hello and thank you for standing by welcome to mass tech third quarter 2025 earnings conference call at this time all participants are in listen-only mode after the speaker's presentation there will be a question and answer session to ask the question during the session you would need to press star one one on your telephone you would then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised to withdraw your question please press start one one again i would now like to hand the conference over to chris mccray you may begin prepared slides to supplement

opinion document within those these statements are based on certainties our actual performance and results may differ include the detailed discussion certainties in today's remarks we'll be discussing yesterday's press release a 22 percent year-over-year increase adjusted

EBITDA was $374 million, a 20% year-over-year increase, and this growth performance was the highest level since the first quarter of 2024. Adjusted earnings per share was $2.48, ahead of consensus by nearly $0.20. And despite a revenue record quarter, backlog a quarter end was $16.8 billion, a roughly $325 million sequential increase, with every segment delivering backlog growth. In summary, we exceeded guidance across each of our revenue, EBITDA, and EPS metrics, representing a strong period of execution for MOSTIC. This strong result is in part a testament to the scale and diversification we have achieved for MOSTIC over time, and And we are excited about our outlook for the balance of the year and beyond, given clearly positive market conditions across all end markets we serve. I'd like to point out some further highlights about our quarter. Our communication segment grew revenues 33% year-over-year, and EBITDA increased 38%, all organic. And EBITDA margins for the segment improved 40 basis points. Our clean energy and infrastructure segment grew revenue by 20 percent year-over-year, and EBITDA improved 36 percent. EBITDA margins for the segment improved 100 basis points compared to last year. Our delivery segment grew revenue 17 percent year-over-year, and EBITDA increased 21 percent. EBITDA margins for the segment improved 30 basis points compared to last year. despite a difficult year-over-year storm emergency response comparison that tends to be very profitable. These three segments make up our non-pipeline segments, which drew revenues by 22% for the third quarter compared to last year, EBITDA by 31%, and achieved a 60 basis point improvement in EBITDA margins, again, virtually all organic. We highlight this because of the significant investments we've made to diversify our business and position us to participate and benefit from the changing landscape of both power generation and delivery. Our solid execution across these segments, coupled with the expectations of significantly improved pipeline market as natural gas plays a much larger role in future energy generation, positioned MOSTIC for continued growth and strong financial performance. Its total backlog remained very healthy in the third quarter, reaching another record level despite significantly increased volumes burn experienced during the period. Third quarter backlog increased 21% year over year and was up slightly sequentially with a book-to-bill ratio of 1.1 times. While the sequential backlog included a solid 8% increase from our pipeline segment, our visibility in that segment is considerably better than backlog suggests. We continue to expect further backlog growth in the current quarter and to end the year at another record level. Turning to some segment highlights, in our communications segment, the telecom infrastructure market remains dynamic. Our customers are making significant and growing capital investments to support broadband delivery across the country to replace older cable delivery systems, and more recently, to enable enhanced artificial intelligence applications. Third quarter revenue easily exceeded our planned contribution from nearly all of our top 10 customers with higher capital spend seen in multiple regions across wireless and wireline construction, resulting in an impressive 33% growth rate versus prior year in the quarter. As expected, margins reach double digits and increase to 140 basis points sequentially as well as 40 basis points versus the prior year. Still, the 11.3% EBITDA margin leaves room for improvement, as investment requirements for growth moderate. We believe we continue to have significant margin opportunities looking forward. Mostech's wireless business continues to see solid growth from both geographic expansion and providing new and broader services to existing customers. On the wireline side, demand strength continues to be supported by substantial broadband infrastructure build-out by legacy telecom players, cable operators, as well as new and newer entrant fiber overbuilders. This race to connect consumers to broadband fiber continues and we are well positioned to execute deployment nationally. Middle mile broadband build-outs have emerged as an additional growth driver for years to come and hyperscaler CapEx associated with with the data center build out is contributing to this additional growth for fiber deployment. Lumen, which has began to ramp up in recent months, is anticipated to drive solid and visible growth for our business in 2026. Financials were solid. Profit and margin year-over-year comparisons were impacted in the period by a lack of storm-related restoration services against a more normal comparison in the prior year, as well as lower than planned volume from our GreenLink project due to permitting-related delays, as has been reported in the press in recent weeks. We have factored both changes into our full-year outlook as well. Despite these challenges, we expect our power delivery segment to achieve double-digit growth in both revenues and EBITDA for full-year 2025. Further, our bullish stance on overall grid investment demand remains undiminished, and And feedback around load growth and capital spent projections by our power delivery customer remains very positive. Implied requirements for grid investments in the coming years are substantial. We see ongoing growth of anticipated power demand set against an aging infrastructure that does not meet either the capacity or the physical location of the sources of incremental supply and demand. We continue to expect large CAPEX commitments across transmission, substation, distribution, as well as new generation capacity. Increased 11% versus the prior year quarter and increased slightly from second quarter despite an increased burn rate. Post quarter ends, I'm pleased to announce that our transmission and substation group within our power delivery segment was awarded its second largest project ever. We expect the project to start in mid-2026 and to be added to backlog by year-end. We will discuss this project in more detail on our year-end call structure segment. While adjusted EBITDA increased 36% year-over-year, I'd also like to highlight that we have more than doubled our EBITDA from the segment versus the first quarter, demonstrating the considerable progress we've made during 2025. 5. Renewables demand remained very healthy in the period and we were pleased with execution for the business which saw significant growth both year over year and sequentially while meeting our margin target of high single digits consistent with the prior quarter and improved from the prior year as we continue to benefit from enhanced focus on execution and working closely with our trusted partner. Structured business continue to show collective growth with execution on key projects showing results and reflected in strong margin outcomes. We are excited about future growth here from both ongoing transportation and other infrastructure opportunities and from substantial growth potential related to data center build-outs, including both civil work as well as behind-the-meter power infrastructure. It's 21% from the prior year and 2% sequentially, with a book-to-bill of 1.1 times. This included a nine-straight sequential increase in renewables backlog. It's important to note that reported backlog is only estimated 18-month backlog. A number of our recent wins have been for projects with late-2026 starts where only a portion of the estimated revenue is included in backlog. While our renewable growth will be driven mostly by solar, we've been very successful in securing wind projects for 2026 and beyond. We believe we are well positioned at current backlog levels for strong continued growth in this segment. In the structure segment, we saw revenues increase 20% year over year as we returned to growth after lapping the challenging comparisons of the wind down of the MVP project. We presented the best margin performance for the year for our pipeline segment. While still down from the previous year, we expect continued margin improvements and expect our fourth quarter to be the highest margin quarter of the year in this segment, setting us up very well as we enter 2026. This margin improvement, coupled with expected revenue growth, creates significant opportunities in 2026 and beyond. The stock increased 8% sequentially to $1.6 billion, million of new bookings in the period, and saw a book-to-bill ratio of 1.2 times, despite the higher, saw the inclusion of our activity on the Hugh Brinson project, which actually started in the third quarter. We've got specific projects on our calls, but this project is a good example of how pipeline work is being awarded today. We received final signed contract documents just this quarter and physically started work shortly thereafter. I say all this to highlight that while backlog is an important metric in this segment, our visibility into future work is far greater than just backlog. There are a number of projects that we will build starting in 2026 may not be completed and thus not reported in our backlog until close to project kickoff as all variables get included in final contractual documents. optimistic and confident in both the short and long-term growth outlook for our gas fire generation will be a critical source of incremental baseload power generation for decades to come. And our customers are getting ahead of the process while also meeting the needs of near-term LNG export demand growth and continued demand at the consumer level to replace fuel oil and others. In summary, maintain strong confidence in expected growth based on drivers and powerful demand drivers across each of our businesses. In addition, we are continuously looking for ways to optimize our operating model to generate the best and we see multiple levers to achieve better margins as we look ahead. The opportunity for MOSTEC. Our enthusiasm for the outlook is grounded in execution. The MOSTEC team, I'd like to thank all of our people for their continued commitment into our corporate values of safety, environmental stewardship, integrity, and honesty, all while serving our customers diligently and ensuring the delivery. Thank you all.

Thank you, Jose, and good morning. We are pleased with our strong third quarter results, driven by continued sequential volume improvement and solid execution across our operating segments. Looking ahead, our customers continue to highlight a growing need for Maustick's broad service offerings to meet their infrastructure development goals, giving us high confidence in the growth trajectory of our business across all four operating segments. Infrastructure investment needs across communications, energy, and power sectors, as well as civil and commercial infrastructure, remain in the strongest position we can recall and reinforces our positive outlook for years to come. Now, looking at our third quarter segment, our communications segment continues to produce substantial and robust growth, with revenue of $915 million, topping our forecast notably in the third quarter, generating 33% year-over-year growth. The The business remains well-positioned to leverage strong demand for both our wireless and wireline service offerings, including an increasingly diverse customer set seeking to deliver broadband telecom infrastructure to both residential and commercial end users, 0.3%, an increase of 40 basis points versus 10.9% in the prior year, and a notable 140 basis point increase from the second quarter. We've reduced our full-year margin guidance slightly to reflect the investments made to support our strong organic growth rates. The overall telecommunications end market and our visibility remains strong, with third-quarter backlogs totaling $5.1 billion, a small increase sequentially, despite the record quarterly revenue in the period. It also continues to post significant growth, with a 17% increase in third quarter following a similar year-on-year growth rate than Q2. We continue to see strong growth opportunities across the country through our diverse service offerings that enable our customers to invest in upgrades and new capacity across the U.S. power grid. level of activity than previously expected on Greenlink in the fourth quarter as our customer works through isolated delays due to permitting. We are actively constructing other components of the project, and we expect that to continue. EBITDA margin of 9.4% for the third quarter increased 30 basis points from the prior year and 70 basis points sequentially that fell below our low double-digit forecast for the period. While an encouraging result in most respects, the outcome was impacted by project mix versus our forecast. ...of our base business over time through continued strong execution, operating leverage, and project mix. In our clean energy and infrastructure segment, total revenue for Q3 of $1.4 billion represented a strong 20% increase from the prior year and similar 21% increase sequentially as our renewables business ramp continued as planned. Overall segment revenue was at renewables meeting forecast while growing almost 50% year-over-year on record demand for new renewable power installations. E&I EBITDA increased 36% year-over-year significantly outpacing the revenue increase as margins in the segment increased 100 basis points to 8.5% as well as 110 basis points sequentially single-digit levels high single-digit levels while we captured anticipated operating leverage across industrial and infrastructure from higher volume and strong operating execution CE and I backlog which totaled just over 5 billion benefited from solid new bookings across all business verticals, contributing to the 21% increase from the prior year third quarter and a 2% sequential increase. We have substantial renewables backlog in place now to support a strong 2026 outlook, which we expect to show solid growth versus 2025. Our industrial and infrastructure business are also well positioned to continue to win work in the balance of the year to support a higher backlog at year end and ongoing volume growth into 2026. Infrastructure, third quarter revenue of $598 million was an impressive growth rate of 20% from prior year and an 11% increase sequentially, as the business ramps from volume lows seen in the first quarter. The pickup is inclusive of a broad-based increase in gas pipeline work nationally, though the beat versus plan of over $20 million was led by New York new work ramping in the southern regions. EBITDA for the quarter of $92 million, with a 15.4% margin, met guidance of mid-teens for the segment. The comparison to the prior year on a margin basis remains challenged by the current ramp of new work versus the prior year outcome positively impacted by project closeouts. Approximately $1.6 billion increased 8% sequentially and 124% from the prior year, with new awards totaling over $600 million in the quarter, offset in part by increased burn rates. We again saw diverse project awards, including the large job Jose mentioned, as well as a number of smaller midstream project wins in the period. We're pleased with the overall strong demand set and opportunity pipeline and have received significant verbal awards that we expect to convert to backlog in coming periods as we get closer to construction start dates, usually within 30 days of mobilization. As a result, the impact of new awards may be less pronounced than in other segments. Our excitement for this oncoming investment cycle continues to accelerate, and we foresee solid growth in our pipeline segment for 2026 and beyond. progress of margin expansion, we are pleased with a consolidated result of 9.4% in the third quarter, which was a really strong 160 basis point improvement from 7.8% in the second quarter and a fairly dramatic lift from the starting point of 5.7% in Q1. The margin progression we have now recorded comes from our continued focus on operating productivity and cost management, as well as solid operating leverage as our volume has increased. We have noted an expectation of full-year double-digit margins as our midterm objective, so we still have some work to get there. We're generated by project mix and productivity that is, as of yet, still not fully optimized, as we continue to expect annual positive margin progression, which will continue to be a primary focus for MOSTECH. Solidated guidance, our supplemental guidance document for segment, and other financial guidance details is now posted to the IR website. We are increasing 2025 full-year revenue guidance to $14,075,000,000 with adjusted EBITDA of $1,135,000,000, slightly above the low end of our previous guidance. Just the anticipated levels of communications and pipeline activity offset by lower power delivery revenue than previously expected due in part to timing of activity on Greenlink in Q4 as our customer works through the isolated permit delays. Adjusted EPS is forecasted to be $6.40, up 62% versus 2024. We generated cash flow from operations of $89 million in the third quarter and free cash flow of $36 million, slightly below our expectations. Our strong sequential revenue growth and associated higher working capital investment, as well as higher capital expenditures to accelerate growth, impacted these results. We continue to expect $700 to $750 million of cash flow from operations for 2025, assuming DSOs average around the mid-60s for the year. Total liquidity of approximately $2 billion and net leverage of 1.95 times, and we expect further leverage improvement by year-end given earnings and cash flow expectations. It provides us significant financial flexibility to pursue a disciplined, return-focused capital allocation strategy. Our top priority remains supporting our robust organic growth opportunities through investments in equipment and capacity expansion, where we see compelling returns. We will also continue to evaluate opportunistic accretive acquisitions that complement our existing service lines, consistent with our longstanding approach. In addition, we maintain a share of purchase authorization and will deploy capital to buybacks opportunistically. This concludes our preparator marks. I'll now turn the call over to the operator for Q&A.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder to ask a question, please press start. One more on your telephone. then wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press start 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of AT Modak with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Thank you for taking my question. I guess, Jose, on the pipeline backlog, thank you for all the color. I'm curious if you're able to directionally guide to the level of revenue that these projects and ongoing conversations could lead to for 26. and maybe even give us a sense of what that backlog growth looks like in the near term, given all these conversations.

Good morning, Adi. One of the reasons we really tried to highlight a specific project on today's call was to kind of talk about the change that we're seeing and how pipeline work is being awarded. I remember years ago when we would have these calls, we would talk a lot about book and burn, and the reality is that the business the way it is today, it's almost returning to that level. We've got commitments from customers on specific jobs. They want to leave the books open to kind of get all the details of the project done. By the time they sign a contract, they're ready to start construction, which is very favorable from a risk profile perspective. Where it doesn't work is it doesn't give the street great visibility into our backlog. But conversely, we do have that visibility, right? So when we've talked about the strength of our pipeline market, we're more optimistic today than we've been. on our last call we talked about you know reaching or exceeding historical high levels of revenue I can tell you today we're more confident of our ability to achieve that now than we were then it's not for 26 this is not a 26 story I think you know we'll grow the business double digits in 26 but really the growth is going to be substantial in 27 and beyond from what we're seeing from the projects that have been committed to us and it's extremely exciting again from a margin perspective it's a business that we struggled with on a year-over-year comparison this year because of the closeout of MVP and the lower revenue levels we're going to see that business get back to a strong

margin profile in Q4 it obviously had significant improvements in Q3 at 15.4 percent we expect to do a lot better than that in the fourth quarter and you know that bodes really well entering 26 and beyond so you know we're excited about our margin potential in the business and we're more excited about the revenue opportunities uh for beyond 26 and into 26 so exciting times thank you for that and then i know you gave the color on the capital allocation strategy so i guess on the organic growth side uh can you remind us what what the capex level should be on a run rate basis as we consider the opportunities out there and then also on mna i mean i know you've spoken about a third transmission line capability down the road and need for mna around that but curious if

given what's going on in the market you would look at something on gas power generation as well this is Paul I'll start with the CapEx question so in the near term with the outlook we have for pipeline which is our most capital attentive and market you can you can expect capitation a little bit right so depreciation is running about 300 million right now you should expect it to be you know north of that probably around 350 going into 26 that's kind of a near term you know maybe 26 20 strategy I'd say a couple things I'd say you know our our focus hasn't changed we will be more active in the M&A space

going forward as it relates to power generation I think you know we've historically had an industrial business that we've done some projects we haven't really done combined cycle I you know I I don't know that that's an area that we would get into at the same time you know one of the fascinating things about our business today is you know I think everybody's being asked by customers to really look at different things and different opportunities which which creates new opportunity revenue streams for all of us in the space, and I think you'll see MOSTIC pick up its share of that as well.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook with Truist Securities.

Your line is open. Hi. Good morning, and congrats on a nice quarter. I guess my first question, Jose, can you just talk about, you know, the permitting issues with GreenLink and how that impacted your guidance? So I just assume that's a change in your power delivery revenues, you know, and then like the potential risk that you see on Greenlink in 2026 and the potential to offset that. So that's my first question. My second question, you know, obviously a lot of large work out there across multiple segments. You're on Greenlink, Hugh Brinson, you want another pipeline job. Just wondering, you know, I guess across each segment or across the company, given your number of employees you have today and the size of your company, how many large projects do you feel comfortable taking? Do you know what I mean? At one time, just given the risk profile of larger projects, just from an operational execution standpoint, just how you're thinking about that.

Jamie, I think you got a lot of questions into that one question, but let me try to start from the top. Look, our fourth quarter change is primarily Greenlink. That's what it is, right? We're at the lower end of the range that we had originally put out for Q4. The difference between the low end of our range in the high end of our range for Q4 was about 30 million dollars of EBITDA that's all coming out of our power delivery business for the most part and that's that's the big change as it relates to Greenlink you know we've said a lot historically we've it was an incredible win for our company we're really excited to be working with the customer obviously they're they're facing some challenges on permits quite frankly that were originally issued and are not being reviewed we've said that we expected the run rate on that project to be three to five hundred million a year over a number of years we gave you know more clear guidance over time on 25 of 375 to 425 the truth is that for 25 we're going to end up you know it's more like somewhere in the 250 million dollar range so it's a significant difference from what our expectations were of ramp in the second half of the year with all that said that project will be built it's an exciting project we will build it we're hoping that the time schedule doesn't really change from a from a completion perspective which is just going to increase the load on that project over the coming years we we announced today another transmission substation job within that business which is the second largest award we've ever gotten within that group that will help obviously in 2026 we're hoping that that's additive to what we would have done with Greenlink but at a minimum it will significantly help offset it if that becomes the case we expect Greenlink activity to increase in 26 versus 25 from current levels so the story in our mind is really solid it's intact you know when you talk about large projects I think it's it's almost important to really you know I'm switching subjects now to the large project part of your question I think it's important to kind of think about different businesses right we don't really have large projects in communications the pipeline you know for the most part it's a project oriented business we don't have projects like MVP anymore the projects will be smaller in scale which were a lot more like the projects we've historically built so I think we have an enormous amount of comfort as should our investors relative to that when you think about our clean energy and infrastructure business you know it's we've got a nice maintenance business there our infrastructure business but at the same time there are more projects there you should feel comfortable the level of performance in that business again we've doubled profitability since the first quarter so I think people should have comfort around that you know when we talk about power delivery you know it's a four billion dollar segment of that business you know 80 to 90 percent of that business is maintenance driven it's MSA's it's working for utilities every day it's working on distribution lines it's working on substations so it's it's it's predictable business we've highlighted the project end of that business because it's where we were the smallest right Greenlink was really the first of many projects that we felt could grow our project orientation around that market. So let's take a step back. 17% revenue growth in the quarter from a revenue perspective in power delivery, 21% EBITDA growth. For the year, we're expecting 13% growth in power delivery, 13% EBITDA growth. That's important because that's despite Greenlink not having the activity that we expected. Had Greenlink had the activity, obviously those numbers would be a lot bigger. The project portion of our power delivery business is one of the biggest growth potentials that Mastic has. It's one that we need to cultivate and build. Again, it doesn't risk the portfolio because it's such a small percentage of Mastic's overall business, but it is important to the growth of our power delivery business. So I'd say all this to say we're very, very excited about what the opportunity means. We're very comfortable with our ability to execute on that project at a high level. We're super excited about our next win that we'll talk about more on our next call and what that means to Mastic and quite frankly, potentially future wins that exist. So I think our investors should have tremendous comfort, the projects, how we thought about the risk profiles and the opportunities that they bring to MASTIC.

Thank you. Appreciate the color and congrats.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Philip Shing with Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking the questions. Just wanted to check in with you guys on next year. Do you think $8 of EPS is still on the table for next year? or can we assume that this has potentially moved higher after your recent wins? Thanks.

So thanks for the question. A couple things, right? When you look at consensus out there, we haven't given guidance. You know, consensus today is 10% revenue growth on a year-over-year basis, 20% EBITDA growth on a year-over-year basis. We've said that consensus relates to north of $8 a share, which is 25% EPS growth from 25 to 26. I tell you, today we're really comfortable with where consensus sits we're working really hard to obviously continue to grow and build our business but I think you know just where consensus stands right 10% revenue growth more than 20% EBITDA growth those are bright in a company that's done you know most of its growth on an organic level that's nothing to sneeze that we're proud of that we hope to do better but yes we're comfortable with where the numbers sit today great thanks Jose That's a very helpful color.

And then shifting to margins, it sounds like next year the margin expansion narrative is very much on the table. I just wanted to touch on Q4 specifically. Can you help us understand the basis point impact from OPEX investments versus gross margin percentage? Is the gross margin percentage holding up in Q4?

Yeah, the way we think about it, right, is, again, we've had really high levels of growth. And unfortunately with really high levels of growth, you have certain investments that are made to execute on that growth. And not all of our growth is same store sales and we've kind of used that example historically where same stores is a lot easier to grow with because you already have an office, you have people and you're just incrementally growing revenues which is what you want to do to increase margins over time. But we've expanded in a lot of new geographies, we've opened a lot of new offices, we're working for new customers and those require more investments. And I think that when you look at you know, the margin profiles that we've laid out from the beginning of the year, you know, we've got some puts and takes, some businesses are doing better, some are doing slightly worse. I think it's all driven by that, right? So we've made significant investments to the growth profile. Those investments will pay off. I can tell you that as a company, one of our major focuses is definitely on margin improvement. We think we've got room, quite frankly, across all of our businesses. You know, again, when we think about fourth quarter, we think the major change is really what's happening in power delivery if you look at you know we've had some questions overnight around communications and their margins the reality is if you look at EBITDA dollars on where we guided versus where consensus was it's no different we just have a little higher revenue and again that talks to the impacts of investment and growth sleep comfortable where we're at you know we know we can do better which I think is a positive we've got to execute on that but you know we feel really good about where our business the stands and the opportunities ahead of us.

Great. Thanks for all the detail, Jose.

Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Fisher with UBS. Your line is open.

Good morning and congrats. Just to follow up on that last question, but maybe more specifically to the communication segment, it seems like there really is a broadening set of opportunities there, and you did call out some of the investments that you're making. Can you just talk about the shape of those investments? you know, kind of, is there a lot more that you need to go, or are you sort of at the peak point of that, and just how the margins can evolve there over the next year or two?

Thank you, Steve. You know, I'd highlight a couple of things. You know, first, you know, margins improve 40 basis points year over year to 11.3, which is, you know, one of the highest levels that we've had in a long time. When we think about fourth quarter, we're showing, you know, almost 100 basis point improvement on a year-over-year basis for the quarter also we think really solid so I think we're headed in the right direction we've you know at the end of the day that business is going to grow almost 30% on a year-over-year basis which is just a staggering number again organically and a lot of that has to do with investments in new geographies and those investments are harder because you're opening new offices you're either moving people or hiring new people and it takes longer for those investments to translate into earnings right so I think we've been doing that for a long time we're seeing the results of those earlier investments already you know in our numbers or we wouldn't be able to hit these right so it's a lot of the stuff that has has been done more recently that's having the negative impacts or or or really the drag and again we're working our way through that we have opportunities for further growth in 2026 the market is really hot I think that with all of the changes that we've seen in the government and I know we've talked about beads for a really long time but I actually now believe that beads is going to have a pretty significant impact on our business and our customers because of how it's changed in the profile of customers it's going after it so I feel really comfortable that that's going to be a further growth driver as we think in 26 but you know everything that's happening with data centers and AI and the need for fiber and the middle mile fiber growth that we're seeing is just providing tremendous opportunity for us across the country. As we obviously increase in size, the growth requirements moderate because we're in a lot more places, a lot more geographies. So again, we feel really good about the progress that we made this year in the growth of that business and really what it's going to translate over time.

Thanks. And if I could ask a follow-up on the power delivery side, I know you talked about not having as much revenue on GreenLinks this year, and that's taking some of the profits But I guess on the bigger picture about the project itself, does this delay impact the overall expected profitability for the whole project, or is it just a push out in timing? And then the bigger picture question is, as this translates to sort of a thought on risk for overall transmission projects that you're going to be taking on over the next couple of years. How should we think about the risk approach that you're taking there? Is this sort of like a reminder that you should be kind of very prudent in the risks you're taking on in these transmission projects? Thank you.

Steve, I think we've got to be prudent in all risks that we take in all jobs in all of our businesses. And I think that's where I think we've been great stewards of MOSTEC and really understanding the risk profiles that we're committing to and contractually protecting ourselves against those as it relates to Greenlink again we're working with our customer we have a high level of confidence in you know both our and our customers ability to get that project done and to get it done safely and timely we do not expect any impact of profitability whatsoever on that project over over the period other than obviously it being in different periods and what we originally expected so are again our confidence and and our excitement around Greenlink is unchanged. We expect it to be a very successful project for both our customer and MOSTIC. And again, we'll provide more updates as they come. But we don't expect any negative impacts in 26 other than from a revenue perspective what it could be to what it ultimately is. And it's just gonna compress the timeline.

Thank you very much.

Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andy Koplowitz with Citi. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning, Andy.

Jose, Quanta yesterday talked about a total solutions opportunity for hyperscalers. We know you don't have the same exact portfolio as them, and you talked about not being particularly excited to combine the cycle, but you do have significant capability to help data center customers.

So what's the probability that we'll see something like that, like a total solution set of projects for Maastek starting in 26 and could you update us on the journey to a billion dollars that you originally discussed you could do with data center customers I'd answer the first part of your question just by saying very high and I'd answer the second part of your question by saying I think that obviously opportunity companies like Maastek in our industry were involved in a number of different things already when you think about what's happening on power when you think on what's happening on fiber directly for data center builders right we're looking at you know we've been working on the civil side for a long time

we've talked about it we're working on the infrastructure side but i think our ability to take a larger role and a more important role as we think about those projects on a future basis and really capture a higher percentage of that revenue again is extremely high great and then could you give a little more color into what's going on in clean energy i think eight and a half percent of you with that margin is a high watermark for mastic i I understand Q3 is a seasonally good time of year, but do you think margin on an annual base can continue to push higher in that segment? And you did lower your revenue outlook slightly in the segment, but you're still going to do double-digit growth. So how are you thinking about growth across clean energy going into 26?

Again, great quarter, 20% revenue growth. More importantly, 36% EBITDA growth. for the quarter we've pretty much beat our margins every quarter there relative to what we've guided I think you know we're somewhat conservatively guided for Q4 hopefully we can do that again business is doing really well combination of renewables and infrastructure I think if you think about the infrastructure business it's obviously a slower grower that's a bit percent a year is really solid so our renewable business is obviously growing much faster than that we're sitting on the highest level of backlog we've ever had in the business we expect backlog to again increase in Q4 incredible opportunities in front of us a lot of backlog post the 18-month period where we don't even report so we're feeling really comfortable about where that business is headed I think it's going to continue to help drive significant growth in our clean energy business and you know our margins have improved you know we're hopeful we can six and beyond.

Thanks, Jose.

Thanks, Anne.

Our next question comes from the line of Justin with Bayer. Your line is open.

Great. I guess I've got two. One's just a really quick one. I just wanted to confirm, just on that Hugh Brinson project, is the full value of that project in backlog? It looks like, I guess, it's supposed to complete at the end of 26. I just wanted to asked that and then my my second question is just on the uh the cash flow uh you know obviously last year was a huge cash flow year you've got uh you know pretty big uh guidance here for the fourth quarter ramp and just curious what are the contributors to that um you know moving pieces that that uh that drive the 4q um cash flow number thank you so i'll cover the first part of the answer uh the answer is uh on the main line the answer is yes there's pieces of that project that are potentially not in backlog yet.

New cadence, right, in the fourth quarter. You know, I think expect a little bit of DSO improvement. You know, got a little bit of degradation up to 69 days in Q3 that we expect to come back down to the mid-60s. So the combination of those two is really the release of the working capital investment.

Please stand by for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Julian Dumoulian-Smith with Jeffries.

Your line is open. hey good morning team thank you very much um just want to follow up for my friend steve fisher's question here a moment ago um can we go back to the the comms business can we talk about the the bifurcation what's the growth in the wire line versus wireless and what's being implied for 4q25 here just what's the cadence we expect that to continue here when you think about that 33 or how are you thinking about that persisting i i hear a little bit of mixed commentary would I'd love to hear how you break it out, especially in light of this Lumen contract.

Sure. I mean, there's no question that today our wire line business is bigger than our wireless business. It's been the case for some time. Our wire line business is growing faster than our wireless business. Our wireless business is predominantly our biggest account there is AT&T. So, obviously, their project with their Nokia Ericsson swap out was a big driver of that. That project started, for all intents and purposes, in the fourth quarter of 2024. So that has been a driver, a helpful driver in our 225 growth. Comparisons there get a little bit harder in Q4. So we've moderated our revenue growth in Q4 versus what we've been achieving for the first three quarters. With that said, our wireline business is growing very rapidly. So I think, I don't have the exact number, but I believe our revenue growth in the first quarter is estimated to be in the mid single digits. And again, it's something that we're hoping to beat.

But again, feel really good about where the business is and where it's headed all right so fingers crossed i'm beating that number there perhaps handedly and then maybe just on backlog real quickly just to talk about this real quickly i mean it almost seems like there's a shadow backlog emerging here if you want to call it that for pipelines can you speak to a little bit of like how to size that up i mean relative to the billion and a half ish of backlog you have in the pipeline business any any kind of order of magnitude any any way to think about it obviously et's got other projects like dsw you uh coming up here i mean anything that you can kind of point to uh that that you'd flag and maybe in a similar fashion transmission project awards seem to be heating up here as well do you have you kind of alluded to sort of shadow backlog or opportunities there as well you can if you can

speak to it so i think the best way we've been able to do that right is to talk about you know future revenue potential and pipeline and what we've said is uh which is something that we would never have said you know a year ago or even probably six months ago is you know we now see the ability to exceed historical high revenue levels in that business to kind of remind everybody you know historically our high years in that business were about three and a half billion in revenue we're guiding it to two this year and we now have a path to you know meet or exceed historical levels I think that's the best way to kind of frame where we see the opportunity again not for 26 but for beyond so I think and I feel better about the opportunity to do that today than I did last quarter as it relates to transmission to be clear today we announced another win within that segment of our business which will be substantial which is important and it's something that you know we'll kick off in the middle of 26 we'll give more details on that project on our next call but we think a really important fact we said a long time ago we expected to win something else and you know late 25 early 26 I think it's something else that we're now able to deliver on and again and we'll talk about that more on our next call. Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Mark Bianchi with TD Cohen. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks. I wanted to ask about the backlog. It may be similar to or along the lines of what Julian's first question was there. But, you know, if we look at maybe rewind 18 months and look at where kind of backlog was at that time And, you know, the ultimate revenue that you delivered, you had sort of like 64% coverage of that revenue over the following 18 months here. And as I look forward from today and you look at the composition of backlog, is there any reason that we shouldn't think about that ratio of conversion or backlog coverage being a whole lot different? You know, you mentioned the pipeline where maybe that's turning to a bit more of a book and burn type of aspect. So just, you know, Kerry, if there's any comments around that comparison.

Mark, it's a good analysis. I mean, I think, you know, as we think about it, obviously, I think, three, there's been a few periods where we've continually beat backlog quarter over quarter over quarter. You know, backlog at times tends to be lumpy as you win awards. you know the fact that we've been able to deliver continued growth and backlog to me is as meaningful as any of the you know percentage statistics you can come up with I think it definitely shows where the business is headed so again we feel we feel really good about where we stand we think that you know with all that I think there's a lot of opportunity to further increase backlog and further help that so I do think that you know backlog is a reflection over time of where your business is headed. And I think over time, we've delivered great backlog results, which will translate into further revenue growth. So whether I can pin down the specifics on, you know, whether the historical percentages are going to play out exactly the way they did, you know, to be honest, I haven't done that math. It might be interesting to do offline, but I haven't done it. But I can just generally tell you that, you know, we see momentum in our business. It's supported by our backlog growth, and more importantly, supported by the opportunities that we see coming.

Okay, great. Thanks for that, Jose. And I guess just the other one back on communication. So the 24 was a down year, 25 was a recovery year. What do you think, you know, as a placeholder for 26 growth, do you think this business could do double-digit growth, top-line growth in 26?

Yes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mark.

Our next question comes from the line of Brian Brophy with Stiegel. Your line is open.

Good morning, everybody. Appreciate you taking the question. Just following up on some prior discussion, in the past you've talked about having the capacity for two large transmission projects at once. Obviously, it sounds like we're going to hit that here next year, but you've also made a lot of investments on the headcount side. I'm curious if you're still thinking two projects is kind of the limit or how you're thinking about potentially adding capacity on the transmission side to take on more.

There's no question in our minds that we're going to, you know, continue to build that business to take on more projects and to have the ability to take on more projects simultaneously. So you start with one, you build the two, you eventually get the three, right? So you can't get ahead of yourself. Again, we're excited about where we stand and the potential that we have in that business. There are other opportunities out there that we're also interested and we're evaluating, so we expect over time to definitely win more.

Okay, thanks. And then also following up on some of the prior discussion, it sounds like combined cycle is a little bit less interesting, but how do you guys think about potential opportunities on the single cycle side in gas?

Brian, it's a huge opportunity. Obviously, there's a lot going on. we do play in that space today albeit at a smaller level it's a question that you know we've constantly got to answer how much are we willing to invest how much you know it's a look it's a it's a very different business than what we've historically done risk mitigation in that business is the entire business because if there is you know there are risks associated with that business that we don't typically see in other parts of our business so understanding that and really managing towards that in my mind is the difference between a great project than a bad project so you know we're looking at opportunities uh definitely an area that we will engage in uh but we will be cautious in our engagement around that thanks i'll pass it on

thank you our next question comes from the line of brent stillman with da davison your line is open hey great thanks um just just one more for me really just on the pipeline side jose You mentioned this change in how some of these things are being awarded. Can you just talk a little bit about maybe relative to past cycles, the competitive environment, is it different? Are the potential economics on these projects different than past cycles, especially as you seem to be pretty close to the customers talking about these long-term engagements?

Brian, I think that in the earnings opportunity historically, right, I think we've really performed that I think we're sitting here saying that we've got tremendous opportunity to improve on that, but we definitely have opportunities to get to that. And that's a significant difference from where we've been over the course of the last really two years. So, you know, again, not just because of the revenue opportunities, but because of our ability to execute at a high margin level in those businesses is probably what excites it's the most and there's no reason that we shouldn't be able to deliver at historical levels I also think you know we're working with our customers we've got a lot of long-term relationships you know we're not here to take advantage of our customers or try to make all our money on one job we're going to work with our customers to hopefully get a significant size of you know their plans and their and their capital that they spend and in that we want to make a fair margin we want to make a historical margin but you know elevated margins I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Our next question comes from the line of Liam Burke with B-Riley Securities. Your line is open.

Good morning, Jose. Good morning, Liam. Jose, you were talking about specifically telecom, but I guess it could go across your businesses, that you're moving into new geographies and opening new offices. Is that your existing customer pulling you into that market, saying, hey, we need you, or are you just identifying the market and that's where you decide to invest?

I think it's both new and existing customers, right? Obviously, I think we've done a good job at increasing our share of business with existing customers, especially as we look at a holistic approach across all of the businesses that we offer. The truth is that in today's world, a lot of our customers can use a lot of different MOSTIC services. I think we've done a good job at cross-selling those services and putting us in a position to build for those customers differently than we have in the past. On top of that, again, I think we are, especially as you think about power delivery, we are newer in the space. We've really made a huge push in that business post-2021. So I think our brand recognition has significantly increased in that business, and we're getting a lot more opportunities from new customers because of it, and we will help deliver for those new customers. So I think it's a combination of both. You know, whether it's for an existing or a new customer, if you're opening a total new geography, it's really not that much different in terms of the investment and the payback. But, you know, the decisions that we've had to make, right, are do we do this organically or do we do this through M&A? And I think that for the time being, we've decided to do most of that organically, which I think over time has higher return profile, and I think we've executed to that. And I think going forward, you'll see a mix of that.

Great. Thank you. Just quickly on renewables, you said that it was heavily weighted towards solar this year, but your order flow is looking towards wind in 2026. Is that new build, or is it just upgrades and maintenance?

Yeah, so, Liam, to be exact, what we said was, you know, we expect our renewable growth to be driven by solar because that's what's growing faster. So the bulk of our business today and in the future will continue to be solar. I think we highlighted Wynn because there's been a lot of questions about, you know, how the Wynn business is doing and where the future of the Wynn business is. And I can tell you that it's an important part of our, you know, between what we put in backlog and what we expect to put in backlog here for the four largest jobs in MOSTIC's history on the Wynn side, which is just a you know in today's world somewhat of a staggering statistic i think it bodes really well to the longevity and and really the strength of the wind business in addition to what we're doing on the solar side so we just we just wanted to highlight it because i think you know so much gets talked about solar but i actually think there's a pretty healthy uh wind business out there that we've done a good job at cultivating and growing and that was really the only purpose for the comments.

Great. Thank you, Jose.

Thanks, Liam.

Thank you. Due to the interest of time, we have time for a final question. That question will come from Mohi with Muzuhu. Your line is open.

Hi. Thanks for squeezing us in. This is Mohi from Muzuhu. Just a follow-up on the previous question.

Did you talk about the battery storage business, about wind and solar, but any thoughts on the growth in that segment for you and separately just on the pipeline side any thoughts on labor constraints if any you know in any part of the business for you thanks yeah so the the first part of the question I mean battery storage is becoming a much larger part of our entire portfolio the majority of our projects today have some sort of battery opportunity related to them and I think that business has grown really nicely for us in 2025 and definitely been a growth driver for the business this year and one that we expect for next year I think that the second part of the question I missed the end but I think it was around pipeline constraints I think you know when we think about the business it's obviously been a very radical change on what the expectation of the pipeline market was going to be in 25 versus you know at this point last year and I think that our customers obviously have decided to make significant investments those investments take a little bit of time so you know one of the reasons that I think that we talked so heavily about back into 26 is because I think it's taken that amount of time to get engineering permitting and materials in line to be able to execute on those projects so while I think that there were some constraints early on in this year to get that cycle going at the level that it that it wants to be as an industry I think we're getting through that and we'll see that activity start to really pop second thank you thank you I would now like to turn the call back over to Chris for closing remarks.

Thank you. That concludes today's call. Thank you for participating and for a replay and transcript.

Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.