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Science Applications International Corp (SAIC -1.20%)
Q4Â 2020 Earnings Call
Mar 26, 2020, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good afternoon and welcome to SAIC's Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2020 Earnings Call.
At this time I would like to turn the conference call over to Shane Canestra, SAIC's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead sir.
Shane Canestra -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Good afternoon. My name is Shane Canestra, SAIC's Vice President of Investor Relations. And thank you for joining our fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2020 earnings call. Joining me today to discuss our business and financial results are Nazzic Keene, SAIC's Chief Executive Officer; and Charlie Mathis, our Chief Financial Officer.
This afternoon we issued our earnings release, which can be found at investors.saic.com, where you also find supplemental financial presentation slides to be utilized in conjunction with today's call. Both of these documents in addition to our Form 10-K to be filed soon should be utilized in evaluating our results and outlook along with information provided on today's call.
Please note that we may make forward-looking statements on today's call that are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from statements made on this call. I refer you to our SEC filings for a discussion of these risks, including the risk factors section of our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. In addition, the statements represent our views as of today and subsequent events may cause our views to change. We may elect to update the forward-looking statements at some point in the future, but we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so.
In addition, we will discuss non-GAAP financial measures and other metrics, which we believe provide useful information for investors, and both our press release and supplemental financial presentation slides include reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures.
It is now my pleasure to introduce our CEO, Nazzic Keene.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Good afternoon and thank you for joining us to discuss SAIC's fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2020 results, our outlook for fiscal year 2021 and the execution of our strategy to continue providing value to all of our stakeholders. SAIC's full year results reflect strong operational and financial performance as we successfully implemented many strategic initiatives to position the company for sustained profitable growth and long-term value creation. Charlie will provide details on the business development and financial results. But I would like to highlight a few areas of our strong performance in fiscal year 2020.
SAIC delivered strong profitability and cash generation that met or exceeded the expectations that were set at the beginning of the year. Compared to fiscal year 2019, SAIC improved adjusted EBITDA margins by 80 basis points and increased our free cash flow by $281 million to $437 million representing a 180% increase in the fiscal year. Additionally, we are on track to generate over $0.5 billion in free cash flow in fiscal year '22. We also had a very successful business development year with a book-to-bill of 1.2 times with strong third and fourth quarters of 1.4 times and 1.5 times respectively. Our work in the space in Intelligence Community has seen impressive recompete and new business contract wins accelerated by the Engility acquisition and integration. It's a great example of our teams ability to embrace the exciting expanding opportunities that are available to SAIC as well as our steadfast focus to bring mission critical technologies and specialized expertise to our customers.
Last year's business development results position the company well for growth in fiscal year 2021, while increasing our pipeline of opportunities in our strategic markets. This performance was accomplished while also integrating the Engility acquisition and now further accelerating our strategy through the acquisition of Unisys Federal. It was a busy year on many fronts, and I'm very proud of SAIC's continued strong performance.
Turning to the market environment. The past few weeks have been challenging for our global community. The spread of the COVID-19 virus has altered many aspects of our collective and individual lives. I'm confident that as a nation we will remain resilient and will overcome this challenge. Our thoughts and sympathy is with all of those affected either directly or indirectly.
Now, specific to SAIC, due to the nature of our business, we have seen minimal impact to our operations to date and have proactively developed readiness plans should disruptions increase. We already maintain an infrastructure that accommodates remote work for a significant number of employees when needed, frequently allowing employees to support customer programs remotely. Specific to our business, the government services market is very resilient to challenges. Our federal government customer is largely less economically sensitive with a significant portion of the work we perform considered mission critical. This frequently minimizes the impact of these types of disruptions. We have honed our operational muscles from events like government shutdowns and weather-related disruptions.
As the effects of COVID-19 continue to unfold, we are likely to see some impact to our business, but we expect the impact to be very manageable. The government services market has long-term contracts, a flexible operating model in cost structure and customers with stable funding levels. As our team consistently meets and exceeds our customers' expectations, another key element of our continued success is our ability to execute on our strategy. We continue to focus on three strategic items that we have previously mentioned. First, with the successful integration of Engility largely completed, we have now pivoted to the successful integration of Unisys Federal. Second, we look to accelerate sustained profitable growth by focusing investments in key strategic areas as well as leveraging new market access and capabilities from the Engility and Unisys Federal acquisitions. And third, every level of the organization is working diligently to win the war for talent. We have made improvements and investments in areas that directly enhance our employees work lives and provide attractive benefits to attract and retain high demand technology talent.
While the government works on fiscal year 2021 budgets, SAIC's balanced and diversified portfolio provides great stability in the event there are shifts in individual agency funding. The acquisition of Unisys Federal further balances and strengthens our customer base with increased federal civilian customer access. All indications point to the US federal government continuing to allocate budget increases to areas where SAIC is a leader and is strongly positioned for future growth, such as space, mission engineering and integration, and IT modernization. As we have mentioned before, these are the focus areas of our long-term strategy.
We are excited to have closed the acquisition of Unisys Federal on March 13th. We welcome the talented and mission-driven Unisys Federal employees to SAIC. We are very excited to having joined the company and work with you to leverage a commercial style delivery model across our broad portfolio. SAIC is now a leading government services technology integrator in digital transformation with increased value creation through four dimensions. First, enhanced capabilities and government priority areas including IT modernization, cloud migration, managed services and DevSecOpps. Second, an expanded portfolio of intellectual property and technology driven offerings enabling government tailored commercial-based solutions. Third, increased access to current and new customers with a strong pipeline of new business opportunities. And finally, an acquisition that is highly accretive across key financial metrics. We are very proud of our success in the Engility integration and have tremendous confidence in the successful integration of Unisys Federal.
Just like the Engility acquisition we've spent considerable effort planning for the integration of Unisys Federal, leveraging our experience and processes to ensure a smooth transition for employees and customers. Compared with the Engility integration, there are not as many milestones to communicate as it is a less complicated integration than Engility, but we will communicate notable activities as they are accomplished. We're off to a very strong start and we are very excited about the opportunities that are before us.
I'd like to ask Charlie to share our business development and financial results before taking your questions.
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Nazzic, and good afternoon everyone. SAIC's fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2020 results reflect strong profitability and cash flow generation, while business development activity and the acquisition of Unisys Federal point to organic revenue and profit growth in fiscal 2021.
Let me start with our business development results. Contract award activity in the fourth quarter led to net bookings of $2.4 billion, translating to a book-to-bill of 1.5 times for the quarter and 1.2 times for the full year. In our December call, we communicated our confidence and a strong fourth quarter book-to-bill and how this quarter would be the strongest quarter of the year, and we have delivered on that expectation. Fourth quarter net bookings was comprised of a wide variety of contract awards and modifications, including $1.1 billion of Space and National Security awards, including the new business win of US Air Force, Common Computing Environment or Cloud One contract valued at $727 million. We were also successful at retaining a classified space contract valued at approximately $265 million demonstrating our leadership in the space domain and our emphasis in this market.
US Army awarded SAIC, a new business contract award valued at $98 million for IT support and C4I services in the Pacific region. SAIC was also successful in retaining a multiple award IDIQ contract with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation to provide IT operation support services and have been awarded the first two task orders worth approximately $115 million. The remaining award activity in the fourht quarter was across many smaller contracts and contract modifications, but did include about $193 million of increased value in SAIC's existing AMCOM portfolio, demonstrating our continued performance and customer satisfaction.
Subsequent to the end of the quarter, SAIC resecured two notable new business contracts that have been in protest resolution. Protests were resolved in our favor. On the US Air Force's $655 million, EDIS contract and the $950 million FSG 80 contract to support the Defense Logistics Agency. I'm also very pleased to announce that we were successful in the recompete of our Department of Justice Asset forfeiture contract. As a reminder, this is a significant recompete of a contract performed through a joint venture structure where SAIC consolidates the financials. The contract award is still in a potential protest period. After a prolonged award cycle, we are very excited to begin support to these customers.
At the end of the fourth quarter, SAIC's total contract backlogs stood at approximately $15 billion with funded contract backlog of $3 billion. The estimated value of SAIC's submitted proposals awaiting award at the end of the fourth quarter was approximately $14.5 billion, down from the third quarter and representative of a strong fourth quarter of awards. Our pipeline is strong and robust. And as we continue to focus on sustained profitable growth as Nazzic mentioned, with about half of the value of the submitted proposals relating to new business opportunities, our refresh strategy is better than ever aligned to service offerings focused on an organic growth strategy.
Let me turn to our financial results and I will primarily focus on SAIC's fourth quarter performance with references to full year results in specific areas. Our fourth quarter revenues of approximately $1.5 billion reflect growth of 29% as compared to the fourth quarter of last fiscal year, due to revenues associated with the Engility acquisition. Excluding the impact of the Engility acquisition, fourth quarter revenues contracted year-over-year by 1% driven by the revenue dis-synergies that have affected us all year and will not reoccur in fiscal year 2021. Full fiscal year 2020 revenue excluding acquisition revenues contracted approximately 1%, but included an approximate 2% headwind from the revenue dis-synergy, which again is a headwind we do not have in fiscal year 2021.
Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $134 million, a $39 million increase from the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin equated to 8.7% after adjusting for $18 million of acquisition and integration costs, mostly related to the Engility integration. Fourth quarter margin performance was strong as we continue to see exceptional program performance and the continued benefit of the net cost synergies. For the full fiscal year, adjusted EBITDA margin was 8.4%, 80 basis points above our prior fiscal year and at the top of our guided range for the year. Again, this was due to the same drivers I mentioned, strong program performance and the benefit of cost synergies.
Acquisition and integration costs were $18 million and $48 million for the quarter and fiscal year respectively. The vast majority of the fourth quarter amount was related to the Engility integration activities with approximately $2 million related to the Unisys Federal acquisition cost.
Net income for the fourth quarter was $60 million and diluted earnings per share was $1.1 for the quarter inclusive of the fourth quarter acquisition and integration costs of $18 million. Excluding acquisition and integration costs as well as amortization of intangibles, our adjusted diluted earnings per share was $1.58. One-time favorable tax treatment, as a result of a research and development tax credit contributed about $0.16 to diluted EPS. Our full year effective tax rate was approximately 20%, lower than our previous expectation of 22% to 24% due to the mentioned research and development tax credit.
Turning to free cash flow generation. I am pleased to report that SAIC generated $437 million of free cash flow exceeding our previously communicated expectation of $425 million and $281 million above our fiscal year '19 free cash flow number. We finished the year with cash on hand of $188 million and we continue to have tremendous confidence in our ability to generate cash. To this point included in our release is the announcement that our Board of Directors has approved a quarterly dividend of $0.37 a share payable on April 24 to the shareholders of record on April 9. We operate a very capital-light business model that contains mostly variable cost and we receive almost all of our payments from the federal government. Once passed the uncertainty of COVID-19 our top priority with excess cash generation will be to make voluntary debt repayments. However, for now, we will maintain excess cash on the balance sheet for ongoing operations.
Now turning to our forward outlook for fiscal year 2021. Prior to the COVID-19 virus emerging, we intended to provide formal fiscal year 2021 guidance. Although we have seen minimal impact to date, we feel it is prudent to postpone issuing fiscal '21 guidance due to the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. That being said, we would like to provide the investment community with the framework for how we viewed fiscal '21 before the COVID-19 issue emerged and some context on the resilience of SAIC's business model in this environment.
As you know, this is a rapidly evolving issue. So these are our thoughts as of today for the consolidated business to include Unisys Federal for the 10.5 months we will own them in fiscal '21. Prior to the emergence of COVID-19, we believe we would grow revenues organically by 3% to 6%. Adjusted EBITDA margins in the high 8% to 9% range, a significant improvement over prior year adjusted EBITDA margins. This excludes approximately $60 million of acquisition and integration cost, primarily as a result of Unisys Federal and trailing Engility integration cost.
Free cash flow to be at least $450 million, which includes the tax adjusted impact of transaction related cash outflows. Looking out farther and having cleared the COVID-19 crisis, we expect to achieve $550 million of free cash flow in fiscal year '22 as I communicated on the call to announce the acquisition of Unisys Federal. Nothing has changed in the basic fundamentals of our company or the demand from our customers to alter that view. We continue to have confidence in that outlook and reaffirm it today. With this in mind, we expect to meet our targeted net leverage ratio of 3.0 times by the end of fiscal year 2022.
Again I'm providing this framework to demonstrate the fundamentals of our business remains strong. We have a very flexible, cost structure and have levers to mitigate impacts of our profitability and cash flow. While the vast majority of our employees continue to work as normal or remotely, a small number of employees and sensitive work environments are working modified work schedules, and we fully expect to recover cost of disruption. With customers increasingly being flexible to remote work and the mission-critical nature of our IT services, it is helpful to lessen the COVID-19 impact.
I would like to reiterate a few of the financial benefits of acquiring Unisys Federal and the strength of our capital structure. The acquisition is immediately accretive to organic growth, immediately accretive to adjusted EBITDA margins, immediately accretive to adjusted earnings per share, immediately accretive to cash generation, excluding transaction cost. Unisys federal similar to SAIC as a very capital-light business model, a flexible cost structure and the ability for approximately 80% of their employees to work remotely and their primary customer is the US government. Currently, we are able to manage the impacts of the COVID-19 crisis.
As of yesterday, our consolidated weekly billings and cash collections have been normal and our cash on hand remains well above our targeted level of $150 million. In addition, we have full access to our $400 million, committed revolving credit facility. And finally, we amended our accounts receivable purchase facility to allow us to raise another $100 million through the sale of receivables in the event we need to. As noted in our press release today, SAIC is a well-capitalized company that primarily serves the US federal government providing business stability through long-term contracts, a flexible cost structure and a customer who's obligations to pay invoices are backed by the full faith and credit of US government. SAIC has ample liquidity and a strong capital structure to more than adequate service or debt obligations in the context of potential business impacts from the COVID-19 virus.
Nazzic back to you for concluding remarks.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Charlie. As we concluded fiscal year '20, we spent some time reflecting on how SAIC has transformed over the past few years. Through the acquisitions of Scitor, Engility and Unisys Federal as well as significant organic transformational activities, the company is markedly different than it was. Our business portfolio has been strengthened and diversified, our capabilities have advanced and broaden and we have made significant progress in all key financial metrics. But as we all know, it's about what we'll be doing moving forward, the steps we have taken these past few years have laid a solid foundation for a successful future and we are very excited for what lies ahead for SAIC.
In closing, I want to express my sincere welcome to all of our new colleagues joining us as part of the Unisys Federal acquisition. We are thrilled to have you as part of team SAIC. And to all my SAIC colleagues, I look forward to the time we could all walk the halls together again and enjoy in person conversation. But until then, I wish you and your families good health. I appreciate all you do each and every day for your company, your colleagues and your nation.
Operator, we're now ready to take your questions.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from Edward Caso with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Edward Caso -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Hi. Congrats here. Can you talk a little bit more about how the contracting officers are being flexible or not flexible in the current environment as far as setting up remote activity willingness. You suggested willingness to get refunded for the payback for the blue gold issues and so forth there? Anyway give us some color on that front. Thanks.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Absolutely, Ed. Thanks for the question. This is Nazzic. So we have seen great cooperation and collaboration from our customers and as well as the contracting officers that are part of this pretty [Phonetic] conversation that we have. And to date, they've been very collaborative, very supportive. There is everything from letting folks work from home, work remote to looking for opportunities to do social distancing inside the facilities that [Indecipherable] today. And so I've just been very pleased by all the interactions we've had. In some cases as you mentioned, the blue gold and some parts of the intelligence community, the effort to go to ship or to give some a little more distancing and to be able to serve the mission is something we're navigating real-time as we sit here today and so certainly more conversations to be had there. It is the nature of that contract of the cost plus for the most part -- the nature of those contracts are cost plus that provides some protection as well. So at this point as Charlie mentioned, we've had minimal impact, but again we know we're early in the cycle. We would expect over time to potentially see a bit more, but the nature of the work that we do and the flexibility that we have seen with our customers has just [Technical Issues].
Edward Caso -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Can you talk a little bit about the Military here. Obviously they stop travel, they are sort of holding people on bases? Is that impacting your business as well?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
So we, not really. We've actually had very little impact from our DoD portfolio. And so again just working hand-in-hand with the customer, looking for the opportunity to do work either at home or remote locations or working with them on opportunities to provide more distancing has all gone exceptionally well. So we've seen very, very small impact from our DoD customers to date.
Edward Caso -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from Sheila Kahyaoglu from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Sheila Kahyaoglu -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Hi. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for the pictures on the slide deck. I can remember what other people look like now. So, appreciate it. Nazzic, I guess for you book-to-bill has been above 1 times for the last three quarters. What gives you confidence in the organic revenue growth return? And how do you think about the recompete pipeline from here?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Great question. Thanks, Sheila. So certainly the book-to-bill as you mentioned being above 1 times in the last two quarters have been very strong. And then -- so that gives us some confidence. And then we've been talking about a handful of wins that are new business wins. So we've referenced Cloud One, we've referenced EDIS, FSG 80, just to give you some near-term significant wins over the last quarter or so. And so those are new business wins that will go into this year. So as Charlie mentioned, as we did, this is our cycle for putting together our annual plan and in doing so, we do have confidence in our ability to drive organic growth as we go into this year again ignoring whatever potential impact COVID-19 could have. But as we look at the business from a core perspective going into the year we had that confidence.
As we think about the recompete pipeline, we've been talking about a couple of significant ones going into this year. One was the FSA recompete, and again, as we noted that is one that has been awarded recognizing we're still in the protest periods. So we'll continue to navigate that, but that derisks certainly some top line as we go into this year. The other significant one that we have been highlighting and talking to is various recompetes in the broader AMCOM portfolio. And so those -- they will be recompeted over the course of several contracts over the next several months, a year plus. And so that certainly is something we're paying close attention to. Again, we feel confident for our ability to retain our work there based on our history, based on the excellent job that we do with that customer and based on past performance, but again we take every recompete very seriously, and so we'll continue to navigate that and report out on that. And those two, the broad AMCOM portfolio not one particular contract as well as the FSA, were the biggest ones that would -- that we've been tracking going into this year.
Sheila Kahyaoglu -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Okay.
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Sheila if I could just add a couple of bullet points on the revenue topic as well. Just as a reminder, we do not have the revenue dis-synergies that we had last year, that was about a 2% headwind. And with the Unisys Federal acquisition and with our expectation of them growing more than 10% that will be accretive to our organic growth in FY '21 as well, although we can only [Indecipherable].
Sheila Kahyaoglu -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Understood. Thank you. And then, Charlie, maybe just... Sorry about the echo guys. You talked about margin expansion, Charlie, should we still think about the Unisys business as an 11.5% margin business in fiscal '21 for you guys. Just the pro forma profitability, are there any nuances we should be aware of?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. So the framework we gave on the margins, was in the high 8% to 9% pre-COVID-19 crisis as from the 8.4% that we just reported the Unisys Federal will contribute to 20 to 30 basis points. You have to remember we're going on NIM only 10.5 months. And then the SAIC portfolio given the additional cost synergies from Engility should contribute another 20 to 30 basis points. So that's really the walk as far as how you get to the higher margins in FY '21.
Sheila Kahyaoglu -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Great. Thank you very much.
Shane Canestra -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Sheila, are you able to hear us OK?
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Sharpe with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Thanks, and good afternoon. I just wanted to get a sense of how you guys are thinking about the cadence of business throughout the year, just given the recent Cloud One, the FSG 80 and EDIS wins. I know you're not providing formal guidance. But if you can just give us some sense because those recent wins obviously imply a very heavily weighted back-end, but what does the ramp maybe look like?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes, Matt. This is Nazzic. Can you hear us OK?
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Yes. I can.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Okay, great. Thank you. So yes, as you would expect, having won significant contracts late in the year or early in this year, for the most part they do frequently take time to ramp-up and so we would see in general as you outlined the ability to drive growth higher in the back half of the year than the front half of the year just by the nature of the size the contract, the ramp-up period, and in the way those will come on to the overall portfolio. So I think that's a fair representation in how to look at it.
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
And then what is Q1 book-to-bill look like thus far. Are you seeing any slowing of awards from the government. Obviously, you've had a flurry of big wins post quarter end, but maybe you could just sort of box in the level of activity as well as what you expect in terms of B2B?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Great question. So it is early in the quarter. Obviously, as we have in years past, Q1 can be a bit softer book-to-bill just from our business cycle. And so it wouldn't be extraordinary if we had a bit more softness in our first quarter. We haven't seen any significant delays as of yet regarding the COVID situations, but one might expect as we get further in our quarter we might see some slow down there. So it's something we're paying great attention to. We are tracking it on a regular basis. But I think as a result of one historical performance in Q1 as well as this particular nuance, I wouldn't be shocked to see some softness. But it's not something we're overly concerned about as we sit here today, because I believe that even if we do which again, it's too early to tell, but even if we do I have confidence that will pick up over the course of the year assuming again that this crisis gets behind us.
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Got it, thanks. And then, Charlie, just real quick on cash, with the DoD, moving from 80% to 90% progress payments, how should we think about the impact here in Q1? Are we going to see a surge level or what's the implication there?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
There's not a lot of implication on our business that have couple of contracts, but it's really not a material impact for us.
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Got it, thanks.
Operator
Your next question comes from Cai von Rumohr with Cowen & Company. Please go ahead.
Cai von Rumohr -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Yes. Thank you very much. So I've read somewhere that Unisys is a member of Leidos' team on N-gen [Phonetic]. Could you give us some color in terms of how they add us and what sort of a ramp you expect?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. Thanks, Cai. So, yes, that's true, that it was, they were part of the team kind of pre-SAIC engagement and obviously that's got to go through now as protest cycle. But they were part of the team, our part of the team, it is a relatively small position, so we wouldn't have viewed as a material impact. And certainly, as it will get halted and slow due to the slowdown specific to the protest cycle. That is factor and the case.
Cai von Rumohr -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Got it. And then I was kind of intrigued by the comments you made that debt was $2.9 billion and cash was $155 million. Because I assume you pay $1.2 billion for Unisys and those numbers kind of imply free cash flow in the first quarter of -- like a $160 million, a very strong first quarter free cash flow. Am I misreading that?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. You're misreading that Cai.
Cai von Rumohr -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Okay.
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
So, I'll go through a little bit, $1.2 billion was the purchase price. We raised $600 million from term on these and $400 million of senior unsecured notes. We also sold $200 million of our accounts receivable that's how we financed [Indecipherable] in auction. Our free cash flow gets really expected to be around $30 million to $40 million per month on average is what we had expected.
Cai von Rumohr -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst
The receivables explains it, that's great. So do you -- does your guide of cash flow for the year assume that you continue to use $200 million for the receivables?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes, yes. We anticipate continuing to use $200 million of our accounts receivable. We also amended our agreement so we can sell and an additional $100 million if we needed to. We don't anticipate that we will need to. But it's there with the amended agreement and that's part of the 8-K filing that you'll see today as well.
Cai von Rumohr -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Terrific. Thank you very much.
Operator
Your next question comes from Seth Seifman with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Seth Seifman -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Thanks very much and good afternoon. Just, I apologize if you guys brought this up, but on the Unisys Federal contribution for fiscal '21, thinking for the 10.5 months something in the range of $600 million?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
So let me help you with that. As you know, they reported $725 million ending December calendar year '19. We expect them to grow 10% and we are going to report 10.5 months of that number. So that is how you should calculate the contribution.
Seth Seifman -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Okay. And then I guess when you think about maybe bridging a little bit from the cash flow that you're looking for in fiscal '21 to fiscal '22, if we start at $450 million and then we think about the one-time cost associated with Unisys Federal after tax probably takes you up to $480 million or something like that. And then we think about bridging from that $480 million to $550 million, can you take us through some of the big chunks there in terms of how you get there?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. So be happy to bridge it. So again we'll start at the $450 million the SAIC for those 10.5 months Unisys Federal net of the interest expense and cash tax benefits adds about $50 million to that number. So that's your baseline before the one-time tax adjusted impacts of the transaction costs and some other one-time working capital adjustments. That gets you back to the $450 million. So the baseline to get to the $550 million in FY '22 really start at $500 million and then, due to the higher growth, the higher margin portfolio to Unisys Federal the fact we have them for a full year, not 10.5 months. And then the additional tax benefits that they bring. That's how you get to the $550 million in FY '22.
Seth Seifman -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Thank you very much.
Operator
Your next question comes from Matt Akers with Barclays. Please go ahead.
Matthew Akers -- Barclays -- Analyst
Yes. Hi. Good afternoon guys. Thanks for the question. I was wondering if you could talk about the hiring environment right now given that a lot of people sort of can't come out, or are you still hiring or is that any kind of a risk as you guys look at returning to growth this year?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. Good question. So we haven't seen any big swings in hiring at this juncture. We still have contracts where we need to add people and we've talked about some of the ramp-ups. So at this particular moment, certainly our hiring remains on track. It is a competitive labor market, and so we've done several things inside the company to set ourselves apart and we'll continue to work on that. So at this moment, again we're only a month or so into this crisis, we haven't seen any big change in our ability to hire.
Matthew Akers -- Barclays -- Analyst
Okay, great. And then I guess, just an update on the Engility synergies relative to the target that you guys laid out. Are those all behind us and how much would you say you're able to achieve relative to the initial target?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So as we communicated and Charlie can add some color, but as we communicated last quarter, we have the vast majority of those behind us. We do have some trailing synergies that will come into this year in the form of real estate consolidations that we have planned, but just took time to navigate and do some of the negotiations, and a few small IT consolidations that will take place this year, but the vast majority of those cost synergies are behind us.
Matthew Akers -- Barclays -- Analyst
Okay, thanks. And then I guess one more, just on interest expense. I think you talked about $135 million I think for the year, now that you're thinking of holding on to some cash little bit longer is that -- what's sort of the updated number we should expect for this year?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Yes. So we're looking at around $125 million of interest expense for the year. There is also $75 million mandatory debt payments in the year as well. So yes, we are looking to not make additional voluntary payments to that number I gave you was based on the mandatory payments. So if we start making voluntary payments that number would come down, but we just think it's prudent to in this environment, keep additional cash on the balance sheet as for now.
Matthew Akers -- Barclays -- Analyst
Okay. Thanks, that's helpful.
Operator
Your next question comes from Jon Raviv with Citi. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Jonathan Raviv -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Yes. Thank you and good afternoon everyone. So, Nazzic and just maybe a question for the total SAIC leadership team. Paradigm shifts don't come along too often in the federal government environment, and I don't want to overstate anything it's still early quote on quote, but there are a lot of changes going on. You've also identified public health is something you're interested in historically. I'm not sure you have too much of it sitting here today. So what is your long-term strategy to address what could be a restacking of priorities for the federal government given the huge disruptions being caused by pandemic today?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Hi, Jon. It's Nazzic. So great question. I think a couple of things that that I would just emphasize. One is that, we have a great ability to be agile and pivot when we need to be and the diversified portfolio allows for that flexibility. Now with that being said, we still fundamentally believe the areas that that we have been focused on that we believe will drive growth will in fact continue to drive growth. So certainly space is one example of that. The IT modernization and the digital transformation strategy that SAIC has been on and now even further accelerated with the recent acquisition, I think it's one that absolutely can create marketable difference for our federal customer. Our federal customers are also looking for the opportunity to work remotely to find different mechanisms to do the work they need to do and IT is a tremendous enabler of that capability, and so that's just one example where it might be a little different than we were thinking 30 days ago or 60 days ago, but it creates great opportunities.
So I do believe that we're on the right track. But we will pivot if we need to, our diversified portfolio, access to a broad range of customers and the combination of our IT skills and our engineering skills as well as our DLA portfolio give us a strong position. As you referenced in the health space, you're absolutely right, we do not have a significant presence in the health -- the federal health market, but again the leverage of IT, the modernization that's required in the broad healthcare IT realm is certainly top of mind and the solutions we bring to bear can absolutely work in that domain as well. So we still believe we're very well positioned. We will pivot. It will be agile. We want to do everything in our power to help our nation and help the federal government through this crisis. And in our relationship with our customers and the solutions we bring to bear, I am confident it will be a accelerate and provide that opportunity.
Jonathan Raviv -- Citigroup -- Analyst
It's typically said in this environment -- sorry not this environment, in this industry that the relationships are key and sometimes user acquire relationships in past performance especially with certain clients rather than build it organically. If there is a bigger push into public health, federal health, there's something Unisys enables you to kind of go there organically and say, hey, we have this commercial model, you should utilize this or do you see yourselves perhaps looking to a more of a buy versus a make or -- in organic opportunity in the public health space going forward?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Well, so I think it certainly the recent acquisition of Unisys Federal coupled with the work that SAIC was already doing in this broad IT modernization, the migration to the cloud, the digital transformation being able to do work from different venues is something that's absolutely critical for the broad healthcare market as well. And so I do believe that the solutions we bring to bear there can and will make a difference in the broad healthcare market. Now with that being said, we have said before that the access to the customers having more domain and mission experience in healthcare would be advantageous to SAIC. But we don't believe we need to do that at this minute. We're well positioned with the recent acquisition, and so our priority is to drive organic growth through the assets we have today for the foreseeable future. And I think we're positioned to do that.
Jonathan Raviv -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thanks. And then just a quick question on the current book of business. You mentioned that AMCOM -- it seems like you upsized AMCOM in the quarter by a little bit. Can you just give a little more perspective on what that was and I know it's a big focus for the rest of the year and kind of how you're seeing the customer make the decisions there?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
We had a bridge contract on one of our AMCOM contracts, I think it's $130 million roughly -- $180 million roughly in that range. Just demonstrating the customer relations that we have with that customer, we will know on the AMCOM recompete sometime likely early summer time, I would think. But I -- we highlighted that and just again to -- there is activity going on. We're continuing to get awards still and have great relationships there, and we still are very positive about that recompete.
Jonathan Raviv -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from Tobey Sommer with SunTrust. Please go ahead.
Tobey Sommer -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Thank you. I was wondering if you could compare and contrast your experience in various government shutdowns to the current environment with respect to maybe a few vectors, contract award, collection and kind of what you're experiencing in DSO as it's not just your own ability to work remotely but also in many cases your customers. How would that play out for you?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So, Tobey, this is Nazzic. So in general, when we go -- we will work through shutdown. The dynamics are very different actually that the shutdown is because a particular part of the government doesn't have funding. And so we have to navigate it in that manner. And so that means, in some cases, the government can't work, they can't let contracts, they can't pay and so it does really halt business in a different way than what we're seeing with this particular dynamic. This is not an economic issue. This is not an issue where the -- our customers don't have the money. And so there is differences to the way it's being managed, navigated on our side as well as our customer side. And so today as Charlie mentioned, we have not seen a slowdown and being able to get paid. We've not seen a slowdown in being able to do the work that we need to do. Again it's early days, but we've not seen those dynamics as we would compare it to a shutdown.
Tobey Sommer -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
And how would you characterize any differences in your kind of broad customer set DoD versus intelligence versus civil customers. Are there differences worth noting when you look at the business across those dimensions?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So I think one of the easiest way to look at it and -- is in the intelligence community is an example, frequently not always but frequently, the work has to be done in secured areas. And so to the extent that those secured areas provide a challenge, whether they've been infected, as an example, that could happen or you're looking for social distancing that has a different nuance than being able to do work from home on a type of work that doesn't have that same security requirements. So that's just one example. There is nuances. There is differences, but again we've been very fortunate to date to be able to navigate those in partnership with our customer, so that we can continue to support the mission, but also ensure that we do everything in our power to protect our employees as well as the customer employees.
Tobey Sommer -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Thanks. Last question from me. Are you currently able to fully higher in on board and new employee remotely? And if not, is that something you're looking to be able to do in the near future.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
No we can certainly do that today. We -- we've -- it is something that we have done even before this. We frequently will hire people in areas where we don't have an office or we've got a very small office. So it is something that we have done in the past and we'll continue to do as a normal course of business. Obviously it takes on a different flavor today, but it's something we're very comfortable doing.
Tobey Sommer -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from Joseph DeNardi with Stifel. Please go ahead.
Joseph DeNardi -- Stifel -- Analyst
Yes. Thanks and good evening. Charlie, you're looking at about I guess a $1 billion in free cash flow over the next few years in the context of the $4 billion market cap where you all pretty unusual for a business with the year type of durability and visibility. So can you talk about maybe a little bit, how you think that is best deployed? How much needs to go to debt pay down and what does that leave in terms of dividend? And then what's your preference for M&A and the buyback? Thank you.
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Joe. So our top priority is to pay down our debt. We have a leverage target of 3 times by FY '22. So that is the top priority. Obviously for serving the dividend is something that we will -- we'll do first and foremost. There is no risk in the dividend. And the additional cash, we will have to evaluate this next year and we're in that position of excess capacity and get within their leverage optimal capital structure. We always look to maximize a thing for the shareholders, look strategically to add to certain assets and this type of thing. So I think we'll evaluate it, but again, top priority is to delever rapidly in FY '21 excess capacity in FY '22.
Joseph DeNardi -- Stifel -- Analyst
And, so Charlie how much do you need to pay down, or how much -- what are your mandatory debt repayment I think if that is $75 million this year, do you have that number for next year?
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
$70 million to $100 million next year. About a $110 million of interest expense, but the mandatory debt $100 million. We would love to pay down voluntary debt payments this year. I think it's about $250 million. Again whether we do that three months, six months at the end of the year, all depends on how we get through this crisis. But that's what we're looking to do to get to that leverage ratio.
Joseph DeNardi -- Stifel -- Analyst
Got it. That's helpful. And then Nazzic just on the decision to not provide guidance. I mean a lot of companies aren't providing it. So it's not really unique in that sense, but you're also saying that your business isn't being impacted currently. So how much of this is just kind out of going to abundance of caution versus real concern or uncertainty based on what you're hearing from customers that eventually there could be some disruption. Maybe just try and put that into context, a little bit. Thank you.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. No. It's a fair question. So I think a couple of thoughts. So as Charlie outlined, we did intend to provide some general guidance that was our goal going into this particular call and we've been communicating that over the course of last few months. So that was our starting position and certainly as we look at the impact of this crisis, we've been -- we are fortunate we have not seen significant impact to date. We are very -- we remain optimistic that we can navigate this, certainly the indications are that we can, but there is so much uncertainty. And so the way that -- as Charlie and I thought about it, we just think it's the responsible position to be -- just be very transparent and that's to give you guys a sense for what we -- what it looks like going into the year, but also to recognize that we are just a few weeks into something that can be a few more weeks or a few more months. And so, we just believe this was the right balance of how to communicate what we know today as well as what we don't know today.
Joseph DeNardi -- Stifel -- Analyst
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from Gavin Parsons with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Hey, good afternoon everyone.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Hi Gavin.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
I think of some of these bigger awards that you've won over that or about to hit the backlog, obviously a bit of a shorter portfolio duration than some of the peers, and if you've got of a four to five year average duration, you're going to have 20% to 25% recompete a year. So I mean, some of these bigger contracts with longer durations are you continuing to mix that way over the next few years and what do you think your duration looks like a few years from now?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Yes. We -- in general Gavin, we see it relatively unchanged. If we think about the average durations for us is, give or take five years. Some are three years, some are seven years. We're seeing some at 10 years. So it's -- but I would just assume that the general average of five years as we look at contracts that we would be bidding on and winning.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Got it. And are you seeing the industry solidate the competitor contracts and are you seeing any benefits of scale on your ability to bid on bigger work?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
So, yes. So certainly in some areas of the business, we are seeing that opportunity and so being able to compete with the exceptional past performance that we have and to be able to pursue those sizable contracts is something that SAIC has historically done. So we certainly have the scale and past performance adding on the Unisys Federal portfolio certainly gives us greater strength and capacity in the IT modernization digital transformation. So we feel very good about our position as it relates to the broad market.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Appreciate that. And then maybe just on the momentum throughout the year rather than sequential improvement kind of every quarter since acquiring Engility. I know you said you put a lot of work in ahead of acquiring Engility to make sure didn't disrupt the bookings process, but maybe if you could do a look back and talk about kind of the success you've had accelerating book-to-bill and whether or not Engility was and need to be more disruptive than you thought. And if you think this momentum can continue. Thanks.
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
There was a couple of places where I couldn't quite get the question and I apologize for that. But can you restate for me, please. I'd like to be able to address it.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Yes. Thanks. Just a look back on bookings and how that's improved and accelerated throughout the year?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Okay. So, yes, so we did see, to your point, we did see incremental each quarter in general got better on the booking side. So I think a couple of things contributed to that. One is we did a lot of work with the Engility acquisition to strengthen our go-to-market position the key markets that we talked about, in particular the Intel market and the Space market, so as you would expect that it takes time to get through through the pulling together of a go-to-market team, the building of the pipeline and then being able to solidify that. So I think the early work was very positive and we're applying that same approach to the recent acquisition and again, we're only less than two weeks in, but we've already gone through, we're working through the pipeline and ensuring that we've got the right focus. We've worked through the organizational dynamics of ensuring we have the right go-to-market team. So we try to do as much as humanly possible right out of the gate, really focused on business development, go-to-market and pipeline development and adjudication. So that is something that we learned. We did it well with Engility. We'll do it even better with Unisys Federal as we continue to learn as an organization. But that is a priority of ours right out of the shoot when we do an acquisition.
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Thanks.
Operator
Your next question comes from Josh Sullivan with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Josh Sullivan -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst
Good afternoon. Just in the prepared remarks you talked a little bit about potential shifts in funding. Can you just expand on that, where that might happen first? Are you seeing those shifts accelerate in any way in any particular vertical at this point?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
No. There is nothing in particular aside from what may or may not happen with regard to the the COVID-19 situation. Yes, the remarks were really around the fact that we have a very diversified portfolio. Certainly we are -- we have the potential of having an administration change later this year and sometimes that does -- it does create an opportunity to drive more money one direction or the other, but again we believe that's, that really is a strength of SAIC because of the diversification, and so it was really just a statement to say that either navigating through this particular crisis, which obviously is going to have some short-term budget flows with regard to some of the stimulus bills or long-term as the priorities the nation may change. We believe we're exceptionally well positioned because of diversification not in our -- not just in the customer base and what we do and what we deliver and support of our customers' mission.
Josh Sullivan -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst
Got it. Appreciate that. And then just as far as exposure to the [Indecipherable] theater at this point as the drawdown accelerates there, is there still material exposure there? If you could just highlight that?
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
No. No we do not have any material exposure there.
Josh Sullivan -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I'll turn the call back to Shane Canestra for closing remarks.
Shane Canestra -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you. As we conclude, I would like to announce that our Annual Shareholder Meeting will take place on June 3. Similar to last year, we will be conducting a virtual shareholder meeting whereby shareholders will participate online. Instructions on how to participate virtually will be included with the proxy voting ballot as well as our investor website. Thank you very much for your participation in SAIC's fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2020 earnings call. This concludes the call. And we thank you for your continued interest in SAIC.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 62 minutes
Call participants:
Shane Canestra -- Vice President, Investor Relations
Nazzic Keene -- Chief Executive Officer
Charlie Mathis -- Chief Financial Officer
Edward Caso -- Wells Fargo -- Analyst
Sheila Kahyaoglu -- Jefferies -- Analyst
Matthew Sharpe -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Cai von Rumohr -- Cowen & Company -- Analyst
Seth Seifman -- JP Morgan -- Analyst
Matthew Akers -- Barclays -- Analyst
Jonathan Raviv -- Citigroup -- Analyst
Tobey Sommer -- SunTrust Robinson Humphrey -- Analyst
Joseph DeNardi -- Stifel -- Analyst
Gavin Parsons -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Josh Sullivan -- The Benchmark Company -- Analyst
