Good day, and welcome to the Willdan Group Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Al Kaschalk, VP, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Jenny. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Willdan Group's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Call. Joining our call today are Tom Brisbin, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer; Kim Early, Chief Financial Officer; and Mike Bieber, President. The call today builds on our earnings release we issued after market close today. You may find the earnings release and the investor report that accompanies today's call and press release in stock information section of our investor relation website on at ir.willdan.com. Management will review prepared remarks, and then we will open the call up to your questions. Statements made in the course of today's conference call, including answers to your questions, which are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties, and it's important to note that the Company's future results could differ materially from those in any such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially and other risk factors are listed from time to time in the Company's SEC reports, including, but not limited to, the annual report on Form 10-K filed for the year ended January 1, 2021. The Company cautions investors not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements made during the course of this conference call. Willdan disclaims any obligation and does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements made today. In addition to GAAP results, we'll then also provide non-GAAP financial measures that we believe enhance investors' ability to analyze the business trends and performance. Our non-GAAP measures include net revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. Tom, I'll turn the call over to you.

Thanks, Al, and good afternoon, everyone. We continue to build post COVID momentum. The fourth quarter and the year delivered results well ahead of our internal estimates. We see positive signs that the initial impact of COVID are behind us. As stated previously, all our contracts have restarted and access to customers is open in all geographies we serve. I would like to repeat that no contracts were canceled and revenue only moved out in time. Looking back at the year, we adapted well to the virtual work environment. As a services firm, our employees follow many benefits working from home. We anticipate most of our customers will be back in their offices over the next few months. We also expect our employees to return to a hybrid model. Our current challenge is ramping up the California IOU contracts. There are three key points I would like to make to help investors understand Willdan's position coming out of this pandemic. We have a record backlog of approximately $1.5 billion. We look at this simply as three years of work. Thus we conclude that winning work is not the priority for many parts of this -- of the organization. The priorities are ramping up, growing organically, executing and collecting the money fast enough to offset the capital needs of organic growth. The second point is how will the customers respond post-COVID energy efficiency. We think we have a pretty good idea at this point. The really small businesses are struggling and for the most part, utilities are looking on how to help them. Our largest energy efficiency contract, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, LADWP, serving the Los Angeles area is now exceeding the weekly pre-COVID revenue. Simply stated, we are doing more now than before COVID. This tells us…

Thanks, Tom, and good afternoon, everyone. Our Q4 results were strong, continuing the recovery begin in Q3 of this year. While gross revenue for the fourth quarter declined by 4.8% from $96.9 million to $92.2 million net revenue, net of subcontractors, materials and other direct costs increased 2.1% to $51.8 million versus $50.8 million in Q4 of 2020. The divergent directions for gross and net revenue are a result of a shift in the mix of revenue. The increased revenue from LADWP was offset by lower construction management revenue. The decline in construction management revenue is a result of project completions earlier in the year, not yet being offset by the startup of new projects despite the robust backlog of new contracts. Gross profit for Q4 of 2021 was unchanged from Q4 2020 to $34.5 million, though the gross profit margin was slightly better at 37.7% versus 35.6% in 2020 due to the change of mix of revenue. G&A costs for the quarter were $6.6 million or 16.5% lower than a year ago, declining from $40.2 million to $33.6 million for Q4 of 2021. This was driven primarily by lower stock compensation and lower interest accretion charges related to contingent consideration adjustments made in Q4 2020. The lower G&A expense was a primary driver for the turnaround in income before income taxes from a loss of $5.9 million in Q4 of 2020 to income of $500,000 in Q4 of 2021. The $1.1 million noncash adjustment to our deferred tax valuation reserve related to certain state tax NOLs caused income tax expense to exceed pretax income for the fourth quarter, creating a net loss of $900,000 compared to a loss of $4.0 million in the same period of 2020. For the quarter, adjusted EBITDA increased by 9.7% to $9.4 million or…

[Operator Instructions] And we will go first to Moshe Katri of Wedbush.

A nice quarter. Good to hear from you. So just to confirm, we're going to have a bit of more of than usual of a back-end loaded year. Can you talk a bit about the costs associated with ramping some of the new contracts? How will that kind of impact margins during the first half? You have a lot of stuff, I guess, still getting deployed here the team on board. Maybe talk a bit about wage indication and how is also -- how that actually factored in some of the contracts that you have in terms of the ability to recoup some of that?

Sure, Moshe, I'll start. This is Mike. And Kim, you fill in where I missed something First, Tom mentioned, we have hired about 200 people in last year and now are at full strength to do the work that we have lined up for '22. All of those people have been hired. So they -- we already know what the cost is. There's not future cost risk we take in '22, one labor because we've already hired those people. That's first. Second, we're carrying roughly 150 people to operate the California utilities, and we did approximately $1 million of revenue last year. Obviously, that cost doesn't cover those types of people. That cost is going to go with us throughout the first half of the year. The minimal contribution in Q1, a little more revenue in Q2, but the big contribution is in Q3 and Q4. That's -- that schedule is aligned with our contracts that we've signed with these California IOUs. They have very specific delivery schedules and milestones in them. So we've built our forecast for '22 around those milestones in those contracts. There's not a lot of subjectivity or mystery about them at this point. We're well underway, and we're pleased with the way things are ramping up. Does that answer your question?

Yes. And then -- so just to confirm, any sort of recruiting costs that will be able -- will actually let you ramp and '22 has already been factored in the P&L at this point?

Yes, it has. Correct. We don't expect substantial hiring from this point forward. We have the people on staff we need.

Understood. And then do you measure attrition within your current staff? Has that been changing anyway?

It has. We monitored it. And like a lot of companies, it did go up somewhat in '21 and '22 -- I'm sorry, '20 and '21, the two COVID years. That was consistent with all of the industry data that we looked at. And so in spite of that attrition, we replaced all of those people and added 200 more.

Okay. And where are we at the attrition on the attritional level right now?

Voluntary was coming down last I saw, it was around 15% voluntary.

And if you have any further questions, please rejoin the queue at this time. We'll go next to Craig Irwin of ROTH Capital Partners.

So can you maybe clarify for us in your guidance, what you expect this year as far as revenue from the California IOU contracts that you signed in the last 18 months. How much of Willdan's 2022 guidance is from these contracts?

Yes. At the gross revenue level, that will be approximately $50 million.

Okay. Understood. So you're pretty clear about the higher cost of the start-up of this business. How do we gauge confidence or how do we gain external confidence that this theme of higher costs will taper down? This is something we've been talking about, I think, for two years now, higher cost, higher cost. I know COVID was a horrible thing for everybody to deal with. But what do you see the confidence that we'll see the execution on higher costs becoming less high costs in the back half of the year?

I'll try to take that, Craig. Two primary costs to our business that will separate. We'll talk about labor and then equipment and materials. The labor cost now we've already defined for the business. We know what that is going in. We didn't go necessarily in Q3 or even in early Q4 of last year, but now we do. And we factored that into guidance. And you see that flowing through most of the Q4 results actually. So that's the labor, that's the largest component. Second largest component, of course, is equipment and materials. Those costs have raised depends on what you're doing, anywhere from 5% to as high as 15%, 20%. The costs in general have been able to be passed through our business on to the customer. We've been able to do that. We have not seen margin erosion at the project level thus far. What has happened though is the second part, which is supply chain duration delays. We think that -- I would say that as a percent complete basis, we would be 10% or so ahead of where we are right now, where we're not waiting on equipment to be delivered at our project sites around the country. So that's the biggest change that has occurred. It's the delay of materials that we install on job sites this call. Does that answer your question?

Completely. So last question, if I may. Many of your shareholders own the stock for more than $1 billion of additional work that's expected to be awarded over the next couple of years, both in California and in other markets. And your leadership as far as your very healthy share that you took of the IOU work for California energy efficiency. What would have you maybe bid differently on this work, this scope of work that's in front of us, what would have you been differently maybe to pursue higher natural margins? Or at this point, is there nothing that you would change as far as the way that you are chasing the broader longer-term opportunity?

Well, I would love to tell you why we are changed, but we have been telling our competitors what we negotiated. There wasn't a lot of negotiating room. There were variable, let's call it, that the state, the PUC, the utilities had said, we need to meet this number. And if you don't meet this number, then it came in at the TRC primarily total resource costs. So we have to put in measures that are cost effective is what that's saying. There wasn't a lot of negotiated allow us.

So Tom, usually, the public utility commissions, right, when you do EMC work and things do not contain the profit profile that is forecast. You can go back and get change orders, right? And this is done regularly. Some transmission line companies are more liberal in their pursuit of change orders. They bid more aggressively on the price upfront and then go for change orders, others a bit higher and are known a bit higher and are not very frequently in front of the commission asking for change orders. Is there an opportunity for us maybe to see remediation on the profitability of these projects with change orders, given that things are obviously tracking below what was generally expected when all this work was led out to a bit?

Yes. We have seen the utilities talk about change order may be the wrong word, but changing the contract terms because of COVID. So what we've done is we're kind of sampling the market in some of these contracts and showing and proving that, let's take the real small business. They are just not interested in energy efficiency. So there is room for renegotiation when you improve the utility that the world has changed. And the utilities are coming to the table saying the world has changed. So does that answer your question, Craig?

Well, Willdan is a very special company, right? Your execution and energy efficiency is highly unique, and you're committed to the success of what the California Utility Commission has set as far as some pretty aggressive goals that reach beyond some underperformance in the utilities over the last many years. And this special status of Willdan is something as a company, either public or private, there's a legitimate expectation that you could earn a minimum level of profitability on your contracts. And it seems like with the guidance, maybe just being a little bit lighter than most were looking for that, that would be a very clear and fair thing to get in front of the commission with given that they want people to actually bid on the next round of work instead of refusing to do it and let them go back to the dysfunctional models that they were using to execute so-called energy efficiency in the past. And you follow my logic. I'm just looking -- I'm looking for potential ways to get the recourse where some serious effort and engagement from one of the leading experts is compensated fairly. And it doesn't seem like that with the guidance that you shared with us today.

Guidance I would until you said the guidance we shared with you.

Outlook for '22?

You mean you think the margin should be higher. Do you think the revenue should be higher? What are you saying?

I think the margins are tracking below where they should be, and there's probably frictional costs below the margin line that are probably not included in the contract that should have been in the first place. And the start-up costs really need to be carried as a burden by the utilities because that is a functional piece of the total equation. And if California is committed to the success of their energy efficiency programs, they need to take a holistic view. And they've got the best guy in the market working on this. But the profitability is not what many people would believe fair natural profitability should be, given that you're carrying on your P&L, the expense of these employees on start-up when there should be not the impact of dilution, but maybe breakeven or modest profit ahead of a very large scope of work that has to get done. I mean, there's a lot that they really want to see you do that I know you're going to do a great job on. You follow my logic?

Yes. We love start-up costs, but this contract didn't include it. So we got included in our price that we gave them, and we have to deliver. So what we're working on, right, is we're just getting started. Once we deliver, I think our voice will get stronger, and we'll have a better negotiating position. Do you want to add anything to that? I'm trying to.

No. The other thing, Craig, is that the volume -- the way the programs are actually designed and the way they were bid, the volume of revenue we can claim in the first part of the year is very low, not covering our costs. Margins pick up substantially as that volume comes up -- so we don't have a margin problem when we hit even close to the run rates that these programs will perform over the few years and even in the back half of this year as we're ramping up. Remember that, as Kim pointed out, $50 million in revenue is 1/3 of the average volume we have to have on these projects over the last -- over the next four years. So we're going to have a substantial ramp even in '23. We just were unable to convince them to pick up the start-up costs. That's the way they were designed. So there hasn't been anything that we didn't expect or that was out of the design of the programs as we sign the contracts. We just need more volume.

And that's timing. I mean we're behind, we're behind because of COVID we're behind it because California was delayed. And we started the world did not start. So we'll catch it up.

[Operator Instructions] We will go next to Chip Moore of EF Hutton.

Guys, just wanted to follow up on that one on the California IOU revenue. So $50 million in '22, to your point, about 1/3 of the average volume over the next four years that in fact a pretty significant step-up, obviously, in the coming years. Are there any limiting factors -- so what's a realistic figure for '23, if you will, that you could pay if everything is coming?

Yes, Chip in '23, the number will be between $150 million and $200 million in revenue from the California IOU contracts, something like that. And that's set forth in the goals of the contracts.

And just a couple of minor ones for me. You talked about LADWP, they have some unused funds from when that program is shut down. Any way to think about potential magnitude? And would that be potential upside?

It is. There's I don't know if this is a public number, so I'm not going to give the -- we know the number. There's more than $100 million of additional unspent money. How about that? They've given us all the numbers. They have recently expanded the scope that we're serving, and we continue to look with the customer at ways to expand the program so that we can fully extend the dollars they have in the contract and have charged the public for. The customer support have been doing that. And so there is potential upside there.

None of that is in the guide?

None of that is in the guidance, correct?

Just one last one. IA software. I think you were talking about $10 million for the year. Is that where it came in? And are you expecting sort of similar for this year?

Yes. They were a little above that, Chip. I think they were closer to $11 million for the year. They had an outstanding 2021. And we would expect that number to grow, frankly, in '22. The pipeline of opportunities for software is very good. And even into Q1, Q2, I think we'll sign some new licenses and bring in some new customers. Looks good.

[Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Marc Riddick of Sidoti.

Wanted to touch on a couple of things. First of all, I appreciate the guidance provided as far as the visibility, I wanted to touch a little bit on that because it seems as though with all the pieces that you've kind of mentioned there, it seems as though overall visibility for you is meaningfully improved over the last three to six months. And from that advantage point, is there any kind of swing factor that you're looking at that is still -- that's still a bit iffy to you as to how you're looking at numbers going forward, not just around the '22 guide, but specifically, is there any particular issue that you're looking at as a major swing factor to what you're currently expecting?

No, there's not, Marc. I would say that we've never been in this position before. We booked I won't say all, but the overwhelming majority of work that we need to book this year. And we've never been in a stronger position. We've never been as strong a position as like this. So it's unusual. And it's not only this year, it's throughout 2023 and even in 2024. So it's all about execution right now. It's really not about what in work. We've never been in this position before. So very good.

Excellent. And then the extra piece, and I appreciate you mentioning some of the supply chain constraints on sort of where you are on timing and things like that. I was wondering were there any meaningful or any visible impacts from Omicron that slow things down as well as far as operations?

Supply chain has slowed certain projects, especially the -- when you're delivering more complex equipment like custom-built boilers, chillers, large year for universities and hospitals. That type of equipment is being delayed. We're working closely with our customers. As I mentioned, we might be 10 or so percent ahead on those projects on average. We didn't have those types of delays. The customers are understanding. It has not resulted in cost escalation though for that complex equipment.

And any Omicron impacts?

Those are abating. I can't think of any that were substantial in Q4.

And we will go to our next question from [Richard Isenberg] a Private Investor.

Since you expect in 2023 for the contribution from California to increase between $150 million and $200 million, is it logical to assume that you should make more than $3 in EPS in 2023?

That's a long way away for guidance. So you can apply your logic. We're not going to give guidance as far as answer. We've told you where the revenue is expected to go, but that's where we're at.

And with no further questions in the queue, I would now like to turn the call back over to Tom Brisbin for any additional or closing comments.

I'd just like to thank all our investors and employees throughout the phone, and we'll see you again in next quarter. Thanks a lot.

And so this concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.