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spk00: Hey, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to L.B. Foster's third quarter of 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear a message that your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to the investor relations manager, Stephanie Listwack. Please go ahead.
spk01: Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LB Foster's third quarter of 2022 earnings call. My name is Stephanie Listwack, the company's investor relations manager. Our president and CEO, John Castle, and our chief financial officer, Bill Paulman, will be presenting our third quarter operating results market outlook, and business developments this morning. We'll start the call with John providing his perspective on the company's two recent acquisitions and one divestiture, and also the third quarter performance, including market development. Bill will then review the company's third quarter financial results. John will provide perspective on company outlook and his closing comments. We will then open the session up for questions. Today's slide presentation, along with our earnings release and financial disclosures were posted on our website this morning and can be accessed on our investor relations page at lbfoster.com. Our comments this morning will follow the slides in the earnings presentation. Some statements we are making are forward-looking and represent our current view of our markets and business today, including comments related to COVID-19. These forward-looking statements reflect our opinions only as of the date of this presentation and we undertake no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revisions to these statements in light of new information, except as required by securities law. For more detailed risks, uncertainties, and assumptions relating to our forward-looking statements, please see the disclosures in our earnings release presentation. We will also discuss non-GAAP financial metrics and encourage you to read our disclosures and reconciliation tables provided within today's earnings release and within our accompanying earnings presentation carefully as you consider these metrics. For the purpose of helping you understand the underlying performance of the company, we will be referring to adjusted EBITDA, net debt, and adjusted net leverage ratio during the presentation today. The company also had a limited number of unusual adjustments during the quarter for which certain metrics have been adjusted in today's presentation for purposes of more accurately communicating the company's operating performance. These non-GAAP metrics are reflected in the reconciliation tables included in the appendix to the earnings presentation. Additionally, in September of 2021, we announced the asset sale of our Piling Products Division, and on August 1st, 2022, we completed the sale of our track and performance business. Due to the nature of these sales, we have presented these businesses within continuing operations in our financial statements. So, with that, let me turn the call over to John.
spk04: Thanks, Stephanie, and hello, everyone. Thanks for joining us today for a third quarter earnings call. Before I turn it over to Bill for a financial review, I'd like to begin by covering the more significant takeaways from the quarter and recent activities, starting with our strategic portfolio transformation accomplishments. As previously reported, we continued our portfolio transformation with acquisitions of the Van Hooskill Company business August the 12th and the acquisition of Intelligent Video on July the 6th. Additionally, we completed the sale of Track Employment's business on August the 1st. These transactions were well aligned with our strategic roadmap, and I'll cover these moves in a bit more detail in a moment. In our legacy business, we faced significant inflationary headwinds across most of the businesses that adversely impacted our margins the first half of the year, particularly in the precast business. In the Q3 results, we're beginning to see benefits of our mitigation efforts with adjusted margins up year over year in all segments. We are particularly pleased with what we have seen in approved margins in legacy precast business, which were up 410 basis points over last year. I should also highlight that we recorded a $4 million adjustment to sales in the quarter for the settlement of certain long-term contracts related to the Crossroads project in the United Kingdom. The adjustment reduced both sales and gross margin of the quarter. Ultimately, this came down to a business decision. But I'd like to add our performance on the Crossroad project has delivered significant value since 2015, and the settlement should allow us to benefit from increasing project opportunities we are seeing in the UK, starting with HS2, a 10-year project connecting the cities of London and Birmingham by high-speed transit system. Our adjusted EBITDA increased 111% from 4.4 million to 9.3 million on a 3% adjusted sales growth year-over-year. This is reflective of the portfolio moves we completed along with the improved performance in the legacy business. At quarter end, our backlog stood at approximately $273 million, a five-year high and up 17.7% year-over-year. Order intake levels for the quarter were slightly down from the prior year due to the timing of some project orders in the rail segment. Finally, the order levels in the Corps do not include any significant business from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act passed in Congress just over one year ago today. As a note, Bill and I will cover our outlook for orders and demand at the end of our prepared remarks. As a reminder, slide six reflects our strategic playbook for streams with five of the initiatives highlighted representing our recent accomplishments. We have made significant progress on our strategic transformation that was outlined in December 21. Over the past year, we have completed five transactions comprising of three acquisitions and two divestitures, positioning us for profitable growth in the future. We previously communicated our goal to transform certain elements of our portfolio from slower growth, commodity-like offerings, to higher growth, technology-focused solutions. The transactions on slide seven represent our progress towards this transformation. On June 21st, we completed the acquisition of Scratch for a purchase price of $7.4 million. With annual revenues just under $8 million, Scratch is a UK industry leader in digital system integration, serving mainly retail markets with expertise in advanced digital display technologies and capabilities. We also completed the acquisition of Intelligent Video, or IV, This purchase was completed at a total purchase price of approximately $1 million. IV is a UK developer of high-quality surveillance, security, and safety solutions that align with our growth initiatives focused on remote condition monitoring and visual communication. Both Scratch and IV highlight our strategic core growth initiatives to transform LV Foster into a technology-focused, high-growth infrastructure solutions company thus enabling us access to a wider target market in the United Kingdom and Western Europe. On the divestiture side, we completed the sale of our tractable business in Canada for $7.8 million. This sale provides funding for investment in our growth platforms. Finally, on August 12th, we completed the acquisition of Van Hoosko, which is aligned with our strategic playbook initiative to double down on precast concrete. Van Hoosko had over $28 million in sales in 2021, and meaningful profitability, which made the acquisition price of approximately $52 million very attractive. We are already seeing the value of potential of the Van Hooska Company coming together with our legacy precast business and encouraged by the outlook of the combined business. In summary, these transactions and our legacy results demonstrate that we are transforming LV Foster with an eye towards achieving our aspirational goals and increasing shareholder value. Bill will cover the financials for Q3, and I'll come back at the end with some closing remarks on our overall market and business outlook.
spk02: Over to you, Bill. Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin my comments by covering the third quarter highlights on slide number nine. Note that the schedules in the appendix provide more detailed information on our financial results, including the non-GAAP measures Stephanie referenced. As a reminder, We divested the piling business in September of last year and track components in August of this year. These transactions are not being treated as discontinued operations. Accordingly, the amounts presented today include the piling business within the steel products and measurement segment and the track components business within the rail technologies and services segment, unless otherwise noted as adjusted for comparability purposes. Third quarter sales were $130 million, essentially flat with last year. As previously mentioned, net sales for the quarter included a $4 million adverse impact associated with the Crossrail settlement. This impact reduced both net sales and gross profit in the quarter. Gross profit increased by $800,000 or 70 basis points from the prior year quarter. The Crossrail settlement reduced gross profit margin by 240 basis points in the current quarter. In addition, a purchase accounting adjustment related to Vanhusco acquired inventory adversely impacted reported gross margins by 70 basis points. Excluding these items, third quarter gross margin was 20.8%, up 370 basis points over last year's third quarter. SG&A expense was up $2.6 million due in part to $1.4 million in costs associated with the company's acquisition and divestiture activities and contingent consideration for the Van Hoosko acquisition. Adjusted EBITDA in Q3 increased $4.9 million to $9.3 million, a 111% increase year over year. I'll cover the drivers of this improved result on the next slide. Operating cash flow was a usage of $5.5 million in Q3, due primarily to higher working capital levels needed to deliver the robust organic sales and quarter end backlog, which increased 9.1% from the second quarter. We expect to generate strong operating cash flow in Q4, as working capital requirements ease through the balance of the year. Third quarter orders totaled $137.3 million, down 1.1% from the prior year. Orders improved 5% organically and 5.6% from acquisitions, but were offset by an 11.7% decline due to divestitures. Third quarter backlog increased $41.1 million year over year due to a 12.7% organic increase and 6.7% increase from acquisitions, partially offset by a 1.6% decline as a result of divestitures. Slide 10 provides an overview of the drivers of our year over year performance in the third quarter. The bridge on the left shows the overall change in sales which reflects the strong organic growth of $15.3 million, or 11.8% during the quarter. The impact driven by portfolio activity added $7.2 million from acquisitions, but was more than offset by an $18.6 million reduction in sales related to businesses that were divested. The adjusted EBITDA chart reflects the impact of the legacy business growth and margin expansion and net portfolio activity impact on adjusted EBITDA results. Adjusted EBITDA for the current year third quarter removes the impact of the Crossrail settlement, acquisition and divestiture related costs, the purchase accounting adjustment and contingent consideration expense related to Van Hoosko, and the loss on the track components divestiture. Note that adjusted EBITDA for the prior year third quarter removes the $2.7 million gain on the divestiture of the piling business. Adjusted EBITDA increased $4.9 million to $9.3 million year over year. The drivers of the improved performance include organic growth and margin expansion in our legacy business and the accretive effect of our portfolio moves. I'd emphasize that adjusted EBITDA from our portfolio reshaping efforts improved $1.5 million on $11.4 million less sales, highlighting the strong leverage delivered by this initiative. Adjusted EBITDA as a percentage of adjusted sales expanded from 3.4% last year to 6.9% in the current quarter. Margin expansion in our legacy business was driven primarily by our precast business, but all segments contributed to the improved results. We previously communicated our goal to transform our portfolio from slower growth, commodity-like offerings to higher growth, more profitable, technology-focused solutions. We are seeing early indications we are on the right path in our reported results and look forward to continuing our value creation journey. Over the next three slides, I'll cover the performance of each of our segments, starting with our rail segment on slide 10. Third quarter rail segment revenue increased $3.4 million year over year, driven by 11.8% organic growth partially offset by a 1.9% reduction associated with acquisition and divestiture activity, and a 5.3% reduction associated with the Crossrail settlement. Gross margins were also impacted $4 million due to Crossrail, and excluding this settlement, rail gross profit margins expanded 250 basis points. New orders declined from the prior year due to the sale of the track components business and timing of orders primarily related to rail distribution. Over the trailing 12 months, sales and orders have been approximately $300 million, resulting in new change in the backlog. As reflected on slide 12, precast concrete product segment revenue increased $10.9 million, or 60.6% year over year. Organic sales increased 25.2%, and the Van Husco acquisition contributed 35.4% year-over-year. Gross margins increased 450 basis points year-over-year driven by the legacy business and the impact of the Van Husco acquisition. Margin expansion on our legacy business, which was up 410 basis points year-over-year, reflects the expected fulfillment of backlog generated ahead of pricing actions, as well as increased volume year over year. The expansion in the overall segment margins includes $900,000 in inventory adjustments related to the Van Hooska acquired inventory, which negatively impacted segment margins by 290 basis points. Orders and backlog levels remain robust in our precast segment, and we expect this favorable trend to continue with the Van Husco acquisition and the announced government funding programs. The steel products and measurement segment revenues decreased $14.3 million, or 37.6% year-over-year. The organic sales increase was 5.2%, offset by a $16.3 million decline, or 42.8% from the sale of the piling business. Gross profit margins improved 230 basis points due to the sale of the diluted piling business, as well as increased pricing and favorable business mix. Sequentially, Q3 margins were up 70 basis points, reflecting our efforts to mitigate commodity inflationary headwinds coupled with favorable business sales mix. Order rates in Q3 increased 58.8%, while backlog increased 47.7%, with both increases due primarily to a large order for coated pipe in our Birmingham, Alabama facility in support of a carbon capture and sequestration project. The prior year orders included $13.2 million associated with the piling business that was divested. Our year-over-year results are reflected on slide 14. Year-to-date sales decreased $40.3 million, or 10.1%. The impact of divestitures contributed $61.6 million of the decline, or 15.4%. partially offset by a 3.5% organic sales increase and 1.8% due to acquisitions. Steel products and measurement segment net sales declined $51 million, or 42.1%, due to the piling divestiture. The rail segment declined $6.1 million, or 2.7%, driven by the track components divestiture, accounting for $2.4 million of the decline, as well as the crossrail settlement. These decreases were partially offset by increased sales in our global friction management business. The precast segment realized a $16.8 million increase, or 33%, driven by $6.4 million from the Van Husco acquisition, and strong sales in the southern U.S. region. Gross profit in the current year-to-date period was $62.8 million, a $4.4 million decrease, or 6.6 percent. The decrease in gross profit was driven primarily by the impact of the piling divestiture and the crossrail settlement, partially offset by sales strength in precast. Precast gross profit increased by $2.3 million, including gross profit of $1.3 million from the Van Husco acquisition, which included the $900,000 inventory purchase accounting expense. Rail gross profit declined $1.8 million due to the Crossrail settlement, and steel products and measurement gross profit declined by $4.9 million, driven primarily by the sale of the piling business. Selling and administrative expenses for the year-to-date period increased $1.5 million, or 2.5%, including $2 million associated with the company's current year transformation activities. Adjusted EBITDA year-to-date, which is adjusted for the impact of the Crossrail settlement, acquisition and divestiture-related items, and non-routine insurance proceeds, was $16.7 million, a 7.8% increase compared to the prior year period. Our liquidity metrics are reflected on slide 15. As expected, our net debt increased during the third quarter to $94 million with the closing of the $52 million Van Hoosko acquisition. On August 12th, 2022, we amended our credit facility to obtain approval for the Van Husco acquisition and temporarily modify certain financial covenants to accommodate the transaction. The amendment modified the maximum gross leverage ratio covenant through June 30th of 2023. The maximum ratio through December of 2022 is four times. As of September 30th, our gross leverage ratio was 3.3 times. With expected cash generation from operating activities, we expect our gross leverage ratio will improve in the fourth quarter and moving into 2023. Also in the third quarter, we generated approximately $7.8 million in cash from the tract components divestiture, and we finally received a $5.6 million federal income tax refund. Both items were accretive to our leverage ratio at the end of the quarter, and we are now pursuing an additional $2.8 million federal tax refund. As we've indicated in the past, we will strive to maintain a balanced level of indebtedness relative to our overall profitability, cash generation, and capital structure with a long-term target of around two times net leverage. My closing comments will refer to the slides 16 and 17 covering orders, revenue, and backlog by segment. The book-to-bill ratios on slide 16 reflect the increasing strength we've seen in our business through the third quarter. Rail technologies and services orders were softer in Q3, but this is just timing of orders. Over the trailing 12-month period, sales and orders are approximately $300 million. We continue to see strong order intake in our precast concrete business, with Q3 orders totaling $31 million, up approximately 31% versus last year, driven by the Van Hoosko acquisition, which added $7.1 million in orders since we took ownership. Steel products and measurement orders increased significantly during due to the coatings order previously mentioned. And lastly, our consolidated backlog on slide 17 reflects robust growth across the portfolio, particularly in the precast concrete and steel products and measurement segments. Our quarter-end backlog is at a five-year high and is up 17.7 percent versus this time last year. Backlog was impacted by a 12.7 percent organic increase and a 6.7% increase associated with acquisitions, partially offset by a 1.6% decline due to divestitures. The robust order intake and backlog levels demonstrate the ongoing strength in the business and commercial markets we serve. While recessionary market conditions remain a broader match-grow risk, we remain optimistic in the long-term prospects for the growth in our served markets. Thank you for your time, and I'll now hand it back over to John for his closing remarks. John? Thanks, Bill.
spk04: Please turn to slide 19, where I'll provide some closing remarks on the overall market and business outlook. The portfolio moves we covered during today's call demonstrate our commitment to executing the strategy and investing in our growth platforms. We are currently focused on ensuring a seamless integration for the acquired businesses while evaluating the growth opportunities that our combined businesses present. We'll have more to say on those opportunities in the coming quarters. As Bill indicated, our backlog is at a five-year high, and this does not include any significant business related to the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. We do, however, have line of sight to significant infrastructure projects across the portfolio that are well aligned to our growth strategy and quotation activity is increasing. We believe these programs will provide some degree of demand support should market conditions deteriorate. As Bill mentioned, our steel products and measurement business has seen an uptick in order activity in third quarter. This has resulted in a 63% increase in backlog during that period of time. And while overall operating conditions are expected to remain challenging for the foreseeable future, we are confident in our ability to navigate these headwinds and demonstrate as we demonstrate in our third quarter results. In summary, we remain cautiously optimistic that recessionary headwinds may be tempered by the government infrastructure spending programs announced over the last couple of years. As a result, we expect the prospects for a stable to improving demand for our products and services in the future to remain promising. In the meantime, we have been laser focused on executing our strategy, which was rolled out during investor day in December of 21. As demonstrated in our actions and our results, we're transforming LB Foster into a technology-focused, high-growth infrastructure solutions provider. Guided by our strategy, we remain committed to delivering our aspirational goals of approximately $600 million in revenue and $50 million EBITDA by 2025. While this quarter results are encouraging, these are the early days in our journey to restore and improve shareholder returns. As we actively integrate our recent acquisitions, we plan to further leverage our growth platforms in rail technologies and precast concrete, and at the same time, continue to optimize the performance in our returns portfolio. In closing, I'm very proud of what our team has accomplished in such a short period of time. Their energy and commitment makes all the difference. I look forward to continuing the journey with them and reporting our progress in quarters to come. I'll now turn it back to the operator for the Q&A session.
spk00: Thank you. And as a reminder, to ask a question, simply press star 1 1 on your telephone to get in the queue. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster.
spk07: All right, one moment.
spk00: And as a reminder, to ask a question, that is star 1-1. Our first question comes from Alex Rykel with B. Reilly. Please go ahead.
spk03: Thank you, gentlemen. A couple of quick questions here. Backlog looks fantastic. Can you talk a little bit about the implied profit margin in backlogs today? Obviously, that is suggesting sort of what... margins could look like sort of as we proceed into 2023. Sure.
spk04: Yeah. Thanks, Alex, for joining us today. Really appreciate it. And backlog is strong with the five-year record as far as activity. We really feel strong, very good about it. And of course, improving profitability is coming with that backlog. Bill, you want to give a little more, some little color to that?
spk02: Yeah. Yeah. Morning, Alex. Yeah, I guess the thing we would highlight is that early in the year, we were emphasizing that the precast backlog had a bit of depressed margins in it relative to business that was booked ahead of our price increases that we were able to realize within that segment. And we started to see that abate as we got into Q3. And you can see that we had a really strong performance in margins in our precast business both year-over-year and sequentially. I would add that on top of that, Van Hoosko, which we had for about half the quarter in 2022, also had very strong margins and were accretive to even the precast margins, including the $851,000 adjustment that we had in the purchase accounting adjustment related to the acquired inventory. I guess as we looked at our mitigation actions that we've taken over the year, it took time for it to ultimately manifest itself in our margins, and this quarter was the first quarter that we really saw that come through, obviously adjusting for the crossrail settlement that was a bit of a depression to the margins in the quarter, but we view that more as a non-routine item that should be behind us at this point. So overall, I would say that our expectation on margins is that Q3 was solid and that we should continue to see improvement from there.
spk04: Yeah, I would just reiterate what you said there. We had to work through that GSA contract on the precast side. That's a good part of our backlog, Alex, related to that. And we just didn't have the ability to pull a lever on that because those revenues were constrained. So we were able to work through that first half of the year, a good part of that backlog. So we're in pretty good shape here heading into Q4 and beyond.
spk03: And then as we think about the recent press releases regarding the carbon pipeline, can you help us to think about how to quantify that from a revenue basis and what the timeline of revenue recognition could look like on that?
spk04: Sure. You know, you heard me stutter there a little bit because of that big uptick we had in backlog. We've been waiting for this and excited about it, and we'd like to thank our friends, John Nolan, the company at SIPCO, and our team back in Birmingham that have worked hard to make this happen with the leadership of Brian Friedman and our group. Fantastic progress. So, you know, this is going to be a very, very long project, 2,000 miles of pipe in total. It's one of the largest orders we have ever booked. Our contribution will be about 500 models with 24-inch pipe. We'll coat the outside diameter of it. And we plan to start that production in the beginning of the second quarter of 2023. The actual size of it will be around 20 million in sales. So we haven't seen something like this in some period of time.
spk03: Fantastic. Congratulations.
spk04: Thank you. Thanks, Alex.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. It comes from the line of John Baer with Ascent Wealth Advisors. Please go ahead.
spk05: Good morning, John and Bill. Hi, John. How are you all doing?
spk02: Very well. Yourself?
spk05: Not too bad. Got a couple of questions here. In the past, you had mentioned that you'd had some bottlenecks with delivery of precast products that the end user didn't, you had to keep them on your own site, basically. Have you seen any easing of that situation?
spk04: Yeah, so, John, thanks again for joining us today and your questions. It's getting better. You know, it's the disruption we're having with COVID, getting the permits as well as the sites ready, has improved. And the weather is also helping us in the third quarter as well. So the situation is much better than we've seen just in the last 120 days.
spk05: Okay. That's good. Another question, turning to the recent Summit Carbon Solutions award. That's a fairly controversial project. have read they have about 50% of the right-of-ways secured or signed up by landowners, but there's quite a bit of controversy around that. So the question is, at what point will American cast iron begin to manufacture pipe? Do they have to wait until this is completely locked up, or is it your... understanding that portions of that pipeline will, in fact, get built where they have the right-of-ways.
spk04: I think it's all or none, honestly, because of what the scope of the project is and 37 different facilities that they're tying together and then moving that over 2,000 miles of distributed pipe. I hear you, but having said that, there have been major progress that's privately funded Sitco is ramping up right now, getting their second mill online, and we're doing the same. So we're very bullish and optimistic that it's going to go forth as outlined.
spk05: It seems like a lot of these green energy-related projects, everybody wants them, but they don't want them in their own backyard. So it seems that it kind of gums the works up a little bit there. Last question I have, and that is, how rapidly do you believe you can pay down that debt load? Sounds like you have pretty good cash flow coming in from Van Hoosko's acquisition and so forth. What's your timeline on that or what's your outlook on how quickly you might be able to whittle that debt level down?
spk04: Yeah, again, thanks. I'm going to turn it over to Bill. But we knew we were going to do this, so this was planned. But we are pleased with the cash generation that we're getting from our new companies coming in. We don't want to be running too high. You know, we've been there before. We've learned our lessons. And, you know, also we've got a little run-up of inventories going on now, too, protecting to make sure that we're getting product to our customers. Bill, you want to give a little more color on?
spk02: Yeah, I can add to that. So when you think about the third quarter, we had the acquisition proceeds, and we actually had a very strong quarter in terms of revenue, organic revenue growth, sequentially as well. So it also ended up adding to our working capital, and we have a little bit of inventory also to support the build and working capital for revenue going into Q4. So we expect Q4 ultimately to be a pretty strong cash flow quarter. And then as we move into 2023, you know, we're going to be pretty judicious about paying down debt over that as the year progresses. I'd also highlight that, you know, one of the things that John mentioned earlier is that we have line of sight to some pretty attractive growth programs related to the Van Husco acquisition. So as we move into 23, we'll be thinking about some of the capital needs that are required to support those programs, but we'll also be prudent in terms of, you know, the level of debt that might be necessary to support those programs and make sure we're systematic in terms of paying down the debt, all relative to the profitability and cash generation that we're paying. I guess we're incurring. I'll remind everybody that our longer-term target is around two times, and we're certainly elevated at the moment because of the acquisition, and our goal will be to get back to that two times leverage ratio over a period of time.
spk05: Right. Do you have any other divestiture possibilities that might help you generate cash that might be used that way, or what's your thoughts in that area?
spk04: Yeah. So, you know, if you go back and look at the playbook that I laid out today and we laid out back in investor day, you know, that's an ongoing process that we have in our returns portfolio looking at those businesses, how to generate cash, as well as the business viability in the future. So that's an ongoing process.
spk05: All right. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Have a good rest of the year. Thanks. Thank you. Yep.
spk00: Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. And it comes from the line of Chris Sakai with Singular Research. Please proceed.
spk04: Hi, Chris.
spk06: Yes, hi. Good morning. Good morning, Chris. What are you seeing in the south as far as increased building sales are concerned in precast? And has this trend continued into the fourth quarter?
spk04: Yeah, good question. So we watch that very closely, and obviously with the acquisition of Lenhusco, now that we're in that type of business. Tennessee is a really bullish market for us, and the Carolinas, North Carolinas is strong. These are big markets for us. And then close to Texas is one of the largest up-and-coming residential spots that we see. And we'll be looking at maybe impenetrating the Florida market over time, notwithstanding a recent event there with the hurricane. That part of the world is going very, very strong. That's one of the reasons we're very bullish about the Van Huskel operation. Reminding the group today, we only have the one facility up and running. We're commissioning the second facility. So we're looking for some big things to happen and bringing our CXT legacy business together with that and really putting some brand and product out there in the marketplace. in that type of marketplace in the South. This looks very good to us.
spk06: Okay, right. And then in precast, what drove the gross margin expansion in the base business?
spk04: So we talked a little bit about that earlier with Alex and what we saw. Much of our – we run around $70 million historically in backlog in that business. A good part of that is in our buildings and restrooms. And a large part of that goes to the state or federal or counties. So they're locked into different contracts related to government contracts or GSA agreements. So much of those are type of projects could have a long gestation period, Chris, where they go six months to a year. So we booked a number of those jobs in 2021. And we were held with very little ability to increase our price. So we just had to work them through the backlog. And we did that in the fourth quarter and first quarter and second quarter of this year. So we feel very good where we're sitting today. We were able to go get price where we need it and work off that backlog that was, we call, constrained. So the future looks very good in that business for us.
spk06: Okay, sounds good. And last one for me. What do you think for new orders in the steel products and measurement business? Um, and is this, is this a growing trend or not?
spk04: So, you know, that, that group comes in, we've got many things that contribute to that group right now. Right. And the big one was obviously what's going on in the coding side. The other business that we have in the coding is just had a very strong year. The Willis ball winch acquisition has been really a strong year and we've been very, very pleased with their performance over the year. On the steel side, we divested the piling group in September of last year. So that leaves us with the fab side. And that's a little choppier. But we're looking for the infrastructure money to really kick in in the balance of this year into next year. And we're starting to see that in that business with the bridge form work. That's been very, very good for us. And bidding activity is extremely high. And we hope the grid activity will follow as well in 23 and 24 and beyond. So I think infrastructure will have a big play in. As Bill and I mentioned in the call today, we're seeing quite a bit of bidding activity and quoting activity related to the Infrastructure Jobs Act from just over a year ago. But we're not rolling that through our facilities yet. But we do anticipate that to happen coming up in the first quarter, second quarter of next year. OK, thanks for your answers. Thanks, Chris.
spk00: Thank you. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question, simply press star 11 to get in the queue. I will turn the call back to John Castle for final remarks.
spk04: Thank you very much, Carmen. Really appreciate everybody joining us today. Thanks for hanging in there. We had a little bit longer pitch today. But we thought it was important really to demonstrate and come out and really share with you how we feel the company and what's going on and really get into the adjusted side of the company. And the fact is, I think we've come a long way. Very pleased with the team's work here with the five acquisitions that have been done over the last 12 months. And I think the transformation we're doing related to the playbook and specifically on the growth side is really coming together nicely, driving towards our aspirational goals of what we laid out there in 2025. So thanks again, everybody. Go out and vote. Have a good day. Be safe. Thank you.
spk00: And with that, we conclude today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect. Good day.
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