Earnings Call Transcript
EMCOR Group, Inc. (EME)
Earnings Call Transcript - EME Q3 2024
Operator, Operator
Good morning. My name is Chuck, and I'll be your conference operator today. I would like to welcome everyone to the EMCOR Group Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Andy Backman, Vice President of Investor Relations. Mr. Backman, you may begin.
Andy Backman, VP of Investor Relations
Thank you, Chuck, and good morning everyone and welcome to EMCOR's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. For those of you joining us by webcast, we are at the beginning of our slide presentation that will accompany our results today. The presentation will be archived in the Investor Relations section of our website at emcorgroup.com. With me today are Tony Guzzi, our Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer; Jason Nalbandian, Senior Vice President and EMCOR's Chief Financial Officer; and Maxine Mauricio, Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel. For today's call, Tony will provide comments on our third quarter. Jason will then review the third quarter numbers before turning it back to Tony to discuss RPOs, as well as reviewing our revised 2024 guidance before we open it up for Q&A. Before we begin, as a reminder, this presentation and discussion contain certain forward-looking statements and may contain certain non-GAAP financial information. Slide two of our presentation describes in detail these forward-looking statements and the non-GAAP financial information disclosures. I encourage everyone to review both disclosures in conjunction with our discussion and accompanying slides. And finally, as a reminder, all financial information discussed during this morning's call is included in our consolidated financial statements within both our earnings press release issued this morning and in our Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. And with that, let me turn the call over to Tony. Tony?
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Yes. Thanks much, Andy. I'll be speaking mainly just Page 4 of this opening. In the third quarter of 2024, our team continued to perform exceptionally well and delivered another great quarter. When you compare it to the third quarter of 2023, we had record revenues of $3.7 billion, which represents growth of 15.3% revenue growth. We had record operating income of $363.5 million, which was a 54.7% increase and we more than doubled our operating cash flow to $526 million. Our RPOs grew to a record $9.8 billion in the quarter, up $1.15 billion or 13.4% from the prior year quarter and we earned diluted earnings per share of $5.80 compared to $3.57 for the third quarter of 2023. Our Electrical and Mechanical Construction segments continued their impressive performance with a combined third quarter operating margin of 13.3% and individual operating margins of 14.1% and 12.9% respectively. How this happens is through excellent field leadership that continued to drive this outstanding execution through relentless attention to detail and constant innovation across the project life cycle. That begins with project and customer selection, estimating contract structure and negotiation, significant use of VDC, which is virtual design construct. We used to talk about it as BIM. Now we talk about it as a more holistic approach with virtual design construct, which leads to prefabrication, labor planning and training, commissioning and finally, all the way through the diligent collection of receivables. Our teams then incorporate these learnings into the next opportunity to make them even more successful and productive for our customers. We do have a continuous improvement and learning culture here at EMCOR. And when you couple that great execution with a strong mix of work that includes data centers, semiconductor plants, other high-tech and traditional manufacturing, institutional water and wastewater and good aftermarket service and project opportunities including in the commercial sector, then our impressive performance is the end result. We are executing this diverse work and expanding into these resilient sectors with our growth over the last five years occurring through a combination of greenfield expansion, robust training once we do the greenfield expansions and complementary acquisitions. We do have some of the best leadership at the segment and subsidiary levels and they work together to share best practices and drive results across our mechanical and electrical trades. The result is this exceptional outcome for our customers and as a result of that strong performance for our shareholders. Our Building Services segment continues to perform as we expected to perform this year, with very strong Mechanical Services performance and an overall operating margin of 7%, despite the previously discussed loss contracts in our site-based businesses. During the third quarter of 2024, our Mechanical Services business benefited from strong performance across its whole product line and portfolio work, including service maintenance agreements, repair services, HVAC retrofits and building controls upgrades. Our Industrial Services segment continues to experience a gradual resumption of normal demand, and we are performing well, both in the field and shops, and we are executing a normal fall turnaround season. Our U.K. business also continues to perform well in a difficult market. We are winning new work and are poised to secure additional opportunities with customers that demand a strong technical solution for their facility services. At $9.8 billion, we have a strong base of RPOs to execute and we have a balance sheet, which will enable us to continue to compete, win and grow in the future. With all that said, I think we can all agree it was a great quarter, exceptional performance by our team. And with that, Jason, I will turn the call over to you, and you will provide more details on our quarterly results.
Jason Nalbandian, CFO
Thank you, Tony. Over the next several slides, I'll review the operating performance for each of our segments as well as some of the key financial data for the third quarter of 2024 compared to the third quarter of 2023. I'm going to start here on Slide 5, which is revenues. As Tony mentioned, consolidated revenues were a quarterly record at $3.7 billion, an increase of $489.3 million, or 15.3%. Led by our Construction segments, we continue to execute well and demand remains strong across most of the large and growing sectors that we serve. On an organic basis, revenues grew by 12.6%. Looking at our segments. Revenues of U.S. Electrical Construction were $845 million, an increase of 21.2%. This segment continues to benefit from increased demand across many market sectors with the most significant growth coming once again from network and communications due to our data center project demand. This segment additionally experienced notable increases in renews within high-tech manufacturing, as well as the institutional and manufacturing and industrial sectors. In the quarter, revenue growth within manufacturing and industrial was partially driven by the completion of certain battery energy storage projects. U.S. Mechanical Construction revenues were $1.66 billion, increasing 25%. Demand in this segment continues to be broad-based, and we once again saw growth in the majority of the markets in which we operate. While the strongest growth was seen in high-tech manufacturing and networking communications, we also experienced notable increases within institutional and healthcare. The segment additionally benefited from greater levels of service work. As we expected and consistent with my comments last quarter, partially offsetting the growth for both of our construction segments was a decrease in revenues from the commercial sector due to either the reduced demand across the commercial real estate industry or the completion of various warehousing and distribution projects, which were active a year ago. Together, our domestic construction segments generated revenues of $2.5 billion, which is an increase of nearly 24%. If we look at U.S. Building Services, revenues were $796.9 million, representing a decrease of 2.5% due to the non-renewal of certain facilities maintenance contracts that we've discussed on prior calls. A nearly $78 million decrease from our commercial and government site-based operations more than offset the continued strength from our Mechanical Services division, which grew revenues by $57 million in the quarter. There continues to be strong demand for mechanical services. And as Tony mentioned, we experienced growth across each of our service lines, including projects and retrofits, repair service, building automation and controls and service maintenance. If we move to Industrial Services, driven by greater demand across their field services division, including turnarounds of a larger size and scope growth on certain projects, revenues were $286.4 million, an increase of 13.6%. And lastly, U.K. Building Services delivered revenues of $106.4 million. While project revenue remains consistent with that of the year-ago period, service revenues have declined, resulting in a 4% decrease for this segment. Let's turn to Slide 6. For the quarter, we had operating income of $363.5 million, or 9.8% of revenues. Our performance established new quarterly records both for operating income and operating margin and compares favorably to operating income of $235 million, or 7.3% of revenues a year ago. Once again, if we look at each of our segments, U.S. Electrical reported operating income of $119.1 million which represents a nearly 89% increase. Operating margin was 14.1% which is a 500 basis point improvement. The segment generated increased gross profit and gross profit margin from the majority of the sectors in which we serve. In line with revenues, the most notable increases were experienced within network and communications. However, the segment also benefited from greater gross profit within the institutional, manufacturing and industrial and high-tech manufacturing sectors. Operating income for U.S. Mechanical Construction was $214.8 million, an increase of just over 55% and operating margin of 12.9% expanded by 250 basis points. Similar to Electrical Construction, this segment experienced greater gross profit from the majority of the sectors we serve. The largest increases were generated within high-tech manufacturing and networking communications. While our commercial sector revenues have declined, we did experience an increase in gross profit from this sector due to a more favorable mix of work. Together, our construction segments reported operating margin of 13.3%. Operating income for U.S. Building Services was $55.6 million, a slight decline year-over-year, but our operating margin remained strong at 7% in both periods. Consistent with the segment's revenues, increased gross profit and gross profit margin from our Mechanical Services division were offset by reductions within commercial and government due to the headwinds we previously referenced. Industrial Services operating income was $3.3 million or 1.1% of revenues versus essentially breakeven performance a year ago. This improvement was driven by higher gross profit margin from both field and shop services, due in part to better pricing and greater indirect cost absorption. As a reminder, the third quarter is typically a weaker quarter for the segment, accounting for the lower operating margin when compared to the first half of the year. Lastly, U.K. Building Services reported operating income of $5.5 million or 5.2% of revenues. While project revenues have remained steady in the quarter, the U.K. saw a less favorable mix of work from a margin perspective, notably as their portfolio in the prior year included a greater number of higher-margin projects. When compared to projects of a more traditional profile, operating margins have declined in the U.K. by 280 basis points. If we turn to Slide 7, a few highlights on this slide start with gross profit. Due to a combination of revenue growth, improved mix, accelerated project execution, enhanced productivity, and favorable pricing, gross margin has expanded by 290 basis points and gross profit has increased by 35%. Our third quarter SG&A increased by $63 million, which includes $10.2 million of incremental expenses attributable to companies acquired. While our SG&A margin of 10% for the quarter has increased by 40 basis points, our SG&A margin for the year-to-date period of 9.7% remains consistent with that of the prior year. Given the stronger-than-anticipated performance, a true-up of operating company incentive accruals accounts for the quarterly increase in SG&A margin. Finally, diluted earnings per share was $5.80 compared to $3.57, an increase of 62.5%. If we briefly turn to Slide 8, you can see our performance for the first nine months of 2024. On a year-to-date basis, we have grown revenues by 18.1% or 16.2% organically, and our diluted EPS of $15.21 represents a 72% increase from $8.85 a year ago. In a later slide, Tony will outline our updated earnings guidance for 2024. I mentioned that now as it's our performance for the last two quarters as well as the year-to-date period which frames our guidance. If we look at the low end of our guidance range, we've assumed operating margins that are in line with the 8.9% we have earned year-to-date. At the midpoint, we have assumed fourth quarter operating margins which reflect the average of our second and third quarter performance. The high end represents what we could achieve if our fourth quarter margins are equal to the record margins we earned in this quarter. Lastly, if we look at our balance sheet on Slide 9, our balance sheet remains strong and liquid and continues to be a differentiator for us in the market. Although not shown on this slide, operating cash flow for the quarter was approximately $526 million, which represents 145% of operating income. On a year-to-date basis, we have generated $938 million of operating cash equivalent to 98% of operating income. Our significant cash generation leaves us well-positioned to continue to fund organic growth, pursue strategic M&A and return capital to shareholders, all of which we have demonstrated thus far this year. For the first nine months of 2024, we have utilized $189 million on acquisitions and returned $437 million to our shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases. During the quarter, we repurchased $256 million of shares, bringing our year-to-date total to $405 million. With that, I will turn the call back to Tony for a discussion on our RPOs.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Thanks Jason. Like I said, what a great quarter. As I discussed RPOs, I'd like you to take slides 10 and 11 together and put them side by side and we can see the themes driving our business. If you look at data centers and connectivity, we continue to see strong demand for hyperscale data center work, which is included in the network and communications sector. At the end of the quarter, RPOs in this sector were a record $2.1 billion, up $759 million or nearly 55% year-over-year and almost 25% sequentially. As I've said on prior calls, we believe that we are in the early innings of the overall data center expansion, especially with the addition of AI and that we've successfully positioned ourselves in more data center key geographies over the past five years to serve our customers better. Reshoring and near-shoring continues to provide opportunity for us in both the high-tech manufacturing and traditional manufacturing and industrial sectors. In high-tech manufacturing, we have RPOs of $1.3 billion at the end of the third quarter and that includes semiconductor, pharma, biotech, life sciences and the electric vehicle value chain. RPOs in this sector were down 7% from the year-ago period as we continue to work through a number of high-tech manufacturing projects, including the initial fab one of several semiconductor campuses. However, we believe the long-term fundamentals here are solid. As we have stated before, we expect ebbs and flows in the award of this work. Many of these project sites are multi-year sites, and we are working on or anticipate working on multiyear multiphase construction projects, for which we will generally only be awarded one phase at any given time or a part of the phase at any given time. While we believe we are well-positioned for these follow-on contracts they will be released in different amounts, different times, and sometimes even under different contract sectors on these multiyear, multiphase building programs. In addition to the high-tech manufacturer, we continue to have a healthy dose base of RPOs within the traditional manufacturing and industrial sector, which totaled $921 million at the end of the quarter, up nearly 8% year-over-year and almost 18% sequentially. When you look at energy efficiency and sustainability, we continue to excel with retrofit project work especially within the Mechanical Services division of our US Building Services segment where we saw a year-over-year increase in RPOs of 4%. As a reminder, much of this work is focused on retrofit replacement of aged equipment, but also reducing energy consumption by coupling more efficient equipment with a building automation upgrade. Lastly, health care is an area where we have excelled, and we ended up the quarter at a record $1.2 billion in RPOs, up over 19% from the year-ago period. Now I'll go to slide 11 and I'll finish this off. Water and wastewater now totaled $729 million, an increase of 21% sequentially and 18% year-over-year. For those new to the call, this is a market for us, which is mainly focused in Florida. RPOs in the institutional sector, which includes project work for schools, universities, and local and state and federal buildings were up 19% year-over-year, coming in at a record $1.1 billion. Spending is on research facilities, enhanced and new classroom space, technology upgrades across campuses and renovation and retrofits with a goal of improved air quality and reduced energy consumption drives demand in this sector. Transportation grew over 10% sequentially and 66% year-over-year to approximately $305 million, driven by the award of certain infrastructure projects and short-duration projects, which are small project work across the gamut of work we do from building control upgrades, HVAC upgrades, electrical upgrades, technology enhancements, all in the built space. We're trying to make the buildings and campuses more efficient, energy-efficient, smarter, cleaner and more productive. Our RPOs are $9.8 billion. They're up 13.4% or $1.15 billion from a year ago. We like the mix we like the projects and we like the execution although we don't control totally the timing and execution of these projects as those RPOs roll out. We believe that the value and the type of mix of contract structure and work we have in those RPOs is similar to the work we've been executing over the last six quarters. Now I'm going to close on pages 12 and 13. We've obviously performed very well during the first three quarters of 2024. Jason talked about the record performance we had in the third quarter, especially with respect to operating margins. Our momentum has been strong, both on revenue growth and operating margin expansion. Our revenues have grown 18.1% on a year-to-date basis, and our operating margin has expanded 250 basis points to 8.9%. As a result, we're going to raise our diluted earnings per share guidance to $20.50 to $21 and that's from our previous range of $19 to $20. We expect to earn revenues of at least $14.5 billion. As we move into the year-end and look at the future, I always step back and reflect on what is working well and what are the challenges. And what's going well? Well, clearly we are positioned well in a set of growing and diverse sectors that demand excellence in execution, especially with respect to large projects. To better serve our customers, we've expanded our skills across geographies and sectors, and we do that by training people well. We've had greenfield expansion, complementary acquisitions, and we continue to invest heavily in VDC and in our prefab, which results in better field execution and improves productivity. Our companies utilize peer learning and share best practices on means and methods to build capabilities and leverage our customer relations better at any time in our company's history. We leverage our corporate staff and segment staff very well to improve outcomes, not only on contract negotiations and planning but human resources planning, cyber, IT, financial discipline, which includes management planning, cash collection, marketing, and risk management, which for us means insurance in this case, to gain the benefits of the expertise in the learning that we've had especially over the last five years as we build more and more of these scale products to also leverage our scale to improve outcomes first for our customers and our employees. We have invested in success over many years in leadership development with a focus on our core values and Mission First, People Always, and continue to develop our unique EMCOR operating system and practices. We always have opportunities to improve. I will mention a short view. We always need to adjust our product offerings, our project delivery. But in this case, we continue to need to enhance our ability to serve our customers through geographic expansion and skill transfer. We need to enhance our site-based service offerings to focus further on our technical services expertise as a point of differentiation versus the real estate firms. You are always going to face challenges in an uncertain world of supply chain, disruption, continued economic uncertainty, interest rates, geopolitical tensions, but our team has shown resilience and has overcome such challenges successfully in the past, and there's no reason to believe we won't do that in the future. And again, we always go back to our culture of Mission First, People Always and our unique EMCOR operating model. Finally, you have to continue to invest in what's going well and you have to even do more investment in learning to make it even better. We've had a good mix of capital allocation this year from strong organic investment, acquisition investment and return of cash to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. We continue to pursue robust opportunities to invest more organic capital across our operations to support our VDC, which again reminding you of virtual design and construct and prefabrication efforts, but also continue to apply technology to improve productivity, safety, and efficiency from our back offices to project execution. You're going to ask about acquisitions. I've always had the attitude that deals happen when they happen. We are in discussions with many people across many years, helping them come into the EMCOR family. We've had a great track record of that over the last five years, especially on the execution and integration of those acquisitions. As always, I want to thank my EMCOR teammates for performing so well for our customers and for making EMCOR a great place to work, as we always strive to improve as a Mission First, People Always culture. And with that Chuck, I'll take questions.
Operator, Operator
Thank you. We will now begin the question-and-answer session. The first question will come from Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.
Brent Thielman, Analyst
Hi, thanks. Good morning.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Good morning, Brent.
Brent Thielman, Analyst
Hey, just first on growth in data center for you just continues to be remarkable. Tony, I was wondering if you could just talk around what's being supported by new build-out versus retrofit? And then as you think about retrofit down the line how much of an opportunity is that for you in that category?
Tony Guzzi, CEO
I think it's going to be a significant opportunity. But if you look today specifically, 90% plus of our work is new build. And probably two-thirds of that is on existing campuses and one-third of that is on new campuses. Brent, when we think about data centers, actually to get ready for this call, I always reflect on what's changed over a five-year period. If you go back to the middle of 2019, and you snap the line here at the end of the third quarter, we were serving electrically about 2.5 markets at the end of 2019. The half is because it's not really a data center market. It's more of one of those places where they use to transfer data here around the New York area. And today, I counted at least 13, depending on how you count it, 14 markets we're serving electrically. What's driving that is our customers. We execute well. We share learnings well. Our customers want us to expand in more markets and we do that a number of ways. Mechanically, we can finish on mechanical, we went from serving one data center market in 2019 to six today. On the Fire Life Safety side, we can serve our customers pretty ubiquitously across the country. Again, understand what I'm saying, it's because our customers are asking us to help serve them better in more markets. So how do we do that? Well, we do that first by leveraging our capabilities and teaching folks that we already have in an existing subsidiary how to do data center work and meet this most demanding market segment. Yes, the growth is remarkable, but these are some of the most demanding customers in the world. Second, we then combine that with organic investment in those subsidiaries and in our existing subsidiaries to deliver great results for those customers. Where applicable, we may buy into the data center market or that company has to do more than data centers. They have to be able to stand on their own in that market without the data center market. So, you put all that together, that's how you serve that market. Now if you go look into the future here. The next question should be okay, how much do you think is that tied to AI today? In the future, it will probably be one-third to half of what we're doing will be tied to AI. The balance will be just cloud storage and expanding that. Eventually, they interact with each other. I will tell you the AI power requirements are anywhere from five to six times in some cases what a traditional cloud storage data center will be. So what does that mean for us? It means enhanced scope. It means more requirement for planning. It requires more sophistication on the VDC side, which continues to make you understand why customers want us to expand with them into other markets. With that, I'll stop. Jason, do you have anything to add?
Brent Thielman, Analyst
Very good. I appreciate all that Tony. And then profitability in Electrical is even better than the last few quarters, which were quite good. Are there any closeouts or operational one-timers driving the 14% op margin, Tony? I know, there's always things in any given quarter but...
Jason Nalbandian, CFO
I think if you look at closeouts, if you look at what we disclosed, there really isn't a drastic change that's accounting for the margins. I think, as we've said, it continues to be driven by mix and execution. But I do think, right, you can never look at one quarter and say, that's an indicator of our margins. I think in this environment, I'd say looking at a 9- to 15-month rolling average is probably a good way to look at it.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Yes. The timing of these projects is not within our control, so there may be periods where our supervision resources are not actively engaged for a month or a month and a half while we await new projects. It's important to recall early 2022 when we observed a build-up and people questioned its sustainability. We believed in it and retained our key supervision even though the margins were slightly affected in the first quarter of 2022. We are not focused on short-term results; our focus is long-term. We aim to align our valuable resources, such as shop capacity, VDC capability, estimating, and especially field supervision and labor, with the long-term capital build cycle in key sectors. Our RPOs indicate that these sectors include data centers, connectivity, the aftermarket, high-tech manufacturing like semiconductors, traditional and industrial manufacturing, healthcare, and water and wastewater. We highly value our field supervision and are strategically planning how to align this essential resource with future opportunities, acknowledging that this won't be a straightforward process.
Brent Thielman, Analyst
Very good. Maybe just the last one. Tony, I appreciate the comments around high-tech manufacturing that your visibility into these projects sort of extends several years. The timing can be episodic I get it. I was actually more curious on the RPO strength in manufacturing and industrial which sort of reflects things I guess outside of high tech. What are the sorts of things you're seeing there? And maybe what contributed to the strength this quarter? I found that uptick interesting.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Yes, it's pretty broad-based, but it's the traditional things we've done. Again, it always goes back to those manufacturers' drive for efficiency and automation and market expansion coupled with reshoring. It's traditional things. It's food. It's general consumer goods. It's some effects of auto suppliers into the traditional automotive chain. It's suppliers doing everything from pumps and motors and all those things that support all these other projects we're doing in capacity expansion. Some of it is driven by capacity expansion to meet the more mundane areas of all these growth trends and then some of it's reshoring and the drive for automation. Look at all these places, you think about what's going on with energy prices. We talk a lot about office buildings, office buildings, office buildings. But think about what a manufacturing plant uses; we're doing that work there too, or they drive for energy efficiency, and they get into a multi-year program with us to drive efficiency across their plant network. So that theme of driving down energy costs and reducing carbon footprint. But I will tell you it's led by cost right now because of the spike in energy prices and no one thinks they're going down anytime soon.
Jason Nalbandian, CFO
Yes. I think the only thing I would add to that, right, I agree with everything Tony said, I think the near-shoring and reshoring continues to be strong for us, continues to be a driver. If you're looking at RPO sequentially, I will say maybe we saw a little bit more strength in the food process side, which Tony mentioned at the onset of this commentary. But just looking sequentially, food is definitely a driver.
Brent Thielman, Analyst
Excellent. Appreciate it. I'll pass it on.
Operator, Operator
The next question will come from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst
Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on another great quarter.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Thank you.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst
Tony, I wanted to ask about the revenue guidance first. What's kind of your message on the decline there?
Tony Guzzi, CEO
There's not a decline. We gave you a range of $14.5 billion to $15 billion now that we look at the project timing out of our RPOs. We're at $14.5 billion. It always was meant to be a range. Now we're sort of zeroing in on year-end. With 18.3% year-over-year growth in revenues, I think we're doing okay.
Jason Nalbandian, CFO
Yes. To me, I think as Tony said, it's looking at the RPOs that we have come in and the timing of when we expect those projects to kick off, right? There's always a natural lag between when a contract is awarded and when that contract ramps up. This is just us revising our estimates of when we think those projects are going to ramp. I don't necessarily view it as a reduction of or a loss of revenues as much as I view it as a timing.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst
Okay. So that was my next question. That's perfect. So this was your best sequential backlog growth in two years. And my question is when do those jobs start?
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Some of them are starting right now. Some will start in the first quarter. Very few things we have in RPOs right now will start much past March. Most of it will start between now and the middle of March.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst
And then with backlog growth accelerating and maybe a little push-out in project timing, I guess, I'm just curious if you had any high-level thoughts on '25 revenue growth you could share?
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Well Adam, we've been doing this together for a while. No, we'll talk about 2025 in February. But clearly, with the RPO growth, we are planning another year of growth right? Jason put together some interesting analysis because this sort of helps frame it for the long-term, right? First of all, we've spent a lot of time on this call already and justifiably so talking about sort of some of these outside growth sectors like data centers and high-tech manufacturing. Even if you strip that out and you look at this year, we're still growing in the underlying more traditional markets 7% revenue growth. If you look over the last five years, and you say how are you growing versus non-res construction? We're growing about 250 basis points above that of what non-res construction. I typically said we grow somewhere between 20% to 30% to 35% of non-res in a high-growth market. In a slower growth market, when it's growing at GDP, we typically double that growth, right? That's held true over the last five years which has been a very healthy growth market for non-res. There's no reason for us to believe whatever the expectation for non-res is that we're likely to outperform it over a year period. Quarter-to-quarter, you never quite know.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst
Great. Okay. Thank you guys.
Operator, Operator
Your next question will come from Alex Dwyer with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Alex Dwyer, Analyst
Hi, Tony, Jason, and Andy, good morning.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Good morning, Alex.
Jason Nalbandian, CFO
Good morning, Alex.
Andy Backman, VP of Investor Relations
Good morning, Alex.
Alex Dwyer, Analyst
Congrats on the quarter.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Thanks.
Alex Dwyer, Analyst
I guess I wanted to get your thoughts on what would happen if there was a change in administration next year? And I guess the things that come to my mind would be the more focus on oil and gas plus clean energy maybe tariffs and continued focus on domestic manufacturing. I'm not sure how to think about how impactful any of these could be to your business or if I'm missing anything but just any thoughts there would be helpful.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Well, I always say so, you'll never hear me make partisan comments publicly, but the reality is we make money with Democrats and we make money with Republicans. If you go into the broad themes, is anybody likely not to want to see more manufacturing reshore into the United States? I think the answer to that is both want that to happen. The second thing you say is one of the big drivers is semiconductors. Does anybody think that the situation between Taiwan and China is better today than it was when they did the CHIPS Act or even before the land was bought, which was like five or seven years ago? Does anybody think that it's better today than it was two years ago? And do you think either the Republican or Democrat in this case, either one of them not wants to see the domestic chip manufacturing industry flourish? Well, the answer to that is, no. Do you think anybody wants to not see data center construction go and have AI be a real advantage in this country? The answer to that is, no. Some of the big drivers, I think remain intact, because these are major forces driving it that have little to do with public policy, or I think they're more to do with geopolitical factors and security. Then you go to the energy situation. I think there is a difference there. I don't think it will be as profound as people think. I personally think that we're going to have to have an all-of-the-above strategy. But I think you're going to see oil and gas flourish under one versus the other more quickly. I think in any case, we're going to have to build more gas turbine plants in the next five years because it's the only way to fill this energy gap that's going to be created because of all the things I talked about in the beginning of my answer. I think with one of them that will happen quicker. With the other one, we'll have to get into a little bit of a crisis for that to happen, but it will happen. I think on the renewable side, not an area that we have huge exposure to, but something we have some exposure to, remains to be seen. I do think that's been challenging anyway, and that will be more challenged if one wins versus the other. I think if you go long-term in the auto space, for us, we look at a lot of different scenarios with respect to our own fleet. We believe for what we do, hybrids will eventually come in as a viable solution somewhere in the next three to five years as it gets more into SUVs and pickup trucks and vans. On the EV value chain something we have exposure to. But out of all these big trends, it is the one we have the least exposure to. It's been more of a fire-life safety mode as they build infrastructure. I think in that case, I don't know, either one of them will jump ahead; one will be a market approach. I do think if one wins versus the other, the tailpipe emissions standard will change pretty dramatically back to something that can actually maybe be accomplished. Put all that together, go back to my original comment, we've done well under Democratic administrations and we've done well under Republican administrations. What our shareholders pay this management team to do is adjust and adapt. We're not big on lobbying. We don't do that. We adjust and adapt, and we move on, and that's the greatest thing about a contractor. That's how we're trained to think.
Alex Dwyer, Analyst
I appreciate your insights, Tony. Regarding the high-tech manufacturing RPOs, it's great to see a return to sequential growth in the quarter. How should we approach the potential for continued growth in this end market RPO in light of the initial semi fab awards leading to follow-on awards? Could this present a challenge?
Tony Guzzi, CEO
My gut tells me, talking to our folks on the ground and the conversations on the three areas that were most exposed to fabs electrically and mechanically more mechanical than electrical, is the sites we're on, somewhere between now and the middle of the third quarter next year, we're likely to get another big award and it might come in pieces. That's likely to happen. That's going to happen in two of the sites. The planning is well along the way and we're helping with some of the infrastructure planning as they get ready to do that. I think the building side of it is one part of it, but then they got to staff it and run it for the long-term. The people that are doing this have to do both. We don't have to do that. We just have to help them get it up and running and commission that. Net-net, I think it's a great long-term market for us. I'm glad we have the capabilities we have and I'm glad we continue to invest and build more capabilities into that market.
Alex Dwyer, Analyst
Got it. Okay. My last question is regarding the cash flows, which have been exceptionally strong this year. At the beginning of the year, you mentioned a guide of 100% operating cash flow to net income, but it seems like the performance has been significantly better than that year-to-date. How should we interpret this? Was the initial guidance overly conservative, or has the cash performance outpaced your expectations? Is this the appropriate way to consider the business as we move into next year?
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Long-term, over three to four years, you cannot collect more than net income. That is the standard, 100% of net income. However, we are currently performing better than that because we are getting ahead on some of our contracts. We focus on net billings in excess as a major metric. I will let Jason provide more details. Some people might think sending bills is how this works, but that indicates the project is going very well. We have negotiated the schedule values in a way that allows us to keep ahead of cash flow or be cash neutral on these projects. Sometimes, we receive prepayments to enable us to mobilize and begin work on the customer site, which is part of the negotiation process. It ties back to a broader point: our balance sheet is a significant competitive advantage. We have the capacity for various initiatives, and we will continue exploring growth and acquisition opportunities. We are open to pursuing the right deal when it arises. Generally, we will avoid being a high-leverage company. This is because our clients are cash-focused and cash-rich. They prefer working with companies that reflect these qualities to ensure the job gets done. We have managed to secure favorable contract terms, which is why we are ahead in cash compared to net income. But in the long term, that will not be sustainable. Jason?
Jason Nalbandian, CFO
Yes. I think Tony, that's a great summary. Long-term, we will go back to that average that we always look at which is 100% of net income or 80% to 85% of operating income. When we look at this year, yes right now we're 98% of operating income. I think we'll maintain that level through the end of the year. We'll have another strong cash generation quarter in Q4. But I think over the long term, we have to revert back to that traditional metric.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Jason and I had a very wise colleague that ran our construction business for years. He would say, Tony, you can only collect the cash once. That's how you get back to cash flow equals net income.
Alex Dwyer, Analyst
Got it. Appreciate the thoughts. Thanks.
Operator, Operator
This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Tony Guzzi for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Tony Guzzi, CEO
Thank you all for your interest in EMCOR. I know that the audience listening is broader than just our sell-side analysts. So, thank you all. If you're invested in our company, we appreciate that. Again, I want to go back and circle around and thank our field leadership and all of our teammates at EMCOR. It's really been an extraordinary five years of performance as we continue to grow. And with that, Andy, I'll turn the call back over to you.
Andy Backman, VP of Investor Relations
Yes. Thanks, Tony. Thanks, Jason, Maxine, and everybody for joining us. Before we close the call as we announced this morning, Tony, Jason, and I will be participating in the Baird 2024 Global Industrial Conference in Chicago, including one-on-ones and a webcast fireside chat on Tuesday, November 12 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. We hope to see many of you there. As always, if you should have any follow-up questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly. Thank you all and have a great day. And Chuck, could you please close the call?
Operator, Operator
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.