Tutor Perini Corporation (TPC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Tutor Perini Corporation Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Rochelle, and I will be your coordinator for today. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. [Operator Instructions] I will now turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Jorge Casado, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Please proceed.

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With us today are Gary Smalley, CEO and President; and Ryan Soroka, Executive Vice President and CFO. Before we discuss our results, I'll remind everyone that during this call, we will be making forward-looking statements, which are based on management's current assessment of existing trends and information. There is an inherent risk that our actual results could differ materially. You can find our disclosures about risk factors that could contribute to such differences in our Form 10-Q, which we are filing today, and in our Form 10-K, which was filed on February 26, 2026. The company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether due to new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. In addition, during today's call, management will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial measures. You can find information and a reconciliation of these non-GAAP financial measures in our earnings release and in our Form 10-Q, both of which can be found in the Investors section of our website. Thank you. And with that, I'll turn over the call to Gary Smalley.

Thanks, Jorge. Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We had an excellent second quarter, delivering very strong results, highlighted by record revenue and operating income, record operating cash flow of $334 million for the first half of 2026, and meaningfully and sequentially improved operating margins across all segments. Our record cash flow so far this year has been driven by higher volume and solid execution and collections on various large projects that are very profitable. Our second quarter revenue increased 19% year-over-year to $1.6 billion, driven by contributions from projects that are in the very early stages with significant scope of work remaining. With strong revenue growth, we generated operating income of $118 million, up 54% year-over-year, and produced an outstanding $1.74 of adjusted earnings per share, up 23% compared to the second quarter last year. Ryan will discuss the details of our financial results shortly, including some commentary about our recent successful debt refinancing. As I mentioned, our segment operating margins were all up significantly this quarter compared to the margins for the first quarter of 2026, as our work continues to ramp up on several of our mega projects. The Civil segment's second quarter operating margin was 15.3%, a very solid performance that exceeded the high end of our anticipated full year margin range for the segment. The Building segment's operating margin was 5.6% for the second quarter on operating income that was up an impressive 39% year-over-year. The Building segment's outstanding margin performance is already approaching the upper end of the range we expect for the segment this year. And the Specialty Contractors segment continues to deliver solid execution on its current projects with improved operating results. Its operating margin for the second quarter was 2.2%, up nicely compared to the first quarter and with further margin improvement still expected as the back half of the year unfolds. Overall, we are very pleased with the results we are delivering in terms of revenue growth and margin expansion as well as with our substantial earnings and record cash generation. Now let's turn to the second quarter new awards and backlog. We booked $1.7 billion of new awards and contract adjustments, a book-to-burn of just over 1x, and finished the quarter again with a near-record backlog of $19.9 billion, up slightly compared to the prior quarter. The largest additions to backlog included the following: a $652 million project to modernize and protect critical power infrastructure at Naval Base Guam; $143 million for 2 U.S. Coast Guard projects, a housing project and a Child Development Center project, both in Alaska; $130 million of additional funding for a new pediatric campus electric project in Texas; $114 million for the Jones Hall project at the University of Mississippi; and $106 million for a bridge project in Minnesota. As we have indicated previously, our strong backlog, which includes 9 mega projects we have won over the past few years with a combined value of about $16 billion, continues to provide us with excellent line of sight for future revenue and earnings over the next several years. We continue to expect that our backlog will fuel higher revenue and earnings, solid profitability and strong cash flow this year and beyond. Customer demand remains robust, and we continue to have numerous significant project bidding opportunities, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region as well as in California, the Midwest and the Northeast. Overall, we have a massive pipeline of more than $200 billion in potential project opportunities over the next 3 to 4 years, which is about 3x larger than the pipeline we had just a couple of years ago. Many of these opportunities are expected to bid over the next 1 to 2 years, and we are very well positioned to win our fair share. We will continue to be quite selective in bidding and winning new projects, with our key overall objective being to maximize shareholder value. Consistent with our approach over the last several years, our focus will remain on bidding projects conservatively so that our project budgets reflect safe costs, adequate contingency, favorable contractual terms, and higher margins. As we observe the market, we continue to see limited competition for the larger fixed price work, which should help us achieve our goal of winning important and profitable contracts that enhance revenue, earnings growth, and margin expansion. Now let's talk about some of the major bidding opportunities we expect to pursue over the next 12 to 18 months. We currently have more than $4.6 billion of Indo-Pacific opportunities with the Federal Government for our Guam subsidiary, Black Construction, including port and harbor improvements on the islands of Palau and Yap, a fueling facilities project at Wake Island, airfield and fueling facilities in Yap, and the Polaris Point submarine pier at Naval Base Guam. In addition, there are more than $1 billion of other opportunities already identified in the region beyond 18 months. We expect that our backlog will remain strong during the remainder of 2026 and beyond. We still anticipate approximately $1 billion of additional funding later this year for the Midtown Bus Terminal Replacement project in New York. We also have certain Building segment projects currently in the preconstruction phase that are anticipated to advance to the construction phase later this year and beyond. In addition, in the third quarter, we will be bidding various projects, including the $1 billion I-69 ORX Section 2 bridge project connecting Indiana and Kentucky. And in the Indo-Pacific region, Black Construction just last week submitted a bid for the $0.5 billion Palau Port and Harbor improvements project. And later this year, we will bid a multibillion-dollar jail project in Illinois, leveraging our success and experience with our ongoing Brooklyn and Manhattan Jail mega projects. We will also continue to have several new large healthcare project opportunities and hospitality and gaming opportunities, mostly in California and the Southwest. In 2027, we expect to bid on several multibillion-dollar projects, including the Merced-to-Madera segment of the California High-Speed Rail project as well as the initial contract for the Sepulveda Transit Corridor program in Southern California, a program believed to be valued at approximately $12 billion and expected to be awarded under multiple contracts. In addition, we have the $4 billion Southeast Gateway, the $2 billion East Side Transit Corridor Phase 2 and the $1.5 billion K Line Extension to Torrance projects, also in Southern California, and on the East Coast, the $3 billion Newark Liberty International Airport Terminal B project in New Jersey, very similar to the award-winning Terminal A project that we recently completed at the same airport. Late next year or early the following year, we expect to bid on the second phase of the multibillion-dollar Midtown Bus Terminal Replacement project in New York, the phase that will demolish the existing bus terminal and build its permanent replacement. Because of the unprecedented pipeline of opportunities just mentioned and our competitive positioning, we remain confident in our ability to drive backlog growth over the medium to longer term as we also continue to focus on earnings growth, margin improvement, free cash flow, quality, and safety. Now as we announced today in our earnings release, our Board of Directors has declared a $0.09 per share quarterly cash dividend payable to shareholders on September 3. This is a meaningful 50% increase compared to the previous $0.06 dividend. The increased dividend reflects our continued confidence in the outlook for strong revenue, operating margins, earnings, cash flow, and liquidity over the next several years. Separately, during the second quarter, we repurchased approximately 137,000 shares on the open market for $10 million at an average price of approximately $73 per share. We still have $170 million available under our share repurchase program that was originally authorized late last year for $200 million, and we expect to make additional opportunistic share buybacks in the future to return excess capital to our shareholders. Finally, let's turn to our outlook and guidance. As I mentioned earlier, I am very pleased with the financial results we have delivered thus far this year, results that were ahead of our expectations. We continue to benefit from favorable macroeconomic tailwinds that are driving strong sustained market demand, which bodes well for future awards growth, earnings, and value creation. Our business is resilient, and we remain confident in our outlook for consistent revenue and earnings growth for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. Based on our outlook and assessment of the current market, we continue to anticipate double-digit revenue growth and strong earnings in 2026 with even higher earnings expected in 2027, by which time many of our newer large projects in our backlog should be in the construction phase. Because of the favorable outlook and our strong financial results to date, we are raising our 2026 adjusted EPS guidance to the range of $5.15 to $5.45 per share, up from the previous range of $4.90 to $5.30. As usual, our guidance continues to factor in a significant amount of contingency for unknown or unexpected outcomes and developments this year. We also continue to expect strong operating cash generation in the second half of 2026 and beyond due to increasing project execution activities on our newer mega projects and the anticipated resolution of remaining legacy disputes. Before I hand it over to Ryan to review our financial performance, I want to take a moment to highlight a significant corporate milestone. As some of you may know, Tutor Perini was recently added to the S&P SmallCap 600 Index effective before the opening of trading on July 24. Tutor Perini has also recently been added to various other S&P indices, including the S&P 1000. We view our inclusion in these benchmarks as clear validation of the strong operational progress our team has achieved over the past few years. Our focus on improved contractual terms, safer costs and more contingency in our bids, effective project execution, and resolving legacy disputes has structurally strengthened our balance sheet and helped us drive unprecedented earnings and cash generation. This milestone marks an exciting new chapter for Tutor Perini as we continue to drive long-term value for our shareholders. Given all this, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on Tutor Perini's enduring value proposition for investors and why we are so confident in our future trajectory. As we have said before, we continue to benefit from generational investment opportunities to refresh and modernize the U.S. infrastructure. Our ability to capitalize on this exceptional market environment where we see no shortage of opportunities moving forward is evidenced by our recent major project wins. Next, our backlog of $20 billion provides us with clear revenue and earnings growth visibility moving forward. And finally, we have taken meaningful action to strengthen our balance sheet over the past few years by deleveraging, resolving legacy disputes and through the recent refinancing. As a result, we strongly believe Tutor Perini today is a more compelling value investment opportunity than any other point in our storied history, and our confidence continues to build given the disciplined steps we are taking to create value for our shareholders moving forward. Thank you. And with that, I will turn the call over to Ryan to discuss the details of our financial results.

Thanks, Gary. Good day, everyone. I'll discuss our results for the second quarter, followed by some commentary on our balance sheet and the assumptions underlying our increased 2026 guidance. All comparative references will be against the second quarter of last year, unless otherwise stated. But first, I'd like to highlight the recent debt refinancing that we successfully completed here early in July. We're extremely pleased with the outcome of our refinancing by which we replaced our 11.875% senior notes with $400 million of new senior notes at a coupon rate of 6.625%, a 525 basis point reduction, and extended the notes' maturity by 4 years from 2029 to 2033. The coupon reduction will result in annual cash interest savings of $21 million going forward. We also amended and restated our revolving credit facility, more than doubling our currently unused capacity from $170 million to $350 million, while obtaining substantially improved covenant terms and interest rate spreads and extending the revolver's maturity from 2027 to 2031. Overall, the refinancing gives us a greater capacity to pursue strategic opportunities while continuing to return capital to shareholders. As we disclosed in the 10-Q, the debt extinguishment and refinancing costs we incurred in the third quarter of 2026 will be excluded from our adjusted EPS when we report our Q3 results. Now to our financial results. As Gary mentioned, we generated a record $334 million of operating cash for the first half of 2026, up 17% compared to the first half of last year. This included strong cash flow of $187 million in the second quarter. Our record first half cash flow was driven by significant volume growth and strong collections on various profitable projects as well as effective working capital management, with only a small amount attributable to dispute resolutions. We expect to continue generating solid cash flow this year and beyond, with most of our cash to be sourced from organic operations and occasionally enhanced by cash collected from dispute resolutions. Revenue for the second quarter of 2026 was a record $1.6 billion, up 19%, with the growth primarily due to increased project execution activities on certain large high-margin projects in New York, California, Hawaii, and the Indo-Pacific region. Civil segment revenue was $816 million, the segment's highest quarterly revenue ever and up 11%, with the growth driven by increased project execution activities on the Midtown Bus Terminal Phase 1 project, the Manhattan Tunnel, the Kensico-Eastview Connection Tunnel, the Honolulu Rail project and the Apra Harbor Waterfront Repairs project in Guam, all of which have substantial scope of work remaining. Building segment revenue was $560 million, the segment's highest quarterly revenue since 2011 and up 21%, due to increased activities on the Brooklyn and Manhattan Jail projects as well as on a large healthcare campus project in Northern California. All our major Civil and Building segment projects are continuing to run smoothly. Specialty segment revenue was $261 million, up a very strong 47%, with the segment's growth continuing to be primarily driven by increased activities on various electrical and mechanical projects in New York and Texas. The strong revenue growth drove our second quarter operating income to a record $118 million, up 54% year-over-year. Civil segment operating income was $125 million compared to $140 million. The prior year included a large favorable adjustment of $28 million. The Civil segment continues to execute extremely well and once again delivered a very healthy segment operating margin of 15.3%, which, as Gary mentioned, is above the top end of the 12% to 15% margin range we expect for this segment and up sequentially from 12.6% last quarter. Building segment operating income was a solid $31 million, the highest result since 2010 and up 39%, with the strong increase driven by contributions from certain newer higher-margin projects in New York and California, with substantial scope of work remaining. The segment's operating margin was 5.6%, the highest building margin of any quarter since 2012 and up sequentially from 3.5% from the first quarter of this year. The Building segment's margin performance was outstanding and near the upper end of the 3% to 6% margin range we expect for the segment. Specialty Contractors segment operating income was $6 million for the second quarter compared to a loss from construction operations of $18 million for the same quarter last year. The Specialty segment's operating margin was 2.2% this quarter, up sequentially from 0.3% last quarter and a significant improvement compared to the negative 10.2% for the second quarter of 2025. Segment's turnaround has been primarily driven by contributions related to the increased volume on the New York and Texas electrical and mechanical projects that I mentioned earlier. Many of these projects are in the early stages and are still expected to ramp up substantially over the next several years. Overall, we are pleased with the improvements that we are seeing in the Specialty segment and expect further margin expansion this year and in the future years as we continue toward our goal of eventually sustaining specialty margins in the 5% to 8% range. Corporate G&A expense for the second quarter of 2026 was $42 million compared to $68 million last year, with the decrease largely due to a $28 million reduction in share-based compensation expense this year as some of the liability-classified awards that have recently caused elevated share-based compensation expense vested at the end of 2025. Most of the remaining liability-classified awards will vest at the end of this year. So in 2027, we expect that our share-based compensation expense will be significantly reduced compared to this year. Income tax expense for the quarter was $31 million, with a corresponding effective tax rate of 26.8% for the period compared to $22 million last year with a corresponding effective tax rate of 31.8% in that period. The lower effective tax rate this year is mostly attributable to the lower nondeductible share-based compensation expenses estimated for 2026 relative to 2025. Net income attributable to Tutor Perini for the second quarter of 2026 was $66 million, or $1.23 of GAAP earnings per share compared to $20 million or $0.38 of GAAP earnings per share in the second quarter of last year. Excluding the impact of share-based compensation expense, net of associated tax benefit, adjusted net income attributable to Tutor Perini for the second quarter of 2026 was $93 million, or $1.74 of adjusted earnings per share compared to $75 million or $1.41 of adjusted earnings per share in the same quarter last year. This is a solid 23% improvement in our adjusted EPS compared to last year's second quarter, reflecting the high-margin contributions and outstanding performance we continue to see as we execute our projects and backlog. Now I'll address the balance sheet. Our total debt stood at $396 million at the end of the second quarter. We ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents exceeding total debt by $542 million, an increasingly strong net cash position and $435 million better than we were just 1 year ago. Our cash available for general corporate purposes was $424 million at the end of the second quarter of 2026, up 56% compared to $271 million at the end of 2025. Our balance sheet has continued to strengthen, and our large net cash position provides us with ample flexibility to allocate our capital efficiently and strategically. Finally, let me update you on our latest assumptions underlying our increased 2026 guidance, which are more favorable overall compared to our previous assumptions. G&A expense for 2026 is now expected to be between $380 million and $400 million. Depreciation and amortization expense is now anticipated to be approximately $45 million in 2026, with depreciation at $43 million, amortization at $2 million. Interest expense for 2026 is now expected to be between $42 million and $44 million, of which about $3 million will be noncash. Our effective income tax rate for 2026 is now expected to be approximately 26% to 29%. We now anticipate noncontrolling interest to be between $70 million and $80 million. We still expect approximately 54 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding for 2026, and capital expenditures are still anticipated to be approximately $125 million to $135 million, with the vast majority of the CapEx in 2026, approximately $75 million to $85 million, being owner-funded for large equipment items on certain large new projects. Thank you. And with that, I will turn the call back over to Gary.

Thanks, Ryan. To recap, we delivered very strong financial results for the second quarter and through the first half of 2026, marked by record first half operating cash flow, double-digit revenue growth, record operating income, improved segment operating margins, strong earnings and continued near-record backlog. Our backlog, combined with the safe cost with favorable terms approach we have utilized over the past several years and continue to utilize in bidding and winning new projects, provides us confidence in our ability to deliver double-digit revenue and earnings growth and continued strong annual cash flow in 2026 and beyond. Our business momentum is growing, and our results this year demonstrate the substantial revenue, earnings and cash potential of our solid project execution. The long-term outlook for Tutor Perini remains very bright given the long duration, higher-margin nature of our backlog and the enormous pipeline of bidding opportunities. We expect that the favorable macroeconomic tailwinds and strong public and private customer funding will persist and continue to support vibrant market demand and ample bidding opportunities well into the future. All of this supports our strong belief that Tutor Perini presents a unique and compelling value opportunity for investors. Thank you. And with that, I will turn the call over to the operator for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question we will hear from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson, Davis & Co.

Congrats on the great quarter. It sounded like the Civil and Building operating margins were stronger than you expected. Can you give a little bit more color on why that was and your expectations for the back half?

Yes, Adam, really, what's going on is these new projects, the 9 mega projects that we had booked in the last few years or so. Those projects are starting to ramp up, and they're higher-margin projects, and they're really contributing much higher margins than what we're seeing in some of the old work. And as those continue to ramp up and build strength, you'll see this margin appreciation. So going forward, we'll still see solid margins, somewhere in that 12% to 15% range. I know we're a little north of the 15% this quarter. That could happen from time to time. But we still think 12% to 15% is really where you want to plan on us being with the Civil segment. On the Building side, somewhere in the 3% to 6%, but we aim for the upper end of that 3% to 6%, and that's where we were this quarter with the 5.6%. So expect in the latter half of the year to be in that range, but really toward the upper end of that range. And again, this 12% to 15%, keep in mind that not too long ago, we were talking about 8% to 12% margin. So we've seen a consistent healthy increase there. And down the road, hopefully, we can push that 12% to 15% even higher.

Okay. And then you guys have been really active putting out press releases for, call it, small and midsized jobs. I'm just curious how we should think about the margin profile for those jobs versus your mega jobs?

Yes. Generally, the mega jobs have higher margins. However, it's mixed in with some of these projects. Look, one of those was an AI project and it has -- or a data center project. It has very high margins. So the blend isn't going to be much different from what you're seeing otherwise. It's always a mix of things, but the margins that -- on the projects that you mentioned in these releases, they're healthy margins.

And our next question will come from Min Cho with Texas Capital Securities.

Congratulations on a really strong quarter here. So you obviously had a very nice award in the quarter for Black Construction and it looks like there's some pending bids out as well. Can you talk about Black Construction in general? Just how can that -- I mean, you probably can't double the size of that business at the current capacity, but are you looking to add more scale there? How can that business, which tends to have higher margins, get larger for you? What can you do to make it bigger?

Yes. Min, thanks for the comment and the compliment on the quarter. Look, in our prepared comments, we talked about the potential there over the next 12 to 18 months, we have $4.6 billion of bid opportunities. And then beyond the 18 months, there's already $1 billion of opportunities that we've identified. So we just see more and more potential there. We're looking at adding staff there to continue the expansion. Can we double it? We certainly would like to double it. It depends on our win rate, depends on continued opportunities that come out. We certainly expect to grow it. And the margins are generally healthy there because it is remote. Some of the work is rather difficult, but we feel that we're the best prepared. We've been in the area the longest. We're really, we'll say, the incumbent there. And we feel like we're the team to beat. We don't win them all, but we're well positioned to win at least our fair share. So we do expect there to be quite a bit of growth in that region.

Excellent. And then just moving to data center opportunities. I know Fisk Electric won the data center project. And it sounds like electricians are becoming a big bottleneck for data center projects. Can you talk about how you're bidding for those projects and kind of what you're seeing in terms of opportunities specific to data centers on the electrical side?

You're exactly right with respect to the bottleneck with electricians being the bottleneck. And that's really where the opportunities that we're looking at. We're going to continue to emphasize the core business. That's where we're doing very well right now. And data centers, we're looking at those being where there is a need, where we have resources. And so primarily in the Texas region is what we're seeing right now where electricians are short, but we have the available capacity to take that on in addition to the other work. So we're seeing healthy margins. And that's the type of data center work that we're pursuing at this point is more on the electrical side.

And our next question, we'll hear from Michael Dudas with Vertical Research Partners.

Gary, maybe you could opine a little bit more. The $200 billion pipeline number was pretty shocking. I'm pretty not surprised. Maybe how it's evolved over the past couple of years. And when you look at that pipeline and look at some of the opportunities ahead of you, how are you positioning how best to which resources, which projects, terms and conditions in that pipeline, what you can convert to a backlog or award and that visibility over the next, say, 12 to 18 months?

Yes, Mike, the $200 billion, if you compare it historically, let's go back the last 6-7 years. It's generally ranged somewhere around $70 billion to $90 billion and up and down a little bit dependent on just the economy and just the pace of the awards. But we've really seen this go from about 2 or 3 years ago, it was about $70 billion. It's gone from $70 billion to $200 billion. So that's the tripling that I mentioned earlier. And so what happens is there's no way you're going to try to pursue $200 billion or even $70 billion of work. But what it does is you look at the available opportunities and you target the regions, the types of projects where you expect to have the best terms. And you also look at the expected competition. And from those, then we target the best opportunities for us and therefore, the best margins for us. So the fact that it's 3x the total number of opportunities bodes quite well for us because what that means is we can be more selective in the opportunities we pursue and hopefully land, again, our fair share at higher margins.