Operator
Operator
Good day and welcome to the KBR's Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded. As a reminder, your lines will be in a listen-only mode for the duration of the call. There will be a question-and-answer session immediately following prepared remarks. You will receive instructions at that time. For opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to Zac Nagle, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir. Zachary A. Nagle - Vice President-Investor Relations & Communications: Good morning and thank you for joining us for KBR's Second Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is also being webcast, and a replay will be available on KBR's website for seven days at kbr.com. The press release announcing KBR's second quarter results is also available on KBR's website. Joining me today are Stuart Bradie, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Brian Ferraioli, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. During today's call, Stuart and Brian will cover KBR's results in more detail and discuss our market outlook by major segment. Please refer to the accompanying presentation that is posted on our website at kbr.com. After our prepared remarks, we'll open the floor for questions. Before turning the call over to Stuart, I would like to remind our audience that today's comments may include forward-looking statements reflecting KBR's views about future events and their potential impact on performance. These matters involve risks and uncertainties that could impact operations and financial results and cause our actual results to differ significantly from our forward-looking statements. These risks are discussed in KBR's second quarter earnings press release, KBR's earnings presentation, KBR's Form 10-K for the period ended December 31, 2014 and KBR's current reports on Form 8-K. You can find all of these documents at kbr.com. Now I'll turn the call over to Stuart. Stuart? Stuart Bradie - President & Chief Executive Officer & Group President-Engineering & Construction: Thank you, Zac, and good morning. Turning to the first slide, we start every meeting, as most of – some of you who have had this before, with a safety moment. Today's no exception. We thought we'd do something a little bit different. Our safety performance that we usually put up as a graph to show how we're traveling. It's still continuing to improve year-on-year with a 27% reduction in our recordable incident rate. But we're trying to really personalize safety and I thought it would be worthwhile sharing this photograph. It's actually the granddaughter of one of our foremen on site and it gave me a heard heart. And the reason we use this imaging is really to make it a very personal thing in terms of looking after yourself and those around you and of course, the most important people in one's life is generally their family. So we're trying to make it very personal and take that key value, not just apply it at the workplace but also take it home. Okay. So moving on, just a quick summary of how the quarter has gone. Significantly improved from last year, underpinned by strong operating performance across the project. The two mega LNG projects continue to perform well and as we reported last time we expect them to continue to be contributors to earnings in 2015 and in 2016. We've announced that we've won the strategically important Johan Sverdrup contract from Statoil and this is the first of a multi-stage development, so we're very excited about being involved in probably the largest project in the foreseeable future in and around the Norwegian and North Sea. Government Services backlog now reflects the value of the full contract term for the PFI contracts in the UK and again, we disclosed last time that we were looking closely at that and trying to be very transparent here, that increases our backlog by $5.4 billion. In terms of sort of the ongoing business backlog, relatively unchanged from Q1 to Q2, which I think in this marketplace is a good performance. The strategy is on track to achieve the targeted margins and cost savings by the year-end 2016, and we've identified now more than and actioned $125 million of those savings, and these'll be, the upside of that is realized through the rest of 2015 and beyond. And we did close on the sale of the Building Group which was identified as non-strategic for new KBR. We also in the quarter were excited about the strategic partnership with Bernard Capital for our industrial services and pipe fabrication businesses and we feel that's set for earnings growth via a 50/50 joint venture and Brown and Root industrial services and will expand our customer base and give us greater geographical reach for maintenance and small construction, small-cap type projects. The pipe fabrication alliance will also provide us, and this is extremely important in these times, particularly in and around the Gulf Coast, access to facilities and with that investment. Both transactions are expected to close by year-end. And just to close on the summary, I think it's important to recognize we've maintained a strong balance sheet through these difficult times, and our cash position is providing flexibility in this challenging market. Now, I'd like to hand over to Brian who will put some more meat on those bones. Brian? Brian K. Ferraioli - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you, Stuart, and good morning. Turning to slide five, if you look at the backlog, it's up significantly, but that includes the $5.4 billion adjustment Stuart referred to in the Government Services for the long-term annuity type contracts we have in the UK under the PFI initiatives that they have. But as he mentioned, backlog, just looking at it without the adjustment and excluding the non-strategic business was flat, was equal to that in the first quarter, which again, is pretty good in some tough markets. The revenues were down a bit quarter-over-quarter, but that primarily led to – or driven by Canadian pipe fabrication and North American fixed price construction projects, which were underway last year, which we had previously announced we were getting out of the fixed price construction work and the Canadian pipe fabrication businesses were running down. And I'm happy to announce that in July, we've shipped the last modules associated with the seven challenging projects that we've had over the last two years or so. Also, the revenues were down slightly as one of the LNG projects is running toward its conclusion, which Stuart says will continue throughout 2015 and into 2016. Gross profit was significantly improved, led by the improved business performance and the reduced operational cost that we've been working on for some time. And again, last year, we had $41 million in charges on those Canadian pipe fabrication contracts and another $19 million loss in our non-strategic business, which is included in all these results here. The overheads are lower and that again reflects the initiatives that we announced back in December. And we did have restructuring charges for the period, primarily severance related costs, but also an asset impairment relating to some land with a building that we are in process of trying to sell. We had this gain on the sale of the Building Group subsidiary of $28 million and the net income and the EPS of $0.43 reflects all of the above. Turning to slide six and looking at the segments, on the revenue side, Technology & Consulting continues to perform very well. They had a little less volume of activity because as last quarter, less proprietary equipment and a reduced level of upstream oil and gas consulting activity. The E&C decline again represents the Canadian pipe fabrication and North American fixed price construction contracts from a year ago, which we are not really having this year, and again, a reduction in some of the LNG activity. Turning to profit, the T&C group had very strong margins, 26%. Again, this reflects the shift of work to more technology from the proprietary equipment and consultancy work, but also reflects the reduction of overhead that we mentioned before. E&C has improved underlying business performance and reduced cost associated with its overhead, but it also had a $15 million correction of an error, which was a favorable correction. This goes back to the spin in 2007 and it's a series of small adjustments to a number of years which added up to about $15 million, so that's reflected in the equity and earnings numbers that you see here. And the earnings also reflect continued progress on one of the – of the second LNG project in Australia. As I mentioned, 2014 had losses which were not repeated and all the Canadian modules, as I said before, have now all been shipped, so our risk profile has reduced significantly. On the Government Services side, they continued to perform very well, primarily in the UK Ministry of Defense projects as well as having reduced overheads. They had $5 million in legal fees associated with a legacy U.S. government LogCAP and RIO contracts. And also, the 2014 results had a one-time $15 million change, a reduction in cost and collection of insurance proceeds on a project that obviously did not reoccur in 2015. The non-strategic businesses continued to perform as planned. They also had some lower overheads, so those provisions that we had taken at year-end are holding. Performance is good and we did have charges in 2014 which, again, did not repeat this year. And finally, we also sold the Building Group, as Stuart mentioned, and that's reflected in the non-strategic EBITDA line. Turning to cash, cash was down a hair for the quarter, $731 million, but still a good cash balance. You see on the slide, there were a number of one-time type events or non-operational type events, the largest of which are funding the lost contracts for which we had previously taken a provision. But you also see there was a payment as part of a settlement with our former parent. We have one more of those to go. And you see the net of these special items was $55 million. We did not buy any shares back during the quarter. The share price performed very well in the second quarter, moving from $15.87 on April 28, which was the day before we filed our Q1 results, and it rose to $19.48 at the end of June, a 23% increase. And even if you compare the share price performance to yesterday's close, the stock is up 9%. We remain committed to a balanced capital allocation policy that we discussed when we rolled out our strategy in December, and as a reminder, that includes investing in our current businesses, adding new businesses and/or technologies and returning capital to our shareholders. As you know, we already pay a dividend and that yields currently 1.9% and we have returned an excess of $1 billion to our shareholders since January of 2007. So with that, I'll turn it back to Stuart and he'll chat a little bit more about the market. Stuart Bradie - President & Chief Executive Officer & Group President-Engineering & Construction: Thanks, Brian. So moving to the next slide, so the market outlook in Technology & Consulting, the technology market opportunities, particularly led by ammonia, refining, and olefins, and particularly in the revamped area remain strong. Opportunities for our VCC technology, which essentially takes heavy hydrocarbons and converts it into lighter fuels, especially diesel for our first commercial plant now in full operation in China and performing well. So there's a significant interest in this technology and so we see that as a good opportunity into the future. In the consulting arena, it's a tough environment, and particularly in upstream E&P, but we are seeing some life in that market in the consulting and the study arena, and looking at that very closely on specific opportunities. And we continue to look for additional opportunities, as we've reported before, to expand our technology portfolio into new products and services. So moving on to E&C, the Q2 developments supporting strategic focus areas. I think again, we set out our stall in December saying we were very, very interested in the Statoil Johan Sverdrup opportunity and obviously we've secured that. Again, we're moving to grow our industrial services and maintenance business and reinvigorate in the Brown & Root brand through this new joint venture and moved into the strategic alliance for pipe fabrication. And the sale of the Building Group, again, announced in December was closed. So I think a good quarter in terms of actually delivering on the promises we made in December. We continued a strong base of large projects and backlog through 2015 and 2016. The two mega-projects you're well aware of; they continue to be significant importance of earnings in 2015 and in 2016. And as we reported last time, favorable resolution of pending change orders could result in 2016 income being comparable to 2015. We have a significant backlog of ammonia/urea refining and oil and gas projects and as Brian reported, and am very happy to report, we shipped the final modules on the Canadian pipe fabrication/module assembly contracts, which reduces our risk in that particular business significantly. And it's actually worth noting that that Canadian pipe fabrication business has rolled into our venture for the pipe fabrication business with Bernhard Capital. Moving on to the next slide; good pipeline of near-term and long-term prospects. It is a difficult market out there, but I think as we set out our stall in December, we're pointing the organization very much at key areas and key markets, particularly around gas and geographies where we feel there are good opportunities and clients continue to spend money. One of those being the Middle East and we've hired and strengthened our management team there by hiring a new President for the Middle East who's well-known in the region and been in and around the region for 20-odd years. His name is J. Ibrahim. Onshore opportunities in the Middle East and Caspian do remain positive. We've formed a joined venture in Azerbaijan with SOCAR, the national oil company. We've been in Azerbaijan for many, many years and been involved in most of the developments, particularly in the offshore side in and around Azerbaijan, so we feel this sort of plays to the national content push and strengthens our position there particularly for brownfield work. Offshore developments continue, some continue anyway, in the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa, and again as I said last time, we're being very careful to try and really understand our clients and which projects have the best opportunity to proceed whether it's through political need or whether the financials even with these oil prices are robust. So we continue to work on the Maersk Culzean job in the UK, North Sea. We see more opportunities with Statoil, not just in Johan Sverdrup, but in other areas, and we've got opportunities across Thailand, Qatar and Indonesia. The BG Global Alliance, I mean the future of that is uncertain I guess beyond the close of the Shell BG deal, but at the moment it's going very well. We've awarded early work on it and that work is ramping up and proceeding well. And as we reported last time, we're, a circa $2 billion ammonia/urea complex in the Midwest is moving to EPC pricing in around the end of the year, December time. Major LNG developments in process supporting backlog growth in 2016 and beyond in addition to obviously the ammonia opportunities. The Shell Global LNG agreement is going very well also with a number of assignments underway. And the Tangguh LNG opportunity in Indonesia, again, as reported, is on track for EPC price submission later this year with award in early 2016. You have seen some of the announcements from – on Magnolia LNG by LNG Limited. They are now moving from, I guess, a four million-ton train solutions to an eight million-ton train solution because of, I guess, good progress and uptick in agreements. They feel confident that that's what they can get. And as a consequence of that, they've asked us to upgrade our study and our EPC pricing for 8 million tons, and that's underway and again, will be concluded on that before year-end. And work is underway on LNG Limited's Bearhead opportunity in Canada. And again, they've reported significant progress on a number of the approvals and permitting associated with that project. And pre-FEED work and tendering ongoing for two major FLNG projects, again, as we reported earlier. So now moving on to Government Services, we've confirmed preferred bidder for the U.K. Ministry of Defense Fixed Wing Training contract, another long-term annuity type project, and as we reported earlier, this award is expect this year. U.K. Army re-basing discussions continue on a sole-sourced basis. Decisions expected, again, within this year. So strong operational performance in the U.K., particularly on the PFI contracts and the sort of long-term facilities maintenance. As we disclosed earlier, our backlog has now been looked at and we've moved that up $5.4 billion higher to represent the true value of those contracts and across the whole of the O&M life span. We have a number of U.K. – sorry – U.S. overseas based operations support opportunities, which we're tendering at the moment, the largest of which is in Kuwait. And the services in Iraq as we support the U.S. military in their fight against ISIS, that continues to ramp up. And also, I'm very happy to report that we continue to make significant progress at successfully closing our U.S. government audits and legacy issues related to LogCAP III and the RIO contracts in Iraq. So we had a good quarter in that arena. So in summary, significantly improved earnings versus 2014, driven by strong operational performance. Our restructuring remains on track to deliver the cost savings of $200 million we announced previously, and we're standing by that number. And again, very good progress and achievement in some areas, a number of areas on our margin objectives. On Technology & Consulting, we're running above that at the moment, but the mix could bring that in line later through the year. E&C, upper single-digits. We're performing at that level and we're moving the Government Services business up towards the low teens as we progress, I think up a percent on last quarter. So continued success in strategically important areas. Johan Sverdrup we've talked about, the alliance for industrial services and pipe fabrication, selling the Buildings Group. We continue with a strong balance sheet, which again, in these difficult times is very prudent and gives us flexibility. A good bookings resulting in relatively unchanged from the Q1 backlog, which again, I think a great performance in this marketplace. Significant progress in closing out the legacy issues associated with LogCAP III and the RIO audits and also in part of closing out one of the major power plants. Expect two major LNG projects to contribute to 2015 and into 2016. EPS guidance now at $1.22 to $1.37, excluding legacy costs. And post-closing, we have shipped the final Canadian modules, and the first of the three EPC power plants is now operational. So again, I think significant de-risking of the business during the quarter. So I'd now like to hand it back to the operator for questions. Thank you.