William George
Analyst · Rich Wesolowski from Sidoti & Company
Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone. So I'm going to take a few minutes and discuss our quarterly results. If you're online and you have access to our slides, you can refer to Slides 2 through 4 as I review our financial results. Revenue this quarter was flat compared to a year ago as we reported $326 million of revenue compared to $327 million in the first quarter of 2012. You may remember that our revenues in the first quarter of 2012 included our fast and large data center project that recognized approximately $20 million of revenue in that quarter. And even without that project this year, we maintained essentially flat revenue levels. As we disclosed at year-end, during the first quarter, we reached an agreement with a general contractor on that large data center job, and the agreement provided for an increase in the contract price. And as a result of that, we received the benefit of about $1.4 million in the first quarter from that settlement. Gross profit was 15.8% for the first quarter of 2013, and that was a strong increase from 13.1% for the first quarter of 2012. As Brian mentioned, we had solid performance for most of our operating companies and improvement in the company in Maryland that has underperformed in the prior year. Despite the relative improvement, we continue, overall, to experience gross profit and operating income margins that reflect the continued challenging market conditions. SG&A expense was $46.5 million for the first quarter of 2013 compared to $46.1 million for the first quarter of 2012. SG&A as a percentage of revenue increased from 14.1% during the first quarter of '12 to 14.3% during the first quarter of '13. This slight quarter-over-quarter dollar increase reflects higher compensation accruals due to improved profitability and slightly higher professional fees as compared to the prior year. Our tax rate for the quarter was 42.6%. The increased tax rate reflects the distribution of operating results between high and low tax jurisdictions. Our net income for the first quarter was $2.5 million or, as Brian said, $0.07 per diluted share, and that compares to a net loss of $1 million or $0.03 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2012. As we always expect, first quarter cash flow was negative, following strong year-end cash collections. Free cash was negative $13 million in the quarter. However, that was an improvement over the negative $21 million we experienced in the first quarter of last year. Overall, we feel good about our cash prospects for the balance of 2013. We repurchased 12,000 shares in the first quarter, a nominal amount. We continue, though, to be open to price-sensitive and opportunistic share repurchases as we move forward. Overall, we remain financially sound and solidly profitable, although our profit levels, overall, continue to reflect weak industry conditions. We are continuing to implement strategies to use our resources to compete, improve and, especially, to grow. That's all I have on financials. Brian?