Construction Partners Inc (ROAD) 2021 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Greetings, and welcome to the Construction Partners, Inc. First Quarter 2021 Earnings Call. (Operator Instructions) As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Rick Black, Investor Relations for Construction Partners. Thank you. You may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners conference call to review first quarter fiscal year 2021 results. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Relations section of constructionpartners.net.

Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, February 5, 2021. So please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay. I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements or expectations or future events or future financial performance are all considered forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We will be making forward-looking statements as part of today's call that, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially.

Please refer to the earnings press release that was issued today for our disclosure on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings press release.

Construction Partners assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements.

And now I would like to turn the call over to Construction Partners' CEO, Charles Owens. Charles?

Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. With me on the call today are Jule Smith, our Chief Operating Officer; Alan Palmer, our Chief Financial Officer; and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman.

We are pleased with our performance in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. We had solid demand in both our private and public project work during the quarter. In addition, our disciplined approach in bidding, project management, effective utilization of equipment and crews and vertical integration synergies drove the strong financial performance.

We see strength in the funding programs across the states in which we operate, where the demand for road repair and maintenance is ongoing. We also expanded our geographic footprint in the first quarter with 4 bolt-on acquisitions in North Carolina. We now operate 48 hot-mix asphalt plants, which represents distinct markets across the 5 southeastern states that we serve.

From a federal infrastructure funding perspective, we remain optimistic about the prospect of a long-term funding mechanism in light of bipartisan support for infrastructure legislation. We are confident that our nation's infrastructure will continue to be a primary focus for our country as an economic driver and a critical component of it's safety. Based on our current backlog and near-term visibility of the business, we are maintaining our previously announced outlook for the year, which indicates strong growth for CPI.

Before turning the call over to Jule, I'd like to thank our leadership team and more than 2,500 employees for their commitment, dedication and hard work that enables us to successfully execute our strategy.

I'll now turn the call over to Jule to comment on operations and acquisitions. Jule?

Thank you, Charles. Good morning, everyone. Operationally, our business is performing very well. Our organization continues to demonstrate excellence across our markets and states. This performance is due to the hard work and dedication of our employees and their continued attention to safety protocols as we manage through the COVID pandemic. I want to thank each of them for their dedication to keeping their teammates safe and our company productive.

Now let's take a look at demand and funding for our services. Overall, in the states where we currently operate, demand remains strong for the road repair and maintenance projects that comprise the public side of our business. State budgets and gas tax collections are strengthening. We currently expect potential upside in infrastructure spending in Florida, Alabama and North Carolina, with Georgia staying relatively flat. As we mentioned last quarter, the North Carolina DOT has returned to a normal funding program.

Commercial work throughout our states remain steady and we do not currently see downward pressure or pullback on project bidding in the private market. While the bidding environment across our states remains very competitive, I believe we are well positioned to execute our strategy throughout our geographic footprint.

Turning now to acquisitions. We have fully integrated all 4 of the companies we acquired during the first quarter. I'm very pleased with these new additions and the smooth transition of these businesses into our company. Moving forward, in addition to having access to new markets, we expect to benefit from geographic and cultural synergies provided by these acquisitions. As a consolidator in our space, we continue to see many opportunities and to have conversations throughout our existing states and some adjacent states with potential acquisition candidates. Our leadership team is actively working to identify and engage with companies that may well fit into our future growth plans.

I'd like now to turn the call over to Alan to discuss our financial results.

Thank you, Jule, and good morning, everyone. I want to start by highlighting our key performance metrics in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. Compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2020, revenue was $190.9 million, up 8.9%. Acquisitions that were completed during the quarter contributed $7.1 million of revenue. Gross profit was $30.6 million, up 28.8%. Net income was $7.9 million, up 44.1%. And adjusted EBITDA was $23.1 million, up 34.4%. And finally, our adjusted EBITDA margin was 12.1%, up 230 basis points. While continuing to operate using safety protocols implemented to address the pandemic, our managers, crews and corporate support are doing a great job of managing the business. We have continued to grow the company and maintain solid margins.

From a profitability perspective, during the quarter, we had excellent execution on our construction projects and also benefited from efficient utilization of crews and equipment as well as high utilization of our hot-mix asphalt plants and liquid asphalt terminal. We continued to have favorable pricing on liquid asphalt and diesel fuel during most of the quarter, we are beginning to see the expected price increases in both of these products as the economy begins to recover.

Turning now to the balance sheet. At December 31, 2020, we had $51.7 million of cash and $38.3 million of availability under our revolving credit facility after the reduction for outstanding letters of credit. At the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing 12 months EBITDA ratio was 0.98. This liquidity provides financial flexibility in today's uncertain economic environment and provides capital for potential future acquisitions, allowing us to respond quickly to growth opportunities when they arise.

Cash provided by operating activities was $709,000 for the 3 months ended December 31, 2020, compared to $1.7 million for the same period last year. Capital expenditures for the first quarter of 2021 were $10.5 million. We still anticipate total capital expenditures for the year of $47 million to $50 million.

Project backlog at December 31, 2020, was $655.6 million compared to $608.1 million at December 31, 2019. Approximately 79% of the backlog will be completed in fiscal year 2021.

Turning now to the outlook for fiscal year 2021. We are maintaining the ranges we provided last quarter. Revenue of $950 million to $1 billion, net income of $42 million to $46.5 million and EBITDA of $109 million to $118 million. In summary, we are pleased with our first quarter results.

I'll now turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Ned Fleming. Ned?

Thank you, Alan. Before we open the call to your questions, it is important to recognize the outstanding performance by all of our leaders, managers and employees at CPI that continue to produce great financial results. The team does an excellent job of managing the business for growth and profitability, while simultaneously building record backlog.

CPI operates at a highly effective level while also expanding its geographic footprint into new markets. Many of the macroeconomic dynamics and positive internal factors that we experienced in the fourth quarter have persisted into this year. In addition, we significantly expanded the number of markets in which we operate through the acquisition of 13 hot-mix asphalt plants in the past 4 months. The recent acquisitions demonstrate CPI's strategic focus as the premier consolidator in a very fragmented industry.

The company is well positioned, both organizationally and financially for continued growth. We remain confident in further expansion opportunities in our southeastern states with a vision to go beyond our current footprint. Under the leadership and direction of our experienced management team and with our strong growth outlook for the year, we are extremely bullish on the future of the company.

With that, we'll now take questions. Operator?

(Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Andrew Wittmann with Robert W. Baird.

I thought I'd start out with a question on the profit margins in the quarter. This looks like an area, at least to our model, that came in above our expectations. And so Alan, I was wondering what some of the factors that drove the significant gross margin improvement were year-over-year in a little bit more detail. In the last quarter, you talked about the fact that you did less subcontracting work was a reason for the surprise last quarter. But were there any other things like significant positive project completions versus your prior percentage of completion estimates in the quarter? Can you maybe talk about oil prices impact on the quarter? And then given that they're starting to rise, how much of a headwind that could present for the balance of the fiscal year? I think some of those issues would be helpful for us to understand.

Yes, Andy, as far as the job performance, it really was consistent with the percentages last year and what we've seen in the -- our second and our third and fourth quarter of 2020. But we did continue to benefit from the favorable pricing in the petroleum products, the liquid asphalt and the diesel fuel. And as we said on our last call, we see that those are beginning to rise and that happened more at the very end of the first quarter and going into the second quarter. So we continue to benefit just like we did in the third and fourth quarter of last year from that.

We also, in this quarter, we had a -- compared to last year, we had a significant increase in the amount of asphalt work that we did. Our mix of work includes asphalt paving. And this year, we were able to run more tons through our plants and sell more tons of FOB asphalt and aggregates to third parties than we did this same time last year. So both of those and the utilization of equipment.

But as far as going into the future quarters, there definitely is petroleum product prices are increasing. That's going to turn more from a tailwind into a headwind and that's really what we expected to begin happening in the latter part of that first quarter and into the second and third and possibly even into the fourth quarter of this year.

Got it. That's helpful. I guess as it relates then -- to build off of that as it relates to the guidance that you maintained here this quarter, I was just wondering if you could just kind of take us through the thought process there. I think since you last spoke to us, it was only the acquisitions in the outer banks that have been added. But I would think that those might be at least a little bit additive. Can you talk about the decision not to raise the EBITDA with what you're seeing here today and rather maintain where it is?

Well, when we talked the last times, to clarify, the acquisition in the outer banks was built into our guidance for the year because we actually closed that just a couple of days after we had the call. So when we put together our budget, we knew that was imminent. But obviously, we couldn't talk about it till it was public information. So our guidance had all 4 acquisitions built into them.

And so there's really no change to the guidance because of a new acquisition because it was already built in. And typically, we don't update our guidance until after the second quarter until there's -- unless there's something extremely significant that's happened. And as we've talked about many times before, there can be a pretty good fluctuation between our first and second quarter. So until we get through that second quarter, whether we're down in the first quarter compared to the prior year or up from the first quarter compared to the prior year, we typically don't update our guidance for anything related to how that quarter. We pretty much look at the first 6 months and the last 6 months. So -- and at this point, we see the year playing out very similar to what we had expected.

And Andy, this is Ned. I mean we think that from a guidance standpoint, we have a strong growth in our guidance. We're operating at a very high level. We've got positive macro with strong demand and state funding in a robust private sector kind of as a tailwind. So we feel like our guidance is -- we're excited about performing.

Our next question comes from the line of Stanley Elliott with Stifel.

Earlier on the call, you mentioned moving into adjacent markets. How -- I mean, is that something that conceivably could happen this year? Is it more that you're laying the groundwork for something to happen in '22? I'm just curious to how you're thinking about expansion at this point?

This is Charles. We're obviously a growth company. We're staying focused on growing the company. And we've got a lot of conversations going on with different people in different areas. And at this point in time, all we can say is that we're planning on to continue our strategy, like we always have. And when these opportunities come up, we want to close them and coming up with the timing of it or the thought process is -- we're just taking it one company at a time and a seller has a lot to do with more than us and the timing on closing. And so we're pursuing that, and we're ready to make any kind of addition to the company at any time, but we see a lot of opportunities out there right now.

Perfect. And then secondly, you mentioned kind of the state cadence in the public funding being pretty good. Was it -- we've heard that some states might be a little bit cautious early in the year, kind of given -- even though the budgets are looking healthy just because of the pandemic, but the chance that they would start to accelerate payments as the construction season starts to kind of take hold. Is that something you all are seeing or contemplating within your outlook as we sit here today?

We've got all of this kind of baked into our guidance, but we've got -- looking at the states that we operate in, let's just take Alabama, for example, is going to be up quite a bit in highway bidding. Georgia is going to be flat basically and Florida is showing a downturn. But basically, the downturn is these mega jobs that they're not going to have, but they're committed to do a lot of resurfacing in 2021 through 2025 at about $5.5 billion worth of work.

So in North Carolina, so to give you an example, DOT left probably less than about $150 million of this year that on track to left about 100 -- about $1.6 billion. So that's going to be a substantial turnaround. So when you look at the states we operate in, we're up and we're seeing traffic and we're seeing tax receipts come in at near levels where they were before the pandemic.

So -- and just overall on top of that, with the COVID-19 relief bill, there's another $1.2 billion that went out to where we operate to the DOTs. And when we don't think all of that, obviously, we'll turn into leads at the table because we think the DOTs are safe of what they have. And -- but we do expect over the next several -- over a time period of years to see additional funding there. And then a good thing about North Carolina is, they're very bullish. Obviously, we've made a lot of acquisitions there. But their cash balance in their DOT, the minimum is about $300 million, and they're sitting at about $1.1 billion right now. So we see a lot of good things that's going to come out of not only Carolinas, but all of the states we operate in. So we're very bullish on our guidance for this year.

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Wilson with Raymond James.

Congrats on the quarter. Wanted to clarify something. I think last quarter, you said your -- the year-on-year increase in sales for the full year in your guidance was about half from acquisitions and half from organic growth. Is that still the case or has the balance of acquired and organic shifted now that you're one quarter end?

No. It hasn't at all. And one of the things that I think was a little confusing and, of course, obviously, there was only so much information we could put out, we gave everyone an indication of what the acquisition revenue would be by the statement you just repeated. But I think people probably kind of have been putting out their guidance assumed that the cadence would be similar to ours, where there's about 20% the first and second quarter each and 30% the last. But these acquisitions, 2 of them weren't made. One of them, we operated at 1 week, then we were shutdown for Christmas. The other one was the 1st of December. So they really only contributed about $7.1 million to the first quarter revenue, but 90% or more of what they will contribute will be in the second, third and fourth quarter. But the split has not changed at all.

Got it. And then your days receivable improved a fair amount year-on-year. Where we are at as far as the cash flows coming out of the DOTs? And can we assume these sort of days continue going forward?

Yes. We've pretty much stabilized with that. I've mentioned before, something that can throw that off a little bit is how much we do in the last month of the quarter. And that can have an impact because basically, all of those -- all of that revenue is in receivables plus a little bit carried over. But the way we calculate it, our days receivables are actually down probably about 0.5 to 1 day when you calculate it based on the actual month that closed out. So we've seen throughout the pandemic, the states and the counties have really worked hard to make sure they don't get behind in their payments. So we're very pleased with that.

Our next question comes from the line of Michael Feniger with Bank of America.

At the end of the year and end of December, we saw that COVID-19 relief package, it included $10 billion, I think, of 8 DOTs. I think you even just mentioned, I think is it -- is the number of $1.2 billion that is going to the DOTs in your 5 states? And maybe you can just talk about that. If I understand that, that $1 billion might not go specifically to road maintenance or road paving. But would that actually help with the bidding environment, if there's more bids out there? Would people you compete with maybe going for certain projects, so it would open up better opportunities elsewhere? Just trying to think about how this recent stimulus that went directly to the DOTs at the end of the year. Is that a 2021 impact? Does it take a long time so that might filter through? Help us understand how much of a benefit that can be.

All right. The -- as you know, the states received the $10 billion in emergency aid and the -- from the COVID-19 reliefs. And we anticipate the DOTs getting their house in order where they may have had a little bit of shortfall. But we do anticipate this $1.2 billion that's going into the 4 states that we -- that we're -- have hot-mix asphalt plants in right now, we do think that we're going to see that start trickling in latter part -- in the 2021 year, latter part of the 2021 fiscal year.

So we think that it's going -- we're going to see a little bit there, but what we're looking at more than anything is kind of what's happening in each one of the states without this relief that we're seeing North Carolina coming back with a huge program, and we see Florida being up. If you take out the mega jobs, then we see Georgia being flat and Alabama having a real good funding. So we anticipate the funding to be good, the relief package, we're kind of being cautious about how we look at that. We feel like some of that could be, like you say, in the latter part of 2021, but we're very optimistic that we're going to see some of this get into the bidding and through the lettings, and we feel like a lot of this will obviously be the DOT work that we concentrate on is the repairs and maintenance and because it can really improve the roadways immediately.

So that's kind of what our thought process is, and it seems like every time we're exploring things, we've got the cities and the counties and the DOT and different agencies, chamber of commerce is all trying to figure out the increased spending on infrastructure, and it has really come to like about how important this infrastructure spending is and it's very important. And everyone recognizes the all the domino effect when they do let highways, how many people are touched from an employment standpoint. So we're very bullish on the funding for our 2021 year for sure.

That's helpful. That's great. And I think going back to one of the earlier questions, the concern for the stock and for the company is that the margins has been incredibly strong because of this impact we've seen with diesel fuel, petroleum and liquid asphalt prices. And now all of a sudden, the strong margin expansion that you guys have been reporting is going to swing the other way because of the rise of crude and diesel. Can you help us understand, Alan, some of the benefits you're seeing on the margins? Maybe quantify how much is it coming from better utilization, better mix because those feel like that's more structural going forward, while raw materials are going to swing from quarter-to-quarter? So if there's any way you could help maybe quantify how much the benefits over the last few quarters from margin has been from diesel so we can see how much of it is from the lower material prices versus actually getting better utilization of your equipment and better mix?

Yes. I mean I've said before, I've tried to quantify a little bit in general terms because we can't calculate a specific amount. But I think the example I've used in the past is that if prices are moving down on those products, then generally, we're going to have a tailwind, is how I refer to it, and that may be $1 million, $1.5 million, let's say, in the course of the year.

And then when you the headwind when they're going up during the period that they're going up, because you don't have every contract hedged and with the price increases that are built into it, then you may have $1 million or $1.50 million of headwind. So as we look at it, it's not very significant except during that period where you switch from -- if you switch from a tailwind to a headwind. So part of what drove our margins, and I alluded to this earlier in this quarter, is any time we run a lot more tons of asphalt because we have a very diverse mix of jobs, then we're going to be running more tons through the asphalt plants, which have a fairly high fixed cost.

So if this quarter compared to the same quarter last year, we ran -- even though our revenue was up 9%, which is nothing to be ashamed of, our tons were up almost 25%. So one of our highest fixed cost areas are the asphalt plant. So we're going to pick up extra margin there, and we talked about that when we talked about the 40% in the first 6 months and the 60% in the last 6 months.

The other thing is that also drives a lot of our very expensive equipment that's doing the asphalt paving, which the highest volume of resurfacing and asphalt paving that we normally do as in these last 6 months of the year. But this year, because of the weather conditions and other things, we were able to do a lot more. So the jobs themselves don't vary in percentage of profit. But the other kind of fixed cost areas like our shop and our asphalt plants, they produce additional margin and that it can turn into like we saw this quarter, 1% or 1.5% of additional margin. Over the course of the year, that's going to come back in line. And that's why we give annual guidance, and we don't focus on quarter-to-quarter because we've had a year or 2 ago where we had a very slow first quarter and there was a lot of concern that, well, you're not going to meet your guidance. And we had a very robust second quarter and we caught up in that one quarter.

The same thing can happen going both ways. That's why, again, we look at our business in 6-month increments. And we still see it very strong. We still see our outlook for the year happening, getting to that guidance. If some of the additional jobs that we're talking about here with the COVID relief money come into our bidding in the third quarter and fourth quarter, then obviously, that could impact our full year guidance at that point. But we're just not going to -- we're not going to adjust our guidance for the things that we hope might happen. We base it on what we see and what we've got on backlog. And our backlog gives us a lot better feel for the rest of the year than we had 12 months ago, where our backlog was still down. So -- but we're not going to adjust typically in that -- or after that first quarter, was there too many things that can happen in the second quarter? We won't know until it's finished.

That makes sense. And I guess just lastly, what you have seen maybe in January, is -- are you seeing a more competitive bidding environment? Is it more stable? I know it's just -- it's still early days this year. I'm just curious if you're seeing anything unusual that's kind of played out, I guess, early in your second quarter?

This is Charles. Jule, do you want to take that question? I know you've done a lot of our operations and just kind of handle that, please?

Sure. Thanks, Charles. Yes, the bidding environment that we are experiencing and seeing in all of our states continues to remain very competitive as it always is and that's not changed. In North Carolina, obviously, within resuming lettings, it starts out very competitive, and we hope that will normalize through the winter and spring, as it normally does. But we had a very successful fall building backlog and not only performing, as Alan said, running a lot of tons, but building backlog. And so we've got a lot of people doing a great job in these 4 states, not only doing work, but getting work for the future.

Our next question comes from the line of Adam Thalhimer with Thompson, Davis.

Jule, I actually wanted to continue along with that competitive environment discussion. I'm just curious if it's impacted the margins in your backlog at all?

Adam, yes. I mean we continue to build backlog. And when it's competitive, our backlog margin can shrink a few basis points. And -- but typically, especially with North Carolina being a big part of what we do, right now, that's affecting it. But we see it normalizing. We see the markets we acquired in North Carolina being very good markets. And so as it normalizes, we -- just as we typically do, we think that we'll see those margins continue to grow. But it is -- it continues to be a very competitive bidding environment in all the states, Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

When does that normally change, by the way, like with the state like North Carolina? They went from very few bids to more bids. I mean is it kind of after 12 months of things normalizing, the margins might get better?

Well, Adam, I think whenever you have a very unique situation where state stops bidding work for over 12 months and asphalt and contractors get lower work and they need to cover the fixed cost of their plants, as Alan alluded to, when they start back letting work, people are going to be aggressive in getting work on their books. I think with the North Carolina program, they've come out with a very strong program, and we see that continuing on. I think it won't take 12 months to normalize. I think people -- once they get some work on the books to cover fixed costs, prices will get back to normal fairly quickly.

Okay. And just lastly, are you seeing any change in seller expectations just based on the -- I don't know, I mean, potential for big federal infrastructure bill and, I mean, our seller is asking for a higher price?

I mean, this is Alan. I mean all we can talk about is historically with regard to that. And we've had periods where there were downturns and even during the COVID, I mean, we were negotiating these 4 companies that we bought during COVID and if there was any kind of uncertainty or whatever like we've never seen, it was probably during that, and it really did not impact the prices that they were expecting or the way that we price companies to buy them.

Historically, when sellers are looking at selling and they're talking about the bright future and what could happen, what we tell them is we're -- if you want to achieve that bright future, you keep running the company and you can make that money. But if we've got to go out and make it, we're not going to pay you for it. And I mean that's just rudely how we frame that. So we generally don't see major changes in prices that we pay. That doesn't mean expectations of sellers don't change, but we're very disciplined in how we value companies and being many of these companies don't have a lot of other choices.

And even if they did, they want to sell to someone that's going to treat their employees right, that are going to continue to kind of the culture of those companies and they fit in well with us. So we don't see a lot moving either because taxes may go up or down or the economy is looking good or it's not looking as good. It really is more a function of the fair market value of their property, plant and equipment and what kind of market that they're in, that we can go in and achieve some synergies and what we can do running the business.

Adam, this is Charles. Let me just add on the competitive that Jule was talking about. Keep in mind that we have 48 distinct market areas and all of those market areas are different and they have different mediators in a lot of those markets, and they have different type of work other than maintenance in those markets. So when you look at our -- talk about the competitiveness, it's hard to say we're looking at just one company because we've got 48 different market areas, and every one of our competitive and -- but it's not like we're depending -- obviously, as you can see, we don't depend on just one state or one market or the way we're situated and the way our strategic plan is letted out is -- we've got 48 new markets to go get and build work with. So I just wanted to make sure you kept that in mind of kind of the way our strategy in the market areas that we have set up in this company.

Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson.

Alan, the step-up in SG&A, should we see that as some -- I assume there's some one-timers from the acquisition activity in the quarter?

There's -- in the quarter, there's really about just under 400,000 related to acquisitions. But for the most part, that should be pretty close to the cadence for the rest of this year, if we don't have another quarter. We've been adding some personnel because of the significant growth that we see in the organic side and some opportunities that we see as far as strengthening our teams and everything. So some of that is related to that. And of course, the acquisitions during this quarter were only partial in there for the quarter. So there'll be full quarters going forward, just like the revenue was only about 10% of what they would get for the year, the same thing was with our overhead. So -- but that amount should be fairly consistent throughout this year for the next 3 quarters. So...

And Alan, you're talking absolute dollars or as a percentage of the...

Yes, so I'm talking about dollars, not percentages. The percentages will obviously change in the months -- in the quarters that we've got 50% more revenue than we do this quarter. I'm talking about the dollars.

Okay. And then a lot of questions around the pipeline, M&A. Can you guys update us just on plans on the greenfield side, what you're thinking about over the next 12 to 24 months new liquid asphalt plants, things like that, I think it'd be interesting to hear?

This is Charles. From our growth strategy, obviously, we're vertically integrated, and we'll be looking at all of the materials that come into making hot-mix asphalt and building construction jobs. And so we've got a lot of opportunities to look at from a bolt-on operation to a building on to our integration of our operation. And so we just have a lot of targets out there that we've been talking to. And we feel good about our growth situation. And we will -- like I said, the timing of those has got to be right for the buyer and the seller. And so we are excited about what we're seeing the opportunities right now.

And we are -- to further say something with that -- with regard to that, I mean, we're constantly looking at other greenfield sites, both for our vertical integration strategy as far as getting more into aggregates or getting more into liquid asphalt. And when that makes sense, we'll execute on that and then just additional asphalt plants. A lot of that has to do with the timing of markets that we're wanting to go into when they're kind of growing or they're new markets that things are happening.

So it's not unusual for us to have greenfield sites that we own that at some point, we will put an asphalt plan and it may be one that we acquire in an acquisition where because of the proximity to one of our plants, it frees up another one. So those are things that we're constantly trying to do, but there's -- timing there is somewhat when it makes sense to go in there because of the amount of work that's going to be available or a plant becomes available that we've got within our -- one of the acquisitions that we make.

Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Wittmann with Robert W. Baird.

The first one is just more of a technical question, but it has to do with the acquisitions. I think in the script, Alan, you said that the revenue from companies acquired in the quarter was like $7-something million. I thought there was another acquisition that was announced that wasn't closed in this quarter. In fact, I think when you guys announced the 2 Florida hot-mix asphalt plants last March, I think they also contributed. So I guess the question was, was the, I think, $7 million in the first quarter the total inorganic revenue contribution? Or was that just from the deals? And if not, could you tell us what the total inorganic contribution to revenue and actually to backlog in the quarter? That would be helpful.

Yes. The total revenue was $12.2 million. So there was $5.1 million from the one in Florida that was the 2 asphalt plants that you referred to. The $7.1 million related to the 4 that were made in this quarter and that only were in there for a partial period. So that's why I've singled that out. But the total amount was $12.2 million. So that left us with just over $3 million of organic growth, which we were very pleased with. Because last year, our first quarter was a very strong quarter where we ended up doing almost 22% of our full year revenue. So this year to last year to grow that much organically, we were very pleased with that.

The backlog contribution from the deals would be helpful as well. If you have it handy?

Andy, I don't have that exactly. I will say that it was very small backlog that we acquired with these companies. Now we have added a good bit of backlog in markets that these companies represent. So there's a substantial portion of our 9 -- I mean, our 12/31 backlog that includes jobs that were won in these markets in North Carolina because they resumed bidding.

But as far as acquired backlog, I don't have an exact number on that. So -- but it was -- we're typically in an acquisition, we would acquire about 6 months' worth of revenue. I would say here, we probably averaged 60 to 90 days at best because they were all in North Carolina, which is Jule referred to, led virtually no work in the last 12 months.

The last question I wanted to ask about was the comment that you made on the FOB volumes in the quarter. You said they're up 25%, while revenue is up 9%. It seems like a pretty big difference. And I know that historically, you guys have been pretty selective or judicious on doing FOB revenues. There's reasons to do it. There's reasons not to do it. And I was just wondering why this quarter had such a big influx of it compared to other times where maybe you haven't elected to fill those orders.

Yes. Well, the -- clarify one thing there that the 20 -- approximately 22% was of all tons. So we were up in our own self-perform tons as well as the FOB tons. And so that goes back to the self-perform tons increase that we had is what drives more tons that mean more equipment usage. So it was both FOB and those. And I mean, there's always been an emphasis for us to sell FOB tons. Those are good for us because it runs more volume through the plant. It also generally is sold to smaller companies that do some of the jobs that we might not do the smaller projects or things like that.

So we're always striving to increase our FOB tons. The reason that I said for the -- part of the higher volume this quarter was we had conditions where it was a little bit warmer. We had more opportunity to put down tons and so did those contractors who are out doing some of those smaller private work projects. So it's always an emphasis, just like we'd like to sell a lot of aggregate to third parties, although we consume the majority of it ourselves in our aggregate facilities.

So it just -- the weather was favorable in October and November and even in December. I mean a substantial portion of our increase in sales compared to last year actually happened in the month of December, which typically is in many of our markets, just not -- you really can't lay very much asphalt in those months because of the temperature requirements.

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to management for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you very much, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today, and we look forward to speaking with you on the next conference call, and everyone, have a safe journey for wherever you're going. Goodbye.

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