Kevin Cavanah
Analyst · Sidoti. Your line is open
Thanks, John. I will start with consolidated results. Revenue was $177 million for the third quarter which is a sequential increase of 10% over the second quarter and a 19% increase over the third quarter of the prior fiscal year. While we are expecting larger capital project awards to accelerate in the next couple of quarters, revenue volumes have increased along with backlog on smaller project activity. The company was just below breakeven from a gross margin perspective as performance was impacted by three issues. First, the competitive environment, the last couple of years has resulted in a temporary reduction in the margin opportunity of awarded work. Second, our revenue volume has not been sufficient to fully recover construction overhead, which negatively impacted gross margins by 400 basis points in the quarter. Third, we incurred increases in forecasted costs on two projects, one in the very competitive environment during the height of the pandemic, one in the Process and Industrial Facilities segment and the other in the Utility and Power Infrastructure segment. These two projects impacted gross margins by over 400 basis points in the third quarter. Consolidated SG&A expenses were in line with expectations at $17 million for the quarter. We also incurred non-cash items that impacted earnings in the quarter. The first item was an impairment charge to goodwill. While we normally perform our annual impairment test during the fourth quarter of each year, during the third quarter, we concluded that goodwill impairment indicators existed. The decline in the price of our stock was a significant indicator as were operating results that have underperformed our forecast during the year. Accordingly, we performed an interim impairment test as of March 31, 2022 and concluded that an impairment of $18.3 million should be recorded. The economic environment the past couple of years has impacted our entire business. And as a result, the charge impacted all three segments. We should be clear here that the impairment charge is not indicative of our view of the future. As John discussed, project awards and our backlog have increased significantly this fiscal year, and we expect that trend to continue as larger capital projects are awarded. We also believe the lower gross margins we have experienced this year will return to our historical range of 10% to 12%, as higher quality work is booked and recovery of critically important construction overheads improving. The second item was a reversal of $1.6 million of restructuring costs due to a favorable settlement on a previously recorded restructuring obligation. The third item relates to income taxes. Our effective tax rate was 0.4% for the quarter as the tax benefit generated in the quarter was largely offset by additional valuation allowances of $7.7 million. Although most of these assets do not expire and the company expects to utilize these federal and state NOLs when we return to profitability, the valuation allowance was required. Utilizing these NOLs as well as previously reserved NOLs will have a positive impact on future earnings by significantly lowering our effective tax rate. As a result, we now expect our effective tax rate to be in the single digits until we utilize the deferred tax assets. For the 3 months ended March 31, 2022, we had an adjusted net loss of $13.4 million and an adjusted loss per share of $0.50. Including the impact of the impairment, tax asset valuation allowance and restructuring costs, the quarterly net loss was $34.9 million, and the loss per share was $1.30. Moving to segment results, revenue from Utility and Power Infrastructure segment was $59 million in the third quarter, which is an increase of 8% over the second quarter. The segment gross margin of negative 0.8% was impacted by the following: first, low volumes led to under recovery of construction overhead costs and impacted gross margins by 380 basis points. Second, we recorded a $2.5 million adjustment to the forecasted outcome of a capital project, which is nearing completion. And third, we are also working through competitively bid projects and projects that were marked down in previous periods and therefore, present lower margin opportunities. Moving to the Process and Industrial Facilities segment, third quarter revenue of $69 million represents a 37% increase over the second quarter and the highest quarterly revenue since the third quarter of fiscal 2020. While the revenue increase primarily relates to improved refinery maintenance activity, year-to-date, we have also booked over $315 million of awards, including a number of capital projects, resulting in a book-to-bill of 1.9x. We expect to see continued revenue growth in the fourth quarter due to these strong project awards. The quarterly segment gross margin was just below breakeven as the segment was negatively impacted by a $4.8 million increase in forecasted costs to complete a midstream gas processing project. The mix of work which was impacted by increased reimbursable maintenance activity also contributed to lower margins. The higher revenue led to improvement in recovery of overhead, but the segment still had some under recovery that impacted margins in excess of 100 basis points. The Storage and Terminal Solutions segment produced $49 million of revenue in the third quarter. Storage revenue volume has been impacted by both delays in construction starts of awarded projects as well as delays in the award of larger projects. We expect the quarterly revenue to improve based on recent awards and our pipeline of opportunities. Awards have produced a quarterly book-to-bill of 1.1 and a year-to-date book-to-bill of 1.2. The segment gross margin was a negative 0.9% in the third quarter due to under recovery of construction overhead costs, which impacted margins almost 740 basis points. In addition, segment gross margin was impacted by competitively bid smaller projects, which represent a lower margin opportunity. Moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow, at the start of the quarter, the company had $93 million of cash, which decreased to $59 million during the quarter. The $34 million decrease was primarily the result of cash invested in working capital to support the mix of work in the quarter, which saw an increase in reimbursable work. The net loss in the quarter adjusted for non-cash items also contributed to cash usage. Regarding liquidity, as of the end of the quarter, the company has not drawn on its revolving credit facility which has a borrowing base of $77 million. We have utilized $24 million for letters of credit, so we have availability of $53 million. Excluding restricted cash of $25 million, our liquidity is $87 million, which is adequate to support our needs. I will now turn the call back to John.