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MasTec, Inc. (MTZ)

Q1 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, May 12, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Please stand by. We are about to begin. Welcome to MasTec's First Quarter 2015 Earnings Conference Call initially broadcast on May 12, 2015. Let me remind participants that today's call is being recorded. At this time, I would to turn the conference over to Marc Lewis, MasTec's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

J. Marc Lewis - Vice President-Investor Relations

Operator

Thank you, Jessica, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to MasTec's First Quarter Conference Call. The following statement is made pursuant to the Safe Harbor for forward-looking statements pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In these communications, we may make certain statements that are forward-looking such as statements regarding MasTec's future results, plans and anticipated trends in the industries where we operate. These forward-looking statements reflect the company's expectations on the day of the initial broadcast of this conference call, and the company undertakes no obligation to update these expectations based on subsequent events or knowledge. Various risks, uncertainties and assumptions are detailed in our press releases and filings with the SEC. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize or should any of our underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ significantly from results expressed or implied in these communications. In today's remarks by management, we will be discussing continuing operations and adjusted financial metrics as discussed and reconciled in yesterday's press release and supporting schedules. In addition, we may use certain non-GAAP financial measures in this conference call. A reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measure not reconciled in these comments to the most comparable GAAP financial measure can be found in our earnings press release or the Investors and News sections of our website located at mastec.com. As we have previously announced, the independent accounting investigation by the Audit Committee of the company's Board of Directors has delayed the filing of MasTec's 2014 Annual Report on form 10-K, and will also delay the filing of the company's 2015 first quarter 10-Q. The Audit Committee is working diligently to complete the investigation in order to permit the filing of the company's 2014 Form 10-K and first quarter 10-Q as soon as possible. Because…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll go first to Noelle Dilts with Stifel. Noelle C. Dilts - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Hi. Thanks, everyone. Good morning. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Noelle. George L. Pita - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning, Noelle. Noelle C. Dilts - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: I was hoping that just to start off with a pretty broad question, but maybe you could walk us through how you're thinking about 2016 at this point and discuss where you're incrementally more optimistic on the outlook relative to, say, three months ago and where you're a little bit more cautious. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Well, I think we've been optimistic about 2016 for a while. No question that when we think about the oil and gas business, we think 2016 is going to be an absolutely fantastic year. And going forward as well, I think 2016, 2017 and 2018 are all shaping up to be really, really good years, and that's a lot of visibility to be able to say that where we stand today. While we felt great about 2016 three months ago, we're finally seeing it start to take shape. So we feel a lot better. Our confidence level is much higher today for 2016 than it's been. And I only say that because we're seeing contracts materialize and projects materialize, and we've got a good feeling of when jobs are going to start. So there's no question that in that business, we expect significant growth in 2016 versus where we'll be in 2015 and, quite frankly, where we've been in the past. You take into account the opportunities that we have in our fulfillment business, in our wireline business relative to gigabit opportunities, some…

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Tahira Afzal with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning, José and team. George L. Pita - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Good morning. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Tahira.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

José, clearly it seems like – well, hopefully it seems like your backlog opportunities are now ticking up. Potentially, you're seeing a trough on the Communications spending side. So on the revenue side and in terms of the backlog, everything seems to be anniversarying and probably positively inflecting into the second half. I guess my concern is around execution and confidence around you're taking on work from, perhaps, new clients going into new regions. Given the learning curve or the learning lessons we've had there over the last couple of quarters, is there anything on the execution and operations side that you've changed, perhaps, in terms of how your management is incentivized or anything operationally or structurally that's different? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: So my first reaction to your question, Tahira, is I think we understand the issue. We understand the concern. We accept it. We have struggled over the course of the last year with multiple issues. I think some of the issues have been within our control but, quite frankly, I think a lot of the issues have been outside of our control. Maybe we've misread some things. I think in the wireless business, we've obviously been bit a few times in terms of declining revenues. With that said, I think we have now demonstrated operationally that we're able to manage at those levels. And I think that we've demonstrated that with the margins that we were able to deliver in Communications this quarter. I think those margins will continue at those levels, if not even slightly improve from here through the balance of the year. So when we get a good feel for what we've got, I think we can manage well to it. If you look at our Oil and Gas business, which,…

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Again, José, on the wireless side, it seems you can't comment much on what you're doing in terms of with this customer in regards to new technologies. But any more color you can provide on what you're doing? I know there are a lot of fluid new technologies coming out on the wireless side. Would love to get a sense how you are leveraged to that. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Look, I think today on the wireless side of the business, I think we've become a very well-known commodity. I think our size and scale is unmatched in the industry. I think that's very important to carriers. I think we're going to see that play out over the coming year in terms of opportunities that we get with different customers. When we made the WesTower acquisition last year, we talked about it being a diversification play, a geographic diversification play, and we hope that the customer diversification would follow. We think we're making really good inroads relative to that. And I think as time plays out, we're going to see not only nice revenue growth from that business, but really saw a diversification which we think's important.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Got it. Thank you, José. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Tahira.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Dan Mannes with Avondale Partners.

Daniel Mannes - Avondale Partners LLC

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Dan.

Daniel Mannes - Avondale Partners LLC

Analyst

First question on Oil and Gas. Obviously, you have a strong backlog on the quarter, and you have a pretty positive outlook there. Can you talk about any meaningful wins, either in the first quarter or subsequent, and I'm kind of pointing at Lone Star here and the others. And to the extent that and the TexMex's drops aren't in your backlog as of quarter-end, is that partially maybe giving you some of the confidence as it relates to the balance of the year? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Well, we generally don't talk about any project in particular. Obviously, we've talked about these TexMex projects more because they were public. I can tell you that a lot of what we expect to come isn't really being talked about relative to MasTec, so I think it's really new projects that people haven't been focused on. And just to be clear, the two projects that we won that are in the U.S. relative to Mexico are not in backlog. The construction activity for those are not yet in backlog and, over the next quarter or two, they'll be in backlog. Those projects are expected to start in either really early 2016 or potentially could start in late 2015.

Daniel Mannes - Avondale Partners LLC

Analyst

Understood. And then secondarily, can you help me a little bit more with the view for the back three quarters of 2015? Obviously, you've been pretty clear on what happened in the first quarter and especially with the wind drop, but you did take a bit of a hack to the balance of the year. Can you maybe break that up? I mean, we're looking at about a $27 million reduction of EBITDA. I don't know if you can maybe point to where that would be and whether it's electric or wireless, if you can help us out a little bit there. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Sure. So I think in the wireless business, when we look at the revenue guidance that we've now given for 2015, we've moderated our view on wireless. I think the second quarter was a very difficult comp for us. It was a very, very busy quarter last year. I think it was the height of wireless spend that we saw in the industry. It was after Q2 that the market really took a hit, and it dropped significantly in Q3 and Q4 of last year. So I think the second quarter is a tough comp for us. I don't think we're going to see the same level of increases in Q2 that we saw last year, so we're expecting a down year-over-year comparison in Q2. I think from that point on, it begins to normalize a little bit. I think from an oil and gas perspective, it all depends on what starts in the fourth quarter, and I think we've taken a very moderate view relative to that. So I think those are the big drivers. Transmission, we probably reduced our expectations just slightly, although we expect 15%, 20% growth over last year. So that business is still growing but probably moderated our views just a little bit.

Daniel Mannes - Avondale Partners LLC

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Dan.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Jason Wangler with Wunderlich.

Jason A. Wangler - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. I was curious maybe to get some color on your fiber comments. I know it's a little bit tough to talk about, but as you go throughout this year and next year, I mean, are we seeing more, I guess, cities and more infrastructure being built within the ones that we've heard announced, or are you expecting even some more cities to be brought out as that expands? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: I think we're really excited about the fact that everybody's talking about it. I mean, anybody that's involved in that industry is deploying 1 gigabit. There's a lot of people that generally wouldn't be talking about it talking about it. So I think it's just a very active market. I think it's becoming the norm for everyone. So we're seeing a very broad-based push towards gigabit services and fiber services. And I think it's great for the industry.

Jason A. Wangler - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then if I could on, obviously, the buyback and completing that, as we go through the year and expecting to generate some pretty good cash flows, is there an idea to put something else on under that? Would it be to look at paying down some debt or just kind of the thoughts there? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: The challenge for us today is that we are, without having filed our annual results from last year, we're kind of in a closed window right now. So as the company or as management, we're really not allowed to do anything. We bought $100 million of shares at roughly $19 and change. We thought that was great value. We can continue to think that's great value. And if it was up to me, we'd do a lot more of that.

Jason A. Wangler - Wunderlich Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. So let's wait for the next one. Sounds great. Thank you. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Vishal Shah with Deutsche Bank.

Chad Dillard - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. This is Chad on the line for Vishal. Just wanted to get back to your comment about the oil backlog doubling. Can you talk about the composition of the projects, whether you're expecting a number of smaller projects versus larger projects, oil versus gas and does that include any M&A? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: I'll start with the last question first. It does not include M&A. It's a combination of both oil and gas projects. It's going to be driven by larger projects, although there will be a bunch of smaller projects as well. And again, we're very confident in our ability to say that. So we expect a more than doubling, which is going to be very broad-based. So large projects, some smaller projects, geographic mix, customer mix. It's a very, very active market that we're currently in.

Chad Dillard - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

And then just on oil and gas still, can you just talk about the bidding environment? I mean, are you seeing any increased pricing pressure from competition? Are you seeing any cost reduction request from customers? Any color on that will be helpful. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: I think that the people that are involved in these projects, the customers that are involved in these projects, understand the amount of work that's coming, which I think is unprecedented, and they're trying to lock up resources. They're being fair on contract terms. They want to get their projects built on time within their budgets. So I think we're seeing very fair pricing in the market as we would have expected six months ago, or a year ago as we knew these opportunities were coming.

Chad Dillard - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And just one lastly. So would you expect the margin in that backlog, are you expecting it to be higher than where you are right now? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Yes.

Chad Dillard - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

That's it from me. Thank you. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to William Bremer with Maxim Group.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst

Good morning, gentlemen. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Bill.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst

I just want to touch base a little bit on Mexico, the broader picture there longer term. The government recently announced bidding for some oil and gas rights to some land application in areas down there. I know that's way before you guys come in, but can you give us a sense of how you're looking at that market specifically in Mexico? I know right now the projects that you do have are U.S. based, the leading rights at almost the border. But give us a sense of what you're seeing longer term there. And I'm sure that it's not just on the oil and gas side, but it looks as though that many of your segments are quite needed there and have done some work down there in the past. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: I think we're at the beginning of what's going to be an unbelievable run in Mexico. You currently have a number of pipeline projects that are either bidding or going to be bid. So there's probably over a dozen projects of very large scale that are going to be built in Mexico, some through Pemex, some through CFE. We hope to participate. We hope to win. We think we're going to have a very successful Mexican operation that's building pipelines in Mexico. I think those projects will take that business for the next couple of years for sure, all of the projects that are currently announced. I think beyond that, you've got Mexico importing a lot of gas from the U.S. They have massive needs for expanding their pipeline network. You've got the potential for them drilling some of their own resources. So I think we're at the beginning of a very, very long-term significant build-out plan. I think it ties into what they're going to do with transmission. So I think from the electric and energy side, it's a fantastic market. You've got very large players starting to pay attention. We've had a lot of our U.S. customers now starting to – their interest has peaked. We've had a lot of new entrants into the Mexican market. We think it's going to be a fantastic market for a long time. In addition to all that, you obviously have the wireless opportunities. AT&T closed on their acquisitions in Mexico. There's going to be a significant ramp-up in wireless spend, we believe, in Mexico as well. So the Mexican market, in general, is just a market of great potential for MasTec and one that we hope we're going to deliver on over the coming quarters and years.

William Bremer - Maxim Group LLC

Analyst

Okay, José. Thank you. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to John Rogers with D.A. Davidson. John Bergstrom Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Hi. Good morning. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, John. John Bergstrom Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co.: José, I just wanted to follow up on some end market exposure. In the Oil and Gas segment, how much of your work in the quarter on a go-forward basis is upstream versus traditional midstream or interstate pipeline work now? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: I'd still say the majority of our work is related to midstream. John Bergstrom Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Okay. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: (46:28) John Bergstrom Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co.: But when you talk about the lower commodity price, I mean, that's affecting the gathering side of it? Is that what you were trying to say? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Well, we don't really – I mean, the commodity prices are affecting two areas of our business in a more meaningful way. One is the gathering. But quite frankly, we're not that big there, so it's not that big of an impact. John Bergstrom Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co.: Right. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: But two, I think commodity pricing is affecting Canada much more than it's affected the U.S. I think it will subside. I think there's a lot of projects on the board for Canada. I think a lot of the big customers in Canada, a lot of their revenues and financials are associated with the price of oil. So unfortunately, they've been hit harder financially. They've cut their CapEx more aggressively than some of our other customers. So I think we've just seen more of an impact there.…

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Adam Thalhimer with BB&T Capital Markets. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: Hey, good morning, guys. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Good morning, Adam. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: José, where are we right now in terms of demand from AT&T? It just seems like they're kind of spending at unsustainably low levels, and I'm curious. There are some people who think maybe that gets better once they close their DIRECTV deal. Do you have any thoughts on that? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: What we can control is how we manage the business, so the work that we have, and I think we've done a good job with that. So relative to where we are as a business, we're managing to the levels that we see. When we look at the industry in its whole, we think there's going to be a significant increase and an uptick in wireless spending for lots of reasons. Some of it is driven by some of our existing customers, and some of it is driven by new customers. So while we've had to manage through some declining revenue trends here over the course of last year, we do think that turns, and we hope it turns in a big way. And we think we're going to be well positioned for it when it does. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: Okay. And then I wanted to make sure I have this straight. I think you said that in the back half of the year, margins in Communications, up slightly from Q1, and margins in Oil and Gas are, in the back half, going to be at the levels of full year 2014. Did I hear all that right? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: I think in the back half of the year, Oil and Gas margins are going to be close to where they were in the back half of last year, which is slightly better than our full year basis. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: Got it. And then how about Communications? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Communications should be up from where we are today in the first quarter. So they'll be significantly higher than they were in 2014. Adam Robert Thalhimer - BB&T Capital Markets: Okay. Thank you. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Andy Wittmann with Robert W. Baird. Andrew John Wittmann - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to just dig in to the wind project a little bit more, José, and just get your sense on where that one is. It doesn't sound like it's completed yet. But could you give us some color on maybe the percent complete that it is, and what items, if any, that you've changed operationally to get that one back on track? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Yeah. So a couple things. What we did on that project, during the quarter, we realized that the project was going to end up in a loss position. When you have a project that you believe is going to end up in a loss position, you have to take a loss reserve for the balance of the project, which is what we did. A lot of the loss that we've taken on that project is prospective in nature; it hasn't all happened yet. We've got a significant ways to go. As George said, we're going to finish that project in the fall. We've probably got roughly 40% of that project to complete. There's been lot of issues on that project. We've had some local partners that really didn't pan out a lot. There was a large local content required on that project. There's been significant weather issues based on where it was located. We've had a lot of our own issues. So at the end of the day, it's a very troubling project. We decided to highlight the project because it's meaningful enough that to really understand our results, you kind of need to understand what made up the results. So if…

Operator

Operator

We'll take a follow-up question from Noelle Dilts with Stifel. Noelle C. Dilts - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thanks. I just wanted to ask another question on the wind project. This is your first wind project in Canada. Are you anticipating pursuing more of these types of projects in Canada, or was it more of a one-off event? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Probably not. Noelle C. Dilts - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. And then, also, just I think you cited a 20% decline in Canadian revenue this year. Can you talk a little bit about how much of that headwind is coming from FX and then what you're expecting on an organic basis? I think you're comparing against the step year for Pacer in 2014. So can you just give us a better sense of what you're looking at on an organic basis? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Sure. So I'd say that FX represents about half of that, so currency exchange, the balances is reduction in work. If you annualize Pacer's revenue in 2014, it's obviously a much bigger drop. So again, our Canadian business has been hit probably harder than anything else that we've got, but it's a tough year. And a lot of it is customers that have put projects on hold based on their own economic circumstances. So I think a lot of those projects are going to come back, and I think some of them come back as early as 2016. Noelle C. Dilts - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Okay. Thanks. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Noelle.

Operator

Operator

And your last question comes from Alex Rygiel with FBR Capital Markets. Alex J. Rygiel - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Thanks. José. How are you today? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Hey. Good morning, Alex. How are you? Alex J. Rygiel - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: Just one quick question. Can you help us understand why you're not authorizing an additional buyback at this level with your stock trading at $17, $18 and this fairly upbeat outlook that you anticipate in the second half of the year and into 2016? José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Because we haven't filed our 10-K and, thus, we're in a closed period. So until we file our annual, we're not allowed to do another authorization for a stock buyback. Alex J. Rygiel - FBR Capital Markets & Co.: All right. Thank you. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Alex.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude our question-and-answer session. We'll turn the conference back over to José for closing remarks. José Ramón Mas - Chief Executive Officer: Just want to thank everybody for participating today, and we look forward to updating you as the year rolls on and hopefully we can talk a lot more about the opportunities as they materialize. So thank you.

Operator

Operator

And this does conclude today's conference. Thank you for your participation.