James H. Roberts
Analyst · Thompson Research
Thank you, Ron and good morning everyone. Before Laurel discusses our financial results and our initial 2015 outlook, today I begin by congratulating Granite teams from coast to coast, as 2014 was the safest year in our company’s history. This is a continuation of more than a decade long trend of safety improvement for Granite. We are far from finished. We continue to raise the bar in this area, always targeting an ultimate goal of zero injuries. It is this commitment that helped drive operational and financial improvement over the last 12 months. And it is this commitment that gives me confidence that operational efficiency and execution continue to gain momentum now in 2015. I also want to take just a moment to recognize Patrick Kenny, who will be retiring as Kenny Constructions Group Manager. Thank you, Patrick, for your four plus decade of service and leadership at Granite, at Kenny and in the construction industry. Last November I explained that fourth quarter results would be dependent on four factors. Project execution is the first item that we talked about last quarter. And we were pleased to see improved operating trend drive continued margin growth across the company. Excluding the impact of 2013’s restructuring charges, profit margin performance in the fourth quarter of 2014 translated into a net income increase of more than $14 million year-over-year, with 2014 annual net income improving more than $ 30 million as compared to last year. Maintaining momentum on improved project execution is a critical focus area for us as we work to execute our nearly $3 billion of backlog. Continuous improvement investment continues to drive change, uncovering opportunities and is now beginning to deliver results. Our emphasis on the process is helping us be better and more efficient in what we do every single day. The second key factor was large projects profit recognition and job progression. This remains a constant focus for us. As expected in the fourth quarter we recognized profit on the IH-35E project in Texas, phase II of the US 36 project in Colorado and the I-40/440 project in North Carolina. While the profit performance validates the expectations we have both at the beginning and end of the year job progression, particularly driven by award delays and weather was slower than anticipated overall in the quarter and in the year. Weather was the third factor I discussed. On the back of record drought and excellent construction conditions across California in most of 2014 the rain began within days of our November call. And instead of upside opportunity it created significant revenue headwind in the fourth quarter. This revenue and the related profits were not lost but instead now have been shifted to 2015. Weather to-date in 2015 across much of the west has been better than last year. However the extreme winter weather that has blanketed many of you in the Northeast, southeast and Midwest has impacted progress on some our work. While climate conditions certainly create through cost headwinds we are focused on recapturing as much of this missed opportunity as early as possible in 2015. The final fourth quarter results driver I talked about in November was our large amount of unresolved claims and changed orders. Importantly while we made progress in the fourth quarter in this area the majority of near term opportunities remain unresolved. We are working diligently to resolve the remainder of these significant outstanding issues as early as possible in 2015. We are ratcheting up our focus in this area to ensure Granite and its shareholders are properly paid for the work we are requested to perform. We will continue to focus on maximizing recovery on these projects. Among our larger list we had five large unresolved disputes entering the fourth quarter and we resolved one of these items in the fourth quarter. Our expectations for recovery on the remaining disputes have not changed. So despite the negative top and bottom line fourth quarter impact we are encouraged that this is a significant area of revenue and profit opportunity for the company in 2015. Before I transition to the topic of Federal Transportation funding I want to spend just a few minutes highlighting the overall market outlook and competitive environment across some of our businesses. I start with our Federal Division, where we welcome a solid industry veteran, Mathew Tyler to lead the team. We are pleased to add Matt’s broad understanding of federal customers and the strategies necessary to grow this area of our business. We are deeply committed to invest in and grow our work platform with the federal government. Improvement in the Construction Materials segment continued in the fourth quarter, but at a slower pace than we hoped, mostly driven by poor weather. Importantly our emphasis on efficiency and cost management coupled with pricing improvements was a key driver of improved segment performance in 2014. Improved efficiency and pricing also are expected to drive further margin improvement in 2015. But without the expected demand acceleration that could be driven by improved federal funding it will continue to take some time before we achieve targeted mid-teen margins in this area. Performance by our tunnel division improved significantly in 2014, helping to drive strong year-over-year profit gains in the large project construction segment. The teams executed well on both the Torono [ph] and Columbus Ohio projects driving improved top and bottom line results compared to last year. And the tunnel division remains an area of significant opportunity for us as 2014 bidding delays have added to the already healthy list of tunnel bidding opportunities in 2015. In Power the transmission and distribution market remains robust, as does the related civil and construction market in power. With December and January project wins totaling more than $30 million our power division has gotten off to a very strong start in 2015. [indiscernible] continues to be an important driver in this area. Strong execution of construction management and materials management projects with a growing loss [ph] to industry leading utility customers and construction partners is helping the power team to quickly build a national reputation. And we are keeping our foot on the pedal as we expect to bid on more than a $1 billion of transmission and distribution related projects in 2015. In terms of project award progress we had a couple of modest delays. We were about one quarter later than anticipated when we received our notice to proceed on the I-4 Ultimate project in Florida in early February. And while we expect to quickly ramp up activity later this spring on the Pennsylvania Rapid Bridge Replacement project, instead of our original fourth quarter expectation the project now is expected to enter backlog late in the first quarter or early in the second quarter when we get final financial close and the notice to proceed. The market for large projects remains robust. Over the past few years we have maintained a steady growing roughly two year roster of bidding opportunities, primarily transportation projects with partners tolling between $15 billion to 20 billion. Our portion typically has ranged from 35% to nearly half of the potential backlog in revenue. To that end we currently have Team A [ph] agreements to bid on more than $19 billion of large projects over the next couple of years with our percentage of participation in these projects in line with recent history. And we continue to track tens of billions of future projects over the next few years which will certainly add additional projects to our current list of bidding opportunities. We continue to build and prioritize our project pursuit efforts only on the work we feel we have a very strong chance of winning, always with an eye on balancing project risk with solid returns. While our construction business produced solid improvement from last year’s fourth quarter, this business, our largest, remains the one most impacted by the persistent lack of long term funding solutions. Significant incremental top line and bottom line growth in our construction businesses continues to hinge in large part on long term planning and long term funding solutions. Notably a number of unresolved disputes remain outstanding in this business and we expect to capture this top and bottom line benefit in 2015 as well. While improved levels of private market activity and end market diversification continue to drive opportunities but weaker than anticipated pace of public spending remains a headwind. The competitive bidding environment across much of the west remains stable but tight. We are focused on growing construction segment margins this year as a result of both improved execution and pricing. But make no mistake without decisive action last year’s project bidding delays in some western markets quickly could turn into another year of deferred state transportation bidding activity. As I noted last year current patchwork federal highway bill funding covers spending obligations only through this May. Unfortunately this funding serves only to stabilize current projects and select highway and public transportation programs in the procurement phase. Although we believe Congress and the administration will pass a long term highway bill in 2015, we expect numerous starts, stops and detours along the way. We absolutely expect to be a beneficiary of a new highway bill, as I believe we will see a quick infusion of projects that have been postponed due to persistent Congressional uncertainty. A long time highway bill with a modest increase in year one along with index growth will provide the confidence that individual states are looking for to unleash projects that have been waiting now for several years. I am confident that we will have a new bill by the end of this year. On balance and encouragingly we reproduced profit growth across the company in 2014. As we continue to develop, evolve and execute on our strategic plan we expect similar improvement in 2015. So with that I will turn the call over to Laurel to discuss results and share some additional details on our 2015 outlook. Laurel?