SOLV Energy is a freshly listed utility-scale construction platform whose second-quarter print showed that the United States power-build cycle is still accelerating even as the public multiple has compressed back toward the February listing price. The operating company is converting a record book of solar, storage, and grid work into revenue faster than the listing-day model implied, and management raised the full-year outlook after the print. The investment debate is not whether demand exists. It is whether the self-perform model can keep converting larger projects into cash at mid-teens margins after a sponsor-backed listing that stripped term debt from the balance sheet and left a tax-receivable claim sitting on it.
Revenue in the quarter reached $951 million. That is nearly double the year-ago construction run-rate as average project size more than doubled and storage-related work inside the book climbed. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, a cash-earnings proxy that adds back non-cash compensation and listing charges, rose with the top line even as reported gross margin fell from the prior-year peak. That compression is partly mix and partly a reclassification of incentive pay into cost of revenue, but it is also the signature of a contractor that is taking larger, longer jobs and pulling work forward from the second half. Operating cash generation for the first half lagged the earnings acceleration because receivables absorbed the growth. Backlog at mid-year stood at $8.9 billion.
The listing in February retired roughly $406 million of term debt. A new revolver of $200 million sat undrawn at mid-year. A June follow-on at a higher print let continuing owners exchange more partnership units, and the company booked a $241 million tax-receivable liability after that sale. The next several quarters resolve whether the raised revenue and adjusted-earnings ranges convert into cash after working-capital absorption, or whether larger projects and sponsor liquidity keep the multiple pinned near the listing price.