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Quanta Services, Inc. (PWR)

Q4 2007 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 21, 2008

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Quanta Services Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer session and instructions will be given at that time. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this call is being recorded today, Thursday, February 21, 2008. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Kip Rupp. Please go ahead sir. Kip Rupp - DRG&E Investor Relations: Great, thank you Patty and welcome everyone to Quanta Services conference call, to review 2007 fourth quarter and full year results. Before I turn the call over to management, I have the normal housekeeping details to run through. If you'd like to be on the e-mail or fax distribution list to receive future press releases from Quanta, or if you had any additional technical difficulty this morning and did not receive your e-mail or fax, please call our of offices at DRG&E at 713-529-6600. Also if you would like to listen to a replay of today's call, it will available via webcast by going to Quanta's website, at www.quantaservices.com. In addition, there is a telephonic recorded instant replay that will be available for the next seven days, 24 hours a day, that can be accessed as set forth in the press release, by dialing 303-590-3000 and using the pass code 11108953. Please remember that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, February 21, 2008 and therefore you are advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the time of any replay of this call. Also this conference will include forward-looking statements intended to qualify under the Safe Harbor from liability, established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These…

John R. Colson - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Good morning everyone and welcome to Quanta Services fourth quarter and year end 2007 conference call. To start the call this morning, I will provide a general overview of the period, insight on current market conditions and our perspective on the future. My comments will be followed by a review of our electric power and natural gas operations by John Wilson, and review of our telecommunications and cable operations by Ken Trawick. Then James Haddox, our Chief Financial Officer will review the quarter and year-end financial results. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Quanta continued its strong financial and operational performance in the final months of 2007. This year's results include four months of revenue contribution by InfraSource operations. While this contribution is noteworthy, it is equally important to note that we achieved organic revenue growth for the year of 9.4% from the legacy Quanta operations compared to 2006. Total as reported revenue growth for the quarter, including InfraSource in 4Q '07 increased to 50.2%. Revenues for the quarter were approximately $879 million. This compares to $585.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2006. Revenues for 2007 were $2.66 billion compared with $2.1 billion for 2006. During this period of growth, we also accomplished operating income margin enhancements year-over-year. Improving margins has been a priority for Quanta and is reflective of our efforts and success in managing contracts, increasing efficiencies and streamlining our operations. Backlog at year end remained at record levels with approximately 4.7 billion of total backlog and approximately $2.6 billion of backlog for the next 12 months. This strong backlog improves our visibility and reinforces our belief that 2008 will be another strong year for Quanta. Our services are in high demand, as infrastructure spending continues and it continues to be a…

John R. Wilson - President of Electric Power and Gas Division

Analyst

Thank you, John. Good morning everyone. John's excitement about our company's performance in the fourth quarter and full year, as well as his optimism about the future of our company is contagious, and it is based on solid facts and performance. We believe that future presents robust opportunities for Quanta. These opportunities continue to contribute to our growing backlog. 12 month backlog for the electric, power and natural gas operation at December 31, 07 was approximately 1.84 billion. Total backlog for the electric, power and gas operation at December 31, 07 was approximately 3.75 billion. These two statistics represent record levels for these operations. James will discuss comparative backlog in more detail shortly. These are significant achievements and I want to commend our operating units for working hard to meet the growing demand for our services throughout the country and working with our customers to design solutions to meet their evolving and varied infrastructure upgrade requirements. We've made significant progress on several projects that we discussed on last quarter's earning call and many which are focused on upgrading the transmission grid. Earlier this month, the Arrowhead Western transmission line was energized. This is a 220-mile, 345,000-volt line linking Wausau, Wisconsin and Duluth, Minnesota, is one of the nation's largest transmission lines. Under our contract with American Transmission Company, ATC our MJ Electric operating unit provided construction which included structure installation, conductor stringing and other related work. The construction of the line was completed seven months ahead of schedule and the line was energized four months early. ATC stated that the line improves electric system reliability by reducing the strain on Wisconsin's single-transmission connection to the West. The line also increases import and transfer capability into Wisconsin and provides needed support for Wisconsin Public Services' Weston 4 power plant making Central…

Kenneth W. Trawick - President of Telecommunications and Cable Television Division

Analyst

Thank you, John and good morning everyone. I am very pleased to have the opportunity to report this morning that the Telecom and Cable Group had another good year in 2007, finishing strong in the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter of 2007, we had approximately 60% organic revenue growth compared to the fourth quarter of 06 on a pro forma basis. Quanta's legacy Telecom and Cable Group without IFS revenues at the end of the fourth quarter of 06 or the fourth quarter of 07 had approximately 66% internal revenue growth. This strong growth was attributable primarily to additional work by our outside plant operations to support Fiber-to-the-Node or Fiber-to-the-Premises initiatives for service providers such as Verizon and AT&T, combined with the dramatic increase in revenues from our Wireless Division. We would have to go back to the fourth quarter of 2007, defined as a stronger quarter from a revenue perspective and the fourth quarter of 2003 defined high and higher operating margins for the fourth quarter for Quanta's legacy telecom and cable operations. I do want to emphasize that the growth we achieved in the fourth quarter was attributable to an increase in demand for our traditional services, being fulfilled by our legacy operating units which have been part of our organization for years. The aggressiveness with which service providers are expanding their networks in reflected in our operations. We continue to work on installing Verizon's fiber networks in several states across the country. Verizon has reported that it closed 2007 with the addition of 226,000 new wireless TV customers, bringing the total to more than a million. Verizon maintains its expectation to reach 3 million wireless subscribers by the end of 08 and will pass 18 million premises with its fiber network by the end of 2010.…

James H. Haddox - Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Thanks Ken and Good morning everyone. Before I begin my presentation, I want to apologize for the values of numbers I am about to present. We have made an attempt to make our numbers as transparent as possible, but with the large acquisition, emergency revenues, unusual items and unusual items as well as the addition of goodwill amortization during the periods, the numbers can become confusing. Therefore I have sliced and diced the numbers in a number of ways to help the investor better understand our results. Today we announced record revenues of 879 $879 million for the fourth quarter compared to $585.2 million in the prior year's fourth quarter, reflecting growth of approximately 50%. Pro forma for the acquisition of InfraSoruce revenue, revenues in the fourth quarter of 2006 would have been $832.4 million. On a pro forma basis, revenue growth in 4Q '07 was 5.6%. When I refer to pro forma information throughout my discussions, I am referring to data prepared on a combined company basis, taking into account the acquisition of InfraSoruce as has occurred on January 1, 2006 or January 1, 2007 as applicable. This year's fourth quarter revenue included emergency restoration revenues of approximately $56 million compared to approximately $66 million being earned in pro forma revenues in 4Q '06. Excluding emergency restoration revenues from both periods, pro forma revenue growth would have been 7.4% in the fourth quarter of '07. Revenues for fiscal 2007 were also a record $2.66 billion compared to revenues of $2.11 billion for fiscal year 2006, resulting in full year 2007 revenue growth of approximately 26% pro forma for the acquisition of InfraSoruce. Revenues in fiscal year 2007 were $3.277 billion versus $3.102 billion in 2006, representing 5.6% pro forma revenue growth in 2007. Quanta's legacy companies were approximately 9.4%…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions]. And our first question comes from the line Sanjay Shrestha from Lazard Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets

Analyst

Great. Good morning, guys. First of all, congratulations on a great quarter here, and terrific backlog. So, first, couple of quick question, you gave out a lot of details on the number, we are going to go back to transcript on that. But gross margin improved some 200 basis point on a pro forma basis. So, the question is, I know you guys don't disclose the gross margin or the margin profile in your backlog, but is it fair to say that its not the 14% jump in the back... 12-month backlog and 22% jump, but the margin profile of the project in your backlog has also gone up sort of similar to the gains that we've seen here on a year-over-year basis?

James H. Haddox - Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Yeah. I don't know that we could say that they've gone up 200 basis points Sanjay, but they are continuing... the margin and backlog is continuing to steadily increase as we, as old projects fall off and new projects come into backlog.

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets

Analyst

So... great. So, that's then continues despite the macro outlook and things of that nature, that's great. Another point here, you guys talked about two large projects, your decision in the near future. Can you talk about the... how long those projects are going to go forward and sort of the potential magnitude of how big they might be. Or if you don't want to be that precise, at least a sense of north of this size below this, can you just put some parameters around it?

John R. Wilson - President of Electric Power and Gas Division

Analyst

Sanjay, this is John Wilson. Are you talking about the two projects that we have bid?

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets

Analyst

Correct.

John R. Wilson - President of Electric Power and Gas Division

Analyst

Oh I would say one... both are more... approaching $200 million of fees and at this point in time, we really wouldn't want to talk about customers or real locations at this point in time, but combined, you are looking at a pretty significant piece of transmission work that is out there.

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets

Analyst

Completely understand. And also one last question, then guys, so obviously the margins are getting better, backlogs growing and you guys are also intentionally getting out of the lower margin natural gas work, which is a reflective of the revenue growth year-over-year on a pro forma basis in Q4 and it's certainly not a reflection of the underlying strength in your electric power, the telecom side of the market. Just want to clarify that, correct?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

That's absolutely right. And what we're doing to clarify a little bit on the gas business as John indicated is, we're transforming that gas business from a distribution gas business as much as possible into petroleum gas business, where we're building lines for gathering fields and building gas transmission lines and meter insertions and so forth.

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets

Analyst

So then they are becoming a better margin business?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

A better margin, faster growing business than this gas distribution business because the gas distribution business because the gas distribution business of course is affected somewhat by housing starts, but it's a lower margin business in any case.

Sanjay Shrestha - Lazard Capital Markets

Analyst

Perfect, once again congratulations guys.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Curtis Woodworth from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Curtis Woodworth - JP Morgan

Analyst

Yeah. Hi, good morning. Just a few quick questions. First off, on the pro forma growth this quarter for the electric business, you said it was up 5.5%, gas was down 14 and the total was roughly flat and in the first quarter, you're guiding to ex-storm about 13% organic revenue growth. I just wondering what... what is causing the sequential delta there and is it more of the comp issue or the transmission spending?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

There is a number of things there that are involved in the fourth quarter and are fairly complex. First of all, there is storm work in the fourth quarter of '07 than there was in '06. The other is that the legacy companies of Quanta really grew at about 8%, but they were negatively affected by the difficult comparison with the storm work in 2006. 2006 storm work was primarily on the West Coast with higher wages, double time for overtime and it was performed... and this is an important fact, it was performed... storm work was performed over Christmas, a weekend before Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year's eve. So therefore you had a lot more overtime during a very critical period. 2007 storm work was finished before the holiday season and so those holidays and weekends work was not performed, in fact many of the crews knocked off during that period between Christmas and New Year because they just come off of storm work and needed the rest. That really affected the growth in the fourth quarter we think more than anything else. Remember that revenue growth for our legacy group of Electrical was 14% for the year.

Curtis Woodworth - JP Morgan

Analyst

Right, okay. And then in terms of the first quarter guidance of 13% organic, is there a... given that the visibility on the backlog and kind of what you are seeing in terms of spending patterns in utilities and what their operating budgets have looked like for this year, what they are telling you, is there any reason why you don't think you could continue to get a double-digit organic growth this year?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Now we anticipate double-digit organic growth this year with increasing margins.

Curtis Woodworth - JP Morgan

Analyst

And then in terms of transmission part of the business, it feels like from the contract you have announced and potential near term activity, that the bulk of this work is really going to start in 2009, in 2010. I am wondering could you frame for us the amount of transmission work that's in the backlog that you expect to start to monetize this year, post '09 and help us think about kind of the magnitude of benefit going forward.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yeah I don't think we have those statistics available for this call, we are glad to do some research on that, but the amount of for '08 is substantial. I think you are right that '09 will be even more substantial and probably 2010 will be even more substantial. But there is a number of projects we are working on now as Wilson outlined and some that are starting very soon and some are starting in the fourth quarter of '08, but I don't have of the top of my head how many million of dollars that might account for.

Curtis Woodworth - JP Morgan

Analyst

Okay. But it's fair to characterize as that the next... it's going to be sort of step function change in terms of the amount of spending that's going to go on in the industry. '09 is obviously going to be a wake up year, then you think 2010 will expand upon that... because of total work?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

We are trying to say, it's very significant I believe for 2008, but more significant even in 2009 and beyond. We've several projects that we are currently working, others that we are starting for multiple utilities of the caliber what always referred to is mega project. So, '08 is going to be fairly strong in transmission, '09 will be even stronger and then accelerating from there.

Curtis Woodworth - JP Morgan

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

Hi. Good morning and congratulations. Just one other follow-up John Wilson, from your prepared comments, I think you also said you are signing a mega project or something with utility in the next coming days. Could you sort of give a little more color on the potential size and what that project entails? Is it something more like an MoU with Northeast Utility. I am just trying to figure out... get a little more color on that, I guess?

John R. Wilson - President of Electric Power and Gas Division

Analyst

Sure, Jamie. I think I've given you about much colors I can give you at this point in time. We will say that it is a multi-year contract that will span several different large transmission projects, will be covered in that multiple year contract and at this point in time, that's about all I can say, just stay tuned.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

Would it be fair to say not... in addition... I mean as you look at the MoU that you signed with Northeast Utility, I guess not commenting specifically on this one project, are there other utilities that you working with and do you feel like there's more to come on that front and that size of the potential awards could be larger than the MoU with Northeast Utility?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

You know $750 million contracts is pretty significant number, I think it's the largest in history that I am aware of. Their mega projects maybe not quite as large as that, but still very, very significant top projects, Jamie.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

Okay.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

That's not adjusted, so we don't mislead you here. The project he's talking about being awarded in the next couple of days is nowhere near $750 million.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

Okay, but it is fair to say you are in discussions with other utilities that would be similar to the contract you signed with Northeast?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

That's right. There are big projects out there, but none that are eminent of that size.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

Okay.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Anything over $100 million is about all we talk about. Those are very large projects for transmission. There are lot of projects smaller than the $100 million that we don't ever talk about or mention.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

And then you also mentioned that one of the projects that you are... I think with Norwalk, I think you said to the effect that you are finishing that early, would that imply that because you finished early, there could be some sort of performance award related to that and we could see that in the end of '08?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

No, I think he was just indicating that there was a very large project and that timely completion is very important for our customers. And in pointing out that we are completing ahead of time, which is very important to our customers.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

Okay. And then I guess James, just lastly, we are starting to see a nice improvement in the margins before you did the InfraSource acquisition. You always sort of said that nice to 12% operating margin. Can you in the next 12 to 18 months, can you just sort of update where you sort of think we are in that given the potential of cost synergies with InfraSource and the revenue synergies and just the strength of the outlook there, when do we get there and is there reason to believe that we could do better than the 9 to 12% over the long term?

James H. Haddox - Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Jamie, we haven't haven't really changed our guidance on that. I mean we still think that we can get into the 9 to 12%, especially if you exclude amortization, I mean on a EBITA basis. We still maintain that the 9 to 12% margin is a reasonably margin for us to get into. The timing is still difficult to predict as to whether it's going to be in the next 12 months or 18 months or 24 months. But we are making gradual improvements toward that and we feel fairly confident that we will get there based on the margins that we see on jobs that we are currently bidding.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

And then I guess just lastly, John, can you just talk to I think there, can you talk to the projects that you working on right now or potential projects and backlog, is there anything your are concerned as you sort of had time to look through what InfraSource has been working on the stuff that they have in backlog, do you feel comfortable that those projects are tracking according to plan, and there would be no potential cost overruns?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

We have analyzed their legacy backlog and have adjusted our forecast for any discrepancies that we saw or any downturns in those projects. So, that's all built into our forecast. And as far as the 9 to 12% of op income, I think it's safe to say that we'll get the electric power and telecommunication, our core businesses into that range probably in 2008.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

The end of 2008?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

C&I business are more difficult to get into that range and they will drag our overall margins down to certain degree. We should have our electric power and telecom into that 9 to 12% operating income in 2008.

Jamie Cook - Credit Suisse

Analyst

Do you care to say high or low end, in what quarter? All right, congratulations guys.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Tahira Afzal from KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Good morning gentlemen, nice quarter.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thank you.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

I know you hate to talk about storm revenues, but could you give us a bit little color on your guidance and why you've gone with $12 million. You commented earlier that West Coast last year was really good for you. I believe that storm activity seem really strong on the West Coast, so would love to get a bit more color on that.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yeah, the reason we put 12 in is because that's what we... that's approximately what we've done so far. It's impossible to anticipate how much storm work there will be or emergency restoration, I shouldn't always call it, storm work; it's really emergency restoration work. This storms on the West Coast this year have really not caused any significant outages as they did in the fourth quarter of 2006. As James, I think mentioned...

James H. Haddox - Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

The first quarter of 2007 also had some widespread ice storms across the Midwest and we haven't experienced that yet this year, and end point outages were being created, so it's difficult to predict. Same kind of quarter we had in the first quarter of last year, although, it is possible if there's a major ice storm somewhere.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. And then if I look at your first quarter implied margins, if I take your cash EPS of $0.16 and compare it to the first quarter you had last year, kind of imply around as you said 90 to 100 basis points improvement in operating margin. Would that include some of the $20 million in annual synergies for '08 that you have... that you've been projecting?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes. I mean we have started realizing synergies and we will continue to realize those synergies in '08 as far as the 20 million is concerned.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Yes. As we go forward progressively, do we expect that level of synergies to increase, if you compare it on a year-on-year basis?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes, we expect synergies to continue to increase over the next three years, is what our goal is.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Okay great. And I assume you can't really comment any thing beyond the 20 million so far?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I am sorry say that again.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Well, I mean there is a... there is something to discuss on that, that we feel as a synergy, but it's an example of why we can't really... we can't really nail it down because we may have got in the Northeast Utilities job without acquiring InfraSource.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Right.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

On synergy that we like to talk about as a revenue synergy is the fact that after we acquired InfraSource, we obtained the largest contract in history for electric contractors by entering into an exclusive agreement for $750 million of Northeast Utilities. Now would that job have happened without the InfraSource acquisition? May be, but with the InfraSource acquisition, it became more apparent to Northeast Utilities that we were the predominant contractor and that they needed to lock up resources in order to assure that would occur. So, is that a synergy or is that not a synergy and if you feel it's a synergy how much money are you applying to it.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

I guess that depends on the margins on that business, right?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Right. And that's the example of... I mean that's an example of why I saw it difficult to actually calculate it or project it from the timings standpoint, but we feel that, that's a big synergy that's a been earned as a result of the InfraSource acquisition and which would way overshadow the 18 to $20 million that we have been talking about, which is really cost savings for back office consolidations.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Fair enough. And I mean if you look at that... on that note, and you look back, you've won now I guess three to four large high transmission voltage projects over the last year. Where would you put your market share versus in the high voltage space in terms of these large projects now?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Well, we would have to define what we are talking about as large projects. Certainly, our market share in projects over $100 million is fairly high, but on an overall transmission, is probably still in that 10%, maybe at 15% of the total transmission work across the country.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Right. And as you see the transmission space developing over the next couple of years; would you say that the high voltage large project size awards will gain a larger share?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Well, that's certainly our intention. There are a number of large projects out there as Wilson has indicated earlier and it's our intention to continue to gain market share not only in those mega projects, but also gain market share in the smaller projects as well.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. And last question, in terms of your net awards which one can kind of back calculate into using your backlog number. It seems that you had net awards outside of the 70... $750 million Northeast project, in the range of around $1 billion, so would that kind of be the run rate we should be looking at outside of any large size projects?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Would you repeat that number again?

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Sure. It's around $1 billion, so just taking your backlog... total backlog number and...?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Some of the backlog increased 880 million.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

That's correct and just using your revenue number versus your backlog as of last quarter, total backlog gives, you around 1.76 billion. And if you take out the $750 million awards, kind of looks like your net awards for the quarter were around $1 billion?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

You are talking about... I see what you mean, as far as burn rate.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

Right, right. I mean, would you say that...

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

That revenues aren't there in the quarter from that backlog, that's what you mean.

Tahira Afzal - KeyBanc

Analyst

That's correct. I mean is that what we should expect outside of your large awards, or take this $750 million award out?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Backlog is going to come in chunks as some of these big projects are awarded. We expect to continue to see strong backlog growth; we're at record levels and have been record levels of backlog for a number of quarters. So, I am not going to project how much backlog is going to grow each quarter, but we expect to continue to grow even as there is some lumpiness in these big projects. Obviously, you are not going to pick up a $750 project every quarter.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from line Jeff Beach from Stifel Nicolaus. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Beach - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

Yes, good morning, John and James.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Good morning.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Good morning.

Jeffrey Beach - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

And again congratulations on a good quarter, a good year. A couple of general questions. Can you... there is a lot of wind projects that are in planning, moving ahead here. Can you describe to date here within the wind projects you have been doing or looking ahead at in '08, kind of the range of the size of wind projects that you are either doing or addressing? And then if you are doing a wind project, what are the services there? Are there... are you doing more services, more content in a wind project than a standard transmission project?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Well, of course, for a wind project, we do the traditional T&D contractor portion, the transmission lines, the substations, switch yards, even some of the gathering lines for the individual windmills. But what we're trying to do in what I was talking about there is expanding our role in those generating fields to do more of the work. We're very capable of doing the entire project, that's something that we haven't done because those margins and those projects have been lower than our acceptable projects, but... in the past. But now there is more and more of these wind farms being planned and being build and we intend to get more of the individual budget for a wind farm and perhaps even build some entirely on our own.

Jeffrey Beach - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

Okay. Good. Just moving over and roughly the same thing on the outside of the renewable projects on the transmission projects you're doing now with InfraSource and bidding on, I assume a lot of these projects not only the towers and the lines, but a lot more substation. Are you bidding on more content and is it expanding past lines, towers and substations into a lot of maybe, excuse me, turnkey work on smaller projects in general?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes, I think that's an area where we talked about the... James talked about the synergies on the $750 million project. That's one area where synergies are really hard to measure because we're getting that lot of revenue synergies from our operating companies working with InfraSource's Group that designs and builds substations and trying to gain to get more of the customer's budget in regard to those individual projects and that's working very well. But it's 3 or 4 million here and 3 or 4 million there, it's not the big, mega projects that everyone likes to talk about. But in total, I think those synergies are probably as significant as some of the synergies we see in those mega projects.

Jeffrey Beach - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

The last question, just a ballpark guess here. On the transmission side, what percentage of the new projects, I guess I'll call them, new construction, is there electrified work involved that gives you an advantage?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Jeff, a lot of your new builds, there is not a tremendous amount of energized work. But what we are seeing is a lot of the utility companies because of the constraint nature of our overall transmission system, so, many of the lines of the present time need to have maintenance and work performed on them and the utilities do not have the luxury anymore of taking those lines out of service. Just to give you one example, one of our operating units from the InfraSource Group recently just went... underwent our bare hand training. We trained on a utility system that had never utilized the energized work on the transmission system and at the completion of the training process, they are awarded on a purchase order to continue that crew on that system for the rest of the year, working energized maintenance work. So, I feel there is a big pop for energized work. Then once you are there, on that system, doing that specialized high technical skilled level type of work, they immediately then just start funneling more and more projects to you on an every day basis, and that's how started your so called mega projects that come up from time to time. So we are pretty excited about the energized fees pushing that into our InfraSource companies and delivering their service to the companies that they were working with, that's just a huge amount of revenue for us. And on the other side of the coin, it's really been a big morale booster for the employees, because they feel like they are something special now because they are able to do this energize work, and have the proper tools and the training necessary to do it. So we are getting big bang from our customers because of that and from our employee base.

Jeffrey Beach - Stifel Nicolaus

Analyst

All right, thank you.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

I think we're running... have ran... way over, but we will take one more question.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes on the line of Alex Rygiel from FBR. Please go ahead.

Alex Rygiel - FBR

Analyst

Thank you, gentleman. I will try to keep it short. It looks like your... I've got a lot of questions this morning about your first quarter guidance with the appearance that its light and I disagree with that. But I wanted to, fore intend some things by you. Clearly, your gain of growth guidance in the first quarter is very strong at 13%. if you were to look at the embedded margins, it you would imply that your... you've got even the more positive outlook as it relates to embedded margins on a seasonal basis from 4Q to 1Q than you traditionally have, is that a fair statement to make?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Alex, I am not sure I understood what you were saying. It would imply that margins are better on a seasonally adjusted basis or margins are better in the 1Q and 4Q?

Alex Rygiel - FBR

Analyst

All right. The margins embedded in your guidance, would... are better than you would normally forecast in the seasonal period in the first quarter?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yeah, I think that's an indication that margins are continuing to improve.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

It is, I mean we are expecting margins to be higher in the first quarter of this year than last year despite the fact that the storm restoration revenues projected are quite a bit lower.

Alex Rygiel - FBR

Analyst

And I guess the math... did that math behind my question is, if you were to look at your sequential 4Q 05 to 1Q '06, when storm revenues declined from 70 million to 20 million, similar sequential decline, your margins in those two periods declined by 460 basis points and that's your gross profit margins. But your guidance in our first quarter of '08, it would not imply that your margins are down that much sequentially that backs up to say, it would appear as if you have a more positive outlook on the sequential move here than you have in the past.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Yes, that's right. You're going a long way back when you start talking about 05 and '06, so I can't answer that the reason for that, but yes, you're right.

Alex Rygiel - FBR

Analyst

Fair enough. The mega project that you talked about a little bit, sounds like it's probably a couple of hundred million dollars, is that a new customer or an existing customer?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Well we have performed work for that customer in the past, but not any work within probably the last 12 months.

Alex Rygiel - FBR

Analyst

Okay. And it relates to the gas business, can you quantify the gas distribution business as a percentage of the total gas business?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Can you do that James?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

No, not off the top of my head.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Not without doing some work, we could...

Alex Rygiel - FBR

Analyst

Is it about 50-50 is it about one-third, is it about two-thirds?

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Probably close to 50-50, but we're going to try to make that higher petroleum-related or gas field related work than gas distribution, but probably running now 50-50. That's a guess, I mean.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And we're yet to do a little bit more digging in detail on that, but you're probably not very far off.

Alex Rygiel - FBR

Analyst

That's outstanding. Gentlemen, congratulations on a nice quarter.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

Thanks very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we have no further question at this time, please continue if any closing remarks.

John R. Colson - President and Chief Executive Officer

Analyst

Okay, thank you. I want to thank you again for your participation in our fourth quarter and year-end conference call. We appreciate your questions and ongoing interest in Quanta. Thank you, again.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for the day. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.