Q4 2023 Granite Construction Inc Earnings Call
Participants
Mike Barker; VP of IR; Granite Construction Incorporated
Kyle Larkin; President, CEO & Director; Granite Construction Incorporated
Lisa Curtis; Executive VP & CFO; Granite Construction Incorporated
Brian Russo; Analyst; Sidoti & Company, LLC
Michael Dudas; Analyst; Vertical Research Partners, LLC
Jean Ramirez; Analyst; D.A. Davidson & Co.
Jerry Revich; Analyst; Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.
Presentation
Operator
Good morning. My name is Andrea, and I will be your conference facilitator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Granite Investor Relations Fourth Quarter 2023 conference call. This call is being recorded. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Granite Construction, Incorporated, Vice President of Investor Relations, Mike Barker, please go ahead.
Mike Barker
Good morning, and thank you for joining us I'm pleased to be here today with President and Chief Executive Officer, Kyle Larkin; and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Lisa Curtis. Please note that today's earnings presentation will be available on the Events and Presentations page of our Investor Relations website.
We begin today with a brief discussion regarding forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures. Some of the discussion today may include forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These forward-looking statements are estimates reflecting the current expectations and best judgment of senior management regarding future events, occurrences, opportunities, targets, growth demands, strategic plans, circumstances activities, performance, shareholder value, outcomes, outlook, guidance, objectives Committed and Awarded Projects, forecast and results. Actual results could differ materially from statements made today.
Please refer to Granite's most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these forward-looking statements. Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. Certain non-GAAP measures may be discussed during today's call and from time to time by the Company's executives.
These include, but are not limited to adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share. The required disclosures regarding our non-GAAP measures are included as part of our earnings press releases and in company presentation, which are available on our website, graniteconstruction.com under Investor Relations.
Now I'd like to turn the call over to Kyle Larkin.
Kyle Larkin
Good morning and welcome to our fourth quarter conference call. I'm excited to talk about how we closed the year across the company. Our teams had an outstanding fourth quarter, but before I discuss the details and highlights of the quarter, I would like to revisit some significant accomplishments during 2023. Previously, we laid out our investment framework for growth as part of our 2024 strategic plan.
Our growth strategy is built upon two pillars, support and strengthen and expand and transform. We support and strengthen. We focus on developing and strengthening our core competencies and growing our home markets as we work to expand and transform to grow our business with more transformative investments, both in our home markets and new geographies over the course of 2022 and 2023.
We work to support and strengthen our businesses and our construction segment. We strengthened our home markets by selecting the right owners, projects, subcontractors and vendors, while leveraging our local market intelligence to win more projects at higher margins. We selected work suited to our core competencies, and we construct these projects with high levels of customer satisfaction without the types of claims that play the legacy work.
In our Materials segment. We invested in our home markets through bolt-on acquisitions, equipment and plant automation projects and by investing in additional aggregate reserves. We have had a lot of success strengthening our home markets. Texas is a good example. According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, Texas led the country and state and local government transportation construction contract awards, $16 billion, the next closest state, California is at $9 billion.
As discussed on previous calls, Texas region historically Chase work across the Southeast and Midwest. Since we began implementing our 2024 strategic plan several years ago, the Texas region has focused on Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston. Although Granite has been in both of these markets for more than 15 years and has strong relationships with the Texas DOT labor pool, subcontractors and vendors. We missed opportunities to strengthen those relationships as we pursued work across the country.
Both metros are growth markets with good funding and a resilient pipeline for a range of projects, different end markets, including transportation, water airports and private site development in 2023, we applied a targeted and selective bidding strategy to leverage our strengths and competitive advantages to build a derisked portfolio of projects. These projects have an average cap size of approximately $30 million per project has at the end of the year. Both the size and quality of the cap is a significant improvement from the historical cap of the Texas region.
On the material side across the Company, we supported and strengthened the business with significant investments in reserves, targeted automation projects and aggregate quarries and the consummation of bolt-on acquisitions.
First acquisitions. In 2023, we completed two bolt-on aggregate acquisitions that added strategic capabilities to our home markets. First was the purchase of the Brunswick Canyon quarry and asphalt plants in Carson City, Nevada, the Brunswick Canyon quarry added 17 million tons of reserves and expanded our home markets vertically integrated reach in northern Nevada.
We also purchased coast, not resources which operates the beverage inquiry on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada damage and quarry added 40 million tons of reserves. It had previously been a customer of the quarry to as high-quality aggregates and strategic proximity to our home markets. In the Pacific Northwest, we are continually evaluating bolt-on acquisition opportunities and believe we've continued to grow our home market footprint by and through similar feature acquisitions.
Our debt facility automation projects have been another focus like our recently completed Swan hydrogen facility in Tucson, Arizona. The new plant there were just automated technology to produce aggregates to lower costs while minimizing night and weekend shifts, thereby reducing workforce challenges.
Second automation project is expect to be completed at our slurry facility in Bakersfield, California during the first quarter of 2024. While not suitable for our plans, we expect to continue to roll out automation technology to additional aggregate facilities network in 2024 in 2025.
Moving forward, we intend to continue making investments to support and strengthen our home markets to also look for growth opportunities through investments that will expand and transform our business the acquisition of Lehman Brothers Company and that the stone gravel company is a good example of such an investment even operates seven strategically located asphalt plants serving the greater Memphis area in northern Mississippi, Memphis stone and gravel operations, three sand and gravel mines with an additional mine expected to be operational during the first quarter of 2024 for having in total 82 million tons.
The reserves I previously discussed, the fact that we are interested in acquiring well-run businesses that can be a platform for growth, the types of businesses that we would consider operate in a market that is healthy and growing now strong leadership that will continue post-acquisition just like Lehman and met this time. They are long-standing well-regarded companies that are positioned for growth.
The acquisition expands our footprint into the Southeast and the attractive growing Memphis metropolitan market leadership team. Estane will continue to lead and grow the businesses. We expect Lehman and methadone to add approximately $200 million in revenue 2024 with consistent high profitability, 15% and 20% EBITDA margins. We are excited to build on the platform. This acquisition provides and growing the Southeast in 2024 and beyond.
Now before I dive into the segments, I'd like to touch on what we are seeing related to public funding for transportation and specifically in the state of California. As we said, throughout 2023, we believe the level of federal and state funding throughout our geographies has created a market and we have not seen since the short-lived housing bubble, the mid two thousands.
This strong product market is complemented by a private market in which various industries are increasing investment in their infrastructure. Together, this benefits the civil construction industry and grants. We believe that the robust level of funding will continue and present opportunities for revenue growth for years into the future.
In California, our largest market transportation funding has translated to high levels of project awards and record cap within the California state transportation budget. There are two areas that most correlate to future bidding opportunities for Granite capital outlay projects and local assistance expenditure allocations. Capital outlay projects are primarily Caltrans projects, whereas local assistance expenditure allocations are funding provided to local municipalities for transportation projects actual and estimated allocations for the previous and current fiscal years, which ended June 2023 and will end in June 2024, respectively.
Solid consistent allocation level for these accounts at $8.3 billion and $8.5 billion, respectively. This level of funding resulted in a 38% increase in Caltrans project awards during calendar year 2023 compared to 2022. The proposed budget for the fiscal year ending June 2025 shows an increase in the level of transportation funding to $8.9 billion despite the overall budget deficit in California.
This funding is supported by the transportation Pacific has the one revenue in the federal infrastructure bill. We believe that these funding sources will continue to support transportation budget in California at these levels for several more years than a minimum.
As a reminder, these amounts represent allocations for construction projects, which will then need to be prepared for letting awarded and then released for construction. For example, an allocation made to a project in the current year budget may not turn into revenue for a contractor for several more years based on the time period between allocation, LARRY award in construction.
Moving to the Construction segment is frustrating that our really strong fourth quarter was tempered by negative impacts from the legacy Tappan Zee and ICC for high-rise bridge projects. On a non-cash event, we adjusted our probable claim recovery estimate on the Tappan Zee project to reflect developments in the dispute review process.
This resulted in a negative impact to gross profit of $19 million during the fourth quarter. In addition, even though construction activities are now substantially complete on the I-64 project. Weather related delays negatively impacted us in Q4 gross profit by $14 million for $7 million after non-controlling interest. However, it was a tremendous growth quarter for the Construction segment, revenue grew by 19% year over year, driven by the record can be carried into the fourth quarter, while cap decreased sequentially from the third quarter.
They remain higher than the prior year by $1.1 billion for 24%. Even though this record cap led to significant revenue growth, we were able to win work during the quarter to replace much of this revenue burn, which is a testament to the marketing environment and a holiday shortened bidding quarter.
Diving into our operating groups and starting with California. Group cap increased $91 million to $2.4 billion from the third quarter, and the group enters 2024 with cap 39% higher than the prior year. With the record cabin, California group experienced tremendous revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 61% year over year. Another record cash balance going into the first quarter 2024 also.
And importantly, California continues to lead the company and best value projects, which represents $1.5 billion or 61% of its total cap. This best value cap at the end of the year includes $345 million higher during the fourth quarter for a private rail facility project in the state.
These collaborative delivery methods like construction manager, general contractor and progressive design-build, better position us for success and allow us to work together to mitigate risk with the clients larger best-value projects are often separate and small work packages, which are then reviewed through multiple project workshops, providing more opportunities to address risks and large bid build projects in the last 15 years, we have completed or have under construction 87 best value projects.
New found that these projects are generally completed more quickly and with fewer claims has mentioned public funding remains elevated in the state when we see continued investment and opportunities in the private sector. We believe this trend will continue for the foreseeable future and the non-degree cap decreased slightly by $26 million from the third quarter, but ended 2023, 30% higher year over year.
The group ended the year with an impressive revenue increase of 12% year over year for the fourth quarter, led by increases in the Alaska and Utah regions, the budgeted spending in each state and the group expected to increase in 2024 with a higher level of cap. I expect the mountain group to continue to grow revenue cap in 2024.
Finally, the central group, although count decreased during the quarter by$104 million. The group finished with an increase of $46 million year over year to $1.7 billion. While the quantity the Scentre Group's cap has remained consistent high, but the quality has increased significantly. I expect the group to return to revenue growth and be a key contributor to our expected margin expansion in 2024. I believe that a high-quality cap, coupled with the macro economic construction market that is fueled by the IGA, puts Granite in the strongest position for growth and profitability. And over a decade.
Moving to the Materials segment, we completed another strong performance in the fourth quarter over the last two years. We have taken actions across this segment in support of our 2024 gross profit margin targets of 15% to 17%. Our focus on raising prices, investing in automation, purchasing users, bolt-on acquisitions and geographic expansion. Not only gives us confidence that we will meet our financial targets, but we will continue to sustainably grow revenue in 2023.
We added $140 million tons of reserves through bolt-on and geographic expansion transactions, including the materials focused, Lehman and Memphis Stone acquisition with stabilized costs, more efficient operations and consistently strong quarter volumes. When combined with further expected price increases, we anticipate growing segment revenue and profitability in 2024.
Now I'll turn it over to Lisa to review our financial performance for the quarter.
Lisa Curtis
Thank you Kyle, in 2023, we made significant strides in our financial performance on our path to achieving our 2024 financial targets. We finished the year strong with fourth quarter adjusted net income of $36 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.82. For fiscal year 2023, adjusted net income improved to $140 million and adjusted diluted earnings per share improved to $3.14.
Adjusted EBITDA margin for 2023 increased to 7.7% from 6.4% in 2022. Excluding the impacts from tax and G. and I-64 and 2023, our adjusted EBITDA margin would have been 8.9% for the year. Revenue increased $208 million or 6% with the fourth quarter, completing a strong second half of the year. In the fourth quarter and last six months of 2023, revenue increased 18% and 14%, respectively, over the comparable periods in 2022. In 2023, we began with a weather related slow start to the year, but that changed significantly in the second half of the year, and we are poised for that growth to continue in 2024.
In the Construction segment, annual revenue increased $188 million or 7% year over year to $3 billion, aided by a strong finish to the year in the fourth quarter with an increase of 19% year over year. The increase in revenue for the year and the fourth quarter was driven by significantly higher levels of CAP and the California and Mountain groups over the prior year, resulting in fourth quarter revenue increases of 61% and 12%, respectively.
Annual construction segment gross profit improved to $325 million and gross profit margin of 11%. But was impacted by the TAC. and D. and I. 64 projects. Excluding the impact of these projects, annual construction gross profit margin was 13% in the Material segment annual revenue increased $20 million year over year to $517 million, with gross profit increasing $6 million to $71 million and a gross profit margin of 14% in the fourth quarter.
We continued the strong performance in this segment from the second and third quarters with a gross profit margin of 16%, including the impact of newly acquired operations, which produced a gross loss of $2 million due to winter seasonality and the impact of purchase accounting. The Materials segment overcame a very slow start to the year, and we are realizing the benefits from investments in the business.
Another highlight was our strong cash generation in the fourth quarter, which continued from the third quarter and led to cash and marketable securities of $454 million at year end. And after the second quarter, I mentioned that the weather delayed start to the year has impacted the timing of our cash generation and that would change in the second half of the year. That is what we saw occur in the third and fourth quarters.
I am pleased by the performance in the second half of the year that led to operating cash flow of 5.2% of revenue or $184 million for the year. I expect our de-risked business model to drive further increases in our operating cash flow as we target 7% of revenue in 2024.
Now let's turn to our guidance in 2024. We are excited as we begin the new year and believe we are positioned to realize the benefits from all the actions taken since announcing our 2024 strategic plan in 2024, we expect strong revenue growth to a range of $3.8 billion to $4 billion in the second half of 2023, we've demonstrated that we have the businesses in our home markets to capitalize on the positive market environment and drive organic growth.
I expect that organic growth to continue in 2024 and be supplemented by our new home market in the Southeast from Lehman and Memphis downs. Sg&a continues to be a focus across the Company with an emphasis on efficiency as we grow revenue, we are taking actions to improve processes and procedures in order to leverage our resources more effectively. This will result in more efficient use of our SG&A expense in 2024 to a range of 7.5% to 8% of revenue with greater impacts in following years.
In 2024, we expect our adjusted EBITDA margin range to be 9% to 11% of revenue. This range is unchanged from the target we set two years ago when we set this range, we said we were going to replace legacy projects, dragging down profitability with lower risk, higher margin projects. We also said we were going to obtain margin expansion through higher margins on bid day and through for lease execution.
We committed to and best and raise margins in our materials business. And we said we would be more efficient with our SG&A. We did what we said we were going to do in all of these areas, and we believe that we will realize our margin targets as a result in 2024, we expect to continue to invest in our business through CapEx in the range of $130 million to $150 million. This higher range is driven by strategic materials investments of approximately $50 million for a new aggregate plant reserve expansion and further automation projects as well as a project-specific tunnel boring machine totaling approximately $20 million.
Now I'll turn it back over to Kyle.
Kyle Larkin
Thanks, Lisa. I'll close with the following points. We finished 2023, but the strong fourth quarter to continue to build upon momentum from the third quarter demonstrated our ability to drive strong organic revenue growth with higher levels of profitability than Grant has seen in many years. I'm also very happy to say that construction work and paving the substantially complete and I 64, and I want to thank our team working diligently to put this project behind us. I'm also impressed not only with the end of the year cap, but the quality of the cap, the 47% of the cap, the best value work, which we were selected by the owner based on our qualifications, it is truly a testament to the brand strength in all markets, our experienced teams and the strong public and private market environment.
Positive impact of the IGA will be felt by granted and industry for many years as projects continue to be programmed funded, designed, lead, awarded and constructed our acquisition of Lehman and Memphis Stone is a transformational event for granted. Not only does it provide Granite with a high-performing materials focused business, the significant target physicians in the area that it also provides granted a platform from which to expand our derisked business model.
We are seeing the positive effects on our ability to generate cash. We saw the results of our efforts in the second half of 2023, and I expect further gains in 2024 and finally, along with the significant revenue growth expected in 2024, I believe we will achieve our adjusted EBITDA margin range of 9% to 11%.
Operator, I will now turn it back to you for question.
Question and Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Steven Ramsey, Thompson Research Group.
Hi, everybody it's John [Colin] for Stephen can you can you maybe dig into the Materials segment a little bit more talk about organic growth next year and kind of how you expect volume and price to quite to contribute?
Kyle Larkin
Yes, good morning. And so I think we'll start with the volume side of things. Certainly, as we look into 2024 from an aggregate side, I think the volumes were pretty consistent with what we saw in 2023, which was a healthy market for us. How would you see pricing on the aggregates up around 10% going to 2024. That's our expectations for the year.
On the asphalt side, that's where we see a volume increase in 2024 versus 2023. Obviously, most of that is going to be seen in California, can we expect pricing increases to be somewhere close around 5% in 2024.
Got you okay and then just one more on the on the construction cap side, is there an area or region that that we can think about driving, you know, further than others? Are we kind of think about it broad-based I would think about a broad-based?
Kyle Larkin
I think all of our markets are healthy. Certainly the IGA funds are helping contribute to that. And we spoke about that in the prepared remarks. So we got a healthy market, both on the on the public side and the private side that we're excited about.
We wanted to highlight certainly was what we saw in California and we know there's been a lot of discussions around what's going on in California overall with its budget yet the transportation highway infrastructure spending in California is really strong. And I think our cap really reflects that today. And so we're excited about what we see out in the West.
That's great. Thanks so much.
Kyle Larkin
Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Brian Russo, Sidoti.
Brian Russo
Yes, hi, good morning I just want to follow-up.
Kyle Larkin
Good morning.
Brian Russo
Just to follow up on California, obviously a lot of the extreme weather and flooding in late January and through the month of February. And just wondering how that's impacting your business, et cetera, considering what occurred in the fourth first quarter of 23?
Kyle Larkin
Yeah in '24 actually, the thing being this year, January was very dry out in the West. So we're very fortunate to have good weather. I know our team has been busy so we're already off to a really strong start in Q1 of this year.
But last year, obviously, we had a really tough quarter weather-wise. We did get some emergency work last year, but it wasn't enough to really offset and the weather that we manage we're impacted by us. So this year, we are off to a better and stronger start at 23, really kind of created a low bar, I would say, year over year. So we have that going for us from a comparison perspective. But I think our materials business will we're going to see the impact of probably the greatest in Q1 of this year where with the mergers you weren't there last year, there wasn't a lot of materials opportunities for us this year having better weather our materials teams again, navigate faster than they did last year.
Brian Russo
Okay, great.
And just curious, could you just talk more about the water and wastewater business, your outlook there? What's the financial contribution now? I think it's just embedded in the construction segment and then the strategy as well.
Kyle Larkin
Yeah I mean, I think nothing has really changed for us, except that we've been able to take that business incorporated into our construction business and create some efficiencies as part of that business. Obviously, we do a lot of repair and installation work.
We work for munis, you have clients and the market is strong.
We will be at a higher end of the range that we have for construction in 24 or 14% to 16%. So we feel really good about the opportunities there and an opportunity to continue to grow that that business for us.
Brian Russo
Great. Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Michael Dudas, Vertical Research.
Michael Dudas
Morning, Lisa, Mike, Kyle.
Lisa Curtis
Good morning.
Michael Dudas
I follow on to follow up on your comments to your comments in the prepared remarks. About the execution and these strong markets that you see across the board, how does that translate as you saw the 23 on bid day margins relative to what you've been booking in the past.
And on the execution front, when you your 13% gross margin construction for helpful, how what could combined impact and help you achieve the 24 type targets and relative to the better and more higher quality book of business.
And is there a burn rate because of those the best-value practice, some contracts may be a little bit more delayed or may not flow through as quickly as some of your normal for confirmed. This is how that translate the cadence through the year?
Kyle Larkin
Yeah thanks, Mike. So I think I think maybe I'll address the question is really how do we bridge between our 2023 results on margins performance and how do we get to that 14% to 16% in '24. And I think there's a few things that we're looking at. And wonder if you if you adjust out and Tappan Zee and the I 64 project we're sitting right around 13.3%.
So we're not quite up to that 14% to 16% gross profit margin that we are expecting in 2024. And I think your comment around the pipeline and projects is important because the pipeline of projects we have in companies today are much better higher quality margins type projects. And we acumen in 2023. And so you kind of think about that pipeline of work coming through in 23.
We're still burning through some of that work. We picked up in 2021 and 22, there was a little bit more tougher market, I should say, than what we have historically seen and what we have in the last couple of years.
So the pipeline has gotten stronger. Margins have gotten better. I think those projects are going to really start to hit our books in 2024. So I think that's going to help. Our execution hasn't changed around what our focuses, but we have our construction playbook.
We're focused on operational excellence.
We continue to see opportunities to get better year over year and we're focused on them. And I can say the market still healthy.
We talked about that. So our margins are getting better, if not pretty consistent with what we saw last year, which are really healthy margins in the market in the 1st month or so. We're seeing the bid volumes very consistent with what we saw last year and margins are very consistent as well. And our hit rate has been strong. So we feel like we have the market we have to work on the books to date. If it goes those margin expectations of 14% to 16% '24.
Michael Dudas
Appreciate that color. My follow-up is you have been talking about your recent acquisition in the southeast Palm. Maybe can look at that business characterize to what granted like for like business would be on the materials front end? And is that an area that when you went into your looking towards going vertically integrating and moving into the construction phase more dramatically. Is that kind of how you're thinking about it? Is that where some of your attention might be placed on some of the acquisition opportunities that may come up for you as you move through 2024 relative to what Lisa talked about and some of the targets?
Kyle Larkin
Well, I think when we looked at the acquisition within Roberts.
And then just on the gravel, I look at it like we're getting back to our roots as an organization. We hadn't done a vertically integrated deals since 2008, and it was very important for us to get back to doing the types of businesses and deals that we were comfortable with and how we grew organization historically over time. And so if you kind of go back to 2023, we were very intentional about supporting and strengthening our existing home markets and reinvesting in those they were underinvested from a reserve perspective for T cells and bolt-on opportunities, ways we could preserve the market position we had.
And so we did that. Lehman Brothers was an opportunity for us to get outside of our existing footprint and create that real platform for growth. And as I mentioned on our last call, we were looking for really strong leadership and looking for a healthy growing market, and we're looking for a really good business. And we found that we believe in Roberts, and that's going to provide that platform for us to continue to grow in the south southeast and where we can grow that business and really leverage the team to find other opportunities in that marketplace to grow our company.
So there's a big a big shift for us we're excited about it. We haven't done a vertically integrated deal since again, it's been 15 years and so for quite a while. So that's that was really kind of our thoughts behind the Lehman acquisition. And as we look to 2020 before, I think our investment thoughts are very, very similar. We're going to continue to reinvest in our existing businesses support and strengthen. But we are looking for other opportunities like Mike Lehman, Robert.
So we can we can grow our business could be part of the platform and the Roberts or find other areas that we can expand and transform our company. And I think you look at that positive cash flow we generated in Q3 and Q4 and what we expect to 24, we're going to have the ability to do.
Michael Dudas
Close at least on that cash flow generation. Thanks to Kyle.
Lisa Curtis
Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Jean Ramirez of DA Davidson.
Jean Ramirez
Hi, good morning.
Kyle Larkin
Good morning,
Jean Ramirez
I'll start with the question about the projects you guys bid on. So under the new discipline for the types of jobs you guys go after them, could you discuss the progress you are seeing on the larger projects under your portfolio?
Kyle Larkin
The progress on the larger projects?
Jean Ramirez
Yes.
Yes, no problem.
Kyle Larkin
So I would say we've been through this transformational journey as an organization for quite some time now. We really don't build these mega projects that we historically have been and it costs us a lot of challenges and organization and we do pursue projects that we would call larger projects that would be in the say $150 million to $200 million range.
But the big shift for us has been the contract method in which we do that work. So most of our larger projects. Now they're more complex for even longer in duration. I tend to be the best value type projects with their CMGC or progressive design build and if you look at the pie chart that has the breakdown of our cap round, almost half of our cap now is that best value type projects. And so we've been able to deliver larger, more complex projects and very successfully under that contracting method.
So it's really a very big difference to an entirely different business model than what we were doing several years ago. And that's really why we're excited about our transformation. I think the other thing that's really important is these projects are also being built in markets that we know these are home markets for us.
We're not chasing work into markets with clients that we don't understand.
I don't have a really strong relationship with and that allows us to be more successful. There also does something really important and allows us to avoid claims. And so that's certainly something we want to get away from as an organization is having these contract claims there are distraction and they're very challenging. And frankly, they're a drag on our cash. And so one of the things you're seeing with our new business model is we don't have these claims on our books, we can actually drive a lot higher operating cash flow.
So in short, we're doing we're doing very well on the larger projects that we're procuring today.
Jean Ramirez
Great I appreciate the color you have on fits shifting focus on California. Could you address if you have any concerns around the budget deficit in the state and whether you are see it either seeing or and at forecasting the impact projects schedules or planning for any future work you'll be pursuing?
Kyle Larkin
Yeah, we're what we really want to make sure that everybody understood is the Caltrans to your expenditure allocations are only going up. We're excited about the opportunities we see in the state of California, certainly on the public side, if you look at the SB one monies that are out there that continue to grow. And so we think California can be a healthy market for years to come. So yes, we don't have any concerns.
Jean Ramirez
Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Lisa Curtis
Thank you.
Kyle Larkin
Thank you.
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Jerry Revich, Goldman Sachs.
Jerry Revich
Yes, hey, good morning. Everyone and nice cash flow this quarter. I just wanted to ask you at the EBITDA outlook that you folks outlined for 24, what level of free cash flow conversion, the folks expect can be a wide range of outcomes, but would love to hear how you're thinking about it.
And similar question for longer term as you continue to work the prior projects? And at least can I just ask factually weighted Clave recovery estimates and unbilled receivables in the quarter? Thank you.
Lisa Curtis
Yeah thank you, Jerry.
And so yes, let me talk about free cash flow, cash generation, and we're excited with our cash generation for 2023 last year and 2023, we talked about cash generation and generating positive free cash flow was really the last major area that we needed to improve upon. And so we made we made nice strides with that with 2023, and we see that continuing into 2024.
We intentionally changed our box business model over the past three years.
We are derisking that portfolio from anywhere from project the current methods, which Carl was talking about, so not entering into non-sponsored joint ventures being us so that our model was really broken historically from a risk perspective. And so we're getting to see the benefit of that because obviously, that not only impacted our bottom line, but really our ability to generate cash.
And so from an EBITDA to free cash flow conversion, when we look at 2024. And as I said in my opening remarks, that we're targeting OCF as a percentage of revenue of around 7%. And so with our EBITDA projections, that would be a ratio conversion of about 35% to 40% for 2024.
And if we look out further, let's say, to 2026, our operating cash flow as a percentage of revenue will be moving closer, looking to move closer to our target of 9% to 10%, which would be closer to a 50% conversion ratio.
So that is what we're looking at from a free cash flow conversion perspective.
As far as unbilled receivables go ahead.
Jerry Revich
No please Lisa.
Lisa Curtis
Yeah so in our claim recoveries, I mean, we do we do disclose that in our Q's and K's related to what we what we have recorded and that will be coming out later today for unbilled receivables we Q4 was a very strong quarter for us for reduction of unbilled receivables, our DSO, and we continue to make DSO. We do not have issues for collections and what are our 2023, Q3 and Q4 were very high activity levels and which generated cash, very nice cash generation, obviously in Q3 and Q4.
And a big portion of that was our receivables, which is an unusual, which is actually what we expected due to due to the strong second half of the year since the first half of the year was delays due to the wet weather. So we are making good progress and contract assets have gone down and our contract liabilities have increased.
Kyle Larkin
So all of those points are moving into moving in the right direction through the mill conversion project of yogurt, the claim, if there isn't any claim recovery in that 7% target in 2024?
Lisa Curtis
Correct.
Jerry Revich
And can we shift gears and talk about the pricing opportunity that you're seeing in the materials business. I mean, we've seen pretty heavy M&A, particularly in California across the materials spectrum. Is there opportunity for pricing to be stronger than what you laid out, Kyle, in terms of, 10% for aggregates, is there a potential for a midyear price increase? And similar question for asphalt, given all the industry consolidation in your markets, is there an opportunity for additional price increases over the course of the year?
Kyle Larkin
Perhaps I mean, I think it's probably early too early to tell for us in that regard. But I think we still feel good about the 10%, 5% or so on, I guess what we'll see.
Jerry Revich
And just sorry, clarification, 10%, 5%, that's the January one price increase that you're embedding, you're not embedding anything from midyear?
Kyle Larkin
Yeah, I think that's kind of an average I mean every markets can be a little bit different, but those are those are averages over the year.
Jerry Revich
Thank you.
Kyle Larkin
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Barker closing remarks.
Mike Barker
Okay well, thank you for joining the call today. As always, we want to thank all of our employees for the work they do every day. Most importantly, in 2023, we had the best safety results in Granite's history for a second consecutive year. You keep raising the bar and should be proud of this achievement. Thank you again for joining the call and your interest in Granite. We look forward to speaking with you all soon.
Operator
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation, and you may now disconnect.
