CACI International - Q4 2023
August 10, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the CACI International Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will announce the opportunity for questions, and instructions will be given at that time. If you should need any assistance during this call, please press star zero and someone will assist you. At this time, I would like to turn the conference call over to Dan Leckburg, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for CACI International. Please go ahead, sir.
Daniel Leckburg (SVP of Investor Relations)
Well, thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm Dan Leckburg, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for CACI International. Thank you for joining us this morning. We are providing presentation slides. Let's move to slide number two. There will be statements in this call that do not address historical fact. As such, constitute forward-looking statements under current law. These statements reflect our views as of today and are subject to important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from anticipated. Those factors are listed at the bottom of last night's press release and are described in the company's SEC filings. Our safe harbor statement is included on this exhibit and should be incorporated as part of any transcript of this call. I would also like to point out that our presentation will include discussion of non-GAAP financial measures.
These should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for performance measures prepared in accordance with GAAP. Let's turn to slide 3, please. To open our discussion this morning, here's John Mengucci, President and Chief Executive Officer of CACI International. John?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Thanks, Dan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss our Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2023 Results, as well as our fiscal 2024 guidance. With me this morning is Jeff MacLauchlan, our Chief Financial Officer. Four, please. Last night, we released our fourth quarter and full year results for fiscal year 2023. I'm pleased with our performance. Simply put, CACI had a great year. For the full year, we delivered revenue growth of 8%, in line with our revenue guidance, which we increased last quarter. We delivered a sector-leading EBITDA margin of 10.7%, consistent with our guidance.
We generated free cash flow of $282 million, and we won over $10 billion of contract awards, which represents a 1.5x book to bill for the year and includes $7.4 billion of new work to CACI. Slide 5, please. In fiscal 2023, CACI delivered strong awards and outstanding program performance. First, we won the $5.7 billion Enterprise IT as a Service or ITAS contract, one of the Air Force's highest priority IT modernization programs, and by far the largest award in CACI's history. We won ITAS by leveraging our differentiated capabilities and extensive past performance. This next generation program will enhance productivity and efficiency for more than 800,000 Air Force and Space Force personnel globally.
Second, we won a $2.7 billion expertise contract to provide next generation network exploitation analysis in support of foreign intelligence and cybersecurity missions. This award leveraged long-standing capabilities in both intelligence analysis and cyber. In the government's own words, after the second protest was denied, we won this work because, quote, "CACI's, CACI's proposal was technically superior." That superior proposal provided for a consistent staffing concept, the opportunity to insert new solutions, continuous learning as threats change, and a program management concept that puts support of the customer and their mission first. The program is ramping up as planned, and we look forward to delivering this critical mission for an important customer.
Third, we won a $1.2 billion technology contract known as Spectral to develop and deploy the next generation shipboard weapons system for signals intelligence, electronic warfare, and information operations for the U.S. Navy. We won Spectral by leveraging our M&A and internal investments in SIGINT and spectrum operations across the electromagnetic spectrum, our unique approach to open architectures that are truly open without vendor lock, and our industry-leading software development capabilities, including agile development scale and DevSecOps. Those are three marquee new contract awards, the result of our business development strategy of shaping customer preferences, offering differentiated solutions, providing a compelling value proposition, and investing ahead of customer need. As I mentioned earlier, we also performed with excellence across our portfolio, I'll share four examples of those today. First, we successfully deployed the U.S. Army's integrated personnel and pay system, or IPPS-A.
This is the largest and most complex PeopleSoft implementation in history. The Army now has a single, integrated, next generation system of HR records for over 1 million soldiers across one of the most complex organizations on the planet. Since going live, our 800,000 distinct users have logged into IPPS-A, and the system is currently supporting more than 100,000 users per day. Second, on our SAFFIRE program, we went live with the NGA's next generation imagery analytics platform. Our software uses AI-enabled computer vision and deep learning to enhance image identification and process more imagery than ever before. This is cutting-edge technology that supports mission outcomes. Third, for the same NGA customer, we created and are leveraging our internally developed technology called FeatureTrace, which is AI-based software that enhances our analysts' ability to analyze and process geospatial data. This is expertise enabled by technology.
Technology which is real and tangible, in use today, and a great example of the synergy within our business. Finally, in Photonics, 16 of our Optical Communication Terminals, or OCTs, were successfully launched and deployed in June aboard four DARPA Blackjack satellites. Earlier this year, CACI was the first provider of OCTs to successfully complete verification testing for the Space Development Agency. We continue to see strong demand for our OCTs, one of the only options designed and built in the United States. Prime contractors and other customers come to CACI because they view our optical communications technology as the most mature and lowest risk in the industry. Our technology is proven, deployed, operational, and tested for various orbits. In fact, we have had optical terminals in orbit for more than two years, demonstrating successful high-speed communication links.
Our customer set is broad, with technology being deployed across programs with the SDA, DARPA, NASA, and classified agencies. Slide 7, please. The government fiscal year 23 budget was supportive of CACI programs, and we believe government fiscal year 24 will be no different. Overall, the external environment continues to provide favorable trends, though we are monitoring the ongoing government fiscal year 24 budget process. As you know, the House and Senate are still negotiating appropriations bills similar to past years. We are anticipating a CR to start the next government fiscal year. Customer demand remains high, driven by the elevated global threat environment, the pacing capabilities of our adversaries, and the significant opportunity for modernization in government to both capture efficiency and enhance security. Slide 8, please.
Our strong fiscal 2023 contract awards, our exceptional track record of program performance, and a constructive budget environment all provide a great foundation to drive additional growth, profitability, and cash flow. With that in mind, in fiscal 2024, we expect revenue growth of 4.5%-7.5%, EBITDA margin in the high 10% range, and healthy free cash flow. Jeff will provide additional details on all elements of our guidance shortly. As we look to fiscal year 2024 and beyond, I want to be crystal clear that our value creation model is one that is built to drive free cash flow per share growth. Over the last number of years, we have been focused on all elements of free cash flow per share growth.
First, we have taken a long-term approach to providing predictable organic revenue growth, focusing on areas of the federal budget that provide long-term funding streams. We have been committed to building a portfolio of expertise and technology programs across our markets that delivers sector-leading margins and is supportive of continued investments. We've efficiently managed our costs across the business while investing in our capabilities and our employees. We have focused on all elements of working capital and CapEx while continuing to grow our business. We have taken steps to proactively manage the interest on our debt and undertaken efficient tax strategies. Lastly, we have taken prudent and value-creating capital deployment actions to include M&A, share repurchases, and debt reduction.
It is the totality of these actions that we will continue to manage in order to compound value creation, which will enable us to drive to drive growth and free cash flow per share and ultimately, shareholder value. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jeff.
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide 9. Our fourth quarter results were in line with our expectations and represent a strong finish to a great fiscal 2023. We generated revenue of $1.7 billion in the quarter, representing year-over-year growth of 4%, essentially all of which is organic. EBITDA margin was 10.9% in the quarter, consistent with our previously discussed expectation of a stronger second half of the fiscal year. Fourth quarter adjusted diluted earnings per share were $5.30, up nearly 17% from a year ago, with strong operating performance and lower share count, more than offsetting $13 million of higher interest expense. Fourth quarter tax rate was down slightly versus a year ago, driven by higher R&D tax credits.
Fiscal year 2023 was another year of healthy top-line growth, strong margins, and good cash flow. For the year, we generated $6.7 billion of revenue, representing 8% of total growth and 6% organic growth. EBITDA margin of 10.7% was in line with our guidance and represents 40 basis points of expansion from fiscal 2022. Fiscal 2023 adjusted diluted earnings per share were $18.83, up 6% from the prior year. Again, with strong operating performance and lower share count, offsetting a $42 million increase in interest expense from the prior year, as well as a slightly higher tax rate. Slide 10, please. As John mentioned, our margin performance is sector-leading when looking at EBITDA on a comparable basis, and we provide some context here on slide 10. Slide 11, please.
Fourth quarter operating cash flow, excluding our accounts receivable purchase facility, was $125 million, reflecting continued healthy profitability and strong cash collections. You note that we were able to drive accounts receivable, day sales outstanding, to 48 days in the fourth quarter, matching the record low we achieved in the first quarter. Fourth quarter free cash flow was $102 million. For the full year, we generated operating cash flow of $346 million, excluding our AR purchase facility, and free cash flow of $282 million. Again, consistent with our guidance. For the last several quarters, we provided details on extraordinary tax items that have influenced cash flow in fiscal years 2020 through 2023. Specifically, amounts related to the CARES Act, our tax method change, and Section 174.
Fiscal 23 had the largest cumulative headwind for these items, totaling $222 million of cash usage. We expect a much smaller cumulative headwind in FY 24, which I'll discuss in more detail shortly. Slide 12, please. As you know, earlier this year, our board authorized a $750 million share repurchase program, and we announced the deployment of an initial $250 million as an accelerated share repurchase, or ASR, on January 30th. The ASR was completed on August 4th. We retired 678,000 shares when the program was first announced, and in August, we retired an additional 146,000 shares for a total of 824,000 shares at an average share price of just under $304.
As part of the authorization, we also initiated an open market repurchase program. Under that program, we repurchased 45,000 shares at an average price of $283 per share. We remain committed to driving shareholder value by deploying capital in a flexible and opportunistic manner based on business and market dynamics over time. The healthy long-term cash flow characteristics of our business, our modest leverage, and our access to capital continue to provide significant optionality. We ended the year with 2.2x leverage of net debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA, making us well-positioned to drive future growth and shareholder value. Slide 13, please. Now I'll turn to our fiscal year 2024 guidance. As is our practice, we undertake a bottom-up program-by-program forecast, plus our expectation for new business by specific opportunity.
For fiscal 2024, we expect revenue between $7 billion and $7.2 billion, for growth between 4.5% and 7.5%, balanced across expertise and technology. EBITDA margin is expected to be in the high 10% range. We expect adjusted net income to be between $440 million and $465 million, and we expect free cash flow of at least $400 million. Slide 14, please. To assist with modeling, here are some additional planning assumptions. Depreciation and amortization are expected to be approximately $145 million. Net interest expense is expected to be approximately $100 million, up around $16 million compared to last year. About two-thirds of our debt is effectively fixed via interest rate swaps, so we have further mitigated our interest rate exposure.
We are expecting a full year effective tax rate of between 23% and 24%. This is up about 300 basis points over last year. We expect quarterly sequential increases in revenue and profitability through the year. I would remind you that certain factors can skew quarterly trends, such as the timing of material purchases and deliveries of higher-margin technology. Slide 15, please. In fiscal 2024, we expect operating cash flow, excluding our AR facility, to be at least $490 million, with capital expenditures of approximately $90 million, resulting in free cash flow of at least $400 million. A few other items to note regarding FY 2024 cash flow. There is no longer any impact related to the CARES Act.
We expect to receive the final $40 million tax refund associated with our tax method change, with the timing likely later in the year, and we expect to pay approximately $75 million in cash taxes related to Section 174, which is about $20 million lower than our payment in fiscal 2023. Slide 16, please. Turning to forward indicators, CACI's prospects continue to be strong. Our trailing twelve-month book to bill of 1.5 times reflects strong performance in the marketplace, and our FY 2023 awards have a weighted average duration of about 6 years. Fourth quarter backlog of $25.8 billion grew 11% from a year ago and continues to represent about 4 years of annual revenue. Both these metrics indicate good visibility into the business.
For FY 2024, we expect 84% of our revenue to come from existing programs, 10% from recompetes, and about 6% from new business. These metrics are very consistent with our recent experience at the beginning of a new year. In terms of our pipeline, we have $11 billion of submitted bids under evaluation, over 70% of which are for new business to CACI. I point out that this is up about $4 billion from last quarter, despite a number of recent wins, including Spectral. We expect to submit another $9 billion in bids over the next two quarters, again, with approximately 70% of that for new business. Slide 17, please. I'd like to add to John's comments on our long-term financial objective of driving growth in free cash flow per share.
This metric lets us build on durable, sector-leading margins, while further incorporating the benefits of sustained organic revenue growth, efficient management of our cost structure and balance sheet, as well as value-creating capital deployment. Share repurchases can be immediate contributors to free cash flow per share. Acquisitions and investments contribute to free cash flow per share over the longer term. Both are important tools to deliver long-term growth in free cash flow per share and shareholder value. We will continue to critically examine all options as we consider broader dynamics over time. To wrap things up, we delivered great results in fiscal year 2023 and expect another year of strong performance in fiscal 2024, with healthy growth, strong margins, and increasing cash flow. We remain confident in our ability to continue to drive long-term growth, increase free cash flow per share, and generate additional shareholder value.
With that, I'll turn the call back over to John.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Thank you, Jeff. Let's go to slide 18, please. Closing out our prepared remarks, I am very pleased with our performance in fiscal 2023 and our prospects as we look to fiscal 2024. As I talked about our awards and execution, there was a concept common to all of them, next generation. CACI is on the cutting edge, delivering innovative technology and differentiated expertise enabled by technology to a critical customer set. We are providing the Air Force's next generation IT infrastructure, our intelligence community customers next generation support around critical SIGINT and cyber, and the Navy's next generation shipboard SIGINT EW weapon system. We deliver to the Army the most complex HR system in the world. We are leveraging AI and other enabling technologies to increase productivity and deliver actionable insight to our customers.
We are putting laser communications and other photonics technology into operation in space and other domains to address critical national security needs. We're doing all of that while delivering predictable revenue growth, sector-leading margins, healthy cash flow, and opportunistically deploying capital through M&A and share repurchases, all of which drives growth and free cash flow per share. As I always say, our success is driven by our employees' talent, innovation, and commitment, and supported by our culture of integrity and ethics. To each and every CACI employee, thank you for what you do each and every day for our company and our nation. Our shareholders, I thank you for your continued support of CACI. With that, Lisa, let's open the call for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. If you would like to ask a question today, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To remove yourself from the queue, that is star one again. We do ask that you please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from Cai von Rumohr with TD Cowen.
Cai von Rumohr (Managing Director and Senior Aerospace and Defense Analyst)
Yes, thank you. Very good quarter. Jeff, you mentioned, you know, you expect revenues and margins to increase sequentially. Do you also expect organic growth to increase sequentially as you go through the year?
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Cai, I think that is the right, the right planning premise. The business, clearly is in an accelerating mode, and we see the distribution of the year somewhat as we did last year, with a slightly stronger second half in revenue growth and margin. Yeah, that's, that, that's the right kind of planning premise for you to be thinking about.
Cai von Rumohr (Managing Director and Senior Aerospace and Defense Analyst)
Got it. Then, you know, when you look at your big new wins, FocusedFox and, the background checks, you know, are, are expertise, and so those should be off to a fairly quick start. You know, the other big wins, EITaaS and Spectral, basically have a slower start, I think you've talked about. As we look at your business mix between expertise and technology, is technology gonna continue to grow faster, or is it gonna be balanced? How should we think of that?
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Do you want that? I think it'll be, it'll be a little bit more balanced. The two programs, the two technology programs you mentioned, Cai, do have slightly slower ramps as they're both characterized by the preliminary phases being, you know, related to design and planning the balance of the program. That's not necessarily true of all technology programs and sales, but it certainly is for, for EITaaS and Spectral. John may wanna add-.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Cai, look, Jeff, Jeff, answered that the way I would have mentioned it. I guess the one thing I'll talk about is on the EITaaS award and on the Spectral one, you know, those are both long-term technology programs, right? The new business that we have won over this past year goes into backlog with a 72-month contract duration. You know, these technology programs are actually going to, they, they've all been kicked off. We're, we're gonna have that typical design phase that happens first. Then, you know, we're working in both of those cases with customers who are very eager to try to press forward.
I like what they're gonna contribute to FY 2024, but much more impactful as we get out, you know, over the next 3 to 5 years. Thanks, guys.
Cai von Rumohr (Managing Director and Senior Aerospace and Defense Analyst)
Thank you so much.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Robert Spingarn with Melius Research.
Robert Spingarn (Managing Director and Aerospace, Defense and Space Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Morning, Rob.
Robert Spingarn (Managing Director and Aerospace, Defense and Space Equity Research Analyst)
John, you talked a little bit about the budget earlier, and that you expect the government to start the year on a CR. How are you thinking about the possibility that government fiscal 2024 could start on a CR with, with that funding capped at 99% of 2023 levels? You know, if we get into a situation where that particular adjustment triggers. Maybe, Jeff, if you wanna hop in here. In the guide, are you assuming that we're gonna have a CR from just, you know, the, the October through December, but that the budget will be passed before calendar 2024 starts? How, how are you thinking about it in the guide?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Rob, if, if you look at our range, right? On the low end, you know, we're assuming it's a full year CR, right? We have a really tough, tough time, slower and a real uneven pace at, you know, getting through the government fiscal year 24 process. On the, on the upper end, really focus at a much shorter CR, and that budget gets passed sooner. You know, we, we always look at the budget. We always try to do our best at sort of predicting how that's going to turn out. We've got an expectation that the CR lasts for a quarter, Rob.
Robert Spingarn (Managing Director and Aerospace, Defense and Space Equity Research Analyst)
Right.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
you know, we, we honestly, look, look at that from, from many, many angles. you know, we also looked at the level of, our contracting officers. You know, can they push this, push this budget, budget out to us and, and the requisite funding? That is a strong yes from where we may have been, you know, 18 to 20, 24 months back. What we are confident in with our recent awards is that the large Intel program is ongoing work, very critical, national security priority. We don't expect any, funding issues with that one. EITaaS, critical Air Force priority, and is well funded at, at the, government fiscal year 23 levels.
Spectra is a critical program for the Navy, particularly supporting the near peer fight in the Indo-Indo PACOM region. Those three larger programs that are providing a level of growth as we go through our fiscal year 24, we look, we look to be safely funded there.
Robert Spingarn (Managing Director and Aerospace, Defense and Space Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. Thank you. Just as a follow up, I wanted to ask you about pricing, 'cause if we do get into this, I don't wanna call it a constrained budget, if we have these caps and so on, would it You know, might your competitors or some of them start to get a little bit more aggressive? Now, your margins are rising, but how do you think about the pricing environment and aggressiveness of the, of, of the peer group as we go forward?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Rob. A couple of pieces. You know, first off, you know, we're, we're looking at a recent report, you know, looking at the defense industry. You know, it's sort of pretty much concluded that The Pentagon does not find a need to modify its weighted guidelines in setting profit levels. I would, I would tell you that our general experience is that we see customers largely pursuing best value type of procurements and doing things as far-reaching as putting in price floors. On those times where we find ourselves, you know, rarely bidding a job that has a rate table, really trying to discourage against aggressive bidding. Look, we're always gonna have aggressive pricing, and LPTA is still going to be out there.
You know, we're pretty disciplined about what we work on and what we pursue and how we pursue it. I also think we're pretty different than others, as our strategy, frankly, is built on the ability of technology enabling the most cost-effective solutions. You know, sort of the replacement with some of that lower-priced expertise with technology solutions. I guess as an example, BEAGLE, with our U.S. Customs and Border Protection customer, you know, that's still our prime example where we won with a customer that appreciates best, best value. We brought efficiency via agile at scale.
You know, we're doing far more with far fewer, fewer people, and that really gives the customer the optionality to sort of take that savings at the price level and then come back to us and frankly, driving even more work, and, and in some cases, moving work from other, other contracts on to ours. You know, we sort of weathered some of those pricing pressure items. I'd also leave you with, you know, about half of our workforce is fungible to us. You know, that's the beauty of having differentiated this business starting seven or eight years back, where, you know, yes, we do have a lot of software talent and engineering talent and, and analyst talent in our expertise side.
You know, half of the, the rest of the folks, the other half of the direct bills, are, are, are working across a number of different programs, which is, what our customers have told us is much more important because they get to understand what we're doing for other, customers out there. Pricing pressure, not, not a big, watch item for us any longer. Thanks for the question, Rob.
Robert Spingarn (Managing Director and Aerospace, Defense and Space Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks for the color. Appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Peter Arment with Baird.
Peter Arment (Senior Research Analyst)
Yes. Good morning, John, Jeff. Nice results. Hey, John, maybe just, just to follow up on just kind of the pricing environment. You know, you do have, you know, industry-leading EBITDA margins. You finished obviously really strong this year, and your guidance kind of implies that at a minimum, you're kind of sustaining that or maybe even potential a little, a little upside to where you are today. Just kind of wondering what your, you know, puts and takes around that, just given that you've got a lot of, lot of new programs ramping up, about just sustaining those high level margins? Thanks.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, thanks. Peter, you know, I guess I'll start with sort of how we, how we got to where we are, that, you know, really allows you to sort of see this. You know, we didn't luck out on those three large jobs. They've actually been a product of how we've been focusing this business and making certain when wins like this come in, that we understand how to operate those. It's so much more about the vision of being different and really, you know, seven years ago, setting out on a long-term plan, and an investment plan to really differentiate from where we are. I've always said strategy is a place where we come from, and with a good, strong strategy, it provides clarity and, you know, and you all know best. Clarity, you know, with clarity, you get focus.
Our strategy was to create a new part of our business that was purpose-built for the future fight. Software-based susceptible markets with large funding streams also helps you on the, on the margin side, where knowledge of the customer mission was gonna be very critical, but also we could build upon our collection of 60-year-plus relationships with a number of customers. Then we had to search out customers that had a bias towards leaning towards the art of the possible.
Another margin hint there, which is if you, if you find the right customers who are looking to do things differently and are willing to, you know, jump onto our view, and take great advantage of our investing ahead of customer need, then when those programs come up, you know, frankly, we reshaped our business development process to not only modify how we pursue business, how we bid less and win, win more, and we bid larger with margin always in mind, that we really got the customer to help us differentiate before the RFP. You also saw customers or the jobs that we're out there bidding on, you know, asking less for LPTA and more for, you know, value creation.
Hey, on this expertise bid, can you bring in more technolo- technology?" Our long-term vision was, yes, as long as that, you know, begets higher margins, right. Because I'm investing ahead, ahead of need. You know, all of that plays into the programs that we, you know, have the joy of talking about. You know, on the, on the EITaaS program, that is a, that is a network, development applications IT job that really begs of additional work becoming part of our, you know, multiyear scope. With each one of those turns, based on how we can set the model up with our, with our customer, those are kind of programs that can not only continue to maintain margins, but actually, you know, push margin, margins forward. Sort of right there, see if that answers.
Peter Arment (Senior Research Analyst)
Yeah, I appreciate that, all that color. Just on the large expertise side reward that you, you booked, it was mentioned before that, you know, you're inserting a lot of or opportunities to find technologies. This, this, by nature, implies a large expertise effort to start, do you see over time, do you kind of, see the technology insertion there also? Thanks.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Rob, thanks. Look, you know, first off, we're extremely pleased that the award was reaffirmed after not only the first, but the second, second protest. You know, based on the fact that we're providing a high-end, network exploitation, work, work there, it's a $1.5 billion award. You know, we're on track in our ramping, ramping up. It's exactly 100% in line with our expectations as well as our customers. You know, it's, it's in, including both the staff transition and our hiring plan, work will continue to ramp up as different task orders transition to us. You know, we actually see the majority of that transition happening in the late October time, time frame.
We'll have some additional growth when we get out to the middle of 2025, based on some longer, longer-term task orders. At the end of the day, you know, we, we bid that job with, with a phenomenal staffing plan that guarantees this customer no gaps in coverage. We have their absolute support. One other area, Peter, that we've worked on that's been very unique is, you know, on some of these large expertise programs where you have cleared folks, you have to be cautious, right? Because when, when people come off of those programs, you don't want them to lose their clearance.
What our customer has done greatly, and a really great early sign of the tremendous partnership we have with them, is that they reworked their security process to support our onboarding of, you know, nearly 1,000 people on this, on this program. You know, on large expertise programs, if you plan it right, and you have a great customer relationship, and they, you know, want you to perform that work, we're, we're perfect evidence on this large intel program that, you know, customers will make certain that we come up to speed quickly. Thanks so much for your questions.
Peter Arment (Senior Research Analyst)
Thanks. Thanks. Thanks, John.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Matthew Akers with Wells Fargo.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Good morning, Matt.
Matthew Akers (Senior Aerospace & Defense/Government Services Analyst)
Good morning, guys. Thanks for the question. Good morning. I, I wanted to ask about debt pay down. I think you, you mentioned it in the prepared remarks. You know, interest expense is up a fair amount this year. You know, could that be more of a focus here in terms of capital deployment, and is there sort of a leverage ratio that you have in mind that, that you'd like to get to?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Matt, thanks. Look, I'll start off. Look, we're being very flexible and opportunistic based on the different dynamics that we see. You called out some of those. You know, we're always looking at, you know, our M&A pipeline, stock price, and valuation, leverage, and interest rates, and the like. All options are always on the table. Jeff mentioned a little bit about our $750 million share repurchase authorization. You know, we've got a lot of different levers here in capital deployment that'll benefit our shareholders in both the near and the long term by driving growth in free, free cash flow per share. Jeff, you wanna share some of the details?
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Yeah. There, there are a couple of things, a level or two into that, Matt, that you might find of interest. You may recall that we put in place about $500 million of interest rate swaps, hedges, earlier this year. We caught that at a nice time on the interest rate cycle, about a week after the Silicon Valley Bank adventure, which turned out to be pretty good timing for us. We added that $500 million to about $700 million of swaps that we already had in place, which really puts us in a pretty good place. I think you'll see described a little more fully in our K than I will do here, but we effectively paid about 4.6 as an interest rate last year.
I think we're pretty well positioned in terms of the cost of our debt, which is another factor that we consider in the capital deployment. That changes a little bit, the calculus around the possibility of share repurchases in particular. Debt paydown for us at this point is really probably one of the less appealing, one of the less appealing options and, you know, versus versus acquisitions or, you know, executing further on our share repurchase program. You remember the $750 million authorization, we completed 250 of that in the ASR that we announced at the end of January. We further did about $13 million in an open market repurchase program that ended in May.
We have about $487 million of existing authority, you know, that we could execute on, you know, very quickly. You know, expect us to be as flexible and as opportunistic going forward as we have been.
Matthew Akers (Senior Aerospace & Defense/Government Services Analyst)
Great. No, thanks. That, that's helpful color. I, I wanted to ask about free cash flow. Thank, thanks for all the, the color on the walk there, but I guess maybe to come at it a different way, just the free cash flow conversion of net income. If I add back the $35 this year, you're still a little bit below 100%. I think historically you've been kind of well above 100%. Maybe if you could talk about if there's something else in there that's, you know, pressuring that a little bit this year, and if, if there's opportunity to get back up to the levels that you guys have done historically.
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Yeah. The, you know, there's a reason that we characterize that as at least $400 million. If you take, if you take that bar and tease it apart, where we talk about the incremental income and the working capital growth, as well as taxes and interest, you ought to think about the additional working capital growth and the incremental income being about offset. They net out to about a push. Really what we have there is about $39 million in total of incremental interest expense and cash taxes. The interest expense, you know, we have one more increase forecast this year and then basically flat for next year. You know, I'll let you, I'll let you factor that with your opinion of what the Fed may do.
We basically are not counting on any cuts next year at all. That may afford, may afford us some opportunity. Also, if we're able to sustain, specifically our DSO performance, there's probably a little bit of upside in there as well. Finally, we are very aggressively managing the timing of our CapEx spend, and you may, as the year unfold, you know, it's possible we could see a little bit of improvement there as well. I think there's three areas, those three areas afford us some opportunity to, you know, kind of be on the right side of our cash flow guidance as we move through the year and as the year develops.
Matthew Akers (Senior Aerospace & Defense/Government Services Analyst)
Got it. No, that, that's helpful. Thanks for the color.
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Sure.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Bert Subin with Stifel.
Bert Subin (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hey, good morning. Jeff, you mentioned- Hey, Jeff, John. Jeff, you mentioned in your prior remarks that $26 billion backlog was up 11%. Can you give us any sort of way to think through how margin accretive your backlog is? I.e., is the work you've been winning, giving you conviction in future margin expansion? Then how do we think about investments, related to winning some new contracts on the tech side, affecting that margin profile near term?
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Well, look, look, I mean, we're focused, obviously, as the evaluation of our pipeline and the opportunities are considered in our, in our guidance. We do believe that the, the revised business development and pursuit, opportunity qualification parameters that John's talked about many times, you know, will continue to, will continue to give us programs that are appropriate margin and, and sort of satisfy our objectives. John may want to add to this a little bit, but, you know, the focus on differentiated opportunities in the pipeline, longer-term programs, capitalizing on relationships with customers, you know, those things, you know, we expect to, to result in, in ongoing volume with, you know, characteristics that are similar to, to what we're, what we've developed over the last year or two.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Bert, I'll add a couple of things to that. You know, I guess, first off, the margins in backlog and in our pipeline, support continued margin expansion. It's sort of what we have the team out there looking at, right? You know, large top-line growth without complementary bottom, bottom, bottom line growth doesn't really move free cash flow per to share that quickly. You know, and, and, and it really harkens back to, is there still room for us to expand our margins? And the answer is yes. You know, it's been a key focus of ours, of ours over the long term, but I've always been very, very cautious and very, very transparent about that I'm not gonna short-arm investments that are gonna drive future long-term growth. I'm not gonna watch a quarter to quarter point.
I'm gonna make absolutely certain that when we say we're on a new strategy to build a technology portion of our business that's very connected to our expert, expertise side, I really can't do that if I'm trimming CapEx and trimming, you know, R&D and B&P spend. In this 2024 plan, there is adequate investment and what is required for us to continue to build out things like our photonics line, continue to build out EW SIGINT. All those investments are in the guide that, you know, you all, you all see. It's, it's, it's important, it's an important part of the value creation model, margins are. But as are all the other levers that I mentioned in my prepared remarks, right? They collectively drive growth and free cash flow per share. Appreciate the question.
Bert Subin (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
John, maybe for my follow up, it sounds like, I think you've mentioned this before, but, you know, there's some investment that goes into that, the, the payout period coming later. You know, photonics, optics get some of that attention, and I think your expectation is you start to see more growth in that in FY 25 and 26. I guess first, is that appropriate? Is that true? That's sort of what you're seeing. Second, you know, what are you seeing across the other sides of your mission tech business? It seems like EW SIGINT is obviously taking off with Spectral. Are some of the other categories, you know, nearing a potential inflection point?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Bert, thanks. Look, spot on. Let me start with SIGINT and EW, right? Because sometimes, you know, we tend to not talk about that, which is settled in, right? It sort of has a stream of consciousness going. Make no mistake about it, SIGINT and EW, both the interim investments and the acquisitions that we did, those were the foundation to winning Spectral, okay? Based on open architecture investments, making sure we had the right hardware and the right software tools. All the software that we'll be delivering on Spectral is software that you would have seen in our counter UAS buildup, in all of our SIGINT mission tech deliveries, and the like.
As we continue to invest in the photonics area, yes, you've got the right model. Look, as I think I said last quarter, this is a 5 to 10-year market opportunity. You know, we're looking to complete some of our movement of production from Los Gatos to Orlando, making sure that we have the right production capacity in place. We've won our fair share of jobs on SDAs, tranche 0 and tranche 1. We're looking for some tranche 2 awards that will be going out here shortly in the next quarter or two. So yeah, I mean, we continue to invest heavily. You are going to see the output of our photonics business late in our fiscal year 2024.
That's within our plan. Then, you know, 25 and beyond, we'll start to see volume that we are in alignment that will continue to not only drive top, top line growth, but also push our bottom line growth forward. Long story short, investment is in, is in place. Great acquisitions, what LGS did in photonics and SA Photonics are, you know, inextricably connected, and love what we're seeing with, with the high-end tech pieces, bespoke solutions. We already have operating space. Really excited about the launch of the 16 OCGs. You know, the first in space, and operating at or above spec. Thanks for the question, Bert.
Bert Subin (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Yeah. Thanks, John, and thanks, Jeff.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Seth Seifman with JPMorgan.
Seth Seifman (Executive Director)
Hey, thanks very much. Good morning.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Morning, Seth.
Seth Seifman (Executive Director)
Actually wanted to, to follow up quickly on that, that last part of, of your answer about photonics and, you know, clearly a great growth opportunity in, you know, proliferated LEO. What, what we've seen, I feel like among several contractors doing work with, with SDA is that, you know, the, the work-... for the time being, seems to be margin dilutive. I guess when you think about how that ramps up in fiscal 2025 and 2026, I think, you know, you mentioned it would grow bottom line as well. Is there, you know, is there kind of a certain amount of, of fixed price risk around whether it grows bottom line to the extent that you expect it to grow bottom line?
Is it, you know, is it more like a product margin that's accretive in that time frame, or is it gonna take, you know, much longer for that to become more, more profitable?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Seth. Thanks. Look, the way I would characterize it is as follows: you know, first off, to the first part of your question, we're a supplier of Optical Communication Terminals, right? We're a supplier to major satellite builders. As for, you know, loss leaders and the like, we're well within the range that we wanted to be in at this point in our development cycle. You know, contrary to other suppliers, we had about a 15-year head start with the acquisition of LGS, who have real bespoke solutions that were already on orbit before we started talking about SDA, before we started talking about what we haven't assessed yet are these proliferated LEOs. It does, to our plan, contribute to our FY 2024 top and bottom line growth.
It fits in nicely. You know, we've got some more development work to do around producibility, which is well within the timeline that we have laid out, and we have some very, I guess I'll just use the word nice, bids in place for tranche 2 and for other work. I'd also tell you to, you know, beyond the, beyond the satellite comms part, there are other domains that we're looking at, you know, using photonics, right? It is a perfect way to map the Earth. It's perfect in the ELINT space. When in my opening remarks I was talking about I spent a lot of time on space, clearly, but then in other domains, you know, in other domains is sort of, you know, code for ELINT, and you can do ELINT from a number of places.
You can do it from the air, you can do it from the space and like. It's appropriately and tastefully part of our FY 2024 plan, and you'll see it more prominently as we move forward to FY 2025.
Seth Seifman (Executive Director)
Great, thanks. I'll stick to one this morning.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Okay, thanks so much, Seth.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Tobey Sommer with Truist.
Tobey Sommer (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you. I wanted to ask a question about the interplay between contract awards and book-to-bill, which has been strong for a number of quarters, not just the one reported, and organic growth. I understand that from previous Q&A, there's an interplay between some contracts that are slower to ramp, but we're talking several years of pretty strong book-to-bill. Could you explain sort of the disconnect or how, why organic growth isn't sort of stepping up faster? I noticed you had a weighted average contract duration of awards of 6 years in the quarter. I wonder if there's any kind of underlying trend towards longer or shorter awards that could be influencing the impact on organic growth?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah. Tobey, thanks. You know, so couple of directions here. I guess let's start with the large recent awards, right? Part of our long-term strategy was we would be at the point that we weren't talking about, you know, 3% annual organic, organic growth rate. You know, we would be talking about something around the mid-single digits. You know, it's a balancing act, frankly, making certain that if we're driving free cash flow growth per share, then we're looking at all different levers, right? You know, you can get that with a reasonable, predictable top-line growth with margin expansion. You get there with really high top-line growth.
You know, specifically on the 3 jobs that, that we won, you know, the EITaaS job is gonna start with upfront planning and design. Think lower volume, think that that ramps over, over time. The expertise job is gonna take a little bit of time to transition that work as task orders turn, but clearly we're, we're, you know, we are providing expert expertise in that case. That ramp's gonna be very fast, and then it lives there for, you know, quite a long period of time, hopeful of growth as we go out. On Spectral, you know, this is a large new technology program, starts with a lot of upfront planning and, and design. Think lower volume, and there's multiple paths for that to, you know, ramp over time. You know, what's really important is not just the growth rate.
You know, we, we, we see this kind of money, this kind of awards going into our backlog. You know, in essence, why isn't, you know, revenue growing faster? At the end of the day, our goal to building a differentiated company in this sector is to make sure that we have long-term predictable revenue growth. Okay? I'm not big on spikes. I'm big on continuous improvement. I'm, you know, really big on full year numbers, not highly motivated by, you know, quarter-end points. If you look at why we're winning this kind of business, this sort of mantra of, you know, bid less and win more and bid longer term, is over the last seven years, I'm spending materially less on winning business that I have already had in my book of business.
My recompete rate comes down, and over time, all those $ millions, I get to transfer that from B&P to IRAD, where I'm building exquisite outcomes for customers I have and customers that I don't have yet. It's much more complex than, you know, you just put $7.4 billion into it. I'd also, you know, warn again, and we've said this many, many, many times, don't take the ceiling value and divide it by, by the, by the top, 'cause it gives you not the full picture of where we're looking, looking to grow. Look, we came out of FY 2023 with 6% or organic. We're going into this year with 6% organic. You know, clearly, you don't win all of your A competes.
You know, so, so there's a, there's a, you know, there's a, there's a $1 or $2 worth of revenue we had last year, we no longer have this year, so we had to net that out. Then programs come to their natural end. So, you know, so we're gonna model differently than what the most rest, rest of the sector is because we are preserving sector-leading EBITDA margins and making sure that we're growing in line with, with that.
Tobey Sommer (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you. As my follow up, I, I was gonna ask about capital intensity and whether the strategy to focus on tech, but, like you said, can prompt IRAD or development in investments. How does that interplay in any change to the translation, for free cash flow conversion?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, these are generally not, capital-intensive businesses. I mean, you see a little bit of, of CapEx, and you-- and we've nodded at a little bit of working capital growth. We have some very modest, CapEx associated with the move from California to Florida of our photonics facilities. These are not, in the traditional sense, at all capital-intensive businesses. I mean, these are very modest, in terms of capital intensity. Does that, does that-- did that answer your question?
Tobey Sommer (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yes, yes. Thank you very much.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Thanks. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from David Strauss with Barclays.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Morning, David.
David Strauss (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning. Thank you.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Sure.
David Strauss (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Following up on that, someone's margin question and the trajectory from here, Can you give us an idea of how the backlog breaks out between expertise and technology as well as your forward bid pipeline?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah. You know, our backlog is very representative of the book of business we have, we have now. You know, which goes back to your earlier question around do, do the margins and the, you know, ramp of the programs in our backlog support future growth of both, frankly, right? You know, the answer is yes. As Jeff mentioned, you know, we would expect over time our CapEx spend to come back down, you know, to a lower level once we've made some of these technology-based capital investments. You know, how the backlog unpacks is sort of at our mix today. I think our mix is 53, 47. You know, what's, what's important for us is that, you know, 70% of our bids that we're bidding and we're looking to be awarded are on the technology side.
You know, one would say that in some ways, AGR, we've sort of broken through that sheath, and we've sort of, you know, we're now actually able to bid more technology jobs than we have in the past. How those come out of backlog can vary quarter and quarter and year, year to year, right? Right. A dollar of expertise going in is gonna unpack sooner and faster, and a dollar of technology is gonna, you know, you know, it's gonna unpack slower and, you know, lower over time. That's about how, how, how we model it. You know, rest, rest assured, the most important time to look at is, are we bidding things at the right mix of revenue growth? Are they core to the five markets that we serve? Are we doing acquisitions in a strategic, deliberate manner?
Are we, are we buying shiny objects that drive revenue, or are we buying things that fill in gaps for long-term growth? It's why we, we're really pushing on free cash flow per share growth, 'cause it's so much more than, you know, whether my, my technology and my backlog unpacks it, you know, $2 a year versus $1. You know, probably not an overly satisfying answer, but it, it, it sort of is how we manage this business.
David Strauss (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
No, that's, that's helpful color. In terms of a follow-up, is, is there any capital deployment at all assumed in the guidance, whether it be debt paydown? I don't think there are share repurchase based on, based on the assumed share count.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
No, the guidance, the guidance, doesn't assume any meaningful share repurchases. We have some limited number to kind of manage dilution of, of, you know, of grants that vest, but no meaningful share repurchase and no acquisitions.
David Strauss (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Any capital deployment activity would, would be incremental.
David Strauss (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Right. That's what I thought. All right. Thank you.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Sure. Yeah, thanks.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies.
Sheila Kahyaoglu (Aerospace & Defense and Airlines Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, guys. Thank you.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Morning.
Sheila Kahyaoglu (Aerospace & Defense and Airlines Equity Research Analyst)
you know, good year with good margins, but I just wanted to zone in on Q4. John, I know you said you don't focus on a point in time, but 4% growth was respectable, but peers saw an acceleration, and you guys saw deceleration. It seemed to be, particularly in your civil business, which is about 20% of sales. Can you talk about what happened there and how that improved?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, Sheila, thanks. You know, I guess this, this isn't aimed at you. To be honest, I've said this so many. I don't see the numbers until we disaggregate them to put the data in the back of our, you know, tables or in the back of our release. You know, I could probably take the time to investigate that in detail prior to these calls. I will tell you that everybody is well aware we lost TSA IMPACT last year. It was probably in the third to fourth quarter. If we're looking at a comparison in the numbers that you're talking about, but I can't be 100% certain.
At the end of the day, our leaders in each of our markets deliver to the whole of government. You know, whether DoD is up 6 or, or down 4, or civil, and this is a, you know, this is a, this is a response to everybody out there. Our customers love the fact that we're aligned by what it is we deliver and what it is they need, right? They, they crave information, they love shared investments, 'cause we get to invest once, and we get to deliver it to many. That's a great win-win. They aren't competitors, our customers, they, they're actually friends. I sort of believe that we should meet customers where they're at, which is I don't want to impose my org structure or how I measure my financials on them.
What we do is we bring things up to expertise and tech. My three presidents have the full rein to go all the way across this federal government, whether it's commercial-esque, whether it's FedCivil, DoD, Intel. I really, I wanna always be extremely transparent, Sheila. I just can't tell you what actually drove that, but I can tell you it's just as easy that next quarter, FedCivil will be up, you know, 9, and DoD will be down 4. I wouldn't tell anybody that that's good or bad, it just sort of, sort of is.
David Strauss (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks for that color. Then maybe bigger picture question. You talked about Spectral a bit and how that complements your abilities, and I think the other contract you mentioned was FeatureTrace. They both seem to have an AI, AI element in them. Maybe if you could elaborate on that and how that capability over the medium term could be used for other customers.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, thank you. I guess first off, Spectral, right? I think, what makes Spectral special is that it really is, you know, proof positive of the investment thesis that we've had for a while, is to how we, how we want to go about differentiating ourselves within the sector, and also moving out forward. You know, we, we know we're successful on the vision we had, you know, a number of years, years back. If I were to just go back over that, we've been a disciplined acquirer. We didn't get distracted by buying our avenue. We built each acquisition investment on the prior one. You know, Six3 was the foundation, Mastodon Hardware, more tactical, LGS Software, more bespoke missions, ABT, bringing in gimbals and mobile counter UAS, and other, and other tuck-ins.
You know, we didn't veer from that goal. You know, new technology markets with large funding streams where we could differentiate, propose, you know, a business that's actually, you know, purpose-built for where the future goes. Spectral is the first step in that. You know, I think it's quite noteworthy of what we have done on Spectral. It's noteworthy in that three aerospace and defense companies joined our team. To me, that's a sign that we differentiate across that entire, very highly competitive space. In a market, we've proven we can punch above our weight, where long-term investments were absolutely needed, and the U.S. Navy is gonna be a massive beneficiary for selecting us and our partners to be able to drive, drive that.
You talked about AI, and look, I, I've, I've always said that, you know, you can't spell CACI without AI, but it's a little bit of humor there, I have to have that. Look, to us, AI is a technology very similar to cyber. Sheila, it, it is becoming inherent in everything that we do. It's more about the outcomes. To us, AI is important, but it's a tool. I think last quarter, I actually talked about three different places, right? I look at AI, I think about machine learning, RPA, and generative. On the computer vision piece that you related to, yeah, that's absolutely part of, of what we've done. One was on contract, our SAFFIRE, NGA customer. The other one was self, funded.
It was all our own intellectual property, which is really how can we help NGA, basically produce digital maps faster? You know, this is a house, this is a tank, this is a, you know, missile silo. How do you use machine learning over a number of years to, you know, to not replace what the analyst does, but allow us to create maps in a much more repetitive and much more efficient manner? You know, broadly, we've got about 200 major programs across this company, and I have to tell you, in some way, in more than half of them, Sheila, we have been doing that, you know, for either years or months or days. It's important that how I see AI is just to appreciate a couple of things.
One is it is an important capability and differentiator for us, and it has been for a long time. The second piece is our AI is real. I continually talk about that. Our technology drive and our vision was to have it be real. It's tangible, you can touch it, you can see it, and a customer recognizes it in their outcome. It's real, it's deployed, it's also revenue-generating. It's not on a slide, it's not aspirational, it's so much a part of our technology work, which I call delivering, versus the expertise side. We're not advising, we're not consulting, we're actually doing. We're being very cautious.
I've gotten a lot of, you know, questions, "How does AI, you know, support the financial growth of the company?" My answer is, "It always has." You know, but we're being very in line with our customer, right? There is, there's an organization looking at, "How do I trust the AI coming out?" DoD has a responsible AI guidance. We're very familiar with it. We don't build solutions that go beyond that. Look, I think it's an enabling technology, just as cyber was, you know, 10 to 15 years back. Will it have an impact in the space that we serve? Absolutely so. Have we already helped it impact ourselves so we can be more efficient and more cost-effective? Absolutely so. Thank you for that. Appreciate it.
Mariana Perez Mora (VP and Equity Research Analyst - Aerospace & Defense)
Thank you. Thanks a lot.
Operator (participant)
We'll take our next question from Mariana Perez Mora with Bank of America.
Mariana Perez Mora (VP and Equity Research Analyst - Aerospace & Defense)
Good morning, everyone.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Morning, morning.
Mariana Perez Mora (VP and Equity Research Analyst - Aerospace & Defense)
My question is about people. As you think about executing against that, like, really large backlog, how is hiring, how is security clearances environment, and what are the challenges ahead?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah. Let me start with the last piece first. You know, since we have a large expertise-based contract with a extremely important intel customer, I did cover that earlier, we're that. You know, our, our customer understands the importance of people retaining their high-end, long time to get clearance. That has worked very, very well for us, and I expect them to continue to support us as we transition that, that job. Now, having said that, right, the demand for talent is always high, Mariana. I mean, it's, it's the hiring environment has been competitive for, you know, I guess since Moby-Dick was a minnow, maybe. You know, but it's no different than it has been in the past.
We really strive to be the employer of choice in our sector, and that's where we start off with. What are the things that we can do to make sure that we're attracting the right, the right talent that does then support our programs, which then supports our growth? I'm quite happy to say that about 50% of our work are people that we hire to do work on behalf of our customers, meaning that they are in our CSTAC facilities, and they are creating technology solutions. Look, we've got 3 great programs within this company. Hashtag #Making Moves enables mobility and helps retention. One of every 4 openings in this company is filled by somebody else in this company looking to be promoted, looking to do something different.
That's very unusual for what is usually a, you know, people-intensive, direct label, reportable, sector. Second is we've improved our, our referral program and the incentives, and that nets about 40% of all of our hires, right? Great people know other, other great people. Then we just recently put a Flexible Time Off program in place that I'll spend a minute or two on. We also have continued to expand our internship program. That's where we cultivate talent. We bring folks in from college at a freshman level, at a sophomore level, introduce them to national security space, talk about how their engineering degree, how that unpacks when they come to us, how they support some of the eye-watering technology that we're out there, delivering.
Frankly, we finished FY 2023 with attrition, a little over 1 point lower than what it was in fiscal year 2022. We continue to win Best Places to Work awards, and we drive our time to accept and time to start metric. That's probably a 12-point answer to how we're going to handle this large influx. What I would tell you on the technology programs, I often get asked, "Revenue is coming up at X, and we're surprised that your headcount hasn't." In the technology space, headcount is not linear to revenue, okay?
We, we have people working on multiple, multiple programs, taking their amazing engineering talents and bringing, bringing that to other programs. If, if I may, a moment on our FTO program. Look, it, it's a breakthrough program. We launched it on July, July first. In our, in our, in our surveys that we do, two of the benefits that resonate most of our employees is time off and flexibility. It just seemed like Flexible Time Off was the right title for it. You know, at the end of the day, employees can take time off as needed without a set number of maximum days. It allows our employees to better balance their work and their, and their personal commitments. It differentiates and strengthens our positioning as a highly sought-after employer.
I can tell you, we didn't do this with brevity in mind. We actually took us quite a while to assess this program. We actually used data from a prior acquisition that had a similar program in place for about 4, 4 years. Back to tie off where we're going on people, you know, we, we know that this program works. We're already seeing the impact of it in our recruiting. I've been asked, is it a headwind to revenue growth that puzzling, but at the end of the day, our work still needs to be completed. Program leaders know the staffing adjustments they need to make to support this outstanding program going forward. Finding talent is very, very tough.
We've put many, many programs in place over a long number of years, and we continue to be that company that when we win work, you won't hear us say, "We won the work. We can't convert the revenue because we can't find the people.
Mariana Perez Mora (VP and Equity Research Analyst - Aerospace & Defense)
Thank you. That was really grateful, Color, great, Color. My follow-up on M&A, first short term and then long term. In the short term, where are you seeing in terms of pipeline, areas of opportunity and pricing? In the long term, what role M&A plays out in keeping the competitive advantage?
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Yeah, thanks. You know, on the M&A pipeline, I think we've done a pretty good job of acquisitions in the past and address a number of gaps. That really gets into your second question. You know, we're never doing an acquisition for revenue. We don't buy shiny objects. We're just there to fill, fill, fill gaps. Look, where we are today, valuations, expectations of value, have really been slow to adjust to the changing market dynamics, you know, interest rates and other, and other things. Yeah, the pipeline is starting to build. However, we continue to pursue some of our preemptive M&A strategies. Well, you know, we're hopeful we see the market shift back to a buyer's market from a seller's market, that may drive more opportunities in the future.
You know, we're evaluating all options based on our current dynamics. Again, M&A is an important use of, use of capital, but it's not, the only, the only one. If we look at what we're taking a look at, we continue to look at companies who do, EW, again, cyber, AI, data analytics, and the like. Frankly, in all the other areas, Mariana, we've got the majority of our gaps filled, and now it's time for us to go grow and, you know, win, you know, larger and, a bit less and win more. You know, we're pretty good at doing moderate size acquisitions. We think we do those very well. It is our sweet spot. As the strategic needs arise, we'll execute on that.
If not, we'll, you know, be sitting down with Jeff and look at other flexible and opportunistic ways to deploy our capital.
Jeff MacLauchlan (CFO)
Yeah, I mean, absolutely committed to buying things that are logical, strategic fits at the right price.
Mariana Perez Mora (VP and Equity Research Analyst - Aerospace & Defense)
Thanks so much.
Operator (participant)
That concludes the question and answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to John S. Mengucci for closing remarks.
John S. Mengucci (President and CEO)
Well, thanks. Thanks, Lisa. Thank you for everybody who has joined during the call today. We know that many of you will have follow-up questions. Jeff MacLauchlan, Daniel Leckburg, and George Price are available after today's call. Thanks again for joining us. Stay healthy, and all my best to you and your families. This does conclude our call. Thank you and have a great day.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. That concludes today's presentation. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
