Tutor Perini Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
February 27, 2025

Key Takeaways

  • Record operating cash flow: Generated $330 million in Q4 and a full-year record that exceeded the prior annual high by approximately $200 million.
  • Significant debt reduction: Paid down $477 million (52%) of total debt since year-end 2023, including the full payoff of the Term Loan B.
  • Record backlog: Backlog reached $18.7 billion—up 84% year-over-year and 33% in Q4—providing strong visibility into future revenue and earnings.
  • 2025 profitability guidance: Company expects to return to profitability with EPS of $1.50–$1.90 and double-digit revenue growth, weighted more heavily in H2.
  • Legacy dispute charges: Operating income was hit by $347 million of net charges in 2024 from adverse legal judgments and dispute settlements, with roughly a dozen significant claims still outstanding.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Tutor Perini Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Tudor Perini Corporation's Fourth Quarter twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call. My name is Stacy, and I will be your coordinator for today. All participants are currently in a listen only mode. Following management's prepared remarks, we will be opening the call for a question and answer session. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded for replay purposes.

Operator

I would now like to turn the conference over to your host for today, Mr. Jorge Casado, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Jorge Casado
Jorge Casado
Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at Tutor Perini

Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us. With us today are Gary Smalley, CEO and President Ron Tudor, Executive Chairman and Ryan Soroka, Executive Vice President and CFO. Before we discuss our results, I will remind everyone that during this call, we will be making forward looking statements, which are based on management's current assessment of existing trends and information. There is an inherent risk that our actual results could differ materially. You can find disclosures about risk factors that could contribute to such differences in our Form 10 K, which we are filing today.

Jorge Casado
Jorge Casado
Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications at Tutor Perini

The company assumes no obligation to update forward looking statements, whether due to new information, future events or otherwise, other than as required by law. Thank you. And with that, I will turn the call over to Gary Smalley.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Thanks, Jorge. Hello, everyone, and thank you all for joining us.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

First, let me begin by saying thank you to everyone who reached out to us during the recent wildfires in Los Angeles. We appreciate your support and concern. While our operations were not impacted, a few of our employees unfortunately lost their homes to the fires and are now dealing with the challenges of relocating and rebuilding. The scale of destruction in some areas of L. A.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Was truly devastating and unprecedented, and our hearts go out to everyone who has been and continues to be affected. We are committed to assisting our local community in the recovery and expect to participate in some of the debris removal activities that are just getting started. I'm pleased to be presenting to you for the first time in my new role as CEO, but it is important to me that I begin by recognizing the extraordinary contributions of Ron Tudor, not just to Tutor Perini, but also to the entire engineering and construction industry. Ron is certainly an icon, really a legend in the industry. He has passionately given it his all every day for more than sixty one years he has been leading our company.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

So I'd like to congratulate Ron on an extraordinary career and express my gratitude for his leadership, mentorship, discipline and commitment to excellence as he transitions into his Executive Chairman role. I've learned a lot over the last decade by working closely with Ron, so the transition to CEO has been as smooth as you can imagine. I'm grateful that we will continue to have Ron with us for the rest of this year and all of next year as Executive Chairman. Since we have already gotten this question numerous times, let me summarize what Ron's primary focus will be as Executive Chairman. First, he will continue to provide guidance and advice regarding the resolution of the shrinking list of our remaining legacy disputes.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Second, Ron will continue to review the cost estimates and provide his input as to the bidding strategy for the major projects that we will be bidding over the next couple of years. That will give us the luxury of additional scrutiny and advice from the perspective of someone who has pretty much seen it all. Third, Ron is currently helping drive the setup of the major projects that we have already been awarded over the last several months. The importance of proper project setup of these megaprojects cannot be understated because it is the first key step toward the successful execution of this work. Ron will comment more on this shortly.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

And lastly, Ron will continue to serve as an advisor and sounding board to me and my leadership team as the company begins the next chapter of what should be unprecedented earnings growth and operational performance. Before I discuss our results, I'd like to briefly share with you some of my priorities as Tuberini's new CEO. Certainly, one of my key priorities is the importance of our human capital and specifically making sure that we continue to attract and retain the best talent in our industry. We work on some of the largest and most complex projects in The United States, And this is why we need the best of the best working for us and, quite frankly, why we have been able to attract the quality of employees that we have. We want Tutaprene to be the employer of choice in the construction industry.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Another important priority, of course, is returning the company to profitability. Our record backlog, which I will discuss more in a moment, should provide us with a solid foundation for a profitable multiyear stream of growing revenue and earnings beginning in 2025, followed by far superior performance in 'twenty six and 'twenty seven. To achieve consistent profitability, we will closely manage project execution and performance against our cost budgets, while enhancing our project risk management capabilities. We will also continue to focus on resolving our remaining legacy disputes as expeditiously as possible, while still delivering outcomes that are in the best interest of the company and our shareholders. Another priority is a sustained focus on cash generation.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Our record backlog will also help in this regard as our elevated earnings from project execution are converted into cash And our continued focus on negotiating improved and fair contractual terms should help reduce the likelihood of protracted disputes that have hindered historical cash generation at times. Next, it's important to me that we set earnings goals that are ambitious yet reasonable, and that we consistently achieve and sometimes even exceed our guidance. I realize that we have not had a good track record of achieving our guidance over the past couple of years. But it is important to note that a lot of the causes of our earnings challenges in recent periods are behind us, so we are confident in our ability to more accurately forecast given this lower risk of earnings volatility going forward. Another important priority deals with making optimal capital allocation decisions that are best for the company and that will ultimately create long term value for our shareholders.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Specifically, as we build up excess cash from continued cash generation, we will look at returning capital to shareholders. And we will also be looking to refinance our senior notes sometime next year after the two year non callable period has passed. We're also focused on finding ways where we can leverage technology, including artificial intelligence, to help us better plan, track and execute projects. The construction industry has historically been less forward looking than other industries when it comes to technology, but we are exploring available solutions and will continue to identify and make investments that can improve our operations and productivity. As you can tell, all my priorities are intended to significantly increase short- and long term value to our shareholders while maintaining Tuberini as the preeminent leader of our industry.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Now given recent market concerns regarding the Trump administration's scrutiny of federal spending and implementation of new tariffs, it is important to point out that we do not repeat, do not anticipate any significant impacts to our business related to these factors. From a funding perspective, we do not see the risk of any of our major projects being canceled, delayed or defunded at this time. Some of our major projects are state or local funded or are a combination of state and local funding. The ones with federal money in whole or in part have funding that has already been committed and or the projects are strategically important to The United States. In terms of potential tariffs, we frequently buy out materials such as steel and concrete as well as large equipment items like tunnel boring machines at the onset of projects, which mitigates the risk of future equipment and commodity price increases.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

In addition, many of our contracts have Buy American provisions to promote the use of domestic products, and many have allowances or escalation clauses that can protect us from certain unforeseen cost increases, including those associated with new tariffs. Turning now to our financials. We had another year of largely mixed results in 2024 as we settled or otherwise resolved various legacy disputes. With that said, our record cash generation, enormous debt pay down, record backlog and double digit revenue growth all represent significant improvements over 2023. Beginning with cash.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

As we had anticipated and previously communicated, we closed the year with extremely strong operating cash flow, generating $330,000,000 of cash in the fourth quarter alone and $5.00 $4,000,000 for the full year of 2024. This was our third consecutive year of record operating cash flow, shattering the prior year's record by approximately $200,000,000 Our operating cash flow for just the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four alone exceeded our previous record for annual operating cash flow for the full year of 2023. As we announced last week, we have continued to strengthen our balance sheet by utilizing our record cash to substantially lower our debt. We have now paid off our term loan B in its entirety and have exceeded the pace of our debt reduction commitments. Specifically, we have reduced our total debt by $477,000,000 or 52% since the end of twenty twenty three.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

We finished 2024 with a new all time record backlog of $18,700,000,000 which grew an amazing 84% year over year. Backlog grew 33% in the fourth quarter alone, far exceeding the previous record of $14,000,000,000 that we just set last quarter. Our book to burn ratio for the fourth quarter was an almost unheard of 5.4x and an impressive 3x for the full year. Also, the Civil, Building and Specialty Contractor segments all ended the year with backlog that exceeded each of their previous record highs. Regarding revenue, we achieved 12% growth in 2024.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Of course, this is a positive, but it's just a drop in the bucket compared to what we foresee for revenue growth for future years beginning in 2025 as the newer projects in our record backlog start to contribute more meaningfully to revenue. Importantly, we also made excellent progress during 2024 in resolving various legacy disputes. As you will see in our Form 10 ks, our 2024 operating income was negatively impacted by a net total of $347,000,000 due to various adverse legal judgments or decisions throughout the year and charges that resulted from the expedited settlement or resolution of disputed matters as well as changes in estimates on various projects, some of which resulted in temporary impacts that will reverse themselves in the future. As we said last quarter, a couple of these legacy disputes resulted in very unexpected and rather inexplicable legal decisions that we strongly disagree with and are appealing. We expect to continue making substantial progress this year and next year in resolving and collecting on the remainder of our legacy disputes, about a dozen or so that are significant.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Had it not been for the charges to earnings that reduced revenue, our revenue growth for 2024 would have been substantially more than the reported 12%, which demonstrates that our core business is growing at a healthy rate. And if not for the magnitude of all of the net charges, we believe that we would have exceeded our previously provided EPS guidance for 2024. So this provides us confidence as to how our core business is performing from a profitability standpoint. It is also important to note that many of the dispute resolutions contributed to a record cash flow in 2024. Our extraordinary backlog growth in 2024 was driven by $12,800,000,000 of new awards and contract adjustments with the largest being the $3,760,000,000 Manhattan Jail project in New York the $1,660,000,000 city center guideway and stations project in Hawaii a $1,400,000,000 health care campus project in California the $1,130,000,000 Newark Airtrain replacement project in New Jersey the $1,100,000,000 Kensico Eastview Connection tunnel project in New York four seventy nine million dollars of additional funding for certain mass transit projects in California four forty nine million dollars for two other healthcare facility projects in California three thirty one million dollars for the initial award of the Accra Harbor Waterfront Repairs Project in Guam a $229,000,000 airport terminal connectors project at the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport in Florida and the company's proportionate share of the Connecticut River Bridge replacement mega project.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Our new award activity to begin 2025 also continues to be impressive. We recently announced two major new awards that were both booked in the first quarter: the $1,180,000,000 Manhattan Tunnel project in New York and $232,000,000 for several owner approved scope options of the Apra Harbor project in Guam, which brings the total value of that project to $563,000,000 I'll now pass the call over to Ron, who will discuss our major bidding opportunities and the setup of our newer projects.

Ronald Tutor
Ronald Tutor
Executive Chairman at Tutor Perini

Thanks, Gary. Our bidding pipeline, as we discussed continually, continues to be full of opportunities as we move forward in the year. Our record backlog enables us to be even more selective than previously as to which of the opportunities we will pursue and focus on bidding projects that have positive contractual terms and consistent with our operational capacities as a general contractor. We will also look at the competition as we always do for each targeted opportunities as we assess our chances of success in the project's potential margin. In the near term, we are tracking various prospective projects across our businesses including those in California, the East Coast, the Midwest and Guam.

Ronald Tutor
Ronald Tutor
Executive Chairman at Tutor Perini

The largest of which is the multibillion dollar Midtown bus terminal replacement in New York City for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey now expected to bid in March. Other potential new projects that we are following include the $3,800,000,000 Southeast Gateway line transit project in Southern California, the $1,800,000,000 South Jersey light rail in New Jersey, as well as numerous major projects that continue to propose in Guam and the Pacific Region. I would also mention that if the U. S. Government participates in the rebuilding of Ukraine after the war is over, we believe our PMSI group is extremely well positioned to participate in that effort having had significant experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan in post war repairs.

Ronald Tutor
Ronald Tutor
Executive Chairman at Tutor Perini

I've been spending a significant amount of my time being sure that our new major projects are properly set up. As Gary mentioned, project set up is critical to project execution, particularly on these very large mega projects. Working closely with Gary and the various operational executives, We are bringing certainty to these projects getting off to a good start including both Brooklyn and Manhattan, the Honolulu Rail project, the Kensington Manhattan tunnel projects, the Apra Harbor project and the Newark Airtrain. I'm extremely satisfied the progress to date including certain renegotiations of contracts, purchasing of equipment and the overall setup and mobilization associated with these mega projects. I'm more than ever convinced that the projects will be successful and they continue to execute as well as we could anticipate. I will now hand it back to you, Gary.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Thank you, Ron. Let's shift gears and spend a few minutes on our outlook, guidance and what we see further down the road for the company. While our Civil business is expected to continue to drive most of our future growth and profitability as it typically does, I'm also excited about the expected contributions from our Building segment. Much of our Building segment backlog is now operating at significantly higher margins than what we have done historically. For example, our two New York jail megaprojects carry margins that are consistent with large complex building projects of a fixed price nature.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Also, many of today's health care projects are larger and more technically complex than, say, traditional commercial office building projects of the past and therefore also command higher margins. So with this in mind and as a reminder to what we discussed last quarter, Rudolph and Sledt, our major California building subsidiary, has various healthcare and education projects in California that are in the preconstruction phase with only a small amount of current backlog recorded for them. Some of these are rather large projects that are soon expected to advance to the construction phase, and we anticipate that we will book significant additional backlog for them in 2025 when this happens. One of them is a large hospital project in Northern California valued at nearly $1,000,000,000 for which we expect a modest amount of backlog to be booked in the second quarter, but the remainder to be booked in the third quarter. And another is a large healthcare lab building in Southern California valued at more than $500,000,000 which is expected to be booked in the second quarter of this year.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

The cash expected from the continued resolution of various legacy disputes discussed earlier combined with cash generated from normal project operations should drive strong cash flow over the next couple of years with cash generation from ongoing projects continuing to be strong even beyond that. For our guidance, based on our assessment of the current market and business outlook, we are expecting a return to profitability with EPS for 2025 in the range of $1.5 to $1.9 combined with double digit revenue growth. As in prior years, our revenue and earnings are expected to be weighted more heavily to the second half of the year due to typical business seasonality that is affected by the weather. This earnings trend is expected to be even more pronounced this year due to the timing of when some of our recent new awards will start to contribute more meaningfully to operating results. Building on my earlier comments about lessons learned and the fresh approach we are taking to guidance, we have factored a more significant amount of contingency for unknown or unexpected outcomes and developments in 2025, including a lower than anticipated success rate for future project pursuits, the potential for project renewal or delays, slower ramp ups for our newer projects, settlements and or adverse legal decisions associated with the resolution of disputes and any impacts associated with tariffs that again we currently do not expect to significantly impact our results.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

We therefore believe that our guidance range appropriately considers all these possibilities. We also believe that our record backlog will not only help us return to profitability in 2025, but will set the stage for significantly better results over the next several years. As you know, we do not typically provide formal guidance beyond the current year, but internally we do project financial results for two additional years as well. Without getting too far ahead of ourselves because our focus needs to be on delivering solid profits in 2025 and also with the understanding that there can always be unforeseen events that change expectations. Internally, we are currently conservatively projecting our EPS in both 'twenty six and 2027 to be more than double our EPS guidance for 2025.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

To clarify, we are not putting out guidance for 'twenty six and 'twenty seven at this time, but I wanted to make sure that you have some idea of the magnitude of the positive results that we're expecting, largely as a result of profitable work that we already have in backlog. Thank you.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

And with that, I will turn the call over to Ryan to discuss our 2024 financial performance in more detail and our guidance assumptions.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

Thanks, Gary, and good afternoon, everyone. I will begin by discussing our results for the year, including our record operating cash, after which I'll review the fourth quarter. Then I'll provide some commentary on our balance sheet and our 2025 guidance assumptions. Our operating cash was certainly one of the biggest highlights of 2024. As Gary mentioned, we generated a new record operating cash flow of $5.00 $4,000,000 for the year, which was up 63% compared to the previous record of $3.00 $8,000,000 for 2023.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

This was our third straight year of record operating cash, and it was driven by approved collection activities, including collections associated with payments on new and existing projects and the continued resolution of certain legacy claims and unapproved change orders. Using our strong cash flow, we've done an excellent job of reducing our debt since the end of twenty twenty three, paying down $477,000,000 or 52% of our total debt, including the full payoff of our term loan B just last week. We expect to generate strong cash flow again in 2025, '20 '20 '6 and 2027. Our cash flow should continue to be enhanced by dispute resolutions. However, we expect going forward that a larger proportion of our cash will be generated from organic operations, that is, from new and existing projects.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

Revenue for 2024 was $4,300,000,000 up 12% compared to $3,900,000,000 in 2023, primarily due to increased project execution activities on certain building and civil segment projects. Civil segment revenue was 2,100,000,000 up 12% compared to $1,900,000,000 in 2023 due to a net increase in project execution activities driven by projects in California, New York, British Columbia and the Asia Pacific region. Building segment revenue was $1,600,000,000 dollars up a strong 24% compared to $1,300,000,000 last year, primarily due to increased project execution activities on various healthcare and educational facility projects in California and the Brooklyn Jail project in New York, all of which have substantial scope of work remaining. We reported a loss from construction operations of $104,000,000 in 2024 compared to $115,000,000 loss in 2023. Our operating income in both years was negatively impacted by net unfavorable adjustments on various projects, primarily due to changes in estimates that resulted from judgments, settlements and resolutions of certain legacy claims and unapproved change orders.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

I refer you to our 10 ks, which we are filing today for more details. Civil segment income from construction operations for 2024 was $138,000,000 compared to $199,000,000 in 2023. The decrease was primarily due to a $102,000,000 charge we took in the third quarter pertaining to an unexpected adverse arbitration decision related to a completed bridge project in California. As we mentioned last quarter, we are appealing this decision. The Building segment posted a loss from construction operations of $24,000,000 for 2024 compared to a $91,000,000 loss in 2023.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

The improvement was principally due to the absence of various prior year unfavorable adjustments as well as $27,000,000 of profit contributions in 2024 associated with the increased revenue for the segment. The Specialty Contractors segment posted a loss from construction operations of $103,000,000 in 2024 compared to January loss in 2023. The improvement was primarily due to the absence of certain prior year unfavorable adjustments, partially offset by certain unfavorable adjustments in 2024 on several completed projects. Corporate G and A expense was $110,000,000 in 2024 compared to $75,000,000 in 2023, with the increase primarily due to higher compensation related expenses, mainly attributable to higher share based compensation expense. As we've mentioned before, the increase in share based compensation expense was primarily due to a substantial increase in the company's stock price during 2024, which impacted the fair value of liability classified awards.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

We reported an income tax benefit of $51,000,000 in 2024 due to our pretax loss for the year and an effective tax rate of 29.3% compared to a tax benefit of $55,000,000 with an effective tax rate of 30.1% in 2023. As we return to profitability in 2025 and in future years, the net operating losses generated in the past three years will help reduce our cash outlays for future income taxes. Net loss attributable to Tudor Perini for 2024 was $164,000,000 or a loss of $3.13 per share compared to a net loss of $171,000,000 or a loss of $3.3 per share in 2023. Now, let's turn to the fourth quarter results. Revenue was $1,100,000,000 up 5% compared to $1,000,000,000 for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

Civil segment revenue was $554,000,000 up 21% compared to $459,000,000 last year. Building segment revenue was $352,000,000 compared to $376,000,000 last year. Specialties Contractor segment revenue was $161,000,000 compared to $186,000,000 last year. The overall revenue improvement was due to the increased project execution activities in the Civil and Building segments. Civil segment income from Construction Operations was $4,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared to $28,000,000 for the fourth quarter last year, with a significantly lower than normal income in the 2024 period due primarily to a temporary earnings reductions of $32,000,000 that resulted from the successful negotiation of significant lower margin and lower risk change orders on a West Coast project.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

This temporary earnings reduction is expected to reverse itself over the remaining life of the project. The Building segment posted a loss from construction operations of $41,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared to a loss of $7,000,000 last year, with the loss in the 2024 period mostly due to a $26,000,000 unfavorable adjustment on a government building project in Florida that is nearing completion. The Specialty Contractors segment posted a loss of $20,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four compared to a loss of $24,000,000 last year. Net loss attributable to Tutor Perini for the fourth quarter of twenty twenty four was $79,000,000 or a loss of $1.51 per share compared to a net loss of $48,000,000 or a loss of $0.91 per share in last year's fourth quarter. Now I will address the balance sheet.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

Our net debt as of 12/31/2024, was just $79,000,000 down 85% compared to $519,000,000 at the end of twenty twenty three. We have continued to reduce our debt in the first quarter of twenty twenty five with the early payoff of our Term Loan B in its entirety just last week. All in all, we believe that our balance sheet is now healthier than it has ever been. Lastly, I'll provide some assumptions regarding our guidance. G and A expense for 2025 is expected to be between $310,000,000 and $320,000,000 Depreciation and amortization expense is anticipated to be approximately $55,000,000 in 2025, with depreciation at $53,000,000 and amortization at $2,000,000 Our substantially reduced debt level will result in a significant decrease in interest expense going forward.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

Interest expense for 2025 is expected to be approximately $55,000,000 of which about $5,000,000 will be noncash. This is $34,000,000 or 38% lower than our interest expense of $89,000,000 in 2024. And this reduced interest expense equates to about $0.5 of incremental EPS for us in 2025. Our effective income tax rate for 2025 is expected to be approximately 21% to 23%. We anticipate non controlling interest to be between $65,000,000 and $75,000,000 significantly higher than last year due to certain large JV projects that are ramping up in 2025.

Ryan Soroka
Ryan Soroka
Executive VP & CFO at Tutor Perini

We expect approximately 53,000,000 weighted average diluted shares outstanding for 2025. And capital expenditures are anticipated to be approximately $140,000,000 to $150,000,000 with the vast majority of the CapEx in 2025, approximately $110,000,000 to $120,000,000 being project specific and owner funded for large equipment items on certain large new projects, such as tunnel boring machines. Thank you. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Gary.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Thanks, Ryan. To recap, the last several quarters have been a truly impressive period of record cash generation, significant debt pay down and unprecedented new award activity for the company. We firmly believe that we are at the dawn of a new era for Tudor Preeni. Our record backlog of 18,700,000,000 has been largely built on new awards with better margins and improved contractual terms. And we believe that this backlog will drive significant double digit revenue growth and earnings stability for the foreseeable future, while also serving as a catalyst for continued strong cash flow as our newer projects progress through design and into construction.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

And on top of this, as Ryan just mentioned, we have the healthiest balance sheet we probably have ever had. When considering all of this and the significant progress that we have made in resolving legacy disputes, it is hard not to be genuinely excited about the future of Tudor Perini. For those of you who have persevered through some of the lean times, we thank you for your patience and look forward to rewarding you with vastly improved and more reliable operating performance. Thank you. And with that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for your questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. Your first question comes from Adam Selheimer with Thompson Davis and Company. Please go ahead.

Adam Thalhimer
Director of Research at Thompson Davis & Co

Hey, good afternoon guys.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Hi, Adam.

Adam Thalhimer
Director of Research at Thompson Davis & Co

Can you give us a little more help on how you see the cadence of the year playing out? I know you said it was kind of even more back half way to the normal. Just curious if you could flesh that out a little more.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Yes, sure, Adam. With respect to revenue, we expect to have quarter over quarter revenue growth as we go throughout the year. And as you would expect with our earnings, we're going to be a little lower in the first quarter than the other quarters because of seasonality reasons. But expect, say, single digit EPS in the first quarter and then a substantial improvement in second quarter and then further improvement in Q3 and Q4 as some of the newer work starts to ramp up and we get out of the bad weather.

Adam Thalhimer
Director of Research at Thompson Davis & Co

Okay. Great. And then, And

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Adam, excuse me, if I could just add that, about two thirds of our EPS is likely to be in the second half of the year if you're looking for your models, if you want a little bit more guidance here.

Adam Thalhimer
Director of Research at Thompson Davis & Co

Perfect. And then at this point, how many legacy claims are left? And do you still think most of those are cleared up in 'twenty five?

Ronald Tutor
Ronald Tutor
Executive Chairman at Tutor Perini

Yes, we have about a dozen left since I've been handling all our litigation. This is Ron Tudor. There's about a 12% to 14% left, probably 75%, eighty % will be cleared out in 2025 percent. That's been taken into consideration in our projection for earnings in 2025. In other words, we've established what we think is the appropriate contingencies to protect ourselves from damaging our earnings projections.

Adam Thalhimer
Director of Research at Thompson Davis & Co

Got it. And then last one for me. Curious if you can just talk high level about capital allocation given the much more flexible balance sheet to get even more flexible.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Yes. Look, Adam, we're a little early to talk a lot of details on that. We still need to discuss with the Board. We wanted to signal to everybody that it certainly is on the front of our minds. But as we progress through the year and we start to generate even more excess cash, we'll have some more details to share.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

But right now, we're looking at keeping all options open and we'll get back to you as soon as we get some finalization with the Board.

Ronald Tutor
Ronald Tutor
Executive Chairman at Tutor Perini

And to add further clarity, I'd like to add because you heard capital expenditures at $140,000,000 to $150,000,000 which is accurate. However, that isn't on a basis of borrowing capital and financing long term equipment. All of that equipment is funded by the contracts themselves and paid directly to us by the owner. So in essence, when we buy $150,000,000 worth of equipment, we build those projects and those projects provide the funds. So that does not affect our cash flow even though in the traditional capital expenditure standpoint, it might.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Yes. So as Ryan said in the prepared comments, if we've got CapEx of $140,000,000 to $150,000,000 about $110,000,000 to $120,000,000 of that will be purely funded by the projects and will come directly from those project billings.

Adam Thalhimer
Director of Research at Thompson Davis & Co

Okay. Okay. I'll turn it over. Thank you.

Operator

Next question, Michael Dudas with Vertical Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Michael Dudas
Equity Research Analyst at Vertical Research Partners

Good afternoon, gentlemen. You guys have been quite busy.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Yes. We have, Mike. Thanks.

Michael Dudas
Equity Research Analyst at Vertical Research Partners

Given the extraordinary growth in backlog and look again your outlook for 2025, relative to history, how much of 2025 revenues, profits are in the current backlog or near current backlog with the orders that come in maybe the last couple of months? Is that relative similar to other years? Is it a larger number? And as we move forward, does that number change a bit as you start to really start to ramp up on these projects in the next few years?

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Yes. It's largely similar to what we've seen in the past. And I wouldn't expect it to really change until probably we're into 2026 and then it's going to be a higher amount that's in backlog that's going to be

Ronald Tutor
Ronald Tutor
Executive Chairman at Tutor Perini

Key point of clarification is to understand that our backlog is so large, there's very little anticipation of new work in those projections. The key element is, is we're relying on contracted and executed backlog to provide the impetus of that explosion of revenue. And with very limited circumstances, are we adding revenue now only as new work may get awarded.

Michael Dudas
Equity Research Analyst at Vertical Research Partners

Clear. Yes, understood. Thank you for that one. That could segue to my follow-up question. How you're positioning and targeting these projects that are on the docket for the next few months relative to the types of terms and conditions.

Michael Dudas
Equity Research Analyst at Vertical Research Partners

Are they stronger and better than what you've booked over the last several quarters in some of these large projects? I assume the competition is pretty low on some of this. So you probably have some pretty good opportunity given your competitive advantage. How much capacity does Tudor look at as you're looking out several years given all the business that you're generating?

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Yes. So, Mike, as we talked about with $18,700,000,000 in backlog, we certainly can be more selective than we have been in the past. This new work that we've been booking, it's better contractual terms than we used to have because now we're finding that we're being treated more fairly. So, are they going to be even better contractual terms going forward? Well, we do have the again the flexibility of being even more selective in what we pursue and how we negotiate things.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

But we've been so selective already. I can't say that we're going to have far improved contractual terms. We're already getting the contractual terms that we really want.

Michael Dudas
Equity Research Analyst at Vertical Research Partners

Understood. Excellent. Thanks, Gary. Thanks, Ron.

Operator

Thank you. I would like to turn the floor over to Gary Smalley for closing remarks.

Gary Smalley
Gary Smalley
President & CEO at Tutor Perini

Thank you. We'll talk to you again in another quarter.

Operator

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. And thank you for your participation.

Executives
    • Jorge Casado
      Jorge Casado
      Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
    • Gary Smalley
      Gary Smalley
      President & CEO
    • Ronald Tutor
      Ronald Tutor
      Executive Chairman
    • Ryan Soroka
      Ryan Soroka
      Executive VP & CFO
Analysts
    • Adam Thalhimer
      Director of Research at Thompson Davis & Co
    • Michael Dudas
      Equity Research Analyst at Vertical Research Partners
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