Builders FirstSource, Inc. (BLDR) Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Good day and welcome to the Builder's First Source Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is scheduled to last about one hour including remarks by management and the question and answer session. In order to ask a question please press the star key followed by the number one on your phone at any time during the call. We do ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. I'd now like to turn the call over to Heather Koss, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations for Builders First Source. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to our third quarter 2022 earnings call. With me on the call are Peter Jackson, our CEO, and Pete Beckman, our CFO. The earnings press release and presentation are available on our website at investors.bldr.com. We will refer to the presentation during our call. The results discussed today include gap and non-gap results adjusted for certain items. We provide these non-gap results for informational purposes, and they should not be considered in isolation from the most directly comparable gap measures. You can find the reconciliation of these non-gap measures to the corresponding gap measures where applicable and a discussion of why we believe they can be useful to investors in our earnings press release, SEC filings, and presentations. Our remarks in the press release presentation and on this call contain forward-looking and cautionary statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and projections of future results. Please review the forward-looking statements section in today's press release and in our SEC filings for various factors that could cause our actual results to differ from forward-looking statements and projections. With that, I'll send the call over to Peter.

Thank you, Heather, and good morning, everyone. Over the past several years, we have transformed into a stronger organization powered by our leading network of value-added solutions, a relentless focus on operational excellence, and superior capital deployment. These strengths, combined with our scale and a team dedicated with exceptional customer service, have driven margin expansion, reinforced our industry leadership, and extended our track record of success. By focusing on the factors within our control and leveraging our competitive advantages, we are competing effectively today and are well positioned to outperform our competitors as the market recovers. Let's turn now to slide four. Our third quarter results reflect the strength of our strategies and discipline execution in a weak housing market. We continue to execute effectively and sustain healthy profitability despite a low starts environment, underscoring our operational disciplines and improvement since 2019. Let's take a minute to step back and talk about the market. Single-family construction remains soft as builders manage the pace of starts, given affordability concerns, consumer uncertainty, and elevated new home inventories. Demand remains tempered despite Fed rate cuts in 2025. As a reminder, Q4 is one of our slower quarters due to seasonality. Our builder customers have addressed these challenges by offering smaller and simpler homes, as well as incentives such as interest rate buy-downs. That creates an environment where there are less sales dollars per start, and every start is more competitive on the affordability front. We are working closely with them, leveraging our broad product portfolio and bundled solutions to drive cost efficiencies while upholding the highest quality standards. In the multifamily market, activity is expected to remain muted to the year end, in line with our previous thinking. However, we have seen green shoots and quoting activity, as our customers see improving financing costs. As a reminder, our first sale tends to lag a multifamily start by roughly 9 to 12 months. We continue to view multifamily as an appealing and profitable business for us, supported by a substantial mix of value-added products and attractive fundamentals. On slide five, we highlight some of the key initiatives under our strategic pillars. In the third quarter, we invested more than $20 million in value-added solutions to expand our product offerings in key markets. This included opening a new millwork location in South Carolina and expanding our upgrading plants in seven states. We remain disciplined in how we deploy capital. Our consistent, strong, free cash flow through the cycle gives us the flexibility to invest in organic growth, pursue strategic M&A, and return capital to shareholders. This capital deployment is strengthening our competitive position and driving long-term value creation. Operational excellence is crucial to how we run the business as we develop talent, improve agility, and embed technology into our operations. We generated $11 million in productivity savings in Q3, primarily through targeted supply chain initiatives. Turning to slide six, we are prudently managing discretionary spending and maximizing operational flexibility. In response to lower volumes over the last year, we have taken steps to align capacity across our facilities, manage headcount, and control expenses. We are reducing variable costs today while also investing in needed capacity to ensure we are positioned to scale quickly with the expected recovery and demand. Year-to-date through September, we have consolidated 16 facilities, including eight in the third quarter, while maintaining an on-time and in-full delivery rate of 92%. With our industry-leading scale, experienced leadership team, and a track record of operating proactively through the cycle, we are confident that we can continue to deliver exceptional customer service. Moving to slide seven, our disciplined capital allocation strategy focuses on maximizing shareholder returns through organic growth, M&A, and share repurchases. In the third quarter, we deployed over $100 million toward return-enhancing opportunities aligned with those priorities. Drilling into M&A on slide eight, we remain focused on pursuing acquisitions that expand our value-added product offerings and advance our leadership position in desirable geographies. We have developed substantial and proven muscle memory to grow through M&A and have a track record of successful integration. In the third quarter, we acquired St. George Trust Company, a trust manufacturer serving builders in southern Utah and southern Nevada. In October, we acquired Builders Door & Trim and Reist & Construction. Together, the two companies formed the leading provider of door and millwork capabilities in the Las Vegas area, closing a key product gap in the region and strengthening our ability to deliver comprehensive solutions to our customers. We have made 38 acquisitions, representing over $2 billion in annual sales since the BMC merger in 2021, the equivalent of a top 10 LBM player, demonstrating our ability to execute and integrate seamlessly. And with the industry still fragmented, we see significant opportunity ahead. We remain confident that inorganic investments will remain an important driver of long-term growth. Let's now turn to slide nine and discuss the latest updates on our digital and technology strategy. We are accelerating the adoption of our digital capabilities and deploying scalable, customer-centric solutions that will strengthen our operational agility and support long-term growth. Our BFS digital tools deliver meaningful benefits to our home builder customers and align BFS as a key technology partner in the industry. Despite the weak market, we have seen continued adoption with our target audience of smaller builders. Since launching an early 2024, our digital tools have processed over $2.5 billion of orders and over $5 billion of quotes, representing increases in excess of 200% year-to-date. Importantly, we're seeing that digital is not just about incremental sales. It's a catalyst for a broader company growth. The efficiencies and capabilities enabled by our digital tools, including artificial intelligence, accelerate the pace, and elevate the precision of our quoting and sales operations. While it's evident that our initial business case around digital did not predict the timing of our outcomes very well, we remain convinced of the tremendous shareholder value that the digital tools will unlock for us. Continuing on the technology front, I'm pleased that we continue to make steady progress on our comprehensive implementation of SAP after the launch of two pilot markets in July. We've gained valuable insights from these initial pilots, and we'll be applying those learnings as we prepare for the next phase. During Q3, we also successfully converted to SAP for our centralized accounting functions, as well as for all of our internal and external financial reporting. Although these conversions are never easy, we are working through the details and are excited about the growth and efficiency opportunities to come with this new software. Recognizing one of our incredible team members each quarter is one of the best parts of my role. Today, I want to spotlight Harold Fouqua, driver at our Lebanon, Tennessee yard, who recently celebrated 40 years with BFS. Harold is known for his dependability, strong work ethic, and love of the Tennessee volunteers. His dedication shows in his commitment. He's often at the yard before 4 a.m. and in the way he shares his experience, having trained more than 100 drivers over the years. He's also earned a reputation for driving over the region's toughest hills with skill and care. I'm honored to recognize Harold and so many others across BFF, whose hard work and commitment continue to move us forward. I'll now turn the call over to Pete to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Thank you, Peter, and good morning, everyone. We continue to execute our strategy in a down market, responding to near-term challenges and carefully managing costs while preserving our ability to invest for the future. Our financial agility, supported by a healthy balance sheet and strong free cash flow through the cycle, enables us to deploy capital prudently to fuel organic growth, pursue strategic M&A, and return capital to shareholders. These investments are bolstering our competitive position as we invest for the future. Let's begin by reviewing our third quarter performance on Slides 10 through 12. Net sales decreased 6.9% to $3.9 billion, driven by lower core organic sales and commodity deflation, partially offset by growth from acquisitions. The core organic sales decrease was driven by a 12% decline in single family, due to lower starts activity and value per start, as well as a 20% decline in multifamily, in line with our expectations amid muted activity levels against stronger prior year comps. Additionally, repair and remodel decreased 1% given consumer uncertainty. As we've noted on recent calls, there are a few key factors reconciling single-family starts to our core organic sales. First, as a reminder, there is a roughly three-month lag from a start to our first sale. Second, the value of the average home has fallen as size and complexity have decreased over time, creating an additional sales headwind. Third, margins remain pressured throughout the supply chain as affordability concerns continue to be paramount. Based on this, we believe our third quarter share was flat to up slightly as we continue to be the industry leader and a trusted partner to our customers. For the third quarter, gross profit was $1.2 billion, a decrease of 13.5% compared to the prior year period. Gross margin was 30.4%, down 240 basis points, primarily driven by below-normal Starts environment. Compared to an approximately 27% gross margin in 2019, our Q3 gross margin reflects the substantial investments we have made in value-added solutions and our continuous improvement. Adjusted SG&A of $790 million increased to $7 million, primarily due to acquired operations, partially offset by lower variable compensation due to lower sales. As Peter touched on previously, we are focused on carefully managing our SG&A and are well positioned to leverage our costs as the market grows. Adjusted EBITDA was $434 million, down approximately 31%, primarily driven by lower gross profit. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 11%, down 380 basis points from the prior year, primarily due to lower gross profit margins and reduced operating leverage. Our ability to maintain a double-digit EBITDA margin in a weak market is a testament to the strength of our transformed business. Adjusted EPS was $1.88, cents, a decrease of 39% compared to the prior year. On a year-over-year basis, share repurchases, enabled by our strong free cash flow generation, added roughly 10 cents per share for the third quarter. Now let's turn to our cash flow balance sheet and liquidity on slide 13. Our third quarter operating cash flow was $548 million, a decrease of $182 million, dollars, mainly driven by lower net income. We generated free cash flow of $465 million. Our currently 12-month free cash flow yield was approximately 8 percent, as our operating cash flow return on invested capital was 15 percent. Our net debt-to-adjusted EBITDA ratio was approximately 2.3 times, while our fixed-charge coverage ratio was roughly six times. We have no long-term debt maturities until 2030, our maturity profile enables us to remain operationally and financially disciplined while preserving a flexible balance sheet for accretive capital deployment. Moving to third quarter capital deployment, capital expenditures were $83 million, and we deployed $19 million on acquisitions. We currently have $500 million remaining on our share repurchase model. We remain comfortable with our net debt levels and will continue to execute our capital allocation priorities in a disciplined manner on the path to maximizing value creation. In slides 14 and 15, we show our 2025 outlook and assumptions. On a year-over-year basis, our latest forecast assumes single-family starts down 9% for the year, multifamily starts down mid-teens, and R&R end market to be flat. The 2025 multifamily headwind of sales of $400 to $500 million and EBITDA of less than $200 million has largely been digested and remains on track. As a result, we are guiding net sales in the range of $15.1 to $15.4 billion. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be $1.625 to $1.675 billion. dollars. Adjusted EBITDA margin is forecast to be in the range of 10.6 to 11.1 percent. We expect our 2025 full-year gross margin to be in the range of 30.1 to 30.5 percent, reflecting our strong execution in a below-normal starts environment. We expect free cash flow of $800 million to $1 billion. Our revised guidance assumes average commodity prices in the range of $370 to $390 per thousand board foot versus the long-term average of $400. Moving to slide 16, we recognize that 2026 is coming into focus as we approach year end. Like we did last year, we have laid out a scenario analysis to demonstrate how we are positioned to generate resilient financial performance across a range of potential housing market and commodity conditions. As you can see, we have included a new scenario that provides a perspective on our performance in a normal housing environment. I want to emphasize that this is not guidance, but these scenarios should help clarify our range of performance expectations for 2026 and demonstrate the strength of our best-in-class operating platform. In closing, we are closely monitoring the current environment and remain agile to mitigate downside risk in the near term while also investing strategically for the future. I am confident in our ability to drive long-term growth by executing our strategy, averaging our exceptional platform, and maintaining financial flexibility. With that, I'll turn the call back over to Peter for some final thoughts.

Thanks, Pete. I want to close by emphasizing the transformation of BFS, as illustrated on slide 17. Today, we are an exceptionally improved organization, one powered by our value-added solutions and digital tools, a relentless focus on operational excellence, and a disciplined capital deployment strategy. These improvements, combined with our scale, have positioned us to accelerate growth as we return to a normalized starts environment. By controlling what we can control and leveraging our competitive advantages, we will continue to deliver exceptional long-term shareholder value. Thank you again for joining us today. Operator, let's please open the call now for questions.

Certainly. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press the star and one on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star two. Again, we do ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll take our first question from Matthew Boulay with Barclays. Your line is open.

Morning, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. So I want to start on the framework, the scenarios for FY26. If I'm looking at it right, it seems like you're implying kind of maybe a mid to high 9% EBITDA margin at the midpoint versus this year, obviously, 10.6 to 11.1. Is that because you're, I guess, implying exiting this year between 29 to 30 on gross margin and the expectation is that that should continue, kind of given builders negotiating back with suppliers or is the SAP implementation part of that? I guess, what are some of the moving pieces behind that margin outlook in 2026?

Hey, Matt. It's Peter. I think you're right for the most part. It's not an SAP thing. It is a sense of both where we have gotten to at the exit of 25, but also our read on the competitive environment and the dynamics are. um it's it's basically a leveling out we're about to the bottom we're thinking based on everything we're seeing on the margin side um but that question is out there in terms of um which way the market will go as we signaled with the sort of up and down version of the scenarios um so try to give a middle of the road view on where we think it's going to end up overall you know i think we're we're being successful we're seeing the stabilization I think we're getting close to the bottom. The real question comes, when does the turn happen? The sooner the better. We're ready to go. But we need a little cooperation.

Yep. Absolutely. Makes sense. And so thank you for that. So then the other one, I guess, just sticking with that slide, I wanted to ask on the normalized EBITDA guide. um so obviously it jumps out a little that it's a different number than you know what you gave at the investor day a couple years ago i guess um you know the the revenue number would look to be the main difference there so i'm wondering if that's you know a comment on sort of the market share growth that you were assuming at that time you know maybe the starting point on market share is a little bit different because of the decline in the market we've just had in the past year or, you know, just anything else you can kind of give us on, you know, what you think may be a little structurally different, you know, leading to that level of profitability at one to 1.1 million. Thank you.

Yeah, it's a good question, although I guess I'll start by pointing out it's a bit of apples and oranges. So, Investor Day, obviously, we're laying out our plans for the future based on where we were in the day, but initiatives, productivity, I mean, all the things that we outlined in that meeting, this is simply an attempt to say, based on where we are in 2025, and some basic level assumptions about what we think is going to play out over the next year, in terms of back, if we magically made this thing go back to normal over the next year, what would the numbers look like? So in light of that big differences, the market, as you pointed out, dramatically different. The average size of the home, the average content of the home is markedly different. Your point about share, that's a fair comment. And I think the impact on deleveraging a business, given some of those dynamics in terms of the overall size of the markets, that's in play in here too. But don't forget, I mean, this is not apples to apples in terms of the end year of investor day either. So there's a timeline, just a metric snap the line difference here. Hopefully, this is a good reference point for you to see, look, this market is weak. It's not normal for us to be at the level we are today.

And it doesn't take much in terms of recovery to get us to numbers that are meaningfully better based on the outputs of what this business is capable of um we're ready for that turn we're excited about it to come but that's that's maybe the best summary of the differences yeah no appreciate all that so uh thanks for the color there peter and good luck guys we'll pick our next question from john lavallo with ubs your line is open good morning guys thanks for taking my call my questions as well The first one is the midpoint of the outlook implies 4Q sales of about $3.42 billion, adjusted EBITDA of about $341 million, which would imply a sequential or quarter-over-quarter decremental of only about 18%. I think year-over-year would be about 38%. But both of these are better than what we've experienced over the past few quarters. So can you help us just understand what's driving the improvement there?

John, thanks for the question. I would say the general, the essence of your comment is reasonable. We don't disagree with it. I think that there's a couple of factors at play. You've got a little bit of a lapping effect where the comps year over year are less dramatically down. But we're still in a market that's challenged. Pete, I don't know if you have anything to add on that.

Yeah. And as Peter said in his prepared remarks, Q4 is a seasonally lower quarter for us. So sequentially, we will see a step down from Q3. That's expected. As Peter mentioned, the lapping in the year over year, we are closing the gap. So we saw Q4 last year starting to compress and we're now lapping, getting closer to that lapping period.

Okay, understood. And then the $3.42 billion in implied fourth quarter revenue would be down about 11% year over year. Can you help us just kind of bridge that 11% in terms of organic sales, M&A, commodities? And within the organic piece, what are the expectations for single family versus multifamily versus R&R?

So the M&A will continue to be a good boost for us, as we've shared in our sales growth really every quarter and in our assumptions it's roughly five percent so that'll continue um the the margin pressure and headwinds that'll show up in the form of pricing will continue to be a headwind in q4 but as we outlined um maybe a little less significant and we were getting closer to what we feel is a bottom um and then on the organic side We still have a starts assumption out there that's 920,000 single-family starts, which has step-downs on a quarterly basis, so still a mid-team, double-digit decline in the fourth quarter. So that's really the big makeup and the headwind that we're seeing in the numbers.

Thank you, guys.

Thanks, John. We'll take our next question from Charles Perron Pichet with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my question. First, I just want to go back to the scenarios. I just want to understand how multifamily plays in it. I think multifamily starts here up 17% year-over-year today through August. So I think the mix is cute towards the larger building, which I think are outside of your scope. But so more broadly, how do you think about this multifamily recovery? How is it embedding in your scenarios for next year, given the green shoot noted in your pro-credit remarks? And what could that mean for the margin, considering the larger amount of value-added content in that segment?

Yeah, multifamily right now is 8% to 9% of our sales. We don't have a, call it a swim lane or a row called out for multifamily. But in 2025, we were going down mid-teens for multifamily. In 2026, we're looking at a flat environment for us, even though the overall starts number is showing a recovery. It's just that lag and expectation of the market that we participate in, in that four stories, wood structures, and below. It's going to be more of a flattish because of the time it takes to transition that start into a first sale for us. So that's the expectation of multifamily for 2026. Okay, that's good color.

And then understanding the market dynamics are outside your control, but you've done a great job in the last few years here at the Jotter Cross Structure to protect profitability. Against the scenarios that you presented today, are you considering incremental productivity actions as an offset and maybe taking a step back? Can you talk about your ability to service demand? Should we see a faster and expected pickup in start activity going forward?

Yeah, no good questions. The storyline around our business is one of day-to-day management, week-to-week, quarter-by-quarter at the location level, right? Yes, we're a national player. We coordinate as a team, but we run this business in a very entrepreneurial way based on the local market demand. So what you've seen us do over the long term, but particularly in the last year where we've seen headwinds on the sales line, we've looked at it at the local market. How do we make sure we're able to meet our customers' needs and leveraging our existing footprint in the best way possible? That means really managing the variable portion of the spend, making sure we're aligning the hours and the location footprint and the trucks and all of it to what our customers really need. That won't change. That will continue to be executed, meaning we will continue to react at that local market, and you'll continue to see that. We have kept our foot on the gas when it comes to productivity. The teams are engaged in a lot of different actions to try and make this business incrementally better this year than it was last year. Some of that, candidly, has been overwhelmed by the deleveraging. Even though we're more efficient on a per-unit basis, the lack of units and the overhead that we sustain as a business of our scale means that some of our productivity numbers have gone red, even though the teams are doing good things. And that goes, I think, to your last part of your question, which is we are going to be exceptionally well-positioned to take advantage of growth because what we've been able to do in terms of the work that we do at local level is protect the capacity availability. Yes, of course, we'll have some rehiring to do, but making sure that we have kept our ability to serve at a higher level, while at the same time scaling operations in the near term. It's something that we're very good at and I think is going to be evident, was evident during sort of the COVID spike where we were better positioned and better able to respond than everybody else. I think that's even going to be more true as we make this next turn because of the thoughtful investments we've made around those markets where we knew we ran out of capacity last time, right? We've learned from those situations and made sure that we're going to be ready in the next turn around key markets and key opportunity areas. So excited about it. I think it's going to be really good for this business. Like I said before, we just need a little momentum coming our way.

Okay, that's good color, Peter. Thank you for everything, and good luck with the next quarter. Thank you, Charles. Appreciate it.

We'll move next to Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Peter, it's really actually impressive how stable the gross margins have been year-to-date. Obviously, it's stepped down versus last year, about 30.5, 30.7, 30.4. Sure. Pretty remarkable stability above 30. I guess I've got a two-part question here on the margin. I think it seemed like the margin came in better than your expectations in 3Q, so can you comment on, you know, what drove that? And then with your fourth quarter guidance still at the midpoint implying kind of 100 basis point sequential step down, is that something you're already seeing in your exit rate into the fourth quarter, or is there kind of a buffer? Again, you know the market's softening, it's competitive, maybe things continue to weaken through the quarter. If you could address both of those, that would be great.

Thanks, Mike. Good questions. So with respect to the margin performance in Q3, we did outperform what we had outlined. We did see a sequential step down it just wasn't as significant as what we had originally thought and shared on the last call some of the outperformances due to us buying better and us managing through our supply chain initiatives that has really helped and bolster so we have a professional team that continues to look for the way to to maximize and improve our bias So, that was where we're contributing the outperformance of Q3. With respect to Q4, we're still outlining that step down for the exit quarter rate. We are seeing continued pressure across a weak market that we're operating in, but the team across the business is doing exceptionally well, managing pricing and being extremely disciplined and getting the sale at our level that we feel is appropriate for what we're providing from a service standpoint. It is a weak market that we're operating in, so that competitive dynamic is real, and we're operating and navigating extremely well.

That's helpful. Thank you. My second question, just understanding your position that what you're putting out there today as normalized is not necessarily apples to apples versus investor day. I want to drill down on there still seems to be an implication that there's kind of that lower revenue per start dynamic happening. And, you know, I think there's kind of a debate on over some period of time, is the content and size of home at least, is that a cyclical dynamic is a structural dynamic. If you're calling this kind of normalized, are you taking a different view on, you know, you think that some of those pressures you've seen the last couple of years, that that is kind of, that is the new normal, even in kind of a recovery, you'd still expect those headwinds to persist?

Yeah. So I guess maybe the, if I understand the correct the question correctly we're not trying to advertise or predict or bounce back to the old size and complexity of them we're just sort of acknowledging it where it is and drawing the line out from here could there be some recovery sure yeah yeah no no question i think the challenge today though to be honest mike is affordability is a real is a real thing right it's not a made-up media headline. It's what people are feeling. And that's going to take some time to recover back to maybe where it was five years ago. So with that in mind, I think the step-off point on the normalized within that scenario chart is a real good sense of where we are today. I think there's potential upside on the starts number. I think there's realistic expectation that we should see upside on the commodity number. I mean, you look at the results of some of these mills, boy, they're suffering right now with these prices. So I think there's a lot that would indicate we can do better than normal, but I'd also don't want to, you know, I don't want to signal the wrong message to the broader investor community about what that says. That is just historical averages and kind of based on where we are today. And to your point, where we are today is really size and complexity of the home. That's what's in there.

Yeah, that makes We'll move next to Reis Jadrosich with Bank of America. Your line is open.

Thanks for taking my question. You commented earlier that the market share was flat to up slightly in the quarter. I'm wondering if you could just remind us on what you saw in terms of market share through the year and then just broader competitive environment? And then what's embedded in the 2026 sort of outlook or scenarios in terms of the market share assumption?

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Ray. So with respect to the market share, and we've provided in the past a bridge of our sales versus starts on a lag basis. In the prepared remarks, we remind everyone that it's roughly a three-month lag so when you look at the quarter as we talked about flat to up a little bit from a share standpoint if you look back to q2 starts they were down year over year about eight percent we're still seeing a little bit of headwinds from smaller home and complexity it's it's pretty modest but a little more on the cost basis side of things. And when you factor those structural adjustments in, we're at a flat to up slightly. Now, when we zoom out for the year-to-date where we are year-to-date, it's pretty flat. It's pretty neutral. Starts are down about, I would say, 5% on a lag basis versus our 8% on sales and then taken into account some of those same structural adjustments. It comes out pretty flat. So again, a testament to the team and how well we're managing our price in this week market and maintaining a share level that we feel is appropriate.

I think that's really the basis for why some of our comments are around. We think we're getting to bouncing around the bottom here because of that common combined sort of output. We see stabilization in margins, stabilization in share, which sort of, in my mind, indicates this is kind of where it wants to be right now. Now, that has tremendous opportunity for us, obviously, as the market starts to pick up a little bit, especially given our available capacity and scale. But that's sort of the logic around that.

It's really, really helpful. And then just on the value add on a year-rear basis has been down by more than lumber over the last few quarters that spread is that just the different end market exposure that's driving that is that competitive dynamics and well i think the longer term goal is to for value ads that sort of outpace commodity um like when could that start to get back to a point where value is outpacing yeah i i think what you're seeing mostly in the value-add is from the multifamily side of the business and that year-over-year lapping that we have outlined.

Remember that multifamily is a much higher index toward the value-added products. We saw the trust stepping down, and that's been known and we've been communicating. But the millwork is also now feeling it later in the build cycle from a multifamily standpoint. And so, that's also in the value-added product.

So, you'll see both of those for my year-over-year basis is the largest contributor to that that down percentage there's no there's no question there's pressure across the board like that i want to be just real clear about that and taking sales volume out of any of our value add facilities by virtue of what it is that we do right we've installed we've invested in overhead in order to create efficiency when you put product through the factory. That's a tough environment when it comes to the competitive world and making sure those facilities are full. I think we're doing an exceptional job. I'm very proud of the team, but there is definitely headwind there. And by the way, there is some pass-through product, right? There's some engineered wood in there that they've also faced a very similar situation in terms of headwinds on the top one.

Thank you.

That's very helpful. we'll take our next question from david mancy with baird your line is open yeah thank you good morning guys um you really opened the floodgates here with this 26 scenario data i would just say um but as we look at that data um if we go from the 2025 midpoint to the normalized midpoint it looks like a contribution margin of a little over 20 percent and i just wanted to check with you if we think about long term kind of secular are you still thinking contribution margins on on volume would be something in the high teens long term well i

think the contribution margin also depends on what margins are doing and where we're seeing margins go when you jump right to the normalized we move that up to the midpoint of our long-term normalized margins. So, it looks like a bigger up in contribution from where we are today. As you look at the midpoint in 2026, that's an opposite scenario where we see a lot of that margin headwinds and pressure continuing. But a lot of it's the lapping effect of what we're seeing on the slope through 2025.

So, that flow through and contribution margin is largely dependent on which way are margins moving right and said another way there's there's probably um to normalization there's some tailwinds that that push that number up but what i'm asking is just secular if you think about the model growing volume i think in the past you said high teens is that still in play or has that changed um i'm actually drawing a blank on when we said that i trusted what you said is right i would say mid to high teens is what we've what the way i think about it um i don't let me let me say it a different way we're not intending to change any of our prior messaging or change our tune on this i think this is just an attempt to to give a a reference point as we think about what 2026 looks like yeah okay and um so staying on this theme i guess as we're looking forward um when we look from the 25 midpoint to the flat scenario 26 um you know you know the contribution margin is actually i think slightly negative but i think peter as you said you're you're taking 2025 as a whole as opposed to 20 26 has a starting point of sort of where we are today or year-end 2025. But just as we think about moving from here to there, could you talk about the major buckets it puts and takes in the model, meaning you get productivity savings, you get some glide paths from acquisitions, and then the offsets there would be, what, labor, inflation, occupancy, freight. Could you just talk about the moving parts that'll flex that up and down into 2026, even on a flat start scenario?

Yeah. I mean, you started rattling off most of them. So, with the flat environment, we are jumping off of a lower point for 2025 than what the whole of the year is. I mentioned that. That was part of my other comments that I made on the margin and where the margin movement. We are going to expect a lapping of acquisitions, so acquisitions completed to date would be reflected in that number, so there's a stub year period that would contribute. There are assumptions around inflation on costs, as you can imagine, of every year that would have that and some productivity to offset it, but it's still in an environment where it's flat and we're focusing a lot of our resources on the ERP deployment, so it's not going to be as strong as what we had shared a few years ago. So, that all contributed to what we're seeing for 2020.

Yeah, I think that, Dave, that's one thing I'll emphasize is that, yes, the market is weak, but as we think about what we're doing as an organization the transfer the transformation continues our investments in digital and technology are going to have tremendous payoff for the business there's it's obvious that we're going to be able to empower our teams to to grow grow efficiently to do things that um first of all others can't do but to give us that gives us an advantage as a partner and as a provider that we're committed to doing there's certainly an investment associated with that. And we've been very transparent about it, I think. And really, that will continue in 26. It's just a thing to keep in mind as you think about those numbers. I appreciate the color. Thank you.

We'll take our next question from Keith Hughes with Truist. Your line is open.

Thank you. You may have addressed this before, but I just wanted to be clear. If we look at the scenario analysis for 26, the middle scenario a flat single family with most of the numbers in that range of a way which are important for this year is is it the flow through from the starts at the end of the year that be affecting that either guys or something else going yeah it's similar to the to some of the comments already i would say that the biggest difference is around the exit margin levels where that's going to result for the full year of 26.

So it's not that things are necessarily going to get a lot worse from where they are, but just recognizing that they got worse through 25.

Got it. And just a long-term question. Always consider multifamily a lower, definitely a lower ticket for you just given a smaller unit. And you're doing so much trust work and things now. Multifamily gets back to a growth vehicle. Is that necessarily an inferior start or less than an inferior start in single family versus what it was maybe five, six years ago?

That's a great question. I don't know if I know off the top of my head dollars per start splitting multifamily versus single family. What I would tell you is it's appealing for us because of the value-add exposure. Obviously, a lot of trust and a lot of bill work. But it's also a growth vector we see that there's opportunity for us to do more in that space particularly as we've been able to build our relationships with with contractors with developers um we we think that will continue to be a source of strength for us um but it is it's a tricky one when we talk about communicating it to you guys because everybody wants to look at the multi-family headline number And given our sort of subsection of that, that's been a little bit of a disconnect. But we like the business. We like the profitability. And I think it has not just a good profile, but also the potential to grow quite well.

Okay. Thank you. Thanks, Keith.

We'll move next to Trey Grooms with Stevens. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, guys. this is Ethan on for Trey. Thanks for taking the questions. Just going back to some earlier comments about share, you know, historically, you guys were able to take share at maybe a couple hundred basis points above the market and obviously recognizing, you know, the current affordability challenge environment. But how should we think about builders' long-term ability to continue to take share, maybe both in a flat market and on a longer-term time horizon?

Yeah, thanks, Ethan. Good question. So, I'm still a strong believer in our ability to take share. I think that the reality, if you go back over the past couple of years, we talk a lot about it, right? I think we've lost some share on the pure commodity side of the business. I think that we've gotten to the point where we're saying no to any more of that. I think we've leveled that out. I think on the side where we gain the most share, it's primarily in the value-add space. We have had and have better capacity, better capabilities, a better competitive position than anybody else in the space. And so when the market is running healthily, but also when it's running aggressively, we are an obvious source of relief for builders who are trying to solve problems. And I think that's the storyline in the long run. We are still in an industry where skilled trades, good labor is hard to find and increasingly retiring and becoming harder to find. And that's where our product portfolio, our offering, is uniquely suited to meeting the demands of the future. And I think that gets accentuated when you think about digital. The magic of technology in our space is that it helps to take out waste, and it helps to enhance efficiency while sort of protecting the quality and the craft of what home builders do. We can assist. We can be a support structure for that. And I think it positions us exceptionally well to be part of what is ultimately the maturing of an industry to meet some of the challenges that we face right now. And that, to me, that's share wins. I absolutely believe that we are positioned to do that. We're certainly better positioned to do it in a growth environment. That's evident in our performance over the last decade. But I think as you see it, even in this tough market, we can hold our own. We can do well. And there are certain categories where we're doing very well. I'd say install continues to be a bright spot. There are certain aspects of value add. There are certain markets in value add where we are continuing to outperform the competition in the market. It's just a little tough to see with all the headwinds, right?

No, that's super helpful. And maybe diving more into the tech piece that you spoke on at the end of your comments Can you talk more about the tech investments that you're making in the business and how specifically how these could provide maybe outsized incremental returns when demand recovers versus prior cycles?

Absolutely. Yeah. So the two main investments we're making right now are in the digital and technology space. So that one we've been working on for quite a while now, that's paradigm, increasingly AI. I think there's two aspects to it, right? One is just the capability that it delivers our team to be the preferred partner, right? So if you think about the speed at which we can turn around an estimate, the accuracy, the reliability of our delivery, all of that is really dependent on high quality communications internally and with the customer. Clarity around what it is that the customer needs, and our ability to provide it. That comes more easily when you have a wonderful tool and a structure around managing it like we have with Paradigm. The three-dimensional digital twin, the capabilities that we're building around that, those will increasingly empower our team to win head-to-head in the marketplace. So, I see that as share gains is what it boils down to. And then there's the second piece of that, and that's obviously the significant investment we're making that gets dialed out in your adjusted EBITDA number around SAP, right? The project Elevate, as we call it internally, is an initiative around introducing more modern software solutions into our field operations, so management at the location level. It's a challenging project, right? All ERP implementations are, but hopefully you've seen, right, we kicked it off this quarter. It didn't materially impact our numbers at the consolidated level. But what it will do over time is accumulate in meaningfully improved efficiency. We see the opportunities for our folks to be more, again, more capable, more insightful, more able to partner with vendors, more able to manage the costs, more able to provide consistent and high-level on-time. and those are the things that will over time contribute to productivity we talk a lot about continuous improvement peter where are you going to get all this money from well there's your answer we see it we see the opportunity we have targets that we're going after um it'll take some time to deliver it as as it always does with these types of large-scale initiatives but i'm i'm as confident as i ever have been that there is a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow And there are advantages that sort of derive from that capability technologically that will have a halo effect on the broader business as well.

Thank you. That's very helpful. Appreciate it.

We'll take our next question from Phil Ng with Jefferies. Your line is open.

Hey, guys. Relative to your guidance last quarter, good to see strong three key results, better than expected. it and you revised the outlook higher, particularly on single family. So I believe last quarter you had some insights on how perhaps your customers were pursuing land development and how they're managing production and whatnot. I guess, what new insights have you kind of picked up from your builder customers and how much input do they provide for your base case scenario for 2026? And then just to dig into that a little bit more, how do you kind of envision the shape of the year unfolding in your base case for next year?

Thanks for the question, Phil. So I won't be able to go down into the details about the shape of next year and that sort of thing. I can tell you what you're seeing in the results for this quarter from the publics in particular. That's what we've been hearing. You know, it's a mix. It's a struggle out there. There's certainly a struggle from a bunch of different directions. Obviously, the political climate has gotten trickier because housing is continuing to be a high-profile political discussion. The good news, I would say, is that, you know, the Road Act and some of the stuff that's out there, good bipartisan support. People are trying to come up with solutions to take away some of the barriers that have restricted our ability to build affordability that, I would argue, have sort of crept into American society. that's good but anytime you've got a political discussion i think it's tough for the builders they've talked about that um i think that the affordability profile for them still continues to be a challenge you see that they're still dealing with very elevated incentives on their side of the fence you've seen you know a couple of key players acknowledging how hard that is being forced to maybe even get more aggressive than they even want to be to clear some of the inventory. That new home inventory is not problematic in terms of the overall amount of inventory available in the market, but it's certainly high for new. It's certainly high for new, and if not for, I would say, the depressed existing, we would be paying even more attention to it. What you're seeing, I think, in the behaviors is a real pullback in the start's pace in order to make sure that those new homes, that new home inventory is being managed. That's our results, right? That's what we saw coming. That's what we've signaled to you. I think we've seen some stability at this low level. But I think all of us are wondering about the uncertainty. The uncertainty variable is something I hear from the builders a lot. Their consumer, their customer is uncertain. They don't know what to make of where tariffs are going to be, where jobs are going to be, what this AI thing is going to do. And I think those are the themes that we hear that basically underpin some of these, what I would characterize as meh market numbers for their last half of 25 and the early part of 26. um like there's still a lot of optimism about where the market is going to go about what we're capable of doing about the value that's being offered and with a little bit of help on a couple of areas i do think there's room for growth um and based on what we talk to the builders okay super um and i appreciate that uh you guys want to be prepared and ready for recovery

from a supply standpoint capacity, when we kind of look at your normalized situation, call it 1 million and 1.1 million starts, what type of compactualization does that imply? I know you guys kind of built this up during the pandemic. So in the muted demand environment, which we're seeing right now, is there more work to do on the capacity front? Because if I look at your deck where you show single-family starts over a 10-year horizon, I mean, three out of the 10 years were actually below your normalized level. So how do you kind of balance that dynamic going forward in terms of capacity and headcount and just cost going forward as well?

Yeah, that's a great question. So the short answer is that the high-level averages I would describe as useless effectively because you get, you know, small markets with low capacity and big markets with no capacity looks like an average capacity, but neither is true. What I would tell you is this. The way we think about capacity is very local market-driven, meaning as we looked at the results and what happened during the last five-year window, so kind of five, six years, so 2019 through today, and seeing the arc of utilization of some of these facilities, we never got, in my opinion, to a dramatically high level of production, but we still struck. And so what that revealed, I think, were the opportunities for us to enhance capacity, to recognize where over time the shift has occurred in terms of where the starts are and where the starts need to be, and then where in those markets do we need to have a better footprint of capacity. So that's what you've seen us invest in. It's sort of a rifle shot approach to capacity additions in response to where we got pinched versus, oh, well, there's a need. We'll just add it. We'll add it across the country or we'll peanut butter it. That's not how we think about it. So in light of that, we have definitely filled in some of those holes. I would say where we had the biggest issues, we've moved the most aggressively. We're best positioned. There's a handful of stuff that we'll continue to do, but I do see it being less than it has been, certainly over the last three or four years as we move forward until we get better clarity as to what the next leg of growth, where the next leg of growth is going Appreciate the caller. Thank you so much.

We'll take our next question from Colin Barron with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Good morning, thank you for taking my questions. When you look at the factors that have made BLDR track below lag single-family starts in your markets, do you think that that's fully stabilized at this point so that you'll track more in line with lag starts in 2026, or are you anticipating more headwinds in 2026? So can you help quantify what those might look like as we look at BLDR, single-family sales versus starts?

Yeah, thanks, Colin. I think what we've tried to outline for you is that we are tracking with LAG single-family starts at this point, taking into consideration the structural adjustments. If you're thinking about when on the face of the financial, that'll come true without having to do the additional adjustments. I think it depends on that stabilization of the home size and decontenting which we're starting to see more of but what's a little more difficult right now is some of the cost basis and inputs that we're seeing from our manufacturers and suppliers that are being challenged with given different market dynamics and affordability items so we're going to continue to do our analysis the way we have and we'll be happy to share with you on future calls but we think that we're getting to a point where those structural adjustments are starting to get a little bit less impactful but they're still in there for our reconciliation great that's helpful caller um and then i think you quickly mentioned some branch consolidation actions that you guys have taken any colors to like what the annual cost savings from these actions are um and just given the current demand environment do you anticipate any further actions yeah so we've taken out 16 facilities this year uh 30 last year so 46 over the last um 21 months so it's it's something that we do as part of the fabric of who we are we talked about that last quarter we're constantly evaluating where we have um excess capacity so we just talked about capacity with peter uh on that prior question but we look at where we're we have excess and we're rationalizing that and and keeping in mind first and foremost our customers trying to make sure that we're taking care of our customers. So, where we have additional facilities in a market that we can service more effectively from a single location versus multiple locations, we are going to continue to make those decisions. The capacity is across the board. So, it's multifamily trust plans where we saw multifamily pullback. So, we've talked about that. locations that are down from a start standpoint, and we just don't need as much fixed cost. We're going to continue to evaluate this on a go-forward basis all the time. It's just part of what we do. And as we integrate acquisitions in, we look at the best way to service our customers from the right locations where we have overlap. So, I hope that answers your question, but it's going to be something we will continue to bring up and address as we move forward.

Great. Thank you.

We'll move next to Min Cho with Texas Capital Securities. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks for squeezing me in here. Just two quick questions. So it's nice to see the good progression on sales and bids through your digital tools. Can you provide any update on the pilot? Have you expanded home builders into the pilot and just kind of what they're using the most or getting the most value out of and your expectations for the pilot kind of going into 2026?

Yeah, no, happy to talk about it. So we have today is because it's an end-to-end platform, the participation rates and different aspects of the tool is pretty varied, as you might imagine. So I would say every piece of it is being used. That's good. Adoption levels, obviously, for the easy stuff are sky high. We have pretty much everybody's using it for invoice, review, delivery, photos, and payments. there's a subset of that that's using it for things like estimates and quoting there's a set there's a subset that's really engaged on the home configure aspect so the visualization tools customers are are working through actually an expansion of what is in the catalog within home configure for the consumer to select from so we we've got a couple of customers that are leading into that using it as a virtual um a virtual model home type of a type of a tool set um for rendering and drafting certainly scheduling has been an interesting piece because it's a it's an included functionality builders are are taking advantage of it when they're scheduling trades and the pace of the build. So I would say those are some of the bigger, more common pieces of utilization. What we talked about in the past, and that I'll reemphasize on this call, is a big piece of this is also making sure we've got the training and the comfort level with our internal staff. People are, and that's why we emphasize that both the quoting and the sales that are flowing through the tool, that people within the BFS four walls are increasingly seeing the value of a centralized repository. Because remember, it's a library, really. It's a place for the builder to store their plans and for us to be able to access them to do the work that we need to do. That's where we've seen really dramatic increases. And I think that's an indicator of where we expect the pilot to continue to build momentum. We'll have another nice booth at the IDS show this year, so you'll be able to see some of the latest, you know, things we're working on in terms of the development side. It's really leveraging increasingly the AI capabilities that we've been developing to increase two main things, right? It's quality and accuracy and ease of use. Those are the things that we think we have tremendous opportunity to improve. We've had some really nice team member ads internally that have been working on that. And I think we're going to continue to deliver some really powerful tools for the space, both internally to empower our team and enable our team, but also very importantly, obviously, for the customer and for their experience for them to battle the supportability challenge and to build these higher quality, more efficient, constructed homes.

Great. Thank you for that detail. And then lastly, just, you know, you've mentioned installation, your installation business in the past, and you mentioned it today as one of your value-added services. Seems like labor has not been that big of an issue for home builders right now. Can you just talk about the longer-term outlook for this business?

Yeah, no, you're right. And install the labor side has certainly been a bit of a relief. It's a, the real question, I think that nobody really, nobody that I've talked to yet at least, has clarity on is what is the impact of immigration. So there's been actually a reasonable stability in the labor market, certainly pressure, downward pressure on cost per hour, and perhaps an increased availability, but not perhaps as much as one might expect, given how far down we are from the peak. And the sense that I've heard from folks is that there's a meaningful drag from the immigration work that's been done. So the real question comes on the turn. When the turn comes and we start trying to build more homes, how much labor is actually going to be there and be available to do some of this work? Don't know. I think it's too early to say at this point, because I think the reverse immigration and where people have sort of backed out of the market, it's hard to see. So we'll see. But I do think that it is likely to be a reinforcing characteristic or a reinforcing factor as to why our value add is more valuable to builders over time. The more we can do to maximize the use of skilled trade labor and do it in a way that is, you know, reliable and high quality for builders, I think the more successful we're going to be. And we've got a lot of experience doing that.

Excellent. Great. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you.

We'll take our next question from Ruben Garner with Benchmarks. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, and thanks for squeezing me in, guys. I'm going to squeeze two into one quick question. The specialty building products category has been pretty steady of late. I don't think there's been a lot of acquired revenue in that space. Are the install and the digital initiatives large enough or growing fast enough that that's driving the bulk of that? And then in the same vein for 26, do you view the digital initiatives, the install initiatives as the biggest growth above the market drivers for you guys, or is there some other initiative that you would point to that's, you know, likely to be what helps you grow above the market? Thanks, guys.

Yeah, thanks for the question. On the first part in that specialty products, just real quick on the digital. The digital software sales will flow through that. that hasn't largely changed. Our focus on digital sales and the pull through is really going to be in the product categories. So, the digital software sales isn't really influencing that per se. The install, however, as Peter mentioned, is a good growth driver for us. Yeah, it may be down a little bit year over year, largely driven by the multifamily, but it's not down near as much as the overall market from that standpoint so we're we are outpacing the market with install and the labor portion goes through that specialty and other category whereas the product categories will be in the natural product categories so that's what you're seeing from that install and other we haven't materially bought anything that would influence that specialty bucket otherwise but it is performing well it's been more stable uh from a cost standpoint and it's and stable from a sales standpoint.

You can imagine that the specialty is something that has a strong correlation to a lot of our more R&R and other focused markets, which are more stable in general than the single family space. So that's a component of why it does that. In terms of thinking about the future and where we see continued growth, again, I think that our ability to provide a superior product within both the value add space, if you think about what ReadyFrame offers, what trusts and doors offer, that's still very impactful. We think that over time that will continue to grow faster than market. The install and what we're able to do in candidly a variety of product categories just to create ease of doing business for our builder customers, we think that's an offering that has been and will continue to be well-received. I think you'll see in 26 some consistency in our areas of focus. We'll certainly – we'll be leaning in in a lot of areas because we're a pretty broad company, and depending on which market we're in, we may have different priorities. But I think those components still will ring through in 26.

Thanks again, guys, and good luck to the rest of the year. Thanks, Ruby.

We'll move next to Jeffrey Stevenson with Loop Capital. Your line is open.

Hi, thanks for taking my questions today. So trust pricing continues to be pressured in a challenging residential demand environment. And, you know, wondered if you've seen any improvement in industry supply demand imbalances as we move through the back half of the year. Would you expect trust pricing to, you know, continue to trend lower as we move into 2026?

Yeah, I think it's a good observation. It's certainly been an area of pressure than they alluded to that earlier. We are seeing some stability. I think the market broadly has moved aggressively. I think all of us have seen the opportunity to be part of the solution in the affordability space by being that partner to customers. The return on investment question, I think, is what is important when you're thinking about trust, right? Right. There's there's a that's not an EBITDA metric. Right. Because of the depreciation associated with it. So I think what has happened is the market is made some aggressive moves and gotten some stability and some clarity around what a good return on investment is. So it's hard to predict where it's going to go. But our sense is that it's it's gotten to where it should be and where it's going to get to for the time being. and it'll have an opportunity to improve from where it is. But obviously, we're going to stay close to it. I think our competitive position and our cost position, be the productivity work we've done over the years, makes us the decider at the end of the day, do we want the business or not, allows us to do that in a way that others can't compete with. So we're interested in being a responsible market participant. We think an appropriate margin and return on investment is the right way to think about it from a shareholder perspective. But ultimately, we are going to win this battle, and we're going to stay in this space in a way that maintains our leadership position.

Great. Thanks for all the color there. And earlier this year, Peter, you mentioned there's some slowdown in the M&A pipeline due to macro uncertainties. But, you know, you've continued to make strategic bolt-on acquisitions in important value-added categories, such as door and mailwork. And, you know, I wondered if M&A pipeline has, you know, started to see some improvement as the year progressed.

Yeah, you know, it's a good point. There have been some eps and flows. And I think we've been fortunate that a few of the flows were with assets that we really thought were great additions. I'm super excited about the acquisitions in the Nevada market, right? That Las Vegas door and millwork category has been a, you know, kind of an eyesore on my tracker for a while now. I don't like seeing a blank in that category because it's such a good one for us. And we picked up two fantastic businesses, really excited about what we're going to be able to do working together, you know, to be that preferred partner in that market. You know, it's a market where we already do very, very well and seeing how much better we'll do with that additional category. That's an example for us of where those opportunistic tuck-ins can be very impactful and important to us. And we continue to see them. You know, I think we saw a little bit of a boost there in businesses that were sort of in market. But ebbs and flows, depending on the uncertainty around the space, that's true within the M&A space, just like it's true for consumers. Great. Thank you.

We'll take our last question from Adam Baumgarten with Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open.

Hey guys, thanks for squeezing me in. I think you had mentioned some procurement savings, which probably helped margins a little bit. Can you maybe talk about where you saw some better cost positions there?

No, we're really not going to get into the details. What I can tell you is that our team is well-organized and our communication with our operations has put us in a good position to really be able to identify those opportunities and take advantage of them in a way that has really helped us in the short term.

So I think that's – Yeah, the only bit of color I'll add is we're advantaged by virtue of our scale and who we are. If you're a vendor and you want something to go away that's a problem for you, we're a very quiet customer. We like helping people have problems go away, and sometimes that creates opportunities for us. So we're committed to being that type of partner for our vendors and helping them, and I think this is an example of where we were able to do that. Okay, great. That's all for me.

And this does conclude the question and answer session and also will conclude the Builders First Source third quarter 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful rest of your day.