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Credit Suisse’s 10th Annual Global Industrials Conference

Dec 1, 2022

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

All right, cool. All right, we're on. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm very pleased to have with us, Quanta Services. We have Duke Austin, who's the President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as Jayshree Desai, who's the Chief Financial Officer. In terms of today's format, it's going to be more of the same. I'll kick it off with Q&A, but if anyone does have a question, please raise your hand, and we'll get the mic to you, because we're webcast. Anyway, thank you guys so much for being here today.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Thank you.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

I guess I'll start off, you know, lots of concerns out there, you know, on the macro, despite a lot of industrial companies that are here today, fairly bullish on some of the growth opportunities ahead. You know, Jayshree or Duke, assuming, you know, we do go into a recession, or we are in a recession, can you talk about how you think Quanta's, you know, earnings or portfolio would fare in a recession? How are we sort of different this time relative to other recessions?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Yeah. When we look through the business... thanks for having us, Jamie.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

You're welcome.

Thank you for being here.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

For us, I think we are looking at recessionary pressures, things like that all the time. In the past, in history, the Utility business has performed well through any kind of recessionary periods. Doesn't mean there's not pressure from new builds, things like that we watch. The way we think about the portfolio and what we created with the portfolio, given the macro trends and the demand of electric vehicle penetration, renewable thresholds, you know, goals, all those things are in play on our macro drivers. Plus, it is the Utility business that has a high demand of capital ongoing.

We don't feel the pressure. I believe as long as we operate in a prudent manner, we'll continue, like we said at an Investor Day, to grow the Adjusted EPS at double digits over a CAGR basis with the opportunities to grow 15+. I still see that through this time period.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Yeah, I think I'd just add from a, from a cash flow perspective, right? Typically when we, when we are faced with a little bit of pullback, the cash flow comes flying in, and it helps sort of hedge and de-risk the business as a result. We're feeling from a balance sheet perspective and a capital allocation perspective that even if certain pressures happen, we're in a good position to be able to manage through it.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

We're not seeing our customer base pull back. I mean, we're actually seeing our customer base grow their capital budgets.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. And I wanna talk about Electric Power, but why don't we talk about renewables because it was so in the press in 2022. First, talk about the strategic importance of the Blattner acquisition and what have been sort of the positive and negative surprises within Blattner, and then we'll talk about the end markets after that, like renewable solar and...

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I think as a company, the demand from the client for us to build balance of plant wind and solar was there. We heard it every day when we went into a customer at the Utility side of the business. We felt like the business was transitioned in that manner. With the acquisition, it allowed us really to provide a turnkey solution to the client and become more of an energy solutions provider at the tip of the spear of the transition, which I believe we've done that with the Blattner acquisition. They layer on top of us very nicely culturally. When we look at it today, we're every bit as impressed with the management teams, the way we think we can grow the business in a holistic manner with both sides of the client.

With the renewable side, the developer side, we're able to do electrification there with interconnects, all kinds of things there, provide synergies. On the other side of the business with the Utility customers going into some renewables, things of that nature allows us to build balance of plant renewables for our Utility clients. Together, broad supply chain. You know, they're buying lots of cable, lots of wiring, things like that. Allows us to think differently frotm an EPC basis in how we deliver back to the client the solution to transition. Even if you go over to the UI side, our clients there are also developing solar, wind, other kind of renewable energy, so it just allows us to provide a turnkey solution.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. As you look to 2023, you know, within renewables, are we more bullish on solar? Are we more bullish on wind? Are we agnostic?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I mean-

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Can you talk to, in 2023, is there an opportunity for us to see, you know, revenue synergies, you know, between Quanta and Blattner as we're further ahead?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I think you'll see revenue synergies in 2023.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Sure.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Do you wanna talk to that?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Yeah. That's, that's gonna happen. That said, I also think when you, when we look at wind and solar, it doesn't matter. These portfolios are moving around, but solar's gonna be prevalent next two years. Jayshree can correct me, but that's how I see it. As it stands today, it'll be more prevalent. I think we'll see more of that, but their wind business is fantastic long term, and we're really looking at it long term and the supply chains are moving in. I do think all the data that we've given on $3.6 billion and 2026 and all, I think that's moved in my mind, but I'll let Jayshree comment.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

I mean, the only thing I'd say any or add to that is Blattner grew up in the wind business. They're very strong in wind. They're very strong in solar. At the end of the day, for us, we're sort of indifferent what moves forward. From a market perspective, the IRA, while it's given really good long-term visibility for both solar and wind, it was very beneficial to the wind industry as those credits had started to look like they were gonna expire, and it's now picked back up.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

The incentives around solar in the near term are actually stronger in some ways for the, for the developers. You're gonna see the developers as they optimize their portfolio 'cause they too are indifferent about whether they're building solar or wind. They do care as to what's gonna drive the highest return on their investment, they're gonna push forward more solar initially.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Allow wind to catch up as their portfolios around wind projects, on the interconnection and the permits allow them to do more of that in the latter half of the decade.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. I guess, Duke, you should be flattered by this, but you do have some of your peers who have done some M&A, and the portfolio looks more like you relative to what it used to look like.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Just as you think about people trying to capitalize on some of the secular growth markets that are ahead in renewables and electric power, how do you see that impacting the competitive landscape, if any? Besides, you know, MasTec, do you see smaller roll-ups happening? you know what I mean? Is that a concern for you? How long could you sustain your competitive advantage, assuming we have more people attracted to your market?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I think people have been attracted to the market a long time. When you look at M&A, the competitors were there before. It's actually less competitors because there's only one and it's consolidated. That said, when we think about it, we're really focused on where we're going and where we think we can go. We're past that from a company. We're on to what's gonna happen in the next five years, not about what's gonna happen this. We've got five years. It's the next five. I think in my mind when we walk through it, having people kind of try to follow us has always been that way. It's nothing new for us. We've always had competition. I do think we've separated. What we have is we self-perform 85% of the work. We provide a great solution.

We really collaborate with the client. We've built world-class companies that have longevities over time. It just separates us at the client level. We get good strategies around what we're doing. The stocks, look, I think everyone would say that's pretty tough to think there's a lot of debt running around. It's gonna create some noise in the market. We've never been one to lean into a fixer-upper. I don't think that's gonna change.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I, you know, there'll be opportunities that we'll always look at, try to capitalize, make sure that our balance sheets, we're utilizing it properly. I see more strategy-type acquisition things that we can do that create long-term type, you know, growth as well as separation between us and someone else.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Does anyone in the audience have a question? If they do, please raise your hand. All right, it doesn't look like it. Just because you sort of touched a little on, you know, M&A, and you just did the Blattner acquisition, trying to understand, you know, where your M&A priorities would be going forward. Lots of excitement in communications. You're a smaller player in communications that sits within your Electric Power business. You know, do you feel like you need to do an acquisition there? The other side of it is, I feel like from covering you for a long time, you grew up as viewed as a construction player, and then there were a lot of efforts internally to grow the engineering side of the business.

You know, is there more to be done on that front?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Yeah. I think when you go back and you walk it back, you say, well, you're FPL, for example. We were a contractor for FPL 10 years ago. Today, I believe we're an energy solution provider to NextEra, which is one of the largest energy companies in the world. I think both of us have grown up together. We look for ways that we can go with the client where they're going. Yes, front-end services is a priority for us. We really wanna work on those capabilities, either organically or we would look at M&A. Technology comes into play. Really, it's we self-perform 85%. We wanna be more nimble to the client and deliver services quicker, faster and more economic in creating value of that solution. I continue to believe we'll evolve the company towards...

You won't think of us as a, as a contract. You'll think of us as, "Hey, we're trying to get to an energy transition. Help us get there." Which I think is what we're doing today in a programmatic way, which is much different than we've had in the past.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Any questions in the audience? All right, Duke, I'll let you take it. Well, I'll see who wants to answer this one. As we're thinking about, you know, just trying to level set for 2023, I think what struck me is, you know, the earnings trajectory in the back half of the year relative to the first half of the year. You know, I think your earnings are, you know, ending the year $1.70 a quarter or so. We multiply that by four. It's, you know, we're approaching $7 in earnings power in 2023. Is that a good way to think about the base of earnings in 2023? Is there any way, you know, everyone's earnings had a lot of inefficiencies in 2022 because of labor, solar, whatever you can name what.

Is there any way you can sort of quantify inefficiencies that potentially go away next year?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Yeah. I mean, I do think supply chains get better. I'll go backwards. I think supply chains get better throughout the year. They're already starting to see some of that now. Jayshree can comment more on some of the supply chain things on solar. In general, that's starting to move away from us. I don't see that being a big issue at this point. I'm not gonna give guidance. That said, what I will, again, your math, I'm not wrong in the way you're thinking about what we're looking at. Do I know exactly where that sits in the pendulum of guidance? No.

All that and all the math that's done, the way that you're thinking through it, I see no reason that wouldn't be somewhere in there, I mean, in the range. What's the range? How quickly do some of the solar projects come in? All those kinds of things . We got three months. I would be doing a disservice today to try to say, "Hey, it's this." Yes, we're in a robust, good environment that we believe we can, you know, earn up here, like we said we have in the past. Without giving guidance, I do believe we feel real confident in what we see and see no reason that we can't, you know, standby kind of all the dialogue that we've been given.

That said, the stacking of those projects, we talk about this a lot, 85% of the business is, you know, we can predict it. It's that stack of, okay, how many solar projects? Where are they at? Where are they at in the pin wheel or, you know, when does this start? Where does Canada go? We need the three months that we have here to really refine it. On a holistic measure, you're not wrong. There is seasonality in the business, so you can't take, like, one quarter and extrapolate. I'll go with you on it and say, "Okay.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Yeah, I wanted to jump in and say...

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Seasonality.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

I will remind you of the seasonality of our business, so I don't think you should take $1.7 x 4 given the fact that our first quarter tends to be lower, and then we ramp up towards the third and fourth. To Duke's point, the general trends are really good. As we said in Investor Day, we believe in our double-digit EPS growth.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

We stand behind that.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Yeah, we're gonna be prudent how we guide, we always are.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

We're gonna make sure that, you know, we went ahead of numbers.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Lots of excitement, you know, about spend on the West Coast as we're putting transmission, you know, underlying. Can you talk about when we should start to see those dollars flow and just your positioning, you know, on the West Coast, you know?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I like our position there. They are undergrounding quite a bit. You know, there's some program management in there that's kind of we're looking at. The amount of undergrounding, we talked about.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

The dollars are staggering.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

They're staggering, and they're gonna grow. In the West, the issue is it makes sense now to underground because of all the, you know, uninsurability, all the things that are happening to the West on strife, human life, with fire, that it makes tons of sense to underground lots of areas. I think it'll only grow. That program will only grow. It's starting now. The West, it just takes a long time to get things moving. All the clients, at least two of them, are going through undergrounding processes now. We've, you know, quite heavily, we work in the West quite a bit, and I like how we look there. I think we'll be able to deliver economically as well as, you know, give the client the solution they're asking for.

It's, you know, every year it ramps. I think it doubles next year plus plus. There's opportunity, opportunity. We just need to deliver.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Are customers looking to, you know, as they think about the spend getting let go and how they're gonna approach the contractors, is it more, "I wanna choose Quanta as the provider of choice, and this is how, you know, I'm spending this in CapEx over the next couple of years, I wanna rely on one person"? Or is it going to be more one-off? You know what I mean? Like, you know, awards.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Both.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Both?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I think you'll see both of those models. The models will always fluctuate, sometimes they'll lessen. One Utility will wanna hear the choice, and one will say, "Okay, well, you're not." Then they'll five, you know, five months later, you are. I just think our ability to self-perform and our ability, our construction led, the way that we think about craft and what's necessary to actually put things in the ground separate us. Eventually, you know, whether it be day one or day 100, we tend to really capture the client, and they understand we know what something costs, when to deliver it on time and on their budgets. It's gonna be necessary out in California.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Then, you know, broadly, as I think about your portfolio, I feel like most of your portfolio has strong secular tailwinds in front of them. The one area that I'd probably disagree is probably Stronghold. You know what I mean? When I think about it, sort of more an industrial-facing business. I mean, would you agree or disagree with me? Do you think you could add to that business or diversify it, so it would be less cyclical over time? I'm just wondering how you think about that business, given everything else is secular, this is cyclical, the margins are cyclical.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I think we do.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Does it become too small as a percent of the total portfolio that you're like, Jamie, you're focusing on something that doesn't matter.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

No, look, we look at all of our sectors. We also have a nice high-voltage business that's in the industrial base as well. That or catalyst replacement turnaround business. Record year this year, I still see opportunities next year for that. It's fairly resilient. We don't invest a lot of capital in it. I like what. We haven't made acquisitions or both very small bolt- ons here or there. What we've done with a great management team, we continue to grow it out. You know, obviously other parts of the business are growing faster.

You know, when you think, well, now we're going to import Venezuelan oil into refineries here in the U.S., that we're gonna change heavy oil from Venezuela with a catalyst, that changed in a day.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

We're gonna stay involved in the energy business across the broad spectrum. Obviously, our Renewable business, our Utility Infrastructure business is much greater and. We do look to optimize our portfolio all the time.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Any questions in the audience? No. All right.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I will go back to big pipe and just say, like.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Oh, yeah.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

When we saw the big pipe kind of move up, we quit investing six, seven years ago. We just quit investing in it. But I do think we've had opportunities this year going to projects in Canada that's provided great, earning streams for us. We haven't put investment in it's not degrading earnings there, but it's allowed, you know, us to participate as much as we want in large diameter pipe if it comes back. It's just not a focus.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Yeah. I mean, that's an interesting question because like on big pipe, we didn't really participate in the last cycle.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

I think that was a conscious decision.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

There's a lot of it, you know, and I get it because your stock moved with the price of oil, and it was highly cyclical.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Like how you think about how you wanna be positioned competitively as people talk about hydrogen or carbon capture, you know, and is there if you wanna participate in that market, is there investment that's required from your perspective because we sort of, you know, walked away from the gas pipeline business?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Yeah. I think, you know, if you just... you could look at TransCanada and say, "Well, it's TC Energy. They have a significant amount of power, significant amount of solar wind they're trying to build in portfolio." The same with Enbridge. Big clients, big pipe clients, they're going through energy transit. We're talking to them every day about really becoming the energy solution provider and not worrying about big pipe or something else. We wanna do it all with them. I think that becomes a solution to them versus, "Oh, well, you're just a big pipe person." No, we're helping ourselves and you transition into an energy company. They're all doing that, and I like where we sit. We'll build big pipe. I mean, we're right around the edges on all of it. I...

You know, we're guided $500 million a year. We can stack on top of that. We have a great team. We're just not gonna focus on investing in fleet and all that kind of stuff. We're gonna use our capital in other areas.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Where were we gonna go? Oh, LUMA. Can you just provide an update on LUMA, you know, the performance there relative to expectations, sort of the positive and negatives of the LUMA work? Should we see, like in 2023, do you see additional opportunities to win work in Puerto Rico outside of LUMA?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

So-

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Yeah, go ahead.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Okay. LUMA.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

LUMA.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

look, we're doing great things for the people of the island. We, there was a Category 1, Category 2 hurricane, kind of high Category 1 hurricane, caused $4 billion + damage that we picked up, and, you know, 80% of it was up in less than 10 days, and the rest of it was up in 15 days. I think it's remarkable, 1.4 million customers out, what we did as a company and as LUMA. It doesn't get noticed, it doesn't. You don't hear a lot about it, but the island wasn't out 350 days plus. I we've done great things there. It's.

Yesterday, they signed a supplemental agreement, the governor did, that allows us to take from where we're at in a supplemental agreement once they get out of bankruptcy, then it goes to 15 years, but there's no timeframe on it, so it goes all the way till bankruptcy is done. It really alleviates the pressure of a one-year, two-year, three-year agreement. What we did learn within the storm is we were able to help the island on how to get FEMA funds and understand what was the holdup, the roadblocks, and work with government that I believe will ultimately help the island.

That will progress quicker based upon our conversations now and the ability for people to bid and have workforce there on the island for ultimately the $12 billion-$14 billion worth of capital over the next 10 years or so.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Do you see, you know, additional opportunities like LUMA to provide sort of add to the, you know, longer term earnings visibility or secure earnings visibility given a contract like that? Are you looking at anything else or talking to anyone else?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

LUMA is unique, but I do think there's opportunities that are similar in different ways. Like, we're always looking at things like that as a company to separate. I mean, when we talk about how do you separate by looking at those kind of opportunities. I do think they're out there.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

I wanna focus on margins for Quanta. You know, Electric Power always tends to over earn or do well. Renewables is largely on track, and I've been beating you up on underground and Utility for as long as I can remember, and we're, like, getting to, like, where our margin targets are. When I think about margins for Quanta going forward, is the margin improvement story largely over? As I think about your earnings, it's more and the margins are range bound, and the opportunity to grow earnings is more reliant on the top line.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I think when we look at it, while you're looking at it in segments, and we are giving a lot of them up, there's pieces of the segments, there's things that within there that we can, you know, come up in margin profiles. As a company, we're really working on focusing on in the field, getting operating re-leverage in the field, in the regional structures, in the structures that we have that allows us to perform gas, electric, telecom, solar at one location, and it really drives the profitability of the overall company. While you're looking at it in segments, all boats should rise, the whole every segment should come up a some. Based upon that, even if you're shrinking G&A against, You know, to build.

I just in general, I think utilizations are going up because of the way that we're operating the company. That will bring it all up from my stand. Doesn't necessarily have to be tough on growth. The other opportunities are that the returns on things like we're doing more material purchasing, we're doing more things of that nature for the client, sourcing things that don't require capital. The margins may be, you know, a little less, but the risk is, you know, minimal. It's just us providing solutions. I think that the returns, if you go back into the 2015, 2016 kind of timeframe, our returns, our ROC was like 5 % something. I mean, we're double-digit type ROCs now, and I think those returns will continue.

I know margin's a big piece of that, but also the way we look at cash, the way we look at, you know, capital expenditures as well. Our returns should start to move up as well.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Then, if you could, you know, go a little deeper on, you know, IRA and IIJA and how these stimulus package, you know, position Quanta longer term. I guess, I'm surprised 'cause as I'm at the conference, I'm starting to hear companies say they're starting to see signs of, you know, funding happening already with both of these, you know, relative to other stimulus packages in the U.S. always prove very disappointing. You know what I mean? You know. I'm just wondering, are you seeing it where Quanta will see it first? Sort of why do you think this is different than other stimulus packages that we've had in the United States before?

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Yeah. I can talk about the IRA in general, and then I don't know, Duke, if you wanna add something about the Quanta perspective. The IRA is, maybe not transformative, but it, it really allowed the industry to be able to plan for the long term. It was something that had eluded the renewable industry for decades. Even without that sort of long-term certainty, the renewable industry was growing because the demand was so strong. What the IRA now does is allows financiers, manufacturers, suppliers to have long-term certainty so they can invest with that perspective in mind. I do think that that is what you're starting to see, that you're hearing about, manufacturers finally saying it's worth investing in this country. The IRA supports that type of investment opportunities.

You're seeing developers say, "Okay, this is now my portfolio of wind and solar projects. Some of these projects that may not have been as economical in the past, I'm now able to be able to get higher returns than I thought before." Timing, of course, as I was talking about earlier, is always the issue with renewables. Over that long-term period, that ability to maximize that portfolio has only increased, and I believe that's why you're seeing such a such an added interest from other stimulus packages than in the past. The other thing also, it's not that much different from how the industry's operated for a long time, in the sense that the type of incentive is what the industry is used to.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Production tax credits, it's ITC. The industry understands how to put that to work, and investors as well know how to put that to work. What is new is some of the things that came in around hydrogen, some of the things that have come around on domestic manufacturing. That'll take a little bit of time to work through the system and get projects up and running. For the pure wind and solar, it's full steam ahead, so long as you know, you could get through some of the supply chain issues that we were talking about in third quarter call. You also have to give developers time to absorb what's happening from the guidance perspective that comes out from Treasury. They've gotta analyze it and then start working through it. I think it's very different.

In terms of the last year's, IIJA, I, you know, all these acronyms.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

I know.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Yes, I think that is also a positive trend. I do believe utilities were already moving towards that, you know, the capital spend around renewables and transmission distribution were just continuing to grow. In some ways, that was more just icing on the cake than something transformative. Again, if people are serious about the energy transition, there's a real strong recognition now from utilities as well that they've got to invest and ensure that this happens.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Also, when you think Quanta, the labor, the way that we have our apprentice programs and all the things that we've done, we looked at the early on the IRA and made sure that all of our programs on wind, solar met the guidelines that allow for, you know, the benefits of IRA. We're able today really to have turnkey solution to the client on anything that we've seen so far out of the IRA. I do believe it benefits us in a unique way. All that said, any long-term guidance that we had given earlier in the year, we stand by it, and it was without the IRA.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Yeah.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

It's beneficial-

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

That leads to my next question.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I knew it would.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

which is, you know, the targets that you put out, the what, $8.50 - $9.50, and then if you use capital deployment, $9.50 - $11.00. Again, obviously you're confident, you know. To what degree-- I think the interesting part of your story could be, I think people appreciate the secular growth, but can we use our balance sheet more to so that you could be viewed somewhat more as a compounder?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

You know what I mean? Just sort of like relying on the growth tailwinds ahead. How would you think about that?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Well, I-

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

At some point, I think the risk with your name or at some point people get worried you've grown so much, your revenues are getting bigger. Like, at what point do the law of large numbers start to be an impediment? You know, just to the top line and to the bottom line, because you've grown so much, right?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

I think the company's unique in many ways because we can grow double digits as long as we get all levers of the balance sheet. That's kind of de-risk the floor. The macro trends certainly give us opportunities, yes, on a CAGR basis. If you had a year or a period or a year of non-growth, you would see cash flow come in significantly, then the opportunities to buy stock, use it for M&A, however you wanna use cash, but it's inverse. Anytime you have a flat year, you're gonna have to see cash flow. Or if it goes down a little bit. On a CAGR basis, next year if you're growing, it'll go back out. In general, that's a good way to de-risk the growth on the EPS, Adjusted EPS. There'll be opportunities.

We'll continue to invest in M&A. You know, we kind of think about $400 million a year. We have stock buyback. We try to stay agnostic to the share count. Even if we use it, we're going to try to stay there at a minimum. I just think there's sources and uses of cash. There's tons of opportunity for us in the spaces that we see, and we'll deploy it in an opportunistic way that benefits the stakeholder.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Jayshree, could you just provide an update on sort of cash flow? I know there were a couple of contracts that were weighing down cash flow in 2022. You know, any insights into when we should see, you know, that moving, you know, in your favor? Any opportunities longer. I understand the cyclicality of your cash based on if you're growing your business.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Mm-hmm.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

you know, not growing your business, but are there any sort of internal things that you can do to improve, like structural things you can do to improve the free cash flow of your business over the longer term?

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Yeah. Hitting the Canadian project.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Yeah.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Yeah, I mean, I, we are working through that. As we said in the call, that this is typical for the types of projects that we're doing in Canada. It will take time to work through it because construction is still continuing. The way it operates in Canada is you need to get through that. We believe by towards the end of next year, early 2024, we'll see that position really move in the right direction. As far as cash flow, yes, absolutely. I do think it's important to stress it, that growth does impact our free cash flow, especially in our legacy business.

In 2022, we saw that $1 billion of additional growth in our legacy business cost about $100 million worth of free cash flow pressure.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

I don't wanna... I agree that we've talked about it, but it is an important statistic in our business, just given our self-performance model. You will see growth continuing to pressure that. Blattner, of course, the opposite. Blattner didn't have a growth year this year, and that also pressured our free cash flow conversion. However, as Blattner will continue to grow, and especially given the forecast we're thinking over the next several years, that cash flow will come in, and you'll see our free cash flow conversion improve. In terms of what are we doing internally? Of course, we're always gonna try to work on improving our free cash flow.

We're not just sitting back and saying, "Okay, this is what we can do." You know, we're looking at how to be more efficient with our capital, CapEx. We look at, you know, our contract terms and trying to make sure that we are continuing to push our customers and improving our DSOs. All those things we'll keep working on. Again, it is important that you realize what the backdrop is. You still are in a, in an industry where our customer base, as well as our self-performance model, will create some pressure on that.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Then the last 20 seconds, Duke or Jayshree, one of the pushbacks I get on your stock is it's worked, you've re-rated, you know what I mean? Like, what's left from here? Like, what do you think investors underappreciate about your stock or do you think the market, you know, appropriately is valuing you?

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

No, I mean, I think for us, we see long-term trends. We're able to grow our Adjusted EPS at double- digits plus plus. Using all levers of the balance sheet, I just see a very resilient company against big trends. If you think about the solutions around wind, solar, renewables, batteries, battery penetration, you know, where we sit in that funnel and providing that solution is much greater than where we're at today. I think, you know, we continue to believe that not only are we doing well now, but the future is, like, I'm unwilling to tell you what the top line is, because I do believe we have the opportunity to grow much, much larger than we are today.

Jamie Cook
Managing Director of Equity Research, Credit Suisse

Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming to the conference and continuing to support the Credit Suisse Industrials Conference. Great job.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Thanks.

Jayshree Desai
CFO, Quanta Services

Thank you for having us.

Duke Austin
President and CEO, Quanta Services

Thank you.

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