Custom Truck One Source, Inc. Q1 FY2026 Earnings Call

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to Custom Truck OneSource Inc.'s First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Brian Perman, Vice President, Investor Relations. Brian, please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning. Before we begin, we would like to remind you that management's commentary and responses to questions on today's call may include forward-looking statements, which, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results may differ materially. For a discussion of some of the factors that could cause actual results to differ, please refer to the risk factors section of the company's filings with the SEC. Additionally, please note that you can find reconciliations of the historical non-GAAP financial measures discussed during the call in the press release we issued yesterday after the market closed. That press release and our first quarter investor presentation are posted on the investor relations section of our website. Yesterday afternoon, we also filed our first quarter 2026 10Q with the SEC. Today's discussion of our results of operations for Custom Truck OneSource, Inc., or Custom Truck, is presented on an historical basis as of or for the three months ended March 31, 2026 and prior periods. Also, a reminder that beginning this quarter, a financial reporting reflects our two new operating segments, Specialty Equipment Rentals, or SCR, and Specialty Truck Equipment and Manufacturing, or STEM. While our 2026 results in our earnings press release and SEC filing reflect the application of intersegment pricing and margins, as per accounting requirements for intersegment sales, the segment results for 2025 reflect the intersegment sales with no margin, as no intersegment agreement was in place in the period. For an illustrative comparison of what the 2025 results would have been had intersegment sales been reflected with the appropriate gross margin and had other internal accounting policies been in place at the time, please see the appendix of the Q1 investor presentation posted on our investor relations website. Also, certain data in the appendix of the investor deck for Q1 and Q2 2025 for our STEM segment was corrected to reflect an internal error. Full year 2025 STEM results were not impacted by the change. Joining me today, Ryan McMonigle, CEO, and Chris Epperjesse, CFO. I will now turn the call over to Ryan. Thanks, Ryan, and good morning, everyone.

2026 is off to a great start as we delivered record first quarter revenue driven by continued strong momentum in our core end markets and excellent execution by our team. In the first quarter, we generated revenue of $462 million, an adjusted EBITDA of $98 million, up more than 9% and 33% year-over-year. The key driver of our performance in the quarter was continued strength in our specialty equipment rentals segment, as the improvement we experienced throughout last year in the transmission and distribution markets continued into Q1. Our rental fleet averaged 81.4% utilization during the quarter, up 370 basis points from Q1 of last year. This was supported by continued robust levels of OEC on rent, which averaged $1.34 billion in Q1, up 12% year-over-year. So far in Q2, both measures have continued to strengthen, with utilization and OEC on rent currently trending above our first quarter averages. We ended the quarter with total OEC of $1.66 billion, the highest quarter-end level in our history, which will support our expectation for continued growth in SER revenues this year. Also, the average age of our fleet is less than three years old, which we believe is one of the youngest fleets in the industry and positions us well to support our customers. Our trucks and equipment continue to power the people who strengthen and build critical infrastructure in the U.S. and Canada. The market has been focused on the durability of demand in T&D and our ability to convert improving rental KPIs into earnings and cash flow. and we believe our trending results over recent quarters speak directly to that. Bidding activity and ongoing conversations with our customers lead us to believe that these conditions will persist throughout 2026 and beyond. Performance of our specialty truck and equipment manufacturing segment in the first quarter was strong, reflecting continued healthy in-market demand and order flow. For Q1, STEM revenue, excluding sales to our SER segment, were up 5% year over year. We also saw gross margin expand in the quarter, driven by significant cost out and productivity improvements led by our production team. New sales order backlog ended the first quarter at $411 million, up more than $76 million or 23% from the end of Q4. Our backlog has continued to grow so far in Q2. As we've noted in prior periods, backlog can move quarter to quarter with delivery timing and production schedules, so we also focus on order activity and conversion. We saw strong year-over-year net order growth of 13% in Q1, with particular strength coming from our local and regional customers. Despite slower growth in the infrastructure and market, the continued strength and order growth in our ongoing conversations with our customers provide us with the confidence to expect another year of growth in STEM, not including intersegment sales to our SCR segment. CTAS is well-positioned with our young rental fleet, current inventory positions, and strong relationships with our chassis OEM partners to navigate the impact of the EPA's 2027 emission standards. We are affirming our previous full-year 2026 revenue outlook, which we updated earlier this month solely to reflect our new segment reporting with no change to consolidated guidance. We expect consolidated revenue in the range of $2.005 to $2.12 billion. Given strong conditions in the T&D end markets, we are raising both the bottom and top ends of our adjusted EBITDA guidance and now project a range of $415 to $440 million. Despite some macroeconomic volatility, we continue to be optimistic about our business. Long-term, sustained in-market demand is buoyed by secular megatrends, and our ability to provide exceptional execution on behalf of our customers sets us apart from our competition. Our long-standing relationships with our strategic suppliers and customers continue to be keys to our success. i continue to have the highest degree of confidence in the custom truck team and want to thank everyone for their hard work and dedication that helped achieve our strong results in the first quarter we look forward to updating everyone soon with that i'll turn it over to chris to walk through the numbers in more detail thanks ryan and good morning everyone

i'll start with the consolidated results for the quarter then discuss segment performance our balance sheet, liquidity and leverage, and finally, our 2026 outlook. Before I begin, I would like to expand somewhat on Brian's comments in his introduction about our segment reporting. As a reminder, because of reporting guidelines for segment reporting, the segment data included in our earnings press release for periods prior to January 1st of this year are not fully comparable to the current year data, largely because 2025 results disclosed in our press release do not include any margin on intersegment sales. In the appendix of the deck we posted on our investor relations site in early April, we included reconciliations of our historical 2024 and 2025 quarterly segment data in an attempt solely to illustrate what those results would have been had our new segment reporting accounting and intersegment sales and margin agreements been in place at such time the appendix of our first quarter 2026 investor presentation includes our segment data for 2026 as presented in our earnings press release with additional adjustments shown so revenues and expenses are presented on the same basis as our 2025 as adjusted results for illustrative purposes we provide a comparison of the as adjusted data for q1 2025 and q1 2026 All year-over-year comparisons in my portion of the call are based on the figures in our earnings press release. To the extent you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Brian in Investor Relations. Our first quarter 2026 results reflect stronger operating performance across the business and improved rental fundamentals, particularly in our T&D end markets. For the first quarter, total revenue was $462 million and adjusted EBITDA was $98 million, representing 9% and 33% growth, respectively, versus Q1 2025. Turning to our segments in SER, first quarter third-party revenue, excluding intersegment sales, was $194 million, up 16% year-over-year, driven by strong double-digit growth in both rental revenue and rental equipment sales activity. Segment-adjusted EBITDA of $105 million was up 23% year-over-year, with segment-adjusted EBITDA margin in Q1 of 51.5%, up more than 415 basis points versus Q1 2025. Our key rental KPIs in SCR remained quite strong in Q1, continuing the momentum we experienced in 2025. In Q1, utilization averaged 81.4% of 370 basis points versus Q1 2025. Average OEC on rent in the quarter was $1.34 billion, up more than $141 million, or 12%, versus the same period in 2025. On rent yield in the first quarter was 38.9%, reflecting both sequential quarterly and year-over-year increases. On-rent yield remained within our targeted upper 30s to low 40% range, and we continue to see opportunities for rate improvement as transmission mix grows and pricing discipline holds. Our current historically strong rental KPIs reflect both increased rental activity and the continued scaling of our fleet to meet demand. net rental capex in q1 was more than 49 million dollars and our fleet age at quarter end was just under three years a modest increase from the end of last quarter which is consistent with our plan to reduce maintenance capex and age the fleet somewhat this year our oec in the rental fleet end of the quarter at almost 1.66 billion dollars up more than 107 million dollars versus the end of Q1 2025, and up more than $18 million in the quarter. The increase reflects disciplined fleet investment against strong demand, particularly in T&D. While we expect to continue to invest in the fleet in 2026, our planned decrease in maintenance capex in 2026 compared to 2025 should contribute to increased free cash flow generation this year. In STEM, first quarter third-party revenue was $268 million, up 5% year-over-year, comprising equipment sales growth of more than 4%, and part sales and service revenue growth of almost 17%. STEM's segment adjusted EBITDA was $33 million, and segment adjusted EBITDA margin was 9% in the quarter. Recall that our 2025 segment adjusted EBITDA does not include any margin on intersegment sales, while 2026 segment-adjusted EBITDA does. STEM margin gains in the quarter were driven by significant cost-out and productivity improvements led by our production team. Importantly, our new sales backlog ended Q1 at $411 million, up more than $76 million sequentially, within our expected range of roughly four to six months. We've continued to see strong order growth so far in Q2 2026, and our backlog currently stands at more than $425 million. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity, with LTM adjusted EBITDA more than $408 million and net debt of $1.65 billion, we finished Q1 with net leverage of slightly more than four times. This represents an approximately 30 basis points sequential improvement and approximately 80 basis points versus Q1 2025. Availability under our ABL was $257 million as of March 31st. And based on our borrowing base, we have more than $190 million of additional availability that we can potentially access by upsizing our existing facility. Free cash flow generation and deleveraging remain key focus areas for us. Our inventory increase during the first quarter reflects seasonal order flow. Even with that increase, we expect to reduce inventory and floor plan balances over the balance of 2026 which should support improved free cash flow generation with respect to our 2026 guidance the macro demand across our key end markets remains very strong we expect the stem segment to continue to benefit from an overall favorable macro demand environment as well as strong relationships with our key customers and chassis and attachment suppliers. Our strong order backlog supports this. In our SER segment, OECN rent and utilization reached historically high levels in the second half of fiscal 2025 and consistent with our Q1 results we expect this trend to continue in 2026. Demand for our equipment that serves the T&D utility markets continues at record levels and we expect the vocational rental market to provide incremental growth as we further penetrate this expanding end market. We finished 2025 with the average age of our fleet at just over 2.9 years, down by more than a year since the beginning of fiscal 2022. As a result, we expect to be able to significantly reduce our overall investment in our rental fleet in 2026 while continuing to generate growth. Our increase in fleet age to just under three years in the first quarter reflects We expect to grow our rental fleet based on net OEC by mid single digits in 2026 with a net investment in our rental fleet of approximately $150 million to $170 million, a meaningful reduction from our $250 million in 2025. After prior year's investments in inventory driven by the strong demand environment, we expect to continue making progress on further net working capital improvements in 2026 as we continue on our path of reducing inventory months on hand to our targeted range of below six months as a result we expect to generate more than 50 million dollars of leveraged free cash flow and reduce our net leverage ratio to meaningfully below four times by the end of fiscal 2026 while progressing towards our three times net leverage target in 2027. Our affirmed 2026 revenue guidance reflects total revenue in the range of $2.005 billion to $2.12 billion. Given conditions in the T&D end markets, we are raising both the bottom and top ends of our adjusted EBITDA guidance and now project a range of $415 million to $440 million, resulting in year-over-year revenue growth of 3% to 9% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 8% to 15%. We still expect non-rental capex of $40 million to $50 million. Our segment guidance for 2026 remains unchanged. We are projecting SCR revenue of $835 million to $870 million and STEM revenue of $1.58 billion to $1.655 billion with STEM third-party revenue growth of 3% to 10%. Overall STEM sales, including intersegment sales, are expected to be flat to slightly down solely as a result of the expected reduction in SCR maintenance rental capex this year. Despite Q2 of 2025 being a tough comp, given the near record level of new equipment sales in the quarter, given current trends, we do expect to show year over year growth and adjusted EBITDA in Q2. In closing, I want to echo Ryan's comments regarding our continued strong business outlook. Despite broader macroeconomic uncertainty, recent results and end market fundamentals support our confidence in the long-term demand drivers and our ability to deliver meaningful adjusted EBITDA growth this year. With that, operator, we can open the line

for questions. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Michael Shilsky of DA Davidson & Co. Michael, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions here. Let me start off with a tariff question. Any worries you have on the recent changes with the Section 232 tariffs, either on recent quotes you've made recently or on what's in your backlog. Can you compare what the OANs are saying on chassis pricing because of the tariffs compared to what you may be seeing from the body or back part of the truck that you're building?

Yeah, Mike, good to talk to you, and great question. I think we're in a pretty good spot when it comes to our tariffs, as we've talked about. Obviously, having inventory on the ground puts us in a good position. We are seeing a little bit of tariff exposure on some of our bodies because of 232 and but I think the team has done a good job of managing that and so I feel like we're well positioned and OEMs as we're talking with OEMs you know that it is a discussion but the bigger discussion right now seems to be giving orders for them heading into heading into 2027 so I think we're in a good spot overall Mike. Okay great and then your metric of

of the average age being roughly three years, that's up for the first time in quite some time. Can you make a comment on how far ahead of the second place player are you on average age? I'm kind of wondering how much can you age the fleet and still be reasonably ahead of the peers and have a great looking fleet? Is there a very big cash piece that you could be getting if you, let's say the half year or a year, Or would you kind of still be in front of your, you know, larger peers on the fleet side?

Yeah, it's a great question. And there's not great data on the other fleets and age of fleet. So, you know, it's more just based on feel and what we hear from our customers in particular. But I'll give you this data point. I think, you know, when we put the businesses together back in 2021, the average age of the fleet was just about four years. So we were about a year younger than we were then. And I think the business performed well at that age, too. So I think that's kind of the band that we've talked about. You know, we've been as low as 2.9. We're still under three. And, you know, four years ago, we were about just under four years old. And so that feels like a good band. There's real cash generation in there as you think about it. But most important, as you know, it's taking care of the customer and making sure we give them the product that they need to keep them working and to provide for what our trucks do.

Okay. Thank you. I'll pass it along.

Thanks, Mike. Your next question comes from Daniel Hortberg with Oppenheimer & Co. Daniel, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on the quarter and thanks for taking the question. I want to hone in on margin a little bit. I mean, obviously, you know, the rental revenue growth is strong and that is higher margin. But you also mentioned productivity improvement and I see in the deck says effective cost management. So could you please elaborate on that and what you're doing on the cost side to drive margin here as well as how it pertains to the guidance increase? Thank you.

Yeah, great. Great question. And the team, thanks for asking that question too. The team's done a great job just managing through our overall cost structure. So there's been a lot of efforts underway by our production team to drive productivity improvement. And I think we're seeing kind of the benefits of that. And then, you know, as we've talked about on a few prior calls, we continue to evaluate our overall cost structure. And so the team's done a good job to just right-size the cost structure for us really as it comes to our production efforts, which is why you see the expansion in STEM gross margin in particular.

Got it. Thank you. And then on OEC yield, I mean, it's like the last quarter up 40 basis points here this quarter. Could you speak to the pricing environment and the opportunity there and kind of like what is embedded in the guidance?

as it is. Thanks. Sure. I think, Daniel, we talked about on the last call that we took a price increase on the rental side of the business in December of last year. It was about a 5% price increase that we took in December. And so some of that is what's flowing through the on-rent yield number that you see. And then the other thing that's flowing through there is mix. So as we've talked about that transmission is coming on very strong. That's at a higher yield than distribution. And so just because of the type of equipment that we're renting there. And so I think that's been influencing yield as well. So the price, as we've talked about in the past, price takes a full year to cycle through the fleet just because of the way that we increase price, which is only as new equipment goes out on rent. And then the mix impact will be a little bit of function of how strong transmission stays, which is what we expect, you know, over the balance of 2026.

And Daniel, maybe just, this is Chris, maybe just to add a little bit, you know, as part of your question was about guidance, and we raised the EBITDA guidance really because, as Ryan was touching on, the rental business is outperforming, but then also he just touched on some of the operate you know operating execution that is happening so it really is a combination of those two the mix and the operating execution and not so much you know anything on the top line in terms

of a more aggressive top line assumption got you perfect thank you so much i'll turn the roller

your next question comes from justin hawk with beard justin your line is open please go ahead

um i guess i just wanted to to drill into the evita guidance uh the increase a little bit more and it's great to see. Obviously, you know, we're looking for more, but I mean, if I look at the quarter, you guys were thinking, you know, EBITDA would be up kind of, you know, 10% plus and,

you know, meaning could be that. So you're kind of like 10 to 15 million ahead of what you were

guiding to, you raised by five. So I'm just curious, I mean, is that conservatism? Is that anything that was maybe a one-time pull forward in the quarter that was unusually strong or just kind of how to think about um you know how the five million factored into that raise yeah justin

this is chris if you look at q1 you know q1 of last year was going to be our easiest comp and so i think our actual guidance said that we were going to be up double digits i don't think we necessarily banded what we thought that was going to be um you know clearly rental continues to outperform you know i think what we see on rent is up you know 160 170 million you know through the first four months of this year. And so, you know, we're continuing to see that strong performance. And so really it is that mix that's driving it. But, you know, I, as you look at Q2, you're going to see the exact opposite. That's a pretty tough comp for us. You know, we talked about this last year on the call. We had two months within the quarter that had new sales, third-party new sales above 110 million. And those were the only two months outside of a December that were ever above a hundred million. And so it's going to be a much tougher comp here in q2 um you know and we're just you know i don't know that i would say we're being conservative but we're certainly being prudent you know we felt it was the right thing to do to increase our guidance um but um you know we feel comfortable in that 415 to 440 million range uh you know we'll adjust it as you know as the year goes on if it if it makes sense to do so okay uh fair enough

um i guess my next question we've been seeing a lot more articles about like political pushback on data centers and some of these projects kind of getting pushed out and um i know your direct exposure to data centers is pretty modest but you know the the impact to some of these um interconnect uh tnd projects and things like that i'm just curious if you're seeing anything where there's that's having a discernible impact or that's just kind of noise in the market in terms of uh you know people procuring things um in anticipation of that work yeah it's a great

question we're still seeing uh strong demand from our customers for equipment so you know when you look at um obviously public companies sentiment and reported backlog it's still continuing to increase and then our conversations with our customers are still um bullish on additional transmission work uh that has not yet started which is which is a good tailwind for us um And, and then as we kind of look at the macro factors or the macro reporting around line miles and service and what's what's coming online, it still feels like that's continuing to be very positive. So I would say the specific noise around data center doesn't seem to be impacting our customers and the work that they are planning to start, you know, over the over the coming quarters and years.

yeah yeah that's i figured that would be the case so okay thank you for uh for answering those two

i appreciate it thanks jesse your next question comes from the line of name kaplan with deutsch

bank name your line is open please go ahead hey good morning yeah on for uh nicole de blaze um so the first question just wondering given the substantial macro economic assumptions underpinning T&D outlook. So specifically you mentioned 23% expected CAGR in data center power demand. How much of this impending infrastructure wave is already actively reflected in the quoting pipeline and are there specific specialized equipment categories that you foresee could have industry

wide supply chain shortages? Yeah, it's a good question and I'll maybe speak broadly about transmission specific. We are seeing the demand for transmission equipment continue to pick up. It is not back to the highest levels that it's been over the past several years, but it is continuing to pick up. And conversations that we're having with our customers suggest that that will continue to increase for the foreseeable, certainly for the balance of 26 and starting to talk about um 2027 um at this point so i'm you know i don't think there's any product category at this point that we're saying hey there could be uh an issue right with availability of equipment um you know but it continues to be favorable and i'd say bullish right as we're thinking about

transmission in particular okay that is helpful and then um in fer you mentioned the rental business is performing uh very strong with oec on rent utilization and gross margins all continuing to perform ahead of expectations in 2026 so just like wondering why um you wouldn't raise the guy

there is there maybe some conservatism yeah uh you know i think it's just being uh thoughtful on as chris talked about some of how we're thinking about it overall um is some of it is is strong performance on pricing and operating leverage and some of those dynamics and so i think we just want to be thoughtful heading into the the next nine months of the year and maybe just add a little

bit there and so when i said it was you know ahead of expectations you know the comparison was versus last year and then really ahead of expectations i think is really on the margin front and so evita generated and that's why i think we felt comfortable taking up the evita guide but leaving the revenue kind of uh revenue range where it is for now okay i appreciate it

i'll pass it on your next question comes from the line of brian brophy with stifle brian your line

is open please go ahead yeah thanks good morning everybody uh congrats on the nice quarter i guess um just want to ask about bidding activity you mentioned it's quite healthy in your opening comments just just maybe any more color on what you're seeing there thanks yeah it's um thanks

for the question and good to talk to you but um it's uh it's it's robust is probably a fair way to say it you know for us bidding activity happens most on the transmission side of things and so there are you know several specific projects that are in process where we're bidding um on on on those and are waiting on awards uh to be made and so you know i i think that it it continues to remain robust um and we think it should should be well positioned for the rest of

26 and heading into 2027. Thanks. And then on the new equipment side, last year, there was some discussion on some pricing pressure that you were seeing. It doesn't appear that you guys mentioned that this quarter, but just curious the latest you're seeing on the pricing front

on the new equipment side. Thanks. Yeah, I think compared to this time last year, certainly it's more stable. You know, there certainly still is some pressure. Ryan touched a little bit on the you know the cost improvement and productivity initiatives we've had that have you know benefited somewhat a margin and so been able to offset some of that pressure but i think the way i would characterize it is it's certainly a lot more stable than it was this time last year

appreciate it i'll pass it on your next question comes from the line of manish samaya with cantor fitzgerald manish your line is open please go ahead uh yes hi good morning it's manish uh so

two questions. First is on STEM. Can we just talk about how we should think about the normalized margins for STEM? And then just related to that, the backlog was up nicely on a sequential basis. If you can just talk about what's driving that, what are the conversations like with your customers? And really more importantly, what's the customer composition like? Because obviously you know you do have a lot of small customers so obviously with the macro environment wanted to get a feel for you know what that backlog

segmentation look like yeah this is Chris I'll start on the margin you know historically we've given guidance on you know the biggest component of the stem sales certainly the external sales is going to be our third party new sales and we've given guidance in the 15 to 18% rain you know a couple years ago we We're pushing that 18% and even slightly higher this past year. We were closer to the 15. You know, we've seen that go up now here the last couple of quarters and we're living closer to 16%. So I think that still is a good range, you know, that 15 to 18%. You know, we're probably going to live closer to the 16 to 17% range this year. But I think that's the best way to model it.

And then, Manish, the way to think about backlog, and it's a great question, is we are seeing, we actually saw the biggest pickup and backlog in our small customers. So we break them into kind of our local and regional customers in particular. And so that's actually where we did see the biggest increase in backlog. So, you know, I think on that side, that's the customer side. And then from a product standpoint, you know, look, utility is very strong. And so we did see a pickup and backlog in our utility and forestry segment kind of more broadly with those small customers. And then where we've still seen less of a pickup is on the infrastructure side of things. So still in the waste segment and dump truck segment, you know, we have not seen a significant pickup yet in backlog. So hope that helps.

Your next question comes from the line of Tammy Zakaria with J.P. Morgan. Tammy, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thank you so much. So question on the STEM segment, the backlog saw impressive growth. Can you speak to how much of the backlog is for 2026 versus beyond that?

Yeah, it's a great question and good to talk to you, Tammy. Yeah, the far majority of it will be for 2026 deliveries. Very little at this point that we would not be able to deliver in 2026.

Understood. And because you re-segmented your disclosures, I'm just curious, of the $415 to $440 million EBITDA guide that you have for the year, could you speak to what would be the mix from the two segments, SDR versus STEM, in that full year number?

Hi, Tammy. This is Chris. We don't give guidance for the segment EBITDAs, but if you look at the prior year, you can get a relatively comparable mix. Certainly, given the guidance we've given this year, there may be a little bit of a shift towards SER, but I would look at what we disclosed

on April 1st, and you can use that as a proxy. That's super helpful. If I can ask one last

One other point I'd want to make. As you do that, remember that you're going to have the two segment-adjusted EBITDAs, which are going to be a higher number than our guidance because you have to take into account the corporate unallocated costs, which also you'll be able to find in that April 1st presentation.

Understood. That's very helpful. And one last one. The debt pay down target, three turns leveraged by next year. Do you expect any debt pay down or this is all coming from

EBITDA growth? It'll be both. You know, this year we guided... Any debt pay down this year? Yeah, we guided levered free cash flow north of $50 million, that would all be used to pay down debt.

Understood. Thank you. Thanks, Tammy.

Your next question comes from the line of Abe Landa with Bank of America. Abe, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just one quick housekeeping. I know last year within your STEM segment, it doesn't include margins kind of on that intersegment sales. I guess if we were to look at it from an apples to apples perspective what would that change

have been? I don't have the figure right off the top of my head but if you look in the April 1st presentation that we put out there on our website and as well as the one we just posted I think last night that information is in there. Okay thank you and then I guess just shifting

gears to the general environment of you know obviously a lot of data centers a lot more that that generation is is on site are you seeing that impact demand in any way whether mix or actual absolute level of demand and maybe how that shift and just the general data center build out is impacting buy versus rent decisions by utilities contractors etc yeah it's it's a

great question and i would say a uh generally it is not impacting our demand um and so So it's something we watch, but it's not anything significant that is impacting kind of our business directly.

And it's not impacting that by versus that?

Not significantly. As we've talked about in the past, transmission is often rented just because of the nature of the equipment. Distribution is more commonly bought and rented. And so no real significant shift from the type of work that's being done that's impacting buy versus rent.

Thank you. And then lastly, just I know you, I'm wondering if you could provide, I think longer term, you're saying that inventory levels are going to be below six months by year. And I guess, could you give a number or what that number is today and how you expect that to trend during the year? and do you expect those epa 2027 rules that have any impact on that and then just overall kind of relate that overall on working capital like what are you assuming for working capital for the year uh with you know that inventory reduction being offset by revenue growth yeah this is chris what

we've said with respect to inventory is i think we're somewhere north of seven probably closer to seven and a half months right now you know it is typical if you look back over the past four or five years to see a increase in q1 just kind of seasonal timing and getting ready for the second half of the year and so that you know this year is pretty consistent with that and i would say we're only slightly uh higher than kind of our expectation for this time of year you know and i would say less than 10 million higher than we had kind of forecasted coming into the year um and so we had given some guidance that we'd expect to get north of 100 million uh year over year out of inventory as part of our working capital initiative this year. And I would just point out that that a hundred million doesn't translate to a hundred million of cash because between 75 and 80% of the inventory is floor plan. And so typically if you reduce inventory by a hundred million, you may get 20 million of cash. And so that would be the working capital component of it. And so that's the way I would look at it. So, you know, in terms of our guide of levered free cash flow of $50 million for the year, you're probably going to get between $30 and $40 million

on working capital. And then, Abe, let me just hit EPA 27 because it's a good question. I think we're in a really good spot, and there's three things that I always like to highlight when we talk about the impact. One is the age of the fleet. I think having 10,000 pieces in our fleet that are under three years, I think it positions us really well for the changes that are coming with with the new engines i think having inventory on the ground so chris mentioned we're just over seven seven and a half now and you know being at six months at the end of the year uh you know i think we'll be well positioned with kind of current model year chassis heading into heading into next year and then you know i think the last which you can't you know underestimate is just the strength of the relationship with our chassis oem partners and our dealers um and you know i think we're we're very well positioned you know as we continue to watch how you know how the mandate uh comes through and what some of the what some of the final rulings are from the epa around the warranty and some of the questions that are still open so i think we're in a good spot heading into

next year to address it thank you for the time thanks ed your next question comes from the line of manish samaya with kenter fitzgerald manish your line is open please go ahead a reminder to unmute locally if you'd like to ask a question hi can you hear me yeah okay wonderful um so uh

maybe ryan if you can just talk about uh some of the bottlenecks that could slow execution despite uh strong uh and markets uh that's question one and then maybe uh chris i know you touched on cash flow a little bit but i'm still trying to figure out uh what gives you or or i guess what's going to take over the next one or two quarters for you guys to raise free cash flow outlook

thank you sure uh i'll start with just bottlenecks i think we're in a good spot we're obviously watching our supply chain closely um as transmission you know seems to be very strong right now you know that's working closely with our suppliers so on the back end that's uh that airx who's our largest supplier on the transmission side and some of our pulling and stringing suppliers uh as well and then you know obviously working closely with our chassis suppliers um also you know so those are those are obviously those are typically larger trucks um uh typically all-wheel drive that axle so six by six and four by four chassis and so you know i think um it's just making sure that that supply chain continues to perform which it is um which it is currently but that you know that would be where the bottleneck would come uh if a bottleneck were

to show up and then i'll let chris take cash flow yeah on the free cash flow you know we talked a little bit about you know three major areas which are going to drive it obviously if you take the midpoint of our evita guidance that's going to be up 40 45 million year over year we also talked about the the rental uh rental capex the investment last year was a net investment so growth capex maintenance capex less the proceeds from the sales we had roughly 250 million last year and we said it's going to be you know meaningfully less than that this year in particular on the maintenance capex side you know roughly 100 million less and then the inventory that we were just talking about you know the bulk of that is going to come in the second half and typically our best free cash flow period is Q4. And so, you know, those are going to be the three main drivers. Incremental EBITDA, lower net rental CapEx, and then, you know, some of the working capital unlocked that I just talked about. Those will be the three main drivers.

Okay, wonderful. Chris, thank you so much. Ryan, best of luck as well.

Thanks, Manish.

There are no further questions at this time. We've reached the end of the Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to Ryan McMonigle for closing remarks.

Thanks everyone for your time today and your interest in Custom Truck. We appreciate the continued engagement and look forward to updating you next quarter. In the meantime, please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions. Thank you again and have a great day.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.