Earnings call transcript: Gulf Island Fabrication Q4 2024 beats EPS expectations

Gulf Island Fabrication Inc. (GIFI) reported its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2024, surpassing earnings per share (EPS) expectations with an actual EPS of $0.26 compared to a forecast of $0.12. However, the company fell short on revenue, posting $37.4 million against a forecast of $41 million. The stock reacted negatively in aftermarket trading, dropping 3.08% to $6.30. According to InvestingPro analysis, the company maintains strong financial health with an overall score of 3.05 out of 4, suggesting resilient fundamentals despite the revenue miss.

Key Takeaways

• Gulf Island Fabrication reported better-than-expected EPS for Q4 2024.
• Revenue missed expectations, coming in at $37.4 million.
• The stock fell by 3.08% in aftermarket trading.
• The company is expanding into new services and markets, including high-tech and nuclear sectors.
• Legal challenges continue with a rejected claim from the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Company Performance

Gulf Island Fabrication demonstrated resilience in its earnings performance despite missing revenue forecasts. The company reported a full-year revenue of $159 million, with an adjusted EBITDA of nearly $13 million and free cash flow of approximately $13 million. The Q4 revenue of $37.4 million remained flat quarter-over-quarter but showed a decline from $44.6 million year-over-year, reflecting challenges in the market. InvestingPro data reveals the company trades at an attractive P/E ratio of 6.16 and maintains a healthy current ratio of 4.61, indicating strong liquidity. Get access to 6 more key ProTips and comprehensive analysis with an InvestingPro subscription.

Financial Highlights

• Full-year 2024 revenue: $159 million
• Q4 2024 revenue: $37.4 million, flat quarter-over-quarter, down from $44.6 million year-over-year
• Adjusted EBITDA: Nearly $13 million
• Free cash flow: Approximately $13 million
• Year-end cash and short-term investments: $67 million

Earnings vs. Forecast

Gulf Island Fabrication’s Q4 2024 EPS of $0.26 significantly exceeded the forecast of $0.12, marking a surprise of over 116%. However, revenue fell short of expectations, coming in at $37.4 million compared to the forecast of $41 million. This mixed performance reflects both operational efficiencies and market challenges.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Gulf Island Fabrication’s stock declined by 3.08% in aftermarket trading, closing at $6.30. This movement reflects investor concerns over the revenue miss and ongoing legal challenges, despite the strong EPS performance. The stock remains within its 52-week range of $5.01 to $7.93. Based on InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, GIFI appears to be trading near its fair value. The company’s market capitalization stands at $105.07 million, with a notably low beta of 0.51, indicating less volatility than the broader market. Discover detailed valuation metrics and 1,400+ comprehensive Pro Research Reports by subscribing to InvestingPro.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Gulf Island Fabrication projects a 2025 consolidated EBITDA lower than the 2024 figure of $12.8 million. The company plans capital expenditures of $2-3 million and aims to grow its small-scale fabrication business, diversify services, and strengthen project execution. Strategic acquisitions are also on the agenda, supported by a robust cash position.

Executive Commentary

CEO Richard Hupp expressed optimism about the company’s future, stating, "We’re really bullish on the fabrication side of the business." He also highlighted the company’s strategic acquisition plans, noting, "We do have the cash and our primary objective is to go do an acquisition that’s strategic." Hupp anticipates a positive shift in the latter half of the year, saying, "We anticipate momentum in the back half of the year with regard to these LNG plants."

Risks and Challenges

• Legal challenges with the North Carolina Department of Transportation over rejected claims.
• Potential delays in project opportunities due to reduced capital spending in the Gulf of America.
• The need to find suitable acquisition targets amid a competitive market.
• Dependence on market conditions for LNG projects and administrative changes.
• Limited fabrication capacity in the Gulf Coast region impacting growth potential.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts, including Martin Malloy from Johnson Rice, inquired about opportunities in the fabrication segment and the potential acquisition pipeline. Management emphasized the potential in LNG projects and ongoing bidding activities in nuclear and data center sectors, while acknowledging the difficulties in identifying suitable acquisition targets.

Full transcript - Gulf Island Fabrication Inc (GIFI) Q4 2024:

Conference Operator: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Gulf Islands Conference to discuss the Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Results. All participants will be in a listen only mode for the duration of the call. This call is being recorded. At this time, I’d like to turn the floor over to Ms.

Cindy Cook for opening remarks and introductions. Cindy, please go ahead.

Cindy Cook, Unspecified Corporate Role, Gulf Islands: Thank you, and good afternoon. I would like to welcome everyone to our fourth quarter and full year twenty twenty four teleconference. Our results were released this afternoon, and a copy of the press release is available on our website at gulfisland dot com. A replay of today’s call will be available on our website after seven p. M.

This evening. Please keep in mind that the press release and certain comments on this call include forward looking statements and actual results may differ materially. We would like to refer everyone to the cautionary language included in our press release and to the risk factors described in our most recent Form 10 K and subsequent SEC filings. Please also note that management may reference EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted revenue, new project awards and backlog on this call, which are financial measures not recognized under U. S.

GAAP. As required by SEC rules and regulations to the extent used, these non GAAP financial measures are reconciled to their most comparable GAAP financial measures in our press release. Today, we have Mr. Richard Hupp, President and CEO and Mr. Wes Stockton, Executive Vice President and CFO.

Mr.

Richard Hupp, President and CEO, Gulf Islands: Huff? Thank you, Cindy, and good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our fourth quarter and full year results conference call. I’m happy to be here with you this afternoon, and I hope that each of you and your families are continuing to stay healthy and safe. During today’s call, I’ll provide key takeaways from the quarter, a review of end market trends and an update on the progress we have made on our strategic initiatives. Wes will then discuss our fourth quarter results in greater detail and provide some commentary on our outlook for 2025.

We’ll then open up the call for questions and end with some closing remarks. As I look back on 2024, I’m extremely proud of everything we’ve accomplished during the year and the progress we made towards our strategic goals. Through our focus on our small scale fabrication business and the expansion of our services capabilities, we’ve developed a business that is more durable and predictable through the cycle and we demonstrated our ability to generate strong financial results without any meaningful benefit from large project awards. During 2024, we generated revenue of $159,000,000 and nearly $13,000,000 of adjusted EBITDA from our small fab and services business. Importantly, we were able to convert this to roughly $13,000,000 of free cash flow, which allowed us to further strengthen our financial position and end the year with just over $67,000,000 in cash and short term investments.

As we look to 2025, we continue to be encouraged by the bid activity for our fabrication offerings and remain focused on expanding our presence in markets outside of oil and gas such as infrastructure, government and high-tech manufacturing. Our success with our NASA project during 2024 demonstrates our potential opportunity in markets outside of our traditional oil and gas markets. These end markets place a premium on quality and schedule certainty, areas where we have a proven record of delivering. We’re also starting to see initial bidding activity in nuclear and data centers and hope to demonstrate to those customers our ability to lower their total cost of install. As it relates to our large fab opportunities, we have been encouraged by the recent pickup in dialogue with customers whose projects have been installed due to measures put in place by the prior administration.

The lifting of the ban on LNG projects has led to resumption of activity in this market. However, we’re still in very early stages and the timing of any large project awards is always difficult to predict, but we have been encouraged by the uptick in activity. Importantly, the favorable structural drivers for the fabrication markets remain in place as there continues to be limited fabrication capacity in the market for the anticipated project opportunities in our backyard for the next two to three years. As a result of the anticipated pickup in construction activity in the Gulf Coast region, we’re starting to have conversations with customers regarding capacity reservations. We don’t anticipate many of these large fabrication projects being awarded until the back half of the year at the earliest as these contracts take time to negotiate.

That said, we will remain disciplined and we will continue to build on the foundation of small scale fabrication while we wait for the right large project opportunity. Looking at our services business, the project delays that have been impacting our services activity mostly within our Spark safety offering appear to be subsiding. Additionally, our recently launched Cleaning and Environmental Services business or CES is beginning to see increased volume as decommissioning activity gains momentum. We believe our investments in this business were well timed and are excited by the opportunities in this market. While we are encouraged by the improved activity for Spark Safety and CES, we are projecting lower activity levels in our core services business in 2025 as our customers are forecasting lower capital spending levels in the Gulf Of America.

This is being driven by lower demand for crude and the resulting lower margins. We are fortunate to have a diversified base of services to maximize our value to our customers and will continue to build on this base as our customers continue to look for integrated offerings. As it relates to our Shipyard division, as we have discussed, we substantially completed our remaining operational shipyard obligations at the end of twenty twenty three. The warranty periods for our 70 vehicle ferry and one of the 40 vehicle ferries ended in 2024 And the warranty period for our remaining 40 vehicle ferry ends later this month. At the end of last year, we noted that we submitted our final claim to North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Our claim was rejected, which was not a surprise, and we have moved forward with legal avenues to recover previously incurred costs associated with the 40 vehicle ferry projects resulting from the customers’ design deficiencies on the vessels. Overall, we’re very pleased with our financial results during 2024, which came despite some market headwinds, highlighting the resilience and stable foundation of our small fab and services business. We enter 2025 in a strong position to continue executing on our key strategic pillars and we’re focused on continuing to grow our small scale fabrication business, growing and diversifying our services business and further strengthening our project execution. Importantly, we are in an extremely attractive position to execute on our capital allocation strategy. We have a stable base of business that benefits from strong free cash flow conversion and a balance sheet with nearly $70,000,000 of available liquidity.

This provides us with ample financial flexibility and enables us to balance opportunities for investments in organic growth, strategic acquisitions and the potential for return of capital to shareholders. Specifically, the 2025, our capital allocation priorities will focus on continuing to invest in the business we have done in the past by adding service lines organically, including hiring key personnel to help us drive growth in our existing services and penetrate new end markets. We also remain committed to continuing to pursue acquisition opportunities where our growth initiatives can be amplified. We’ll pursue the best path to deliver shareholder value, which will continue to include capital return opportunities if we are not able to find sufficient growth investments that satisfy our risk return hurdles. Gulf Islands is in a strong position with solid optionality and we’re looking forward to building on this foundation.

I would like to thank all of our team members across the organization for their continued hard work and dedication to our strategic goals and our shareholders for their continued support of Gulf Island. I’ll now turn the call over to Wes to discuss our quarterly results in greater detail.

Wes Stockton, Executive Vice President and CFO, Gulf Islands: Thanks, Richard, and good afternoon, everyone. I will discuss our consolidated results and then provide some additional details regarding our segment performance, putting in context the factors mentioned by Richard and their impacts on the quarter. I will then conclude with a discussion of our liquidity and full year financial outlook. Now turning to our quarter results. Consolidated revenue for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four was $37,400,000 essentially flat from the third quarter twenty twenty four, but down from $44,600,000 for the fourth quarter of last year.

The year over year decline was driven primarily by lower services revenue. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA was $3,700,000 for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four, up from adjusted consolidated EBITDA of $2,900,000 for the third quarter twenty twenty four, but down from $6,600,000 for the same period last year. Adjusted consolidated EBITDA for the current quarter excludes EBITDA of $1,100,000 for our Shipyard division and for the prior year quarter excludes the impact of our Shipyard division and net gains from insurance recoveries and costs associated with damage previously caused by Hurricane Ida. Specifically for our Services division, revenue for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four was $18,800,000 a decrease of 23% compared to the fourth quarter twenty twenty three. The decrease was primarily due to lower new project awards driven by less offshore maintenance activity and delayed timing of spark safety project opportunities.

Services EBITDA for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four was $1,400,000 or 7.4% of revenue, down from $3,200,000 or 13.2% of revenue for the prior year period. The decline was primarily due to lower revenue, a less favorable project margin mix and ongoing investments associated with the division CES business line. For our Fabrication division, revenue for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four was $18,700,000 a decrease of $1,000,000 or 4.9% compared to the fourth quarter twenty twenty three. The prior year period included the benefit of the favorable resolution of customer change orders. Absent this prior year benefit, we experienced year over year revenue growth in our fabrication division due to higher small scale fabrication activity for the current period.

Fabrication adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter twenty twenty four was $4,600,000 down from $5,400,000 for the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA for the prior year period excludes the benefit of gains from the net impact of insurance recoveries and costs associated with damage previously caused by Hurricane Ida. The year over year decrease in adjusted EBITDA was due to the previously mentioned change orders, which benefited the prior year period by $3,800,000 Excluding this impact for the prior year, EBITDA for the current quarter improved relative to the prior year quarter due to improved utilization of facilities and resources, driven by the increased small scale fabrication activity, lower overhead cost and a higher margin project mix. For our corporate division, EBITDA was a loss of $2,300,000 for the fourth quarter compared to a loss of $2,000,000 for the prior year period due to higher incentive plan costs and costs associated with initiatives to diversify and enhance our business. With respect to our liquidity, we ended the fourth quarter with a cash and short term investments balance of approximately $67,000,000 consistent with our balance at September 30 as the benefit of our operating results for the current quarter were partially offset by working capital increases during the period, the first principal payment on our debt obligation, capital expenditures and the repurchase of 59,000 shares of our common stock under our share repurchase program.

As of year end, we have remaining authorization to purchase approximately $3,700,000 of our common stock under the program, which expires in December 2025. For the full year 2024, we generated free cash flow of $12,900,000 representing our operating cash flow less capital expenditures of $5,300,000 dollars Given our NOLs, strong balance sheet and anticipated lower capital needs for 2025 relative to 2024, we expect a high EBITDA to free cash flow conversion rate for 2025. At December 31, our debt obligation associated with the resolution of our MPSV litigation was $19,000,000 down from $20,000,000 at September 30 as a result of our first annual debt payment made in December. As a reminder, our annual payments of principal and interest of approximately $1,700,000 will be made in December of each year over the remaining fourteen year term of the obligation. Our cash balance and the long duration of our debt puts us in a strong liquidity position and provides significant flexibility to pursue our growth objectives and evaluate opportunities to return capital to our shareholders.

And finally, turning to our outlook and capital requirements for 2025. As Richard discussed, we continue to be encouraged by a pickup in bidding activity for large scale fabrication. Further, the project delays impacting our Spark Safety business line have begun to subside and the CES business line is beginning to see increased volume as decommissioning activity gains momentum. However, while these trends are encouraging, given the uncertainty and the timing of any potential large project award and our expectation for lower capital spending by our services customers in The Gulf America during 2025, we currently expect our full year 2025 consolidated EBITDA to be less than our 2024 adjusted consolidated EBITDA of 12,800,000 And with respect to our capital requirements for 2025, we anticipate our capital expenditures to be approximately $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 related primarily to our ongoing maintenance capital needs. This concludes our prepared remarks.

Operator, you may now open the line for questions.

Conference Operator: Great. Thank you. Our first question is from Martin Malloy from Johnson Rice. Please go ahead. Good afternoon.

Congratulations on the strong quarter.

Richard Hupp, President and CEO, Gulf Islands: Hey, good afternoon, Marty.

Conference Operator: First question, just want to try to get some more detail or information about the opportunity set that you’re seeing there for the Fabrication segment. I think you mentioned nuclear and data center in your prepared remarks and with the change in administration, it seems like LNG activity along the Gulf Coast is picking up and there seems to be a trend towards modular liquefaction facilities. And just trying to get a better idea of what you’re seeing out there in terms of the opportunities for you for bidding?

Richard Hupp, President and CEO, Gulf Islands: Yes. We’ve been talking about on the LNG front, again, significant amount of opportunities. Just if you look at the projects in Texas and Louisiana, there’s quite a bit of volume of steel projects that have been put on hold from the prior administration that I think will move forward. We’re already seeing signs of it. We’re having conversations with key customers.

As we talked about in our prepared remarks though, these are large projects and they take a long time to get moving even with the policy being lifted. So we anticipate momentum in the back half of the year with regard to these LNG plants. And as we’ve discussed, we’re bidding on a few key projects that I feel we’re in a good position for. As it relates to the data centers and nuclear projects, we’ve been bidding data center, various data center projects on and off. But it’s one very competitive that market is and some of the things that we’re bidding are just pretty simple structural steel.

So there’s really very little value add. And so we are trying to use kind of this opportunity to discuss with our potential end users and customers to maybe move up the food chain with regard to the quality of the fabrication, things that were really our footprint and our capabilities can stand out and it really adds value to the overall end user. And then Marty, we’ve seen really a pickup in activity with regard to nuclear here in the past a couple of quarters. And the challenge there is that these projects aren’t going to happen immediately, but we’re fielding RFQs from various customers on nuclear projects. So we’re really bullish on the fabrication side of the business as we’ve discussed.

We’ve got a great facility in Houma, Louisiana, a big yard that shows well. We’ve put a lot of capital upgrades in the past two years where I think we could take advantage of the improvements that we’ve made in the yard and time this opportunity for end market growth.

Conference Operator: Okay, great. That’s very helpful. And then for my second question, you’ve got a strong balance sheet over $4 a share in cash. Can you maybe talk about what you’re seeing in terms of the pipeline of maybe acquisition opportunities that you’re evaluating or is it increasing, decreasing in the quality?

Richard Hupp, President and CEO, Gulf Islands: Yes. This is really where it’s a little frustrating. We do have the cash and our primary objective is to go do an acquisition that’s strategic. And it’s just that the bid ask or what we want to pay for and what the sellers want to get for it. It’s just the spreads been more than what we’ve anticipated.

We’re still looking and it is a challenge, but it is a very primary objective for us to add

Wes Stockton, Executive Vice President and CFO, Gulf Islands: growth through acquisition.

Conference Operator: Great. Thank you very much.

Richard Hupp, President and CEO, Gulf Islands: One and Well, in closing, I want to thank our customers and shareholders for their continued support as well as recognize our employees who continue to demonstrate a commitment to Gulf Island success. For those on the call, thanks again for your interest in Gulf Island. If we’re not able to connect during the quarter, I look forward to speaking with you on our next conference call and updating you on our progress. Be safe. Take care.

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