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Quanta Services, Inc. Q1 FY2026 Earnings Call

Quanta Services, Inc. (PWR)

Earnings Call FY2026 Q1 Call date: 2026-04-30 Concluded

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Transcript

Speaker-labelled transcript of the call.

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8-K earnings release

Item 2.02 release filed around the call (2026-04-30).

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10-Q filing

The quarterly report covering this quarter (filed 2026-04-30).

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Guidance

from the 8-K filed Apr 30, 2026
Metric Period Guided Actual
revenues full year ending December 31, 2026 $34.7B – $35.2B
net income attributable to common stock full year ending December 31, 2026 $1.4B – $1.5B
diluted earnings per share attributable to common stock full year ending December 31, 2026 $9.17 – $9.87
adjusted diluted earnings per share attributable to common stock full year ending December 31, 2026 $13.55 – $14.25
EBITDA full year ending December 31, 2026 $3.2B – $3.36B
adjusted EBITDA full year ending December 31, 2026 $3.49B – $3.65B
net cash provided by operating activities full year ending December 31, 2026 $2.35B – $2.85B

Transcript

Auto-generated speakers
Operator

Good morning, and welcome to the Quanta Services First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. Operator Instructions: As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, please disconnect at this time. I will now turn the call over to Kip Rupp, Vice President, Investor Relations for introductory remarks.

Kip Rupp Head of Investor Relations

Thank you, and welcome, everyone, to the Quanta Services First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. This morning, we issued a press release announcing our first quarter 2026 results, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website at quantaservices.com. This morning, we also posted our first quarter 2026 operational and financial commentary and our 2026 outlook expectation summary on Quanta's Investor Relations website. While management will make brief introductory remarks during this morning's call, the operational and financial commentary is intended to largely replace management's prepared remarks, allowing additional time for questions from the institutional investment community. Please remember that information reported on this call speaks only as of today, April 30, 2026, and therefore, you're advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of any replay of this call. This call will include forward-looking statements intended to qualify under the safe harbor from liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements reflecting expectations, intentions, assumptions or beliefs about future events or financial performance. You should not place undue reliance on these statements as they involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict or beyond Quanta's control, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied. We also present certain historical and forecasted non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these financial measures to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our earnings release and operational and financial commentary. Please refer to these documents for additional information regarding our forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial measures. Lastly, please sign up for e-mail alerts through the Investor Relations section of quantaservices.com to receive notifications of news releases and other information and follow Quanta IR and Quanta Services on the social media channels listed on our website. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Mr. Duke Austin, Quanta's President and CEO. Duke?

Thanks, Kip. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Quanta Services First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. I want to begin by thanking our employees for their continued absolute performance mindset, dedication to safety and commitment to delivering mission-critical infrastructure solutions for our customers. Your work and dedication is what makes everything possible. Quanta is off to a strong start of the year with our first quarter results reflecting robust double-digit growth in revenues, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted earnings per share, along with record backlog. These results reflect the strength of our diversified solutions-based business model and our portfolio approach, enabling us to adapt to the evolving industry dynamics while consistently delivering execution certainty and profitable growth across varied market conditions. I want to spend a moment on what we shared at our Investor Day on March 31 because I think it is the right context for everything we are doing. Quanta has transformed, and our strategy for the next 5 years is firmly in place. What ran through everything we presented in our Investor Day was one word, certainty — execution certainty, labor certainty, supply chain certainty, schedule certainty. That is what our customers need right now, and that is what this company is built to deliver. Utilities are being asked to double in size. Technology customers are demanding speed at scale they haven't dealt with before. Everything we have built over the past decade, our craft workforce, the integrated solutions model, the vertical supply chain investments, it all comes back to delivering that certainty at scale. And that is the conversation we are having with the customers every single day. We listen to our customers, and we are becoming more deeply embedded in the way they plan and execute their capital programs. We are in the rooms where customers are planning their entire multiyear capital spend. We are negotiating much of the work directly. Our success is aligned with their success and with positive outcomes for the rate payer. That was not the case 5 years ago. We are there now. The trust we have built over decades, combined with the investments we have made in our craft workforce and integrated solutions model is how we created a durable compounding business that is well positioned to capitalize on large visible and durable market opportunities. To that end, on the fourth quarter call, we announced an investment of $500 million to $700 million over the next several years in our power transformer manufacturing facilities and vertical supply chain strategy, which will double our power transformer manufacturing capacity. Additionally, we're nearly doubling our off-site manufacturing, fabrication and logistics facilities over the next several years for an aggregate of approximately 6.7 million square feet of facilities as part of our integrated fabrication and supply chain solutions. We are experiencing significant demand for these services, particularly for data centers, and these programs are just a couple of examples of Quanta's ability to provide total solutions across converging markets that are designed to deliver speed and certainty. The versatility of our craft workforce and our solution-based approach is what de-risks outcomes for our customers and for our investors. That fungibility, the ability to move our people across a $2.4 trillion total addressable market converging around utility, generation and large load is what allows us to flex across markets, expand scope and keep delivering. We have outlined an opportunity to more than double the earnings power of this company by 2030. When we look at our 15% to 20% adjusted EPS growth target with the opportunity to stack above that. I want to be clear, this is not easy, and the strategy has to be in place to deliver those numbers. We believe it is. Our guidance is prudent. It has always been prudent. And the results we reported this morning reflect exactly the kind of execution this plan is built on. I will now turn it over to Jayshree Desai, Quanta's CFO, to provide a few remarks about our results and 2026 guidance. And then we will take your questions. Jayshree?

Thanks, Duke, and good morning, everyone. This morning, we reported first quarter results with revenues of $7.9 billion, net income attributable to common stock of $221 million or $1.45 per diluted share, adjusted diluted earnings per share of $2.68 and adjusted EBITDA of $686 million. Based on the continued momentum evidenced by our record $48.5 billion of backlog, the strong performance during the quarter and improved visibility into the remainder of the year, we are raising our full year financial expectations. We now expect revenues to range between $34.7 billion to $35.2 billion, adjusted EBITDA to range between $3.49 billion to $3.65 billion, and adjusted EPS to range between $13.55 and $14.25. As Duke mentioned, we hosted an Investor Day on March 31 and outlined an opportunity to more than double the earnings power of this company by 2030. This quarter represents a great start to a 20-quarter stretch during which time we intend to deliver against that expectation along with continued improvement in our consolidated margins and returns. Over the course of our 5-year plan, we remain committed to maintaining an investment-grade balance sheet and an acquisition strategy that's governed by our target leverage profile of 1.5 to 2x, and the returns that we would otherwise generate by repurchasing our stock. One quarter in, the results reflect exactly the kind of disciplined compounding performance we committed to at Investor Day, and we remain focused on delivering that consistency for our stakeholders over the course of this plan. Additional detail and commentary on our 2026 financial guidance can be found in our operational and financial commentary and outlook expectation summary, both available on our Investor Relations website. With that, we're happy to take your questions. Operator?

Operator

Operator Instructions: Our first question is from Nick Amicucci from Evercore ISI.

Speaker 4

I just wanted to drill in a little bit. Obviously, Duke and Jayshree, you guys had kind of mentioned the opportunity to improve margins on the Underground and Infrastructure. It seems like obviously, that was — it seems like that was one of the drivers here in the quarter. I just wanted to see, is that kind of — should we kind of view that as more of a pull forward on that side of the house? Or is that — was that somewhat contemplated as we think about just guidance going forward and kind of the 2030 timeline?

Yes, thanks for the question. When we looked at the Underground, the mix coming in with DSI in that segment as well as just broad-based execution in the segment, we did a nice job, and I do believe that's where your earnings improvement are coming from — Underground and Infrastructure. Not to say we can't improve some of the Electric segment, but as we discussed, that's where you're going to see the incremental margin improvement. I do think it continues to get higher and we have the ability to operate in double digits.

Speaker 4

Great. And then as we kind of think about, too. We've heard just even over the past 30 days since the Investor Day, we've seen a lot more rhetoric and just kind of commentary from a lot of whether it's developers or utilities in general or even the hyperscalers just on the notion of kind of more of a bridge power type of approach. Is that something that is kind of an incremental opportunity just thinking that we can go first somewhat off-grid, if you would, and then kind of provides the opportunity to then build out on the transmission side? So you kind of get two bites at the apple. Is that a fair assessment? Or is that kind of overstating?

I mean everyone has a different solution to the issues of lack of generation. So I think when we look at it, the easiest to know, I think the best way is to connect to the grid. And most of our customers want to go to the grid at some point. There are bridge power solutions. They're out there. There's Bloom and others that we're involved with on jobs, and I do think that is a good bridge power in many ways, and it will end up being backup power for the most part at some point. To have a microgrid at that scale with that intermittency and the type of learning the chips have is very difficult. Not many people can build and run those microgrids. Utilities are very good at it, and it's much easier for them to do it than it is for a technology company to try to run a microgrid. So yes, it's complicated and the lack of generation is creating some opportunities for us on bridge power and many things. But we're involved in all of it. I would tell you the large majority, vast majority, are going to the grid at some point.

Operator

Our next question is from Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup.

Speaker 5

I'll stick to one question maybe in a couple of parts. Like you mentioned in your prepared remarks that much of the additions to backlog were new large load facility project awards. And I think it's fair to say that you're seeing much more of these types of awards. These always tend to be over $1 billion relatively consistently. How much of that acceleration that you're seeing is simply that you've been able to educate your customers that Quanta can essentially do it all as you've told us? Would you expect large load orders to continue to ramp up from here?

Yes. I'm not sure who said that about backlog. It wasn't me. But I would tell you, there was a large move — it's largely across all segments, all disciplines. The backlog went up, including some 765 that was probably less than 25% of the increase, but it was broad-based. It was some large load center work, but it was T&D and across our segments. So I would tell you that's pretty much normal course to me; there was no single large project that drove the beat. I expect our backlog to continue to rise.

Operator

Our next question is from Steven Fisher from UBS.

Speaker 6

I know you guys just only gave 2030 targets, but I wanted to look out maybe even a little bit longer term because it seems like a part of the narrative being reflected in the stock is this longer term good visibility that you have. So Duke, you've made some comments here and there about having some kind of programmatic discussion or opportunities beyond 2030. I was hoping you could perhaps elaborate a little bit on those opportunities. To what extent is this mainly transmission projects? Does it include other data center opportunities directly? Is it renewables? And to what extent do you have any more formalized agreements that go out actually that far beyond 2030?

We're looking at work beyond 2030 for sure. I do think you'll see an elongated cycle. I don't think you're looking at something that stops in 5 years. You're seeing decades of work — it took a long time to build the grid that is there today and you can't double the size of it overnight. It will take a while. You're seeing orders out on combined-cycle engines into 2030, if I'm not mistaken. If you're just getting orders in 2030 for CCGTs, it would tell you the plants take years to build once they hit the ground, so you end up well into the 2030s based on today's orders. When you think through it, the transmission, the infrastructure, and what we see in front of us with robotics, the way the grid is used, power electrification, I just see more demand — more generation demand and the electrification of the world. So we see it for a decade plus.

Operator

Our next question is from Julien Dumoulin-Smith. Brian Russo is on for Julien.

Speaker 7

It's Brian Russo on for Julien. Yes. Just to follow up on your relationship with NiSource. The utility recently announced the Alphabet GenCo expansion on top of the original Amazon program. Just curious if that creates incremental scope for Quanta? And more broadly, is the GenCo model generating additional pipeline opportunities, conversations beyond NiSource, particularly in that Midwest region? You had mentioned an opportunity of about $5.7 billion related to NiSource. Just wondering what your thoughts are on expanding that market opportunity?

Yes. We continue to expand that opportunity in the Midwest. I think you're seeing more demand, and we talked about that early on as a program, and I think it'll continue to evolve. None of the CCGT or even any of the generation that's been announced is in our backlog yet. We discussed air permits and things like that. As we get air permits and those items progress, you'll start to see that come into backlog, probably the later half of the year and beyond. But we continue to have a good relationship and are looking at that programmatic spend that you're seeing announced. So we're right in the middle of it, working with the client. The $5.7 billion opportunity is growing every day. We like the area and NiSource, and I think it will continue to grow.

Speaker 7

Great. And just one follow-up on the backlog. You mentioned 765 was, I think, less than 20% of the increase. How should we think about the relationship with AEP and the cadence of those transmission projects stacking up in the future backlog over the next 18 to 24 months?

They keep announcing bigger capital spend, and we keep supporting it. You can look at our backlog and the way relationships are going with utilities and expect us to incrementally grow our backlog along with the utilities. We have a great relationship with AEP. As they announced 765, we're right in the middle of it with them, both on equipment and execution. You can see the investment we made in equipment — in the quarter, we purposely put it in the script to show you we're moving forward on significant dollars against that 765 build in the vertical supply chain. We're right there together. We have a U.S.-based supply chain that I think de-risks us and AEP, and that has led to work and great opportunities across their system. We're excited about it — it's very early and we're just getting started. You can expect the backlog to continue building as those programs move forward.

Operator

Our next question is from Ati Modak from Goldman Sachs.

Speaker 8

Duke, on the orders, you mentioned order duration for CCGTs. Can you help us understand if the gas generation opportunity is something you expect to actively lean into and grow as a core focus over the years or should we think of that as more of a nice opportunity that has come through from the JV-type solution? I'm trying to scale and understand what the scale of that opportunity could look like for you specifically.

It depends on the risk. We're comfortable on simple-cycle plants and many things, but when it gets to combined cycle, we'll be prudent about how we take risk on them. I've seen failures in the past, and we're not planning on that. As the market progresses and we progress as a company in those markets, you'll continue to see it grow. We're highly focused on it. It's a great addressable market and inbound calls are daily. I believe we can build them, but we'll do so under contract structures that make sense for us, the client and the ratepayers. These are long-cycle projects; it will take time to get to contract on many of them. You can't just stick your toe in the water — you have to jump in, and we'll execute very, very well while derisking ourselves against market risks.

Operator

Our next question is from Sangita Jain from KeyBanc.

Speaker 9

I have one for Jayshree. Jayshree, you left your free cash flow guidance unchanged. Just wondering why? I know your CapEx went up, but it only went up by like $50 million at the midpoint. Can you help us understand what you're thinking through?

Sangita, really nothing to read into that. We gave a good range when we guided in the fourth quarter about our free cash flow. And yes, while we were pleased with the performance in the first quarter, it's just early. We don't feel the need given the expectations where we are today to change that with the $500 million range that we provided in the fourth quarter. Having said that, I do feel greater confidence about being at the higher end of that cash flow range. As the year progresses, you can expect us to update you accordingly.

Operator

Our next question is from Brian Brophy from Stifel.

Speaker 10

Congrats on the nice quarter. You talked about meaningfully growing your off-site construction capacity in your opening comments. Can you talk about what you're seeing there that is driving these investments? Did you see any meaningful awards in that business in particular this quarter? Remind us how significant that business is and just the margin profile there.

The announcement was supporting both our manufacturing capabilities and transformer manufacturing, which is the majority of the capital. We've increased our size substantially on prefab and premanufactured products. We're supporting the data center market; Cupertino was a first mover for multi-decades, and we're building that business. It's a labor force multiplier and allows us to expand and work with clients across the country. This market is programmatic spend — it's not typically large chunky projects, it's MSA-type driven programmatic spend tied to AI builds, both cloud-based and learning-based facilities. We can force-multiply our labor and the fungibility of our workforce. We're investing in it and the inbound demand is daily.

Operator

Our next question comes from Steve Fleishman from Wolfe Research.

Speaker 11

Can you hear me okay? First, on the gas plant opportunities: you mentioned you'll be careful on risk controls on combined cycle. How confident are you that you can get significant share while also being careful? Are you losing business to competitors that are not as risk averse? Any thoughts on that? Second, on utility interconnection issues: are you doing things that would help accelerate interconnections? For example, the three-mile island restart not being interconnected until 2031 was surprising. What can be done and what is your involvement to accelerate interconnections?

It's a big market. Capacity and cross-skilled multi-trade labor matter, and we have that. We can work for others or do it ourselves. Five years ago this wasn't a focus for the company, and when risk gets reasonable and we're able to do it prudently for the ratepayer, we'll move forward. Single-cycle projects don't bother us; combined-cycle projects require careful structuring. We'll define risks, work contingencies, and make sure everyone looks at total cost. Our sophisticated customers understand that approach. We won't win them all, but it's a great business for us. We didn't acquire specifically for this; we built this organically and will size to the market. On interconnections, transformer manufacturing investment matters a lot — long lead times on transformers can be 36 months. There are supply chain delays from overseas. We have derisked the transformer piece to help. We can build high-voltage line faster than anyone and have set ourselves up to bring projects in faster. But it's more about permitting and impacts to the ratepayer. Permitting reform would help, and queues are complicated. We're constantly in the middle, working to expedite through technology and a large planning group that works with utilities. The more we're involved upfront, the faster it goes, and that benefits the ratepayer.

Operator

Our next question comes from Alex Rygiel from Texas Capital.

Speaker 12

Government policies and regulations have a tendency of shifting market opportunities. Can you talk about the few that are most relevant to you today and how you're positioned to take advantage of or reposition for change?

When we think through generation and our renewable business, we had a nice quarter and built backlog on it. I like solar, batteries, wind and related areas. We've positioned ourselves in CCGTs and gas generation as well. It's all forms of generation for us, and we're trying to be the solution clients ask for using the fungibility of craft skill labor across markets. We can move across markets and see opportunities others may not. We're also seeing growth in telecom and BEAD-related work connecting data centers. I like our verticals and supply chain; there's not much we can't solve here — we just have to continue to execute. Our execution and the men and women in the field are outstanding.

Speaker 12

At what point does Quanta get more aggressive in the international market?

We kept our Australian assets and they've done well. We can expand from Australia to Europe and other regions if needed, but I don't see that in the near term. It's difficult to go international, and we have plenty of growth in the U.S. for a period of time, but we are certainly set up to pursue international opportunities if and when it makes sense.

Operator

Our next question is from Manish Somaiya from Cantor Fitzgerald.

Speaker 13

Two questions. One, the demand picture looks fairly robust across the board, but have you seen any signs of potential weakness in any of the markets geographically or end markets by sector? And have any of the constraints changed? In the past, we've talked about craft labor and supervision being a challenge. Second, can you touch on the M&A pipeline — what opportunities are you seeing geographically and by business? Where would you want to do something if the right opportunity arose?

On M&A, we see plenty of opportunity. There are great companies with long-standing execution in many markets. Our ability to execute M&A has been proven over the last decade, and you'll continue to see us pursue opportunities. Inbounds are strong; owners believe in our strategy and often want to sell to us. M&A is not a labor strategy for us — we build labor organically. We added roughly 5,000 to 6,000 employees last year organically and will do that again plus. Labor builds labor; you get a journey and then you can scale. Regarding constraints, our fabrication facilities and premanufacturing investments help mitigate labor constraints and take risk out of field execution. We're using technology to expedite what we do in the field. These changes are starting to affect seasonality and resiliency — the first quarter didn't fall off as much as typical. I haven't seen holes in the markets we serve. There will be stops and starts, but on a CAGR basis I expect backlog to continue to rise over time. We like what we see and I'm not seeing meaningful weakness.

Operator

Our next question is from Philip Shen from ROTH Capital Partners.

Speaker 14

You took your technology and load center outlook up substantially, increased from 70% to 110% revenue growth. We heard that hyperscalers increased CapEx for the year. What do you see for the coming quarters for this end market? Can you give additional color on your conversations with the hyperscalers? Is there potential that the segment could grow even faster than you've laid out? Second, on the EPS guide change: you beat adjusted EPS by about 30% in Q1, but the EPS guidance was only raised by 7% for 2026. How much of the Q1 earnings beat was a pull-forward? Were there any one-time items?

Commenting on the slide you're discussing, it's directional. I'd defer to the team on the exact phrasing, but it is growing fast and it's a fast-paced market. We've made acquisitions against it, so you can expect the segment to grow faster than those areas where we haven't made acquisitions. It's a large market, and capital spending by hyperscalers is substantial. We're seeing daily opportunities across balance-of-plant data centers and components thereof. We are early in this sector — we've only been focused on it for about 1.5 years, and it's already sizable. We can execute fast with certainty and have the back-end craft to do it. We're looking at over 100% growth in that segment due to acquisition and strategy and organic growth. We continue to lean into it.

Speaker 14

Great, Duke. Second one here. Jayshree, can you give some color on why the 2026 EPS guidance increase was less than the Q1 EPS beat? You raised Q1 adjusted EPS by 30% but only raised full-year guidance by 7%. Were there one-timers?

Phil, I'm not following that math, I'll admit. We had a nice beat and we raised our EPS. We carried forward the beat in the first quarter and also raised our view of the back half, and that's reflected in our adjusted EPS guide. The beat was mostly driven by EBITDA strength for the year and a modest tax benefit that we carry forward. So the beat is reflective of both Q1 results and our views of the back half of the year.

Yes — and look, we take a prudent approach. We typically won't move the back half unless we're confident. By my math we raised it roughly $50 million past the beat, but maybe that's just CEO math.

Operator

Our next question is from Jamie Cook from Truist.

Speaker 15

Congrats on a nice quarter. Duke, a lot of the questions are on acquisition strategy. My question is more on potential portfolio optimization on the divestiture side. As you've become more of a broader power player, are there parts of the portfolio that aren't meeting financial metrics where there's an opportunity to divest to enhance growth, margins or returns? Second, many of your acquisitions have been smaller, family-owned companies. Do you see the need for transformative M&A given how fast the market is growing to meet customer demand quicker?

We constantly review the portfolio against strategy and look to optimize. If we can get the right returns and timing, we have no issue divesting. That said, we use craft across segments and business lines in ways that sometimes make a business appear less strategic but actually provide utility across the portfolio. The mom-and-pop companies you mention are often now $300 million to $1 billion businesses. They're not small anymore. We have long-standing relationships with many of them. We've transformed the company over the past five years by leaning into the front side of the business, technology and other markets, and that transformation is largely complete. Going forward it's about addition and execution. We'll continue to make acquisitions that fit the strategy and are additive. We can grow organically without M&A, but when we do acquisitions they're highly additive and are likely the primary use of capital going forward.

Operator

Our next question is from Justin Hauke from Baird.

Speaker 16

Great. Two-part question: Duke noted seasonality may be changing because revenue was up sequentially this quarter, which almost never happens due to winter weather. What markets or specific areas came in so much stronger than expected? Second, book-to-bill was 1.6x this quarter — was there anything lumpy in bookings or was it broad-based?

It was broad-based backlog strength. We did have a meaningful 765-related award that was less than 25% of the increase, so under $1 billion in that piece, but the rest was across segments. That's why we called it broad-based. You're going to see this continue to stack over time. The CCGT business is growing nicely and we're focused on it. The company is set up to allow these projects to show up in revenues and profitability over time. We had strong execution in Q1 with no acquisitions in the quarter and that sets us up for stacking into the back half and beyond.

Operator

Our next question is from Adam Thalhimer from Thompson, Davis.

Speaker 17

Great quarter. Two questions. First, the revenue beat at Electrical was substantial — what drove that? Second, how are your customers responding to geopolitical events, such as the Iran situation, and higher commodity prices?

On diesel and commodity price impacts, we've built our guidance to contemplate typical volatility; diesel is up a bit but it's a small piece of our overall spend. Our guidance contemplates such fluctuations and supply chain dynamics. I'm worried, like any American, about our troops overseas, but operationally we are not seeing impacts that would affect our performance or our customers materially. Regarding national security and energy, LNG exports and natural gas are an element of national security and are supporting pipeline and generation work. I see that as positive for our business; the natural gas pipeline and related businesses are strong. Overall, I don't see customer impacts that would materially change our execution right now.

Operator

Our next question is from Michael Dudas from Vertical Research Partners.

Speaker 18

Duke, you said in the past that even if a small percentage of the market activity and development comes through, business would be great. Given the current visibility across your pipeline, are some of the orders and development more real now than they would have been 6 to 12 months ago — even given the extraordinary CapEx numbers from hyperscalers?

I think utility customers are firming up large load requests. I'm not seeing the falloff some might expect — the load we see is real. We're seeing decreases in rates in some cases due to load and infrastructure, and as investments occur across the country it should drive rates down. It's not just data centers — you're seeing onshoring of chips, robotics and other industrial load growth. The fungibility of our craft across segments lets us serve these markets. That's the compounding effect of our portfolio and it's driving the opportunity set we see.

Operator

Our next question is from Maheep Mandloi from Mizuho.

Speaker 19

Sorry about earlier. Could you talk about whether M&A is part of the 2026 guidance? You didn't do an acquisition in Q1. Any thoughts on how acquisitions could shape up the guidance for the rest of the year?

Any acquisitions we do on a go-forward basis should be additive to the guidance we give. We made no acquisitions in the first quarter and the guidance reflects the business as it looks today. I do expect us to do acquisitions over the next nine months and next few years — inbounds are robust and it's a way to deploy free cash. However, the company can grow nicely without acquisitions. When we do them, they're typically highly additive and aligned with our strategy.

Operator

Our next question is from Liam Burke from B. Riley Securities.

Speaker 20

Duke, you mentioned in your prepared comments that many projects now are being negotiated. Is this an increasing trend and does it imply this presses your competitive advantage further?

Yes. It's about total cost and being a solution provider. We're one of the top buyers of high-voltage equipment, and we can help on the total cost basis rather than a widget-by-widget approach. We're positioning ourselves as a solution across verticals and negotiating total cost rather than a one-off project. We work with regulated customers and tailor solutions that are right for each client. Certainty of labor is a key advantage we provide — clients lean on us for that. We're helping move infrastructure forward and aiming to drive benefits for ratepayers by lowering total cost.

Operator

Our final question is from Chad Dillard from Bernstein.

Speaker 21

What would it take for Quanta to do full turnkey data center builds at scale rather than just doing a few here and there? Is this something you can achieve organically or do you need M&A? Also, where would that strategy rank among your priorities? And could you talk about your Canada electrical infrastructure operations — pipeline there and how you think about that geography in 2026 and beyond?

We're doing balance-of-plant data center work today. If clients ask us to do full turnkey builds, we can do it — we have program management, QA/QC, engineering (we have over 2,000 engineers internally) and the craft to scale. At scale, we'd need to add resources, depending on client sophistication. We can do it organically and would size as the market asks. Our sweet spot remains high-voltage interconnections and related work, but if clients push us to be full turnkey, we can perform and provide generation and ongoing maintenance if they want it. On Canada, we had pipeline work last year; we're not involved in anything large right now but expect projects on the pipe side in coming quarters. Our team in Canada can execute, and we've seen data center and renewable activity there — it's a bit slower to recover than the U.S., but we're optimistic. We're leveraging U.S. engineering and aiming to improve margins over time. It's not at parity with the U.S. yet, but it's improving.

Operator

There are no more questions at this time. I'd now like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

We want to thank the men and women in the field. They are the very best in the world. They make these numbers, and they are the ones that deserve the credit. We'd also like to thank you all for participating in the conference call. We appreciate your questions and your ongoing interest in Quanta Services. Thank you. This concludes our call.