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Granite Construction Incorporated (GVA)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 25, 2016

$123.20

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Robert, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Granite Construction Investor Relations fourth quarter 2015 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. And after the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer period. Please note, we will take one question and one follow-up question from each participant. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Granite Construction Director of Investor Relations, Ron Botoff. Sir, the floor is yours.

Ronald Botoff - Director - Investor Relations

Management

Welcome to the Granite Construction, Incorporated fourth quarter and fiscal year 2015 earnings conference call. I'm here today with our President and Chief Executive Officer, Jim Roberts; and our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Laurel Krzeminski. We begin today with an overview of the company's Safe Harbor language. Some of the discussion today may include forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from the statements made today. Please refer to Granite's most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these projections and assumptions. The company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Certain non-GAAP measures may be discussed during the call and from time to time by the company's executives. And please note that a reconciliation of certain non-GAAP measures is included as part of our earnings press release. For more information, visit our Investor Relations website at investor.graniteconstruction.com. Thank you. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Granite Construction, Incorporated Chief Executive Officer, Jim Roberts. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Ron. And good morning, everyone. It is with great pleasure today that I have the privilege to speak with you about our improved performance in the fourth quarter and throughout 2015. It is a great pleasure today that I congratulate and thank Granite teams across the country for delivering improved results in the fourth quarter and throughout 2015. And it is with great pleasure today that I thank Congress for finally doing their job in December and passing the first long-term federal highway bill in the decade, the FAST Act. But before I comment on public funding trends and the requisite opportunities and challenges they present, let's…

Operator

Operator

Our first question is from Mr. Jerry Revich of Goldman Sachs. Brandon Jaffe - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Thanks. This is actually Brandon Jaffe on behalf of Jerry. It's clear that you are positive on the long-term impact to the highway bill, but in the press release, you've made some cautionary comments about the near term. Can you just talk about what concerns you in the context of relatively healthy DoT budgets? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, You bet. My concern always any time any kind of a public spending bill gets passed is how quickly it can be put into place. And if you look at historically what a federal highway bill, it will take time to get that work typically put into play and bid and physically awarded to contractors and then you won't see the physical financial results of it until probably two quarters or three quarters later. So when we give a little cautionary statement about the federal highway bill, it's mostly relative to the timing. And I state that the back half of the year is when we will see some positive results from it. We are already seeing the opportunity with some designs and things coming out to play, but it doesn't hit the financials to later in the year. Brandon Jaffe - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Okay. Thanks. And your Construction backlog is at pretty healthy levels entering 2016 which has usually been positive for the margin profile earlier in the year? How should we be thinking about the margins in that segment for 2016? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I think that you are right. The backlog in Construction is quite a bit from the previous year and it's a…

Operator

Operator

The next questioner will be Michael Dudas of Sterne Agee. Go ahead. Michael S. Dudas - Sterne, Agee & Leach, Inc.: Good morning, gentlemen, Laurel. Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Mike. Michael S. Dudas - Sterne, Agee & Leach, Inc.: Jim, to amplify on your California comment, so is that – obviously it seems like it changed from what your anticipation was second half of last year. Is there an actual frustration or is it just like pushed out timing where some of those moneys can get liberated to hit the street second half of this year and is that part of maybe the cautionary headwind discussion that you put through in your prepared remarks? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, when you mentioned Mike – when you mentioned frustration, the answer is yes and yes. Michael S. Dudas - Sterne, Agee & Leach, Inc.: Okay. Sure. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: So I was very hopeful last year that we had some serious momentum in California with the special session appointed by the Governor that they would act and get something done. And they had real momentum and then it died over the holidays. We are back on and we are moving very heavily in California to get a transportation bill that is somewhere between the Governor's minimal proposal of $3.6 billion up to proposals on the street today that are up to $7 billion annually. It's not a matter of if in California, it's a matter of when. And everybody knows that, it's just as always in politics, timing is very difficult to figure out. But I do…

Operator

Operator

The next questioner is Mike Shlisky of Seaport Global. Please go ahead.

Michael David Shlisky - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Management

Good everybody. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Mike.

Michael David Shlisky - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Management

I wanted to touch first on your (26:53) outlook for perhaps Construction Materials. Do you expect a rapid acceleration there in 2016 or is that also going to wait until perhaps 2017 to see the actual percent get a little higher there? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Well, the Materials business is and I mentioned it also in the script, it's kind of the leading indicator of what's going on in the economy. It kind of hits the first barrage of private sector involvement in the economy, and it's healthy and it's going to stay healthy. Now how fast it improves from where it is today, I think it's going to be very methodical again. I don't see an inflection point yet, because what you need to get an inflection point in the Materials business is both the private sector click in and the public sector click in. I actually think today the private sector has gained more momentum over the last couple of years than the public sector has. But as I mentioned, Mike, when you start running into the end of this year and the public sector starts ticking in with the FAST Act and some of these state individual acts, then I think you're going to start seeing the Materials business move fairly quickly. And we've had years in that Materials business where we've been in the high-teen margins. As you can tell, now we're in the low-teen margins, so there is quite a ways of upward movements still to go, but it's going to take both the private and public sector in line at the same time to get there.

Michael David Shlisky - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Management

Okay, great. I also wanted to ask about your SG&A, Laurel has that, I missed it. But in the fourth quarter, it was the highest it has been in a bunch of years, looking back through history. Can you maybe just give us some more color as to what happened in the fourth quarter? And then secondly maybe like how that might be – how we should look at the 2016 run rate there? I'd appreciate that. Thanks. Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Okay. The biggest driver of the increase in SG&A is personnel-related costs, primarily incentive comps and then the typical normal increase in salaries and burden. As far as how you should look at it, I would say at about the same percentage of revenue as we currently have. Our objective is to grow revenue without growing SG&A a lot. So we want to pull the percentage that we have and begin to work that down as we grow the top line.

Michael David Shlisky - Seaport Global Securities LLC

Management

Great. Thank you so much guys. Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thank you very much, Mike.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Nick Coppola of Thompson Research. Go ahead.

Nicholas Andrew Coppola - Thompson Research Group LLC

Management

Hi, good morning. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Nick. Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning.

Nicholas Andrew Coppola - Thompson Research Group LLC

Management

So first question would be on the Construction segment. The 20% gross margin is obviously quite strong. Can you talk more about the drivers of that improvement, maybe help parse out for us. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, I think that as I mentioned a little bit, Nick, earlier, the private sector's driving that. There's just no doubt about it. The expansion in the commercial markets, the renewable markets, the underground markets with some private clients has really jumped up in the last 12 months. And so that's what's driving the big returns today, and that's what's going to drive the bigger returns down the road. The DoTs and the public sector markets are typically more commodity markets that drive lower GPMs. But I actually think that the private sector's growing nicely and although I wouldn't expect 20% every quarter, as I mentioned you get into the mid-teen margins in construction and you're doing a really nice job. So the Granite teams did a really nice job in 2015. And I also think that our people are just doing a better job in the field. They're executing at a substantially higher level. We've enacted our continuous improvement program. And the people in Granite are just taking the execution issues to heart and they're just operating better than their competitors. And that does make a huge difference in a couple of points here and there in the construction business, and as you can see, when you can move up into a 20% margin, that means you're executing at a high level. The other thing that happened in the West, which is where most of our construction work is, is there was a pretty mild winter through December. We didn't get a lot of rain. We got a lot of rain in January. But on the whole West Coast, we had nice weather, and they got to operate consistently through, say, mid-December, which makes it a nice fourth quarter, so that does help.

Nicholas Andrew Coppola - Thompson Research Group LLC

Management

All right. Well, that's great to see. And then second question here, can you talk more about what you're seeing in the state of Washington, particularly as a result of that 16-year bill that was done there? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. So remember what they did up there last year, they passed a 16-year – or a 10-year $16 billion bill – yeah, 16 and 16, that's right. So it was $1 billion a year. We are seeing releases already. One thing that will happen in a state like Washington, any of the Northern states that have a winter attached to them, what you'll see is a very competitive bidding environment in the first quarter. You'll see lots of work out to bid typically, and you'll see more bidders in the first quarter. So I think it's yet to be determined, Nick, exactly how that $1 billion a year additional program will hit the street, how it will affect the bidding environment, but the Washington market is healthy. It's got a very strong private sector. It's very diversified from the East to the West. The Cascades lie in between. And I think you're going to see that continue to make it healthier, especially when the FAST Act ties in at the same time later on in the year. That's going to be a really nice addition to the Washington program, because as I mentioned before, I see the FAST Act starting to hit the streets in the third and fourth quarter of this year, and then you got the $1 billion a year program on the Wash DoT on top of that. I think you are going to see Washington do some really nice things.

Nicholas Andrew Coppola - Thompson Research Group LLC

Management

Excellent. Thanks for taking my question. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Very good. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Alex Rygiel of FBR. Go ahead. Alex J. Rygiel - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Good morning. And thanks for taking my question. Jim, could you talk a little bit more in depth with regards to the material sales business and where pricing is today relative to the past peak? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, sure, Alex. So the business is – we ought to break it, in Granite, into two components for our Materials business. First of all, the aggregates business, which is much easier to track because you have a very static number of inputs to it. You have aggregates you're extracting from the ground, and you are using a host of different methodologies to crush and make product. Those products have risen in pricing somewhere, I would say, 3% to 5% last year. We see similar type increases this year, maybe more, and it's a nice methodical market, and I like where it's going. I think that could have an inflection point later in the year again, if we start seeing the volume demand from both private and public hitting at the same time. We haven't seen that yet, but we have seen a healthy volume increase, about 10% year-to-year in that end of the market, which is healthy which, has helped the pricing. Now the second part of the business is a very interesting part of the business, and that's the asphalt business. The asphalt business, as you would imagine, is driven heavily by crude pricing which liquid asphalt is a major component of asphalt, and it's the bottom of the barrel out of the refinery. And as those prices dropped tremendously over the last 18 months, so therefore has the pricing for asphalt. The…

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from William Bremer of Maxim Group. Go ahead.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Management

Good morning, gentlemen and Laurel. Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Good morning. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Management

So I want to add on the last couple of questions, Jim. Let's go to the pricing as well as your capacity and help us understand how you are bidding, trying to balance not overextending yourselves near term? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. That's an interesting question because that's what we used to chat about 10 years ago. Do we have a capacity issue, is there some saturation point in your business that you are going to not be able to do any more, and you are going to turn and walk away. And the key ingredient is exactly what you said is that you start optimizing your margin expectations long before you reach a saturation point so that you don't fill yourself up with lower margin work and then lose the opportunities in the higher margin work. I'll tell you with the businesses that we have across the country, we have a huge opportunity to increase the amount of work we do in the Construction Materials segment. We are nowhere near capacity. But it is smart business to watch what goes on in the markets and not reach capacity too quickly, because what we have seen historically is that our competitors are smaller, they have less elasticity in their business, and they tend to fill up faster when the markets improve and then there is a significant change in the pricing and that's that inflection point. So I don't see a capacity issue for Granite today. I think that it is a good business to continually move prices up, find out where that pressure point is. And I think we are going to be working that very hard over the next – in 2016.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Management

Okay. Good color there. Thank you. My follow-up is overall on labor and hiring at this point. Are you seeing labor starting to tweak up here or due to the fallout of the shales, do you feel more in essence that it's contained? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I'll say it's both. You are getting some other industries. There is an influx of workers from the other industries. No doubt, the upstream oil industry has allowed some opportunities for those individuals to move into the construction segment which is good, but of course that's not in all geographic parts of the country. The other thing that we've seen is that when we are on prevailing wage jobs which is a big chunk of our work, we typically are able to get craft workers because the wage rates that we are providing those craft workers is higher than the open shop or non-prevailing wage work in the same geographic market. I would suggest that there is an equal pressure point on talented professionals in the industry. And when you start obtaining large work and you need 30, 40 engineers, different types of capabilities, scheduling, quality, safety, the technical side of the professional business, I think, is going to be actually reach a saturation point before the craft level does. So there is a duplicate of concerns but as long as you are willing to reward those people properly, I think those kind of companies are going to make it through this nice upward pick in the market. But if you are going to stay on the cheap side, you're going to have a problem obtaining and retaining people.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Management

Okay. And one last one if I could just tweak it in. Texas had quite a bit of rainfall mid-November to the end of the year. Was there any impact to the projects that you are doing there? You are doing some material projects there. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, absolutely. Yeah, we are doing some big work in Dallas and it has affected – that's the IH-35 job. It has absolutely affected that job. We've had a big – we had a big wet year at the beginning of last year as well that had a significant negative effect in Texas. Then it dried out. We made huge progress, but I would say that that job – one job there in Dallas itself has been affected by rain over the last 12 months.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Management

Okay. Thank you, Jim. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet.

Operator

Operator

The next questioner will come from Sameer Rathod of Macquarie. Go ahead, sir. Sameer Rathod - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Hi. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I think in the past you guys have talked about a total sales funnel or total work outstanding that you guys see if I recall correctly it was like a $50 billion or $60 billion number. How is that number tracking? I know you've said $15 billion over the next year or so, but how is the total amount of work that you are seeing coming to market changing? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I would say, Sameer – by the way, good to hear from you. I'd say that it's pretty similar to where it's been. It may be not even getting bigger. The overall market size is growing. And the question obviously is when we give you a $60 billion number, those are things that are in our hopper that we are looking at and that we know are out there and that we are tracking. And it could be two or three years down the road before that actually comes into play and there are also times where the owner decides to go a different route, break the project up into smaller projects or they can't get the permits to actually build the work. But I don't see that changing. I actually see the amount of construction work growing. Thinking about the marketplace on construction that's the $75 million and less on the Granite portfolio side, I think that long-term outlook for work is actually growing quite a bit. The other thing that's happening is that we are looking at a more diversified kind of pile of work out there in the…

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Adam Thalhimer of BB&T. Go ahead. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: Good morning. Congrats on a nice Q4. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Thanks, Adam. Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: Thinking about California, for 2016, how much of a headwind does the road budget for 2016? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I wouldn't call it really a huge headwind. I would call a lack of what I would want to see as a huge tailwind. There's plenty of work in California. The private sector is alive and well in California. I'm just frustrated that California can't get – I call it (45:45) and get moving on a very proactive environment where we know that this work has to get done. So California is one of our stronger states right now overall. And the way that we are performing business, the bottom line, the revenue and everything else, it just has another significant notch up that it can go when the politicians do what they are supposed to do. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: Got it. And then I think there was some hope early on with the FAST Act that it could lead to higher spring lettings. Is there still a chance of that? I know you said that maybe the bidding was really too competitive. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, I think there is. Well, no, I think there will be spring lettings. But remember what happens, Adam, a spring letting, let's just say typically you've got more states, you've got a minimum requirement of 30 days to…

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Michael Dudas of Sterne, Agee. Go ahead, sir. Michael S. Dudas - Sterne, Agee & Leach, Inc.: Thanks for the follow-up. Cash flow pretty strong in the quarter, looks like pretty good year. Laurel, remind us about the debt repayment, where that's headed? And the follow-up, Jim, given the outlook that you're presenting and you said in the past about potential acquisitions, how do you feel about that today going into what looks like to be pretty good upturn next few years? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Why don't you hit the cash line first, Laurel? Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Sure. So we have private placement notes that have five years of $40 million of payments, and the first payment was due in December of 2015. We refinanced our credit facility in the fourth quarter in October, and as part of that, we took a portion of it as a term loan, and we used $30 million of that term loan to pay off some of the $40 million and then used cash for the remainder of it. And so, every year, we will – and our plans for 2016 are similar to what we did in 2015. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Right. And then the other thing that happens with that new credit facility, obviously larger than our old credit facility. It ties nicely into the second question, the M&A side, and we certainly are considering expanding the business through acquisition. We are in the market to look and see what's out there. We like, and I mentioned it before, diversifying geographically and in both end market, diversifying into the water market I think is really top on our list, geographically diversifying our vertically integrated business is top on our list. And I think one of the things I've always said that's really important is that, you do not move into the acquisition mode before you are efficient and effective in your core business at all times. And I'm happy to say that I think our teams have done a tremendous job in 2015, becoming more efficient, more effective. And our strategic plan is to grow both organically and through acquisitions. Michael S. Dudas - Sterne, Agee & Leach, Inc.: Thanks, Jim and Laurel. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: You bet. Laurel J. Krzeminski - Chief Financial Officer & Senior Vice President: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Brian Rafn, Morgan Dempsey Capital Management. Go ahead, sir.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Good morning, Jim. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Brian. How you doing?

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Doing good. We talked about $15 billion that you were looking at bidding out. How much of that is really high-end design build? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: The majority of it.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Okay. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I would suggest that when we start looking at large projects work now, Brian, there's very few jobs. Remember, our threshold is $75 million, and most of the jobs today in this environment are way over $75 million. And most of them are design build. I'll give you an example of one that's not, that's actually bidding today, is a job in Hartford, Connecticut, which is a somewhere between $200 million and $400 million tunnel job that is a bid build. So different types of jobs are taking on different contractual outlooks. Tunnels are typically bid build. The other projects we're looking at are almost all design build nowadays, all the big ones.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Okay. When you do joint ventures, you're talking about partnering, is there a priority to being the general, is there a benefit to being the lead? Or is it better to be just partner and diversify? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, okay. So that is a very strong topic of discussion inside Granite as well. And it's a very strategic question, Brian. In fact, it's a really good question, because there's a combination of things that you have to look at when you're – we'll call it yourself a sponsor or a non-sponsor on a joint venture. And when you get into design build, you have to make sure that if you're going to sponsor a job, that you have the personnel to lead the job and that could be up to 40 or 50 people. And I mentioned the engineering staff, and those people that you're going to need to put on a project in order to be the lead player. So you need to have those people available if you're going to lead a $1 billion job and be the sponsor. The second thing that you need to be a sponsor is to make sure that you can handle the cash requirements of a large project. A lot of these projects will start with a cash call and equity infusion, and if you're going to be a 50% or 60% partner, you need to do some very strong cash flow curves on these jobs to determine what kind of cash the company is willing to infuse in the job before you get a distribution. Now, secondarily – so that's part one. Part two is, a lot of times you can obligate yourself to a partner on the premise that if you are a non-sponsor or you're taking a smaller role today, that you promise your partner you're going to take a larger role a year down the road. And because it takes a lot of different requirements from the partners and sometimes there's not an even percentage of effort going into play, you could be a 40% partner and put in 60% of the assets and the resources. So you have to have sometimes sponsor, sometimes non-sponsor. I think you're going to see Granite on jobs $500 million to $600 million and lower typically be the sponsor. And I think that when we get to the larger jobs, we would like to increase the size of projects that we're sponsoring. We're healthy. We're developing a lot of people in the field today, and I mentioned this earlier, in roles so that they can actually run these $1 billion jobs going forward and when they become completed on the jobs they're on and they become available into Granite for future work, I think you're going to see us bidding and sponsoring larger projects going down the road.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Okay. I appreciate that. On the aggregate side, how much of the volume are you guys using internal versus external sales? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's about 60% external, 40% internal.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Okay. Okay. All right. And then you mentioned selectivity and you guys have always talked in the past about having discipline on bid day. The types of – and I don't know if you can quantify it or give some color, what are the types of projects that you've stayed away from? Are there geographic areas, are there specific owners, you don't have to obviously mention names, but what are the types of things that through history that you've decided to avoid? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's really important, Brian. That is such a big deal, especially in the Large Projects business. And I'll tell you what really surfaces in choosing and not choosing a job. Number one, can you get the right team? Are you in the game early? Do you have the right partners? And does that allow you an advantageous position on the project? Secondarily, we look heavily at the contractual documents themselves. How are they set up? Does this owner provide reasonable cash flow? Does this owner have a dispute resolution program that is fair? Are they the judge and jury with the dispute? And also we look at the history of how we've done with these agencies across the country. We dealt with the majority of these bigger agencies across the country and we know how they treat people. The other thing we look at is when we go into a large job, we go okay, who are the competitors on this job and can we be competitive? And if there is somebody that we know has an advantaged position over Granite, then we are not going to spend millions in bidding a job if we really don't think we have a great shot at getting the job. So there is a host of issues that go into consideration and we actually have a complete committee in Granite that's led by our COO and our Head of our Large Projects Group and we have – we look at risk mitigation through our risk department, we have our legal department heavily involved in terms of how the contracts read, we have our business development group in there to look at the partnerships with not only our joint venture partners but our engineering partners. It's a very comprehensive group that looks at all the opportunities and says okay, this one you have a chance for obtaining the work and you have a really good chance at getting the margin that Granite needs in order to come out to back end of the job.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Yeah, okay. I appreciate it. And then several years ago during certainly the trough very difficult times, you talked about more mobility with your crews shifting around, expedite estimators. As you guys build in capacity, as you utilize capacity, as you build up kind of getting back to more normalized margin structures, is there less mobility because there is maybe less scarcity of business or are you still seeing more transfer and more mobility moving all over the country? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. So I think there's two parts to that question, Brian. First of all, I think in Large Projects there is always going to be mobility. Our people have to go to where those specialized large projects are and that's what our people sign up for and they know that, and they're very good at that. Now when you go to the Construction business, when you start seeing the local markets get healthier which they are, then I think you're going to start seeing less mobility of those people because they're going to be in a market where they look out in front of them and see five years, 10 years of growth in the local market, and they know that they can create significant value for the company staying in that local market. The company is happy with it and we let them stay in those local markets. So, two parts to the question. The smaller work is going to be less mobility required due to the strength of local markets today. Large projects will always have mobility.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Okay. And then what – back to the old – yeah, I'm going to go back to legacy, so the old branch term business, which you guys would kind of call Construction today. What is the constitution of that business? Are you seeing some private sector real estate? Is it industrial parks? What – is it city and county highways, what kind of is the bread and butter of kind of that rebuild of that business? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, you nailed it, a lot of it. It is the fact that the – what happens in those local markets and you put a geographic boundary around the local market, Brian, and you say, okay, what's the health of the state, and then you dial into what's the health of the county or the larger next jurisdiction, and then what's the health of the local municipality? What's going on in the private sector and residential? Residential by the way I would say is not something that is driving our business today, but we're snipping opportunities, we are seeing developments starting and I'm going to say starting to be built again. But the commercial market is very strong. But what else we've done over the last five years is diversified into other parts of the business. We're doing a lot of work directly for the larger rail companies today. We are working for water facilities today that we didn't do. We are doing pipeline rehabilitation that we didn't do. We are seeing the renewable energy business that we didn't do. And the other thing that we have actually migrated into and most of it is $75 million or less is in the federal market. We've actually gone to a whole new client. We've got a nice couple of jobs bidding in Guam, are coming up in the next couple of months. So we've diversified our portfolio and that's the strength of the Construction business today that we didn't have five years ago, Brian.

Brian Gary Rafn - Morgan Dempsey Capital Management LLC

Management

Right. I got you. Hey, thanks, Jim. Appreciate it. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay, Brian. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And the final question for today comes from – pardon me. The final question today comes from William Bremer of Maxim Group. Go ahead.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Management

Thank you, gentlemen. Just update on CapEx of 2016 and in particular what type of equipment and what are the lead times for that equipment? Have they increased at all? James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. I think our CapEx is definitely going up. We've been typically in the 2% to 3% of revenue range and we'll stay within that range, but it's sort of migrating towards the upper end as we start building new work. The other thing that happens is and I'll tell you one thing that's changed in our portfolio of capital expenditures is the tunneling industry. So when we go out and sponsor a large project, we now have to go out and buy these very, very intricate tunnel boring machines that can be $20 million each. Now, we typically get paid by the owner very quickly because they understand the cash requirements but that makes a very quick change in the overall volume of capital expenditures and those are quick turn items, so that's not a big deal. I will say this that we've done a complete kind of reboot of our capital expenditure program inside at Granite and we're ordering equipment now in the fall of the previous year for delivery in the spring. And that was something that I commend our COO, Head of our Equipment Department and our local businesses are just planning better now. And so you give a six-month led time, but you've got to be that far in advance of the business.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Management

Got you, Jim. Thank you. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. You bet. There was another question, though, that I better address. So, what happens if Trump gets elected, do we have bridge building abilities? I thought I heard that one in the background, and we've got tremendous bridge building abilities and that's what we do. So, certainly, we are ready for the next elected official to help build bridges and entire infrastructure in the U.S.

Operator

Operator

Okay. This ends our Q&A session for today. I would now like to turn the call back over to our host. James Hildebrand Roberts - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Very good. Well, thank you for your questions today. And thank you again to all the Granite employees for working safely, working hard and living our core values every single day. We look forward to seeing a few of you in San Francisco on Monday, Denver on Tuesday and Chicago in a few weeks from now. And as always, Laurel, Ron and I are available for follow-up if any of you have any questions at all. Thank you. Have a good day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. That concludes today's conference call.