Construction Partners, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Construction Partners Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Rick Black, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners Conference Call to review third quarter results for fiscal 2025. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the events and presentations page of the Investor Relations section of constructionpartners.net. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, August 7th, 2025. Please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay listening or transcript or reading. I would also like to remind you that statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We will be making forward-looking statements as part of today's call, that by their nature are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our earnings press release for our disclosure on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin. Reconciliation to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings release. Construction Partners assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. And with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Construction Partners CEO, Jule Smith. Jule?

Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you all being on the call today. With me this morning are Greg Hoffman, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I'd like to begin today by welcoming the 200 employees of Durwood Green Construction in the Houston area that joined our family of companies earlier this week. As a third-generation family business that will continue to be led by Brad, Jonathan, and Daniel Green, the company has earned its reputation as a well-respected market leader in Houston, the fifth largest and one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the nation. Led by an entire team of knowledgeable and experienced industry veterans, the company operates three hot-mix asphalt plants and a rail-serviced aggregates terminal. Durwood Green provides construction and paving services for a variety of public and private projects throughout the Houston metro area. We expect Durwood Green to continue its legacy of operational excellence and to benefit from vertical integration opportunities as a subsidiary to our Texas platform company, Lone Star Paving. In Texas, our first year has been exactly as we had hoped, and I want to thank the Lone Star team for their outstanding leadership and dedication as we begin expanding to new markets. We continue to see strong economic growth, favorable demographic trends, and a well-funded transportation program, as well as additional opportunities for acquisitive and organic growth. The Durwood Green acquisition is a great example of our continued execution of the CPI strategy of seeking out growing markets and partnering with an experienced and talented local management team. Turning now to the third quarter, our results demonstrate the strength of our people, where despite persistent weather-related delays in the quarter, our teams executed with discipline and delivered robust operational results, driving a record-adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.9%. In the Southeast alone, May marked the second wettest month on record, leading to project delays and impacting fixed asset cost recoveries. While we can't control the weather, our team's resilience and operational excellence enabled us to still gain margin on many of our projects, generate strong operational cashflow, and build backlog to $2.94 billion. Now let's take a closer look at the current market conditions that are driving our ability to build backlog even during our busy construction work season. On the public side of our business, we see strong public contract bidding throughout our eight states and over 100 local markets. Supporting this strong environment are healthy state infrastructure budgets, including many supplementary state programs, as well as local city and county infrastructure programs and the IIJA federal program, funds that all add up to significant -over-year increases in contract awards. As we begin looking to fiscal year 2026, beginning October 1st, public spending on roads and bridges, particularly for maintenance and lane expansions, is forecasted to once again grow substantially as state and local governments strive to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to keep up with the migration of both residents and businesses to our Sunbelt footprint. On Capitol Hill, both houses of Congress continue to work with Secretary Duffy on the five-year reauthorization of the IIJA and surface transportation program, and this administration continues to prioritize hard infrastructure investments and decrease permitting delays necessary to support a growing economy. In the commercial markets, we continue to have a steady amount of bidding opportunities with developers and general contractors in our local markets. The makeup of our backlog and percentage of public work continues to stay remarkably steady over the last several quarters, which indicates that our Sunbelt markets continue to have healthy private economic growth and activity. Our bidding activity remains focused on the non-residential type projects, such as warehouses, industrial parks, schools, and manufacturing facilities. We expect economic growth to continue in our current markets, driven by migration to the Sunbelt states by both families and businesses. Finally, we expect the benefit from significant new investments in American manufacturing in our business-friendly states, as new tariffs begin to incentivize and accelerate the reshoring trend to begin after the pandemic several years ago. Fiscal year 2025 has been a dynamic year of growth for CPI as we've increased the size of our business over 50% through both organic growth and acquisitions. We understand the benefits of and remain laser-focused on organic growth. We also continue to focus on the best strategic acquisitions in growing markets, and we are having numerous conversations with potential sellers who would like for their employees to experience the culture and opportunities provided by joining the CPI family of companies. In closing, we are now in the heart of our busy work season, and all of our local markets are at full capacity and utilization. Having a record backlog to build, adding the Derwood Green Organization, and now knowing that our July volumes were strong, gives us the confidence to maintain our FY25 guidance. As we head toward a new fiscal year in the next 60 days, we're excited about the tailwinds at our back, including strong public funding, a growing private economy, and a long strategic growth runway ahead. I'd now like to turn the call over to Greg. Greg?

Thank you, Jill. Good morning, everyone. I'll begin with a review of our key performance metrics for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to the third quarter a year ago. Revenue was $779.3 million, an increase of 51% compared to the same quarter a year ago. The mix of our total revenue growth for the quarter was 5% organic revenue and 46% from recent acquisitions. GNA expenses as a percentage of total revenue in the quarter were .6% compared to .3% in the third quarter last year. As we continue to build scale, we are targeting GNA expenses for the fiscal year to be approximately 7.2 to .3% of revenue. As a reminder, FY24 GNA expenses were .3% of revenue. Net income for the quarter was 44 million, and adjusted net income was 45.2 million and 81 cents per diluted share in Q3. Adjusted EBITDA was $131.7 million, an increase of 80% compared to Q3 last year. Our adjusted EBITDA margin was .9% for the quarter, up 280 basis points over the same quarter last year. In addition, as Jill mentioned, we are reporting a project backlog of $2.94 billion at June 30th, 2025. We have approximately 80 to 85% of the next 12 months revenue covered in backlog. Turning now to the balance sheet, we had $114.3 million of cash and cash equivalents, and $493.5 million available under our credit facility at quarter end, net of reduction for outstanding letters of credit. On June 30th, we amended our credit agreement by providing for a total facility size of $1.1 billion, consisting of a term loan in the amount of $600 million and a revolving credit facility in the amount of $500 million. We utilized the proceeds from the increased term loan to pay down the outstanding balance on the revolving credit facility, realizing the full availability on the facility, net of reduction for outstanding letters of credit. In addition, the amendment extends the facility maturity date to June 2030. As of the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA ratio was 3.17 times. We remain on pace with our strategy of reducing the leverage ratio to approximately 2.5 times by late fiscal 2026 to support sustained profitable growth. Cash provided by operating activities was $83 million compared to $35 million in the same quarter a year ago. We remain on pace to convert 80 to 85% of EBITDA to cashflow from operations in FY25. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $36.7 million. We continue to expect total capital expenditures for fiscal 2025 to be in the range of $130 to $140 million. This includes maintenance capex of approximately .25% of revenue with a remaining amount invested in new growth initiatives. And finally, we are maintaining our prior outlook with revenue in the range of $2.77 to $2.83 billion. In regard to our overall revenue mix for the year, we continue to expect organic revenue to be in the range of 8 to 10%. Net income in the range of 106 to $117 million. Adjusted net income in the range of $124 to $135 million. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $410 to $430 million. And adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of $14.8 to $15.8. And with that, we will open the call to questions. Operator.

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. Per participant using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Your first question comes from Tyler Brown with Raymond James, please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys. Morning, good morning Tyler. Hey, Jules, so obviously, you know, very solid quarter in the face of what was very challenging weather. I think you talked a little bit about the fixed cost of leveraging, but it doesn't really seem that you guys missed the beat. I mean, gross margins were maybe the best they've been in 20 quarters on my math. Can you just kind of talk about how you navigated weather so well? I mean, how do you flex costs when you have that lack of paving days?

Yeah, Tyler, we were very pleased with how the quarter, how the margins came through this quarter. I mean, there's no question when you have a quarter with that weather, it's an impact. And we play an outdoor game, and weather can impact us negatively, or if it's really dry, it can impact us positively. But I would say we just really, our business is clicking on all cylinders. You know, we talk about the three margin levers of building better markets, vertical integration and scale. And all of those really are kicking in at the same time, which we expected. So even though we had a wet quarter, it didn't really stop those from coming through. It affected the top line, it affected some fixed asset recovery, but those three margin levers are starting to work really well together. And, you know, we're expecting that to continue in the fourth quarter.

Okay, that's great. Curious about your comments. I think in the prepared remarks right at the end, you mentioned that you were quote unquote, roughly at full utilization. So how do we read that? Will that be a bit of a hindrance to organic growth next year? Or are you gonna need to step up capex to support that growth? Just any color there.

Yeah, no, I wasn't trying to signal any capacity constraints. I just was basically saying we have a full backlog and we're on full cylinders. And our capex program supports our organic growth that we expect. As you know, Greg runs a pretty robust program to look for the best organic growth opportunities. And that's where the capex dollars flow. So I wasn't trying to communicate any capacity constraints but just that as normal, we are at full utilization in building that record backlog.

Okay, okay, I just wanted to make sure I had that. And then just a quick modeling question, Greg. Just on the M&A contribution, what will the contribution be here in 25 that's expected in the guidance? And then again, kind of based on what we know today with deals that have closed, how much rollover benefit should we see in fiscal 26 already?

Yeah, so Tyler, the Q4 acquisition revenue impact is gonna be somewhere in the 270, 280 million range. And then carrying over into 2026, we should see somewhere in the neighborhood of 240 to 250 million.

Okay, so a good kickstart into 26. Okay, my last one. Yeah, so I think you guys are gonna do something call it like 2.8 billion in revenue, 420 million or so VBA DA. Those numbers are actually right out or above the targets that you set out less than two years ago and you're achieving them two years early. So just, I know the complexion of the business has obviously changed a lot, but does it make sense to maybe reset those targets maybe here in the next couple of months? Appreciate it.

Yeah, Tyler, I do think that, you know, the Lone Star acquisition was a transformative acquisition as we said last October, PRI that joined us in May has had a great two months. The Dewood Green acquisition, you know, is gonna be very additive. So yes, I mean, we need to update and communicate what our business looks like moving forward now after those transformative acquisitions. I'm gonna throw it to Ned who's got some big picture thoughts. I think that's a good time to let him weigh in on this.

Tyler, you're a great straight man. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. But the honest truth is we're trying to make great long-term decisions. We don't run this business on a 90-day increments. We're trying to make great decisions that continue to compound wealth. A good example of that is Houston. I mean, we probably see every transaction that you can see in this space and we made a decision to invest in Houston. Houston has 7.2 million people. It was the fastest, more people moved there last year than any metropolitan area in the country, except for Dallas and Dallas beat it by 16,000 people, I believe. And it looks like it's gonna continue to grow. That's more people than a lot of states in the country with that kind of growth. And so the first step is we've got great people there. We've got great growth. You're gonna see more things happen in growing areas. So we're trying and we'll continue as we have from the very start to make great long-term decisions that continue to compound wealth, not just for one or two quarters, but for the next five to 10 years. So the answer is yes. You will just, I would say stay tuned. We will have a little bit of a reset here over the next few months as to what we think we're gonna do since we hit the projection so quickly. But make no mistake about it. The board is paying attention to where we invest it. The several members of the board met the team in Houston. We're paying attention to who we're in business with. That's our first step. Where we're placing capital and we're gonna continue to allocate capital that can compound wealth from the next five to 10 years.

Yeah, perfect. Excellent, thank you guys so very much. Thank you,

Tom. Next question, Michael Senniger with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks, Des, thanks for taking my questions. Just, I'm curious, Joseph, you made a comment earlier about public spending for maintenance and lane expansion is forecast to grow substantially in 2026. Is this based on conversations with customers or is this based on your understanding of where budgets are looking as we fast forward to next year? Just let me get a sense of you kind of flesh out your compass around that comment.

Yeah, Michael, you know, and you and I have discussed, when we're talking about public funding, there's several different ways to measure it and it can get a little confusing. So we're talking about contract awards. When you add the state programs, which include federal money, local and county programs, because that's all part of our backlog and our bidding. We feel like even though nationally the numbers move around, our states this year in FY25 contract awards are up about 14%. And so when we look at those programs, the budgets that they have, where they're going in FY26, we think it's gonna be up a similar amount. And so that's what I was speaking to is really the contract awards as we look at the budgets and programs in place on the public funding side.

Perfect. And when we think of 2026, I know you're not guiding Jules and Greg, just kind of following up on Tyler's question about the M&A. Just any other puts and takes we should think about for next year? I mean, obviously if weather normalizes, you know, a positive there, anything on costs that you're seeing on the liquid side, pricing in the backlog, just kind of thinking the puts and takes as we kind of start looking at the building blocks for 2026.

Yeah,

well, Mike, it's getting about that time. So, you know, I'll talk to the backlog and then let Greg speak to the costs that he's seeing. As we look forward into 2026, obviously as Greg just said, we've got a lot of acquisitive revenue rolling over into 2026. We expect organically to be up, you know, high single digits like we expect to be this year. We don't really see any change in that. So from a growth standpoint, 2026 is looking like a typical CPI year, you know, being up 15 to 20%, if not a little more. So, you know, that's good on the top line. Greg, you want to speak to what you see on the margin and cost side?

Sure. You know, I said in the remarks that our backlog covers the next 80 to 85% of our 12-month revenue. And, you know, the cost is built in there for the appropriate margin as we think about, you know, 40 to 50 basis point improvement in margin. So those costs are set and built in. Certainly there's some energy pricing that, you know, could impact that. We do talk about, you know, a slight headwind if energy prices go up and the reverse is true if they go down. And so currently right now, what we see is liquid AC being very stable. Diesel has been very stable. Natural gas is up a little bit, but we do do enough hedging to make that a minimal impact on us. So feel pretty good about cost in

the future.

Great, I'll just sneak one more in there. Just the free cash flow was really strong in the quarter. Just when we look at that and we think about your leverage, any update on the time on where you, when you do you get inside your range? And Jules, do you feel okay still doing some acquisitions while also trying to do leverage or are they mutually kind of exclusive as we kind of turn the page and go through one more quarter and go into 2026?

Yeah, Michael, good question. It's something we think about a lot. You know, we're committed to getting back into the target range on our leverage, but at the same time, we wanna continue to run our business. As Ned said, we're making decisions for five, 10, 15 years. And so as we look at the acquisitive opportunities, we're passing on some. We're working with sellers to accommodate our timing as much as we can. But at the same time, there are several, as we've made this year, there's several key strategic acquisitions that we think are crucial and important to the long-term health of our business. And so we're gonna deliver and at the same time, we're gonna continue to make good strategic

decisions for the business. Oh, and so in terms

of our, what I mentioned in my remarks, Mike, we're, you know, leverage ratio is 3.17. We're expecting based on normal cash generation through to the end of fiscal 2026 to be near that 2.5 times leverage ratio. So yeah, to your point, we're gonna generate 80 to 85% cashflow from operations, 80 to 85%, I'm sorry, 80 to 85% of our EBITDA into cashflow for operations. And the trailing 12 months right now is almost there, 79%. So we'll continue to do what we've done,

de-leverage over time.

Next question, Andy Whitman with Robert W. Baird. Please proceed.

Great, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. With all the good demand for your services in your markets driving good growth, I was just wondering how this is affecting the competitive environment as it relates to your competitors, maybe also realizing that the services are scarce and they might have some pricing power. Obviously, Jill, this has been a really important part of your strategy to build these better markets. Now, I was just wondering if you could assess for us what you're seeing in your markets to the extent that you've been able to or see the building of those markets being better in what you're seeing in the marketplace today.

Yeah, Andy, you're right. One of our three margin leavers is building better markets and we see that the demand side is helping us with that. When there's a good bidding environment, as you would expect, margins stay healthy. And I think you saw that rolling through this quarter, is even though our crews and our teams really did a great job growing margin on projects, which we expect, and they had a great quarter doing that, it's really nice to start off with healthy margins at the beginning. And so the demand environment on the public side and the private side gives us the opportunity to be patient at the bid table, to add projects in our backlog at good margins. And so I think we continue to see that. It's been something that's been pretty steady for several years now and we're busy and able to stay patient at the bid table and our competitors are also.

And Andy, strategically, Jule and the team have done a great job of picking markets that are healthy. That's an important part of it, growing healthy markets. Houston is a great example.

Yeah, and you just heard that in Jule's response previously. There are some key markets that you guys wanna be in. Sounds like you've identified the next ones that are the good markets that you wanna be in as well, right, Jule?

Yes, Andy, you know, as Ned said, Houston is a great example. You say metro area and you think they're all pretty much the same. Houston, I mean, it's just incredible, the amount of people there and the rate of growth when you look at how fast that metro area is growing on an annual basis. So not all states are equal, not all metro areas are equal. And so for us to generate organic growth, which is a big part of our story, we need to be in places that are growing. And so as we look to allocate capital, Ned and I talk a lot about where do we wanna be in the United States? Where do we want to direct our growth? We've got a lot of opportunities, we can't do them all. And so we just try to make the best decisions on where we can be that allows our business to grow and have healthy margins.

Yep, okay, Greg, a follow-up one for you. The one big beautiful allows 100% bonus depreciation. And so we're seeing a lot of companies that buy things, equipment like you do, increasing their cashflow guidance as a result of that. I was wondering if you could help us understand what the benefit is to your cashflow from this year, or maybe on an ongoing basis, at least while this law is in effect, from that bonus depreciation. And maybe refresh my memory, but I don't know that you updated your cashflow guidance for this. So maybe you did, maybe you didn't, but could you just clarify if there was any change to your cashflow guidance as a result of the OBBA?

Yeah, I think the guide we've been saying is, like I said earlier, 80 to 85% converting that EBITDA to cashflow. So I think we still fall within that range, Andy. How it specifically impacts us, yes, we do take bonus depreciation. This year, it is down to 60%. So that was certainly reflected in what we originally talked about in our guide. We, when asked about what that, what our cash taxes would be, I've said in the 15 million range, now that this bill has passed, interestingly, it's acquisitions for us and or equipment purchases that have occurred after January 15th, 25. So unfortunately, we don't get to pull Lone Star in that. So it's still at 60%, but other acquisitions post 115, 25, as well as those equipment purchases will be at 100% bonus depreciation. So that 15 goes down dramatically, probably 10 or 12 or 13. I mean, obviously we're still gonna pay state. It doesn't impact the state. So yeah, a nice lift.

Yeah, so you're down from 15 down 12. So you're repaying just a few million dollars in federal taxes, which you're

saying. That's right.

Yep.

Okay, great. Thanks. Yep, thank you, Andy.

Next question, Brian Biroz with Thompson Research Group.

Hey, good morning. This is Brian Offer, Kathleen Thompson. Thank you for taking my questions today. Good morning, Brian. Obviously, I had some, good morning. You've obviously had some tough weather. You guys put up a great result though. We're curious to hear about trends in July so far. We've heard that July was a great quarter for many in the industry. I'm seeing volumes up double digits. I'm just curious to get touch on how July trended for you.

Yeah, Brian. So as I said in my prepared remarks, July had really good volumes. And it started out the first week, especially in North Carolina and Texas, it was wet. But the last three weeks, and especially the last two weeks were really good volume months. So, as we looked at how to guide for the fourth quarter, we obviously don't know the weather in August and September. Our guide normally just, we assume normal weather, right? But we know July, we had really good volumes. And so we felt like it was important to communicate that. So we saw what, as you said, some of the other folks in our industry have seen is that after a very wet spring quarter, it was nice for July to have some weather that we could get out and work.

Yeah, and then so Q2 record margins, I think up 280 basis points, again in a tough weather quarter. I mean, is there a way to frame how much they would have been without weather? And you mentioned the three levers that are really kind of just driving the performance, not irregardless of weather, but taking the weather impact to be not as great. But just trying to think through the exercise of if you had normal weather in Q2, what kind of numbers could we have seen? Trying to think then for Q3 and even just for next year.

Yeah, that's a good question, Brian. And it's not an exact science. Greg and I could sit here and argue for an hour about exactly what may have happened had we had normal weather. But there's no question, our quarter would have been better. We would have had more revenue. And in the summer where we over recover on our fixed assets, it would have been higher. And so that's what we're looking forward to happening in the fourth quarter.

And then last one for me, maybe on the Houston market, you've touched a bit on the call so far, massive market. These are a touch on how you plan that market now, kind of like what services you offer and kind of what adjacent services are still out there for both on. I guess really just the opportunity set there and maybe how that market looks between public and private trends. Thank you.

Yeah, so Brian, as we start in Houston, here this week really is our first week with the Durwood Green Organization. They look a lot like our typical CPI company. You know, they do paving services. They do some other concrete paving services, which is a characteristic of the Houston market. And they run three asphalt plants, do a lot of FOB sales. So very much like a typical CPI company. And as we've said, as we get going in that market, today's acquisitions drive tomorrow's organic growth. So we're gonna look for organic growth opportunities in the Houston market, just like we do everywhere else.

Yeah, thanks, I'll pass it along.

Next question, Brent Thielman with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks, Saul. Hey, congrats working through, you know, some tough conditions here, good showing here. Juwa, you're wanting to maybe ask a different way around the weather in that, you know, I'm trying to think about the markets that were less impacted for you through the quarter. And really this is kind of in context of kind of the bigger organic growth outlook for the year. But I mean, do you, could you give any context on markets that are just really hitting on all cylinders right now, maybe potentially beyond kind of this 8% to 10% organic growth rate you've talked about for the year, just trying to think through, you know, where are you really seeing some great momentum in the business?

Yeah, Brent, you know, we've got 100 different markets. And so I'm trying to think of which ones I would call out because there's a lot of them doing really well. Clearly Florida and Texas are great growth states, but so is South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee. There's a lot of them, you know, I would say clearly the Lone Star Markets of Austin and San Antonio and Temple Killeen are big growth areas. The Panhandle of Florida, the Research Triangle here in North Carolina. But we see a lot of growth in all of our markets. They're not all equal, but, you know, it's hard to call out just a few, you know, the Southeast as a whole, just the region, you know, as I said in the prepared remarks, just continues to see a lot of migration, the states are trying to keep up with the growth. And that's what you see coming through on the public side in the funding. And then, as I said, you know, I think with this, the tariffs incentivizing American manufacturing, I think CPI is gonna be a big beneficiary of companies saying, hey, we're gonna make things in America. And where do we wanna locate? I think the Southeast and the Sunbelt gonna

get an outside share of that investment. Yeah, that's interesting. Kind of a good follow on

there, Jewel. I guess what I wanted to ask is, as that likely plays out here over the next few years, does the acquisition strategy that you have in place today, I mean, the types of companies that you're buying still play well into leveraging those private markets that could certainly pick up in your geographies. In other words, you know, can you continue under the same program you're doing? Are you looking at different types of deals that could potentially leverage that opportunity down the road?

Yeah, Brent, I

would tell you, you know, we're talking to a lot of potential sellers right now as we have been, that's a big part of my job is just to get to know these sellers. And I would tell you, they look very much just like the businesses have for 20 years, the CPI has looked at, they're good construction companies. Some of them don't have hot mix asphalt, they're more service related. Those are very value added acquisitions in the right, you know, where we're already in the market. But when you look at a PRI or a mobile asphalt or a dirtwood green, there's just really some still, a lot of still strategic opportunities in

our space that do exactly what we do. Okay, all right, appreciate it, thanks guys. All right, thank you, Brent.

Next question, Adam Tailheimer with Thompson Davis, please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys, nice quarter, considering the weather. Thank you, Adam. I was curious, given how wet the summer has been, Joel, would you say you have any color or thoughts on the potential that the construction season could extend further into the December quarter?

Well, Adam, that's an interesting thought. I mean, obviously

every year when we get into November and December, we have customers that are just begging us to get their projects done. It's a very, very busy time for our different markets. So we're gonna extend into the winter as much as we can. Obviously weather starts to play a factor, but I don't envision us going into November and December without a full plate of work with the backlog we already have and what we're bidding now. Things can be very busy, and if we get a good warm November and December, you're gonna see us make a lot of hay in those months.

That's what I figured. And then I wanted to ask about your recently acquired states. So Texas, Oklahoma, to some extent, Tennessee. How would you say that transportation spending is trending versus your initial expectation?

I think that we try to study the spending and the budgets before making acquisitions, and so I would say that on all three states, it's playing out exactly as we expected. Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee all have very healthy programs. I think Tennessee is up quite a bit year over year, so we're seeing a lot of bidding activity there. And Texas, I mean, frankly, their program dwarfs every other state in the nation, and so, and we're benefiting from that, and we're happy to be in Houston. So I would say all three states are doing very

well.

It's good to hear, and then lastly, I wanted to ask on labor. There's gotta be a lot of value in your assembled labor force of 6,200 plus. I'm just curious, there's been any changes in the availability of labor either for you or your competitors? What's your sense on that?

I think, Adam, with labor, it's a two-fold answer. The labor shortages we saw coming out of COVID, those have dissipated. We're back to a normal labor market when we were struggling to find truck drivers three and four years ago. That's gone, and labor's available. We're able to build our backlog, but the longer-term picture, as you've heard me say before, is we're going through a generational shrinking, slowly but surely, of our workforce, and we have a lot of gray hair out on our crews that are retiring, and so that has forced CPI to be proactive in saying, how do we attract and retain a workforce, whether it be the culture that we have in our companies, whether it be the compensation that we offer our workers, or whether it be the career opportunities. We call it the three Cs, culture, compensation, and career. And we feel like that if we can do a good job attracting and retaining a workforce, it's actually gonna become a competitive advantage for us because the businesses in our industry that can attract and retain a workforce are gonna be able to keep bidding and growing, and those that don't attract and retain a workforce are not gonna be able to keep bidding and growing. And so it's something long-term that we know we have to be proactive, and if we are proactive, it's actually gonna help us be one of the winners in our industry. And so workforce is a huge part of what we focus on every day. Good

color. Thanks, Joel. Okay. Thank you, Adam.

I would like to turn the floor over to management for closing remarks.

Yes, thanks to everyone for being with us, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thank you.

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and thank you for your participation.