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Tetra Tech, Inc. (TTEK)

Q1 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Jan 30, 2014

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and thank you for joining the Tetra Tech earnings call. By now, you should have received a copy of the press release. If you have not, please contact the company's corporate office at (626) 351-4664. With us today from management are Dan Batrack, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Steve Burdick, Chief Financial Officer. They will provide a brief overview of the results, and we'll then open the call up for questions. During the course of the conference call, Tetra Tech management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These include statements concerning future events and Tetra Tech's future financial performance. The statements are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results. Tetra Tech's Form 10-K and 10-Q reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission identify certain risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements. Tetra Tech undertakes no duty to update forward-looking statements. In addition, since management will be presenting some non-GAAP financial measures as references, the appropriate GAAP financial reconciliations are posted in the Investor Relations section of Tetra Tech's website. [Operator Instructions] With that, I would now like to turn the call over to Dan Batrack. Mr. Batrack, please go ahead.

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Thank you very much, Justin. And good morning, and welcome to our fiscal year 2014 first quarter earnings conference call. While Steve Burdick, our Chief Financial Officer, will present the specifics of our financials, I'll start this call with a brief overview of some of our key financial metrics. We began the year with a very solid first quarter for 2014. In Q1, our revenue was $646 million, and our net revenue was $483 million for the quarter. This was in line with our guidance and very similar to our revenue of Q1 of fiscal year 2013, a year earlier. Our earnings or EBITDA was $59 million or up 10% from last year. Operating income was $44 million, up 5% from the prior year. And as a result of this performance, we delivered an earnings per share of $0.42, which beat the high end of our guidance. We also ended the quarter with 1 -- just over $1.9 billion in backlog, which is up slightly from the prior quarter. Now in spite of these comparisons with a very strong quarter last year, our Q1 revenue, and in particular, our income was very good. And Q1 was a really good start to our fiscal 2014 fiscal year. I'd now like to review our performance by customer. In the United States, work for our commercial clients was up 15% year-over-year driven primarily by continued growth in the work that we're doing for the oil and gas industry. Our international work was down slightly, about 7% from last year but about 1/2 of that reduction was associated with the foreign exchange impact, and the other half was associated with comparisons from last year's very strong revenues that came from our mining and Eastern Canadian operations. Our international revenues were actually up this quarter…

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

Thank you, Dan. I will begin with the fiscal 2014 first quarter financial overview in a bit more detail. Overall, our first quarter results met the higher end of the guidance ranges that we provided for both net revenue and EPS. In comparing the first quarter results this year to last year, revenue decreased by about $13 million or 2% to $645.8 million, primarily as a result of a slowdown in operations focused on Eastern Canada, global mining and the U.S. federal government. And this decrease was partially offset by our acquisitions in the RCM group early in calendar of 2013. These focused on both oil and gas activities and our industrial market, including solid waste. Similar to the revenue, net revenue also decreased to $483 million or about 3%. The net revenue results were consistent with our expectations, and as I mentioned, towards the upper end of the guidance range that we provided. I do want to point out, as Dan discussed a little bit, that the U.S. dollar strengthened against other foreign currencies over the last several months. And we did experience some more significant FX impact on our revenue and our net revenue in the first quarter. As such, rather than the 2% to 3% decrease, our revenue, net revenue, without the impact of this change in FX, would have been closer to flat compared to the prior year. Our operating income was up about $2 million or 5% to $43.7 million. The higher operating income was primarily driven by project execution and favorable closeouts and a reduction in overhead costs as a result of the rightsizing actions that we took in the second half of fiscal 2013. Now, we did have some nonoperating net gains on revaluing acquisition-related earn-out liabilities, which were partially offset by nonoperating…

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Thank you very much, Steve. I'd like to add to Steve's comments on our use of cash. Based on our track record of cash generation, we feel very comfortable with adding commitments, such as the $30 million stock buyback, while continuing to invest in acquisitions through our use of cash and the leverage that we have available to us through our credit facilities. Now I'd like to talk about our growth strategy. We are continuing to invest in our core water-related services, and especially, in 3 major high-growth areas highlighted on this slide on the webcast. First is oil and gas, solid waste and industrial water. In oil and gas, we're primarily focused on supporting our clients in the rapidly expanding midstream markets in oil sands and shale basins across North America. We're seeing strong orders and activity across-the-board and increased opportunities for larger and more complex midstream pipeline projects. In solid waste, we advise our clients on cost-effective solutions across North America and provide full service for both municipal and private sector clients. We're helping our clients prepare for new regulations addressing energy waste disposal, and as most specifically, for coal fly ash. In industrial water, we're focused on providing water management services from the earliest studies to design and construction management. We're seeing more opportunities even in the slower markets to address water sources for manufacturing, recycling the water used in manufacturing and water treatment to comply with discharge requirements. And this market builds very nicely on our ability to provide the front-end studies at the very earlier stages of the projects and convert this early work into turnkey delivery for full service to our end clients. I'd like to say a few words about the federal market. The U.S. federal market has historically been one of the…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Saagar Parikh with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Saagar Parikh - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

First off, a question on your organic growth. On your slide deck from your last quarter, you guys had mentioned or walked us through your different end markets, international. You have commercial: federal, state and local that provided organic growth targets in there. And it said that overall, it will be 2% to 8% organic growth. I'm assuming that the 2% to 8% organic growth target stands, but has there been any change in the mix between those different end markets based on what you saw in the first quarter?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

No. The end markets have actually been growing or shrinking in the case of the federal government about the same level. But I would say that the organic growth rate for the first quarter was impacted by an FX impact ahead of Canada. So the reduction that you saw in the international rate was impacted by about 3%, or in other words, the FX exchange from Canada to the U.S. from the time we put our plans together moved about 10%. So that's 10% of roughly 30, 31 is 3%. So I do think that the reduction in organic growth in the quarter was overstated because of the FX impact. We still do see the end markets growing and progressing as we had indicated last quarter and on the slide this quarter and still stand by organic growth projections for the year.

Saagar Parikh - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And then just looking at your federal market mining in Eastern Canada, which were the 3 issues that we saw in fiscal '13. In the first quarter of '14, would you say that those markets came in as expected, or did any of those 3 markets come in a bit weaker, which were then offset by oil and gas or some of your other commercial operations?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

I'd say mining in Eastern Canada came in just as expected or relatively flat sequentially. They both are profitable, sort of mid-single digits, 5%, 6%, sort of those levels. Federal came in slightly softer than we had anticipated, but that was mostly associated with the government's full shutdown. And I know we had our conference call after that had taken place, but that was actually accentuated the reduction in federal government, a little bit higher than we had anticipated earlier. And that's what offset some of the strength in oil and gas, which was particularly strong.

Saagar Parikh - KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And then last question on my part, since the acquisition of Parkland has given you guys a greater exposure to the midstream market. And as we're entering February, and probably a few months, couple of months, you're a few months away from the heart of pipeline bidding season. Just wanted to get a better sense of what you guys have built in your guidance in terms of Parkland and pipeline opportunities this year, and what upside there could potentially be if you guys can hit on 1 or 2 or 3 $50 million to $100 million awards.

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Well, as we've shared both from this presentation and in earlier presentations, we're seeing a 20% plus organic growth rate. And actually Parkland is participating in that. In fact, it has been on the upside of that. We do have a number of opportunities that are at the levels you've indicated, $50 million to $100 million single opportunities. Parkland should be growing at a rate above that 20% level. And you're right, the opportunities are coming up here. And I do think, if anything, we'll be resource constrained from either responding or performing on every opportunity out there because that would move our growth rates to essentially doubling the organization in a very short period if we actually -- we're successful on all of these. So we're going to pick the best opportunities out there that will still be very high growth rates. And actually, the margins and performance should be, should reflect what opportunities are there. So they'll be at the highest levels of the company.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Corey Greendale with First Analysis.

David Warner - First Analysis Corporation

Analyst · First Analysis.

This is David Warner for Corey. Just first of all, a point of clarification. When you -- I think you said that you expect the federal government revenue to be flat on an absolute dollar basis through fiscal 2014, is that right?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst · First Analysis.

Relatively speaking, yes.

David Warner - First Analysis Corporation

Analyst · First Analysis.

Okay, okay. So just looking at the guidance, looking at the Q2 guidance and the annual guidance and given that the government, the federal government revenue is expected to be pretty flat. It implies pretty strong growth in other areas of the business. So I was wondering if you could just kind of dig into your assumptions as far as end market growth in the second half of 2014 and mining, Eastern Canada, whether you're expecting some reversal from the FX impact or what gets you to that, I guess, pretty strong double-digit growth in the second half and those other end market, end customer.

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst · First Analysis.

Let me start with the, sort of the technical treatment of foreign exchange. We're sitting here at the end of January, so this is roughly 1 month into the quarter. And we did include in our guidance the FX impact of the strengthening dollar for this second quarter. We did not change our forecast for the year because we're only 4 months into the year, and we expect movement, and perhaps, renormalization or movement of the FX rates back, so we did not actually change the entire year's guidance based on this, just first 3 or 4 months worth of FX, that's #1. Second, you're right, we are expecting flat federal revenues. Eastern Canada and mining, we expect will be flat. We expect it will essentially be 0 on a sequential basis. I do want to point out that in this first quarter, in the quarter we're in, second quarter, are very difficult comparables for us on a year-on-year basis because a year ago, both mining and Eastern Canada were 2 of the more strong markets we had in the entire company. But with that said, sequentially, I expect them to be flat and the comps on quarters 3 and 4 will be much more favorable and likely even show growth. But with respect to both Q2, 3 and 4, oil and gas is going to continue to be the strongest in the entire company. I expect it to continue at well above 20%, and we can add some additional resources through hires or even acquisitions. I think we do need more resources to respond to all the opportunities we have. So that's going to lead oil and gas without question. Our commercial work, and I'd say, its industrial clients generally and industrial water have been very strong. Those type…

David Warner - First Analysis Corporation

Analyst · First Analysis.

For the TSS markets, operating margin for the quarter, the benefit you mentioned from these closeouts, would we expect that to potentially reverse or normalize in Q2? See if any margin going a little bit the other way?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst · First Analysis.

Well, I would say I don't think we're going to reverse anything that we picked up, just to be clear. But I do think that our TSS group is not running on a sustained basis at 14.5% or 15%. But that said, I think they are running sort of at a 12% to 13% level. And so I'd say it's going to come back normalized at levels that we have said in the past. So I don't expect a pullback from the margin ranges we provided. But I wouldn't model it at 15% or something like that.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of John Rogers from D.A. Davidson. John B. Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co., Research Division: A couple of things. First of all, just on the financials. The amortization schedule that you've got, it's $18 million or $20 million left amortized. Does that just drop proportionately through the year from the level that we saw in this quarter, or should we think about that?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Yes, I think what we've seen is that some of the previous acquisitions that we've completed, that amortization has dropped off. And so you'll see a slightly lower amount as we go throughout this year. John B. Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co., Research Division: Assuming no additional acquisitions, right?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

Right. John B. Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co., Research Division: And then, Dan, maybe could you just talk about what you're seeing in the acquisition pipeline, sort of what's out there, what the market's like, the opportunities that you have?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Yes, actually, the acquisition market and the pipeline, so to speak, looks good. I will say that there are markets that we have -- that were not available to us, or we didn't show as much interest in this past year that are actually showing more light. And those are places like Australia. We've seen both the premiums that were being paid down there come back to what we consider more rational levels, at least more rational from our standpoint. And the foreign exchange has actually come back in line. So it makes it actually more possible and so it's sort of back on our interest. They still have -- outside of pure commodities from mining work, there's other items down there that fits very well with Tetra Tech. The floods they had up in Brisbane last year are dead center for us, the large treatment, desal, other water management. So that's just one area that's both opportunities and the ability to transact look good. I would say Europe has questions that could hit the bottom or has bounced off the bottom. But that's another area that looks more favorable. We do need more resources to support our U.S. multinational clients, and that's mostly for industrial water. So that's an area that we're looking in. And there's lots of opportunity there, so I'd say it's a full pipeline. Here in the U.S., we are looking, and it is our #1 priority overall for the oil and gas and mostly midstream. That is our #1 priority. There are a reasonable number of opportunities, but I will say that with natural gas going from $3 to $5 in 30 days or in a very short period of time, expectations or premiums on valuations are going up even faster. And so we're very interested in that. We think we have great partners out there. We think they do fantastic with Tetra Tech. But I will say the expectations of multiples in that field are going to potentially give us a bit of a pause. It may cause us not to be as quick in that area as we had earlier thought. John B. Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co., Research Division: And just on the gas side for the pipeline business, is it your intent to also do construction work the way you're doing in Canada and the U.S., or is it more on the engineering and planning side?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

I think it will be on the planning, permitting, engineering and construction management as far as owning yellow metal and performing the construction, it'll likely be a subcontractor to partner with. But we will take turnkey projects, but sub-performance in those will be in the construction management side. John B. Rogers - D.A. Davidson & Co., Research Division: And then one other quick thing. In terms of the Fed or the FX exposure that you have, are your costs pretty well matched with where you're generating revenue? In other words, when we see the impact on the top line, is it -- how much of an impact or risk is there to the operating margins as a result of the weaker Canadian and other currencies?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

Yes, it's pretty well matched. We don't have large differences.

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Yes, the people are performing the work. The work in Canada's being performed by the Canadians, so the dollars to perform the work is the dollars for getting funded. So the work itself is not being impacted at all. So we're spending Canadian dollars to perform Canadian revenues, just the translation at the end of the quarter back to the reported results have had the FX impact.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Steven Folse with Stifel. Steven Folse - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: First question. So last quarter I believe that you guys had mentioned that the bottom end of your guidance kind of implied a little bit of a buffer for continued sequestration in federal through the end of the year. Was that being cleared up in guidance remaining the same? Does that imply that some of the other markets your expectations have actually been a little bit tampered, or is that not the right way to think about that?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Yes, I don't think that's the right way to think about it. I'll share with you how we think about it. We think that the impact of the third quarter was just 2 quarters ago. And coming out of that, we're just being cautious. I think that there were actually 3 things that had given us a pause for the lower end. One would be continued softness from the federal government, which appears to be clearing up. I'd certainly like to see the federal government get through their debt ceiling discussion, although I don't think that will have a long impact even if it's an issue. But we also are still only a couple of quarters into Eastern Canada and mining. And while they're performing as we expected, I'd like to watch them for another quarter or 2 before we declare we're out of the woods on both of those areas. They've been flat, but those were the 3 items. It was mining that didn't take a second downturn, Eastern Canada that didn't take a second downturn and federal sequestration or some other impasse. And all 3 had seemed favorable, but we're just through 1 quarter. And so we want to just be prudent before we actually begin moving our guidance for the year. Steven Folse - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: And then kind of touching back on the oil and gas and the acquisition market there, you said premiums have been going up. If that continues to be the case, do you still think that the $1 billion target within 3 to 5 years is achievable? And then on the acquisition side, is Texas still the primary market that you're looking in the U.S.?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

The first part of the question, is $1 billion achievable in 3 to 5 years, definitely. And in fact, if our acquisitions move quickly even through this year, that simply means it will be at the nearer term of that. In fact, if you take a -- if you even moderate our growth rate down to 15%, we're probably close to $400 million run rate. Currently, 15% in 5 years, and that's a reduced level from what we're doing now. It will put us at $800 million in 5 years with 0 acquisitions, not even 1. Now I do expect that we will add, even in a difficult time, there's some natural partners with us, natural subcontractors, so there will be sort of a, I hate to call this steady stream, but we will have sort of a $20 million to $50 million engineering groups that will join us and that does include -- and our priority is Texas, no doubt about it. But I would say Texas is no more of a priority than Alberta and West -- Alberta and British Columbia and British Columbia for the natural gas work. So you've got the work on the LNG terminal, of which there's been a very large award here to one of the large E&C contractors up at Kitimat that came out of a patch in Chevron. And there's multiple other LNG terminals that look like they'll be out in British Columbia. So British Columbia, Alberta, followed closely with sort of the central part of the U.S. from Texas. But I wouldn't exclude things up through Wyoming, even portions of Bakken and Colorado, so those are our focuses. And the premiums, of course, are for the larger firms. But there are still natural subcontractors and partners that are engineers that are -- we still feel very strong that we can transact those. Steven Folse - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc., Research Division: And then I guess, lastly, do you expect any continued legal reserve payments or earn-out reversal impacts for the rest of fiscal 2014, or is that not something we should model in?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

At this time, we don't foresee any of those changes.

Operator

Operator

And your next question comes from the line of Andrew Wittmann with Robert W. Baird & Company. Andrew J. Wittmann - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division: I don't know if you, on the conference call, if you quantified the legal reserve. But if it's $0.02, kind of net of the one time item spot, $2.8 million, is that correct, Steve?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

Yes, that would be about right. Andrew J. Wittmann - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division: So if you take that out of the SG&A line, $47.4 million minus $2.8 million, are you somewhere in that kind of $45 million range for SG&A in the quarter? And what's your kind of view? I mean is that -- is there anything onetime or is it, it's -- I'm noticing that it seems like a pretty marked step down from a year ago. And I know you had some restructuring that should have decreased that. But do you feel like that's a good number, I guess, is the question?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

Yes, I think if -- we've looked at our SG&A. And if you take out some of the noise like first quarter of last year, some of it this year, that type of thing, what we've been doing over the last year is spending about 7% SG&A as a percentage of our gross revenue. And yes, so that's about where we've been.

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

And let me just provide just a bit of a perspective on that, Andy, that the reductions that we made in third quarter of last year actually did structurally lower the overall expense of the SG&A for the company and took out long-standing continuing cost. And [indiscernible] everywhere from offices to staffing. But we were aggressive. We did move the SG&A structure down, at least, from a back office administration portion. We did not impact the S portion of sales at all. But the G&A portion, we actually brought down to become even more efficient on the running of the operation. Andrew J. Wittmann - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division: Dave, can you give us an update on some of the problem projects? I know a couple of months ago, a few months ago now, we were talking about kind of 4. Can you just kind of refresh our memory about how many of those are now complete? Maybe which segments those are weighing on margins and kind of what the expectation is for those to kind of end, and then where margins could potentially go when they're not coming through with no profit?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Yes, I think we talked about at the end of the third quarter that there were 4 groups of projects. They were, for the most part, in the RCM group. We have completed the performance on 2 of the 4. So they're just done. And we're going to continue discussions in pursuit of claims on those. But other than that work, those are done. They've been quantified, and they're just finished. The third of the four is pretty well at the end. It's the last little bit of performance, and closeout is taking place. And there's little performance issue there. And the last will go on for another year. It's really these -- they're going for about a year. And the issue is on these, is the revenue that has been running through RCM, the construction management group, is running through at 0 profit or 0 margin. And so that's what was part of the impact that reduced the margin of RCM in Q1. It wasn't that they didn't perform a project well. It's that they ran the revenue through on some of these projects at no profit, which brought down the margins. So as this runs through, and it will go through the rest of this year into early 2015, but at a declining revenue amount. And so that's what's going to help trend up the margins within RCM, so we don't have this revenue with no margin on it. Andrew J. Wittmann - Robert W. Baird & Co. Incorporated, Research Division: Maybe just one last question because if you think about managing the company now and managing the balance sheet, cash flows are up pretty significantly. Have you contemplated maybe returning more than just the $100 million authorization. I mean it's good, and you've tweaked it a couple of times. But can you talk about the potential for that to get larger over time, and will you feel like the leverage level of the company can support maybe today?

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

We've been very conservative with our balance sheet. The cash generated, as Steven mentioned has continued to beat even our own forecast. And we actually historically had thought that we would run roughly net debt 0 and then sort of lever up to one time. I actually do believe based on the cash generation, we can be a bit more strategic with the use of our credit facilities and leverage. And we're actually looking at moving our leverage up to -- more of a, more trended toward more onetime to annual earnings and with peaks up more toward 2 so we've been moving from 0 to 1 run at a long term of 0, pay it off and move to 1. I actually think we'll move that up, and it does mean that we'll have plenty of cash and capital available for acquisitions. And it does mean we may have even more available for other returns to shareholders. And that does include things that are -- that you've seen now, which are buybacks through grid, buybacks through direct recoveries, such as the dollar cost averaging that Steve talked about. It could include things like special one time dividends or even dividends and subs. So we're looking at all the different options, and we'll explore what makes the most sense based on our cash generation and look for updates on this on a quarterly basis as we go through the next year. And that will -- and just as a -- that will not impact, one iota, our impact on an ability to complete acquisitions. It's not, are you going to do one or the other? We can do both.

Operator

Operator

And your final question comes from the line of David Rose with Wedbush Securities.

David L. Rose - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Just a couple of follow-up questions on the guidance, if you would. Just to be clear, the FX assumptions are flatlined, so if FX stays where it is, or if the dollar stays where it is, vis-à-vis the other currencies like the Canadian dollar, you've got a 3% headwind on revenues for the back half of the year, is that right?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

That's correct, David.

David L. Rose - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

Okay. Secondly, if I think about -- and I think you addressed most of it, what you need to see in order to hit the top end of the guidance. You need to see a recovery in mining, a recovery in Eastern Canada. Is there anything else, other specific products that you're waiting to come through that might be able to hit the top end of the guidance? And conversely, where do you see the bottom end of the guidance? What really drives that?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

I think on the top end, we've had press release, a press release, some very nice wins we've had on the commercial sector. You've seen one on Sri Lanka here just recently. That's about just under $75 million project. Those are all Tetra Tech revenues. You've also seen one for Chevron where we're doing a large water treatment plan at a mining facility. That's a bit larger. And we've actually had a couple of other projects that are actually sort of, of that scale, even a bit bigger up in Canada. So if we can take those projects and actually get them to implementation, put them on the field and make good progress in the summer, plus just a little bit of strength in mining and Eastern Canada, that should put us at the upper end. And not withstanding this FX issue. At the lower end, if there's additional slowdown because of any number of things in the same items, federal, mining in Eastern Canada, that should put us at the middle or lower. But I will say, we're not seeing that right now. But again, as of today, just about 4 months into the year, still leaves us 2/3 of it to go. So that's why we're remaining cautiously prudent by leaving the annual guidance unchanged. But the low end, softness in federal, mining, Eastern Canada, high end strength even modest strength in those 3, plus actually getting some of these large projects that we've already won and put in place executed through the spring, summer months.

David L. Rose - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

I appreciate that. And I sense that you've handicapped your guidance for the second quarter based on weather. How do you quantify that?

Steven M. Burdick

Analyst

Well, we are sitting here. It's unusual. We've had -- well, obviously, we expect a slowdown or even nothing happening in portions of Canada. That's happened, some portions there for Midwest, that's happened. So the upside of great weather through the winter's not looking more favorable. But it's generally not the case where we see folks can't get to work in our Atlanta offices, part of our mobile offices or our Gulf Coast offices. So we're sitting here a month into Q2 with a sort of a deep freeze going on literally, and so that's why we've put this in place. So I wouldn't convert that into a specific dollar amount, but it did factor into it, along with FX that we did include and plus just the normal seasonally triple [ph] work with the slowdown in our winter projects, especially in Canada. So it is a bit lower than we normally would have put, assuming there was, I guess, I'd call more modest weather through the month of January.

David L. Rose - Wedbush Securities Inc., Research Division

Analyst

And then maybe lastly, there have been a lot of concerns about emerging markets or exposure in Brazil from an employee count is fairly sizable, but revenue is small. How are you making sure that you're sort of firewalled around some of these events that are taking place in some of these hotspots.

Dan L. Batrack

Analyst

Well, just to quantify what we have in Brazil. We have Brazil, between $40 million and $50 million a year. It's about $10 million a quarter. So let me -- that's just to quantify the size of it on a quarterly basis. So you're right, it is relatively modest. And the work that we're performing down there, almost none of it is in the urban areas. So the portion that we're doing for mining are for very large mining sites that are out in very rural locations, where they're not impacted with respect to protests or shutdowns of transportation systems and all the things that you see in the headlines are in the streets of São Paulo and Rio and these others. The amount of work we have in those locations are essentially 0. Our work is actually out of mine sites, remote locations, where we're actually working on a specific project. We go to work and we come home, and there's not protesters or these types of economic issues at those locations. We are doing some work for large oil companies down there, Petrobras and others. Those are out at remote port locations, and so that's also not impacted. So we do, believe this is the case, 0 amount of work in Brazil for their national government or their state and local government. And those are the primary focuses of the upheaval that's taking place down there. And so that's just not our marketplace. So we feel relatively removed from those issues. I would never say the word completely insulated. You never know, but we're feeling pretty comfortable with our exposure at this point in Brazil. And thank you, all, for the questions and interest in Tetra Tech. I'm very appreciative of your continuing to following us and your support as we move into this year. And I hope if you're in one of the cold snowed-in areas, you have a safe week. And I look forward to talking to you all next quarter. Bye.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our conference for today. Thank you all for participating, and have a nice day. All parties may now disconnect.