CSW Industrials, Inc.

Greetings and welcome to CSW Industrial, Inc. Fiscal 2027 First Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star, zero, or your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Alexa Huerta. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, Julian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining CSW Industrials' fiscal 2027 first quarter earnings call. Joining me today on the call is Joseph Arms, our Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President of CSW Industrials, and James Perry, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Earlier today, we issued our earnings release updated investor relations presentation, and quarterly report on Form 10-Q, each of which is available on the Investor section of our website at www.ir.csw.com. Today's call is also being webcast, and replay information is included in the earnings release. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. These statements reflect our current expectations and assumptions and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Additional information regarding these risks is included in our earnings release, our comments on today's call, our annual report on Form 10-K, and our other filings with the SEC. We do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law. With that, I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Thank you, Alexa, and good morning, everyone. The exceptional fiscal first quarter results we reported today demonstrate the power of a disciplined capital allocation strategy laser focused on growing shareholder value through market cycles. We are reporting all time record revenue, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted earnings per diluted share, and operating cash flows due to the resilience of our businesses, the efficiency of our operations, and the successful integration of our recently completed acquisitions. Guided by our enduring capital allocation strategy, since May 1 of 2025, we have invested approximately $1 billion to consummate five highly accretive and synergistic acquisitions, including the transformative additions of Mars Parts and Aspen Manufacturing, plus three smaller but still immediately accretive acquisitions across our contractor solutions and our specialized reliability solutions segments. As I mentioned earlier, the integration of each of these businesses has gone very well. Simultaneously, we have continued to return meaningful capital to shareholders. During the quarter, CSW returned a total of $28.4 million in cash to shareholders through $23.5 million of open market share repurchases and $4.9 million in dividends. Our continued investment in our own shares demonstrates our strong belief that our equity has been undervalued relative to our growth and profitability and cash flows, thus representing a compelling investment opportunity. Concurrently with our share repurchases, we also delevered during the quarter, reducing our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio from 2.55 times at fiscal 2026 year end to 2.37 times at the end of the fiscal first quarter through the reduction of net debt plus growth in our EBITDA. Our balance sheet strength gives us the flexibility to exploit all capital allocation alternatives open to us. End market momentum remained constructive despite the various dynamics in the macroeconomic environment during the quarter. All three of our business segments generated strong, top-line results accompanied by margin expansion. Our contractor solutions segment is growing and expanding margins. Benefiting greatly from the comprehensive product offering created by the addition of Mars and Aspen, we are positioned to serve our customers well as we move through peak cooling season. We continue to expect this segment to outgrow the end market served, which would result in mid to high single-digit organic growth through the cycle. Our specialized reliability solutions segment delivered robust organic revenue growth with an EBITDA margin in excess of the 20% target that we have for this segment. The integration of the two recent acquisitions continues to provide accretion, and we expect to show continued margin strength for the full fiscal year. We continue to work toward the exit of the GRECO business in our engineered building solutions segment. Excluding the Greco business, the segment generated organic revenue growth, a strong EBITDA margin, and we exited the quarter with record order backlog, reinforcing our confidence in the segment's outlook and margin trajectory. At this time, I will turn the call over to James for a detailed review of our financial performance, and then I will return afterward with a few closing comments.

Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. As Joe said, this was a strong quarter for CSW, highlighted by record results and significant progress integrating our recent acquisitions. I will cover our consolidated performance, segment results, cash flows, and our balance sheet. For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, consolidated revenue increased $87 million and reached a record $351 million, up 33% year over year. Growth was primarily driven by the recent acquisitions with additional contribution from organic revenue growth. We are pleased to report consolidated organic revenue growth of 5.3%, coming from the contractor solutions and specialized reliability solution segments, as well as the businesses that will continue in engineer building solutions following the exit of the Greco businesses. Adjusted gross margin was 45.1%, up 130 basis points from 43.8% in the prior year period, primarily due to favorable product mix, as well as cost savings resulting from certain restructuring actions and synergies from our acquisitions. While there has been cost inflation in multiple raw material inputs, as well as in both ocean and domestic freight, we have been successful in offsetting these increases and continued tariff costs through recent price increases across our businesses. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA for the fiscal first quarter was a record $102 million, up $33 million, or 48% from the prior year period, demonstrating the earnings power of our expanded product platform and improving market demand. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 290 points to 29%, supported by the contribution from recent acquisitions, strategic pricing actions, Synergy and Restructuring Realization, and Discipline Cost Controls as we grow. These results highlight the scalability of our operating model and the margin opportunity embedded in our product portfolio. Adjusted EPS for the fiscal first quarter was $3.84, up 35% from the same period last year. As we've communicated, EPS growth trailed EBITDA growth primarily due to higher interest expense, up $11.7 million, as we have a higher debt balance following the significant acquisition activity and share repurchases over the last year. Turning to items excluded from adjusted EPS, the fiscal first quarter included net of tax, $11.8 million, or 72 cents per share, of amortization of acquired intangible assets, and $1 million, or 6 cents per share, of acquisition-related integration costs. In contractor solutions, Fiscal first quarter revenue was $276 million, representing 78% of our consolidated revenues. The segment revenues increased by over 40% as compared to the prior year quarter. Acquisitions contributed $68 million, or 34.4%, while organic growth contributed $11.6 million, or 5.9%. We are pleased to have delivered a second consecutive quarter of organic growth in contractor solutions, with contribution from both increased pricing and volumes. Organic growth in the quarter includes two months of Aspen sales due to last year's acquisition on May 1st. Contractor solutions adjusted EBITDA was $94 million, with a 34.2% margin, compared with $65 million, or a 33% margin in the prior year period. The year-over-year margin accretion primarily reflects favorable product mix, pricing actions, and partial synergy realization offset by raw materials and freight inflation. We are pleased to announce that our expectation for Mars Parts' run rate cost synergies is now $13 million, exceeding our earlier estimates, and we have already achieved our 30% EBITDA margin goal for Mars in the last two quarters. Specialized Reliability Solutions revenue increased 30.9% to $48 million, including $5.3 million, or 14.5% from acquisitions, and $6.1 million, or 16.5% from organic growth. Adjusted segment EBITDA in the first quarter was $10 million, up 54%, and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 320 basis points to 20.8%. driven by higher margin acquisitions, strategic pricing actions, and a favorable product mix. The integration of the two businesses acquired in the fiscal third quarter of 2026 continues to progress successfully. In response to rising costs for certain petroleum-based inputs in the Specialized Reliability Solutions segment, we announced three separate price increases during the fiscal first quarter to offset the impact. We continue to monitor this situation very closely, and we will continue to take appropriate pricing action as needed. We continue to see solid demand momentum and resiliency to date, and the team has done an excellent job integrating the acquired businesses. Within the Engineer Building Solutions segment, we previously announced our plan to sell the Greco-US business and strategically exit the Greco-Canada business. The Greco-US business was classified as held for sale as of March 31, 2026. We will continue to update our progress on these transactions as warranted on future earnings calls. Excluding the Greco businesses, Engineer Building Solutions Segment Revenue was $23.4 million, up 7% over the prior year period. Segment Adjusted EBITDA was $6.1 million. An adjusted EBITDA margin was 26.2%, compared with 17.5% in the prior year. The remaining EBS businesses are performing well, with a trailing four-quarter book-to-bill ratio of 1.04 to 1, along with a record backlog, supporting our confidence in solid margins going forward. We have transitioned to a four-quarter metric due to the nature of the remaining businesses in this segment. Turning to consolidated cash flows. we had an operating cash inflow of $76 million in the fiscal first quarter, compared with $61 million in the prior year quarter. The year-over-year increase primarily reflects the contribution from the acquisitions completed during fiscal 2026, despite the higher interest expense from increased outstanding borrowings. Pre-cash flows, defined as cash flows from operations less capital expenditures, was an inflow of $70 million in the fiscal first quarter, compared with an inflow of $58 million in the prior year period. Our effective tax rate for the fiscal first quarter was 25.6% on a GAAP basis. We expect amortization of intangible assets to be approximately $61 million for fiscal 2027. At quarter end, we had $858 million of debt outstanding across our revolving credit facility in the term loan A, reflecting the higher debt balance compared to the prior year Interest expense during the fiscal first quarter of 2027 was $12.7 million, compared with $1 million in the prior year quarter. We currently estimate fiscal year 2027 interest expense of approximately $48 million. This assumes no M&A or outsized share repurchase activity. At quarter end, our net debt for covenant calculation purposes was $815 million. resulting in a net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio of 2.37 times. This results in an interest rate of SOFR plus 200 basis points for both of our debt instruments. As a reminder, in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, we executed an interest rate swap to fix SOFR at 3.42% for three years to hedge $300 million of our term loan A balance. This swapped interest rate remains well below the current SOFR rate, generating interest expense savings. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet, with the net debt to EBITDA well within our target range of one to three times. This provides ample liquidity to support growth initiatives and our other capital allocation priorities. Consistent with that philosophy, during the quarter, we repurchased approximately $23.5 million of our stock in the open market, representing 88,000 shares at an average price of $267 per share, which reiterates our confidence in our ability to create long-term shareholder value through disciplined capital allocation. Overall, our outlook for fiscal 2027 remains positive. We expect all segments to show organic revenue growth and EBITDA growth versus the prior year, excluding the GRECO businesses within the EBS segment. Supported by resilient demand, acquisition contribution, synergy realization, and continued execution across all segments. At a consolidated level, we expect to see significant adjusted EBITDA and EPS growth in fiscal 2027. Because GAAP EPS will reflect the full-year impact of higher interest expense and increased intangible amortization from our recent acquisitions, adjusted EBITDA remains the best measure of our underlying profitability growth and expanding earnings power of the business. We continue to expect to deliver strong free cash flows generation in fiscal 2027 with significant growth from the fiscal 2026 level. Finally, we still expect our fiscal year 2027 gap tax rate to be approximately 23% to 24% and the adjusted tax rate to be approximately 26%. Quarterly rates will vary based on specific items. With that, I'll now turn the call back to Joe for his closing remarks.

Thank you, James. Summarize, CSW delivered an outstanding fiscal first quarter 2027 with revenue growth of 33%, expanding margins due to volume leverage, acquisition integration, and synergy realization. Our acquisitions are strengthening the overall business, our teams are executing with discipline, and our portfolio is positioned to deliver sustainable above-market profitable growth. Our upcoming exit of the GRECO business demonstrates our commitment to stewarding our portfolio efficiently and to the long-term value creation benefit of our shareholders. As we move through fiscal 2027, our priorities are clear. Allocate capital with discipline. Preserve balance sheet flexibility. deliver growth above the markets we serve, expand our profitability, and realize acquisition synergies. To reiterate, we expect full-year growth in organic revenue and significant growth in adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS, and free cash flows. Simultaneously, we will pursue accretive acquisitions that enhance our portfolio and strengthen our ability to serve our customers. CSW takes great pride in being the partner of choice for our loyal customers, with the goal of making it as easy as possible to do business with us. Our Specialized Reliability Solutions segment was recently awarded the 2025 Lifecycle Business Unit Partner Supplier of the Year by Vermeer, who is an important customer. further exemplifying the outstanding customer service and operational execution of our team. And I want to recognize the Specialized Reliability Solutions team and its leader, Mark Bass, for this accomplishment. As we often say at CSW, how we succeed matters. So we continue to focus on our most important asset, which is our people. And I'm pleased to report that CSW reported the safest calendar year first half since we began tracking safety metrics. Our prioritization of keeping team members safe on a daily basis has allowed us to achieve this milestone, and I want to thank every team member at CSW for contributing to our continued success in safety and reaching this meaningful win for the company. Our employee-centric culture continues to be a competitive advantage for CSW. Not only do we offer our team members the opportunity to earn a safe, secure, and dignified retirement, but we also encourage the children of CSW employees to pursue educational opportunities such as college degrees and trade school certifications. Since 2018, CSW has awarded 57 grants worth $500,000 in the aggregate to the dependents of CSW employees. The scholarship program has historically supported first-generation college and vocational students and is named for the person who established it, who is our former Vice President of Human Resources, Mary Burns. CSW Industrials recently granted seven new scholarships for the upcoming academic year. We are proud to invest in the families of our employees, and we hope these students feel affirmed in their ambitions and will be inspired to do great things. In closing, I want to thank our CSW Industrials team who collectively own approximately 3% of the company, including our ESOP, for their continued performance and commitment. I also want to thank you, our shareholders, for your continued interest in and support of CSW Industrials.

Now, Julian, we're ready to open the line 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 or your telephone keypad. The confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we poll for questions. And our first question comes from the line of John Tanlatang with CJS Securities.

Please receive your question. Actually, Jeremy on for John. Congrats on a great quarter, guys.

Thank you.

Of course. Can you just talk about how your recent acquisitions have been performing versus expectations, especially Mars and Aspen, given the exposure to more repair activity?

I'll start, Jeremy. This is Joe. We're very pleased with both of those acquisitions. I think that the integrations have gone very well. Our team has done a great job working through that. We're extremely pleased with the customer reaction that we've received of our addition of those lines of business, those product lines into our systems and making sure Again, making it easy for our wholesale distribution customers to do business with us, to get these products on time, orders in full when they need it so that they don't miss sales during the busy season here. So overall, really very, very pleased with the way those have gone and especially with the customer reaction.

Yeah, we just had both have gone through very successful ERP conversions, Mars back in January, Aspen during this last fiscal quarter. I mentioned in my remarks, Jeremy, that We've got 13 million of synergies we've talked about publicly now up from the original 10 that we put in the original M&A press release. We've also hit the 30% EBITDA number two quarters in a row. So we've kind of already hit the targets that we put out there for later this year. So that's behind us and we can just continue to work on serving our customers well. But yeah, both have gone very well.

Great. And then could you just talk a little bit more to how trends are looking heading into fiscal quarter two in terms of demand and channel inventory?

Yeah, this is James. I would say in general, we continue to feel very positive about that. June had good results, at least from one of the industry sources that just came out in recent days. That was positive, so that's good to see. You know, as I'm sure most folks on the call would know, it's gotten hot most places around the country, and When it gets hot everywhere and stays consistently hot a lot of places, air conditioners are working a lot harder. People are turning them on. Number one can lead to repair, obviously, and we have exposure to that now that we didn't really have before the Aspen and Mars acquisitions. Now we touch that part of the market. And then that leads to replacement at some point. And obviously we have a big place in replacement, as we always have. So I think from that perspective, we continue to see nice demand from our customers and the ultimate customer, the homeowner, In terms of channel inventories, I think the general sense we have, not just in one-off conversations, but the metrics we've seen out there, the channel inventories, as we said, last year's overhang, the back part of the year, got kind of resolved through the regular buying season this year, and things are in a good place. We feel good about where that is vis-a-vis our customers and their inventory and what their expectations for needs the rest of the season are.

Great. Thank you, guys, and congrats again.

Thank you, Jeremy. Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Tomo Osano with J.P. Morgan. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning. This is Ethan on for Tomo. And congrats on the safest calendar year and first half history. Congratulations. Thank you very much.

I appreciate that. I'm proud of that.

And it's encouraging to see volume growth returning this quarter in CS. Did CSW happen to see any pre-buying within the quarter? And how do you see the end markets performing, specifically breaking out new construction, repair, and then replacement as well?

Yeah, Ethan, it's James. Thanks for your safety comments. That's very important to us, and I know it is to you guys as well. So thank you for that. I don't think we saw unusual pre-buying. We've had some price increases off and on throughout the year across the board, but it hasn't led to anything unusual. So I don't think you saw anything accelerated into the June quarter in any of our business segments that would take away from now our July, August, September quarter. So nothing unusual there. And again, as we said, demand across the board, we feel good about that. Order rates have been good. We're well into July now, and we feel good about that. Across the board, we mentioned a record backlog in EBS exiting the June quarter, so we've found the right pockets of that market, which can be pretty volatile, of course. Commercial construction is still soft with ABI and Dodge Momentum and those type of indices, but our team's done a great job finding the right jobs. Mark Bass's group, Joe called him out specifically, well-deserved, that group. with an over 20% margin, continues to perform very well in their order-taking and meeting customer demand, doing a great job there with some good momentum there. The energy markets tend to create demand with these kind of prices. You see more of that, and that's been a tailwind to them. But they've done a great job overall in integrating the acquisitions as well and finding new customers and those type things. And then, as I mentioned earlier, within contractor solutions, I think with the hot weather we see, with inventory levels getting back in in a good place earlier this year. We're seeing nice momentum there as well.

Thank you. And then on EBS, the margin profile, excluding Greco, was up like 180 basis points year over year. Is it that this kind of level of mid-20s percent margin is achieved the rest of the year and into potentially in the future?

Yeah, Ethan, yeah, I appreciate you noticing that. Yeah, you know, You had some good projects close in the quarter, and that margin was a little higher than normal. We've talked about a 20% kind of margin going forward. It's going to bounce around as we go through the backlog. You're obviously still delivering some things in the backlog with better margins than others, given some of the commodity costs. Yeah, so you had a really good margin quarter up quite a bit over last year, 17.5% last year, 26.5% this year. But I think for us to continue to keep that kind of 20-plus percent margin Margin target in this tough market for the full fiscal year still appropriate. It's going to bounce around a little longer term. I think the opportunity to be well within the 20s is there. But again, in this market right now, the team's doing a good job finding projects they can to fill the facilities and delivering those projects. We'll have a little bit faster turn of projects. in the two remaining businesses. That's why we moved to a four-quarter book-to-bill type ratio. That was above one-to-one, so that's very positive. So they're seeing some nice momentum, but I wouldn't model mid-20s yet. We're probably a ways from being able to commit to something like that.

Thank you so much. Thanks, Ethan.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Tim Woutz with Baird. Please receive your questions.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Nice job. Good morning. Thanks. Maybe just the first question. I hopped on late, unfortunately, so I'm sorry if this is a repeat. But is there any kind of color you can give us on just some of the top line? You know, if there's been any top line contribution, you know, from bringing Mars and Aspen into this organization and kind of cross-selling Is that still subdued here in the near term and still an opportunity on a go-forward basis? Just trying to understand if you're already seeing some benefits from that on the top line.

I would say yes and yes, Tim. I think we've certainly seen some contribution. This is now our second full season with Aspen. There wasn't a lot of that conversion last year, but the team's doing a good job. Cross-selling to our existing customers now that we're in kind of season two of owning the Aspen business. Mars, we got converted over to the ERP in January, as you know, to better serve our existing customers. I think we're seeing a little bit of that. Jeff's team has done a great job with that. But we would certainly tell you that there's opportunity for that to continue to grow. As you well know, you try to convert what you can year one and year two, but you see conversions year three, four, and five. We've got so many product categories that It takes a while for some of our customers to turn over inventory they may have of a competitor's product. So we're getting some nice wins. Our growth includes wins of new business, obviously, having that acquisition growth and organic growth both. So we're going to continue to see that as a tailwind, I think, going forward. But yes, you've got some contribution, but more to come.

OK. OK, great. And then when we think about just kind of the timing of input cost inflation, Is Q1 representative of the price cost cadence you'd expect this year, or do you see some higher inflation creeping up through the rest of the year, at least the rest of the calendar year?

Yeah, good question, Tim. It's bounced around, obviously. We clearly know that our ocean freight was up quite a bit, came down quite a bit, up quite a bit since the issues in the Middle East, of course. That's made shipping rates quite a bit elevated. You've seen a little relief there the last couple of weeks, so that's encouraging, but we'll wait and see if that's a trend. Domestic, our team's done a great job within contractor solutions with the trucking business, bringing the logistics side of that in-house, not owning the assets, but managing the shipping lanes and so forth. They found some nice savings, but that's been eaten up by higher diesel costs. So that's in there. And as you know, it takes a little while for that to flow through the system, just given how things flow through the cost of goods sold. Obviously, trucking is a little quicker than things like inflation of steel, aluminum, plastic costs have obviously gone up. But those started to spike, as you said, back in the spring. So you're seeing that coming through now already. Our contractor solutions team raised prices today. ranging from about 3% to 5%, depending on the product, back at the beginning of July. So you didn't have the price impact of that in the June quarter. We had our normal price increase back in January, so you had that tailwind, but we really just put the price increase in place early in July to cover some of those other costs that were elevated. As we often say, we don't raise prices the minute that we see costs go up. We're patient to watch what it is, but we don't wait to the last minute either. We make sure that it's a disciplined approach. We give our customers plenty of notice. We make sure that we get ahead of it, earning through costs that get sold where we can. And the team's done a great disciplined job of that, of balancing what we need to pass through from an inflationary standpoint. And in terms of What we're going to see going forward, we can't predict what some of those costs are, but we have a good sense at least what's in cost to get sold. And most of it's been relatively steady now the last few weeks and couple of months that we kind of see what's in the inventories.

Okay. Okay, great. And then this is kind of a nuanced question, but I think it's a little bit important. If I remember, I think Aspen had a really good quarter last year in kind of the September quarter. That was inorganic growth, and now it's going to get folded into organic growth. Should we be mindful of that? Is that going to potentially be an organic growth headwind in the second quarter, just given those accounting dynamics?

Yeah, it could be, Tim. I think it's a great point. You've got Mars as well now from the overall base, so you have a bigger base, but that's not going to be organic until November. Yeah, Aspirin had a great year last year, so the comps are a little bit tough. The selling season came a little bit earlier last year because of the refrigeration change and the canister issues and some of those things. So they had a tough June comp as well. So the June and September quarters for Aspirin were really good last year. Part of that was price-based just because the cost of that refrigerant had gone up, and that's kind of come back to normal for the most part now that the industry's over that hump. So, yeah, you've got a little bit of a headwind there. I think that's good, but I think we still feel good, as Joe said, we still feel good about organic growth across all segments for the year. But, yeah, it's good for you to remember that, and we'll remind people of that. It's a little early in the quarter to give specific feedback there. But, yeah, Aspen had a really good year last year, but pleased with how they're performing this year as well.

Okay, great. Well, nice job. I'll hop back in queue.

Thanks.

Thanks, Ed.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Sam Reed with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, this is Eric. I'm for Sam. Let me have my congrats on a good quarter. I want to ask about SRS. You had really strong organic growth, highest in, looks like a few years, and really strong acceleration. Just curious if there's anything sort of outside impact in Q1 that is sustainable going forward, or if there's any pull forward into Q1 from the later quarters?

I would say, Eric, this is James. Thanks for being on. Nothing unusual. Team's doing a great job. I mean, they're really finding the demand out there, really praise the team out there and doing a good job. As I mentioned earlier, when energy prices are elevated, you get a bit of a tailwind there because there's more of that going on and there's a segment of our business that's index to that to get the favorable tailwind from that perspective. We talk about energy being a bit of a natural hedge. When inflation costs some of our input costs to go up, we push that through in pricing, but it also creates a tailwind in demand because people are producing more energy and so forth globally. So that's a good thing. Things were, as you said, a little softer last year, so the comp helped a little bit. But overall, I wouldn't say there's anything terrible unusual. There weren't any one-offs. There wasn't a big someone earlier asked about pre-sales. It wasn't that. You know, we had a price increase May 1st, June 1st, and July 1st, and we didn't really see exceptional buys ahead of those price increases. So really just good job finding orders and great job executing, getting things out the door. That's great.

And just on SG&A, it was very well managed, and you called out lower operating expenses. Just curious where you're finding the cost-saving opportunities and sort of how sustainable is the SG&A margin at this level, or sort of where do you think you can get additional opportunities from?

Yeah, one thing I would say, and I'll let Joe add if he wants to, you know, we've got a bit of a commitment internally that as we grow, we don't need to add as much SG&A. You know, we're starting to really see some economies of scale with the billion dollars we invested in acquisitions last year, and we don't need to add a whole lot of folks to manage that. Joe?

No, it's a really important part of the, you know, the algorithm for value creation here is that, and we talk a lot about the volume leverage and But that has a cost component. And we have to be mindful of costs creeping up. And we are very vigilant in trying to make sure that these shareholders get every bit of benefit out of these acquisitions that they should get. So it's a great question. Glad you asked, because I think the cost containment has been a little bit of an underappreciated part of the story here. But yeah, top line growth. provides the opportunity for operating leverage, and so the cost containment is a key part of really realizing that.

Thanks, Eric. Thank you.

And our next question comes from the line of Susan McClary with Goldman Sachs. Please receive the question.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. My first question is on the supply chain. Can you give us an update on the efforts there to move some of your production to Vietnam? And then I guess with that, just talk generally to the impact of tariffs and anything that's changed from that perspective?

Sure. So this is James. Yeah, we continue to move things as we can into Vietnam and Thailand's another good home for us right now. You know, we've talked about as we make acquisitions, they tend to have a little more in China. So we kind of take, you know, a step backwards and then a step forward. So we're doing a great job. You know, overall, we continue to be around those same numbers. Vietnam's, you know, kind of in the low 30s as a percent of cost of good sales. We look at this fiscal year kind of going forward where we're targeting within contractor solutions. The US is about 45% to 50% or so. Thailand's upper single digits. And then you've got a little strewn around here and there. China's around 10%. So we keep hovering around that 10%. The goal is to continue to take that down. But again, acquisitions tend to have some of that. And we've done a good job. We've talked about, we've even got some folks that have set up their own shops within Vietnam from other countries because it's a favorable place to do business. And we've helped them do that. So it's not always just moving into our own facility They're in Vietnam. So I think the team's done a good job. The numbers haven't moved dramatically. And part of that's, again, just getting some of the acquisition-related supply chain out of China. But the team's done a great job, and we're very comfortable where we are. In terms of tariffs, things have been relatively stable. You know, the HVAC part's got a little bit of relief, and so that helped us. It helped us keep down that most recent price increase we put in early July, having that benefit, knowing that those tariffs were going to be helped a little bit. The most recent tariff activity last Friday really just replaced what was there before. You know, the 10% goes to either 10% or 12%, depending on where you are. Some of the things are not impacted by that at all because they're under a different tariff structure. So some of our parts coming out of Vietnam and other places are not impacted by that. So there was no change as a result of that. So on the whole, the last few months have been relatively stable from a tariff perspective, Sue.

Okay, all right, that's a very helpful color. And then maybe turning to the M&A pipeline, can you just talk about what you're seeing there, your appetite for some smaller deals, especially as you've hit some of your key hurdles with Aspen and Mars, and then how we should also just be thinking about other priorities for capital allocation?

Sure. No, it's a great question, Sue, and this is Joe. We continue to see a number of opportunities. I feel like we're seeing all of the opportunities that are reasonable for us to see. As I think we talked about 10 years ago, that wasn't the case. We were small. We didn't have a track record of success in doing acquisitions and integrating them successfully. And now we do. And so we see most every opportunity that I think we should see, which is really good. Our rigor and analysis and our discipline and investment continues to be a real focal point for us. But yeah, there is a nice pipeline, robust pipeline of smaller deals in particular right now that we've been analyzing and evaluating. And as you noted, we needed a little bit of digestion period here with these larger acquisitions. I feel like we're largely through that. The success of the team and continued kind of performance on integrating well gives us even higher level of confidence in our ability to continue to do that going forward. So as we think about capital allocation broadly, The rubric remains the same. I mean, we are going to evaluate everything on risk-adjusted returns. And I will tell you, for the past quarter, the most attractive risk-adjusted returns was to invest in our own stock. And so that's what you saw. It's what we've done. We've paid down some debt as well. There's a nice return on that. So all options remain open to us. And we'll continue to invest in the highest risk-adjusted return opportunities.

Okay, that's great color. Thank you, and good luck with the quarter.

Thank you, Sue.

Thank you. And our next question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Please proceed with your questions.

Good morning, everyone.

Hi, Andy.

George James, just back to Mars for a second. I think you've talked previously that there's a tradeoff between your core contractor solutions business and Mars that you're working on in terms of who's got the best products and which ones you're going to focus on. So has that continued to happen? And I didn't catch Mars growth. Did you disclose that? Was it still negative in a quarter or did it turn?

Let me first address the first part. The team's done a great job with the product rationalization work that they've been going through. They've done that for the most part. They've picked the best product from kind of each category. As we've said, at times we pick a product that's got maybe a lower cost base and push it through our distribution network. Our customers have received that very well. So we're really pleased with that. We did not give specific Mars performance. Now that it's pretty fully integrated within Contractor Solutions, it'll become organic in a few months, but we didn't break that or Aspen out anymore. That's kind of behind us. We did talk about the 13 million of synergies that we're seeing now up from the original 10. We've talked about we've already hit the 30% EBITDA margin target, two quarters in a row ahead of schedule. So we're pleased with that. Yeah, we're not breaking out the specifics anymore. Now it's just really so well integrated as part of the segment.

Helpful. And then I think last quarter, you know, you talked about not taking price increases in contractor solutions. And then, of course, you just told us that you took them in July, but you still grew EBITDA margin in contractor solutions in Q1. We talked about fluctuating freight and commodity costs. So I know you don't want to give specific floor guidance, but can you continue to grow contractor solutions, keep it down marginal over the next few quarters, given sort of the puts and takes with the price and the inflation that we've talked about?

Yeah, we had the price in July, which really covered what we need to do for inflation. So that's usually not a margin enhancement. We kind of work over time to get that back. When we do mid-year price increases, that's really kind of neutral from a dollar perspective. And it, in fact, can be a tiny bit of a headwind to margin for a little while. And we work to get that back over time with our annual price increases appropriate or finding ways to cut costs. The team is always looking to do that as well. You know, the 34% margin, very pleased with that. Obviously, Mars, you know, getting well above the 30% number now. We're pleased with that. That's a contributor. That wasn't in the portfolio a year ago. Aspen was there a year ago. And, you know, Aspen's a bit diluted with that, just given the nature of the business. So I don't think we would commit to margin expansion necessarily. As you know, the summer month is going to be the best margin. So quarter to quarter, things are going to fluctuate. You know, kind of the quarter we just finished and the one we're in are the high water marks for margin, and then you have your lower margin margin. kind of dip in December and then start recovering in March. So, you know, we've always said being in the low 30s, you know, is premier industry-wide margins. You know, we've grown that over time. But we've always said that if we can grow the top line and maintain these margins, we'll be thrilled. So very pleased with the quarters that the team put together. The goal is to continue to produce good margins. But, yeah, to your point, not giving guidance, I don't think we'll commit to where these margins are going forward or the ability to grow necessarily. But we're very pleased with the performance there. Appreciate the call.

Thanks, Andy.

Thanks, Andy.

Thank you. And with that, that does conclude the question. Back over to Joe Arms for closing remarks.

Thank you, Julian. We really appreciate everyone joining us for today's call and appreciate your interest in our company and continue following on our progress as we go through the fiscal year. Look forward to talking to you again soon. Thank you.

Thank you, and with that, ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful rest of your day.