Arcosa Inc (ACA) 2024 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Arcosa Inc third quarter, 2024 earnings conference call. My name is Jim and I will be your conference operator today as a reminder, today's conference is being recorded and now I would like to turn the call over to your host, Erin Dreck, Director of Investor Relations for Arcosa Inc, Miss Erin Dreck. You may begin.

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining Arcosa Inc third quarter 2024 earnings call with me today are Antonio Carrillo, President and CEO, Gail M, Peck CFO. A question and answer session will follow their prepared remarks.

A copy of the press release issued yesterday and the slide presentation for this morning's call are posted on our investor relations website, Ir.Arcosa.com.

A replay of today's call will be available for the next two weeks. Instructions for accessing the replay number are included in the press release. A replay of the webcast will be available for one year on our website under the news and events tab.

Today's comments and presentation slides contain financial measures that have not been prepared in accordance with GAAP reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures. To the closest GAAP measure are included in the appendix of the slide presentation.

In addition, today's conference call includes forward-looking statements as defined by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements.

Please refer to the company's sec filings for more information on these risks and uncertainties including the press release we filed yesterday and our form 10-Q expected to be filed later today.

I would now like to turn the call over to Antonio Carrillo.

Thank you, Erin Dreck. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today.

There are three key takes takeaways. I want to highlight as we look at our third quarter progress which you can see on slide first, our third quarter performance and profitability were strong. A result of our success in growing the business with meaningful margin expansion during the third quarter adjusted Avita grew significantly faster than our top line growth. We also generated free cash flow of 107 million as we prioritized working capital management.

Next, we made significant progress on our strategic transformation. During the third quarter, we completed the divestiture of our steel components business. And on October First, we closed the acquisition of Stavola the largest purchase in our course of history.

Stabola expands our aggregates footprint into the nation's largest MSA with increased exposure to lower volatility, infrastructure markets in our press release yesterday, we increased our adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2024 reflecting these portfolios, the mid point of our revised adjusted EBITDA guidance reflects a 34% increase year over year when normalizing for the steel components divestiture and a large land sale gain in 2023.

Finally, we completed these initiatives while implementing financial flexibility that enables us to use our cash flow to reduce our net leverage towards our target of 2 to 2.5 times over the next 18 months. While supporting our capital allocation priorities and growth initiatives.

Slide 7 shows the positive results of our strategic transformation. When we spun off from Trinity in 2018, our construction products business represented third of adjusted EBITDA today. Our cost is much larger than we were in 2018 and the construction segment represents two thirds of our EBITDA.

We have come a long way as we have worked to build a simpler, more focused and less cyclical company. The strategy continues to drive our operations and decisions every day and was a key driver of the transactions we completed throughout this year.

Now let me briefly discuss the report results on slide 9 from a profitability perspective. We delivered strong results relative to prior year as the third quarter, benefit from recent acquisitions and divesture progress along with solid organic growth and more efficient operations.

Third quarter, consolidated revenues increased 14% and adjusted EBITDA increased 39% with margin expanded 330 basis points to 18.4% after normalizing for the divesture of steel components.

This was driven by organic improvement, led by construction products and engineered structures and supported by accretive acquisitions completed earlier in the year including amiral within construction products. We were very pleased with the quarter's strong unit profitability growth and adjusted a bit the margin expansion.

Our operations performed well, overcoming weather challenges and recent boltons are contributing nicely.

Construction activity was stable during the quarter. Despite overall volumes coming in lower than expected, a portion of the volume weakness reflects our commercial strategy as we continue to value price over volume. However, we do believe an element is also related to uncertainty regarding both the future path for interest rates and the outcome of us elections.

Turning to engineered structures. Arcosa Inc continues to perform well with strong execution with respect to wind, with respect to wind towers. Our new facility in Belen, New Mexico continues to ramp up production and it contributed positively to adjust the Levita market.

Fundamentals for utility structures remain very healthy, transportation products, results were distorted by the impact of steel components investiture during the third quarter, our barge business continues to perform in line with expectation and we were we were pleased with the 0.9 times book to build in the third quarter.

As you know, during the third quarter, several regions where we have operations were affected by severe weather events. Our focus during the quarter was to support our employees and local communities, our people and our plans were not significantly affected by these weather events. And the Arcosa Inc team showed incredible resilience in getting our plants back operating as soon as conditions were safe.

Overall, our third quarter financial performance reflects strong, strong operational performance and the continued positive impact from the strategic initiatives we began implementing six years ago. Since that time, we have seen improved revenue trends and meaningful acceleration in our margins. I will turn over the call to gail to discuss our third quarter results in more detail.

Thank you, Antonio Carrillo. Good morning, everyone. I'll begin on slide. ten starting with construction products. Third quarter, revenues were roughly flat year over year before discussing the individual businesses. I'll note two factors that weighed on overall segment revenue growth in the quarter. First, the decline in freight revenues which is a pass through reduced segment revenues by approximately 3%.

Second, the divestiture of a small underperforming asphalt business completed in the second quarter, decreased segment revenues by roughly 2.5% excluding these factors. Segment revenues increased 7% year over year with both organic and inorganic contributions.

Third quarter adjusted segment EBITDA increased 21% primarily due to the accretive impact of recent bolt on acquisitions, higher unit profitability in our aggregates business and operating improvements in our specialty materials and trench shoring businesses, freight adjusted segment EBITDA margin was 29%. Up 380 basis points year over year and 120 basis points. Sequentially from the second quarter in our aggregates business which includes both natural and recycled aggregates pricing.

Momentum remains strong with average organic pricing up low double digits from the prior year. Total volumes were roughly flat year over year and organic volumes were down high single digits in the third quarter.

The accretive impact of recent acquisitions and solid organic expansion driven by unit profitability gains resulted in more than 20% adjusted ebita growth. Our aggregates business contributed approximately two thirds of the year over year margin improvement for the segment within specialty materials freight adjusted revenues increased low double digits driven by strong pricing gains across our product lines and higher plaster volumes. Operational improvements in this business resulted in higher adjusted evaton margin expansion.

Wrapping up the segment with our Trent shoring business revenues decreased on slightly lower volumes and reduced steel prices. Operating efficiencies resulted in higher adjusted EBITA and margin expansion.

Moving to engineered structures on slide, 11 revenues increased 26% due to higher wind tower volumes. And the addition of the recently acquired AMA on business in utility structures. Higher volumes and improved product mix were mostly offset by lower steel prices adjusted segment. EBITDA grew 74% outpacing the increase in revenues resulting in 450 basis points of margin expansion. Strong organic growth from the ramp in our wind towers business improved product mix and utility structures and lower steel costs were supplemented by the accretive contribution from Arcosa Inc during the period order activity and utility structures remains healthy with attractive margins in wind towers. We do not book any new orders during the quarter but we continue to have dialogue with our customers on future needs.

We ended the quarter with a backlog for utility wind and related structures of $1.3 billion and expect to deliver 20% of the backlog during the remainder of this year and about half in 2025 turning to transportation products on slide, 12 segment results were impacted by the mid quarter, divestiture of the steel components business during the quarter,

we recognized revenues of $14 million and an adjusted EBITA loss of $1 million for steel components which was below our expectations as the business was impacted by the deferral of certain product shipments and business interruption from the divestiture process. In connection with the sale, we recognized a pretax loss of $23 million which has been excluded from adjusted segment EBITDA.

Third quarter revenues for our barge business increased 21%. Primarily due to higher tank barge deliveries adjusted EBITA increased 8% and margin declined 190 basis points. Primarily due to a planned change over to tank barge production in one of our barge facilities. We expect margin for the barge business to improve sequentially in the fourth quarter. Now that the changeover is complete, we received large orders of approximately $75 million during the quarter for both tank and hopper barges representing a book to bill of 0.9. Our total barge backlog at the end of the quarter was $245 million of which approximately 70% is expected to be delivered in 2025 giving us good production visibility for next year.

I will conclude with some comments on our cash flow and balance sheet. On slide 13, we generated strong operating cash flow of $135 million during the third quarter. Up to $91 million from the prior period driven by increased earnings and a $50 million reduction in working capital led by a reduction in accounts receivable year-to-date working capital was roughly neutral to cash flow.

Capital expenditures were $34 million down from prior year and on a sequential basis. As we near completion on organic projects underway, this translated to third quarter free cash flow of $107 million of which $60 million was used to pay down borrowings on our revolving credit facility during the quarter.

We are adjusting our full year Capex guidance to $180 to $195 million from $190 to $205 million previously at the midpoint of the range. This implies roughly $50 million of Capex for the fourth quarter which is inclusive of Capex for Stavola.

We are prioritizing the completion of large growth Capex projects. Those projects that Stavola has in flight as well as ongoing maintenance Capex. We ended the third quarter with net debt to adjusted EBITDA of 1.2 times. Performer for Stavola net leverage is 343.4 times down from 3.7 times when we announced the acquisition demonstrating our commitment to prudent deleveraging we funded Stavola with a combination of attractively priced, fixed and variable rate, long term debt that includes ample prepayment flexibility as we intend to return to our targeted long term net leverage range of 2 to 2.5 times within 18 months. I'll conclude with a couple of comments for modeling purposes. Now that Stavola has closed first, it is important to revisit the seasonality impacts that Stavola is expected to have on our results given its northeast location. Looking at recent historical results. Stavola first quarter revenu revenues generally represent less than 10% of its annual total. And first quarter,

EBITDA is approximately breakeven of course weather dependent similar as our existing construction materials business. The Second and Third quarters are seasonally the strongest and second. We included our updated expectations for full year net interest expense in the reconciliation tables accompanying yesterday's press release at the midpoint. This implies fourth quarter net interest expense of approximately $34 million up $22 million from the third quarter. Roughly $5 million of projected interest expense is non-recurring and related to arrangement fees on the acquisition bridge commitment that will not be included in fourth quarter adjusted EBITDA, excuse me, adjusted EPS. I will now turn it back to Antonio Carrillo for an update on our outlook.

Thank you, Gail M, Peck overall. Our third quarter performance was consistent with our expectations and we remain optimistic about the opportunity ahead of us.

Now, turning to our 2024 financial outlook on slide 15, as I mentioned, we are increasing our guidance to reflect our performance year-to-date the contribution from Stala as well as the diversity of steel components business.

We are now estimating 2024 revenues of 2.56 to 2.63 billion and adjusted the beta to be in the range of 435 to 450 million.

We have been aggressively investing in our growth business over the past two years and are starting to see the benefits of these investments in 2025 those investments will continue to ramp up and contribute to our growth. While we prioritize debt reduction and maintenance projects versus new growth investments, our approach to capital allocation remains consistent and deliberate.

We will continue to successfully balance efficient growth with long term investments while delivering the balance, the leveraging the balance sheet and creating value for shareholders to reiterate what Gail M, Peck said before we are firmly committed to quickly returning to our long term net leverage target.

Now please turn to slide 16 for a discussion on our business outlook.

The outlook for construction products is enhanced by recent portfolio actions, both acquisitions and divestitures and supported by favorable multi year market fundamentals including increased infrastructure spending and overall shortage of housing availability.

These fundamentals and the strategic actions we have taken are reflected in our higher revenue and increased margin expectations for 2024.

Currently, our construction materials business is experiencing low lower volumes on an organic basis which is partly weather driven, but also resulting from some delays in infrastructure spending ahead of the US election and single and multi multi family construction that has been slow to recover as a result for the full year, we now expect volumes for the aggregates business to be down mid single digits on an organic basis.

Pricing growth continues to be strong across our product lines in aggregates low double digit organic price increases. So far this year sets us up for continued momentum next year. During the fourth quarter, construction products will benefit from Stabola, a transformative acquisition for us which will contribute to both growth and margin expansion.

Moving next to engineer structures, order activity for utility traffic and profit structures remains healthy. Given the grid harding initiatives and road infrastructure spending. Other positive long term demand drivers include five G telecom street lighting upgrades such as led and connecting renewable energy to the grid.

The integration of Amer Amer is progressing well and is accretive to margin for the business for wind towers. We continue to ramp up production in the bele facility and discussions with our customers indicate increased demand for new wind tower deliveries in 2026 and beyond.

The current backlog coupled with ongoing negotiations for new business bodes well for increased production volumes and improve profitability as we move forward, shifting to transportation products. We're cautiously optimistic about this business as there has been significant under investment in the aging inland barge fleet over the past few years. Our current backlog along with orders received since the quarter end position as well for 2025 with our plant tank barge capacity already fully booked for next year and about half of our copper barge capacity similarly filled with the current backlog. We have the flexibility to continue to ramp up production in preparation for what we expect will be a multi year strong cycle. Given the state and age of the barge fleet summing up 2024 has been an important, exciting and transformational year for our coso.

Our results demonstrate the success in executing our strategy of investing in our growth businesses while simplifying our portfolio to become a company focused on expanding in attractive markets with fantastic growth opportunities. Our improved positioning will serve us well as we enter 2025 and we continue to see additional opportunities to enhance our growth and profitability over time. I want to recognize and thank all of our Arcosa Inc employees for the dedication and contribution throughout the year and welcome the Stabola team to Arcosa Inc.

This ends my prepared remarks. We're now ready to take your answer your questions.

Thank you and to our phone audience joining today at this time. If you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad, pressing star and one will place your line into a queue and we'll take your questions in the order they are received. If you needed to remove yourself from the queue at any time, simply press the pound key or excuse me, pound two. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, that is star and one to ask a question we'll hear first today from trade rooms at Stevens.

Hey, good morning everyone and nice work in the third quarter.

Thank you.

Yeah, and thanks for all the details on everything Antonio Carrillo, do you have any early thoughts maybe on, you know, kind of how the 2025 demand outlook could be, you know, across your construction products in markets. Even if it's just high level, you know, just any color you could give us on your thoughts. There would be great.

I am going to give you a little color, I think. And this is not only for construction, I would tell you general general, we are, we are very excited about 25 and we feel that our businesses have a really nice tailwinds across the board. But I will tell you one of the things and I mentioned it shortly in my brief in my prepared remarks, I think in conversation with customers and, and in the industry, I think the impact of the uncertainty around the elections has is larger than we, we are really, really, it's hard to measure. But I think there is a significant people are gone shy in pulling to big projects and things like that.

So I don't think it's who's going to win it. Just let's get it over with. let's get this, let's focus again on business and, and doing, what we need to be doing. So that's 11 aspect about it for the rest. I think we are, you know, interest rates,

they're not coming out as fast as we we wanted, but we would like and housing, you know, it's still very slow and multi housing is also not doing very well, but then you have a lot of positives. No manufacturing is doing very well. The data center construction is doing well and the housing recovers. I think we'll come, come to 2025 with a with positive momentum. And the pricing situation that we've been able to build during 2024 really sets up very well for 2025. So, you know, I'm optimistic about 2025 for construction, but overall as a company got it.

Okay, thank you. And you know, and maybe this one is for Gail M, Peck, but the free cash flow very good in the third quarter, you know working capital management just all around great showing how should we be thinking about, you know, free cash flow from a flow through standpoint, or however, we should be thinking about it. You know, kind of going forward, especially with the the portfolio changes you've made with Stavola.

Sure and thank you Trey, good morning. We were very pleased with our cash flow generation in the third quarter. Really, you know, year-to-date about 100 and 30 million of free cash flow that's up about 30% year over year. You know, a lot of that came in in the third quarter and we'll continue to focus on cash generation for the balance of the year. You know, the working capital, you know, we are focused on levers that we can pull and control. So you saw a strong working capital in the quarter. A lot of that coming from liquidation of receivables, very healthy, timing can always impact that. So maybe we had a little of that fourth quarter effect coming into the third quarter, but very pleased with that you saw that we did tweak down slightly our Capex guidance for the year. So again, it's, levers that we can really control on the cash side. You know, I point out as it relates to the fourth quarter, you know, the focus will absolutely be there, but you do see a step up in interest expense. I mentioned in my comments, we see about a $22 million increase in interest expense in Fourth quarter. Now that we've closed the Stabola acquisition, we'll have a little bit of follow on transaction and advisory fees that you'll see in our EBITDA tables as well. So those will impact Fourth quarter cash flow but absolutely focused on controlling what we can control. Antonio Carrillo talked about the outlook for 2025. We are very optimistic and cash is at the very forefront of our minds.

Okay, and last one for me, you know, strong margin expansion in construction products, and, and other lines as well, but just, just in the interest of time, just wanted to touch on this one specifically. You know, and you mentioned improved unit profitability. You know, directionally when you kind of think about price/cost across the different kind of product lines there within construction products, how are you thinking about, you know, this maybe you know directionally unit profitability and, and margins as we kind of go into 25 for construction products, I guess, maybe both from an organic standpoint. But of course, now with Stavola in the mix.

Let me give you a high level and I will let Kle give you some of the data. But let me, if you think about what we have been trying to do, as we said, part of the volumes down is our pricing strategy for this year. We have been talking in every one of our calls and in about focusing on margins and prioritizing a pricing over volumes and margin over volumes. And that is across the board in the company we have mentioned before that we have included in our, in our compensation, a margin as part of our compensation. So that is one of our goals to, I think margin is what shows the quality of our business.

So that is one of the things that you are seeing behind the scenes here. Second is the acquisitions, the small acquisitions we have done this year are all accretive to our margins and we want to continue doing those votes that really, you know, from the multiples perspective and margin are really important.

Third, I I think you have seen and we have talked about it. you know, as we have done a lot of acquisitions over the last six years, there is things that are not perfect. And when you buy a company with a lot of plants and a lot of operations this year, we, we have focused on pruning the portfolio and making sure that those operations that are not performing and where we don't see a path to having a strong presence or a strong position in the market we've closed or sold or, or done things. And this is the 1st year where we focus on that. And you're seeing that Gail talked about it about the, the, the asphalt plant that we, we sold.

We also closed some operations in West Texas and some other things you, you're seeing that and that reduces revenue and those operations normally are less less, less profitable than the other one. So you see a portion of the margin increase coming from that. So, oh, and then focusing on the pricing increases. No, so all of those things together give us, I think is what you're seeing in the margin expansion. And and that's, that's kind of the, the big picture view. Let's give you some more detail if you need more.

Sure, I maybe just a couple things I I would add maybe parts in the organic from the inorganic. You know, clearly we expect you know, as we indicated at the announcement of the Stala acquisition for that to have an impact, full impact on margins next year. You know, as a reminder, Stala, you know, we see as a 35% ebida margin business. Of course, I mentioned in my comments, some of the seasonality impacts and we will see that on margin in the first quarter. But, you know, we will, you know, we're pleased to see that accretion to the margin next year. And then when you think about organically Antonio talked about, you know, low double digit price increases through year-to-date 2024 which will help us you know, have good momentum going into 2025 with the, the easing inflationary outlook. We see that combining to be a nice a nice impact on the, on the on the organic side as well.

Great. Thanks for the color. I will turn it over. Thank you very much.

Our next question will come from Garrick Schmo at lo excuse me at loop capital.

Good, good morning. It is actually Zach Pache along for Garrick Schmo today, I think to start obviously, it is early but any additional color observations you guys can provide on stavola, you know, within maybe its operations or just perhaps synergies amongst cost or on the commercial side.

Yes, I will take that. So, you know, we are very excited about Stavola. I think we took over just a few weeks ago. So things are going very well. The integration is progressing very well. We are excited to welcome the Stavola team on board. I think we bought an incredible company, but more importantly, an incredible team of people that know what they're doing.

I will tell you that you know, as a company, what we have been doing over the last six years. Every time we go we do not have something that we just overnight we do our thing. It is more we are learning also what we bought. And that is part of our culture, we are trying to learn. And I think early indications are that things

we can contribute to, to, to their operations, but they can also bring some things to our operations that we can improve. So, excited about what we are seeing. The integration is not very complex. It is only five quarries and 12 asphalt plants. So it is not and it is very concentrated. So that makes it easier. So overall, I would tell you, we're excited and we are, we are very happy with, with the, with what we're doing there.

Okay, great. Yeah, that makes sense. Thanks for that. And then quickly just on the weather for the quarter. Was there any substantial impact within construction products or how do you guys bucket that?

You know we have operations in where we use a lot, many of the hurricanes and large storms and things. We have operations across the border. I mentioned in my, in my remarks that our, you know, the most important thing, our people and our plants were not severely impacted. Of course, business is always impacted.

I think our team did an incredible job in bringing back the plants many times. What happens is, you know, in the quarter is you get flooded, you have to clean them, you lose power, we lost power in several of our plants, etcetera. So it's always a disruption. I think of course, there's, I cannot quantify it for you, but of course, we did have an impact. I wouldn't say it is a material impact in the quarter, but it was an impact.

Understood. I appreciate it. Thanks.

Our next question today will come from Ian Zaffino

Great. Thank you very much. You know, also, you know, I'm just trying to think about some of the delays that happened in this quarter is kind of following up on. The last question is, you know, with the election delays and, I guess the weather delays, will you be able to make that up in the fourth quarter? You know, or how should we think about maybe that, that, that total impact of all of that? You know, and I know it's kind of hard to kinda get, but if you could maybe steer us directionally and, and what the impact or maybe what the recovery might be in the fourth quarter. Thanks.

You know, I think we have a solid fourth quarter in front of us. I think we, the business are doing well, you know, many times, you know, I would say that the weather thing pushes things out. It's never, it's never easy to recover over, over the, the, let's say over the next few weeks. But the projects are there. What's important I think for us is that the demand is there and the projects are there and we see, we see demand for approach out there. So that's the important piece on the, the rest of the businesses. I would say the, the March Wind are operating well and we have solid backlogs and they're, they're moving along, I would say in the utility structures, a one of the things that's happening, you, you do see projects being moved and moved around the positive thing.

And that's an interesting thing that's happening is, you know, for the most part, when a project gets moved, we have another project that comes behind it to fill the space. And we've seen that throughout this year and that's a, that's a new thing in the industry. I think the demand is very strong and therefore we have the capability of moving projects around. There's always some moves in margins and things like that. For overall, I think we're in good shape for the fourth quarter. Fourth quarter. Our business are operating well. As I said, we don't have any major damage from storms and things like that. And, and so we are, we have, we are in good shape for the fourth quarter.

And I might add, this is Gail M, Peck Good morning. Just on the topic of storm, you know, as I think about our utility structures business, we do have some plants in the southeast. So you, you could see as that area is really working hard to recover, you could see maybe some timing where it might be difficult for our customers to take their deliveries on time. And so we're watching that for the fourth quarter, certainly not a demand issue. But, you know, we with that area so hard hit that we have seen some, some impact there.

Okay, thanks. And then you know, encouraged by the constructive comments you made on the wind tower side. Is there a sense of maybe the timing of another order or maybe like the size of another order? You know, you know, how do, how do we actually think about that? And do you think it would be from the same customers or, you know, new customers coming in like like any type of color you could give, you know, give us there would be great. Thanks.

Let me start with the customers. As you know, there's, it's a very concentrated market. There's not a lot of people and, but the two big big big companies that are have a significant share of the market are both our customers. One is much bigger than the other, but we're right now building for both and we have inquiries and conversations happening with both. So, so that, that tells, that sets us well for, for, for access to the market. I'll tell you the one you know, let me try to give you the big picture. And that's something that I think

when you look at the demand and I mentioned in my remarks, I think this is a 26 thing where we will see really installations go up. Therefore, this orders should happen sometime earlier than that. So sometime in 25 that would be our expectation.

I think the biggest thing that you, you need to keep in mind and this is relatively new. So if you see the, the Inflation Reduction Act was approved in August of 22 and what has changed since then? And there's a lot of noise around the elections and what's going to happen and, and we can discuss that piece.

We are not worried about it. I think there's, of course, there is always a possibility of depending on who wins the election, things can go one way or another, but that we're not really worried about that.

What has changed is the fundamental aspect of demand has changed dramatically over the last two years. If you think about the US had zero load growth for 20 years and over the last two years, with everything that's happening in electrification and data centers and A I and all those things, the the the the the projections for load growth are have just changed dramatically and there's now significant load growth.

There is no way to meet that load growth without renewable power.

You know, there's a lot of talk about nuclear that's going to take a long time. There's a lot of talk about gas if you want to buy a turbine now, it's four years.

So I think it's, it's a what, what I'm excited about doing this. Not only about, you know, we will get orders sooner or later, probably next year.

I think we are setting up the company very nicely. We're still operating at a very low capacity. We are ramping up our plans and we're setting up the company for a very what I expect to be a very nice period of demand for this, this business that's coming from real demand for renewable power. So I'm excited about the business overall.

Okay.

Thank you very Much.

Brent Thielman at D A Davidson. Your line is open for our next question.

Hey, great, thanks. Antonio just on the engineered structures results this quarter. It sounds like when deliveries picked up in the quarter, maybe, how do we think about the fourth quarter? Should we expect another sequential step up in deliveries? And then any way to give us some sort of guide posts on the growth you'd expect to see. And when in 2025 just given the fact you already have substantial visibility right now into deliveries next year.

Oh, let's get they give you the, the, the, the, the, the guide on the road for 25. I'll, I'll give you a little bit of color. One thing that's important. What I mentioned about wind on the load growth, I think applies exactly the same for utility structures because all the, the whatever you do to increase load in the US, production of electricity you will need transmission. So I think that that's why those two businesses are set up so well for the future in the short term. I think one thing that you're seeing that is hard to quantify and, and is when you look at the last two years, still prices have dropped pretty dramatically.

And, and and that's, that's, that's hitting a lot of our, you know, the good news about for us is that we have a formula with our customer. We pass through a significant variations in steel. So when steel prices are coming down, you see it in the revenue side, but you also see a margin expansion as, as as prices comes down, I think,

as we go into the fourth quarter and 2025 you will see that you will continue to see compared to 24 early 24 you will continue to see some volatility on the revenue side based on steel prices. But Gail mentioned that we, we, we we expect we expect a good quarter in the fourth quarter and 2025 is set up nicely where we expect higher volumes on both utility structures and wind towers. And and I'll let you give you a little more detail on that.

Sure, good morning. Good morning, Brent. You know, on win, really good visibility for next year. As we've talked about in the second quarter is when we first started delivering at Bely. So we'll have the benefit of Bely, being ramped up next year. You know, that combined with our other two plants, you know, operating probably at relatively consistent delivery rates to this year. We expect a solid revenue growth out of the wind business for 2025 with the backlog that we have in hand. So, you know, I think, you know, maybe I could point you to as you think about you know, order of magnitude if you look at the first quarter of this year, we had, you know, about $400 million of backlog for 2025. And, you know, most of that is wind. We, we do, we do have some utility in there. So maybe, you know, 80% or so is in is in the wind realm. So that gives you a sense of, of the potential for revenue next year, but it's really coming from, from Berlin. And as Antonio said, we're optimistic on the order front, but really see that coming in in 2026 and beyond.

Okay. And maybe another way to ask this gail it, it in 2025 proportionately would you expect when to be a larger percentage of sales. And I'm just thinking about it from the standpoint that I think that should be pretty margin accretive to you.

We would, you know, we, we expect, you know, we'll get the full year effect of AMA on, we had AMA on for, for nine months, we'll have it for a full year next year. You know, we, we would expect win to, to, to, to ship to a slightly larger share of the overall segment. You know, with the efficiencies in Berlin, we would expect to see some margin benefit there. So we're really optimistic as, as we look at 2025 for, for the segment.

Yes. Okay, I appreciate that. And then my, my other question is just on barge, maybe if you could talk around your remaining capacity availability for 2025 relative to the, I guess the current visibility you have, will you still be able to fulfill new orders next year as they come in? And I, I guess, you have a lot to talk about election. I'm not sure if any of that was in reference to this business. But do you have any thoughts whether that's impacting order trends or not there? I'd be curious.

Yes, I.

Let me, I mentioned in my remarks, the backlog and I mentioned that we have after quarter end, we booked additional orders and the reason we thought it was important for, for, for us to mention that is, you know, we're fully booked for 10 charges in 2025. If someone wants a barge, we're now into January of 26.

And then on hopper barges, we're into July. So let's say third quarter. So, so I think yeah, I think that gives us flexibility and the reason that's important and I'm going to generalize this as a company, given the positive demand trends, we see, I believe our capacity is valuable and we, when you have backlog, you have the flexibility to focus on margin. Again, we want to sell those orders at a margin. That's that's, that's important for, for the business and for our, for our shareholders. So that visibility of backlog gives us time for us to continue ramping up the plans, the plans are ramping up because we believe there's a cycle, a strong cycle coming. And but even when we ramp those plants up, we're still running at a relatively low capacity. So I think if the demand comes, we always have the capacity to to ramp up capacity, we would be running tank March at 50% capacity and have hover March also at very low capacity. And when what the beauty of what's happening when you see the margins of that business, when it's running at such a low capacity, I think our potential as the business ramps up and we see the cycle. The potential for margin expansion is very interesting.

Yes. Excellent. Thank you. I will pass it on.

And we will hear from Julio Romero at Sidoti and company.

Good morning. This is Alex on for Julio. Thanks for taking questions.

Just to start. I wanted to follow up on an earlier question around stavola synergies. Could you talk about the opportunity to cross sell some of your legacy products such as recycled aggregates into Stavola geographic footprint?

Sure. This is, let me start by, you know, Stala already has a small presence in the recycled business up there. I think they have five plans and you know, I'm excited about it. We're still learning and I&I don't want to overplay it. So I we're still learning. We only took over a few weeks ago. But when you look at recycled aggregates, there is a and the the raw material, what changes with, with between the recycled and natural agri is the raw material. The raw material is your biggest bottleneck. And when you look at this infrastructure in, in the northeast around where we are located, use aging infrastructure and that's what part of what we like about the business. It's a very repair and replace business and maintenance business. When, when you do maintenance, you have a lot of raw materials for recycle that you need, you can tap into. So we're excited about the potential of doing that we,

we have been very successful in Texas doing recycling and in Arizona where it's a much newer infrastructure. So our expectations would be that there will be a very nice market in New Jersey for that. And and around New Jersey and Pennsylvania where they have also a few plans. So I think we're excited. I, I'll be H1st, we're learning, we're just new around it. So, but I think there's really good potential, there's other potential opportunities in other products that our construction materials business have that they don't have a stabilized SAN and some other things that we are researching and trying to understand. And so, so I think as time goes by, I'll be able to give you a better sense of how big the opportunity is.

Great context. Thank you very much.

And then one more, Antonio, you mentioned a commitment to, you know, quickly returning to net leverage targets. Can you just help me, you know, think about the pacing, should we expect it to be, you know, a little bit more linear or are you saying, you know, maybe there's some waiting towards the near term or, or another part?

Well, we said that our goal would be to be at our target sometime between 12 and 18 months after the acquisition closed. So I think what, what's important there when you look at the businesses and we've mentioned a little bit of construction, but overall our businesses are seasonal and seasonality always has a vol creates volatility in our working capital, which is with one of the tools we need to use to do the delivery.

I think if you look at the tools is, of course, we have growth. We have a working capital and then CapEx, the easiest one is CapEx and we talked at length about it. We're, and you saw it this quarter. CapEx came down. Most of our growth Capex is, is about to be done.

We have a few that will go into 25 but for the most part will be done and that will and, and we have a lot of visibility around that. So we'll be able to tap into cash through CapEx. We want to continue operating the plant safely and with all the maintenance we need. So we're not cutting maintenance CapEx. We're only focusing on growth. And the reason that's important is we're finishing all those growth capexs that will contribute to our growth in 25 and beyond. So we'll continue to, to harvest some of those investment we've done over the past years and continue growing.

Second is is the the working capital. We are going to be focusing working capital that has a lot more volatility, but that's another tool. And finally, we expect to grow in 25. So those three things should help us generate more cash and that will help us reduce our, our leverage. So I think once we get below three times net debt to, to, to Avita, we'll have a lot more flexibility and we'll be able to, to continue allocating capital. Well, but we've said our goal is within 18 months to, to be there.

Very helpful. Thank you.

And that was our final question from our phone audience today, Miss Dreck. I am happy to turn the floor back to you for any additional or closing remarks.

Thanks again, everyone for joining us today and we look forward to providing our next update at the end of the year. You next time.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect your line.