Leidos Q1 2022 Earnings Report

Leidos EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.58
• Consensus EPS: $1.49
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.09
• One Year Ago EPS: $1.73

Leidos Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $3.50 billion
• Expected Revenue: $3.38 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$116.65 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +5.40%

Leidos Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2022
• Date: 5/3/2022
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, May 3, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 6:38AM ET

Leidos (NYSE:LDOS) (NYSE: LDOS) is a technology, engineering and services company that supports government and commercial customers in the defense, intelligence, civil and health markets. The company provides mission-critical solutions involving information technology, cybersecurity, data analytics, artificial intelligence, systems integration, engineering and scientific research.

Its defense and intelligence activities include command-and-control systems, mission software, surveillance and reconnaissance solutions, logistics, aircraft and weapons systems support, and national security services. In the civil sector, Leidos supports transportation, energy, environmental and public-sector programs. Its health business provides technology and services for healthcare administration, clinical research, public health and benefits management.

Leidos serves customers primarily in the United States, including agencies of the U.S. Department of Defense, intelligence community and federal civilian government, while also supporting international government and commercial customers. The company traces its origins to Science Applications International Corporation, founded in 1969, and adopted the Leidos name in 2013 following a corporate separation. Leidos is led by President and Chief Executive Officer Tom Bell.

Leidos Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Strong Q1 financial performance: Revenue of $3.49 B (+5.4% total, +4.4% organic), non-GAAP EPS of $1.58 and 10.2% EBITDA margin all exceeded plan, with $93 M in operating cash flow (on track for >$1 B this year).
• Robust business development: Q1 net bookings of $5.4 B (book-to-bill 1.6) drove record backlog of $36.3 B (+11.6% YOY), including wins such as NASA's $2.5 B Aegis IT contract, FAA’s $1.7 B NISC deal, and the $11.5 B Defense Enclave Services IDIQ (currently in protest).
• Disciplined capital deployment: Executed a $500 M accelerated share repurchase and remains near target 3 x leverage; will continue dividends, organic and selective M&A to accelerate strategy, with excess cash returned to shareholders.
• Talent and leadership focus: Added over 2,600 employees, launched upskilling initiatives, appointed Maureen Watterson as CHRO and Pat Shanahan to the board, and made key leadership changes to support growth and retention.
• Favorable federal budget trajectory: FY 2022 omnibus raised defense to $782 B (+5.6%) and non-defense to $730 B (+6.7%); FY 2023 request of $813 B defense and $769 B non-defense underpins confidence in back-half 2022 and 2023 growth.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings. Welcome to Leidos' First Quarter 2022 Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone today should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. At this time, I'll turn the conference over to Stuart Davis, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations. Stuart, you may now begin.

[Stuart Davis, SVP of Investor Relations at Leidos]

Thank you, Rob, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to welcome you to our First Quarter Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Roger Krone, our Chairman and CEO, and Chris Cage, our Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is being webcast on the investor relations portion of our website, where you'll also find the earnings release and supplemental financial presentation slides that we'll use during today's call. Turning to slide two of the presentation, today's discussion contains forward-looking statements based on the environment as we currently see it, and as such, does include risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our press release for more information on the specific risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. Finally, as shown on slide three, during the call, we'll discuss GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures.

[Stuart Davis, SVP of Investor Relations at Leidos]

A reconciliation between the two is included in today's press release and presentation slides. With that, I'll turn the call over to Roger Krone, who will begin on slide 4.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Thank you, Stuart, and thank you all for joining us this morning. Our first quarter marked a strong start to 2022, with record levels of revenue, backlog stemming from our leadership position in the government technology market. We continued to build our reputation and track record of performance in digital technology, cyber, and innovation, innovative systems across our diversified, resilient business portfolio. Our strong first quarter results and the improving federal budget picture increase our confidence in delivering on our full-year financial commitments. I'll organize my remarks around four messages. First, our financial results demonstrate our ability to meet our commitments and outperform the market. Second, our business development results are a testament to our differentiated position in the market. Third, our consistent capital allocation approach drives shareholder value. Fourth, we're able to attract the workforce we need and develop them for long-term success.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Number one, our financial performance was strong at both the top and bottom lines. Revenues of $3.49 billion were up 5.4% in total and up 4.4% organically year-over-year, which is once again towards the top of the market. Non-GAAP diluted EPS for the quarter was $1.58, with an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 10.2%. All three metrics were ahead of our plan for the quarter. Finally, we generated $93 million of cash flow from operations and free cash flow of $65 million. We remain on track to generate more than a billion dollars of operating cash flow this year. Number two, business development sustained the momentum that drove our industry-leading organic growth last year. We achieved net bookings of $5.4 billion in the quarter, representing a book-to-bill ratio of 1.6.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

As a result, total backlog at the end of the quarter stood at a record $36.3 billion, which was up 11.6% year-over-year. The awards in the quarter were rich in new business and takeaways balanced across our three segments and concentrated in key capability areas, including digital transformation and cyber. In civil, two large awards successfully completed lengthy protests. We won the $2.5 billion, 10-year Advanced Enterprise Global Information Technology Solutions, or AEGIS program, where we'll provide communication, data center, cloud, and cybersecurity services across all of NASA's centers and facilities. For the FAA, we'll continue our more than 20 years of support on the National Aerospace Systems Integration Support contract. The new NISC contract is a single-award IDIQ with a $1.7 billion ceiling across 10 years.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Our work encompasses strategic and transition planning, flight procedures, security and safety, data analytics, and unmanned aircraft systems in support of air traffic control modernization efforts. In health, we won two multiple award IDIQs totaling about $1.7 billion over 6.5 years to provide disability examinations for the Veterans Benefits Administration. The first was a recompete for pre-discharge exams in the United States, and the second is a new area for us, exams outside the United States. Although we'll have more competition within our legacy business, we're excited about the opportunity to expand internationally. In Defense Solutions, our Gibbs & Cox subsidiary won a $319 million five-year award for ship design engineering services for the U.S. Navy's Future Surface Combatant program.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

We won two new cyber programs totaling $340 million, focusing on agile secure DevOps, cyber inspection and assessment, continuous monitoring, and audit and security management services. We also had a takeaway win on a $100 million single award IDIQ to modernize the Army's gunnery training simulation systems. This work serves to enhance readiness across the operational spectrum in support of national defense. The biggest, most impactful win for the quarter is not included in our bookings. We were awarded the $11.5 billion Defense Enclave Services contract by the Defense Information Systems Agency. The DES contract is a ten-year digital modernization program focused on consolidating common IT services into a single service provider framework. As expected, this award is now in protest with the GAO scheduled to decide in mid-June.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

One of the keys to our BD success is our strategic partnerships, including with Amazon Web Services. I am proud that Leidos was awarded the AWS 2021 Public Sector Consulting Partner of the Year. AWS recognized Leidos with this honor because of our deep technical partnerships in areas such as edge to cloud and next-generation digital infrastructures to build solutions that drive digital and cloud transformation. This recognition illustrates the value of the Leidos Alliance Partner Network, which we founded in 2018 to deepen relationships with the most important vendor partners across our business groups. This network has fostered greater collaboration with partners to drive technology innovations and continues to be a differentiator for Leidos on a wide range of proposals and programs. Number three, I view capital allocation as one of the keys to creating shareholder value.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Last quarter, we talked about a greater focus in 2022 on share repurchase, and we followed through with a $500 million accelerated share repurchase. We sit near our target leverage ratio, and our ability to generate cash gives us significant firepower for further capital deployment. We're well-positioned to grow, and we'll continue to look for technology add-ons and strategic initiatives that bring us differentiated capabilities for customer access. We'll pursue large M&A only for a company that truly accelerates our strategy. Number four, people are at the heart of what we do, and this quarter, we hired more than 2,600 people. One reason people are attracted to Leidos is that we enable our employees to build successful careers. We regularly review talent and plan development actions at all levels of the company. This quarter, we made several key moves at the executive leadership team and board levels.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

We're pleased to welcome our new Chief Human Resources Officer, Maureen Waterston, who brings an impressive background and skill set to the Leidos team. Her excitement and commitment will enhance our people experience here at Leidos. With about 1,600 funded vacancies and an industry-wide shortage of cleared technical talent, recruiting and retention remains areas of strategic focus. Maureen will lead our human capital strategy and continue shaping the employee journey at Leidos through our Leidos Life initiative. Dave King has decided to step back from his role as Dynetics Group President. He will continue in a consulting capacity, ensuring a smooth change to new leadership and advising on matters of strategic importance. I wanna thank Dave for his outstanding contributions thus far, and I look forward to working with him in his new capacity. Dave's deputy, Steve Cook, is stepping up as Dynetics Group President.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Steve's extensive experience and background, both with Dynetics for 13 years and leading critical programs for NASA before that, have prepared him well for his new role. He'll team with Paul Engola as his deputy. In addition, Paul will lead the National Security Space business for Leidos with a focus on space surveillance, missile warning, and space situation awareness. Next, our digital modernization business is growing rapidly with an expanding portfolio of differentiated technology. To meet the demands of our growing business, Steve Hull will move from his role as CIO to lead the enterprise and cyber solutions operation within the defense group. We've moved our CIO team under Chief Technology Officer Jim Carlini to tightly align our technology and CIO capabilities. Finally, Patrick Shanahan has joined our board of directors.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

He served at the highest levels of government, including Deputy Secretary of Defense and Acting Secretary of Defense, and industry, including more than 30 years with Boeing, where he led supply chain and operations, commercial airplane programs, and many other relevant areas. While at DoD, he was a passionate champion of digital and technological advancement for the department, driving modernization in cybersecurity, AI, and cloud computing, as well as command, control, and communication. Pat's wealth of expertise offers tremendous benefits for our shareholders and customers. Before turning the call over to Chris, I'd like to address the current congressional budget environment.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Since the Q4 call, Congress passed the fiscal year 2022 omnibus spending package, funding the federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year with $782 billion in defense spending, a 5.6% increase from fiscal year 2021, and $730 billion in non-defense spending, a 6.7% increase from fiscal year 2021. The budget also includes $14 billion in emergency supplemental spending in support of Ukraine, given the devastation at the hands of the Russians. It will take time for the new budgets to work their way into individual programs and new opportunities, but this provides positive momentum for the back half of 2022 and into 2023. President Biden has also released his $5.8 trillion fiscal year 2023 budget request. This request includes $813 billion in defense spending and $769 billion in non-defense spending.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

In addition to kicking off the fiscal year 2023 congressional budget process, Congress remains focused on finalizing a $10 billion bipartisan COVID-19 relief measure and passing legislation to increase American competitiveness with China. Congress also continues to grapple with rising inflation rates, strained energy markets, supply chain issues, and the conflict in Ukraine. In closing, our thoughts are with the people of Ukraine and our colleagues who have family and friends in the country. The United Nations estimates that more than 11 million people are displaced. To help those impacted, we've made a significant donation to Project HOPE to mobilize emergency teams and send medical supplies. The people of Ukraine have lost infrastructure that will take lifetimes to replace. When the war ends, it will only be the beginning of their struggle. I'll now turn the call over to Chris Cage.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Thanks, Roger, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. As Roger said, Q1 was an outstanding quarter across the board, and I'm proud of the team for delivering such strong operating performance. Let's jump right into the first quarter results, beginning with the income statement on slide 5. Revenues for the quarter were $3.49 billion, up 5.4% compared to the prior year quarter. Revenues grew organically across all three reportable segments, given robust hiring and high labor utilization. Adjusted EBITDA was $358 million for the first quarter, which was down 8% year-over-year, and Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased from 11.7% to 10.2% over the same period.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Adjusted EBITDA was down primarily as a result of the $26 million net benefit related to the Mission Support Alliance joint venture recorded in the first quarter of fiscal year 2021, as well as a return to more normative indirect spending levels as we move past the pandemic. Non-GAAP net income was $223 million for the first quarter, which was down 10.4% year-over-year, and non-GAAP diluted EPS for the quarter was $1.58, down 8.6% compared to the first quarter of fiscal year 2021. Interest expense was up $3 million year-over-year with the additional borrowing to fund the Gibbs & Cox acquisition and the $500 million accelerated share repurchase.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

The non-GAAP estimated tax rate was 21.2%, which was in line with our expectations for the quarter, but below the projected 23% for the year. The weighted average diluted share count for the quarter was 140 million shares, compared to 144 million in the prior year quarter. Now for an overview of our segment results and key drivers on slide six. Defense Solutions revenues increased by 4.6% compared to the prior year quarter. The largest growth drivers were the NGEN and IFPC ramps, which more than offset the completion of the Human Landing System base contract within Dynetics and the end of our Afghan support contracts. Defense Solutions' non-GAAP operating margin for the quarter came in at 8.1%, which was down compared to the prior year quarter as the result of higher investments on developmental programs.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Civil revenues increased 3.8% compared to the prior year quarter. The revenue increase was primarily driven by volume growth on existing programs, including the support to Hanford and the FAA, as well as our engineering support to commercial energy providers. Civil non-GAAP operating income margin was 7.7% compared to 12% in the prior year quarter. The decline in segment profitability was primarily attributable to the MSA gain in the prior period, as well as a write-down taken on a minority interest joint venture program. Health revenues increased by 10% compared to the prior year quarter. We continue to benefit from the ramp on the Military and Family Life Counseling program, and DHMSM had a large year-over-year increase based on deployment timing. Health non-GAAP operating income margin was 19.2% compared to 18.6% in the prior year quarter.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

The improvement in segment profitability was primarily attributable to efficiencies introduced into procurement and delivery on certain contracts. As we've discussed previously, we expect health segment margins to land in the mid-teens for the year. Turning now to cash flow and the balance sheet on slide 7. Operating cash flow for the quarter was $93 million, and free cash flow, which is net of capital expenditures, was $65 million. During the first quarter, we returned $577 million to shareholders, principally through the $500 million dollar accelerated share repurchase program that we put in place two days after our February earnings call. We were immediately able to retire 4.5 million shares. The program will end within the next two weeks, and if our share price remains relatively constant, we'll retire another few hundred thousand shares at that time.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

We're funding the ASR with a combination of cash on hand and proceeds from the issuance of commercial paper. When the Russians invaded Ukraine, the CP market became more volatile, so we sold some accounts receivable for short-term liquidity. Since then, CP markets have cleared, and we've exited the AR monetization by quarter end, so there was no impact on cash flow for the quarter. At quarter end, we still had about $75 million of borrowings outstanding through our commercial paper program. As of April 1st, 2022, we had $297 million in cash and cash equivalents and $5.1 billion of debt. We remain committed to a target leverage ratio of 3x.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Our long-term balanced capital deployment strategy remains the same and consists of being appropriately levered and maintaining our investment grade rating, returning a quarterly dividend to our shareholders, reinvesting for growth, both organically and inorganically, and returning excess cash to shareholders in a tax-efficient manner. And now to the forward outlook. As shown on slide 8, we're maintaining our guidance for fiscal year 2022. Specifically, we expect revenues between $13.9 billion-$14.3 billion, Adjusted EBITDA margins between 10.3%-10.5%, non-GAAP diluted earnings per share between $6.10-$6.50, and cash from operations of $1 billion or greater. With three quarters to go, we believe the current ranges still encompass the likely outcomes for the year. That said, I'll offer a few comments to help with modeling.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

On last quarter's call, I mentioned a range of EPS benefits from share repurchases. When we were implementing the plan, our stock was trading in the mid-80s. We're now forecasting a volume-weighted average share price of around $105. In addition, with world events, interest rates have risen and liquidity has tightened, which has increased borrowing costs. Given these factors, we're now projecting the addition from the Q1 ASR program to be closer to $0.10 than $0.20. In addition, we see the current environment as favorable towards growth, and we're exploring multiple opportunities where prudent investments could pay long-term benefits to Leidos and our shareholders. These increased investments may come in business development, R&D, and program execution. Finally, as Roger mentioned, we remain on track to generate $1 billion of operating cash flow.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

As is our usual pattern, we expect the lion's share of operating cash flow will be generated in the back half of the year. We still believe that Congress will retroactively delay implementation of the new tax research cost capitalization rules, given the number of members from both parties who have cosigned legislation to restore pro-innovation tax policy before the end of the year. However, if we were to amortize research costs and pay the taxes currently required, our operating cash flow target would be lower by approximately $150 million. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob so we can take some questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question today, please press star zero from your telephone keypad. Excuse me, pardon me, star one from your telephone keypad and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Once again, that's star one. Thank you. Thank you. Our first question will be coming from the line of Peter Arment with Baird. Please proceed with your question.

[Peter Arment, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Yeah. Good morning, Roger, Chris.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah. Hey, good morning, Peter.

[Peter Arment, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Thanks for your time. Hey, Roger, maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, how you're seeing the, you know, the fiscal 2022 enacted came in and and certainly the outlook for 2023 looks, you know, even better for when we're talking about the longer term budgets. Just kind of in the context of how you think Leidos is faring there. When I think about just also the Dynetics business, and you talk a lot about the programs of record, the outlook there. If you could give any kind of insight and is there any potential benefit from activity in Ukraine? I know you do have some air defense type products where you could see some additional benefit.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Hey, Peter, you broke up in the last sentence or two.

[Peter Arment, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Just regarding Ukraine.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah. Okay, great.

[Peter Arment, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Is there any opportunity there when you know, I know you have some area defense products?

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah. Well, let me talk in general. You know, first of all, on Ukraine, yeah, we're probably seeing higher op tempo in our defense sector because of support that the U.S. is giving to the effort and the supplemental spending. That being said, you know, the conflict, I think long term is probably bad for the industry. You know, we're not in the business of war, we're in the business of providing a deterrent. So I think it's, you know, we will spend money now, but we will take it away from the future. I think it's also kind of bad for the country. It's certainly bad, I think, for Europe, and I think it's really bad for the global community.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

We're seeing, you know, more stratification of nations and going back to a tripolar world, and I'm not sure that's really good for anyone. That being said, we probably work more overtime, which meant, you know, our costs probably went down because we've got more direct labor that we didn't plan for. Yeah, there are some programs that appear to be accelerated because of some of the emerging threats that were used in Ukraine. Hypersonics comes to mind. We have the Indirect Fires program, which we expect to be fully supported. To the extent that, you know, anybody who's in the weapons business, and we don't have a significant weapons business, but some of our peers, you know, they make stingers and switchblades and javelins and things like that.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Those inventories and that stock will have to be replenished. I think the broader view is, you know, every time I think we as a country get comfortable that we can lower the defense budget because if you will, you know, peace has broken out across the world, we learn that the world is still a very complicated place, and we end up having to put the money back in the defense budget. I think the long-term prospect is that we will see a strong defense budget for the foreseeable future. What's especially good for us at Leidos is, as the defense budget has moved up, there's now seems to be almost like an iron bar between the defense side and the civil side.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

We rarely now are seeing increase on the defense side without a commensurate increase on the civil side.

[Peter Arment, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Mm-hmm.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Which really provides us a benefit across all of our segments. Now I will, you know, as a citizen, as a taxpayer, I worry about the national debt and I worry about balancing the budget someday and all of that. From my position as CEO, this has all been a real positive for the company and for Leidos and the strategy that we implemented, which was to be able to address the broad markets within the federal government and some of the international governments. You know, as I said in my comments, you know, we'll see the money start to come through the PPBS system in the second half of 2022. You know, 2023 looks like it's gonna be another strong year on both sides. Frankly, 2024 will follow.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

I just think we're at a place relative to government spending that's gonna favor our industry. Thanks for your question, Peter.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Aerospace & Defense and Airlines Equity Research at Jefferies]

Morning, Roger, Chris. Thank you.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Morning. Yeah. Hey, good morning, Sheila.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Aerospace & Defense and Airlines Equity Research at Jefferies]

Morning. Good quarter. Chris, you mentioned in your comments, you know, R&D investment and program execution investment if need be. Was this in regard to a specific program with DES or is it broader? Just in regard to profitability for the year, you know, are you seeing costs come back or how do we see the cadence of profitability? Does it step up from Q1 levels?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Great. Thanks, Sheila. It's more than a singular program. In fact, it's just been a variety of opportunities, and we encourage our teams to be creative and bring forward business cases where they see opportunities that could lead to, you know, longer term payoffs. We've seen a number of those opportunities, some on programs that we're performing on, that we're all in to make sure we deliver on time and on schedule, and on budget. We believe those performance on those programs will lead to future opportunities with those customer sets. That's one example, but there's also areas where we see next generation of certain technologies that we wanna continue to invest in, because we believe the demand will be there.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

As it relates to the pattern of profitability through the year, we always had an expectation that would build as we progress through the year for a variety of factors, you know, some of which just the timing that we have visibility into program performance, product deliveries are a little bit more back-end loaded over the course of the year. Programs like Navy NGEN, which has been ramping up very nicely, there's more project work now that we're into that program six-plus months, and the team sees opportunities as we move to the back half of the year to continue to deliver for the Navy customer.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Again, I think the pattern with some modest increases over the course of the year and, you know, that'll counterbalance some of the things that we're seeing in Health where the margins were a little bit inflated in the first quarter, as you saw. As far as the close on your indirect spending question, it's not a surprise to us. You know, we certainly anticipated getting back

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Being on the road, being involved, with, you know, trade shows as necessary. As we built our pricing rates for the year, we certainly incorporated those expectations.

[Sheila Kahyaoglu, Aerospace & Defense and Airlines Equity Research at Jefferies]

Great. Thank you.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Thank you.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Thanks, Sheila.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Cai von Rumohr with Cowen. Please proceed with your questions.

[Cai von Rumohr, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Yes, thanks so much. So like, Kahyaoglu, you guys had a weak funding-to-sales in the quarter per se, 0.9. Although your trailing twelve of 1.01 is stronger. Can you give us some color on the cadence throughout the quarter in terms of funding and whether it's picked up here in April? Following on to that, maybe some help in terms of the cadence of revenues and earnings over the next three quarters.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Sure, Cai. You know, it varies on the funding. Right now I would tell you other than one particular example that comes to mind where we wish there was a little bit more immediate funding on a particular program with one of our customers, funding hasn't been an issue, and some of the awards that we won, most notably on the VBA contracts, that funding will be there over time. It's just the way it gets recorded. We don't see funding as an issue. In fact, we're starting to see some customers come to us and say, "I'm anticipating more funding being available on these particular programs. You know, what types of things could we potentially do?" You know, that's the way we're seeing things play out.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

I'm sorry, the second part of your question was on the progression of revenue and earnings?

[Cai von Rumohr, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Yes. The progression of revenue and earnings over the year.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Right. It's a modest uptick as we see the year playing out. Obviously, we just got started. Roger talked about our AEGIS award program, so there was really no contribution of that in the first quarter. That'll start to contribute more in the second and build through the second half of the year. There's obviously some other new start programs that we just talked about. One of the key variables will be within health and how we see the exam volume moderating, but we've certainly anticipated that, you know, coming back down to the more normative levels that we've discussed. Think about, you know, steady uptick in the run rate, with the growth rate will moderate. As you know, the back half of last year was a little bit stronger, so you'll see those growth rates dial down.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

I think margin profile will continue modest increases over the course of the year.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah. Hey, Cai, I would add on the funding side, when we start some of these very large programs, getting the you know the billing process where we aggregate bills and getting the contracting officer you know that whole process to work as smoothly as it will on a mature program takes us a couple cycles. It's not the availability of funding at the customer level, it's getting the process of submitting invoices, aggregating invoices, working with contracting officers some of which are new to us because these are new programs, and just getting that process to operate as efficiently as we do on our more mature programs. We expect, as the year goes on, that you'll see that reverse.

[Cai von Rumohr, Managing Director at TD Cowen]

Thank you.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of Robert Spingarn with Melius Research. Please proceed with your questions.

[Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research]

Hi, good morning.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Good morning.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Hey, Rob.

[Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research]

Roger, I wanted to ask on the SDA business, where that's running and if that's improving with the traffic recovery. I think it may be trending at about, I don't know, 60% of where it was when you acquired it.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Let's see. There is more proposal activity.

[Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research]

Mm-hmm.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

We're out on the road more. We're engaged with customers more. Like any acquisition process, when you essentially come to a stop, getting it started again, so there's, you know, an RFI, there's an RFP cycle, and it takes time. Air traffic, you know, in the U.S. is at or better than. International is still lagging, and then in certain regions they're still lagging. Our team is traveling again. In fact, the group president has been overseas talking to airports. The airports are now coming forward with new forward plans.

[Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research]

Mm-hmm.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Post COVID, which will include modernization of both checkpoint baggage and, you know, we've been investing in technology. We're trying to get to a touchless passenger experience, which I think is kind of the holy grail of all of us who wanna go through airports, but that's just gonna take time. The recovery has been slow and it's gonna take us well into 2023 before we get back.

[Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research]

Okay. Can you remind us what the domestic versus international split is in that business? Chris, I have a quick one for you.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah, I mean, Rob, I don't know that we've given a precise estimate of that because, you know, it ebbs and flows, right, where the demand signal comes from and the service. These days it's less internationally focused, a little bit more domestically focused. To Roger's point, we see that bounce back and that future demand will be more internationally focused when that does occur.

[Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research]

I probably should have asked it as installed base. Maybe that's the better way to think about it.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Oh gosh, well, you're gonna test this now. More installed base internationally.

[Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research]

Okay. Then, Chris, just on backlog, how much of that is fixed price, and to what extent do those contracts have annual escalators like CPI or ECI to protect a bit?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Well, the large awards in health this quarter are like a fixed unit rate pricing. I would tell you, while we don't have necessarily escalator protection, we spend a lot of time in our pricing building in the, you know, the forward rates, and oftentimes those are prescriptive assumptions by the customer, and if things deviate, you have an opportunity to revisit that. We, you know, we take that estimate of inflationary cost increases into consideration when we're building up our price point. As far as the overall, you know, our fixed price concentration hasn't moved much as a % of revenue. You know, you're kinda seeing the new orders come in along the same lines of what we've seen historically.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

No real change to your long-term margin expectations from inflation?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

No, not at this time. We're doing the best we can to combat that as we price new opportunities and having a, you know, still more than 50% cost plus mix in the portfolio certainly gives you some backstop insulation. But we're certainly being thoughtful about pricing the fixed price components of the new bids.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Sure. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question is coming from the line of Gavin Parsons with UBS. Please go ahead with your questions.

[Gavin Parsons, Executive Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at UBS]

Hey, good morning.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah. Good morning, Gavin.

[Gavin Parsons, Executive Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at UBS]

Maybe just a follow-on to the inflation question. You know, Roger, a couple quarters ago, you made the point that, you know, if the customer doesn't necessarily or the customer will lose purchasing power if they don't raise their budgets for inflation. Seems like now we have a placeholder for inflation in the, you know, DoD Fiscal 2023 budget. Is it your sense that the, you know, the government customer is cognizant of the inflation environment, both in terms of, you know, real purchasing power and cost inputs?

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Well, let's see. It's hard for me to judge whether the government customer writ large, you know, understands the complete impact of inflation versus a real growth in their budget. You know, certainly a variety of customers that we talk to. I would point out, Gavin, the fuel cost is an immediate problem for, say, the Department of Defense, especially as they have increased op tempo and, you know, they have to buy the fuel. It comes out of the working capital fund. There are a variety of things that are happening in the macro economy that are gonna, you know, tap down sort of the enthusiasm on the top-line increase. I mean, let's see.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

My view is that, you know, at the SecDef, DepSecDef level, they completely understand that. I don't think they're gonna get supplemental for inflation. I think that they're thinking through the impact to the overall budget as they look at 2023 and 2024. I'll just share with you what the rhetoric is around town here in Washington, is that we will not sustain inflation at this rate as we come out of the back of the pandemic, as we get to whatever normal is in Ukraine, inflation will come down, maybe not to, you know, pre-COVID levels, but won't sustain at this level.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

I know there's a lot of focus on quarter by quarter these numbers, but you know the economists that I talk to and the reports that I am reading are that this will temper over the next quarter or two back to a more normal level, which will give them a little bit more real top line.

[Gavin Parsons, Executive Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at UBS]

Okay. Appreciate that insight.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah.

[Gavin Parsons, Executive Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at UBS]

Maybe just in terms of reiterating guidance, seems like, you know, you've de-risked a lot of the risk factors that were originally in place when you guided. Could you talk a little bit about, you know, kinda what the moving pieces are that would take you towards the high or low end of the range for the year?

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

I'll start and then Chris can add. You know, what we said is we're still within the range that we have put out in the marketplace, although there are obviously pluses and minuses. I made a comment in my prepared remarks that a lot of risk has been retired and we have more confidence in our ability to meet our numbers for the year. It's the first quarter, there's a lot of uncertainty. I don't know what's gonna happen in Ukraine. You know, you should take away is that we're still bounded by our guidance, but the team here is certainly a lot more confident than we were when we talked to you at first quarter when we didn't have a budget, we didn't know about Defense Enclave Services.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

We hadn't gotten out of the AEGIS protest. There's a lot of good things going on from a forecast standpoint within Leidos, but, we're still clearly within our upper and lower bounds in our guidance range.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah, Gavin, that's certainly, you know, the thought process that we went through, right? You know, we've learned from last year, things could evolve. The speed at which we think the positive budget environment flows through to orders, you know, we'll have to watch that carefully over here the next couple months. There's some exciting new programs that we've been bidding on, and so depending upon those decision timings over the next, you know, 2-3 months, could certainly be positive catalyst for us. At this point in time, we're on a nice trajectory. We're still in, we believe, the overall ranges for the year, and so it was premature to think about changing that at this time.

[Gavin Parsons, Executive Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at UBS]

Makes sense. Thank you.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

All right. Thanks, Gavin.

[Operator]

The next question comes from the line of Seth Seifman from J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

[Seth Seifman, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Hey, thanks very much. Good morning.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Good morning, Seth.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Good morning, Seth.

[Seth Seifman, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Just wanted to start off with health and you know the profitability there and you know I know that that kind of nearly 20% is not necessarily a normalized margin, but it's you know it's better than what was a very high margin last year. I guess how should we think about what's going to cause that to decline? Saw there was a win on the medical exam contract in the quarter, so you probably have a little bit more visibility there. You know were medical exams down year-over-year and the margin rate still went up? And if so, kind of what drove that? And do those drivers give you an ability to maybe sustain something that's closer to high teens%?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah, Seth, let me start and Roger can pile on. For the first quarter, you know, we're not featuring the exam business as the primary driver for strong margins. I mean, I have to give it to the DHMSM team. They're just doing an excellent job. We saw, again, as they've deployed more, they're seeing more efficiencies. We've talked about procurement and delivery in our prepared remarks, you know, how we're delivering software for the customer, finding opportunities to get more efficient in doing so. That one really helped contribute in the quarter. That was a little bit of a one-time pickup, but actually it'll help us on an ongoing basis maintain a little bit higher margin profile there. The exam business is doing well.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

I mean, I would say largely, you know, about the same levels of where we were a year ago. I think if you read carefully our prepared remarks, we talked about two things. Number one, we're excited to have won a position internationally, which provides opportunity to expand that business in an area we haven't been before. On the flip side, on one of our regions, one of the areas we perform on, we were re-awarded that contract, but they also added a couple additional suppliers potentially to the mix. We don't know how that dynamic will play out as far as how the caseload gets distributed there. That's certainly an area that we'll have to watch and moderate and could potentially.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

We're anticipating we'll put some downward pressure on margins over the course of the year, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah, Seth, I'll just add a little bit of color. The number of exams that we do, you know, per day, per week, maintained strong through the period. The discussion that we've had with the customer is there is a potential this year and next year that they will go back and review what they call prior presumptive cases, things related to Agent Orange and some other things that might sustain the volume in the exam business sort of above what we have forecasted. We've had those discussions with the customers. We haven't seen the volume come all the way through yet, so it's a bit of wait and see.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

On the District Six, which is your transition exam when you leave the active military and you go to VA, they added another or actually added two more contractors because of the anticipation that there will be added volume through this presumptive cases. You know, we can talk more about it as the quarters go by, but it's really important for our customer to provide a timely medical exam to the people who serve the country. They wanted to add more capacity into the system because they think they'll have more exams, and we'll just have to wait and see how it plays out.

[Seth Seifman, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Okay. Great. Thanks. Then just as a quick follow-up, it seems like the company's in a pretty strong place with regard to the revenue outlook for the year. With regard to the margin guidance, it seems that the margin rate should expand through the year, but it, you know, health was probably at an unsustainable level in Q1, and you talked about some more investments. So what's kind of the driver of in improving margin rate?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah, there's a variety of things, Seth. I mean, well, first of all, on the investment questions, if, you know, we see smart investments we believe for the long term, you know, we're going to fund those even if they were over and above the plan. As of right now, obviously, we are holding to our guidance. I talked about, you know, some of the product deliveries, although, as Roger alluded to, the SDA business is not where we ultimately hope it will be. We're still shipping some products, and those are more back-end loaded over the course of the year. We'll be ramping up some new program wins. You know, that scale will continue to increase. The Engine project work is back-end loaded.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Some of the projects that Dynetics is working on in delivering, we're anticipating a better performance over the back half of the year. There's a variety of factors across the portfolio. We're not far off, obviously, at 10.2% margin. We're not far off of what our goals are, but you're right, we're preparing for health moderating down and the other parts of the portfolio moderating up a little bit this year.

[Seth Seifman, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan]

Perfect. Thanks very much.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Thank you.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah.

[Operator]

Our next question is coming from the line of Bert Subin with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

[Bert Subin, Managing Director at Stifel]

Hey, good morning.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah, good morning.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Hey, Bert.

[Bert Subin, Managing Director at Stifel]

Following up on the SDA question, Roger, you said last quarter normalization was something in the ballpark of $several hundred million higher. You could see, you know, up to or greater than a 2% organic tailwind for that business heading into 2023, could you not?

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Without doing the math in my head, generally, yeah.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Well, yeah, Bert, but I mean, it can all bounce back overnight, right? We're not expecting that we'll get a step function increase, but that's where we think we'll ultimately be able to get back to.

[Bert Subin, Managing Director at Stifel]

All right.

[Bert Subin, Managing Director at Stifel]

Okay. Just a quick follow-up. Can you just give us an update on where things stand with the hypersonic business?

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Sure. We make the Common Hypersonic Glide Body down at Dynetics in Huntsville, and we have delivered our first Leidos manufactured Common Hypersonic Glide Body to the customer, and we are ramping up production. I can't share what the production numbers are, but it's a fairly steep ramp. You know, the program's fully funded. We also won, we've talked about this in the past, the Thermal Protection System contract. This is the coating that goes on the outside of the Common Hypersonic Glide Body. I will say this, we have ample capacity to raise our rate significantly above what we're contracted for. We also make the launcher, which is more associated with the parent program, the Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon.

[Bert Subin, Managing Director at Stifel]

Mm-hmm.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

We had delivered our first tranche of launchers, and they're with the Army doing training. We're in a position to build additional launchers as those contracts get written. We're excited about the program. We believe there's a huge near-term need and although we're conservative in what we put in our financial forecast, we clearly think there's upside on the hypersonic business.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah. We're really excited about the team's doing a great job. In fact, Roger, myself, a few other executives are getting on a plane later today to fly down to Huntsville and celebrate some of the recent successes they've had because they're really knocking it out of the park.

[Bert Subin, Managing Director at Stifel]

Thanks, Roger. Thanks, Chris.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yep.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Our next question is from the line of Matthew Akers with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

[Matthew Akers, U.S. Aerospace & Defense Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for the question, guys.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Hey, good morning.

[Matthew Akers, U.S. Aerospace & Defense Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Good morning. I just wanted to ask about DES, and you know, realizing that program's still under protest, but just assuming that does come back to you at some point later this year, how should we think about, you know, kind of the pacing of how fast that could ramp up and ultimately what sort of the run rate we should expect on that program?

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Well, I'll give you an overview, and then Chris can sharpen the numbers part of it. We're in protest. We're optimistic that the GAO will rule on time. It clearly could go to another round of protests. It could go to the Court of Federal Claims. It is a very slow ramp. Let me describe the program. This is DISA taking over more IT environments to come to, if you will, a common network approach across DoD. We will transform networks of other DoD agencies outside of the services, and this happens kind of a agency-by-agency basis. The first couple agencies that we will transform are relatively small. If we come out of a protest in June, the revenue this year is very small.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Almost, you know, double-digit, but not much more than that. Then it builds over time. I would caution dividing 11.5 by 10 and putting a billion dollar in your model. We have to win and achieve that. I mean, there is a potential to do that several years out, but it's not at that level in our models. It's smaller than that. You know, that's an IDIQ ceiling, if you're familiar with how that contract works. That gives the customer, you know, room to grow and to spend at that level. From our own internal modeling, it will be a slow ramp and will actually take years to become a significant program at that level.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah. I mean, Matt, I'm probably gonna dodge your question even more. Obviously, we don't wanna get ahead of ourselves. Very excited to get the win notification. Have a high degree of confidence in our team. They know how to defend protests. You know, we're gonna go through that process. We're gonna see what happens in June. To Roger's point, I feel like this is a program that will continue to drive growth for multiple years. That's the good news. We'll do everything we can to deliver for the customer, maximize the value of the contract because that means we're really delivering great capability to up to 22 agencies within the DoD Fourth Estate.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

you know, think about this, potentially it will become, we believe, one of our top programs, but don't expect that in 2023 and probably not in 2024. It'll take multiple years to get there.

[Matthew Akers, U.S. Aerospace & Defense Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Got it. Thanks. That's helpful. If I could just do one more on kind of the hiring environment. You know, you guys have won a lot of new work here. You know, what are you seeing? Is it getting any easier to hire people? You know, are you kind of confident you can get enough people to support all this new work?

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah. It's really interesting. We're a people company, and literally every day, almost every hour, we're talking about people and hiring. You know, quote, "The Great Resignation," unquote, means people are moving.

[Matthew Akers, U.S. Aerospace & Defense Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

Mm-hmm.If they're resigning from Leidos, they're going to work someplace else. If they're resigning from someplace else, they're coming to work at Leidos. Our acceptance rate is 90% of the offers that we make. We fill most of our positions between 30 and 45 days. It's not a hiring problem, it's a retention problem. I've got kids, you know. Coming out of COVID, people are looking around. They want to try something different. We're doing a lot. If you were in our meetings, you know, we have a great talent acquisition team. They're doing a great job, and we can always do better. We're spending a lot of our time on how do we continue to make Leidos an attractive place not to come to work, but to stay.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

This is career development. This is investing in the future of our employees. This is what we call upskilling. Teaching them new languages like Python and things like that, so that they can have a new job and stay at Leidos, if you will. There's a lot of work. I know I was talking to some of our competitors and they have the same problem, and we're all focusing on employee development, not so much from a hiring standpoint. By the way, there's always a shortage of, you know, cleared computer science majors, you know, with access in the intel world. That's always gonna be a challenge.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

You should not, you know, listen about the Great Resignation and say, "Oh, they can't hire the people." We've been very, very successful in attracting and hiring, and now our emphasis is on retention.

[Matthew Akers, U.S. Aerospace & Defense Research Analyst at Wells Fargo]

That's helpful. Thanks.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah.

[Operator]

Thank you. The next question is from the line of Colin Canfield with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions.

[Colin Canfield, VP of Equity Research at Barclays]

Hey, good morning. Can we just level set the growth narrative here? Unchanged guidance suggests that you need to hit roughly 7% organic in FY 2023, 2024. As we look out over a multi-year period, what are some of the pain points that you guys are looking at split between, you know, headcount issues, supply chain, really kind of what does it take to not achieve those levels?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Well, Colin, I mean, over a multi-year time horizon, right, things can go wrong. We've been talking about some of them here that Roger just featured. Retention, right? It's not a hiring issue per se. It's certainly but making sure we can retain people to have the headcount we need to achieve that level of growth. I mean, first of all, yeah, we put that multi-year guidance out in October. We knew when we put this year's guidance out, we were on the lower end of the range. We're off to a good start. We're not updating this year's guidance at this point in time, but we just talked about things like DES and catalysts for future momentum. Then it becomes, can you execute? Can you get the people on the supply chain?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

We're watching all those things very carefully. I mean, all indicators at this point in time are, nothing would take us away from, feeling like we can still achieve those longer term objectives. That's the trajectory we're on, but clearly something we focus on, all the time as we go through and execute and deliver for our customers every day.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

You know, Colin, there's still some big opportunities we have to win. We've talked about the Space Fence program, which has now been delayed to the fall. There are a series of multi-billion-dollar programs that are still in our pipeline. We have to continue to do what we're doing, hire the people, execute in the business development area, win the programs, and then staff the programs. You know, the customer has to fully fund.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

You know, right now, I think, you know, 2022 and 2023 look pretty solid. But if there's a big sea change, frankly, if we get into a war where the U.S. is actually involved, that will reprioritize spending within the federal government, maybe away from long-term modernization to actual combat operations. We're hopeful that won't happen, but that could have a significant effect on how we view the future.

[Colin Canfield, VP of Equity Research at Barclays]

Got it. In terms of CapEx for the year, can you just discuss some of your biggest investment areas and the return metrics that you're contemplating within that portfolio?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Yeah. When we put together a CapEx plan for the year, you know, all of our business have a variety of needs, and there's a laundry list of items. Some of the bigger ones, you know, we're in the airborne ISR business, and that's an area we've made some investments and generated excellent returns, you know, with IRRs, certainly mid- to high-teens, if not better. We certainly look at the risk of an investment. We look at our weighted average cost of capital. We try to generate returns, obviously, that exceed that. We're still, you know, putting money into as much as we're trying to overall shrink and densify our facility footprint. There are certain areas, especially in the intel space, new classified facilities we're having to invest in and some areas on the manufacturing side that we're investing in.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Facilities would probably be our second biggest expense area. It's just a variety of smaller initiatives across the company.

[Operator]

Rob, it looks like we have time for just one more question.

[Operator]

Yes, that question is coming from the line of Mariana Perez Mora of Bank of America.

[Mariana Perez Mora, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America Securities]

Good morning, gentlemen.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Morning.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Morning.

[Mariana Perez Mora, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America Securities]

My question is a follow-up to Cai's question. As we try to understand the market trends versus the company's specific story, would you mind giving us some color on how much of the 4% organic growth or how much of, like, the low single digits organic growth embedded or implied in your guidance is related to legacy programs? How much is related to new and ramping up contracts, and how much is related to lost recompetes?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Lost recompetes. You're talking about, Mariana, our organic growth profile, and kind of dissecting that a little bit is what I think I heard from that question. You know, we're certainly seeing some uplifts, and we look for what we call on-contract growth every year as we build our plan, between inflationary pressures on cost reimbursable programs and just because there's capacity within contract budgets that we, you know, look for opportunities to continue to expand services to existing customers. That's certainly an area that's contributing. You know, a couple points of growth at a minimum, we look for that. Obviously it comes down to the new start programs. We've featured many of those. NGEN will still be a growth story for us this year. Military Family Life Counseling continues to ramp up. We talked about AEGIS.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Some of those new mega programs are probably the next thing I would point to to give us confidence on this year's growth trajectory. Roger just talked about, you know, the pipeline is still rich, and we're continuing to pursue multiple programs beyond that to fuel our growth. I'm not sure if that exactly hit on your question, but happy to expand as necessary.

[Mariana Perez Mora, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America Securities]

No, that's good color. I'll switch gears to M&A. Do you mind giving us some color on what's in the pipeline in terms of how large it is and what kind of, like, companies, customers, capabilities are you looking for on those tactical or bolt-on acquisitions?

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Well, Mariana, I mean, we won't give you too much in the way of specifics as far as what we're looking at in the M&A arena, but I would tell you that a lot of properties continue to come to market. You know, Roger talked last quarter about, and you know, followed up again this quarter, the mega properties, the larger ones are probably, you know, not something we have an immediate interest in unless we really saw a compelling case to accelerate our strategy. You know, we're certainly seeing some companies out of the space arena come to market. That's interesting to follow. But, you know, we look at things that make sense to us. We vet things and, but we're gonna be thoughtful about where we engage.

[Chris Cage, CFO at Leidos]

Back to his prepared remarks, it really has to fit a strategic niche for us.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Yeah, Mariana, I would just, you know, foot stomp. We're really happy with our portfolio today, and so we look at M&A as a way to accelerate a technology or customer access or a relationship with a customer. You know, we were fortunate to be able to do some larger transactions early, and it rounded out our portfolio. Now as we see technology advance, there's always a couple areas where I think our time to market would be benefited by partnering with a company rather than trying to develop that internally. Then there are still customers in the federal space that we don't have a long-term relationship with. If we're able to accelerate that relationship through another company that has a great portfolio, we'll do that.

[Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO at Leidos]

Otherwise, as we said in our capital allocation, you know, we're really thinking about how do we get value back to you, our shareholders. Thanks for the question.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, I'll turn the floor back over to Stuart Davis for closing remarks.

[Stuart Davis, SVP of Investor Relations at Leidos]

Thank you, Rob, for your assistance on this morning's call, and thank you all for your time this morning and your interest in Leidos. We look forward to updating you again soon. Have a great day.

[Operator]

This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

Participants

Executives

• Stuart Davis, SVP of Investor Relations
• Roger Krone, Chairman and CEO
• Chris Cage, CFO

Analysts

• Peter Arment, Senior Research Analyst at Baird
• Sheila Kahyaoglu, Aerospace & Defense and Airlines Equity Research at Jefferies
• Cai von Rumohr, Managing Director at TD Cowen
• Robert Spingarn, Managing Director of Aerospace, Defense, and Space Equity Research at Melius Research
• Gavin Parsons, Executive Director of Aerospace & Defense Equity Research at UBS
• Seth Seifman, Executive Director at J.P. Morgan
• Bert Subin, Managing Director at Stifel
• Matthew Akers, U.S. Aerospace & Defense Research Analyst at Wells Fargo
• Colin Canfield, VP of Equity Research at Barclays
• Mariana Perez Mora, VP of Equity Research at Bank of America Securities