You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I'd like to remind everyone that a number of statements being made today will be forward looking in nature.
Please remember that such statements are only predictions.
Actual events and results may differ materially as a result of risks we face, including those discussed in Item 1A of our most recent Forms 10-Q and 10-K.
Management uses this information internally to analyze results and believe that may be informative to investors in gauging the quality of our financial performance, identifying trends and providing meaningful period-to-period comparisons.
And with that, I'll hand the call over to Rick.
Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal year 2021 was $1.24 billion, and diluted earnings per share were $1.51.
The company's operating margin was 11.2% for the quarter.
Operating income margin is calculated after the expense for amortization of intangible assets, which increased significantly due to the two acquisitions.
Excluding the amortization expense, results in an operating margin of 12.2%.
COVID response work contributed an estimated $460 million of revenue in the quarter, which was approximately $185 million higher than our projection for the third quarter.
The profitability of this work has been steadily improving and now delivers operating income margins above our corporate average.
The CDC vaccination hotline contract and, to a lesser extent, the other COVID response work are responsible for the overperformance in this third quarter.
COVID response work has contributed $860 million of revenue on a year-to-date basis, and our full year estimate is approximately $1 billion.
This implies the beginning of the expected wind down of this work and a step down in the fourth quarter.
It is worth noting our revenue estimate for COVID response work for the fourth quarter is relatively unchanged from our previous forecast.
The estimated organic revenue growth for fiscal 2021 adjusted to exclude the Census contract and COVID response work is 2.6%, assuming the midpoint of our new guidance range disclosed today.
This is hampered by contraction due to the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on some core programs.
And while it is still early, the two acquisitions we completed during the fiscal year are both performing in line with our projections.
The attained federal revenue for the three months ended June 30, 2020, was $56 million, which equates to approximately $224 million on an annualized basis.
VES contributed $46 million of revenue, beginning from the acquisition date of May 28, 2021, which equates to approximately $515 million of revenue on an annualized basis.
Let me briefly touch on the balance sheet and cash flow items.
At June 30, 2021, and we had gross debt of $1.71 billion, and we had unrestricted cash and cash equivalents of $96.1 million.
At June 30, 2021, our receivables were $1.13 billion resulting from the inclusion of VES acquired receivables and a substantial increase in revenue in the quarter.
The DSO of 77 days includes VES on a pro forma basis and was skewed by the high level of revenue in June as compared to April and May.
DSO was 75 days at December 31, 2020 and 70 at March 31, 2021, which included Attain Federal on a pro forma basis.
Cash from operations of negative $33 million and free cash flow of negative $41.6 million for the three months ended June 30, 2021, were significantly impacted in the quarter due to this additional investment in working capital.
Assuming the midpoint of our new revenue guidance range and assuming 72 days DSO, we expect the cash from operations to be in the range of $425 million to $455 million for the full year.
The fourth quarter should be a strong quarter for cash inflow.
I would like to note that collections often occur toward the end of a month and slipping by only a few days can impact our cash flow forecast.
Cash flows from investment activities report significant activity, including almost $1.8 billion of cash outflows for the two acquisitions.
Cash flows from financing activities showed the draw of $1.7 billion on our new credit facility in May.
The credit facility is flexible and at $2.1 billion in total provides us an additional $400 million for liquidity and to fund smaller acquisitions.
Completion of the new facility runs a milestone for the company and adds substantial capacity to enable larger transactions such as VES.
It supports our strategy to be acquisitive for purposes of driving long-term organic growth, which we believe leads to creation of shareholder value.
On June 1, we announced completion of the VES acquisition, which follows the March one acquisition of Attain Federal.
We view these acquisitions as major milestones for Maximus, as they represent execution of our acquisitive strategy and puts the company in a favorable position to achieve our future organic growth goals.
This pro forma assumes Attain Federal and VES had been acquired on July 1, 2020, and therefore, included for a full 12 months in our operating results.
The operating income and operating margin for the 12-month period, excluding amortization of intangible assets, was $591.3 million and 12.7%, respectively, for the combined company inclusive of Attain Federal and VES.
Both acquisitions blend up our gross profit margin and are accretive to our results from operations.
While the acquisitions are positive, we continue to experience a drag on earnings from the impact of the health crisis on some of our core programs.
As we have noted in previous quarters, we assume that the public health emergency will persist through the remainder of fiscal 2021, as signaled by the January 22 letter from the then Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to U.S. governors.
We continue to believe that it is not a matter of if, but rather a matter of when these core programs will return to a more normal state of operations.
As for the remainder of fiscal 2021, our expectation for the full year is for revenue to range between $4.2 billion and $4.25 billion and for diluted earnings per share to range between $4.65 and $4.75.
We expect cash from operations to range between $425 million and $455 million and free cash flow between $375 million and $405 million for the fiscal year 2021.
As I noted, we are seeing evidence of the COVID response work tapering off, and that is reflected in our guidance for fiscal year 2021.
The midpoint of guidance implies an operating income margin of 9.8%.
Operating income is after amortization of purchased intangibles, while finalization of the valuation of the intangible assets is still pending.
Our best estimate for fiscal 2021 amortization expense is $44 million and reflects the increase due to the two acquisitions.
The operating income margin, excluding the amortization of purchased intangible assets, implied by the guidance for the full fiscal year ending September 30, 2021, is 10.9%.
The fourth quarter results for fiscal 2021 will be negatively impacted by the start-up contracts outside the U.S., which are expected to have operating losses in the range of $13 million to $15 million within the fourth quarter.
Our effective income tax rate for the full year ended September 30, 2021 is expected to be between 25% and 25.5%.
We expect interest expense to be approximately $14 million for fiscal 2021 and approximately $10 million in the fourth quarter.
This interest expense reflects the successful financing that we completed on May 28, 2021.
We included a table showing diluted earnings per share, excluding the amortization of intangible assets for fiscal 2019, fiscal 2020 and the fiscal 2021 forecast, assuming the midpoint of guidance.
The fiscal '21 diluted earnings per share guidance would be $0.53 higher, excluding the projected amortization of intangible assets.
As the COVID response work begins its wind down and now that the Census contract is complete, it is worth reflecting on the shorter duration work.
Both scopes of work created significant learning opportunities for us as well as our gaining significant new customer relationships, including this year's projection, inception-to-date census and COVID response work combined revenues are estimated to be approximately $2 billion.
The cash realized from the Census contract and the COVID response work was significant to our ability to acquire both Attain Federal and VES and still maintain a total debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio below 3:1.
We believe that Maximus is a stronger company as a result of performing the Census contract and the COVID response work.
As we announced in January, I am planning to retire on November 30, and David Mutryn will assume the CFO role on December 1.
Third quarter fiscal 2021 revenue in the U.S. Services Segment increased to $436.3 million, driven by an estimated $164 million of COVID response work.
The segment operating income margin was 14.3%, reflecting the negative impact on some core programs, including those impacted by the pause of Medicaid redeterminations as well as push out of non-COVID planned new work.
These factors also impact our fiscal 2021 full year expectations for the U.S. Services Segment operating income margin, which is expected to range between 16% and 17%.
Revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 for the U.S. Federal Services Segment increased to $617.6 million from $450.1 million in the prior year period due to particularly strong COVID response work and contributions from the two acquisitions offset by the lower revenue from the Census contract.
COVID response work contributed an estimated $280 million of revenue to the Segment.
Results in the quarter included a full period of Attain Federal and operations for VES from the acquisition date of May 28.
The operating income margin for U.S. Federal was 13.9%.
The quarter benefited from higher-than-expected volumes on the COVID response work.
Our full year fiscal 2021 guidance for the U.S. Federal Services Segment is between a 10% and 11% segment operating income margin.
For the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, we expect a margin between 11% and 12% for the segment.
Turning to Outside the U.S. Segment, revenue for the third quarter of fiscal 2021 was $189.6 million, Operating income was $8.3 million, resulting in a margin of 4.4%.
The better-than-expected results for the Outside the U.S. Segment were largely due to good performance in Australia.
On our May six call, we noted contracts with start-up losses to be incurred in the third and fourth quarters in the Outside the U.S. Segment as the revenue ramps into the next fiscal year.
The UK Restart contract is responsible for the largest share of the incremental start-up loss.
These start-up losses are more heavily weighted to the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021.
As a reminder, the profitability for each of these Outside the U.S. start-up contracts is expected to exceed 10% operating income margin, and we expect significant improvement to the financial contribution from these contracts in the second half of fiscal 2022.
With the start-up losses, the fiscal 2021 full year margin for Outside the U.S. is expected to be in the low single digits with the fourth quarter swinging to a loss as activity picks up on the UK Restart program.
Turning to capital allocation.
The ratio of debt, net of allowed cash to pro forma EBITDA for the 12 months ended June 30, 2021, calculated in accordance with our credit agreement is 2.4:1.
Our expectation for the remainder of fiscal year 2021 and into fiscal year 2022 is to use our free cash flow to continue to pay our regular quarterly dividend and to pay down our debt.
Our stated aim is to use most of our free cash flow over the next few quarters to push this ratio closer to 2:1.
During this period, we will continue to search for and execute tuck-in transactions that are accretive, deliver good value and have a strong potential to drive future organic growth.
Longer term, we will continue to prioritize strategic acquisitions as our preferred use of capital.
We are often asked to comment on our dividend policy.
Our plan is to continue to pay a regular quarterly dividend that is fixed regardless of short-term earnings fluctuations, but that increases over time as our earnings increase.
We target a dividend yield between 1% and 2% of our stock price.
Based on our stock price over the last several months, the current annual dividend of $1.12 per year has ranged between 1.2% and 1.4% yield.
This cash yield is consistent with the peer groups we study.
Turning to fiscal 2022, I would like to share some early thoughts that are shaping our thinking for next year.
We remain in a period with higher-than-usual uncertainty due to the pandemic and several unknowns persist that we have already mentioned.
On the plus side, we feel less uncertainty going into fiscal 2022 as compared to this time last year, which gives visibility to the following: number one, we expect the acquired businesses of Attain Federal and VES to deliver approximately $750 million of revenue in fiscal 2022.
This compares to $320 million to $330 million forecasted for the two acquisitions in fiscal 2021.
Number two, we currently expect the revenue in fiscal 2022 from COVID response work to be in the range of $150 million to $200 million.
This is an expected reduction of profitable work, which, as Rick noted, is now earning above our corporate average operating income margin.
Number three, our expectation is that revenue from the star-tup contracts Outside the U.S. will be at least $150 million higher in fiscal 2022 as compared to fiscal 2021.
Number four, we expect amortization expense to be between $80 million and $85 million.
Number five, we expect interest expense to be between $30 million and $33 million, and the effective income tax rate, assuming no change in U.S. Federal rates, should be between 25% and 26%.
Number six, finally, we anticipate that earnings are back loaded in fiscal 2022, with the first quarter expected to be the low point, followed by sequential improvement.
There are two reasons for this: first, we are seeing signs that some core programs, which have been negatively impacted by the pandemic should see performance improvements between the first and second quarters.
We expect the associated costs to be ramping up in the first quarter and the revenue to follow, which is typical with our contracts.
Second, we expect the first quarter to be negatively impacted by the start-up contracts Outside the U.S.
We currently expect the star-tup contracts to achieve breakeven in the first half of the year and to make strong contributions in the back half of the year, setting the Outside the U.S. Segment up for improved margins exiting the year.
Consistent with our past practice, we will provide guidance for fiscal year 2022 in November, including additional color around the quarterly profile.
As the Attain Federal and VES acquisitions settle into our business, we are in a solid position to execute on our long-term organic growth goals across all three segments.
Our position is bolstered by the benefits and new capabilities of the two recent acquisitions and our team's unprecedented efforts throughout this past year, which have deepened our relationships with key clients and brought new clients.
With two months left to go in fiscal year 2021, it's natural for us to be looking toward next year when we expect to see not only macro trends, bringing improvement to our core programs, but also momentum through new programs, such as the UK Restart and additional clinical and digital IT services work afforded by Attain Federal and VES.
Prior to VES, 15% of our work was clinical in nature, whereas it now accounts for approximately 25% of our portfolio.
Further, the additional capabilities from Attain Federal meaningfully expand our technology consulting and growing systems integration skills, increasing our ability to address the most pressing IT needs of our federal clients, while providing internal opportunities to improve the quality and efficiency of our business process services operations.
I'm pleased that we are already seeing the anticipated benefits of these acquisitions to the combined companies and to our clients.
We are increasing the capacity of VES to deliver on the excess inventory reduction goals of the VA, while working to identify opportunities for greater process efficiencies through new digital solutions.
As an example, we have already enhanced the VES contact center to increase capacity and improve veteran outreach and exam scheduling.
Our Attain Federal colleagues are delivering on complex program challenges for critical clients, while gaining the ability to bid on larger opportunities through newly available contract vehicles.
As Maximus moves forward, program administration work, particularly the delivery of citizen services in an independent and conflict banner, will continue to underpin our business.
Over time, we anticipate technology playing a larger role in this area and the work continuing to evolve to include more clinical assessments and related services.
Our maturing portfolio of digital solutions and increasing systems integration capabilities will enable us to make greater use of the data underlying our operations, provide improved decision support tools to our employees and enable a more seamless and high quality customer experience.
Looking at our segment profile in the wake of the recent acquisitions, U.S. Federal Services now delivers approximately half of our revenue.
Through the team's ongoing efforts as well as the recent acquisitions, the platform capabilities are in place to further our long-term organic growth goals and advance our corporate strategy across all three segments.
Our digital strategy started several years ago with what has now become table stakes, including mobile applications, streamlining program application and enrollment, RPA automating processes and chat and text functions providing additional channels for citizen engagement.
Maximus must routinize these capabilities and create a solid foundation upon which the next generation of digital solutions can be built.
I am proud of our organization's accomplishments in driving cost out of routine transactions and improving the quality and timeliness of our citizen services.
However, we must constantly advance our skills and solutions to meet and exceed client expectations.
Our previous technology investments, such as application and telephony with cloud migration, have created an infrastructure that enables a secure, hybrid work environment and deliver significant value to our clients as demonstrated during the pandemic.
Our platform provides Maximus and our clients more readily available access to valuable data and vast amounts of compute capacity.
Through our current and planned investments in data governance, our rapid innovation and delivery methodology and continued growth of digital competencies across the organization, we are well positioned to deliver new solutions underpinned by AI and machine learning and leveraging other cognitive computing capabilities as part of the next phase of our digital strategy.
Through this client-focused approach, we intend to provide even better decision support tools for our employees and lower costs, while accomplishing more complex transactions for citizens at scale.
Serving as a platform upon which we will grow our federal IT services.
Maximus Attain brings needed skills and experience and enables us to systematize how we conduct digital projects.
With the addition of Attain, we are driving a cultural shift toward thinking in a digital-first fashion moving forward.
To give you more color on the increasing role of AI in our business, let me provide two examples that illustrate use cases focused on creating a better citizen experience and improving the decision support tools available to our clients and employees.
Our speech analytics capabilities, implemented within our California vaccine information line project, enable us to understand customer sentiment and improve call resolution determine certain reasons for long silences that impact handle time and quality, an increased call deflection by assessing why individuals are calling, especially during a surge.
Furthermore, our topic mining solution empowers our state clients to effectively disseminate critical public health information, particularly important capability during the pandemic.
At U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, the Maximus Attain team looked at how we could improve efficiency, implementing AI to automate routine tasks, enabling agency employees to focus on other critical work.
This human-plus strategy augments individuals by driving automation, increasing efficiency and supporting a better decision-making process.
I'm also pleased to share the recent award of two modernization contracts from the Internal Revenue Service were a combined $151 million awarded on the GSA Alliant two contract vehicle.
Our team's efforts to support the agency's modernization program have been expanded through the Development, Infrastructure, Security and modernization, or DISM contract, with the technology integration office of the IRS.
This office is responsible for all new technologies brought into the IRS.
We have a long-standing relationship with the IRS, which initially began in 1991 and are uniquely positioned to support the agency as they focus on modernization projects and build solutions to meet their mission-critical needs.
Our people have the knowledge and skills critical to the IRS mission and have been proud to support their government counterparts achievements, particularly during the pandemic.
Our clinical strategy concentrates on execution of the capabilities platforms that are now in place.
As I mentioned, our immediate focus remains in support of VES, the VA and the veterans we serve to increase capacity and address the excess examination inventory.
As a result, we are still targeting the end of the calendar year and into early 2022 for integration to ensure no disruption in service.
Meanwhile, we're working closely with our team to identify and deliver streamlined processes and new digital solutions, which likely will draw, in part, on software development capabilities gained through Attain, an added benefit of these recent combinations.
Outside the U.S., as Rick noted, our margin profile for Restart UK will improve over the next several quarters with OUS start-ups collectively anticipated to achieve 10% or higher operating income margin over the life of the contracts and provide us at least $150 million of additional revenue in FY '22.
I'm also pleased to share that the Maximus UK team has received an extension on the Health Assessment Advisory Service contract through August 2023.
In March of 2020, the Department for Work and Pensions halted all face-to-face assessments, resulting in reduced activity levels and financial performance.
Since that time, the team has worked with the department to adapt, develop and implement alternative services, including both telephone and video assessments.
This approach has enabled us to provide support for thousands of customers, and we anticipate will remain an element of program delivery going forward.
Turning to new awards and pipeline as of June 30.
For the third quarter of fiscal year 2021, year-to-date signed awards were $3.2 billion of total contract value at June 30.
This includes the UK Restart Award that we announced on April 26 and the CDC Vaccination Hotline Award for which we have assumed a $300 million total contract value.
Further, at June 30, there were another $1.38 billion worth of contracts that have been awarded, but not yet signed.
Let's turn our attention to our pipeline of addressable sales opportunities.
Our total contract value pipeline at June 30 was $33.6 billion compared to $35.6 billion reported in the second quarter of fiscal 2021.
The June 30 pipeline is comprised of approximately $4.2 billion in proposals pending, $6.8 billion in proposals and preparation and $22.6 billion in opportunities tracking.
Of the total pipeline, 63.6% represents new work opportunities.
Approximately $1 billion of the pipeline reduction is due to the UK Restart program award with the remainder largely a result of government delays or cancellation of work that pushes opportunities out past the 2-year horizon for pipeline reporting.
We have observed that some of this delay is a residual effect of COVID-19 altering procurement priorities.
As Rick noted, we primarily beat our revenue expectations as a result of higher-than-anticipated volumes on COVID-19 response work in the U.S. Federal Segment.
Illustrating the capabilities we demonstrated during the pandemic, we quickly ramped up approximately 13,000 agents on one contract alone, which required initially hiring nearly 20,000 prospective staff.
We saw our largest starting class ever on one day, comprising more than 12,500 remote agents as part of this effort.
The cloud-based telephony infrastructure built and stress tested for this same contract was among the largest ever constructed for government, capable of handling up to 0.5 million calls per hour or 160 calls per second.
Responding to the changing needs of our clients, our team was able to rapidly scale down the operation as directed.
The highly variable cost structure of our model, coupled with an expansive labor supply chain, enhanced through the Census contract and cloud-based technology gives us the ability to capitalize on sizable opportunities of a short-term nature without stranding capital assets when the programs wind down.
As our results have demonstrated, this both underscores our value to governments and times of need and provides returns that can be invested toward longer-term growth objectives.
The execution of our strategy is maturing as Attain Federal and VES become more fully integrated into our business, and we work to leverage the platforms and capabilities they bring.
This will complement the foundation we have built across clinical services and digital technologies previously and our existing organic growth efforts.
As Rick and I have cautioned this year, the COVID-19 work is tapering off quickly, while, with some exceptions like Australia, our core programs have not yet returned to their prepandemic activity levels.
However, we expect these activities to ultimately return.
We believe it's a matter of timing and not a shift in long-term market characteristics.
Indeed, the fundamental macro trends and long-term needs of governments worldwide that have supported our business for decades remain firmly in place.
With the acquisitions we have completed, the agility we have demonstrated during COVID and the desirable financial attributes of our business model, we find ourselves in well positioned to respond to these trends and meet the growing needs of our government clients.
And with that, we'll open the line for Q&A.

user
compname says fy2021 diluted earnings per share to range between $4.65 and $4.75.
q3 earnings per share $1.51.
q3 revenue $1.24 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $1.09 billion.
company is raising guidance for fiscal year 2021 to account for strong q3 results.
fy 2021 revenue expected to range between $4.2 billion and $4.25 billion and diluted earnings per share to range between $4.65 and $4.75.
for fiscal 2021, cash from operations is expected to range between $425 million and $455 million.
sees 2021 free cash flow between $375 million and $405 million.
revenue attributable to covid-19 response work is anticipated to be approximately $1 billion for fiscal 2021.
covid-19 response work is tapering off as expected, resulting in a lower q4 forecast as compared to q3 results.

assistant