Construction Partners, Inc.

welcome to the Construction Partners First 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 in Best of Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you for joining us for the construction partners conference call to review first quarter fiscal 2026 results. 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, February 5th, 2026. Please be advised that any time sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay listening 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 for future events or future financial performance, are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor's 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 disclosure on forward-looking statements. These factors, as well as 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 and adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings press 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, Jewel Smith.

Jewel? Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call. With me this morning are Greg Hoffman, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ed Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I'd like to begin by thanking the approximately 7,000 employees across our family of companies for their hard work, expertise, and dedication to both safety and operational excellence. Our people are at the heart of everything we do. They are also the stewards of our unique and strong family of companies culture, one of our key competitive advantages as we continue to grow throughout the Sun Belt. Thanks to their efforts, along with favorable weather during the quarter, we delivered a strong start to fiscal 2026, exceeding our expectations and prompting us to raise our outlook for the year. First quarter revenue increased 44%, while adjusted EBITDA increased 63% compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA margin reached 13.9%, the highest first quarter margin in our history. We also closed the quarter with a project backlog of 3.09 billion, underscoring the robust demand across our markets. Project demand throughout our footprint remains strong. On the commercial side of the business, steady project bidding is supported by ongoing population migration to the Sunbelt, reshoring trends as more manufacturing and supply chain capacity move back to the United States, and the continued build-out of AI infrastructure. Our teams are actively bidding and building a wide range of commercial projects to reflect these macro trends. A few examples to highlight. In southern Oklahoma, we are currently negotiating contracts to provide work for a large national retailer on a new distribution warehouse and a food manufacturing facility in Ardmore. In central Texas, north of Austin, we're currently working on a facility to provide power to data centers in the area for one of the magnificent seven. In Santa Rosa County, in the panhandle of Florida, We have just completed work on a large distribution facility for a leading soft drink bottler. This new facility will bring in 350 to 400 new jobs to the area, fueling growth that will create more demand for our services. Finally, in York, South Carolina, we are currently working on a large site work contract for a new data center in the greater Charlotte metro area. These are just a few examples of the approximately 1,000 commercial sector projects we will participate in building this year across our eight states and over 110 local markets. On the public side, both the federal and state governments are continuing their investment in infrastructure to keep up with the growing economies in the Sun Belt. In Q1, we have seen strong public contract bidding throughout our eight states and expect total federal, state and local contract awards in FY26 to increase approximately 10 to 15% over FY25. This is particularly true for the small and medium-sized recurring maintenance projects for state DOTs, cities and counties that represent a majority of our work. On Capitol Hill, both houses of Congress continue to work with Secretary Duffy on completing a five-year reauthorization of the surface transportation program by September 30th. We expect the size and shape of this bill to be known this spring. From what we have heard so far, we expect the reauthorization to provide a significant increase in the annual funding amount going to the states by pro capita formula, which is good news for CPI. Both the administration and many members of the congressional transportation committees have stated that they believe the formula method to the states is the best means to prioritize hard infrastructure investments needed to support a growing economy and to ensure timeliness in building these projects. Turning to our growth strategy, we began fiscal 2026 with two large and strategically important acquisitions that were completed in October in Houston and in Daytona Beach, Florida. Both businesses now have been fully integrated and are operating well. Earlier this week, we announced another acquisition in Houston, GMJ Paving Company, a leading asphalt paving contractor focused on public infrastructure projects across the greater Houston metro area. GMJ's hot mix asphalt plant, located in Baytown on the east side of Houston, expands our coverage of this major metropolitan market and complements our existing Houston assets exceptionally well. This acquisition represents our 12th hot mix plant in the Houston market, further strengthening our geographic footprint and providing incremental throughput opportunities at our nearby liquid asphalt terminal at the Houston port. Last August, we made our first entry into the Houston market with our acquisition of Derwood Green Construction, and then we significantly expanded operations in October through the acquisition of Vulcan's Asphalt Construction Assets in Houston. With the addition of GMJ, we are further strengthening our market position and expanding our team with highly skilled, experienced operators who bring deep local market knowledge and strong customer relationships. This positions us well to serve one of the most dynamic and rapidly growing markets in the country. Expanding our footprints into new markets while gaining market share exemplifies our model and underscores a core element of our growth strategy, entering the right markets with the right partners. Currently, we see a very robust pipeline of acquisition opportunities across our existing footprint and surrounding states, and we continue to have dialogue with a number of sellers as they determine the best future for their businesses and their valuable workforce. We believe our model as a family of companies with a strong organizational culture makes us the acquirer of choice in our industry. We also remain focused on organic growth as a strong driver of building shareholder value. This quarter, we will bring online an HMA Greenfield in Georgia. This new facility will serve the dynamic Brunswick, Georgia market with its port facility and migration to the Golden Isles regions of South Georgia. As a key part of our organic growth, There are several more greenfield facilities that we plan to bring online later this year and early next year. Before turning the call over to Greg, I want to reiterate the vision we shared last October to our Road 2030 growth plan. This plan outlines our path to, again, double the size of the company to revenue of more than $6 billion by 2030, utilizing the same strategy we have successfully executed for over two decades. The plan also targets EBITDA margin growth to approximately 17% and is expected to generate more than $1 billion EBITDA dollars annually. And finally, we're excited about the start of this fiscal year as we prepare for a busy work season building on a record backlog. I'd like now to turn the call over to Greg.