Exhibit
99b
CACI
GUIDANCE INVESTOR CALL
JUNE
23, 2005
10:00
A.M. EST
Operator:
Good day, everyone, and welcome to the CACI International Guidance Investor
Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded.
For
opening remarks and introductions, I would like to turn the call over to
Mr. Dave Dragics. Please go ahead, sir.
Dave
Dragics: Thank you, Paula. And good morning, everyone. We're pleased that you're
able to participate with us today. And for those of you who are with us for the
first time either by telephone or via the Internet, we welcome you to this call.
As you
know, earlier this morning we issued comments about our expected performance for
the close-out of FY '05 as we come to the completion of another successful
year and also provided you with our initial comments regarding our expectations
for FY '06 which will begin on July 1st. We hope that most of you have had
the opportunity to review our release.
Before we
begin our discussion this morning, I would like to make our customary but
important statement regarding CACI's written and oral disclosures and
commentary, which can be found on page 2, or the second slide.
The
statements made today largely do not address historical facts and as such do
constitute forward-looking statements under current law. These statements are
subject to important factors that could cause actual results to differ
materially from the expected results reflected in our statements we make today.
The
primary factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
anticipated are listed at the bottom of the news release as well as in the
company's Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Now, our
full safe harbor statement is set out on this slide and will also be
incorporated as part of the transcript of this call, which we will post on our
website.
I would
remind those who might be listening to the replay of this call to view the whole
safe harbor statement as it appears on our website.
And to
open up our discussion this morning, here is Jack London, Chairman, President
and Chief Executive Officer of CACI International.
Jack
London: Thank you, David. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. First, let me
welcome all of you to our call. I'd like to extend a special welcome to those of
you who are new to CACI and to our call this morning. We appreciate your
interest, and invite you to join us on our future conference calls as well.
With me
today on the call is Steve Waechter, our Chief Financial Officer. I will give
you a brief update on how we expect our FY '05 to finish out on June 30th.
I will then turn the call over to Steve to give you an initial outlook at our
fiscal year '06 guidance, which will include a description of our approach
to complying with the new requirements for stock option expensing.
After
that, I'll provide you with a brief update on the strategic outlook for CACI.
We'll then open up the call to your questions.
Also with
me today on the call is Bill Fairl, our Chief Operating Officer, who will be
available for any questions you might have.
Now let's
briefly discuss our expectations for the fourth quarter of fiscal year '05
as we now near its completion.
Please
turn to page 3 of the slides. We believe our fourth quarter and fiscal
year '05 year-end results will be within the range of guidance we provided
to you in April. To recap that guidance for the quarter, we expect to report
revenue between $415 million and $425 million. Net income between $21.8 million
and $22.9 million. And fully diluted earnings between $0.71 and $0.74.
For the
year, we expect our revenue to be between $1,608,000,000 and $1,618,000,000. Net
income between $83.7 and $84.8 million. And fully diluted earnings per
share between $2.74 and $2.78. We expect our operating cash flow to be strong in
the range of $115 million to $120 million for the year.
We
continue to see solid growth in all key sectors of our business. For
FY '06, we expect our total revenue to be in the range of 1,775,000,000 to
$1,850,000,000. When compared with our current guidance for this fiscal year,
that's a year-to-year increase of 10 to 15% based entirely on organic growth.
Although our guidance for FY '06 does not include any future potential
acquisitions, acquisitions do continue to be a very important part of our
strategic plan for probable growth as we look for acquisitions to account for 5
to 8% of annual revenue growth going forward.
We
continue to actively explore opportunities that will best position us to not
only achieve our near-term goals, but also to position us for meeting our
long-term growth objective of three billion in annual revenue by the year 2009,
fiscal year 2009.
With that
said let me turn the discussion over to our Chief Financial Officer, Steve
Waechter. Steve, over to you.
Steve
Waechter: Thank you, Jack. Good morning everyone. As Jack has already presented
our revenue estimates for fiscal year '06 performance, I'll go over our
expectations for the first quarter and some key assumptions that underlie those
projections with regard to net income and diluted per share earnings.
Please
turn to page 4 of your slides. As we estimate our revenue for the quarter will
range between $420 million and $430 million, an increase of 8 to 11% over
the first quarter of fiscal year '05, again based entirely on organic
growth.
We expect
our operating margin for the quarter, excluding the impact of expensing stock
options, to be in the range of 9.3 to 9.5%. Excluding the impact of expensing
stock options, we anticipate that our net income will range between 22 to $23
million, an 11 to 16% higher than a year ago.
We expect
diluted earnings per share, excluding the impact again of the expensing the
stock options, to be between $0.71 and $0.74, up 8 to 12% over the year-earlier
period.
Finally,
we estimate that diluted weighted average shares for the first quarter will be
$30.9 million. Here are some key assumptions as listed on page 5 of the slides
that underlie our expectations for the quarter. We are assuming the interest
rate on our debt to be between 5.2 and 5.5% during the quarter, as we continue
to anticipate a rising interest rate environment based on the economic
indicators we have reviewed.
Cost of
restricted stock units are expected to provide an additional 3 to 4% EPS
dilution over the prior year period. Our debt on the outstanding term loan
should remain consistent with the fourth quarter, decreasing only by the
required quarterly payment of $875,000. And we expect that our corporate tax
rate will be 38% equal to this year's rate.
Now let's
turn to page 6 of the slides. For the full fiscal year of 2006 we have a healthy
expanding backlog that supports our growth objectives which will provide
increasing opportunities to continue to serve our valued customers. We expect
that revenue for the entire fiscal year 2006 will be in the range of
$1,000,775,000 to $1,000,850,000. Without that impact of expensing stock
options, we expect net income to be in the range of $96 million to
$101 million, up 13 to 21%.
Diluted
earnings per share, again excluding the impact of expensing stock options, is
expected to range from $3.10 to $3.25, up 12 to 19% over the previous year. We
expect fully diluted shares to be approximately 31 million. And we anticipate
that our operating cash flow to be in the range of $135 million to
$150 million for fiscal year '06.
I would
now like to spend a couple minutes discussing our equity incentive plans and
accounting treatment for stock options but before I do so I'd like to turn it
back over to Jack to provide a couple comments on our equity compensation
philosophy. Jack.
Jack
London: Thanks, Steve. The company's compensation policies and practices are
overseen by the compensation committee of the board of directors, an
independently-based committee. The committee regularly consults with outside
compensation experts and consultants and meets throughout the year to monitor
and establish stock-based compensation plans for key employees of the company.
The company intends to continue its current equity compensation plans without
any significant changes despite the introduction of new accounting rules.
Even with
the new accounting rules, there's no impact to the company's cash position and
CACI's ability to continue to generate strong operating cash flow. And it
remains unchanged.
The
company uses stock-based compensation for its key employees as a means of,
first, aligning the interest of management with those of the shareholders. A
good thing. And, two, retaining key executives through the use of stock option
awards and restricted stock units with future exercise dates.
We
believe this policy has achieved its objectives, as evidenced by the low
turnover in our senior management ranks and the significant increase in the
company's market cap to close to $2 billion today.
Let me
turn it now back to Steve. He's going to explain the impact of the new
accounting rules and their treatment. Steve, over to you.
Steve
Waechter: Thanks, Jack. Before I move on to that, I wanted to just correct what
I said on the revenue range to make sure I'm clear. We expect revenue for the
entire year of '06 to be in the range of $1,775,000,000. I believe I said
thousand. I want to be clear. $775 million and $850 million. Excuse
me, $1,850,000,000. So again I stand corrected with what I said earlier. Jack,
on to the compensation side of the house here. As I'm sure many of you are
already aware, under the current accounting literature as required by the
Statement of the Financial Accounting Standards No. 123R, Share-Based Payment,
the expensing of stock option grants will become mandatory for CACI beginning
with our September quarter results. I would like to point out, as Jack indicated
earlier, that the expensing of stock options is purely a bookkeeping exercise
that will never impact our cash flow.
And
although I cannot speak to the likelihood, should this requirement be delayed or
terminated, just as it has been previously, we would continue with our current
practice of providing only pro forma footnote disclosures of the impact of
expensing stock options on our quarterly results. We'll continue to expense,
however, our restricted stock units as we have done in the past.
It is
important to understand that the transition to recording stock option expense
will not occur uniformly across our industry, which may make comparisons to our
peers more difficult until all of the companies are reporting on the same basis.
Fiscal
year '06 -- hello.
Operator:
Just one moment, gentlemen. I apologize, Mr. Bradford's line has
disconnected.
Steve
Waechter: Are we back, Paula?
Operator:
You are. Please proceed.
Steve
Waechter: Sorry for the interruption. It's important to understand that the
transition to recording stock option expense will not occur uniformly across our
industry, which may make comparisons to our peers more difficult until all
companies are reporting on the same basis. For fiscal year '06 we will
provide quarterly results both with and without the impact of expensing stock
options in order to provide our shareholders with information that will allow
comparison to other companies whose financial results will not yet been reported
net of option expense.
When
looking at the full fiscal year 2006 guidance I just provided, we expect that
the expensing of stock options will dilute EPS by approximately seven to 9% and
will typically follow a cycle in which the impact is greatest in our first
quarter. As a general practice, most of our options are granted at the beginning
of our fiscal year, and for certain option grants the full value of the
underlying grant is expensed immediately on the date of the grant, rather than
amortized over a period of time, which is the typical treatment. As a result,
the dilution of EPS for the first quarter of any fiscal year will tend to be
higher than the expected dilution for the entire fiscal year.
And even
though Dave mentioned the safe harbor statement at the beginning of this call, I
want to again state that these projections are forward-looking and that the
listeners on the call and the readers of the transcript should be advised that
our actual results may differ materially from the statements we're making today.
With
that, that covers the major financial assumptions and our expectations; now back
to Jack.
Jack
London: Thanks again, Steve. Ladies and gentlemen, please turn to page 8 of your
slide, if you will.
As you
can see, our initial FY '06 guidance projects 10 to 15% organic growth,
which is fully consistent and congruent with our long standing goal of 12 to 15%
annual internal growth. Our pipeline continues to be robust and all indications
are that the level of proposals submitted and expected award decisions through
the remainder of this year, as well as the first half of our fiscal 2006, will
be consistent with that which we discussed on prior calls, in particular in
April.
As I
indicated earlier, we remain active in our pursuit of acquiring companies that
complement our core service offerings and position us to better service our
long-standing existing customers and our strategic niches.
We're
excited about our prospects in the coming year and believe FY '06 will
provide us a strong foundation of meeting our long-term objective of being a
$3 billion in revenue company by fiscal year 2009.
We look
forward to providing you with more insight into 2006 as well as share with you
our results for 2005 when we have our scheduled conference call this coming
mid-August.
With
that, we're ready to open our discussions for your questions. So, Paula, I'm
ready to turn the microphone over to you for our first question, please.
Operator:
Thank you. The question-and-answer session will be conducted electronically. To
ask a question, please do so by pressing star 1 on your touch tone telephone.
Also, if you are using a speaker phone, please make sure your mute function is
turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. And once again, it is
star 1 if you do have a question and we'll pause for just a moment.
And we'll
take our first question from Brian Gesuale.
Q: Yes,
guys. Thanks for taking my question today.
A: Hi
Brian.
Q: Wonder
if you could put some color around the current acquisition environment, what
you're seeing in terms of pricing, maybe what you expect in terms of timing of
potential deals and maybe size, type of companies you're looking at in this
environment.
A: Sure.
That's a terrific question. First of all, as you're aware, all of you are aware,
the emergent acquisition, the dimension of our business strategy, is still a
fundamental piece of it. We find still a significant number of properties out in
the marketplace. I would say that the pricing maybe has moved up a bit. But we
still feel like that there's creative opportunities out there and strategic
fits. We do know that in certain areas there's ownership that's looking to exit
the, looking for exit strategies, especially in the area of companies that I
would say between 50 and 100 million in sales. Our objective, of course, is to
have to move up a bit. We want to be looking at companies between 100 --
excuse me 50 to maybe 150 to 200 million. And then that's our first track. Then
we have a second track approach. We'll be looking for potential combinations,
more of the scope and size that we had with the very fascinating and very
successful transaction, the three-way combination with the American Management
Systems, Defense Intelligence Group, where we joined with CGI to go through that
public corporation for a divestiture picking up a section, which turned out to
be a very, very successful transaction. We have configured ourselves in the way
of our fiscal structure, financial structure, in such a fashion I think we're
very viable contenders in the marketplace for significant business opportunities
and that is our drive at the moment.
We're
looking at organizations, and Steve and his team are diligently out in the
market and we'll continue to look and we do find that there's still lots of
properties but the prices may have moved up a little bit. But we don't see an
impact on our design point which has always been to have an accretive
transactions from the first year on.
Q: Great,
Jack. That's very helpful. We'll look for another deal-of-the-year out of you
guys this year.
A: We're
cooking on them, believe me. Here we come.
Q: One
quick follow-up. Could you give us an update on the award activity. Sounds like
you and the government are going to be exceptionally busy. Any update would be
appreciated. Thanks a lot.
A: I'll
start off, then I'll ask our Chief Operating Officer, Bill Fairl, to chime in.
Things have been a little bit slow. I've personally had my nose out in the
marketplace, street and feet, put my feet on the street and trying to keep up
with it. A little bit slow for our particular interests. But we also note that
none of our competitors are picking up in any significant way. So we feel like
there's just a general workload backlog in the contracting procurement shops
right now. Maybe a little bit of spill-over from the supplement and budget
push-back and spread out. But, Bill, you might want to talk a little bit more
about what we see in terms of some of the things and numbers we talked about in
April, if you would, please.
A: You
bet, Jack. Brian, Bill Fairl here. Back in April I was talking about the fact
that through the end of the third quarter we had proposals in for evaluation of
about $1.9 billion and that we expected to submit in our fourth and first
quarters another $4 billion of proposals for evaluation, and of that total
5.9 billion, we thought that the government would award about $3 billion
worth of those proposals. As we sit here today looking at that same set of
numbers, the numbers haven't changed very much, Brian. I now anticipate that in
our fourth quarter and our first quarter of fiscal '06 that we will submit
about three and a half billion dollars which would give us a total submitted for
evaluation of $5.4 billion. And of that I think the government will again
award about 2.7 billion during our fourth quarter of FY '05 and first
quarter of FY '06. I believe we're on track for that kind of profile, if
you will.
Operator:
Next we'll go to Mark Jordan with AG Edwards.
Q: Good
morning, gentlemen. First, a question relative to the relative impact of
expensing the stock options. In your historical presentation for FY '05,
had it been adopted, you point out a five to seven percent dilution. This year
it's projected at, you know, at a higher level. What is the change in strategy
or equity awards that you have made that has the expenses being higher in the
current or in the '06 fiscal year versus what would have happened
in '05?
A:
That's, Mark, an excellent question. And we're delighted to respond here because
of the transition effect coming through with the 123R. It's important that
people ask their questions so we get a lot of clarity here. Make sure everybody
understands how we see this and what's going to be happening. I'd like Steve to
pick up here with some details and help round out the response to your important
question.
A: Yeah,
Mark. The higher expenses were projected not for just for the year but more in
particular for us in the first quarter of '06 results from the requirement
that we have to immediately recognize the full value of stock options and other
equity instruments out of the restricted stock units we use here to employees
that would fully vest in those options and equity investments before retirement
age or upon retirement age at age 65 or above. The requirement to do so
specifically addressed, give you the literature here, Emerging Issues Task Force
Bulletin No. 00-23, Issue 19, and the SEC has provided some guidance on our
handling of that matter.
But again
our equity-based grants includes this provision for retirement, and as such we
have a practice of issuing our annual allotment of equity instruments, including
restricted stock units and stock options at the start of our fiscal year. And as
we have certain individuals that are currently age 65 or older, our expense will
be higher in the first quarter of the year relative to the other quarters and
also for the full year relative to what we would have done in a prior year. In
other words, we wouldn't have expensed all that. So anyway, again, these are
noncash kinds of charges here.
Q: Since
this is the first implementation, would successive first quarters probably face
a lesser dilutive impact while being the highest of the year, it would be less
than this current year's 15 to 17%?
A: If I
understand you, as we go forward, assuming the same kinds of grants and so forth
are issued and we have people that are age 65 and above working here, that we
will get that charge in the first quarter of every year. Now we're not allowed
to go back and restate fiscal year '05 for this change. And therefore
you've got a little bit of an aberration here in fiscal year '06. But as we
go into '07 and 2008 you'll see that every first quarter.
A: But
the plan presents comparable statistics, though, so you can see a comparison on
a all-things-equal basis.
A: The
other thing to keep in mind here is the volatility with our options, you know,
the assumptions that you use and we're using Black-Sholes here, can change from
year to year. We've seen wild swings. If you go back look at our footnotes in
the last several years here you can see significant volatility changes that
drive the value of options up and down and all over the place.
Q:
Following up on the acquisition question, you've been uniquely quiet since the
AMS acquisition in May of last year. Is that a symbolic of the fact that you
were focusing on at least for a majority of the time the assimilation of that
very large acquisition or has it just been a matter of fact that you have not
seen something that you really wanted to move forward on over the last 12 months
with regards to an acquisition?
A:
That's, I'm almost attempted to say, it's an all-of-the-above response. We're
very pleased, delighted in fact, with the grace in which the integration of AMS
organization came into our enterprise over a six-month period through the middle
of the year. Very satisfactory. It's going to be an absolute winner for us. So
that's part of it. There has been also some business opportunities we looked at
that we got enthusiastic about but for one reason or another we weren't able to
pursue. Also to remind you that senior management had the unfortunate
distraction of some of its Iraq-related activities last summer that slowed us
down a little bit. But the good news on that, I'd like to point out the silver
lining was we went through a number of investigations and reviews and came out
from that wire-brushing as being an absolutely stellar performing organization
that was clean as a whistle in terms of its internals. So we feel very good that
we'll be able to pick up the pace here as we go into the next fiscal year. We've
got the team organized and on the starting blocks. When the whistle blows, we'll
be after it.
Q: Thanks
a lot.
Operator:
Next we'll go to Jason Kupferberg with UBS.
Q: Good
morning, guys.
A: Good
morning, Jason.
Q: Just
wanted to ask a question about the guidance a little bit. Are you kind of
widening and lowering the lower end of your organic growth range a little bit to
10 to 15? Start was 12 to 15, as you pointed out. Jack, how should we kind of
think about kind of a low end of that range versus a high end of the range based
on Bill's commentary where we stand with contract opportunity sets, the fact
that, Jack, you mentioned there may be a little bit of a slow-down in some of
the procurement apparatus, you know, what's kind of the thought process there?
A: We're
still looking -- the numbers we've given you I think are our best
professional estimates of what we see in the future given some of the vagaries.
We're hopeful that the award cycle will begin to pick up its pace here in the
next two to three weeks as we get to the mid-summer. We certainly have a hell of
a backlog. The only thing I can share with you in the way of good news, if there
is such a way to look at this, is we're not alone. A number of the companies
that are backed up but if that breaks loose, and when it breaks loose, and I'm
optimistic that they'll begin to break loose by the late part of summer or if
not earlier, that we'll begin to see some lift. Because many of the deals we
have are new initiatives, new opportunities, expansion opportunities that we
believe are vital. They're funded. They are deals that have money behind them.
Budget lines are ready in place to go. We've been working to get our teams and
folks positioned and lined up. So I think I'd remain on the optimistic side but
guardedly so for the moment.
Q: Just
kind of a follow-up on that. I think on the last call you talked about some
prepositioning, I think is the word you had used for larger deals and kind of
the $200 million pressure range. I want to get a sense how you guys get an
edge versus the tier 1 vendors on those contracts because it would seem just
given the sheer size of the revenue base the way it's escalated you need to win
larger contracts to keep your organic growth rate up in historic ranges. So how
do you kind of elevate your success into those bigger deals versus the tier 1s?
A: Let me
start off with a couple of comments and I'll pitch it to Bill here. The first
basic premise is, many of you know, for CACI International, we take great pride
in retaining our current customer base. So our recompetes and expanded
recompetes and large recompete opportunities are our first line of business
protection. We have a terrific record, virtually 100% over many, many years of
retaining our current customers. That's due to performance and basically because
we're paying attention to it. But we are always needing that lift that comes
beyond, and I'll ask Bill to talk a little bit about some of the things he sees
out there.
A: You
bet, Jack. Jason, it's a good observation. You're correct, as we get larger we
do need to win, pursue, and win some of those bigger deals. It just takes a lot
of those small deals to feed the engine we have going here. So your question
about how do you do that, the answer is it's back to basic principles, quite
frankly. This is and always will be a relationship business. But on those larger
deals, you need to position yourself earlier on those things. You need to move
your time horizon out a little bit farther, a couple years, if you will, start
working your deals, getting what we like to call our star distinctions into the
dialog, if you will. What makes CACI unique, why a customer should select us,
and quite frankly help the customer better understand over a longer period of
time why CACI is the right choice there. And I think that in a nutshell wraps it
up.
Q: Okay.
If I can sneak in one quick one for you, Jack. What would be your general
thought? There's been some talk in the marketplace about the prospect of a
merger of equals, if you will, among, whether it's yourselves or some of your
other peers, what would be your general thoughts from the CACI point of view on
that scenario?
A: Let me
put it this way, we're always reflecting in the marketplace what might be the
best business strategy for the corporation. It's reviewed from time to time at
the board level. We're certainly very sensitive and mindful of our fiduciary
duty to be open to any significant overtures from companies that obviously have
the bona fides representation. We're not a company that can be approached by
just anybody, obviously, because of the size of our organization, our equity cap
is somewhere around two billion, round numbers, somewhere in that, 1.8 billion,
so on, somewhere in that neighborhood.
All that
considered, we are much aware to the things that are going on in the
marketplace. Mergers of equals, they're not too many successful MOEs, as you
well know. I guess AOL/Time Warner being the poster boy of how not to do it. So
we're mindful of the need to put ourselves in the position to join with larger
companies and companies of our equivalent size. But I think the odds are not
that great that you'll find someone to do that with.
Q: Thank
you.
Operator:
And next from Legg Mason we'll go to Bill Loomis.
Q: Two
questions. One, Steve, on the RSU dilution, do you know what that was or will be
in the fiscal fourth quarter '05 for all fiscal '05, not the option expense, but
the RSU dilution, and also if you could comment, Bill, or someone, on activity
under some of your existing contracts, Mega, TEFOS, your GSA schedule, things
like that.
A: The
answer on your RSU expense on fiscal '05, it's about $2 million. What that
is, it's an amortization of RSUs that were granted in the prior year. It's over
a three-year period of time. So as new RSUs get issued this year, hopefully,
there will be a layering effect, is what you'll see on that. But for fiscal
year '05, it's about $2 million. You can see that number if you go to our
funds flow statement that we file with our results. It's included in that. You
can see it.
Q: And
then the fourth quarter, what would you estimate that would be in the fourth
quarter alone?
A: It's
been running about half a million dollars a quarter.
Q: Okay.
And then activity under some of your existing contracts, how is that tracking?
You mentioned new awards aren't picking up as much as you would like. How would
that work under your existing contracts?
A: Bill,
this is Bill Fairl. The first thing I would say is that is a point we have made
over our last couple of calls, is our clients are making heavy use of our
existing contract vehicles and we have plenty of those vehicles in place with
all the ceiling we need.
To
specifically answer your question, I would tell you that the funding continues
to roll into CACI, very strong. Quite frankly well above where we were last year
at this time. That's a forward-leading indicator, if you will. The other thing I
would say on the actual awards, as you recall, in the last conference call we
did. I kind of indicated we expected to see these awards occur over our fourth
quarter of fiscal '05 and the first quarter of fiscal '06. The reason
I did that is that it's a little hard to predict within an exact quarter when
one of these awards is going to occur. But I'll tell you historically we get
most of our awards in our first quarter of the fiscal year. So that's why I'm
still confident of those parameters and numbers that I told you about before.
Q: Has
anything changed out there, I mean from a budget standpoint, doesn't look like
there's been any moving parts or legislative impact or anything like that. Is
there any specific reasons why it might not be ramping as quickly as you
thought?
A: I
would say, Bill, from a Congressional perspective, we identify nothing that
affects us directly. Some of the supplement that was passed recently and some of
the things that were put in place, we feel like are having a bit of getting
molasses treatment, moving kind of slow through the organizational hierarchy, in
terms of approvals and sign-offs and allocations and distributions and so forth.
I would call that kind of a slow implementation through, I'll use this word
lovingly, to the bureaucracy. But it's not a matter of not having the money. It
just seems like it's going slow for some of the reasons we've indicated. I think
there's a lot going on. They're a little bit shorthanded here and there. There's
some distraction of things like Brack, like the intensity of feeding the ongoing
activities in the war zone. Those are the kind of things that give a bit of
distraction to the, I guess prompt implementation of some of the funding
obligations and contract awards.
Q: Okay.
Thank you.
Operator:
Next we'll go to Edward Caso with Wachovia.
Q: Thank
you. I was just curious if some of the sort of lower than normal pace of wins
reflects losses as opposed to less decisions being made and if that's the case
maybe you could give us a feel for the, when you guys go back and do the
postmortems with your clients and why you didn't win, maybe you could give us a
sense on why you might not be winning.
A: Let me
start off, then I'll give it to Bill. This is Jack. Generally it's not a matter
of losing, it's a matter of nothing happening. We have had a few wins we've
announced or are in the process of announcing. I think we went out with our GSA
BPA yesterday which was a very nice broad-gauged contract instrument. It should
be another one of those vehicles that will provide us a lot of legs into the
federal establishment. But I don't -- it's not a matter of losing. It's a
matter of nothing happening. Don't overdramatize it. Bill, what would you
amplify?
A: That's
exactly right. Ed, there's nothing in the book of pursuits we're looking at here
that has gone south on us, quite frankly. We're still waiting for it to come
out. As Jack mentioned earlier, the supplemental funding was signed in early May
there, and that's kind of making its way through the system, if you will. So no
losses.
Q: So
there's no lingering perception overhang from the Abu Ghraib noise?
A: Ed, I
don't have any sense for that. I would say no at this point. As Jack mentioned
earlier, we got put through a pretty good review here over the summer last year,
and I think we've come out with flying colors.
A: I've
been around the globe, if you will, Germany, the Middle East, been over to the
Far East and the customer reaction is strong. It's actually very strong in terms
of CACI. We had a little bit of headline stuff and some wire-brushing from some
of the administrative aspects of the United States federal government, which I'm
very proud, we stood up and we're very responsive and I thought we had very good
results from that exercise. And in fact I will make the statement or the claim,
if you will, that we are better recognized for the integrity of our management
systems and our approach dealing with the federal government probably than we
were two or three years ago. Just because of the visibility and the
illumination, getting out in the sunlight compared to our competitors. Now, that
doesn't mean it's just going to all of a sudden give you business. But I'm just
saying I don't think that has any material impact whatsoever in terms of our
business vitality and the opportunities going forward.
Q: Steve,
you offered guidance, operating cash flow in FY '06. Can you remind us what
the FY '05 guidance is?
A:
FY '05 is 115 to $120 million.
Q: Last
question, I want to circle back to the organic growth range being 10 to 15 and
the long-term being 12 to 15. Is that just sort of the slow start here on the
awards? Is that what that reflects?
A: I
think a lot of it is a factor of how you calculate the range of guidance where
you take the high to low and low to high on the range of guidance for '05
and '06. It gives you a higher range. Our stated goal, as Jack has
indicated, we've said many times, is to grow organically 12 to 15%.
A: The
20% overall growth objective, or higher, based on the acquisition, mentioned the
five to eight percent that we typically -- we're looking to be able to
implement at that level here for the near term anyway. That's our goal, and we
are developing our internal business mechanisms and plans to achieve those
levels.
Q: Thank
you.
Operator:
And next, from Stevens, Incorporated, we will go to Tim Quillin.
Q: Good
morning.
A: Good
morning, Tim.
Q: Just
to follow up on that question. You know the stock is down quite a bit today. I
think there might be a little bit of concern about the first quarter revenue
guidance being a little bit below expectations. I just want to get a sense the
eight to 11% revenue growth that you're expecting in 1Q, is that all kind of
related to slow pace of awards, is it just being conservative? You know what was
the thought process that went into that guidance level?
A: Tim,
this is Bill Fairl. One of the key drivers in this whole thing, quite frankly,
is the comparison to our first quarter last year, when we just had right at the
end of that first quarter, just a tremendous insurge of ODCs, if you will.
Really blew the doors off of what we were expecting there in terms of ODCs first
quarter last year. So that makes kind of a tough comparison this year quite
frankly.
Q: That's
helpful.
A: I'd
just add to that, again, our models do not assume a higher -- we assume a
normal level of ODCs in our first quarter '06 relative as Bill said a very
high first quarter last year of ODCs.
A: It's a
bit unusual.
A: It was
unusual.
Q: Okay.
That's helpful. Then, Steve, just a couple of questions. One, in the operating
cash flow guidance for '06, which is very strong, what is the embedded
assumption as far as DSO, which I think was 79 last quarter?
A: It's
coming down from that. We would say it's in the mid-70s. 75, 76, in that kind of
range.
Q:
Lastly, your interest rate assumption is 5-2 to 5-5, what's the interest rate
you're paying right now?
A: Right
now we're at about, LIBOR rate right now is about 2.3%. We have just negotiated,
we got kind of a blended rate here in the first quarter, fourth quarter. We're
about 200 basis points over that, but we negotiated down about a point and a
half. So somewhere just about 5%, a little under 5% is kind of the run rate.
Q: Okay.
Very good. Thank you.
Operator:
And next we'll go to John Mahoney with CBNT.
Q: Good
morning, guys. How are you doing?
A: Good,
John. How are you?
Q: Pretty
good. I want to follow up on some of the recent questions about the first
quarter revenue growth. I mean if you take a mid point of the 420 to 425, 9%
growth, I know we went over that before but it's the tough ODCs is that the
primary culprit?
A: That's
what I would say, yes, John. Absolutely. We're assuming a lot less ODCs revenue
in '06 than '05.
Q: Okay.
That's had the biggest impact, that's in the first quarter?
A: Yes.
Still indicated. We had if you recall a 23% internal growth rate in the first
quarter of '05 and it was largely driven by some of these ODCs that came
through in that first quarter, which we were not planning on that same level
this year.
Q: Okay.
On the earnings basis, we're going to be, you know, in the 70 -- 71, 74
range. The earnings growth is not tremendous in the first quarter. I think ODCs
generally aren't as profitable, we would be able to outgrow the, not as big an
impact there.
A: I
would tell you generally, John, the added we have this year are restricted stock
units. As indicated earlier, we're going to have probably more than double the
level that we had had in '05. That on a pretax basis is several million
dollars.
Q: Okay.
Okay. I guess the high end of the range $0.74 is up 12%, and it would be in the
higher -- mid to high teens excluding the restricted stock units, is that
the message?
A: I
don't have the calculation in hand but if you backed out a couple million
dollars of additional restricted stock unit expense in there, that would get you
to a much higher rate.
Q: Thanks
a lot.
A: Keep
in mind those are noncash charges here.
A:
[Indiscernible] only.
Operator:
Next we'll go to Sandra Notardonato with Robert Baird.
Q: Just a
follow-on to John's question on the -- you mentioned, Steve, the ODCs in
the first quarter of '05. If you take out ODCs, do you know what the
organic growth rate was for that quarter?
A:
Sandra, I don't have that for you. I can get it for you later. If you want to
call me later. I just don't have it handy.
Q: The
fourth quarter and the first quarter, what's the organic growth you're assuming
for this June quarter and the September quarter?
A: It's
in the 14, 15% range, in the fourth quarter of '05. And it's in the eight
to 11 as we indicated here.
Q: That
would all be organic in the first quarter?
A:
Absolutely.
Q: Okay.
A question for Bill. You mentioned $2.7 billion of potential awards in Q4
and Q1. How much of that would be recompete business versus new business?
A: Well,
the first thing, Sandra, I want to mention is that's the number of awards I
anticipate the government making. I don't expect we'll have 100% win rate on
that 2.7 billion. We have a target for ourselves of about 40% win rate. We
typically do a little better than that, but our minimum goal is 40%. I want to
be sure I'm clear on that one.
Q: I
didn't ask my question clearly. Thanks for saying that.
A: So to
go back to your question, more than half of that is new business, as Jack
alluded to earlier.
Q: More
than half is new business?
A: For
us, yes.
Q: If you
can talk about, you're talking about a lot of activity in the pipeline, a lot of
potential contracts coming through. How are you addressing the market in terms
of your additions on the business development side, on the procurement side,
just some of the thoughts you have going into '06 in terms of trying to
continue to capture market share?
A: Well,
that's a very good question, Sandra. We have in fact added some robustness into
our business development process, both at the corporate level and down within
the operating entities as well. We've added additional staff, some real folks
that we're very pleased to have on board with us now to basically address this
increasing pipeline that we've been talking about here for a couple of quarters
now. So we've added a few more cylinders into the engine, if you will.
A: We've
added more investment money, if you will, call it investment, at least planning
to spend more money in these business pursuit areas, not only recompetes, but
new initiatives as well.
Q: So the
increase in investment for the growth of the company, does that mean that
margins on the operating side stay between 9.5, 10% for this year, for
fiscal '06?
A: That's
the margins we're planning. We have a larger business. We're going to put a
continuing amount of investment opportunity or expense, if you will, or costs
into new business pursuits.
It
follows as night follows day, we need to go after more deals and more larger
deals, both. And we have a pipeline model, if you will, that is going to be
implemented or has been implemented in terms of the kinds and scope and range
and size of deals we need. We're in the midst of implementing that I guess with
some refinement, right, Bill?
A: That's
right, Jack.
A: You're
adding some new folks, some experts in business pursuit and proposal development
and taxing management and so on, the skill sets needed to do many larger bids as
we go along.
Q: Last
question. Have you noticed any disruption to business out there with the
acquisitions of PEC and Titan that were announced?
A: I'll
give you my sense. I think it's imperceptible. We've competed with certain
aspects of those organizations in the past. We also teamed with them in certain
configurations. I would just repeat, the general array of this industry with its
fragmentation is that today's partner is tomorrow's competitor, vice versa. And
sometimes we're competing and teaming at the same time with organizations. In
all the years I've been in business, I don't think that that's going to be
changing. Because most of these bid situations are customer relationship driven.
Q: So are
you subbing to Titan on any contracts of note that potentially you may lose that
position?
A: I
don't anticipate that. But, Bill, maybe you could pick up on that. I don't
anticipate losing any of the relationship situations whatsoever.
A: Jack,
I agree with you. There's really nothing there. I mean at this level you're, on
one hand you're subbing to somebody and on the other hand they're subbing to
you. So there's -- you gotta be able to work together here to do business
at this level. So no, I don't see any impact to that.
Q: Great.
Thank you.
A:
Sandra, this is Steve. I wanted to clarify, operating margins for the year,
guidance is in the 9.5 to 9.6% is what we're giving in the guidance. Our target,
though, is to get to 10. And I should point out this is prestock option
expensing. Those numbers will change once we start expensing
options.
Operator:
Next, from William Blair, we'll hear from Laura Lederman.
Q: A few
questions. One is on the ODCs in Q1 of '05, could you give us a rough feel
for what they're worth so we can back it out and do the math on what the
internal growth rate is with them.
A: It's
in the Q. I don't have it handy with me. I'll be more than happy, Dave and I,
after the call, if you want to call us, we'll walk you through that.
Q: Also
turning to the long-term growth rate of 12 to 15% internal or organic growth,
yet only 10 to 15% of fixed. I guess I look at that 12 to 15% and say, wow, that
seems a lot given how big you're getting. I wanted to know how comfortable you
were with the 12 to 15% long-term. It seems it gets harder and harder to do as
you grow.
A: Let me
address that if I might. There's no question about the ultimate limit. I would
just point out, CACI International has a very aggressive growth strategy and
culture. And part of this is a cultural perspective. And I think we're talking
about a company that in the foreseeable future, meaning the next year or two,
should be able to talk in terms of these kinds of growth objectives. There's no
question about it. At some time, some point there will have to be some
reflection at the time we believe that's in the best interests to discuss that
with the community we would be glad to do so. But I believe that we set our
targets, if you aim high you hit high. If you aim low you're going to hit low.
So I'm not in the mood and in the position not knowing our objectives and
standards and pulling the bar down. I think we've got plenty of opportunity.
We've got a very good financial statement that we can use for the M&A side.
We're sharpening our swords, if you will. Our knifes, in terms of going after
competitive opportunities. Bill has alluded or highlighted some of the things
he's doing in that area. We'll continue to do so. I'm optimistic and
enthusiastic about the idea of breaking away from the pack and being able to
perform at these, what I call very, very substantial rates given the size of our
enterprise today.
Q: So
it's more sort of an internal goal than really a true guidance, if you will?
A: It has
always been a goal. And we have been, when I say always a goal, I can't remember
when it wasn't a goal. So that's always for at least 10 to 15 years of my tenure
here, but we will be shooting very much for that objective this year. There's no
question about what we'll be going after in terms of goal. Maybe -- did I
answer your question? I hope I did.
Q: Yes.
Thank you. Final question, which is the amount of Q4 and Q1 contract awards
going down from $4 billion to $3.5 billion. Is that just delay that some will be
cited in Q1 instead of Q2? I want to understand the difference between those
numbers and why they're going down a little bit better.
A: Again,
make sure I clarify what I want to say there. I was not talking about that being
the number of awards in Q1 and, rather, Q4 and Q1. That was the dollar value of
proposals that we would submit during that time period. So really the only thing
that's happened there is that a couple of the procurements have moved a little
bit into our second quarter of fiscal '06. So they're still there, they've
just slipped about 90 days or so. So it's just a matter of me seeing those
proposals now being submitted in our second quarter of fiscal '06.
A: Does
that help? Hello?
Operator:
Moving on, we'll go to Julie Santoriello with Morgan Stanley.
Q: Good
morning. I wondered if you have an update for us on the backlog.
A: We
give you that at the end of the fiscal year. We're almost to the end of our
fiscal year here. We'll give that out in the August time frame.
Q: Okay.
And what are the sort of themes, if you will, in the last couple of quarters has
been, new awards in general have been slowing, a lot of backlog among
procurement offices throughout DOD and other areas, but the task order activity
has seemed to remain strong and that was supporting revenue. And has that
continued into this quarter or are you also seeing some delays in the task order
area?
A: Julie,
it's remained strong. It's kind of an interesting phenomenon. That's why we
direct our attention to our investor community and analysts because it's sort of
the other lever on performance, but I want to turn it over to Steve because he's
on top of the numbers per se but, Steve, would you want to discuss it a little
bit.
A: At the
end of the last quarter we gave our funding statistics if you may recall, for
the full year we were looking at I believe the number, and Dave Dragics will
correct me if I'm wrong here, we were up about 29%, I believe, year-over-year on
the funding side of the house. We expect that trend to not only continue in the
fourth quarter but we think we'll end the fourth quarter and the total year at
31% or so over the prior year. So our fourth quarter fundings right now are up
significantly over what we received last year to the tune of about 40% over
where we were last year.
Q: Great.
And just in terms of the award activity at CACI slowing, you did say that you
see you're certainly not alone as part of that trend. But is there anything
going on internally that you think you can help to move some of those awards
forward more quickly, either in terms of getting new personnel in place or just
in general ratcheting up your head count in some way?
A: Let me
try to help on this. This is not a matter of what CACI can do except inquire, of
course, in a diplomatic and appropriate way to express our interest and the
status of procurement activity moving through the decision mechanisms and the
administrative process, the United States government contracting offices. In
fact, you quite frankly don't want to be too nosy poking around in there because
they tend to have kind of a negative reaction to that. They will process them as
they will process them.
I'm not
concerned about the rates right now for the simple reason that our funding on
our existing contracts, the ones we had to have no ceiling, that there are not
anywhere close to being approaching our ceiling, have been very strong. So the
money is being spent in the ways they can spend it, through the project offices.
Where in the contract office, where I think you had people shorthanded, due to
distractions, perhaps, of some of the material issues with equipment and so on
for the war, you've had sort of a distraction and some slow-down, but I don't
think it has anything to do with what's going to ultimately happen in terms of
our industry and certainly CACI. The good news is that at the same time we're
waiting for these things. The good news is, as Steve indicated to you, the
fundings is, has been very strong. So overall it's, I think we're doing just
fine and that the administrative issues associated with these awards will be
coming through in due course and we will be the recipient of our, certainly our
fair share if not more so.
Q: And
just one more question, if I may. This really gets to the point of coming into
this fourth fiscal quarter for the government and tending to be a strong budget
flush sort of quarter and whether that impacts you and ODCs, other parts of your
business. We had also heard that there are, I guess, the GSA I believe is making
it tougher to carry funds forward from the budget fiscal year to next and some
rumblings that it could be an especially strong budget flush kind of quarter
because of that. Any commentary there?
A: Bill,
can you address that? I'm not sure I've seen that in any significant way. But
perhaps you --
A: Yes,
sir, Jack. Julie, I would say we expect our first quarter fiscal '06, which
is the government's fourth quarter, has historically been the strongest quarter
for us in terms of awards. That's typically September 30th is the date when you
see lots of things need to get done, quite frankly. So that will be a
combination of things like new contract awards and also quite frankly as we
expected last year it's a little bit hard to predict but that's when you see a
lot of the ODCs come through as well. It's in that late August through September
time frame when all those actions really ultimately have to get done to meet
that September 30th deadline. I expect that trend to continue as we've
experienced in years past.
Q: Okay.
Thank you.
A: You're
welcome.
Operator:
Next we'll go to Joseph Vafi with Jeffries.
Q: Hi,
gentlemen. Good morning. I don't really have too many more questions. Maybe just
one kind of high level question. If we look at the business moving forward and,
you know, obviously there's a big pipeline of deals, at the same time the
company's in a position, I think, to be looking at larger business as it grows
in order to keep its pace of growth and because those deals are more applicable
to the company, do you see more of your pipeline now being in a situation where
you're bidding for business that you would have to unseat an incumbent perhaps
smaller business which might have been brand new tasking? Thank you.
A: That's
an excellent question, Joe. And one we've been addressing with I'll call it some
vigor over the last year or so, as we've moved into this next tier, approaching
$2 billion in sales in the next year and a half or so. And I know Bill has
focused and been working diligently to put some mechanisms in place to address
the larger opportunities. Bill, maybe you'd like to round out with a detail or
two at least your perspective on how we are making that transformation, which I
think we're going to be successful in doing, but it's in process, a work in
process, as we see.
A: Joe,
Bill Fairl here. Jack is right on the point there. I think I mentioned on
earlier calls, to go to your point there, we need to track, pursue, capture and
win these what I call these tier 1 big deals. And those are deals that are
$200 million and above. And to that end we've kind of expanded our horizon,
the time period over which we track these opportunities and prepare our
pursuits. It goes out into the three-, four-, maybe even five-year time windows
in some cases. I'll tell you just over the next two years we're looking at more
than 20 of these $200 million plus deals, if you will, and your point about
in some cases they're not all new business for everybody, they're somebody's
recompete. You're right about that. So we need to find those opportunities where
CACI can in fact have a legitimate shot at taking that business away from
somebody else.
Q: That's
helpful. Thank you.
Operator:
And next, from SG Cowen, we'll hear from Cai von Rumohr.
Q: Yes,
thank you, gentlemen. I think you mentioned that the fundings were up 29%.
That's year-to-date. And I know there was confusion on the last call about the
difference between funding and awards. And I believe you said 31%. That would
be, you know, approximately funding full-year over full-year?
A: That's
correct, Cai.
Q: But
any way we cut it, we don't know what the fundings were last year, but unless
they fell off the table, that means, you know, a pretty good gain and would
presume a ratio of funding to sales pretty comfortably over 1. Looks to me like
1.2. Is there something wrong with that math?
A: Cai,
we're looking, and these numbers we'll firm these up here at the end of our
fiscal year. And again this is an estimate at this point in time. But last year
we had fundings of about a billion three. This year we think we're going to be
somewhere in the billion 750 million dollar range on fundings. And that's about
a 31% year-over-year increase on those numbers. Fiscal year '06 is not
completed yet, and that's kind of our -- '05 is not completed yet.
That's our estimate as to where we think it's coming in.
Q:
Terrific. That's very helpful. And could you comment a little bit, I guess
recently in Boston you were talking about adding 15 to 20 folks per week, I
believe it was, and you have 500 billets opened in the classified area. Could
you talk a little bit about how you're doing with, you know, ability to find
people and maybe labor turnover?
A: Okay.
Cai, this is Bill Fairl. Yeah, we do track those statistics very carefully. And
the good news is we, as soon as we fill those positions, our clients open
additional positions for us, quite frankly. So we always have kind of a working
pool that we're recruiting against there. But to answer your question about how
we specifically tackle folks in the intel space, which is what I think you were
getting at there, since those are the highly prized of all, if you will. We run
targeted recruiting campaigns for those folks. We'll do invitational career
fairs where we have a pretty extensive network of folks that we know that are
out there in the industry. We've been in this intel business a long, long time
quite frankly. So those people tend to know each other, if you will. And one of
the things that's been successful for us is going out to our targeted audience
with those folks. I'll tell you we did one of these sessions about two months
ago and we had over 500 candidates show up on a weekend day to interview with
us. All targeted for the intel space. So that technique is working good for us.
Q: Thank
you. And last question. Your indicated guidance on cash flow next year, that
seemed a little higher than what we were looking for, given that this year was
bolstered, looks like it was bolstered by pretty good improvement in DSOs. How
do we get to the higher number? What are the drivers? Are you assuming further
improvement in DSOs or what are the key drivers there?
A: Cai, I
would say on the receivable side it's a little bit of improvement. But we've
come from the low 80s down, and I think we're going to settle in that 75 to
77-day range is our hope and maybe even drive that lower. Again, I don't know
what numbers you're looking at. One of the things you have to look at too is the
impact of RSUs and stock option expenses. These are noncash kinds of items you
need to add back into your model. I don't know how you've modelled it.
Q: I've
added them back in. It just seems like a higher number given you got a pretty
good benefit this year, you should from the reduction in DSOs. And I assume --
so that receivables presumably would be [unintelligible] next year.
A: There
is improvement in DSOs versus where we were a year ago. So this is one of the
big drivers here.
Q: Okay.
We can deal with it off line. Thank you very much.
A:
Thanks, Cai.
Operator:
And next, from IRG, we'll hear from Alex Hamilton.
Q: Good
morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Two questions. One, if you don't
mind, I know you've repeated it a couple of times, and I missed it every time.
Could you repeat the number of bids you'll be submitting in the second quarter
and how that pipeline has filled up.
A: I'm
sorry, Alex, did you say the number of bids in the second quarter?
Q: Or the
bid pipeline now. You mentioned I guess three and a half billion.
A: Yes.
Let me go back over those statistics again. Happy to do that for you. I'll back
all the way up here so I get numbers consistent. When we did our last conference
call in April, I gave you a number of 1.9 billion, which is what CACI had
already submitted and was in to our clients for evaluation at that point in
time. Going forward, I anticipate that we will submit around $3.5 billion
in additional proposals for evaluation and in our fourth quarter of this year
and our first quarter of fiscal '06. That will get you up to
$5.4 billion number.
Now, of
that $5.4 billion, I think the government's going to award approximately
half of that, $2.7 billion during our fourth quarter and our first quarter
of fiscal '06.
Q: Okay.
Great. Thank you. And just to give one last kick to the horse, you've talked
about kind of a, the award environment kind of sliding to the right. What I'd be
curious about is, I mean there's typically a seasonality anyway to the
government. More specifically, are there particular areas where that's happening
more than others? For example, we've talked about DOD. I don't think we've
talked about DOJ. We've talked about task orders but have you seen any of this
molasses, per se, to other areas other than DOD?
A: No,
Alex. And of course that's where most of our business is done anyway. It's kind
of general to the extent that Jack described it before. I still think you'll see
the historic pattern repeat itself, where most of the activity will occur in our
first fiscal quarter of FY '06 which is the government's fourth fiscal
quarter. That's when they really kind of bring everything to a close and put a
bowl on their fiscal year, if you will. That's when all the awards are made in
terms of getting it done by September 30th and you see a lot of ODCs
expenditures as well in that time frame.
Q: Great.
Thank you.
Operator:
And next we'll go to Colin Gillis with Adams Harkness.
Q: Good
morning, everybody. The first question is, there's been a lot of language used
on the call today about awards slowing. I just wanted to get a clarification
from you. Is that really what you're seeing or is it really more of an issue
that we're not seeing awards accelerating?
A: This
is Bill Fairl. You know, I've made a point here over the last couple of calls
about talking about seeing the awards over a six-month period. That was from
April 1st of this year through September 30th. So our fourth quarter and our
first quarter, I still think the majority of those awards are going to occur
during that time period. I didn't want to break it into an individual quarter,
because it's too hard to predict that. Again, historically most of those awards
occur during the government's fourth quarter, which is our first fiscal quarter.
That's still going to happen this year.
Q:
Exactly. The acceleration we've all been expecting, it's still intact. It's just
an issue of when the log jam gets freed.
A: Yeah,
and I still think that log jam is going to get freed during the period I
indicated earlier, which is by the end of our first fiscal quarter September
30th.
Q: Right.
Beautiful. Then just, Steve, I have a question for you in terms of seasonality.
Is there anything you want to comment on about the December quarter? You know
just with the amount of money left in the system at this point in the year, do
you think that we might get, you know, some changes to the historical
seasonality in regards to the December quarter? You know especially that we're
not in an election year?
A: When
you say the seasonality, the seasonality we would see is really more in our
first quarter where we would have, it's really more of a vacation issue that we
have with people where they take vacations in the summer and we don't have many
salable hours to work with.
Dave, do
you have a comment?
A: Colin,
I think your question is more related to the budget process up on Capitol Hill
as opposed to seasonality, when you talk about the December quarter. Again, you
gotta go back, look at where are we in the appropriations process and where will
we be come September 30th and October 1st. There's a lot of things that have to
happen. The House is much further along in the appropriations process than the
Senate is. Still, it doesn't mean that we'll have continuing resolutions, which
does affect the October, November, December time frame. So anybody that's
looking at this whole process has to consider not only what we've been talking
about but what's going on downtown on both sides of the hill with regards to the
budget process for FY '06. That was going to come into play again as we get
into August and September. So it's kind of like we'll put everybody on notice.
We don't see too much of a significant change other than the fact that, you
know, the House will further along.
Q:
Finally, Jack, I think you indicated that stock option expense is going to be
broken out. Should we expect to see that there to be pro forma results in your
fiscal '06 excluding stock option expense as well?
A: Colin,
this is Steve. We're going to present the results on a pro forma basis, kind of
the way we are today and then with the stock options stuff so you can see
clearly the business as we all know it and now with this accounting change.
A: We
want to do that for several reasons. We want to show you the basic going-forward
performance of the company on its fundamentals if you will, if I can use that
term with you here. And the other thing is that we are, to the best of my
knowledge, sort of out in front on implementing 123R, and there are many of our
companies in our space, a number of companies in our space that will not be
doing so because they're not required to for a while. So there will be, there
could be the potential for discontinuity or some aberrations in the comparisons
or the examination of our performance vis-a-vis some of the others. We want to
make sure there's a level playing field from an analytical viewpoint and we view
that as a service to you. And we will also demonstrate to you our belief is very
strong in our fundamentals going forward.
Q: Makes
sense to me. Thank you.
Operator:
And next we'll go to Paul Carlos with Advest Advisors.
Q: Just a
clarification. On the acquisition discipline as we model out the next few years,
when you have mentioned the goal is to make it accretive from one year out,
should we think of that as accretive in the first year, or first year may be
dilutive or break-even, then it becomes accretive? Just to understand the
discipline.
A: I'll
approach it this way. It's a good question. I'd like to have the opportunity to
review it here. It is not, will not be our objective to do anything but
accretive transactions. So we won't be moving into and consummating a deal so to
speak sort of knowing that it's not going to be accretive. Now, sometimes things
don't always work out as you think. So there's always that outlying possibility
that they would turn dilutive in some fashion. But let me reflect on our record.
We have some 29, 28 or 29 transactions. Some of them are fairly small. But the
fact is that we have had an unblemished record on accretive transactions. And
that's a long string. Some of them, obviously, have been more exciting and more
upside than others. But they've all been satisfactory. They've all been positive
cash flow and all accretive. And that's because we've modelled them in the first
place and we've done a better job than average of integrating these companies. I
think the crowning example is what we were able to do with the United Group, and
that's given our organization and our M&A apparatus, if you will,
organization, a lot of confidence we can take on equivalent sized opportunities
and even larger ones. It's a matter of kind of growing into this. And I think we
ought to be able to sustain that type of a record of going forward and we will
be, that is our design point.
Q: Great.
Thank you.
Operator:
Next, from RBC Capital Markets, we'll hear from Jamie Sullivan.
A: Hello,
Jamie.
Q: Hi,
it's Cynthia Houlton. Just wanted to, I know a lot of questions have been
answered, so I just don't want to repeat that. I think the only thing in terms
of there were a lot of questions about guidance and then again the activity
levels and the award levels. If we look at your guidance and what you're
assuming in terms of when the pace of some of this improves you're assuming the
kind of traditional improvement and that's baked in your guidance? What would
happen to on the low end versus the higher end? And is that somewhat predicated
in this slower award activity that you've seen?
A:
Cynthia, I'm not sure I fully understood your question. But in terms of our
guidance, you know, we've looked at all the information that we have available
to us today and our best estimates today are timing is some of these awards when
Bill and his team think they're going to happen and that gets reflected into the
forecast of our guidance and so forth. So, again, our best estimates today based
on what we know today and what we anticipate to happen, that's what kind of
factors into our guidance. I don't know if that answers your question. I don't
know if I fully understood what you were asking. But...
Q: I'm
sorry, I didn't ask it very well. I guess what I'm trying to say is, the slower
pace of awards you've seen, is that new or is that, you know, did that adjust
your guidance at all in terms of how you were looking at next fiscal year or do
you see what you're seeing with award activity again very similar to what we've
seen in previous years? I guess I'm just trying to figure out what's different
this year or maybe nothing is different. There's been a lot of emphasis on this
issue.
A: Let me
just say -- I'll try, because I believe I understand what you've asked.
It's important from the standpoint of have we done our projections. We've done
our projections based on the idea that we believe that this slow-down will have
its time and pass on. And there will be awards made and so on. A little bit
later than we anticipated but not to the extent we've ground those into our
forecasts per se, and we offset that with what I'll call reasonably high
confidence in the funding level that we articulated and made an issue out of
over this last six months. If they'd been very stable, in fact growing as Steve
indicated, significantly, on contract vehicles we've had in place for many, many
years. So we think that combination in the short run, meaning -- in the
near term, let me use that word, the next year or so, gives us a lot of
confidence in making the projections we've had. And again we've given you the
ranges, the bandwidths on these things and the best estimates of what we see out
there and how we kind of assimilate all the experience our leadership team plus
the inputs from our junior management organizations that are right in the middle
of these project activities.
Bill,
does that sort of reflect the way we've gone about this and the way we've looked
at next year.
A: I
think that's right, Jack, and I think we've made the point several times it's a
little hard to predict some of the ODC activity, particularly as you get out
towards the end of the fiscal year. So we do the best we can there. But --
A: That's
a particularly hard element to really nail down.
A: That's
because the customers haven't always made up their mind exactly what they're
going to need, how they're going to pull their year-end programs together. And
it's not necessarily a matter of our being clairvoyant, we need to find out how
the customer set is going to react to those late-breaking situations.
Q: Great.
That's helpful. Thank you.
Operator:
Next we'll go to Jason Kupferberg with UBS.
Q: Just a
quick follow-up. Can you guys talk a little bit more specific about what you're
seeing at GSA? You referenced it a little bit earlier, but we met with some
people last week in DC and there was kind of mixed views as far as the fact that
the internal reorg going on at GSA seems to be slowing things down a little bit.
Maybe that's kind of what you were referencing when you talked about the whole
procurement apparatus taking a pause here. And kind of related to that, are you
seeing any of your DOD customers gravitate back towards GSA or what's kind of
the current trend there? Thanks.
A: Let me
offer my thoughts, then I'll pass it to Bill, because he's closer to the firing
line in that regard. What I'm seeing with my peers and CEO colleagues and others
that are sort of watching this I would say from across the river, there is some,
quite frankly, mixed perspectives. We certainly know the Department of the
Defense seems to be moving back into GSA. There was a time last summer, last
fall, when there was the, quote, get it right program at GSA having to do with
the GSA Schedule 70, the IT services contract schedule. I think that is
beginning to settle down as best I perceive it. Of course we announced yesterday
the award of a GSA contract and Bill may want to address that in a second, but I
don't believe that that is an impending issue.
There is
some reorganization issues, as some of you know. Our good colleague,
Mr. Tom Davis, Thomas Davis, the congressman here from Northern Virginia,
the government-formed committee that looked into some degree the issues
pertaining to the GSA reorganization and some oversight issues he's been
concerned with. There's some questions about the Alliant contract and its
moving, slowing down a little bit. But I think that they're going to be moving
business opportunities. The government still needs to move out, and the IT, the
information technology and infrastructure is a significant issue. It's not
something that can be put off indefinitely. And I believe that there will be
strong movement through this year and enhancing and moving forward in these
areas. I'm still very enthusiastic about the business opportunities out there.
Some of these contracting matters, yes, will have to get sorted out. The
reorganization of GSA will have to get sorted out. But I believe it will be
movement and there's being, there's significant Congressional attention being
paid in that area. I'm not sure if I answered your questions.
But,
Bill, did you have some things you wanted to add, in particular, because this is
an important issue, GSA side of this, and you might announce the contract we
announced yesterday.
A: You
bet, Jack. Jason, I don't know if you noticed it, but we put out an announcement
yesterday on a $25 million contract to provide support to the United States
Army on an ammunition management system. That came to us through the GSA
mechanism.
I'll tell
you, I haven't seen any appreciable recent slow-down in that activity there. The
other thing I'd tell you is it tends to be a little service-dependent as well,
particularly on the Navy side. For a while now they've been making heavy use of
some new big multiple award IDIQ contracts that they have in place. I'm sure
you're familiar with their Seaport Enhanced Contract vehicle.
Q: Sure.
A: Making
a lot of awards under that. That's been their plan all along. And they're making
heavy use of that. So of all the services I would say they're the most, at this
point in time, the most inclined to make use of first choice would be that sea
port enhanced contract vehicle.
A: I have
one thing I would add, because we do have a way to see into this part of the
government's operation, and that is in the contract administration organization,
the contracted offices and the various agencies and departments of the federal
government, I think it's a fair statement to say that across the board over the
last decade or so they have become more and more shorthanded, more and more
people retired. They've had a bit of downsizing, if you will, maybe that's not
quite the right word. But reduced staffing in these areas. They're kind of
shorthanded. This has caused a bit of delay and some difficulties in getting
some of these, and I think even the skill sets, perhaps, is not at the level it
was maybe in the 80s and early '90s, we made some of these shifts. So
you're going to see some of this stuff until we get it sorted out. But I do
believe there's enough in the pipeline and time to handle these and we will see
some decent results in the time frame that Bill and his analysts have outlined
for you.
Q: Thanks
for the comments.
Operator:
And gentlemen, there are no further questions. Dr. London, I'd like to turn
the conference back over to you for any additional or closing remarks.
Jack
London: Thanks very much, ladies and gentlemen. I've been delighted to have the
opportunity to visit with you here this morning. I'd like to make a couple of
closing comments.
The first
of which is I feel I can fairly represent that CACI's fundamentals and our
business opportunities we think are still very strong in the market sectors we
participate. We believe they are high national priority areas in the National
Defense, Homeland Security, intelligence community, special purposes field
intelligence.
We have a
growing number of people around the world participating in the global war on
terrorism. We also have increasing our technology capabilities to support both
defense and intelligence communities through our information technology assets,
capabilities and distinctions. Our network services and communications tends to
be, continues to be a significant piece of our offerings.
The
fundamentals are in place. We think we're in a good market space, anticipating a
good, strong fiscal '06. We have a number of, as Bill emphasized several
times, big, big backlog and we're watching lots of opportunities out there, have
submitted a number of significant bid opportunities we feel enthusiastic about.
Of course time will tell, but the other side of the coin, let me emphasize, is
that our funding backlog is strong, our funding against current contracts. And
that is, if you probably picked it up by now, this is the number one indicator
and predictor of near-term performance. Not long-term, but near-term
performance. So those sides we feel very strong about. We've been delighted to
have you with us today. There are some things that we hope you will have noted
from our conversation regarding the implementation of FAS 123R on the
stock-based accounting treatment. Notwithstanding that, we believe we've
illustrated to you that we have a strong cash flow. Those accounting treatments
are noncash impactive issues and that as we go forward we'll be continuing to
represent both on a consistent basis, what we've projected before on the basis
that we've projected our EPS before, then we'll show the impact of the stock
implications, the one the 123R. We'll be reporting both of that in the near
term, so you have an idea, so you can compare CACI performance which we think is
going to be significant in comparison with our peers, some of whom will not be,
obviously, making this transition yet because their fiscal years haven't come
up. So in this period we'll kind of transition, we want to make sure you have
full information to make your investment decisions.
That
concludes our discussion this morning. I think we've had a good dialog, and I
appreciate everybody that has called in. I hope you feel really good about what
we've been able to provide to you. I would mention that it's our intent at the
moment to take about a ten-minute break and if any of the security folks,
analysts, so on, the team would like to call back in to seek some clarification
or additional information along that line, both the Chief Financial Officer,
Mr. Waechter, and the Investor Relations Officer, Mr. Dragics, will be
available to take your calls at -- what number is that, Steve? 703-841-7946.
That
concludes our meeting this morning, and I want to thank everybody for signing on
and thank you Bill, Steve and David. We are concluded. Thank you.
Operator:
That concludes today's conference. We do thank you for your participation.