TopBuild Corp.

Greetings and welcome to the Top Builds Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tabitha Dane, Vice President, Investor Relations. Thank you, Tabitha. You may begin.

Thank you, and good morning. On the call today are Robert Buck, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Rob Coons, Chief Financial Officer. 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 FDC. 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 gap measures in a table included in today's press release and in our third quarter presentation, which can also be found on our website. I will now turn the call over to Robert Buck.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. With one quarter left in 2023, this year has exceeded our expectations with solid, profitable growth. Our strong results are testament to our team's hard work, perseverance, and strategic focus on growing our multifamily and commercial work, as well as our continuing emphasis on operational excellence and driving improvements throughout all areas of our business. Total sales for the nine months are up 4.4%. Our gross margin has expanded 130 basis points to 31%, and our adjusted EBITDA margin has expanded 160 basis points to 20.4%. We're bringing our third quarter results. Our installation segment was able to drive efficiencies and grow revenue 4.9% despite volume contracting from the slowdown in single family starts earlier in the year. To offset the single family decline, our branches have actively and successfully targeted multifamily and light commercial work. On the commercial installation front, Our dedicated heavy commercial branches are reporting strong bidding activity and are winning their fair share of projects, building up our already solid backlog. As a reminder, we are agnostic as to the types of projects we work on and are not over-indexed to office or any other type of heavy commercial job. Current projects we are working on include renovation of the SeaTac Airport in Washington the new Hard Rock Casino in Virginia, and several large medical projects. In total, our commercial installation business grew 9.4% in the third quarter compared to the third quarter of 2022, and year-to-date, it is up 13%. Turning to our specialty distribution business, overall sales in the second quarter declined 2.1%, primarily as a result of a 1.9% decline in price. The greater availability of fiberglass and spray foam in the quarter put pressure on market pricing. As residential distribution volumes continue to normalize, our teams are doing a nice job of identifying and building attractive new areas of growth, as our overall results demonstrate. We are pleased to see a 1.7% increase in sales from our commercial and industrial channels. Our specialty distribution segment continues to support many major commercial and industrial projects, including the Salt Lake City International Airport and the new Intel chip factory in Arizona. We're also seeing quite a few major projects being planned across several diverse industries fueling the demand for mechanical insulation. Maintenance and repair work on many commercial and industrial sites is also being scheduled, and this revenue stream should serve as a continued stabilizing revenue driver. We remain very optimistic about their opportunities for growth in both the commercial and industrial end markets in the U.S. and Canada. We've also entered in the second phase of our growth strategy and operational improvement initiatives relating to our specialty distribution model. Over the past two years, we've identified many cross-selling opportunities, including areas of the country where either DI or service partners does not have a presence, but where there is demand for their respective products and services. In 2024, we plan to co-locate some DI and service partners' operations, effectively expanding our footprint where we already have existing operations and established customer bases. without the investment generally associated with opening a greenfield location. More details to come next year as we continue this process to drive organic growth. Moving to material in the quarter, fiberglass is more readily available than it had been earlier in the year. As a result, some of the manufacturers have pushed the September price increase out until later in the year. Over the past month, however, material has started to tighten. bellwether for the industry as a whole as they move through 2024. Also, as a reminder, maintenance on production lines has an impact on product availability, and we work closely with our suppliers to effectively manage our inventory. On the capital allocation front, year to date, we've completed four acquisitions, which are expected to generate almost $173 million of revenue on a pro forma four-year basis. One of these acquisitions was completed this month, Panhandle Insulation, a residential installer generating approximately $5.3 million of annual revenue. In July, we also announced our intention to acquire Specialty Products and Insulation, or SPI, a North American special distributor and custom fabricator of mechanical insulation and a special distributor of building insulation to the industrial, commercial, and residential end markets. generating approximately $700 million in annual revenue. This transaction is currently going through regulatory review and we expect to close in 2024. We are working closely with the SPI folks to ensure the integration process is smooth once the transaction closes. As we've gotten to know the SPI team even better, our confidence about the potential of this transaction has only increased. This well-run company has a strong operations team and a culture that aligns well with Topville. In the first 12 months, our focus will be integrating SPI onto our systems and supply chain and to further identify operational efficiencies and improvements across our entire organization. We are very confident we will achieve the $35 million to $40 million of run rate cost synergies we've targeted over the first 24 months. Looking ahead, our M&A prospect pipeline remains robust for residential and commercial installation companies and for mechanical insulation specialty distributors. We expect to remain very active on all three fronts going forward. Acquisitions remain our number one capital allocation priority, generating by far the greatest return for our shareholders as evidenced by our return on invested capital, which increased from 8.6% in 2017 to 18.5% at year end 2022. In summary, We had a great third quarter, and we're on track to report another solid year as evidenced by our increased 2023 guidance, which Rob will discuss. Our team continues to execute well, and our diversified model positions Topville to outperform in any environment. Rob?

Thanks, Robert, and good morning, everyone. We are pleased to report another strong quarter of profitable growth, a reflection of the continued success of our focus strategy and the hard work of our teams. Our third quarter net sales increased 1.9% to 1.33 billion. Breaking that down, our installation segment's third quarter net sales were 821.7 million, an increase of 4.9%, driven by M&A of 4.8%, and price of 3.6%, partially offset by a 3.5% decline in volume. While multifamily sales remained strong throughout the quarter, we did not see the traditional second quarter to third quarter increase in single-family activity due to the slower single-family starts earlier this year. As the third quarter unfolded, single-family sales began improving each month in line with the growth in single-family starts that occurred beginning in May. I also want to highlight that the strength of our diversified end market strategy was evident as our commercial sales for the installation segment grew 9.4%, driven by strong activity from both light and heavy commercial projects. Specialty distributions net sales were $571 million, a 2.1% decline from prior year, primarily due to lower prices. Specialty distribution's residential sales were down 7.5% as a larger percentage of construction activity continues to be focused on multifamily, a channel with lower participation from the smaller installation contractors we service. Specialty distribution's commercial and industrial sales were up 1.7% in the quarter. Third quarter gross margin expanded 130 basis points to 31.7%, driven by operational efficiencies and strong margins on installations, multifamily, and commercial projects. Normally, the margins on these larger commercial and multifamily projects are similar to what we see on the single-family side. However, on many of our recent projects, our teams have done a tremendous job delivering higher margins through outstanding execution. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 9.4% to $283.7 million. and our adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.4%, a 150 basis point improvement compared to last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for our installation segment was 23.7%, up 210 basis points and driven by the gross margins discussed earlier. Despite lower sales, especially distribution segment delivered an EBITDA margin of 18.2%, a 20 basis point improvement from productivity and continued realization of synergies from our acquisition of Distribution International. Other income and expense was $2.1 million lower than prior year as higher interest expense on our variable term loan was more than offset by higher interest income from our cash on hand. Adjustments to net income were $8.4 million and primarily related to acquisition-related costs and the opportunistic disposition of a small non-core business. For the quarter, adjusted earnings per diluted share were $5.43, a 13.1% increase from prior year. Moving to our balance sheet and cash flows, our working capital as a percent of trailing 12-month sales was 14.6%, 90 basis points lower than a year ago. We have worked hard over this past year to get working capital in line with our long-term guidance of 12% to 14%, And this has helped drive our 75% increase in year-to-date operating cash flow from prior year to $588.5 million. September year-to-date CapEx was $48.1 million, approximately 1.2% of revenue. In addition, year-to-date, we have allocated $147.6 million to acquisitions. We ended the third quarter with trailing 12 months EBITDA to net debt leverage of 0.79 times. Total liquidity at September 30th, 2023 was $1.1 billion, including cash of $615.6 million and an accessible revolver of $436.2 million. Moving to annual guidance, we expect to close out 2023 with a strong fourth quarter and have adjusted guidance accordingly. We are projecting total 2023 sales to be between $5.13 billion and $5.21 billion. a $105 million increase on the low end of the range, and a $35 million increase on the high end. Breaking that down, same branch residential revenue is expected to be relatively flat for the year, and same branch commercial and industrial revenue will be up mid-single digits. We have also raised our 2023 guidance for adjusted EBITDA to be between $1.025 billion and $1.055 billion. a $75 million increase on the low end of the range, and a $55 million increase on the high end. Our long-range modeling targets are unchanged. I will now turn the call back to Robert for closing remarks.

Thanks, Rob. As 2023 droughts will close, we are very pleased with how this year has progressed, and our results once again demonstrate the strength of our operating model and the hard work of our top-billed team. In addition to successfully managing inflation, we continue to make operational improvements throughout our organization as we drive both growth and profitability. I'm also pleased to report that our MSCI ESG rating improved from A to AA, a direct result of the hard work of our dedicated sustainability team. We've made great strides over the past few years and our ratings improvement reflects this progress. In closing, I thank the entire Topville team for their focus on working safely to deliver value, quality, and service to our customers. Operator, we are now ready for questions.

Thank you. We will now 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 2 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. Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Mike Riat with JP Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks, and good morning, everyone. Congrats on the results. Thank you. I wanted to focus first, you kind of mentioned some of the improvement that you saw during the quarter from single-family new res, you know, from I guess some of the improving trends in the second quarter. You know, given how that's trended through a year to date. I was curious if you had any early views around at least the first half of 24. And, you know, as the market is kind of shaping up and obviously there's a lot of volatility currently in the market, but, you know, any thoughts on, you know, how single family and for that matter, multifamily and non-res or at least shaping your views early on for the first half of 24?

Yeah, good morning, Mike. It's Robert. So, you know, as we mentioned, the quarter started out a little slower on the single family side, but as we progressed through the quarter, we saw single family activity pick up. As we think about, you know, ending the year, going into first quarter next year, You know, the public builders, you know, continue to be optimistic. You've heard it on their call. Majority of them are looking for, you know, growth next year. That's what we hear from them and see as well. Some of the smaller builders, you know, a little more, I'd say, talking more flat next year. But right now, heading out of Q4, heading to Q1, we expect single family and given some of that pickup and starts that you saw coming in May and June to carry forward. You know, from a multifamily perspective, you know, definitely backlogs are down slightly, but we stay still very healthy. We think that demand carries into 2024 as well. I think overall we remain positive. You know, we'll see what happens here with the single family starts as we finish up Q4, and that'll tell, that'll be the bellwether as, you know, we get into Q1, Q2 of 2024.

Great. Great. No, I appreciate that. I guess secondly, when you think about insulation capacity currently and perhaps, you know, what the industry has planned for the next, you know, six or 12 months, do you anticipate any significant change in either availability of product or for that matter, you know, pricing to the extent that, you know, capacity might change and let's say in a more stable or just moderately improving backdrop, how that might impact, you know, industry pricing or the ability to push through price increases over the next six or 12 months.

Yeah, so as we mentioned in the remarks, so, you know, material did tighten as we finished Q3 and now in Q4 with definitely at least one manufacturer, you know, documenting allocation in the market. Now, I think that's supply-driven given the maintenance that's going on really across the industry. So, they get through the two dynamics. You got maintenance, which a lot of manufacturers have maintenance planned and announced. And then, again, the single-family starts will be that kind of bellwether point. So, If you have maintenance and single family keeps up, you know, from a curve perspective of growing, I think you see material stay tight as we head into 2024 into Q1 here and possibly definitely into Q2, again, given that maintenance schedule. And if we see the single family starts continue to grow.

Great. Thanks so much. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Kim with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.

Yeah, thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it. Just to clean up a couple of those questions that Mike just asked. So, first of all, regarding the rebuilds, our sense is that we're going to have an unusually high level of rebuilds across the fiberglass industry in 2024, which we're expecting to at least offset the capacity additions that are planned. Curious as to whether or not you would agree with the magnitude of the rebuild in 2024 being higher than normal, if you could just sort of comment on that relative to what a normal year is. And then regarding the drag from single-family being offset by the multifamily and light commercial, just to get a sense, I'm wondering whether the drag from single-family – was about, you know, equal to the 7.5% decline you saw in your spec distribution business that you referenced. And if so, does that mean that multifamily and light commercial sort of recovered back about 400 basis points, you know, just strictly talking volume?

Yeah, good morning, Steve. It's Robert. I'll take that first part of that on the material and rebuild side. So, yeah, I think it is a little above average what we're seeing scheduled for the rebuilds in the industry and up Q4 and heading into 2024. Some of the manufacturers haven't exactly nailed down when those rebuilds start, so it's kind of hard to say what that does with the capacity coming on. But given those rebuilds and if that single family start number continues to improve, yeah, I think you could see material stay tight in 2024, at least to start the year till some of those rebuilds get finished. And that new capacity comes on, just a reminder, that new capacity comes on sometime around end of Q2. and early Q3. And as always, we're staying close to the manufacturers. We have good insight into that.

Yeah, Steven, and then this is Rob. On the second part of your question there around the single family decline we saw on the install side, I'd say you're in the ballpark there. The decline we saw was definitely in that mid single digits that we saw on the specialty distribution side, right? And that really just goes to show you what we've been talking about here in terms of multiple avenues for growth. what we were able to do on the install side of the business this quarter by completely offsetting that with growth from multifamily and commercial.

Okay, yeah, that's encouraging. And then you talked about the fact that margins in commercial and multifamily were stronger than single-family, and that's rather unusual. I was wondering if you could comment a little bit on maybe what drove those higher margins in commercial and multifamily. And you talked about multifamily demand carrying into, I think, the middle of next year. But given the starts we're seeing in multi, is it also reasonable to think that maybe that might crest in mid-year and become a little bit of a headwind in the back half of 2024? Yeah.

So, Stephen, to your question on margins. We talked a little bit about it last quarter that on the commercial side, the multifamily side of things, these larger, more complicated projects, on average, the margin is going to be similar to single family. But back in Q3, we mentioned that we probably had about 80 basis points of benefit, about $10 million due to just outperformance, both operationally as well as We bid a lot of these projects early on, and I meant back in Q2, we had that happen. We bid these projects, maybe anticipating some inflation. So we've performed very well on those jobs. And then here in Q3, we probably had another 110 basis points, call it, about $15 million of benefit from that. So that's That's a benefit we're not baking into our guidance going forward. We're certainly, and it's part of our culture of constant improvement to try to continue to achieve those levels, but it's not something we're baking into our guidance moving forward.

Okay. All right. Thanks very much, guys. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe Alsmeyer with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, everybody. Congrats on the strong results and thanks for taking the questions.

Thanks, Joe.

If we could just talk about the commercial business and the outlook going forward, I think there's some leading indicators showing some potential weakness and commentary from others in the industry about certain end markets within commercial. But you held the commercial and industrial revenue guide flat, and I'm just curious if that is purely a reflection of the backlog you have now and just how you might be thinking about the sales opportunity there year over year into next year.

Good morning, Josh Roberts. I think it just really speaks to what we've built and what the teams in the field are doing. So as we mentioned, we're agnostic to the type of projects, and as we bid our work, we're looking at that mix. of business as well as to what we're bidding. So it gives us a lot of bandwidth. So I think if you look at our light commercial work, which just a reminder, the majority of our, really all of our residential branches do that work. And then our heavy commercial dedicated branches do that. So we see that as where we're growing share from that perspective. And quite honestly, it's a part of the business that we're investing in. I'll give you a couple examples. One is Salesforce. We're continuing to add sales talent in that area across commercial, industrial, light, heavy, really across the business. And then number two, you've heard us talk about our lead app tool that is really a fabulous tool for really bringing together leads across the business that exists today and that's being rolled out to our industrial business here in the future. So I think it's, you know, we're optimistic about the growth there and we're really confident of our ability to outperform in the environment based on the model that we build around commercial and industrial.

That's great. And it also, something you said in the prepared remarks piqued my interest around the co-locating of the branches. It sounded like this is more of a sales expansion effort, not really a cost reduction or consolidation, footprint consolidation effort. I don't think you mentioned this as part of the DI acquisition. First, do I have that right that this is sort of incremental to what you've talked about? And then understand it'd be difficult to quantify it certainly in advance, but Can you give us a sense maybe of how extensively you're going to pursue this strategy?

Yeah, so we think there's great opportunity here as we look across. You're right, it's incremental. And we said earlier, whenever we did the ADI acquisition, we thought there were cross-selling opportunities, and we get after those after that first round of improvements and synergies that we delivered on. So, yeah, we think it is a great opportunity where, you know, great footprint with DEI, great footprint with service partners, and we're leveraging the best of the two as we look across. And, you know, early on, I'd say we've identified, I'm going to call it, you know, eight, nine, ten locations that we'll be looking to move forward with. And, you know, hard to quantify to your point, but we think this will be great where we have existing customer bases, now we can serve them better, and we'll be able to grow in those areas given the footprint that we would capitalize upon.

Good stuff. All right, best of luck. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ken Veener with Seaport Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Good morning. Focusing on distribution and kind of the commercial side, can you talk to how the recurring maintenance repair piece of that business, if you could talk about like what percent that is today, as well as, you know, with the SPI acquisition, if that's something that has been helping you guys relative to the market, you know, whatever that end market demand is.

Yeah, so as we think about it today, Ken, that's probably about 25% of that specialty distribution revenue today. And then with the future of SPI, that gets up to about a third of of the revenue. We think it is a stabilizing piece of the business and it really goes across service partners, DI and SPI, whether you think about recurring items such as PPE around safety or whether you think about some of the extreme conditions that some of the mechanical insulation is exposed to, refineries, food and beverage, those types of things that really requires some regular repair and maintenance on those products. We think it's a great part of the business and something that we'll continue to build upon.

And just one thing to point out there, Ken, on those numbers for the quarter on the commercial side for specialty distribution. I mean, it was 1.7% growth, but we also had one less day than prior year. as well as we were comping a pretty tough quarter. So really the average daily sales for us in the commercial industrial side for specialty distribution was a record this quarter. So a really strong quarter there.

Yeah, Rob, just sticking with that. I mean, it looks like an up six comp last year and then it's been down five, down three, down three. Does that imply that you might be going up against these easier comps or how should we think you know, in terms of that perhaps next year.

Yeah, I'm not sure the numbers you quoted there because I think on the specialty distribution side, we would be up each quarter this year for sure on the commercial industrial side. But, you know, going into the fourth quarter here, I can tell you it's a pretty tough comp there. We grew, you know, on a same branch basis around 7% last year on the specialty distribution side. So,

know pretty tough quarter and typically the fourth quarter on the mechanical installation side things things do slow down a bit so the activity is a little bit slower especially in December all right and then I guess just relative to the operating leverage you got you know price is kind of flattening out we you know we don't know what's happening but obviously you know your labor pool your piecemeal contracting can you talk about the different pressures that margin face relative to you know your material price the labor gas um you know obviously with the auto strikes you know that's not an issue for you guys uh but you're still indicating labor's tight therefore it would seem to be inflationary on that side of the business yeah ken so so you're right i mean on the on the material front definitely seeing you know inflation slow down on that side the the price increase

that was announced in Q4 has been pushed out. On the labor side, we do all we can to get after that with productivity. It's really been one of the secret sauces of our success, particularly on the install side where the majority of our workforce sits. The fact that we pay them on a piece rate, allows us to align their incentives with ours, right? And the more productive we can make them, the more money they can make at the end of the week, which is what they care about. So, you know, we've done a really good job of offsetting, you know, labor inflation on that side with productivity as well as price. And, you know, nobody's done a better job of that, I think, and we'll continue to do that moving forward as well.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Bumgarden with Zellman. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, everyone. You mentioned that the fiberglass insulation price increase was pushed out. Do you expect that to still be kind of highly realized, just given the, you know, uptick in demand? Or is that, you know, potentially at risk of not being realized, at least from the manufacturers?

Yeah, morning, Adam. It's Robert. I think a little hard to say at the end that it's been pushed out and the traction wasn't as much in September. But given it's tightened up here in October and the, you know, again, the maintenance that we talked about earlier, I think it's probably got some better traction coming. And, you know, as we've always talked about before, we stay close to the manufacturers relative to that and have an ongoing discussion.

Okay, got it. That's helpful. And then just on SPI, I mean, it's been a few months now since you guys announced the deal. Just any incremental benefits that you're starting to see in the business as you kind of get under the hood here?

What we would say there is as we've gotten closer with the team there and just really, you know, obviously what we can do is planning integration and how that would look on the other side. Our competence level just continues to rise and strengthen. I mean, it's a great team there. you know, great operations team as well as throughout the business, including the leadership team there. So I think our confidence has continued to grow as we talk about integration, what that looks like, you know, things about systems, leverage, tools, those types of things. So I think you heard it in our prepared remarks, our confidence continues to strengthen there with that acquisition. Great.

Thanks just a lot.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Phil Ng with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, guys. I have a quick question on how we should think about the volume cadence through this year going to early next year. You mentioned, Robert, that single family, the pickup in single family starts kind of started flowing through later in the quarter. So have volumes effectively bottomed out here and maybe we see an inflection by early next year? And then on the multifamily side, I mean, we could all appreciate starts at an all-time high right now, but similar to single-family this year, there's a lag dynamic on completion. So as it relates to completions on the multifamily side, what kind of impact should we expect on demand for you next year, just because there's certainly some concerns around multifamily right now?

Yep. So this is Rob. So on the volume side of things, as you look at the guidance we've put out there, I'd say if you back into it from a same-branch perspective, we're looking at kind of flattish fourth quarter there. And that's probably with flattish volume, flattish price on a year-over-year basis. So some improvement on the single-family side, but also the seasonality that usually comes in in the fourth quarter. We're not anticipating a significant jump up there. And then to your point, as we move into next year, we're definitely cautiously optimistic that single-family will continue to improve as it has. Obviously, we've got to see how things play out with interest rates and the impacts of that, but we're cautiously optimistic there. And the backlog we have on multifamily, we definitely feel it's going to last us into next year. How far that's going to last into next year, we'll make that part of our guide when we talk to you in February. Okay.

And on pricing, on your distribution side of things, pricing was down a little bit. Do you see more risk of slippage from here? Any impact? I mean, it didn't impact your margins in a meaningful way, but anyway, think about the impact there. And any color where you're seeing more pressure, I guess, for absence of spray versus fiberglass?

Yeah, Phil, this is Rob. So I'd say, you know, the pressure we saw there in the quarter was primarily driven by spray foam and gutters. And so as we move into Q4, I think, you know, I don't anticipate it getting significantly worse from where we are. But it's something certainly we'll keep our eye on. And as you mentioned, you know, we're going to do our best to maintain our margins and, you know, recover on the material side anything we give up on the price side.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Noah Mercuco with Stevens. please proceed with your question.

Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. So first, I know there's been a lot of talk about price here, but you've got pricing moving in two different directions on these segments on installation versus distribution. I guess just going forward, you know, should we continue to expect some higher, I guess a greater amount of pricing power in the installation segment that even if We do see material availability increase that the installation pricing should outperform compared to distribution.

Yeah, good morning. No less, Robert. So, you know, as you look at that, obviously, Rob mentioned that we felt some pressure on the distribution side, spray foam gutters and some fiberglass as well in the quarter. Yeah, and I think about the install side, I would, you know, what happened there more to productivity than I would pricing. Again, where the team just continued to work, the labor efficiency, sales productivity, and again, we talked about some of the tools that we put in place on that side of the business. I think you'll continue to see the teamwork, operational improvements, and efficiency in the business, but I denoted more to that than I would on the pricing side. I think we'll see what happens relative to the demand curve here, but as Rob mentioned, We see material getting tighter here in the quarter, and we'll see how that plays out for the rest of the year and heading into 2024.

And this is Rob. I'd just add to that. I mean, just historically speaking, price tends to be a little stickier on the install side than it is on the distribution side of things.

Got it. That's helpful. And then on my follow-up, you know, leverage here really low below one turn. How are you thinking about balancing capital allocation towards M&A versus share repurchases?

Yeah, no, this is Rob. So, I mean, our strategy there really is unchanged, I'd say. You know, you layer in SPI, our net debt this quarter on a pro forma basis would have been about 1.59 times, which is, you know, right in that targeted range of one to two that we're comfortable in. So, So while we're a little bit lower where we landed for the quarter, I think with SPI sitting just down the road from us here, we see that definitely going higher. And we're going to continue to focus on capital allocation. Our strategy there is to prioritize M&A and to continue to evaluate stock buybacks. And obviously at our valuations today, we think that's an attractive opportunity as well. So we'll continue to evaluate both, just like we have in the past.

That all makes sense. I'll leave it there. Thanks for taking the questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Stevenson with Lube Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the nice quarter. So you reported another quarter of healthy high single-digit commercial installation volume growth and just wondered if you could talk more about the success you've had growing your commercial installation business and whether you've seen any change in bidding activity as we move through the back half of the year as some of the leading indicators have started to slow.

Yeah, Jeff, this is Robert. So I'll hit on several points of that. Number one is just, again, we're in that light commercial and heavy commercial space as well as the industrial space. So we really cover all the end markets. And all of our residential branches can do that light commercial work, and they're doing a fabulous job of bidding that, staying after it. Heavy commercial, we've not just driven growth in that. We've also driven operational improvements in that, which Rob hit on in some of his commentary as well. And I think, you know, as we look across that, we continue to make investments. We continue to add sales talent. You heard us talk about some cross-selling opportunities. You've heard about a major investment we've made in a lead app tool, which is really exclusive to our business, proprietary to our business. So I think those are the drivers we've got our team focused on. Our team really buys into this multiple avenues of growth. And so I think you see that, you know, coming through in the results and, you know, our confidence in this piece of the business going forward. And again, we'll be built here.

Okay, understood. No, that makes sense. And then given your capital light business model, I'm wondering if you had to make any adjustments to your workforce with the main continue to hold in better than prior expectations?

No, no change in the workforce. I mean, we're always driving efficiencies there. So again, back to some of the margin performance you see, that was driven by a lot of efficiencies and continued things that we work in the business. But no adjustments given the nice growth that we're seeing and our outlook.

Great.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Ruben Garner with Theme Benchmark Company. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Most of my questions have been but I just have one quick one. So a lot of talk about fiberglass availability. Can you talk about availability and pricing trends in some of the more commercial and mechanical areas, any particular ones that you expect to remain tight in the 24, any areas that could be at risk of kind of loosening up?

No, I mean, there hasn't been considerable inflation in some of those products. I mean, there's some products that are still kind of tight. If I think about mineral wool, some of those products are definitely still tight in the industry. And then from a pricing perspective, the only thing I'd mention is on the mechanical side or what the industry calls C&I, commercial industrial, there is an industry announced price increase out there in that piece of the business. And we'll call that in January of 2024. Not unusual for that piece of the industry to announce increases at the beginning of the year, so we'll see how that plays out, but that's out there in the future and has been announced by the manufacturers.

Okay. I said one question, but one quick follow-up since you brought up mineral wool. We've heard increased usage in the residential space. Townhomes have gained steam. I guess you've got to use it in that area. Is that something you guys do and maybe have elevated share on given your commercial exposure maybe relative to some of your peers?

Yeah, I think we're probably the largest player in mineral wool both in Canada and the U.S. Obviously, a lot in the commercial space, some in some high-rise multi-unit type of development, but definitely a big user on the commercial side. So very familiar with the product, and we really use it across the footprint.

Great. Thanks. Congrats on the strong results, guys.

Thank you. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Keith Hughes with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Thank you. Question on True Team. You called out the strong commercial multifamily. As a percentage, what do those two represent of True Team sales? What's the run rate?

Commercial runs about 35, or I'm sorry, runs about 15% of total routine sales. And then on multifamily, we're going to be indexed similar to what the industry is there. So our residential will be split similar to what the industry sales are.

So you mean versus what we see on starts, or what's the benchmark you're referring to?

Yeah, on multifamily, it's a little tougher because the choppiness in the starts and completions data, but Uh, probably completions would be the best thing to look at there. Okay.

Um, and then just a big picture question, you know, uh, with the move up in rates in the last month or so, are you getting any reports from your builder customers, how that's affected orders, um, inflecting down notably in any kind of intelligence would be helpful.

Yeah, Keith, this is Robert. So, you know, production builders are pretty positive. You know, they talk about the buy-down in the rates and that kind of, you know, less than six being the magical number, so they're still very active in those buy-downs. And they're pretty, you know, I'd say optimistic for growth in 2024. You've seen some of their public announcements. Some of them are doing a nice job with new community counts, those types of things. So production builders, I'd say optimistic. you know, I say the smaller private builders, you're kind of talking more of a flat environment and some of the impact for them. So I think you can probably expect to see, you know, production builders continue to grow and maybe some of the other smaller builders more of a flat outlook for the future. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Rafay Jorisky.

with bank of america please proceed with your question hi good morning it's it's it's rave thanks for taking my my question um i wanted to uh ask on the fourth quarter guidance if i look at the midpoint um sales are sort of being guided to flat year over year which implies a slight decline organically which is the slowest growth of the year or the worst growth of the year, despite what would be kind of the easiest comp. Are there incremental headwinds or parts of the business that are softening as you're starting to see the single family business improve? Can you just help us understand the fourth quarter guidance kind of relative to your industry expectations?

Yeah, great. So this is Rob. So I think if you take that midpoint of the guide and you kind of break it out between residential and commercial, it's basically going to be flat for both in the fourth quarter. Commercial definitely, as we've talked about and we talked about in the last call, the second half of the year, definitely a little tougher comp than the first half. So nothing alarming going on in the commercial side. You know, normal seasonal slowdown in the fourth quarter, nothing above that. And then on the residential side of things, right, if you think about it, last year in the fourth quarter, the single family side, we were still benefiting from the backlog of work that was out there. So if you look at, you know, the Q4 completions of last year, right, and you compare those to the Q3 starts, that just happened, right, that we'll be completing here in the fourth quarter, they were about 5% greater than what we saw. So that's really the volume slowdown we're projecting there year over year.

Got it. That's very helpful. And then in the quarter, in a softer single-family environment, you've still been able to maintain pricing, and obviously the margin performance was really strong when completions are down. Can you just talk about your ability to hold prices as builders are trying to solve the affordability issue? Are you seeing pushback at all from the builders in terms of pricing? There's another price hike which manufacturers are trying to push through here. How do you think about maintaining margins, pushing price in an environment where builders are trying to keep the cost of construction down?

This is Robert. It's constant discussion with the builders around those points, but I think as you've seen some spikes and stuff, they value the service that we bring. They value the labor that we have on a consistent basis for them where we can handle those spikes. If you take the time of year where big builders are going through their closures, their year-end closings, and you know, they can have, you know, 60, 70 units become available at one time. That's our strength to move labor around and materials and assets and stuff. So it's a constant discussion, but we do believe they value what we bring forward. And so I think from that perspective, our team's done a nice job with the pricing and, you know, continuing to show that value to the builders.

And one more just quick one on SPI, if I could fit it in. Can you just talk about the timing? I thought previously you were expecting the fourth quarter. I could be wrong. I think you said it was going to be 2024. Just where are you in that process and what's your best guess on when it closes?

Yeah, so we're saying 2024. Things are progressing well, you know, continuing to work, going through the regulatory process. But, you know, as we all know, it's a new regulatory process, takes a little longer. But, you know, we've been through it before and we're just working the normal, the normal process as you would expect there. So we say 2024 with the holidays and everything coming up, that's fully what we expect.

Great. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I would like to pass the floor back over to management for closing remarks.

Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to talking with you in February to share our Q4 and full year results. Thank you.

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