Stantec - Q1 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Welcome to Stantec's first quarter 2023 earnings results webcast and conference call. Leading the call today are Gord Johnston, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Theresa Jang, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Stantec invites those dialing in to view the slide presentation, which is available in the Investors section at stantec.com. Today's call is also webcast. Please be advised that if you have dialed in while also viewing the webcast, you should mute your computer as there is a delay between the call and the webcast. All information provided during this conference call is subject to the forward-looking statement qualification set out on slide 2, detailed in Stantec's management discussion and analysis, and incorporated in full for the purposes of today's call. Unless otherwise noted, dollar amounts discussed in today's call are expressed in Canadian dollars and are generally rounded.

With that, I am pleased to turn the call over to Mr. Gord Johnston.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. I'm happy to report that we're off to an excellent start for the year. We delivered net revenue growth for the first quarter of 17%, reaching $1.2 billion. This was driven by over 12% organic growth. Market dynamics remained very favorable over the quarter, and through strong operational performance, we were able to deliver double-digit organic net revenue growth in each of our geographic regions. We also delivered solid organic growth in each of our business segments, most notably in water, which generated over 24% organic growth, 11% in buildings, and 16% in energy and resources. These results reflect our strong market positioning as we continue to build on the macro themes of aging infrastructure, climate change, and reshoring of domestic production.

Looking at our operating regions, net revenue in the U.S. increased 21%, with organic net revenue growth of 14%. Robust public and private sector spending continues to drive growth. We also benefited from the strong U.S. dollar in the quarter, which contributed approximately 7% of the increase in net revenue. We saw double-digit growth in water, buildings, and energy and resources. Our water business continues to be a leader in the U.S., achieving significant wins across all mega trends, including water reuse, climate resiliency, and large-scale water security projects. Buildings continues to be very active based on momentum from investments in healthcare, civic, industrial, and the science and technology sectors, and energy and resources continue to drive growth through the acceleration of mining and significant reservoir and dam projects. In community development, demand for industrial and residential units built specifically for rental have spurred growth.

Overall, the U.S. had a very strong quarter, with the key themes that we've spoken about previously continuing to play out. In Canada, we achieved 11% organic net revenue growth. Environmental services was driven by project permitting, archaeological investigations, and environmental impact assessment work in the renewable energy sector. Our water business continued to provide services for climate change resilience, including work surrounding Toronto's basement flooding program. Both environmental services and water achieved close to 20% organic net revenue growth. Energy and resources delivered double-digit growth, with strong activity related to the energy transition, including projects in power transmission and distribution, as well as a large renewable energy project in Western Canada. Our global operations delivered another quarter of solid revenue growth. Net revenue grew 15%, with organic growth of over 10% and acquisition growth of 5%.

Our water business continues to capitalize on long-term water framework agreements and public sector investments in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia. Energy and resources delivered robust organic growth through heightened levels of activity driven by the ongoing demand for copper and other metals that support the increasing imperative for the energy transition. Before turning the call over to Theresa, I want to share that our buildings group was recently ranked number two overall in Modern Healthcare's top construction and design firms. Modern Healthcare is the industry's leading source of healthcare business and policy news, research, and information. This is a global ranking, and it clearly demonstrates the great work our buildings team is doing in healthcare. Now, I'll turn the call over to Theresa to review our financial results in more detail.

Theresa Jang (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Gord. Good morning, everyone. As Gord noted, we delivered solid first quarter results. We grew both gross and net revenue by 17% to CAD 1.5 billion and CAD 1.2 billion, respectively. Project margin for Q1 was 53.7%, in line with our expectations. Project margin in Canada and the U.S. remained strong. While we experienced a few challenges in our global operations, none of which were individually material, we expect project margin in global to strengthen in the coming quarters. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 14.6%, a 10 basis point increase over Q1 2022. As a result of very strong share price appreciation in Q1, we did have a significant mark-to-market expense related to the revaluation of our long-term incentive plan. Without this, our adjusted EBITDA margin would have been 15.2%.

Strong revenue growth and lower admin and marketing expenses as a percentage of net revenue drove first quarter diluted EPS of CAD 0.59 compared with CAD 0.40 in the prior year. Adjusted diluted EPS of CAD 0.73 compared with CAD 0.61 last year, an increase of 20%. Excluding the mark-to-market LTIP revaluation expense, adjusted diluted EPS would have been CAD 0.78 and would have resulted in an increase of 28% over the prior year. Looking at our liquidity and capital resources, operating cash flow for the quarter came in at CAD 37 million, an increase of CAD 31 million over Q1 2022. Operating cash flow was driven by the strong revenue growth we achieved this quarter, partly offset by our short-term employee incentive payments, which always occur in the first quarter.

The DSO at the end of March was 81 days, consistent with year-end 2022, and our net debt to adjusted EBITDA was 1.6 times in the middle of our target range and also consistent with year-end 2022. Before I hand it back to Gord for final remarks, I'd like to draw your attention to our 16th annual sustainability report, which we released last month. Our sustainability report is a wonderful resource that reviews all of the amazing work we are doing to achieve our ESG ambitions. We're particularly proud to report that for the fourth straight year, we've increased the portion of our gross revenue that's aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. For 2022, we determined this to be 60%, up from 53% in 2021, a 13% increase.

We also achieved our goal of operational carbon neutrality across our entire business. There is so much more information contained in this report. I encourage you to take some time and look through it. With that, I'll turn the call back to Gord.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Thanks, Teresa. In Q1, we grew backlog to CAD 6.2 billion, in line with our previous all-time high. This is an increase of 15% from Q1 2022 and an increase of 6% since the end of last year. Our U.S. segment delivered over 9% organic growth in backlog this quarter, with most of that growth in environmental services, water, and buildings. Growth in environmental services backlog stems from strong tailwinds in the marketplace, augmented by robust cross-selling and collaboration with our other business units to provide services such as environmental permitting and archaeological work for large infrastructure projects. Backlog in water was driven by wins related to wastewater treatment solutions and water requirements for power generation that will support the energy transition. Buildings also had strong backlog growth in the quarter, generated through wins in advanced manufacturing, education, and healthcare.

Our backlog represents approximately 13 months of work. As our backlog demonstrates, momentum continues to build based on investments spurred by government stimulus around the world. Looking at some of our major project wins, each of these follows the key trends that we've been discussing. In Q1, we won additional work on semiconductor fabs and in advanced manufacturing, including the Qcells project, which we mentioned back in February. The Coire Glas 1,500 MW pump storage project in Scotland is the first large-scale pump storage project to be developed in the U.K. in more than 40 years. It will more than double current existing storage capacity, greatly supporting the energy transition and the climate change and sustainability imperative. The Veterans Memorial Bridge in Kentucky was constructed back in 1936, and it currently carries more than twice its intended daily capacity.

The redesign of this bridge will strengthen the aging infrastructure and provide safe multimodal crossing for vehicles, bicycles, and pedestrians. Just last week, we announced our appointment to the Homes England Development and Regeneration Technical Services framework. We expect this appointment will bring a significant amount of work over the next four years in community development as we continue to support Homes England in building sustainable and resilient communities. These are just a few examples that demonstrate the continued momentum that's driving public and private investment. Looking at the rest of the year, we remain confident that we will achieve the financial targets that we set out in February. This includes delivering mid to high single-digit organic net revenue growth, driven primarily from our significant position in the U.S.

While the U.S. remains as our top growth market for the year, we continue to expect solid growth in our global segment and high levels of activity in Canada. We're focused on driving bottom-line growth that meets or exceeds our top-line growth. 2023 is shaping up to be another excellent year for Stantec. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for questions. Operator?

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. If your question has been answered and you're wishing to remove yourself from the queue, please press star one one again. We will pause for a moment while we compile our Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Chris Murray with ATB Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Chris Murray (Analyst)

Yes. Thanks, folks. Good morning. Gord, maybe turning back to your comments around organic growth in the backlog. Obviously, you know, the U.S. very, very strong, but in the quarter anyway, Canada was pretty weak and so was global. Can you talk a little bit about your thoughts around what we should be seeing, as we move further into the year, in maybe each of those regions outside the U.S.? Is there anything, you know, any cause for concern here or anything particularly odd happening, or is this just maybe a timing issue?

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think it's mostly a timing issue, Chris. You know, we had strong organic growth in both of those regions, both over 10%. There's gonna be a little bit of lumpiness when you look between organic growth and backlog. You know, we're not really concerned. You know, in global, we had, you know, the backlog was a bit retracted a touch there, primarily due to the timing of AMP cycle stuff in the U.K. We are not really concerned with backlog in other locations. We're really confident in our projections for 2023. You know, we think we have a considerable number of opportunities really that we're working on in all of our regions.

Chris Murray (Analyst)

Okay. Even though the global backlog's been going a little bit negative, you don't feel like you're gonna burn the backlog faster than you can replace it, at least in the medium term, right?

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

We're feeling actually really good about that global business as well.

Chris Murray (Analyst)

Okay. All right. That's helpful. Thank you.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Thanks, Chris.

Operator (participant)

Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. Again, that's star one one for questions. We'll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Sabahat Khan with RBC. Your line is open.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Great. Thanks, and good morning. I guess just looking closer at the U.S. market, can you maybe give a little bit of color around, you know, where you are with the backlog, which end markets are contributing most? More importantly, I guess, you know, at this point in the macro environment and with some of the bills pending, you know, where are you seeing opportunities as it relates to your backlog stuff that might not already be in there? Thanks.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Yeah. Thanks, Saba. In the U.S., we did have over 9% backlog growth organically in the quarter, and we saw backlog growth in all of our business operating units. The strongest backlog growth in water, buildings, and environmental services, both well into double digits, all of those. You know, but we're seeing a pretty broad base across all of the groups. You know, we're really bullish on the U.S. growth. A lot of the IIJA work has not yet come or is not yet fully baked in or built into our backlog there. We see that starting to come more and more.

You may have seen a recent announcement that the EPA has now funded roughly $7 billion sent out to the water group. $6 billion of that came from IIJA. That's gonna just further strengthen, you know, the backlog growth in water going forward as well.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Okay. Great. You know, just looking, I guess, on the M&A front, you know, I didn't see a lot of mention of Cardno, assuming, you know, the integration there is largely done. How are you looking sort of at the M&A horizon right now? You know, one of the things we've noticed across the industry is, you know, some of the medium to larger sized transactions have quieted a bit. You know, is it just, you know, the valuations aren't at the right place? You know, is there more the companies such as yourself in the integration phases? Kind what are you seeing on the M&A horizon? Curious where the private sector multiples are at and just your appetite for a transaction at this point, looking beyond Cardno.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Yeah, you know, in addition to focusing on backlog growth, operational efficiency, we're really focused on our M&A program. You know, you said that, you know, and you're right, there's been a little bit of slowness in some of these transactions, I think that's just timing issues. You know, the market remains quite robust, the M&A funnel also quite full. So I think that, you know, we're continuing to stay active. You can see that we've got some dry powder that's ready to take action when the right opportunity comes along for us. Again, we're maintaining our discipline. Yeah, we're ready to transact when the right opportunity comes along.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Just one last quick one from me. I guess, given your U.S. exposure, obviously there's a bit of noise on the U.S. side with the government potentially, you know, hitting a bit of a wall on the debt ceiling side. The organic growth there looks good, the backlog is building, but I guess, you know, as you look over the medium term, is that something that could potentially be an issue? Given the funding that's in the system, you don't necessarily see it as a near-term concern given all the bills, et cetera, that are already in the works.

Theresa Jang (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. I think that last part you mentioned, Saba, is where we are at. We don't see that there would be any short-term impact. The projects that are underway are funded. You know, funds have been dispersed. It's a bit of a question around if there is a shutdown, how long will that last? You know, our expectation is that it wouldn't be prolonged. There might be, you know, a slight impact over the medium or longer term with respect to projects that are coming to market, but we really don't anticipate that there would be any significant impact to us.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Great. Thanks for the color. I'll pass the line.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Thanks, Saba.

Operator (participant)

Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question or a comment at this time, please press star one one on your telephone. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Ian Gillies with Stifel. Your line is open.

Ian Gillies (Analyst)

Morning, everyone.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Morning, Ian.

Ian Gillies (Analyst)

Gord, the employee count corporately is kind of been around 26,000 employees as reported for the last three quarters. Can you maybe talk about some of the dynamics with respect to adding people and what's transpiring there and how it pertains to backlog growth and revenue, et cetera, and how you're managing that dynamic?

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Yeah. Yeah. We, you know, we continue to hire far more people then are leaving us. Our head count continues to grow. In fact, we had the highest hiring quarter ever in Q1 of this year. We continue to see that growth. We often. You know, the number, excuse me, the number will come up in the summer. We're typically over 27,000 in the summer because we have our seasonal staff, and it drops down to 26,000 as those folks go back to college and university. I think we're, you know, we are feeling good about our ability to both recruit and retain employees, and I think that'll help us to continue to service the backlog.

We are seeing that we're not seeing as much wage pressure as we've seen previously. We're seeing that the pendulum may be swinging back a little bit, from where it was, you know, very much in favor of the employee, you know, a year or 2 ago. We're seeing it come back to a little bit more of a balanced, a balanced situation. Our voluntary turnover rates really have tapered off and settled over the last couple quarters. So we are actually feeling pretty good about from a headcount perspective. We continue to grow in our offices, our delivery centers in Pune, India. You know, we're up well over 700 people there now, might be approaching 750.

That's only almost a doubling of the size of that group over the last couple of years, and we see continued opportunities for it to grow there. No, I think we're feeling pretty good about the from a staffing perspective. We still talk about it every day, of course, because that's our number one, our number one asset, but we're feeling in pretty good shape with it.

Ian Gillies (Analyst)

Got it. That's very helpful. Maybe switching gears to Canada, Q1 organic growth was very strong. Guidance obviously hasn't really moved there. You've reiterated your confidence. Is there potential that there's revenue or contraction as we move into the back half of the year in that region? I'm just trying to tie out what happened in Q1 versus what may transpire for the remainder of the year.

Theresa Jang (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. I mean, I think, Ian, what we saw in Q1, was certainly positive. We're really pleased with the performance there. I think what we saw was, you know, some carryover effect from the momentum we saw in Q4, and some projects a little bit less sensitive to seasonality or the cold weather. That was very helpful for Canada. We haven't changed our guidance for the rest of the year. You know, it's still early in the year, and we do have some projects that are kind of reaching that ramp down phase, and others that are we're expecting to ramp up in the year. That always causes a little bit of slowdown and restart.

It is currently our expectation that we will see that growth moderate a bit over the course of the rest of this year. You know, we'd be happy to, you know, to see it continue to be as strong as it was in Q1. We'll see how it plays out.

Ian Gillies (Analyst)

Certainly. Thanks very much. I'll turn the call back over.

Operator (participant)

One moment for our next question. Our next question is a follow-up question from Sabahat Khan with RBC. Your line is open.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Hey, great. Good morning again. I guess maybe this one's for Teresa. You know, just given where your share price is at currently, and we talked a bit about M&A earlier, just curious how you're looking at capital allocation at this point for the remainder of the year, given kind of the options out there.

Theresa Jang (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. I mean, the philosophy really hasn't changed, Saba. Of course, we're pretty happy with where the share price is trading at. But overall, you know, M&A remains our top focus in terms of capital deployment. There's really no altering of the approach there. We wanna be doing creative M&A transactions. We will go into the market when we see, you know, that there's some dislocation there, and be opportunistic about that approach. But we're also focused on, you know, maintaining solid leverage, so keeping our, you know, our cash flow deployed toward paying down our revolver every opportunity we get. So again, not a change there in strategy.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Okay, great. There was a bit of discussion earlier, you know, around the U.S. side. I want to switch a bit more over to the U.K. You know, the AMP programs obviously are contributing for you, but I'm curious how, you know, how the demand trends and the outlook is for some of the other end markets in that region where you operate.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Sure. Well, you know, you mentioned the AMP program. We're in the middle of AMP7, certainly, and we are, you know, robust growth there. We continue to hire to service the AMP7 demands. We're beginning to see some clients begin to recompete for AMP8, and we've been successful in securing those. Other areas of the U.K., you know, we, there's a lot of discussion about the U.K. housing market. If you're reading in the papers lately, you know, some people have said they're gonna take off, you know, the numbers if they need to continue to build. Others have said we need to put those back on. I think so we're seeing a little bit of softness there.

You know, I think we've mentioned before the permitting process for housing in the UK is quite onerous and takes quite some time. Once you begin to develop a project, you typically keep going through till you get your permitting. I think we feel particularly good with that UK housing market with our appointment to that Homes England-four-year framework that we talked about. Homes England is really looking to push increasing housing stock there. That's going to, I think, be very positive for us for the next four years. Those would be our two largest end markets there, would be the community development group that we talked about and water. On the transportation side, you know, we have some good wins there with Highways England that continue to deliver.

you know, I think we're feeling okay about the U.K., but we're certainly keeping an eye on it. Absolutely.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Just one last one for me. On the U.S. side, obviously, the other big build out there is the IRA. I think you've announced a large solar project win there. Just curious, what are some of the other buckets within the IRA where you're pursuing projects or opportunities, whether it's by end market or, you know, type of project? Just some color there, please.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

The IRA really is supportive of sort of a transition to greener, more renewable power. There's a number of different projects that we're talking to our clients about. There's opportunities, there is the extension of project start dates and production tax credits for wind and solar and geothermal, biomass, hydrocarbon, sorry, hydropower projects, carbon sequestration. Like, we're in discussions with clients on all of these. There's the IRA has, you know, expands credits for clean hydrogen, renewable fuels, EV charging infrastructure. There is a lot of opportunities there, and we're in discussion with clients on really any number of these projects.

Sabahat Khan (Analyst)

Thanks very much for that.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Thanks. Thanks, Sabahat.

Operator (participant)

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from Frederic Bastien with Raymond James. Your line is open.

Frederic Bastien (Analyst)

Good morning.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Morning, Frederic.

Frederic Bastien (Analyst)

Just questions, big picture here. If all else equal, where would you look to deploy your next dollar on M&A? Secondly, I mean, if we fast-forward five years out, does the revenue profile of Stantec look different from here in terms of geographic exposure? Thank you.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Yeah. You know, we've talked about before, you know, the number of opportunities that we have around the world, but I think some of the biggest opportunities we still have are in the United States. As we are looking for opportunities, you know, we're certainly in discussion with folks in the US. That doesn't in any way negate, you know, the continued discussions that we'd be having in Canada and from a global perspective. So for you, If I had CAD 1, I'd probably spend it on buying a company in the US right now. As you know, we're in a pretty good shape, our leverage, we have more than CAD 1. We continue to have, you know, multiple discussions with firms around the world.

Then from overall, what would the revenue profile look like? I think we're pretty comfortable with where we are, you know, with those, taking advantage of the big programs where they're coming, infrastructure, water, buildings and so on, environment, certainly. We are gonna continue to focus on the mega trends, but I would not expect our revenue, net revenue profile to be significantly different, in the if we look out five years from now.

Frederic Bastien (Analyst)

Great. Thanks. That's all I have.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Thanks, Frederic.

Operator (participant)

I'm not showing any further questions as I'd like to turn the call back over to Gord for any closing remarks.

Gord Johnston (President and CEO)

Great. Well, thanks everyone for joining us this morning. We're really pleased with our Q1 results and are very optimistic about the remainder of 2023. Thanks again for joining us, and we look forward to catching up with you as the year progresses.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's presentation. You may now disconnect and have a wonderful day.