Earnings call transcript: Willdan Group Q1 2025 beats expectations, stock rises

Willdan Group Inc. (WLDN) delivered a strong performance in the first quarter of 2025, surpassing earnings and revenue forecasts. The company reported an adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.63, significantly higher than the expected $0.44. Revenue reached $152.39 million, more than double the forecast of $73.1 million. Following the announcement, Willdan’s stock rose by 1.5% during regular trading hours and continued to climb 3.37% in after-hours trading. According to InvestingPro data, the company maintains a strong financial health score of 3.25 (rated as "GREAT"), with analysts seeing significant upside potential. InvestingPro analysis suggests the stock is currently undervalued based on its Fair Value model.

Key Takeaways

• Willdan’s Q1 2025 EPS of $0.63 exceeded forecasts by 43%.
• Revenue rose 24% year-over-year, reaching $152 million.
• The stock price increased 1.5% during the trading day and 3.37% after hours.
• Strategic acquisitions and expanded services drive growth.
• The company raised its 2025 financial targets.

Company Performance

Willdan Group’s performance in Q1 2025 showcased robust growth, with revenue and earnings significantly outpacing expectations. The company’s strategic focus on expanding its capabilities in electrical engineering and data center solutions contributed to a 24% year-over-year increase in contract revenue. The acquisitions of Amica, Alpha Inspections, and APG further strengthened Willdan’s market position, allowing it to capitalize on the rising demand for electricity and infrastructure optimization.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $152 million, up 24% year-over-year
• Net revenue: $85 million, up 24% year-over-year
• Adjusted EBITDA: $14.4 million, up 31% year-over-year
• Adjusted diluted EPS: $0.63, up 58% year-over-year
• Effective tax rate: 9.75%

Earnings vs. Forecast

Willdan’s Q1 2025 results significantly surpassed analyst expectations. The company’s EPS of $0.63 exceeded the forecast of $0.44 by 43%, and revenue of $152.39 million was more than twice the anticipated $73.1 million. This marks a substantial earnings surprise, highlighting the company’s strong operational performance and strategic execution.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Willdan’s stock experienced a positive response from investors. The stock price increased by 1.5% during regular trading hours, closing at $40.09, and continued to rise by 3.37% in after-hours trading, reaching $41.93. This upward movement reflects investor confidence in the company’s growth trajectory and strategic initiatives. InvestingPro data reveals analyst price targets ranging from $56 to $59, suggesting significant potential upside. The company has demonstrated strong momentum with a 22.54% return over the past year.

Outlook & Guidance

Willdan has raised its financial targets for 2025, projecting net revenue between $325 million and $335 million, adjusted EBITDA of $65 million to $68 million, and adjusted diluted EPS of $2.75 to $2.90. The company aims to achieve a 20% operating margin and is closely monitoring potential tariff impacts on equipment pricing.

Executive Commentary

CEO Mike Beaver highlighted the structural shift in the energy landscape, stating, "We’re seeing a return to meaningful load growth." He emphasized the expected 50% increase in U.S. electricity demand by 2050 and noted, "We’ve got a great book of business right now and customers that want to expand our programs."

Risks and Challenges

• Tariff impacts on equipment pricing could affect margins.
• Competition in the data center and engineering sectors may intensify.
• Macroeconomic pressures could influence customer spending.
• Supply chain disruptions could affect project timelines.
• Regulatory changes in energy policies may impact operations.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company’s strategies to mitigate tariff risks and the timing of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power contract. Willdan’s management addressed these concerns, highlighting strong organic growth across business segments and opportunities in the data center market. For comprehensive analysis of WLDN’s growth prospects and risk factors, investors can access the detailed Pro Research Report available exclusively on InvestingPro, which provides in-depth analysis of the company’s competitive position and growth drivers.

Full transcript - Willdan Group Inc (WLDN) Q1 2025:

Conference Operator: Greetings and welcome to the Welldan Group First Quarter Fiscal Year twenty twenty five Financial Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Now I’d to turn the conference over to Al Castroc.

Thank you. You may begin.

Al Castroc, Unspecified Executive, Willdan Group: Thank you, Matt. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Willdan Group’s first quarter twenty twenty five earnings call. Joining our call today are Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer and Kim Uhrli, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Our conference call remarks will include both GAAP and non GAAP financial results. Reconciliations between GAAP and non GAAP measures can be found in today’s press release and in the presentation slides, all of which are available on our website.

Please note that year over year commentary on variances or variances on revenue, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS discussed during our prepared remarks

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: are on an organic basis. We will make

Al Castroc, Unspecified Executive, Willdan Group: forward looking statements about our performance. These statements are based on how we see things today. While we may elect to update these forward looking statements at some point in the future, we do not undertake any obligation to do so. As described in our SEC filings, actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties. With that, I will hand the call over to Mike, who will begin on Slide two.

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: Thanks, Al. We had a strong start to 2025, delivering record first quarter results for revenue, adjusted EBITDA and EPS. We surpassed both analysts’ expectations and our internal forecast. Contract and net revenue each grew 24% year over year, adjusted EBITDA rose 31%, GAAP diluted EPS increased 52 and adjusted diluted EPS was up 58%. These comparisons were all against a strong Q1 last year.

Performance was strong across all business lines, driven by consistent execution. In the quarter, we completed two more acquisitions that expanded our geography and our electrical engineering capabilities. As electric load increases, Willdan’s differentiated capabilities and consistent execution position us well for long term growth. Earlier this week, we expanded our credit facility from $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 a key milestone to scale our business. Turning to Slide three, Willdan delivers a broad range of energy and infrastructure solutions to utilities, customers and state and local governments.

Calculated on a pro form a basis for 2025, our commercial customers are forecasted to comprise 15% of our revenue, double the percentage of last year. State and local government customers are forecasted to be 44%, while utilities are forecasted to be around 41% of our revenue. Demand remains healthy across all customer groups. Our commercial work is increasingly centered around electricity usage at data centers where AI driven load growth is creating significant demand. We’ll then itself in technology clients navigate energy constraints, optimize infrastructure and meet aggressive power requirements.

We see strong momentum in this area and intend to pursue acquisitions that further expand our capabilities and relationships with commercial customers. Our utility business continues to perform well. Most of our utility contracts are multi year in nature, funded by ratepayer fees and continue to provide a strong foundation of recurring revenue. On the public sector side, our work for state and local governments continues to grow organically at a double digit pace. Demand remains solid and the outlook is positive.

It’s worth noting that Willdan has minimal exposure to direct federal contracts or federally funded programs. As a result, recent federal spending cuts have had little impact on our backlog or near term visibility, just like I said last quarter. Most of our public sector work is funded through user fees and municipal bonds, which have remained stable. Last week, we released our 2024 sustainability report highlighting meaningful progress. Notably, we help clients avoid about 100 times the GHG emissions that the company emits.

Our energy segment makes up more than 80% of our revenue, while the legacy part of our business makes up the remainder. We work out of 55 offices across North America and ended the quarter with seventeen seventy employees, primarily scientists, engineers, and technical professionals. On slide four, our upfront policy and data analytics work informs will to end strategy and helps us navigate market change. In our upfront work, we are seeing particular demand for integrated resource planning and asset valuation on projects associated with data center electricity load. Those market changes have led us to acquisitions that provide solutions to these clients.

In engineering, we saw strong execution and growth, particularly with customers.

Conference Operator: In program management, we performed above

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: our plan on utility programs and building energy programs for cities. Putting this model to work, for the last twenty five years, we’ve performed upfront financial planning and on call civil engineering work for the City of Fairfield, California. Then in Q1, we were awarded a new $30,000,000 program management energy savings and modernization contract that provides EV charging stations, solar arrays, central plant and other electric infrastructure upgrades. On slide five, we have a strong pipeline of opportunities that we are converting into contracts. Here are just a few examples we converted since our last conference call.

I already talked about the City Of Fairfield, California example. Then for the Paramount Unified School District, that’s another example of cross selling. We won an $18,000,000 design and management contract for solar arrays and EV charging stations. For National Grid in Massachusetts, we were awarded a new $20,000,000 multiple award contract providing energy efficiency services to small business. And for Warner School District, we were awarded a new $11,000,000 contract.

We were also awarded an important recompete to provide the California Public Utility Commission, CPUC, with integrated resource planning technical support. That $9,800,000 award supports analysis of the resource stack necessary to achieve California ISO’s requirements. On the last call, I mentioned winning the expanded recompete with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power The new $330,000,000 5 year contract delivers more complex energy efficiency measures to a broader set of commercial and government clients. We don’t expect significant revenue from the LADWP program until the fourth quarter of this year, but ultimately think it will become among our largest programs annually. On slide six.

From 1970 to 02/2005, the U. S. Experienced several decades of sustained electric load growth, followed by fifteen years of relative flatness. Today, we’re seeing a return to meaningful load growth, marking a structural shift in the energy landscape. This shift is creating significant new opportunities for LilDan, and we believe it will be a powerful tailwind for our business in the

Conference Operator: years

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: ahead. Key drivers include the electrification of cities, buildings, transportation, reshoring of industrial manufacturing, and the rapid rise in electricity demand from data centers powering AI. Electricity demand in The U. S. Is expected to increase by 50 between now and 02/1950.

We set a fair amount of effort this quarter discussing and preparing for the uncertainty created by tariff forces. This new uncertainty has had little immediate impact on Wilden. However,

Al Castroc, Unspecified Executive, Willdan Group: we and our

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: clients are watching carefully for price increases in the specialized equipment we use on our projects. We are inserting more flexible contract terms with our customers, and we are working to identify alternative product suppliers that could be cost effective if tariff risks persist. If a recession occurs, we’ll then be better positioned than most due to our clients’ funding sources, but we would not likely be immune to a broad economic slowdown. Turn to slide seven. The graph on the left depicts the strong margin execution the team has delivered over the last five years.

Several years ago, we laid out a goal of 20% operating margin, measured as adjusted EBITDA divided by net revenue. We’ve significantly improved our operating margin over the last five years, reflecting disciplined execution, more efficient cost absorption and a shift towards higher value work. The 20% EBITDA margin in our industry represents best in class performance and is associated with a highly differentiated customer solution. This year, Willdan estimates that it will be around that 20% margin goal. Q1 is typically our lowest margin quarter, so we’re right on track for this year.

On the right, and reflected over the same five year period, we’ve continued to increase revenue per employee, reflecting higher productivity and the growing value our teams are delivering to clients. This consistent improvement alongside our expanding operating margin underscores the scalability of our model and the strength of our operating leverage as we grow. Jim, over to you.

Jim Uhrli, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Willdan Group: Thanks, Mike, and good afternoon, everyone. On Slide eight, we delivered a strong start to the year exceeding expectations as our teams continue to execute at a high level. We also completed two additional strategic acquisitions while expanding and extending our credit facilities. With low leverage and strong liquidity, we’re well positioned to invest in future growth. In the first quarter of twenty twenty five, contract revenue increased 24% year over year to $152,000,000 The acquisitions of Amica, Alpha Inspections and APG contributed $6,000,000 to the contract revenue in the quarter.

Net revenue also grew 24 to $85,000,000 The recent acquisitions brought 6% of that growth, and a fourteen week in the quarter represents another 6% increase, resulting in an apples to apples organic growth rate of 12% for net revenue in the quarter. Contract revenue growth was strong in both of our segments. Revenue in our Energy segment rose 25%, led by double digit increases in program and construction management activity and continued strength in utility programs. Engineering and Consulting segment revenues increased 20%, reflecting strong client demand and continued geographic expansion. While gross profits increased 22% over the period over the prior year, G and A expenses increased only 20% in the quarter compared to the 24% net revenue growth, reflecting the operating leverage we’ve been experiencing as we grow.

The year over year increase was primarily due to increased wage and incentive costs consistent with the earnings growth as well as higher stock based compensation resulting from the increase in stock price. Intangible amortization expenses increased by $600,000 reflecting the impact of our recent acquisitions, while interest expense decreased by $300,000 to $1,800,000 on our reduced leverage. The growth in revenues and the disciplined cost control resulted in a 32% increase in pretax income and a favorable 9.75% effective income tax rate resulted in net income of $4,700,000 for the first quarter of twenty twenty five, up 59% from the $2,900,000 Q1 20 20 4 bottom line. The favorable income tax rate was a result of discrete benefits from divesting of stock compensation in the quarter as well as the expected energy efficiency tax incentives. We continue to expect a full year tax rate of approximately 16%.

Adjusted EBITDA was $14,400,000 or 16.9% of net revenue, up 31% compared to $11,000,000 in the first quarter of twenty twenty four. GAAP earnings per share were $0.32 up from $0.21 per share a year ago, while adjusted diluted earnings per share increased 58% to $0.63 per share compared to $0.40 a year ago. This was a record first quarter for Willdan in terms of contract revenue, net revenue, adjusted EBITDA and earnings. On Slide nine, we present some key balance sheet and cash flow metrics that reflect the continued strength of our financial position. Net debt was $49,000,000 at quarter end after deploying $32,000,000 in cash for two acquisitions.

Total leverage was a modest 0.8 times adjusted EBITDA. Free cash flow was $40,000,000 over the trailing twelve months or a robust $2.74 per share. We ended the quarter with $38,000,000 in cash and access to an undrawn $50,000,000 line of credit, resulting in total liquidity of $88,000,000 at that time. Turning to Slide 10. Earlier this week, we amended and restated our credit agreements, expanding it to $200,000,000 to enhance financial flexibility, reduce costs and extend our maturity by five years.

The new structure includes a $100,000,000 revolver under which we’ve drawn 38,000,000 The new term loan A has been reduced to $50,000,000 and supplemented by an additional $50,000,000 delayed draw term loan feature, which remains unused at this time. The term loan A will be amortized at $2,500,000 per year over the five year term. Interest rate spreads over SOFR or prime were generally reduced by 25 basis points with the spread varying depending on the leverage ratio for any given quarterly period. The expanded and extended credit facilities along with future cash flows provide the resources necessary to drive growth and expand our service capabilities in strategic markets through acquisitions while maintaining a strong balance sheet and conservative leverage. On Slide 11, based on our strong performance to start the year, we’re raising our 2025 financial targets.

We now expect net revenue for the year to be in the range of $325,000,000 to $335,000,000 adjusted EBITDA in the range of $65,000,000 to $68,000,000 and adjusted diluted earnings per share in the range of $2.75 to $2.9 per share. These targets do not assume any future acquisitions. Operator, we’re now ready for questions.

Craig Irwin, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Great. Thank you. We’ll now

Conference Operator: be conducting a question and answer If you’d like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: You may press star 2

Conference Operator: to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. First question is from Craig Irwin from ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Craig Irwin, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Good evening and congratulations on another strong quarter and thank you for taking my question.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: Mike, top

Craig Irwin, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: question on investors’ minds these days is actually tariffs. And I might have missed it, but I don’t think you mentioned tariffs as far as the impact on Wilden. It’s creating a lot of confusion out there, but it sounds like your customer base is already committed to the projects. And I’m going to guess that most of the equipment they’re using is not at risk. Can you just address the tariff issue for us and tell us what you understand this meeting?

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: Sure, Greg. And you may have joined just a little late. On Page six of the slide deck, it specifically addresses tariffs. So let me go over

Al Castroc, Unspecified Executive, Willdan Group: that Yeah,

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: really you mentioned the risk is in the equipment that we specify on our projects. We’re looking for price escalation, it hasn’t occurred yet, but it could, that’s possible along with project delays if the equipment just becomes too expensive to be economical. What we’re doing about it is searching high and low for alternative equipment sources. Most of our suppliers have already front loaded equipment over the past quarter, and we have most of the equipment we need for the installations that we have this year because they front loaded and purchased that already. We don’t know what’s going to happen next year at this point.

We’re also inserting more flexible contract terms where we can in all of the new contracts that address tariffs specifically. We haven’t seen any short term impact thus far, but it may be too early. So that’s what we covered, Greg.

Craig Irwin, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Excellent, excellent. And my next question is around return to secular load growth, right? So it hasn’t really found its way into your valuation, But, you know, Wildan seems like a, you know, a really important part of the solution when, you know, transmission lines take many years to actually site and construct. New generation faces tremendous, you know, environmental hurdles, you know, even even in a republican administration, for construction. And, you know, the idea of brownouts and blackouts is highly unappealing to, different utility commissions.

You know, can can you say what the tempo of conversation is with your your customers, both both utilities and state and local government? And, you know, how you’re partnering with them to frame the long term solution set both the things that you can execute quickly in a matter of months or years versus some of these other competing solutions that much longer duration in gestation.

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: The market was good with just electrification driving load growth and that was really the status of the world about twelve to eighteen months ago. It was a very healthy market then, and they were talking about low growth for the next twenty five years just based on the electrification of buildings and the transportation networks, EVs and other things. Then about twelve months ago, the conversation changed with AI and data centers piling on top. A lot of the high growth scenarios were just that had been modeled during those early days aren’t even possible likely in the short term because there’s not enough generation, there’s not enough high voltage transmission, you can’t site these facilities quickly enough. So customers have backed off those extreme growth scenarios, and now we’re seeing, you know, two plus percent growth per year, something like that, which is significant in the electric space.

When you consider this is likely a long term trend, it’s likely over the next twenty five years. So there’s conversations with all of our major customers about updating their forecasts, updating their CapEx spending. The lead times for new generation have become even longer, especially around gas turbines. So all of that is happening at once, and often part of the energy stack is energy efficiency as well, which was sort of our legacy market. So we’re building a company that tries to serve those customers in all of those ways.

Craig Irwin, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Excellent. And last question, if I may. Last couple of years, you guys have been pretty conservative around guidance. And, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you raise guidance in your first quarter given that it’s your seasonally, sort of lowest quarter as you start the year. There’s got to be some really interesting things or high confidence things that you’re looking at.

Can you talk about what it is that has you be more confident now than maybe in prior years, even though you have executed very well over the last couple of years? And, are there elephants out there? Are there things out there that could work to the plus side for you as we look at potential continued strength in the building business book?

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: Well, Q1 came in above our own internal forecast. It was just very strong and it wasn’t any one area. It was across the board. We’re just performing very well and some of our customers are looking at upsizing the size of contract that we have on these legacy programs. So with that already completed, Craig, we just thought it was the right thing to do and in good conscience we needed to raise estimates modestly, which we did.

That’s what we attempted to do. Even taking into account some of the tariff risks maybe in the fourth quarter or something like that, We’re just we’ve got a great book of business right now and customers that want to expand our programs. So that’s why we did.

Craig Irwin, Analyst, ROTH Capital Partners: Great. Well, on another strong quarter. I’ll go ahead and hop back in the queue.

Conference Operator: Next question is from Tim Moore from Clear Street. Please go ahead.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: Thanks. Organic growth was very strong, even excluding the extra week in the quarter and obviously the pulling out the acquisition contribution that was impressive. So I just thought, you mentioned very broad based growth drivers. Are there just thinking about the opposite side of the spectrum, I’m kind of curious, are there any pockets or end markets or consulting engagement types where maybe you’re seeing any type of slowdown in demand since late last year or anything maybe not as compelling or accelerating? Just kind of curious on the opposite end.

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: Jim, I can’t think of any headwind we’ve seen in the actual operations, can

Jim Uhrli, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Willdan Group: you? No, not significant ones. No. A little less in the permitting field and a few places, but nothing worth mentioning really.

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: No, no. The major risk out there, Tim, is equipment risk and tariffs and no one knows how that will occur, but the rest of the business is doing just very well across the board.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: That’s really helpful. Just out of curiosity, have you ever I mean, this might be more of a project calculation, but I mean, have you ever kind of on these larger contracts, let’s call them $100,000,000 plus multi year contracts. I mean equipment, if you’re kind of quantify how much equipment is of that, mean, we’re talking like equipments 10% of the project costs, something like that. So I mean tariffs wouldn’t drastically hurt you or harm you with some price escalators in there?

Jim Uhrli, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Willdan Group: Yes, think in the parts of our business where we’re really working through the installation of equipment and think material and equipment costs are probably 25% to 30% of what the overall contract value would be, something like that, that’s the exposure there.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: Okay. That’s helpful. And that’s over multiyear contracts, such as the five year with the Los Angeles Department of

Jim Uhrli, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Willdan Group: that’s right. That’s right.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: And then just on that Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, it was we talked about last time you reported, it was a great renewal, but the timing of the renewal is there’s a gap definitely in the first half of the year. So now you’re saying you think that’s really going to start ramping in the fourth quarter. So how should we think about I mean, the momentum is really good in the rest of the business and it clearly overpowered any whatever the sales gap would have been the March, whether it was 7,000,000 or $8,000,000 something like that. So should we just not things are going just so well, it’s not even a blip. The way that that renews and the timing of the start gap.

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: Tim, think you pointed out the biggest concern we probably had in Q1. Without our biggest program up and running, what was the result going to be? And we blew right through that. We overcame that headwind and posted, as you mentioned, 12% organic growth on a normalized basis, even better than that actually. So that just shows the strength of the business.

We were concerned about it also. We had no revenue for LADWP in the quarter, and I don’t think we’re going to have any in Q2 either or certainly not much. By Q4, we’ve now received notice to proceed. We’re working through the administrative hurdles of ramping up such a big program. And I think that by the end of the year, we’ll start to see some real momentum, especially going into 2026 that they should be cranked up.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: That’s terrific. And I’ve got one last question. APG, the alternative power generation acquisitions seemed amazing and it really increased your sales exposure to data centers. If I remember correctly, maybe you might have 10% to 15% now. I mean, it’s probably the bulk of the commercial exposure you have.

I was just wondering, have you thought about integrating the two from your previous kind of maybe data center exposure team with the EPG team? Are you going keep them kind of separate? I’m just wondering if they’re going to be cross selling or really kind of working together to really grow that business even faster.

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: They started cross selling before we closed the transaction. They’re in close communication. We’re not going to physically merge them, but we don’t need to. We’ve already compared the customer lists. We’re already probably executing projects at this point between the two groups.

So that’s exactly the strategy.

Tim Moore, Analyst, Clear Street: That’s terrific. Thanks, and that’s it for my questions.

Conference Operator: If there are no further questions, I’d like to turn the floor back to Mike Bieber for any closing comments.

Mike Beaver, President and Chief Executive Officer, Willdan Group: I just want to thank our customers, employees and investors for their interest in Willdan. We’ve got several upcoming investor conferences, so we’ll see some of you in person soon. Otherwise, we’ll talk to you next quarter. Thank you.

Conference Operator: This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you again for your participation.

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