Q3 2024 Primoris Services Corp Earnings Call
The End.
Abby: Ladies and gentlemen, good day and thank you for standing by. My name is Abby and I will be your conference operator today. At this time I would like to welcome everyone to the Primora Services Corporation 3rd quarter, 2024 earnings conference call in webcast. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise.
After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star one a second time.
Speaker Change: Thank you, and I would now like to turn the conference over to Blake Holcomb, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Blake Holcomb: Good morning and welcome to the Primora's third quarter 24 earnings conference call. Join us today with the Parade Comments, it's on the Colmer, President and Chief Executive Officer and Kim Dodgen, Chief Financial Officer.
Speaker Change: and I would like to make everyone aware of certain language contained in our safe father statement. The company caution of certain statements made during this call are forward-looking and subject to various risks and uncertainties.
Speaker Change: Actressults may differ materialy for the objections and expectations.
Speaker Change: These risks and uncertainties are discussed in our reports filed with the FEC.
Speaker Change: Our forward-looking statements represent our outlook as of today, November 5, 2024. We disclaim any obligation to update these statements, except as may be required by law.
Speaker Change: In addition, during this conference call, we will make reference to certain non-GAAP financial measures.
Speaker Change: A reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures are available on the Investor section of our website and in our third quarter 2024 earnings press release, which was issued yesterday.
Speaker Change: I would now like to turn the call over to Tom McCormick.
Tom McCormick: Thank you, Blythe.
Tom McCormick: Good morning and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2024 financial and operational results.
Speaker Change: For more, set new records in the third quarter across several key financial metrics including revenue, earnings, backlog, and cash flow from operations.
Speaker Change: More importantly, our record revenue was accompanied by a higher growth rate in operating income.
Speaker Change: We have often discussed our objective to not only grow, but to grow profitably, and this quarter demonstrates success in achieving this goal. We have positioned the company in recent years to have exposure to some very favorable macro tailwinds that can help drive quality revenue growth.
Speaker Change: Our record backlog was a result of roughly $2.5 billion of new work booked, driven primarily by wins in our solar and industrial businesses.
Speaker Change: Despite the timing of certain awards booked later in the year than expected,
Speaker Change: We are on track to exceed our bookings target for the year and enter 2025 in a great position. Lastly, record cash flow from operations in the quarter drove us to more than $200 million for the first nine months of the year and higher than our full year 2023 cash flow from operations.
Speaker Change: Even with lower than expected upfront payments in Q4, we believe we remain on track for a very good year in cash flow and are progressing well toward our near-term objectives.
Speaker Change: These milestones are only made possible by our employees and their commitment to safely serving our customers.
Speaker Change: I want to thank them for their hard work and dedication to keeping themselves, their co-workers, and the public safe, and encourage them to continue to set more records and metrics in the quarters ahead.
Speaker Change: Now let's look at our performance for the quarter by segment.
Speaker Change: In the utility segment, revenues were higher compared to last year, driven primarily by increased communications and gas operations activity.
Speaker Change: Gas operation top line improvement was driven primarily by increased activity in the Midwest.
Speaker Change: Despite the stronger performance in Q3, we still expect to see the gas business be slightly down this year, but the team has performed very well in maintaining margins despite the decreased revenue.
Speaker Change: On a positive front, the California Public Utility Commission recently approved rate increases for two of our clients in Southern California to upgrade aging infrastructure and help modernize the system for improved safety and integrity.
Speaker Change: is an encouraging sign, and while we are still in the early stages of our planning process, we are optimistic that the gas operations business could trend modestly upward next year as a result of these CPUC approves.
Speaker Change: In communications, activity saw a significant increase from the prior year driven by an increase in fiber-to-the-home investments and network build-outs by hyperscalers.
Speaker Change: There was also a considerable slowdown in activity in the back half of 2023 that we aren't seeing this year.
Speaker Change: Profitability and cash flow were also better in communications due to the mix of work with customers with higher MSA rates and better payment terms.
Speaker Change: The growth outlook in our communications business continues to look favorable despite the delay in rolling out federal spending programs on rural fiber networks which has yet to materialize.
Speaker Change: Power delivery's revenue was down compared to the prior year, but margins were significantly improved.
Speaker Change: This is in part due to downsizing our presence in some geographic areas with underperforming contracts and focusing resources on areas with customers that offer better returns.
Speaker Change: Margins also benefited from an increase in storm response work compared to last year.
Speaker Change: The months of September and October were extremely challenging for our employees and the communities we serve. Three named storms led to not just the loss of power, but the loss of property and more tragically the loss of lives.
Speaker Change: We are very proud to serve our customers, communities, and employees by restoring their power as safely and quickly as possible.
Speaker Change: In total, Pomortia deployed over 250 crews and more than 1,400 employees to the regions impacted by these storms.
Speaker Change: These employees worked over 185,000 work hours to help restore power to more than 3.8 million people tragically impacted across Louisiana, Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
Speaker Change: This required working long hours in harsh conditions and the use of specialized equipment in order to get these communities back online.
Speaker Change: We even had employees leave their own homes in disrepair in order to travel to other parts of the country to help their neighboring communities.
Speaker Change: To assist these employees and their families, we set up an emergency storm team call center that employees could contact to request for Morris' assistance in obtaining food, water, generators, or to report damage to their homes in order to receive additional support in an effort to get them back into order.
Speaker Change: I want to congratulate all the Pomorris employees who served in response to these storms and thank them again for truly demonstrating the power of Pomorris.
Speaker Change: Turning now to the energy segment, the renewables business was a primary driver for the increase in segment revenue, surpassing the billion-dollar mark for the quarter.
Speaker Change: In renewables, the market for our solar EPC services and product solutions continues to see very high demand.
Speaker Change: We believe we are one of the best performing service providers in the market and continue to have very strong customer relationships that have allowed us to successfully navigate challenges that some in the industry have been experiencing.
Speaker Change: While we saw some contract signings push out in the first half of this year, this was largely due to customer-driven design changes or switching modules that extended the planning phases.
Speaker Change: However, during the third quarter, we booked nearly $1.1 billion in backlog to finish the quarter at $2.9 billion in renewables.
Speaker Change: This includes approximately 250 million dollars in backlog for Premier PV, battery storage, and our O&M businesses.
Speaker Change: These three businesses also accounted for over 8% of the renewables revenue generated in the third quarter, and we are confident that we will continue to capitalize on growing these lines of business that help supplement our EPC work.
Speaker Change: We did experience lower margins in the business in the third quarter compared to last year, due primarily to fewer project closeouts and unfavorable weather conditions that negatively impacted our productivity on several projects.
Speaker Change: In all instances, these productivity challenges are short-lived and most of our contracts contain provisions for name storms or customer-driven delays.
Speaker Change: In industrial services, revenue was lower, driven mostly from a decrease in activity in our Canadian operations, as well as in our non-union industrial businesses, where we are winding down or divesting certain subscale or low-margin businesses.
Speaker Change: On the other hand, margins did improve due to strong execution on natural gas projects in the western U.S. and improved bid margins on work booked over the last 12 to 18 months.
Speaker Change: The non-union industrials business was recently awarded a power generation expansion in Oklahoma in the fourth quarter and has the potential to close on a second project in Texas that will support the energy needs of a newly constructed data center.
Speaker Change: We continue to be excited about the opportunities ahead for natural gas power generation, and have built a strong team with experience in building dozens of large and small-scale gas power projects throughout their careers.
Speaker Change: We are also adding additional experience resources to further build out these teams.
Speaker Change: The pipeline business, while operating much more profitably and efficiently due to cost control efforts, did see some revenue and margin decline from the prior year due to a very high-performing project in the Mid-Atlantic we were executing in the third quarter of last year.
Speaker Change: In summary, it was another solid quarter where our utility segment was able to drive higher margins to compensate for some challenges in our energy segment margins, which puts us in a great position to not only finish with a strong Q4, but to achieve our operational financial targets for the year.
Speaker Change: Now I'll turn it over to Ken for more on our financial results.
Ken: Thanks, Tom, and good morning, everyone. Our Q3 revenue was over $1.6 billion, an increase of $119.6 million, or 7.8% over the prior year, driven primarily by growth in both our energy and utility segments.
Speaker Change: The energy segment was up 123.1 million, or 13.9% from the prior year, driven primarily by solar, partially offset by lower industrial construction activity.
Speaker Change: The utility segment increased $15.6 million, or 2.4% from the prior year, primarily due to an increase in communications activity, partially offset by slightly lower power delivery revenue.
Speaker Change: This is primarily due to the increase in revenue in both segments and improved utilities margins. As a result, gross margins were 12% for the quarter compared to 11.4% in the prior year.
Speaker Change: Turning to our segment results, utility segment gross profit was $87 million, up $22.4 million, or 34.6% compared to the prior year.
Speaker Change: Communications gross profit was higher due to revenue growth.
Speaker Change: Power delivery gross profit was higher due to improved efficiency and an increase in higher margin storm work which contributed about five million of incremental gross profit during the quarter.
Speaker Change: Power delivery also did not experience the same challenges on legacy PLH products that negatively impacted margins in the prior year.
Speaker Change: Gas gross profit was mostly flat on slightly higher revenue.
Speaker Change: We believe we are on track to see improved margins in the segment for the full year compared to 2023.
Speaker Change: While we expect to see some modest benefit from additional storm work early in the fourth quarter, we anticipate seeing a seasonal slowdown in activity and increased time off for employees after the storm work that could impact our productivity in Q4 and offset some of the storm benefit.
Speaker Change: The combination of these factors leads us to believe that gross margins in the utility segment for the full year 2024 will land in the low to mid 9% range, up from 8.6% in the prior year.
Speaker Change: In the energy segment, gross profit was $111.5 million for the quarter, an increase of $2.3 million or 2.1 percent.
Speaker Change: The increase was primarily driven by higher revenues in the renewables business and strong performance on natural gas power projects in the western U.S. This was partially offset by lower productivity on certain projects related to weather in the quarter.
Speaker Change: We also had higher margins on a Mid-Atlantic Pipeline project in 2023 that did not repeat in 2024. As a result, gross margins for the segment were 11%, down from 12.3% in the prior year, as we expected.
Speaker Change: We expect full year 2024 gross margins to be a little over 11 percent.
Speaker Change: Looking at SG&A, expenses in the third quarter were $98.1 million, an increase of $13.7 million compared to the prior year, but down $2 million sequentially from Q2.
Speaker Change: The increase in SG&A is primarily due to increased personnel cost to support our growth.
Speaker Change: As a percent of revenue, SG&A rose slightly from the prior year to 5.9 percent.
Speaker Change: We still expect SG&A will continue to trend toward our full-year target in the low 6% range.
Speaker Change: That interest expense in the quarter was $17.9 million, down from $21.1 million in the prior year. The decrease was driven by lower average debt balances and lower interest rates, partially offset by a $1.4 million unrealized loss on our interest rate swap in the quarter.
Speaker Change: We expect that our full-year interest expense will be between $68 million and $71 million, down from our previous estimate of $71 million to $74 million provided last quarter.
Speaker Change: Our effective tax rate was 29% for the quarter and we believe this rate will be consistent for the full year.
Speaker Change: Earnings for fully diluted share rose 18 cents or 20 percent compared to last year, driven by higher operating income and lower interest expense.
Speaker Change: Adjusted EPS was also higher by 20 cents and adjusted EBITDA increased by nearly 8 million to 127.7 million for the quarter.
Speaker Change: Turning to cash flow, our third quarter cash flow from operations was $222 million, which represented our best quarter as a company.
Speaker Change: Year-to-date cash flow from operations is up 217 million compared to last year.
Speaker Change: The primary drivers for this improvement were an increase in deferred revenue related to upfront customer payments.
Speaker Change: higher operating income, and a $40 million decrease in contract assets year-to-date, including a $67 million reduction in contract assets since the end of Q2.
Speaker Change: The decrease in contract assets is a partial pull forward from Q4, but it's also due to our working capital initiatives, particularly our team's efforts to build customers timely.
Speaker Change: We have more work to do, but we are encouraged by the progress. Based on the pull forward of cash flow from Q4, we expect our fourth quarter cash from operations to be lower compared to Q4 of 2023.
Speaker Change: But despite this, the full year is shaping up to be a very good year for operating cash flow as we make progress towards our goal of 4-5% of revenue.
Speaker Change: Moving over to the balance sheet, we continue to have very strong liquidity of almost $625 million, which includes over $350 million of cash and $272 million in available borrowing capacity on our revolver.
Speaker Change: Our trailing 12-month net debt-to-EBITDA ratio, as defined by our debt covenants, dropped to just under 1.4 times EBITDA at the end of Q3.
Speaker Change: This puts us below our target range of 1.5 times the EBITDA and positions us to reduce our debt balance and further lower our interest expense in the coming quarters.
Speaker Change: Total backlog at the end of Q3 was just under $11.3 billion, up $366 million from the end of 2023, and more than $800 million higher sequentially from Q2.
Speaker Change: Fixed backlog was up $377 million from year-end, primarily due to solar and other energy segment bookings. MSA backlog was essentially flat from year-end as a decrease in pipeline and Canadian MSA work was offset by additional utilities MSA backlog.
Speaker Change: We are optimistic that we have the potential to increase fixed and MSA backlog by year-end if we do not see any delays in contract signings, which at this point we do not anticipate.
Speaker Change: Before turning it back over to Tom, I'll close the financial overview with our updated guidance.
Speaker Change: We are raising our full-year EPS guidance to $2.85 to $3.00 per share.
Speaker Change: and adjusted EPS guidance to $3.40 to $3.55 per share due to our strong operational performance and our lower expected interest expense for the year.
Speaker Change: We are also modifying our adjusted EBITDA guidance to $405 to $420 million as we feel more confident about the higher end of the range we provided in Q2.
Speaker Change: Through Q3 we've had very strong project execution resulting in improved profitability while also growing backlogs and increasing cash flow.
Speaker Change: The outlook for the fourth quarter and opportunities we see on the horizon should set this up for another solid year in 2025. With that, I'll turn it back over to Tom.
Tom McCormick: Thank you, Kim.
Tom McCormick: Prior to opening the line up for questions, I'd like to recap some of the key points of the quarter.
Tom McCormick: First, our record revenue, earnings, backlog and cash flow from operations to demonstrate that we are successfully executing our strategy to grow while improving profitability and cash flow.
Speaker Change: Although Q3 is typically a strong quarter for us on a seasonal basis,
Speaker Change: The efforts of our teams in the field and in our offices deserve recognition for their hard work and outstanding execution to accomplish these milestones.
Speaker Change: Second, we had substantial improvement in our utility segments margins, driven by an improved mix of work from communications, pulling strong margins in gas operations, and improving power delivery margins through resource allocation to both higher performing regions and from storm response.
Speaker Change: We can't be thankful enough to the men and women that answered the call to serve their fellow citizens, even while they and their families were also experiencing hardships.
Speaker Change: We continue to keep those impacted by these weather events in our thoughts and prayers as they continue to rebuild and get their lives back to a more normal status as quickly and as safely as possible.
Speaker Change: Third, the market for renewables continues to be resilient and strong. We have record backlog approaching $3 billion and are confident that we will maintain our successful track record of executing on behalf of our clients while expanding our product and service offerings to achieve our growth targets through 2026.
Lastly, we are already seeing opportunities emerge to grow our non-union industrial businesses and have the teams and expertise to win our share of the work.
Speaker Change: The growth prospects in our focused end markets are such that we believe that we are well positioned to thrive regardless of the outcome of today's election.
Speaker Change: The need for infrastructure investment to help our economy grow and support next generation technology is a bipartisan objective.
Speaker Change: We will continue to keep our focus on being the best allocators of capital in our space with the goal to generate the best returns on capital and drive higher margins in cash flow.
Speaker Change: We believe this is the best strategy to deliver the best outcomes for our employees, our customers, and our shareholders.
Speaker Change: We will now open up the call for your questions.
Speaker Change: Thank you. And we will now begin the question and answer session. If you have dialed in and would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 a second time.
Speaker Change: If you are called upon to ask your question and are listening via speakerphone on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is not on mute when asking your question.
Speaker Change: To be able to take as many questions as possible, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. You may rejoin the queue with any additional follow-up questions. Again, it is star 1 to join the queue.
Speaker Change: And your first question comes from the line of Lee Jagoda with CJS Securities. Your line is open.
Speaker Change: Hi, good morning. It's Pete Lucas for Lee. Congrats on a great quarter. Just wanted to, you touched on it in your prepared remarks in terms of backlog, a nice positive this quarter and you've constantly said you expect Book-to-Bill to be above one times exiting the year.
Speaker Change: How should we think about Q4 in terms of potential bookings, given that you're already above that one times? I think you'd said in your remarks, you expect that could increase by year-end.
Speaker Change: Yeah, hey Pete, yeah look I think Q4 is going to be down sequentially from Q3. Q3 was a very good quarter for us, but should be at right at one times or maybe just a little bit above one times for Q4.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Helpful, thanks. And then just one broad question, just looking out a little further, can you speak broadly about the pipeline of opportunities you see for your order book beyond 24 and how they should translate into revenue growth, looking at it kind of by segment for the next...
Speaker Change: call it 12 to 18 months.
Speaker Change: Well, if you look at it, if you start with energy, and we'll pull renewables out and talk specifically renewables to start with.
Speaker Change: They're booked for 2025 now, as we speak. They're actually booking work that's extending into 2026, and some of that work will even complete, extend into 2027. So there's a lot of opportunity there in our renewables business.
Speaker Change: In the industrial businesses, there's a lot of opportunity out there. We're seeing a lot with respect to opportunities with respect to power generation and anything that supports power generation, pump stations, compressor stations and the like. So we're seeing a nice...
Speaker Change: probably more than we've seen in the last several years. So, I would say Heavy Silver, again, there's a, you know, techs.spans, it's just pretty much as
Speaker Change: as is all the time. The Texas are spending a certain amount of money here in Texas and Louisiana each and every year. They're gonna continue to spend that amount of money and we continue to win our share of the work.
Speaker Change: Pipeline, we'll see. I mean Pipeline is seeing some more opportunities but it's real it's probably relatively flat to where they're going to end up this year then we'll just see what happens you know post-election but that's that's going to take some time to to become reality.
Speaker Change: I'm sorry, Ken just reminded me. Gas looks good. We're seeing some opportunities in gas, but again, it's going to be single digits, probably relatively flat. We may see some upside just based on the BUC's approvals out in California of budgeting and spending plans. So for two of our clients out there.
Speaker Change: Very helpful. Thank you.
Speaker Change: And your next question comes from the line of Jerry Rebich with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Speaker Change: Hi, good morning. This is Adam, one for Jerry. Thanks for taking our questions.
Adam: You know, margins in utilities up 270 basis points sequentially, well ahead of normal seasonality. Can you just expand on the drivers of that really strong sequential improvement versus normal seasonality? And any updated thoughts on 2025 puts and takes around margin expansion in this segment?
Speaker Change: Yeah, hey Adam, look most of the quarterly improvement
Speaker Change: sequentially was just seasonal.
Speaker Change: About 5 million of it, as I mentioned in my remarks, were related to storm work, which was kind of one time.
Speaker Change: Ironically, while that benefited, the storms benefited us on the utility side, we had about an equal negative impact on the energy side as well. So net-net, it was really pretty much neutral for us for the quarter.
Adam: And then, look, with respect to next year, we continue to believe we're going to see margin improvement. We're still racking up the numbers for next year, so I can't give you anything more precise than that. But in general, we are expecting utilities margins to have a sequential improvement going into next year.
Adam: Yeah, look, year over year, at a high level, I'm expecting utilities revenue to grow probably in single digits. It'll be a mix. On the stronger side will be power delivery and communications. On the little bit weaker side, but still probably growing next year, to Tom's point, will be gas.
Speaker Change: Got it. Thanks so much.
Speaker Change: And your next question comes from the line of Drew Chamberlain with J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Yeah, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. First one, just kind of following up on the last one, can you talk a little bit about what you're seeing on the margin side in utilities in 4Q? I think the guide implies a pretty big sequential material.
Speaker Change: material reduction in 4q over 3q and I'm just wondering if that's just normal seasonality if there's some other impact in there
Speaker Change: Yeah, it is normal seasonality. We work in parts of the country, in particular in our gas utility side of the business, where when winter hits, everything just shuts down.
Speaker Change: And Q3 is traditionally our highest quarter, not only from a revenue standpoint, but also from a margin standpoint, just because everybody's working at capacity and kind of where our normal seasonal peak is during the year. So Q1 and Q4 are generally kind of shoulder quarters for us that can have some variability in margins depending on when we shut down work in Q4 and then when we start up working again in Q1.
Speaker Change: Okay, great. And then maybe stepping back and looking at a little bigger picture here and thinking about capital allocation. I mean, I think the leverage has really, really come down, maybe a little faster than just about anybody had expected. Can you kind of talk through what the priorities are right now? And what do you see on the M&A side? Maybe thinking about returning capital to shareholders, obviously, the dividend going higher this quarter. I mean, just kind of run us through the latest thoughts. That would be very helpful.
Speaker Change: Yeah, happy to do that. Look, our capital allocation priorities are always going to be support. Top of the capital list is supporting the organic growth of our business and that hasn't changed. And that's through working capital support as well as equipment.
Speaker Change: as well as our continued focus on improving free cash flow, we felt that, in conjunction with a discussion with our board, that it was a good time to send a clear signal to the market that we felt it would be an easy move to raise our dividend.
Speaker Change: With respect to debt pay down, we just paid down $50 million on our term loan last week. And I expect we will pay down another $50 million by the end of Q4 as well.
Speaker Change: And then within M&A, I'll flip it over to Tom, but in general, we've seen very good deal flow. Yeah, there's been a lot of flow in M&A. It's just finding the right target. So there's a lot of activity. It's nothing that we've stepped away from necessarily. It's just we are going to be very specific and surgical about what we look at and what we move forward with. And we just haven't seen the right target yet.
Speaker Change: Okay, great. Thank you.
Speaker Change: And your next question comes from the line of Kevin Ganey with Thompson Davis. Your line is open.
Kevin Ganey: Hi, Tom, Ken, Blake. Kevin on for Adam.
Kevin Ganey: Maybe if you guys want to talk about the outlook for Q4 EBITDA margins and what, or well, the EBITDA range and what it would take to get from
Speaker Change: Hey Kevin, yeah look I mean the low end to the high end is going to be really heavily driven on on two things. One is utilities which you were just talking about with Drew and kind of when the Q4 shutdown happens.
Speaker Change: And then a little bit on the energy side is going to be related to project closeouts and the timing of wrapping up both some renewables jobs as well as some industrial jobs that are in progress right now that are scheduled to wrap up in Q4.
Speaker Change: In general, we feel good about Q4, it's why we were able to not only slightly increase the range, but also tighten the range a little bit, down to 15 cents at EPS and adjusted EPS. But those are going to be the main drivers.
Speaker Change: Sounds good, and then maybe we can also talk about how you guys are thinking about cash flow in Q4 I know you said it'd be weaker than Q3, but maybe what are some of the things that would move around in that
Speaker Change: Yeah, weaker definitely in comparison to prior year, 2023 Q4, just because if you look historically Q4 has been one of our main cash generation quarters.
Speaker Change: Some of Q3's benefit was a pull forward from Q4, and unfortunately I don't have exact numbers to quantify it, but we just know from looking at timing of customer projects and some work that we were doing that it was a pull forward from Q4.
Speaker Change: But as I mentioned, the big chunk of it was just really good down payments from customers on projects that we signed late in Q2 as well as in Q3.
Speaker Change: So, I expect Q4 still going to be a solid quarter for us from a cash flow perspective. I just don't think it's going to be another $200 million or, you know, $180 to $200 million quarter like it was last year and I think the year before as well. So, ballpark, I'm kind of thinking of maybe another...
Speaker Change: It may be about like a hundred million dollar quarter, but you know, there's still a lot that could move there especially with some pending contract signings that we have that could happen in Q4, potentially slip to Q1.
Speaker Change: Sounds good and maybe if I could squeeze one more in just on the California rate piece. How do you guys think about that as far as what that could be as a growth driver for 25?
Speaker Change: Well, it would definitely help our gas distribution businesses out there. It affects two of our major clients out there, so we would expect to see some...
Speaker Change: project opportunities develop into 2025. It's really early days right now. I'm sure that they're developing their plans for.
Speaker Change: 25 and 26 or further out based on those approvals, but we'll get involved with them either later this year, later in the fourth quarter, probably early next year to actually get some visibility to what their plans are.
Speaker Change: Appreciate the questions, guys. Thank you.
Speaker Change: And your next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with DA Davidson. Your line is open.
Brent Thielman: Yeah, hey guys, Craig Corder. Just on the power side of the utilities segment, as we move into next year, should we effectively lap some of these comparisons you've had this year, just in terms of headwind from, you know, shifting your presence in certain markets and with certain customers? Is there going to be any sort of hangover of that into 2025?
Speaker Change: No, I don't think so. I think the improvements are going to continue through the year. All of this takes time. I think we laid out back in April about a three-year plan for us to continue to improve margins and performance there, to change over, transition into more project work versus MSA work. We're in that phase of that. You'll see that get better through the course of 2025. You'll see us landing on our targets either late that next year or into 2026, which is what we've been targeting.
Speaker Change: Okay, awesome. And then, Tom, you know, Solar's just been a fantastic story for the company, and I guess what I'm wondering is, it's a much larger piece of your business.
Speaker Change: today, but could you talk about what you're planning and doing internally to sort of support the continued growth of that business and then maybe also just taking a step back. Do you want it to be a lot larger as a proportion of the company maybe versus some other areas?
Speaker Change: Well, I mean, we're going to keep growing that business organically. We are looking at, you know, there's opportunities for us if we can find the right targets to supplement that business through an acquisition, but it would be a smaller acquisition. Just to continue with that EPC offering that we provide to our client and complement that.
Speaker Change: But I think what you're seeing is with the eBoss and the O&M and the battery storage services that we're now providing, you're going to see more growth in that. I mean, battery storage has actually got over $100 million worth of work. I think combined, those three have...
Speaker Change: about $250 million in book work, and most of that's going to transpire in 2025, and they're going to continue to grow.
Speaker Change: Solar is going to grow. It's just as it gets bigger, it grows at a slower pace. So we're going to continue to be disciplined about growing our project teams and we're going to continue to be disciplined about what clients we work for and what contracts we sign.
Speaker Change: And our goal is to, you know, keep it profitable and just to continue to be disciplined about it because it has worked for us.
Speaker Change: Very good. Thanks Tom.
Speaker Change: And your next question comes from the line of Judah Aronovitz with UBS. Your line is open.
Speaker Change: Hi, good morning. Drude Aronovic, Stephen Fischer
Judah Aronovitz: Just the gains on sales in the quarter, it was lower than Q2 but still I think higher than we expected. What was that related to?
Speaker Change: Some of it was equipment and and then one in specific was a facility that we sold in the DFW area that we no longer needed.
Speaker Change: Okay, thanks. That's helpful. Just one more quick one. How much storm work do you have embedded in your Q4 guidance?
Speaker Change: Really, just a couple million is about it, Judah. We were working on Storm earlier in, well, last month now, in October.
Speaker Change: And so we really only have a couple million built in that because it was heavily driven by Milton, which, you know, didn't do quite as much damage and was mostly Florida, where the recovery was much quicker and crews were released much faster.
Judah Aronovitz: Got it. Thanks.
Speaker Change: And as a reminder, it is star one if you would like to ask a question. And your next question comes from the line of Julio Romero with Sidoti. Your line is open.
Speaker Change: Good morning. This is Alex Hantman on for Julio. Thanks for taking questions.
Alex Hantman: In the utility segment, you mentioned that one of the drivers of higher revenue was increased communications activity. Could you add a little bit more color around that and talk about some of the things that you're seeing there?
Speaker Change: For us, a lot of it's fiber-related. Building fiber rings around cities or outside of cities for the data centers and hyperscalers. A lot of it's the fiber-to-the-home programs that are in place. So most of that work is associated with that. There's just a lot of that activity going on in Texas and the other states that we're in, and we're seeing more and more of that work.
Speaker Change: Thanks for the context.
Speaker Change: Solar revenues in the quarter, bear with me I should have that number handy, it was a little over 450 million.
Speaker Change: Thank you, all from us.
Speaker Change: Thanks.
Speaker Change: And that concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Tom McCormick for any additional or closing remarks.
Tom McCormick: Thank you. Thank you for your questions and interest in for Morris. We were pleased with our results thus far and we'll look to finish out 2024 on a positive note and set ourselves up for another solid year in 2025.
Tom McCormick: Thank you again, and we look forward to updating you on the full year results and 2025 guidance in the first quarter of next year.
Speaker Change: And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
Speaker Change: [music]
Speaker Change: [music]
Speaker Change: Thanks for watching!
Speaker Change: Thanks for watching!