Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc. (WMS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Advanced Drainage Systems First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2027 Results Conference Call. My name is Caleb, and I'm your operator for today's call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Mr. Mike Higgins, Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

All right. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Here with me, I have Scott Barbour, our President and CEO; Scott Cottrill, our Chief Financial Officer; and Craig Taylor, President of Infiltrator. I would also like to remind you that we will discuss forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements because of various factors, including those discussed in our press release and the risk factors identified in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC. While we may update forward-looking statements in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, all of which speak only as of today. Lastly, the press release we issued earlier this morning is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. A copy of the release has also been included in an 8-K submitted to the SEC. We will make a replay of this conference call available via webcast on the company website. With all of that said, I'll turn the call over to Scott Barbour.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Before I begin, I want to thank everyone who made the trip to Ohio for our Investor Day in June. It was a great opportunity to showcase our Engineering and Technology Center and highlight what makes ADS a unique and compelling investment opportunity. At Investor Day, we focused on 4 key themes that continue to guide our strategy. First, ADS is a pure-play water company, serving attractive end markets supported by powerful secular tailwinds, including aging and underbuilt infrastructure, more frequent and intense storm events and the growing need to protect and manage water, the world's most precious resource. Second, we highlighted our differentiated growth strategy. Material conversion remains an important driver and key component of our growth, and we continue to focus on innovation, new product introductions, strategic partnerships, distributor programs and disciplined acquisitions to further differentiate the company. Third, we built a resilient platform that delivers industry-leading profitability and strong cash generation across a variety of market conditions. And finally, we remain committed to disciplined capital allocation, reinvest in opportunities that strengthen our competitive advantages and create long-term shareholder value. Simply put, if we continue to grow faster than our markets, generate strong profitability and cash flow and reinvest that capital wisely, we believe that's a winning formula for ADS and our shareholders. Now shifting to the quarter. The first quarter results reflect strong performance as the team continued to execute well despite the tepid demand environment. For the first time ever, we recorded over $1 billion in revenue this quarter, an increase of 21% versus the prior year. Organic revenue increased 9%, driven by growth across both the Stormwater and Wastewater segments. Adjusted EBITDA increased 29% to $358 million, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 35.8%, which is among the most profitable quarters in our history. The impressive results reflect our diversified portfolio, disciplined management of price/cost, material conversion initiatives and operational execution that once again enabled us to deliver strong financial performance. The quarter developed largely as we anticipated when we entered the fiscal year, and the first half of the year is developing as expected. We estimate there was approximately $25 million to $30 million of revenue pulled into the first quarter from the second as customers try to get ahead of price increases. Ultimately, we expect the first half of the year to have normal seasonality, representing 55% to 60% of revenue. However, the normal first and second quarter revenue patterns will be affected by this pull-ahead. So if you take the $95 million of revenue from NDS and assume approximately $25 million to $30 million was pulled forward, we still reported strong mid-single-digit organic growth. Sales in the nonresidential market were strong, increasing 14% on an organic basis. Activity in commercial construction and large projects, including data centers and warehouses, remains resilient. Residential market sales increased 29%, primarily driven by NDS. Organic results in the residential market were flat overall. Infiltrator residential revenue increased double digits, driven by tanks and residential advanced treatment systems. On the Stormwater side, we saw weakness in both retail and residential land development. The challenges in residential construction are well documented as affordability pressures and elevated interest rates continue to weigh on homebuyers. Importantly, our diversified portfolio is working exactly as intended. While portions of the residential market remain under pressure, our geographic and end market diversification, new product introductions, distributor programs and product partnerships continue to provide additional growth opportunities to help offset this market weakness. I'd like to highlight the Stormwater storage category within our Allied Products, which grew 18% in the quarter and is an excellent example of when we do our strategies well. We continue to introduce new products in our core StormTech chambers product line, acquired CULTEC, a complementary chamber line, and we established a partnership to bring Aquabox plastic crates to market in the U.S. for applications with a tighter footprint. And we wrap that with industry-leading digital design tools that easily enable engineers to design and specify these storage products. Another great example of this is the Wastewater segment, where revenue increased 8%, significantly outperforming the underlying residential market. Growth was driven by new tank products and expanded distribution as well as growth in our market-leading advanced treatment products. We're very pleased with the performance of NDS. Their performance and the integration activities continue to progress well. We are increasingly excited about the long-term opportunities to cross-sell products, broaden customer relationships and expand participation in both irrigation and retail channels. NDS delivered another strong quarter and continues to validate the strategic rationale behind the acquisition. We continue to operate under the strategy of recovering inflationary costs on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Transportation costs remain significantly elevated driven by higher diesel and common carrier costs. The cost of materials procured in the quarter was significantly higher on a year-over-year basis, though the first quarter profitability reflects material procured in the prior year at a favorable cost. Another lever we use to offset higher material costs is increasing the use of recycled materials, a strategy we accelerated in late February as raw material costs began to rise and the spread between recycled and virgin material widened. Of note, the expansion of our Cordele, Georgia, recycling facility is nearing completion. This expansion significantly enhances both processing capacity and operational capability in a high-growth region, transforming the facility into a fully integrated recycling plant capable of producing finished materials. The design of this facility reduces material movement, streamlines production flow and enhances process control throughout the manufacturing cycle. Upon full ramp-up, we expect Cordele to be the benchmark for recycling performance within the ADS network. The facility will deliver industry-leading cost efficiency, improved quality and consistency and superior operational performance, strengthening our recycled material supply chain, supporting our long-term growth and margin improvement. Our operational initiatives continue to produce tangible results. Over the last several years, we have invested heavily in production efficiency, automation, logistics capabilities and service levels at both ADS and Infiltrator. Those investments continue to improve productivity, support customer service and strengthen our competitive position. The benefits of those actions remained evident in our profitability, cash generation and ability to serve customers across a broad range of end markets. Overall, we are pleased with the start to the fiscal year and believe our results reinforce the strength of the ADS business model. The long-term fundamentals supporting our business are stronger than ever. As we discussed at Investor Day, we are a pure-play water company operating in attractive markets, supported by powerful secular tailwinds and the growing need for advanced water management solutions. These trends continue to play directly to the strengths of our portfolio and position us for the long-term growth. Our differentiated growth strategy continues to set ADS apart. While material conversion is a core business driver, we are increasingly creating growth through innovation, new product introductions, strategic partnerships, expanded distribution programs and acquisitions. As we look ahead, our priorities are clear: execute against the initiatives within our control, advance the integration of NDS and continue to leverage our resilient platform to generate strong profitability and cash flow across a range of market conditions. We remain committed to disciplined capital allocation, reinvesting in opportunities that strengthen our competitive advantages, strategic acquisitions and return capital to shareholders through dividends and opportunistic share repurchases. While we expect the demand environment to remain tepid, the inflationary cost pressure is dynamic. We are confident in our team's strategy and ability to continue delivering profitable growth and sustained value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott Cottrill.

Thanks, Scott. Turning to the first quarter financial performance. Net sales increased 21% to $1 billion. Excluding the impact of NDS, organic sales increased 9%, and adjusting for the pull-ahead, revenue grew mid-single digits. That mix of growth is the ADS model at work. First, we grow faster than our end markets organically. And second, we leverage strategic acquisitions such as NDS to compound such growth. Stormwater revenue increased 24% to $809 million as compared to $652 million in the prior year. On an organic basis, Stormwater sales increased 10%, driven by growth in both pipe and Allied Products. Wastewater revenue increased 8%, driven by double-digit growth in both tanks and residential advanced treatment. Importantly, we continue to outperform our underlying end markets during the quarter, reflecting the benefits of our diversified product portfolio and our material conversion strategy. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $358 million, resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of 35.8% as compared to 33.5% in the prior year, an increase of 230 basis points and the second highest in the company's history. Several factors helped drive the strong performance during the quarter: strong organic volume growth, especially relative to our underlying markets; the contribution from the NDS business, which also grew year-over-year in a challenging market; the $25 million to $30 million pull-ahead from customers trying to buy ahead of price increases as well as good execution on our commercial strategies, including the timing benefit realized from implementing pricing actions ahead of higher material costs. Moving to cash flow. Free cash flow for the quarter totaled $203 million. Cash generation remains a core strength of the business and reflects both earnings performance and disciplined working capital management. We ended the quarter with net leverage of approximately 1.5x, below our target of 2x and had available liquidity of approximately $901 million. We expect to spend approximately $200 million in capital expenditures this fiscal year as we close out the Cordele expansion and invest in automation and additional capacity at our Infiltrator business. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged: invest organically in areas such as growth and new products, material science and blending capabilities as well as automation and productivity; pursue strategic acquisitions; and finally, returning excess capital to shareholders through our quarterly dividend and share repurchase authorization. We remain extremely well positioned financially and continue to maintain significant flexibility. Moving to guidance. We continue to expect net sales of $3.350 billion to $3.550 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $1 billion to $1.05 billion. While our first quarter performance was strong, we continue to operate in a challenging environment characterized by inflationary cost pressures and fluctuating raw material costs. From a market demand perspective, the nonresidential market is performing modestly better than we had anticipated, while our residential end market demand is performing modestly worse. As we look to the remainder of the year, we still expect normal first half to second half revenue patterns with 55% to 60% of revenue in the first half of the fiscal year. In addition, while material costs were a benefit in Q1, they will be a significant year-over-year headwind for the remainder of the year. We also expect the higher transportation costs we experienced in Q1 to remain significantly elevated throughout the remainder of the year. And finally, we continue to expect our pricing initiatives to offset inflationary cost pressure on a dollar-for-dollar basis for the full fiscal year. In summary, we delivered a strong start to fiscal 2027 through disciplined execution and effective price/cost management. We remain confident in our strategy, focusing on the 4 core themes that Scott initiated - or mentioned a minute ago. Our unique position as a pure-play water company serving markets supported by long-term secular demand drivers. Our differentiated growth strategy, where we continue to outperform our end markets through material conversion, innovation, strategic partnerships, expanded distribution and disciplined acquisitions. Our resilient platform, which enables us to deliver industry-leading profitability and strong cash generation across a variety of market conditions, as evidenced by our 35.8% EBITDA margin and $203 million of free cash flow we delivered this quarter. And finally, our disciplined approach to capital allocation, as we invest in the highest risk-adjusted return opportunities available to us while maintaining a strong balance sheet and creating long-term value for our shareholders. Taken together, these 4 pillars give us confidence in our ability to continue delivering profitable growth, strong cash flow generation and compelling shareholder returns over the long term. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Matt Bouley with Barclays.

I'll start off with a question on the guide, picking off there where Scott C. finished. So you mentioned the cadence of revenues. My question is on the cadence of EBITDA. I think I heard you say that raws were a tailwind and they're going to become a headwind moving forward. So could price/cost actually become sort of temporarily negative as a result and kind of thinking about how that occurs and the timing of when price and cost would match? And so is there any kind of resulting cadence to the EBITDA -- EBITDA margin specifically that you can speak to?

Matt, it's Scott C. Yes, absolutely, you should think about it that way. So normally, based on seasonality, product mix, our Q2 is normally 300 basis points, EBITDA margin-wise, below Q1 on a sequential basis. I would expect this year to be worse than that. So that is exactly the right way to think about it. If you look at the EBITDA bridge that we had in the first quarter on a year-over-year basis, again, as we mentioned, you had favorability in that price/cost bar from both pricing and that FIFO roll of our inventory costs. So we still had favorable resin costs that we experienced on a year-over-year basis in the first quarter. That will flip on us as we go into Q2. We're still getting the pricing, and we'll still see that sequential. It's just going to be the cost side of the house. And as, like we said, that's the resin coming at us in Q2 that we didn't have in Q1, but we also have those transportation costs that were very much a headwind for us here in the first quarter, and they will remain that way as we go through the rest of the year.

Okay. Perfect. No, that color is exactly what I was looking for. And then secondly, NDS, you said $95 million of sales. I think I heard you say that maybe organically, they were up year-over-year. Question is, I mean, what does June quarter seasonality typically look like for them? Because $95 million would seem like it annualizes to a large number, but maybe this is typical of them. And obviously, what I'm getting at is you mentioned the organic growth. Are you seeing kind of early wins on cross-selling or revenue synergies? And just more broadly, how is that initial integration going?

So Matt, this is Scott B. Their highest quarter is the quarter we just completed. And we are still learning their seasonality, but we're obviously working with that team to kind of see what the patterns are. So you can't just annualize that quarter, although it was a good quarter for them. Their performance has been quite good. We are seeing some, I'd say, a lot of opportunities that we're working on the cross-selling. I don't think we're kind of generating tremendous amounts of revenue day in and day out on that, but we've definitely got them in sight and have people on the ground working those. And we have also had very good work with them on cost, cash flow, just kind of all the different things that you know well about our team here that we're working and they're right in there with us. And a very solid 2 days -- they were here over the Board meeting in the last couple of days, very solid 2 days with them on all these topics. So I would say, not yet, but their performance has given us every indication that those future activities like cross-selling are going to be winners for us.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Halloran with Baird.

Why don't we start off where you left off there on the NDS piece? Maybe just kind of cadence, how you're thinking about what the steps look like in the short term on the any kind of facility work or restructuring work or internal improvement work that you're doing, both kind of this year and then into next year? And how those are going to start cadencing out for you?

So this is Scott B. Mike, there are, I would say, a couple of small facility types of things that are pretty much complete that are certainly additive to our synergy and integration activities right now. And some of that will be showing up in their profit statement going forward. The bigger one doesn't occur. It's more of a next year program that we will see the effects of that. That's a much bigger one that we're working on. And then I think right behind that, from a facilities kind of CapEx spending, we kind of get facility type stuff out of the way between now and the end of this calendar year. Once we get those behind us, we start to work on some automation things, which would be kind of conversion costs related. And then we have a very good program defined with them on working capital and cash. I mean those are really some big priorities with us right now, Mike, as well as setting up the cross-selling. I mean, to get that cross-selling going, you got to establish some back-office practices, you got to get people trained up, you got to get in front of customers. And that has all kind of occurred, and now we're doing some trial geographies at the beginning of this month. So I'd say our first 6 months with them starting in February been pretty busy. And it's good to, like I told them, I mean, you're off to a great start, and let's keep going.

Yes, Mike, I think they benefited from kind of coming under the ADS umbrella and having more resources and some expertise at their disposal. So we've been able to maybe help them operate the business more effectively and efficiently than maybe it was in the past.

We clearly look at things differently than the prior.

Yes. No, that makes sense. And then second question, I think, Scott C., you referenced nonres maybe tracking a little better than you thought. Maybe just talk about some of the reasons what you're seeing that support that regional subcategory, anything that you would highlight?

I would start with the Allied Products. Our Allied products, the storage products, which I kind of went a lot into there and the range of solutions that we have in our storage products today are really kind of just market-leading by far. And I think we're winning new business in that category. Our capture products, still, again, that Nyloplast product line, that Duraslot product line, sell well. We haven't even gotten to the really good cross-selling yet with the NDS products there. Our fittings had a good month -- I mean, a good quarter. That was pulled along with some of the buy-ahead and the pipe strength. Our water quality products, we continue to get new approvals in new jurisdictions. So I think we've said many times in the past that the Allied Products is very vectored to the nonres segment, and the strength of our portfolio there, the programs that we're running in that, I think, are just really winning. Data centers, warehouses, institution work, that all continues to go kind of well. It is not broad-based geographically. It is certain geographies that are doing well. And our quoting activity is good in this area, the nonresidential area. And so I think it's -- Mike, you add any color to that.

No, I think you hit it. I mean I think when you look, when we look through kind of the subprojects under nonresidential, we saw pretty steady growth across just general purpose commercial. Warehouses have continued to kind of improve on a year-over-year basis, the data centers, institutional construction is usually pretty steady, and that's been good. And again, the programs, we have a very high focus with our sales force of selling the package and increasing what we call Allied Products attachment. I think we're seeing better performance there. And like Scott said, geographically, it's little kind of all over the place, but there's, when you think about kind of the West has some strength in certain states, Texas was good this quarter. The Northeast was pretty solid in some states. The Midwest had some positive ones. It's just a couple of places like California, Florida have been a little soft, right, on a year-over-year basis. But I think we definitely think we're outperforming the markets and doing well, and that's probably goal number one.

Your next question comes from the line of John Lovallo with UBS.

I think in the past, you've talked about having 30 days of raw mats inventory, about 60 days of finished goods. With that in mind, I mean, resin costs certainly spiked earlier in the year, but they have come back in quite a bit over the past few months. And I think you've talked about input costs remaining elevated through the remainder of the year. But I guess I'm curious as to when you think the lower or the reduced input costs will start flowing through? I mean, is that more of a next year phenomenon? Or could that hit later in this fiscal year?

Yes. John, it's Scott C. here. You're correct. I think the peak on the resin side is definitely going to be Q2, Q3 based on what we know today and the procured and what we see on the balance sheet. So really good visibility there. It's still going to be elevated in Q4, but not at the level that we expect in Q2 and Q3. So that's number one. Transportation will be the next part of that conversation. But again, those rates and everything else we're seeing are going to be there. Now our internal fleet helps us hedge that, and 70%, 75% plus is done internally on our fleet, which is a great mitigation factor against that external CC and what we see going on there. But that's still going to remain elevated. It was elevated in the first quarter. As you can see in our EBITDA bridge, it's going to be that way through the rest of the year.

I want to add, this is Scott Barbour, John, one thing to that is, and you're correct, it spiked high, kind of came off a bit, but it is still significantly over where it was a year ago from -- to procure that material. So I just don't want to lose sight of that, that it's been very dynamic, but it's still above the prior year materials cost. It's still above the prior year on the transportation cost.

Got you. Okay. And then in terms of the $25 million to $30 million of sales that were pulled forward from the second quarter into the first quarter, how should we sort of think about the split between Stormwater and Wastewater? And then were there any end markets in particular where this is most pronounced?

I would say primarily Stormwater. Absolutely, there was a little bit in Wastewater as well. But I mean we saw it across the board. I mean the price increases, there were multiple in certain cases. We took it across the board, every business unit, both segments. So again, you'd see a little bit of that in each one of those. But on a dollar basis, primarily, you'd see the largest piece of that being in Stormwater.

I mean it's proportional.

And from an end market, it's probably more nonresidential driven than residential or infrastructure.

Your next question comes from the line of Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer.

We know that your team has had to be pretty aggressive with price actions. I think you framed last quarter that most of it would hit in Q2. To level set, I was wondering if you'd be willing to disclose Q1 price and what you're contemplating for Q2 and back half price realization.

So it's kind of the sequential pattern of pricing.

Yes. So what I'd say is absolutely, we got the pricing into the market fast. We always talk about getting that into the market 30 to 45 days before the resin hits us. So success there. As we look at Q2 and we progress through the year, obviously, we're going to match those inflationary cost pressures on a dollar-for-dollar basis. So what you'll see in Q2 is largely kind of that pricing kind of remain at that level. And then as we go through the second half of the year, then we'll adjust accordingly based on what the inflationary cost pressures we have forecasted and what we're seeing. So again, Q2, we'll see the pricing that we got into the market in the first quarter continuing.

Okay. Understood. I believe you mentioned that advanced treatment continued to grow double digits in the quarter. One, am I correct? Did I hear that correctly? And what kind of growth does your team anticipate from advanced treatment going forward? Obviously, you have pretty healthy comps that you face there. And I suppose the same question on engineered systems. That's smaller now, but it seems like a pretty compelling opportunity for your team, at least through more of like a medium-term lens. Just curious how impactful that may be to fiscal '27.

Bryan, this is Craig. Yes, advanced treatment continues to be strong on the residential side for us. With the synergies between Orenco and Infiltrator, that's been an opportunity for us on the advanced treatment side. And then when it comes to Infiltrator, we launched a new product, which was our Edge product in the residential market, which was very healthy throughout the first quarter with that launch. So that continues to be strong for us in addressing the needs out in the market. And as we look forward, the engineered systems is an opportunity for us. As we look at that and serving the market as it moves forward, especially under the Orenco business, we combine that with the Infiltrator business to grow that segment. It's a small segment, but a segment that we're looking to grow as we move forward.

And investing in from both an organization and capacity, both Louisiana and in Oregon. So we like that market. You're right, Bryan. We like that market a lot.

Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.

Just on the price, I think you said price is going to be similar 2Q versus 1Q. So I'm just trying to understand better why you had to pull-ahead if pricing was kind of already in because I was under the impression price would step up, but maybe just clarify.

Jeff, why don't you ask it again? What's the question?

Well, you're saying the pricing isn't going to step up in 2Q. So I'm just wondering why the early buy or prebuy...

It's because we had good visibility to what's coming at us. Again, we see the resin on our balance sheet. We also know what we're procuring at in April, May and June. So we had, in some cases, multiple price increases that went out. And again, we try to get in front of it. And again, we succeeded and got that in front of us. So we've got the pricing in place in anticipating of the costs that are coming at us. Those costs, again, based on our FIFO roll and how they come out of the balance sheet, are going to hit us. It's going to be Q2, Q3 as well as Q4, but the peak of it, like we just talked about, will be Q2 and Q3. And again, the pricing is in place. And so we've got it in place in advance. Are we going to go out with new price increases? No. But in certain geographies, products, if we need to, absolutely, we will. And we're also managing the transportation costs. So the takeaway is we got in front of it, right? And that's what we try to do. And then basically, now we're going to continue it as we go through the first half of the year. But in Q2, what's going to be different is we've got a lot more resin cost coming at us than we did in the first quarter. And that's, hence, the margin conversation, right? We typically have, based on product mix and seasonality, kind of a 300 kind of basis point degradation in sequential margins between Q1 and Q2. It will be a little bit worse than that this year based on the magnitude of those resin costs coming at us. And again, transportation costs will stay elevated at the rate they are. But again, we have a good forecasting S&OP process. We've got the pricing in place to offset those costs on a dollar-for-dollar basis. We just happen to get them into the market and start getting them earlier than the cost hit us.

Okay. That's helpful. Just, I'm trying to better understand maybe the outgrowth. You gave the growth rates like non-res, res, infrastructure, ag. I think that includes NDS and includes the pull forward. Is there a way to think about how those markets grew for you ex maybe the pull forward and ex NDS?

I think that's the...