Carey Smith
Analyst · Truist Securities
Thank you, Dave. I want to welcome everyone to Persons' Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. At the outset, let me say how excited I am to be in the role of Parsons CEO. It's an honor and privilege to lead a business that has two complementary segments with increasing demand. We're in all the right markets with all the right capabilities across both our Critical Infrastructure and Federal Solutions segments. I also want to take this opportunity to again thank our Executive Chairman, Chuck Harrington, for his leadership as our CEO for the past 13 years. Given my new role as the CEO of Parsons, I thought it would be helpful to start with my assessment of the business as well as some thoughts on what's going well and areas we are focused on improving. As you will hear throughout today's call, our immediate priorities are to deliver our customers' critical missions, drive organic growth and complete legacy Critical Infrastructure programs. In Federal Solutions, we are well positioned in attractive, high-growth markets where our capabilities are closely aligned to our customers' highest national security priorities. We have a long and successful M&A track record that's enabled large prime contract wins. We offer differentiated technology-rich solutions focused on near-peer threats. And as a result, we continue to win new work, which, together with our existing base provides a solid foundation for growth. That said, we have experienced procurement and funding delays, and we faced a competitive hiring environment. As I will discuss this morning, our executive leadership team is focused on addressing these issues. Moving to Critical Infrastructure. World-renowned design firm for projects across multiple disciplines, including bridges, dams, roads and highways, smart cities, airports and rail and transit. We have truly differentiated capabilities in environmental remediation, including water and wastewater treatment, mine reclamation and the elimination of emerging contaminants. We also offer unique cyber and resiliency capabilities, which can be coupled with our design expertise to drive critical infrastructure protection, placing us at the intersection of infrastructure and technology. We continue to see increased infrastructure demand throughout the United States, Canada and the Middle East, even without an infrastructure build being in place, which would drive even more funding in the United States have been acted. Finally, oil prices have rebounded, which is helping our Middle East posture. However, we are completing legacy programs that were awarded prior to 2019. As most of you are aware, we made the strategic decision to no longer perform work in particular areas such as prime construction and instead focus on areas such as design and owner's engineering work. As a result, we feel the risk profile of the company has been significantly reduced going forward. With this background, I would like to discuss our second quarter performance in more detail. We achieved excellent record second quarter cash flow of $104 million and record contract awards of $1.7 billion, but our revenue of $879 million was below our expectations. Despite strong 12-month book-to-bill ratios in both segments and key contract wins, we did not generate enough revenue to compensate for the program completions that we faced in the first half of 2021. We are working with our customers to accelerate task order funding across our major contracts, and we're diligently ramping up new contract wins. In Federal Solutions, our ability to drive organic growth is dependent in part on our ability to recruit and retain employees. While we've done a terrific job retaining employees once hired, the hiring environment is very competitive right now, particularly in the technical and cleared space. As part of our strategy to address this, we recently hired a new Chief Human Resources Officer with three decades of federal industry experience and a new Chief Communications Officer, also with an extensive federal background. Recruiting is our top priority, and we're reviewing our strategy to ensure we can continue to attract the talent we need to support our growth. As a result of the procurement and funding delays, a competitive hiring environment and two second quarter reserves, we are lowering our 2021 guidance. As part of the reduction in guidance, we have also changed our assumption on the ability to consolidate sales on our Edmonton program. During the quarter, we did have many significant accomplishments, starting with our record second quarter cash flow. We also achieved record awards for both Parsons in our Federal Solutions segment. We announced a key acquisition that expands our mission-focused technologies and enables us to drive information advantage against near-peer threats while exceeding our strict M&A criteria. Second quarter contract awards were also a record and increased 67% year-over-year to $1.7 billion, which equates to a book-to-bill ratio of 1.9x. This was led by our highest ever book-to-bill ratio of 2.8x in our Federal Solutions segment. Our Critical Infrastructure book-to-bill ratio was also solid at 1.1x. During the second quarter, we won 3 significant contracts for mission-critical work that is driven by the administration's commitment to ensure national security. We were awarded the $2.2 billion TEAMS Next contract by the Missile Defense Agency, the largest contract award in Parsons' history. Under this contract, Parsons will provide engineering, analysis and management support for the development of integrated and layered missile defense systems that defend the United States and allied forces against ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missile threats. We booked the three year base period with $617 million out of the total contract value of $2.2 billion and a total period of performance of seven years. We were awarded a $618 million task order by the General Services Administration for C5ISR, exercises, operations and information services. We will support numerous mission partners, including the intelligence community, Department of Defense and Department of State by providing real-time enhanced awareness that enables warfighter information advantage in their area of responsibility. We won a significant award by leveraging the capabilities from our Polaris Alpha, OGSystems and QRC acquisitions and incorporating our joint-all domain capabilities to create a unique solution that adapts to the pace of the evolving threat. In the second quarter, we booked the first year base period worth approximately $90 million out of the total contract value of $618 million. We were also awarded a task order contract by Space and Missile Systems Center for Integrated Solutions for Situational Awareness or ISSA. In addition to delivering operational, technical and space domain awareness expertise, Parsons will meet critical innovation and agility goals for the ISSA effort by providing unique solutions in astrophysics, intelligence, data analytics and multi-domain operations. This contract has a ceiling value of $185 million and was won by incorporating the capabilities and expertise from our Polaris Alpha acquisition. Under this contract, we booked $148 million in the second quarter. I am very pleased with the significant contract awards in our Federal Solutions business. Award activity has also remained strong in our Critical Infrastructure segment, with second quarter highlights, including the award of the Middle East program management contract for $91 million. We continue to execute on our acquisition strategy of buying mission-focused companies with differentiated technologies. The level of activity in the M&A market remains high, and we see attractive opportunities in our core markets. During the second quarter, we announced the $203 million acquisition of BlackHorse Solutions and subsequently closed on this transaction in early July. This strategic acquisition expands Parsons' customer base and capabilities in next-generation military, intelligence and space operations, specifically cyber, electronic warfare and information dominance. BlackHorse also exceeds our M&A financial criteria with revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margins both exceeding 10%. BlackHorse is a company we have partnered with and has a similar mission-focused culture with a strong reputation in the market. This acquisition enhances our ability to pursue and win large joint-all domain contracts to combat near-peer threats. This quarter, we launched our CARE or Cultivating a Responsible Enterprise initiative, which empowers every employee to make a difference. In conjunction with this initiative, we published our 2021 corporate social responsibility report, which highlights our new ESG initiatives, including reducing absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2025 and enhancing gender, ethnic and racial diversity. In partnership with the Modern Military Association of America, Parsons proudly awarded the inaugural recipient of the 2021 Donna Johnson Military Spouse Scholarship to Jonathan Hegwood, an army veteran. The Modern Military Association of America is dedicated to advancing fairness and equality for the LGBTQ military and veteran community, and we are proud to spur this initiative in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion. In summary, we generated strong free cash flow, achieved record awards, announced the significant acquisition and maintained our balance sheet flexibility. Going forward, we have solidified our base of business with our $2.2 billion TEAMS win. In addition, we have meaningful tailwinds from a significant amount of new business we have won, contracts that are gaining momentum post COVID and on contract growth. We're also accelerating our recruiting and retention initiatives, and we expect to grow in the second half of this year over the first half, and this growth is expected to continue into 2022 and beyond. Our portfolio is differentiated and diversified. Our Federal Solutions portfolio is well aligned with the Biden administration national security priorities for cyber, C5ISR, artificial intelligence, missile defense and space. Our Critical Infrastructure portfolio is consistent with the administration's transportation, environmental remediation and water and wastewater treatment priorities and at goals of enhancing the cybersecurity and resilience for future infrastructure projects. We're excited about the future, given our differentiated position and experience in these growing and enduring markets, and our proven ability to win new work. With that, I'll turn the call over to George to discuss our second quarter financial highlights and 2021 guidance. George?