ICF International - Q3 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to the third quarter 2023 ICF Earnings Conference Call. My name is Hope, and I will be your instructor for today's 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, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Lynn Morgen of AdvisIRy Partners. Lynn, you may begin.

Lynn Morgen (Partner)

Thank you, Hope. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review ICF's third quarter 2023 performance. With us today from ICF are John Wasson, Chair and CEO, and Barry Broadus, CFO. Joining them is James Morgan, Chief Operating Officer. During this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements to assist you in understanding ICF management's expectations about future performance. These statements are subject to a number of risks that could cause actual events and results to differ materially, and I refer you to our November 2, 2023, press release and our SEC filings for discussions of those risks. In addition, our statements during this call are based on our views as of today. We anticipate that future developments will cause our views to change. Please consider the information presented in that light.

We may, at some point, elect to update the forward-looking statements made today, but specifically disclaim any obligation to do so. I will now turn the call over to ICF CEO, John Wasson, to discuss the recorded 2023 performance. John?

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Thank you, Lynn, and thank you all for participating in today's call to review our third quarter 2023 results and discuss our business outlook. This was another strong quarter for ICF, in which we achieved significant growth across all key financial and business metrics. There are several key takeaways worth noting. First, we reported year-on-year revenue growth of 7.2%, adjusting for the sale of our Commercial Marketing Group in mid-September and the closure of our commercial U.K. events business at the end of the second quarter. Third quarter revenue growth is estimated at 8.4%. Second, profitability metrics continued to be strong, driven by higher utilization, favorable mix, lower facility costs, and scale efficiencies.

Third, this was a record quarter for both federal government contract awards, which totaled $700 million, as well as overall contract awards, which reached $875 million, resulting in a third quarter book-to-bill of 1.7x and a trailing twelve-month book-to-bill of 1.3x. This supports our expectations for considerable growth in recurring revenues in 2024. Looking at our year-to-date results, we continue to be very well positioned in the key growth markets we have identified and have invested in over the last several years. These markets, namely utility consulting, disaster management, climate, environment, and infrastructure services, public health, and IT modernization, digital transformation, accounted for roughly 80% of our nine-month revenues, adjusting for the sale of CMG and our exit from the commercial U.K. events business.

Our performance in these growth markets is primarily captured in our two major market categories. First, energy environment, infrastructure, and disaster recovery, and second, health and social programs, which together accounted for 83% of our third quarter revenues. Looking across these major markets, there are several third quarter highlights worth noting. Revenues in our energy environment and infrastructure and disaster management market increased 14% and accounted for 41% of our third quarter revenues. Commercial utility programs, which include our energy efficiency programs, had an excellent quarter, benefiting from expanded energy efficiency and electrification work for several of our utility clients. Our energy advisory services performed exceptionally well in the third quarter. We saw increased demand for electrical engineering, power, and technical advisory services, reflecting the increased impact of renewable development and the IRA and IIJA legislation.

We're now working with 10 utilities and three state agencies on federal grant applications for grid resilience under these two pieces of legislation, and we continue to see strong client interest in the integration of services such as renewable interconnection applications, EV charging station design, and load planning. Taken together, our commercial energy business grew 17% in the quarter. In the third quarter, we won contracts valued at over $30 million to assist in the planning and implementation of IIJA and IRA programs, bringing our cumulative IIJA and IRA-related awards, primarily from federal and state government clients, to approximately $100 million. This does not include all the related work for many of our commercial clients, but it's more difficult to directly associate our engagements with the specific legislation.

The good news is that significant progress has been made in the flow of authorized federal dollars to recipients under these two acts. We expect additional downstream opportunities for ICF, such as market analysis, siting and environmental support services, community and stakeholder engagement support, independent engineering services, construction monitoring, restoration services, and the like, to begin to materialize in greater volume in 2024 and 2025 as financially supported projects move to the permitting and construction monitoring phases. In disaster management, we continue to execute effectively on existing contracts in Puerto Rico and Texas, and we were awarded a $24 million re-compete contract with the government of Puerto Rico's Public-Private Partnership Authority to provide disaster recovery project services.

Florida recently expanded our current contracts to incorporate response and recovery activities for Hurricane Idalia, and we are positioning for longer-term housing opportunities that may be on the horizon in Florida and in Hawaii. In the third quarter, we were awarded a new $23 million contract with the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department to provide disaster recovery and resilience program management services, following the destruction of nearly 4,300 homes by wildfires in 2020. Our climate, environment, and infrastructure services cut across all of our client categories, and revenues from this business area continued to increase at a double-digit rate in the third quarter, representing general growth across the portfolio, as well as expanded work with wind developers.

Sales this quarter included contracts with utilities, developers, and federal agencies, and addressing the environmental impacts and permitting for a broad range of technologies, including solar, storage, wind, hydrogen, and transmission lines. Our other major market, health and social programs, also did well in the third quarter, posting revenue growth of 7% and representing 42% of third quarter revenues. The key growth drivers in this market, namely IT modernization and public health, have historically garnered bipartisan support and have been well-funded. ICF's expanded capabilities provide us with substantial run rate increase our market share. These areas performed well in the third quarter and had new stellar contract wins. In public health, we continue to deliver excellent results and are assisting our clients in driving positive outcomes.

As a result, we expanded our existing work and won new work across a broad swath of federal public health and federal health agency and clients, including the Administration for Children and Families, the Centers for Disease Control, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and USAID. These wins, as well as our several IT modernization wins with public health agencies, set us up very well for continued growth in this market in 2024. In fact, ICF won over $150 million of new contract awards related to IT modernization and digital transformation services for federal agencies in the third quarter. As you can see from our earnings release, this includes substantial contract expansions at two agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services.

We also won new IT modernization work in other federal agencies, including a $55 million contract with the U.S. Forest Service to modernize wildfire applications and services, which is a great tie-in with our disaster management capabilities, and new task orders amounting to $67 million from Immigration and Customs Enforcement within the Department of Homeland Security. Elsewhere in the federal arena, we won a $143 million re-compete, with a significantly expanded scope, to provide advanced data science and analysis services related to cybersecurity. The record $700 million in total federal government contracts we were awarded in the third quarter has strengthened both our growth prospects and our resilience heading into 2024.

Our backlog at the end of the third quarter was a substantial $3.8 billion, and even after a strong quarter of contract wins, our business development pipeline stood at $9.8 billion, representing a large and diversified set of opportunities across our client set. These metrics, together with our performance to date, underscore the confidence in ICF's ability to capture the significant growth opportunities on the horizon. Now I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Barry Broadus, for a financial review. Barry?

Barry Broadus (CFO)

Thank you, John, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm pleased to provide additional details on our strong third quarter 2023 financial performance. Total revenues grew 7.2% year-over-year to $501.5 million. Adjusting for the prior year revenues related to the Commercial Marketing Group, which was divested in the third quarter, and the U.K. commercial events business, which we exited in this year's second quarter, our total revenues increased by an estimated 8.4%. Our year-over-year growth was driven by strong performance in our energy, environmental, and infrastructure and disaster recovery, and health and social programs market categories. Subcontractor and other direct cost growth slowed in the third quarter and totaled $136.1 million, which represented 27.1% of total revenue, as compared to 28.3% in last year's third quarter.

Third quarter gross margins of 35.5% expanded by 120 basis points year-over-year, and 60 basis points sequentially, in line with our expectations. This improvement was a result of a more favorable mix, which is more heavily weighted toward ICF direct labor than last year. We expect to see further improvement in gross margins in the fourth quarter. Our indirect and selling expenses increased 11.2% year-over-year to $131.6 million. As a percentage of total revenues, adjusted indirect expenses increased 100 basis points year-over-year to 24.7%, reflecting the timing of certain non-cash charges.

On a year-to-date basis, adjusted indirect expenses decreased by 90 basis points and represented 24.7% of total revenues as we continue to rationalize our facility and other expenses, as well as experience economies of scale of business. In the third quarter, EBITDA increased 14.3% to $49.2 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased 7.3% to $54.3 million year-over-year. Interest expense of $10.6 million increased from $7.4 million in the third quarter of 2022 due to higher interest rates. However, the interest rate impact was offset in part by our tax optimization strategies, which drove a decrease in our year-over-year tax expense of $2.2 million.

Net income was $23.7 million, or $1.25 per diluted share in the third quarter, inclusive of $5.1 million or $0.20 per share and tax-affected special charges related to our facility reduction, M&A, and severance costs, and the net gain on the sale of CMG. This quarter's net income also included a one-time tax benefit and contributions from other tax optimization strategies, which were above the previous assessment that we discussed during our second quarter call and equated to $0.13 per share. The year-over-year net income and diluted share comparisons reflect increases of 24.3 and 23.8, respectively, from our net income of $19.1 million, or $1.01 per diluted share in the third quarter of last year.

Third quarter non-GAAP EPS increased 12.4% to $1.81 per share, compared to $1.61 per share reported in the third quarter of 2022. Shifting to cash flows and our balance sheet, our year-to-date operating cash flow increased to $45.6 million, significantly ahead of the $6.6 million in the comparable period in 2022. This improvement was a result of our continued cash management initiatives. Our day sales outstanding improved to 73 days, as compared to 87 days in last year's third quarter. Capital expenditures in the first nine months of this year totaled $17.7 million, similar to the comparable period in 2022, which reflects investments in innovative client-facing technologies and improvements in the company's infrastructure.

We made significant progress on debt reduction, paying down $67.9 million in debt during the third quarter. The pay down was a combination of cash flows from operations, as well as the proceeds from the sale of CMG. As compared to the third quarter of last year, we have reduced our debt by $168 million, inclusive of the acquisitions of Blanton and CMY Solutions and the divestiture of CMG. Our adjusted net leverage ratio was 2.7x at quarter end, compared to 3.1x at the end of the second quarter. Given this significant progress, we are confident in our ability to reduce our leverage position by an additional 0.5x by year-end. Our fixed rate debt was approximately 50% of our total debt at quarter end, which is consistent with our target.

As we continue to prioritize delevering, we expect our fixed rate debt position to be around 60% of our total debt at year-end. In addition to debt reduction, our balanced approach to capital allocations include organic growth initiatives, acquisitions, share repurchases to offset the dilution of our employee incentive programs and quarterly dividends. Today, we announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.14 per share, payable on January 12, 2024, to shareholders of record on December 8, 2023. Now, to help you with your 2023 financial models, please note the following: Our depreciation and amortization expense range has narrowed to $24 million-$25 million. Amortization of intangibles guidance remains at approximately $36 million. Interest expense is now expected to be in the range of $38 million-$39 million.

We now expect the tax rate for this year to be approximately 14%, as compared to the 17% we previously guided to, with the fourth quarter of this year to be in the range of 23%. Operating cash flow is still projected to be $150 million. We expect our fully diluted weighted average share count to be approximately 19 million, and our capital expenditures are anticipated to be between $24 million-$26 million, down from our prior guidance of $26 million-$28 million. For 2024 modeling, here are some preliminary indications. Our record sales and robust business development pipeline will support high single-digit organic growth and drive recurring revenues for 2024. This includes the impact of the divestiture of our commercial marketing group and the wind down of our commercial U.K. events business in 2023.

Together, these businesses contributed 2023 revenues of approximately $60 million on a year-to-date basis, and assuming similar margins to the rest of our business, these service lines are estimated to have contributed approximately $0.20 of EPS that will not recur in 2024. In addition, in the fourth quarter of 2022, the divested business lines contributed approximately $20 million of revenue. With that, I will now turn the call back over to John for his closing remarks.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Well, thank you, Barry. Our year-to-date performance reflects the benefits of decisions we've made over the last two years to strengthen ICF's position in key growth areas and to invest in our long-term growth strategy, while simultaneously improving profitability. Revenues from the key growth markets that we invest organically and through acquisitions represented approximately 80% of our total nine months revenue, adjusted for the sale of CMG and the exit of our commercial U.K. marketing business, up from 55% at the end of 2020. Our year-to-date profitability metrics reflect actions that we've taken to deploy our resources to support these growth markets, strengthening operating efficiency and streamlining our business.

Based on our results to date and the recent sale of our commercial marketing group and the exit of our commercial U.K. events business at the end of the second quarter, we are narrowing our guidance range for full year 2023 revenue to $1.95 billion-$1.98 billion, and we anticipate subcontractor and other direct costs will be approximately 27% total revenue. Adjusted EBITDA is expected to range from $212 million-$218 million. We are raising our guidance for GAAP EPS to $5-$5.10, exclusive of special charges, and non-GAAP EPS to $6.40-$6.50 due to lower than anticipated tax rate.

We are looking ahead to another year of substantial progress, highlighted by high single-digit recurring revenue growth in 2024, supported by the strong financial and operating metrics we expect for this year. We're also looking ahead to 2024 to be another year in which ICF and its people make a notable positive impact on society through our daily work. We encourage you to read our latest Corporate Citizenship Report, which we are pleased to report has won several industry-leading awards and provides further insights into how our people are working together to improve outcomes and serve our clients with integrity. Operator, we'll now open the call to questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw a question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Toby Sommer with Truist Securities. Toby, please go ahead.

Jasper Bibb (VP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. This is Jasper Bibb for Toby. I was hoping to get any early thoughts on what 2024 might look like from a margin expansion perspective. Is the 10-20 basis points annually that you outlined at last year's Investor Day still a good baseline to think about, or are there other factors we should consider there?

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

I will, I think we've consistently guided the 10-20 BPS of margin improvement. I would expect that, you know, that, that will, that will continue. I would expect to see 10-20 BPS of margin improvement, as we look forward for next year.

Jasper Bibb (VP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Thanks for that. You know, really strong bookings quarter, and you also highlighted the IIJ and IRA wins there. Based on what you're hearing from clients, how significant do you think the pickup in bookings activity related to those two bills could be next year?

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, I think it's, I mean, it's hard to provide specific numbers on that. I mean, I think as I said in our in my remarks, I mean, I think we're seeing positive trends and, and the money, you know, the, the speed of the flow of the money continues to increase. You know, I did know we won $30 million of IIJA and IRA related work in the third quarter. We're, we're up to $100 million. We're certainly seeing the funds flowing to our federal and state and local clients. We're seeing greater flow of those funds. And so I think as we've discussed, I, I think that as we look to 2024, 2025, and beyond, you know, I think that those, those certainly represent important growth opportunities for us.

As we've said before, I think if that plays out well for us, you know, that is a path by which we could go from a high single-digit organic growth to, to low double-digit organic growth, as we look forward.

Jasper Bibb (VP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Right. Now, that definitely makes sense. Last question for me. Obviously, long-term yields have continued to move up. Just any color on what 2024 could look like from a interest rate or interest expense perspective would be helpful. Thanks.

Barry Broadus (CFO)

Yes, you know, I, I think that the priority of the company, as we stated, previously, is to delever, and, you know, absent of any acquisition activity, you know, the expectation would be is that, you know, interest expense will, you know, go down year-over-year as our debt goes down.

Jasper Bibb (VP and Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you for taking the questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from Joseph Vafi with Canaccord. Your line is open.

Joseph Vafi (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Hey, guys. Good afternoon. Really nice results once again. It is kind of a broken record of consistency, so congrats on that. But you know, I know you're preliminarily looking—yeah. You're preliminarily looking at like, I guess, high single digit revenue growth. You know, looking at that, is there, you know, is headcount growth still gonna be linear to revenue growth, or is there, you know, any emerging leverage to growing revenue ahead of headcount? Or how are you thinking about staffing for next year? And then I'll have a follow-up.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, I think as we've talked about in the past, Joe, I would generally expect that headcount will track with revenue. As you know, and we've talked about, we're always looking to, you know, increase utilization as we grow and you know, squeeze. And so... But in general, I think if, you know, if we're growing 5%, let's pick a number. If we're growing 5%, you know, we're looking at, you know, 4.5% headcount increase. You know, I think that's the nature of the business, and it will generally track. I don't see a shift in that as I look out the next year.

Joseph Vafi (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Fair enough. And then, I might have missed it: Did you call out the IT modernization growth rate? I know you were talking about some segments and their growth. Not sure if you called that out. And, you know, would IT modernization still be like a main area of acquisition activity for you at this point? Thanks a lot, guys.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

... Yeah, we, I think we called out the federal organic growth rate in the results, Joe. I would say that, I'd say a couple of things. I think what I would emphasize there is we won $150 million of IT modernization work in the quarter, which we're very pleased with. A substantial percent is new work. I think it's gonna really set us up nicely as we go into next year for continued strong growth there. And so we feel very good about that.

You know, in terms of acquisitions, you know, I think as we've talked about, we have, I think we have the core business that we need to, you know, provide those services and be a leader in that market from, you know, the low code, no code capabilities to the open source, cloud native capabilities. You know, we're, you know, we're also looking at the data analytics platforms and building our capabilities there. So I think we have the core of what we need. I think to the extent that we are looking for acquisitions there, it's more likely to be tuck-in, niche acquisitions that fill specific skills and capabilities. And so I think that's how we're thinking about that market. I think that's the story with IT modernization.

Joseph Vafi (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Got it. Maybe I'll just sneak one more in on IT modernization.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, sure.

Joseph Vafi (Managing Director of Equity Research)

What are clients thinking or saying right now about all this generative AI going on? Do they wanna use it? It feels like in the health business, you know, so much data, there could be some opportunities. Just wondering, like, how fast do you think clients, you know, federal clients may move forward with this kind of technology? Thanks.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

I mean, I would say, I mean, we're certainly seeing increased interest in AI from our clients, particularly in the federal sector. You know, I mean, honestly, we've been doing AI for some time. Obviously not generative AI, but we're certainly seeing interest in it from our clients. I think our you know we have 1,800 technologists who you know certainly have taken advantage of AI capabilities that are embedded in these platforms and are you know certainly in discussions with clients on generative AI. And so you know, there's a lot of interest. I think it's we are working with clients on it. We're also looking for how we can use it internally.

You know, I wouldn't say it's a material portion of our growth in IT modernization, but we're seeing a lot of interest with it and are engaged with clients on it.

Joseph Vafi (Managing Director of Equity Research)

Great. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Our next question comes from Sam Kusswurm with William Blair. Your line is open. All right, we will go ahead and take our next question. Please stand by. Our next question comes from Marc Riddick with Sidoti. Your line is open.

Marc Riddick (Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, good afternoon. I was wondering if you could touch a little bit on sort of client activity levels, and maybe you could talk a little bit about if there are any pockets that you've seen accelerate more recently, and if there are any that you're seeing clients kind of pull back and delay action or projects.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

You know, I would say that I don't think we've seen any significant change in our clients', you know, activities in terms of leaning forward in new areas or pulling back. I mean, I think, you know, as we've talked about, Marc, you know, we have the five key growth drivers. I think we continue to see a lot of opportunity there. I think, you know, the pipelines are good, the sales are good. We have the backlog. You know, we haven't seen any shift in our clients' client activities, you know, in the last quarter. You know, I would say in the federal space, you know, it's business as usual.

I mean, I think, you know, we were quite pleased with our sales coming in quite strong at the end of the third quarter, and, we haven't seen any shift in that, in that space. So, so no, I, I wouldn't highlight any significant shifts here in the last quarter with our clients and their areas of focus around the business.

Marc Riddick (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. And then noticed a couple of days ago, you had the announcement of the disaster recovery, when I believe it was Oregon. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about maybe what you might be seeing pipeline-wise with disaster related opportunities and whether or not there was any anything that we should be aware of that might be on the horizon in the near term?

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

You know, I think that we're. Well, we were pleased we picked up additional work in Florida in the last quarter, from Hurricane Idalia. We were pleased with that. You know, I think we are tracking some opportunities in Hawaii that are still in the early stage related to the fires there, and, you know, I think we're taking a hard look at that. And so, you know, I think the pipeline for disaster recovery is, you know, respectable and it's, you know, and we're working it hard. I think there's, as I'd say, I think that the newer opportunities that we're focused on, I would say, are in Florida and potentially Hawaii.

Marc Riddick (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, great. And the last one for me, this might be a little odd, but I was wondering if there were any particular ballot initiatives coming up that we should be aware of or anything that you guys are kind of tracking that might lead to some opportunities down the road. Thank you.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

I'm sorry, Marc, I missed it. What kind of initiatives? You just broke up there for a minute.

Marc Riddick (Senior Equity Analyst)

Any ballot initiatives coming up, coming up with election day? Are there any, areas or state, anything that, that might create some opportunities for you?

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Nothing comes to mind immediately for me. I'm looking... I don't know, James or Barry, do you have any?

Barry Broadus (CFO)

No.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Yeah, I don't. There's no ballot initiatives that come to mind immediately, Marc, that I think would be material for us.

Marc Riddick (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Thank you very much.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

At this time, I'm showing no further questions. I would now like to turn it back to John for closing remarks.

John Wasson (Chair and CEO)

Okay, thank you. We appreciate you participating in today's call, and we'll see you in our Q4 call. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.