Carey Smith
Analyst · Jefferies. Please go ahead
Thank you, Dave. Good morning, and welcome to Parson's second quarter 2022 earnings call. Before we review our quarterly results, I want to welcome Matt Ofilos to our call today. As we announced last week, Matt was appointed our Chief Financial Officer effective July 25. Many of you have had the opportunity to meet Matt over the last several months at investor conferences, roadshows, and during conference calls. Since October of last year, Matt has been a valued member of our leadership team and his significant public company experience, financial acumen, and integrity made him a natural selection to service our next CFO. I know you will enjoy working with Matt as much as I have and we look forward to a positive impact he will have on our growth and operations. I also want to thank George Ball, our prior CFO for his numerous contributions to Parsons since taking over as CFO in 2008. His strategic council and thought leadership enabled Parsons to become an industry leader in both the national security and critical infrastructure markets. George has been a great business partner to me and I am thrilled that we will continue to benefit from his insights and expertise as a member of our Board of Directors. I am also pleased to announce the addition of Ellen Lord, the former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment to our Board. As you can imagine, we're thrilled to have an individual with her stature and defense expertise, which will complement George’s infrastructure and federal solutions knowledge. Now, let's turn to our results. We delivered strong second quarter financial results as momentum established over the last year continued. During the quarter, we achieved 9% organic revenue growth, which is our highest since our IPO and we generated adjusted EBITDA and cash flow results in-line with our expectations. We also leveraged our balance sheet to complete our largest acquisition since our IPO. Xator is an important strategic and financially accretive acquisition that diversifies our customer base, broadens and further differentiates our capabilities and increases our addressable market in both the federal solutions and Critical Infrastructure segments. As a result of our strong performance through the first half of 2022 and the Xator acquisition, we are increasing our revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance, which Matt will discuss in a few minutes. During the second quarter, we generated total revenue growth of 15%. Our year-over-year organic revenue growth was 9%, including 11% within our Federal Solutions segment and 8% within our Critical Infrastructure segment. These results reflect the improvements we've made to our business over the last year and were driven by sustained recruiting and retention, growing revenue on existing contracts, driving task orders to large single award contracts, and operating effectively in two well-funded and growing markets. We grew adjusted EBITDA 18% year-over-year and expect to expand margins in the second half of the year. We also generated cash flow from operations of $51 million during the quarter. Our ability to successfully deliver on our customers' missions has allowed us to continue to win large strategic contracts in areas that are aligned with national security and global infrastructure priorities. During the second quarter, we achieved a book-to-bill ratio of 1.0x on an enterprise basis, driven by a 1.3x book-to-bill ratio in our Critical Infrastructure segment, marking the seventh consecutive quarter in which Critical Infrastructure's book-to-bill ratio has exceeded 1.0x. During the second quarter, we were awarded the following notable contracts. A $148 million contract value increase on our program management contract for the Riyadh Metro program, which is the largest metro system development project in the world. A $99 million new contract win by Xator with a classified customer after our acquisition closed on May 31. An $88 million re-compete contract to provide Enterprise Construction Management Services for the Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration. A new contract in Saudi Arabia worth over $75 million related to developing the fast-growing entertainment sector to improve the quality of life as part of the Saudi Vision 2030 program. And a $75 million task order contract by a rail customer for infrastructure projects. We also won prime positions on two multiple-award IDIQ contacts with ceiling values of $10 billion and $95 million. Customers for these contracts are the Defense Health Agency and Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, respectfully. After the second quarter ended, we won two large Middle East contracts with values that are being finalized. We also won prime positions on two additional multiple-award IDIQ contacts. One IDIQ is a classified contract with a $5 billion ceiling value over 10 years to provide offensive cyber operations. The second IDIQ win is for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Assessment, Exercise, and Modeling and Simulation Support contract with a $850 million ceiling over 10 years. Overall, contract award remains healthy and is particularly strong in our Critical Infrastructure segment. Infrastructure spending in the Middle East for projects aligned with Saudi Arabia's objective to diverse their economy remains strong and candidates also investing in their future with multiple provinces accelerating major infrastructure programs. In the United States, infrastructure spending remains healthy and is only at the very beginning stages of an anticipated prolonged increase in spending due to the passage of the infrastructure build in November 2021. Award activity in the Federal Solutions segment has been slower than anticipated over the last few quarters as clients are taking longer to evaluate and award proposals and protests have increased. However, over the next two quarters, we expect several of our large proposals to be adjudicated and we anticipate an increase in overall contract award activity as the United States government obligates appropriated funds. In Federal Solutions, we are fortunate to have won several large single award contracts over the past few years and we're focused on driving new task orders to these existing vehicles, which is resulting in our strong organic revenue growth. We operate in well-funded high priority markets such as cyber, space, critical infrastructure protection, and missile defense, and we believe we will continue to win more than our fair share of contracts. As noted previously, we closed the $388 million Xator acquisition at the end of May. We continue to effectively use our balance sheet to complete financially accretive acquisitions of companies we know well and have revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA margins of 10% or more. Xator expands Parsons presence with the special operations command, intelligence community, and federal civilian customers. Xator also provides new customer access of the Department of State whose budget is expected to grow over 10% from 2020 to 2025. With strong capabilities in security and surveillance systems, biometrics, and counter unmanned aircraft systems, Xator enhances our position in a critical infrastructure, national security, and training solutions markets benefiting both of Parsons business segments. This quarter, we opened the Parsons laboratory for development and integration called PALADIN, where we already showcased Xator’s capabilities and discuss the synergies with the Parsons portfolio to customers and partners. Xator is off to a strong start with its $99 million classified contract win and we are pleased to welcome their more than 900 employees to the Parsons family. From an ESG perspective, Parsons was again recognized as a Top 50 employer by Minority Engineer magazine, where we were honored by the Washington Business Journal as one of the most diverse companies and employers in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. In addition, our Spring Valley Remediation project won the Secretary of Defense Environmental Award for remediation of chemical warfare materiel, and our Dubai Metro Route extension project won the Sustainable Transport Best Consultant Award. Parsons was recognized as one of the top four companies in Engineering News-Record’s 2022 rankings for both Professional Services and Program Management firms. These rankings reflect our overall reputation in these markets and the value we provide in support of our customers' projects. In summary, I am especially encouraged by our progress this quarter and over the past year and optimistic about our future. This quarter, yet again extends our track record and momentum starting since the back half of last year. It is gratifying to see the hard work of our employees and the improvements we've made during our business over the last year having a positive impact on our financial results. We delivered strong results across both of our segments, particularly during a time when the broader market is experiencing volatility and macroeconomic uncertainty. Parsons is well-positioned to take advantage of the growing budgets and opportunities that exist in both our critical infrastructure and national security markets and we expect our progress to continue as we further leverage the technical expertise of our talented employees. With that, I will turn the call over to Matt.