Quanta Services, Inc. (NYSE:PWR) Q1 2018 Earnings Conference Call - Final Transcript

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Noelle Dilts with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, thanks. Good morning. And I'm sure you'll hear this a lot today, but congratulations on a really nice quarter. So my first question, I just wanted to dig into guidance a little bit more. When you look at the high end of the guidance, can you just give us a sense of kind of what it takes to get there in terms of thinking about uncommitted work? Or is it really just that you have to execute while on the work you have right now?

Yes, Noelle, I think from our standpoint, we haven't really changed the way we looked at guidance other than the fact that we've had a quarter under our belt, and as you the year and you see the macro markets, they're all strengthening, so I guess it's the higher degree of confidence to the mid point there and the high end, we still have some uncommitted. We're just starting on our gas kind of season there on the large diameter pipe. Also our Canadian winner that's in front of us as well, so as we see that and we see us progress through that season, it will allow us to get better visibility into the other side of the year, so that's where the high end lies as in the back side of the year.

Okay, great, that's helpful. And then as it relates to stronghold, you had one competitor in particular talk about some continued disruption associated with the hurricane, so it's nice to see that you guys perform there -- perform well there. Can you give us a sense of just maybe how some of the sub-businesses are performing? And what you think help drive some of that recovery and what sounds like as a market that's still seeing some disruption?

Yes, the stronghold acquisition, we felt like we bought a company that was necessary. The maintenance would get performed year-over-year and that's the case in we bought exactly what we thought we did, they performed exactly like we thought and we're extremely pleased, we also see lots of opportunities in that markets, in that space. We're not seeing impacts that others may see, so we're extremely pleased with how they performed and believe they'll perform the rest of way in for long-term, so that matter of a -- the management team is fantastic and our opportunities downstream just continue to come in.

Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alan Fleming with Citi. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning.

Duke, maybe you can help us understand or think about your margin guidance in Electric Power, a little better. The 9% you did was the highest 1Q we've seen at least for several years. I know there was some storm work in there,