TopBuild Corp.

greetings and welcome to top build earnings conference call at this time all participants are in a lesson only mode a question and answer session will follow the formal presentation if anyone should require operator assistance during the conference please press star 0 on your telephone keypad as a reminder this conference is being recorded I would now like to turn the conference over to your host Ms. Tabitha Zain, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Thank you, and good morning. On the call today are Robert Buck, President and Chief Executive Officer, John Peterson, Chief Financial Officer, and Rob Kuhn, Vice President and Controller. We have posted senior management's formal remarks and a PowerPoint presentation that summarizes our comments on our website at topbill.com. Many of our remarks will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in this morning's press release, as well as in the company's filings with the SEC. The company assumes no obligation to update or supplement forward-looking statements that become untrue because of subsequent events. Please note that some of the financial measures to be discussed on this call will be on a non-GAAP basis. The non-GAAP measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided a reconciliation of these financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in a table included in today's release and in our fourth quarter presentation, which can also be found on our website. I will now turn the call over to Robert Buck.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us today. We're pleased to end the year with a strong fourth quarter. reporting solid top line growth and a 17.1% adjusted EBITDA margin. For full year 2021, we again demonstrated the strength of our diversified business model and our season management team and delivered on our objective to achieve profitable growth. Revenue increased 28.3% and adjusted operating and EBITDA margins expanded 160 and 130 basis points respectively. Full year 2021 was also very productive. Highlights include reporting our best year ever with regards to our safety and personal injury rate, managing both material and labor constraints while moving resources across our network to meet the needs of our customers, successfully managing material cost increases with appropriate selling price adjustments, putting over $1 billion of capital to work through the acquisition of 11 companies, including Distribution International, or DI, establishing Top Build as the leading distributor of mechanical insulation, entering the industrial insulation end market and broadening our insulation capabilities and services, more than doubling our specialty distribution network, including expansion into Canada, and maintaining our focus on driving operational efficiencies throughout the organization. We've also evolved as a company compared to where we were when we went public in 2015. To give you some context, six years ago, approximately 84% of our revenue was derived from residential housing. Today, on a pro forma basis, it's about 63%, with commercial now representing 29% and industrial, 8%. We've also expanded our specialty distribution business, which again, on a pro forma basis, accounts for 42% of our revenue versus 35% in 2015. Perhaps most importantly, we've successfully demonstrated our ability to outperform in any environment as evidenced by our exceptionally strong adjusted operating and EBITDA margin expansion every single year. While we've seen important changes as a company, what has remained constant over these same six years is our unwavering focus on our core business, insulation. We've doubled our revenue over this timeframe and increased the percentage of sales from insulation and insulation-related accessories by 400 basis points to 80%. We are the market leader in all three installation end markets we serve, giving us unparalleled size, scale, and leverage. Permanent operations, I'll start with specialty distribution, and specifically DI, which had a very strong fourth quarter. beating the high end of the sales and adjusted EBITDA guidance we gave on our third quarter call. DI's adjusted EBITDA margin for the fourth quarter was close to 11%, a substantial improvement from DI's full-year 2020 pro forma adjusted EBITDA margin of 8.2%. DI has been an outstanding acquisition for Top Build, providing us with a leadership position in the $5 billion mechanical insulation market. With the DI acquisition, we have expanded our core business, joined forces with a very talented, experienced, and knowledgeable team, welcomed over 13,000 new insulation customers, gained a recurring revenue stream driven by an MRO business and industry leading fabrication capabilities, entered the Canadian market with a strong leadership team in place in that country, further enhanced our partnership with the manufacturers of fiberglass insulation and expanded our M&A prospect pipeline to include industrial, commercial, and, of course, residential. Looking ahead, we expect solid performance this year for mechanical installation in both the commercial and industrial end markets, including new projects and maintenance and repair work. As far as the integration, while still in the early stages, it's going really well. In fact, in some areas, we're even ahead of schedule. Making this success possible are the strengths of our talented operating teams, working closely together, forged by a similar culture focused on safety, integrity, and operational efficiency. We are highly confident we will achieve the $35 to $40 million of run rate synergies in the first 24 months of ownership, as we outlined when we announced this transaction last September. Service partners also had an outstanding year with strong margin expansion as our team successfully balanced material cost increases and other inflation factors with customer pricing. Volume growth in the quarter was challenged by material constraints in both fiberglass and spray foam. Spray foam, which represents about 18% of our legacy insulation sales, continues to face supply chain challenges and prices have significantly increased over the last 12 to 18 months. We are hopeful the situation will ease in the back half of the year. Speaking of material, we did see additional loose-fill capacity come online late last year from Knopf and anticipate additional capacity coming online from Johns and Anvale by the end of next month. Although total, this will add only about 3% of capacity, our outstanding partnerships with these two suppliers ensure we will secure our fair share of these new lines. That being said, fiberglass supply remains tight. Switching to the True Team installation business, we saw healthy demand throughout 2021 for residential new construction, as well as a very strong pricing environment. We're also pleased that True Team's commercial business saw positive same-branch revenue growth for the full year, despite continued project delays due to COVID, job site safety protocols, and industry-wide material constraints. Rob will cover more details for each segment in his prepared remarks. I do want to take a minute to talk about Top Build's safety performance. As I mentioned earlier, we reported our best year ever with regards to our safety injury rate. Our incident rate has steadily declined since 2017, and we believe this downward trend is an important indicator of the adoption of our safety culture and the effectiveness of our safety programs. With over 16,000 job sites visited each day, safety is not just a choice, it's ingrained in our culture and our code of ethics. Our over 410 locations strive to maintain a zero incident safety culture, and a portion of management's compensation is tied to this metric. I am really proud of our team for their passionate and personal leadership of a safety lifestyle and integrating safety within the hearts and minds of everyone at Top Build. On the capital allocation front, we completed 11 acquisitions in 2021, including four in the fourth quarter. DI, Tonks Insulation, Shepard's Insulation, and Insulating Products. Earlier this month, we added Billings Insulation, a residential insulation installer serving the Montana and Northern Wyoming markets. We remain focused on acquiring high-quality residential and commercial insulation and specialty distribution companies. All three of our end markets are highly fragmented and present great opportunities to put the strong free cash flow that our business generates to work. While we expect to remain active on the M&A front in all three end markets, the successful integration of DEI is our number one priority. In 2021, we also repurchased just over 183,000 shares of our common stock for approximately $35.6 million. We have a $200 million share repurchase program in place, reflecting the confidence of both management and our board in the long-term potential of Topfield. our strong future free cash flow position, and our firm commitment to optimizing the efficiency of our capital structure. Next, I'd like to briefly discuss our ESG initiatives and where we are in our ESG journey. First and foremost, our business is inherently ESG friendly. The installation products we install and distribute provide energy efficiency and improve environmental conditions to thousands of residential, commercial, and industrial locations every single day. Last year, we established a formal ESG sustainability program, correctly overseen by our board of directors. The program is managed by an ESG committee comprised of the company's executive officers, including me, and a newly appointed ESG leader who reports to our general counsel. In this year's 10K, we have expanded our disclosures regarding our workforce demographics, our diversity and inclusion initiatives and our OSHA recordable incident and lost time rates. Our plan is to publish our 2022 sustainability report in the second quarter. We are committed to the quality of our reporting, inclusive of our acquisitions. We'll be keeping our stakeholders informed and providing additional information on an ongoing basis. As we look at 2022, we are optimistic there'll be another good year for Top Build. The acquisition of DEI has further enhanced our growth opportunities within our core business, insulation. We believe residential new construction will remain strong despite the likelihood of interest rate hikes. Our builder customers continue to be optimistic and are still restricting sales due to outsized demand. Housing inventory is extremely tight and labor and material constraints continue to elongate the build cycle. Our backlog is very strong and is growing as the delta between starts and completions continues to widen. Turning to our outlook for our commercial business, as the threat of COVID wanes, which statistics indicate is occurring, commercial construction should get back on track. We have a solid backlog in this end market and bidding activity remains strong. And, as I mentioned earlier, we expect solid demand for mechanical installation in both the commercial and industrial end markets, including new projects and maintenance and repair work. Operationally, we remain focused on continuing to implement initiatives that drive operational efficiency and improve labor and sales productivity. Strategic acquisitions will remain our number one capital allocation priority and will continue to be an important aspect of our projected growth. And finally, we believe energy codes will continue to strengthen, providing growth opportunities in all areas of Tottenham's business. Before I turn the caller to John, I want to note that this is his last earnings call as CFO of Tottenham as he is retiring at the end of March. John has played a key role in our growth and success and has built an outstanding track record of creating strategic value for our stakeholders. I consider him a colleague and a friend and really appreciate his partnership over the years. Thank you, John.

Thanks, Robert. And thank you to the entire Top Bill team for making these past almost seven years successful, memorable, and fun. I'll miss all of you. Robert, special thanks to you for your leadership, partnership, and friendship over the past 12 years. I've enjoyed every moment of it. As most of you know, Rob Coons, who has served as our vice president and controller for almost four years, will be assuming the CFO role at the end of next month. Rob has made significant contributions to our strategy, growth, and success, and has built a very strong team. His in-depth experience, understanding of our operations, and leadership skills make for this to be a very smooth passing of the design. I look forward to watching all the success he and the rest of the Top Build team will have in the future. I also want to thank all of you on the call, most of whom I've met. Your support of Top Build over these years has been greatly appreciated. Rob will now discuss the company's fourth quarter results.

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone. As Robert noted, we finished 2021 with a strong fourth quarter and entered 2022 well-positioned to capitalize on the anticipated growth in the three end markets we serve. We'll begin with a review of our 2021 results, then provide our outlook for 2022. First, a couple of housekeeping items. As Robert mentioned, DI's results are being reported along with service partners as part of our specialty distribution segment. Due to the significant amortization from the purchase accounting associated with DI, we are now providing adjusted EBITDA results for both of our reporting segments. Starting with our fourth quarter, net sales increased 47.4% to $1.1 billion. The 11 acquisitions we completed in 2021 increased sales by 34.9%, with DI contributing $188.3 million ahead of our expectations. On a same branch basis, sales increased 12.5%, driven by higher selling prices, partially offset by slightly lower volume due to the continued industry-wide supply chain shortages and labor constraints, along with a more difficult year-over-year comp for service partners. Sales for the full year 2021 increased 28.3% to $3.5 billion. On a same branch basis, sales increased 12.7%, driven by higher selling prices and higher sales volumes. Adjusted gross margin improved 60 basis points in the fourth quarter to 28.1% and improved 90 basis points for the full year to 28.4%. On a same branch basis, adjusted gross margin improved 190 basis points and 150 basis points for the fourth quarter and full year respectively. Adjusted gross margin improvement for both the fourth quarter and the full year was driven primarily by higher selling prices, strong cost controls, and productivity initiatives partially offset by material inflation. Adjusted operating profit in the quarter grew 45% to $150.7 million, while adjusted operating margin declined 20 basis points to 14.2%. As we have previously discussed, DI is currently operating at lower margins than our legacy top-billed business. In addition, due to the purchase accounting from the DI transaction, we incurred an additional $8 million of amortization expense in the quarter. On a same branch basis, removing the impact of DI and all other M&A, our adjusted operating margin improved 230 basis points in the fourth quarter. On a full year basis, adjusted operating profit improved 43.4% to $515.2 million, while adjusted operating margin improved 160 basis points to 14.8%. On a same branch basis, our operating margin improved 260 basis points. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA was $182.1 million compared to $121.5 million last year, a 49.9% increase. Our fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.1%, a 30 basis point improvement. On a same branch basis, EBITDA was 19%, a 220 basis point improvement. Our fourth quarter incremental adjusted EBITDA margin was 17.7%, which consisted of incremental same branch EBITDA margin of 36% and EBITDA from M&A of 11.1%. DI's fourth quarter EBITDA was 20.4 million or 10.8% of sales ahead of our expectations. For full year 2021, adjusted EBITDA grew 38.7% to 605.9 million and adjusted EBITDA margin improved 130 basis points to 17.4%. On a same-branch basis, adjusted EBITDA margin improved 200 basis points. Our full-year incremental adjusted EBITDA margin was 22%, which consisted of incremental same-branch EBITDA margin of 34.1% and EBITDA from M&A of 12.2%. Both adjusted operating profit and adjusted EBITDA improvements were driven by the previously mentioned factors impacting gross margin, as well as lower legal fees and lower share-based compensation expense. Interest expense in 2021 was $29.1 million versus $32.5 million in 2020. The decrease was primarily due to lower LIBOR rates on our term loan and the first quarter refinancing of our $400 million 5-5-8 senior notes due in 2026 that were replaced with $400 million 3-5-8 senior notes due in 2029. This lower interest expense was partially offset by additional interest expense from our private offering in October of $500 million, 4-1-8 senior notes due in 2032. Our effective tax rate for the full year increased from 23.5% to 25.2%, driven by a decrease in the tax benefit related to share-based compensation and an increase in non-deductible items. Adjusted net income for the fourth quarter was $103.3 million, or $3.12 per diluted share, an increase of 45.1% compared to prior year. Fourth quarter 2021 non-GAAP adjustments totaled $32.3 million and were primarily tied to the DI acquisition. This included $16 million from the one-time impact of purchase accounting inventory step-up, $12 million from transaction costs, and $4 million from integration-related costs. Adjusted net income for the full year 2021 was $359.7 million, or $10.85 per diluted share, an increase of 49% compared to prior year. Full year 2021 non-GAAP adjustments totaled $52.7 million, primarily related to acquisition-related expenses, the purchase accounting inventory step-up, refinancing, and the related extinguishment of debt associated with the redemption of our 5 and 5.8 senior note. CapEx for the full year 2021 was $55.5 million, approximately 1.6% of revenue. Working capital as a percent of trailing 12-month sales was 13.3%, 400 basis points higher than prior year, primarily as a result of the DI acquisition. We are evaluating working capital improvements at DI and expect to see working capital as a percentage of revenue settle in at a range of 11% to 13%. We ended the year with net leverage of 2.02 times trailing 12 months pro forma adjusted EBITDA. Our net leverage is already down significantly from the pro forma 2.5 times we announced at the time of the DI acquisition. Total liquidity at year end was $569.8 million, inclusive of the $430.1 million available on our $500 million revolver and cash of $139.8 million. operating cash flow was 403 million for 2021. now let's turn to our segment results starting with installation sales increased 23.3 percent in the fourth quarter to 627.1 million same branch sales increased 12.2 percent driven by an 11 increase in price and a 1.2 increase in volume residential and commercial markets continue to see strong demand but volume growth was hampered by ongoing material shortages and labor constraints. For the full year, installation same-branch revenue grew 11%, driven by higher selling prices of 6.5% and volume growth of 4.5%. For installation, fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA grew 29% to $121.8 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 19.4%, an 80 basis point improvement compared to a year ago. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA was $444.9 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin also improved 80 basis points to 18.7%. Both the fourth quarter and full year EBITDA growth were driven by higher sales volume, higher selling prices, fixed cost controls, and productivity initiatives partially offset by material cost increases. Moving to specialty distribution, fourth quarter sales were up 93.1% to $485.8 million. Same branch revenue was up 15.6%, driven by higher selling prices of 22.4%, partially offset by a 6.8% decline in volume. As a reminder, on a same branch basis, the fourth quarter was a tough comp for our service partners business, as our 2020 fourth quarter volume growth was 13.3%. For the full year, specialty distribution same branch revenue grew 17%, driven by pricing increases of 13.7% and volume growth of 3.3%. Fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA for specialty distribution more than doubled from fourth quarter 2020 to 73.1 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin improved 70 basis points to 15%. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA increased 62% to 205.6 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 230 basis points to 16%. Both the fourth quarter and full-year EBITDA growth were driven by higher selling prices, fixed cost controls, productivity initiatives, and the acquisition of DI, partially offset by material cost increases. Moving to our 2022 annual guidance, there are a number of tailwinds impacting the industries we serve. They include strong wage growth, strong consumer demand, healthy backlogs in our three end markets, and historically low housing inventory. are also cognizant that rising interest rates and inflation could lead to affordability issues that might dampen demand but we have not seen any impact to date in addition our guidance does not anticipate that the current material and labor supply constraints will be resolved quickly and we are estimating only a slight improvement starting in the back half of 2022. we are projecting total sales to be between 4.5 and 4.65 billion and adjusted EBITDA to be between $770 million and $820 million. This includes revenue from announced acquisitions, but does not include any additional acquisitions we may make this year. We've also provided our long-range modeling assumptions for a number of metrics. We are now projecting $107 million of revenue for every 50,000 new homes insulated and non-residential sales growth to average between 5% and 7.5% annually. The range for same-branch incremental EBITDA is 22% to 27% and 11% to 16% for acquisitions. The range for our normalized tax rate is 25% to 27%. The range for working capital is now 11% to 13% of trailing 12-month sales, slightly higher than previous guidance, primarily as a result of the acquisition of DI. And finally, we project CapEx at 1.5% to 2% of sales. Before turning the call back over to Robert, I would like to thank John for his many contributions to Top Build and for his guidance and leadership over the past three plus years as part of the company's ongoing succession planning. I look forward to working with all of you and appreciate your continuing support of Top Build. Robert?

Thank you, Rob. Before opening up the call for questions, I wanted to note that we have moved our investor day from March 15th to May 26th with the same New York City location. Most of you should have received a new save the day email a few weeks ago. This change would do solely to the widespread of Omicron and our concern for the health and safety of our team and our investor day attendees. 2022 should be another year of profitable growth for Top Build. Our backlog is strong and demand is healthy. Our entire team is focused on the successful execution of our plan, providing energy efficient solutions for our customers, driving operational efficiencies throughout our company, integrating DI onto our operating platform, successfully managing input costs and pricing, and identifying accretive acquisitions that support our core business, insulation. In closing, I want to thank our entire Top Build team, True Team, service partners, DI, branch support, and field support center teams for their dedication and hard work. We had a great year in 2021, And our success is due to your outstanding efforts and constant drive to improve. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Thank you. At this time, we will be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment please while we poll for questions. Our first question is from Trey Grooms with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. First off, congrats on a strong finish to the year. And, John, congrats and wish you the best on your next chapter.

Trey, I appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay, so I guess first question is, you know, looking at the guide for this year and understanding that there is a growing backlog due to the constraints you talked about, you mentioned that, you know, you have the expectation for – supply to remain tight uh but that there's uh you know with this assumption of low to mid single digit volume it sounds like you're expecting maybe some easing here with some of these constraints in the back half um i guess number one thoughts around you know what what's going to kind of uh help create this easing kind of situation number one number two and you know it

i guess trying to get at the cadence there as well um you know and could it be uh more kind of back half loaded with the the volume uh given that come up the comment around the easing in these constraints hey trey this is rob uh yeah so you know looking at next year you know we see strong demand across all three end markets to your point we're expecting you know low to mid single digit volume growth and that's really being driven by the the continuing constraints Certainly without the constraints, our volume growth would be significantly higher than that. We are optimistic that it'll sort itself out a little bit more towards the back end, but we're not expecting a step function change in availability in the back half.

Okay. All right. That's helpful. Nothing monumental, just a slight improvement, hopefully, in the back half. uh one one last one here for the longer term guide uh the residential revenue you know for every 50 000 starts you're 107 million up from i think the last update and i may have missed something in between but i thought at the end of 2020 it was 90 million uh per 50 000 so you know if you can help us unpack that a little bit you know how much is pricing put in place since then versus market share gains

Yeah, Trey, really, this is Rob again. There's really two main drivers to that. It's M&A we've done over the past year and then as well as price over the past year. So those are the two big drivers of that.

Yeah, okay. And I guess lastly, you know, the billion dollars of capital you put to work, big year for M&A, obviously. And you noted in the prepared remarks, you know, that the DI integration is kind of at top of mind, you know, but did still mention M&A as possibility. Just given how heavy that the M&A was in 21, should we be kind of thinking about maybe a A little bit of a dial back on the M&A appetite just as you get that integration kind of worked through. Was that the messaging? Or just help us kind of think about your appetite there as we look through this year given what we saw in the past.

Hey, Trey. Good morning. It's Robert. So yeah, DI integration, absolutely our priority. But you've seen since we acquired DI, we've completed four additional acquisitions, three in the residential space, another one in the specialty distribution space. The pipeline is still really healthy. We're definitely focused on the quality of targets. So I think you'll see activity from us this year, really looking across all three end markets. But you're also going to see us do a great job of this integration with DI, which I think you heard me say in my prepared remarks. We're off to a great start. That's a great acquisition for us. And we feel so confident with what we're doing there. So it's going to be a good balance. It's going to be a great integration of DI. And, you know, we've got a really nice pipeline across all three end markets as well.

Okay. Thank you, Robert and Rob, and I'll pass it on. Thanks again. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Adam Baumgarten with Zellman & Associates. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. I guess maybe sticking with the volume guidance, just the low to mid-single digits. Any way you can break down further how you're thinking about residential versus commercial and industrial, or if they're all kind of in the similar boat?

Yeah, Adam, this is Rob. So, you know, across the three markets we serve, we say it's not going to be drastically different, you know, a point or two different between the three. But we're expecting similar environments of really strong demand, tight supply, which is obviously going to also lead to an inflationary environment next year as well.

Because, Adam, this is Robert. Maybe just to add on to that to what Rob said, I mean, the backlogs are really healthy as we look across residential, the backlog there, you know, given that extension that's happened in the cycle time, as well as our backlogs in commercial and industrial. You know, so really healthy backlogs really across. And, you know, we would say also really great start to the year here in 2022 also. So really happy with what we've seen thus far early in the new calendar year.

Okay, got it. And then just a couple on distribution. The pricing delta between the distribution business and True Team continues to widen. Maybe if you could kind of walk through some of the driving factors there, as well as if you expect that gap to narrow at some point. And then just on volume, should we expect negative volumes through the first half in that business, given the still tough comps you face?

Hey, Adam, this is Rob again. So as far as the pricing differential between installation and distribution, it's really driven primarily by the material content. So on the install side, within the cost of sales, you have labor and material. And on distribution, it's purely material. So you always are going to have a higher pricing dynamic on the distribution side of things. And then, I'm sorry, repeat the second part of your question?

Yeah, just on the volumes for the first half and in distribution, should we expect those to remain negative given the pretty similar tough comps that you have?

Yeah, first quarter is going to be another tough comp for service partners for sure year over year, so that's probably a likely trend.

Got it. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. Our next question is from Phil Ng with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Congrats on another strong quarter. John, appreciate working with you all these years. It's been super helpful. And Rob, looking forward to working more with you going forward.

Thank you, Phil. Much appreciated.

I guess, Rob, for you to kick things off, heading into 1Q, in a lot of companies we cover, they're still playing catch-up on price-cost. You guys have obviously done a really good job on that front. Just want to get some color on you know, have you taken all the pricing actions you need to kind of maintain the type of incrementals you've been putting up for some time now starting the year?

Thanks, O. Yeah, this is Rob. So going into Q1, we've got some more price increases coming. So we had some cost increases from suppliers that hit December in the beginning of Q1. So we're, you know, trying to get out in front of those. But, you know, based on our results, Last year, I think you see our team in the field just does an excellent job of managing that. And we anticipate doing that throughout 2022 as well.

Got it, super. And then a question for you, bigger picture, Robert. Can you give us a sense how much backlog do you have in your business today? And is there a good way to compare that to call it mid-2018 levels? The reason I'm asking, there's no denying that underlying demand for housing is actually very strong right now. But if we do go through an air pocket, like 2018 with rates going up, which you frankly managed quite well and saw very limited slippage. But just curious, how are you set up this time around versus 2018?

Yeah. Morning, Phil. So if I think about, let me talk about commercial and industrial first. I mean, obviously there's good visibility to that business given our contracts, given what we see in our bidding activities. So those backlogs have actually, on the commercial side, have actually grown significantly. As we sell projects get slowed down some given the spike in COVID and some of the supply chain constraints. So we've seen backlogs grow there. Residential, a little harder to quantify, but I think there's a few things to point to. Number one would be looking at that delta between starts and completions. A major delta there that builders have continued to sell homes and stuff. So if you see like a starts have got plus 16% and a completions rate that's more like that 3%, You know, that's obviously continued to add to the backlog. We've seen, you know, more multifamily coming along as we look at our contracts and work we secured on the multifamily side. So, yeah, and I think that's also why, you know, even though there was weather in January, you heard us talk about in our third quarter call, we didn't really expect to see seasonality as we left 2021 and went into 2022. And you heard us say, hey, great start to the year here in 22. So I think all that points to a solid backlog And we definitely see that contract-wise and stuff on the commercial industrial side of the business as well.

Okay, that's helpful. And Robert, I'm obviously less familiar with DI, but I understand, from what I understand, material availability there might not be as tight. Any color on how to think about your ability to kind of grow in that business? I suspect it's probably a little less constrained than resi, but any color would be helpful.

Yeah, sure. So a few things. If you think about the industrial side of the business, That impact of the material in the supply chain was a little bit delayed. And so there are some materials that are tight there, but not as tight as we'd say on the resi side and on some of the building installation side of the business. DI, like Top Build, great relationships with the supplier base. They did a really nice job of building some inventory last year in their supply chain and their facilities as well. Great relationships. So I think we've got some great growth paths there. You've heard us talk about it. Some greenfield opportunities. DI did a really nice job how they manage their inventory, how they manage their service levels, which drove to some share gain in 2021. So now I think, Phil, we're really confident in that supply chain, several mutual relationships, mutual suppliers. So I think we have a good level of confidence to be able to service and grow those customers in 2022 here.

Great color. Thanks a lot, Robert. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Phil.

Thank you. Our next question is from Michael Rehaut with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and congrats to both John and Rob. First question, you know, and I apologize if this is something you kind of addressed earlier, but I might have missed it. In terms of the sales guidance for 22, I know you kind of said that it incorporates an end market upload amid single digits from a volume growth perspective. But I was trying to get a sense of the other two major components, how you're thinking about price and acquisitions also in terms of contributing to that number.

Yeah. Yeah, Michael, this is Rob. So, you know, obviously if you break out our sales growth year over year, it's about, you know, our guide's about a billion one above year over year. Obviously M&A is going to be a significant portion of that year over year with the DI acquisition happening in the fourth quarter. And then, you know, with the volume guide we've given, you know, if you factor those two things in, we don't disclose what our price assumption is. We've obviously got price baked in there. similar inflationary environment, but doing that math, you could get in the ballpark of where we are.

And in the guidance here, in the guidance, there'd be no additional M&A that would be in that as well, Michael, but drops point additional pricing that we think could be coming here in 2022 is included.

Okay. Well, maybe we could talk a little more offline then on that. I think secondly, just the margin path for DI. I think you said it's performing better than expected. Any sense on, I think over time, where you want that business to be from a comparable margin rate standpoint? Obviously, you can talk about it through EBITDA or EBIT. I know, obviously, amortization near term is going to make things a little less comparable. But any way to think about the D&I margins, DI margins over time?

Yeah, Michael, this is Robert. So as we think about it, that's a great acquisition. The more we've gotten closer to the business and stuff, the more confident we am. So directly to your question about margins, You've heard us talk about our 35 to 40 million run rate synergies by the end of year two. Highly confident in that. If I take that plus the good momentum that DI had in the business, continued operational improvements, we absolutely expect that business to get in that mid-teens type of margin projection here within the next couple of years. We think we have line of sight to that as well. You know, they've got a really nice proven track record. In that business, we've got a nice proven track record of integrations. So I think really confident in DI becoming accretive and really adding to that specialty distribution platform that we built there.

Okay. All right, thanks. Just one last quick one on DI. Again, just trying to triangulate a little bit on the sales contribution for... for 22, I mean, you know, came in at about 750 million annualized sales. I mean, is that, but at the same time, you're looking at another year, uh, with some growth, um, and price perhaps on top of that. So, uh, you know, again, any way to just try and dimensionalize the contribution of DI in 22 sales again, would be, would be helpful if possible.

Yep, Michael, this is Rob. So I think your number for DI is probably coming in a little low there. I think you might be annualizing the two and a half months. And so, but we would also say that that two and a half months was very strong. And, you know, their number is going to be somewhere probably north of 800 million for next year, net-net. But, you know, so a strong fourth quarter, and we're expecting that momentum to continue in the next year.

Thanks a lot. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Keith Hughes with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you. As you look at the year and you've given us your guidance for organic contribution margin, would that be – When this year starts lower at the beginning and then improves as the year goes longer, is it going to be more straight line?

Hey, Keith, this is Rob. So, I mean, I think the way to think about it is, you know, we'll show consistent improvement on the core business throughout the year. If you were to break that EBITDA down, right, so on the M&A piece, we should be right in the middle of our guided range. of 11% to 16%, probably just to the slightly lower than the midpoint of that. And then from a same-branch perspective, we expect our incremental EBITDA to be more towards the high end of our guided range next year.

But ratably through the year to get to that high-end number, is that kind of how you're looking at it?

Yeah, we're not breaking out the seasonality of it right now, but I would expect those incrementals to be consistent throughout the year. And the names, obviously, are going to be heavier the first three quarters than the back half or the fourth quarter with DI.

Right. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question is from Stephen Kim with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, guys. Congratulations, and, yeah, we'll miss you, John. But we really do appreciate all the help over the years. Thanks, Stephen. Question for you, I guess most of my questions have been asked already, but I wanted to delve into this question of, the shortages and the limited availability. You said it was both across spray foam and fiberglass. So I guess, first of all, from a numbers perspective, is there a way that we can think of quantifying what that headwind from just strictly availability, what that was, and then sort of looking to sort of qualitatively understand the situation. Are your customers willing to wait longer to get product? Or are you seeing that you're just sort of losing those sales altogether? Is there a practical limit to which, you know, these delays can extend on your customers' part? Just give us a little bit of insight into what's going on actually, you know, at the branch.

Yeah. Hi, Stephen. This is Robert. So I guess let's, you know, first off, I kind of hit the entire industry, right? I mean, so there's these delays and shortages that have elongated the cycle of really in trades quite honestly before us. I think you've heard us probably talk about if we were getting on the job site in 90 days, that elongated to probably out to 30 to 60 days more in 2021. We even saw that in Q4 actually get a little bit worse than that. It's really, I'd say, other trades that are stalling relative to when we're getting on the job site. From our perspective, fiberglass has remained tight. We know that we're getting our fair share of the allocation. I think you heard us talk about even with the new lines coming back, we got more than our fair share relative to that new capacity. So I'd say it's more been of an industry type of constraint than it's necessarily been, definitely not labor for us necessarily. And on the material side, spray foam has probably been the bigger issue from that perspective. And the reason being, I think you're probably familiar with it, right? If you go back to end of 2020, constraints of input materials coming overseas to what happened in the deep freeze this time last year to just input materials overall. So between the two, I'd say spray foam has probably been more the limiting factor. But no doubt fiberglass remains tight. I'd say relative to losing sales, definitely as we look at the residential side of the business, we're really confident in what's happened there as we look at our growth from a residential perspective, both businesses. So there could be some trade-off on the distribution side between some customers. But I'd say overall, keeping our share for sure. And we do a great job between our install branches separately and our distribution branches separately, moving material around and servicing those customers. So that advantage we have of the visibility, as well as how we allocate the material completely separately between the two, I think we've got ourselves in a great shape. And I think we've maintained and probably picked up a little bit of share in some areas.

Yeah, that would make sense. Thinking a little bit longer term, which obviously the rise in interest rates and subsequently mortgage rates has gotten everybody doing, I'm wondering whether or not you're anticipating that you might see more of a move to affordably priced homes. And if that's having any longer term ramifications on people's interest in spray foam or or rather, I should say, more interest in going with a fiberglass product just to kind of keep the overall price tag down relative to spray foam. Are you hearing anything like that from the residential side of the business?

So I think to your first point, I mean, you're going to see, I think we are seeing for sure, and you're hearing about it, you know, more entry-level homes that are, you know, from the production home builders as they're thinking about interest rates, as they're thinking about affordability and stuff as well. They're doing a great job of of modifying the product they're going to market with. Relative to that, no doubt there's been significant increases in the spray foam prices over the past 12 to 18 months. Given that, we see custom builders and others are still absolutely on the spray foam wagging field given its benefits, but you do see some smaller builders that are moving back towards fiberglass as well. Overall, dollars are healthy on the spray foam side given the inflation. and no meaningful move on the units, but we've seen some builders that have made a choice there to go back to fiberglass versus foam in some instances as an example.

Yeah, makes sense. Okay, great. Thanks very much, guys.

Thank you.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end of the question and answer session. And I would like to turn the call back to Mr. Robert Buck for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you everyone for joining us today. We look forward to talking with you in May whenever we report our Q1 results.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.