MYR Group Inc. (NASDAQ:MYRG) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Alexander Dwyer: Got it. And then on the C&I segment, the margin is nice little uptick here quarter-over-quarter. Can you talk about how we should think about these in 2023? You said you’re still not out of the woods yet on the supply chain situation. Like how has this environment trended in the recent months? And maybe if there’s anything you guys are doing internally to improve these margins back into that 4% to 6% range?

Richard Swartz: Well, I think last year, we stated that we kind of saw this material impact and kind of the supply chain disruptions continuing through the first half of this year. We’ve seen improvements in it. And I think we’re going to continue to see it through the next 2 quarters and hopefully stabilize by that third quarter of this year, and we’re still seeing that trend. And I think we’re seeing positive movements that way.

Operator: Our next question will come from the line of Brian Russo from Sidoti.

Brian Russo: I just wanted to follow up on the revenue growth at the T&D, over 40% for the second quarter in a row, both third quarter and fourth quarter. I was just trying to get a sense of, in addition to what you mentioned, I think Powerline, the initial assumption was about $80 million in revenue annually. Is that exceeding your expectations, which is driving the over 30% year-over-year revenue growth in that sector versus historically close to 17% on average.

Richard Swartz: No. Powerline is pretty close to what we had projected. So I’d say it’s, I guess, performing as planned. So the growth is really from the clean energy side, additional transmission and additional distribution contracts out there.

Brian Russo: Okay. Got it. And then just on the T&D segment margins, it looks like 8% in the fourth quarter, looks like 40 basis points above the third quarter, but still below the fourth quarter ’21. And I know you had some closeouts and/or favorable weather in the year ago quarter. But are we well within the, I think it’s the 7.5% to 10% target range and a lot of the supply chain inflationary headwinds that are going to persist in C&I through the first half, it’s less significant on the T&D side?

Tod Cooper: Yes, this is Tod. On the T&D side, related to our growth was obviously the investment in additional project management, additional supervision and a heavy investment in the training and development of those employees. So that probably could be impacting margins slightly, but it’s with the intent of, obviously, continuing to improve those margins in the long term to get higher than the 8% and push towards the higher end of what we’re projecting.

Betty Johnson: And Brian, can I just also add that Rick mentioned some of the correlated growth in T&D came from some of the solar accelerated cost in our solar side, which as a reminder, those margins are like higher than the C&I typical margin, but not at the high end of the range. So that’s a little bit of a component when it came to the mix of the solar opportunity to still get into the higher range as that mix switches.

Brian Russo: Okay. Great. And then just again on the T&D, the utilities that have reported earnings are very optimistic about these MISO Tranche 1 projects and some are saying that Tranche 2 could be even bigger, but not to get ahead of ourselves, But I’m curious what type of activity you’re seeing with customers or prospective customers on these transmission projects and when we might see a competitive bidding process begin and when projects might be awarded?