Earnings Call Transcript - TTEK Q3 2023

Operator, Moderator

Good morning, and thank you for joining the Tetra Tech earnings call. As a reminder, Tetra Tech is also simulcasting this presentation with slides in the Investors section of its website at tetratech.com. This call is being recorded at the request of Tetra Tech, and this broadcast is the copyrighted property of Tetra Tech. Any rebroadcast of this information in whole or part without the prior written permission of Tetra Tech is prohibited. With us today from management are Dan Batrack, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; Steve Burdick, Chief Financial Officer; and Jill Hudkins, President. They will provide a brief overview of the results, and then we'll open up the call for questions. I would like to direct your attention to the safe harbor statement in today's presentation. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements about future business and financial expectations. Actual results may differ significantly from those projected in today's forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties, including the risks described in Tetra Tech's periodic reports filed with the SEC. Except as required by law, Tetra Tech undertakes no obligation to update its forward-looking statements. In addition, since management will be presenting some non-GAAP financial measures as references, the appropriate GAAP financial reconciliations are posted in the Investors section of Tetra Tech's website. At this time, I would like to inform you that all participants are in a listen-only mode. At the request of the company, we will open up the conference for questions and answers after the presentation. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Dan Batrack. Please go ahead, Mr. Batrack.

Dan Batrack, CEO

Well, thank you very much, Donna, and good morning, and welcome to our fiscal year 2023 Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. We had an excellent third quarter. We're advancing our growth strategy while rapidly integrating the RPS Group, which just joined us at the end of January this year. Our performance has exceeded our very high expectations here. Together, we now have 27,000 staff working worldwide on over 100,000 projects for 22,000 different clients. With about $5 billion a year in annual revenue, which is up over 30% year-over-year, we have been recognized as leaders in water and environment with #1 rankings by the Engineering News-Record for well over a decade. We see three major catalysts that will drive our growth in the future. First, we're just beginning to realize revenue synergies with the RPS Group. Today, we're bidding on hundreds of millions of dollars in new programs that leverage the benefits of our collective client base and the high-end capabilities of our workforce. Second, in the United States, we see the pace of funding from the IIJA and the IRA stimulus programs just beginning to increase as major contract vehicles are being put into place by our government clients. And third, we see spending commitments increasing for climate change-related programs in water supply, watershed management, and renewable energy, especially in the geographies of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Our growth catalysts and margin expansion will continue to be underpinned by leveraging our Tetra Tech Delta technologies that we utilize all across our enterprise. Using tools such as the generative AI-enabled Fusion Map platform that we have here at Tetra Tech, we provide risk mitigation for thousands of miles of rail systems. We are rapidly assessing tens of thousands of buildings and infrastructure, and we're evaluating large-scale climate-related impacts to lakes, estuaries, and coastal regions, all across North America, Europe, and Australia. The deployment of our Tetra Tech Delta technologies continues to support significantly higher profit margins on increased revenues without having to add the traditional associated increases in headcount. Given the strength of our performance and our outlook, we're increasing our guidance for both net revenue and earnings per share for fiscal year 2023. Of course, I look forward to giving you specifics on that increased guidance and outlook as we move into fiscal year 2024, but I'll give our 2024 outlook and guidance on the next call that we have. But I'll begin with an overview of our performance and our customers, followed by Steve Burdick, our Chief Financial Officer, who will provide a more detailed review of our financials and our capital allocation. Jill Hudkins, our President, who’s joining me today will then provide further insight into key emerging growth markets. I'll then address and provide an update on our earnings guidance for both the fourth quarter and increased guidance for all of fiscal year 2023. The collective Tetra Tech operations, including the first full quarter of the RPS Group being with the corporation, had strong performance, exceeding our already very high expectations. In the quarter, our revenue increased 36% year-over-year from $890 million to $1.21 billion. Our EBITDA income increased 33% from last year, reaching a record high of $119 million in the quarter. And finally, even with record revenues up in the quarter, our backlog increased to a new high of $4.39 billion, up 25% from last year. Tetra Tech's business without the contribution of RPS had double-digit growth rates across the board for revenue, net revenue, operating income, EBITDA, and earnings per share. Each of these metrics were all-time third quarter highs for Tetra Tech's legacy business. And I thought it was very important to highlight this and show how the performance of the underlying corporation or legacy operation was progressing and that the great advances that we've had in our financial metrics were not solely attributable to RPS. In fact, the underlying business is performing at record pace. The revenue without RPS was $989 million, up 11% year-over-year. The legacy Tetra Tech's net revenue increased by 12% year-over-year. Operating income and EBITDA grew even faster than revenue, being up 17% and 16%, respectively. And that revenue did generate without RPS' contributions, with earnings per share increasing 19% from the prior year. I'd now like to provide an overview of our performance by each of our key end customers, our customer groups. The group that grew the fastest was the work that we're doing for our U.S. federal clients, which was up 30% from last year, driven by broad-based growth in water and environmental programs, especially for civilian agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA, Federal Aviation Administration, and USAID in the State Department. Our state local revenues were up 16% from last year, excluding contributions from extraordinary disaster response-related programs. State and local growth was driven by our digital water and municipal infrastructure work across major metropolitan regions all across the United States. Our U.S. commercial net revenues were up 22% from last year. This growth was driven by work supporting renewable energy programs and environmental assessments and continued to be driven by high-performance green buildings work. International, which saw the largest growth, primarily driven by RPS, was up 68% year-on-year. Tetra Tech and RPS Group's revenue synergies are just beginning to contribute to our combined growth in renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure, and water programs in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Norway, and all across Australia. Now I'd like to present our performance by our segments. First segment, our Government Services Group or GSG segment grew 16% from last year, while also increasing its margin to 14% in the quarter, up 60 basis points from last year. GSG's growth was very broad-based, driven by increases in environmental services and digital water programs for both our state and local and federal clients. The Commercial/International Group or CIG segment grew by 55% year-over-year. Now the CIG growth was driven by the addition of RPS, where most of this revenue actually resides, as well as increased revenue from the legacy business and programs for renewable energy, high-performance building activities, and Brazilian infrastructure. One of the strongest metrics and performance areas of the corporation in the quarter was our backlog. Our backlog was up 25% year-on-year on strong, very broad-based orders, increasing by $874 million from the same quarter last year and ending the quarter at another all-time high of $4.38 billion. Tetra Tech defines its backlog as contracted, funded, and authorized work by our clients. We can perform this work today. In the third quarter, we won $547 million in commercial projects and task orders, including orders for renewable energy and environmental restoration programs. We were also awarded significant additional U.S. federal contract capacity in the quarter, including a new $200 million IIJA-focused Army Corps Engineers contract I would like to note. While it's a $200 million base contract with multiple awards over the contracting period, we successfully competed for and were awarded the first task order issued under this contract by the Army Corps of Engineers. In addition to the work awarded here in the United States, we were awarded over $100 million in new contract capacity for major water programs in the United Kingdom, all led by our United Kingdom-based RPS operations. They've just been a great addition to the company. At this point now, I'd like to turn the presentation over to Steve Burdick, our Chief Financial Officer, to go over some of the details of our financials in the quarter. So Steve?

Steven Burdick, CFO

Thank you, Dan. So as you just heard from Dan, we had an excellent quarter with results coming in better than anticipated. Those improvements also extend to our cash flows and capital allocation-related matters. Cash flows generated from operations were strong, totaling $133 million, up 35% over last year. When including certain outlays for RPS transaction costs, as we included in the reconciliation, cash from operations totaled $135 million. In addition, we paid down $158 million of debt in the quarter. Our focus on working capital and cash flows has resulted in our DSO maintaining an industry-leading standard and an all-time record low for Tetra Tech of 58 days. This is a sustainable improvement from prior years, and the slower DSO continues the trend that reflects the outstanding work that our project managers lead relative to higher-quality projects and highly satisfied clients in our broad portfolio across all of our end markets and all of our geographies. Regarding our dividend program, we paid out $14 million in dividends in the quarter. I want to announce that our Board of Directors approved our quarterly dividend of $0.26 per share for this quarter. This is our 37th consecutive quarterly dividend and our ninth consecutive year of double-digit year-over-year increases for dividends paid. Now as Dan talked about, our recent closing of the RPS acquisition, which was just over six months ago, has been going quite well in regards to integrating the people and projects of Tetra Tech and RPS together. I'd like to update you on our financial plan and current status for the integration of RPS, which is a significant opportunity over the long term for Tetra Tech. Looking out over the next three years, we expect to increase our actual EBITDA margin from under 5% in fiscal '22 for RPS by almost 3x to over 13% by fiscal 2025. This will be accomplished similarly to what we had done with our two previous public company acquisitions, Coffey in 2016 and WYG in 2019. By focusing on high-end differentiated services and revenues while integrating the business onto our ERP system and corporate systems for greater cost synergies, we increased the margins for those businesses from about breakeven prior to joining Tetra Tech to the current Tetra Tech double-digit levels. So far to date, compared to our original projections, we are seeing improved margin opportunities based on our joint integration efforts with the RPS leadership team and increasing levels of revenue synergies. Through improved RPS profit margins and cash flows, along with Tetra Tech's strong positive cash flows from operations, we expect to continue to delever our balance sheet. Although we were more highly leveraged at the close of the RPS acquisition with a temporary net debt leverage ratio above the high end of our target range, we have exceeded our initial projections on reducing our leverage. We ended the third quarter at about a 1.6 net leverage multiple, and we would expect to further delever the balance sheet to a factor of about 1.4x by the end of this year. By increasing the EBITDA margins while decreasing the interest expense on lower net debt, we expect to be cash accretive, adding approximately $0.50 of EPS in fiscal '24 and approximately $0.85 in fiscal 2025. These estimates are based on our existing capital structure, but we continue to consider alternative financing arrangements for the long-term benefit of the company. We continue to expect that the addition of RPS will result in double-digit EPS accretion by 2025, which we previously stated at the time of our acquisition. I'm pleased to provide and share these Q3 results with you. Thank you for your support. I will now hand the call over to Jill to discuss some of our many strategic business opportunities that we have in our core market areas. Jill?

Jill Hudkins, President

Thank you, Steve. We have all been eagerly awaiting the flow of money from once-in-a-generation U.S. federal stimulus programs that were passed in 2021 and 2022. The IIJA funding is beginning to flow to federal agencies and established programs. IRA incentives are driving new project development and offshore wind. The Chips for America funding process was rolled out just earlier this summer. This decade-long federal funding will be well distributed across Tetra Tech's core markets of water, environment, sustainable infrastructure, and renewable energy. I'm excited to share a few examples of recent Tetra Tech wins that demonstrate early indications of the federal funding ramp-up. Tetra Tech's successful track record delivering industry-leading navigation and water control structures for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers resulted in Tetra Tech being awarded the Kentucky Lock program. This is the first task order awarded under the $200 million IIJA Army Corps of Engineers contract that Dan just mentioned. The IIJA also provides significant federal funding to support state water projects that mitigate the impacts of PFAS in drinking water supplies. Dayton Water selected Tetra Tech to provide high-end consulting to support their PFAS management program, which received IIJA funding through the State of Ohio. The Inflation Reduction Act is providing both funding and tax incentives for renewable energy; Tetra Tech's #1 ranking in wind power and our global expertise in floating offshore wind permitting scored a major project award off the coast of California. Tetra Tech will support the early development of a 2-gigawatt floating offshore wind program that will benefit from incentives provided in the Inflation Reduction Act. Another nearly $400 billion of programs we see developing is the identification and treatment of emerging contaminants in our water supplies. Tetra Tech has provided innovative water solutions since the company's founding in 1966. Tetra Tech has been ranked #1 in water by Engineering News-Record for 20 years and #1 in water treatment for a full decade. As a water industry leader, Tetra Tech is at the forefront of addressing emerging contaminants in water for our clients. I'll give you just a few examples of our key programs in PFAS, microplastics, and pharmaceuticals. Tetra Tech has performed more than $100 million in PFAS investigation work for U.S. military facilities. Tetra Tech has also designed some of the country's highest profile municipal water treatment plants, including the largest ion exchange PFAS water treatment facility in the country. Our $50 million microplastic project is supporting USAID's flagship program, Clean Cities, Blue Ocean, and advancing global ocean plastics management. Our multiyear work with the U.S. EPA has provided microplastic risk assessments for the largest actuary in the U.S., the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. Another emerging issue is the presence of pharmaceutical residuals in water, which are very challenging to remove. For Oceanside, California, Tetra Tech recently completed delivery of an advanced water treatment facility addressing pharmaceuticals and multiple other emerging contaminants. Here at Tetra Tech, we are working with every one of our clients to anticipate needed water system upgrades and to address future regulations. And now I'd like to turn the presentation back to Dan.

Dan Batrack, CEO

Great. Thank you very much, Jill. I'd like to provide guidance for both our fourth quarter and for our updated guidance for all of fiscal year 2023, in fact, for our increased guidance for the entire fiscal year of 2023. I'll begin with our consolidated outlook or guidance for the fourth quarter. This consolidated guidance is both for the legacy Tetra Tech operation and for the contributions of RPS. If you're following along on our investor slide deck, you'll actually see for your use. We've broken down the contributions from both the legacy operations and RPS, but the numbers I'll be providing are our consolidated guidance for net revenue and earnings per share for both the fourth quarter and for the full year. For the fourth quarter, our consolidated net revenue guidance is for a range of $965 million to $1.015 billion in the quarter, with an associated earnings per share of $1.43 to $1.48. For the entire fiscal year of 2023, we have updated and increased the projection and guidance for net revenue and earnings per share as follows: our new updated net revenue guidance is for a range of $3.66 billion to $3.71 billion with an associated earnings per share of $5.23 to $5.28. If you are following along on the slide presentation, you can see the assumptions. I'll highlight a few of these. Our guidance for the year does include intangible amortization of $15 million or $0.21 and that's incorporated already into the annual guidance. It does include an effective tax rate in the fourth quarter of 27%, $54 million average diluted shares outstanding. This does exclude any contributions from future acquisitions that we would make between now and the end of the fiscal year. It also excludes specifically the transaction integration expenses associated with just RPS, and it does exclude the RPS-only intangible amortization associated with just that single acquisition. In summary, we're seeing strong demand for our differentiated science-based approach in water, environment, and sustainable infrastructure. In the third quarter, as I've already commented on, as Steve has highlighted, we did set new records in all of our key financial metrics: revenue, net revenue, operating income, EBITDA, and earnings per share. Of course, we feel very proud, and we think it's a great metric looking forward with ending the quarter with an all-time high backlog. The rapid integration of RPS is actually exceeding our expectations. We had very high expectations, and it has been quite amazing to see that we're rapidly leveraging our combined client base and our expanded services to offer more services and to actually have new opportunities for contracting capacity and new work than we had before. With funding just beginning to be released from the U.S. stimulus programs and increased climate change commitments across our entire client base, our future looks brighter than ever before. As a result of our strong year-to-date performance and record high backlog, we're pleased to have increased our guidance for both net revenue and our earnings per share. With that, operator, Donna, I would ask you to open up the call for questions.

Operator, Moderator

Today's first question comes from Sean Eastman of KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Sean Eastman, Analyst

Team, nice update here. So I thought a good place to start would be quite a material beat versus the quarterly guidance range for EPS. I didn't hear anything extraordinary or episodic called out. So perhaps just some high-level thoughts on really what's driving the momentum here in the quarter.

Dan Batrack, CEO

That's a great question, Sean. You didn't hear a specific area of beat with respect to any single unusual contributor. In the second quarter, we had an extraordinary unexpected contribution for work from USA in Ukraine, but that was not the case this time. This was not driven by a beat specifically in USA or Ukraine or any other one location. Historically, we have significant contributions in individual quarters from disaster response because of fires, floods, hurricanes. I did receive a few calls and questions about whether our performance would be up markedly because of the fires in Canada. No, that was not a market opportunity. We certainly observed smoke and ash from Canada here in the U.S., but it was not actually a project driver for us. In some ways, I've had some around here say this was an unexciting quarter because it was really very broad-based. I would characterize it as an exciting quarter in that we saw high performance across the board in all of our end markets. I was really pleased to see we've done well in our state and local business. If you want to say there are a few areas that were a little better, I'll tell you not much standout compared to others, but I was glad to see our state and local work actually pick up on its year-to-year growth. It's been growing; historically, it was up at 15% to 20%. In the last few quarters, we've seen it at 10% to 12%, and I was glad to see it back up at 16%, sort of above the mid-teen rates. Of course, 30% growth in our government work drives that. It's really across the board. We talk about three major segments: defense, civilian agencies, and AID. They were all up, and civilian works was up slightly more as part of that mix. But really, we were up across the board in all three areas. I want to call out the international component too, not only for the RPS contribution but also the underlying business that Tetra Tech has internationally in the U.K., Canada, and Australia, which was up, as we called out in our slide, by upper single digits, so it was about 7%. If you take into account some of the headwinds we had in international development in the U.K. and Australia, overall, the numbers up on infrastructure and commercial work internationally were well into double digits. I wish I could say there was one particular area that excelled, but it was really performance across the board, although we can still do better. I'm not going to say we hit on every single cylinder. Some of our international development work out of the U.K. and Australia could have been stronger with respect to revenue; however, we've had some nice orders as far as forward-looking project assignments come out of Australia. So I guess that's a long-winded way of saying things look pretty good here across the board in the quarter, Sean.

Sean Eastman, Analyst

That's great, Dan. I think that's what everybody wants to hear. And then if I just do some calculations to pull out the foreign exchange headwind this year, pull out the episodic work this year, and the adjustment for last year and look at the underlying organic growth. It seems we're trending in roughly the mid-teens in terms of organic net revenue growth. And it seems as though you're suggesting new order momentum is accelerating. What should we extrapolate from that, Dan? Does it feel like this kind of pace of growth can be sustained?

Dan Batrack, CEO

Well, I feel really good about where we're at now. Regarding revenue growth, which was the beat on revenue, earnings per share wasn't driven by any one area. I also want to say that's true for backlog, because that really is the best indicator of where we're going for growth. I'll say that there was no single big order that drove the 25% year-over-year increase or over $100 million sequentially. If you take the midpoint of our guidance for the fourth quarter, I will talk about organic growth and what we've included in our guidance; you'll see we're in the mid-teens. You're right regarding what we posted up to this point; we aim for mid-teens organic growth on our revenue and slightly better than that on our earnings. We have included that guidance for the fourth quarter. Directionally, things look very strong as we look into 2024. Jill Hudkins provided some good insight into a few areas that will contribute, but I want to refrain from providing specific numbers on fiscal year 2024. I know it's only 90 days away, and I'll provide specifics on the next call. However, I can say that we don't see any significant economic outlook changes from the markets we're in or from our clients in any of these geographies as we move forward.

Sean Eastman, Analyst

Okay. I'm going to sneak one more in. Just relative to the RPS business, in the two quarters it has been in the mix, you have kind of walked up the outlook. It's been tracking ahead of plan now two quarters in a row. Perhaps what in particular would you communicate to investors as driving the better-than-expected results out of the gate here from RPS?

Dan Batrack, CEO

I attribute it to their excellent workforce. They are experts in the areas they serve, primarily in the U.K., Australia, of course, Ireland, and Norway, with a reasonable presence also in Holland, the Netherlands. I would say it's really the culture. The culture within RPS is very closely aligned to what we have at Tetra Tech. They're not commodity providers. They're not final detail designers that are doing shop drawings. They really provide high-level value, front-end consulting services that are very much in alignment with Tetra Tech. Having had them with us for just six months now, I'm amazed at how well they integrate within the overall life cycle process. RPS starts even before us, engaging in advisory work for the Department of Public Works, different political parties on how they would prioritize their infrastructure, renewable energies, and climate change work. This is complementary to us. I want to talk about a vertical from identifying a project to advocacy and conceptual alternate reviews. But RPS certainly opens up a whole new set of clients and project opportunities. RPS historically had margins higher than what we have here at Tetra Tech, with numbers approaching 20%. The alignment with their Tetra Tech colleagues culturally has been helpful. I think our priority on being the best-in-class technical leader, focusing on quality rather than quantity, has aligned very well, and that is why we have seen little to no disruption on the workforce concerning client-facing and project-based roles. Their performance and backlog are rising nicely within the company. RPS folks are starting to integrate with Tetra Tech teams collaboratively, and I expect that trend to continue.

Andrew Wittmann, Analyst

Great. I wanted to talk about Tetra Tech Delta. This is not a new thing at Tetra Tech; I know you've mentioned it at every conference call. But I feel like myself and others would benefit from understanding this in a little bit more detail. So Dan, can you talk a little bit more about whether Tetra Tech Delta is its own business or if it's intertwined with the existing contracts? Maybe if you could talk about how its margin profile compares to the rest of the company or maybe even its growth rates. I don't know, to the extent that it's relevant, could you give an example of a larger contract where you were able to employ these solutions? This would help us as investors and analysts to get a better sense of what this business is and what we can expect from it in the future.

Dan Batrack, CEO

I'll tell you, Andy, Tetra Tech Delta is one of the areas that I'm really excited about here at Tetra Tech. For those that have worked with me over the years, I came up from the technical side of the house. I think Tetra Tech has been a leader in modeling research and development. Tetra Tech Delta has started off as an umbrella for the collection of tools that we utilize internally that differentiate us in the marketplace. We have tools developed for the federal government that we have been paid hundreds of millions of dollars over the years to maintain as the best-in-class technical research used by world scientists and engineers to perform their work. If you dig deep enough, you'll find Tetra Tech at the origin of much of that work. Tetra Tech Delta encompasses the tools embedded in our work. We have various technologies and tools where we conduct remote sensing and assessments for green buildings, heat loss, and erosion that can be observed through 3D cameras, determining erosion rates and suitable operation and maintenance. It allows us to accomplish work that would normally take 100 people two years to do in just ten days with 10 people, resulting in cost savings for our clients while being more comprehensive and enabling preventative work. This has proven to increase our margins on projects where we've used this technology by 200 to 500 basis points, or 2% to 5%. So if we were making 10% before, we're now averaging between 12% and 17% due to these tools. We have about 200 different tools available internally, and a client hiring Tetra Tech gains access to all 200 tools, no matter where they are globally. The part that's most exciting is generative AI. We have been employing this for several years, and it's generating several million dollars. I think Tetra Tech Delta generated around $25 million last year and is growing rapidly. The most promising part is our generative AI platform for water, environment, and sustainable infrastructure, which allows us to sell licenses for clients to use the system without Tetra Tech personnel present. We currently have about 2,000 to 3,000 licenses issued to clients and aim for 1 million users in 2-3 years. The generative AI segment, with low athletic costs, generates gross margins of 80%. As we scale toward higher subscription leverage, we're seeing operating margins near 50%. I think we'll disclose more details once we reach sufficient scale to track CAGR rates and recurring revenue. This technology signifies our strength and differentiation in our domain, which in my opinion has no parallel in the U.S. or globally.

Andrew Wittmann, Analyst

That was a comprehensive discussion. I appreciate that, Dan. Maybe a little more mundane question, but important, nevertheless. I was hoping you could talk about the margins inside of the backlog that you've put in here during the quarter and how they may compare to the margins that were in the backlog before. Are you seeing any movement there given the overall demand trends in the marketplace?

Dan Batrack, CEO

Yes, we don’t call out gross margins publicly, but I actually prefer the discussion on embedded operating margins. That conservatively shows a higher rate by 50 to 100 basis points. Some aspects are driven by pricing power due to high demand and fast-tracked work. We are transitioning to higher-margin work, avoiding commoditized projects. In summary, there are higher margins embedded in our backlog, and our backlog typically burns off in a year. Approximately 85% of revenue for next year comes from our backlog, with another 15% extending slightly beyond that. Thus, the additional margin increase we've discussed, around 50 basis points year-over-year, would be reflected in the backlog we just booked.

Michael Dudas, Analyst

I'm still getting over the comment about RPS with higher margins at Tetra Tech. You're really challenging the Tetra Tech folks now, teams or at least the inspiration for sure.

Dan Batrack, CEO

That's true. It is a challenge. As I put myself in the bucket of Tetra Tech, I've been thinking I need to get up a little earlier in the morning.

Michael Dudas, Analyst

Excellent. I appreciate that. There has been noticeably better activity out of Canada. It seems like it aligns very well with tools in the mid-market. Is there an opportunity for above-average booking and revenue growth in that market, particularly in your water and renewable sectors?

Dan Batrack, CEO

Renewables have been very strong in Canada. Our provincial infrastructure in some of the large cities has performed really well. We've seen more spending there. Of course, economic activity out of Canada has been considerable due to rail, with recent derailments associated with floods. We're pleased to be working for rail majors on infrastructure in this context. The focus on water has been strong as well, given fire-related incidents in British Columbia and the East. Regarding habitat work for environmental restoration and watershed protection, we’ve experienced success. So Canada is doing well, and while I would applaud that, I must mention that other geographies are keeping pace. The area that stands out from Canada is our high-voltage engineering. We have over 500 high-voltage engineers, which is a very specialized field. That capability can guide transmission from renewable energy sources through integrated infrastructure. This is particularly prominent with offshore wind because interconnecting and enabling green energy to reduce the carbon footprint is essential. This work is primarily originating from Ontario, Canada, displaying strong management and technical leadership, which could outperform the remainder of our operations.

Michael Dudas, Analyst

I appreciate those thoughts. And I guess my second question would be, you talked about broad-based strength amongst your segments and geographies. As you look ahead to the year-end into 2024, do you see the pipeline of opportunities growing at a similar or better rate than what you've been booking in revenue, certainly leading to, I would say, continued plus 1 book-to-bills as you look to 2024? And certainly, in that pipeline, would those margins you talked about in response to Andrew's question be somewhat in that similar range as you're looking to book new business?

Dan Batrack, CEO

I think Jill highlighted the one area that receives significant attention: the timing and magnitude of opportunities arising from U.S. stimulus programs. We've seen promising key program wins, such as the contracts highlighted by Jill regarding the City of Dayton and U.S. Corps of Engineers, including the $200 million contract. To address your question, are there other factors that can contribute to book-to-bill exceeding 1, even with increasing revenues? I believe new work will come into our backlog as we transition from task orders into contracts. Revenue is likely to ramp through '24, but contract capacity will translate into backlog slightly slower than others who count contracts not yet funded or authorized. We prefer to consider contracts only when task orders and funding authorizations are confirmed. With that, I expect our backlog to translate to revenue as we progress into 2024. Additionally, I do believe it carries higher margins derived from both government projects and commercial work in renewable energy.

Operator, Moderator

At this time, I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Batrack for closing comments.

Dan Batrack, CEO

Thank you very much, Donna, for turning it back and for moderating the questions. Great questions. I hope to have not only good performance in the coming quarters as we did here, but I hope to have individual high points that exceed everything else. We are approaching the end of our fiscal year. I know that fiscal year 2024 starts October 1 for us, so it's only about six weeks away. I'm looking forward to a strong finish to this year and to providing guidance for 2024. This will mark one of the last times you'll hear us discussing Tetra Tech legacy and RPS as separate entities; we are now one company. The collaboration, revenue synergies, and opportunities we share will only enhance our performance. I'm excited to present our contributions moving forward as one cohesive entity. Thank you very much for joining us for this quarter’s investor call, and I'll talk to you next quarter, approximately in 90 days. Have a great day and week. Goodbye.

Operator, Moderator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines and walk off the webcast at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.