Concrete Pumping Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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June 6, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Q2 consolidated revenue was largely flat year-over-year at $107.1 million versus $107.8 million, as softness in U.S. concrete pumping was offset by 14% infrastructure and 12% residential growth and stable U.K. performance.
  • The U.S. Concrete Waste Management segment delivered 19% revenue growth and 8% adjusted EBITDA growth, reflecting strong organic momentum despite challenging weather and volume environments.
  • Consolidated adjusted EBITDA declined 4% to $27.5 million due to lower U.S. pumping volumes, weather-related underutilization and inflationary cost pressures such as higher labor and insurance expenses.
  • Fiscal 2024 guidance was tightened to $455–465 million in revenue and $120–125 million in adjusted EBITDA, while maintaining a free cash flow target of at least $75 million and aiming to reduce net leverage to ~2.75x by year-end.
  • The company has $21.9 million remaining under its share repurchase authorization after buying back ~2 million shares for $13.1 million, signaling confidence in its strategic growth plan and commitment to shareholder value.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Concrete Pumping Q2 2024
00:00 / 00:00

There are 8 speakers on the call.

Operator

afternoon, everyone, and thank you for participating in today's conference call to discuss Concrete Pumping Holdings Financial Results for the Q2 ended April 30, 2024. Joining us today are Concrete Pumping Holdings' CEO, Bruce Young CFO, Ian Humphries and the company's external Investor Relations Director, Cody Schlach. Before we go further, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Schlach to read the company's Safe Harbor statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that provides important cautions regarding forward looking statements. Cody,

Speaker 1

please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Thank you. I'd like to remind everyone that in the course of this call to give you a better understanding of our operations, we will be making certain forward looking statements regarding our business and outlook. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such statements. For information concerning these risks and uncertainties, see Concrete Pumping Holdings' annual report on Form 10 ks, quarterly report on Form 10 Q and other publicly available filings with the SEC. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Speaker 2

On today's call, we will also reference certain non GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, net debt and free cash flow, which we believe provide useful information for investors. We provide further information about these non GAAP financial measures and reconciliations to the comparable GAAP measures in our press release issued today or the investor presentation posted on the company's website. I'd like to remind everyone that this call will be available for replay later this evening. A webcast replay will also be available via the link provided in today's press release as well as on the company's website. Now I would like to turn the call over to the CEO of Concrete Pumping Holdings, Bruce Young.

Speaker 2

Bruce?

Speaker 3

Thank you, Cody, and good afternoon, everyone. On a consolidated level, our revenue performance for the Q2 was largely in line with last year, and I am pleased with the resilience of our business model and the execution by our team in a dynamic volume environment across our end markets. In our U. S. Pumping business, we experienced some softness across a variety of commercial work with commercial projects remaining sensitive to higher for longer interest rates.

Speaker 3

However, offsetting some commercial softness, revenue in our infrastructure and residential sectors grew year over year in the 2nd quarter by 14% and 12%, respectively. Larger commercial projects remained mostly durable, albeit volumes were impacted by interest rate economics and project delays in the Q2 due to unseasonably wet weather in Texas and in the Southwest. In the U. K, our team continued to support a high volume of key commercial and infrastructure projects and have successfully recalibrated rates to lessen the impact of cost inflation in the region. In our Concrete Waste Management Services segment, we sustained double digit growth in the 2nd quarter despite facing challenging volume and weather related environments that impacted our U.

Speaker 3

S. Concrete pumping operations. These factors affected our top line performance both on a consolidated level and within our U. S. Concrete pumping segment.

Speaker 3

However, we maintain stable performance in our U. K. Operations and strong organic growth momentum in Concrete Waste Management Services, delivering 8% year over year adjusted EBITDA growth in both segments. Transitioning to our segments by end market, we continue to experience similar trends to what we saw in our Q1. Within the commercial end market, momentum in larger projects has tempered like distribution centers, warehouses, semiconductor fabrication plants and electric vehicle and battery manufacturing plants amid growing reassuring trends in the U.

Speaker 3

S. As I just mentioned, concrete pumping demand and activity on commercial projects were relatively weaker given the rate environment. This has not only affected project volumes, but it has also driven competition to be more aggressive on rates resulting in a reduction in our ability to gain the pricing leverage we would normally expect. While we had initially expected some recovery and an improved project funding landscape in the second half of fiscal twenty twenty four, current interest rates have stayed at levels more comparable to what we saw in 2023. This has had the impact of weaker than expected demand environment in the commercial sector over the coming quarters.

Speaker 3

We will closely monitor further evolution in the broader interest rate environment and the shape of the recovery. Residential construction remains resilient, growing 12% year over year in the second quarter with the structural supply demand imbalance continuing to drive increased homebuilding activity. While interest rates remain elevated, homebuilders continue to provide creative solutions to homebuyers and we remain encouraged that demand momentum in this end market will remain stable despite the challenges of affordability between purchasing a new home versus an existing one. From a regional perspective, we continue to see strong residential construction investments within our Mountain region and in Texas, which represent undersupplied regions where single family construction is prominent. In infrastructure, our expanded U.

Speaker 3

S. National footprint continued to drive strong results, growing 12 growing 14 percent year over year in the quarter as we finally began to see momentum in capital deployment from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and other public project investments. As a result, we expect to see infrastructure projects continue to grow in 2024 and beyond as early IIJ projects advance to a major construction phase, and we will plan to aggressively pursue these opportunities. In the UK, infrastructure growth has continued to develop as funding is being deployed at faster timelines than domestic Phase 1 of HS2 infrastructure spending has continued as originally planned in the UK along with plans for investments in net zero projects such as Sizewell C, a concrete intensive nuclear power station project to which the U. K.

Speaker 3

Government has committed approximately $3,000,000,000 This project is similar to scale and as Hinkley Point, a nuclear power project our Canford team has already supported. As a result of Canford's previous involvement with Hinkley Point, we believe we are well positioned for further involvement and sites we'll see once the project is approved. Moving to the cost side of our business, our 2nd quarter performance reflects similar headwinds to what we expected in Q1. Persistent inflation, largely a mix of labor and commercial insurance have remained affecting our consolidated profitability performance along with downstream margin impacts from lower revenue volumes in our U. S.

Speaker 3

Pumping business. While we expect these headwinds to be present in the second half of twenty twenty four, we are beginning to see our cost control initiatives take hold, which in conjunction with expected rate recalibration improvement across our end markets should yield improved margins. As we navigate lower commercial project volumes, we are tightening our financial outlook to the lower end of our initially stated range. Additionally, as a result of the investments we made in our fleet over the last several years, we are well placed to optimize the utilization of our existing concrete pumping fleet, unlocking significant free cash flow. This flexibility, combined with other cost control initiatives, gives us the confidence that we can maintain our original 20 24 free cash flow target of at least $75,000,000 We continue to use this free cash flow generation to pay down debt and we are on track to reduce our net leverage to approximately 2.75x by the end of this fiscal year, tracking steadily towards our long term target of 2.5 times.

Speaker 3

I will now let Ian walk through more details of our financial results before I return to provide some concluding remarks. Ian?

Speaker 1

Thanks, Bruce, and good afternoon, everyone. In the Q2, consolidated revenue was $107,100,000 compared to $107,800,000 in the same year ago quarter. As Bruce mentioned, the slight year over year decrease was attributable to strong continued growth in U. S. Concrete waste management services and that was more than offset by a volume decline in our U.

Speaker 1

S. Concrete Pumping segment, specifically impacted by commercial projects and unseasonally wet weather events. As such, revenue in our U. S. Concrete Pumping segment, mostly operating under Brundage Bone brand, decreased 5% to $74,600,000 dollars compared to $7,800,000 in the prior year quarter.

Speaker 1

For our UK operations operating under the Camfort brand, revenue improved 2% to $15,500,000 compared to $15,200,000 in the prior year quarter. When excluding the impact from foreign currency translation, revenue was largely in line with last year as slightly lower activity volumes in the Q2 were offset by pricing improvements. Revenue in our U. S. Concrete Waste Management Services segment operating under the Eco Pan brand increased 19% to $16,900,000 compared to $14,200,000 in the prior year quarter.

Speaker 1

The increase was driven by robust organic growth and pricing improvements. Returning to our consolidated results. Gross margin in the 2nd quarter was 39% compared to 40.3% in the same year ago quarter, with the decreased margin primarily related to lower revenue volumes, lower labor utilization driven by the adverse impact of weather conditions and market rate increases in commercial insurance premium costs. General and administrative expenses in the 2nd quarter decreased to $29,700,000 compared to $30,200,000 in the same year ago quarter, with a decrease largely related to a non cash decrease in amortization expense of $900,000 G and A costs as a percentage of revenue decreased slightly in the 2nd quarter to 27.7% compared to 28% in the same year ago quarter. Net income available to common shareholders in the 2nd quarter was $2,600,000 or $0.05 per diluted share compared to $5,200,000 or $0.09 per diluted share in the same year ago quarter.

Speaker 1

Consolidated adjusted EBITDA in the 2nd quarter decreased 4% to $27,500,000 compared to $28,800,000 in the same year ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 25.7 percent compared to 26.7% in the same year ago quarter. Again, the EBITDA declines were driven by the aforementioned impacts from lower U. S. Pumping revenue volumes, weather impacted labor utilization and market related cost increases in commercial insurance.

Speaker 1

In our U. S. Concrete Pumping business, adjusted EBITDA decreased 11% to $17,200,000 compared to $19,300,000 in the same year ago quarter. In our UK business, adjusted EBITDA increased 8% to $4,100,000 compared to $3,800,000 in the same year ago quarter. For our U.

Speaker 1

S. Concrete Waste Management business, adjusted EBITDA also increased 8% to $6,200,000 compared to $5,700,000 in the same year ago quarter. Turning now to liquidity. At April 30, 2024, we had total debt outstanding of 391,400,000 or net debt of $373,500,000 This equates to a net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio of 3.2 times. We had approximately $216,900,000 of liquidity as at April 30, 2024, which includes cash on the balance sheet and availability from our ABL facility.

Speaker 1

As a reminder, we have no near term debt maturities with our senior notes maturing in 2026 and our asset based lending facility maturing in 2028. We remain in a strong liquidity position, which provides further optionality to responsibly pursue value added investment opportunities like accretive M and A or the organic investment in our fleet of equipment support our overall long term growth strategy. During the Q3 of 2022, we entered into a share repurchase program that authorized the buyback of up to $10,000,000 of our outstanding shares of common stock. In January 2023, the Board of Directors approved an additional $10,000,000 increase and in March 2024, an additional $15,000,000 was approved. During the Q2 of 2024, under our share repurchase program, we repurchased approximately 171,000 shares of our common stock for $1,300,000 at an average ship price of $7.42 per share.

Speaker 1

Since our buyback program was initiated through April 30, 2024, we have repurchased approximately 2,000,000 shares of our common stock for a total of $13,100,000 for an average price of $6.67 per share. The current share buyback program with $21,900,000 still remaining is authorized by the Board of Directors through March of 2025 and we believe this demonstrates both our commitment to delivering long term value to shareholders and our confidence in our strategic growth plan. Moving now into our 2024 full year guidance. Due to the reduced commercial project volumes and adverse weather impacts through the first half of 2024, we have revised our expectations for fiscal year revenue to range between $455,000,000 $465,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA to range between $120,000,000 $125,000,000 As Bruce mentioned, free cash flow which we define as adjusted EBITDA less net replacement CapEx, less cash paid for interest will remain as at least $75,000,000 given the strength of our balance sheet, cost control initiatives we have put in place and our ability to improve equipment utilization and flex CapEx investments based upon demand. This flexibility also is supported by previous investments we've made over the last 3 years including from acquisitions to improve capacity in our fleet utilization.

Speaker 1

As a result and as Bruce mentioned earlier, we are targeting a net leverage ratio approximately 2.75 times by the end of this fiscal year. In terms of cost, we will continue working to offset inflationary cost pressures through our continued rate recalibration and cost efficiency initiatives. Both operationally and financially, we believe we are entering the second half of fiscal 2024 with a solid flexible foundation. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Bruce.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Ian. In summary, we remain pleased with the momentum we have maintained in our concrete waste management services along with the stability of our U. K. Operations. With our residential and infrastructure end markets, we expect project momentum to continue.

Speaker 3

We are keeping a close eye on project volume patterns and further interest rate movements within our commercial end market. While visibility remains challenged to present, we believe the scale, breadth and agility of our U. S. Pumping business has optimized our position for recovery as macro improvements arise. Our positioning is further benefited by our operational flexibility and sustained opportunistic approach to equipment utilization as we can pursue more value driven work rather than focus solely on more volume based projects.

Speaker 3

We will continue our cost optimization focus through maintaining our efforts on attracting and retaining the best talent in our industry, while working to reduce the impact of inflationary cost pressures through disciplined cost initiatives and continued rate increases. As always, our focus remains on optimizing end market mix to drive towards top and bottom line growth. We expect to complement our organic growth initiatives by continuing to evaluate opportunistic accretive M and A, while strategically reducing our leverage. With that, I would now like to turn the time back over to the operator for Q and A. Shamali?

Operator

Thank you, sir. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. And our first question comes from the line of Tim Mulrooney with William Blair.

Speaker 4

This is Luke McFadgen on for Tim Mulrooney. Just the first one here on the guidance. Just curious, as it pertains to the revised outlook, does that primarily reflect the pressures you saw during this quarter in the first half of the year? Or does it also incorporate a more cautionary outlook on the back half of this year perhaps as it relates to commercial project activity?

Speaker 3

Yes, it's a good question. Thanks for that. So we do think that the second half of the year is going to have some of the same concerns that we've seen in the first half of the year. We did have several weather delays in the first half of the year that we don't expect, but we do feel like the commercial market is going to be a little sluggish through the remainder of this year.

Speaker 4

Understood. Helpful. And then maybe switching gears here. In terms of some of the early rollout from IIJA infrastructure investment, what types of projects are you seeing come through first as it relates to that investment opportunity? And how much visibility do you have into future projects tied to the IIJA?

Speaker 4

Thanks.

Speaker 3

Yes. As you know, it's been difficult for us to really identify where that work is coming from. There aren't any really large projects like what we would see in the U. K, but what we are seeing is healthcare. We're doing several hospitals across the country.

Speaker 3

Road and bridge work is coming around nicely. We're doing some quite a few projects on airports and those sorts of things as well as water and wastewater. So it's a little bit of a mixed bag across the board, but it's starting to build momentum and we're starting to build a little more of a backlog. And so we do anticipate that getting better through this year and even stronger next year and for several years to come.

Speaker 4

Great. Thanks so much.

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stanley Elliott with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 6

Hey Bruce, Ian. Thank you guys for the question. Could you guys talk a little bit about the weather impact? How many days did you guys miss? Or maybe even from like a utilization perspective how we were this quarter versus the prior year?

Speaker 1

Yes. Hi, Stanley. So on the weather, I mean, as you know, we don't typically see the weather that we've seen in the Q2. In the Q2, so we lost about like $2,000,000 of revenue of unexpected weather in that second quarter. Utilization did pick up sequentially, but not as much as we would have seen in the prior year quarter.

Speaker 1

So it's maybe like 2 percentage points different from the prior year, just with some of those weather delays.

Speaker 6

And could you comment on kind of what you've seen in May and even into June? We've heard that weather has been difficult in parts of the country in May as well?

Speaker 1

Yes, weather in May, it may have continued. I mean, obviously, when it happens in the 1st month of a quarter, our ability to catch up through the rest is more encouraged. So I mean it's nice to see some of the weather break and we expect that we can catch up on anything through May through this for the quarter. And we factor that into the revised update that we gave that any shortfall we would recover as the projects keep going.

Speaker 6

And the waste business, nice growth there. Is that are you guys moving into new markets? Is it kind of better you up take in existing markets? And maybe kind of how much more of the U. S.

Speaker 6

Do you have left to cover with that product?

Speaker 3

Yes. So our growth there comes from 2 things. We've moved into a few new markets basically adjacent markets to markets we're currently in that are very easy for us to service. And we're gaining more penetration in the markets that we're currently in. And we still are only 7% of that market.

Speaker 3

So we still believe that we have quite a bit of runway ahead.

Speaker 6

And I guess lastly, you mentioned a fairly competitive environment on rate in some cases. Does that make you guys want to like accelerate the M and A in terms of kind of consolidating some of the markets to kind of alleviate some of those concerns? Or how should we think about the M and A environment sitting here today?

Speaker 3

Yes. So thanks for the question on that. Now we are looking at several businesses right now. Our industry in general has been inflation has hurt our industry to the point where haven't been able to get rates out in front of inflation. So it's been challenging over the last couple of years.

Speaker 3

Most of the businesses we're looking at have challenging margin issues to where when we put a reasonable multiple on EBITDA, it's still not worth the value of their assets. And so that complicates things a little bit, but we're looking at that. We think that will start shifting into next year and we look forward to continuing to do more consolidation and that certainly could help with the rates.

Speaker 6

Perfect. Thanks so much and best of luck.

Speaker 3

All right. Thanks, Stanley.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Avi Jaroslavlak with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 5

Hey, Bruce, Ian. Avi on for Steve Fisher.

Speaker 1

Hi, Avi.

Speaker 5

Wondering if you could just kind of wondering if you can kind of just frame the impact of the slowdown in commercial projects. So I know you said about $2,000,000 of revenue was lost due to weather. So it still leaves us negative for the quarter in terms of your revenue. But how would you frame like industry revenues?

Speaker 1

Yes. I would say that the balance of that relates to this demand slowdown. Now one thing I would comment and we talked about this a little bit earlier in our prepared remarks. I mean, as you've seen from our business, when the volume changes is when we see the mix change and you'll see that and what we put out on the mix between the end markets. So year over year like commercial is now around 55%, so that's about 5% drop from the prior year.

Speaker 1

But we picked up momentum in infrastructure and residential has been quite solid. So even though the volumes change, I mean, that's where this agile business model we've got, we move through those volumes. And as that continues, we would expect to like chase the project work and depending on the end market.

Speaker 5

Okay. Got it. And then in Eco Pan, it seemed like there is a sizable step down in the margins quarter to quarter. Can you give us some more color there? I know you called out insurance cost and corporate allocations, but like was price cost negative for the concrete waste management business or how should we think about the margins for that business moving forward?

Speaker 1

Yes. So, I mean, we still think that the margins and even the payback on the equipment and the growth that we've got there is still quite compelling. I mean last year the margin was about 41%. Today it's 36%. So it's still really compelling payback in margin on that business which feeds right in our free cash flow.

Speaker 1

So we're still encouraged to invest into the growth of that. And it really lines up nicely with the ROIs that we expect from that type of business.

Speaker 5

All right. Got it. I'll leave it there. Thank you. Thanks.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jim Ramirez with D. A. Davidson. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 7

Hi, thank you for the time. You cited oversaturation of concrete pumps in certain markets as a headwind. Could you talk about or provide some color about what markets are you referring to? And what is planned and what is the company planning on doing to make sure this is not a headwind in the second half?

Speaker 3

Yes. So, the way in our industry, most of the equipment comes from overseas. And so the manufacturers plan year or so in advance of what they're going to order for trucks and then get the pumping units from overseas mounted on those trucks. And so I think everyone anticipated the market would be stronger in 2023 2024 to where it ended up being, meaning that there were more concrete pumps brought into this market that they were able to find owners for those machines. As markets go forward, they'll order less machines over.

Speaker 3

They'll be in fact for 2024 there's quite a few fewer machines going in the market than what you would see in 2023. And I think we'll see that again in 2025 as the market catches up with the volume of equipment that are here. So certainly we're careful within our own business to make sure that we're running at the right utilization and that's why you'll see that our CapEx spend is much less this year and with utilization being down because of anticipated growth not being there, we'll sell off assets that will be a benefit to us. And over the next year or so, we'll see that settle out.

Speaker 7

So just to clarify, I mean, when you say in certain markets, you're referring like U. S. Versus abroad or are you referring to certain markets across the U. S. That just overbooked?

Speaker 3

Yes, I'm saying all of the U. S. So when we say the oversaturation, we're talking about the country. Now the U. K.

Speaker 3

Sees it similarly, but not to the same extent. But largely it's an issue in the U. S. Where there's just too much equipment across the U. S.

Speaker 3

And then that equipment ends up affecting all end markets.

Speaker 7

I appreciate that. And going back to weather on U. S. Pumping, would revenue and volume have been flat otherwise if you had favorable weather? And could you just provide us a glimpse of what you've seen post the quarter through May regarding weather impact?

Speaker 1

Yes. So, yes, the volume would have been large in line with where we'd expect to be. If you look at the mix of I mean revenue 1% down, 2% reduction on that came from volume. So yes, the weather had cooperated, at least flat would have been more in line with where we would expect to be. In May, it's early in the quarter to really call it anything specific around what the weather done and what the contribution would be, but we've factored that into the updated guidance for the rest of the year in terms of what we expect Q3 and Q4 to look like and really what that percentage mix like looks like, given it will make up about 55% of the full year guide, which is in line with where we usually trend between 45% of work in the first half and 55% in the second half.

Speaker 7

Got it. And just one more from me. Just citing or looking at underutilization as the primary overhang on margins, Is the current environment where you're at, is that price exceeding costs within the business or are we looking at that a little different?

Speaker 1

Do you mean in terms of the price that we're charging for the work that we do?

Speaker 7

Yes, yes. And then just looking at the margins, are you guys

Speaker 1

Yes, the margin is mostly yeah, so when you get volume change or volume slowdown, there's really underutilization. But it doesn't materially change our return on investment based on the margin that we get and the payback on equipment that we've got. So as we think about it more from an investment in the assets that we've got, we expect to catch up on that. It's not a permanent change in the profile for that. So yes, weather causes delays, which causes a bit of softness in utilization, but it's certainly something that we are familiar with recovering from.

Speaker 7

Understood. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3

Thanks. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Fisher with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Speaker 5

Thanks. Good afternoon. Sorry, I got on a little late. I think you made some comments about some of the larger projects in terms of semiconductors and EVs and batteries. But I just I wanted to see if you could just clarify or maybe elaborate on what you're seeing on those types of scale projects relative to some of the more kind of smaller or medium sized general commercial projects?

Speaker 5

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yes. Steve, what we're seeing are several of those large projects that are in the planning stage have been pushed out. We're not seeing any of them being canceled. They're just being delayed. And so we do anticipate them starting later in the year or into next year.

Speaker 3

So we are encouraged about the long term opportunity there. It's just affected us in the short term.

Speaker 5

Any particular drivers of those delays, is it more labor concerns, inflation, and market demand? Any sense of what is there any consistency there?

Speaker 3

Yes. We're thinking it's more along the lines inflation and interest with the total cost of the project. I don't think there's the labor concerns that we've had in the past are there currently.

Speaker 5

Okay. Terrific. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Thank you. And at this time, this concludes our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Mr. Young for closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Molly. We'd like to thank everyone for listening to today's call and we look forward to speaking with you when we report our Q3 fiscal 2024 results in September. Thank you.

Operator

And ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's

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