Deanna Hom Lund
Analyst · Noble Financial
Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon. The third quarter financial performance was stronger than we expected due to a favorable mix of revenues, as well as stronger-than-expected demand for certain of our satellite communications and electronic warfare businesses. Our revenues of $276.3 million were up 25.7% sequentially from the second quarter and approximately 10% sequentially from an organic perspective, which excludes the $34.7 million generated by CEI in the third quarter. The organic growth was driven by sequential organic growth in our critical infrastructure business of 20%, as well as sequential growth in our electronic warfare business, our satellite communications business, our Aegis and BMD business and our specialized ground equipment business and our cybersecurity business, which collectively grew an aggregate 10% sequentially from the second quarter. This sequential growth was partially offset by an approximate 2% sequential decrease in our traditional services business and legacy weapon systems reset business. On a year-over-year basis, our revenues increased $69.7 million from $206.6 million in the third quarter of '11 to $276.3 million in 2012. Approximately $59.7 million of this increase was generated by the acquired businesses of CEI, Integral Systems, SecureInfo and the acquired critical infrastructure business. This growth was offset by a reduction of approximately $3.2 million in traditional services revenues that continued to be compressed, as Eric discussed earlier, as well as a reduction of $7.5 million in shipments of our ground equipment business and other legacy weapon systems. As mentioned earlier, we saw stronger-than-expected demand in our satellite communications and electronic warfare business in the third quarter, we believe, partially as a result of additional funding that was available or freed up by our customers in anticipation of the 6-month Continuing Resolution. Our adjusted EBITDA of $34.4 million for the third quarter of 2012 is from continuing operations and excludes M&A expenses of $300,000, stock compensation of $2.3 million and $700,000 of unused office space expense. The EBITDA for the third quarter was up sequentially from $24.3 million in the second quarter, due in part to the strong demand for certain of our businesses mentioned earlier, the favorable mix of revenues in the current quarter and due to the recent CEI acquisition. From an operational segment's perspective, our Government Solutions segment generated $223.5 million in revenues and $30.2 million in adjusted EBITDA or 13.5% adjusted EBITDA margin. This was up sequentially from the second quarter revenues of $175.8 million and $20.6 million in adjusted EBITDA or 11.7% EBITDA margin. Our Public Safety & Security segment financial performance for the third quarter improved sequentially from third quarter -- sorry, second quarter revenues of $44 million and adjusted EBITDA of $3.7 million or an 8.4% EBITDA margin to revenues of $52.8 million and adjusted EBITDA of $4.2 million or 8% adjusted EBITDA margin. Although the operating margin improvement is not what we had originally expected to achieve in the third quarter, due to the revised overall timeline of the integration of the acquired critical infrastructure businesses that we discussed on our prior calls, we are pleased with the overall sequential growth and top line and EBITDA generation. As we continue to complete the integration of the acquired business into our Public Safety business for the balance of 2012 and into early 2013, we expect to continue to see the EBITDA margins expand. However, due to the recent damages caused by Hurricane Sandy in the New York-New Jersey area, which is our largest regional presence for the critical infrastructure business, which accounts for roughly 30% to 35% of the overall segment's business, we expect the continued margin expansion to be delayed until 2013. We believe the financial performance of this region will be impacted through the balance of 2012 as several of the -- our largest customers in the region, which include a large transportation system and critical infrastructure-related security deployments, have been suspended for the foreseeable future. Our gross margins decreased from 28.6% in the third quarter of 2011 to 26.8% in the third quarter of 2012 and were up slightly on a sequential basis from 26.3% in the second quarter of '12 as a result of product mix. Our mix of revenues for the current quarter is 55% products and 45% services, which is the same percentage as the prior year third quarter. On a GAAP basis, net loss for the third quarter was $4.2 million, which included income from discontinued operations of $200,000, $300,000 of acquisition-related expenses, $13 million of expense related to amortization of intangible assets, as well as a $1.3 million tax provision, primarily due to the impact of tax liability in individual states and foreign jurisdictions for which we do not have NOL offsets. We continue to believe it is also meaningful to provide our earnings per share, excluding the amortization expenses, acquisition-related expenses and the excess office accrual expense and reflecting a cash pay income tax. On a pro forma basis, EPS from continuing operations, excluding these items and utilizing an average quarterly cash pay tax provision of approximately $900,000, which is our current estimate of cash taxes for the year straight lined on a quarterly basis, was $0.18 for the quarter. Moving to the balance sheet and liquidity. Our cash balance was $37.6 million at September 30, plus $5.6 million in restricted cash. As a reminder, the cash balance at the end of the second quarter of $145.7 million included the net proceeds of $97 million from the equity offering we completed in May to fund the CEI acquisition, which closed after the second quarter on July 2. For the third quarter of 2012, we generated $25.5 million in cash from operating activities, excluding the payment of $200,000 of acquisition-related expenses. For the first 9 months of 2012, we have generated $38.2 million of cash from operations, excluding the payment of acquisition-related expenses of $3.1 million, and have generated $26.2 million of free cash flow for the first 9 months, excluding the acquisition expenses of $3.1 million and less capital expenditures of $12 million. Cash on hand today is approximately $25 million with 0 drawn on our revolving line of credit, down from the $40 million draw we made to fund the cash portion of the CEI acquisition, which closed on July 2. We currently have a revolving line of credit of $110 million with approximately $13 million of letters of credit outstanding. Our total available liquidity today is approximately $114 million. Our DSOs for the third quarter at a 100 days, down sequentially from 106 days in the second quarter, which is above our target DSOs of approximately 90 days. We continue to expect that as milestone-related contractual-telling terms are met on certain contracts and as we continue our newly implemented, more rigorous billing processes and procedures for the newly acquired critical infrastructure businesses, that we will be able to continue to reduce that overall DSOs and generate additional operating cash flow. As a reminder, a 4-day reduction in DSOs at our current revenue level is equivalent to approximately $10 million in cash flow generation. Although we did reduce our DSOs by 6 days in the third quarter, this cash generation was offset by the working capital required to fund the organic growth in the third quarter. Debt under our outstanding notes at September 30 was $625 million, plus the issuance premium of $19.7 million. Total net debt today, net of the $25 million of unrestricted cash and the issuance premium of $19.7 million, is approximately $606 million. Our contract mix for the third quarter was 71% fixed-priced contracts, 16% cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts and 13% time and material contracts. Revenues generated from contracts with the federal government were approximately 59%, including revenues generated from contracts with the DoD of 56% and 3% with non-DoD federal government agencies. We also generated 6% of our revenues from state and local governments, 21% from commercial customers and 14% from foreign customers. Backlog at quarter end was $1.3 billion with $692 million funded. Moving on to the guidance for the fourth quarter. We are forecasting fourth quarter revenues of $250 million to $270 million or annual revenues of $955 million to $975 million and fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA of $27 million to $32 million or annual adjusted EBITDA of $111 million to $116 million. The guidance reflects the estimated impact of Hurricane Sandy on our critical infrastructure business, as well as the estimated impact of the Continuing Resolution and, specifically, the impact of delays impacting previously expected shipments of ground equipment in our Gichner business, which are now expected to occur in 2013 rather than in the fourth quarter. We expect the amortization expense to be approximately $44 million for 2012 with $11.6 million in Q4. We are also updating our pro forma EPS for 2012 with an estimated weighted average shares outstanding for the year of 47 million, which reflects the equity offering of 20 million shares to fund the CEI acquisition on a weighted-average basis and excluding amortization, acquisition expenses, excess office space expense and using an estimated cash pay tax provision of approximately $3.6 million, which are now estimated to be $0.45 to $0.55. Using a full statutory 40% tax rate, excluding amortization expense and acquisition expenses, we estimate pro forma EPS to be in the range of $0.30 to $0.40. In addition, we have updated our free cash flow guidance from continuing operations, excluding acquisition-related expenses after interest payments and capital expenditures, of $35 million to $45 million a year. This is derived by the $26 million adjusted free cash flow generated for the first 9 months, excluding the acquisition expenses of $3.1 million, plus our expectation to generate an additional free cash flow for the fourth quarter of $9 million to $19 million after payment of the semiannual interest payment of $32 million for the notes and after estimated capital expenditures of $4 million to $5 million and payment of taxes of approximately $900,000 and the generation of working capital, resulting from the expected reduction of DSOs, of approximately $19 million to $25 million, which reflects an approximate additional reduction of 7 to 12 days on our DSOs. I will now turn the call back over to Eric.