MasTec, Inc. (MTZ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

And welcome to the MasTec Inc. Annual Meeting of Shareholders. My name is Ashley, and I will be your operator. I will now go ahead and turn the call over to Mr. Jorge Mas. Mr. Mas, you may begin.

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and good morning to everyone. And I hope everyone is healthy and safe. And after so many decades of shareholders meeting live, this is a virtual meeting. So I'd like now to call to order our 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of MasTec. I am Jorge Mas, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MasTec and I want to again welcome everyone who is participating to today's meeting. We at MasTec are aware of the extraordinary times in which we are living and the need to protect the health of our directors, executives, employees, shareholders and the other people who help us conduct our annual meetings. While we would prefer to be in a position to conduct our meeting in person, as I said earlier, as we always have in the past, we are very pleased that our shareholders can participate in our virtual annual meeting. You may submit any questions at any time during the annual meeting using the field provided for questions in the web portal. We look very much forward to returning to an in-person format for our 2021 annual meeting next year. I would like to take a moment now to introduce the other directors of the company who are present on the call. The directors in addition to myself are Jose Mas, who is also our Chief Executive Officer; Bob Campbell; Ernst Csiszar; Robert Dwyer; Julia Johnson; Javier Palomarez; and Jose Sorzano. And in addition to Jose, I would like to introduce the other executive officers of the company who are present with me here today. The executive officers are Bob Apple, our Chief Operating Officer; George Pita, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Albert de Cardenas, our Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary. On behalf of all of our shareholders, I would like to thank the directors and the management team for their contributions to MasTec, particularly amidst exceptionally challenging environment in which we are currently operating. Along with us today are representatives for our independent registered public accounting firm, BDO USA, Rana Razza and Ian Shapiro. They're available to answer questions from shareholders after we complete the business portion of the meeting. This meeting is convened pursuant to the notice dated April 2, 2020, to all shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 12, 2020. Albert de Cardenas, inspector of elections, will now give his report. Albert?

Good morning. Mr. Chairman, I have an affidavit of a manager of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. that a notice of the Internet availability of proxy materials were sent on or about April 2, 2020, to each shareholder of record as of March 12, 2020. We have available at this time a certified list of each shareholders, which is available for inspection by any shareholder of record on the annual meeting website. As of close of business on the record date, there were 75,061,216 shares of common stock outstanding, and I have determined that a quorum is present for all matters to be voted on at the meeting.

Thank you, Albert. We have 3 matters to be voted on today, which are: item 1, the election of Ernst Csiszar, Julia Johnson, and Jorge Mas as Class I directors to serve until the 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders; item 2, the ratification of the appointment of BDO as our independent registered public accounting firm for the 2020 fiscal year; and item 3, the approval of a nonbinding advisory resolution regarding the compensation of our named executive officers, which we refer to as a say-on-pay resolution. Those shareholders who wish to vote during the meeting may vote using the annual meeting website and follow the instructions found there. If any shareholder has already voted online, by telephone or by mail, there is no need to vote during the annual meeting unless you wish to change your prior vote. As indicated in the proxy statement, our Board of Directors has recommended that our shareholders vote for each of the nominees for director; for the ratification of the appointment of BDO for the 2020 fiscal year; and for the say-on-pay resolution. As there are no nominations for other candidates properly before the meeting, the nominations are hereby declared closed. There being no other proposals properly before the meeting, the polls are now open regarding each of the 3 proposals properly brought before the meeting and described in our proxy statement. Is there anyone participating, whether or not you already submitted a proxy, who now wants to vote using the online meeting website? If so -- if yes, please proceed to submit your votes pursuant to the online meeting website. [Voting]

No indications. So is there anyone still trying to submit votes? If yes, please use the field provided for questions in the web portal. [Voting]

Okay. The polls are now closed. The inspector of elections will now report the results. Albert de Cardenas?

As inspector of elections, I report that our shareholders have voted to elect Ernst Csiszar, Julia Johnson and Jorge Mas to serve as Class I directors for a 3-year term; to ratify the appointment of BDO USA, LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the 2020 fiscal year and to approve on a nonbinding advisory basis the compensation paid to our named executive officers.

Thank you, Albert, and thank you to our shareholders. Now that the business portion of the meeting has been concluded and there being no more business to attend to before the meeting, I hereby declare the meeting adjourned. I'll now like to make a few remarks, and then I'll turn the meeting over to Jose Mas, our Chief Executive Officer. For further comments, shareholders will have an opportunity already using the annual meeting website to ask questions directed to management or the company's auditors. I would like at this moment to thank all of the team members of MasTec throughout the country who have done an exemplary job, and not only during 2019, but as of today, during this unprecedented crisis and scenario which we presented with. I'm very proud to be your Chairman. I'm extremely proud of the men and women who continue dedicating themselves not only to the betterment of our entity and our company and the great work that we do to provide infrastructure for our country, but more so, how we have always talked about MasTec as a family and how this is a family-first entity. So listen, I just want to say thank you, and I appreciate all of your efforts and your continued work. And this crisis will be over soon, and hopefully, MasTec will continue to make everyone, shareholders including, very proud. Jose?

Thank you, Jorge. So good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us this morning. Looking back on 2019, we have another record year. It was a phenomenal year. It feels like centuries ago at this point with everything that's happened over the course of the last few months, but we're very proud of the results that we delivered. As we looked into 2020, we again provided record guidance on our year-end call. We had our recent first quarter call on May 1, where we revised guidance from $8 billion in revenue to $7.3 billion to $7.7 billion. And EBITDA from $900 million to $775 million to $825 million. And I bring that up because I think it's truly a remarkable feat for all of the members of MasTec to be in this situation that we're in and to be able to give that level of guidance for 2020, to have the assurances and to feel good about where we're headed and what's in front of us with all of the uncertainty that exists today. As my brother said, the team members of MasTec are incredible. I'm humbled and privileged to lead this group. The men and women are out there sacrificing themselves, putting themselves in harm's way to make sure that everybody has the ability to turn on their power at home, to be able to watch whatever entertainment they're watching, to have access to the Internet, to be able to conduct our lives in this sort of moment. So really, the team members of MasTec are truly part of the front line employees that are dedicating themselves and sacrificing themselves to give our lives some sense of normalcy during this difficult period. So again, big shout out to them. They're doing a fantastic job. Very proud of them, very proud of all that they do every single day, and we wouldn't be where we are without them. We're excited about what the future holds from MasTec. Our Communications division is experiencing some tremendous opportunities as we think about what's happened over the course of the last few months. The importance of the telecom infrastructure on our daily lives has become even more evident. We're a primary player in that. We're the people that actually build that and give our customers the capability to provide their customers with that connectivity. We're proud of the role we play there, and we're proud of the fact that, that business continues to change, it continues to evolve, and we continue to be a significant part. Our Oil and Gas business, despite the challenges in oil and gas prices, is performing well. We feel good about where we sit for the course of the next 18, 24 months as demand recovers and hopefully, prices recover. Long term, we'll be keeping an eye on that to make sure that we understand what our customers' needs are and how we can best serve them. And then on our power infrastructure side, things have been busy. We continue to have great opportunities. Again, critical that we don't have outages. And we're getting into hurricane season, and we're getting into storm season. So it's going to be very important, the work and the effort that we all put together to make sure that, again, our lives are as normal as possible during this time. So with that, again, thank you to the management team of MasTec and the employees of MasTec, and I will now open it up for questions and answers. And looks like we have no questions. So with that, I'll turn the call back over to Jorge.

Well, since there are no questions, I'd like to thank you for attending today's meeting and your support for MasTec. I hope each of you and yours remain safe and well, and may God bless you. Thank you.

I'll go ahead and close the call. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a great day. Have a great weekend. Stay safe.