Construction Partners, Inc.

Analyst Day here, 2025. This is the second Analyst Day we've had in our history. We're very excited to have you all here. We'd like to thank you all in the room for being here in Raleigh and traveling and coming to see us. And I'd like to extend a thank you to all of our construction partners, folks that are here that you've gotten to speak with during the tour and that are going to be here for the duration of the day and the lunch afterwards. We'd also like to welcome everyone who is joining us via the live stream on our website. Just a reminder with the webcast, that will be archived on our website and you can access that later. We will also post a PDF of today's presentation after we're done here today. Just a programming note, if we have the agenda slide up, just want to note that we will have a short break. that will occur after Greg Hoffman, RCFO's presentation. So we'll have a quick break there. And then if you don't mind, please say we're going to do Q&A at the end. And that will be the most expedient for everyone's time. So after we do our little panel discussion near the end of our agenda, then we'll do a Q&A session. And now just to make sure that everyone is Mirandized, I am going to talk about our disclosure here before we get started. So we'd like to remind everyone that this information today that's being recorded, it only speaks as of today, October 22nd, 2025. So please be advised that any time sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance are considered forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor's provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We will be making forward-looking statements in today's presentation that are nature and beyond our control in certain matters, so actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our press release that we put out yesterday afternoon that has all of our disclosures on forward-looking statements. Those factors and other risks and uncertainties are also described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also be referring today to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, and net debt. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures, again, can be found at the end of our press release. Please note that references made to the company's fiscal year also represent that we're a September 30 year-end company. And again, all of this information will be on our website after this. And now, without further ado, I would like to introduce our founder and executive chairman, Ned Fleming. Ned? Thank you, Rick.

Well, good morning. But for construction people, this is afternoon because they've been up working since about 5 o'clock in the morning. So I just want everybody reminded. I see all the construction guys nodding. Welcome to Road 2030. It's a terrific day. We're going to talk about how we're moving from a three-lane road that crosses the Sunbelt to a six-lane interstate. It seems like just yesterday, the other founder, Charles Owens, and I were talking about this on the way home from losing out on bidding for the company that he had run. It was a Danish company we had talked about last night called SuperVoss, and I said, Charles, can we build another business like this? And I'll never forget, we're on the airplane, we're flying home, We've lost out, we're both disappointed. And he grabs his wallet out of his pocket and he picks it up and he sees a little sheet of paper and he says, absolutely, these are our next 10 acquisitions. And I think we bought six or seven of those businesses as we built this business. It has been better than we ever imagined and the future is brighter today than it has ever been. And that's what we're gonna talk about today, is the future. We go to the next slide. So we talked about this slide when they brought it to me, and I said, well, can't we just use the one from the last meeting? Because the strategy has not changed. Today, we still look at a market that is large and growing in the asphalt business. We still see a market that is highly, highly fragmented. It's a relative market share business, and consolidation makes for a stronger, better business, and that comes through in the profits and the revenues and the people. It's exactly the same today as it was 25 years ago when we were riding on that airplane talking about doing this. I will say, though, as you'll learn in this presentation, we are better prepared today to take advantage of that market strategically, organizationally, and financially, and we'll talk through that. Infrastructure services continue to need to grow. I don't go anywhere in the country where somebody says, our roads are great, we don't need to invest any more capital. Nowhere. Does anybody live in that spot? Because I haven't seen it. They need to be done. And that demand is growing and the voters are tired. They want their roads to be better and they want them to be bigger and broader so they don't have to spend as much time in traffic. We focus not just in a highly fragmented industry, but on specific places that you'll see where we are doing recurring maintenance work. So if we turn to the next slide, it'll amaze people, but 94% of all the roads in America are asphalt. And even when you're riding on a concrete road, it has underlayment that is asphalt. Kind of odd. That's why they're so much more expensive than asphalt roads. 94%. So if you're on a road, it's going to probably be asphalt. The roadways are in poor condition. I don't know about you all, but in my family, when I grew up, if I came home with a D, I was in trouble. And our country has had a D on the roads for a long, long time. It's something that we need to focus on. It's something that our elected officials know that we need to focus on. And you're hearing more and more about it as we move forward in this. One of the things that's happening is our roadway system is deteriorating. So a road needs to be redone, replaced, repaved every 10 to 15 years. I'm going to talk about why the cycle time for that is actually increasing in a moment. But if you think about it, that's why maintaining the roads is recurring revenue for this business. This is a business that is going to continue to pave roads. There are roads we have paved in the Florida area two and three times since we started this company. That's going to continue. And as we grow the roads, if we move to the next slide, what you're going to see is lane miles are expanding. They're up. So one of the things we're going to talk about today is organic growth, and you're going to learn why the organic growth in this business is so dynamic. We get that question all the time. Got it last night as I was sitting at dinner with one of the analysts. One of the reasons is the lanes are expanding all over, so we have more roads. We also have new roads because we're growing, particularly in the Sunbelt part of the United States. The other piece of it is we're traveling more. People are getting their cars and traveling more, which means the roads are getting used more, which means we have to replace the pavement. Those reasons, along with the fact that, yeah, we have electric vehicles, they weigh more, They're heavier. We're also more people, believe it or not, are driving trucks and SUVs. Heavier vehicles beat up the road more. But let's just think about that. You've got more lanes increasing. Gosh, that's growth. You've got cycle times increasing. That's growth. You've got new roads increasing, and that's growth. So the reason we have organic growth is because of all of those things. And we're doing it in a part of the country, we move to the next one, that is growing five times faster than the rest of the part of the country. Five times faster. On this chart, it's interesting. We had an interesting discussion about it because we're in six of the top seven states, not six of the top 10, but six of the top seven states. We're investing in places like Houston, Texas with Jack Wheeler, who's here today. I mean, Austin, Texas with Jack and Brad Green that's here today in Houston for a reason. It's where the demographic growth for our country is growing. It's speeding up. It's where young people want to be. It's where businesses are. It's where BMW is building plants. It's where Tesla built a plant in Austin, Texas that Jack and his crew at Lone Star did all the paving work for. That's where the growth in our country is. This is a chart that we've been showing for the last 25 years. Yes, we've expanded it, but our focus has always been on the Sun Belt. As you walk in, you saw a chart today that shows all the dots. When we started, we had two dots. And today, as we've grown this business, what's great about growth here is I've talked about organic growth, but we also have acquisitive growth, and we're going to talk about that too. As you leave today, you could do all of us a favor. One of the founders, Charles Owens, is not here today, but he loved maps. If you ever went in Charles's office, he had a map of every single state we were in. And he would have people put dots where all the different asphalt plants were, and he would look about where he should buy it. So as you leave, there's a Sharpie pen out there. I want everybody to write him a note. If you know him, write him a note. If not, just sign your name. I'm going to then fold that up, and Jewel and I will present that to him at one of the company meetings. So would you please do that? This chart is not going to change. The growth in our country is really moving in this direction. So we're going to continue to stay focused on the Sun Belt. Don't expect us to do anything else. We can double the size of this business and not leave the stage we're in. That's how much opportunity there is for us. Oops, the next one. This is my favorite chart. Today, this team is better. They continue to work harder. They have more opportunity. And they're 10 years younger than they were when we started this business. Think about that. We're smarter, better, working harder, and we're younger. That creates opportunity for the business. They are better prepared financially with the partners we have with our financial structure. They understand the strategy better than any team we've ever had. They understand how to execute it better than any team we've ever had. And Jules Smith is doing the best job of anybody I've ever worked with. I started to count how many different management teams I've worked with and all the different things they've done, and I stopped counting at 36. He has built an organization that has kept culture. We talked about it last night. Culture is a strategic advantage for this company. It's one of the reasons we're able to buy the businesses we're able to buy. It's one of the reasons we're able to attract the talent we're able to attract. And he does that better than anybody I've ever worked with. He builds the organization ahead of the growth and he keeps the culture. I'm not sure what the secret sauce is, but if I could get him to write a book, I would have him write a book. So this team is not only are they prepared, but they're led well. And it's an important piece of this. We don't talk about it enough, but Jules the quarterback, and he knows which player is open to throw the ball to. And he throws it to the open player. So as we move forward, what really excites me is not only is the opportunity better than it's ever been, but the team that we have is better than it's ever been, and the leadership of that team is as good as it's ever been. So for me, it is always a pleasure to get to introduce the Chief Executive Officer of Construction Partners, Jewel Smith. Jewel? You know, I don't know why, but my picture, I look older in my picture, and you still look young. Thank you.

Yes, sir. Thank you, Neal. I'm not sure what to think about that analogy. There's a lot of pressure on quarterbacks these days. So I'd just like to start by talking about a competitive advantage at CPI that we don't talk about a lot. But if I was an investor, it would certainly mean a lot to me. And that's our board of directors. I don't know many companies that can say we're 23 years old And five of our board of directors, the majority of our board, including the two founders, have been there the entire time. They've been there since the beginning. And that is great because there's a lot of wisdom and experience when we're in that room. But they also, they think long-term and they make sure that we're thinking long-term, not quarter to quarter, not short-term fixes. And that is a real blessing for Greg and I and the leadership team that we can focus on what creates value in the long run. And Ned is the leader of that, and he does a great job. And I'll tell you, back in the summer of 2024, I called Ned. I said, Ned, I have found our Texas platform company. And all we've got to do is we've got to find a billion dollars. And after a couple second pause, Ned said, he jumped right in and said, okay, let's find a way to get it done. So that is the attitude that we're led with. So Ned, thank you. Yeah, we did it quickly. We did it quickly. For those that were in New York two years ago, you remember I spoke at this slide. I said, hey, that picture, I remember exactly when it was taken. It was two years ago at the time The week before I stepped into this role and I made a joke that that guy looked so relaxed and naive. But I remember while I was talking about that, I was thinking in the back of my mind, okay, Joel, in four years when we come back to New York and do this again, you cannot use that same picture. You have got to get a new picture. So there is some small benefit to accomplishing your plan two years early. No one's had time to think about getting a new picture. So we'll see what happens in the next five years. Clicker. Is this it? All right, great. So this was the map that we showed you two years ago in New York at our analyst day. We were in six states. We had 67 asphalt plants and 4,000 employees. And we said, hey, we're getting together five years after our IPO We want to go over the things we said on the roadshow back in 2018. We've accomplished those. We wanted to lay out a long-term plan of where the company was going using the same strategy on how we grow the top line and the bottom line. I just want to review what we told you back in 2023. The first bar is the year we had just finished, so sort of our trailing 12 months. So we were about a $1.6 billion company in October 23. And we said, we're going to grow 15% to 20% annually. And that'll get us to be somewhere between $2.7 and $3.2 billion. The first year, we had a typical CPI year. We grew 17%. And then last year, this year we're finishing up with a transformational year. We grew 54%. We also said we're gonna expand the bottom line. And we're gonna, we were at 11% EBITDA margins, and we said we're gonna expand EBITDA about 50 basis points a year, and we're gonna be between 13 and 14% by 2027. Now I have to tell you, that week in New York, my son Gabriel, who was a ninth grader at the time, that was his fall break. So I talked to him and my wife Elisa, who's here today, I said, hey, don't you want to go to New York for fall break? So they came to the presentation, and Gabriel was sitting in the very back of the room, and I wasn't sure how much he was paying attention to this corporate presentation. So that night at dinner, I said, Gabriel, what did you think? He said, Dad, he said, when you were talking about revenue, that made sense. He said, but when you started talking about EBITDA margins, getting to between 13% and 14%, these two guys sitting in front of me looked at each other and said, yeah, that's not happening. So I immediately knew what Wall Street thought would be the heavier lift for us. Now, I want to tell you to relax. There's no Smith kids planted in the audience today. But we were able, the first year, to grow over 100 basis points, and then last year, this year, we were able to expand EBITDA margins almost 300 basis points. Now, I will say this yellow bar, we just pre-released our earnings yesterday. That is the midpoint to illustrate, so we're using the midpoint there. As we expanded the top line, the EBITDA margin, the cash flow has expanded as well. So we said we'd get to between $350 and $440 of EBITDA, and this year we're at $423 million. So as Greg and I, just a year ago yesterday, as we announced our outlook for 2024, and clearly we indicated that with the Lone Star Paving acquisition, we were entering a transformational year. Each quarter, as those dollars went from outlook to actual, we have started to get the question, where do you go from here? What's next? And so that's why we're here today, to answer what comes next for construction partners. And so as Ned introduced, we're going to roll out today Road 2030, which is a five-year plan of where the company's going We also want to tell you how we plan on getting there and some of the things we're going to use to do that. And we're excited about this. Road 2030 in five years, CPI will be at another level in terms of size and scale, but also profitability and cash flow. So this is our map today as we get started. The yellow dots are what the map was in 2023, and the blue dots or everything that's happened in the last 24 months, we've been busy. So since 2023, we've added 53 new facilities, whether it's a hot mix asphalt plant, a quarry, or a liquid asphalt terminal. We've added three new platform companies in Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee that expand our map and start to create more conversations with potential sellers in those states. We've added seven new brands. So in addition to the three platform companies, we have four subsidiaries that give us another growth engine within a state in a geographic region. I'm gonna be going over one example and Nelson's gonna be going over another where those subsidiary companies allow us to grow. So as we start 2030, we're now in eight states of 109 asphalt plants, 17 quarries, So as we get started, we also have more growth engines, these platform companies and subsidiaries, more management teams to handle the growth to come. What's the environment that we're operating in as we get started? There's four macro trends that you've heard us talk about, but they're still powerful. What's been driving our growth, they're going to continue to drive our growth. The first is the migration to the Sun Belt. That started during COVID to accelerate, it's continued to accelerate, both people and businesses moving to the states we're in. That drives demand not only for private construction, but also for public investment to keep up with the growth. Reshoring, we talked about that a lot since COVID, companies moving their manufacturing facilities and businesses to the Sunbelt because they wanted to strengthen their supply chain. We believe that with this administration and the tariffs that are being implemented, that's going to continue that trend of companies saying, I want to move to the United States to manufacture my product, and the Sunbelt's going to get more than its fair share of those companies. So that's a trend driving growth. And then, as Ned said, the federal and the state governments are saying, we've got to invest in infrastructure. And that's going to continue. And I'll talk a little more about that here in a minute. And then part of our acquisition strategy, and it's been the same since Charles and Ned founded the company, is our industry is going through a generational consolidation. A lot of the private owners are getting to retirement age, and that's driving the chance to talk to them. CPI is seen as the major consolidator in our industry. And a lot of sellers would like to talk to us about joining our family of companies. So just a minute on federal infrastructure funding. I want to focus for a minute on what is the main part of that for us, and that is the surface transportation program. Contrary to a popular misconception, that did not start with the IIJA. It started decades ago. As you can see here, it was MAP 21, FAST Act, then it was part of the IJA. It was really only a third of that at $350 billion. 2026 is the last year of that program, and so they're now on Capitol Hill talking about a five-year reauthorization. We are very confident that there's gonna be a reauthorization, and we're very confident that it's gonna be at a higher level than the previous five years. And why do we have confidence in that? Because that's what's always happened. That's what's always happened. The program's never gone down. It's never not been reauthorized. And that's because infrastructure is the most bipartisan thing in Washington. Republicans and Democrats agree we've got to invest in our infrastructure, and they know that it also grows the economy and creates jobs. So we are in the process. This administration is very focused on hard infrastructure, which is good for construction partners. We had one of our own, Ty Johnson, just a couple months ago. The president of Fred Smith Company was on Capitol Hill testifying about the reauthorization. So that is the main funding mechanism for what Construction Partners does. Our strategy as we get started on 2030, we on purpose used the same slide we showed two years ago. And two years ago, we got up there and said, Greg and I, The big news today is there's no new news. And what we were trying to say is, hey, we know you've got a fairly new CEO and a fairly new CFO, and what we're communicating is we're not here today to announce some grand new strategy or big ideas. The strategy that CPI was founded upon 20 years ago is even more powerful today. So why would we try to change that, we're going to continue to execute on that strategy. And that is the same thing we're communicating today. We're going to continue to be an asphalt-centered infrastructure company in the Sunbelt region of the United States. We organize in our local markets. We're going to do repeat revenue for recurring customers. We're going to focus on small projects that are six to nine months in duration that have higher margins and lower risk. And in doing that, we're going to generate a lot of cash. And we're going to take that cash and we're going to invest it in high return growth initiatives. That's the strategy. And it's not changing. But I want to make sure today I want to communicate that the fact that the strategy is not changing doesn't mean that CPI is not changing. We are always changing on how we execute that strategy. To illustrate that, I want to show you something that we use internally to help keep us dialed in on how we execute that strategy. We call it the CPI way. It's a simple acronym that we use. The C is for culture of the local company. P stands for power of the parent. The I stands for innovative mindset. I want to focus on the third point here. We're going to talk about the first two in a minute. Innovative mindset. You know, Jim Collins defines innovation as a good idea done. And that's the mindset we want to have. What are the good ideas? How do we improve? How do we get better? That drives us to use technology like in our fleet. We are trying to put in the hands of our superintendents as they're on a paving crew to be able to see in real time where their trucks are so they can plan their work and know when that truck will get through the current traffic to get there. When we're running our asphalt plants, we're building right now a platform that you can see in real time exactly what's happening at every asphalt plant across the company. The superintendent can see, is the plant keeping up with my crew? We've said before, we're in the process now of implementing an artificial intelligence tool to help us be able to bid better and to leave less money on the table and to make more margin. But it's not just technology. We're also looking for innovation in how we create employee benefits and incentive systems to attract and retain the best workforce. So we're constantly changing on how we execute a strategy that's not changing. As you would imagine, if the strategy's not changing, the next five years, the levers we use to grow the top line and bottom line aren't changing either. Our top line levers, will continue to be organic growth. That's what we focus on the most. Part of that is greenfield facilities, which you'll hear about that later today, and then finally acquisitions. Nelson's going to cover those more. I'm going to focus a little more on the bottom line levers. The first is scale. As we're growing the top line, how do we keep fixed costs growing slower and capture more of that on the bottom line? And that's powerful over time. Clearly, this year was a huge step forward in scale. But each year, as we grow normally, we hope to collect five to 10 basis points on the bottom line just through building scale. Vertical integration. Nelson is going to show you on his map. There's over 1,000 service companies in our states that do grading and utilities that can be acquisitions that expand our construction service capabilities. We can also build it organically, like we're doing in the upstate of South Carolina, building grading capabilities. We can also capture through construction materials, through aggregates and liquid asphalt. You're gonna hear later today how we're expanding a liquid asphalt terminal to capture more margin as we grow our volumes. And I wanna focus today with you on the most powerful of the three levers, and that's building better markets. We've already talked about, I just told you, part of that is using technology to bid better, to be a better player in that market. But the most powerful aspect of building better markets is simply getting to the right markets with the right partner. Getting to the right markets with the right partner. This is the markets we've entered and the partners we've entered with just in the last 12 months. We've been able study these markets, study the growth that's happening there, and say, can we create organic growth there? Are there opportunities to make value-added acquisitions there? And are these the right partners, their character, their people? Are these the right partners for us? And so as we build better markets, we've got to get to the right markets with the right partners. I've lived this, and this is where the C and the P come in. In 2011, when my family business joined CPI, they were able to get to Raleigh-Durham. Dynamic growing market. They were able to partner with a management team that knew Raleigh-Durham intimately. The company had been operating at that time for over 80 years in this market. But they were smart. They didn't come in and change everything. They said, we want you to continue be in who you are, keep your culture, you know this market. But then they brought the power of the parent. They said, here's some tools and some technology to help you know your business better, we're gonna put that in your hands. Where there are opportunities to bid more work, we're gonna increase your bonding capacity. And where there's value in growing organically, here's the capital to do that. And so when they brought those tools to us, the power of the parent, and we were able to keep our culture, it was like rocket fuel. We grew organically, double digits, every year for a decade. And at the same time, we were able to expand our margins. And that's what we mean as a margin leaver by building better markets, getting to the right markets with the right people. I want to go over two examples just in the last 60 days. So Monday, we announced the acquisition of P&S Paving, who has a dominant market share on a very fast-growing part of our country, the east coast of Florida. They're headquartered in Daytona Beach. They're led by a great management team, Tim Phillips, who's with us today, and Curtis Long. So they have a great management team, and that's what sets the stage for growing. So now they'll be our East Coast division in Florida, and that creates opportunities to grow organically north into Jacksonville and south toward Palm Beach, getting in the right markets with the right partner. Now, go back 60 days ago, we entered Houston with Durwood Green. Houston, I really didn't know this a year and a half ago as much as I do now. Houston is an incredible part of our country. The metro area of Houston is bigger than three of our entire states. But not only is it a huge metropolitan area, both in population and geography, it has a faster growth rate than almost everywhere in the country. So that is clearly a place that we want it to be. But we don't want to be there if we can't have the right partner. And so for us to be able to partner with Derwood Green, Brad Green is with us today, a third-generation business with three Greens, Brad, his brother Daniel, and his cousin Jonathan, all in their 40s, that have grown up in this business, who have a great management team underneath them, that sets the stage for us not only being to Houston, but grow organically and grow margins. Well, 60 days later, we were able to bolt on and expand in Houston. We were able to buy the construction assets, the equipment, the plants, and hire the people from Vulcan Materials. That immediately built scale into the market. It immediately gave us the ability to have throughput even more so than when we first went to Houston through the Pelican Asphalt Terminal, the yellow dot, to capture all that margin. But if you look at the dots on the page you see, it tripled the relative market share for Durwood Green. And that creates the ability to really grow margins in that market. So let's talk now about Road 2030, the numbers. So the first three bars we've already gone over, that was roadmap 27. And the blue bars are the beginning of road 2030. The first bar is the guidance, our initial outlook for this year. Again, we're using the midpoint for illustration. So our first year for road 2030, we're going to grow 26% over the year we just finished. That includes the two acquisitions we announced this month. So we've set the table for a great growth year in 2026. Moving forward through the other four years, we're modeling in this model 15% growth, which by 2030 would make CPI over $6 billion in revenue. So continuing to do exactly what we do. This growth rate, those next four years, like always, is going to be a combination of organic growth, which you'll hear more about today, and acquisitions. It does not need or include in this model another transformative acquisition, such as Lone Star. This just assumes we're doing our normal, bolt-on, small and medium-sized acquisitions. Now there are numerous other transformative acquisitions out there that might happen, but we're not modeling that because we don't know when those would happen. So that's our revenue to get to $6 billion by 2030. Our EBITDA margins. This year we accomplished achieving over 15% EBITDA margins. What we want to do is grow margins over 30 basis points in 2026, and then continue to grow them between 30 to 50 basis points over the next four years after that to achieve an EBITDA margin in 2030 of 17%. And so if we're growing the top line and we're expanding margins, as you can imagine, that creates a really nice growing cash flow. For our adjusted EBITDA, After getting to $423 million this year, our guidance for 2026, the midpoint is to be at $530 million, a growth of about 25%. As you can see, the next four years, if we're growing the top line 15%, but we're expanding margins, that creates a compounded annual growth rate of 18%. So that by 2030, construction partners would have an EBITDA of over a billion dollars. And that's It's a good thing that cash starts to really fund, as Greg is going to go over, fund more and more of our growth initiatives through the use of cash. So that's the five-year plan. More than double the size of the company on the top and bottom line to be at $6 billion of revenue and $1 billion of EBITDA. Now today, just like two years ago, We're not gonna put a slide up there that says this is what we expect our market cap to be or our share price to be. We know that you guys are smart and can do math. But we did say two years ago, if we can accomplish Roadmap 2027, that's gonna create a lot of shareholder value. And I think that's come true. And the same holds true today. If we can accomplish Road 2030, that's gonna create enormous shareholder value. But four big picture things to take away. As I wrap up today, Road 2030 really is another five years of CPI operating as CPI. There's really nothing new. There's nothing that really is any different than CPI being who we are. We're going to continue to operate the same strategy. We're going to continue to generate a lot of cash, and we're going to invest those back in growth opportunities that create shareholder value. We're going to continue to focus on our culture as a competitive advantage. You know, even with the scale, in 2030, these numbers predict that our employee count will be over 11,000 people in 2030. And so we're going to focus on our culture as a way to attract and retain the best workforce. And then finally, we've got a management team, a leadership team that's established to execute on this. As Ned said, one of the things you'll notice when these five operating companies get up here at the end, you'll notice not only are they experienced, they're great leaders, but they're young. And before them, Nelson's going to talk, one of the most hardworking, important people in the company. The thing you'll notice is he's young. Before him, Greg's going to talk. And Greg's blessed to just look really young. So Greg, come on up here. I just want to tell you, it is a real blessing to this company to have a chief financial officer that understands operations as much as Greg does and understands the mindset of our operating companies. That is a blessing to me. So Greg, I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you, Joel.

Morning, everyone. Yeah, so the picture, if you physically are unable to see the color gray in my hair, this looks just like me. So thank you for being here today. It's really great to be in front of you. It's great to talk about construction partners and what we have done and what we expect to do. So let's talk about what we have done. Some of these will be a little bit of repeat, but I'll put a little color in them that... Maybe you can take some nuggets away from Jules' high-level view. Transformational year. Record year. I think we all knew that was going to happen when we talked about the Lone Star acquisition. But it just wasn't Lone Star. I'll get into that in a minute. So a 54% revenue increase year over year. It's tremendous. 296 basis points and then 92% increase in margin dollars is an incredible year. But there are lots of companies represented in this room today that had a hand in that. Certainly Lone Star was a big part of it. As a matter of fact, contributing to the 2025 results were 12 different acquisitions that were made in 24 and in 25. So you can see that it's some, yes, of course, Lone Star was one of those 12, but just one of those 12. So every company in here represented in here today had some sort of a hand in this growth, not just the acquisitive side, but as the organic side as well. We'll talk about that in just a minute. To drill into that a little bit, More specifically, so Lone Star is here today, Greg Morrissey, Dean Lundquist, Brad Green is here. They've just made an acquisition in Houston, Vulcans Operations in Houston. They're busy integrating that, right? We just made another acquisition. Jewel mentioned Tim Phillips, P&S Paving, by our Florida platform company. They're busy integrating starting as of Monday. Neither one of those companies is impacted at all by the other one's integration activities. That's the beauty Jewel talked about just a minute ago, the growth engine. That's the growth engine in action. Not just finding the acquisition candidate, but then the hard work of integrating that acquisition candidate But when I look back on 25, there was a lot going on, no question. But it feels normal. I mean, we've integrated 12 companies throughout 25. So I think that's the normal cadence. Maybe not the dollars. Obviously, there was a transformational acquisition in there. But the cadence of acquisitive activity feels normal to me and very manageable. So let's move to 26. So again, by the way, Jewel mentioned this. These are implied midpoints from the revised outlook, which was tightened yesterday for 25, as well as for 2026. And this does include all acquisitions closed through Monday. So P&S, Vulcan operation in Houston is in there as well. We talked about last quarter what was carrying over into fiscal 2026. We talked about that being about $250 million worth of revenue. And all in now, that increase is 16%, but it's about $450 million in acquisitive revenue carrying into 2026, as well as then 7%. organic growth. We'll talk a little bit about that in just a minute. But I think that one thing that is consistent when we talk about outlooks is that the backlog plays such a critical role in us understanding how to have confidence to talk about these outlooks. So we've said, and it remains true, that about 80 to 85 percent of the next 12 months revenue is in our backlog. So it gives us a lot of confidence to put these outlooks out there and feel good about the margin piece as well as the revenue piece for purposes of discussion. The backlog, just mentioned it. We keep saying this, that there has been now 18 Sequential growth quarter over quarter for 18 consecutive quarters. Not normal. We keep trying to say that too, that usually as you're working through the construction season, you're burning off a tremendous amount of backlog, right? And maybe not adding back as much as you're burning off. We have seen consistent growth in backlog in more recent years. in construction season quarters and not construction season quarters. So I throw that qualifier out there just to say at some point we will see probably a reduction in backlog. We are fine with backlog year over year growing at the growth of the revenue, right? But sequentially it may dip down from time to time, but it is not a concern. So roadmap to Road 2030. So Jewel covered a couple of these things, but I really want to talk about just maybe a little more detail, some of the assumptions that went into Road 2030. This assumes a normal funding environment, right? Nothing crazy, obviously not going down, but just a normal funding environment. There's no entry into new states anymore. and Road 2030. We can do this and achieve this in the existing eight states that we're in. And then capital, from a capital standpoint, we're sufficiently capitalized to be able to engage in this activity, growth activity, both acquisitive and organic. Our bank partners are with us. Some of our bank partners are with us today. They have our back. But we'll talk also about how We're helping ourselves as it relates to generating cash flow. So those two things together get us to roadmap 2030, the road 2030. And then finally, we're not assuming any transformational acquisition. Jules said that, but I think it's important that this is just your rinse and repeat acquisitions that we have consistently done throughout the history of the company. and we can continue to do 12 acquisitions, right, impacting 2025. We can do that all day long. Let's talk organic growth for a minute. So we believe that organic growth is the key for CPI to generate shareholder value. We know that shareholders appreciate that, and we want to make sure that we deliver on that. So we have said that we're going to grow 7% to 8% from fiscal 26 to 30. And how do we say that? And why are we confident to say that? It's because we've done it, right? 8.1% average annual organic growth since our IPO. And then more recently, 8.7% in 23 years. and 6.8% in 2024. And now, as we announced yesterday, 8.4% organic growth in 2025. These platform companies and the bolt-ons that come after them are those engines for not only more acquisitive growth, but engines for organic growth. Nelson and some of the guys will get up and talk about that in just a second. Cash flows. This is the other engine I said that we were going to use from a capitalization or from a capital standpoint to fuel the growth. This business has a fundamental strength of generating cash. We have done it historically and will continue to do it. If you look at just the last three years, 658 million generated over those three years as a percent of of cash flow from operations. I'm sorry. Cash flow from operations is 75% to 85% of the EBITDA. So that's what we're converting to cash, okay? And we're using that to fund high-growth initiatives. We're also using it in our M&A activity. We expect that to continue and see that continuing through 2030. And then as a part of the effect of generating that cash, we can positively impact our balance sheet. So the column in the middle is obviously strikingly different from the other columns, and we had a significant acquisition. We felt like it was worth this short-term higher leverage ratio in order to be able to enter the state of Texas. We believe it's gonna pay off handsomely. But in the short term, we do have a higher leverage ratio. But I think 2024 is instructive. I think the issue is a difference in scale, okay? And what I mean by that is in 24, we entered fiscal 24 at a sub two times leverage ratio, 1.72 times, okay? We made eight acquisitions that year, about $240, $250 million worth of purchase price, and then exited the year at 1.81 times. So obviously the scale is a little bit different, but the strategy, and I believe what will happen, is the same. We have levered up in the short term, and we'll de-lever over time. In fact, we expect to be at 2.5 to 2.75 times at the end of 26. And then we'll continue to talk about where we're comfortable with our leverage ratio going forward through 2030 at 1.5 to 2.5 times. Okay. Where's Rick? Ten minutes. We have a ten-minute break until we hear from Nelson and the operating company presence. So see you guys in a minute.