John Hewitt
Analyst · Sidoti. Your line is open
Thank you, Kellie. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As we have referenced on our prior earnings calls and in countless conversations, our corporate values and sense of purpose is at the heart of everything we do at Matrix and influences our thinking about the company’s long-term strategy. The issue of purpose for Matrix Service Company is the one that we had given a lot of thought to. Our purpose is to deliver a brighter future, improved quality of life and create a long-term value for our people, business partners, shareholders and communities. This focus is integrated in our strategy and the commitments we make every day. Fulfilling our purpose requires that we also achieve a consistent level of performance, which allows us to invest in our people and our business, deliver on our commitments, and brand promise and achieve sustainable, long-term value for our stakeholders. This quarter’s call will address the key decisions made to ensure we are able to do so. Turning now to our business discussion. Our second quarter results were decidedly mixed as market challenges, and performance issues and select parts of our business overshadowed strong performance elsewhere. As a result, we have made strategic organizational decisions that we believe are necessary to better position the company for success in the end markets with the greatest potential for long term growth. I'll discuss these decisions further, as I comment on each segment. Underpinning these decisions is a strong balance sheet and liquidity which will allow us to execute our strategy for improved performance and growth. Specifically, in the storage solution segment, our project performance and execution has been exceptional, creating earnings greater than planned, and our opportunity pipeline continues to be strong. While the book-to-bill for the second quarter may not numerically support this, subsequent bookings in January, verbal awards and contract discussions along with a strong near-term proposal outflow would indicate otherwise. For example, in January, we announced the formal selection of Matrix Service Company as a EPC contractor for Eagle LNG’s, midscale LNG export facility in Jacksonville, Florida. Eagle LNG is investing over $500 million to bring this project to fruition. The EPC contract represents a significant portion of this investment. However, it is not in our reported key to backlog. The facility level production capacity of approximately 1.65 million LNG gallons per day, with 12 million gallons of storage plus marine terminal and truck loading capabilities. This facility is the most recent example of our position as a leader in the small-to-midscale LNG Terminal Market. Overall, the outlook for this segment remains very strong, with the potential value of LNG and NGL storage and terminal work to Matrix over the next 12 months to exceed 2 billion. Our oil, gas and chemical segment performed at a high level with strong direct margins, but a soft turnaround season for our principal clients reduced our overall volumes, leaving construction overhead costs under absorbed. Specifically, turnaround activities in the quarter was smaller in scope than previous periods and our principal clients are off cycle for heavy turnarounds, both of which resulted in lower volume. We expect turnaround volumes to improve in the back half of the calendar year. We're also involved in other activity in the oil, gas and chemical space. For example, our construction teams are executing the installation of the previously announced first-ever alkylation unit in the U.S. designed to use ionic liquids, at Chevron's Salt Lake City refinery. This unit will replace an existing HF alkylation unit to produce high-octane, cleaner burning fuels using a more environmentally friendly process. In the Midstream Gas processing space, it is anticipated that the industry requires another 1.2 billion in new gas processing facilities to kick off in the next 12 months. Our EPC service offering is gaining strong brand awareness and the opportunities available to us is growing. We expect this work will add solid, incremental value to this segment, and our business. The operating results for the industrial segment were also strong in the quarter, as we reach mechanical completion of a major capital construction project for U.S. Steel. That said, rapidly changing market dynamics in the iron and steel industry, which comprises the majority of the revenue for this segment have also resulted in a strategic decision to reduce our reliance on this end market. We did not come to this decision lightly, but chose this path for the following reasons. We previously communicated, that we saw a softening in the market in the second half of the year. This downturn is looking more significant than previously expected, given the commodity price environment. Contributing factors are trade and global economic issues, as well as supply and demand imbalances, all of which have resulted in these producers looking to alternative business models, shuttering facilities, [Indiscernible] and minimizing maintenance and capital spending. This combined with the fact that there are very few integrated iron and steel producers left presents a level of client concentration, and a business risk, that is no longer aligned with our long-term growth strategy or financial targets. Finally, as communicated on previous calls, over the past two years, we've being executing a major capital project for U.S. steel led joint venture called PROTEC that was scheduled to be complete at the end of our fiscal second quarter. We formally achieved mechanical completion of late November and moved our construction team off site in late December. With this project complete, future earnings for this part of our business were expected to decline. That decline, as I said earlier, has been exasperated by the other market dynamics just discussed. Our strategic decision to reduce our focus on this end market, while best for the enterprise long term material impacts our industrial segment revenue, as well as related construction overhead cost recovery and margin. It also required us to take a non-cash impairment charge in the quarter. We are working to reorganize the operations to reflect the revised focus on this market, as well as monetize the associated business assets that no longer fit that strategy. Turning now to our electrical infrastructure segment, results in the quarter continue to be disappointing despite the fact that Matrix has enjoyed a long history of profitable performance as a contractor of choice in the northeast. As you may recall, we made a shift three years, three years ago away from full, EPC project generation construction projects to one that focuses on smaller package work, such as centerline erection, mechanical or electric service to other EPC contractors or generation owners. That shift has been highly successful for us and there's an underlying strength in this segment. The balance of the revenue in this session is provided by power delivery services where localized operating issues have negatively impacted results. Access to the right talent pool has also been an impediment to organic expansion of our transmission and distribution services and led to poor project execution and low volumes. All over 50% of this segment is and has been operating at or above our expected performance level albeit with reduced volumes. The impact of the issue just discussed had caused a non-cash impairment in the quarter. After extensive analysis, the company has implemented a performance improvement plan for this portion of the operation, which we are confident will increase revenue volume, gross margins and overall performance as the changes in that plan take hold. We remain confident in the strategic direction of this market, and our ability to achieve our performance expectations, and while also growing our base through strategic acquisitions. There is no question expanding our working in electrical infrastructure segment remains an important part of our long-term strategy. That said, before focusing further on expansion, we want to achieve performance improvement from the corrective actions we have identified and implemented. Despite the challenges in our industrial and electrical infrastructure segments, Matrix Service Company continues to be in a strong position, with very robust opportunities. We remain committed to entering markets are long term infrastructure spending needs, diversified revenue streams, to include markets that are not as commodity price sensitive, and creating a better connection to the growing renewable energy market. We have developed and are implementing that performance improvement plans that includes a reduction of resources, overhead support and capital expenditures as well as organizational changes all of which will result in improved operating performance across the organization. While there will be some restricting cost incurred in the third quarter, and we may see smaller near term topline our performance supports our adjusted strategic focus and is designed to improve our competitive platform to live a higher standard of performance and achieve best, better, bottom-line results. The big picture for our strategic objectives is to improve overall project and business profitability and predictability, attack the gas value chain from mid-stream processing to our core capabilities in speciality vessels and terminals for NGOs and LNG, expand our refining services market share in North America. Moving to chemicals and petrochemicals with a full suite of services and secure more fixed base maintenance operations, run electrical infrastructure to a nationwide footprint for transmission, distribution, substations and storm response will also define our role in renewables, batteries and digital technology. We will maintain our brand lead position, include tanks and terminals, while further expanding our tank products offering and finally, we will deploy our storage and terminal capabilities internationally into the Caribbean, Mexico and South America. While we are operating the business at a lower revenue run rate Matrix will be leaner, and a more focused company. Our business today is anchored by our storage solutions segment, where we are a leader in EPC and fabrication of above ground storage tanks, speciality vessels and terminals. Our oil, gas and chemical business plays a great foundation for process industry growth, and we are intently focused on fixing issues that have plagued our electrical segments but are confident that we will be able to do so. Matrix continues to maintain a strong balance sheet and liquidity position, which reflects the company's financial stability and ability to execute our business plan. I'll now turn the call over to Kevin.