Southland Holdings, Inc. (ASE:SLND) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Cody Gallarda : Certainly. So, this quarter, we generated $24 million of positive cash flow from operations. The timing on free cash flow conversion is really dependent on so many different items with respect to billing milestones as well as change order settlements. So, difficult to predict. You heard in our opening comments that it will be difficult to have year-over-year revenue growth, but we do look forward to continuing the trend of positive cash flow from operations.

Operator: Your next question comes from Christian Schwab from Craig-Hallum.

Christian Schwab : So, just on the remainder of the legacy backlog, thanks for the color on how much is left. But how — is all of this stuff done by the end of ’24?

Cody Gallarda : So, we shared that M&P work has about a 1 to 2 year completion horizon on it. So that would take us out to mid-’25 with the tail being towards the end of that 2-year period, Christian. The rest of that work is in a similar category. We have one project that may tail off beyond that, but we expect substantially all of it to be complete within the next 12 to 24 months.

Christian Schwab : Okay. And then, there’s always surprises in large construction projects, in the bidding process. Do we believe that the remaining backlog has been vetted and bid as profitable as you think it was when you originally bid it? Or is there any potential geographies or work that may not be in line with kind of historical EBITDA targets?

Frank Renda : Yes, Thanks, Christian. Great question. So, the $2.2 billion of the $2.7 billion backlog that we have remaining, we’ve picked up over the last 6 quarters. We picked that up at a time frame coming off of record inflation, coming out of COVID, so much uncertainty in a very limited bidding field. We knew exactly what our crews were producing on the jobs and in the areas with owners that that we knew and had successfully completed projects with in the past. So we’re extremely confident in that work. The remaining work, you know the legacy projects that we have, we kind of touched on. We’ve got those at a 0 margin go forward. But as far as vetting the backlog that we have for the $2.2 billion and the remaining work and completion, we’re confident in bringing — being able to bring that home, at the numbers that were bid or adjusted to.

Cody Gallarda : Christian, maybe just to add a little bit of color on the cadence of the burn. We mentioned the 12 to 24 months on that legacy backlog. Certainly, over time, you’ll see a larger pro-rata contribution from this new work takeover. Just didn’t see those projects ramp up and have the activity at the time — in the timeframe we expected, still coming, still feel very positive about that new work.

Christian Schwab : Okay. Last quarter, we talked about the CHIPS Act and the infrastructure, and middle mile work and laying fiber and the potential to use your crews and your skill set for that, even though you didn’t have a material business doing that previously, we didn’t hear much about that on this conference call. Is that — should we take that as, we’re not going to pursue that as aggressively and stick to the knitting kind of like we just talked about and not get into projects we don’t understand, like potentially we got over our skis in paving — or how should we be thinking about that?