeah, transformers.
Yeah, I mean, look, we can add 20% right away. There were some, you know, machinery on order, things like that, those things are bottlenecked as well, so even if you wanna add capacity, you're 36 months out on machinery capabilities. And we had some things in place and things we can do to make it more efficient, run more shifts, do some things there. Yeah, we can continue to add. I wouldn't say we can't press it up any meaningful. If we added 1% or 1.5%, I'd be happy, to the whole market.
Got it. Okay. So Quanta's, you know, started doing some acquisitions kind of along the supply chain, including, you know, PTT.
Mm-hmm.
Can you talk about, you know, what the end game is? You know, where else do you feel like you need to own versus buy, and how do you come to that decision?
It's a strategy. When we think about vertical supply chain, you know, there's a couple of things that you worry with. When we bought Sherman and Reilly, which is a wire blocks and wire pullers for the industry for, I don't know, so I think it's 70 years-
Mm-hmm
... or maybe longer. You know, our people in the field are, you wanna feel safe and concerned with the ecosystem, our clients, and it, it's been part of the mainstay of this industry forever. We really needed to make sure that the technology investment, how it looks, what and, you know, the high conductive wire, I think it'll be a bigger... When you see, like, everything now, you have to look at the existing corridor and decide if the high conductive wire is the better play than rebuild. All the wire reconductor work that is necessary, we really need to make sure that that was not the bottleneck. We felt like we could do some R&D with them. They were doing a lot of R&D. We like it.
We, you know, think it's additive to some of the things that we can do internally. We're not gonna get in the pulling manufacturing business and try to blow it up. It's really it de-risks us from supply chain, as well as to make sure that when you're over, pulling over hot corridors and energized states and things like that, that our equipment's the very best in the business. We did it with helicopters as well. We had to. And I think it makes total sense for us because we will invest in it and make sure it's what I would consider the very best product in the market.
Got it. Okay. So, I mean, so it does sound like you are doing a little bit more vertical, right, integration. So I guess, how does your M&A and, like, vetting process need to change now that you're kind of going outside of, you know, the traditional contractor solution provider? And then, like, how do you think about, you know, how the management of the business needs to change with a more diverse, I guess, asset base?
Yeah, I mean, we were very decentralized ten years ago, and I think we started bringing in. We certainly have a regional structure with six regional vice presidents and then service lines that come across. And those service lines are every bit as important for our growth as anything else. And when I say that, it's engineering, it's right of way, it's all kinds of different things, verticals coming across our regions to make sure that the client gets the impact of our engineering capacity or our right of way or environmental capacity. Anything that we have that we understand what our strategy is internally, and it can't be one person. We have to think more like a utility. We have to in that environment.
A lot of your acquisitions, you see, because you're going across west to east, into Canada, into Australia, through all those. You see the issues, you can see what the future—what you think the future is, and your clients, all the way through the value chain, are saying, "Can you do this?" Or, "We see a huge issue here." It allows us really to think through strategy and think through how do we stay in this ecosystem, grounded by craft skilled labor and add technology, engineering, all the things that we've done? But so I think when we look at acquisitions, it's really around, you know, how do we be certain with craft in order to bring in certainty to a project? And then, you know, we just continue to think the verticals there and the amount.
Every time that you acquire a platform, there's six things off of it, usually. And the way the company, or the way I see it, the way we've always looked at acquisitions, we wanna find the very best company in the vertical that we're looking at, in the service line that we're looking at, and that's where we start the platform off of and then build off the platform. We don't have fixer-uppers, in my mind, because we don't have time. We continue to grow the company. You can't grow the company worried about fixing something up. So it's very difficult to scale. You're much more inclined to scale off a great company, and we've been able to do that.
Public-to-public transactions, we've. I've been involved in one, and I hope I'm not involved in another. So we really shy away from that. Average size of them are around $200 million-$300 million at this point. We'll do a one-off, bigger one every now and then. But there's no rhyme or reason other than the strategy. And as companies... I do see an influx of companies that, generationally, the second or third generation just doesn't want to be in the business. They'd much prefer to do something different. And as that happens, and if they're great companies, fit the criteria that we know who they are, and we want the management teams to stay. And so I think in general, that's how we look at them and value it.
I can't tell you the pace of it, to be honest. We wanna be flexible and have a great balance sheet, for sure.
Okay. So where other bottlenecks need to be broadened past?
Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, you know, there's delays on, you know, call it. The two big things right now are transformers and breakers. That's the two big things, but it's something every day. Like, I think you just really have to think through how. You don't have to buy everything. You can have great relationships with service providers, and we do. So we'll continue to do that, and there's plenty of verticals for us to grow off of. You know, I do think our cash profile has changed. Our ability to generate free cash has changed. We've done some nice things around renewables and developers, and, you know, that leads you all the way through the value chain, really, and who's using energy.
Around it all, there's opportunities for us to really, I believe, grow the business, fundamentally, organically, or even faster with some use of capital against, you know, acquisition.
Gotcha. So Duke, I wanted to go back to an earlier comment you made about front-end engineering and where you think that's an area we need to pull more, more labor. Can you expand on that? I mean, like, what's your vision for, like, that part of the business? Can you talk about, like, how that drives, like, future value? Maybe you can give some examples.
Yeah. I mean, I think the engineering, upfront engineering, the things like that, for us, we can come out of that constructability perspective and combine the two together with the client and understand, like, what we're building and the most economical way to build it, and if you do it from a construction standpoint. So I think that collaboration, either we own the—we own it, or we're collaborating with someone that's very, very good in the business. We also, like, environmental and all the right of way, environmental right of way, things like that, that we've built those kind of capabilities within our organization that allows us to be more fulsome. It also helps us on the job.
As we have issues come up, there's reptiles and many, many things out there that, you know, stop a job, that we can get in front of and do a better job as a company, and have to mitigate those risks for our client and ourselves. So our job is to continue just to go forward faster. And I think those kind of capabilities internally, we see it, we know what we need to do. The work itself is the easy part. Like, pulling wire, setting poles, those kind of things are easy. It's all the other stuff around it. And so that's the part that I think, from my standpoint, we have to get out of the way so we can go faster, as a company.
So, can you give any good examples of maybe a job where you had, like, front-end versus where you didn't, and, like, what sort of difference it makes from, like, a margin standpoint, from, like, a scheduling standpoint, predictability?
I mean, SunZia is a great example of, you know, an integrated job, both wind and solar, where we have all, all capabilities on the job. And, you know, we—I continue to hear, well, they have shut down, and we're already through the right of way. We're done. We're already—We've already put—built the roads, we've already put the foundations down, we're ahead of it. And someone said, "Well, they're gonna stop it." I said, "Well, I don't know how they're gonna stop it, 'cause we're already through it." And we knew it, we knew it. We worked the client, we're already through. And it's those kind of capabilities, understanding what they're saying, working with the tribes, working with the landowners, is, is really, really important if we do it.
If we work with the unions, if we're up front, we just have a much better success rate of a really good job for the customer and ourselves. And we're like. We wanna control our own destiny. It's extremely important for us. And that's why you see us leaning into transformers, we're leaning into pulling equipment, because we can't depend on someone else to supply it. And I... That, that flexibility in the ... We still perform 85%, so yeah, we flex a little bit, but we really need to self-perform.
So, renewables is probably gonna be a larger portion of the business than it's been in the past. So how does that impact just like the margin profile, like, your cash conversion? How do you think about that?
Yeah, I mean, I think that if you're buying equipment, it's certainly in there, or if you're seeing your cash conversion's better, you're from a developer standpoint, just the way the profile works there, so you'll get better cash conversion. The delineation and segmentation, where we're building electric substation, distribution, transmission in both segments with the same people, it bothers me. Like, I struggle with that. I think our investors struggle with it. I've got to figure—we'll figure out how to delineate that. From a service line standpoint, you know, part of it, we knew we grew the business 6% on electric substation transmission, 5 + 5.something% in the first quarter, year-over-year. But the electric segment was down, so it confused everybody.
The segment was down, but they were overbuilding in the renewable segment, which was up. It just... I think we're gonna have to do a better job, you know, in the quarter, probably the first quarter, we'll come out with some new segments, I would think, and try to work on some of those things, to make sure that you really, investors, can really see what we're doing. Yes, balance of plant, solar, wind, batteries are growing at really nice paces, and our battery business is getting, you know... I think it's growing the fastest, for sure.
Okay. So, return on invested capital, what's the right number that we should be thinking about, and how do we get there?
Again, I think the right way to look at it is, our cost of capital is around 10%. And so every decision we're gonna make, whether it's growing organically, whether it's deploying capital, we wanna make sure that we are generating returns that exceed our cost of capital. You've seen on a tangible basis, our return on invested capital continuing to grow. So that is our expectation on a tangible basis. However, we are, of course, we will deploy capital, and sometimes, we're gonna be deploying capital in order to maximize growth, maximize total value. So you may see a little bit of a pullback on returns, but the idea is that's an investment that ultimately will see returns continuing to grow, beyond that.
But again, we're gonna deploy that capital in a way that's gonna be, take advantage of the growth opportunities in front of us, allow us to grow in a way that doesn't dilute our margins, and, and thirdly, make sure that we are generating returns that are at least greater than our cost to capital. So double-digit returns and greater is how I think about it.
Got it.
Double digits and growing.
Got it. Okay. So maybe just going back to margins. You talked about your renewables margins being in kind of like the high single digits, but clearly, you know, you're seeing the mix of work, you know, become a little bit larger. You know, you're increasing your scope to, like, higher value, you know, parts of the overall project execution. So why shouldn't we be thinking about, you know, your margins going past that into, like, the double digits for renewables?
Yeah, I mean, I think we got to get into the double digits, Chad, first. Like, I'm not happy with the way we've performed yet, and I don't think our organization's happy that we haven't met the goals that we set out and how we performed for the last two decades. The growth, you know, you have significant growth and that outsized, for a big organization, we have that kind of outsized growth in a big organization. You know, even though you think you scale, even though you think you got it, like, I would just say that growth, you know, is something that has pressed... And then, you know, you get a tariff, and you're growing, and you get a tariff.
So, you know, that punitive part of it early, and it got out of sequence on us, and so you staffed, and you did some things internally. We haven't got a clean outlook, and I think we're starting to get there. I'm starting to look back, already starting to look at the profile going forward, and I think we'll get in double-digit margin profile on the renewables, and electrical continue to perform, you know, 10.5-11, whatever, right in there somewhere. But the returns overall will be up and continue to grow with the company, and the portfolio will continue to move up. Our industrial businesses looks nice. The environmental side of our industrial business looks great. Canadian operations are coming back a bit, so we really like what we see.
We're excited about what we see in front of us and, you know, lots of, lots of good things in front of us.
Okay. So actually maybe on that point, on the Canadian business, 'cause I remember that was an area of a little bit of pressure over the last, like, I guess-
Mm
... couple of quarters.
Mm-hmm.
Can you just talk a little bit more about what you mean by, you know, coming back? What sort of green shoots are you seeing there?
I mean, I think we see, you know, some government-sponsored infrastructure there as well as you see in the States and but especially, call it BC and over in Toronto area, where you're starting to see impacts and really in energy, you know, they're really valuing the energy here and energy business in Canada. We have good clients that are in the States, and we are able to utilize capacity, but overall, the country has recognized that they have to invest in infrastructure just like we do, and we're starting to see that show up.
Okay, great. Looks like we're perfectly out of time. Thanks, Duke.
Great. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you.
We appreciate it. Thank you. Good job.