Earnings Labs

MasTec, Inc. (MTZ)

Q4 2022 Earnings Call· Fri, Feb 24, 2023

$375.57

-2.67%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-0.52%

1 Week

+5.16%

1 Month

-2.82%

vs S&P

-6.05%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to MasTec's Fourth Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call initially broadcast on Friday, February 24, 2023. Let me remind participants that today's call is being recorded. And at this time, I'd like to turn the call over to our host, Marc Lewis, MasTec's Vice President of Investor Relations. Marc?

Marc Lewis

Management

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to MasTec's fourth quarter earnings call. The following statement is made pursuant to the safe harbor for forward-looking statements described in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. In these communications, we make certain statements that are forward-looking such as statements regarding MasTec future results, plans and anticipated trends in the industries where we operate. These forward-looking statements are the company's expectations on the day of the initial broadcast of this conference call, and the company does not undertake to update these expectations based on subsequent events or knowledge. Various risks, uncertainties materialize or should any of our underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may differ significantly from results expressed or implied in this communication. In today's remarks from management, we'll be discussing adjusted financial metrics reconciled in yesterday's press release and supporting schedules. In addition, we may use certain non-GAAP financial measures in this conference call. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measure not reconciled in these comments to the most comparable GAAP measure can be found in our earnings release or an earlier earnings press release that can be found on the website. With us today, we have Jose Mas, our CEO; George Pita, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and incoming CFO, Paul Dimarco. The format of the call will be opening remarks analysis by Jose, followed by '22 financial review from George. Today, a longtime financial executive, Paul Dimarco, our incoming CFO, when George retires at the end of March, we'll give our outlook for 2023. These discussions will be followed by a question-and-answer period, and we expect the call to last about 60 minutes. We had another good quarter and a lot of important things to talk about. So I'll go ahead and turn it over to Jose. Jose?

Jose Mas

Management

Thanks, Marc. Good morning, and welcome to MasTec's 2022 fourth quarter and year-end call. Today, I'll be reviewing our fourth quarter and full year results as well as providing my outlook for 2023 and the markets we serve. I'd like to start today by thanking the men and women of MasTec. Their sacrifices and hard work helped us achieve another strong year. I'm honored and privileged to lead such a great group. The men and women of MasTec are committed to the values of safety, environmental stewardship, integrity, honesty and in providing our customers a great-quality project at the best value. These traits have been recognized by our customers, and it's because of our people's great work that we've been able to deliver these financial results and position ourselves for continued growth and success. Now some fourth quarter highlights. Revenue was $3 billion, a 66% year-over-year increase. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $258 million, and fourth quarter adjusted EPS was $1.03. For the full year, 2022 revenue was $9.8 million, a 23% year-over-year increase; 2022 adjusted EBITDA was $781 million; and 2022 full year adjusted earnings per share was $3.05. While our results met our expectations for 2022, our highlight for the year was really how we position MasTec for the future. Over the last 24 months, we believe we've delivered a transformative effort to further diversify MasTec and position ourselves to be a leader in some of the most dynamic and robust industries in our nation. Just two short years ago, in 2020, MasTec was a $6 billion revenue business with nearly 30% of that revenue coming from our Oil and Gas pipeline business. While the long-term prospects of the pipeline business have improved, our Oil and Gas business represented only 12% of revenues in 2022, and EBITDA went…

George Pita

Management

Thanks, Jose. Before we get started on 2022 results, I would be remiss if I didn't take a moment to acknowledge and thank Jose, Bob Apple, Jorge Mas and the Board for providing me this incredible opportunity over the past decade. We've grown from less than $4 billion in annual revenue to approximately $13 billion in 2023, earned Fortune 500 status, achieved an investment-grade rating profile and completed transformational M&A to position MasTec with great future opportunities. It has really been the highlight of my professional career to participate and support this process and I look forward to sharing in the MasTec's future growth as a shareholder. And I guess since Jose opened the door here, after I retire, my wife and I are planning on starting to work on a book called Young Mas, the high school years, complete with pictures. So if there's any publishers on the line, we're open to the highest bidder. In all seriousness, I didn't know Jose until our MasTec period together here over the last decade. But I do remember as a young man, my wife mentioning student, who is class President, had convinced of allowing an evening pep rally, something that had never been done before. And one of the words she used to describe him was a visionary. I think if you were to describe Jose today, that term would still be at or near the top of the list. So I guess the moral of the story is, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Today, I'll cover some highlights of our fourth quarter and annual 2022 financial results, and Paul will cover our 2023 guidance expectations. As noted in yesterday's press release, we are planning on filing our 2022 Form 10-K next week, and we anticipate…

Paul Dimarco

Management

Thank you, George, and good morning. To begin, I wanted to thank Jose and the Board for putting their trust in me as MasTec next CFO. I have been incredibly fortunate during my 15 years at MasTec to work under two great financial leaders in George and Bob Campbell. They have both been key mentors to me, and I look forward to following their legacy, helping MasTec capitalize on the incredible opportunities afforded by our end markets. Turning now to our segment performance and expectations. Fourth quarter communications revenue was $859 million with adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.1%. Annual 2022 Communications segment revenue was $3.2 billion, a 27% increase when compared to last year, and 2022 adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.3%. 2022 performance is characterized by a strong and accelerating second half. We anticipate that 2023 Communications segment revenue will approximate $3.5 billion and that adjusted EBITDA margin will improve to approximately 11%. Within the 2023 expectation, we anticipate revenue to be more balanced with second half revenue contributing just over 50% of the annual total and second half adjusted EBITDA margins approximating 12%. For the first quarter, we expect communication setting revenue to grow by approximately 15% over 2022, with adjusted EBITDA margins in the mid-7% range. This compares to 6.2% in last year's first quarter. Fourth quarter, Clean, Energy and Infrastructure segment revenue was $1.1 billion with IEA acquisition contributing almost $600 million of revenue during the quarter. Fourth quarter Clean Energy adjusted EBITDA margin was 7%, a 260 basis points sequential improvement and the segment's highest adjusted EBITDA margin performance over the past two years. That said fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margin continued to be negatively impacted by select industrial projects that we expect to close out in 2023. Annual 2022 Clean Energy segment revenue was approximately…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We'll go to our first question while we assemble the rest of that queue and that comes from Steven Fisher from UBS.

Steven Fisher

Analyst

Thanks, good morning and George, best wishes and thanks for all your help. So I guess, Jose, Paul, with your $100 million of EBITDA guidance for Q1, which is kind of well below consensus, it seems like you kind of cleared the decks a bit to set a better bar for the first part of the year. But in keeping that full year, the ramp-up for Q2 to Q4 does look pretty steep? So I guess what gives you the confidence in that ramp-up and that you're on track for the opportunities and hitting the numbers for full year 2023? Maybe you can give us something like the most important pieces of evidence that you see - that gives you that confidence?

Jose Mas

Management

Sure, so good morning Steve. So I guess, first, I'd like to address the first quarter because I know there's been a lot of notes written on it. So if you take, if you look at the first quarter, and you kind of break it gave a lot of detail on the call. Our Communications segment in line, right? Basically, where we expected it to be if you take Clean Energy and you take into account the loss it had [ph] in the first quarter of 2022. We're actually going to deliver about a 400 basis point improvement in the first quarter relative on a year-over-year on a pro forma basis. For the full year, we're expecting a 200 to 250 basis point improvement. So if we can actually maintain that 400 basis point improvement through the year, we're actually going to significantly beat our plan relative to that. Our oil and gas business, which is part of the issue in Q1, right, margins are just under half of what they were last year. And that has a lot to do with the fact of revenue getting pushed and projects that are starting in the second quarter. We've got a bunch of unabsorbed costs that we're preparing for these larger jobs that we've won. I have no concerns whatsoever about that segment's ability to perform as long as work is there, and we know it's there. So we're just really preparing and that's having an unseasonably slow first quarter for them, probably more than we expected. And the biggest impact of, I guess, our previously stated expectations for Q1 are probably in the power delivery section there. We're going to see about $100 million of revenue less than what we expected in the first quarter, and it's made up of…

Steven Fisher

Analyst

Very helpful. And maybe just a quick follow-up on Communications specifically beyond '23 I'm curious what gets you from the $3.5 billion of revenues in '23 to your $4 billion, I think you call like a near-term target, which I assume is somewhere between '24 and '25 I knew talked about the tower wiring and connections I guess there is some concerns in the market kind of peaking wireless spending on 5G. So I guess if there's -- how do you see what gets you that pretty solid growth to that next level? Is it the RDOF, a shift to more kind of fiber? How do you reconcile that? Thank you.

Jose Mas

Management

So Steve, I'd say it's both. The wireless industry is really just getting started with 5G deployment. A lot of the initial deployments are just really touching the network and then you have to add an enormous amount of capacity over time. I think we're very early in the 5G cycle. When you think about what's happening on the wireline side of the business, really the only the first half of RDOF got funded, which is roughly $10 billion. Those $10 billion is really all of the activity that us and all of our peers in the space have seen over the last few years. The impact that it's had in the business has been massive. Aside from the remaining RDOF funds, we've got all of the other federal money that was in the infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, which is over $50 billion of additional government spend. So you're talking at least another $60 billion of federal spend that's going to hit the telecom market where I could argue we've only seen the effects of 10. So multiplier effect on that business is going to be massive. And I think that if we're -- if we think we can only do $4 billion from a $3.5 billion base today, I think we're significantly understating the long-term potential of that business.

Steven Fisher

Analyst

Thanks very much.

Jose Mas

Management

Thanks Steve.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Andy Kaplowitz

Analyst

Good morning everyone.

Jose Mas

Management

Good morning Andy.

Andy Kaplowitz

Analyst

George, thanks again for all your help. Congratulations. Paul, looking forward to working with you so, Jose I would say [indiscernible] little bit more what's going on in power delivery in Q1. I know you mentioned lower storm work, but what exactly are you getting out of - I assume they're Henkel's projects because they have a tail that impacts you at all moving forward past Q1. Could you guide for that? And I think any more color would be helpful?

Jose Mas

Management

Yes, no, Andy, I think it's we had an opportunity after a year to really rationalize and exit on things, which is what we're doing. I don't think that's the revenue impact. I think that's more of the cost impact. That's only going to impact Q1. I think out of Q1, we won't have that going forward. We have one large project that had some material delivery delays, which is having a pretty significant revenue impact on the first quarter that I think hopefully by the end of the first quarter, early second quarter that project restarts. So, we feel really good about our $3 billion target for the year. We've built that from a bottoms-up utility by utility. So, we're really comfortable with the metrics. Unfortunately, the cadence of it is a little different than what we originally expected.

Andy Kaplowitz

Analyst

Helpful. And then Jose Gee yesterday conference suggested that when customers are beginning to get in line to secure capacity for the wind manufacturers, which I would assume is still bit upstream from you guys, but are you starting to see some movement from your major wind customers who then want to secure your capacity? It seems like you're beginning to see more of a significant ramp-up in wind, but could you give us some more color on what you're thinking about renewables ramp up over the next couple of years, particularly in wind?

Jose Mas

Management

Well, we'll start with wind, right? In wind, we're seeing a dramatic increase in activity. If we think about our capabilities for the second half of 2023, we're pretty booked up at this point. We're really just trying to make sure that the projects we're committing to our projects that are going to be completed. When you take the impact of what that means into our '24 year, it means a much, much bigger 24 than what we're going to deliver in '23. So '23 is going to be a really strong second half of the year relative to wind. '24 is going to be a full really strong year and growing. So, we feel great about the outer years relative to what's going to happen in the wind market. It's been slow for the last couple of years, and we expect it to ramp pretty significantly starting in the second half of this year. And solar is similar, right? Solar -- we've had so many starts and stop because of the issues. We think a lot of that is resolving itself. We think there's going to be a significant improvement in the supply chain as we get into the year. And it's the same thing, right? We're really - we're solidly booked in the second half of the year. And when you multiply that into what it means for the full year in '24, it's quite astonishing. So I think - again, I think the investments that we've made in the last year position us incredibly well, I think it's a market that's going to exponentially grow over time. I think we're in a great spot. I know it hasn't shown up in our numbers, but we're really, really bullish about what it means for us.

Andy Kaplowitz

Analyst

Appreciate it Jose.

Jose Mas

Management

Thanks Andy.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Jamie Cook from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Jamie Cook

Analyst

Hey good morning. I guess my first question, if I look at the implied margins in the back half of the year for power delivery and Clean Energy and infrastructure, given what you've said, it looks like margins in the back half would be starting to approach your peers. So I'm wondering as we think -- as we exit 2023 going into 2024, do you see a path that the margins in those business should be more comparable to the peers in the, double-digit range? And then my second question, understanding we have a lot going on in 2023 in terms of the acquisitions, et cetera. But what type of investments are you making in 2023 that could potentially be weighing on margins that go away as we're approaching '24? Thank you.

Jose Mas

Management

Yes so Jamie, a couple of things, right? If you think about our second half of this year, and let's break it out by business, so if we look at Clean Energy, our expectation is that in '23, in the second half, margins are going to improve over '22 by about 200 basis points - just over 200 basis points. So a lot of that has to do - we had - we've talked about it at NASUM right? We had a lot of impacts to our industrial business, and quite frankly, we were under absorbed relative to our renewable business because there wasn't a lot of work. When you take into account the level of activity that's going to exist in the second half '23 in renewables and you take into account the fact that we're not going to have these headwinds with industrial, we actually think that 200 basis points, again, is relatively conservative. We're going to beat Q1 on a year-over-year basis, we think, by over 400 basis points. So we actually have the improvement moderating in the second half of the year versus what we're seeing in the first quarter. So again, we think that's very achievable. In power delivery, when we look at the margin profile in the second half of '23 versus last year, Again, it's about a 100 basis point improvement. And quite frankly, with the opportunities that exist there, we would - in both of those businesses by the way, we would still be significantly below some of our peers. So these are not for - by any stretch of the imagination, what we think are optimal margins, they're not. We've got a lot of work to do to continue to improve. We think the ability there to continue to improve over time exists. And to your last question, what is driving down some of these margins, are the investments that we're making, right? We're going to grow revenue substantially, not just in '23, but we think in '24. We're making the investments in people across every segment that we operate in. We have tremendous revenue growth opportunities. It's about having the resources in place to be able to execute on that, and we're trying to prepare ourselves. Again, we feel really good about our ability to achieve our current targets for '23, but embedded in those targets are elevated level of costs to prepare us for further growth in '24 and '25.

Jamie Cook

Analyst

Thank you.

Jose Mas

Management

Thanks Jamie.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Alex Rygiel from B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Alex Rygiel

Analyst

Thank you, good morning and George, wish you nothing but the best there. Couple of quick questions here first, Jose, can you talk a bit about telecom and its economic sensitivity historically and whether you're sensing any conservatism by your customers as they start the new year?0

Jose Mas

Management

So Alex, it's a great question, right? And I think one of the differences - historically, quite frankly, I actually think it's been a relatively solid industry. But I think all bets are off the table because of all the government spending that's involved in the business today, right? Every one of our major customers is trying to find ways to tie federal dollars, whether it's through RDOF or any of the other available resources to them. And with that, they're all overbuilding each other. They're all trying to expand footprint. AT&T recently announced their joint venture to build out of market networks. I mean what's going on in this industry is unprecedented. I've been in - that's been the one business that I've kind of been in all my life. I've never seen anything like it. The reality is that it's not going anywhere. It's not going to slow down. I struggle to understand how the industry is going to be in a position to meet all of the demands that it's going to have. And that's where our challenges lie, right, is understanding what we can do, understanding what we can gear up for, picking the right customers and ultimately delivering the best margin profile we can in that business. But from a level of activity, from a revenue basis, I mean, that's something that, quite frankly, we're just not very worried about because of the level of activity that we see from our customers and the demand that our customers have for our services.

Alex Rygiel

Analyst

That's helpful. And then I think we understand sort of the target EBITDA margins for communications, same with the range for oil and gas. But in your opinion, what do you think of the target EBITDA margin in oil and gas and power - excuse me, in Power Delivery and Clean Energy could be over time?

Jose Mas

Management

So it's a great question, right? So in Power Delivery, we generated about 9% margins in 2022. We definitely think that's a double-digit margin business. Again, we're -- we've made two big acquisitions in the last two years, while a lot of our integration efforts are concluding. We still have a lot of work to do to improve the profile of those businesses, to improve the margin profile. When you look at our closest peer, there are hundreds of basis points above us in that market. And I think the market is there to accomplish that. We just need time to build into it. So again, we're guiding to roughly 9%. We've got some solid growth in that business this year. We're preparing for - we're spending some money on what we think are going to be future growth and the ability to improve margins over time. We've got to spend some money to ultimately, we think, improve those margins over time. But in the next couple of years, we definitely think that's a solid double-digit business and growing. In Clean Energy, we're targeting roughly 6.5%, full year EBITDA profile with really a second half acceleration. So, if I was sitting here thinking about '24 with a full year acceleration available to us, I would be trending more to what we think our second half margin guidance is going to be in that business for the full year, which is roughly in that 8% range. And I think that if we could -- our first target will probably be to achieve somewhere between 8% and 8.5% in a full year. And over time, I also think that's a double-digit margin business as the market continues to expand and create opportunities.

Alex Rygiel

Analyst

Thank you very much.

Jose Mas

Management

Thanks Alex.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Justin Hauke from Robert Baird. Please go ahead.

Justin Hauke

Analyst

Hi, great. Yes, I don't know if it counts as one of my first questions, but I guess, just I think we're all wondering when we can get an advanced copy of the Young Mas, the high school years from George. That's great.

Jose Mas

Management

Yes it's not shut in there so we'll…

Justin Hauke

Analyst

That's great no. We look forward to that, on a serious note. Just I guess, maybe one thing to kind of help with the confidence on the margins in Clean Energy is - it sounds like maybe there were some discrete efforts that you took from exiting some of those challenged industrial projects in the portfolio? And maybe just I don't know, to the extent you could quantify the revenue impact that you're having maybe in 1Q or the first half from those or the percentage of completion they are? Are those running at zero margin or just kind of some context to understand how that's dragging on the margin in the beginning of the year?

George Pita

Management

Yes, this is George. I'll take that. The industrial projects are largely complete, but you're right, there is some level of revenue that's still going to happen in the first half of 2023 that is basically at no margin, right? The mass majority of them are complete at this point. But there is some wrap-up and some other items that we're doing. So it's a relatively small portion of the first quarter and less - even smaller portion, maybe not much at all in the second quarter of the revenue profile for the CE&I group. But that - those revenues that are coming in, in the first half of the year will be at zero, margin. We're substantially complete with them, and we think that will be the end of it.

Justin Hauke

Analyst

Okay. And then, I guess my second question, just on the power delivery backlog, I guess this is kind of the first clean year-over-year organic number with Henkels and McCoy I guess I was just a little surprised that it's down, but I'm thinking that some of it might be because of some of the projects that you've kind of right sized and moved away from. But maybe just some context on what you're seeing in terms of bookings in power delivery on organic basis?

Jose Mas

Management

Yes, I think what you're going to see in '23 is really strong bookings. Obviously it's seasonal, and it's hard to predict exactly what quarter it's going to hit in. But I think when we look at the end of '23 versus '24 we're going to see really big bookings. We're in the middle of a bunch of things right now, we feel really good about. So we think that the opportunity set that's been created with the acquisitions that we made and with our legacy business has really resonated with customers. We feel good about our competitive position in the marketplace. And I think in the near future, you're going to see the results of that show up not just in backlog, but ultimately in our numbers as well.

Justin Hauke

Analyst

Great, thank you guys.

Jose Mas

Management

Sure.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Noelle Dilts from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Noelle Dilts

Analyst

Hi guys, thanks and George, congratulations. So you've mentioned kind of investing in the businesses for future growth a few times. And when I think about some of the segments like, for example, oil and gas and maybe a little bit clean energy, it feels like you might - it seems like you might have some excess capacity today? But can you give us a better feel for some of the things you're investing in? Is it equipment? Is it front-end services? Like how do we think about some of these investments that you're making in a little bit more detail? Thanks.

Jose Mas

Management

Yes, they're different for each business. So if you think about oil and gas, I mean based on today's levels, we wouldn't have the workforce that we have in place today, but we know that we're starting a bunch of projects in the second quarter. So today, we've got a bunch of under absorbed labor, quite frankly, that we're holding on to because we know that the best is yet to come there. So that's not necessarily new investments, but it's holding on to people and equipment that in a normalized fashion at the current revenue rates we would never hold on to. When you think about what's happening in telecom where we have tremendous opportunities for growth, that's all about expanding markets, expanding people, adding equipment because the opportunity subset there is, if we had more people, the ability to put them to work is there. We just have to continue to grow our resources and we're trying to do that in a meaningfully thought-out way where we don't overexpose ourselves to not performing. So that's been continual and will continue. On the power delivery side with the acquisitions that we've made, we have tremendous opportunities on the transmission side of the business. We've been reinforcing our resources there. We've added a lot of people. We're starting to add some specialty equipment. So those are the kind of investments we're making there. And quite frankly, on Clean Energy, we've got a great base of people. Historically, we've done significantly more volume than what's going through the books today. So I think on wind, we're not necessarily making huge investments in equipment or people from a new perspective, but we're, obviously, holding on the people at lower revenue rates because we know its coming. And then on solar is a little bit different much by communications. We're adding a lot of people because that market is exponentially growing, right? So when we talk about investments, they're twofold. They're either penetrating new markets or they're trying to keep -- or we're holding on to a level of cost in anticipation of revenues to come, and there's a mix of that in our business. And by the way, we always expect there to be a mix of that in the business. I think, today, especially in the first quarter, it's unseasonably high.

Noelle Dilts

Analyst

Okay perfect. That's helpful. And then Steve and Alex touched on this a little bit in their questions, but can you talk about how you're thinking about the relative growth rates of wireless and wireline for 2023? And if you have a bit more confidence in one side or the other as you look out for the year?

Jose Mas

Management

Well, I think today - in today's world, the wireline business is growing much faster than the wireless business because of -- there's so much federal funding around that everybody is building. So there are a lot more opportunities on that side of the house a lot of the wireless activities are obviously somewhat dependent on fiber. So until fiber is deployed, there are certain things you can and can't do. So we do think there's going to be a delayed spend related to wireless versus wireline because of the need for fiber. With that said, some carriers have been a lot more active than others over the last couple of years. T-Mobile has been extremely active in deploying 5G, while some of the others have maybe delayed a bit. So we're seeing a transition, right? We expect to see much bigger spend from AT&T and Verizon this year with maybe a little bit less coming from T-Mobile. So the years are different, but I think the requirements are there, the need is there. And over time, it's going to, we think, grow really nicely.

Noelle Dilts

Analyst

Okay, great, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Brent Thielman from D.A. Davidson.

Brent Thielman

Analyst

Hey thanks George, congrats as well, very impressive career. Jose, you've got a few moving pieces within the Clean Energy and Infrastructure backlog. I wanted to understand a bit better pretty encouraging comments on the wind side. It sounds like you're seeing some good things developing for the second half and more into '24 and beyond? I guess I'm curious, are you seeing that impact yet to your bookings and backlog in a material way or just sort of climb we've seen in the segment outside of IEA still largely been solar because I think that's a material step-up so coming as that market accelerates?

Jose Mas

Management

Right. So I got the -- what was the last part of the question. I heard wind, and then I lost you. Was it all wind?

Brent Thielman

Analyst

I'm also curious whether you've really seen a material impact to your backlog and bookings yet as a function of this kind of recovery in the wind market, so to speak, and whether that's still a material step up to come?

Jose Mas

Management

Yes look, I mean, if you look at our Clean Energy backlog, it's a fraction of our revenues. And the reality is that when we look at our revenues for '23, we've identified every job and every customer where it's coming from. So we think that, again, our backlog in clean energy is dramatically understated because we're working under a number of LNTPs, which is a limited notice to proceed. It's a very small percentage of the overall contract. If you actually - if all of those contracts went, our backlog would be dramatically higher than it is today. And as those contracts go into full execution, you're going to see that play in. So yes, we think that our clean energy backlog is going to considerably grow as '23 plays out.

Brent Thielman

Analyst

Yes, that's helpful. And I guess the second question, Jose, the experience on the industrial projects, does it change your view of wanting to participate on these things in the future? Because I mean it still seems like a huge opportunity in terms of what you're doing there?

Jose Mas

Management

We talked about it last quarter. It's obviously, we've taken our looks, and we've had our challenges. When we look at the projects that we're working in 2023, we're really excited. We've got the large lithium recycling plant that's a cost-plus job that we're working on, which we think is an incredibly interesting project, very unique project. We've got other jobs that we're working for customers that I think are similar relative to a lot of the newer technologies that are going to get government funding and support. So I think we've built an incredible resume. It's coming a huge cost, unfortunately. But we're being very prudent about the jobs that we take. The contract structures that we take. And we think that, that business is actually going to do fairly well this year comparatively speaking. And again, if we're going to be - we're not going to be as aggressive. We're probably going to be a little bit timid as we look at these projects because of what's happened, but we're incredibly well positioned and think that will be a nice growth market for us as we continue to execute and get better at it.

Brent Thielman

Analyst

Right very good, thank you

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our last question comes from Adam Thalhimer from Thompson, Davis.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Hey good morning guys. George and Paul, congratulations to you both. I don't know if I just missed it. Did you give 2023 free cash flow guidance? And also kind of curious on how the timing shakes out there?

Paul Dimarco

Management

Yes. So we did it in pieces, right? So we said $550 million of cash from operations and $100 million of net cash CapEx that would imply $450 million of free cash flow.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Okay. And then Jose, maybe you can just shed a little insight into what you're seeing on the pipeline bidding side? And maybe what the outlook is beyond 2023?

Jose Mas

Management

Well, look, I think what we're going to do in '23, we've kind of already gotten, right? So I think there's a number of projects that are out there as we've won a bunch of projects for '24 starts at this point. So there's definitely things that are going to fall into '23, but I think the bigger opportunity is today for '24 and '25. And based on what we want and what we know is coming, it's kind of how we built our '23 plan. So we've got, again, roughly 30% growth expected in '23, but I think the opportunity for '24 is considerably higher. MVP is the wildcard. MVP could still potentially go in '23 and change all these numbers, but we're feeling more and more comfortable that, that project is going to ultimately come to conclusion over the course, at least over the next two years.

Adam Thalhimer

Analyst

Okay, thanks guys.

Jose Mas

Management

Thanks Adam.

Operator

Operator

Thank you very much. I'd like to turn it back over to our CEO, Jose Mas.

Jose Mas

Management

So just before closing the call, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Paul Dimarco, Paul has been with MasTec for a long time and he's demonstrated his talent over his career in MasTec. I know he's out a lot of great ideas, and I'm excited that I'll be leading our financial organization so again congrats, Paul. And thank you all for joining us, and we look forward to updating you on our first quarter call.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today's conference. We appreciate your participation, and have a wonderful day.