ICF International Q4 2025 Earnings Report

ICF International EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.47
• Consensus EPS: $1.53
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$0.06
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.87

ICF International Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $443.67 million
• Expected Revenue: $440.90 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$2.77 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -10.60%

ICF International Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q4 2025
• Date: 2/26/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

ICF International (NASDAQ:ICFI), doing business as ICF, is a global consulting and professional services company that helps government agencies and commercial organizations address complex challenges in energy, climate, infrastructure, health, and public policy. The company combines consulting, technology, analytics, and implementation services to support clients from strategy development through program delivery.

ICF’s services include energy efficiency and clean-energy program management, climate and environmental consulting, disaster recovery, public health and human services, transportation planning, cybersecurity, data analytics, and digital transformation. Its work often involves designing and administering public programs, evaluating their effectiveness, managing grants and benefits, and developing technology platforms that support government and organizational operations.

The company was founded in 1969 as the Inner City Fund and later became known as ICF International. It serves clients primarily in the United States, while also supporting government and commercial organizations in international markets, including Europe and other regions. ICF is headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia, and its common stock trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol ICFI.

ICF International Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: ICF is guiding a return to growth in 2026 with revenues $1.89B–$1.96B (≈3% midpoint) and non‑GAAP EPS $6.95–$7.25, and Q1 revenue guidance of about $450M.
• Positive Sentiment: Management expects non‑federal clients to drive the year — non‑federal revenues grew 14% in 2025 and are projected to exceed 60% of 2026 revenues, led by commercial energy which reached nearly $550M and grew ~24% in 2025.
• Neutral Sentiment: The federal business remains the principal near‑term headwind after a ~25% revenue decline in 2025; ICF expects a high‑single‑digit federal revenue decline in 2026 but forecasted sequential improvement with a return to YoY growth by Q4, supported by a firm backlog of $3.4B and an $8.6B pipeline.
• Positive Sentiment: Profitability and balance‑sheet actions are supportive — full‑year adjusted EBITDA margin held near 11.1%, operating cash flow was ~$142M, debt fell to $401M (adjusted leverage ~1.98x), management repurchased ~564,000 shares, declared a $0.14 quarterly dividend, and expects modest margin upside (10–20 bps) from AI efficiencies.

Presentation

[Operator]

Welcome to the fourth quarter and full year 2025 ICF earnings conference call. My name is Lauren Cannon. I will be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Lynn Morgen of AdvisIRy Partners. Lynn, you may begin.

[Lynn Morgen, Partner at AdvisIRy Partners]

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us to review ICF's fourth quarter and full year 2025 performance. With us today from ICF are John Wasson, Chair and CEO, Barry Broadus, CFO. Joining them are James Morgan, Chief Operating Officer, and Anne Choate, President. During this conference call, we will make forward-looking statements to assist you in understanding ICF management's expectations about our future performance. These statements are subject to a number of risks that could cause actual events and results to differ materially, and I refer you to our February 26, 2026 press release and our SEC filings for discussions of those risks. In addition, our statements during this call are based on our views as of today. We anticipate that future developments will cause our views to change. Please consider the information presented in that light.

[Lynn Morgen, Partner at AdvisIRy Partners]

We may at some point elect to update the forward-looking statements made today, but specifically disclaim any obligation to do so. I will now turn the call over to ICF's CEO, John Wasson, to discuss fourth quarter and full year 2025 performance. John?

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Well, thank you, Lynn, and thank you all for joining today's call to review our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results and discuss our business outlook for 2026. Let me also welcome Anne Choate to her first earnings call as President of ICF. With that, let me start by saying that our fourth quarter results were firmly within our guidance ranges and capped a year in which ICF demonstrated notable resilience amid challenging conditions in our federal government business. In fact, we delivered on what we said we would one year ago, and we are anticipating a return to revenue growth in 2026 that at the midpoint represents an over 10% year-on-year swing. To summarize, 2025 revenues were firmly within our guidance framework despite the direct and indirect impacts of the six-week government shutdown.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

We maintained our full year Adjusted EBITDA margins at 2024 levels despite the 7.3% dip in revenues. Revenues from non-federal clients increased 14% to account for 57% of full-year revenues, led by 24% growth in revenues from commercial energy clients, of which 15% represented organic growth. ICF ended the year with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.19x, a firm backlog of $3.4 billion, and a business development pipeline of $8.6 billion. All metrics that underpin our growth expectations for 2026. As I just highlighted, we saw robust demand for our services to commercial, state and local and international government clients throughout 2025, benefiting from the investments we have made over the last several years to build out key growth areas and further diversify our business.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

In fact, we anticipate that this client set will achieve double-digit revenue growth again this year to account for more than 60% of our total revenues in 2026. The top performer in this grouping continued to be commercial energy, where client revenues reached just under $550 million and grew 23% in the fourth quarter and 24% in 2025. We are expecting another year of double-digit growth in this client category in 2026. The primary growth driver continues to be sustained strong demand from our utility clients for our market-leading energy efficiency, flexible load management, electrification, and grid optimization programs, which accounted for approximately 80% of our 2025 commercial energy revenues. These are critical areas for utility clients as they address the tremendous projected growth in electricity demand and the need for grid resilience and affordable energy.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

ICF is the market leader in developing and implementing residential energy efficiency and related programs for utilities with a 35% market share. We are continuing to gain market share in the commercial and industrial energy efficiency space, approaching a 20% share of this part of the market. Our market growth is a direct result of the strong performance of our programs, which consistently meet or exceed client objectives. As a consequence, we are winning re-competes, benefiting from expanded scopes of work and taking away contracts from other providers. Revenues from our commercial energy advisory work picked up in the second half as the regulatory environment became clearer to developers and investors in the energy space. We saw higher demand for our grid engineering services associated with accommodating data center loads as utilities expedite development of new substations.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

ICF's engineering capabilities expanded considerably with our acquisition of CMY in 2023, which strengthened our offerings in grid modernization. This is an area that we expect to build out further organically and potentially through tuck-in acquisitions. We're also seeing additional demand from small modular nuclear reactor developers seeking DOE funding, market perspectives, and regulatory support, along with demand for policy work regarding SMRs from states and stakeholders. We also foresee work exploring the transmission impacts of uprating existing nuclear facilities. Our work on renewables is expected to continue to grow in 2026, led by solar and battery storage. A significant amount of renewable development has been safe harbored for investment tax credit purposes, creating sustained demand for our services for at least the next two to three years.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Despite the reduced support for renewables by the new administration, we see consistent private sector interest in renewable and storage development on non-federal lands. This trend will continue through the advanced economics of these technologies and the need to meet the nearer-term demands of rapid load growth. Keep in mind that when we refer to our commercial energy revenues of $550 million, this number does not include our energy-related work for federal, state and local, and international government clients, which amount to approximately $60 million in 2025. Our commercial energy clients very much value ICF's public sector work as it gives us a broader perspective on emerging technologies as well as regulatory and policy issues.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Moving ahead to our state and local government clients, our revenues increased 4.3% in the fourth quarter, up 2.2% for the year. Our disaster recovery work accounted for approximately 45% of our 2025 state and local revenues, and reflected our current support for over 80 active disaster recovery projects in 23 states and territories. ICF is recognized as a market leader in the development and implementation of disaster recovery and mitigation programs. Just a few days ago, we announced that we were awarded a comprehensive management services contract by the state of Florida. This contract will enable us to compete for a wide variety of opportunities to help Florida improve and accelerate statewide program delivery and strengthen long-term infrastructure resilience. We are very encouraged by this win.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

We continue to see HUD-funded procurement opportunities resulting from the nearly $12 billion appropriation to enable long-term residential housing recovery from disaster declarations in 2023 and 2024, and are actively positioning to compete for these procurements. As has been widely reported, the future role of FEMA is under review. FEMA provides funding for the rebuilding of public infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, following disasters. While this review has slowed the flow of funds, we believe FEMA funding will ultimately flow to state and local governments. Lastly, our international government revenues increased 12.8% in the fourth quarter and 7.6% for the year, reflecting the ramp-up of contracts we won in late 2024 and early 2025 with the European Commission and the U.K. government. We expect to see greater growth in 2026 with the full ramp-up of those contracts.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

In January of this year, we announced two significant new contracts to design and deliver large-scale communication campaigns across all 27 European Union member states. We expect our revenues from non-federal clients to increase at a double-digit rate this year and account for over 60% of our full year 2026 revenues. Let me now turn to the federal arena. As you know, 2025 was a challenging year. We are looking ahead to a much-improved 2026 for ICF. Our revenues from federal government clients declined 25% year-on-year in 2025 as a result of contracts canceled between February and May of last year, the slowdown in new procurements, and the direct and indirect impacts of the six-week government shutdown.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

In terms of where we stand today, our federal business is on much surer footing than last year at this time. We were awarded approximately $1.1 billion in federal government contracts in 2025, representing about one half of our total contract wins for the year. About half of that amount represented new business, including expanding the scope of current contracts. This is a good indication of ICF's strong positioning in our federal markets. After last year's government shutdown ended, procurement activity picked up, and that momentum continued into 2026. We are seeing continued emphasis on efficiency, which we are well positioned for, given that the vast majority of our IT modernization work, which represents about one half of our federal government revenues, is outcome-based and done under fixed price and time and materials contracts.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

We are starting to see a shift towards federal agencies outsourcing more work, which is creating additional opportunities for us. I know investors are concerned about the potential for agentic AI tools such as Claude Code and Gemini and Codex to eliminate the need for platform and service providers to play a central role in modernizing federal IT systems. Agentic coding tools can certainly speed up development, but they cannot replace the need for federal IT modernization. Here are three additional points to consider with respect to ICF. First, as I just noted, 90% of our IT modernization work is outcome-based, and our civilian agency clients require a lot of support in this area. If we can complete certain projects in less time at lower cost, thanks to agentic AI, we will utilize available funding to move on to the next project.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

In other words, reducing costs increases the amount of backlog we can tackle for a client. Second, there is funding. Federal government budgets for IT modernization are robust, and recent reports indicate that a significant majority of federal IT systems still need modernization. Third, it is all about what you're doing and not doing in this arena. ICF does not maintain legacy systems. We don't manage project management offices. We don't run federal call centers, and we have exited other areas that we expected to be commoditized due to AI. Rather, our work is in the higher-end, higher-margin areas like application development, cloud services, AI governance, automation, data curation, and system post-processing. In summary, AI is an accelerator and a net positive for ICF, as we've already seen material improvement in our productivity, both in our client work and the internal management of our business.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Looking across our federal government work more generally, we expect continued scrutiny around spending, the market backdrop is much more stable than it was a year ago. We see solid opportunities aligned with our core capabilities, particularly where agencies are modernizing systems, improving efficiency, and advancing mission-critical public health and/or infrastructure priorities. In 2026, we expect revenues from federal clients to decline at a high single-digit rate. The first half of 2026 will be a difficult comp, as revenues in the first part of 2025 included federal government work that was canceled between February and May of last year. On the plus side, we generally expect sequential improvement in federal revenues from the first quarter through the third quarter of 2026, returning to year-over-year growth by the fourth quarter.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

To sum up our federal work, we have a firm backlog of federal government contracts, a significant pipeline, and expect revenues from our IT modernization work to increase this year. In 2025, we did navigate difficult business conditions to emerge as a stronger company in many ways. We are more diversified, we're more efficient, and we're more agile. These advantages are positive catalysts for ICF in 2026 and beyond. We've demonstrated our confidence in ICF's long-term outlook by repurchasing approximately 564,000 shares of our common stock last year, of which about 220,000 were purchased in the fourth quarter. With that, I'll turn it over to our CFO, Barry Broadus, for his financial review. Barry?

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Thank you, John. Thank you everyone for joining today's call. I'm pleased to provide you with some additional details on our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results. Total revenue in the fourth quarter was $443.7 million, compared to $496.3 million in last year's fourth quarter, and $465.4 million in this year's third quarter. The 10.6% year-over-year decline was consistent with the guidance we provided on our third quarter call. The fourth quarter capped a strong year for our non-federal business, which continued to offset a large portion of the decline in federal revenues. Revenue from our commercial, state and local, and international clients increased 16% year-over-year and accounted for approximately 62% of our fourth quarter total revenues.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Commercial energy remained a standout performer, with revenues up 23.1% year-over-year, accounting for nearly 1/3 of our total revenue, reflecting the sustained demand for our energy efficiency, electrification, flexible load management, and grid optimization services. Conversely, federal revenue declined 35.1% in the fourth quarter, as year-on-year comparisons were amplified by the direct and indirect impacts of the six-week government shutdown. Fourth quarter subcontractor and other direct costs declined 5.8% year-over-year and represented 26.7% of total revenues, compared to 25.4% in the prior year quarter, reflecting increases in our pass-through revenues with our non-federal clients. Fourth quarter gross margins were 35.7% compared to 36.1% a year ago.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

The decrease was due to a shift in our cost mix associated with a higher percentage of subcontractor costs and higher fringe expenses. Indirect and selling expenses declined at a slightly higher rate than revenues as costs decreased $14.2 million or 11% year-on-year to $115.2 million. Our indirect expenses were 26% of total revenues, which were slightly less than last year's fourth quarter and 30 basis points below the third quarter of 2025. Fourth quarter EBITDA was $43 million, compared to $50.8 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $46 million versus $56.3 million last year, with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.4% compared to 11.3% a year ago.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

The decline in Adjusted EBITDA was primarily driven by the decrease in our gross margin I previously mentioned, along with the temporary effects of the government shutdown. Fourth quarter net interest expense totaled $7.2 million compared to $6.5 million in the prior year quarter due to our higher average debt balance, reflecting $55 million in share repurchases executed during the year and the AEG acquisition completed in late 2024. Our tax rate in the quarter was 18.7% compared to 20.9% in the prior comparable quarter as we continue to execute on our tax optimization strategies.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Net income for the quarter was $17.3 million or $0.94 per diluted share compared to net income of $24.6 million or $1.30 per diluted share in the prior year. Non-GAAP EPS was $1.47 versus $1.87 a year ago. Turning to our full-year results. Revenue was $1.87 billion compared to $2.02 billion in 2024. Our non-federal business grew 14.2% year on year, led by the continued strength in commercial energy, which offset a significant portion of the 25.7% decline in federal revenues. Full-year subcontractor and other direct costs represented 24.2% of total revenue, down 90 basis points from 25.1% in 2024, reflecting the larger proportion of revenue tied to ICF direct labor.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

On a four-year basis, gross margins rose 60 basis points, 37.2%, driven by the shift in our mix toward higher margin commercial revenues, which grew 23.2% year-over-year and accounted for 33.2% of total revenues, up from 25% in 2024. Full-year gross margin also benefited from our favorable contract mix as fixed price and TM contracts represented approximately 93% of total revenues, up from 89% in 2024. Cost reimbursable contracts declined to 7% of total revenues. Indirect and selling expenses declined 5% to $492 million or 26.3% of total revenues.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

We remain focused on managing our cost structure in 2025 while continuing to invest in growth areas, including AI and other technology capabilities to support our long-term growth aspirations. 2025 Adjusted EBITDA totaled $207.2 million versus $226 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 11.1%, stable with the 11.2% reported a year ago and consistent with the guidance we provided at the start of 2025. The full year Adjusted EBITDA margin reflected the strength of our non-federal business and the tight management of our cost structure. GAAP EPS was $4.95 compared to the $5.82 in the prior year.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Non-GAAP EPS totaled $6.77, inclusive of a non-cash unfavorable FX impact of $0.11, which was driven by the declining value of the U.S. dollar in the first half of 2025 and associated with intercompany transactions. In the prior year, non-GAAP EPS was $7.45. At year-end, our backlog stood at $3.4 billion, half of which is funded, reflecting the long-term visibility we have in the business. Our full-year book-to-bill ratio was 1.19x, and our business development pipeline remained healthy at $8.6 billion. Turning to cash flows and the balance sheet. Our fourth quarter operating cash flow totaled $75.6 million, bringing our full-year operating cash flow to $141.9 million, near the upper end of our most recent guidance range.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

We ended the year with total debt of $401.4 million, down from $411.7 million at the end of 2024. During the fourth quarter, we reduced our debt by $48 million, reflecting strong cash generation despite the government shutdown. Approximately 44% of our debt is set at a fixed interest rate. Day sales outstanding were 77 days, compared to 82 days in the prior sequential quarter. Capital expenditures for the full year were $21.7 million, similar to $21.4 million reported in 2024, and our adjusted leverage ratio was 1.98x at the end of the fourth quarter, down from 2.13x at the end of the third quarter.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Our capital allocation priorities for 2026 remain unchanged and reflect our disciplined, balanced approach. We will continue to invest in organic growth initiatives, pursue strategic acquisitions in attractive markets, reduce debt, fund our quarterly dividends, and execute opportunistic share repurchases. Consistent with these priorities, we repurchased approximately 220,000 shares of common stock in the fourth quarter, bringing our total repurchases to approximately 564,000 shares for the full year, underscoring our confidence in the strength and long-term outlook of the business. Today, we announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.14 per share, payable on April 14th, 2026 to shareholders of record on March 27th, 2026. Turning to our guidance for 2026.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

With respect to the cadence of the year, our first half year-over-year comparisons will be down as revenues in 2025 included federal contract work that was canceled between February and May of last year. We expect to generate roughly 48% of our total revenue in the first half of the year, with a balance in the second half. To help you with your financial models, I would like to note that from a sequential standpoint, our first quarter of 2026 had two fewer days, two fewer working days as compared to the fourth quarter of 2025, which equates to approximately $14 million in revenue. We also anticipate the following. Depreciation and amortization expenses expected to range from $22 million-$24 million.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Our amortization of intangibles are now expected to range from $22 million-$24 million, which is $14 million down from 2025 at our guidance midpoint. The expected decrease is due to the mid-year roll-off of intangibles from acquisition made in the 2020 and 2020-2021 timeframe. We anticipate interest expense of approximately $27 million-$29 million. Capital expenditures are anticipated to be approximately $24 million-$26 million. Our full-year tax rate is expected to be approximately 20.5%. We expect our year-end fully diluted weighted average share count to be approximately 18.5 million. We expect full year operating cash flow of $135 million-$150 million.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

With that, I'd like to say it has been a great pleasure for me to work with the incredible people of ICF. I am grateful for their steadfast support and shared commitment to our company over these past four years. I will certainly miss interacting with our analysts and investors. With that, I'll turn the call back over to John for his closing remarks.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Well, thanks, Barry, and thank you for doing a great job as CFO during the last four years. Time flies when you're having fun. All I can say is enjoy your retirement. We are pleased to guide to a return to revenue and EPS growth in 2026, with our revenues expected to range from $1.89 billion-$1.96 billion, representing 3% growth at the midpoint. GAAP EPS from $5.95-$6.25, and non-GAAP EPS from $6.95-$7.25 or 5% growth at the midpoint. These expectations anticipate double-digit revenue growth from our non-federal government clients, led by commercial energy, bringing non-federal revenues to over 60% of ICF's total 2026 revenues, and also assume a return to year-over-year growth in certain parts of our federal government business.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

This guidance does not anticipate any new large contract wins in the federal space, nor any acquisitions. For the first quarter, we are guiding to revenues of approximately $450 million, GAAP EPS of approximately $1.20 and non-GAAP EPS of approximately $1.55. I would like to take a moment to recognize the dedication and hard work of our professional staff who've been instrumental in helping us navigate 2025 and whose dedication to ICF and our clients has had a lasting impact on this organization. With that operator, I'm pleased to open the call to questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, we will conduct the question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of sorry, Tim Mulrooney with William Blair. Your line is now open.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head–Global Services at William Blair]

Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Just wanna start off by saying to Barry, congrats on the retirement. I wish you all the best on your next adventure.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Thank you, Tim. Appreciate it.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head–Global Services at William Blair]

Yeah, you got it. I just had a few here, and apologies if you addressed this already. I'm bouncing around earnings calls, but I wanted to ask about your commercial energy business. I mean, you know, commercial is gonna be 60% of your revenue, you know, by the end of this year. I wanna focus more on this. Could you just share how your commercial energy business grew in 2025 and what your expectations are for 2026?

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Sure. I think as I indicated in my remarks, Tim, our commercial energy business grew about 24% for the year last year, with 15% of that being organic. It certainly led the way in terms of growth within the firm. I think our guidance for this year is at least 10% organic growth in our energy business. We continue to see very positive trends there across the business. As you know, 80% of that business is in our utility programs business that spans energy efficiency, flexible management, electric storage, battery storage. You know, we are a market leader there, where we have an addressable market of $3 billion-$5 billion.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

As I said in my remarks, you know, we have about a 35% share in residential, 20% share in commercial and industrial. That market's growing at high single digit. We're outperforming that. We're able to outperform because, you know, clients are plussing us up because of the high quality work we're doing, and we are taking share from competitors. We think that has a long runway. We see tremendous opportunity. The remainder of the business is in the advisory side. With the, you know, significant increase in electricity demand and focus from utilities on affordability and reliability, again, you know, we see tremendous opportunity, and, you know, and a significant addressable market. We're quite positive we'll have double-digit growth there.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

You know, I think the commercial energy side of the business will lead the way in terms of contributing to our organic growth in 2026.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head–Global Services at William Blair]

Okay, thanks, John. Where is more of that growth coming from? Is it coming from the utility programs or the advisory business? As we think about, you know, the grid and just this insatiable thirst for more electrons, we're just not gonna have enough over the next five years. How do I think about parsing that apart?

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Well, I'll say a few words, and I'll turn it over to Anne Choate here, let her share her thoughts. You know, I think that, you know, I think both components of the business, the utility programs and the advisory, I think we ultimately believe will grow at least 10%. I think the advisory, I think, has the most long-term potential to grow more rapidly, given it, you know, it works across the entire value chain in the energy arena. You know, as you know, we're also investing more on the engineering side of the business.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

As I said in my remarks, we did the CMY acquisition, I guess, about two years ago. While that's a smaller part of our business, I think that has, as we continue to invest, the potential for quite significant growth. That's an area where we're looking to deploy our balance sheet in addition to organic growth. Anne, do you wanna?

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

No. Hi, Tim. Nice to hear from you. I agree with everything that John said. All I would clarify is just that the energy efficiency part of our business is larger. The market is not growing as fast, but we have addressable market and that's where we've been gaining. We've been gaining market share on the commercial industrial side. We've continued to grow on the residential side, and those are just larger numbers. The faster growth, I would say, is in the advisory and the engineering and these other areas that John was mentioning. Even though that's a smaller part of our business, that's an area where we see a faster pace of growth.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head–Global Services at William Blair]

Got it. I actually, if you don't mind me squeezing one more in, Anne, while I have you. I've been wondering about this question. You know, we get a lot of inquiries, about, you know, this part of your business, the commercial energy business, with how that compares with some of the other public companies. I'm thinking about a company like Willdan, where we've seen a run-up in the stock and a strong valuation multiple. I'm curious what your thoughts are on that, like how your commercial energy business compares with someone like that.

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

That question periodically does come up.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head–Global Services at William Blair]

I bet.

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

You know, I yes. I say that I'm obviously, I know ours much better than I know Willdan. Based on what I know, I see some similarities in terms of what ICF and Willdan provide in the energy space. Some areas that are different. I think on the, you know, in terms of where we're similar, we both serve utilities, you know, in terms of how we design and deliver these energy efficiency and energy demand programs. Our business, ICF's business in that area is roughly twice theirs in that particular space, with a much stronger focus in ICF on the residential. Also a growing share in the commercial. Whereas Willdan tends to be more focused on commercial industrial programs.

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

I think there's a second place where we could talk about you know, comparing the two companies is that we both serve public sector customers, but I think that the work that we do, that ICF does for public sector entities tends more towards like the planning, the environmental aspects. Imagine like a transmission line and the environmental planning around that as compared to more of the closer to the ground engineering and sort of construction oversight that might be more akin to their program portfolio. Similarly, we both work in the data center area. We work on data center-related projects, but we focus more on, like, planning, financing, energy integration, grid interconnection. That's sort of where our sweet spot is. We focus less on the actual construction and the risks associated with that.

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

Most of our work is performed by professional staff and not subbed out. I guess the last thing I would say is that for us, I think our energy business, our primary customers are utilities, where theirs, you know, includes a lot of state and local clients who are installing, like, energy-related infrastructure. That's all.

[Tim Mulrooney, Group Head–Global Services at William Blair]

Got it. Yeah, that was very helpful. Appreciate all the color. Thanks again, everybody.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Thanks, Tim. Good to hear your voice.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tobey Sommer with Truist. Your line is now open.

[Henry Roberts, Equity Research Associate at Truist]

Hi, it's Henry on for Tobey here. Appreciate you taking my question, and thank you, Barry, for all you've done. Maybe just to start, you know, looks like you already achieved this in the fourth quarter. You know, I'm sure there was some of the shutdown and other things in there, but just on the kind of greater than 60%, you know, non-federal share you're projecting for 2026 is, you know, the exit rate in the fourth quarter kind of a good proxy to think about that? Or, you know, can we see that tilt even more towards non-federal in 2026? I guess the cadence of that over the course of the year. Thank you.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Yeah. Hey, thanks for the question. As we've discussed, you know, we're definitely gonna see, you know, more non-federal business in 2026, you know, as that continues to grow. We're looking at north of 60%, you know, as we look towards 2026. That, that trend will continue.

[Henry Roberts, Equity Research Associate at Truist]

Yeah. I gotcha. Understood. Maybe just on switching to the federal side, on the, on the procurement environment now, you know, it sounds like things are, you know, incrementally better, obviously, than they were, you know, the start of last year. Can you just kind of speak a little more to that and kind of the variance between, you know, your major agency customers at this point?

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Yeah. You know, I would say that. Well, first, I mean, in terms of procurement environment, I mean, I think, you know, as we've talked about the last quarter or two, I think we have not seen any contract cancellations or, you know, anything of that nature the last couple of quarters, so we're not seeing those kinds of disruptions. I think, as I said in my remarks, you know, obviously as we, you know, as we got to the end of the third quarter going in the fourth quarter with the government shutdown, that slowed and impacted the procurement environment. I think since we got past the government shutdown, actually in the IT modernization front, we've seen a pickup in that procurement environment. You know, it's getting better.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

It's not back to, you know, where we, where we'd like it, but it's certainly improving. you know, we're seeing opportunities move in that environment. I would say, you know, more broadly on the broader programmatic business, there's been improvement there. I think we're seeing certainly on the re-competes are occurring in a timely way. We've been quite successful in winning our re-competes. you know, we're seeing additional funding on existing contracts. you know, new opportunities there haven't been as robust as on the IT modernization side. Generally, I would say that the procurement environment is improving and is, you know, we're ending the year and starting the year in a better position than we were certainly in the first half of last year.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

With that, I think I said in the guidance, but let me just, you know, for our federal business, which is, you know, about 42% of our business. About half of it is IT modernization, and half of it is broader programmatic work. As I said, we expect IT modernization to return to growth with the improved procurement environment for 2026, and we expect, you know, the entire federal business to return to growth in 2027.

[Henry Roberts, Equity Research Associate at Truist]

Yeah, appreciate that. If I could just take one more in.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Sure.

[Henry Roberts, Equity Research Associate at Truist]

You know, there's been some mixed talk about this, but looking ahead to kind of the summer, maybe early fall, if there were to be another reconciliation bill, you know, before those midterms, what are kind of the main areas that you would wanna see that could, you know, benefit the most in terms of big, big funding streams and kind of how the administration is looking at? Thank you.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Well, I mean, the first thing I'd like to see is the budget passed in a timely way, without kind of, you know, continuing resolutions and the risk of government shutdowns, which we've been through. That would be a nice outcome. I think that, generally, I would say the budgets for this year were generally aligned with our expectations. I mean, I think for us, CMS is an area in the health side that we're quite focused on and continue to see a lot of opportunity. Department of Transportation, and then generally across the IT modernization front, I mean, I think we're seeing a lot of activity and a lot of interest across our entire client set on that front.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

You know, the focus is obviously AI first, efficiency, avoiding waste, fraud, and abuse, doing it in an agile way with commercial terms. We think we're in a really good spot to take advantage of that. I think those are examples. We're also seeing opportunities at DOE. I think this administration is focused on, you know, on certain technologies and certain generation, nuclear, natural gas, extending coal plants. I mean, there's things, those are areas that we can support and are interested in. Yeah, as I looked at the budget for 2027, yeah, having it, you know, passed in a timely way and avoiding that uncertainty would be terrific.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joseph Vafi with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.

[Joseph Vafi, Managing Director of Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity]

Hey, everyone. Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess to start, you noted in the prepared remarks that you're already starting to see some improvement in productivity of client work and internally, from AI. I'm just hoping you could maybe provide a little more detail on some of the specific ways that this is happening, and then how much of a benefit from this sort of greater efficiency is contemplated within the guidance you provided today. Thank you.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Yeah, sure. I think, you know, obviously, we think about AI, I mean, one lens to look at it is how we use it internally. And there, I think we are using it and have a number of use cases we've been focused on to help us provide support to our staff in areas around, you know, human resources, also recruiting new talent into the firm. You know, obviously contracts and our ability to review contracts more quickly. Business development is another area. Any area where volumes are high, you know, and the queries are predictable, you know, we are finding we can gain efficiency to help us more cost-efficient. I mean, BD is also an area where, you know, AI is really helpful with throughput.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

We can write more proposals, you know, submit more high-quality bids, more quickly. You know, there, those are all about efficiency gains. You know, I think we think, you know, we have generally guided to 10-20 bps of profitability improvement for a year. Historically, we've gotten a portion of that, certainly in the last several years, from the mix of the business with commercial growing more rapidly. I do think that we do think AI will allow us to continue to, you know, improve our profitability through the leverage from the technology. You know, we're comfortable with 10-20 bps with potential upside from the internal use.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

You know, externally, I think we're, you know, we've really, as I said in my, you know, conference call remarks, we've really been focused on, you know, areas where, you know, we think we can have the most impact and add, the most, you know, value for our, for our clients. So, you know, in our business, I mean, that's, to a large extent, we've been primarily focused around IT modernization and how to best, you know, leverage it, you know, for that. So, you know, and so that, I think, is, you know, we're quite focused on. You know, how it can improve efficiency of our coding, our technologists, how we can use it for rapid prototyping.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

We've developed ICF Fathom, our agentic AI platform, which allows you to do rapid prototyping for clients. We're doing AI governance, we're doing, you know, data organization. There's a number of areas we're focused on leveraging it for clients. I don't know, Anne, if you wanna add anything on from a client perspective on?

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

You know, I think we've seen that it can speed up development. You know, I think what we try to do is pair up our understanding of the regulatory environment and the needs as you modernize these systems with the efficiency that we can gain through the AI tools.

[Joseph Vafi, Managing Director of Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity]

Great. That's super helpful. Then just one other one. In terms of international growth, it's accelerated over the past three quarters. You just announced $300 million of new European contracts in January. Just wondering if you could just drill down a little bit more on what's been driving this momentum and more broadly, how you think about the international opportunity going forward?

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

As you know, I think we have won several large contracts here, several last year and one or two more as we started the year here, that I think, you know, are primarily. There's two areas. One is marketing and communications for the European Commission and helping them with communicate their programs and, you know, outreach to citizens in the European Commission on their policy and program efforts. You know, we've talked at length that those are significant contracts. You know, the activation of those contracts was a bit slow last year, but as we ended the year and began this year, we are seeing the activation really begin to kick in.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

We're quite confident we'll have, you know, double-digit growth that will help drive double-digit growth with our European Union clients. We also won several contracts with the U.K. government last year with Defra, which is an agency of the U.K. government. Those are activating. Those are really nice wins. I think they give us visibility, very clear visibility for strong double-digit growth next year. I think those contracts will offer growth, you know, for the next several years for us on the international front.

[Joseph Vafi, Managing Director of Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity]

Great. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kevin Steinke with Barrington Research Associates. Your line is now open.

[Kevin Steinke, Managing Director at Barrington Research Associates]

Great. Thank you. I was just wondering if you could refresh us on the relative size of the market for the residential energy efficiency versus the commercial and industrial energy efficiency, where you noted you're gaining market share and, you know, how those market share gains on the industrial and commercial side kind of expand your growth runway and your market opportunity overall for the commercial energy business?

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

I think, as I said in my prepared remarks, I think we see the utility program, which includes the residential and commercial industrial, but also includes electrification, I think flexible load management. I think we see the total size of that market in the $3 billion-$5 billion range. Anne, I don't know if there's—

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

Yeah.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

—an ability to break it down or?

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

The demand side management programs, Kevin, I think you could think about those, being about a $2 billion market.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

That's residential.

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

That's residential and commercial, traditional demand side management programs. When you start to get into some of these other types of programs that we are involved in, like marketing, electrification, demand response, that's when your market, you know, the addressable market grows up to get into this range that John has mentioned. 3 to 5. That's I think those are the numbers that we thinking about there.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

As I said, you know, we have about a 35% share—

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

Residential

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

—in the residential and about a 20% share, growing share in commercial and industrial with a traditional program. I think we view that as significant headroom. As we said, we've been taking share, and so we certainly believe that will be part of our strategy going forward. I think in the more emerging areas, electrification, flexible load management, battery storage, you know, significant, you know, market, addressable market there. Those are newer and rapidly evolving, and so those offer, I think, significant growth opportunities as we look down the road, you know, three to five years. They're not as material to our overall business today, but, you know, that's where we would. On the program side, that's where we would expect to see, you know, much more rapid percentage growth as we look forward.

[Kevin Steinke, Managing Director at Barrington Research Associates]

Understood. That's helpful. Thank you. I also just wanted to ask about how you're thinking about Adjusted EBITDA margin in 2026, if you think you maintain that versus 2025, or with your expectation of a return to revenue growth, if maybe you can get back to that kind of 10-20 basis points of expansion that you've historically targeted.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Hi, Kevin. This is Barry. Yeah, I think that we can go ahead and, you know, get into that, you know, 10-20 basis points improvements on a year-over-year basis. You know, as we continue to see the growth on expansion in the commercial markets and the non-federal business with higher margins, so that as well as, you know, the economies of scale and the efficiency we can get, you know, from the back office side of the Of the expense equation. I think that, you know, that certainly is a reasonable expectation.

[Kevin Steinke, Managing Director at Barrington Research Associates]

All right. Sounds great. Again, thanks, Barry. It's been a pleasure working with you. Take care.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Likewise. Thanks, Kevin.

[Operator]

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Marc Riddick with Sidoti. Your line is now open.

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

Good evening, everyone.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Hey, Marc. How are you?

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

Wanted—good. Good. Barry, I wanted to extend my congratulations and appreciation for the time that we've had the opportunity to work together and certainly wish you the very best in your retirement. I know a lot of us are gonna miss you. Congratulations and thank you so much for all you've done with us.

[Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF]

Thanks very much, Marc. Appreciate it.

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

I wanted to touch a little bit on the sort of the activity that you've seen as far as shifting of spending or pace of activity on the state and local side. Maybe you can touch a little bit on what you've seen and what you're thinking of seeing going into 2026 as far as, you know, whether there are particular services that have been a little more active on the state and local side, picking up from where the federal government spending cut and whether there's any particular, you know, states or regions that have been sort of leading the way as well as practice areas that you see being a little more active than we were maybe six to nine months ago.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Maybe I'll say a few words then I can... If Anne wants to add something. You know, I think our state and local business, I mean, largely, we have two kind of main pillars of that. One is some kind of the environmental-related work we do in front of large infrastructure projects, energy projects, roads, bridges, you know, things of that nature. You know, I think generally there with, you know, we certainly saw growth in that business last year. I think, you know, and certainly on the state and local side, have done well with that. I think we would expect that to continue to show growth, you know, particularly with, you know, the investments being made around energy infrastructure. I think the other key component of our business is disaster recovery.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

You know, there, I think, you know, we have that's been a mid-single digit growth business for us. I think we have, you know, strong backlog. We have, you know, good visibility for that business. you know, I think we certainly see that as a growth business as we go forward. It is, you know, for breakout growth, it is dependent on, you know, the frequency and severity of severe weather events or wildfires. I think generally we view the state and local market as a growth market in those two areas. I don't know. Anne, do you wanna?

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

Yeah. Hi, Kevin. I think I would just add that. It's Marc. Hi, Marc.

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

Hi there.

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

I just would add that we have been also seeing opportunities where, for instance, you might be working in a state in a disaster or another context, and they have modernization needs that relate to visualization or whatever. Our ability to opportunistically grow in those states because of an existing relationship, whether it's tied to disaster work or work that we've been doing on the environmental side, we've been able to leverage that, and that has led to some growth that you've, you know, you're able to see in the numbers.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Yeah. I think one of the things we do well is we can connect the dots between different parts of our business working in a given state. We certainly have examples where our environmental work or our disaster management work has led to technology work in state governments, and, you know, vice versa. You know, again, I think across some of the things we do, we've also seen as the federal government step back, the states have stepped forward. You know, like for instance, on the climate front, you know, obviously, this administration has not had as great a focus on climate and resilience, but we've seen state government step forward, and that's also created opportunities for us.

[Anne Choate, President at ICF]

Yeah. The examples there are, you know, for instance, understanding the return on investment for investing in transportation infrastructure to get ahead of vulnerabilities to extreme weather so that you're not gonna have to pay more later to, you know, to rebuild those roads or to deal with the consequences. Focusing on resilience and transportation infrastructure at the state DOT level or focusing on resilience of ports from an economic activity standpoint, those are the kinds of areas where we have a lot of traction.

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you for that. wanted to shift gears into maybe what you're seeing in as far as the pricing dynamic and sort of, I guess, maybe in a bigger picture way, how that plays into the 2026 revenue guide, maybe what your expectations are as far as pricing contribution there.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

You know, I mean, well, let me say a couple of things. First of all, I think at a high level across our business, and you're seeing it in the nature of the contracts we have, and we certainly in our federal business, and I would say with our commercial clients. In our federal business, we're seeing much more focus on outcome-related contracts and or fixed price related work. Certainly a lot of our energy work from our energy implementation work is also fixed price. I think that trend, I think it's generally been positive for us. We, you know, our margins tend to be higher on fixed price outcome focused work. I think that's positive. You know, generally, obviously, we compete for everything we do.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Pricing is an important consideration, but I wouldn't say that, you know, it's not the, it's not the primary or the single most important criteria in our work. I mean, our clients are generally, the price is important, but it's the quality of the work, the impact of the work, the innovation in the work. Again, we try to manage our portfolio to stay at the higher end of the value chain and invest for that. As things commoditize, you know, we'll step back or we'll subcontract it out.

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

Okay, great. I guess last one for me, I was sorta wondering if you'd give an update as to how you feel about the acquisition pipeline currently. Maybe can you sort of give a sense of Given the things that you're looking at, are you getting the sense that the pipeline is, you know, similar to where it was maybe six months ago or so? Are you beginning to see more opportunities there and, you know, valuation levels, things like that?

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

I mean, I think, well, first as you know, I mean, obviously, you know, M&A, inorganic growth has been a key part of our strategy. As Barry noted, I think we haven't done a material deal in several years. Our leverage ratio is now down under 2x. We have capacity.

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

Right.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

It is something we're focused on. I would say, you know, we generally think about the areas where our business is growing. First, you know, and we see long-term growth opportunities. Obviously, energy is an area that we're looking at very carefully. You know, I would say there's deal flow there. I think it's, you know, there's a lot of focus broadly on the energy sector and the opportunities there. I think the valuations are, you know, are fulsome. I'll say it that way. We're certainly looking at areas that, you know, would add skills and capabilities in the markets we serve with us. The utility programs, the advisory work or more engineering-oriented work. We're taking a hard look and are quite interested in that.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

I think in state and local disaster recovery, you know, is a area that, you know, certainly if we could add greater geography, greater scale of state and local clients, it'd be something we'd look at. You know, federal technology, I mean, we're certainly looking at deals there. I think we'll be more careful there given the uncertainty in the federal market. You know, I think the valuations, the valuations have come down in federal, but we'd be pretty careful there. I think. You know, we're certainly out in the market and looking at it, particularly in energy and in state and local. We're keeping our eyes on federal, but I think we'll be more opportunistic and you know, and more get careful there.

[Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti]

Okay, great. I really appreciate all the color you provided, especially as you've kind of navigated through this, through this process and getting to the other side of it. Really do appreciate all the color and commentary there. Thank you.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Thanks, Marc. Appreciate it.

[Operator]

Thank you. I am showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to John Wasson for closing remarks.

[John Wasson, Chair and CEO at ICF]

Well, thank you for participating in today's call. We look forward to engaging and seeing hopefully all of you at upcoming conferences and at meetings. Take care.

[Operator]

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Anne Choate, President
• John Wasson, Chair and CEO

Analysts

• Barry Broadus, CFO at ICF
• Henry Roberts, Equity Research Associate at Truist
• Joseph Vafi, Managing Director of Equity Research at Canaccord Genuity
• Kevin Steinke, Managing Director at Barrington Research Associates
• Lynn Morgen, Partner at AdvisIRy Partners
• Marc Riddick, Senior Equity Analyst at Sidoti
• Tim Mulrooney, Group Head–Global Services at William Blair