MasTec Inc. Reports Operating Results (10-Q)

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May 05, 2010
MasTec Inc. (MTZ, Financial) filed Quarterly Report for the period ended 2010-03-31.

Mastec Inc. has a market cap of $941.6 million; its shares were traded at around $12.39 with a P/E ratio of 13.8 and P/S ratio of 0.6. MTZ is in the portfolios of Chuck Royce of Royce& Associates, Chuck Royce of Royce& Associates, John Buckingham of Al Frank Asset Management, Inc., George Soros of Soros Fund Management LLC, Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors.

Highlight of Business Operations:

Revenue. Our revenue was $450.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2010, compared to $342.1 million for the same period in 2009, representing an increase of $108.1 million or 31.6%. Of the total increase, approximately $94.0 million resulted from new business activities, primarily acquisition related. The remaining increase is attributable to growth in our organic businesses, in particular, our renewables and wireless businesses. Despite the increase in year over year revenues, our businesses have been negatively impacted as a result of tightened capital expenditures by our customers and slower developing business resulting from the slowdown in the U.S. economy, the slow pace of the Stimulus Act project funding, tight credit markets and a corresponding reduction in bid awards, as well as an increased impact of seasonality due to changes in business mix combined with unfavorable weather conditions. Revenues for the three months ended March 31, 2010 do not reflect any impact of the federal and state stimulus initiatives. Key customers driving growth in the first quarter of 2010 include Enbridge, AT&T, Duke Energy, Edison Mission Energy and Great River Energy.

Depreciation and amortization. Depreciation and amortization was $14.2 million for the three months ended March 31, 2010, compared to $10.6 million for the same period in 2009, representing an increase of $3.5 million or 33.2%. The increase was primarily driven by recent acquisitions, which resulted in the addition of $3.2 million in depreciation and $1.3 million in amortization, partially offset by a decrease in depreciation on prior year investments in information technology for our organic businesses.

Interest expense, net. Interest expense, net of interest income was $7.4 million, or 1.6% of revenue, for the three months ended March 31, 2010, compared to $5.8 million, or 1.7% of revenue, for the same period in 2009, representing an increase of approximately $1.6 million. This increase resulted from higher average debt balances due to $215 million in new senior convertible notes issued in June and November 2009, respectively. The increase in interest expense was partially offset by the repayment of the $55 million 8% convertible notes in June 2009. We expect interest expense to increase in 2010 as compared with 2009 due to the full year impact of the senior convertible notes issued in 2009.

Our primary sources of liquidity are cash flows from continuing operations, availability under our credit facility and our cash balances. Our primary liquidity needs are for working capital, capital expenditures, insurance collateral in the form of cash and letters of credit, earn-out obligations and debt service. We estimate that we will spend between $30 million and $39 million this year on capital expenditures. This is an increase versus prior year capital expenditures, due in part to the slowdown in the U.S. economy during 2009, which resulted in lower activity levels and corresponding capital spending in 2009 as compared with expectations for 2010. The nature of our business, however, is equipment intensive and actual capital expenditures can increase or decrease from estimates depending upon business activity levels. We will continue to evaluate lease versus buy decisions to meet our equipment needs and based on this evaluation, our capital expenditures may increase or decrease from this estimate in the future. We expect to continue to sell older vehicles and equipment as we upgrade to new equipment. Additionally, we have made certain acquisitions and have agreed to pay earn-out payments to certain of the sellers, generally based on the future performance of the acquired business. Certain of these earn-out payments may be made in either cash or, under certain circumstances, MasTec common stock at our option. During the three months ended March 31, 2010 and 2009, we made cash payments of $9.3 million and $6.5 million, respectively, related to such earn-out obligations.

As of March 31, 2010, we had $202.7 million in working capital, defined as current assets less current liabilities, compared to $204.1 million as of December 31, 2009. Cash and cash equivalents, including approximately $18.0 million and $18.2 million of restricted cash at March 31, 2010 and December 31, 2009, respectively, increased from $88.5 million at December 31, 2009 to $102.9 million at March 31, 2010, primarily as a result of strong cash collections. Restricted cash related to collateral for certain letters of credit is invested in certificates of deposit with a maturity of 90 days.

As of March 31, 2010, we hold $33.7 million in par value of these auction rate securities, with an estimated fair value and carrying value of $24.3 million. As of March 31, 2010, we have aggregate unrealized losses on these securities of $9.3 million. Of the $9.3 million, $8.1 million relates to our structured finance auction rate securities. Due to deterioration in the credit quality of these structured finance securities in 2009, we deemed the decline in value for these securities to be an other-than-temporary impairment, and accordingly, recorded a charge of $6.1 million in earnings as an other-than-temporary impairment in 2009 and wrote down the carrying value by a corresponding amount. As of March 31, 2010, we have cumulative unrealized losses of $3.2 million on the $27.5 million remaining cost basis of our auction rate securities recognized in other comprehensive income, net of applicable income taxes. At this time, we are uncertain when the liquidity issues associated with the auction process will improve or whether we will be able to exit these investments at their cost basis or whether we will record additional temporary or other-than-temporary losses as a result of these investments. We anticipate holding these securities until we can realize their cost basis and believe our existing cash resources will be sufficient to meet our anticipated needs for working capital and capital expenditures to execute our current business plan.

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