Huntington Ingalls Industries - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the 1st quarter 2023 HII Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Please be advised that today's conference call is being recorded. If you need further assistance, please press star one. I would now like to hand the call over to Christie Thomas, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mrs. Thomas, you may begin.

Christie Thomas (CVP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Operator, good morning, everyone. Welcome to the HII Q1 2023 earnings conference call. Joining me today on the call are Chris Kastner, our President and CEO, and Tom Stiehle, Executive Vice President and CFO. As a reminder, any forward-looking statements made today that are not historical facts are considered our company's estimates or expectations and are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provisions of federal securities law. For additional information regarding factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expected results, refer to our SEC filings. In their remarks today, Chris and Tom will refer to certain non-GAAP measures.

For reconciliations of these metrics to the comparable GAAP measures, please see the slides that accompany this webcast, which are available on the investor relations website at ir.hii.com. With that, I would like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Chris Kastner. Chris?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Christie. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining us on today's call. Q1 results reflect a good start to the year as we stay on course executing our nearly $50 billion of backlog and growing our Mission Technologies business in markets that support our customers. I wanna thank our 43,000 employees for continuing to deliver excellent products and services in support of national security. Our priority continues to be a focus on the fundamentals in shipbuilding, driving our shipbuilding schedules and delivering critically needed assets to the fleet. With that, we believe our milestones for 2023 and 2024 remain on track and consistent with our prior expectations. As we discussed last quarter, 2023 milestones include three ship launches and five ship deliveries, and the cadence of these is expected to pick up through the year, specifically in the third and Q4s.

I will note that we are working closely with the Navy on a change to optimize the CVN-79 schedule, which pulls baseline work from the post-shakedown availability into the construction period in order to provide more capability at ship delivery. Ultimately, this change would allow for a more capable Kennedy to join the Navy's operational fleet. Once this contract change is finalized, we will adjust the crew move aboard and ship delivery dates accordingly. Now, let's turn to our results on page three of the presentation. Top line growth was 3.8% from the Q1 of 2022, resulting in record Q1 revenue of $2.7 billion. Diluted earnings per share was $3.23 for the quarter, down from $3.50 in the Q1 of 2022.

New contract awards during the quarter were approximately $2.6 billion, which results in backlog of approximately $47 billion at the end of the quarter, of which $26 billion is currently funded. In the Q1 at Ingalls, we were awarded a $1.3 billion detailed design and construction contract for amphibious transport dock LPD-32, continuing the serial production of this critical product line for the U.S. Navy and Marines. At Newport News, we were recently awarded the Columbia Build Two advanced procurement contract for $567 million, allowing Newport News to purchase major components and commodity material and to begin advanced construction on the next five submarines in the Columbia-class. Finally, at Mission Technologies, we saw strong revenue and margin this quarter, with revenue growing 5.8% over the Q1 of 2022.

Notably, this quarter, we were awarded the PRESS program, a base plus six one-year options, a $1.3 billion task order to provide personnel recovery, enterprise services, and solutions for the US Africa Command. Shifting to activities in Washington, the President submitted his fiscal year 2024 budget request in March, which is now under consideration by Congress. The proposed budget reflects continued investment in our shipbuilding programs, funding the second Columbia-class submarine, two Virginia-class attack submarines, and two Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The budget request continues funding Ford-class nuclear aircraft carriers and aircraft carrier refueling and overhaul programs, as well as investment in the submarine industrial base. On the ship maintenance side, the budget request includes $600 million for the engineering overhaul of USS Boise.

Funding is included for the final increment of LHA 9, but funding was not included for the LPD program or a third DDG-51 destroyer, although Congress provided advanced procurement for these programs last fiscal year. We will continue to work with Congress and our customers to support their requirements as we move through the budget process. Beyond shipbuilding, the fiscal year 2024 request reflects continued investments in capability enablers such as AI, cyber, and electronic warfare, C5ISR, and autonomous systems, which align well with the advanced technology capabilities of our Mission Technologies division. Turning to labor, we successfully hired over 1,500 craftsmen and women in the Q1, which is at 30% of our full-year plan of approximately 5,000. This solid pace for hiring reflects continued recovery and stability in rebuilding our labor workforce post-COVID.

While hiring is on a positive trajectory, we continue to remain focused on hiring, the training of our workforce, and our workforce development and retention programs. For example, in March, we celebrated the graduation of 200 apprentices from our Newport News Shipbuilding Apprentice School, strengthening our skilled workforce and leadership pipeline. Moving to an update on the health of our supply chain, where we are seeing stabilized lead times, we have not seen a return to pre-COVID levels. It is important that we not only manage the risk this creates for our current programs, but also reflect these increased lead times in our future contracting activity. In summary, we've had a solid start to 2023, with record Q1 sales and continued long-term visibility, given our significant backlog as well as future award opportunities based on the strong defense budget.

Seeing progress in labor and supply chain lead time stabilization is certainly positive, but we need to continue to manage these risks moving forward. We're maintaining our emphasis on fundamentals, driving productivity to ensure we meet our customer commitments. Now, I will turn the call over to Tom for some remarks on our financial results. Tom?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Chris, good morning. Today, I'll briefly review our Q1 results. For more detail on the segment results, please refer to the earnings release issued this morning and posted to our website. Beginning with our consolidated results on Slide 5 of the presentation, our Q1 revenues of $2.7 billion increased approximately 4% compared to the same period last year and represents a record Q1 result for HII. This increased revenue was attributable to growth at Newport News Shipbuilding and Mission Technologies. Operating income for the quarter of $141 million increased by $3 million or 2% from the Q1 of 2022. An operating margin of 5.3% was essentially flat from the prior year period.

The increase in operating income was primarily due to a more favorable Operating FAS/CAS Adjustment and more favorable non-current state income taxes compared to the prior year period, largely offset by lower segment operating income. Net earnings in the quarter were $129 million, compared to $140 million in the Q1 of 2022. Diluted earnings per share in the quarter was $3.23, compared to $3.50 in the Q1 of the previous year. Moving on to slide 6, Ingalls' revenues of $577 million in the quarter decreased $54 million or 8.6% from the same period last year, driven primarily by lower revenues on the LPD, LHA, and NSC programs, partially offset by higher DDG program revenues.

Ingalls' operating income of $55 million and operating margin of 9.5% in the quarter declined from last year, primarily due to lower risk retirement on the LPD and LHA programs. It is important to remember that the Q1 of 2022 included a very clean delivery of Fort Lauderdale LPD-28, which provided significant risk retirement at that time. At Newport News, revenues of $1.5 billion increased by $116 million or 8.3% from the same period last year due to growth in both aircraft carrier and submarine revenues, partially offset by lower support services revenues. Newport News' operating income in the Q1 of 2023 was $84 million, an increase of $3 million or 3.7% compared to the Q1 of 2022.

Segment operating margin of 5.6% was down slightly from last year, primarily due to unfavorable risk retirement on Enterprise CVN-80. Shipbuilding operating margin in the Q1 was 6.7%, slightly below the 7% outlook we previously provided for the quarter. Our outlook for the full year is unchanged. As we have noted previously, our expected milestones for 2023 are concentrated in the second half of the year, which will drive our performance for 2023. At Mission Technologies, revenues of $624 million increased $34 million or 5.8% compared to the Q1 of 2022, primarily driven by higher volumes in mission-based solutions, which includes our C5ISR, cyber and electronic warfare, and Live, Virtual, and Constructive training businesses, as well as growth in fleet sustainment.

Mission Technologies' operating income of $17 million compares to an operating income of $9 million in the Q1 of last year. Current results include approximately $27 million of amortization of purchased intangibles, compared to $30 million in the Q1 of last year. Mission Technologies' EBITDA margin in the Q1 was 8%, compared to 7.3% for the same period last year. In the Q1, Mission Technologies did record a provision for a contract loss relating to a manufacturing issue that was not material to our financial results as a whole. Turning to slide 7, cash used by operations was $9 million in the quarter, and net expenditures were $40 million or 1.5% of revenues. Resulting in free cash flow of -$49 million.

This compares positively to cash used by operations of $83 million, net capital expenditures of $43 million, or 1.7% of revenues, and free cash flow of -$126 million in the Q1 of 2022. Cash contributions to our pension and other post-retirement benefit plans were $10 million in the quarter. During the Q1, we paid dividends of $1.24 per share, or $49 million. We also repurchased approximately 39,000 shares during the quarter at an aggregate cost of approximately $9 million. Moving on to slide 8, our free cash flow outlook through 2024 remains unchanged, as do our capital allocation priorities. I'll highlight that we will continue to expect to distribute substantially all free cash flow to shareholders through 2024 after planned debt repayment, which is on track.

Turning to slide 9, we are reaffirming our 2023 guidance and providing some color on how we see the Q2 shaping up. Before discussing our Q2 outlook, I want to make clear that we are reaffirming our guidance for the full year with the knowledge that once the PSA modification is completed, the remaining CVN-79 milestones will be updated, including moving the delivery to 2025. We believe we'll be able to reach an agreement that is neutral from a margin and cash perspective to both 2023 and 2024. Our outlook reflects this. Regarding the Q2, we expect shipbuilding revenue to be largely consistent with Q1 results and shipbuilding operating margin to be approximately 7%.

That does imply meaningful improvement in the second half of the year, which is consistent with when we expect our shipbuilding milestones to occur. For Mission Technologies, we expect Q2 revenue of approximately $600 million and operating margin of 2.5%. We expect the Q2 free cash flow to be approximately -$150 million. Again, there is no change to our expectation for the year. Our cash generation will fall predominantly in the third and Q4s, consistent with both our forecasted milestones and our normal cash cadence over the calendar year. To summarize, the Q1 results were largely in line with the expectations we provided on our Q4 call. We are pleased to reaffirm our full year guidance, and we remain focused on execution and hitting the milestones and commitments that we've laid out.

With that, I will turn the call back over to Chris for some final remarks before we take your questions.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Tom. Before wrapping up, I would like to point out that we have recently published our 2023 sustainability update report, which among other things, describes the governance and management framework that we have established around sustainability. Finally, I would like to emphasize that we remain focused on successfully executing on our strong backlog and positioning for long-term growth, which will generate value for our employees, customers, and shareholders. Now, I'll turn the call over to Christie for Q&A.

Christie Thomas (CVP of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Chris. As a reminder to everyone on the call, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up so we can get as many people through the queue as possible. Operator, I will turn it over to you to manage the Q&A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If for any reason you would like to remove that question, please press star followed by two. Again, to ask a question, press star one. As a reminder, if you're using a speakerphone, please remember to pick up your handset before asking your question. We'll pause here briefly as questions are registered. The first question comes from the line of Doug Harned with Bernstein. You may now proceed.

Doug Harned (Analyst)

Yes, thank you. Good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning, Doug.

Doug Harned (Analyst)

You know, I'm interested, when you look at Newport News right now, and you appear to be getting some good growth there. Can you give us a sense of the breakdown of where growth is coming from? I would say across Columbia-class, Virginia-class, the CVN programs. What really getting at here is as Columbia-class starts to ramp, can we expect growth there to move above that kind of 3% - 3.5% trajectory that you've been on?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Let me start, and then Doug, and then Tom can step in here. I continue to think, and I've said previously, that Newport News will provide the majority of the growth in shipbuilding. Is there potential as Columbia-class comes online, and the aircraft carriers become a more significant part of our revenue mix, and then we get Block V in full rate and then into Block VI, that growth could be greater than 3%? Sure. From a long-term basis, we think the right way to think about shipbuilding is 3%.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Sure, Doug, I'll hop behind as Tom here. Yeah, we did have some good growth in Q1 there. It was up $116 million. It was driven by carrier construction, CVN-79, CVN-81, Columbia-class and the VCS program, partially offset by some fleet support that was just slightly underneath. As Chris says, I think we feel comfortable about that. We have the capacity and the capability to kind of run that. I think long term, though, it's still kind of governed by labor and the program plans that we have in the yard here. I think 3% is the right way to take a look at it on a long-term basis.

Doug Harned (Analyst)

There was an unfavorable adjustment in CVN-80. Can you? That sort of surprised me because I would think of less risk on CVN-80 than there was on 79. Can you talk about where you know, what happened there, also, you know, how a Virginia-class is still proceeding right now.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

I'll take the CVN-80 first. You know, just backing up a little bit on color on margin and profitability that we thought would be at 7% for the quarter on shipbuilding. We came in at 6.7%, and the majority of just that shortfall there was about the Enterprise step back that we took. You know, we find ourselves, as I noted in my remarks up front on CVN-80, that we find ourselves from a time, capacity, and throughput, needing to offload and/or outsource unit work and panel work right now. As we're working ourselves through that, it's early in that project as we ramp that up, and we wanted to make sure that we increase the outsourcing risk protection, and we book that conservatively.

You know, there's still many years to go on that ship, and it's just, you know, embarking on some additional outsource work on that. I would tell you that since the keel laying last summer, that ship is coming tremendously along. It's in the dry dock right now. It's throwing a lot of steel at it. The shape of the ship is erecting, and I'm really proud of what the team's doing with that. Again, we just thought it'd be prudent to take a balanced approach as we embark on getting some additional work outsourced.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah, Doug, I'll comment on VCS. Yeah, the VCS program, the program schedules for VCS are pretty stable and have been stable for the last couple quarters. You know, we'll deliver 796 this year. 798 will be delivered the year after that. Actually, we have a christening with Sheryl Sandberg being the sponsor on Saturday for Massachusetts. You're all invited. It'll be streamed live. Massachusetts is performing well. Then 800, we'll deliver the year out of that after that, excuse me. Then Block V will follow. I think there's upside related to Block V. There's not an added impact. Hello? Hello?

Operator (participant)

Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. We have lost connection with the speaker line. Please remain on hold as we reconnect them. Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Hello?

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your patience. We have the speakers back on the line. Please proceed.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Hello. Doug, were you still on?

Doug Harned (Analyst)

Yes, I'm still on. Yes.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Well, I don't know when we fell off. I don't know if you heard the answer relative to the DCS program.

Doug Harned (Analyst)

You, you were walking through, you know, the transition to full-on Block V and the milestone schedule. That's where you were at. I think it broke off in the middle of that.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah, I apologize. Again, on Block V, I do think there's opportunity on Block V. The team needs to retire risk in order to achieve that, and we're just not at the phase of the program where you'd be retiring that risk. I still think there's opportunity in Block V. I apologize for the line cutting out.

Doug Harned (Analyst)

No, no problem. No, thank you.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Doug.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Christie Hearn. The next question comes from the line of Robert Spingarn with Melius Research. You may now proceed.

Robert Spingarn (Analyst)

Hey, good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning, Rob.

Doug Harned (Analyst)

Morning, Rob.

Robert Spingarn (Analyst)

Hey, guys. Sticking with Newport News, if resources need to be diverted from Virginia to Columbia-class to keep that on track and given the priority there, are there any conversations with the customer to mitigate any potential economic losses to you or the industrial base, the submarine industrial base, given that Virginia is fixed cost?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. There could potentially be discussions in that regard. I would say from our point of view, our staffing is pretty solid on the Columbia-class class and the Virginia-class right now, so I don't anticipate that. I think you saw that we had a good start to the year from a labor standpoint. Attrition is trending well. Attendance is trending well. A lot of training expense as well. We don't anticipate that right now. We're pretty comfortable from a staffing point of view.

Robert Spingarn (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Spingarn. The next question comes from the line of Seth Seisman with J.P. Morgan. You may now proceed.

Seth Seifman (Analyst)

Thanks very much. Good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning.

Doug Harned (Analyst)

Morning.

Seth Seifman (Analyst)

Wanted to ask a little bit about the. I guess we can look on the, on the milestone slide and see that there's a lot of, you know, a lot to come here in 2023, and that that kinda underwrites, I guess the margin expansion that you're looking for in the second half. I guess, you know, with the margins coming in, I think a little bit lower than people expected in the first half, higher than expected in the second half, and it seems fairly variable based on milestones. We look at 2024, and we see that, you know, each one of the yards has fewer milestones in 24 than 23. Although we don't know, you know, the value of those milestones could be different.

I guess, you know, how do we think about a margin trajectory given how the first half of this year, the second half of this year is so different? You know, how do we think about where that takes us going into 2024?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

I appreciate the question there. You know, we did say on Q4 that the milestones were on the back half of the year. We foreshadowed the 7% for Q1, and now you can see the outlook for Q2 is going to be that way too. It does, you know, you do the math against the 7%-8%, and the back half is going to be in the upper 8s on that, and we feel comfortable with that. You are right that the milestones are on the back half of the year there. I would tell you also that what's in the mix there, you know, there's other things on top of the milestones, although they are the major reason that we that have the changes in EACs and affect profitability.

There's other areas too in there, whether it's our performance or capital incentives, either on contract or that we anticipate. We either have those factored or they're in potential. There's risks and opportunities, so we can materialize more opportunity than risk, but that we realize. That plays out every quarter that we do our EACs. We also do, we have our contracts, especially our COHs that pop in here, and both for the condition and the statement of work that could be fluid over the 2.5 to three years that those ships are here. There's change, there's condition, it's cost type contracts. There's change proposals that are in flux right there. We've talked a little bit about on several calls of unadjudicated change.

You know, what you'll see, what we see here is that the cost is already into the EACs. We conservatively book the recovery on those things. As that plays out, there's a natural recovery of those true-ups to the contract performance. There's elements of that that's happening behind the scenes as well as just the milestones. That gives you some context for 2023. For 2024, yeah, there are still more milestones than usual. We have three deliveries and three launches. We're holding everything on the page that we that we gave you a quarter ago with the caveat on the CVN-79. There'll be a natural lift as we work ourselves through.

We've talked about in the past Block IV and Block V volumes, so that will assist closer to the deliveries of the large ships that we have here. Then, as we proceed forward, new contracts that will roll in both the performance and inflationary impacts that we've seen, and that will give us new targets. Then lastly, I'd add that, you know, as quarters and years go by here, obviously the inflection point will hit from the production and learning. You know, as we get this workforce up to speed, they're more experienced, successive builds on follow-on ships, there's a natural lift in profitability on that front as well.

Seth Seifman (Analyst)

Great. That's, that's really helpful. Maybe as a follow-up, just a quick confirmation. Want to make sure I understand. The optimization, you're talking about on CVN-79, when reaching an agreement there with Navy and that's finalized, that is a neutral event as far as margin and, you know, estimates for the program and cash is concerned, for you guys?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

I just want to caveat that a little bit. We anticipate it to be neutral. It's a benefit both of us and the customer to have that ship be more capable, have more functionality in it, and it'll be to the latest configuration. As we work ourselves through the negotiations on that contract takes on more statement of work. It'll get schedule, we'll adjust the targets. We'll situate that, although we won't get the liquidation and the retention release next year, we'll have more statement of work and cost and cash that's running through the books. We anticipate that that will be, you know, margin and cash neutral for the next 2 years through the delivery of that ship.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Seth, I could also add, I think it's a really smart thing being done by the Navy here relative to integrating the PSA into the base contract because it reduces deployment risk for the ship. We're participating in that. We'll get it definitized over the summer. We think it's a very positive development.

Seth Seifman (Analyst)

Great. Thank you very much.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Seth Seifman. The next question comes from the line of Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. You may now proceed.

Myles Walton (Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning. Chris, could you comment on the LPD-29?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Good morning.

Myles Walton (Analyst)

I think there's both the sea trials and the delivery aspect that you're thinking about for 23. You know, obviously you have to have sea trials before you have delivery. I'm curious, what's the hold time on the sea trials that you would need to see to actually be able to accomplish the delivery for this year? How material is that to, you know, this back-end loaded margin for the year?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Well, it's definitely in the mix. It's a Q4 trials and delivery. A lot of volume work to go on that ship. They're making really good progress. We lit off the engines really last week when we were down there. I'm optimistic that team will start to continue to hit cadence. The LPD program we're very proud of and confident that LPD-29 will get done this year contingent upon, of course, that labor stays stable and we continue to make progress. A lot of confidence in that Ingalls team.

Myles Walton (Analyst)

Okay. Just one on labor. Chris, you sound actually really good on labor. From a hiring perspective, could you comment on attrition as well? Is it showing up in the right disciplines and you know, where the pinch points are?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

It is. Yeah, Myles, it is. Attrition's been positive as well, and it is showing up in the right disciplines. You always have in shipbuilding moments in time where you may need welders or riggers or electricians. You might be out of balance a bit, but that's kind of the art of managing labor in shipbuilding. It's a positive start to the year. It's taken a lot of effort, and we need to stay on it. Team's very focused on it, but it is positive thus far.

Myles Walton (Analyst)

Great. Sorry, one last one I'll squeeze in. Tom, you mentioned that Mission Technologies absorbed a customer charge, I think. Can you size that? Is that the same that was disclosed in the Q last quarter or the K?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yes. Appreciate the question there, Myles. It is the same issue that we had last time. You'll note when you get the Q that the disclosure has improved from a top range to a now we've taken a charge. No, I wouldn't disclose the customer or the charge itself. It's not material to our financials. You won't see it in the Q, correct. All right. Yep.

Myles Walton (Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Myles.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Walton. The next question comes from the line of David Strauss with Barclays. You may now proceed.

David Strauss (Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning, David.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Morning, David.

David Strauss (Analyst)

Chris, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that, you know, there was no AMPHIB funding in fiscal 2024. If you could just kind of update us on the status there? I mean, we seem like there are always always these ongoing reviews, and then Congress adds money back. Just kind of where things stand there?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. 24 is pretty positive from a budgetary standpoint for us. The one issue, as you mentioned, is LPD 33. We'll work with the customer and the United States Congress to ensure that they understand the importance of that ship to Ingalls, and we'll just follow it through the process. Got high confidence based on the law of 31 AMPHIBs that we have a chance to get that back in the budget, but we'll just have to follow it through the process.

David Strauss (Analyst)

Okay. Block IV versus Block V, can you give us an idea of how much of, you know, Virginia-class revenue at this point is Block IV versus Block V and how that transitions over the next year in terms of, you know, I mean, Tom, your point is some potential margin lift as we progress there. Some sort of baseline where we are today and what that looks like.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

As we crossed over at the end of last year, Block V actually has more revenue than Block IV in it. Although you find the programs where one's better than 80% accomplished with SSN-794 delivered, SSN-796 to go, SSN-798 floating off, and then the successive years of the sell-off of SSN-798 100. Block IV is significantly more complete with costs in the books here. Block V is still less than 30% complete right now. There's a mix there. I have more volume on Block V, and I still have a large amount of that program in front of me.

As we've talked about, I think, keeping the pedal to the metal on the labor, training that workforce, getting serial production cadence happening, which we see that with the operating system that they incorporated down there. I think all that's gonna add to a real potential of additional profitability on Block V over IV. You don't see it yet, obviously, because it's early in the program. Good that we're getting the sales volume from the VCS program. A lot of interest in that. We'll just keep working to get the production efficiency going on the VCS program.

David Strauss (Analyst)

Thanks very much.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Mm-hmm. Thanks, David.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Strauss. The next question comes from the line of Gautam Khanna with Cowen. You may now proceed.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Gautam, you out there? We may have lost Gautam. Operator, do you still hear us?

Operator (participant)

Yes. I still hear you. I don't have Gautam.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Okay. Maybe he'll come back in. If you could maybe just go to Pete.

Operator (participant)

Absolutely. The next question comes from the line of Pete Skibitski with Alembic Global Advisors. You may now proceed.

Peter Skibitski (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning, Pete.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Hey.

Peter Skibitski (Analyst)

Hey, hey, Chris, I think a lot of us, were targeting the return of shipbuilding margins to that 9% range by, I don't know, you know, 2025 or so. Is that gonna be still reasonable, that target, after these, the Kennedy contract changes, and where you see labor going right now, or is that a stretch at this point? What are you thinking there?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. I don't wanna give commentary on 25 margins at this point. We're comfortable with our guidance for this year. I'm comfortable that the way we have the ships delivering and the stability of the milestones that we look for improvement next year. The teams are working on the fundamentals every day within both shipbuilding organizations coming through COVID and the labor challenges. There are still significant labor challenges we're working through. I don't wanna predict when we'll recover to 9%. I still believe it is a 9%, 9% plus business. We just need to continue to focus on the fundamentals and execute.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

If I could come in here too, Chris. Pete, we're obviously not happy with where we are right now. We're driving hard. We're being realistic with it. The strategy that we have that we've shared with the street and shareholders is we anticipate and expect expansion in of margin. We'll continue to fight through that, and we do that every day and every week here. We get realistic with the ranges that we give that definitely it's attainable. We have strategies and plans and the profiles and the forecasts show that we can meet our forecast that we tell the street. We'll just keep you updated like we have every quarter.

You know, the trajectory needs to go up, and we're working really hard every day to make that happen. Okay, appreciate it. Last one for me. Guys, I remember a while back, one of the next big contractual things you were looking to accomplish was getting the 5th Ford-class carrier under contract, and I think you wanted to do that in the midterm, nothing near term. Is that now in the budget? There was talk maybe even doing, you know, another 2 carrier bundle. Are those things still in play in terms of where the budget shook out?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Well, it is. It is in the budget. We do still think, and we know that buying them together, absolutely saves the Navy money, and it's a right way to buy it. That hasn't been, hasn't shown up in the budget as of yet, but we believe that that is the right way to acquire aircraft carriers. Positive it's in the budget, and then we'll continue to work with the Navy on potentially working on a 2-ship buy, but that hasn't manifested as of yet.

Peter Skibitski (Analyst)

Thanks, guys.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

A comment on that, too, on the strategy front there. You know, we're looking, and we think it makes financial and program sense to buy two carriers at a time with three years of AP on 4-year centers, right? That's what we're focused on. You know, from a timeframe, we would be looking for a construction turn on in 2028 and then, you know, optimistically AP in 2025, if not 2026. That's the playbook we used last time. It's buying power for our customer, it's efficiency for the yard here. We get to buy two sets of long-lead material and get the buying efficiency from that. That's what we're working closely with our customer on.

Peter Skibitski (Analyst)

Great. Thanks, guys.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Pete.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Skibitski. The next question comes from the line of George Shapiro with Shapiro Research. You may now proceed.

George Shapiro (Analyst)

Yes, I wanted to ask, you know, General Dynamics on their call commented that they were having supply chain issues in Virginia. I think it was more Block V than IV, and they took a charge for that. I guess you're not experiencing that, there's different suppliers, or if you could just explain maybe?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. Well, I can't comment on General Dynamics' phone call. That would not be appropriate. I'm comfortable with where we are in the VCS program this quarter, both Block IV and Block V. As I said, we're progressing down the delivery path on our Block IV boats. We need to transition to the Block V. It would just be inappropriate for me to comment on General Dynamics' call. We're comfortable with where we're at.

George Shapiro (Analyst)

You're not seeing supply chain issues, is that it?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

I think we're seeing supply chain issues across the board really. It is definitely stabilized from a lead time standpoint. But it's stabilized at a higher level than pre-COVID, and we need to make sure we take that into consideration not only on our current EACs but on our future bids. Yeah, there are supply chain issues, but they've stabilized a bit over the last couple quarters from a lead time standpoint.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Right. I'd add the cost and projected future costs have been incorporated into our EACs. We've updated the milestone schedules here, George. You've seen that we have walked those over the last couple years when COVID started. There has been some charges at Newport News that you know about. As Chris said, I'll reiterate that, you know, every 13 weeks we take a look at the actuals to date, the ETC expected, the forecast, the material indices, how costs are gonna come in, and we are comfortable with how we're both in the milestone chart that we give you from a scheduling perspective, and then obviously what's put into the financial reports or from an EAC perspective.

George Shapiro (Analyst)

Okay. Then Tom, what, the net EACs, can you give for the quarter and the break between, the sectors?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yes, sir. The gross favorable was 64 up. The gross unfavorable was 55 down. The net favorable obviously was $9 million, whatever the math of that is. That's made up of actually, you know, you'll see now in the queue, there's a revised disclosure that has that information. Ingalls is 14 up of the 9. MT is 4 up of that 9, it's 18 up. The Newport News is cumulatively down $9 million. Really that $9 million is the preponderance of, you know, a 7% shipbuilding versus 6.7%, and we had that discussion early on the outsourcing on CVN-80.

George Shapiro (Analyst)

Okay. Then one last one if I can get in here. Can you mention what drives the more negative free cash flow in the Q2? Then what drives the almost doubling of your free cash flow in 2024 after three years of, you know, relatively similar numbers?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

For the free cash flow here, you know, there's a rhythm and a cycle that we have. We usually cash uses at the beginning of the year. We saw that in Q1. We had guided at -$200 million to -$300 million. We actually came in at -$49 million. We just had some better timing in collections in Q1. That just probably pull ahead from Q1 to Q2. We're guiding -$150 million for Q2 now. You combine the two Q1 actual and the Q2 forecast, we're still right on plan and where we thought we would be. I think when I look where the street perspective is, if we add up both the Q1 and Q2 expectation, we're slightly ahead of that, which is good.

For the free cash flow kind of going forward here, you know, you can look at it like one of two ways. We've talked about the top line revenue expansion. We haven't had a question on here, but you heard in the remarks, you know, almost 4%, 3.8% growth. Mission Technologies grew 5.8% this quarter and three in Q1 year-over-year. It grew 3.5% from last quarter. Like Q4, every one of Andy Green and Mission Technologies business unit expanded their top line. That's a good sign right there. I really like what we're seeing. I think that bolsters as well. We had talked about long-term shipbuilding growth at three, and it was 3.1% this quarter.

We talked about long-term growth Mission Technologies to be 5, it was 5.8%. The weighted mix should be 3.5%. As we said, we came in at 3.8% this quarter. The case is there and the numbers are playing out. From a Mission Technologies perspective, I would just leave you with, you know, they finished, they're coming up on year 2 now this August. You know, the restructures behind them, the leadership's chosen, the business units understanding. They've integrated operations, systems, processes, and I really think the team now has full-time focus and support on the objective of go win a lot of work and execute the contract. I feel really good about that top line growth. Margin expansion, I know we've talked about it.

There's an expectation that 8%-10%, that Mission Technologies would move that up. We had guided that thesis is still in place to get from the low 8s to the higher end of the range of 8%-10%. We saw the EBITDA margins in pretty good shape. 8.2% last year, when we normalize out the booking for a joint venture sale that we have there, it was 8.6%. This quarter it's 8%. It's early in the year. I think both the expansion of the top line and the bottom line is real, and it's in front of us. Managing our CapEx, we've got it to 3% here.

We've come off our highs of almost 5% and upper 4s over the last 4 or 5 years, and that adds to the bottom line. We get through the adjustments for COVID, both the FICA and the COVID payments back. I think there's a natural lift there that you'll see. Macro perspectively, you can just take a look at from a shipyard perspective, we were generating in the $475-$550 just between the two yards.

When you throw another $2.5 billion business with Mission Technologies that's growing annually, you know, 8%-9%, even if you take the midpoint at 9%, the math easily generates through taxes in the vicinity of about $200 million for Mission Technologies. 5 and 2 is 700. I'm comfortable that we'll get there. We've talked about the step up from 2023 to 2024 specifically will happen as we get into the cadence of production across both yards. What we'll find is that working capital will come down a little bit. That will be the initial lift to get 2023 up to 2024.

With the growth and the expansion of margin, you know, we see us being, you know, $700 million plus, $700 to $700 plus going forward in the out years.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Okay. Thanks, Tom. That's a good complete answer.

George Shapiro (Analyst)

Mm-hmm. Thank you, George.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Shapiro. The next question comes from the line of Gautam Khanna with Cowen. You may now proceed.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director)

Hey, can you hear me, guys?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

We can. Thanks, Gautam.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director)

Terrific. Thank you. I wanted to ask what your best guess as to why in the fit-up, a number of the delivery dates on Ingalls ships had moved to the right and just, you know, relative to the last time they published those delivery dates, and they gave reasons for it. Do you broadly agree with those revised delivery dates expressed in the fit-up?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. I think what you're seeing there, Gautam, is kind of two different processes with potentially different risk expressions. Obviously we look at our delivery dates and our... They don't specifically align, right? We can project better deliveries based on what we're seeing in the quarter or the year or some of the indicators that could impact delivery. I just think they're different processes with different objectives. You're gonna have differences from time to time, but we're comfortable with where we're at.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director)

Yeah.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Okay.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

I'll come behind that too, you know. That comes out every year, we take a look at it and we microanalyze it. I will tell you at times you'll see ships and boats move, and other times they don't move, and sometimes they stick on a contract date for years, and then they move aggressively. I can tell you from our perspective, you know, we have, we're aligned programmatically and with our customers on the status of the programs. We're aligned from both the milestones and schedules that we run our yards to, our master construction schedules that go into the milestones that we feed to the street. Then from an EAC perspective, to make sure we have the duration of the programs understood and priced in the EACs. I would not be overly concerned.

At times, it's just risks and opportunities. When's the ship available? When's the crew available? When is the test sequencing to get the ships and boats out of here? A lot goes into that. I wouldn't dismiss them. They're important. Our information, you know, is updated and evaluated every 13 weeks here. I can tell you that the schedules and EACs are aligned to the current performance of both yards.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director)

Thank you. That's a great answer. Just to follow up on an earlier question about, you know, the differences on the Virginia-class at GD relative to HII, I know you're not gonna opine on GD, but I was just curious if you could talk about since Q2 of 2020, when you guys announced the large charge related to COVID and the schedule impacts on Virginia-class, have you had much in the way of negative cum catch-ups on that program, or was that kind of the big reset, if you will, on the program accounting? I'm just curious.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director)

It doesn't seem to be called out quarter after quarter. Thank you.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Obviously that was a significant adjustment we made with Block IV, but we from time to time have adjustments, and we've had adjustments on the Block IV program between then and now. They just haven't been material enough to mention. We're very, as you know, we have a disciplined process around REA, and if we have to make adjustments, we do. You've kind of got it right on there. We had a significant adjustment. We've made smaller, less material adjustments between now and then, and we're very comfortable with where we are right now.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, guys.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Mr. Connor. The next question comes from the line of Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs. You may now proceed.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Hello.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

I guess at this point, should we expect the shipbuilding margin to be up or down in 2024?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

I absolutely think, not giving guidance for 2024 yet, but I expect it to improve. I expect both shipyards to execute, barring any unforeseen labor issues or supply chain issues or macroeconomic issues, all things being equal, I expect it to be up. We're not giving formal guidance on 2024 yet.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

Okay.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

I'll reiterate that. I'll reiterate that, too. You know, we've told you where we wanna take it to. We haven't told you when because of the environment that we operate under. You know, 3 variants of the COVID virus, inflation, unforeseen inflation from a couple of years ago, and then the tightness of the labor market going back 2 years, and as we work ourselves through the back end of that right now. You know, it just creates headwinds into the market. We've tried to be as transparent with you as possible. We set our objectives and share our forecasts, and we have plans behind them to kinda make them. Then, we gotta fight through and, if new risks pop up, we gotta find other opportunities.

clearly, we anticipate to incrementally expand our margin performance here to kinda going forward.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

Appreciate that.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Noah.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

Is it possible to give more specifics on maintaining margin and cash flow on CVN-79 while moving the schedule? Just if you could give us more details around how that happens. Is that true year by year in the remainder or just in the full aggregate of the remainder?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

As Tom mentioned in his remarks, we need to keep that financially neutral. As we come through that Class I change, that's the objective. The team's working on ensuring that on an annual basis or annualized basis, we keep cash and margin kind of in a neutral place and risk in a neutral place from where we were today.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

Okay.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

Tom, you walked through the good quarter at MT. In your 2Q guide, you've got it back to flat year-over-year and the margin a little lower sequentially. Just what's behind that? Then I guess maybe just what's your latest thinking on the longer term margin potential of the segment?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yes, I think that's just being conservative on where we are in timing. We'll see how that plays out. You know, the quick turn quarters, especially in that business where the contract duration is shorter, a potential for recompetes and wins and when programs pop online and things of that nature. I think it's just us being more conservative. You know, at our position for Q1, the run rate of that is $2,496. We got a $2.5 for the year, so I'm feeling good about that. It's the largest quarter by far that MT has had with a line on it, and the 5.8% growth is fantastic. Each of the business units growing is a great sign, too, and that's 2 quarters in a row of that happening.

I think there's some really good positive signs there. We don't wanna over-commit and, you know, that business is highly competitive. There's a lot of proposal work in that, you know, plus $60 billion of proposals. Half of that's qualified. A lot of moving pieces on when things either get awarded or delayed or extended or option year exercise. We're just being conservative on how that plays out. I do think as we, as I mentioned about restructure in the rearview mirror and the team even more focused and experienced working together over there, the additions of our, the chief technology officer that we have here, Eric Chewning, as being, from executive vice, BS&D. All those will help mature that portfolio over there. I do anticipate that although the...

It's highly, the portfolio has a lot of cost type contracts in it, I think we'll see, as we move forward, a push for more products and services, more technology than just the service side, and that will have a natural lift, too, in the profitability in that. The guide we gave you was 8%-10% EBITDA when we purchased the line, and that construct still holds here and, you know, expectation that we'll grow that up over the next couple of years.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

I would mention between Q1 and Q2, there are some contracts within Mission Technologies that are relatively lumpy in nature when you book the margin. That's why the lower guide in Q2 from a margin standpoint.

Noah Poponak (Analyst)

Okay. Okay. Thanks very much.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Noah.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, Noah Poponak. The next question comes from the line of Scott Deuschle with Credit Suisse. You may now proceed.

Scott Deuschle (Director)

Hey, good morning. Tom, does the back half.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning, Scott.

Scott Deuschle (Director)

... margin guide Tom, does the back half margin guide accommodate for the risk of additional negative EACs like we saw this quarter on CVN-80?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

That's a very specific question. I would tell you that each quarter, you know, once we come through our EAC analysis, we evaluate performance, existing costs, we update our projections going forward. We evaluate material, labor costs, schedule and overheads. All that goes into the construct of coming up with the booking rate. Then from there we update our sets of opportunities and risks against that forecast. From there, we'll make a determination of what the forecast is for ourselves and out to the street here. I would tell you that there's always the potential to either exceed the forecast or under run it. Specifically, we think we booked the risk on the CVN-80 outsourcing project accordingly. I would not anticipate that to continue to bleed.

If anything, I'd like to see us do better than what we have in the plan right now from a risk mitigation standpoint. I think the guidance still holds that I gave you between 7.7% and 8%. The back half will be better, and we'll just watch that play out.

Scott Deuschle (Director)

Okay. Chris, can you help reconcile the improved hiring and attrition trends you've noted with the increased outsourcing on CVN-80 that drove the negative EAC? I'm just trying to understand why you needed to do the unplanned outsourcing if hiring and attrition did track better.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah, no, that, that's a really good question. When you're putting in your plans, you're projecting what your workload is going to be and what your labor is going to be. It just made good sense to, you know, over the last year or so, put together outsourcing plans. The risk showed up when we finally rationalized and realized the cost estimate for that outsourcing, we needed to incorporate it into our EAC. It's all in the mix together. It's all related. Still positive on a labor front, but we still needed to do that outsourcing on 80.

Scott Deuschle (Director)

Okay. Last question, kind of bigger picture. You know, if you priced your fixed price contracts assuming wage inflation would be at a low single digit rate, and it's a mid to high single digit rate instead, I'm trying to understand mechanically how this can still be a 9% margin business until you burn through a lot of the $47 billion backlog, which I assume would take another 4 to 5 years. Just trying to understand the mechanics of how that works since I assume-

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah, sure.

Scott Deuschle (Director)

a big chunk of the cost on the ship.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure. Sure, I can start and then potentially, Tom here. Remember, we do have EPA protection, pretty, at Ingalls and some EPA protection at Newport News, and we do have long-term labor agreements, in place both at Newport News and Ingalls. That mitigates it, to some extent.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

I comment on that front too. We do have the $47 million backlog. Only 55% of it is funded. That's one, right? The other areas there, whether they're gonna get finalized, negotiated, or exercised. Two is, as Chris said, about 45% of our workforce, we do have union agreements, so I know what I'm paying on that front. Much of the work we do, we've talked in the past about long-lead contracts, advanced procurement contracts. We really make sure we get current bids that we can both use in the proposal, get the advanced procurement turned on, and then immediately exercise those bids and get the contractors locked into fixed price on the large material components. Most of Ingalls contracts have EPA provisions, which is 90/10 fixed price.

The Newport News, where it's more 50/50 cost type, you know, the cost will be recognized against those type, cost type contracts. A lot of things are in play. I'm with you that, you know, there was an expectation on inflation. If any long-term contract that was put on before without EPA, the material could have some exposure. These are the headwinds that we talk about that we try and fight through. There's other avenues and ways to get contract adjustments, incentives, work through, work around, or realize more opportunities and risks to still maintain and improve our profitability.

Scott Deuschle (Director)

All right. Appreciate the detail. Thanks, guys.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Thanks, Scott.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, David Strauss. I am not showing any further questions at this time. I would now like to hand the call back over to Mr. Kastner for any closing remarks.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

All right. Thank you for your interest in HII today. We look forward to continuing to engage with all of you. Thank you.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

That does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line.