MasTec, Inc. (MTZ) Q3 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 2026 MasTec Inc. Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Ati Modak, VP of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us for MasTec's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Jose Mas, Chief Executive Officer; and Paul Dimarco, Chief Financial Officer. We have prepared slides to supplement our remarks, which are posted on MasTec's website under the Investors tab and through the webcast link. There is also a companion document with information and analytics on the quarter and a guidance summary to assist in future financial modeling. Please read the forward-looking statement disclaimer contained in our press release and the slides accompanying this call. During this call, we will make forward-looking statements regarding our plans and expectations about the future as of the date of this call. Because these statements are based on current assumptions and factors that involve risks and uncertainties, our actual performance and results may differ materially from our forward-looking statements. Our Form 10-K, as updated by our current and periodic reports and filings includes a detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences. In today's remarks, we will be discussing adjusted financial metrics reconciled in yesterday's press release and supporting schedules. We may also use certain non-GAAP financial measures in this conference call. A reconciliation of any non-GAAP financial measures not reconciled in these comments to the most comparable GAAP financial measures can be found in our press release, earnings slide or companion document. I'll now turn the call over to Jose for his commentary. Jose?

Thank you, Ati. Good morning, and welcome to MasTec's 2026 Third Quarter Earnings Call. Today, I'll review our third quarter results and provide an update on the markets we serve, the opportunities we're seeing and our outlook as we head into 2027. Let me start with some third quarter highlights. Revenue for the quarter was $5,152 million, up 30% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $486 million, a 30% year-over-year increase. Adjusted earnings per share were $2.96, up 19% year-over-year. And backlog at quarter end reached $24.5 billion, an increase of more than $7 billion year-over-year and $3 billion sequentially, establishing another all-time record. In fact, in addition to backlog, revenue, EBITDA and earnings per share all reached record levels during the quarter. Our total company book-to-bill was 1.6x, including an organic book-to-bill of 1.3x, reflecting the significant demand we continue to see across our businesses. Importantly, we expect another strong quarter of backlog growth in the fourth quarter and anticipate ending 2026 at yet another record level of backlog. That gives us tremendous visibility heading into 2027, and reinforces our confidence in the long-term growth opportunities ahead of us. The strength of the quarter was led by our Power Delivery segment, which delivered outstanding results. Revenue increased 65% year-over-year, while EBITDA grew 132%. While Superior had a strong quarter, I want to emphasize that our legacy Power Delivery business also delivered exceptional performance. Revenue, EBITDA and margins were all significantly ahead of our expectations, meaningfully exceeding our previous forecast. Backlog in this segment increased by more than $2.5 billion sequentially, of which approximately $1.8 billion came from Superior with the balance generated by our legacy Power Delivery business. That translates into an organic book-to-bill of more than 1.5x for the segment. In fact, it was the strongest quarter of backlog booking in the segment's history. I think that's an important point because it demonstrates that the strength that we're experiencing is broad-based and extends well beyond the contributions from Superior. Demand for our services across Power Delivery continues to accelerate, whether it's transmission, distribution, grid modernization or the electrical infrastructure required to support data centers and other mission-critical facilities, we're seeing tremendous opportunities across virtually every part of this business. And we're not just seeing those opportunities. We're converting them into awards, expanding customer relationships and gaining market share. Our customers are making increasingly large and long-term commitments to their electrical infrastructure, and we're seeing that translate into larger programs, stronger backlog and meaningful opportunities to expand our market share. When you combine that organic momentum with the capabilities and customer relationships we've added through Superior, I believe we've created one of the strongest electrical infrastructure platforms in the country. We expect another strong backlog build in the fourth quarter, and I'm increasingly optimistic about our ability to continue winning work, expanding our position in the market and delivering strong operational and financial performance. And importantly, we're still in the early staging -- stages of realizing the benefits of our integrated approach. Moving to our Clean Energy and Infrastructure segment, we also delivered another strong quarter. Revenues increased 34% year-over-year, while EBITDA grew approximately 30%. Backlog increased $500 million sequentially, resulting in a book-to-bill of 1.3x. Our renewable energy, water and civil infrastructure businesses are all performing well, and we continue to see attractive opportunities across those markets heading into 2027 and beyond. But today, I want to spend a little more time highlighting two areas where we believe the opportunity for growth is particularly significant. The first is our gas generation business. We're experiencing tremendous demand for natural gas-fired power generation. As we discussed during our Investor Day in May, our strategy in this market is focused primarily on simple cycle generation and reciprocating engine projects. These projects are increasingly attractive to customers looking for reliable power solutions that can be developed and constructed on accelerated time lines. What has surprised us is just how quickly demand has accelerated. In fact, the level of activity we're seeing today is meaningfully greater than what we anticipated just 5 months ago during Investor Day. While these opportunities did not contribute to third quarter backlog bookings, we've now received limited notice to proceed on projects representing more than $1 billion in total value, which we expect to convert to backlog over the next few quarters. And based on the opportunities we're pursuing and the conversations we're having with customers, we expect further project awards to accelerate. I want to emphasize that this is a market where our opportunity has changed dramatically in a very short period of time. We're seeing demand from a broad range of customers looking to bring reliable generation capacity online as quickly as possible. And we're very excited about what this business can become. Second area I'd like to highlight is our turnkey data center business. Our existing turnkey data center projects are progressing very well, and the response we're receiving from customers regarding our capabilities has been extremely encouraging. What makes MasTec unique is our ability to bring together virtually every critical infrastructure capability required to develop and construct these facilities. From construction management and civil infrastructure to inside Electrical Power Delivery, telecommunications, ongoing maintenance, we can offer customers a fully integrated solution, and that capability is becoming increasingly valuable. As data center projects become larger and more complex, customers are looking for partners who can help solve infrastructure challenges early in the development process, coordinate multiple scopes of work and ultimately deliver projects more efficiently. That's exactly where we believe MasTec is uniquely positioned. Our strategy is to engage customers early, help them solve these challenges and position ourselves to participate across the entire life cycle of their projects. While we had strong backlog build in this business in the third quarter, we're currently pursuing several large opportunities, some of which already received early work agreements on. We expect additional large awards during the remainder of 2026. When you combine these opportunities with our expanding electrical capabilities through Superior, our growing power generation business and our existing infrastructure platform, we're creating a very compelling position in this mission-critical market. And I believe we're in the very early stages of realizing that full potential of that opportunity. While Power Delivery and Clean Energy and Infrastructure are performing at very high levels, we're managing through some near-term challenges in our other two segments. Let me start with Pipeline Infrastructure. Before discussing the third and fourth quarters, I think it's important to take a broader view of what's happening in this market. As we look out over the next 5 years and beyond, the Pipeline market is developing at an incredible pace. The need for additional natural gas infrastructure is accelerating, driven by the growing electricity demand, new power generation capacity, LNG exports and the continued expansion of energy-intensive industries. In just the last 2 months, more than 1,000 miles of new Pipeline projects have been announced, adding to an already significant Pipeline of opportunities. The level of activity we're seeing is unprecedented, and I want to be very clear, MasTec is exceptionally well positioned to capitalize on this market. During our Investor Day in May, we discussed our belief that this business had the potential to meet or exceed its historical financial records. As a reminder, our previous record EBITDA for this segment was $634 million. Based on what we're seeing today, we remain very confident in our ability to meet or exceed that level in the coming years. Now turning to 2026. We began the year expecting approximately $2.5 billion in revenue at mid-teen EBITDA margins. During the first half of the year, we generated approximately $1.3 billion in revenue at 20% margins. Based on that performance and the level of new awards we received, we increased our expectations for both revenues and earnings. Unfortunately, several of those awarded projects experienced delays in their anticipated start dates, which impacted our third quarter results and will affect the fourth quarter. Specifically, we had a number of projects that were delayed by an average of approximately 60 days, primarily due to permitting issues. Those delays pushed the number of planned third quarter starts into the fourth quarter. The good news is that these projects have now started. It's important to understand that these delays have very little impact on the overall economics or expected profitability of the projects. However, because of the significant production burn rates associated with large Pipeline projects, a 60-day delay can have a meaningful impact on quarterly revenues and earnings. As a result, we've established our fourth quarter earnings outlook based on a base case and an upside case for the production over the next 2 months. While these delays negatively affect our second half 2026 result, the work hasn't gone away. Whatever we don't complete in 2026, simply shifts into 2027. In fact, these projects present the majority of our expected Pipeline revenue through the first half of next year, giving us excellent visibility into 2027. And importantly, Pipeline backlog increased during the quarter, resulting in a book-to-bill of 1.7x. So while the timing has impacted our near-term results, it hasn't changed our views of the earning potential of the business. If anything, the additional opportunities we're seeing have increased our confidence in what Pipeline can contribute over the next several years. Moving to Communications. We continue to experience near-term pressure in the market. During the quarter, there were several developments that created additional uncertainty around customer capital spending. Speculation regarding a potential fourth nationwide wireless carrier combined with publicly announced reorganization at several major customers has impacted the timing of short-term capital investment decisions. At the same time, customers have been increasingly focused on improving efficiencies and streamlining their operations. Those initiatives have created some disruption in the near term, but we also believe they present meaningful opportunities for MasTec over time. In response to the current environment, we've been proactive in adjusting our cost structure and improving operating efficiencies. We've also engaged a third-party consulting firm to help us execute on identified opportunities. We're actively working to implement these initiatives and believe they can drive a couple of hundred basis points of margin improvement in 2027. Our objective is straightforward. Operate a leaner, more efficient business, improve profitability and position ourselves to take advantage of the opportunities as customer spending recovers. While the second half of 2026 has fallen short of our expectations in Communications, we're encouraged by several developments that should benefit the business. First, as one of the largest and most established communication infrastructure service providers in the country, we believe we're well positioned to benefit from vendor consolidation. We expect those efforts to result in market share gains across several of our major customers over the coming months. Second, we're increasingly excited about the opportunities associated with data center interconnectivity. During the third quarter, several customers announced significant hyperscale related contracts, reinforcing the scale of investment that will be required to connect these facilities. While much of that construction activity won't begin until the middle or latter part of 2027, we expect meaningful award activity over the next several quarters, and we're already beginning to see that materialize. During the third quarter and subsequent to quarter end, we were awarded approximately 2,100 miles of fiber constructions related to hyperscaler activity. Design work on that is already underway, and we expect the construction to begin around the middle of 2027. We believe this represents the beginning of a much larger investment cycle in fiber infrastructure, supporting data centers and the continued growth in data traffic. Data consumption continues to grow at extraordinary rates and the infrastructure required to transport, connect and provide access to that data will continue to require significant investment. We also see potential opportunities from the emergence of a fourth wireless carrier, as well as the investment existing carriers will need to make to maintain their competitive positions. Our focus will be on remaining lean and competitive, improving margins, gaining market share and selectively pursuing large-scale programs where we can generate attractive returns. But I also want to put Communications business in perspective. During the second half of 2026, Communications has declined to just under 15% of MasTec's total revenue. While we continue to believe in the long-term opportunities in this market, Communications is not going to be the primary growth driver of MasTec. Our Power Delivery, Clean Energy and Infrastructure and Pipeline businesses all have significantly stronger growth trajectories which have all improved since our Investor Day expectations. These are the businesses that will increasingly drive our overall growth and earnings performance. Before wrapping up, I'd like to share a few thoughts on 2027 and our longer-term outlook. The backlog growth we've delivered in both the second and third quarters combined with the additional growth we expect in the fourth quarter is giving us tremendous visibility as we enter next year. We expect to finish 2026 with a record backlog, a significantly expanded presence in the mission-critical market and an increasingly attractive mix of businesses serving some of the fastest-growing infrastructure markets in the [indiscernible] Despite the near-term challenges we've discussed today in Pipeline and Communications, we remain very comfortable with current consensus expectations for 2027. And I think it's important to recognize that our opportunities extends well beyond next year. Over the course of 2026, we fundamentally expanded MasTec's position in the mission-critical infrastructure market -- Superior, the acceleration of our power generation opportunities, our growing turnkey data center capabilities and the strength of our Power Delivery platform have meaningfully changed the scale and breadth of what we can offer customers, and we're only beginning to see the benefits of those investments. Much of the work we're pursuing today will contribute to our results in 2027, 2028 and beyond. Our goal is to translate the extraordinary demand we're experiencing into sustainable revenue growth, stronger margins and even greater earnings growth over the long term. I've been involved with this business for a long time, and I can tell you that I've never been more excited about our position in the market or the opportunities ahead of us. I believe we're in the early stages of one of the largest infrastructure investment cycles we've ever seen. We have the scale, the capabilities, the customer relationships and most importantly, the people to capitalize on this opportunity. Before turning the call over to Paul, I'd like to take a moment to thank the men and women of MasTec. It's both an honor and a privilege to lead such an outstanding team. Every day, our people demonstrate an unwavering commitment to the values that define our company, safety, environmental stewardship, integrity, honesty and delivering the highest quality work at the best possible value for our customers. Our customers recognize that commitment and it's the reason they continue to trust us with some of their largest and most complex infrastructure projects. Ultimately, our success comes down to our people, their dedication, their expertise and their ability to execute. I want to thank every one of them for another outstanding quarter and for everything that they do to position MasTec for continued success. With that, I'll turn the call over to Paul for our financial review. Paul?

Thank you, Jose, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results reflect strong execution led by Power Delivery and Clean Energy and Infrastructure. We grew revenue and adjusted EBITDA by 30% year-over-year, achieving record quarterly levels and our opportunity set continues to expand even as we execute against record levels of backlog. 18-month backlog now stands at $24.5 billion, increasing over $3 billion from the second quarter driven by broad-based growth in Power Delivery, Pipeline Infrastructure, Renewables and General Buildings. Backlog and customer engagement remains strong across our broad end markets with several of our most important opportunities being multiyear programmatic builds rather than discrete projects. Our workforce now stands at over 42,000 strong including 3,500 team members who joined MasTec as part of the Superior acquisition. Our strong backlog provides significant visibility to achieving our financial targets and our ability to attract and develop skilled craft labor provides the resources to execute effectively on these opportunities. The Power Delivery segment was the primary driver of our strong third quarter performance, where we continue to benefit from investments in Power Infrastructure and large load development. Strong performance from both our legacy operations and Superior drove the record third quarter results. Our legacy Power Delivery Group achieved a double-digit EBITDA margins in the third quarter while growing revenue by over 20% year-over-year. Superior's performance since closing has reinforced our strategic rationale for the acquisition. The business is performing ahead of our initial expectations as customers continue to invest aggressively and we're seeing opportunities to combine Superior's mission-critical electric capabilities with MasTec's broader power, civil and infrastructure platform. Power Delivery segment backlog grew to $8.9 billion with an organic book-to-bill of 1.5x. This now marks 12 consecutive quarters of backlog expansion for Power Delivery. Our Pipeline remains robust across utility infrastructure and increasingly across the power infrastructure required to support large load development. Superior's backlog totaled $1.8 billion, a 1.6x book-to-bill versus levels announced with the acquisition. Turning to Clean Energy and Infrastructure. The segment grew revenue by 34% year-over-year in Q3, led by general buildings and grew EBITDA by 29%, led by renewables. We expect strong growth to continue in the fourth quarter, bringing full year segment revenue and EBITDA growth north of 40%. Renewables continued to show improvement in margin performance while capitalizing on strong customer demand and backlog conversion. Backlog visibility continues to be a strength with another quarter of sequential growth and a 1.3x book-to-bill. General buildings continues to scale its mission-critical capabilities during the quarter with revenue increasing over 4x from the prior year. We are seeing strong customer demand domestically and internationally and several important programs progressed from development execution. General buildings delivered a book-to-bill of 2.2x, a 35% sequential increase. Importantly, collaboration for increased self-perform activities continues to develop across segments, providing an incremental margin opportunity for 2027. As Jose discussed, communications continues to be impacted by delayed customer spending decisions. Our focus remains on improving the earnings profile of the business through execution and procurement initiatives, organizational efficiency and market selectivity. We expect these actions to begin contributing to profitability in 2027. We continue to believe the industry faces a multiyear need for network upgrades, capacity expansion and maintenance to support increasing data consumption, and we are well positioned to support this demand. Turning to Pipeline Infrastructure. As Jose discussed, permitting-related access delays temporarily impacted utilization in the third quarter and early fourth quarter. Despite that impact, Pipeline backlog increased 26% sequentially to approximately $2.3 billion reflecting the continued strength of the underlying demand environment. With respect to our guidance range, the primary variable is project timing and utilization for Pipeline Infrastructure during the balance of the fourth quarter. The lower end of the range assumes a more gradual ramp on several large projects, while the upper end assumes a more efficient mobilization and progression of work. Importantly, our outlook does not contemplate any reduction in project scope, customer commitment or underlying economics. We expect any work not completed in '26 will be completed in 2027. Cash flow from operations for Q3 was $267 million, bringing the year-to-date total to $388 million. We continue to expect over $1 billion of cash flow from operations for 2026, with the fourth quarter benefiting from lower working capital investment due to normal seasonality. Net leverage for the third quarter was 2.5x with only a partial quarter of Superior earnings. We continue to expect net leverage to be below 2x by year-end, consistent with our financial policy. Liquidity of $1.6 billion gives us adequate financial capacity to execute on our capital allocation strategy, prioritizing return on investment. While we believe acquisitions that align with our strategic objectives and valuation parameters, provide excellent returns, we also believe MasTec's current equity valuation presents an opportunity to create shareholder value through disciplined share repurchases. In closing, our Power and mission-critical infrastructure platform continues to perform exceptionally well. Power Delivery generated record backlog and strong profitability and Superior continues to perform ahead of our original acquisition expectations. Together, these businesses are benefiting from growing investment in power generation, transmission, substations, electrical systems and large load infrastructure, where the breadth of our capabilities allows us to provide increasingly integrated solutions to customers. The convergence of capabilities is a key strategic development occurring across MasTec. We are increasingly serving the same customers and projects with various MasTec disciplines and service offerings, allowing us to provide more integrated solutions and participate in a larger portion of their overall infrastructure spend. Across the broader portfolio, we continue to see attractive opportunities in renewables, transportation, water and natural gas infrastructure. As we enter 2027, we expect margin improvement to be supported by a combination of favorable business mix, including higher utilization of resources, realizing revenue synergies from Superior, growing self-perform activity for general buildings and implementing operational initiatives and Communications. We believe these factors, together with record backlog and a strong pipeline of opportunities, position MasTec for continued growth and expanding earnings power in the years ahead. This concludes our prepared remarks. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from the line of Jamie Cook of Truist Securities.

Two questions. One, first on Communications, Jose, just sort of the self-help 200 basis points margin opportunity you're talking about. What prompted this -- what prompted this? And I guess my second question with regard to that, is this more of a cost opportunity? Or is this more of a we want a better balance between growth and margins, and it's sort of okay for Communications to be smaller if the margins are better and just being more selective with the type of work our customers you're working with? And then my second question, relative to last quarter, Jose, you seem incrementally more positive on gas -- single cycle gas, right, Pipeline and Power Delivery, both Superior and your organic opportunity. Could you rank over which one is most meaningful for 2027? And is this opportunity big enough to potentially offset a more muted outlook for Communications over the next sort of 12 months?

Sure. Thanks, Jamie. So I'll start with the second part of your question. I think that we're definitely saying that we believe that the strength in the other businesses will more than offset any weakness potential in Communications. I think if I was rank stacking really the different opportunities, one of the areas of the industry that I think you can see everywhere, right, is everything related to data centers and mission-critical is performing at a really high level. I think we positioned ourselves to play a much bigger role in that on a go-forward basis. We've won a lot of awards in the second half of the year related to that. These are multiyear projects. So we're excited about what that means. The reality is that in 2026, it's a relatively small component of our revenue. MasTec's exposure to that market in '26 with -- maybe with the exception of Superior is relatively limited. It will have a significant increase in 2027, and we're pretty excited about that. Power Delivery in addition to what's happening in the mission-critical space is probably well up there in the ranking stack. We feel really good about what's happening there. On the Pipeline side, our view on Pipeline hasn't really changed, right? We went into Investor Day saying we always thought we'd do about $2.5 billion in '26. We've said we'll do about $3 billion in '27. We think we can hit record levels by '28. That's what we said at Investor Day. I think it's going to play out very similar to that. I think what we're increasingly optimistic about is the scale and time frame of that. I think it's going to last for many, many years. We're talking to customers about project activity going well into the 2030s, which is just remarkable. And then I'd say, what's happening on the power gen side, while newer tremendous opportunity for us. So we're really excited about the performance of our business, how we're doing. Obviously, we're disappointed with Communications and kind of what we've seen is a significant shift in the business here lately. With all that said, I think we're trying to really react to the market sentiment. So there's pieces of the market within Communications that we're incredibly excited about. We think that the hyperscale activity is going to be large. It's going to be significant. We're winning large awards. We expect to win more large awards. So we think that's going to be a big driver of the business. We're cautiously optimistic about the rest of it, quite frankly. I think that we will see some vendor slowdown in CapEx in '27. We're planning for that. I think that on the wireless side of the business, there's a range of outcomes, right? If SpaceX is real, is SpaceX does what they want to do, there is no company better positioned than MasTec for an opportunity like that. That could be a meaningful differentiator in our Comms business. But if we were guiding today, what I would tell you is we're going to be very conservative as to how we look at '27. We know what we have. So we know we've won hyperscaler activity. We know we've won certain BEAD projects that are going to start in '27. We think some of that will offset the weaknesses. So if I was guiding today, I'd probably tell you we're going to have a flattish year in '27 but with better margins. I think the upside to the plan over time comes from more hyperscale awards, comes from BEADs projects and then obviously, what's happening in the wireless market with a potential fourth carrier. So again, disappointed with the outlook for that market in the short term. Still positive in the long term, but to reiterate what we said in the prepared remarks, the growth of this business isn't going to come from Communications. It's going to come from the other segments that are performing at really high levels.

Next question will be coming from the line of Sangita Jain.

Jose or Paul, maybe can you speak to how you're thinking about adding resources for the growth in the legacy Power Delivery business, you've been vocal about building capacity in Pipelines. So can you maybe discuss the same and what we may expect for your CapEx going forward?

What -- I'm sorry, you didn't hear with CapEx expectations?

Yes. I just want to know how you're planning for resource allocation in Power Delivery if you're seeing all this backlog and growth coming up. Similar to what you did in pipeline?

Sure. I mean it's been a really disciplined approach over time. And going back to the award for Greenlink, you heard Jose and I talk about our efforts to build capabilities, our crews, our project leadership very deliberately. We've obviously been investing in the capital assets required for that as well. So yes, we'll continue to prioritize investments into that space for both people and equipment.

Yes. And to be clear, I mean, I think our Power Delivery business on an organic basis without Superior grew well over 20% or will grow well over 20% in '26. Earnings have exceeded that at probably north of 35%. So I think we've demonstrated that already in '26. I think we've demonstrated our ability to win you work execute on that work. There's no question that the level of wins and opportunities is accelerating. So we'll continue to do that, but we feel really good about our ability to execute on that and to manage that capital effectively.

Got it. And then on CEI, can you speak to the makeup of the backlog between renewables, civil and general buildings and how the pace of burn works for different parts of backlog so that we can model accordingly for next year and beyond?

Yes. I think all of them are growing. Obviously, the one that you haven't really seen hit yet is what we're talking about in gas generation, I think that's in the quarters to come. Infrastructure is pretty -- you don't have big swings in the infrastructure side. Those tend to be larger awards that burn off over a longer period of time. So we don't tend to see great swings in backlog there. Obviously, the higher burn markets is what we see in renewables and what we see in general buildings, both were up significantly in the third quarter. We're very excited about -- I think Paul alluded to it in his statement about the longevity and growth of that renewables backlog build. We believe we'll continue to see that in Q4, along with the general buildings backlog growth. So both of those are burning. I think we will more than pick up what we burn. Again, the demand in both of those markets right now is really high, and we're excited about our position. So I think that's how you should look at it.

Next question will come from the line of Liam Burke of B. Riley Securities.

Jose, you're looking at 90's -- 2027 with multiple growth opportunities, particularly in the three segments you highlighted. Do you have the assets in place to execute on this? Or do you need to go outside and make an acquisition to complement your internal talent?

I think we have the talent and the people, quite frankly, to execute on what we've talked about. I think there are further opportunities to bring in other types of assets to help us. But I think everything we've talked today has been organic in nature, but there is no question that we have -- and I think Paul alluded to it, we have significant opportunities on the M&A side. And our question is going to be on allocating capital around M&A versus really share repurchases. And I'd probably think you could expect us to do both.

Great. And during the quarter, two large carriers announced pretty high profile advanced fiber purchases. Is this consistent with how you're seeing the fiber optic rollout, particularly on the long haul?

The strength of the market right now, right? It's why -- I mean, it's why we announced the 2,100 mile project. I think there's a lot more awards that are coming in that business. And I think the pace of those awards is really what's going to dictate where we end up in '27 from a total business perspective. If we're able to grow, it will come from that, right? And I think it will be highly driven by that. So we're excited to be able to update the market in the coming months about further progress on those awards.

And our next question will come from the line of Alex Rygiel of Texas Capital Securities.

Great quarter, Jose and team. Jose, if in a year, we're on a call here with you and you notably exceed expectations, sort of what are the top two or three catalysts to that upside surprise?

So I think it's Pipeline, right, just because of the nature of the burn in the build. And I think that the market is on a precipice of really taking off. I think it's mission-critical work because of the sheer size and nature of it, right, and the burn opportunity. So I think those are probably some of the -- and I guess, Power Delivery, I'd add into that just because we're seeing tremendous demand. So I think those are the three drivers that you'll see us really impact our ability to exceed earnings.

And then historically, MSAs have been incredibly important to MasTec and kind of creating that long-term customer relationship. You've got some new customers today and you've got some new kind of end market exposure today. But can you talk about your strategy and successes to kind of replicate that MSA model and how important it's going to be in the future?

Yes, I'd say a couple of things, right? I think it's the MSA model that's given us the ability to participate on different types of work. So to your point, it's incredibly important. It gives you market presence. It gives you customer presence, it builds trust. I think if you look at MasTec historically, quite frankly, we've probably been, if anything, in this market a little overexposed to MSAs because we haven't been as active in project awards and to clearly demonstrate that, right? We've been talking about our transmission business over the last 1.5 years or so, particularly for that, right? We had really good customer relationships in the space. We weren't as has engaged on the transmission side of the business that we thought really had attractive margin profiles. And you've seen that change in MasTec in 2026. So I do think we're taking advantage of the positions that we've had to take advantage of the project activity that we're seeing. On the flip side of that, a lot of the new work that we're doing when you think about mission critical, when you think about turnkey, there are massive service opportunities that come on the back of that. We believe that the service business related to mission-critical over the long term is going to be an incredible business. We're positioning ourselves to play a big role in that, and we're pretty excited about what that can mean about for the long-term growth of MasTec.

And our next question will be coming from the line of Steven Fisher of UBS.

Congrats on all the development opportunities here. Just on the Power Delivery side, can you just give us some updated thoughts on, say, the timing of some of the high-voltage transmission potential bookings? And to what extent are you already preparing resources ahead of that opportunity?

Sure. Thanks, Steve. So a couple of things, right? I think that our transmission business took massive steps forward in the last year. Obviously, we publicly talked about Greenlink. We've talked about our second large award, which started during the quarter. We're sitting on great backlog. We're probably having discussions for more projects than we've ever had before. We think that the market is in a great place. Lots of projects are coming. I feel we're well positioned. So I think we're using the projects that we're currently on to grow our resources. We think we're ready to take on more projects. We think it's meaningful to the growth of the business and to the margin capabilities of the business, and we're excited to be able to execute on that and really share that story as the coming quarters come along.

Okay. And then sounds like some really broad and strong potential in Clean Energy and Infrastructure. Could you just talk about maybe some of the risk terms and conditions that you're going to be taking on, on these opportunities. I saw in the Q, you've disclosed some reduced productivity and efficiency on some projects within the segment. Can you talk about what's going on there? And how should we think about the risks within some of the bigger opportunities you have ahead?

It's a great question, Steve. And I think one that we've been hyper focused on for a long time. We've talked about risk, especially in the gas generation business and the things that we're willing to do and the things that we're not willing to do. So one of the reasons we're so excited is we think on a risk-adjusted basis, what we're seeing today is dramatically different than what we would have seen 5 or 6 months ago. We think we're, again, well positioned. We think that the risk tolerance is well within the levels that we need to take and quite frankly, very risk-adjusted. So we're excited, right? I think when you refer to the commentary that you read out, I think it -- we're experiencing -- especially in that segment, we're -- Clean Energy and Infrastructure as a whole in that segment, we're experiencing dramatic growth, right? We're going to be up 42% in revenue this year. We're going to be up north of that in EBITDA. It's been a fantastic year for our Clean Energy and Infrastructure group. I know when we look at a particular quarter, we look at a revenue run rate. I think some are a little disappointed with where revenue came in Q3 or it's going to come in Q4. And I think a lot of that is modeling, right? If you think about the success of that business and you think about how that business has evolved over the last 2 years, it's quite amazing. And if you don't mind, I'm going to write off some numbers here, but starting in 2025 in the first quarter of 2025, that segment generated $916 million of revenue. Progress into Q2 of '25, it was $1.131 billion. Q3 of '25, was $1.364 billion. Q4 of '25 was $1.288 billion. Q1 of '26 was $1.329 billion. Q2 of '26 was $1.622 billion. Q3 of '26 that we just delivered was $1.825 billion, and we expect to do just under $1.9 billion in Q4, which will be the first time we grow from Q4 to Q3. So I think when you look at a comment like that, we're just talking about nuances on -- and it's pretty broad-based. There's no singular issue. It's just about project starts, our ability to perform at the revenue run rates that we're talking about. But -- all in all, the growth of that business, the improvement in margins in that business over the course of the last 2 years has been phenomenal. And more importantly, we expect to continue to drive that in 2027.

And our next question will come from the line of Dimple Gosai of Piper Sandler.

I have a couple of questions. Just one, we've seen that other large EPCs are scaling data centers through electric and acquisition, self-perform, et cetera, right? You speak of winning bundled awards that pay Superior electrical with Power Delivery and site civil. So what type of margin uplift can we expect to see? Are you able to quantify that for us just the opportunity set? And then separately, can you also talk about any initiatives or plans to capture more of the data center scope of work, perhaps through M&A or other?

Sure. So a couple of things, right? One, we've talked about the different parts of what we're doing in data centers today, right? So when we think about a turnkey job, obviously, those are construction management contracts, they tend to generate lower margins, quite frankly, below segment averages. The reason we do those is because of our ability to self-perform and bring self-perform resources into those projects, which have much better margin capabilities. And our ability to bundle that service what it does for our customers because the assurances of success and execution. One of the challenges that everybody is facing today is labor, right? I mean I know that leading up to the quarter, there was a lot of concerns about data centers, and we hear the politics around -- are people for data centers, against data center, what's the political backdrop going to be, what's the economics around them, how much money can be raised to ultimately fund these projects. And we've heard all the noise. But I am 1,000% convinced that if data centers don't get built in the future, it's not going to have anything to do with politics or financing, it's going to be about availability of people to build them. And I think that is the -- I think that is the biggest factor that people see. Our customers know it, and they're preparing themselves for it. So as we build an integrated product where we can assure execution, it really positions us differently. We take the margin mix associated with all of those types of services that we can offer, and we think it presents MasTec with a very attractive return profile. So I think we've -- to your question, I think we've done a lot of that. I think we've really grown our resource capabilities to be able to provide our customers as much of a turnkey approach that we can. There are still elements of it that we do not perform that we do think are interesting in M&A. And I think as time goes on, we'll see if we can execute on some of those.

And our next question will come from the line of Manish Somaiya of Cantor Fitzgerald.

First question for Paul. I'm not sure, Paul, if you gave out how much of the Pipeline revenues and EBITDA moved from '26 in '27. And then Jose, as we look at the strong Pipeline markets over the next couple of years, my question as it pertains to '27 is, how are you ensuring internally that the projects that you have for '27 stay on the time line that you budget for? Related to that, are you getting paid for holding crews ahead of the rent in a tight capacity market?

Yes. So Manish, I'll take the question you ask Paul as well. So I think maybe starting with that, I think the message is whatever we don't complete in '26 is going to push into '27, and that was really the purpose of the range of the guidance. So I don't know that we're not going to give a specific number on that, but you can assume that that's kind of our thinking. As it relates to the work, so let's break your question up in a couple of pieces. I think the beauty of, obviously, the challenges that we've had here at the end of the year is that the predominant workload required to get us through at least, for sure, the first half of '27, if not a little bit more, are the projects that we just started. So these are large projects. They were not all in backlog in Q3. Some will actually start in Q4 and show up in backlog in Q4. Those jobs are a big part of our early -- or our first half '27 plan. So I think it gives us incredible visibility into that. I think it really sets us up well. The question becomes, we already know the projects that we expect to start in the second half of '27. One of the challenges that we faced this year is we had a lot of projects starting at the same time. I think that will be a little bit more moderated in '27. And at the same time, I think how we will adapt to that based on the performance that we had in '26 is we're going to take a conservative view, right? I think we're obviously very bullish about '27. I think we're going to be conservative in our approach to guidance. I think we're going to really work through the things that we're sure are going to start. And if there's if there's risk to certain projects starting, we're going to be more conservative as to how we model that in and how we think about that in '27. But historically -- and again, I want to emphasize, the majority of these pushouts were really short. I mean 60 days, it's a long time when you talk about quarters because it flows into one quarter or another, but a 60-day delay in very large projects is really not that meaningful. So to your last part of your question, which I think kind of puts it together is what's the compensation like when you can start these projects and what are customers doing? Well, one of the reasons that you saw our margins come down in Q3 is customers did help us on cost, right? We were able to either put people to work on lower margin projects or be compensated for people sitting but not at the same margin levels that we would expect during construction. So I think that's one of the reasons you see the margin dip in Q3. And as we actually put those people to work on productive projects, we're hopeful that our margins will go back to our historical margin profile. So I think again, we're -- '27 should be a better year than '26. '28 is going to be a lot better than '27. And I think starting in '28, we're going to have some unbelievable years within our Pipeline segment for a number of years after that.

And our next question will come from Julien Dumoulin-Smith of Jefferies.

I appreciate it, Jose and team. Look, maybe to follow up on some of the comments here real quickly around the Pipeline segment. How do you think about the time line and cadence for some of that to be realized? I mean, you've made some very specific remarks about what is going to happen on Pipeline and potential like near-term awards? But real how near term is that realized and effectively burn through if you will? And then maybe speaking a little bit more broadly on this. You mentioned about like 1,000-plus miles, et cetera. How far can the visibility get at this point in the cycle? Or is it still going to be fairly near term -- in terms of that revenue recognition just given the overall cadence of that business?

Yes. Look, when we see projects announced today, right? If you pick up the paper and tomorrow another 1,000 mile project gets announced, the reality is that project is probably the time cycle for that project that best starts in '28, most likely starts in '29. So projects like that end up being build cycles of '29, '30, '31. Some of the projects that were announced in the last few months go out as far as '32 in to pro completion. So what we're going to be working on in the next 2 years and quite frankly, that's going to build our '27 and '28 plan aren't new project announcements. There have been projects we've been working on for a long time. So all this does, all these announcements do, it really extends the time line of the visibility that we see. So -- we've got a large number of projects that we constantly follow, we constantly talk to our customers about. We're constantly revising when we think potential start dates are. A lot of that has to do with not just the permitting side, but more importantly, pipe orders, like physical pipe orders, of which all the projects we're going to build in '27 and '28, quite frankly, the pipe has been ordered. So we know when that pipe arrives. We know when permitting is expected to finish. So we have a relatively good time line for our expectations. Again, those could vary by a couple of months, but we don't expect them to vary by much more than that. So again, we think on a full year basis, we think we've got excellent visibility.

And just as a quick follow-up, if you can. On Clean Energy, you commented like very bullishly here on quarter-over-quarter-over-quarter. What are you seeing for '27 and '28, just in terms of like that ongoing cadence. I just want to make sure I heard you very clearly on how you would frame out that growth? Because obviously, the sector at large is not growing in that trajectory that you described for your specific business?

Well, I mean, we're not going to give guidance today, but I would expect it to continue. And I mean, the word I would say about the sector is a lot of our data center work is within that sector, right, or within that segment. So it is a part of the business that's growing at unbelievable rates, right? We -- I mean, again, those that are more exposed to data center work today are performing better, period. So our level of exposure to that market is going to significantly increase in '27, and we expect our performance to increase with it.

Our next question will come from the line of Andy Kaplowitz of Citigroup.

Jose, you mentioned you're potentially well positioned with SpaceX. Obviously, there's a lot of confusion out there about the outlook for Communications, given the new entrants. So maybe we could double click on what you're seeing I assume is down given tough comps and delays. But if wireline projects continue to move to the right, and is there a potential to start growing your hyperscaler communication-focused business relatively significantly in '27 to offset the potentially traditional CapEx weakness that you mentioned?

Yes, that's exactly what we're saying. So these awards that we've won. We know exactly when they start, and we think that the strength of that will help offset the weakness in the other parts of the business. When we talk about SpaceX opportunity, I mean we have -- we're not even thinking about that relative to a plan or a '27 cycle. Obviously, what's been reported, if they actually go through with that, it's -- I mean, it changes I mean, we -- I'd probably restate all the rankings that I previously stated if SpaceX actually did what they were going to do -- say they're going to do.

It's helpful, Jose. And then maybe just looking at Superior a little bit more closely. I think you said backlog came in at $1.8 billion. I think it was $1.4 billion last quarter. Can you give us a little more color on how it's integrating into MasTec, the opportunity into '27 versus the sort of numbers you gave us, are you feeling about the business in the early days?

I mean we're feeling better about everything. So we are feeling slightly better about what they'll perform in '27. We think backlog will grow for them in the fourth quarter. We have now probably our first really fully integrated approach using Superior on a project is in late-stage negotiations. We hope it's something that we can land. So we think it's been very meaningful to our ability to position ourselves on different projects. So I think both from the third quarter, from what we expect in fourth quarter next year backlog growth, they are outperforming everything we expected.

And I would just add, it's not just general buildings using Superior. Superior has been really collaborative, bringing our traditional utility resources on the data center campuses for outside plant work, to help supplement areas that they have opportunities with clients. So it's been a real win in terms of integration, collaboration, great group, great management team, everything we expected has just been exceeded they've been there part of MasTec so far.

And our next question will be coming from the line of Justin Hauke of Baird.

Great. I wanted to just ask about the cash flow. Obviously, 4Q, you guys always have a big -- 4Q, this one is particularly big. And I guess I was more curious just thinking about maybe potential lumpiness of it going forward. Just your MSA revenue mix is now about 1/3 of your revenue. And wasn't that long ago, it was more like 2/3 and the unapproved change orders and unbilled have gone up, and obviously, you're doing these bigger projects. So just trying to think about maybe the visibility you have on the fourth quarter and then maybe more broadly, just how you're thinking about the conversion rate for cash flow going forward and whether we should expect more lumpiness than historically?

Sure. No, I actually think we're moving into a more predictable cadence, Justin. Comms has always been our worst performing working capital business, and they were a driver of some of the -- I would expect it to drive more in Q3 and their DSO underperformed a little bit. The business that are growing the most, the large load exposed businesses renewables, Pipeline, they have excellent working capital parameters. And so part of it is just Q4. Yes, it's the normal seasonality and releasing of working capital, but the mix will drive improvements in DSO. And I think that will benefit us from a more predictable cadence going forward as well, right? As those businesses that have really good working capital profiles become a higher percentage of revenue, it's just help the overall mix. And Comms has been challenged. They've degraded a little bit from their lows of '25, and they got to get better for sure. I mean we're actively working at that. But the rest of the businesses are performing well, and we think it will give us better predictability -- better conversion, number one. But also less lumpiness than we've seen in some of the recent years.

Okay. That's helpful. I guess my second question is just circling back to the Communications segment. Is the 10-Q kind of talked about 2 buckets of the EBITDA weakness. And one was the revenue weakness in wireless, but then the bigger bucket was project execution issues on wireline revenue activity where the revenue was actually higher. So I guess I was just -- I know we touched on it a little bit on this call already, but if you could just give a little bit more color on specifically on the wireline side, what was kind of the issue that drove the margin weakness there?

Yes. I think that refers to a number of offices that we opened in anticipation of some growth with some customers. I think that based on the changes, and I think that's what we've been talking about, based on the changes of the market, we're going to close some of those down. I mean, when we talk about restructuring our business, we talk about becoming leaner. And I think there's areas that we've been excited about the potential. We're going to take a step back. We're going to really focus on the areas that have delivered the highest margin opportunities from us, and then we'll grow into programmatic work, right? So as these big programs come up, those are meaningful for us. We can drive high margins, and we're going to refocus our efforts around that.

And our next question will be coming from the line of Marc Bianchi of TD Cowen.

I'll keep it to just one in the interest of time. Can you remind us the approximate size of the buildings business in CE&I for '26? And I think you mentioned that's going to be a big contributor to the growth in '27. So if there's any way to frame how much that's contributing. And I understand this business is a little lower margin. You mentioned the better returns. But as we look at CE&I in totality for '27, is this potentially something that could hold back the margin progression? Or how are you thinking about the evolution of margins, which is with this mix coming up in '27?

Yes. So a couple of things. I think Paul referred in his remarks about the business growing at about 4x what it was last year. So last year it was about a $300 million business this year. It's just north of $1.2 billion. I think that there's no -- and I think that business is going to grow really nicely as into '27 and beyond. I think it all goes back to some of the comments that we talked about earlier, right, is that the specific nature of that business probably has a lower margin profile, but what it gets to bring with it is really good. So on a total level, we would expect the margin profile from those jobs to be accretive to MasTec margins.

I'm showing no further questions being taken at this time. I would like to hand the call back to Joseph for closing remarks.

Yes, I just want to thank everybody for participating today, and we look forward to updating you on our next year-end call. Thank you.

And this concludes today's conference. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.