Core & Main Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Core & Main EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.52
• Consensus EPS: $0.52
• Beat/Miss: Met Expectations
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.49

Core & Main Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.91 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.84 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$66.78 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +9.80%

Core & Main Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 6/10/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, June 10, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:30AM ET

Core & Main (NYSE:CNM) is a specialty distributor focused on water, wastewater, storm drainage and fire protection products, and related services. The company provides infrastructure solutions to municipalities, private water companies and professional contractors across municipal, non-residential, and residential end markets, nationwide. The company was founded in 1874 and is headquartered in St. Louis, MO.

Core & Main Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Core & Main delivered record Q1 net sales of $1.9 B (up 10% YoY) and adjusted EBITDA of $224 M (up 3%), marking the strongest Q1 in company history.
• Municipal construction activity remains robust, driven by IIJA-funded projects, while nonresidential segments like data centers and institutional buildings perform well offsetting early signs of residential lot development moderation.
• Sequential gross margin expanded to 26.7% owing to disciplined pricing, private label and sourcing initiatives, with pricing expected to be flat or positive for the full year despite minimal direct tariff impact.
• In Q1 the company deployed $58 M for organic capex, share repurchases of 837k shares (~$39 M) and debt service, ending with net leverage of 2.4x, $1.1 B liquidity, and a healthy M&A pipeline plus plans for 5–10 new greenfields.
• Full-year guidance was reaffirmed at $7.6–7.8 B in net sales and $950–1 B in adjusted EBITDA (12.5–12.8% margin), with strong H1 visibility but H2 demand subject to uncertainty from tariffs, inflation and rates.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to the Core and Main Q1 twenty twenty five Earnings Call. My name is Alex, and I'll be coordinating the call today. I'll now hand it over to Glenn Floyd, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Glenn Floyd, Director - IR & Treasury at Core & Main]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is Glenn Floyd, Director of Investor Relations for Core and Main. We are excited to have you join us this morning for our fiscal twenty twenty five first quarter earnings call. I am joined today by Mark Wachowski, our Chief Executive Officer and Robin Bradbury, our Chief Financial Officer.

[Glenn Floyd, Director - IR & Treasury at Core & Main]

Mark will begin today's call with a brief business update. Robin will then discuss our financial results and fiscal twenty twenty five outlook followed by a Q and A session. We will conclude the call with Mark's closing remarks. Our press release, presentation and the statements made during this call may include forward looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections.

[Glenn Floyd, Director - IR & Treasury at Core & Main]

Such risks and uncertainties include the factors set in our earnings press release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We will also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful in assessing the operating results of our business. A reconciliation of these measures can be found in our earnings press release and in the appendix of our investor presentation. Thank you for your interest in Core and Main. I will now turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Mark Witkowski.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Thanks, Glenn. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. We are proud to deliver another quarter of strong performance at CorinMain, highlighted by first quarter net sales of $1,900,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of two twenty four million dollars both all time highs for the first quarter. Achieving these results in a dynamic macroeconomic environment speaks to the resilience of our end markets, the strength of our business model, and most importantly, the commitment of our associates to advance reliable infrastructure with local service nationwide.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Our strong local relationships, product and service breadth, and product expertise continues to differentiate us and enables long term value for our customers and stakeholders. We are seeing steady growth in municipal construction activity and funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act continues to generate new opportunities for growth in our end markets. The pipeline of shovel ready projects utilizing the funding, particularly water and wastewater treatment plants, transmission line replacements and storm water management initiatives is expanding, giving us confidence in our near and long term outlook for municipal construction. Residential lot development was resilient through the and we were pleased with the activity we saw to start the year. We are beginning to see signs of softening in response to general economic conditions and affordability pressures.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Specifically, are hearing from some of our customers that developers are reducing footprints in an effort to manage their capital investments. Despite the short term uncertainty surrounding residential development, the secular fundamentals underpinning The U. S. Housing market are strong and we continue to expect builders to keep building homes and a release of pent up demand as interest rates moderate and affordability improves. Our diversified mix within the non residential end market provided stability despite shifting dynamics across project types.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

We continue to see strong sales volumes into data center construction and positive trends for institutional buildings, multifamily housing and road and bridge projects. In contrast, activity remains softer for commercial buildings, manufacturing and warehousing. That said, we're encouraged by the level of bidding activity across our nonresidential portfolio and we believe our balanced exposure provides us an opportunity to outperform the broader market over time. Market volume growth in the first quarter was supplemented by robust share gains from the execution of our product, customer and geographic expansion initiatives to deliver mid single digit organic sales growth. We drove 10% growth in meters and growth well into the double digits in our treatment plant and fusible high density polyethylene offerings.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

This level of execution illustrates our ability to make the right investments in talent, the power of our scale and our role in accelerating the adoption of new products in the industry. We saw sequential improvement in gross margins in the first quarter driven by disciplined pricing and solid execution in our private label and sourcing efforts. The consistency of our gross margin reflects the value we deliver to our customers and it reinforces the strength of our differentiated value proposition. While tariffs and trade restrictions between The U. S.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

And other countries are at the top of everyone's mind, the direct impact on corn main supply chain to date has been minimal as the majority of our products are domestically made. We are actively working with our suppliers to mitigate any supply chain disruption and we have taken pricing actions to the extent necessary. The direct and indirect impacts of tariffs on the broader economy and on private construction specifically remain uncertain and we are monitoring the environment closely. We continue to execute on our capital priorities deploying approximately $58,000,000 during the first quarter between organic capital investments, share repurchases and debt service. Investing in the growth of the business continues to be our highest priority for capital allocation.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Our acquisition pipeline is healthy and we continue to evaluate several opportunities of various sizes. We're also committed to returning capital to shareholders. And in the first quarter, we bought back nearly 837,000 shares of our stock at an attractive valuation. Turning to Page six of the presentation, I'll wrap up my prepared remarks with a discussion on the levers we have to drive growth and scale our capabilities over the long term. Each of our three seventy branches strive to sell more products to more customers and generate more profit every day.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

We equip the field with data on their markets, their share wallet, and their profitability, and they bring us new opportunities for organic growth. Our operating model generates organic share gains by focusing on local service combined with a pay for performance culture that aligns with our business strategy. We have an ongoing process to collect and evaluate these ideas culminating in our annual strategic plan. The strategic plan gives us clarity on which of the many great opportunities to pursue, whether they are organic, inorganic, or often a combination of both. We work to bring these opportunities to life as initiatives where we resource them for scale and we measure them with a focus on profitability.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Our product initiatives including meters, fusible HDPE, treatment plant, storm drainage and geosynthetics have allowed us to grow faster than the market historically and we expect they will continue to help drive market share gains in the future. The ten year growth of these initiatives has been impressive, averaging 13% annually and they're delivering almost $2,500,000,000 in combined annual net sales today. To compete effectively, having a strong physical presence and strong local relationships in every market we serve is critical. No one is better equipped to identify service gaps and local growth opportunities than our local teams. With our local expertise and our market intelligence, we have significantly expanded our footprint since becoming an independent company in 2017 through a series of greenfields and bolt on acquisitions.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Greenfields are a powerful way to expand geographically and we are well positioned to do so given our talent pool, our scale and the lessons learned from our past successes. They require minimal CapEx to open and operate and each of the 20 Greenfields we've opened since 2017 has generated positive operating income within the two years. Together, they are now delivering nearly $300,000,000 of annual net sales. And of course, none of this is possible without our people, which is why we continue to invest heavily in their growth and development. Our award winning training program commercializes our go to market strategy, deepens industry expertise, and ensures our 600 plus field sales reps who average fourteen years of experience are equipped to drive profitable growth.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Our associates learn from the best of the best on the job in our national training center through in house subject matter experts and with virtual and online learning academies. Our learning team offers a wide range of sales, operations, product expertise, leadership and safety training programs and courses. We also provide customized training and early career rotational programs for college graduates to develop as future leaders. We partner with our suppliers to enhance our knowledge base as new best practices are continually introduced in our industry. Our comprehensive approach and dedication to developing industry leaders earned Korn Main the number 23 spot on Training Magazine's Global Apex Awards list for excellence in employee training and development.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Because strong local relationships are key to success in new markets, bolt on acquisitions is often the fastest approach and you can see that in our results. Since 2017, we've completed over 40 acquisitions adding approximately 140 branches and $1,800,000,000 of annual net sales. And we aren't done with only 19% share of a highly fragmented $39,000,000,000 addressable market, our long term opportunities to grow and gain market share is significant. We've proven we can add substantial sales and profitability to our business through these initiatives. Then we add sustainable margin expansion to the mix through private label, sourcing optimization, pricing analytics and digitization, and that is an exciting formula for profitable growth.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Thank you all for your ongoing support and trust in our long term vision. I look forward to what Coramain will accomplish in the years ahead. And I'll now turn it over to Robin to provide our financial update.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Thank you, Mark. I want to start by thanking our teams for their hard work in delivering another record quarter. I'll begin on page eight with some highlights from our first quarter results. We grew net sales 10% to a first quarter record of $1,900,000,000 Organic sales were up mid single digits and acquisitions contributed the balance of growth in the quarter. Pricing improved sequentially from the prior quarter resulting in a neutral impact to sales growth compared to the prior year.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Our end markets were slightly positive in total, and we believe we achieved considerable share gains from the execution of our product, customer, and geographic expansion initiatives. As mentioned on our last call, we estimate that approximately 85% of our sales are products that are domestically manufactured and distributed. For the balance of products that are imported by our suppliers or have imported components, there is usually a domestic alternative. While tariffs did not significantly impact our first quarter results, we are starting to see some tariff related cost increases from our suppliers, and we expect to pass through these costs as we have done historically. Gross margins in the first quarter finished at 26.7% compared to 26.6% last quarter and 26.9% in the prior year.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

The sequential improvement in gross margin was driven by pricing discipline and continued execution of our private label and sourcing initiatives while achieving share gains. The year over year decline was expected and is due to a higher average cost of inventory this year compared to last year, partially offset by accretive acquisitions and the success of our initiatives. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased 14% in the first quarter to $293,000,000 The increase in SG and A is primarily due to the impact of acquisitions and inflation. Excluding the effect of acquisitions and equity based compensation, SG and A expenses were up approximately 4%, reflecting underlying gains in productivity. Interest expense was $30,000,000 compared with $34,000,000 in the prior year.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

The decrease was primarily due to lower average borrowings under our ABL credit facility and a decrease in rates on our variable rate debt. Provision for income taxes in the was $36,000,000 compared with $33,000,000 in the prior year, and our effective tax rates were 25.524.6%, respectively. Our effective tax rate this year reflects a more normalized ongoing rate, and the increase over the prior year was due to exchanges of partnership interest that increased the allocation of net income to Core and Main Inc. Diluted earnings per share increased approximately 6% to $0.52 The increase in diluted EPS was due to an increase in net income and lower share count following the share repurchase transactions we completed throughout fiscal years 2024 and 2025. First quarter adjusted EBITDA increased 3% to $224,000,000 Adjusted EBITDA margins declined 80 basis points to 11.7%, which was in line with our expectations.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Moving to our balance sheet and cash flow, we ended the quarter with net debt of nearly $2,300,000,000 and net leverage of 2.4 times. Total liquidity was $1,100,000,000 consisting primarily of availability under our ABL credit facility. We generated $77,000,000 of operating cash flow and we are pleased with this result in what has historically been a lower cash generation quarter for us. We continue to allocate our cash flow to priorities that we believe will result in growth or returns for shareholders. We deployed 39,000,000 in the first quarter to repurchase 837,000 shares at an average price of $46.64 per share, finishing the quarter with $285,000,000 remaining under our authorization.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Investing in growth remains our top capital allocation priority, and our M and A pipeline is active. We are actively engaging with dozens of potential targets, and we are being prudent in our evaluation to ensure they are the right cultural and strategic fit. Turning to our outlook, we are reaffirming our full year guidance for net sales of 7,600,000,000.0 to $7,800,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $950,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 This reflects our continued expectation for adjusted EBITDA margins in the range of 12.5% to 12.8%. We have good visibility into demand through the next quarter and expect to finish the first half strong, supported by healthy project activity and backlogs. That said, uncertainty associated with tariffs, inflation and interest rates could impact customer sentiment and demand in the back half of the year.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

At a high level, we continue to expect our end markets to be roughly flat for the full year, stable in the near term but with less clarity as we move into the half. We offer a strong value proposition to the industry, and we are on track to achieve the two to four points of above market volume growth we communicated last quarter by expanding our presence in underpenetrated geographies, driving product line expansion, and acquiring and developing new sales talent. Pricing improved sequentially, and we believe that the impact to sales growth for the full year will be neutral or better. We expect to improve gross margins for the full year through the execution of our private label, sourcing optimization and pricing initiatives, and our first quarter results support this trend. While SG and A growth has been outpacing sales growth in recent quarters due to the impact of acquisitions, we have been pleased to see organic productivity gains and have commenced cost out activities and expect them to drive improvements through the end of the year.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

These productivity improvements combined with our expectation for gross margin expansion reinforce our confidence in achieving adjusted EBITDA margins in the 12.5% to 12.8 range for the year. In closing, I want to reiterate that our sector has strong fundamentals, and we have a proven strategy to continue strengthening Coramain's leadership position. The long term trends underlying our end markets are favorable, and our products and services play a critical role in advancing reliable infrastructure. We expect to outperform the market even as the broader economic environment evolves. Our business is well positioned to capitalize on opportunities for growth, and we remain committed to building on our track record of delivering value to shareholders. With that, let's open it up for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our question for today comes from Matthew Bouley of Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Hey, good morning, Mark and Robin. Thank you guys for taking the questions. Actually, I wanted to start on the SG and A side. Robin, some helpful color there around how you're thinking about productivity there for the year. I think you said it was up 4% ex acquisitions and equity comp.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

So I just wanted to kind of drill in a little bit, you know, Q2 second half. Is the implication that you would start to see leverage on the SG and A rate as soon as Q2 here? And also curious if there was anything additional unusual that you might call out in that SG and A expense this quarter? Thank you.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Yes. Hey, good morning, Matt. Thanks for the question. You're right. When we look at the quarter from an organic standpoint, excluding some onetime items or add backs, we were productive for the quarter.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

So we gained some productivity there during the quarter. Our overall rate was improved sequentially from the fourth quarter. So in total, we're making some progress there on some of our SG and A initiatives. And as we get into the second quarter, expecting to see more organic improvement in rate from a year over year basis. And as we get into the total company, we'll anniversary some of those acquisitions.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

We have been working on some of those M and A synergies. Those are on track. We're really pleased with the execution. But as we've noted before, it can take about twelve to eighteen months to get some of those SG and A synergies on the M and A side. So as we go throughout the year, we're looking improved SG and A rate as we kind of go through each quarter on a year over year basis.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

We've made some investments in growth. We've seen some inflation. We're working on offsetting some of those. But feel good with where we're at. Feel like we're making some good progress here and happy to see the gains and leverage on the organic side.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Okay. Got it. And thank you for that, Robin. And then, yes, just secondly, thinking about the top line guide for the year. Obviously, you pointed out in Q1, it seems like you had some fairly substantial share gains.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

I think I heard you say that your inflation outlook is maybe turning to a little bit more positive than it was. So just kind of given the starting point, you know, given where we are here in the middle of q two, just kind of wanted to get a sense on the level of conservatism you're building into the back half, especially given the comments you made around some uncertainty out there. So just kind of help us sort of put together the half and half from end market and volume perspective. Thank you.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Sure. Yes, happy to. So if we look at the market for the full year, we're expecting the market to be roughly flat, stronger in the half of the year and then down a little bit in the back half of the year from where we are today. And that just reflects the level of uncertainty given tariffs, higher interest rates and affordability concerns and things like that. Feel good really good about our bidding and backlog activity and what we're seeing.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

We feel like it's going to be a good second quarter. And then we'll see what happens in the back half with the macroeconomic environment. From a pricing standpoint, pricing has improved sequentially from the fourth quarter. We were down slightly in the fourth quarter. In the first quarter, we were roughly flat for pricing.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

And we're expecting pricing to be flat for the year at a minimum. So seeing in the quarter, we saw some ins and outs on pricing in some product categories, but we're starting to anniversary some of the declines in the prior year and expect pricing to be roughly flat at worst for FY 2025 overall.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

All right. Well, thank you, Rob, and good luck, guys.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Thanks, Matt.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from David Manthey of Baird. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Just to follow on that pricing question, could you just discuss the situation with commodities versus finished goods? And I don't know if you said what it was in the quarter. Was pricing net zero a little negative and you expect that to improve through the remainder of the year?

[David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

And just has there been any change in your thinking over the past ninety days as it relates to pricing?

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Yes. Yes. So we have seen pricing kind of improve sequentially from a year over year basis. Like I said, in the fourth quarter, we were slightly down. In the first quarter here, we were basically flattish from a year over year perspective.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

From different product levels in the quarter, steel has been improving. We did see that kind of anniversary and hit flat as we got to the end of the quarter. So that was encouraging. And then PVC has been pretty stable over the last few months here. So have a good level of confidence for pricing to be flat as we go throughout the year based on some of those scenarios that we're seeing.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

We like I said, we've seen some down year over year for the quarter, but some of those are starting to normalize. And we also have seen some inflation on other product categories and expect that to continue throughout the year. So flat to slightly up for the year is kind of the latest thinking there, Dave.

[David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Got it. And then as it relates to your comments on the half versus half, I think the extra week was in the fourth quarter last year and you have am I correct in saying that you have one less week year to year in the fourth quarter this year. But even weeks adjusted looking at sort of organic growth, it looks like the comps are maybe just a little bit tougher in the back half. So but you're talking about the market being uncertain and that's what you're signaling, right? Or should we read a little bit into the fact that maybe there's some unusual movement in your own financials relative to those year to year comps?

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Yes. Great question. So you're right. We've got the 50 week in the fourth quarter of this year or the lack thereof, I guess. That will be about a two point headwind for the year, given we'll have one less week, much higher impact on that quarter.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

So if you think about seasonality for this year, it's possible that the fourth quarter could be down on a year over year basis from total sales, just given that we have one less week in the quarter. The second quarter is shaping up good for us. We did have that wet weather in the prior year, so expecting to see some good performance in the second quarter. And then we had a little bit of recoup of that wet weather in the third quarter. So that will be just a little bit tougher comp if you're thinking about seasonality and how to model that out.

[David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Thanks very much.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Thanks, Dave.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC]

Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just wanted to maybe just go back to your comments, Robin, about the SG and A, the exit comp portion. Just maybe just touch on whether that was related to the CEO, CFO transition or if there's anything else driving that? And then just the kind of a follow on to that question is the flat to 30 bps of EBITDA margin expansion, are we still expecting that to be primarily gross margin driven with SG and A flat for the year?

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Yes. Nigel, I'll touch on the stock equity comp Not really a big impact there from anything executive comp related. We did start to accrue that a little bit, but that really wasn't the impact. More of the impact on that was that we've now got three years of kind of post IPO equity vested there. So what you're seeing now is a little bit more of a more normalized run rate going forward on the stock comp piece.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC]

And then the full year framework Hey, Nigel. Sorry. Sorry, Mark.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yeah. Nigel, good morning. Yes, I'd tell you on the EBITDA expansion and our expectations to continue to grow that, obviously, we've had a lot of really good execution from a gross margin expansion standpoint, both with private label, a lot of the sourcing optimization we've been doing and the pricing optimization work. So continue to believe that's going to be a good lever and multiple levers We did expect going into this year that SG and A with some of the carryover from the acquisitions that we did that had much higher gross margin percentages just given some of the product mixes there also carried some higher SG and A with them that we've continued to optimize.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

So I do expect, as Robin mentioned earlier, we'll get some of that, and I would say, very soon here in the second quarter and into the rest of the year, which will be another good lever for us for EBITDA expansion. But I would still wait more of it for the full year on the gross margin side.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC]

That's great. And then just on the obviously, really good working capital performance in what's normally a very weak 1Q. Inventory did build, I think, mid teens year over year, even Q over Q is quite a step up. So I'm wondering, was that intentional to kind of get ahead of some of these supplier price increases? Any thoughts there?

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yes, Nigel. The inventory build is really twofold. I think represented the confidence and the volume that we saw here in the half of the year going into the second quarter. And then, yes, just given some of the uncertainty around tariffs, we definitely took an opportunity to bring in some extra inventory to make sure, number one, that we had all that inventory available for our customers and then obviously to mitigate against some potential increases that we're seeing just come into the market. So really twofold I think from an inventory build standpoint.

[Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC]

That's great. Thanks Mark.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Colin Veron of Deutsche Bank. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[Collin Verron, Director at Deutsche Bank]

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I just wanted to talk about the residential construction market a little bit more. You called out the resiliency in the most recent quarter, but things are slowing down, it looks like. Can you put a little more color around that, what you think the slowdown looks like from a magnitude perspective as we move through the rest of the year and when that starts to hit your sales?

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yes, sure. Thanks for the question. From a residential perspective, recognize we do a lot of the lot development work there. And I'd say going into 2025, we weren't really expecting it to be a robust environment in 2025, but we definitely were pleased with the activity that we saw in the quarter. I'd say it kind of came in more neutral to start the year.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Definitely some positivity in certain parts of the country that we're seeing some really good activity. As we kind of exited the first quarter and into the second quarter, we started to get a little bit more feedback from the field and certainly our customers that are doing a lot of that lot development work that we're starting to see some of the bidding, some of the jobs that are being awarded just scaled down in size. And that led us to believe we could start seeing a little bit of a headwind with residential. And that was part of our rationale as we thought about the guide for the rest of the year, just taking that from kind of a neutral to potentially down slightly as we work through 2025, just given all the information we're seeing in the field, plus some of the other uncertainty in the macro environment that I think has been well publicized in the media. So those are some of the factors there.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

I don't view it as really a significant driver for us, given that's only about 20% of the business, but something that we're really watching right now.

[Collin Verron, Director at Deutsche Bank]

That's really helpful color. And then just on the meter side, you guys called out 10% growth. Can you just talk about the level of growth you're expecting for that product category going forward? And how you're thinking about the volume versus mix equation there with the smart meter adoption by the industry?

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yes. Our smart meter performance continues to be really strong. I would tell you the 10% growth in the quarter is also on top of a prior year quarter where we grew at 30%. So the two year stack there has been really impressive. We continue to win large significant meter contracts with the suppliers that we're partnered with from a meter standpoint.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

I'd say that is mostly volume gains as you think about the nature of meter contracts are generally a little longer term in nature. So really good, just solid volume growth there. I do expect there'll probably be some price increases into that market based on what we're seeing with some of the tariff impacts. But overall, we just continue to see a lot of great opportunity there. We've invested a lot of technical resources there to continue to drive the adoption in some of the larger metropolitan areas that are, I would say, a little further behind just with their general adoption of smart meter technology.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

So very confident with how we're positioned there and expect we'll continue to take more share as we move forward.

[Collin Verron, Director at Deutsche Bank]

Great. Thank you for the color.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Bros of Thompson Research Group. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[Brian Biros, Equity Analyst at Thompson Research Group]

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions today. On the product breakout, I guess this quarter has, I think, the best growth in storm drainage, and it was 17% compared to the total company at about 10%. And that's kind of played out over the past few quarters here where storm drainage outperformed company total. I guess, you just talk about what's driving that outperformance there for Storm Drainage specifically?

[Brian Biros, Equity Analyst at Thompson Research Group]

Is that acquisition that's growing? Is that company initiatives? Is that certain project types that are seeing better growth in the market? Any color there would be helpful.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Yes. Thanks, Brian. For storm drainage, you're right. We've seen really good growth there. A portion of that has been M and A.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Really good driver though of organic storm drainage growth for us has been specifically in the road and bridge area. We sell a lot of storm drainage product into that. Some of that has been kind of lifted by the infrastructure build funding there. There's a good amount out there spreading around related to that road and bridge and street work. So that's been a catalyst.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

We've been well positioned from the storm drainage standpoint. One other catalyst would be just the kind of shift in product type. There are some areas that are now opening up and allowing more of the storm drainage product that we sell. And so there's more going through distribution on the storm drainage side versus historically some of that has been some other product like concrete that hasn't typically gone as much through distribution. So lot of good dynamics there and expect that to continue to be a good growth driver for us as we move forward.

[Brian Biros, Equity Analyst at Thompson Research Group]

And then maybe thinking much longer picture here, but can we maybe just talk about the twenty twenty eight targets that were set out in the prior Investor Day? I guess I'm thinking mainly the margin target of 15% EBITDA margins. I think now it looks like you maybe need like 70 basis points of margin expansion per year to hit that number versus I think it was kind of 40 to 50 per year at the time of the Investor Day and kind of the long term annual value creation targets. So just trying to think are there new levers or stronger levers to pull today to continue to progress to that 15% margin? Thank you.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yes, sure. Thanks for the question. As you think about the opportunity for us to expand EBITDA margin, the levers that we laid out during Investor Day, I'd say continue and I'd say we continue to execute on those. Obviously, a lot of progress made from a gross margin standpoint. And given some of the M and A that we've completed really has provided, I'd say, even more opportunities for us to drive some more synergies and scale.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

I would say when we issued those targets during Investor Day, we also did expect and I think we're very clear that there were there was some margin normalization that we expected to have happened early in the cycle there. So it's not a surprise at all for us to know that we've got annual goals that are higher than that 30,000,000 to 50 that we laid out there. And I'm very confident given the levers that we've laid out and we've continued to execute against that we can achieve those goals.

[Brian Biros, Equity Analyst at Thompson Research Group]

Great to hear. Thank you.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Thank

[Operator]

you. Our next question comes from Mike Dahl of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. A follow-up on price and gross margin. I guess if we're sitting here today and sounds like commodities are basically back to roughly neutral and you talked about some of the non commodity price increases anecdotally, can you just help ballpark kind of breadth and magnitude of the price increases that you're seeing your vendors put into the market, and kind of timing of of those? Because it seems like if commodities are flat and you're seeing some cost increases that that really we should be in in more solidly inflationary territory for yourselves as we go through the year.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

So that's the part. And then maybe just type the sequential cadence in gross margins since you have the inventory position, but then there's moving pieces around some of these dynamics in terms of implementation and timing of price? Any dialing in you can help us with on sequential gross margin would help.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yes. Sure, Mike. I'd just say generally as we think about pricing and then the outlook, obviously there's still a lot of uncertainty on the tariff side. While I don't expect that will be a major driver for us and it should be kind of a neutral to positive, it's obviously been volatile and something we're going to watch as we go forward. I'd say, yes, we're pleased with the sequential stability of the commodities.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

We still do have a headwind with PVC on a year over year basis, but we have been pleased with how that stabilized as we go forward. And do expect just given some of the discussion with given some of the information that we've received from suppliers related to potential cost increases that we've got an opportunity to get some inventory in like we have to be able to mitigate some of those cost increases. And then we've really worked really hard with our suppliers and our customers to make sure that everybody is very transparent and clear where they're going to see potential price increases as we go forward. So we're, I'd say, watching that closely. We believe neutral is kind of the right frame of mind.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

We've tried to indicate that it could be positive if it keeps kind of trending in this direction as we go through the full year and expect that we'll be able to get cost increases passed along such that gross margins are either held neutral or given some of the inventory investments that we could get a benefit out of that as we move throughout the year.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Got it. Thanks for that color, Mark. And then, just as a follow on, you spent some time talking about greenfields in the opening remarks, and and the idea isn't new that that's a lever, but it sounded like maybe that could be something that's of increasing focus for you as you've taken on the role. You know, twenty twenty greenfields over the past seven, eight years, I think, compared to some other distribution platforms across building products is is still relatively modest.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

Maybe just help help us understand what your vision is, specifically on kind of the greenfield strategy and whether you could be leaning in on that.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yes. Sure, Mike. What I would tell you on greenfields is just our general growth strategy is to have both levers and it's to look at M and A and also having the opportunity to do greenfields in selected markets if that's a better opportunity for growth. And if you go back through back to 2017 when we became a stand alone company, obviously, we've had some really strong M and A growth. We've added a lot of locations.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

We've integrated a lot of locations, and we've been able to complete greenfields during that time. I would tell you that there is definitely an emphasis on continuing to expand our business through greenfield locations. While that annual average that you referenced may not sound like a lot, I can tell you that over the next year, I'd expect us to be opening somewhere between five and ten new greenfields throughout 2025 just based on what we've got in the pipeline right now. So I'm very confident that given our focus in that area and evaluating whether M and A is the right strategy or greenfields that we're going to continue to make really good progress there and really excited about what's in our pipeline there.

[Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets]

That's great. Thank you.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yep.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Anthony Pettinari of Citi. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[Anthony Pettinari, Analyst at Citigroup]

Good morning. For your municipal government customers, is it possible to kind of generalize, as you talk with them, how they're feeling about kind of the upcoming fiscal year and spending your projects? There's been kind of an effort by the administration to maybe peel back some funding for IRA or maybe some other programs that maybe could put some pressure on munis, but maybe there are parts of the current budget that could be more stimulus. I'm just wondering if you could talk about kind of the current policy environment and how your muni customers are kind of thinking about coming year.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Hey. Thanks, Anthony, for the question. There's 50,000 municipalities in The U. S, so it's very fragmented. And we do spend some time with their annual budgets going through that.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

I would say funding for the municipalities is healthy. They've got multiple avenues that they can get funding for their projects. The IIJA is starting to flow more. There's more of that flowing down to the municipalities today than there has been in the past. There's state level funding that's happening.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

There's some multibillion dollar funding going out there at the state level for municipalities to gain funding to do some of these projects. And then at the local level, what we're seeing though is the majority of the spend that municipalities use for their water infrastructure is on their local revenue streams from the utility rates that they charge to their customers. So across the board, we feel like there's ample funding there for their projects for several years to come. Obviously, the water infrastructure is aged and in need of repair, but feel like there's a lot of runway there for them to continue to work on projects. So as we look at the guide and we look at the uncertainty in the back half of the year, municipality is not really in that bucket.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Our municipal end market is pretty steady and stable and resilient from that standpoint.

[Anthony Pettinari, Analyst at Citigroup]

Got it. Got it. That's very helpful. And then just following up on the question on greenfields and kind of organic versus inorganic. On the M and A side, are you seeing increased competition for deals?

[Anthony Pettinari, Analyst at Citigroup]

There seems to be a lot of interest in building products, distribution, consolidation. I don't know if Waterworks is niche enough that you're not seeing a different kind of competitive environment for deals versus a few years ago. Or just wondering if you kind of characterize the M and A market right now.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Yes, sure. Thanks for the question. I would tell you no real changes from a competitive standpoint on the M and A side. I would tell you generally it can just be a little lumpier given when sellers are ready to sell businesses in our industry. It is a little bit more of a niche industry.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Would say we've got a lot of really strong relationships across the waterworks space and continue to be viewed as the acquirer of choice there just given those long standing relationships. And I think the value that we've been able to demonstrate when we do these acquisitions and really making a good home for the associates and really helping them find new opportunities for growth and helping us create value. So that continues to be a strong lever for us. I would tell you our pipeline, as Robin mentioned on the call, very healthy. We've got various deals that we're looking at, at various stages and sizes right now and continue to expect that we'll continue to deliver on our growth strategy from an M and A standpoint.

[Anthony Pettinari, Analyst at Citigroup]

Okay. That's very helpful. I'll turn it over.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Andrew Obin of Bank of America. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

[David Ridley-Lane, Analyst at Bank of America]

Hi. This is David Ridley Lane for Andrew. Given some public commentary from your competitors, how has your own employee retention trended over the last twelve months? To put it bluntly, have you seen an uptick in poaching of your field sales representatives?

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Thanks, David, for the question. I would tell you our retention of our associates remains extremely high. I would say it's I would be confident in saying it's the best in the industry. We have always been in a position to retain our people. And from a, I'd say, poaching standpoint, you can see that from time to time in the industry.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

It can come up. I would say we generally view that as a positive for us because we are generally able to take advantage of those situations in markets where that's happening in the industry. I wouldn't say it's any heavier, lighter than what we've ever seen historically and feel really good with the retention of our team what we're delivering on an overall basis and continue to expect that to be the case as we go forward.

[David Ridley-Lane, Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. And then on the new cost out initiatives that you announced on this earnings call, any rough quantification that you could give us in terms of how much you would expect to be realizing in the fiscal year, just roughly?

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Hey David, I would tell you that we've got a kind of a lot of things going on there on the SG and A side. We are continuing to make investments in areas that have good opportunity for growth, making sure that those resources that we are adding are focused on the areas of growth. If there are areas that maybe are a little bit underperforming, we can make shifts and we've done some of those things to make sure those resources are aligned to the best areas of opportunity. But I would say, not anything substantial at this point. We've been more focused on scaling some of the recent M and A that we've gotten and getting synergies that way on the SG and A front and then just making sure our resources are appropriately deployed to the areas that get us the most opportunity.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Those have been kind of the biggest areas of focus for us so far.

[David Ridley-Lane, Analyst at Bank of America]

Sorry. Did I did I mishear that? I mean, when you were talking about the guidance and the guidance commentary, you said the s g and a, some cost out initiatives started. Right? I'm just

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Yeah. We we do have a little bit in in underperforming areas. We do have a little bit of cost out that we did, but, you know, that's that's part of my comments of aligning the resources to the areas of the best opportunity.

[David Ridley-Lane, Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

[Robyn Bradbury, CFO at Core & Main]

Thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. At this time, we currently have no further questions. So I'll hand back to Mark Witkowski for any further remarks.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

Thank you all again for joining us today. It was a pleasure to have you on the call. I'd like to close by thanking our associates for continuing to provide exceptional service to our customers. We delivered another quarter of record performance driven by resilient demand, above market growth, stable pricing and sequential gross margin expansion. Our local relationships, diverse offerings and investments in talent and new capabilities continue to differentiate Core and Main and drive market share gains.

[Mark Witkowski, CEO at Core & Main]

We are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the long term secular drivers of water infrastructure investment, including aging systems, population growth and increasing regulatory demands. Our scale, local expertise and proven growth strategy enable us to deliver critical solutions that support the modernization and resilience of water systems nationwide. Thank you for your interest in Coramain. Operator, that concludes our call.

[Operator]

Thank you all for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.

Participants

Executives

• Glenn Floyd, Director - IR & Treasury
• Mark Witkowski, CEO
• Robyn Bradbury, CFO

Analysts

• Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
• David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird
• Nigel Coe, Managing Director at Wolfe Research, LLC
• Collin Verron, Director at Deutsche Bank
• Brian Biros, Equity Analyst at Thompson Research Group
• Mike Dahl, Managing Director - Equity Research at RBC Capital Markets
• Anthony Pettinari, Analyst at Citigroup
• David Ridley-Lane, Analyst at Bank of America