NASDAQ:ROAD Construction Partners Q3 2024 Earnings Report $103.18 -2.45 (-2.32%) Closing price 04:00 PM EasternExtended Trading$103.22 +0.03 (+0.03%) As of 05:29 PM Eastern Extended trading is trading that happens on electronic markets outside of regular trading hours. This is a fair market value extended hours price provided by Polygon.io. Learn more. ProfileEarnings HistoryForecast Construction Partners EPS ResultsActual EPS$0.59Consensus EPS $0.54Beat/MissBeat by +$0.05One Year Ago EPS$0.41Construction Partners Revenue ResultsActual Revenue$517.80 millionExpected Revenue$503.57 millionBeat/MissBeat by +$14.23 millionYoY Revenue Growth+22.70%Construction Partners Announcement DetailsQuarterQ3 2024Date8/9/2024TimeBefore Market OpensConference Call DateFriday, August 9, 2024Conference Call Time10:00AM ETUpcoming EarningsConstruction Partners' Q3 2025 earnings is scheduled for Friday, August 8, 2025, with a conference call scheduled at 10:00 AM ET. Check back for transcripts, audio, and key financial metrics as they become available.Conference Call ResourcesConference Call AudioConference Call TranscriptPress Release (8-K)Quarterly Report (10-Q)SEC FilingEarnings HistoryCompany ProfilePowered by Construction Partners Q3 2024 Earnings Call TranscriptProvided by QuartrAugust 9, 2024 ShareLink copied to clipboard.There are 11 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Introduce your host, Rick Black with Investor Relations. Operator00:00:19Thank you. You may begin. Speaker 100:00:22Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners conference call to review Q3 results for fiscal 2024. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Relations section of partners.net. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, August 9, 2024. Please be advised that any time sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay listening or transcript reading. Speaker 100:00:58I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance are forward looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor's provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 19 95. We will be making forward looking statements as part of today's call that by their nature are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our earnings press release for our disclosures on forward looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaker 100:01:44Management will also refer to non GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings press release. Construction Partners assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward looking statements. And now, I would like to turn the call over to Construction Partners' CEO, JUUL Smith. JUUL? Speaker 200:02:08Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Greg Hoffman, our Chief Financial Officer and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I want to start by directly thanking the more than 4,800 men and women across the CPI family of companies for their hard work this quarter. The story of this quarter was operational excellence across the Southeast on hundreds of projects under construction and many days and nights operating asphalt plants, quarries and terminals. CPI's success has always been driven by our talented, dedicated construction professionals. Speaker 200:02:48And as our work season shifted this quarter into high gear and long hours, our team delivered. Q3 was a strong quarter for CPI. Compared to a year ago, we grew revenue 23%, adjusted EBITDA 31% and our margins increased to 14.1% for the quarter. It's also important to note that of the 23% revenue growth in the quarter, 13% was organic growth. Year to date, organic growth represents 9.3% of our total 18% revenue growth. Speaker 200:03:24This is consistent with our outlook on organic growth for the year to account for approximately half of our total growth. On a daily basis, we focus on organic growth in our current and adjacent markets, which is a critical component of our strategy to achieve our roadmap 2027 goals. During the quarter, the economic conditions were stable for our industry and demand for the type of construction projects we perform remains high. Public project lettings continued to be strong, supported by the healthy funding programs at the state, local and federal levels throughout our Southeastern states. These public investments include a variety of infrastructure projects ranging from highways and bridges to airports, railroads and military bases. Speaker 200:04:16We also continue to see steady demand for commercial projects with many fast growing economic centers within our local markets. In particular, we continue to see areas of strength in the private market for manufacturing, corporate site development, large economic development projects and residential. This sustained demand continues to drive project backlog growth, which again increased during the quarter. As of June 30, our backlog was $1,860,000,000 Turning now to our strategic growth model. We have acquired 7 companies this fiscal year beginning in October. Speaker 200:04:572 of these acquisitions were made since our last earnings call. In June, we acquired Hudson Paving in Rockingham, North Carolina. Hudson extends our reach into the Sand Hills region of North Carolina. Now as part of our Fred Smith Company platform, this new plant and construction operation in Rockingham allows us to fully serve the rapidly growing Pinehurst and Southern Pines market area. And last week, we announced acquisition of Robinson Pavement Company in Columbus, Georgia. Speaker 200:05:31This expansion of 3 new hot mix asphalt plants and construction operations in Columbus and the surrounding area positions CPI in a strategic location adjacent to our existing operations in both Georgia and Alabama. As a growing economic market supported by Fort Moore in Columbus, this represents an important market for us and a natural next step for our growth in the state of Georgia. Robinson Pavin has long been a highly respected contractor in Georgia and will continue to operate as a branded division of our Georgia platform company, The Scruggs Company. We are excited to have added these high quality companies with excellent reputations into our organization and we want to welcome both our Hudson Paving and Robinson Paving employees as teammates within the CPI family of companies. Acquisitions have always been a part of our growth model as we enter new areas, expand market add capacity services and talented new team members. Speaker 200:06:40Importantly, our acquisition strategy also fuels our future organic growth, helping keep us on a path to achieve our roadmap 2027 goals, which are annual revenue growth of 15% to 20% with approximately half of the growth being acquisitive and half organic and expanding our EBITDA margins in the range of 13% to 14% by 2027. Currently, we continue to see a very active environment for acquisition opportunities as our industry is going through a generational transition and we believe we're the leader in building a scalable business by acquiring great privately held construction companies. While we continue to have conversations with potential sellers both inside and outside of our current states, it's important for us to remain patient and focused on finding the best strategic acquisitions that will bring operational excellence and add to the great culture of the CPI family of companies. In summary, we had a record 3rd quarter and consequently are raising our fiscal 2024 outlook. Our record backlog provides visibility for the remainder of fiscal 2024 and allows us to enter fiscal 2025 with momentum and growth. Speaker 200:08:03Finally, we remain optimistic about the future based upon our healthy local markets across the Southeast, the numerous opportunities available as we continue to execute on our growth strategy, and most importantly, the continued development of our talented workforce to lead and manage a larger and more profitable CPI into the future. I'd now like to turn the call over to Greg. Speaker 300:08:30Thank you, Jules, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with a review of our key performance metrics for the fiscal Q3 compared to the fiscal Q3 in 2023. Revenue was $517,800,000 up 22.7%. The increase included $40,900,000 of revenue from acquisitions completed during and subsequent to the 3 months ended June 30, 2023, and an increase of approximately $55,000,000 of revenue in our existing markets. The mix of total revenue growth for quarter was approximately 13% organic revenue and approximately 9.7% from these recent acquisitions. Speaker 300:09:16And as Jule mentioned, for the 9 months year to date, our organic to acquisitive mix is half and half with organic growth to 3 quarters of 9.3% out of our total growth of 18%. Gross profit was $83,500,000 an increase of 30% compared to the same quarter last year. General and administrative expenses were $38,900,000 or 7.5 percent of total revenue compared to $32,200,000 or 7.6 percent of total revenue in the same quarter last year. We remain on pace for G and A expenses to end the fiscal year at approximately 8% of revenue. Net income for the quarter was 30 point Speaker 400:10:109 Speaker 300:10:16Adjusted EBITDA was $73,200,000 an increase of 30.5%. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 14.1% compared to 13.3% in the Q3 last year. You can find a reconciliation of net income to adjusted EBITDA in today's earnings release. In addition, we grew project backlog to $1,860,000,000 at June 30, up from 1 point at the end of last quarter. We now estimate that we have 80% to 85% of the next 12 months contract revenue booked in backlog, which is up from 70% to 75% at this time last year. Speaker 300:11:04Turning now to the balance sheet, we had $58,400,000 of cash and cash equivalents. As it relates to our credit availability, during the quarter, we converted our $200,000,000 accordion for the terms of the credit agreement into an additional $75,000,000 of revolving credit facility availability, as well as converting $125,000,000 under the revolving credit facility to term debt. As a result, we now have $309,700,000 available under the credit facility, net of a reduction for outstanding letters of credit. We have 39 $500,000 of principal outstanding under the term loan and $81,900,000 outstanding under the revolving credit facility. The additional availability on our credit facility and cash generation will continue to provide flexibility and capacity to allow for potential near term acquisitions and high value growth opportunities. Speaker 300:12:11As of the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA ratio was 1.81 times. Our expectation is the leverage ratio will maintain a range of 1.5 to 2.5 times, while continuing to add sustained profitable growth. Cash provided by operating activities was $35,000,000 Year to date cash provided by operating activities for fiscal 20242023 was $113,200,000 $94,500,000 respectively. Trailing 12 months return on capital employed was 11.4% as of June 30. Net capital expenditures year to date were $62,400,000 We expect net capital expenditures for fiscal 2024 to be in the range of $90,000,000 to $95,000,000 This includes maintenance CapEx of approximately 3.25 percent of revenue with the remaining amount invested in high return growth initiatives. Speaker 300:13:19Based on our performance to date and our visibility through the remainder of the year, we are raising our FY 2024 outlook ranges as follows: revenue in the range of $1,835,000,000 to $1,860,000,000 net income in the range of $73,500,000 to $76,000,000 adjusted EBITDA in the range of 2.19 to $228,000,000 This indicates an adjusted EBITDA margin for fiscal 2024 in the range of 11.9% to 12.3%. And with that, we are now ready to take your questions. Operator? Operator00:14:01Thank Our first question is from Kathryn Thompson with Thompson Research Group. Please proceed. Speaker 400:14:33Hi. Thank you for taking my questions today. Good morning. Good morning. First, I want to focus on backlogs and parsing out a little bit more detail in terms of what is driving this. Speaker 400:14:49You've seen 15 quarters in a row of sequential backlog growth, but still are on that path to 13% to 14% EBITDA margins, which is a difficult thing to do to have both hand in hand. Could you give a little bit more clarity on public end markets included in the backlog versus private end market, understanding that the public has a greater percentage of more ongoing repair and maintenance and private being more new construction? Thank you. Speaker 200:15:30Hey, Catherine, thank you. It has been 15 quarters now of the backlog increasing and I've said for 2 or 3 years now that that's abnormal that CPI through its history in the summer work season backlog went down sequentially. So I'll say it again, I'm starting to wonder myself, but really it just is a reflection of our demand markets continuing to be strong. Let's just take them each one private. The private market continues to be steady. Speaker 200:16:10We continue to see a lot of opportunities to bid there. And then in the public markets, each of our states is now getting the IJA money. We're in our 2nd year of really them using that money. And so we're seeing plenty of opportunities to bid there. And 4 of our states have passed supplemental funding. Speaker 200:16:36And so that's just creating a continued good market to bid in. So we're seeing good work on both added to our backlog. Greg and I noticed in our backlog this quarter that the percent of public backlog maybe went up a couple percent from 65% to 67% or 68%, which you would expect as the IJA is really now in full gear. So I wouldn't be surprised to see that come through on the P and L in the next 12 months. But it's nothing it's no big change. Speaker 200:17:15It's just a slight tick up in public. So we're excited about just the visibility the backlog gives us going into 2025. And we're going to continue to be patient. That's what a good backlog gives you. You talked about the margins. Speaker 200:17:39Part of our margins getting to 13% to 14% is being able to be patient at the bid table. Speaker 400:17:48Okay. Thanks. And just a follow-up, in particular on the private end market. What in like what types of projects are you seeing? And have you seen any change as the years progressed with the residential end market? Speaker 400:18:09Thanks very much. Speaker 200:18:13Yes. As we said in the prepared remarks, it's really more of what we've been talking about, which is just a lot of the projects that you would expect come with the reshoring of businesses moving to the Southeast. And we've seen corporate manufacturing facilities, corporate headquarters, industrial parks that can service, give businesses a place to operate. Residential has been steady. We really haven't seen any huge uptick or shrinking of that market. Speaker 200:18:47It's been pretty steady for the developers building subdivisions. Speaker 400:18:53And just a clarification, have you seen any change in the residential cadence? Because it is a little different than what we have heard from other markets. It could be just your geographic focus, but any sequential change with residential? Speaker 200:19:13We really haven't seen much change at all. I mean residential is not a big part of what we do. But in the places where we do it, in the Panhandle of Florida and Raleigh and other places that we're really involved with residential developers, they've been pretty steady. Speaker 400:19:33Okay, great. Thanks very much. Best of luck. Speaker 500:19:37Okay. Speaker 600:19:37Thank you, Catherine. Thank you, Catherine. Operator00:19:39Our next question is from Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Please proceed. Speaker 700:19:44Hey, good morning. Good morning, Tyler. Hey, Greg, appreciate all the guidance. You guys have been quite active on the M and A front and I appreciate that maybe half the growth here in 2024 will be from M and A. But as you look at it right now, how much from acquisitions that you have already completed here in 2024 should roll into 2025? Speaker 700:20:08I guess my point is, do you already have 2 or 3 points of growth kind of in the bag from the rollover benefit of deals you've already done? Speaker 200:20:18Yes, Tyler, we do. We would estimate that to be in Speaker 300:20:22the $90,000,000 to $110,000,000 range right now rolling into $25,000,000 Speaker 700:20:28Okay. Okay. An incremental benefit in 25. Right. Okay. Speaker 700:20:34Well, that's pretty good. Okay. So I want to talk about this really quickly because I think this year you put some unannounced M and A into your guide given the mechanics around the Speaker 300:20:45Analyst Day. But as Speaker 700:20:46we start to think about how you guys think about your fiscal 2025 guidance, what is your philosophy going to be around M and A? Should we expect you to put some unannounced M and A in that guidance? Or will you only include the M and A that has been announced? Speaker 300:21:02And I don't mean to split a lot Speaker 700:21:03of hairs here, but I do think this is going to be really important on how we think about your guide into 2025? Speaker 200:21:10Yes. Tyler, great question. As you know, typically, we don't put unannounced or aspirational acquisitions into our guide. We did last year just simply for it to be to make sense at our Analyst Day, but we envision just getting back to our normal guidance methodology of just putting in what we've announced so far. And so should be easier to move forward into 2025. Speaker 700:21:43Excellent. Very helpful. And just let me squeeze one last one on margins. So obviously, great improvement there. I'm a pretty simple guy here. Speaker 700:21:51So when I think about margin improvement, that's either a function of you bidding better with maybe more sophisticated tools Or are you seeing more cost disinflation than you had been expecting? Or maybe I'm missing it altogether, maybe public mix is helping. But just any big picture thoughts that really got you to that 14% plus margin this quarter? Thanks. Speaker 200:22:16Yes. Tyler, we've talked about 3 levers of margin expansion. 1 being just building better markets and being able to put more money on the bids. And so that's certainly one. The other is vertical integration. Speaker 200:22:33And so our terminals and aggregate facilities are contributing a little more each year. And then the third is scale. And so I feel like all 3 of those are contributing and working together. And so that's really that continues to be the story on the margins. Speaker 700:22:52Yes. Excellent. Thanks. Good job. Speaker 800:22:55Tyler, this is Ned. I would tell you one thing, the people in the as we look at the statistics, the people that are laying asphalt that are working hard every day in the hot weather and the cold weather, they're doing a fantastic job. Their productivity continues to increase. Their team orientation continues to increase. Jewel and the management team are leading well in that area. Speaker 800:23:16So I think one of the things I would say with margin is you got to go to work every single day in this business and those people are doing an absolutely fabulous job led by people that respect them, that trust them and then encourage them in Jewel and Greg and really this whole team all the way down. And that's if you're not going to put a number to it, but I'm just telling you watching how hard those folks work and we want to treat them well is a huge benefit to the margins as we move forward. Speaker 700:23:51Yes. Thanks, Matt. That's great. Thank you. Speaker 200:23:53Thank you, Tyler. Operator00:23:56Our next question is from Andrew Wittmann with Baird. Please proceed. Speaker 500:24:02Yes, great. I guess, maybe I'll launch off of the last series of questions there and ask you to a little bit to be expand a little bit about the that first thing about building better markets and how, if at all, your bidding process is allowing you to compare your current backlog, your new win margins to what you've done maybe over the last year. Are you still seeing as bid margin growth? Maybe you could comment on that, please. Speaker 200:24:34Yes. Andy, it's a good question. It's one that we can't ever take our off of. We our industry is competitive and that's not going to ever change and so we have to be the low bid. And but what we're trying to do is be patient at the bid table and use our good backlog to be disciplined and patient. Speaker 200:25:00But also if we continue to work on costs and keep your costs down, as Ned said, if we can be more productive in the field, that gains margin as well. But one of the things CPI has always done and we're seeing the return to that is the guys in the field find ways to win and beat production. And so on more jobs than not, we finish at a higher end margin than we bid. And so that's one of the things that really helped this quarter was just the ability to write up projects as they're getting built. Speaker 500:25:40Yes. That's helpful. And then maybe just a comment here guys. We had hurricane season start a little bit earlier than normal here in your fiscal Q4. And I was just wondering how through today the quarter is unfolding. Speaker 500:25:59Has it slowed you down and you need to make it up in the back end of the quarter? Maybe just some comments around where you are with the weather? Speaker 200:26:12Well, we've had 2 quarters in a row now, Andy, where weather is really balanced out. A wetter than normal month is balanced out with a drier than normal month. So and that's what we try communicate to the market is over time weather evens out. July so far this quarter has been wetter than normal. And then 1st week of August, we've had a hurricane march through 4 of our states and just left Raleigh this morning. Speaker 200:26:45So but we'll just have to see how the rest of the quarter goes. We could have really good weather the rest of August September and be just fine. So we don't try to get ahead of ourselves there. Speaker 500:26:59But as it relates to that Q4 guidance, you feel like you've discounted what you've seen so far to the quarter so far? Speaker 200:27:09I'm going to let Greg answer that as to what he's factored in and put him on the hot seat. Greg? Yes. No, I think we've just tried to think about this quarter the same way we've realized the earlier 2 that Speaker 300:27:28the quarter balances out. We always talk a lot about the first half of the year and the second half of the year kind of balance. And oftentimes that occurs within the quarter and that's kind of what we're anticipating happening this quarter. Speaker 500:27:43All right. Fair enough guys. Have a good weekend. Thank you. Thanks Andy. Speaker 500:27:47Thanks Andy. Operator00:27:49Our next question is from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis and Company. Please proceed. Speaker 500:27:57Hey, good morning guys. Congrats on a nice beat. Speaker 200:28:00Thank you, Adam. Good morning. Speaker 600:28:03Wanted to ask about sequential backlog growth. How much of that was organic and how much of that was acquired? Speaker 300:28:12Well, we had about $40,000,000 come in through acquisitions this quarter. So as our acquisitions come in over the year, they have different impact to the quarter, but this quarter was about 40, so the rest was organic. Speaker 600:28:33Sounds like a similar mix to revenue? Speaker 500:28:35That's right. And then what would be Speaker 600:28:38your thoughts on some potential, you talked about M and A, but on the growth CapEx side, growth projects, maybe a new asphalt terminal. Any thoughts there? Speaker 200:28:52Adam, we're always thinking about vertical integration Speaker 600:28:55and things like that. Speaker 200:28:56I will tell you, I want to use this question to just really brag on Greg. He has really instituted a very disciplined growth CapEx process with all of our operating companies and evaluating where to invest our growth CapEx money on the projects that are going to make the most impact. And I think you're seeing that come through in the organic growth this quarter and this year. There's a lot of good opportunities and we can't invest in them all and I think he's done a really good job of putting the investments where it's going to make the most difference. Speaker 500:29:37Sounds good. Thanks guys. Speaker 200:29:40Thank you, Adam. Thanks, Adam. Operator00:29:42Our next question is from Stanley Elliott with Stifel. Please proceed. Speaker 900:29:47Hey, good morning everybody. Thank you for the question. Speaker 700:29:50Hi, Anne. Speaker 600:29:51Hey, could you talk Speaker 900:29:52a little bit about I mean we're pretty much through the earnings season. The numbers that you guys are putting up on the disconnect on how you guys are so positive and a lot of those other businesses were kind of flat to likely down on an organic volume basis? Speaker 200:30:16Yes, Stanley. I can only speak to what we're doing. We're continuing in the markets we're working in to grow market share and to work in adjacent markets on greenfields. And we've got a great demand environment. So that's really driving our ability to grow organically. Speaker 200:30:39And where we have the opportunities we're adding crews and able to do more work. And as I said in the remarks, the acquisitions we did a year ago and 1.5 and 2 years ago, they're creating opportunities for us to grow organically. And I think Hudson Paving and Robinson a year from now are going to give us the opportunity to grow organically in 2025 and 2026. So we're continuing to just execute on our strategy. We've always been a growth company of 15% to 20%. Speaker 200:31:12We can see that continuing in about half organic. And that's really what we see moving forward. Speaker 900:31:20Yes, kind of what I thought and nice to hear. And then, Julien, you mentioned the crew productivity increasing. Do you guys think that's a function of you'll have more people and more crews to be able to put to work and so you can flex to various locations. If weather is an issue move to another location or the ability to flex or work longer hours because of the number of people or even maybe if you have more machines to help with the lay down. Just curious kind of if you could kind of parse out a little bit about what you're doing on the productivity side to drive this outsized growth? Speaker 200:31:55Yes. Great question. I'm glad you asked that Stanley because what Ned said is so important. And it really isn't a function of having more machines. What it is, is just great leadership and great people throughout our organization. Speaker 200:32:13And we talked a lot over the last 3 years about workforce development and focusing on building people, training them. And Robert Bogno, our VP of personnel has worked with the operating companies on attracting, retaining the best workforce because it just really comes down to the people. The equipment doesn't make a big difference at all in our business. It all comes down to the people. And the greater team we have, that's when you start to see the results come through. Speaker 200:32:45We're building thousands of projects at one time. And so if you have great people, they're going to find ways to win more often than not on those Operator00:33:02Our final question is from Brett Feldman with D. A. Davidson. Please proceed. Speaker 700:33:09Thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Brett. I Speaker 1000:33:13had a few questions here. First, Jewel, any initiatives to try to increase the penetration into some of these sort of non DOT public areas? I heard you call out airports and military bases. My understanding is that those sorts of opportunities can be margin accretive since you may not have as many people that are expect to get into those types of facilities. So just thoughts on if you've got more around that and I guess if those are margin accretive to you? Speaker 200:33:46Yes. Brent, you're exactly right. Some projects are very difficult, require a lot of prequalification and skill expertise and those are going to have less people bidding on them. Military bases and airports are certainly 2, just like you said. And so where we can work on those type of projects, we absolutely are. Speaker 200:34:08Our new acquisition, our newest teammates Robinson Paving in Columbus, they literally are right outside the gates of Fort Moore, one of the largest bases in the Southeast. They have spent decades working at Fort Moore. And so that's a very attractive addition to our team and universe. Speaker 1000:34:32Got it. Thanks, Jewel. And then, I've heard a little bit about it, some shift in the competitive landscape, just where some of the slowing in these private sectors obviously influenced to some degree by interest rates and shifted some contractors towards public work. Obviously, there's great funding and visibility there. I suspect this is pretty regional, but just wondering if you're experiencing any of that? Speaker 200:35:01Brent, we've addressed that for a few quarters and we keep looking to see if the commercial private market slowing down. And the reality is we just don't see that. It's staying steady. If anything, it's a little better this year than it was last year. We're bidding both types of projects public and private, but we really haven't seen a big slowdown in our commercial opportunities. Speaker 200:35:29But it's something we watch closely. But even if it did slow down, our crews would simply switch to doing more public work. And so it's not something that we worry about a lot. We just we have a certain amount of capacity to make asphalt, lay down asphalt, move dirt and our crews can work either on public jobs or private jobs. Speaker 1000:35:55Yes. Joel, maybe just one more. I mean, one of the things that seems noticeable to me is there's been a propensity for some larger projects getting released out there. And I know you guys manage that and try to focus on the smaller stuff. But has there been any shift to maybe try to work a little more with some of those general contractors as a subcontractor to try and get more of a piece of that pie. Speaker 1000:36:23Again, I understand you want to manage the size of the stuff that you're approaching, but it seems like there's opportunity there. So just curious how you're approaching that? Speaker 200:36:32Yes. Brent, you're right. There are larger projects coming out now with IJA and we're participating in those as subcontractors. And when they're letting our markets, we're very active with those either the dedicated subcontractor or as a subcontractor, so JV partner. So while we don't want to build mega projects and take that risk as the prime contractor, that's just not something we see as the best use of our resources where we can participate in the projects as a subcontractor. Speaker 200:37:09That's very good work for us. Speaker 1000:37:13Okay. Great. Thanks guys. Appreciate you taking the question. Speaker 500:37:17Okay. Thanks, Brent. Operator00:37:18We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn it back over to management for closing remarks. Speaker 200:37:25We appreciate everyone joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Operator00:37:31Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect yourRead morePowered by Key Takeaways Construction Partners delivered a strong Q3 with 23% revenue growth year-over-year, 31% adjusted EBITDA growth, and a 14.1% EBITDA margin, including 13% organic growth. Project backlog reached a record $1.86 billion as of June 30, providing 80–85% visibility into the next 12 months of contract revenue. The company completed seven acquisitions this fiscal year—most recently Hudson Paving in North Carolina and Robinson Pavement in Georgia—to expand its market footprint and fuel future organic growth. Fiscal 2024 guidance was raised to revenue of $1.835–1.86 billion, net income of $73.5–76 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $219–228 million, reflecting record backlog and strong execution. Construction Partners remains focused on its Roadmap 2027 goal of 15–20% annual growth (half organic, half acquisitive) and 13–14% EBITDA margins, driven by operational excellence, vertical integration, and disciplined bidding. AI Generated. May Contain Errors.Conference Call Audio Live Call not available Earnings Conference CallConstruction Partners Q3 202400:00 / 00:00Speed:1x1.25x1.5x2x Earnings DocumentsPress Release(8-K)Quarterly report(10-Q) Construction Partners Earnings HeadlinesConstruction Partners, Inc. Recognized as Silver Telly Award Winner For "Follow the Rock" ProductionMay 29 at 4:15 PM | prnewswire.comIBD Stock Of The Day: Road Warrior Nears Buy Point As Growth Accelerates, Backlog SwellsMay 16, 2025 | msn.comWhite House to reset Social Security?Elon Musk's parting DOGE gift looks set to shock America... A single announcement by July 22nd could soon bring Elon Musk's DOGE operation to its final, dramatic conclusion - with huge consequences for millions of investors. So if you have any money in the market... you're almost out of time to prepare. This plan has already been put in place... and can operate even if Elon's long gone from Washington. May 29, 2025 | Altimetry (Ad)Construction Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ:ROAD) Q2 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptMay 10, 2025 | msn.comConstruction Partners, Inc. (ROAD) Q2 2025 Earnings Call TranscriptMay 9, 2025 | seekingalpha.comConstruction Partners Swings to 2Q Profit, Revenue IncreasesMay 9, 2025 | marketwatch.comSee More Construction Partners Headlines Get Earnings Announcements in your inboxWant to stay updated on the latest earnings announcements and upcoming reports for companies like Construction Partners? Sign up for Earnings360's daily newsletter to receive timely earnings updates on Construction Partners and other key companies, straight to your email. Email Address About Construction PartnersConstruction Partners (NASDAQ:ROAD), a civil infrastructure company, constructs and maintains roadways in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. The company provides various products and services to public and private infrastructure projects, such as highways, roads, bridges, airports, and commercial and residential developments. It also engages in manufacturing and distributing hot mix asphalt (HMA) for internal use and sales to third parties in connection with construction projects; and paving activities, including the construction of roadway base layers and application of asphalt pavement. In addition, the company is involved in site development, including the installation of utility and drainage systems; mining aggregates, such as sand, gravel, and construction stones that are used as raw materials in the production of HMA; and distributing liquid asphalt cement for internal use and sales to third parties in connection with HMA production. The company was formerly known as SunTx CPI Growth Company, Inc. and changed its name to Construction Partners, Inc. in September 2017. Construction Partners, Inc. was founded in 2007 and is headquartered in Dothan, Alabama.View Construction Partners ProfileRead more More Earnings Resources from MarketBeat Earnings Tools Today's Earnings Tomorrow's Earnings Next Week's Earnings Upcoming Earnings Calls Earnings Newsletter Earnings Call Transcripts Earnings Beats & Misses Corporate Guidance Earnings Screener Earnings By Country U.S. Earnings Reports Canadian Earnings Reports U.K. Earnings Reports Latest Articles CrowdStrike Stock Slips: Analyst Downgrades Before Earnings Bullish NVIDIA Market Set to Surge 50% Ahead of Q1 EarningsAdvance Auto Parts: Did Earnings Defuse Tariff Concerns?Booz Allen Hamilton Earnings: 3 Bullish Signals for BAH StockAdvance Auto Parts Jumps on Surprise Earnings BeatAlibaba's Earnings Just Changed Everything for the StockCisco Stock Eyes New Highs in 2025 on AI, Earnings, Upgrades Upcoming Earnings CrowdStrike (6/3/2025)Haleon (6/4/2025)Broadcom (6/5/2025)Oracle (6/10/2025)Adobe (6/12/2025)Accenture (6/20/2025)FedEx (6/24/2025)Micron Technology (6/25/2025)Paychex (6/25/2025)NIKE (6/26/2025) Get 30 Days of MarketBeat All Access for Free Sign up for MarketBeat All Access to gain access to MarketBeat's full suite of research tools. 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There are 11 speakers on the call. Operator00:00:00are in a listen only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. Introduce your host, Rick Black with Investor Relations. Operator00:00:19Thank you. You may begin. Speaker 100:00:22Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners conference call to review Q3 results for fiscal 2024. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Relations section of partners.net. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, August 9, 2024. Please be advised that any time sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay listening or transcript reading. Speaker 100:00:58I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance are forward looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor's provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 19 95. We will be making forward looking statements as part of today's call that by their nature are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our earnings press release for our disclosures on forward looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Speaker 100:01:44Management will also refer to non GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings press release. Construction Partners assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward looking statements. And now, I would like to turn the call over to Construction Partners' CEO, JUUL Smith. JUUL? Speaker 200:02:08Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Greg Hoffman, our Chief Financial Officer and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I want to start by directly thanking the more than 4,800 men and women across the CPI family of companies for their hard work this quarter. The story of this quarter was operational excellence across the Southeast on hundreds of projects under construction and many days and nights operating asphalt plants, quarries and terminals. CPI's success has always been driven by our talented, dedicated construction professionals. Speaker 200:02:48And as our work season shifted this quarter into high gear and long hours, our team delivered. Q3 was a strong quarter for CPI. Compared to a year ago, we grew revenue 23%, adjusted EBITDA 31% and our margins increased to 14.1% for the quarter. It's also important to note that of the 23% revenue growth in the quarter, 13% was organic growth. Year to date, organic growth represents 9.3% of our total 18% revenue growth. Speaker 200:03:24This is consistent with our outlook on organic growth for the year to account for approximately half of our total growth. On a daily basis, we focus on organic growth in our current and adjacent markets, which is a critical component of our strategy to achieve our roadmap 2027 goals. During the quarter, the economic conditions were stable for our industry and demand for the type of construction projects we perform remains high. Public project lettings continued to be strong, supported by the healthy funding programs at the state, local and federal levels throughout our Southeastern states. These public investments include a variety of infrastructure projects ranging from highways and bridges to airports, railroads and military bases. Speaker 200:04:16We also continue to see steady demand for commercial projects with many fast growing economic centers within our local markets. In particular, we continue to see areas of strength in the private market for manufacturing, corporate site development, large economic development projects and residential. This sustained demand continues to drive project backlog growth, which again increased during the quarter. As of June 30, our backlog was $1,860,000,000 Turning now to our strategic growth model. We have acquired 7 companies this fiscal year beginning in October. Speaker 200:04:572 of these acquisitions were made since our last earnings call. In June, we acquired Hudson Paving in Rockingham, North Carolina. Hudson extends our reach into the Sand Hills region of North Carolina. Now as part of our Fred Smith Company platform, this new plant and construction operation in Rockingham allows us to fully serve the rapidly growing Pinehurst and Southern Pines market area. And last week, we announced acquisition of Robinson Pavement Company in Columbus, Georgia. Speaker 200:05:31This expansion of 3 new hot mix asphalt plants and construction operations in Columbus and the surrounding area positions CPI in a strategic location adjacent to our existing operations in both Georgia and Alabama. As a growing economic market supported by Fort Moore in Columbus, this represents an important market for us and a natural next step for our growth in the state of Georgia. Robinson Pavin has long been a highly respected contractor in Georgia and will continue to operate as a branded division of our Georgia platform company, The Scruggs Company. We are excited to have added these high quality companies with excellent reputations into our organization and we want to welcome both our Hudson Paving and Robinson Paving employees as teammates within the CPI family of companies. Acquisitions have always been a part of our growth model as we enter new areas, expand market add capacity services and talented new team members. Speaker 200:06:40Importantly, our acquisition strategy also fuels our future organic growth, helping keep us on a path to achieve our roadmap 2027 goals, which are annual revenue growth of 15% to 20% with approximately half of the growth being acquisitive and half organic and expanding our EBITDA margins in the range of 13% to 14% by 2027. Currently, we continue to see a very active environment for acquisition opportunities as our industry is going through a generational transition and we believe we're the leader in building a scalable business by acquiring great privately held construction companies. While we continue to have conversations with potential sellers both inside and outside of our current states, it's important for us to remain patient and focused on finding the best strategic acquisitions that will bring operational excellence and add to the great culture of the CPI family of companies. In summary, we had a record 3rd quarter and consequently are raising our fiscal 2024 outlook. Our record backlog provides visibility for the remainder of fiscal 2024 and allows us to enter fiscal 2025 with momentum and growth. Speaker 200:08:03Finally, we remain optimistic about the future based upon our healthy local markets across the Southeast, the numerous opportunities available as we continue to execute on our growth strategy, and most importantly, the continued development of our talented workforce to lead and manage a larger and more profitable CPI into the future. I'd now like to turn the call over to Greg. Speaker 300:08:30Thank you, Jules, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with a review of our key performance metrics for the fiscal Q3 compared to the fiscal Q3 in 2023. Revenue was $517,800,000 up 22.7%. The increase included $40,900,000 of revenue from acquisitions completed during and subsequent to the 3 months ended June 30, 2023, and an increase of approximately $55,000,000 of revenue in our existing markets. The mix of total revenue growth for quarter was approximately 13% organic revenue and approximately 9.7% from these recent acquisitions. Speaker 300:09:16And as Jule mentioned, for the 9 months year to date, our organic to acquisitive mix is half and half with organic growth to 3 quarters of 9.3% out of our total growth of 18%. Gross profit was $83,500,000 an increase of 30% compared to the same quarter last year. General and administrative expenses were $38,900,000 or 7.5 percent of total revenue compared to $32,200,000 or 7.6 percent of total revenue in the same quarter last year. We remain on pace for G and A expenses to end the fiscal year at approximately 8% of revenue. Net income for the quarter was 30 point Speaker 400:10:109 Speaker 300:10:16Adjusted EBITDA was $73,200,000 an increase of 30.5%. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 14.1% compared to 13.3% in the Q3 last year. You can find a reconciliation of net income to adjusted EBITDA in today's earnings release. In addition, we grew project backlog to $1,860,000,000 at June 30, up from 1 point at the end of last quarter. We now estimate that we have 80% to 85% of the next 12 months contract revenue booked in backlog, which is up from 70% to 75% at this time last year. Speaker 300:11:04Turning now to the balance sheet, we had $58,400,000 of cash and cash equivalents. As it relates to our credit availability, during the quarter, we converted our $200,000,000 accordion for the terms of the credit agreement into an additional $75,000,000 of revolving credit facility availability, as well as converting $125,000,000 under the revolving credit facility to term debt. As a result, we now have $309,700,000 available under the credit facility, net of a reduction for outstanding letters of credit. We have 39 $500,000 of principal outstanding under the term loan and $81,900,000 outstanding under the revolving credit facility. The additional availability on our credit facility and cash generation will continue to provide flexibility and capacity to allow for potential near term acquisitions and high value growth opportunities. Speaker 300:12:11As of the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA ratio was 1.81 times. Our expectation is the leverage ratio will maintain a range of 1.5 to 2.5 times, while continuing to add sustained profitable growth. Cash provided by operating activities was $35,000,000 Year to date cash provided by operating activities for fiscal 20242023 was $113,200,000 $94,500,000 respectively. Trailing 12 months return on capital employed was 11.4% as of June 30. Net capital expenditures year to date were $62,400,000 We expect net capital expenditures for fiscal 2024 to be in the range of $90,000,000 to $95,000,000 This includes maintenance CapEx of approximately 3.25 percent of revenue with the remaining amount invested in high return growth initiatives. Speaker 300:13:19Based on our performance to date and our visibility through the remainder of the year, we are raising our FY 2024 outlook ranges as follows: revenue in the range of $1,835,000,000 to $1,860,000,000 net income in the range of $73,500,000 to $76,000,000 adjusted EBITDA in the range of 2.19 to $228,000,000 This indicates an adjusted EBITDA margin for fiscal 2024 in the range of 11.9% to 12.3%. And with that, we are now ready to take your questions. Operator? Operator00:14:01Thank Our first question is from Kathryn Thompson with Thompson Research Group. Please proceed. Speaker 400:14:33Hi. Thank you for taking my questions today. Good morning. Good morning. First, I want to focus on backlogs and parsing out a little bit more detail in terms of what is driving this. Speaker 400:14:49You've seen 15 quarters in a row of sequential backlog growth, but still are on that path to 13% to 14% EBITDA margins, which is a difficult thing to do to have both hand in hand. Could you give a little bit more clarity on public end markets included in the backlog versus private end market, understanding that the public has a greater percentage of more ongoing repair and maintenance and private being more new construction? Thank you. Speaker 200:15:30Hey, Catherine, thank you. It has been 15 quarters now of the backlog increasing and I've said for 2 or 3 years now that that's abnormal that CPI through its history in the summer work season backlog went down sequentially. So I'll say it again, I'm starting to wonder myself, but really it just is a reflection of our demand markets continuing to be strong. Let's just take them each one private. The private market continues to be steady. Speaker 200:16:10We continue to see a lot of opportunities to bid there. And then in the public markets, each of our states is now getting the IJA money. We're in our 2nd year of really them using that money. And so we're seeing plenty of opportunities to bid there. And 4 of our states have passed supplemental funding. Speaker 200:16:36And so that's just creating a continued good market to bid in. So we're seeing good work on both added to our backlog. Greg and I noticed in our backlog this quarter that the percent of public backlog maybe went up a couple percent from 65% to 67% or 68%, which you would expect as the IJA is really now in full gear. So I wouldn't be surprised to see that come through on the P and L in the next 12 months. But it's nothing it's no big change. Speaker 200:17:15It's just a slight tick up in public. So we're excited about just the visibility the backlog gives us going into 2025. And we're going to continue to be patient. That's what a good backlog gives you. You talked about the margins. Speaker 200:17:39Part of our margins getting to 13% to 14% is being able to be patient at the bid table. Speaker 400:17:48Okay. Thanks. And just a follow-up, in particular on the private end market. What in like what types of projects are you seeing? And have you seen any change as the years progressed with the residential end market? Speaker 400:18:09Thanks very much. Speaker 200:18:13Yes. As we said in the prepared remarks, it's really more of what we've been talking about, which is just a lot of the projects that you would expect come with the reshoring of businesses moving to the Southeast. And we've seen corporate manufacturing facilities, corporate headquarters, industrial parks that can service, give businesses a place to operate. Residential has been steady. We really haven't seen any huge uptick or shrinking of that market. Speaker 200:18:47It's been pretty steady for the developers building subdivisions. Speaker 400:18:53And just a clarification, have you seen any change in the residential cadence? Because it is a little different than what we have heard from other markets. It could be just your geographic focus, but any sequential change with residential? Speaker 200:19:13We really haven't seen much change at all. I mean residential is not a big part of what we do. But in the places where we do it, in the Panhandle of Florida and Raleigh and other places that we're really involved with residential developers, they've been pretty steady. Speaker 400:19:33Okay, great. Thanks very much. Best of luck. Speaker 500:19:37Okay. Speaker 600:19:37Thank you, Catherine. Thank you, Catherine. Operator00:19:39Our next question is from Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Please proceed. Speaker 700:19:44Hey, good morning. Good morning, Tyler. Hey, Greg, appreciate all the guidance. You guys have been quite active on the M and A front and I appreciate that maybe half the growth here in 2024 will be from M and A. But as you look at it right now, how much from acquisitions that you have already completed here in 2024 should roll into 2025? Speaker 700:20:08I guess my point is, do you already have 2 or 3 points of growth kind of in the bag from the rollover benefit of deals you've already done? Speaker 200:20:18Yes, Tyler, we do. We would estimate that to be in Speaker 300:20:22the $90,000,000 to $110,000,000 range right now rolling into $25,000,000 Speaker 700:20:28Okay. Okay. An incremental benefit in 25. Right. Okay. Speaker 700:20:34Well, that's pretty good. Okay. So I want to talk about this really quickly because I think this year you put some unannounced M and A into your guide given the mechanics around the Speaker 300:20:45Analyst Day. But as Speaker 700:20:46we start to think about how you guys think about your fiscal 2025 guidance, what is your philosophy going to be around M and A? Should we expect you to put some unannounced M and A in that guidance? Or will you only include the M and A that has been announced? Speaker 300:21:02And I don't mean to split a lot Speaker 700:21:03of hairs here, but I do think this is going to be really important on how we think about your guide into 2025? Speaker 200:21:10Yes. Tyler, great question. As you know, typically, we don't put unannounced or aspirational acquisitions into our guide. We did last year just simply for it to be to make sense at our Analyst Day, but we envision just getting back to our normal guidance methodology of just putting in what we've announced so far. And so should be easier to move forward into 2025. Speaker 700:21:43Excellent. Very helpful. And just let me squeeze one last one on margins. So obviously, great improvement there. I'm a pretty simple guy here. Speaker 700:21:51So when I think about margin improvement, that's either a function of you bidding better with maybe more sophisticated tools Or are you seeing more cost disinflation than you had been expecting? Or maybe I'm missing it altogether, maybe public mix is helping. But just any big picture thoughts that really got you to that 14% plus margin this quarter? Thanks. Speaker 200:22:16Yes. Tyler, we've talked about 3 levers of margin expansion. 1 being just building better markets and being able to put more money on the bids. And so that's certainly one. The other is vertical integration. Speaker 200:22:33And so our terminals and aggregate facilities are contributing a little more each year. And then the third is scale. And so I feel like all 3 of those are contributing and working together. And so that's really that continues to be the story on the margins. Speaker 700:22:52Yes. Excellent. Thanks. Good job. Speaker 800:22:55Tyler, this is Ned. I would tell you one thing, the people in the as we look at the statistics, the people that are laying asphalt that are working hard every day in the hot weather and the cold weather, they're doing a fantastic job. Their productivity continues to increase. Their team orientation continues to increase. Jewel and the management team are leading well in that area. Speaker 800:23:16So I think one of the things I would say with margin is you got to go to work every single day in this business and those people are doing an absolutely fabulous job led by people that respect them, that trust them and then encourage them in Jewel and Greg and really this whole team all the way down. And that's if you're not going to put a number to it, but I'm just telling you watching how hard those folks work and we want to treat them well is a huge benefit to the margins as we move forward. Speaker 700:23:51Yes. Thanks, Matt. That's great. Thank you. Speaker 200:23:53Thank you, Tyler. Operator00:23:56Our next question is from Andrew Wittmann with Baird. Please proceed. Speaker 500:24:02Yes, great. I guess, maybe I'll launch off of the last series of questions there and ask you to a little bit to be expand a little bit about the that first thing about building better markets and how, if at all, your bidding process is allowing you to compare your current backlog, your new win margins to what you've done maybe over the last year. Are you still seeing as bid margin growth? Maybe you could comment on that, please. Speaker 200:24:34Yes. Andy, it's a good question. It's one that we can't ever take our off of. We our industry is competitive and that's not going to ever change and so we have to be the low bid. And but what we're trying to do is be patient at the bid table and use our good backlog to be disciplined and patient. Speaker 200:25:00But also if we continue to work on costs and keep your costs down, as Ned said, if we can be more productive in the field, that gains margin as well. But one of the things CPI has always done and we're seeing the return to that is the guys in the field find ways to win and beat production. And so on more jobs than not, we finish at a higher end margin than we bid. And so that's one of the things that really helped this quarter was just the ability to write up projects as they're getting built. Speaker 500:25:40Yes. That's helpful. And then maybe just a comment here guys. We had hurricane season start a little bit earlier than normal here in your fiscal Q4. And I was just wondering how through today the quarter is unfolding. Speaker 500:25:59Has it slowed you down and you need to make it up in the back end of the quarter? Maybe just some comments around where you are with the weather? Speaker 200:26:12Well, we've had 2 quarters in a row now, Andy, where weather is really balanced out. A wetter than normal month is balanced out with a drier than normal month. So and that's what we try communicate to the market is over time weather evens out. July so far this quarter has been wetter than normal. And then 1st week of August, we've had a hurricane march through 4 of our states and just left Raleigh this morning. Speaker 200:26:45So but we'll just have to see how the rest of the quarter goes. We could have really good weather the rest of August September and be just fine. So we don't try to get ahead of ourselves there. Speaker 500:26:59But as it relates to that Q4 guidance, you feel like you've discounted what you've seen so far to the quarter so far? Speaker 200:27:09I'm going to let Greg answer that as to what he's factored in and put him on the hot seat. Greg? Yes. No, I think we've just tried to think about this quarter the same way we've realized the earlier 2 that Speaker 300:27:28the quarter balances out. We always talk a lot about the first half of the year and the second half of the year kind of balance. And oftentimes that occurs within the quarter and that's kind of what we're anticipating happening this quarter. Speaker 500:27:43All right. Fair enough guys. Have a good weekend. Thank you. Thanks Andy. Speaker 500:27:47Thanks Andy. Operator00:27:49Our next question is from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis and Company. Please proceed. Speaker 500:27:57Hey, good morning guys. Congrats on a nice beat. Speaker 200:28:00Thank you, Adam. Good morning. Speaker 600:28:03Wanted to ask about sequential backlog growth. How much of that was organic and how much of that was acquired? Speaker 300:28:12Well, we had about $40,000,000 come in through acquisitions this quarter. So as our acquisitions come in over the year, they have different impact to the quarter, but this quarter was about 40, so the rest was organic. Speaker 600:28:33Sounds like a similar mix to revenue? Speaker 500:28:35That's right. And then what would be Speaker 600:28:38your thoughts on some potential, you talked about M and A, but on the growth CapEx side, growth projects, maybe a new asphalt terminal. Any thoughts there? Speaker 200:28:52Adam, we're always thinking about vertical integration Speaker 600:28:55and things like that. Speaker 200:28:56I will tell you, I want to use this question to just really brag on Greg. He has really instituted a very disciplined growth CapEx process with all of our operating companies and evaluating where to invest our growth CapEx money on the projects that are going to make the most impact. And I think you're seeing that come through in the organic growth this quarter and this year. There's a lot of good opportunities and we can't invest in them all and I think he's done a really good job of putting the investments where it's going to make the most difference. Speaker 500:29:37Sounds good. Thanks guys. Speaker 200:29:40Thank you, Adam. Thanks, Adam. Operator00:29:42Our next question is from Stanley Elliott with Stifel. Please proceed. Speaker 900:29:47Hey, good morning everybody. Thank you for the question. Speaker 700:29:50Hi, Anne. Speaker 600:29:51Hey, could you talk Speaker 900:29:52a little bit about I mean we're pretty much through the earnings season. The numbers that you guys are putting up on the disconnect on how you guys are so positive and a lot of those other businesses were kind of flat to likely down on an organic volume basis? Speaker 200:30:16Yes, Stanley. I can only speak to what we're doing. We're continuing in the markets we're working in to grow market share and to work in adjacent markets on greenfields. And we've got a great demand environment. So that's really driving our ability to grow organically. Speaker 200:30:39And where we have the opportunities we're adding crews and able to do more work. And as I said in the remarks, the acquisitions we did a year ago and 1.5 and 2 years ago, they're creating opportunities for us to grow organically. And I think Hudson Paving and Robinson a year from now are going to give us the opportunity to grow organically in 2025 and 2026. So we're continuing to just execute on our strategy. We've always been a growth company of 15% to 20%. Speaker 200:31:12We can see that continuing in about half organic. And that's really what we see moving forward. Speaker 900:31:20Yes, kind of what I thought and nice to hear. And then, Julien, you mentioned the crew productivity increasing. Do you guys think that's a function of you'll have more people and more crews to be able to put to work and so you can flex to various locations. If weather is an issue move to another location or the ability to flex or work longer hours because of the number of people or even maybe if you have more machines to help with the lay down. Just curious kind of if you could kind of parse out a little bit about what you're doing on the productivity side to drive this outsized growth? Speaker 200:31:55Yes. Great question. I'm glad you asked that Stanley because what Ned said is so important. And it really isn't a function of having more machines. What it is, is just great leadership and great people throughout our organization. Speaker 200:32:13And we talked a lot over the last 3 years about workforce development and focusing on building people, training them. And Robert Bogno, our VP of personnel has worked with the operating companies on attracting, retaining the best workforce because it just really comes down to the people. The equipment doesn't make a big difference at all in our business. It all comes down to the people. And the greater team we have, that's when you start to see the results come through. Speaker 200:32:45We're building thousands of projects at one time. And so if you have great people, they're going to find ways to win more often than not on those Operator00:33:02Our final question is from Brett Feldman with D. A. Davidson. Please proceed. Speaker 700:33:09Thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning, Brett. I Speaker 1000:33:13had a few questions here. First, Jewel, any initiatives to try to increase the penetration into some of these sort of non DOT public areas? I heard you call out airports and military bases. My understanding is that those sorts of opportunities can be margin accretive since you may not have as many people that are expect to get into those types of facilities. So just thoughts on if you've got more around that and I guess if those are margin accretive to you? Speaker 200:33:46Yes. Brent, you're exactly right. Some projects are very difficult, require a lot of prequalification and skill expertise and those are going to have less people bidding on them. Military bases and airports are certainly 2, just like you said. And so where we can work on those type of projects, we absolutely are. Speaker 200:34:08Our new acquisition, our newest teammates Robinson Paving in Columbus, they literally are right outside the gates of Fort Moore, one of the largest bases in the Southeast. They have spent decades working at Fort Moore. And so that's a very attractive addition to our team and universe. Speaker 1000:34:32Got it. Thanks, Jewel. And then, I've heard a little bit about it, some shift in the competitive landscape, just where some of the slowing in these private sectors obviously influenced to some degree by interest rates and shifted some contractors towards public work. Obviously, there's great funding and visibility there. I suspect this is pretty regional, but just wondering if you're experiencing any of that? Speaker 200:35:01Brent, we've addressed that for a few quarters and we keep looking to see if the commercial private market slowing down. And the reality is we just don't see that. It's staying steady. If anything, it's a little better this year than it was last year. We're bidding both types of projects public and private, but we really haven't seen a big slowdown in our commercial opportunities. Speaker 200:35:29But it's something we watch closely. But even if it did slow down, our crews would simply switch to doing more public work. And so it's not something that we worry about a lot. We just we have a certain amount of capacity to make asphalt, lay down asphalt, move dirt and our crews can work either on public jobs or private jobs. Speaker 1000:35:55Yes. Joel, maybe just one more. I mean, one of the things that seems noticeable to me is there's been a propensity for some larger projects getting released out there. And I know you guys manage that and try to focus on the smaller stuff. But has there been any shift to maybe try to work a little more with some of those general contractors as a subcontractor to try and get more of a piece of that pie. Speaker 1000:36:23Again, I understand you want to manage the size of the stuff that you're approaching, but it seems like there's opportunity there. So just curious how you're approaching that? Speaker 200:36:32Yes. Brent, you're right. There are larger projects coming out now with IJA and we're participating in those as subcontractors. And when they're letting our markets, we're very active with those either the dedicated subcontractor or as a subcontractor, so JV partner. So while we don't want to build mega projects and take that risk as the prime contractor, that's just not something we see as the best use of our resources where we can participate in the projects as a subcontractor. Speaker 200:37:09That's very good work for us. Speaker 1000:37:13Okay. Great. Thanks guys. Appreciate you taking the question. Speaker 500:37:17Okay. Thanks, Brent. Operator00:37:18We have reached the end of our question and answer session. I would like to turn it back over to management for closing remarks. Speaker 200:37:25We appreciate everyone joining us today and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Operator00:37:31Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect yourRead morePowered by