AZZ Inc.

Good day and welcome to the AZZ, second quarter, 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on a touchtone phone. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sandy Martin, three-part advisors. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and thank you for joining us today to review AZZ's financial results for the fiscal 2025 second quarter, which ended August 31, 2024. Joining the call today are Tom Ferguson, president and chief executive officer, Jason Crawford, chief financial officer, and David Nark, senior vice president of marketing, communications, and investor relations officer. After today's prepared remarks, we will open the call for questions. Please note the live webcast for today's call can be found at .azz.com slash investor dash events. Before we begin, I want to remind everyone that our discussion today will include forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. By their nature, forward-looking statements are uncertain and outside the company's control. Except for actual results, our comments containing forward-looking statements may involve risks and uncertainties, some of which are detailed from time to time in documents filed by AZZ with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year. These statements are not guarantees of future performance, therefore, undue reliance should not be placed upon them. Actual results could differ materially from these expectations. In addition, today's call will discuss non-GAP financial measures. Non-GAP financial measures should be considered supplemental to, not a substitute for, GAP financial measures. We refer to the reconciliation from GAP to non-GAP measures in today's earnings press release. I would now like to turn the call over to Tom Ferguson.

Thank you, Sandy. Good morning and thank you for joining us. Today I will discuss the second quarter results and cover our outlook for the rest of the year. Jason Crawford will review our detailed financial results and David Narc will provide an industry update on sales to our end markets. Then we will open up the call for questions. We are pleased this year with the team's emphasis on business execution and productivity improvements. And we continue to focus on what matters most, delighting customers through exceptional service and quality and innovative solutions. Top-line sales momentum continued in the second quarter and sales grew by 2.6 percent to $409 million compared to the prior year's quarter. We reported another quarter of expanded EBITDA dollars and margins compared to the prior year. As a result, we generated meaningful cash flow from operations of $119 million for the first half of our fiscal year. Compared to the prior year's quarter, metal coating sales increased by 1 percent and pre-cut metal sales increased by 3.8 percent, due primarily to market share gains. Organic sales in both segments grew almost entirely based on volume due to higher steel and coal coating tonnage processed in the quarter. As Dave will cover in more detail, we benefited from AZZ's diversified end markets and the continued growth in certain markets like construction. The construction-related markets represented 57 percent of our combined coating sales and were driven by strengths related to infrastructure projects, including bridge and highway, transmission and distribution, and renewables. This critical infrastructure spending tracks closely to public sector construction, energy, and manufacturing. We are optimistic that Fed actions to lower interest rates may spur greater capital spending into calendar year 2025. Continuing with a summary of our results, metal coatings delivered a strong EBITDA margin of 31.7 percent, exceeding the prior year and our target margin range of 25 to 30 percent due to higher volume and improved zinc productivity and cost. Pre-cold metal EBITDA margin of 21.1 percent was also strong due to higher volume, improved operational performance, and better mix. This year's strategic objectives for AZZ are to drive revenue growth and improve the company's profitability through maximizing operational efficiencies. Executing our objectives well this year has generated significant cash flow to pay down debt and strengthen the business and our balance sheet. For the first six months of our fiscal year, our growth has been entirely organic, while we continue to evaluate bolt-on acquisitions to add inorganic growth in each segment. We knew that rebuilding our acquisition pipeline would take several quarters as market transactions slowed after we paused to delever and pay down debt. We plan to remain patient while evaluating the best timing, leverage, and target valuations in these markets. Jason will discuss our capital allocation strategy in a moment, but I want to emphasize that we will continue to seek high return on investment projects to drive growth. We will also continue to pay down debt and return capital to shareholders through our cash dividends. We paid down $20 million of debt this quarter and once again repriced our term loan last month to lower interest costs by another 75 basis points. An important investment this year is our construction of the new aluminum coil coating facility in Washington, Missouri. This facility will expand capacity in the aluminum container sector, where we anticipate sustainable long-term growth to occur. We continue to track on schedule and budget and expect to be operational in early fiscal year 2026. As a reminder, this facility's production and capacity will benefit from a long-term contract with one customer committed to 75% of the new site's capacity. We are excited about the progress of the new plan.

With that, I will turn it over to Jason. Thank you, Tom, and good morning. For the second quarter, we reported sales of $409 million and increased at .6% from the prior year quarter. By segment, our metal coating sales increased 1% and pre-copped metal sales increased 3.8%. The second quarter's gross profit was $103.5 million, or .3% of sales, an increase of 90 basis points from .4% of sales in the prior year quarter. Gross margins improved in both segments. Improved zinc productivity and cost helped offset labor and other variable cost increases in the metal coating segment, whereas higher volume improved operational performance and better mix helped offset the same headwinds in the pre-copped metal segment. Selling general and administrative expenses were $35.9 million in the second quarter, or .8% of sales. A slight improvement versus the $36.2 million, or .1% of sales in the prior year quarter. Operating income improved to $67.6 million, or .5% of sales, compared to $61 million, or .3% of sales in last year's second quarter. Interest expense for the second quarter was $21.9 million, compared to $27.8 million in the prior year. This decrease is primarily due to consistently paying down debt and our lower weighted average interest rates from various debt repricings, which I will discuss more in a few moments. Equity and earnings of unconsolidated subsidiaries for the second quarter increased to $1.5 million, compared to $1 million from the same quarter last year. This increase is due to higher earnings from our 40% JV ownership in a veil. Current quarter income tax expenses was $12.2 million, reflecting an effective tax rate of 25.6%, compared to .4% in the prior year quarter, where we benefited from the reversal of previously provided tax positions related to the acquisition of pre-copped metals. Reported net income from the second quarter was $35.4 million, compared to $28.3 million for the prior year quarter. On an adjusted basis, Q2 adjusted net income was $41.3 million, compared to $37.2 million, an increase of 11% from the prior year. Second quarter adjusted EBITDA was $91.9 million, or .5% of sales, compared to $88 million, or .1% of sales in the prior year. This 40 basis point improvement in adjusted EBITDA margin was primarily driven by improved earnings and revenue strength in both segments. Turning to our financial position and balance sheet, we generated cash flow from operations of $119.4 million, ahead of last year's $118.3 million. After funding capital expenditures for the first six months of $59.5 million, our year to date free cash flow was $59.9 million. As Tom mentioned, we are expanding our coil coating capacity by constructing a new 25 acre aluminum coil coating facility in Washington, Missouri, and we anticipate it to be operationally in early fiscal year 2026. We expect to spend approximately $63.2 million in the Greenfield project this fiscal year, of which we have spent $35.6 million, which paid in the first half of our fiscal year. Our capital allocation strategy consists of investing in the business for growth, paying down debt, returning cash to our shareholders through dividends, and evaluating potential bolt-on acquisitions. During the second quarter, which ended August 31st, we reduced debt by $20 million and now expect total debt repayments to exceed $100 million for the full year. Our current trailing 12 months debt to adjusted EBITDA is 2.7 times, which compares favorably to our leverage of 3.4 times in the second quarter of last year. On September 24th, after our quarter end, we repriced our turn loan B down to SOFR plus 2.5%. With the Fed also reducing interest rates around the same time, we expect these actions to have a favorable benefit to our earnings in the second half of the year. Our current interest rate swap agreement fixes our variable interest rate for a notional portion of our debt through September 30th, 2025, and we have no debt maturities until 2027. Finally, we paid a cash dividend to common shareholders of $5.1 million in the second quarter. With that, I'll turn the call over to David

Nock. Thank you, Jason. Good morning, everyone. Sales momentum for the second quarter was mixed across a number of end markets. On the positive side, sales within construction and electrical grew over the prior year same quarter, driven by market share gains as well as continued public sector spending on infrastructure projects such as bridge and highway, transmission and distribution, and renewables. Sales growth remained somewhat muted in the transportation category, which includes truck and trailer, bus, and recreational vehicles, up slightly as compared with the prior year quarter. By comparison, sales within both consumer and industrial markets were down, driven by lower consumer spending and private investment. This is consistent with what we had communicated last quarter when we said we were beginning to see public and private sector spending trending in opposite directions. As we communicated during our first quarter call, we remain optimistic about public sector spending. Additionally, we believe the recent rate action by the Fed could spur growth in both consumer and private sector spending. We continue to see secular growth trends in reshoring of manufacturing, the migration to aluminum and pre-painted steel, as well as the conversion from plastics to aluminum in the container space that will continue to benefit our businesses. With that, I'd now like to turn it back over to Tom.

Thank you, David. As I had communicated last quarter, we are optimistic about our business prospects this year and again want to remind you that our business is typically more brisk during the first and second quarters as the spring and summer months align with peak construction activity. As David mentioned, we see signs that public and private sector spending are trending in opposite directions. We also know that weather, such as hurricanes particularly, as well as macroeconomic events or changes, can impact our business. So we remain prepared for choppiness if it comes. We have accomplished what we set out to do in the first half of the year and look forward to continuing to focus on executing our plans for the balance of this year. As expected, the second half of fiscal 2025 will be lower than the first half due to the normal seasonal slowdown in construction activity as well as weather in the holidays. Also, recall that we are up against more difficult sales comparisons in last year's fourth quarter as we reported total sales up 8.9%. Pre-code sales in last year's fourth quarter delivered strong double-digit sales growth up over 13% from the year prior. And while public sector spending geared toward infrastructure remains good, private sector spending has slowed. And we expect the Fed loosening of monetary policy will stimulate growth over time. All this to say that we plan to be conservative with our annual guidance. Today, we are leaving our fiscal year sales guidance unchanged at $1.525 billion to $1.625 billion, narrowing our EBITDA guidance and raising our EPS expectations to reflect the strong first half and lower interest costs for the balance of this fiscal year. We are narrowing adjusted EBITDA guidance to $320 million to $360 million and increasing adjusted EPS guidance to $4.70 to $5.10. Our guidance reflects our best estimates given expected market conditions for the full year, lower interest, an annualized effective tax rate of 24% and excludes any federal regulatory changes that may emerge. Capital expenditures for the current fiscal year are expected to remain unchanged at $100 million to $120 million, including approximately $63 million related to the new Greenfield plan. Debt pay down is now expected to exceed $100 million versus our previous range of $60 to $90 million. We continue to focus on paying down debt while evaluating both on acquisition opportunities that are beginning to build in our pipeline. The executive team and I recently met to update our strategic plan and evaluate our SWOT analysis. Based on a robust and collaborative analysis of AZZ's internal strengths and weaknesses and our external opportunities and threats, we believe we are well positioned to sustain a successful track record for many years. We remain excited about our position as a leading provider of metal finishing solutions, providing aesthetic and corrosion protective hot dip galvanizing, coatings, and other value added services for large and diverse end markets throughout North America. We will continue to focus on growing profitably by investing in people, processes, facilities, and technologies that benefit AZZ's metal coating and pre-coat metals customers. Our culture creates opportunities for people to grow and develop, and we believe our deep bench of talent at every level positions us well for long-term success. I am confident that we will continue to win in the marketplace by focusing on the customer first. With a disciplined execution of our strategic initiatives targeting sales growth, operational excellence, margin enhancements, and working capital improvements, we believe the successful execution of our current year plan and our longer-term strategic initiatives will deliver significant free cash flow and maximize shareholder value for all AZZ stakeholders. I am proud of the work and dedication of our teams in both segments and our corporate headquarters, and I want to thank them again for delivering excellence in everything

they do. Our value added lower General Customer Service. Our

board, leadership team, and segment teams are fully aligned to execute our near-term objectives this year and longer-term strategic growth plans. With that, operator, I would like to open up the call for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question today comes from Lucas Pypes with B Riley Security. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, operator. Good morning, everyone. My first question is on the M&A opportunities set. And I wondered if you could maybe speak a little bit to your appetite right here for acquisitions broadly, anything on the bolt-on side that is maybe more attractive and what the timing could look like and also geographically, where would you focus? And I recall in the past you looked at paint lines at maybe some of your customers or competitors. Does that still make sense here? Appreciate your thoughts on the M&A landscape. Thank you.

Lucas, we've gotten active in the pipeline again. So, you know, within the galvanizing sector, we've got a lot of open space out there. So, you know, we're looking, call it to the northwest, rocky region, but basically, and also the southeast. So wherever we don't have significant footprint, we're open. And probably even if something came, you know, one-off came available, where we've got some capacity, we look at that too. So on the galvanizing side, I'd say there's pretty much nothing that's off the table. And there's a lot of both, well, a lot of one-off, two-off opportunities out there. And then there's, you know, one or two multisites that if they became available, we'd be very active on those. So, you know, we don't have anything in the works that I would say I'm anticipating closing before we talk again at the end of the third quarter. So I'll leave it at that. On the precode side, there's opportunities. These conversions of customers, we're active on that. They take a few months to go through the process and work through. But we've got a nice list of those as opportunities for the balance of this year and in the next year. The interesting thing about that, it's why we would always announce a galvanizing acquisition on these conversions because it involves, you know, a specific customer. It's probably not likely we'd announce the specifics on it. We would just talk about the fact that we, you know, we completed one. Hopefully that answers your question.

That is very helpful. Thank you for that context. In terms of the M&A for the business, post the Missouri RAM, where do you think it would kind of level out on a steady state? In terms of just overall sales growth? Yeah, in terms of overall capital spending? Oh, capital spending.

Yeah, I think, you know, we've talked about it. Each segment needs about $25 to $30 million in maintenance that includes some growth capital. So call it $60 million between the two segments, a little bit of corporate for IT and things like that. We don't have anything, you know, no other green fields that are in the works. So I'd say that $60 million on a normal annual basis is about the right amount if outside of acquisitions. And that's just the way it's stacking up. We're about to enter our planning process for next year and I'm sure we'll get, you know, we'll get some middles and requests for quite a few opportunities. And as we do, we've got those carefully. We'll make sure we take care of safety first, productivity. Maintaining environmental capabilities and all that. So, you know, 60 is a good number. And if we find something else, it'd be, you know, in the 5-10 million range for growth capital.

Got it. Excellent. I really appreciate all the color to you and the team. Best of luck. I'll turn it over for now. All right. Thanks, Lucas.

The next question comes from John Fransreb with SODOTI. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking the questions. Sure, John. I'd like to start with something you mentioned in the last conference call and we actually talked about in years past and that's reconstruction following hurricanes. I guess two questions. One, I know you have a facility in North Carolina, I'm sorry, South Carolina, one in Virginia. Can that adequately address some of the lean construction? But you don't have anything in the southeast, as you just kind of pointed out. Can the Mississippi facilities address what's going on in Florida? Just kind of curious and make thoughts about that and also timing when that happens.

Yeah, great question. And, you know, first, our thoughts and prayers just go out to the folks that are affected in the areas. And we do have the one facility in Tampa. We were able to close it and evacuate the people and there's a little bit of property damage. So that's where we do have the – out of Hurricane Harvey, we formed AZZ Cares Foundation, which is a 501C3 to support our folks and their families for exactly events like this. So, you know, so on the people side, that's – all our folks are safe, but they do have some property damage. We've got a facility in Virginia, a facility in South Carolina, and then we're in Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi. And the thing I'd say about hurricanes is, number one, the fabrication that's going to go on to support those is going to – quite a lot of that because facilities are damaged within – particularly within Florida, but also some of the other states impacted by Helene. So the fabrication is going to go on adjacent to those states. And so then you think about, you know, our facilities that are stretched around those. And by the way, we do – when you add Tennessee, you know, we've got quite a bit of capacity on the galvanizing side within that sector. And then on the precode side, that's sheet metal roofs, sheet metal siding, doors, all stuff that – kind of like on the stadium where you see, you know, roofs ripped off, that stuff is going to be produced and painted in facilities that, you know, they don't have to be within those states. So we stand ready to support the recovery and rebuilding efforts and have the capacity to, you know, to go ahead and commit to whatever it takes for turnaround to help the businesses out. I'd say that, you know, the first reaction is just rescue and recovery. So the first few months is probably a little bit – you know, within the facilities in those areas, a little bit of a lag as projects have to get restarted. So I'd say you usually see it with about a three to six month lag in terms of that ramp up to do the rebuilding work. And then due to the magnitude of what we've seen, that's going to continue on for a while, just given the amount of bridge, highway, rework, buildings, signage, just, you know, everywhere you look, towers, poles. So yeah, three to six months is the lag time.

Thanks, Orson, for addressing the precode side because that was going to be one of my questions. I'm not going to participate in that reconstruction. Second question, I guess, I'm kind of curious about your thoughts about the volatility we're seeing in Zinc prices and how that's helping or hurting the current pricing environment. The swings of the past six months have been shocking to me, I guess. Curious about your thoughts there and what should we think about that on a go-forward basis because I know you're going to face some tough cops in coming quarters.

Yeah, you know, as you know, so our Zinc moves through our kettles with about a six to eight month lag from the LME. So we've got our Zinc costs continuing to go down the balance of this year. The volatility and the pricing, you know, what that often affects is that the premiums move somewhat around it. If you go back a couple of years, it was premiums were 32, 33, 35 cents and then think this year they're 18, 19 cents. So as Zinc price goes, as Zinc LME cost goes up, the premiums often adjust around that. So that's the first reaction. You know, we've done our best to – we offer a whole package of value added services. And so we've – you know, in most ways we've disconnected our end price from that Zinc cost, that underlying Zinc cost. I will say when you've got this kind of volatility, it tends to be easier to move the total price up just because the Zinc costs are moving around and different competitors are, you know, having to buy spot versus what they've got already purchased. So, you know, we're watching it carefully because we've seen – I forget how long ago it was, but not that many years ago where it popped up over $2. And that tends to drive the overall price level of galvanizing up. And yet it's still a small part of the total projects. So it doesn't drive it up to the point that, you know, they switch to a different process. So – but right now it's not causing us any great concern. But – and I'll also say another thing. This is when the annual commitments get – we're coming into that season, November, December, where the – you know, where the Zinc suppliers are negotiating commitments and volumes and premiums for the next year. So in some ways there's always some volatility during this part of the season.

Got it. I got it. And one last question if it's sneaking in. The JV income for the quarters was down sequentially from the recent trends, but you left your JV guidance on change. I'm just curious if that's a timing issue, maybe any kind of color behind that. What are you getting at the JV?

Yeah, that was just a timing issue. I think that we'll see that pop back nicely in Q3 based on what – you know, based on what we know at this time. So that's going to bounce back, which is why we held the range of $15 million to $18 million. And so I feel very comfortable about that, that that's going to come in for the year to the midpoint to maybe even the upside of that.

Great. That's good to hear. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll get back in Q. Sure thing.

The next question comes from Matthew Krieger with FAIRD. Please go ahead.

Well, hi. Good morning, everyone. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. I wanted to focus in a little bit on price cost. So what was the specific impact from price cost during the quarter? And then if you could include any impact from zinc fluctuations, that would be great. And then first half versus second half, what have you seen already in the first and second quarter from a price cost perspective for the year and its impact on EBITDA? And then how does that compare to what you had budgeted for the remainder of fiscal 25?

Yeah, I'll start. Jason may want to add some color here, or some specifics maybe. I'll be the color guy. When I look at it, so first quarter prices were solid as compared to first quarter last year and actually up. I think second quarter, and it's left about competition, but prices were down slightly in Q2 versus Q2 last year. But that was mostly related to mix. So when we're looking at it in terms of paint costs or in terms of zinc costs, it was just the mix of business drove the realized price down slightly. We're seeing the normal price pressures. And interestingly enough, it was probably more on the galvanized side, more in the southeast region, where there tends to be a little bit more capacity than there's been demand. So prices get affected there earlier rather than later. And I hate the way it sounds, but because of the hurricanes, that's going to occupy that capacity in the southeast. So that's probably going to flip back over on a go-forward basis in terms of us and our competitors. Just talked about the zinc volatility. Because it's a component of our costs, 20% of sales or so, and we work around it and we've got different costs of the zinc sitting in our kettles. What we buy on the spot market is for some of our yard inventories or to fill some excess demand in a particular region or for some specific plants. So for the most part, we're still experiencing the underlying zinc that we had bought eight months ago that's still trending, costs trending down. In terms of paint, what they tell me on the pre-code side is the paint costs never go down or paint prices never go down. At least for the time we've owned pre-code, that's been the case. We've got so many different value streams that we bring to bear that we tend to focus on what's the final landed price. And the trend going forward, it's, as David alluded to, some of the private sector markets, industrial markets have softened, but then there's been a lot of the public influence spending, whether it's for infrastructure, bridges, highways, transmission, distribution, utilities. So everything we've got right now, factored into our budgets and we're a little better than what we budgeted. For the balance of the year, I'd say our outlook is positive. We're expecting second half this year to be slightly better than second half last year, excluding any hurricane impact in the latter part. I don't know that I've answered everything, but it's that prices are holding and yet just a little bit lower due to mix. Our margins are continuing to be strong because we're driving the operational improvements. We've also got a lot of value add services that we provide. And then we've had productivity gains. Jason?

I mean, to be fair, I don't think you left anything that I can add to that. I think that the basic summary is any change you're seeing in pricing is more related to mix than any pricing fluctuations within the marketplace. We see that playing out through the end of the year as well. We don't see it being a dynamic pricing market in the second half of the year. And then in terms of economics and price challenges within our supply base, I'd say that's very much normalized and very much aligned to our expectations and our budgets. As Tom highlighted, if you look at our productivity improvements, then we're certainly offsetting that with continuous improvements within the various facilities. So I would say that the second half is very much going to be in line with the flow chart in terms of what we'll see.

Then I would add just one other thing. You brought into, you know, so with zinc costs now going up and the volatility in that, so obviously that could become a headwind as we get into next year to some extent. But, you know, I'll come back to, I think that actually could benefit us in some ways because if with the demand coming out of the hurricane rebuilding, there could actually be opportunities to, you know, increase prices along with that zinc cost going up in the overall market. Because while we like to talk about our value pricing at the end of the day, there's still some connection to when customers see zinc costs go up, they kind of expect us to be raising prices. So that'll flip over for us as we get into next year. But I think there's going to be opportunities both on the productivity side as well as on the pricing side if demand is stronger than what had kind of been anticipated.

Got it. That's really helpful. That's great detail. And then just for my second question, you know, big picture, you know, can you provide some added detail on the sustainability of margins at current levels in context of the recent demand fluctuations? Is this current operating environment sufficient to support the over 30% and 20% EBITDA margins respectively in metal coatings and pre-coat? Or do we need a recovery back, you know, somewhere closer to mid single digit growth across the business to really sustain those elevated margins? Just any thoughts there?

Yeah, that's a great question.

You know, I think

Q2, we demonstrated that in spite of the fact that, you know, volumes on the galvanizing side weren't up that much. And I'd say there was volume to be had, but we've done, I think, our team on the metal coating side demonstrated their discipline around not chasing volume for volume sake, but focusing on value and profitability. So while, you know, on a quarter basis, because when volume drops more significantly, just, you know, given the fourth quarter, depending on what happens with winter, but no matter what happens, construction slows up in the winter months. So we're talking about weather, we're talking more about the winter versus spring, summer, fall, focusing. So I think we've got that opportunity given the demonstrated discipline in Q2. As long as we continue that, which we would intend to, you know, we should be able to hold those margins other than, you know, Q4, just the, when volume falls off, as it does, it'll probably drop slightly below 30. We've got to revisit the range, and we'll do that as part of our planning process that will kick off here shortly. Because 25 to 30 is one, too long of a range, and two, we've been, I think five in the last six quarters, we've been above 30. So I think given outlook, I would hope that we could sustain that at 30 or close to it.

On

the pre-code side, it's all about volume. And so when they've got volume, we've talked about, they can stay above 20. They're in the same situation. In the fourth quarter, construction slows up. So we'd like, but I think 20 is a good number. It's in the center of the range. Fourth quarter could drop to 19, as we've seen. But our focus right now is on maintaining that, the good volume and the good mix. So I'm liking the 20s.

Great. That's helpful. I'll turn it over.

The next question comes from Tim Nutaners with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Yeah. Hey, good morning. Thanks for including me. I wanted to ask about the comment on productivity and market share gains and wonder, you know, are we in, what ending are we in, and how much more of that could we see in both productivity and market gains?

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. One, on the galvanizing side, we're, from a productivity perspective, using our digital galvanizing system. And obviously, there's still some opportunities with AI and other things that we can streamline and probably more on the, maybe on the GNA side. But our equipment and infrastructure. But yeah, we're mid to later innings on the galvanizing side. But I think we've still got a couple of years of opportunity to drive productivity and efficiency improvements. Given the fact that, and I'll use this, we've got 41 galvanizing locations. And there's always that bottom quartile that we need to focus on and bring them up to fleet averages. And so that's why I still say we've still got a few innings to go on that. Our really strong facilities perform consistently at this very high level. You know, we've kind of got what we're going to get out of those. But we've still got 20 facilities to go focus on. And I think that's the challenge over the next two or three years is to just work through those and make sure that our playbook is being managed with as disciplined a fashion in every facility as it is in the top performance. So on the pre-code side, I think we've got investments that we're going to continue to make in the production lines and give us opportunities to keep those margins high and drive some of that productivity. The team is really, really good operationally. But kind of the same thing. We've got a number of the sites that are performing probably near peak. And then the others that, you know, we've got opportunities. So I'd say we're probably in the mid-innings, earlier to mid-innings on the pre-code side. And we're going to be doing some systems work. We're going to be doing some things with, you know, there is, we do have some tools like Coalzone, but bringing in kind of more of the things we can do with DGS and having some opportunities to drive efficiencies and productivity more universally. So I'm optimistic about our opportunities to maintain and improve margins.

That's helpful for the productivity part of the question. But on the market share side, do you think there's room to also continue to take some market share?

Absolutely. Because there's, well, there's two things. And they're a little bit different. We talk about how galvanizing, there's still more penetration of high-dip galvanizing into construction and architecture and things like that at the US versus you at Europe. But in terms of taking market share, I think on the galvanizing side, as we demonstrated this last quarter, we're very disciplined. So, you know, I think on that side, maintaining market share, we're 35 percent, 30, you know, market share, at least in what we play in. You know, so pushing that up a little bit, we can do that. But it's not as big of an opportunity in my mind as it is on the pre-code side, although I've got to be a little bit careful because some of our highest performing sites are actually volume constrained at the moment as we're in peak season. But, you know, to look into to find opportunities for those conversions. And I view that as market share because when we get a customer to stop painting their own stuff, that's a form of market share game. And I think there's more of those opportunities on the pre-code side than there is on the galvanizing side. So I'd put it fourth inning.

Okay, super. Thanks. And then one more for me, if I could, on the capital allocation, I know you've had a really steady dividend. You know, any insights into what could cause that to go up or what conditions you need to increase shareholder returns or think about buybacks in addition to the dividend maybe?

Yeah, I think there's a couple of things. One, you know, we're still paying down debt and now that debt service is getting cheaper, which is great. But, you know, for now, we're still trying to get that, you know, get ourselves down. I think our current target is more like a two-time leverage, so we're still focused on that. We are looking at the dividend as one opportunity, but that's probably not anything we're going to action this year. And it's dependent on if that acquisition pipeline, if we start nearing some things, then I think that I'd rather get the acquisitions done because those will, if we can buy some things for, you know, nicely under our leverage, then, you know, our multiples, then I think that's where I'd rather spend the money. So we've got the capex investments, investments in some technology, as well as the acquisitions, and then continuing on the debt side for now. And I think as we put our guidance for the next year in late January, early February, we'll talk about that more.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Mark Reichen with Noble Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how the revenue will ramp up from the new Washington, Missouri facility. If I remember correctly, it's expected to generate revenue of 50 to 60 million. So given that fiscal year 2026 starts in February, would you expect to fully realize that in fiscal year 2026? And what is just exactly what does the ramp up look like? I'll let Jason answer that. Yeah,

yeah. To be fair, we'll come through our testing here through the end of this fiscal year. So really, the line starts to ramp at the start of fiscal year 2026 for us, which is that March timeframe that you mentioned. I wouldn't say in that first year, getting to that peak revenue, we'll start to build the line slowly and make sure that operationally we're executing. So really, you're going to be into that second year before you see that full run rate associated with revenue and margins.

Okay. So just to reiterate, I mean, so the ramp up takes how long to kind of get to that peak run rate?

Yeah. So again, if you think about the first year, then we will ramp through that first year. As I think about the second year, you're probably just tailing off that ramp. So in the second year, we'll probably be at the lower end of that 50 to 60 million, $50 million estimate that's out there. I think if you look at the first year, then you could probably have that number in too. It's all subject to the customer and the facility operationally that we get up and running. So those numbers could move to the right and we could get up quicker. But as we look at delighting the customer, then certainly taking a slow, cautious approach is going to be a preference.

Okay, great. And then the second question I have is just, and I think we've touched on a lot during this call, but just in your view, what are the wild cards in terms of coming in at the low end versus the high end of sales and EBITDA guidance? I mean, is it more a matter of sales margins? It sounded like the margins you're pretty comfortable with. Yeah,

I think when we were putting this together, I'll say a couple of things. Right now, some of the things that the hurricanes are going to be positive for us, which if a bunch of our facilities had been flooded and overrun, it could have been negative. So it's moved from that to opportunity and upside. So I think the low end of our sales range is out of the question at this point. We also got off to a strong quarter here in Q3 through September and the outlook for October. So some of the things that had us concerned on the sales and EBITDA side have now been mitigated and are probably turning to the positives just recently. And then we also feel better about the equity income from a bail. So I think the latest news from their third quarter gives us confidence that that's also going to trend to the high end of the range. Not that that affects EBITDA sales, but so I think some of the concerns we had, we have less just over the last 72 hours that things have trended positively for us.

Just one follow-up on that avail. You know, it did have a strong second half last year. Would you expect kind of a similar split in the third, the fourth quarters or is it a little too early to predict that?

No, that's exactly what we're predicting because they, unlike us, they've got backlogs so they can predict theirs a lot better. Yeah, I think you're going to see a similar trend. They're looking at a strong second half and they had a strong third quarter.

Well, thank you very much. Much appreciated. Sure.

The next question comes from Adam Falmer with Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning guys. Nice quarter.

Hey,

Adam. Thanks. Can you talk about visibility on the electrical T&D side? What are you seeing there?

You know, we're seeing it really strong and continuing really strong. It's, you know, when you look at poles, towers, things like that and then, of course, we're loving data centers too, which doesn't necessarily tie to that, but our outlook for the next, well, as far as we can see out is very positive and robust and clearly the hurricanes have done some additional damage to the, on the T&D side particularly, so that just got stronger too, at least in the

short to

intermediate

terms. And, well, you actually touched on my follow-up question, which was data centers, and I think last quarter you talked about a data center benefit at precode. Yes, there is because they paint the candles

and this really, you know, it's great business and there's just a lot of them being built and a lot more that are going to need to be built, so good opportunity and it's one of those, our old electrical group that's in avail, that is converted to, or pre-paint instead of post-paint, so, and they do a lot of data center work, so, you know, we remain excited about that. That's one of those opportunities that's just exciting to think about.

Great, and then just for Jason quickly on interest expense, what are you using for the back half?

I mean, obviously we were in and we re-financed our terminal and B there in September and then the tech came in and reduced our overall interest rates as well. We're recognizing that we've got, you know, north of 50% of our terminal and B fixed through our swap arrangement there. So, in terms of building in that additional 75 basis points, which, you know, if you look at our terminal and B is round about seven million dollars of, you know, a rate reduction, then certainly that's in fact a bit of the back half. As you look at the forward curves and what was forecasted in there and our swap arrangement, there's not a huge pickup there. There's more confirmation of what was already in our forecast.

Okay,

good.

I'll turn it over. Thank you.

All right. Thank you.

The next question comes from Lucas Pipe with B Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much for taking my follow-up question. Sure. We touched a lot on this throughout the call, but with EBITDA guidance implying about a 16% decline or so second half versus first half, could you touch on the key drivers there? How much of this is seasonal versus maybe changes in mix, changes in public versus private spending, etc.? Thank you for your comment.

Yeah, great question. I'd say it's just 100% seasonal. You know, we, at this point, given how we started in Q3, we anticipate now the second half of this year is going to be slightly better than the second half of last year. So I think we had some conservatism in our EBITDA range. So we feel good about it, but there is just the seasonal impact on construction volume, which we would normally, as things look right now, we'll see that in the fourth quarter. So third quarter's looking fine on a comparative basis from an EBITDA perspective. So we don't see anything that's going to impact us from a profit margin perspective in terms of price level or some extraneous cost issue. So pure seasonality related to the volume. And yet second half this year better than second half last year.

Very helpful. I appreciate that color. And very quickly on the kind of broader demand backdrop with the recent rate cuts, how quickly do you think this would flow through? And have you seen already changes in pockets of demand? Appreciate that. Yeah,

I don't think we've seen much of it at all. It's, I think as the, you know, get through the election cycle, as we talk to customers, you know, they're still waiting to see what happens in the election, waiting to see for, you know, what's the next rate cut. So I don't know that we've seen much change at all in terms of opportunities other than we've got customers talking about it. And as they, you know, I think it's going to affect their capex plans for next year. And so they're coming up on budget season. And so as they budget for that, we could start seeing that as we get into next year and start seeing the impact from those interest rate cuts in terms of project activity and spend. So I'm looking forward to that as we now do our budget for our next, as we kick off ours for the next fiscal year. We'll be anticipating some of that. And probably it'll affect our capex outlays a little bit as we, you know, can justify projects easier.

I really appreciate the additional color. Again, that's the flux.

All right. And with that, I will close it up. Thank you for participating in our second quarter earnings call. We look forward to continuing the success that we've had in our focus on execution and taking care of customers is going to be our focus for the balance of the year. We look forward to talking to you at the end of a successful third quarter.

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.