Perimeter Solutions Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
May 6, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Perimeter reported a strong Q1 with adjusted EBITDA of $41.2M (vs. $18.1M a year ago) and net sales of $125.1M (up 74%), which management says reflects a more durable, predictable earnings base driven by its operational value‑driver model.
  • Positive Sentiment: The company signed a 5‑year foam contract with the DLA with a maximum value of $500M (management expects ~two‑thirds, roughly $300M, incremental uplift), ramping from late 2026 and targeting steady‑state contribution in 2028.
  • Positive Sentiment: Perimeter renewed a 5‑year CAL FIRE retardant contract that includes a year‑1 price step‑up to align CAL FIRE pricing with other large customers, supporting improved pricing and margin durability.
  • Negative Sentiment: The Sauget, IL (Flexis‑operated) facility experienced the worst operational downtime in its history, materially disrupting production; Perimeter is pursuing legal remedies against One Rock and may assume control, creating near‑term operational and execution risk.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Integration of the ~$682M MMT acquisition is progressing (product launches rising from 2 to 9 in 2026) and management expects better‑than‑initial results, while leverage is ~3.2x net debt/LTM EBITDA with $92M cash and a fully undrawn $200M revolver — providing growth capital but increasing scale and complexity.
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Earnings Conference Call
Perimeter Solutions Q1 2026
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections

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Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Perimeter Solutions 1st quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Seth Barker, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Seth Barker
Seth Barker
Head of Investor Relations at Perimeter Solutions

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Perimeter Solutions first quarter 2026 earnings call. Speaking on today's call are Haitham Khouri, Chief Executive Officer, and Kyle Sable, Chief Financial Officer. We want to remind anyone who may be listening to a replay of this call that all statements made are as of today, May 6, 2026, and these statements have not been, nor will they be updated subsequent to today's call. Today's call may contain forward-looking statements. These statements made today are based on management's current expectations, assumptions, and beliefs about our business and the environment in which we operate. Our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied on today's call. Please review our SEC filings, particularly any risk factors included in our filings, for a more complete discussion of factors that could impact our results, expectations, or assumptions.

Seth Barker
Seth Barker
Head of Investor Relations at Perimeter Solutions

The company would also like to advise you that during the call we will be referring to non-GAAP financial measures, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, LTM adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EPS, and free cash flow. The reconciliation of and other information regarding non-GAAP financial measures can be found in our earnings press release and presentation, both of which will be available on our website. With that, I will turn the call over to Haitham Khouri, Chief Executive Officer.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Thank you, Seth. Good morning, everyone. We're pleased to report a strong start to 2026, with first quarter adjusted EBITDA of $41.2 million, reflecting both organic and acquired growth. Our Q1 results highlight two key points. First, our operational value driver strategy is translating directly to our bottom line. Second, we have built a durable and predictable earnings base. This predictability is driven by three things. Number one, new and improved contracting structures in both our retardant and suppressants businesses. Two, diversification within our fire safety segment, due primarily to the growth in our suppressants and international retardants businesses. Three, organic and M&A-driven growth in our specialty product segment. As always, I'll start with a summary of our strategy, then provide an operational update. After which, Kyle will walk through the quarter's financial results and capital allocation in more detail.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Starting with a summary of our strategy. Our goal is to fulfill our critical mission by providing our customers with high-quality products and exceptional service while delivering our investors private equity-like returns with the liquidity of a public market. Our strategy is built on three key operational pillars. First, we own exceptional businesses. These are niche market leaders that play critical roles in solving complex customer problems, qualities that support high returns on invested capital and durable earnings power. Second, we rigorously apply our three operational value drivers to the businesses we own. We drive profitable new business, achieve continual productivity improvements, and provide increasing value to customers, which we share in through value-based pricing.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Third, we operate our businesses in a highly decentralized manner, granting our business unit managers full operating autonomy paired with the accountability to deliver results with a tightly aligned incentive structure for our managers to think and act like owners. We believe that our operational pillars will optimize our durable long-term free cash flow. We seek to maximize long-term per share equity value through a clear focus on the allocation of our capital as well as the management of our capital structure. Turning to our fire safety operations on slide four. Our Q1 fire safety results are a direct reflection of the two themes I highlighted in my opening. The successful implementation of our operational value drivers and the durability and predictability of our earnings. Starting with our value drivers. Fire safety's Q1 performance was driven by profitable new business.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Our international retardant business was strong based on both activity in existing markets and footprint expansion in new and early-stage markets. Our global suppressants business also delivered strong results based on both new wins and higher sales to our large installed base. In addition to the profitable new business results, we delivered year-over-year productivity across our business units in fire safety. Our internal investment initiatives translated into value-based pricing. Turning to the predictability of our earnings base. The resilience of our model was clear this quarter. We delivered year-over-year adjusted EBITDA growth in fire safety despite lower North American retardant sales, stemming from the tough comparisons of the Eaton and Palisades fires in Q1 2025. Moving to slide five, where we stay with fire safety. Step back from the first quarter.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Last week, Perimeter inked two milestone fire safety contracts that will both grow our earnings and enhance their durability. First, suppressants. We worked hard over the past several years to align our products and services with the specific needs of the Defense Logistics Agency or the DLA. On the product side, we made significant R&D investments to develop products for the DLA's unique requirements and deploy capital to expand our Green Bay, Wisconsin, facility to meet the DLA's demand and redundancy needs. At the same time, we also invested heavily in our service capabilities, including standing up a customized vendor-managed inventory service for the DLA and optimizing our packaging to meet the agency specifications. We did all this with a U.S.-based manufacturing footprint that supports the DLA's need for reliable domestic supply.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

These efforts have driven a steady increase in our business with the DLA, specifically on behalf of the Navy, the Coast Guard, and the Army. In line with our efforts to establish mutually beneficial long-term contracting structures within our fire safety business, last week we entered into a five-year agreement to provide foams to the DLA with a maximum contract value of $500 million. Since we already provide suppressants to the DLA, we expect the incremental uplift from this agreement to be approximately 2/3 of the total contract value. We expect that the financial impact will begin in late 2026, ramp up through 2027, and reach a steady state run rate in 2028 and beyond. We're making further investments to support this ramp up, including further expansion of our Green Bay facility and a further increase to our staffing levels.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

These capital and operating investments directly support U.S. job creation. This contract is an excellent example of how our focus on understanding and meeting our customers' needs translates into profitable new business opportunities. Moving to retardants. Last week, we renewed our CAL FIRE contract for a new five-year term. Given the time elapsed since the fire renewal, as well as the evolution of our offering on both the product and service sides, pricing on this contract increased relative to the previous CAL FIRE contract, bringing historically lower CAL FIRE pricing in line with our other large retardant customers. No state has more population exposed to wildfire risk than California. We are proud that CAL FIRE has once again trusted Perimeter to protect the lives, properties, and environment of their state. Finally, let me comment on the national wildfire landscape.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

The formation of the U.S. Wildland Fire Service is an important development in the wildland firefighting space. Our existing federal contract already spans all of the federal wildfire fighting agencies that will be consolidated into this new service, and our contract will carry forward under this new organizational structure. We believe a more unified structure will improve coordination and streamline decision-making, supporting more effective wildfire response over time. Turning to the next slide, which covers our specialty products segment and starting with PDI. The first quarter of 2026 was the most challenging period of operational performance in the history of our Sauget, Illinois, facility. The plant experienced substantial unplanned downtime. This disruption is the direct result of a sustained failure to provide the resources, personnel, and operational discipline required to run the facility safely and reliably. A failure that has persisted ever since One Rock Capital acquired Flexsys.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

As the controlling owner of Flexsys, One Rock is responsible for the strategic and financial decisions governing this facility, and One Rock bears the ultimate responsibility for driving performance to its lowest level on record. We are pursuing all available legal avenues to enforce our contractual rights. We have a proven track record of operating Title V facilities safely and reliably, and we are confident that upon assuming control of Sauget, we will restore operating discipline, safety standards, and production consistency for the benefit of the facility, its workers, and our customers. Our resolve in this matter is absolute. We are highlighting these operational failures publicly because our investors, our customers, and the workforce at Sauget deserve transparency. We have a duty to protect this critical facility from One Rock's sustained mismanagement, and we will actively manage the near-term impacts while pressing our legal rights to their full conclusion.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

In contrast to Flexsys's performance, we're proud of how Perimeter's PDI team has performed. Despite the greatest operational headwind the business has ever experienced, our team grew revenue and adjusted EBITDA at PDI slightly year-over-year. This result speaks to the power of the operational value driver model and highlights our team's ability to fight through obstacles and deliver results irrespective of the external environment. Turning to MMT. Integration is proceeding smoothly, and we are making tangible progress across each of our operational value drivers. A key advantage of bringing MMT into Perimeter's forever hold structure is that it immediately unlocks significant new capital and resources for the MMT team. We are actively deploying these resources to implement our value drivers and further accelerate MMT's business. On profitable new business, this capital is directly supporting the MMT team's innovation pipeline.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

As a result, new product development has accelerated meaningfully with expected product launches at MMT stepping up from two in 2025 to nine in 2026. On productivity, we are putting these resources to work to eliminate manufacturing bottlenecks and maximize throughput, driving permanent improvements to MMT's cost structure. On pricing, we are applying our disciplined value-based approach. By combining our pricing frameworks with the MMT team's deep product expertise and strong customer relationships, we are ensuring that pricing fully reflects the exceptional value MMT delivers to its customers. Just as important as the operating model is the team. Cultural alignment has been excellent. MMT leadership shares our approach to value creation and our partnership is translating directly into performance. MMT is performing very well early in our ownership period. We see strong potential for upside as we back the MMT team and fully deploy our operating model.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Turning finally to IMS. Similar to MMT, IMS's acquisitions benefit from the resources we immediately make available to maximize the potential and value of these acquired product lines. Given the product lines IMS acquires are often orphaned or underinvested in prior to acquisition, the benefits of our forever old hold structure can be particularly pronounced at IMS. The IMS team is focused on systematically applying our operational value drivers across the product line acquisitions completed in 2025. We are encouraged by our progress and look forward to further investing in these acquired products and to closing future product line acquisitions. In closing, our disciplined operational value driver strategy is delivering strong financial performance across both of our segments, while our commercial and contracting initiatives are driving durable and predictable long-term earnings. With that, I'll turn the c-call over to Kyle to walk through the financials in more details. Kyle?

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Thanks, Haitham. Perimeter delivered net sales of $125.1 million in the quarter, up 74% year-over-year, with adjusted EBITDA of $41.2 million, more than doubling from $18.1 million last year. Net income was $72.9 million or $0.44 per diluted share, compared to $56.7 million or $0.36 per diluted share in the prior year. On an adjusted basis, the Adjusted Net Income was $9 million, up from $4.1 million, while adjusted earnings per diluted share was $0.06, up from $0.03. Our consolidated results reflect disciplined execution of our operational value drivers, supported by contributions from recent acquisitions. Moving into the details of fire safety.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Revenue for the quarter was $45.4 million, up 22% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $18.7 million, nearly double the $10.1 million in the prior year. This performance was driven by continued execution of our operational value drivers with strength across both our international retardant markets, notably Australia and our suppressants business, each contributing meaningfully in the quarter. Despite North American retardant volume headwinds, Fire Safety delivered strong results, demonstrating that the business can generate meaningful growth in earnings even in periods of weaker retardant demand, a dynamic that would not have been present historically. This quarter is another example of reported acres burned having low correlation with our U.S. retardant business' performance.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Given the low acreage but high impact of last year's Southern California fires and the inverse this year, with nearly 900,000 acres burning in Nebraska with minimal retardant used. We increasingly view acres burned as a poor indicator of our financial performance and expect that relationship to continue to weaken over time, given our effort to reduce variability and increase the contribution from our own execution. Looking forward to the rest of the year, wildfire activity to date is within a range we would consider normal for this point in the season, with conditions that remain conducive to fire activity and the full range of outcomes from mild to severe remains possible. As always, we will be prepared to accommodate a more severe than normal fire season should such a season ultimately materialize.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Our capacity planning also integrates recent comments from the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of Agriculture, indicating that the aggressive initial attack strategy employed in 2025 is expected to continue in 2026. We view this as an important development as that strategy drove more proactive and consistent use of retardant last year and helped support demand even in a lower acres environment. If sustained, should continue to reduce the downside sensitivity of our business to variability and fire activity while supporting more consistent and growing demand over time. As we look ahead, we remain focused not only on demand drivers, but also on ensuring our supply chain is well-positioned. We have seen recent increases in fertilizer prices and lead times, but our contracts include mechanisms to address meaningful input cost movements.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Combined with our inventory position, we believe that we are well prepared to effectively manage these changing dynamics. As we exit the quarter, our fire safety business is well-positioned, driven by continued execution of our operational value drivers, supported by the stability of our contract structure and the diversification of our revenue streams, and reinforced by the ongoing shift to more proactive wildfire response. Turning now to specialty products. Revenue for the quarter was $79.6 million, an increase of 128% year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA was $22.5 million, up from $8 million in the prior year period. The year-over-year increase was driven primarily by contributions from recent acquisitions. Importantly, the base business also delivered growth in the quarter despite increased operational disruption at the Flexsys-operated Sauget facility.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

As Haitham discussed, downtime at that facility was more severe this quarter than in prior periods, creating a headwind to both revenue and profitability. Despite those challenges, the underlying demand environment for PDI remains solid, and the team continues to work through these operational issues while delivering financial growth. Turning to MMT and building on Haitham's remarks, we are encouraged by the early performance of the business. Integration is progressing well, and we are seeing early benefits from the application of our operational value drivers. As we spend more time in the business and deepen our understanding of its customers and end markets, our conviction in the underlying case has increased, and we currently expect MMT's full year results to exceed our initial expectations.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Taken together, specialty products results reflect both the resilience of the base business in the face of operational headwinds and the growing contribution and momentum from recent acquisitions. I'll now turn to our long-term assumptions. Our assumptions are unchanged, and with normal quarterly variation, first quarter results are consistent with those expectations. Our framework contemplates annual interest expense of approximately $75 million, and in the first quarter, cash interest expense was $24.4 million. The first quarter includes six and a quarter million dollars of cash interest expenses related to the bridge facility commitment provided to close the MMT deal, which will not recur in subsequent quarters. We expect tax-deductible depreciation and amortization in the range of $60 million-$65 million annually, and first quarter taxable depreciation and amortization was $10.4 million.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

We expect our cash tax rate to be approximately 20% or better over time. In the first quarter, cash taxes were a net benefit of $2 million, primarily reflecting timing dynamics. We expect capital expenditures of $30 million-$40 million per year, and capital expenditures in the first quarter were $5.8 million below run rate due to timing. We look to the balance of the year, we are accelerating investment in areas including suppressants capacity expansion and MMT productivity initiatives, which we expect will bring full-year capital expenditures towards the higher end of our range. Finally, we expect working capital investment of approximately 10%-15% of revenue growth, and working capital performance in the quarter was consistent with that framework, reflecting seasonal dynamics and the impact of recent acquisitions. Turning to capital allocation.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

As previously announced, we completed the acquisition of MMT on January 22nd for approximately $682 million, funded through a combination of cash on hand and new debt issuance. MMT represents an important addition to our portfolio and aligns directly with our strategy of acquiring high-quality businesses where we can apply our operational value drivers to drive meaningful value creation. We also continue to invest organically in our business through capital expenditures. These investments are focused on projects that enhance our ability to serve customers while driving productivity improvements and supporting profitable growth. As with all our capital decisions, we underwrite these investments to generate returns above our targeted thresholds, and we see a growing pipeline of opportunities across the business. Looking forward, we have ample capital to allocate even after our robust capital expenditure pipeline is fulfilled.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Once CapEx needs are met, our primary focus is M&A. Our M&A framework remains consistent. We target businesses that provide a small but essential component within a broader solution to a critical customer need, operate in niche markets with strong competitive positioning, and exhibit characteristics such as recurring revenue, high returns on capital, and opportunities for reinvestment in add-on M&A. Importantly, we believe our value creation comes not from the acquisition itself, but from the disciplined application of our operational value drivers post-close, as we are already demonstrating with MMT. Our model allows us to repeatedly identify and improve businesses using the same operational value driver playbook, creating a repeatable engine for value creation. From a capital standpoint, we retain significant flexibility. Even after the MMT acquisition, we remain modestly levered and have ample liquidity with meaningful capacity to deploy additional capital into value-creating opportunities.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

We remain active in evaluating a robust pipeline of potential acquisitions and are focused on deploying capital into opportunities that meet our returns threshold and strategic criteria. Turning to our capital structure. We maintain a disciplined and flexible capital structure. During the quarter, we issued $550 million of 6% senior secured notes due 2034 to fund the MMT acquisition, complementing our existing $675 million of 5% senior secured notes due 2029. As a result, we have a long-dated fixed rate debt structure with no near-term maturities. At quarter end, we were approximately 3.2x net debt to LTM adjusted EBITDA, remaining below our target leverage level and preserving substantial financial flexibility.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

We also retained strong liquidity, including approximately $92 million of cash on the balance sheet and a fully undrawn $200 million revolving credit facility, providing significant flexibility to continue investing in the business while pursuing additional M&A opportunities. We ended the quarter with approximately 163.1 million basic shares outstanding. Overall, the quarter highlights the strength of our operational value driver model across both segments. Fire Safety delivered solid performance despite volume headwinds in retardant, and Specialty Products demonstrated both resilience in the base business and strong contributions from recent acquisitions, particularly MMT. These results reinforce the increasing consistency and predictability of our earnings power.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

A growing portion of our earnings is driven by execution and capital allocation rather than external conditions, which we believe improves the quality of our earnings stream and position the business to compound earnings at attractive rates over time. We will continue to apply our operational value driver strategy across the portfolio and allocate capital towards opportunities that are well aligned to that strategy, further enhancing both growth and earnings stability over time. With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator for Q&A.

Operator

Thank you, we will now conduct the question and answer session. If you will like to ask a question press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is the question que. All participant who uses speaker equipment you maybe necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Once again that's star one to ask a question at this time. One moment while we pull for first question. Our first question comes from Joshua Spector with UBS. Please proceed.

Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav Sharma
Analyst at UBS

Hi, good morning. This is Gaurav Sharma filling in for Josh. Thanks for taking my question and congrats on the solid quarter. Can you talk about the new suppressants contract a bit more? Is this effectively you winning share at more military bases? You frame this as an incremental $300 million sales opportunity. How should we layer that in over the contract period?

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Yeah. Hey there, Gaurav. It's Haitham. Let me take the first part of your question and Kyle will handle the second part of your very good question. Yes, this is us taking share in the suppressant space. It's a continuation of a trend which has been quite pronounced of us taking share in the suppressant space, both with the DLA and with commercial customers over the past three or so years. You know, if we rewind three years, we did almost no business on the front side with the DLA. We identified that as a commercial whole and spent a tremendous amount of time, effort, and capital addressing it.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

As we typically do, the crux of that is listening very closely to our customers, understanding their needs very clearly, and then moving heaven and earth internally to be responsive and meet their needs. The hope is that that ultimately translates into profitable new business. That's exactly what you're seeing here. Again, we went from almost no business with the DLA. We listened to their needs. Our R&D team, which is an excellent R&D team in Green Bay, delivered a completely unique and bespoke formulation to meet the DLA's existing needs. We invested significant CapEx in our Green Bay facility to build capacity and redundancy required by the DLA. We spent a lot of capital, OpEx and effort building a vendor-managed inventory service from scratch, which we never had before for the DLA.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

As you can imagine, the logistics needs of the DLA are very complex. Therefore, standing up a vendor-managed inventory to manage $500 million of product is a very complex undertaking. We have that up and running and humming. We upgraded our packaging to meet the DLA's needs. We staffed up on the customer service side to best serve the DLA. When you do all of that, you end up with a customer that very much wants to work with you, that shifts meaningful share to you. That's ultimately not only willing but eager to enter into this kind of long-term framework agreement that gives us the visibility into future volume that allows us to continue to invest. That's sort of the history there, and I'll let Kyle handle the second part of the question.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Yeah, Gaurav. As Haitham mentioned, we've already been doing business with the DLA, so we're trying to frame our guidance to you as the amount of uplift. We'll have another strong year with the DLA this year, but there will be minimal uplift relative to last year. As we look forward to 2027, we expect roughly $50 million of incremental revenue above our current run rate with the DLA in 2027, and then the balance of the contract value will come over the remaining years.

Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav Sharma
Analyst at UBS

Thank you for that. That was super helpful. Just to follow up, is this just a volume element or is there an annual price factor that's built in on these suppressants as well? On the CAL FIRE deal, the comment in the slide says price increase to align with other major buyers. Does that mean you expect to step up in year one, and is that material? How would you talk about pricing increases beyond year one?

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Yeah, Gaurav, it's Haitham again. Both contracts will have annual or do have annual price escalators in there throughout the five-year term. For CAL FIRE specifically, there is a step-up in year one, which is this year, to bring them sort of in line with our pricing structure, which they've been a little out of line with historically.

Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav Sharma
Analyst at UBS

Got it. Thank you. I'll turn it over.

Operator

Once again, to ask a question, that's star one on your telephone keypad. Our next question comes from Dan Kutz with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Hey, thanks. Good morning, and congrats on all the progress and updates this quarter. Just wanted to circle back on a few things that you guys have already kind of commented on in the prepared remarks and see if we could get a little incremental color. First one will be on input costs. Again, I know that you guys had commented that there's some level of contractual kinda cost protection or pass-through, but with everything going on in the world and, you know, specifically fertilizer or MAP or, you know, some of the key cost components in the Perimeter cost structure seem like they've seen some pretty significant upward pressure.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Just wondering if you could expand a little bit on what types of protections you have in place, how much that could be weighing on margins currently, and, you know, whether in theoretical scenario where the Middle East conflicts came to a resolution and those costs came down, whether that would be a margin tailwind or whether that's kind of, you know, already kinda protected in the cost structure and therefore wouldn't change things too much. Yeah, just wondering if you could expand a little bit on the input cost dynamics. Thanks.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Sure, Dan. It's Kyle. Thanks for the question. You're right. As we alluded to in the script, we have pretty strong contractual protections against these price increases. Our operational team has been running way out ahead of the changes that have been happening now and making sure we have adequate inventory as lead times have lengthened. As we look forward, we don't see any material impact to our margins from these price increases this year.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Great. That's very clear. Maybe on the preemptive strike strategy that some of the federal wildfire fighting agencies are alluding to, I was just wondering, again, in your prepared remarks, you kind of flagged that this is definitely a hedge against, I guess, a below-severity wildfire season. Last year was absolutely a testament to that. Just wondering across a broader range of wildfire scenarios, below severity, normal trend, above severity, is the preemptive strike strategy an incremental earnings tailwind or retardant demand tailwind across different wildfire season severity scenarios, or is it more kind of a downside hedge? Just wondering if you could expand on that, on those comments as well. Thanks.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Sure, Dan. Kyle again, thanks for the question. I think you've hit on two important points for the more aggressive initial attack. You're correct in that it can actually drive more retardant usage through a variety of wildfire season scenarios. We think that it will put increased emphasis on growth in the air tanker fleet. By the way, that same memo that highlighted the initial aggressive attack also highlighted a number of other moves they're doing across the wildland fire fighting landscape to support growth in the aerial tanker fleet, which is also a little bit of a tailwind for us. We think that's a clear positive. The second element is you started to hit here to the downside protection. I think you're exactly right.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

What we experienced last year, and if we are again to experience a more mild acre season this year, is that aggressive initial attack provided an increased retardant usage in that scenario, which did cap the amount of downside from a more mild season. Dan, the other thing I think I'd be remiss to not mention here as we think about the different scenarios as they play out is that we've really reduced our variability and exposure to that wildfire season. At this point, if you look at a normalized season to a relatively mild season, that fluctuation in our EBITDA is something like mid-teens percentage.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

When we look at the various tailwinds we have across our business, that really means that we should be able to grow EBITDA year-over-year, even with, you know, a moderate decline in the fire season year-over-year in any given year. There may still be some more extreme scenarios where we can't always grow EBITDA. For most of the scenarios, we're gonna be growing EBITDA.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

That's great to hear. Maybe if I could sneak one more in, and kind of along the same, along the same comments there. I think, for the last quarter or two, the five-year contract with the U.S. Forest Service, which you guys confirmed today, will extend to the new U.S. Wildland Fire Service, which includes the DOI agencies as well. I guess from the-on this, on the service component of that contract, you report product versus service revenue for the fire safety segment, and we can see that that number was in the ballpark of $30 million a few years ago, and it's been trending closer to $100 million in the last couple of years.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

The question is basically, first of all, is there a suppressants component to service or is the lion's share of that retardant? Then how much does the new contract structure kind of lock in that service revenue at this higher revenue run rate from, I think, what you guys call the full service airbase infrastructure model? You know, I guess the question would be at the federal level, but then also see on the slide with the CAL FIRE contract that there's a service revenue component to that.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Yeah, just wondering if you could, anything you could share on what has been a pretty substantial ramp in service revenue for the fire safety segment and, you know, how much of that should be viewed as a new run rate and, you know, I guess any potential growth either from the service model expansion or just from kind of the normal growth trend that you guys seem to be putting out, despite the wildfire season severity. Yeah, anything you can share on that service revenue component. Thanks.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Yeah, Dan. A couple of points on here. One, the majority, in fact, virtually all of that service revenue is in fact tied to fire retardants. There's a little bit of fire suppressants, but largely fire retardants. The second point I would make in there is that that includes all service revenue for all of our various contracts, Forest Service, CAL FIRE and others. As you think about that uplift in the run rate, I think you're right. We've gone from $30 million to a little over $100 million in the run rate, and we do believe that is a new and sustainable baseline. Within that, the vast majority of it is contractually fixed in any given year.

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

We do expect to see another uplift, although not of the same magnitude that you just saw over the last few years, going forward as we continue to convert more of the bases in the Forest Service contract from government run to Perimeter run.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Awesome. Sorry, one last real quick one. Product versus service margins, are they similar ballpark, one meaningfully different than the other?

Kyle Sable
Kyle Sable
CFO at Perimeter Solutions

Yeah. Dan, we think about those as just as a bundled suite when we think about margins. While we separate them out for reporting purposes, we think of it all as this, as kind of like one consolidated solution with one margin.

Dan Kutz
Dan Kutz
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Awesome. All right. Thank you very much. I'll turn it back.

Operator

Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the floor back to Haitham Khouri for closing comments.

Haitham Khouri
Haitham Khouri
CEO at Perimeter Solutions

Thank you, Latonya, for running a great call. Gaurav and Dan, thank you for the excellent work you do, and thank you to all our shareholders as always for all your support.

Operator

Thank you. This does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a great day.

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