Mark Sopp
Analyst · Cowen and Company
Thanks very much, Stu. I'll turn your attention to the earnings presentation that you can find on our website to complement these remarks.
Revenues for the third quarter of fiscal 2014 were $1 -- $1.42 billion, down 15% compared to prior year. On a sequential basis, revenues were down $46 million compared to the second quarter of this year, with the most significant delta being the ongoing adverse effects of contract reductions like the Joint Logistics contract, broad impacts from sequestration and reductions to commercial health revenues.
As you might recall, we took down guidance on our second quarter earnings report on September 4 to reflect our latest views on the business conditions at that time. As a result of our experience in the third quarter, what we now see and how our customers are responding to the budget and market conditions that they face, on December 3, we reduced expectations further for the year. We are now seeing more impacts from sequestration, including cuts in parts of our intelligence business which we previously thought were less vulnerable.
In addition, market conditions for our commercial health business are softer than expected. Uncertainties have been introduced by concerns over the Affordable Care Act rollout, and just last week, another delay was announced for the deadline on Meaningful Use Stage 2 criteria.
While we believe health IT will be a longer-term growth market, we've seen these uncertainties delaying hospital IT investments, such as EHR projects and related enhancements. Our updated guidance reflects these recent developments.
On the profitability side, we had a number of specific items significantly impacting our third quarter results. Operating loss for the third quarter of fiscal 2014 was $7 million, down from operating income of $100 million in the third quarter of last year. The reduction in operating income was primarily attributable to $42 million of bad debt expense for receivables related to the Plainfield and Gradient energy and construction projects, $25 million of planned separation transaction and restructuring expenses, $11 million in IT infrastructure costs to enable our separation, $19 million of intangible asset impairment charges related to our commercial health business and $5 million in legal and regulatory expenses.
Diluted loss per share from continuing operations was $0.11, down from diluted income per share of $0.66 in the third quarter of fiscal 2013, driven by the operating income decline. The diluted share count was 84 million, up 1% from the 83 million in the third quarter of last year.
Moving on to cash flow. Operating cash flow was $48 million and $77 million for the 3 and 9 months ended October 31, respectively. This is below our expectations. In the press release last week, we reduced our cash flow guidance by $175 million, reflecting a reduction from $325 million to the new revised guidance of $150 million. This reduction is primarily due to a projected unfavorable variance in use of working capital, coupled with a reduction in net income as compared to our previous forecast. Specifically, our revised forecast uses $145 million more in working capital versus our previous forecast. Most of this increased use is in receivables.
The bottom end of our EPS guidance range reflects about a $90 million reduction in net income, about $60 million of which is noncash from charges in Q3. Thus, $30 million of the reduction is real cash earnings. $145 million increase in working capital plus the $30 million reduction in lower cash earnings constitutes the $175 million reduction in projected operating cash flow.
Here's why we are seeing the increased uses of working capital. First, as planned, we've shut down our systems during Q3 for about 10 days to enable our separation and to set up the 2 companies. Our recovery and catching-up on the billings is taking some time, and we project that some of the ensuing collections are likely to spill over into next year. Second, we experienced payment delays from some customers due to the confusion over our name change from SAIC to Leidos. We're managing this on a day-to-day basis, but consequently, some collections have shifted out in time.
And third, since the government shutdown in mid-October, we have seen a slower pace in collections from our U.S. government customer. In the current environment, we can't be sure the speed of collections will catch up in the remaining 1.5 months we have left in our fiscal year and have revised our cash flow estimates accordingly. This increased use of working capital is timing related, and we believe it is recoverable next fiscal year or possibly even sooner.
Let me reframe fiscal '14 under more normal circumstances. This year's operating cash flow guidance is $150 million, which is depressed by the estimated working capital outflow of $140 million for the full year. Working capital flows should generally be 0 or better in a revenue-down year such as this year. With no changes in working capital, this year's operating cash flow would have been about $290 million.
We've also had a number of discrete cash items this year that are nonrecurring. I'll just name a couple: about $20 million of cash losses related to Plainfield, including the accelerated interest that I'll cover in a moment; and $10 million in after-tax costs related to the separation. All of that would net to about $320 million, more indicative of normal cash flows.
Despite the issues we've seen this year, our business model still has strong cash flow dynamics. We have low capital intensity, with capital expenditures normally at or below 1% of revenues. We have no material pension obligations. And finally, Plainfield and Gradient are the last projects where we are involved in the financing. We've seized that activity well over a year ago. Based on our current capital structure, future operating cash flows should generally run 1.2 to 1.3x net income, plus or minus working capital changes or special items like asset sales.
Now let me move over to some of the details on our operating segments performance in the third quarter. Health and Engineering revenues decreased $100 million or 20% year-over-year, primarily due to declining commercial health and in engineering services. We also experienced decreased unit deliveries and related maintenance of our nonintrusive inspection engineering products. Health and Engineering operating loss was $30 million for the quarter, driven by bad debt expense of a total of $43 million and an intangible impairment of $19 million.
National Security Solutions revenues decreased $152 million or 13% year-over-year with an associated decrease in operating income of $12 million. The corporate operating segment had a loss of $42 million, which included planned separation transaction restructuring expenses of $25 million, $11 million to set up IT infrastructures of the 2 new companies and the remainder being normal un-allocable corporate costs.
Now let's shift gears to Plainfield for a couple of updates. In early October, we made the decision to proceed with a consensual foreclosure after the developer failed to meet its obligations in late September. We then commissioned the valuation study to determine the fair market value of the asset. At the same time, we had some cost overruns on the project and incremental closing costs related to the foreclosure. The value of the receivable adjusted for these additional costs was less than the estimated fair market value coming out of the valuation, resulting in the $33 million bad debt expense related to this project in the third quarter.
In taking ownership of the plant, we assumed $150 million of high-interest-rate debt that is due in the first half of next year. The debt includes a make-whole interest provision. We have negotiated an early payment and a discount to the make-whole and as a result, plan to pay that debt off this month, December. This will be a use of cash of about $165 million in December in our fourth quarter, which includes interest otherwise payable next fiscal year.
Although uncertainty has remained, we still believe we will reach substantial completion of the Plainfield plant at December 31 of this year, less than a month from now. We have produced power at the designed level, and we have successfully connected to the grid. We expect to complete the final environmental test this week, which is the last item necessary to demonstrate substantial completion.
Finishing up, as of November 1, the company had $814 million of cash on the balance sheet, significantly above our minimum desired level of $250 million, enabling the capacity to announce the capital deployment authorization today.
With that, I'll turn it back over to John.