Atkore Inc. Q1 FY2023 Earnings Call

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Bill Waltz, President and CEO; as well as David Johnson, Chief Financial Officer. We will take your questions after comments by Bill and David. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we may make projections or forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties such that actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings in today's press release, which identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. In addition, any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures and a presentation of the most comparable GAAP measures are available in the appendix to today's presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill.

Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Starting on Slide 3, Atkore is off to a solid start for 2023. Volumes for the quarter were up over 5%, and adjusted EPS increased 1% year-over-year in the quarter. We continue to execute our playbook for capital deployment and strategic growth. As previously discussed, we expanded our HDPE product operating with the acquisition of Elite Polymer Solutions in November. HDPE represents a significant growth opportunity for us, and I'm pleased with the progress and integration so far. During the first quarter, we repurchased $150 million of shares, and in the second quarter, we've already repurchased over $100 million. Collectively, this brings our year-to-date total for repurchases above $250 million. With our solid start to the year, we are increasing our full year outlook for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. It is my pleasure to also announce the release of our 2022 sustainability report, which was published this morning and posted on the ESG section of our website. This report covers a broad range of topics, and I believe it demonstrates and articulates why Atkore is a great place to work and truly a special company. I would like to thank all of our employees for everything they do to support our customers and all of our stakeholders; it is because of their tireless efforts that Atkore is able to achieve the results and successes that we have. With that, I'll turn the call to David to talk through the results from the quarter and our outlook for the full year.

Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Moving to our consolidated results on Slide 4. In the first quarter, net sales were $834 million and adjusted EBITDA was $264 million. As we have mentioned several times, we expect our business to normalize in 2023 as compared to the past several years with our performance. That being said, we're nonetheless pleased with our margin performance in the quarter with adjusted EBITDA margins of 32%. This was down year-over-year, but still a very strong and healthy level. Even with the decline in net sales and the adjusted EBITDA, we are pleased to see that our adjusted EPS increased in the quarter up to $4.61. Turning to Slide 5 in our consolidated bridges. Volumes were up over 5% in the quarter, and our recent acquisitions contributed an additional 7% of growth. These gains were offset by the decline in our average selling prices. Our average selling prices have declined as we continue to see normalization of pricing and a continued downward trend for several of our key input costs. During the quarter, we saw very strong pockets of performance related to data centers and several large chip fabrication projects globally. In addition, we are very pleased with the execution and integration performance from our recent acquisitions. Moving to Slide 6. Those segments had positive volume growth. Margins compressed in our electrical segment with the previously mentioned normalization of pricing; however, we saw very strong margin growth on the S&I side. Our S&I business had 22% growth in adjusted EBITDA. Turning to our outlook for fiscal year 2023 on Page 7. We continue to expect volumes to be up mid-single digits for FY ‘23. We expect net sales to be down approximately 5% to 10% in 2023. As prices normalize and we see declines in several of our key input cost categories. However, with the strong performance in the quarter and the resiliency of our Atkore business system model, we are increasing our outlook for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. For FY ‘23, we expect adjusted EBITDA of $1 billion at the midpoint with a range of plus or minus $50 million. This is an increase of $100 million versus our prior outlook. In addition, we are increasing our expectations for adjusted EPS up to a range of $15.85 to $17.75. As we mentioned last quarter, this outlook does not include any expected benefits from the tax credits associated with the Inflation Reduction Act, as we expect the majority of these credits will flow through to our customers. With the strength of our cash flow and our commitment to returning cash to stockholders, we are also increasing our expectations for share repurchases in the fiscal year. With that, I'll turn it back to Bill.

Thanks, David. We are very pleased with what we've accomplished in this quarter and our outlook for this fiscal year, but we're even more excited about all the opportunities ahead. Moving to Slide 8, as we've said before, we believe that sustainability is central to the strength, safety, and longevity of Atkore. This morning, we released our third sustainability report, and seeing all the great work that our team has accomplished truly inspires me. This report details our initiatives involving our products, customers, and employees, and I would encourage everyone to read it. Inside the report and highlighted here is the progress we've made against our four external sustainability targets. As you may recall, we introduced these four targets last year and set very smart goals that we believe will help guide and focus our efforts to enable sustainable value creation. We are making good strides toward our targets for each of these goals, and we are confident in our ability to meet or even potentially exceed some of these items by 2025. Turning to Slide 9. We sincerely appreciate the external recognition that we've recently received from several leading independent organizations. We believe these acknowledgements demonstrate that we have a company culture and employees who are able to truly make Atkore a great place to work and a compelling investment opportunity. I'm confident in the team, strategy, and processes we've put in place to continue Atkore's strong trajectory, and I firmly believe that the best is yet to come for our company. With that, we'll turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions.

Our first question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup.

So, Bill, you recorded good volume growth, as you said you would, based on data center chip fabrication demand, is what you highlighted. But could you talk about the resilience of those end markets? Obviously, we've seen a bit of a slowdown in the tech sector. But we know non-restarts have been very strong over the last year. So is that helping? And what is the duration of customer backlogs and how much confidence do they give you in extended volume visibility for Atkore?

Yes, we remain optimistic and consistent about volume growth moving forward, targeting mid-single digits for the rest of the year. During my recent conversations with customers, including a convention I returned from last night, I've noted that our distributor partners are experiencing backlogs of six to nine months, even up to a year. While there may be occasional delays due to equipment availability or re-evaluations, there is sufficient volume and Atkore's capabilities to support our growth, which I estimate will be in the mid-single digits. Overall, nothing has significantly changed, which is reassuring.

And then, you recorded just over the high end of your guidance for the quarter, I think at $264 million in EBITDA, but you raised your '23 guidance by $100 million without adjusting volume as we just talked about. So what is it about the price versus cost equation that has changed to allow you to adjust your guidance pretty early in the year, pretty significantly? Are you retaining more price so far than that waterfall chart that you gave us last quarter? And does that potentially change the trajectory of the $600 million or so in price giveback you gave us in that waterfall?

Yes. This year, we are experiencing better price retention and faster declines in commodity costs, among other factors. As a result, we are able to raise our full-year EBITDA forecast to around $100 million. While we are not providing guidance for 2024, we are still optimistic about maintaining over $18 in the long term. For this year, we feel confident enough to increase our guidance by $100 million.

Yes. And Andy, as you know, the second half is usually a little bit stronger as construction season starts in full force. So when you look at the first half after first quarter actuals and our second quarter guide, we felt comfortable in raising that full year guide.

And then, just one more question for me. You mentioned the rebound in metal electrical conduit volumes that you're seeing. Is that because demand is improving? Or was that more of a supply constraint issue that's now being relieved? And then just asking the same question on PVC markets. Pricing there still looks like maybe it's been dropping a little but stabilizing, but how do you define demand in PVC as non-resin demand outweighing resi weakness?

Yes, I'll address your questions in reverse order. I believe there are sufficient opportunities. Firstly, we are experiencing some weakness in the residential sector, which shouldn't come as a surprise. However, the multifamily home market is performing very well. Additionally, various other markets, including electrification trends, the power grid, and 5G networks, indicate that we remain cautiously optimistic about growth for both the industry and Atkore overall. Regarding steel conduit, it was a solid quarter, but I don't want to emphasize any single market for just a brief period.

Yes. I mean, to me, the only 2 things may be there, Andy, is the fact that we feel very strongly about destocking for steel conduits being over. And so, what we're seeing right now is the real demand in the market. And then also, you're starting to see steel costs rise in the future and expectations rise. So folks are getting ahead maybe a little bit and getting their orders in probably in a more typical way than they were in the last 3, 6 months.

Our next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC.

I appreciate the insights from Andy's questions as they highlight the key themes here. We're encouraged by what we've observed in the early part of the year. Let's delve into what normalization means and our current understanding. Although it's still early, investors have been comparing it to fiscal '22 and your previous EBITDA guidance, noting a projected 33% decline. There were concerns about a steep drop in January, but that hasn't materialized. Instead, we've improved this to a 25% decline at the mid-point, which is also significant as it represents $1 billion. This mid-point is an important milestone we've discussed. With that said, it's still early in the year. What does the normalization trend look like moving forward for fiscal '23 in terms of EBITDA?

Deane, if you want to follow up, we feel confident about the mid-point of our guidance. There may be ongoing pressure on some of our pricing, but we are also seeing positive developments in other areas, such as volume growth, new product development with typically higher margins, and our overall value proposition for customers. This gives us the confidence to raise our guidance for the year, and we are also very comfortable with our guidance for fiscal 2025. That said, certain product lines may still experience a drop in margin from one quarter to another. Overall, I would say that three months in, we are confident that pricing is stabilizing. The initial projections of a 33% decline and subsequent 25% decline, with the $1 billion figure you mentioned, sound good to me, and we are satisfied with how we are approaching the $18 EPS target. We will continue to discuss strategies for moving forward from there. I hope that addresses your question, but it's challenging to provide specifics on a product-by-product basis with so many variables.

And for David, it came up a couple of times about the decline in input costs and it looks as though that is bigger than what the decline we've seen in pricing. So just kind of take us through that dynamic, the key input costs, how much they've gone down and how that factors into your pricing?

Sure, Deane. If you examine Slide 5 of our presentation, you'll notice that the changes in costs year-over-year for Q1 have decreased by $70 million. While pricing has declined by more than that, it reflects the normalization we've discussed compared to a year ago, particularly with steel prices being significantly lower now. However, sequentially, steel prices are starting to rise a bit. There are varying dynamics in S&I regarding when price changes occur in some of our other supply chains and how long we maintain pricing relative to commodities decreasing. Overall, I would emphasize that the $70 million reduction is quite significant year-over-year.

I apologize, Deane. I'm not sure if it was part of your question, but I am aware there are buy-side inquiries regarding the dynamic of cost versus our price. Just to remind you, I know you understand this, Deane, but the factors that influence our pricing are supply and demand competition. This involves comparing what our competitors are doing against the industry demand, as well as Atkore's value proposition, which I believe is unmatched in the industry due to our ability to consolidate orders, deliveries, and invoices, as well as our customer service. While the buy-side does consider commodity costs, that's just one aspect. Some competitors might think if their costs decrease, they can lower their prices and still maintain a margin, and we do have to respond to that. However, that is not a major factor in how we determine our market pricing for any of our product costs.

Yes. Bill, you and I had this exact discussion last quarter, first question, and you gave a, what I thought a comprehensive tutorial on the dynamics and how you have to look well beyond just the input costs. And so, I’ve been referring people to that transcript and sending it, and thank you for the reminder. And just last question for me. Talk about the pipeline of M&A? And are you seeing any other competition coming in? Because, obviously, this is a really attractive niche and the surprise for some investors to say, how come you haven’t seen anyone else trying to elbow their way in?

Yes, to address that great question, we haven't noticed any increased trend as we've seen other companies get acquired that we considered. Atkore is quite unique in that most of the companies we acquire are privately owned family businesses, often too small for larger private equity firms to effectively manage. These businesses usually have different niches compared to ours, particularly in the Raceway products sector, which puts us in a favorable position to acquire these companies as they enter the market. While there may be instances where something has been sold to another party, we haven't observed any increased trend, and the market remains active. We are actively pursuing opportunities and have even expanded our M&A team over the past month to explore different products in the U.S., as well as more aggressively seeking prospects in Canada and Europe. Our capital is being utilized effectively across M&A, internal investments, and stock buybacks, making this a positive time for the company.

Our next question comes from Chris Dankert with Loop Capital.

I guess, first off, in safety and infrastructure, in particular, volume was up nice, and obviously, the comp was a bit easier. But anything in particular you'd call out on the demand side kind of fueling that volume in S&I?

Yes. When we talk about data centers and manufacturing plants, much of the discussion relates to metal framing and our wire basket products. In addition, another area of their business, security, performed well this quarter. Overall, they have experienced strong growth across all their product lines this quarter.

And to follow up, there's currently a lot of governmental actions happening, including the IRA, infrastructure jobs, and RDOF, among others. What impact is included in the mid single digit volume guidance from these? I realize it's challenging to pinpoint that exactly, but could you provide any insight into whether this is primarily a 2024 issue? Is any of this reflected in the current guidance? Additionally, I'd appreciate your comments on the overall environment.

Yes. I think, Chris, I'll just paraphrase back what we said. I think it will be more impactful in 2024, just because a lot of these things like the Inflation Reduction Act with credits and so forth just literally kicked in in January. But there's probably a little bit in there, but nothing major, but we are definitely knowing that these things are coming along, positioning ourselves, and that's again where I say Atkore is a company to invest in and grow with as we go forward.

The deadline for signing up for the funds is approaching, and companies can assess their needs at that point. We are still some time away from seeing this progress into action, so while there is a small impact now, it does not constitute the majority of our volume growth for this year.

I guess if nothing else, it certainly gives you confidence at that 2025 target number on $18.

Our next question comes from Chris Moore with CJS Securities.

Most of it is covered. I was hoping maybe you could just give some updated thoughts on the HDPE market opportunity. You talked about it a little bit, but obviously, lots of acquisitions there and a lot's going on that front. Maybe just any updated thoughts you have there?

Yes, Chris, I'm really excited about that market. Regarding funding and preparing for fiber optic infrastructure, I believe the best is yet to come. Without naming any specific customers, we have a great general manager who spoke recently with some of the largest electrical distributors in the country. While they are optimistic for 2023, their optimism for 2024 is even higher. We are well positioned and have an excellent team that reminds me of the PBC division of Atkore from a decade ago. We are combining several well-run companies and allowing their management teams to share best practices in manufacturing and leveraging our national footprint to work with national customers, something many others cannot do due to their regional focus. This gives us confidence in our $18 or more EPS target for 2025. The economy is moving in the right direction, secular trends are favorable, and Atkore is positioning itself well. To summarize, we are excited about HDPE.

Last one for me, just kind of cash flow related. So cash flow from operations, I think just under $200 million for the quarter. Inventory was down a little bit, but $11.5 million. What are kind of your thoughts in terms of inventory levels for the balance of the year?

I believe we are in a good position regarding our inventory days, but as we mentioned, we anticipate a significant increase in solar volume due to our new facilities in the latter half of the year. This will lead to a modest inventory build. Therefore, when examining our inventory on a daily basis, it should remain relatively stable until the end of the year, although we do expect a slight increase in dollar terms over the next couple of quarters.

Our last question comes from Alex Rygiel with B. Riley.

To follow up on that last question, can you comment on sort of the trend in solar demand in the near term as well as telecom conduit demand in the near term, appreciating the very positive long-term outlook?

Yes. I am really optimistic about both the short term and long term. It connects back to some of the earlier questions regarding what we are observing. As David mentioned in our prepared remarks, solar credits are available now, particularly with the Inflation Reduction Act. This is something that manufacturers of solar arrays and buyers for solar farms are aware of, providing a significant stimulus. We at Atkore are well positioned for this. In previous calls, we discussed that we have dedicated a facility specifically for producing solar torque tubes, and that will begin operations at the start of Q3. Although it's a quarter away, this will support organic growth and positively impact our EPS. There is substantial demand for green solutions, and these tax credits are likely shifting production from offshore back to U.S. manufacturing. This is beneficial for the economy, advantageous for the U.S., supportive of green initiatives, and favorable for Atkore.

Yes. So, Alex, one way to think about it is like the solar industry itself could stay flat year-over-year. The volume for domestic torque tubes is still going to be up substantially because it just doesn't make any financial sense to import torque tubes anymore compared to buying someone domestically.

Is it time for you to update your 2025 target or express confidence in achieving it?

I’m not sure what to say. Regarding the optimism, when we reach a 10 multiple, then we can discuss our future direction as we continue to progress. I want to emphasize that we have exceptional management teams across the board. For instance, David shared some impressive results with S&I. This Thursday, the executive team, including David and myself, will have an all-day meeting focused on our goals for 2025 and 2028. Our main objective is to enhance this momentum. While I don’t anticipate adjusting our numbers for some time, our focus remains on how we can continue to grow and elevate our performance.

Yes. We will formally update it again shortly.

November.

like we normally would. But I just would remind you that we did put a greater than sign in front of the '18. So we were thinking about that as we were putting that together.

There are no further questions at this time. I'll now turn the call over back to Bill Waltz.

Before we conclude, let me summarize my 3 key takeaways from today's discussion. First, Q1 was a solid start to the year, with volumes up over 5%. Second, we are increasing our expectations for the full year earnings and share repurchases. Third, we're excited about the progress we've made in regards to sustainability and ESG, and we're very excited about what lies ahead in this area for our products, customers, and employees. With that, thank you for your support and interest in our company, and we look forward to speaking with you during our next quarterly call. This concludes the call for today.