MasTec (NYSE:MTZ) released first-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Friday. Read the complete transcript below.
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Summary
MasTec reported a strong first quarter with revenue reaching $3.829 billion, a 34% increase year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA at $284 million, marking a 73% increase.
The company set new records in backlog at $20.3 billion, reflecting a $1.4 billion sequential increase, demonstrating robust demand across its end markets.
MasTec raised its full-year 2026 guidance, expecting revenue of $17.5 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $1.5 billion, indicating continued confidence in market opportunities and operational execution.
Strategic positioning in critical infrastructure sectors, such as AI-driven data centers and telecom, supports MasTec’s long-term growth, with telecom revenue projected to reflect significant growth due to increased data usage.
Management expressed optimism about the company’s ability to manage demand through organic growth and potential M&A, highlighting a strong workforce expansion and strategic focus on high-growth segments.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Thank you for standing by and welcome to MasTec’s first quarter 2026 financial results conference Call. I want to remind participants that today’s call is being recorded. I’d now like to turn the call over to Mark Lewis for some opening comments.
Mark Lewis
Thank you Lisa and good morning everyone and thanks for joining us for MasTec’s first quarter conference call. Joining me today are Jose Mas, Chief Executive officer and Paul DeMarco, our CFO. We have prepared slides to supplement our remarks today which are posted on MasTec’s website under the Investors tab and through the webcast link. This morning there is also a companion document with information analytics on the quarter and a guide summary to assist in financial modeling. Please read the forward looking statement disclaimer contained in the slides accompanying this call. During this call we’ll make certain forward looking statements regarding our plans and expectations about the future as of the date of this call. Because these statements are based on current assumptions and factors that involve risks and uncertainties, our actual performance and results may differ materially from our forward looking statements. Our Form 10K as updated by our current and periodic reports and filings includes a detailed discussion of risks and uncertainties that may cause such differences. Additionally, in today’s remarks we’ll be discussing adjusted financial metrics reconciled in yesterday’s press release and supporting schedules. We may also use certain non GAAP financial measures on this call. A reconciliation of any non GAAP financial measures not reconciled in these comments to the most comparable GAAP financial measure can be found in our earnings press release slides or companion documents. We had another great quarter to start the year and let’s get into it. I’ll now turn the call over to Jose.
Jose Mas (Chief Executive Officer)
Jose Thanks Mark. Good morning and welcome to MasTec’s 2026 first quarter call. Today I’ll be reviewing our first quarter results as well as providing my outlook for the markets we serve. First, some first quarter highlights. Revenue for the quarter was 3,829,000,000 up 34% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was 284,000,000, a 73% year over year increase. Adjusted earnings per share was $1.39, a 174% year over year increase and backlog at quarter end was $20.3 billion, a $1.4 billion sequential increase and a new record level. In summary, we delivered a great quarter, in fact the strongest first quarter in our history, setting new highs across virtually every key metric. Revenue, EBITDA and EPS were all above guidance with strong year over year double digit growth, EBITDA margins improved 170 basis points versus last year first quarter and total company book to bill was 1.4 times, setting yet another backlog record. 2026 should be a great year and I’m excited about the momentum we are building as we look ahead to 2027 beyond. Maybe more importantly, when you step back from the quarter, what we’re seeing across our end markets continues to reinforce our confidence in the longer term. Opportunity in front of us the amount of investment going into critical infrastructure right now is significant and is being driven by some very durable trends. Whether that’s AI in data centers, grid reliability, energy demands, critical infrastructure or connectivity and the way we’re positioned at MasTec, we’re right in the middle of all of that. On the telecom side, we feel really good about where we are. The fundamentals continue to improve driven by strong growth in total data usage. Aggregate U.S. data consumption is estimated to almost double by 2030. This growth is fueled by increasing demand for streaming video, cloud computing, gaming and connected devices. The rapid expansion in total network traffic underscores durable demand and significant long term growth potential. At the same time, you’ve got the next wave of investment coming from bead funding which will support rural broadband and middle mile builds over the next several years. But the biggest shift we’re seeing is around data center interconnectivity. AI is driving a level of demand for fiber capacity, redundancy and low latency that we haven’t seen before. Connecting data centers, both long haul and Metro is becoming a major driver of spending and we think that creates a multi year opportunity measured in the tens of billions of dollars in power delivery. The visibility remains strong. We’re in the middle of a multi year investment cycle in the grid. Utilities are spending heavily on transmission system hardening and reliability and that’s being driven by both aging infrastructure and increasing demand. A big part of that demand is coming from AI and data centers, which could drive up to 12% of total US electricity consumption by the end of the decade. That kind of growth requires significant expansion of the grid, new transmission lines, substations and upgrades across the system. So when you combine load growth, resilience and energy transition, it creates a long duration, highly visible opportunity set and we
Paul DeMarco (Chief Financial Officer)
think we’re really well positioned there. Power delivery revenue for the quarter was up 16% and EBITDA was up 40% and book to bill was 1.6 times with backlog increasing over $600 million sequentially. In clean energy and infrastructure, what’s really making a difference is the platform we built across renewables, civil, industrial and general building. Our renewable revenue was up over 60% year over year and margins improved 70 basis points. In our industrial and infrastructure markets we’re seeing significant opportunities tied to critical infrastructure including gas fire generation, civil construction and general building. For mission critical projects, data center development is a big part of that. Each one of those projects requires significant site work, power infrastructure and ongoing expansion and that plays directly into our capabilities. Our recent Turnkey Data center award is progressing very well. The demand for both the skill set that MASTIC has developed in construction management coupled with the capabilities we have in civil power, telecom and maintenance provides us the opportunity to exponentially grow this part of our business. As the opportunity for full turnkey services matures, we continue to look for ways to increase our self perform capabilities and improve margins. Clean energy and infrastructure segment revenues increased 45% year over year, EBITDA was up 56% and segment backlog increased sequentially by over $770 million, representing a book to bill of 1.6 times. On the pipeline side, the fundamentals are also very solid for the quarter pipeline Segment revenue was up 92% year over year and EBITDA more than tripled. There’s a growing need for natural gas infrastructure, particularly to support gas fired generation which remains critical for reliability as power demand increases and at the same time, global LNG demand continues to grow, driving investment in export, infrastructure and related pipelines both domestically and and internationally. So we see this as a business with good visibility and steady demand going forward. Our reported backlog is not fully representative of the potential as it only includes signed contracts based on current negotiations and verbal awards. Our visibility in this segment is as strong as it’s ever been and we expect strong long term growth. In closing, we delivered an exceptional start to 2026 with record performance across revenue, profitability and backlog. These results reflect strong execution across the business and the strength of our diversified platform. More importantly, the long term fundamentals across all of our end markets remain highly compelling. From AI driven data center growth and telecom demand to grid modernization, energy infrastructure and pipeline opportunities, the scale and durability of investment continue to grow. We believe MASTIC is uniquely positioned at the center of these critical infrastructure trends with the capabilities, customer relationships and backlog to drive sustained growth. Given our strong performance and momentum, we are increasing our full year guidance. We now expect revenue of 17.5 billion, adjusted EBITDA of 1.5 billion and earnings per share of $8.79 representing year over year growth of 22%, 30% and 34% respectively. With strong visibility, accelerating demand and meaningful momentum across our segments, we are confident in our outlook for 2026 and increasingly optimistic about the opportunities ahead in 2027 and beyond. I’d like to take a moment to thank the men and women of mastic. It is both an honor and a privilege to lead such an outstanding team. Our people are deeply committed to the values that define us safety, environmental stewardship, integrity and honesty while consistently delivering high quality projects at the best possible value for our customers. These principles have not gone unnoticed. Our customers recognize and appreciate the dedication and excellence our team brings to every project. It is through the hard work and commitment of our people that we have positioned ourselves for continued growth and long term success. I’d like to thank you for your continued support and I’ll now turn the call over to Paul for our financial review. Paul thank you Jose and good morning. We are pleased with the momentum built by our first quarter results and the continued trend of improved first quarter performance. This has been a focused effort in recent years and 2026 marks the best first quarter in Mostech’s history. Off of our strong start, we now expect to generate almost 45% of our full year EBITDA in the first half of 2026, implying markedly lower seasonality than our business has experienced historically. Our Q1 results represent record levels of first quarter revenue, adjusted EBITDA, EPS and backlog. Year over year, we drove meaningful growth with revenue up 34%, adjusted EBITDA up 73%, EPS 174% and backlog by 28%. We continue to see strong customer demand for Mostch’s broad service offerings and expertise to meet their infrastructure development goals. Our customers continue to show high confidence in Mostek, seeking deeper integration and partnership through alliance agreements, sole sourced contracts and a desire for Mastec to provide turnkey services on strategic infrastructure builds. This is particularly apparent when speed and execution certainty are critical. Our scale, expertise and focus on mutually beneficial outcomes are key components driving this confidence. Now I’ll share some further details on our first quarter segment performance and our outlook. Our communications segment had a good start to the year, generating revenue of $802 million, growing 18% year over year and 7% ahead of expectations. EBITDA margins were about 100 basis points below last year’s first quarter, negatively impacted by cost to exit certain markets in our DIRECTV fulfillment business. Communications backlog in the first quarter was up slightly from year end and 12% year over year to another record level. We continue to see strong broad based demand for wireline services with customers engaging for multiyear turnkey opportunities. Our second quarter communications outlook calls for $875 million of revenue with EBITDA margins slightly higher than 2025 in the low double digits. We also expect to achieve double digit EBITDA margins for the remainder of the year resulting in approximately 70 basis points of margin expansion versus 2025. First quarter power delivery results exceeded our guidance by 10% on revenue and 21% on EBITDA with solid execution to start the year resulting in 120 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion year over year. Most notable in the quarter was the continued backlog strength with a 1.6 times book to bill driving backlog to a new record of 6.2 billion. We saw a number of new contracts executed in Q1 as well as expanded scope on some existing projects. Regarding Greenlink, our client resolved the transmission permitting review earlier than anticipated and we are now operating across the full contractual scope. This is one of the factors driving our revenue guidance higher to approximately 4.8 billion or 14% year over year growth Full year EBITDA margins remain on track to approach double digits and are trending higher than our prior guidance. We continue to expect year over year margin expansion in each quarter for power delivery with 60 to 70 basis points of margin expansion for Q2. Specifically, our pipeline segment had a terrific first quarter generating $682 million of revenue, almost doubling year over year with EBITDA margins of 21%. Margins exceeded our guidance by 165 basis points and increased 270 basis points sequentially. It is important to note that broader pipeline construction demand is still developing and we are generating these margin results in a competitive environment. Unquestionably, we are executing at a high level, delivering high quality projects ahead of schedule for our clients. These positive outcomes further illustrate Mastic’s position as the leader in this space and will continue to be a differentiating factor as the cycle develops. For the second quarter we expect revenue of 600 million with EBITDA margins in the high teens slightly below the first quarter result. Full year margins are still forecasted in the mid teens but trending higher with the first half performance. We are currently taking a conservative view around second half project timing and productivity. While we firm up specific resource allocations longer term we continue to see an unprecedented level of project activity and remain very bullish on the opportunity set for this segment in the years ahead. Clean Energy and infrastructure also started the year off Strong delivering over $1.3 billion of revenue up 45% year over year, almost 10% ahead of our guidance. EBITDA margins of 6.7% expanded 50 basis points from Q1 of 2025 and we generated 56% EBITDA growth. Renewables and general buildings both contributed to the revenue beat with year over year growth of 63% and 166% respectively. While our recent acquisitions were solid contributors to the quarter organically, we still generated over 30% year over year growth backlog continued to develop nicely, reaching another record level of 7.3 billion. This represents a total book to bill of 1.6 times inclusive of 1.3 times organically. Infrastructure led the backlog development, but renewables also extended its streak to 11 consecutive quarters of backlog growth. Demand continues to be robust across the business verticals, leading us to increase our full year revenue guidance to approximately 6.7 billion, up 325 million or 5% higher than previous forecasts. EBITDA margins are still forecasted in the high single digits comparable year over year, largely due to the higher mix of general buildings activity in 2026. Q2 revenue is expected to increase almost 50% year over year to 1.7 billion, with EBITDA margins also comparable to 2025 second quarter. We generated cash flow from operations of 99 million in the first quarter with higher revenue levels versus guidance driving additional working capital investment. We also saw DSOs increase to 72 days versus 65 days at year end, resulting in lower cash conversion than anticipated. We expect DSOS to trend back to the mid-60s over the course of the year. Our liquidity stands at approximately 1.8 billion and net leverage of 1.8 times is well within the terms of our financial policy and criteria to maintain our investment grade ratings. Our improved Q1 performance coupled with continued capital efficiency led to further growth of return on invested capital, expanding almost 100 basis points from year end to over 10%. We expect this trend to continue and we’ll share more thoughts regarding ROIC targets at our upcoming Investor Day. Moving to our consolidated 2026 guidance, we are raising our full year guidance to reflect the first quarter beat and our improving outlook for the remainder of 2026. We now expect revenue of $17.5 billion or 22% growth year over year and 3% higher than our prior forecasts for adjusted EBITDA. We are now forecasting $1.5 billion or an 8.6% margin, with a $50 million increase representing a 10% margin flow through on the increased revenue outlook. Adjusted EPS is forecasted to be $8.79, an increase of almost 35% year over year and 5% ahead of our prior guidance. Our cash flow from operations outlook remains unchanged, expecting to exceed $1 billion for 2026. We are increasing our net cash capital expenditure forecast to about $220 million to
OPERATOR
support the additional revenue growth. Our second quarter outlook reflects another strong quarter of year over year growth across all of our major financial metrics, with revenue adjusted EBITDA and eps growth growing 21, 38 and 47% respectively. Adjusted EBITDA margins are expected to expand by over 100 basis points compared to the second quarter of 2025. Lastly, I wanted to remind you that MAASDAQ will be hosting Investor Day on May 12, which will also be webcast live via a link on Mostec’s investor site. We are excited to introduce additional members of our operational management team to the investment community and provide a medium term financial outlook. This concludes our prepared remarks. I’ll now turn the call over to the operator for Q and A. Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. If you would like to remove yourself from the queue, press star 11 again. We also ask that you would please limit yourself to one question and one follow up on the same subject and then if you have more questions, you can always return back to the queue by pressing star 11 again. Please wait for your name and company to be announced before proceeding with your question. One moment while we compile the Q and A roster and our first question today will be coming from the line of Alex Riegel of Texas Capital Securities. Your line is open.
Alex Riegel
Jose, Congratulations to you and your team on another outstanding quarter. Thank you Alex. Good morning. Good morning. In the context of profit margins, growth at Mastec has been very impressive. And now with backlog up 28% year over year, can you talk about how pricing and or contract terms are changing and is there a point where price and contract terms become more important to the company rather than volume? So Alex, I think it’s a great question. I think we’ve been talking about the momentum of the business over the course of the last year. We’ve obviously seen it in our backlog growth, right? If you I think backlog in 25 was up about 4.5 billion. We’re up another 1.4 billion this quarter. I think in the last two quarters alone we’re up around 3.5 billion. So I would argue that you know, a lot of the improvements that we’ve seen in the business from a pricing perspective, obviously from a growth perspective, haven’t really even started hitting our financials yet. Right. I think we’re just at the beginning of seeing some of the improvements that we saw in 25 relative to backlog …
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