Construction Partners, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to the Construction Partners Second Quarter 2026 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 second 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, May 8, 2026. 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, 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 now, I would 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 Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I'd like to begin by thanking our approximately 7,000 employees for their hard work and excellence in achieving a great second quarter, exceeding profitability expectations and growing backlog, which allows us to meaningfully raise our outlook for FY26. While the financial results of focusing on our family of companies culture are hard to measure, We know that building a great culture does have a real impact on bottom-line results. At CPI, we hold ourselves accountable by constantly measuring several key areas of cultural health. First, we focus on keeping a low turnover of employees, which increases the experience and stability of our workforce. Second, we strive to lower benefit costs so we maximize the take-home pay to our employees' families. This helps us attract the most talented folks to our teams across all 110 local markets. And finally, every year, we survey all 7,000 employees for honest and candid feedback, which gives us vision on how to improve and innovate as a company. Maintaining this focus on our culture will continue to drive performance and produce great results. In Q2, we grew revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and backlog. Favorable weather in the quarter provided the ability to advance work efficiently and exceed expectations. We play an outdoor game, and when we have dry weather, we can work more days and consequently increase our volumes. Looking at the cost environment during Q2, energy volatility had a limited impact on results due to the protection of the liquid asphalt index on more than 80% of our total revenue. The physical hedging of diesel fuel and the oil price hedging mechanism inherent to our vertical integration at the liquid asphalt terminals. Today, we source more than 50% of our liquid AC needs internally. As we look to the future relative to building our backlog, our pass-through cost model reacts quickly to rising commodity prices. Turning now to the demand environment, construction project demand throughout our footprint remains strong for both public infrastructure work as well as commercial development for new construction. Our teams are actively bidding and building a wide range of commercial projects. A few examples to highlight. In Texas, Lone Star Paving is working on a portfolio of eight data center projects, totaling approximately $100 million of contract value. In Tennessee, our new acquisition Four Star Paving currently is working on 12 warehouse projects in the dynamic Metro Nashville market totaling a contract value of approximately $28 million. And in Alabama, Wiregrass Construction is working on a MAG-7 data center in the northeast region of the state, valued at approximately $4 million. Taken together, these projects reflect an expanded backlog and pipeline of opportunities entering the second half of our fiscal year. 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. This is particularly true of the small and medium-sized recurring maintenance projects for state DOTs, cities, and counties that represent a majority of our work. Some examples of new public projects include In the Houston area, Durwood Green has won several multimillion-dollar projects, which are part of the city's infrastructure preparations for the upcoming FIFA World Cup this summer. In North Carolina, Fred Smith Company won a contract for multiple road widenings and improvements valued at approximately $150 million to prepare for the U.S. Open's return to Pinehurst in 2029. And in the Florida Panhandle, CWR is working on a taxiway reconstruction project at Eglin Air Force Base valued at approximately $27 million. These projects represent just a few of the different types of public projects we are working on today. With respect to federal funding for the surface transportation program, we continue to engage in productive discussions with key members of Congress regarding reauthorization. Encouragingly, both parties and both chambers are actively working to release a markup of the bill this month to advance a new five-year authorization somewhere in the $500 billion to $600 billion range. This would represent a substantial increase in investment in our nation's transportation infrastructure. Turning to our growth strategy, last month we completed our latest strategic acquisition with a purchase of four-star pavings. the premier commercial paving contractor in the Nashville metro area. I want to welcome all of the great folks at Four Star Paving to the CPI family of companies. Their assets and customer relationships across central Tennessee will serve as a valuable extension of our platform company in the state, PRI. Four Star represents our fourth acquisition in fiscal 2026 and our 17th since the beginning of fiscal 2024. underscoring the continued momentum of our disciplined M&A strategy. These acquisitions are all fully integrated and meaningfully contribute to the growth of our financial results. Today, the generational transition of family companies continues in our industry, and we have a robust pipeline of attractive acquisition opportunities across our existing footprint and adjacent states. We remain in active dialogue with a number of prospective sellers. We also remain focused on organic growth as a strong driver of shareholder value. Our new Gastonia North Carolina Greenfield will begin operations this quarter and soon we'll be servicing a large $60 million contract expanding and widening I-85 through Gaston County near Charlotte. 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 that our family of companies is now in our busy work season, executing on a record backlog and continuing to deliver excellence to our customers in both the public and private markets. As reflected in our revised guidance, we expect fiscal year 2026 to be another strong year, reinforcing our confidence in achieving our Road 2030 growth plan to double the size of the company, generate $1 billion of annual EBITDA and expand EBITDA margins to approximately 17%. And with that, I'd like to now turn the call over to Greg. Greg?