5/6/2026

speaker
Operator

Hello and welcome to the Aztec Industries First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. It is my pleasure to introduce your host, Steve Anderson, Senior Vice President of Administration and Investor Relations. Mr. Anderson, you may begin.

speaker
Steve Anderson
Senior Vice President of Administration and Investor Relations

Thank you and good morning. Joining me on today's call are Yaku Fundamurba, our Chief Executive Officer, and Brian Harris, our Chief Financial Officer. In just a moment, I'll turn the call over to Yaku to provide his comments, then Brian will summarize our financial results. For your convenience, a copy of our press release and presentations have been posted on our website under the Investor Relations tab at www.aztechindustries.com. Turning to slide two, I'll remind you that our discussion this morning may contain forward-looking statements that relate to the future performance of the company, and these statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbor liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Factors that can influence our results are highlighted in today's financial news release, and others are contained in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We also refer to various U.S. GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures which management believes provide useful information to investors. These non-GAAP measures have no standardized meaning prescribed by U.S. GAAP and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to the calculation of similar measures of other companies. We do not intend these items to be considered in isolation or as a substitute to the related GAAP measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results are included in our news release in the appendix of our slide presentation. And now, turning to slide three, I will turn the call over to Yaku.

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. On slide four, we highlight our first quarter and trailing 12-month performance. Net sales for the quarter increased 20.3%, and stood at approximately 1.47 billion on a trailing 12-month basis from a combination of organic growth and inorganic contributions. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 30.3 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 7.6%. On a trailing 12-month basis, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin were 136 million and 9.2% respectively. Positive free cash flow afford us opportunity to invest in organic and inorganic growth opportunities. And in the first quarter, we generated 32.6 million of free cash flow. Our infrastructure solution segment continues to see healthy demand for asphalt plants and concrete plants, and the outlook remains positive. Challenging markets for forestry and mobile paving equipment persisted. However, we are pleased to see a recent uptick in backlog for these products. The total segment backlog increased $37 million, including $17 million contributed by CWMF, which joined ASTEC on January 1st. The backlog for material solutions increased $110 million, or 87%, from a balance of organic and inorganic contributions. Given the stability of federal funding, healthy state budgets, and incremental business from data centers and onshoring activities, we expect positive multiyear demand for Aztec products in both segments. Parts and service sales increased 24 million, or 19.7%, versus the first quarter prior year, and remained at approximately 37% as a percentage of total sales for both periods. Q1 profitability was lower than planned, deflecting a combination of timing effects and near-term cost pressure from tariffs, freight, and sales mix. Overall expenses were also impacted by the ConExpo trade show that occurs once every three years. We are, however, encouraged by increased backlogs in each segment, and we expect better quarters ahead. As such, we are maintaining our full year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance range of $170 million to $190 million. On slide five, we reiterate our dedication to creating value for all stakeholders by delivering consistency, profitability, and growth. Driven by our aspect built to connect way of doing business, we create consistency through our constant interaction with customers, execution of our operational excellence initiatives, and the delivery of superior products to our customers. As our historical adjusted EBITDA margin in the middle column shows, we have increased profitability in each of the last three years. Growth provides scale. and scale enhances profitability. We are making strides in growing aftermarket parts and service sales, consumer team acquisitions, developing new products, and leveraging the technology and digital connectivity we bring to the market. Our plans to grow are well underway, and we are excited about our future. On slide six, we provide an update on the integration of our most recent acquired companies. On July 1st, 2025, we acquired TerraSource, which boasts the flagship brands of Gunlock, Jeffrey Raider, Pennsylvania Crusher, and Elgin. And effective January 1st, 2026, we welcomed the dedicated employees of CWMF to the Aztec family. Both organizations are highly respected and our strong culture fits for Aztec. We are off to a great start. Many integration processes are now complete, including the seamless addition of new employees to our payroll, benefits, and email systems. We have successfully integrated all finance functions and have aligned all sales territories. Additional implementations completed or in process include product branding, and the identification of cross-selling and procurement opportunities. We are also assessing manufacturing optimization and sharing of best practices and product designs. Our joint teams work well together and we anticipate many benefits in 2026. Please turn to slide seven. As you know, ASTEC is well positioned to capitalize on the robust road construction and aggregate sectors across the United States, where approximately 80% of our revenues are generated. Steady federal funding for U.S. infrastructure provides stability for our customers, and in turn, ASTEC and our stakeholders. In 2022, Congress passed a five-year infrastructure bill valued at $347.5 billion. According to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, 261 billion or 75% of those funds have been allocated as of February 28th, 2026. These formula funds for highways and bridges have enabled more than 116 and 500 new products across our country. Additionally, the total value of state and local government transportation contract awards was 152.2 billion in 2025, which was up from 132.2 billion in 2024. This was a new record. The existing five-year bill is set to expire on September 30th, 2026. The renewal of the bill has bipartisan support. This is evidenced by the stance of key members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure and the Senate Environment and Public Work Committees. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy summarized it well when he said, it is one of the unique spaces in government where we work together because safety is not red or blue issue, it's an American issue. Congress has recently finalized transportation funding legislation for the rest of fiscal year 2026. and is focused on passing a timely, comprehensive surface transportation reauthorization bill. Sector developments such as these benefit ASTEC, a company dedicated to the rock-to-road industry. Continued improvements in infrastructure supports ongoing demand for our equipment, parts, and digital solutions. Our strong reputation in aggregates, as well as road and bridge construction, drives steady growth. On slide eight, we show first quarter implied orders and book-to-bill ratios. Organic results exclude the impact of the CWMF acquisition and orders prior to the first quarter of 2025 exclude the impacts of the TerraSource acquisition. Implied orders of 397 million compared to a strong fourth quarter of 465 million. On a year-over-year basis, implied orders increased 85 million, or 27.2%, from a combination of organic and inorganic contributions. Book-to-bill ratios in each segment exceeded 100%. On slide 9, we are pleased to report that our backlog grew to 549 million, compared to 403 million for the same period in 2025. This was an overall increase of 146 million or 36%. The backlog in infrastructure solution segment increased 37 million or 13%, primarily due to increases in asphalt plants, mobile paving, and forestry equipment, and a 17 million contribution from the newly acquired CWMF. Backlog in the material solution segment increased 110 million, or 87% over the same period the prior year from a combination of legacy and inorganic contributions. To recap, our backlog is the total amount of confirmed orders supported by signed contracts. We are pleased with the order activity in both of our segments. And now I will turn the call over to our Chief Financial Officer, Brian Harris.

speaker
Brian Harris
Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Yacoub, and good morning. I'll now discuss our consolidated results for the first quarter, provide segment-specific details, and review our liquidity and leverage. Our financial performance for the first quarter and on a trillion-12-month basis is presented on slide 11. Consolidated net sales for the quarter increased 20.3% compared to the same quarter the prior year and grew 11.5% on a trailing 12-month basis. Most of the growth was attributable to the legacy material solutions business and inorganic growth in both segments. Parts and service represented 36.9% of net sales, which compared to 37.1% in the first quarter of 2025. As Jaco mentioned, first quarter expenses from the ConExpo trade show and freight duty and tariff expenses impacted first quarter profitability and margins. As a result, operating adjusted EBITDA declined 4.9 million versus the same period the prior year. For the trailing 12 months, adjusted EBITDA grew 7.7 million, or 6%. Adjusted EBITDA margins for the quarter and trailing month period declined by 310 basis points and 50 basis points, respectively. Based on the aforementioned factors, adjusted earnings per share for the quarter were 54 cents compared to 91 cents in the first quarter of 2025, while down only slightly on a trailing 12-month basis. Moving to our infrastructure solutions on slide 12, net sales in this segment were 237 million for the first quarter of 2026, compared to $236 million for the same period in 2025. Our newly acquired business performed as expected, while their contributions were partially offset by legacy equipment volumes that measured to a strong performance the prior year and shortfalls related to timing differences. For the trailing 12-month period, net sales of $858.4 million were down 1.5% compared to the prior year. Segment operating adjusted EBITDA for the infrastructure solution segment was $34.8 million for the first quarter of 2026 compared to a strong same-quarter comparison in 2025. The $8.1 million difference resulted primarily from higher exhibit and promotional costs, along with increases in freight, duty, and tariffs. For the trailing 12-month period, the difference in segment adjusted EBITDA was $12.6 million for a decline of 9.1%. Adjusted EBITDA margins stood at 14.7% for the quarter and the 12-month periods respectively. Our materials solutions segment is shown on slide 13. We were pleased to see the continued resurgence of our materials solutions legacy products during the first quarter. Net sales included organic and inorganic contributions and combined for an increase of 65.9 million, or 70.6%, over the first quarter in 2025. For the trailing 12-month period, net sales increased 164.8 million, or 36.3%. Segment operating adjusted EBITDA for the materials solution segment was 8.9 million for the first quarter of 2026, compared to 5.2 million for the same period in 2025. This was an increase of 3.7 million or 71.2%. For the trailing 12 months, operating adjusted EBITDA increased 22.1 million or 59.6%. Increases were primarily due to the impact of net favorable volume and mix and favorable pricing. As with the infrastructure solution segment, higher exhibit and promotional costs, freight, duty, and tariffs were partial offsets. Adjusted EBITDA margin remained at 5.6% for the first quarters of 2025 and 2026, respectively, and grew 140 basis points to 9.6% on a trailing 12-month basis. Moving to slide 14, our balance sheet remains strong and is supported by substantial liquidity. At quarter end, we had $73.4 million in cash and cash equivalents, along with $194.1 million in available credit, resulting in total available liquidity of $267.5 million. Including a draw on our revolving credit facility of approximately $70 million for the purchase of CWMF, net debt to adjusted EBITDA suited approximately 2.3 times, and is within our target range of 1.5 to 2.5 times. We have the capacity for continued organic and inorganic growth. As we have previously stated, our 2026 outlook entails the following anticipated full-year ranges. Adjusted EBITDA of $170 million to $190 million. An effective tax rate between 25% and 28%. Capital expenditures between $40 million and $50 million. Depreciation and amortization of $55 to $65 million. And the following quarterly ranges. Adjusted SG&A of $70 million to $80 million. Interest expense approximately $7 million. I will now have the call back to Jaco.

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Slide 15 provides an overview of the key investment highlights for ASTIC. ASTEC has earned a reputation as a reliable provider of internationally recognized brands and high-quality solutions for our customers, and we take pride in this legacy. Our team maintains strong engagement with customers. From recent discussions, we've observed that customers remain optimistic about ongoing activity in the construction market. We are pleased our commitment to operational excellence is delivering results. and we anticipate further improvement going forward. We are confident our initiatives in manufacturing and procurement are boosting efficiency, which will lead to ongoing gains in adjusted EBITDA. Several exciting opportunities are fueling our growth, including the expansion of our recurring aftermarket parts and service business, which remains a key focus for the ASTEC team. the development of strong pipeline for innovative products, stability associated with the multi-year federal highway program, along with strong state and local funding for infrastructure projects in the US market, opportunities for growth in both established and emerging international markets, and strong inorganic growth opportunities consistent with our financial objectives. As Brian noted, our strong balance sheet gives us flexibility to invest in growth initiatives and manage our leverage efficiently. Moving on to slide 16, we are excited about our 2026 Investor Day to be held on May 13, 2026. We invite you to join us for this virtual event, which will begin at 8 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. During the presentation, we will share more about who we are, our next year of growth, industry megatrends, our Build to Connect way of doing business, reasons to invest, and our 2030 financial targets. With that, operator, we are ready for questions.

speaker
Operator

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. And your first question comes from the line of Steve Feranzi with Citico. Your line is open.

speaker
Steve Feranzi
Analyst, Citico

Morning, Jaco. Morning, Brian. Appreciate all the detail on the call. Jaco, I guess when I looked through the numbers and we obviously expected the higher costs related to ConExpo, but I mean, the surprising number to me was the gross margin. You covered a couple of reasons for it, and it was particularly sought in the infrastructure solution side, can you sort of give us the buckets on how much of it was inflationary freight pressures versus mix versus timing, et cetera, or were there any efficiency letdowns in the quarter?

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

For IAS, we definitely saw a different mix this quarter compared to what we saw as a very strong Q1 last year. We did see a lower asphalt plant and parts business during the quarter, which obviously pulled down margins a little bit. When we look at this business, and we've talked about this a lot, in the past that if you have one or two plants move out from one quarter to the next, it can make a pretty big difference. So if you take a breakdown there, capital and parts, we saw a reduction in both of those. Now tariffs did affect them a little bit to a lesser extent than what we've seen on the MS group. So, you know, we are managing that going forward. I think I mentioned in prior calls that we moved really quickly when it came to pricing, when all the tariffs and those things came to light. So some of that is maybe just timing catching up to the pricing. We also have, you know, additional pricing that is in the pipeline. that should mitigate this in the quarters to come.

speaker
Steve Feranzi
Analyst, Citico

Because, yeah, I mean, you probably know the follow-up question, which is, you know, given the numbers in Q1, your confidence level to hit those full-year targets, given the year-over-year difference. If it's pure mix and the timing is you're going to be more plant and parts heavy into Q and you've got the pricing in, I get it. I'm just trying to see if there's anything else here that should be cause for concern.

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Now, look, I mean, look at backlog. We're very encouraged by strong backlog. We have, you know, another positive book to book quarter, which is always nice. And, you know, we have definitely additional pricing in the pipeline. We're continuously evaluating, you know, the cost that's coming from these macro trends. And we are also very encouraged about the work our teams are doing to improve our quality cost and our operational efforts. So, Steve, we obviously, you know, still confident. That's why we kept the guidance. for the full year. And, you know, with that strong backlog, we feel that we have the opportunity to achieve that.

speaker
Steve Feranzi
Analyst, Citico

So given the, I mean, we saw the, how much of the order shift sequentially with seasonality?

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

From an invoicing point of view or a bookings?

speaker
Steve Feranzi
Analyst, Citico

The implied orders, the reported implied orders. Do you owe that to seasonality and timing?

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

yeah i mean if you look at implied implied orders for is quarter over quarter it was it was pretty flat obviously we have cwmf and that number now and on ms quarter over quarter that's where we saw the biggest the biggest variance now you know those came on on top of q4 which is typically our strongest Bookings quarter. But overall backlog, if you look at the backlog and the book-to-bill ratio, both positive in MS and in IS. So that's why we like to give the annual guidance and not try to guide on a quarterly basis. We know we're going to have these quarterly fluctuations.

speaker
Steve Feranzi
Analyst, Citico

If you could just touch on synergy realization, where you are with integration of the acquisitions and potential synergy realization over the next multiple quarters.

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we are really happy with the way the integrations are going. From a synergy point of view, the realization is coming through the pipeline now pretty quickly. I will say The synergies on the CWMF acquisition is coming in faster than what we saw on TSG just because it's so close to home. We do business with a lot of the same suppliers, so we're pretty positive there. But the number that we gave the street for synergies on TSG we're very confident that, you know, over the next 12 months, we're going to realize those.

speaker
Steve Feranzi
Analyst, Citico

And if I could get one more in terms of, obviously, you've been generating much stronger parts and aftermarket numbers. Some of that's from the acquisitions. But I know that was a priority when you became CEO, Jaco. Where are you in that progress? And is there a lot more to go? Or do you feel like you've achieved a lot of what you wanted to?

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, no, in my mind, there's a lot more to go. During Q1, which is typically a strong past quarter for us, we were close to 37% parts and service. Next week, we're going to have our investor day where we're going to talk about our aspirations there. But we still see significant opportunity to improve that mix.

speaker
Steve Feranzi
Analyst, Citico

Great. Thanks, Shaka. Thanks, Brian.

speaker
Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Ramsey with Thomas Research Group. Your line is open.

speaker
Stephen Ramsey
Analyst, Thomas Research Group

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to start with, obviously, the topic of the day, data centers. You cited strong demand from this market. I'm curious if you could ballpark, how much of a contributor that was in the quarter, and maybe compare that to last year, and then maybe go through your success here if it's following your customers versus intentional initiatives to capture this demand.

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Steve, morning. Good question. You know, the data center demand and actually some of the other demand around chip factories and things like that is obviously something that we are keeping a very close eye on. If you look at our backlog for the MS group, it's up significantly year over year, and even during the quarter, it increased nicely. So, Steven, we see the benefit from that. It is a little bit difficult for us to track it specifically just for data centers or other, you know, onshoring. What I will say is, obviously, our customers that provide aggregates to these markets are very close to these markets. enjoy the business if they work in a 30 or 50 mile radius from where the construction goes. And we enjoy business with all of those customers. So we see cases where customers need to increase output, some cases as much as 10 times what they did in prior years just to deal with the demand that's coming from these data centers. So So we don't have a specific number there, Stephen. We are looking at a way to try to track that. But I think if you look at the big aggregate suppliers, they are very outspoken about the effect this has. And obviously, we do business with all of those companies and that's where we see the benefit. We have seen some uptick in our industrial heating space that is in the infrastructure group, you know, also supplying to data centers, but to a much lesser extent than what we've seen on the material solution side.

speaker
Stephen Ramsey
Analyst, Thomas Research Group

Okay, that's very helpful. And wanted to think about order activity from the perspective of market share and how your orders are comparing the marketplace do you feel like you're tracking the market or do you feel like you're gaining share overall or just any pockets of strength within orders um yeah so i i will say we we don't feel that we're losing market share anywhere you know obviously we have various product lines that is in our portfolio

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

We feel very good about our product portfolio that we have. And, I mean, you joined us on the stage for ConExpo. We were very encouraged by the reaction from the market on all the new products that we showcased at ConExpo. And, you know, when you have new products, the positive flow through ConExpo typically a result in you taking some market share. We have over the last year or two in the material solution side put a renewed focus on large system sales and we are definitely seeing the positive momentum from that product line and we believe that will continue. Maybe one last comment. The work that we're doing on our digital platform We are definitely seeing positive reaction from our customer base. We are talking and, you know, growing that business significantly through, you know, especially our major customers transitioning to one platform. And in various examples, you know, they've chosen us to be that platform provider, so. And that will have a positive effect in the future on equipment sales. It will have a positive effect on our parts and service sales.

speaker
Stephen Ramsey
Analyst, Thomas Research Group

Okay, that's great. And then last one for me, you had very strong free cash flow in the quarter. It appears like much of that was working capital driven. If you zoom out and look forward, can you give a general view on free cash flow conversion out of EBITDA? Thanks.

speaker
Brian Harris
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Steve, it's Brian here. Thanks for the question. Yeah, look, I think that's going to continue to be pretty strong. You're right that in the quarter we did benefit from working capital movement. Our inventory was actually down quite a bit from the year-end position. A lot of that is in raw material, but raw material and finished goods were both down. We had Q4 is a There's always a big sales quarter, so we had some good cash collections in Q1 as well. I think that trend, there's a bit of seasonality in the business, so working capital will move up and down during the course of the year. But I think the underlying efficiency of our working capital, our working capital turns certainly improved in the quarter, and we'd expect to see that continue. We have a pretty... strong operating cash flow in the quarter and in the balance of the year. So I think conversion ratio will be good.

speaker
Stephen Ramsey
Analyst, Thomas Research Group

That's great. Thank you all. Thank you.

speaker
Operator

Again, if you would like to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad, and we'll pause for just a moment. Your next question comes from the line of David McGregor with Longboat Research. Your line is open.

speaker
David McGregor
Analyst, Longboat Research

Yes, good morning, everyone. Good morning. I guess my first question was for Brian, and I just wanted to go back to the whole discussion around price-cost. And you, I think, were very clear in your prepared remarks about the timing of price traction versus price. the emerging cost inflation, you use FIFO cost on your balance sheet, so you've got some pretty good visibility, I guess, on what's coming up here over the next couple of quarters. Can you just talk about what you see coming in the backlog versus the pricing initiatives you have in the marketplace today and how that should play into 2Q or second half? Obviously, you've left the guidance unchanged, so you're expecting some kind of recovery. I'm just trying to get some sense of cadence or timing around those margin dynamics.

speaker
Brian Harris
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, look, I think if you go back to that Q1 of 2025, we had a gross margin of over 28%. If anything, that was a little bit of an outlier when you look at Q1 historically. And that was because we got ahead of the game. We talked about this before on pricing. And so the tariff situation cost didn't really begin to materialize till April and beyond. So we had a strong comp in Q1 of 2025. Tariffs kicked in this quarter to a greater extent. We did, we felt, cover a lot of the underlying inflation outside of tariffs with our pricing initiatives. We've got more pricing that we can implement here in the balance of the year, and we're very careful about making sure that we try to anticipate those costs when we quote and the price that we quote that's in our backlog should accommodate our anticipated inflation and tariff increases that are coming. Obviously freight and duties related to higher diesel and hydrocarbon costs are another factor that's certainly affecting things in the short term and have a little bit of uncertainty in the balance of the year but we're trying very hard to make sure that when we price our products in the market, that we're taking that into account.

speaker
David McGregor
Analyst, Longboat Research

Right. So just to try to summarize on this, is this something where we're still going to see some year-over-year margin pressure in 2Q before it's fully normalized in the second half?

speaker
Brian Harris
Chief Financial Officer

You know, it's possible, but I think Q2, we're going to emerge with stronger margins in the second quarter than we saw in the first.

speaker
David McGregor
Analyst, Longboat Research

Okay, good. I guess second question, maybe for Jaco, you know, how much of a catalyst do you think a highway bill reauthorization will be to just order releases? And just trying to get a sense of, from your conversations with your counterparts in the marketplace, if you sense that people are maybe holding off on purchase orders until there is a bill in place.

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Yeah, David, I mean, you know, I will tell you, obviously everybody knows that there's a lot going on in the world right now. You know, our industry has been has been hit with, you know, inflationary pressures around, like Brian just said, fuel prices, you know, tariffs obviously is something. But, you know, a highway bill, I will say for smaller players in the market, typically a highway bill gives a lot of confidence because, you know, if you're going to buy an asphalt plant, you want to know that there's going to be, you know, three to five years of of good funding available. You know, our industry has gone through significant customer consolidation, as you guys know. And, you know, I think our bigger customers are better managing their CapEx through different cycles and are maybe less prone to, you know, to cut spend, you know, without the clarity of an infrastructure bill. Now, what I will say is, you know, we are very involved with our trade organizations. We're very involved talking to the respective people involved in creating the highway bill. You know, just this morning, actually, I received a note from our team at NAPA, the National Asphalt Paving Association, and they think that the first language around the bill could be published as early as the 18th of May. So we're looking forward to that. We know that there's discussions taking place right now. We know that, like we said in the prepared remarks, this is something where government actually works together very well on. So we're positive that we're going to see a bill. Hopefully it comes sooner than later. The good thing is that funding is available for the full year this year. So our customers are busy. They have a lot of work. You know, a highway bill that's focused on roads and bridges I think will be a nice injection for, you know, 27 and beyond.

speaker
David McGregor
Analyst, Longboat Research

Right. That's a great color. Thank you for that. Next question I just wanted to ask you around the whole notion of price analytics. And you've been investing in price analytics here. I'm just trying to get a sense of where we are in that journey from a margin development standpoint. Do you feel like you're still in the early innings of the efficacy of that investment? I guess at a point in time where we're really trying to wrestle through price-cost here, this is a pretty key part of the story. I guess that's where you are on this.

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

I will say from a process point of view, we're probably in the best that ASTEC has been in for many years. Now, on the flip side is obviously the variability right now is big. So our teams are continuously looking at movement in prices that we buy versus what we sell for. Our procurement team is very actively renegotiating as tariffs change. I mean, as you guys know, there's actually some of the tariffs that shoot should start to lower overcoming periods. And getting that then back from suppliers is key focus for us. So David, we feel that we have a good process in place, but the amount of variability that's happening on a daily basis is definitely challenging for the team. But at least we have a team, we have a process, and And it gives us much better outlook than what we had before.

speaker
David McGregor
Analyst, Longboat Research

Okay, good. I wanted to ask you about Aztec Signal. You talked about ConExpo. It was a good reaction there to the new product rollout. Just trying to get a sense of what kind of reaction you got specifically to the Signal platform. And from that reaction, what's your sense of sort of the ability of that technology to accelerate placement cycles?

speaker
Yaku Fundamurba
Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, we're very excited about that, David. I mean, we are investing significantly in further developing the platform. We're investing in additional manufacturing capability. Next time when you're in Chattanooga, we'll show you that. We think that this is just starting. We have a really good platform. It's going to provide a lot of benefits both to us and our customers in the future. So overall, the section has been really positive. So we'll talk quite a bit more about Signal during our investor day next week as well. Great, great.

speaker
David McGregor
Analyst, Longboat Research

And then last question, Brian, where do you see the balance sheet leverage at your end based on the guidance you've got right now?

speaker
Brian Harris
Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, David, I think if you take the midpoint of the guidance, we should end somewhere around about 1.7 times. Got it. Thanks very much.

speaker
Operator

Thank you. And now I'll turn the call over to Steve Anderson, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

speaker
Steve Anderson
Senior Vice President of Administration and Investor Relations

Thank you, Rebecca. We appreciate everyone's participation in our conference call this morning, and thank you for your interest in Aztec. As today's news release states, the conference call has been recorded. A replay of this conference call will be available through May 20, 2026, and an archived webcast will be available for 90 days. The transcript will be available under the investor relations section of the Aztec Industries website within the next five business days. This concludes our call, but as always, feel free to contact me with any additional questions. Thank you. Have a good day.

speaker
Operator

Ladies and gentlemen this concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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