UFP Industries, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Q2 2025 UFP Industries, Inc. Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, press star 1-1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker, Mr. Stanley Elliott, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning to discuss our second quarter results. With me on the call are Will Schwartz, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Mike Cole, our Chief Financial Officer. Will and Mike will offer prepared remarks, and then we will open the call for questions. This conference call is available simultaneously to all interested investors and news media through the Investor Relations section of our website, ufpi.com. A replay of the call will be posted to our website as well. Before I turn the call over, let me remind you that yesterday's press release and presentation include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. These risks and uncertainties also include but are not limited to those factors identified in the press release and in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I will now turn the call over to Will.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us to discuss our second quarter results. Our second quarter was largely a continuation of the conditions we saw in our first quarter, and while the market environment continues to present its challenges, I'm proud of our team's resilience and their unwavering focus on what we can control. We continue to make the necessary investments to lower our manufacturing costs, improve throughput, and improve customer service levels. We will continue to make investments to bring new products to market in areas where we have the right to win, and we will continue to evaluate the portfolio in ways that we can take out structural costs. All of our efforts are designed to position us to achieve our long-term strategies and deliver value to our shareholders. Turning to the quarter. Second quarter sales matched our expectations for low single-digit unit volume declines across each segment. Pricing remains competitive given the lack of visibility and softer demand in several of our end markets. Consistent with what we discussed on our last earnings call in April, we continue to see this dynamic playing out for the remainder of the year. All of this contributed to our earnings per share of $1.70 for the quarter and adjusted EBITDA of $174 million. Generally, results remain pressured from weaker demand, competitive pricing, higher input costs, and a less favorable sales mix. Southern Yellow Pine and Spruce prices were 18% and 13% higher on average for the quarter. With the exception of our site-built business, it appears that most of our business units are beginning to see a stabilization in sales and profit margins on a sequential basis. Operationally, we remain focused on maximizing capacity utilization within our existing footprint and streamlining our cost structure. The strategic initiatives we previously outlined, including managing our manufacturing footprint, reducing SG&A costs, and exiting underperforming businesses are progressing well. We have made great progress on our $60 million cost out program and our own track to realize the full savings exiting 2026. As part of this program, we recently announced plans to shift manufacturing for certain edge products to be more efficient, which will eliminate profit losses and position us to be more competitive and profitable. We have also completed the divestiture of a small industrial components business and have sold or are in the process of selling certain real estate assets, which could provide upwards of $15 million in one-time gains in our third quarter. These are not easy decisions, but necessary. We are also making targeted investments in areas that will drive our longer-term strategy to grow above market rates. We remain committed to our plan to invest $1 billion in growth capital over the next five years and have identified runways in each of our segments. We would prefer M&A in most cases and would be willing to pivot these investments to M&A, but only when the right opportunities materialize and valuations meet our expectations for returns. Within this framework, our commitment to innovation, automation, and expanding our value-add product offerings remains a top priority. We see promising results in our decorators brand with our first of its kind Shearstone product technology, the introduction of new products in our packaging segment, and others, and we will continue to invest in these areas organically and strategic acquisitions where appropriate. New product sales totaled $129 million in the quarter, or 7% of sales. We continue to see a pathway for new products to become 10% of sales over time. We are excited about the innovative products we have launched, as well as those in our pipeline. Last quarter, we highlighted the launch of new decking boards and trim products featuring our proprietary Shearstone technology. The momentum we discussed last quarter around our Shearstone products, including the launch of our Summit product, continued in the quarter. On our call last quarter, we shared that we have secured 1,500 new retail locations. We continue to make progress on adding capacity to reach all of these stores ahead of the 2026 decking season. We've added new traditional two-step distribution for our Shearstone decking board, as well as the pull-through from our marketing efforts and contractor support is exceeding expectations. Sales of our decking board portfolio featuring our Shearstone technology increased 45% year over year. We continue to upgrade existing manufacturing lines and plan to expand capacity again later this year. Our Buffalo facility remains on track for a Q1 2026 opening, leaving us with roughly $250 million of new capacity in place for next year's decking season. Our M&A pipeline remains very active, with a number of strategic investment opportunities presenting themselves across the portfolio. It's no secret that activity has picked up across our space, and our M&A team remains active and focused. We continue to explore deals of various sizes with a focus on how they align with our core business. Our teams have prioritized capital requests with an emphasis on what will deliver the best growth, margin, and return opportunities for the business while maintaining our strong balance sheet. Our experienced management team and dedicated employees are committed to driving profitability and sustainable growth for UFP industries. We remain confident in our long term. Our strong balance sheet and cash flow provide us with the ability to pursue a diversified, return-focused capital allocation strategy of growth, dividends, and share buybacks as a means of driving shareholder value. Turning to our segments. Retail sales declined 3% from year-ago levels, largely on a 7% decline in volumes. Pricing actions at the end of the first quarter contributed 4%, but the benefits to margins were largely offset by higher material costs. Part of the unit decline was from us intentionally exiting less profitable lines of business, as well as the customer shift we previously discussed in our decorators business. We will start to see the anniversary of the decorators customer shift in Q3, making for more favorable comparisons through the remainder of the year. Additionally, we believe the restructuring we've made at Edge and growth investments in SureStorm position us well moving into next year. Packaging sales declined 2%, largely due to a 4% decrease in pricing. Recent acquisitions contributed 2% to the quarter, while organic sales were essentially unchanged from year-ago levels. Markets remain highly competitive, but the sales and margin declines continue to flatten out sequentially. Share gains in our Palette 1 business and geographic expansion in our protective packaging business contributed to growth as we opened our Jeffersonville facility. In our structural packaging business, we continue to introduce a number of innovative and proprietary solutions, like our recently launched ULOT 200 tool-free fastening, aimed at making our customers safer and more efficient. Construction sales decelerated in the quarter, along with a broader outlook for residential construction. Construction revenues declined 4% from year-ago levels on a 2% increase in volumes driven by another quarter of double-digit unit growth in our factory-built business. This was more than offset by a 6% decline in pricing in the quarter, reflective of the competitive environment. Our factory-built business continues to benefit from affordability versus other residential construction and favorable industry trends in the modular construction markets and in adjacent markets like RV and cargo, where our new products are resonating with customers. Our site-built business was impacted by wheat builder sentiment, a softer spring selling season, and higher inventories of new and existing homes. This dynamic has created a pause for many of our builder customers while adding a competitive dynamic price to the marketplace. Infrastructure and data center projects have been a bright spot for our concrete forming business, which saw double-digit volume increases. Turning to our outlook, we expect the business conditions that impacted our first half of the year results will carry over for the remainder of 2025. News around duties on Canadian lumber and other tariffs has only created additional headwinds. That said, we still believe we are uniquely positioned given the natural hedge of our portfolio between fixed and variable-price lumber products. From an impact standpoint, we'd note that the industry imports less than 20% of lumber from Canada. We'd also note that Southern Yellow Pine is domestically produced and represents roughly two-thirds of our fiber purchases. Historically, periods of higher lumber prices have generally led to higher levels of profitability as we use our scale to buy lumber better than our peers. All of this uncertainty is contributing to a lack of visibility beyond the first half of 2025. Regardless of the outcome, we remain confident in our ability to navigate any potential tariff impacts. Longer term, we are well positioned to take advantage of favorable trends across many of our growth runways. We remain committed to our long-term targets. One, seven to 10% unit growth. Two, .5% EBITDA margins. Three, maintain our strong return on capital profile. And four, maintain our conservative capital structure. Before I close, I want to thank our ,000-plus employees for their hard work and their commitment. I always say tough times, tougher people. The uncertain times will pass, and we will come out on the other side stronger. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mike.

Thank you, Will. Net sales for our June quarter were $1.8 billion, down .5% from $1.9 billion last year. Results were driven by a 3% decline in units and a 1% decline in pricing, with recent acquisitions providing a modest offset. The decline in selling prices primarily resulted from weaker demand we've seen in the past few quarters, which has led to more competitive pricing in our site-built, structural packaging, and Palette 1 business units when comparing -over-year results. These headwinds resulted in a 15% decline in our adjusted EBITDA to $174 million, while adjusted EBITDA margin fell to .5% from .7% a year ago. Pricing and cost pressure, as well as lower volumes, weighed on profitability this quarter. It's worth noting that $28 million of the $50 million decline in our gross profit was due to lower volume and price competition on our site-built business unit, as macro conditions continued to weigh on new housing starts. Even with these headwinds, our trailing 12-month return on invested capital remained resilient at 15%, which remains well ahead of our weighted average cost to capital. We believe this highlights the strong returns our business can achieve, even when faced with challenging market conditions. Operating cash flow was $113 million for the year, and includes a seasonal increase in our networking capital of $166 million we expect will convert to cash by the end of the third quarter. We also expect approximately $40 million of cash flow benefits from the Big Beautiful bill in the back half of the year as a result of bonus depreciation, the ability to expense certain construction costs associated with manufacturing facilities, and the ability to expense R&D costs. Bottom line, our balance sheet remains strong, providing us with ample flexibility to pursue our financial and strategic objectives as we move through 2025 and beyond. Moving on to our segments. Sales on our retail segment were $788 million, a 3% decline compared to last year due to a 7% decline in unit sales offset by a 4% increase in price. By business unit, we experienced a 7% unit decrease in pro-wit and a 3% decline in decorators. The decline in pro-wit volume is primarily due to softer demand as a result of higher interest rates and weaker consumer sentiment, as well as our ongoing efforts to exit lower margin product lines. Within our decorators business unit, our sales of railings declined 25% and wood plastic composite decking was flat, while surestone composite decking increased over 45%. Our railing sales declined due to the loss of placement with a large retail customer, which also impacted our wood plastic composite decking volumes. However, we gained market share with another major retailer, and initial stocking orders from this retailer for our surestone decking and stronger demand from the Pro Channel has provided an offset. This shift positions us for a modest market share gain in 2025 as we add capacity to supply approximately 1,500 stores by 2026. We expect to realize the full benefit of this share gain in 2026 and remain focused on our long-term goal to double our composite decking and railing market share over the next five years. Our -over-year gross profits and gross margins in retail declined primarily due to lower volumes, higher material and manufacturing costs for composite decking, and operational challenges in our edge manufacturing locations. As we indicated last quarter, composite decking material and manufacturing costs are expected to improve with the new, more efficient manufacturing lines we're installing. And we're taking the necessary actions to close our two Bonner manufacturing facilities in 2025. These closures are expected to improve operating profits by $16 million in 2026. For clarity, the business conducted out of our Bonner trim plant will be transitioned to other existing facilities to create efficiencies and lower our cost structure. And we're exiting the coded siding business conducted out of the second facility, which has been difficult to scale. We anticipate these actions will result in between $15 million and $17 million of impairment and other one-time costs in Q3. Operating profits in retail declined by $6 million as a result of the decline in gross profit offset by a $7 million decrease in SG&A. Looking forward, the continued enhancement and resiliency of our ProWood business, growth trajectory and margin potential of our decorators business, and restructuring of our edge business provide optimism for improved results in 2026. Moving on to packaging. Sales in this segment declined 2% to $429 million, consisting of a 4% decrease in selling prices and 2% unit growth from recent acquisitions. Customer demand in this segment remains soft and pricing remains competitive, but we continue to gain share with key customers. We also had an unfavorable change in product mix this quarter, as our largest and most profitable business unit, structural packaging, declined 2% in volume due to soft demand, while our protective packaging and Palette 1 businesses saw 8% and 5% unit growth respectively. As a result of these factors, -over-year gross profits dropped by $13 million for the quarter. Encouragingly, sequential gross profit trends suggest results may have stabilized, offering some cautious optimism for 2026. Operating profits in the packaging segment declined by $3 million to a total of $26 million for the quarter due to the decrease in gross profits as SG&A was $10 million lower than last year. Turning to construction. Sales in this segment declined 4% to $552 million, as a 6% decline in selling prices was partially offset by a 2% increase in units. The overall unit increase was due to significant volume increases in our factory-built, commercial, and concrete-forming business units. These increases were partially offset by a 7% unit decline in our site-built business, as demand for housing remains challenged due to affordability and sentiment. As a result, the market environment in our site-built business remains competitive, which continues to pressure pricing as we protect our market share. Gross profit in this segment decreased by $25 million -over-year due entirely to our site-built business unit. The decline in gross margin in this segment is due to these factors, as well as the less favorable change in sales mix, as site-built has historically been our largest, most profitable business unit. Our operating profits declined by $16 million to a total of $36 million for the quarter as a result of the decrease in gross profit offset by a $10 million reduction in SG&A. As we manage through this cycle, we're focused on maintaining the right balance between cost discipline and advancing our long-term objectives. That means ensuring the company is appropriately sized relative to current demand, while continuing to invest in the resources needed to drive growth, expand market share, further product innovation, strengthen brand awareness, and improve operational efficiency through technology. Our consolidated SG&A expenses declined $18 million for the quarter due to a $16 million decrease in bonuses and sales incentives and a $2 million reduction in our core SG&A. It's important to note that our core SG&A includes a $6 million increase in decorators' advertising costs associated with our SureStone technology. Looking forward, we've targeted an annual run rate of EBITDA improvements from cost and capacity reductions of $60 million in 2026. Our plan for SG&A expenses next year, excluding highly variable sales and bonus incentives tied to profitability, is $554 million. This is $10 million lower when compared with 2024 and is comprised of $30 million if anticipated cost reductions offset by a $20 million increase in our decorators' advertising spend as we invest in building the SureStone brand. In addition to the SG&A cost reductions, we've taken actions to reduce and consolidate capacity at locations that don't meet our profitability targets. We anticipate these actions will have a favorable impact on our gross profits, totaling approximately $13 million in 2025. And as I previously mentioned, the closure of our Banner facilities and transfer of business to other locations is expected to eliminate operating losses totaling $16 million in 2026. Based on the actions we've taken to date and opportunities for continued improvement, we think we're well positioned to achieve or exceed our goal of $60 million in cost-outs by the end of 2026. Moving on to our cash flow statement, our operating cash flow was $113 million for the year and includes $166 million of seasonal networking capital that we expect to convert to cash by the end of Q3. The strength of our cash flow generation and balance sheet have allowed us to continue to invest in growing the business while also being more aggressive on share buybacks. Our investing activities included $130 million in capital expenditures, comprising $48 million in maintenance capbacks and $82 million of expansionary capbacks. As a reminder, our expansionary investments are primarily focused on three key areas. Expanding our capacity to manufacture new and value-added products, geographic expansion in core higher margin businesses, and achieving efficiencies through automation. Investing activities also include two small acquisitions. A wood packaging manufacturer located in Mexico that allows us to strengthen our business with certain multinational customers and a supplier to the manufactured housing, RV, and cargo markets whose location is complementary to our existing footprint and allows us to execute strategies to reduce our operating costs while providing additional capacity for growth. Finally, our financing activities primarily consisted of returning capital to shareholders through almost $42 million in dividends and $261 million in share repurchases. Turning to our capital structure and resources, we continue to have a strong balance sheet with $842 million in cash and total liquidity of $2.1 billion. Our liquidity includes cash and amounts available to borrow under our long-term lending agreements. With respect to capital allocation, we remain committed to a balanced and return-driven approach. As we've discussed in the past, our highest priority for capital allocation is to drive organic and inorganic growth that results in higher margins and returns. Our strategy also includes growing our dividends in line with our long-term anticipated free cash flow growth and repurchasing our stock to offset dilution from share-based compensation plans. We'll continue to opportunistically buy back more stock when we believe it's trading at a discounted value. With these points in mind, our board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.35 a share to be paid in August, representing a 6% increase from the rate paid a year ago. Last April, our board approved an incremental $100 million to our previously existing share repurchase authorization, bringing the total to $300 million. As of July 25, 2025, there have been 2.6 million shares repurchased for almost $270 million at an average price of $103.55 under this authorization. Last week, our board of directors approved a new $300 million authorization that will be effective through the end of July 2026. With regard to capital expenditures, we currently plan to spend approximately $300 million to $325 million for the year. Finally, we continue to pursue a pipeline of M&A opportunities through a strong strategic fit while providing higher margin, return, and growth potential. As we pursue these opportunities, we'll remain disciplined on valuation. I'll finish with comments about our outlook. Our outlook remains unchanged from last quarter. We continue to expect low single-digit unit declines across our segments through year-end, reflecting ongoing soft-end market demand and competitive pricing pressures. As expected, site-builds is experiencing more pronounced headwinds, though strength in factory-builds is helping to offset some of that pressure. We remain focused on gaining share in each business unit to help mitigate volume declines and support overall results. To navigate the current environment, we're taking action to reduce costs, right-size capacity, and exit underperforming or non-core businesses while positioning the company to deliver above-market growth and margin expansion as market conditions normalize. With that, we'll open it up for questions.

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, press star 1-1 again. One moment while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question will come from the line of Kurt Yinger with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Good morning, Kurt. I was just hoping to maybe unpack the sequential improvement in construction gross margins a bit. I know you talked about on a -over-year basis site-build, you know, accounting for all of the decline in gross profit. But I guess, was that business additive to the 60 kind of basis point improvement versus Q1, or is that entirely driven by factory-build and commercial and concrete forming?

Mike, you want to hit that?

Yeah, happy to. Site-build had a very challenging order, Kurt. So, I think the -over-year decline was $28 million. Looking from Q1 to Q2, there was still, there was volume pickups that benefited site-build, but there's still price pressure that was coming through. So, any improvement there was just simply due to seasonality, I think, in the concrete forming and commercial side, as well as performance in factory-build. So, yeah, site-build, we expect that trend to continue with site-build through the balance of the year. With where demand seems to be, we expect continued pricing pressure and for that to be a headwind for volume and pricing for the balance of the year,

really. Okay. And is that something, you know, you alluded to it in the prepared remarks in terms of kind of the natural hedging across the business around lumber pricing fluctuations? And historically, you guys have done a really good job managing through that. But is this kind of a unique environment where that poses more of a risk than we've seen in the past, just given what you've alluded to in terms of competitive pressures?

Yeah, I think if you look at that, Kurt, certainly with the demand environment being weak and the pressures there, there's no question it's a little harder to pass those along specifically in that area. So, yeah, I think you're fair in asking that question. Okay. Okay. Perfect.

Switching gears to decorators, I guess when you talk about kind of a modest market share gain for this year, should we interpret that as kind of slight positive sales growth versus a market you expect to be flat? I'm not sure. I guess how would you kind of have us frame what that means from an overall sales perspective?

Yeah, certainly we expect market growth modest. We've talked about this switch in customer mix. So first half of the year, there was some offset there that should be more, should be closer for the back half of the year with that transition. That side, the decade market for us, we've seen improvement and we expect to continue that market share gain in the back half.

Okay.

Especially on the share selling side.

Right. Right. I mean, you know, the 45% increase, very impressive. I thought it was also interesting that the wood plastic composite side was flat despite the shelf space kind of shifts there. Can you maybe help us understand what drove the offset on the wood plastic composite side and then also help us think about, you know, of the Surestone gains, how much of that was, you know, the stocking benefits versus maybe what you're seeing on kind of the traditional pro dealer space?

Yeah. So I think it's twofold. I think you've really got to highlight the internal distribution piece. We've talked about that a lot. Our ability to distribute through our Prowood facilities and we're winning share. Secondarily, if you go over to the Surestone side, it's a pretty good mix between the retail component, but as well as through the distribution component, we're seeing wins in both places. And as we continue to ramp up that production and that store account, you'll continue to see that grow. I think you can't lose sight either. The fact that we this is the first year we really had a marketing campaign like we do. And so we're seeing the returns on that marketing campaign.

Right. Right. Okay. That makes sense. I'll jump back in the queue. Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And that will come from the line of Ruben Garner with Benchmark. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Morning Ruben. Will, that marketing campaign that you mentioned, is that still geared towards the contractors or has the kind of lower price point Surestone technology enabled or pushed you guys to market more directly to the consumer?

Yeah, good question. It's really driven this year towards the consumer. We've got to really explain the value in that technology and what makes that product different. And so when you see those advertisements, you really start to see the benefits that are associated with that technology. That's where that marketing campaign is focused for this year. So it really hits both.

Got it. And then on the packaging side, I think you said it all businesses site built were kind of either showing signs of stabilization or improvement. Sequentially, can you talk specifically about what you're seeing in packaging? Any signs of acceleration there at all? Just in the end market overall? I know it's been a challenging couple of years.

Yeah, I wouldn't call any signs of improvement, but certainly sequentially, it feels like we found stabilization. So I wouldn't highlight as improving. It's still a very difficult market, a competitive market. And so that's the best way I can describe it at this point. I'd love to tell you that it's improving, but I think it's just stabilized, which is which is good to see.

Okay, and I'm going to sneak one more in just a clarification on site built. So I think you did say pricing and profitability and I don't know about the man because of the seasonal aspect, but I think you said that it was kind of still under pressure sequentially. So where does all of that stand relative to like 2020? Like, have we round tripped back to the previous highs in pricing and profitability? Are they under pressure relative to that? Like, how does it look relative to previous cycles?

Yeah, I think that pricing and margins, I guess in particular, have largely normalized and come under a little more pressure than what we were seeing pandemic more recently now driven.

Okay, thanks for the call, guys, and good luck going forward. You bet.

Thanks. Thank you. One moment for our next question. And that will come from the line of Keaton Mamtura with BMO Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning. Well, good morning, Mike. Maybe just continuing on site built, you know, the margin pressure that you're seeing the competitive market backdrop. I know you had mentioned that last quarter we saw a big step down from Q4 2024 into first quarter of 2025. Have those kind of competitive dynamics stabilized as we've gone through second quarter and into third quarter or did we see sort of another leg down given what the home builders are telling us?

Mike, you want to hit that? Yeah, sure. Yeah, volumes have moved up as you'd expect going from Q1 to Q2. So that's provided a benefit. But we have had more pricing pressure from Q1 to Q2. So when I look at the sequential bridge there in gross profits, there's still some pricing challenges from Q1 to Q2. And that's what we expect to continue through the balance of the year. But yeah, going back to Ruben's last question, this feels like we're into a down cycle. We haven't found the bottom yet, I don't think on site built probably. But the good news is once this does normalize, we do expect that EBITDA margins, gross margins will improve in future years once demand rebounds.

Understood. Okay, that's helpful. And then, you know, just switching to lumber and here in the last few years, you know, you guys have done a phenomenal job of kind of managing the volatility. We have duties on lumber outside of what happens with tariffs, but just these lumber duties are going to go up meaningfully here in the next several weeks. How are you sort of positioning yourself? And I know that's only on what comes from Canada. But I'm just curious, how are you positioning yourself just as a large lumber buyer?

Yeah, good question. And, you know, I would remind you that's a small component of the total spend and what we bring in. Most of our purchases are domestic and I would tell you that a lot of products, if those things come into play, we'll continue to look for opportunities to convert some of those products to domestic species. I think the hardest place and where most of the Canadian product goes in is certainly to the site built and to the construction arena. And that's the most difficult arena we're in today or segment or business unit. And so I feel good about our ability to pass those along for the most part. I think we'll be able to utilize some of our manufacturing abilities domestically as well as some of the switch and sourcing to offset a lot of that. But we'll see how that shakes out exactly.

Got

it.

And then just one last one from my side on capital allocation. Pretty meaningful pickup and share repurchases, you know, this year. So, I'm just curious, you know, as you look at the different options that you have and clearly you've got a very strong balance sheet. Can you talk to sort of the options in terms of whether it is M&A or kind of share repurchases? How should we think about it in terms of kind of back up and into 2026?

Want to hit that, Mike? Yeah, sure. Happened to you. Yeah. So, now I think we've been pretty consistent in our philosophy. So we've we've always preferred to grow. And so I think the capital investment reaffirming what we plan to do on capital investments, what we want to do with M&A. That's our target first to be able to use capital and invest it in those areas. If M&A isn't there, we have the opportunity, I think, to invest several hundred million to a billion, I guess, if you look at each segment, you know, in trying to strengthen the core businesses there. So we have a lot of capital we can deploy. But if the opportunities don't present themselves, the multiples are too high, you know, share buybacks is a great avenue, particularly at the current price. We feel like it's trading at a discount. So, you know, intrinsic value. So that's that's been our approach and we won't waver from that. We're going to continue to continue to be return driven and we'll continue to be patient and waiting for those opportunities to present themselves.

Perfect. That's helpful. I'll jump back into queue. Thank you. Thank you.

And one moment for our next question. That will come from the line of Jeff Stevenson with Loop Capital. Your line is open.

Hey, thanks for taking my questions today. You reported a nice, sequential improvement in decorator sales benefit and from the low end or the load end of your new Summit decking product in fifteen hundred stores. And, you know, wondered whether the load end is largely complete here in the second quarter and how much will spill into the back half of the year. And then on top of that, you know, whether you've seen any changes in underlying composite decking demand or bidding activity due to macroeconomic uncertainty or F cell through demand trends remain largely stable.

Yeah, Jeff. Yeah, answer your first question. The store count, the load in that we talk about really remained unchanged in Q2. I'd say what I would call a difficult time to do a swap out in the stores. That's the selling season. That could be very disruptive. And so the store count that we talked about at the end of Q1, approximately four hundred out of the fifteen hundred remains fairly unchanged. The majority of that and remainder of that number really takes place in the back half the year. That coincides with the capital investment that we talked about the additional capacities coming online. So really, you'll see that in our target date is really to have ourselves prepared and ready for that twenty twenty six decking selling season. We'll be on shelf and ready to go. So that's the first question. You know, I think the second part of the question really comes back to that. We're really seeing a divide. You've got your affluent customer, you've got your average consumer. And so really the the composite decking space is winning in that that affluent customer continues to spend and grow. And really, it's the it's the average consumer that's downgrading or choosing to not participate or delay a project. So really, that space has been really good. And we continue to grab that market share.

That's great to hear. And thank you for that. And then I wanted to ask about the share gain opportunity to this step distribution for decorators. Obviously, the retail ones have gotten most of the attention, but I just wanted to talk about the opportunity to expand your partnerships of distribution driven by your increased investments and improving brand awareness and capacity. New product introductions and then potential benefits of industry consolidation.

Yeah, twofold. So we've kind of hit on that in the past. You know, some of the competition uses that and blocks out space. And that's been one of the question marks. How do we get our product to market? We're winning. And I would tell you the surestone technology, the marketing campaign is certainly resonating and opening doors for us. But I cannot highlight enough in markets that we don't have a distribution partner that works well to get to those markets, that internal distribution piece. We continue to invest and expand, and that's growing rapidly. So it's twofold for us.

Understood. Thank you.

Thank you. One moment for our next question. And that will come from the line of Jay McCandless with Wedbush. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. Good morning. Will, if you don't mind repeating what you said about Southern Yellow Pine, I think you said roughly that two thirds of y'all's fiber purchase. And could you maybe talk about that other third and what type of if there are higher duties imposed with the new software agreement, what that's going to look like for UFP?

Yeah, so you hit the number right. That's about two thirds of our purchases. And 75% of our purchases are domestically sourced. So in addition to that, so you've got approximately 25% that are import products, obviously spruces highlighted right now. And then some of the other smaller but important items also come from from other places around the globe, Brazil included. We're working very hard to look at alternatives where those duties could come into play or tariffs and what we could substitute move to other species that wouldn't be affected. So all those things are in play right now.

Great. Thank you. The second question I had, you know, it's great to hear the concrete forming benefited from some of the data center build out. We've all been hearing about that. Is there any concern that some of those data centers might not happen? And what are y'all thinking about that business? Can it continue to put up the same level of growth in the near term?

Yeah, we're confident in the infrastructure growth and feel like we're well positioned. The value added solutions we provide, we think we're in a great space to win. We continue to build out the footprint of ability to get to those markets. I'm not overly concerned about that because it's a small component of a much bigger business. So that's one little piece.

Okay. And then, Mike, I wanted to that's good to hear on the depreciation side, the benefits that you have been getting there. But I also wonder, is this maybe an opportunity with all these new pretty expanded 179 deduction for packaging? So to see an uptick in business just as people try to go spend this year and take advantage of that business, you're all seeing any early signs of that?

Not seeing any signs in it impacting our sales levels yet, Jay. So nice to be able to see the cash flow pick up for us in the back half the year. But maybe at some point, we'd expect it to impact demand. Not seeing anything like that yet.

Got it. Okay, let's all head. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Will Schwartz for any closing remarks.

Thank you to those joining us on the call for your time today. Despite this tough macro environment, we remain committed to our long term goals for greater operational efficiency and to bring new high value products to market. Most importantly, thanks to the hard work of the UFP team members who make these goals possible. Have a great day.

This concludes today's program. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect.