Huntington Ingalls Industries - Q2 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the second quarter 2024 HII earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a 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 is being recorded. If you need further assistance, press star zero to reach an operator. I would now like to hand the call over to Christie Thomas, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mrs. Thomas, you may begin.

Christie Thomas (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator, and good morning. I'd like to welcome everyone to the HII second quarter 2024 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, statements made today that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our actual results to be materially different from future results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Please see our SEC filings for important factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from expected results. Also, 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 our website's Investor Relations page 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, and good morning, everyone. The HII team remains focused on executing on our programs and meeting our commitments to our customers. In the second quarter, our shipbuilding division delivered two ships, and our Mission Technologies business achieved another quarter of strong performance. The alignment of our products and services to the United States national security strategy continues to provide strong visibility to our long-term revenue forecast. To start, I'd like to discuss our results. Record second quarter revenue was $3 billion, up 6.8% from a year ago, and diluted earnings per share was $4.38 for the quarter, up from $3.27 in the second quarter of 2023.

New contract awards during the quarter were $3.1 billion, which resulted in backlog of $48.5 billion at the end of the quarter, of which $27 billion is currently funded. At Mission Technologies, we had the seventh consecutive quarter of record revenue, with sales of $765 million, 19% over the second quarter of 2023. In addition to very strong revenue, Mission Technologies' trailing-twelve-month book-to-bill is 1.15, and its new business opportunity pipeline is over $83 billion. Mission Technologies continues to offer leading-edge technologies aligned with the capabilities our customers need, and this growth in a competitive sector confirms for us that our technology portfolio is ideal for today's market requirements. In shipbuilding, we remain focused on directing our resources toward meeting our delivery commitments to the Navy.

Significant efforts continue in each of our shipyards to create labor stability, improve proficiency, and increase capacity, all aimed at meeting our throughput goals. The long-term investments we are making in capital and employee development, coupled with Navy industrial base investments, will stabilize and improve performance as our portfolio shifts towards new contracts, and our ability to meet scheduled projections and performance goals will support achievement of our financial commitments to our shareholders. In the second quarter at Ingalls, we delivered LPD-29, Richard M. McCool, Jr., and are looking forward to launching LPD-30, Harrisburg, later this year. Other milestones, including the launch of DDG-129, Jeremiah Denton, and the delivery of LHA-8, Bougainville, have been adjusted based on workforce availability, the most efficient utilization of shipyard facilities, and levels of system completion to support predictable downstream execution of future milestones.

At Newport News, in the second quarter, we delivered SSN-796 New Jersey, and continued to make progress toward our remaining milestones that are planned for later this year. During the quarter, SSN-798 construction team experienced a minor disruption to Massachusetts test program due to some equipment replacement identified during testing. The disruption has been resolved, and the team is back into the test program, making steady progress. It does, however, shift delivery from late 2024 to early 2025. We are reaffirming our shipbuilding margin outlook for the year, and as we've discussed, we are already in negotiations and expect several significant contract awards by the end of this year, including Block Six Virginia-class submarines, Block Two Columbia-class submarines, and additional amphibious ships.

Turning to activities in Washington, we continue to see bipartisan support for our programs reflected in the fiscal year defense appropriations and authorization bills as they progress through both chambers of Congress. We are pleased that the two authorization committees have shown strong support for shipbuilding, including support for additional advanced procurement funding authority for CVN-82, additional funding authority to support Virginia-class construction, and a multi-ship procurement of amphibious ships. The Senate authorizers also included additional funding authority for LPD Flight II and DDG 51 Flight III ships. The House Appropriations bill continues to support our major shipbuilding programs and notably includes investment of $4 billion into the submarine industrial base. We await Senate appropriations positions, and the final outcomes will depend on eventual respective conference negotiations by the Appropriations and Authorization Committees. Now, turning to labor.

Positive trends continue in talent acquisition, as we have hired over 3,800 craft personnel a year to date, which keeps us on track to achieve our full-year plan of approximately 6,000. In summary, I'm confident that the team's focus on the execution of the fundamentals in our programs positions us positively for the future, and look forward to the second half of the year as we meet more milestones and deliver on our commitments to our customers and shareholders. And now, I will turn the call over to Tom for some remarks on our financial results. Tom?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Chris, and good morning. Today, I'll briefly review our second quarter 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 six of the presentation, our second quarter revenues are approximately $3 billion, increased 6.8% compared to the same period last year, and represent a record second quarter result for HII. This increased revenue was attributable to very strong year-over-year revenue growth of nearly 19% at Mission Technologies, as well as growth at Ingalls and Newport News Shipbuilding.

Operating income for the quarter of $189 million increased by $33 million, or 21.2% from the second quarter of 2023, and operating margin of 6.3% compares to operating margin of 5.6% in the same period last year. Net earnings in the quarter were $173 million, compared to $130 million in the second quarter of 2023. Diluted earnings per share in the quarter were $4.38, compared to $3.27 in the second quarter of the prior year, representing a year-over-year growth of approximately 34%. Backlog increased slightly to end the quarter at $48.5 billion, up approximately $100 million from Q1's close.

Moving to slide seven, Ingalls revenues of $712 million in the quarter increased $48 million, or 7.2% from the same period last year, driven primarily by higher volumes in amphibious assault ships and surface combatants, partially offset by lower volumes in the National Security Cutter program. Ingalls operating income for the quarter was $56 million, an operating margin of 7.9%, compared to $65 million and 9.8%, respectively, from the same period last year. The decreases were primarily due to lower risk retirement on surface combatants, partially offset by a delivery contract incentive on LPD-29 Richard M. McCool, Jr. At Newport News, revenues of $1.5 billion were up $26 million, or 1.7% from the same period last year.

Newport News operating income for the quarter was $111 million, and operating margin was 7.2%, compared to $95 million and 6.3%, respectively, in the prior year period. The increases were primarily driven by a favorable contract adjustments, incentives, and volume on the RCOH program, partially offset by lower performance on aircraft carrier construction and the VCS program. Shipbuilding operating margin in the second quarter was 7.4%, up from 6.8% in Q1 of this year. We are pleased to exceed the shipbuilding margin guidance we previously provided for the quarter, and we continue to see significant opportunity in the second half of the year for margin enhancement.

At Mission Technologies, revenues of $765 million increased $120 million, or 18.6%, compared to the second quarter of 2023, primarily due to higher volumes in C5ISR and Cyber Electronic Warfare and Space. A portion of Mission Technologies' overperformance in the quarter was driven by material and work that may not reoccur on a consistent basis, and we have factored that into our guide going forward. We are obviously very pleased with the growth in the quarter, and we are raising the Mission Technologies revenue guidance range for the year by $50 million. Mission Technologies' operating income for the quarter was $36 million, and operating margin was 4.7%, compared to $9 million and 1.4%, respectively, in the second quarter of last year.

The increases were driven primarily by higher volumes, I just mentioned, as well as stronger performance in fleet sustainment. In addition, in the second quarter of 2023, we recorded a $6 million loss related to the sale of a joint venture interest, which also helps the year-over-year comparison. Second quarter results for Mission Technologies included approximately $25 million of amortization of purchased intangible assets. Mission Technologies' EBITDA margin in the second quarter was 8.5%, compared to 6.7% in the second quarter of 2023, and 7.7% last quarter. Turning to slide eight, cash used in operations was $9 million in the quarter. Net capital expenditures were $90 million or 3% of revenues. Free cash flow in the quarter was -$99 million, consistent with the guidance we provided on the first quarter call.

Cash contributions to our pension and other post-retirement benefit plans were $14 million in the quarter. Also, during the quarter, we paid dividends of $1.30 per share, or $51 million in aggregate. We also repurchased approximately 250,000 shares during the quarter at a cost of approximately $65 million. Moving to Slide 9, we have summarized our expectations for the third quarter and the year. For the third quarter, we expect shipbuilding revenue of approximately $2.2 billion and shipbuilding margin of approximately 7.8%, with margin continuing to ramp in the fourth quarter. For Mission Technologies, we expect revenues of approximately $650 million and operating margin of approximately 2.5%.

...For the year, we are reaffirming our shipbuilding revenue and margin expectations, and as I previously noted, we are raising Mission Technologies revenue guidance range. We are also updating our interest expense expectation to $95 million, based on the phasing of our latest cash flow forecast. We are reiterating our free cash flow outlook for 2024 of $600 million-$700 million, as well as our five-year free cash flow outlook of $3.6 billion. As we have noted, we expect free cash flow to be weighted towards the latter part of the year, which is not unusual. We currently expect third quarter free cash flow to be near zero, preceding expected strong cash collections in the fourth quarter. To summarize, we delivered another quarter of strong year-over-year revenue growth and met our shipbuilding expectations, while Mission Technologies portfolio continues to perform very well.

Additionally, we are pleased to raise our Mission Technologies revenue guidance and reaffirm our shipbuilding financial outlook for the year. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Christie to manage Q&A.

Christie Thomas (VP of Investor Relations)

Thanks, Tom. As a reminder to everyone on the call, please limit yourself to one initial question and one follow-up so that 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, Christie. We will now begin the Q&A session. Once again, to queue for a question, please press star one. The first question is from the line of Myles Walton with Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Myles Walton (Research Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning. Chris, could we-

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Good morning, Myles.

Myles Walton (Research Analyst)

Start with labor? It sounds like you, you continue to have good traction on the hiring front, but it's not clear to me if you're net net increasing your headcount to where you want. So maybe just touch on attrition. Hiring goals, I guess, are, are good, but attrition goals for the year at both shipyards, and if that's a meaningful driver to some of the milestone slip outs.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah, sure. Thanks, Myles. Thanks for your question. Yeah, we are achieving our hiring goals in both shipyards, so we think we've made significant progress on ensuring that we can get the people to execute the work. Attrition is not materially improving, but we're thinking about it more broadly from a labor standpoint or execution standpoint. Attrition, excuse me, attendance and overtime, both have recovered. We're performing well there. Our outsourcing programs are executing well, and the industrial base funding is being applied where it's necessary to increase the industrial base. So it's not just labor. We need to execute on our programs independent of how well attrition is working. We'll continue to work on our attrition issues.

We'll work on salary, flexibility, recruiting in the right places, but we're having to go where labor is. We've got some interesting stuff going on in Hampton Roads, where we're actually creating manufacturing footprint in areas we hadn't before to attract labor. So we're thinking about it more holistically now. It's not just simply labor and attrition in order to meet our throughput goals.

Myles Walton (Research Analyst)

In terms of its effect on the milestones, I understand the Massachusetts sounds more like a technical discovery. Are the Ingalls milestones slippages more workforce limitations-driven?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Well, it's both actually. It's on LHA-8, there's just a significant amount of volume and labor and application of the labor to achieve those milestones, so we moved that. DDG-129 is a little different. There's sequencing involved in getting to that launch, but also some impact related to labor. Now, all of that is included in our financials and in our guidance, and we're comfortable with where we are.

Myles Walton (Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Robert Spingarn with Melius Research. Please go ahead.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

Good morning. This is Scott Mikus for Rob Spingarn.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Morning, Scott.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

Tom or Chris, I wanted to ask, based on the guidance, you need to generate about $1 billion of free cash flow in the fourth quarter. So I'm just wondering if you could talk about your level of visibility into that cash generation. And then, if possible, can you quantify how much of the fourth quarter free cash is tied to working capital that could move into early 2025?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah, thank you for the question. I'll start then, then Tom can, finish it off with, with some details here. But I hate to give the answer of timing, because it, it's just not specific enough for you all. But there is a lot of timing in the back half of the year for margin and cash. In order to achieve, that progress over the back half of the year, we need to make our milestones on our ships. We need to achieve, contract incentives, and it's not just one. It's, we risk adjust all of our, programs over the back half of the year to ensure that, we can make guidance, and we have a line of sight to it. So yeah, it is over the back half of the year. There is some timing, there is some unwind in working capital, but we do have line of sight to it. Tom?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, I'll provide some more color on that too. You know, hey, Scott, I appreciate the question. It's not uncommon from where we are right now. I mean, we usually use cash at the beginning of the year, and we have guided both -$200 million and -$100 million for Q1 and Q2, respectively. We find ourselves right now through the quarter, through the first half of the year, at -$274 million. Honest broker, there was about $100 million that moved from Q1 to Q2 in a payment, and then we closed Q2, kind of, missing a $75 million payment. So, I mean, from performance and where we thought we'd be, we're kind of right where we guided. You know, from a perspective, the year had a shape to it. It was back end loaded anyway.

It was more back end loaded in 2024 than it was in 2023. When you get to Q, and you can take a look at this, a comparison in there from 2023 over to 2024, and we're down operationally in cash about $284 million, and then we have another, $54 million of CapEx that we're spending in 2024 over 2023. So, so that constitutes about $338-

... million down in 2024 over 2023. But again, in line with where we thought we'd be in the plan, the portfolio. I would tell you a couple of the milestones which we had at the end of 2023 that drew, that dragged into 2024, although it's only a couple of ships, LPD 29, the SSN 796, and then the launch of SSN 798, all just brought that work into 2024 and created just a little bit of a draw on making kind of cost and progress and headway on the existing portfolio we have here. But the guides that we have we provided, $0 free cash flow for Q3, which has some variability to it.

There's a lot of activity, milestones that you have on major milestones, smaller milestones underneath capital incentives. You know, the capital is a little bit slower than we guided. We guided 5.3% for the year. It was 2.6% in Q1 and 3% for Q2. But as that comes online on the back half of the year, the progress that we wanna make to close out the work packages that are in play right now will allow us to fully bill all the costs that you see on the balance sheet. You can see the contract liabilities and the AR/AP in there. So there's some net working capital that's gonna burn itself down. We finished last year at 5% of working capital at the end of 2023.

We sit just under 9% right now, and I kind of foreshadowed at the beginning of the year that we were gonna have this shape. And by the end of the year, because of the capital incentives we've had, we'd actually have a little bit of an advancement. We'll work ourselves down to the 2%-3% range in working capital. And that's aligned with our plan. It's aligned not only with the free cash flow perspective we gave you for $600 million-$700 million this year, but in the five-year goal, I told you that had some shape into it, too. And that working capital level exiting 2024 into 2025 is planned in the guidance that I gave you for $3.6 billion kind of going forward.

So, I think we have, we understand where we are. We aligned with the plan that we had this year. The increases on the back half year between the progressing milestones, incentives, capital incentives, and then we have some new contract awards that introduce some alignment with the business environments that we have here. That, that itself, even though it's at the beginning of those contracts, we anticipate them to be awarded, if not at the end of Q3 and Q4. A little variability of the effect is not gonna be, like, show up in Q3 or Q4, but it will, by the end of the year, we'll have new awards that will assist both in margin and cash as well.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

Okay, that gets into my next question. So I wanted to ask just high level, a big part of the margin story, at least for shipbuilding, is putting new ships and boats on contract that have better pricing compared to some of your older contracts. So can you give us an update on how many ships and boats you've put on contract so far this year, and how many you expect to put on contract in the next 12-18 months?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. So we expect to put under contract over the next 6 to 12 months, and probably before the year expires, actually, another 21 boats, with pricing that reflects the current macroeconomic environment. So it's a significant amount of work that we intend to put under contract over the back half of the year.

Scott Mikus (VP of Equity Research)

All right. Thanks. I'll stop there.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Thanks, Scott.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Pete Skibitski with Alembic Global. Please go ahead, Pete.

Pete Skibitski (Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Hey, good morning, guys. Nice quarter.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Good morning, Pete.

Pete Skibitski (Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

I did have a question on Ingalls margin. I know you've touched on it a little bit, just 'cause it's dipped here for the first time in almost a couple years. The release talked about lower risk retirement on surface combatants, and I wasn't sure if that's kind of, you know, you've got some early DDG-51s in the yard and you're booking conservatively, or I wasn't sure if that was, you know, if the DDG-129 pushout next year impacted this quarter. Could you maybe talk through that a little bit with us, you know, a little more deeply?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah, sure. Sure, sure, I can start. I think you probably have a little bit of a compare issue from last year in that language. But obviously, you moved to two milestones. Cost goes with schedule, so that impacted the quarter. And then 129 had a bit, or excuse me, LPD 29 at delivery had a little bit less risk retirement than we usually have. So, Ingalls are gonna continue to execute. This is just a bit of a quiet quarter for them, and I expect them to recover very quickly here.

Pete Skibitski (Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Okay, no, I appreciate it. Just one follow-up. You know, I know some of the, there's been some supply chain issues on the Virginia, I think, and the carriers, but I think one of the issues has been development of the new electric generators. Do you guys have a timeline of when, you know, that new system is expected to arrive in the yard?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. So I'm probably not the right person to talk about that, depending on what program you're referencing. Our estimates have not changed for 80, if that's what you're referencing, and our schedules have not changed materially either. They're making good progress on 80. They're doing some very interesting things relative to ensuring that we hold on to the schedule for 81, and how we're gonna build those. But I'm not really comfortable because there's been no material change between Q1 and Q2 relative to those delivery requirements or expectations.

Pete Skibitski (Director of Aerospace and Defense Equity Research)

Okay. Got it. Thank you.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of David Strauss with Barclays. Please go ahead.

David Strauss (Managing Director of Equity Research in Aerospace and Defense)

Thanks. Good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Good morning.

David Strauss (Managing Director of Equity Research in Aerospace and Defense)

Chris, can you talk about where you are in terms of Block Four, Block Five work, and then negotiating Block Six on VCS?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure. Sure. Block Four, we're marching towards delivery on 798. We did have that minor move on the milestone, but they're making progress on the test program now. And I, it's a good team on it, it's a good crew, it's a good leadership, so I fully expect 798 will resolve at the beginning of next year. 800's making progress. That milestone is holding the float off the back half of this year, and then we have one more module that we have to deliver to General Dynamics. And then we're making progress on Block Five, and they'll start to fill in behind Block Four, in those getting into the integrated delivery and test of the Block Five Virginia-class boats.

Block Six, we're in discussions with the government relative to negotiation of that block. I expect that to resolve this year. Working closely, I think it'll be a fair deal. Dealing with this macroeconomic environment we talk about, with inflation and supply chain insurance, we have all that risk protected. The good news is, we're making investments, the Navy's making investments in the industrial base in order to get at this throughput issue, and we fully expect it, and when we do Block Six, all of that will be wrapped into that deal, and it'll be a fair deal. So that's where we stand on Virginia-class.

David Strauss (Managing Director of Equity Research in Aerospace and Defense)

What, thanks for that. What is your revenue mix right now between Block Four and Block Five?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah, the vast majority of it, Tom, if you have the details, but the vast majority of it is headed in Block Five now.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So we're at 95% plus-

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Right

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

... complete on block four. And then, you know, block five, I know it's not the exact answer to your question, but we're at 95%+ of the contract completed on block four, and block five, we're in the mid-20% range. So, and we're spending, we crossed over about six quarters ago, that block five has higher revenue than block four.

David Strauss (Managing Director of Equity Research in Aerospace and Defense)

Okay. Thank you. And then-

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure

David Strauss (Managing Director of Equity Research in Aerospace and Defense)

... Tom, a follow-up on working capital. Did I hear correctly, now it's gonna drop to, you're saying 2% by the end of this year? Where does that go in 2025?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

So, a couple things here. We got, I think the last couple of calls we've been talking about that, right? And, for the $600-$700 guide, and where the working capital is right now, the capital incentives pop in here, we will burn down the 9% that we see through Q2 to that level going forward, right? Lower than what we traditionally guided to between 4% and 5%, because what's going on on the capital front. We haven't guided both for free cash flow, specifically for 2025, and I would be, I don't want to get into specific targets going forward, but I will tell you that we're kind of on plan on that front relative to its implications to the five-year free cash flow guidance.

As we close out the year for Q3, Q4, a lot of activity has to happen on how that's going to fall with everything I've rattled off before on how we're going to make the $600-$700. I'd prefer to hang on to, you know, the exact working capital guidance at the back half of the year as we set the trajectory and the targets for next year on the February's call.

David Strauss (Managing Director of Equity Research in Aerospace and Defense)

All right. Understood. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gautam Khanna with TD Cowen. Please go ahead.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Yeah, thanks. I had two questions. First, just on the Q4 cash flow, was there—Are there any major, like, lumpy events that you know that might actually move that number materially if they were to slip out? And relatedly, do the delivery milestone slips have any impact on that whatsoever? And then I have a follow-up.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yes, so I would tell you the ramp that we're going to see here between, you know, Q3, Q4, again, we can certainly guide it to $0 for Q3, but that could be $100-$200 higher, it could be $50-$100 less there, just depending on how everything that I said earlier kind of falls out. But the ramp from now, where we are to Q3 and Q4, it's a composite there of, you know, improved trade working capital between AP and AR, but progressing and closing that build. You can see I have the cost in the balance sheet, so it's just getting the right progressing as we make headway on schedule, to be able to build all the costs.

The major milestones add into that, you know, we talked about that, and we have a slide on the PowerPoint briefing that you can see the ones that we have to hit there on the deliveries. And then we kind of work ourselves through both incentives and contract program incentives, and then capital incentives. And then, the new awards kind of contribute that rise and lift on the back half of the year, too. So it's all of it. I don't think, you know, missing one milestone here or there is not gonna drive the preponderance of the lift that we see kind of going forward. But we'll keep you informed, and we'll give you an update on the November call. And the part two of your question?

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Great. Thank you. And, Chris, I was just wondering, what's your appetite for acquisitions at this point? Yeah, if you could just talk about that.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. So capital allocation's been fairly consistent here, for the last year after we started to pay down the debt. We like to be investment grade. We think that, that's where we need to be and where we want to be. We're going to continue to invest in our shipyards. We're going to pay a dividend, and then with excess cash, we're gonna provide it back to shareholders. But we'll continue to evaluate, M&A opportunities, as they present themselves, and if it makes strategic and financial sense. We'll evaluate it and, and entertain it. So there's not really a change, in our capital allocation philosophy.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Thank you.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jason Gursky with Citi. One moment, please, as I open your line. Please go ahead, Jason.

Jason Gursky (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

Okay. Good morning, everybody. Can you hear me?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Morning, Jason. Yes.

Jason Gursky (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

Okay, great. Yeah, I think the operator was struggling there a bit. And Chris, just a quick question first on Mission Technologies. You mentioned the trailing twelve months book-to-bill of 1.15, and the quantum of the pipeline that you have there in that business. I'm wondering if you can't step back for a minute and just talk a little bit about, you know, the 1.15, kind of, when you can execute on that backlog, and the pipeline that you have available to you, kind of what that means for growth rates beyond 2024. We are obviously off to a really solid start here in the first half of this year. I'm just kind of curious how this growth rate settles out over the next couple of years.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. So thanks, Jason. We're still comfortable with our 5% growth rate in Mission Technologies. It was a bit of a conservative guide. We've increased it for the year, and beyond that, if we can execute on the $83 billion pipeline, and the book-to-bill continues to be very good, it could be north of that. And it's really a broad base across the business, that each one of those business areas is executing very well. I would like to point out that there's a lot of interesting things going on in Mission Technologies. This is the first time that the Navy is going to deploy a Virginia-class submarine with launch and recovery, all autonomously, of a REMUS vehicle. And it's not just an exercise, that's full deployment. It's the Yellow Moray.

It's a great, it's a great product, and it demonstrates the kind of the manned and autonomous and, and manned teaming, that, that we really think about provides a lot of value, for our customer. So, if they continue to execute like this, they, they continue to execute on that backlog, and they take advantage of that pipeline, it could be north of that, but we don't want to get, we don't want to get too far over our skis. We're gonna be relatively conservative, as you would expect for us to be, but I'm very encouraged, by how Mission Technologies is developing.

Jason Gursky (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

Okay, great. That's helpful. Appreciate that. And then-

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure

Jason Gursky (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

... secondarily, just on labor productivity in the shipyards. I know you talked a little bit earlier during the Q&A session about attrition rates and hiring and all that kind of stuff.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah.

Jason Gursky (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

The good stuff, which is great, but I think probably just as important maybe to those numbers is, you know, kind of the learning curve of the employees.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Right.

Jason Gursky (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

And I'm wondering if you, if you have the ability, maybe just from a big picture perspective, to talk about labor productivity, where you are today relative to maybe where you were pre-pandemic. Just wondering if we're still, you know, down relative to pre-pandemic levels from a labor productivity perspective, and, and kind of what you would expect over the next couple of years and maybe we, when we can return back to kind of pre-pandemic productivity? Thanks.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. Great. So it's a, it's a great, great question, Jason. So productivity is not as it was before the pandemic. There's no getting around that, and it's related to the experience level of the team. Now, do I expect it, do I expect it to improve? Absolutely. And both teams in Ingalls and Newport News are making investments to ensure it does. And the SIB investments that you see coming out of the Navy are focused on that as well. It's not just infrastructure, it's targeted at the proficiency of the workforce as well. So I do expect it to improve. We're investing against it. We've done it before, we've seen it before, and I expect it to continue to improve as we stabilize moving forward.

Jason Gursky (Managing Director and Senior U.S. Aerospace and Defense Analyst)

Great. Thanks.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

The next question is from the line of Seth Seifman with JPMorgan. Please go ahead, Seth.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, thanks very much, and good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Good morning.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Morning. In the slides, I think you talk about reduction year on year in Virginia sub profitability. Should we attribute that to what's happening on Massachusetts or was there a reduction in expected profitability on Block Five?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. So I think that's probably a compare issue related to last year. There's no material issue that we can note related to that. It's kind of broadly across the blocks. We assess our issues every quarter. If we have to make an adjustment, we do that plus or minus, so this is not anything individually material there.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. So, and I think you mentioned earlier about the carrier. So, with both the carrier and Virginia Block Five, there weren't meaningful changes to the estimated profitability?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

No, not material enough to note, no. But we, as I said, we assess our issues every quarter, and we make those adjustments, dictated by our evaluation in that quarter.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Right. Okay. Okay, great. And then just, you know, for Ingalls, I guess, should we expect profitability there to- You know, we've seen typically kind of solidly double-digit margins for Ingalls. Is that something kind of going forward that Ingalls can still be kind of at the high end of, you know, kind of good shipyard margins?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, so we don't guide by shipyard, but I fully expect Ingalls to continue to execute on their programs very well. But yeah, we don't provide guidance by our shipyards.

Seth Seifman (VP and Equity Research Analyst)

Great. Okay, great. Thanks very much.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of George Shapiro with Shapiro Research. Please go ahead.

George Shapiro (Managing Partner of Aero and Defense Analyst)

Yes, good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Good morning.

George Shapiro (Managing Partner of Aero and Defense Analyst)

Tom, I wanted to pursue a little bit the free cash flow needs for the fourth quarter. I mean, obviously, we can all do the arithmetic, $973 million-$1.073 billion. Now, if I look back, that's nearly twice what you've ever done before. The last highest year in the last five was $539 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. In addition, you've never had three quarters in a row where no quarter generated positive cash flow. So my question is, what has changed in the last five years in terms of, you know, contracts that you have or what, to suggest such a dramatic swing this year from what we've seen before?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. So I, I think we have had a couple of quarters that were negative, so we can catch up offline on that, George. But, yeah, this isn't an odd year. I would tell you it's back, it's backloaded, one. Two, is I would tell you that pre-COVID, as we're executing these contracts right now, we have seen a draw in the schedules over the last 3 or 4 years, and that just changes the construct of, how, you know, as we get progress and collect costs and what we're allowed to bill, it creates a little bit of a draw on that. We still manage it annually, and as you know, we've been pretty good at providing a 5-year target back in 2019, providing a guidance annually for each of the years, and we've met or exceeded that.

So, I mean, we're in the lane right now. We've actually increased that $2.9-$3 billion, so we put another $100 million at it. We've given the next 5 years a 20% more, so we have pretty good visibility into the portfolio. You know, it's a relatively mature portfolio that's going on, that we have here. So we have line of sight as far as what we have to build, program plans, the expected costs, and then all that rolls in once we come through our quarterly EACs into the guidance of free cash flow going forward here. It is backloaded, and as I commented earlier, I did a comparison.

You can take a peek at the Q there on what's driving that. A little bit more CapEx that we've seen. The last two years have been 2.6% and 2.4% of sales respectively, and already we saw a 3% quarter last year, and that's gonna ramp up in the back half of the year. But there's capital incentives that come along with that. As we continue to make progress, the cost that you can see that's on the books and the balance sheet there, we plan to liquidate that and really drive that working capital. That's gonna be the catalyst, the working capital coming down, milestones and deliveries, and additional awards, as well as on-contract performance and capital incentives, are gonna drive the back half of the year.

The guided 3% was probably on the conservative side. You know, we didn't want to say... It could be $100 million or $200 million higher or $50 million-$100 million less, and we didn't wanna provide a number that we leaned into for Q3. The events and criteria and milestones that we see have to happen are right in that end of September, October, end of November timeframe. So we guide it conservatively, which does make the Q4 look like it's a larger lift than it may be as it plays out.

George Shapiro (Managing Partner of Aero and Defense Analyst)

Okay, just one comment. What I said on—what I meant to say, if I didn't say it properly, on the cash flow was there hasn't been, if you look at quarter by quarter, there's been no time in the last five years where one quarter hasn't had at least positive cash flow of the three. There's been several quarters where it's two. Two have been negative, but not zero in the third.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Right.

George Shapiro (Managing Partner of Aero and Defense Analyst)

A follow-up I had was, in Mission Technologies, the guide for the second quarter was like $650. You did $750, which is a $765, which was similar to the first quarter, and you'd mentioned a material, and that may drop down in the third quarter. Can you just be a little clearer as kind of what actually drove it in the materials comment that you made?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yes. So on the material comment that I said in my opening statement, that was more applicable to Q1, so there was some sales that we had, which we don't envision to be on a recurring basis, and were not included in the Q2 or the guide kind of going forward. The Q2 revenue that we had at Mission Technologies was driven by strong performance in C5 ISR and CEWS. And we believe that will continue going forward.

We have normalized that for the book of business on contract right now, so we know what contracts we have and we're executing, and we see how we load that out, and we have a clear sight on expectations of the revenues for the last two quarters, as well as there's still awards happen every month, and there's even though we're in the back half of the year, there's $ several tens of millions of potential sales that happen on awards. So, we have to execute our plan that we have in existing contracts. Those awards have to play out, and we've got it rightfully probably on the conservative side of where we stand.

The run rate Mission Technologies between the first two quarters at $750 million and $765 million is $1,515 million or on an annual basis, over $3 billion. You know, we've conservatively taken the beginning of the year guide from $2.7 billion to $2.75 billion, up to $2.75 billion to $2.80 billion. So let's see how it plays out. We don't want to get ahead of ourselves. Chris made a comment earlier about the growth. We saw some good growth in 2021-2022 at 4%, from 2022-2023 at 12.7%, and now both Q1 and Q2 respectively, have seen 20% and 18% growth. But we don't want to overly guide here. Obviously, we've got to get the people in, win those contracts, and continue some good performance.

But I'm feeling really strong about the Alion acquisition, the business proposition that we set, that MT would be a $200 million cash generator, which it is, and I feel really good about the portfolio of contracts we have and that pipeline growing.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

So, just one last one. So why guide to only $650 in the third quarter?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Well, like I said, we have a lot of work to do going forward here. We don't wanna, overguide and miss, and it's still a function of a couple of awards that will have a minor impact on the revenue for the rest of the year here.

Gautam Khanna (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)

Okay. Thanks very much for all the color.

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Mm-hmm. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Jordan Lyonnais with Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Jordan Lyonnais (VP and Research Analyst covering Aerospace and Defense)

Hey, good morning.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Good morning, Jordan.

Jordan Lyonnais (VP and Research Analyst covering Aerospace and Defense)

Thanks. On CapEx, the sequential uptick that you guys had, is there a percentage or a portion of that that you'd expect to get back from the Navy CapEx incentives?

Tom Stiehle (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. We always invest with our partner, with the Navy on this, and, you know, depending on what the CapEx is and the timing and the value equation, what that adds, and the assignment of getting in the yard, whether it's for operational year or our Navy sailors and things of that nature, there's a mix there of investment. We don't get into that. I mean, that's just part of the business case. And I will tell you that any capital projects that we do add value, we get a return on that capital, and it goes into the business construct and how we choose which projects we bid, we approve, and we execute here. So I'd leave it at that.

It was 2.6 in Q1, 3% in Q2. The guide's still 5.3 for this year, with a 5% CapEx over the next three years.

Jordan Lyonnais (VP and Research Analyst covering Aerospace and Defense)

Got it. Okay. And then also, too, on the contract that Deloitte won, that's for Navy shipbuilding, do you have any sense of the scope for it or why, like, Mission Tech wasn't picked, or you guys in general?

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

I can't necessarily hear the question. There's some feedback. Can you repeat that?

Jordan Lyonnais (VP and Research Analyst covering Aerospace and Defense)

Yeah. So Deloitte, the one that was a $2.4 billion Navy contract, for it seems like an HR contract on,

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Oh, yeah

Jordan Lyonnais (VP and Research Analyst covering Aerospace and Defense)

... the Navy shipbuilding base.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think they're supporting their identification and allocation of investments to support where they should make investments. So yeah, we were-

Jordan Lyonnais (VP and Research Analyst covering Aerospace and Defense)

Okay

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

... we were not involved in that contracting process.

Jordan Lyonnais (VP and Research Analyst covering Aerospace and Defense)

Okay. Got it. Thank you so much.

Chris Kastner (President and CEO)

Sure.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. 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)

Thanks, everybody, for joining today. Before we go, I'd like to extend my thanks to the entire HII team for their continued focus, and we look forward to speaking with you on our next earnings call. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

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