MSC Industrial Direct Co., Inc. (MSM) 2026 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, and welcome to the MSC Industrial Supply fiscal 2026, third-quarter conference call. (Operator Instructions) Please note that this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan Mills, VP of Investor relations and Business Development. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our fiscal 2026 third-quarter earnings call. Martina McIsaac, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Greg Clark, Interim Chief Financial Officer, are on the call with me today. During today's call, we were referred to various financial data in the earnings presentation and operational statistics document, both of which can be found on our Investor Relations website.

Let me reference our Safe Harbor statement found on slide 2 of the earnings presentation. Our comments on this call as well as the supplemental information we're providing on the website contain forward-looking statements with the meaning of the US security laws. These forward-looking statements about risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these statements. Information about these risks are noted in our earnings press release and our other SEC filings.

Lastly, during this call, we may refer to certain adjusted financial results, which are non-GAAP measures. Please refer to the GAAP versus non-GAAP reconciliations in our presentation or on our website, which contained the reconciliations of the adjusted financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

I will now turn the call over to Martina.

Thank you, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. On today's call, I will briefly cover our fiscal third-quarter results, and we'll provide an update on progress of our initiatives and the current demand environment. I will then turn the call over to Greg to provide greater detail on our fiscal 3Q performance and our outlook for the fiscal fourth quarter.

Starting with our results on slide 4, average daily sales exceeded expectations with year-over-year growth of 7.8%, underpinned by continued strength in the daily sales of our core customers and noticeable improvement in national accounts. Adjusted operating margin of 10.6% also performed better than expected, resulting in an incremental operating margin of 32% in the quarter.

Since becoming CEO earlier this year, I had spent a portion of my time getting to know our external stakeholders at conferences and roadshows. This time has been well spent as it allowed me to ensure that the high-level KPIs we're using to drive urgency and performance in the business are aligned with the way our shareholders will evaluate our results and hold us accountable to progress.

To summarize here, we are focused on sales per rep per day and sales per total headcount, year-over-year volume improvement, adjusted operating margin expansion, and adjusted incremental margin. And lastly, ROIC, which will improve naturally when the KPIs I just mentioned, are firing on all cylinders. We are fully committed to restoring MSC to a mid-teens operating margin, a goal which is understood and driving action across the enterprise.

While we aren't hitting any home runs yet with these KPIs as of the third quarter, I am encouraged by the singles and doubles we are producing, which I will now discuss in greater detail. Starting with sales per rep per day. We are making progress on our goals. As you recall, our salesforce optimization initiative was completed in December, with actions taken to streamline and professionalize our service organization, which in turn resulted in some noise in our 2Q. This headwind is largely behind us as evidenced by the improving ADS of impacted customers and the inflection scene in national accounts during the quarter.

Sales per rep per day has improved high teens year over year, suggesting that at this point in time, we are fundamentally doing more with less. With 225 fewer heads in the field, we're targeting the right customers and meaningfully increasing customer touches through discipline sales execution.

As you can see on slide 4, average daily sales to our core customer once again outperformed total company with volumes beginning to improve. A portion of this improvement is being driven by daily sales growth in the double-digit range on mscdirect.com.

As we look at the business today, posts-salesforce transition, there is still a gap in ADS between those customers who were least impacted by our changes, who are trending at growth levels comparable to our public peers, and those who did see greater change or vacancy and where relationships are still being established. Closing that gap and accelerating volume growth across all customers is now our focus.

Under the leadership of Jahida Nadi, our SVP of Sales, sales excellence continues to gain traction at MSC. We've rolled out an enhanced onboarding training process for new sellers. We expect this will accelerate growth, reduce attrition, and strengthen our ability to quickly add new sales headcount where we see potential in the market.

We've also instituted new sales management processes throughout the selling organization. Guided by our [field] leadership, sellers now operate to new standards with new tools and a supportive pipeline review process. Early benefits of this work and our initiatives over the last year resulted in improved cross-selling that helped contribute to OEM fastener growth of more than 15% in the quarter as sellers are guided to sell MSC's full-value proposition.

Added to this work, we continue expanding or bending an implant footprint. The growth of our installed base is showing the benefits of an improving macroenvironment that should result in higher sales across existing locations, an effect which we commonly refer to as the coiled spring. We started to see early signs of this in the third quarter with daily sales trends on a per-unit basis showing volume improvement.

I'm also pleased that the company continues making strides to improve its cost structure as demonstrated by the 150-basis-point reduction in adjusted operating expenses of the percent of sales in the quarter. This is being driven by several factors, including our recent headcount actions, our new sales structure, which eliminated duplicative commissions being paid on the same dollar, lowering our selling costs by reducing commission expense in the quarter. And lower freight expense compared to the prior year, despite elevated fuel costs as a result of benefits from our various optimization initiatives.

Acting on our productivity pipeline and optimizing our cost structure will be at the forefront of our strategic focus as we progress towards our long-term targets. As we have said, we intend to challenge MSC's cost structure to restore the company's operating margins to the mid-teens.

Our own competitive benchmarking on sales per total headcount suggests that at today's revenues we are relatively heavy by 1,000 heads. To close the gap to that benchmark, we will have to grow and aggressively target changes in the way we work with a focus on AI and automation.

That focus is already being recognized. Just this month, MSC was awarded Verint Global Customer Award and accelerated Insights with AI that recognizes efforts in pushing AI beyond pilots and into real-time use.

Switching to the macroenvironment, we are seeing further signs of an industrial recovery taking shape with positive IP readings across most of our top manufacturing and markets, and five consecutive months of MBI readings above 50.

Turning to slide 5, average daily sales outpace the IP index for the fourth consecutive quarter, and was above our target of 400 basis points in the fiscal third quarter. Though primarily price-driven, I'm encouraged, however, by the trend of volume improvement in April that has continued through June and suggests that our initiatives are beginning to take hold.

While there is plenty of room to further improve, when I consider our financial results, the improvements made to strengthen our performance-based culture, increasing engagement scores from our associates, and the tangible evidence of progress achieved in the quarter across our focused areas of improvement, I'm confident that MSC is headed in the right direction to enhance our long-term profitable growth algorithm and create meaningful value for shareholders.

And with that, I will now turn the call over to Greg to cover our financial results in greater detail, and expectations for the fiscal fourth quarter.

Thank you, Martina, and good morning, everyone. Please turn to slide 6 where you will find key metrics for the fiscal third quarter. I'm both a reported and adjusted basis. Fiscal third quarter sales of $1.047 billion came in above our expectations for the quarter and improved 7.8% year over year. Price was the primary driver of the improvement and contributed 720 basis points to growth followed by volumes that contributed another 50 basis points. Sequentially, average daily sales outperformed historical averages and improved 12.3% compared to the fiscal second quarter.

Looking at our sales performance by customer type, we see some signs of encouragement. Core customer daily sales continued the trend of outperforming total company with year-over-year improvement of approximately 8% in the quarter. National accounts, we were pleased by the improving trends and compared to the first half of the year with the growth in the third quarter of approximately 7%.

And lastly, in the public sector, daily sales improved roughly 8% and primarily driven by increased [the sense] activity in the quarter and a lower comparison in the prior year. In solutions, we remain pleased by the continued expansion of our footprint in 3Q.

In vending, the number of machines installed at quarter end increased 7% year over year to approximately 30,800 machines. The number of customers with an implant program approved 7% year over year to a total of 426 programs. As you recall at the start of the fiscal year, our implant program count growth began to moderate as we strengthened financial discipline in the field and sharpen the quality of our decision making.

This is prompting us to transition certain existing implant programs with sub-operal turns to more cost-effective service options that are better scaled to cost needs. As was the case in the first half of the fiscal year, signings of the third quarter were higher than the sequential increase in total program count.

Looking at the sales through these solutions, average daily sales through vending were up 15% year over year and represented approximately 20% of total company net sales. Sales to costs with an implant program were up to 16% year over year, and represented approximately 21% of total company net sales.

Moving to profitability for the quarter. Gross margin of 41.1% came in slightly ahead of our expectations and improved 10 basis points year over year. Operating expenses and fiscal third quarter were approximately $324 million on a reported basis. On an adjusted basis, operating expenses of $319 million increased approximately $9 million year by year or $11 million quarter over quarter. However, we saw a sizeable improvement in adjusted operating expenses as a percentage of sales with declines of 150 basis points year over year and 310 basis points quarter to quarter. This performance was better than expected as sales growth meaningfully outpaced expense growth driven by our productivity and headcount actions taken over the year.

Reported operating margin for the quarter was 10.2% compared to 8.5% in the prior year. On an adjusted basis, operating margin of 10.6% exceeded the high end of our outlook for the quarter and compared favorably to 9% in the prior year. We delivered GAAP EPS of $1.44 compared to $1.02 in the prior year. On an adjusted basis, we delivered EPS of $1.43 compared to $1.08 in the prior year an improvement of 32%.

Turning to slide 7 to review our balance sheet and free cash flow performance. We continued to maintain a healthy balance sheet with net debt of approximately $433 million, representing roughly 1 times EBITDA. Capital expenditures of $21 million were down slightly year over year in we keep free cash flow conversion above 100% despite the step up in [AAR] related to the increase in sales. This is resulting in free cash flow conversion of 94% fiscal year to date, keeping us on track to achieve our updated target of 95% of the fiscal year.

Looking at our capital allocation strategy on slide 8, our highest priorities remain in organic investment to fuel growth and advanced operational efficiencies across the business. Returning capital to shareholders also remains a priority with approximately $49 million returned to shareholders and fiscal 3Q and $160 million fiscal year to date in the form of dividends and share repurchases.

Moving to our expectations for the fourth quarter on slide 9. To reflect quarter-to-date trends, including daily sales in fiscal June, they are expected to grow approximately 7% in more difficult comparisons prior this quarter, we are anticipating average daily sales improvement of 6.5% to 8.5% compared to the prior year. Gross margins to follow the historical 3Q to 4Q sequential decline of 40 to 50 basis points. And the continuation of profitable growth demonstrated by the midpoint of our adjusted operating margin rates of 10% to 10.8%, implying adjusted incremental operating margins in the mid-20s%.

As we approached the end of the fiscal year, we have updated our expectations for some line items that can be found at the bottom of the slide. We now expect depreciation, amortization expense to be approximately $100 million for the fiscal year versus our prior expectation of $90 million to $100 million.

We're also reducing our CapEx assumption from $100 million to $110 million to approximately $100 million. This is resulting in our expectations for free cash flow conversion to increase from 90% to approximately 95% for the fiscal year. Our expectations on the other line items for the fiscal year remain unchanged and include interests and other expenses of approximately $30 million, including the $5 million employee retention credit benefit, we recognized in Q3, which is excluded for adjusted EPS. And a tax rate between 24.5% to 25.5%.

And with that, we will open the line for Q&A.

(Operator Instructions) Chris Dankert, DA Davidson.

Hey, morning. Thank you for taking the questions. I guess first off, maybe just as we look at the fourth-quarter guide, can you just help us the right size how much of that is kind of underlying core volume improvement versus pricing obviously, the pricing comp is [a little a lot] steeper here. Just kind of update us on that front.

Sure, absolutely. I mean, I think, I -- we obviously had the beginning of some of our pricing actions impact the fourth quarter last year, but we do see continuing volume improvement, we're up against tougher comps in the fourth quarter. Ryan, maybe you want to share some remodeling purposes?

Yes. Hey, Chris, welcome back. The way I think about volumes and price and in 4Q is price was about 7.3%, 7.2% year over year in 3Q. As Martina mentioned, we'll begin lapping some of our more meaningful price actions related to tariffs in 4Q last year. We did put it at some price in May related to what we're seeing in the metalworking and other product categories.

I would think about price being in that 6.5%, 7% range, but definitely implying volume improvement at the midpoint. And it now remind you, it's against the a tougher comp as well. A volume, our volume comparison in 4Q is about 300 basis points tougher relative to the third quarter. So feel good about what we're seeing.

Got it. That's extremely helpful. And I guess just a follow-up here. On the salesforce realignment and the efforts on that front. Can you kind of give a sense for how did the execution there tracked through the quarter to your expectations? Are we continuing to see things move in the right direction there? Are you pleased with how sales growth and coverage have moved as we got into into June? Maybe any additional commentary there to make -- that it would be very helpful.

Yeah, absolutely. We're exactly where we thought we would be. So you want to think about this in two phases. So first, thinking about the structure and the analogy that I use with the team is, you want to get wet when it rains. So you want to be in the right place at the right time with the right opportunities, with the right programs, and put it into our context. And able to take advantage of the tailwind that we're seeing in some of the industrial trends. And that's happening.

So proof points. You look at the volume through our vending units. We've got vending an implant up mid-teens ADS in the quarter. We've got vending per unit of high-single digits, which is clearly a volume driver, that's that coiled spring we've been waiting for. So the structure pieces behind us and we're happy with our segmentation and our coverage.

Now the next piece, which is really more exciting, is you want to make it rain as well, and that's what we're talking about around the sales excellent side of things. So we've compressed our time to hire. We have filled the vacancy, we're onboarding and training people differently. We've got new sales management processes. So now you start to drive growth and volume through your your day-to-day activity and your day-to-day sales management.

So we're exactly where we thought we'd be. This is a long game that we're playing and you'll start to see it as a volume improves in the next quarter and beyond.

Got it. Yeah, very exciting to get to this point. So, yeah, thanks so much for the call there, much appreciated.

Ken Newman, Keybanc Capital Markets.

Hey, good morning guys. Congrats on the ninth quarter.

Thanks, Ken.

First -- sure, Martina, maybe for my first question. Maybe -- could you help us level set on how to think about us from the outside tracking your progress on your productivity initiatives into next year? I know you mentioned being about 1,000 heads heavy at current revenue levels, but how do you view that evolving as the volumes in the cycle inflect into next year?

Yeah. Ken, thank you for the question because that -- I think it is important that we're all on the same page. So let's take one step back and say, where did this benchmark come from? We committed -- we're committed to that mid-teens operating margin or beyond in terms of a turnaround for the company. And we needed an internal benchmark.

We needed something to anchor ourselves against and to shoot for. And so we did all of this benchmarking to say, today, to deliver $4 billion in sales, it takes us 1,000 more people than it would take one of our public peers. And that's the measure of efficiency then that we're looking at internally. So if you quickly do the math, you're talking about $570,000-ish per head, that's what we generate today. We want that number to be $100,000 more, right?cThat's what the 1,000 heads turns into.

So then the team takes that target and says either, A, I need to be able to grow without adding heads or I need to take heads out to make my process more efficient. And it's a combination of both because we want to improve associate experience and take manual work out and build up the foundation that can absorb growth without needing new headcount. And in doing so, we want to improve customer experience. So there's a whole set of interconnected factors that we're looking at.

So we have a road map today. I mean, if you think about it, we're almost at the end of our fiscal year. So we've already mapped out the target for '27 that gets us closer to that benchmark, but that's the number that we want you to be tracking. So you can look at absolute headcount progress if you look at total head less the sales headcount, but it's really that ratio, I think that's the more important measure of progress. And the other thing I'll say is based on the road map, we're not going to share a lot of details upfront for competitive reasons. And honestly, to support the strong momentum and morale that is within the company around this benchmark.

But as we log the wins, we will share them. But you'll see them in those two numbers. And it's not going to be linear. This quarter, for example, we didn't see a lot of movement. Some projects are small, some are much bigger, some are short term, some take a little longer, but those are the two places you should look.

Got it. That's very, very helpful. I appreciate that.

And then maybe for the follow-up, just thinking about operating leverage from 3Q to 4Q, I think the midpoint of the incremental margins is in the mid-20% range. You did low 30s% this most recent quarter. Maybe any color on just why the operating leverage may step down sequentially despite the ADS growing? Is there a mixed headwind that we should be aware of? Or is there anything else onetime that we should be aware of thinking about that fourth-quarter guide relative to maybe what's -- maybe more baked in as conservative -- conservatism?

Yeah. Ken, this is Ryan. Not overly concerned about the increase in -- I mean, the decrease in the operating leverage. It's mainly just driven by the timing of some actions and some moving pieces in the prior year. For instance, if you look at freight, year over year in 3Q is about a $3 million good guy. We will start to lap some of our network optimization savings in 4Q. That will be a bad guy year over year just because of what we're seeing in fuel costs.

Another one would be, if you think about our headcount actions we took at the end of last fiscal year, we'll start to anniversary them. So the way I think about it is, yes, it's a step down, but there's some moving pieces. But I'd say our profitable growth algorithm still remains intact. Mid-single digits incremental margins should be at least 20%. As we near high-single, low-double digits, incremental margins should be at the upper end of 20% closer to 30%. So just some onetime moving pieces in the quarter. That's how I view it, Ken.

Very helpful. Thanks guys

Ryan Merkel, William Blair.

Hey everyone, good morning. Thanks for the question. Martina, I wanted to start on the comments you made about the industrial recovery. You're starting to see that. I'm curious what inning do you think we are in for the industrial recovery? And then have you seen customers adding more shifts yet to plants and restocking inventory? Or might that be a future tailwind?

So thanks for the question, Ryan. I think we're probably in sort of third inning if I -- that might be conservative, but we are starting to see changes in behavior. So the most notable now that we haven't sized yet, but we're watching closely is summer shutdown patterns are changing significantly. So whereas we would have had preplanned shutdowns, particularly in automotive, those are being canceled. Those are not -- or they're not being announced as they would have been.So it's still spotty, but it's real. And so I think that's probably the best indicator that we have.

And Ryan, I'd just add, in 3Q, our top five end markets saw strong growth in four with the exception of automotive. As we head into June, we saw automotive turn positive, which is another good sign. And then going back to Martina's earlier comments in Q&A. If you look at the average daily sales in vending and implant on a per-unit basis, we were up high-single digits, that implies volume improvement. I think that's a good gauge on industrial demand. So we're starting to see it, and I hope that continues.

Yes. That's really helpful. Yes, 1% volume, I imagine we will get a lot better if this continues. So that's kind of what I'm focused on. And then on pricing, 7% price was a little better than I think we expected.

Just talk about why that was. And then just on tungsten, are you done seeing price increases from suppliers on that now? And I'm curious how much of tungsten carbide prices up year over year in 3Q because I imagine that's a decent tailwind.

We're not done, Ryan. Thanks for the question. So tungsten is still the largest driver of our inflation. And I think we're not done. Suppliers' reaction depends on their own -- the nature of their own supply chain.

We will plan for a price action in the fourth quarter. And I mean, tungsten overall is up over 500% -- so we haven't really seen a slowdown yet. We are -- we haven't seen a lot of prebuying. Cutting tool volume is still growing for us, which is an important metric that we're tracking because we want to make sure there's no demand destruction yet. There aren't a lot of substitutes for carbide cutting tools. So we're still seeing inflation, but we're still seeing growth. And yeah, we don't see the end.

And Ryan, just going back to your first question on pricing in the third quarter, yeah, it came in a little bit better than anticipated. A couple of things driving that is we saw cutting tool volumes inflect positively. If you think about the inflation there, that contributed. And then we talked about being more strategic with pricing in certain categories and streamlining some discounting templates. That occurred more later on in 3Q, so not too much of an impact in the quarter, but pleased with the pricing, but more encouraged that we saw volume inflect positively in the quarter.

Nigel Coe, Wolfe Research.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to follow up on that pricing question. First of all, can you maybe just comment on how that price cost gap is trending in kind of 3Q into 4Q? And then when we look at the monthly sales performance, I know that month over month can be volatile, but May was weaker, June was stronger. It looked like a bit of a prebuy ahead of price increases you said, Martina, that didn't happen. So just curious, any comments on that?

Yes. It does. I can see how if you look at our April, May, June, you're wondering, is this going in the right direction. We had a couple of, of course, structural things impacting that. So remember, Easter moved, which inflated our April. And then June, typically for us is a 250-basis-point drop because of our five-week month and the holiday timing. Actually, this year, it's about a 50-basis-point increase. So we've seen just some shifting, but no real concern. We're pretty happy with where sales are. And price/cost positive contributed 20 to 30 basis points to margin in the quarter.

Okay. And does that still look similar in 4Q, Martina? And then I'm just wondering maybe if you could just break out SG&A between payroll, freight, et cetera, in light of the freight inflation, especially. And then just wondering in '27, how we should think about SG&A growth relative to sales. And I know you guys don't tend to look much beyond the quarter, but any thoughts on '27 in light of third innings of, hopefully, a cycle recovery here?

Okay. So I'll try to unpack that. There's a couple of pieces in there. I'll let Greg give you the breakdown on the SG&A. The one thing I'm most happy about is that what we try to achieve with our variable compensation redesign is being felt.

One of the issues that MSC struggled with in the past is that we didn't have a responsive commission program. So our sales might be down, but we wouldn't see them the benefit in our SG&A. So the new comp design, this is the first quarter that we see it fully working the way it should. Very happy about that. Maybe I'll first pass it to Greg. Do you want to break down the rest of SG&A?

Yeah. So I'll give you a little bit of color on the OpEx we saw in 3Q. And I just want to first say, I'm encouraged to see the evidence that we're making progress on our cost structure as seen by the 150-basis-point decline in our operating expenses as a percentage of sales. And really that's helped to contribute to or significantly contributed to the improvement of 160 basis points in the adjusted operating margin year over year and 32% incremental margin that we're seeing. I can talk a little bit about some of the expenses year over year here.

I see a little more color. We saw a step-up of $9 million year over year in our operating expenses, and it was driven primarily by increases related to personnel-related expenses. We continue to see investments in implants and advertising to both support and drive volume growth. We saw a little incremental D&A pickup. And then lastly, there was an unexpected during the quarter, we saw a year-over-year step-up of a few million dollars in bad debt expense that was driven by a couple of customers that were isolated and not reflective of the current environment.

And then from a standpoint, it's partially offset by our productivity from our headcount. We did see some lower freight driven by the combination of our network initiatives during the quarter as well as we did see last year, we had some higher outbound freight that was related to some public sector work that didn't repeat in the period. And we are also seeing some early benefits from our sales force optimization work that eliminated the duplicative commissions being paid on the same revenues and resulted in lower commissions expense year over year despite higher sales volumes.

And since you asked a little bit about SG&A, I can tell you that from a payroll and payroll-related costs as a percentage of sales, it's an improvement year over year for the quarter, about 250 basis points, they went to 53.7% versus 56.1% in the prior year. I'd like to turn it back to Martina.

Yes. So maybe I'll take it back just since volume is on everybody's mind, ours included, right? That's one of our major metrics that we're measuring inside the business. So Ryan said it earlier, but just to recap. So volumes returned to growth across all customer types in April and May and now we see it again in June.

Just backing us up, we were flat on volumes in the first quarter. We dug ourselves a hole to about negative 4% in the second quarter. We know what happened there with the sales redesign. We're back to just above flat. So we're positive in all customer types now for the third quarter, and we expect that to continue to grow.

We have very weak volume comps coming up. So you will start -- as we start lapping price, we're very confident that we'll start to see that impact in volume. And then initiatives are starting to take hold. So one thing we didn't talk about today in the prepared remarks was the Growth Forum pipeline. We have a pipeline of $500 million in opportunities. We converted about 10% of that on an annualized basis.

The type of pipeline management that we're doing, the very consequent sales coaching and sales management will continue to drive volumes. So we're optimistic. You were asking me into '27. I think we've got a good solutions footprint across the industry. And now we're starting to see that ADS was up mid-teens for vending and implant this quarter and high-single digits through machines. We have to optimize the volume through machines. And I think the industrial recovery is the wind in those sales. Then like I said, sales excellence continues to develop. So I think a combination of those things, you'll see our volumes now start to accelerate. We're out of the hole that we dug.

Okay, thank you.

Tommy Moll, Stephens Inc.

Morning and thank you for taking my questions.

Hey, Tommy

Martina, all the commentary around demand and volumes returning to growth sounds pretty positive. But I do want to perhaps put a finer point on the guide for fourth quarter where I believe your midpoint implies again in July and/or August, another trend above your typical month-over-month progression. June is a pretty high bar. You outperformed significantly there. So I'm just curious what gives you the confidence to make that assumption.

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Tommy. We just feel confident in what we're seeing. Yeah, whether it's in the macro or pipeline, we're continuing to see benefits from our sales force work grow. As Martina mentioned, our sales excellence program is starting to take hold in early innings there. But I just feel like we're on good footing and feel confident that, that trend will continue. There might be a little bit more price in the quarter, depending on what we see from our suppliers. But as we sit here today, don't feel like we really got ahead of our teas here.

Yes. I think, It's hard to describe. I think you've heard me say sales as a science. It's hard to describe the difference that selling for MSC today represents compared to selling for MSC a year ago, we're still a short-cycle business. We will still have limited insight into what's coming.

But the pipeline management the white space steering, things like conversion on the Growth Forum pipeline, those are becoming very real and starting to have teeth in our planning. And I think also the change in the onboarding, we put about 120 sellers through a new program to get them to money faster. We're measuring that time. We're intervening when that time is stretching out. So it's -- these are just muscles that we're building and I don't have the proof points for you that will have six months from now, but I'm very, very confident in the infrastructure and the ecosystem.

And Tommy, just to dive a little deeper in your July, August comment. If you look at July and August ADS combined versus June, historically, we're up around 50 basis points. The midpoint of our outlook is -- implies a little more than 1%. So we're not applying a lot of more volume improvement. So just to help level set you there.

Yeah. Thank you, both. As a follow-up, I wanted to circle back to the discussion on incremental margins. Martina, you've addressed multiple times today the benefits in terms of incrementals from the prior restructuring actions. You've talked about the internal benchmark to continue to improve employee productivity. So there's a lot of tailwinds here as we think about incrementals looking ahead. If you roll it all together, is mid-20s% a fair base case for fiscal 2027?

For fiscal '27? I think we want to -- we have not updated the algorithm that Ryan mentioned. So mid-single, 20% higher than that, that we do the math. There probably will be a moment that we could sharpen that algorithm and give you maybe a more aggressive direction. I think we have a plan, but for now, this is where we are, if that makes sense.

I think in terms of the 4Q outlook where gross margin is entirely based on our historical performance, our mix typically changes. We're starting to lap some price actions. There could be some upside there. And as Ryan said, we've got some one-time things we're comping in the fourth quarter in terms of some personnel actions and that kind of thing. Otherwise, I think that incremental would be stronger for the fourth quarter.

Tommy, I just wanted to say one more thing, I think it's clear that we're fundamentally doing more with less. We're beginning to grow volumes. Maybe look at our headcount, full-time headcount is down 360 year over year and build sales is down 225, so I think that's the one thing we're most encouraged about.

Thank you both. I'll turn it back.

Stephen Volkmann, Jefferies.

Hi, good morning, guys. Most of mine have been answered, but maybe a couple of longer-term ones. Martina, I wanted to just come back to the 1,000 heads relative to volume. Is that still the right number? Because I know you also said you were down to 225 on sales heads in the field. Is -- are we starting now from 1,000 or are we already below that?

No, the clock resets. So take the starting point at the beginning of the -- so let's say the beginning of the third quarter even, but those heads the sales actions and the previous actions that we've taken, that's not in the benchmark. So the benchmark that I gave you that we want to be somewhere in this, [650 to 670,000] per head. That's based on the starting point of today.

Super. Okay, thank you. That's clear. And then secondarily, as you've gotten further into this process and started to see some results here. I'm wondering, how should we think about if you can get back to your 15% kind of EBIT margin. Where is gross margin roughly in that scenario?

So one of the things that that we sort of -- were convicted of is we would really not like to expand gross margin above that 40% to 41% range because volume is our priority. So in those KPIs that I laid out in the beginning of the prepared remarks, we didn't mention gross margin on purpose because we really want to drive volume.

So you should think about that 40% to 41% range kind of as a steady level and anything that we achieve because of our own efficiencies or because of our pricing, yes, we professionalize their pricing process, we'd like to take those proceeds and actually turn them into price for our customers so that we can continue to grow volume. So there's a competitiveness opportunity that we see there as we continue to improve our growth margin.

Very clear. Okay, makes sense. I appreciate it.

David Manthey, Baird.

Hi, good morning. Thank you. First off, I'd like to discuss the 6.8% growth in manufacturing, specifically. So I assume that pricing in manufacturing because of the impact of tungsten is greater than the company average, 7.2%. So Martina, I'm wondering, as you look at -- you mentioned MDI and of course, ISM has been above [50] for five months now. I know there's a lot of change happening in MSC, but are you disappointed you haven't seen a resurgence in manufacturing volume growth at this point in the cycle? Or is it just your expectation we'll see that next quarter and beyond?

Dave, thanks for the question. I'll give a little color on there and pass it over to Martina. One of the things that's driving that is, if you think about our smallest a small core customers or uncovered core customers that transact on the web. Web average daily sales were up double digits. Those are characterized in the other bucket and that falls into nonmanufacturing. So on a mix basis, it's showing 6.8%, but in all other purposes, I would say that, that number is a little depressed just because of the way we characterize the smallest and small core customers. And then Martina, I don't know if there's anything you want to add?

Yeah. I think -- I mean, are we blowing it out of the water on volume yet, Dave, we're not, right? We're -- we -- like I said, we've completed our phase one of our restructuring. And now what we expect to see is the volume growth. I think there's volume underlying everything that we're doing is because we're covering new customers now with the new segmentation and obviously, everything that they're -- that's implying volume, even though we don't reflect it that way yet.

So I think, yes, we -- there is a tailwind. We will benefit from it. And as Ryan said, it's not so clear cut how the different industry markers spread across our different customer types. But -- what I see when I see vending up high teens, that's coming from manufacturing growth. And so we see it across different customer segments.

Okay, thank you. And given the price read through we had this quarter, if you strip that out, by my math, it seemed like contribution margin ex price would have been negative. And I understand you're looking at flattish volumes here. But guiding fourth quarter lower, are there other lingering cost factors that we should consider fourth quarter and beyond before we get to operational contribution margins that are in that 20% range? Because clearly, you're implying there's a handoff and I think the math would imply that, that there's a price to volume handoff that's upcoming. And I just wonder what your confidence level is there.

Yeah, Dave, I'll chime in and then pass it over to Martina. What I would say is, yeah, everybody has our own assumptions on how we would lever on volumes. But if you look at 2Q, we had a 25% incremental margin, low 30s% here in 3Q, and then 4Q implying 23%-ish at the midpoint. As we mentioned earlier, a portion of that is driven due to just the timing of some of our headcount actions in the prior year and some moving pieces on a year-over-year basis.

For instance, freight was a good guy in 3Q. It will be a bad guy in 2Q. The other things to consider is D&A will step up a little bit year-over-year. So there's just a couple of moving pieces. But as Martina mentioned our long-term growth algorithm, mid-single digits, at least 20% incremental margins remain intact, and then Martina, I don't know if there's anything else.

Yeah. I mean we've been here before, Dave, let me get a little candid for a second, right? So when we were in the post-COVID period and there was a lot of price inflation, we had really attractive and interesting numbers that weren't sustained by let's say, operational change. That's not where we are right now. So that -- those freight savings are absolutely real.

We're taking the same fuel increases as everyone else, but we've optimized the network and we're paying less. We're down 360 headcount and still absorbing the volume that we need. We are finding productivity in a lot of small process. It's going to drive the ability to head towards that 1,000 heads benchmark. So we're -- let's say that all cylinders are not firing yet, but there's progress everywhere, and I think that momentum is real.

Thank you very much.

This now concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Ryan Mills for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. Our fiscal fourth-quarter earnings call will be on October 22.

This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.