Earnings Call Transcript - FIX Q1 2025

Operator, Operator

Thank you for joining us for Comfort Systems USA's First Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. All participants are currently in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will have a question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call over to Julie Shaeff, Chief Accounting Officer. Please proceed.

Julie Shaeff, Chief Accounting Officer

Thanks, Latif. Good morning. Welcome to Comfort Systems USA's first quarter 2025 earnings call. Our comments today, as well as our press releases, contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable securities laws and regulations. What we will say today is based upon the current plans and expectations of Comfort Systems USA. Those plans and expectations include risks and uncertainties that might cause actual future activities and results of our operations to be materially different from those in these comments. You can read a detailed listing and commentary concerning our specific risk factors in our most recent Form 10-K and Form 10-Q as well as in our press release covering these earnings. A slide presentation is provided as a companion to our remarks and is posted on the Investor Relations section of the company's website found at comfortsystemsusa.com. Joining me on the call today are Brian Lane, President and Chief Executive Officer; Bill George, Chief Financial Officer; and Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer. Brian will open our remarks.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Okay. Thanks, Julie. Good morning and thank you for joining our call today. We are reporting earnings per share that exceed every past quarter, a remarkable accomplishment given that the first quarter is historically our seasonally weakest period. These results reflect a promising start to 2025. Same-store revenue growth for the first quarter was 15% and our margins are strong. We earned $4.75 per share this quarter, up more than 75% from last year. Backlog at the end of the quarter grew to a new high of nearly $7 billion. We continue to experience broad based strength, including persistent strong demand from our tech customers. Thanks to strong first quarter bookings, we are going into the second quarter of 2025 with same-store growth in both sequential and year-over-year backlog. We continue to be disciplined with our capital allocation strategy. As previously announced, we added Century Contractors as our newest partner company in January of this year. Century is an excellent mechanical contractor based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we expect they will earn about $90 million of revenue this year. We also announced another increase to our quarterly dividend by $0.05 to $0.45 per share, and we continue to purchase our shares. These actions reflect our commitment to reward our shareholders while maintaining a strong balance sheet. Against the backdrop of these strong results, we are of course deeply aware of what is happening with tariffs in our economy, and we are preparing for a wide range of possible conditions. If tariffs and other policy changes hurt the economy or make construction more expensive, that will impact our customers and that would in turn impact us. Most of these things we cannot control. So we are focused on project execution, recruiting and retaining the best labor force in the industry, and selecting the best projects for our valuable workforce. We feel fortunate to have the markets, focus, customers, and geographies that we are in. Although events are developing quickly, demand for large and complex projects is ongoing. With record broad based backlog, persistent demand in advanced technology, onshoring trends, and especially thanks to our amazing people, we expect continuing strong results in 2025 and we are optimistic for continuing success into 2026. Trent will discuss our business and outlook in a few minutes. But first, I will turn this call over to Bill to review our financial performance. Bill?

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Brian. Good morning, everyone. This quarter was a really great start to 2025. So revenue for the first quarter was $1.8 billion, an increase of 19% compared to last year. Same-store revenue increased by 15% or $237 million with the remaining $57 million increase resulting from acquisitions. Our revenue increased in both segments with an increase of 22% in our Electrical segment, while our Mechanical segment revenue increased by 18%. Both segments benefited from strong demand, particularly in the technology sector. We face high comparables for the remainder of 2025, and our estimate is that same-store revenue will increase for full year 2025 by high-single-digit percentage growth. Gross profit was $403 million for the first quarter of 2025, a $106 million improvement compared to a year ago. Our gross profit percentage grew to 22% this quarter compared to 19.3% for the first quarter of 2024. The quarterly gross profit percentage in our Electrical segment improved to 23.0% this year compared to 22.6% last year. Margins in our Mechanical segment grew by over 3% to 21.7% compared to 18.4% in the first quarter of 2024. We currently expect that gross profit margins will continue in the strong ranges that we have achieved in the last several quarters. SG&A expense for the quarter was $195 million compared to $163 million in the same quarter of 2024. SG&A expense as a percentage of revenue was consistent at 10.6% for both periods. We continue to invest in training and technology to provide our workforce with the best tools to meet the demands of complex projects needed by our customers. Our operating income increased by 54% from last year from $135 million in the first quarter of 2024 to $209 million for the first quarter of 2025. With improved gross profit margins, our operating income percentage increased from 8.8% to 11.4%, a truly remarkable performance in the first quarter. Our quarter-to-date effective tax rate was 18.6% compared to 21.7% in 2024. Our effective tax rate this quarter was lower due to interest we received on a delayed refund by the IRS associated with our 2022 federal tax return. We received the $118 million refund in April 2025, including $11 million of interest. Excluding this item, our effective tax rate would have been approximately 23% in the current quarter, and we expect our tax rate for the last three quarters of 2025 to continue in the 23% range, with the full year effective rate a bit lower due to the discrete benefit recorded this quarter. After considering all these factors, net income for the first quarter of 2025 was $169 million or $4.75 per share and that compares to net income for the first quarter of 2024 of $96 million or $2.69 per share. Per share earnings include a benefit of $0.25 per share related to the interest on our tax refund. EBITDA increased by 43% to $243 million this quarter from $170 million in the first quarter of 2024, reflecting great execution by our teams and strong demand in our markets. And our EBITDA for the 12 months ending with the first quarter is $965 million. Our free cash flow was negative $109 million in the first quarter. Free cash flow has two large discrete impacts this quarter from a major turnaround of advanced customer payments and a catch-up tax payment that we had deferred from last year. As Brian mentioned, this quarter we experienced much of the long awaited cash flow turnaround. As we have been discussing for several quarters, our operating cash flow has benefited from advanced payments from customers in our modular operations. Much of that effect abated this quarter. In addition to the turnaround of most of our advanced customer payments in the first quarter, we made a federal tax payment of approximately $80 million this quarter that would normally have been paid in the second half of last year. That was because we were able to defer that payment due to Hurricane Beryl, which was a federally declared disaster in Houston during 2024. We also funded significant earn-out payments for acquisitions, approximately $80 million in the first quarter of 2025, and $34 million of those payments were required to be reflected as a reduction to operating cash flow. Given the magnitude of these three reductions to cash flow, the turnaround for advance purchases, our hurricane deferred payments, and earn-out funding, the fact that our cash flow netted to only $109 million negative signifies remarkably strong underlying cash flow this quarter. We also purchased more shares than usual in the first quarter, and although it did not affect our cash flow, share repurchases this quarter were also a notable use of cash as we returned $92 million to shareholders by buying over 264,000 shares. Finally, this quarter we funded the Century acquisition that Brian talked about. So with all of these uses of cash and other factors affecting our cash, we believe that ending the quarter with net cash of over $130 million together with our strong prospects for ongoing cash flow, places us in a remarkably strong position to continue to invest in our business to grow and to continue to reward our shareholders. And this quarter’s balance sheet performance strengthens our optimism about our ongoing prospects. That’s what I got. Trent?

Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer

Thanks, Bill. Brian has asked me to comment on our business operations and provide an assessment of our outlook. Backlog at the end of the first quarter was a record $6.9 billion, a same-store increase in both sequential and year-over-year backlog. Same-store sequential backlog was up $848 million or 14%, while same-store year-over-year backlog was up $930 million or 16%. First quarter bookings were especially strong in the technology sector. Our companies are collaborating more than ever before to deliver superior mechanical and electrical solutions for our customers. Our revenue mix continues to trend towards the industrial sector, with this sector accounting for 62% of our volume in the first quarter. Industrial continues to be a major driver of pipeline and backlog. Technology, which we report in industrial and which includes data centers and chip fabrication, was 37% of our total revenue, a substantial increase from 30% in the prior year. Advanced technology is currently the largest component of our overall revenue. Institutional markets including education, health care, and government are also strong and represent 24% of our revenue. The commercial sector now accounts for about 14% of revenue and most of our commercial sector revenue flows through our service activities. Construction accounted for 85% of our revenue with projects for new buildings representing 58% and existing building construction 27%. Overall modular revenue in the first quarter was 19% of our total revenue and we now have over 2.5 million square feet of production and storage space for our modular operations. We include modular in new building construction because we consider it off-site construction. Our modular projects average well over $20 million. Service revenue was up 10% this year on an absolute basis, but with faster growth in construction, service is now 15% of total revenue. Service profitability was strong this quarter and service continues to be a growing and reliable source of profit and cash flow. Before I turn the call over for questions, I want to join Brian and Bill in thanking our over 19,000 employees for their hard work and dedication. Comfort Systems' success is a direct result of the people that serve our customers every single day. We are now going to turn this call back to Latif for questions. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our first question comes from Alex Dwyer of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead, Alex.

Alex Dwyer, Analyst

Hey, Brian, Bill, Trent and Julie, thanks for taking my questions here. So I just wanted to start and ask about the intact revenue and margin guidance, especially in light of the stronger start to the year and the backlog growth that kind of reaccelerated this quarter. The intact guidance implies a deceleration through the rest of the year. And I know you guys tend to be conservative with your guidance; you did mention the additional macro uncertainty here. So I just wanted to learn a little bit more about the thought process and guidance, and if you can talk a little bit about that.

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

If you don’t mind, I don’t think anything has changed from the point of view of our prospects, the way we are experiencing our prospects, the way that we are seeing demand develop in our markets. However, we had already mentioned that last year, we had increasingly tough comparables as the year progressed, especially in the third and fourth quarters. So the reason that we stuck with the high-single-digit growth for revenue was just because we have some much higher comparables that we will be facing year-over-year later this year. As far as margins go, we've been at very high margins, and we really believe we will stay at those high margins. We just printed sort of all-time high margins. We can’t say, oh, that’s the new minimum, but we feel very, very good about our ability to continue to perform and make good margins.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Yes. So, Alex, we are getting good pricing, really superior execution in the field. So I think, Bill is right. We can keep those margins, and I think we’ll sign up for them.

Alex Dwyer, Analyst

Yes. Okay. Got it. Thank you. And I guess staying on the margins, can you just talk a little bit about how your contracts are structured in the event of potential cost inflation or supply chain challenges, how well protected you are and how quickly you can pass these on to customers? Because I think last time in COVID, there was some margin pressure in the business. And I'm just wondering what we should expect this time around, how manageable you think this could be and what lessons were learned last time?

Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer

Yes. So I’ll take that, Alex. So we are pricing and supply chain, it's a day-to-day kind of hand-to-hand combat thing for our teams. They are very good at it though. This is what they do. This is their experience and our project managers and teams are very, very good at extracting the most possible value out of what the supply chain gives it. Right? Obviously with tariffs, we are in an uncertain time and our teams are having to manage to that. I like our chances. We are very good with regard to our contractual risk and getting proactively involved at the local level with our suppliers, with our customers, making sure that we are really distinguishing ourselves from our competition. Also, when you think about most of our competition, they don’t have the scale or heft that we have with regard to these issues. And they certainly don’t have the ability to collaborate across companies to provide information about supply chain changes. So all in, tariffs are uncertain, right? It’s an environment to predict. But I like the chances for our team to be successful in any environment.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

And, Alex, you mentioned we’ve been through this before. We do have a lot of experiences that we went through COVID in particular. So we get paid to manage the challenges in the business, and we’ll do that.

Alex Dwyer, Analyst

Thank you, guys. I’ll turn it over here.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Julio Romero of Sidoti and Company. Please go ahead, Julio.

Julio Romero, Analyst

Thanks. Hey, good morning, everybody. Maybe just staying on the last question here and thinking about all the uncertainties. We have trade uncertainty, tariff uncertainty, but we also touched last quarter on the data center CapEx uncertainty. So maybe if you guys could maybe rank order the uncertainties out there for us in terms of order of magnitude and how you’re viewing them internally.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

All right. So we will let Bill do that one.

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Regarding cost pressure, during COVID, we did not really experience any. There were a couple of quarters that were down, mostly due to shutdowns in places like Austin and Michigan, where even hospital repairs were halted. Overall, our margins performed exceptionally well. While service experienced slight margin compression in the first 9 to 12 months post-COVID, construction excelled, and both sectors thrived the following year. We're confident in how we've handled previous challenges, and while future difficulties could arise, they were much more severe during that time. In terms of tariff and technology demand uncertainty, we recently spoke with our team that engages closely with our customers. There’s no indication of a decrease in the need for electricians, pipe fitters, and plumbers for data center projects and other sectors. While this situation could change, it hasn't yet. Experts in our industry indicate that demand for computing and data capacity was already high before the tariff announcements, and we believe that demand remains unchanged. It may evolve in the future, but so far, it has not.

Julio Romero, Analyst

Okay, great. That is helpful. So it sounds like your experience during the COVID years helps you be more comfortable with inflationary impacts and then also you’re not seeing a level of demand destruction as of this moment. Maybe if you could speak to what you are hearing from your customers and your suppliers as to what their biggest uncertainties are and how that could affect Comfort Systems?

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

I'll discuss our suppliers briefly, and then Trent or Brian can address our customers since I've covered that. From our suppliers, you may notice a 4% or 6% increase from some of them. We have thousands of suppliers, but hundreds are critical. Some have implemented price increases, but they tend to do 4% and 6% increases regularly, making it difficult to determine what's due to tariffs. Tariffs often serve as a justification for price hikes, but we haven't seen major changes in that regard. Post-COVID, our team has become much more proactive about securing supplies a year or two in advance, mainly due to availability rather than just price. Currently, we are generally moving forward with purchases for anticipated needs. We might not be negotiating as extensively, but I don’t think there are significant changes affecting pricing that would be noticeable in our results.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Julio, one thing that we really have going for us at Comfort Systems is we are a large specialty contractor. Some of these are larger projects. The customers need someone with a strong balance sheet, a workforce that’s deep in which we have that. There are only a few of us in the country that can handle these larger jobs. So we are really in good shape to satisfy our customers' requirements of some of this larger, more complex work as we said in the script. So, we are really good positioned. And if you look at this on-shoring opportunity that might be coming forward, we are in a great geographic location to handle that. And we have the depth of the skill set to do it as well. So I really like our position right now. It’s worth the work that’s out there.

Julio Romero, Analyst

Great. Just to sum it up, it sounds like your scale and your experience in prior periods are the key differentiators this time around. Is that fair?

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely, Julio. Yes.

Julio Romero, Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks for all the color, guys. I’ll pass it on.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Josh Chan of UBS. Your line is open, Josh.

Josh Chan, Analyst

Hi. Good morning, Brian, Bill, Trent, and Julie. Congrats on a good quarter.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Hi. Thanks, Josh.

Josh Chan, Analyst

I guess, could you talk about the project bidding pipeline, say that demand continues to be strong? Maybe talk about what helped add to your backlog this quarter? And then also, how have you been continuing to add to the backlog and orders since the tariff announcement? Thanks.

Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer

Yes, so Josh, what contributed to our backlog this quarter was just broad-based bookings across the majority of our companies. So we had just strength across the entire business in bookings. That was driven largely by what we talked about on the script, which was advanced tech industrial bookings. In our pipeline, we continue to see really, really good visibility out into the field. A lot of these projects are large; the things that are in our pipeline are large projects being planned. They have long timelines. We find out about them well before the ground gets broken on the site. So a lot of that is in our pipeline right now. We can see it visibility-wise. So we are comfortable in saying that we continue as Bill said earlier, we continue to see strength with our customers. They are continuing to move forward with their plans. So that’s what we’re seeing.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Yes, I just want to add on one sector; manufacturing and the industrial gets a lot of attention, but health care has picked up. It’s now up to 10% of our business, but the actual dollars have increased. So I’m really optimistic, look at the aging population we have. I think health care is going to be a pretty consistently growing opportunity for us.

Josh Chan, Analyst

Great. Thank you, Brian and Trent. I guess maybe a question on your backlog trajectory, just to clarify the typical pattern here. So obviously, you had a good sequential ramp in backlog in Q1. So how do you expect backlog to trend through the year, through the summer quarters?

Brian Lane, President and CEO

If you examine Comfort Systems over the past 10 to 20 years, you'll notice that we typically build our backlog in the fourth and first quarters and tend to reduce it in the second and third quarters. This is primarily due to revenue; we utilize more of the backlog in those middle quarters. Additionally, historically, people in our industry tend to finalize their bookings during the winter. I've noticed this has been especially true in modular for the past three to four years, more so than in other areas of our business. I can't say whether our backlog will increase by the end of the second or third quarter, but I do know our pipeline is very strong. I don’t think my perspective on comfort will change unless we start receiving different signals. We have all the work we can handle and expect to maintain that capacity. There doesn’t appear to be much spare time for electricians looking for work in the near term.

Josh Chan, Analyst

Yes. Yes. That makes a lot of sense. Maybe I can ask a quick follow-up. So I think Bill, you mentioned that comps are tougher in the second half. But I think last year, Q2 was also a really strong quarter. So I guess, how are you thinking about the relative toughness of all the comps that you’re going to face the rest of the year? Thank you.

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

We are comfortable with the margin comparisons. Revenue tends to be inconsistent for us. However, as we've scaled, it has become less variable over the years due to the increase in our projects. Predicting revenue can be challenging. We feel more confident about estimating it for the remainder of the year compared to any single quarter. However, I believe that achieving a high-single-digit growth is quite feasible.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

I will say this, we are full. We have plenty of work to do and there’s no shortage of opportunities, so we will be busy.

Josh Chan, Analyst

Great. Yes, thanks for the color guys and good luck in the rest of the year.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman of D. A. Davidson & Co. Please go ahead, Brent.

Brent Thielman, Analyst

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Good morning.

Brent Thielman, Analyst

I guess, yes, just on the disaggregation of the different end markets, the manufacturing sector was down in the first quarter. Is that more a consequence of just focusing your resources to these other end markets, or why would you see that just given the strength you’ve been seeing there?

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

The reality is, and I don’t blame people. They think of these different markets as sort of these independent things, and we sell what's available. But realistically, our guys are picking the work that they choose to take, and they’re picking it based on what's going to be good for their people, where they have a history with customers that have treated them well over time, and based on the gross margin, gross profit per hour, gross profit dollars that they can get per hour that they go dedicate to that work. So when you see movement between sectors, especially at a time like this, it’s almost always just our guys pick different where like, probably, they got lured more into the tech stuff because that's where they had the best opportunities. I don’t think there's any concern right now about demand in manufacturing.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

And, Brent, as you know, when you get these bigger jobs, they’re going to be lumpier. So you could win a manufacturing job tomorrow, and it will be lumpy in the second quarter. Some of that’s that, but the bookings, especially the bookings actually going into the end of this year, in manufacturing.

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, for sure.

Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer

Some of it’s just timing.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Yes.

Brent Thielman, Analyst

Got it. So the manufacturing side is more likely to ramp up moving forward.

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. We have the opportunity to do more in terms of absolute dollar amounts. Whether our team decides to take on more will depend on what other opportunities they identify. I believe there is potential, and I am confident that we will indeed pursue it. Once the bookings we made in the fourth quarter of last year begin to generate revenue later this year, you will see an increase in activity.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Yes, we are not concerned about the manufacturing opportunities, Brent.

Brent Thielman, Analyst

Yes, good. Yes, that’s what I was looking for. There’s been a lot, you’ve had some of the public OEMs on the HVAC side out recently. I guess I wanted to ask you guys on Mechanical. Have you seen any impact early this year just related to the whole HVAC refrigerant transition? Did it have any impact on your activity or bookings positive or negative? I know it’s temporary, but I’m just trying to understand how that implicates your business.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Yes. Yes. No. We are not we haven’t impacted at all. Brent, I think you’re right. It’s mostly for the OEMs at this point. There’s not much of that equipment with that refrigerant in it that we'd be servicing. So it has impacted us, and I don’t think it’s going to.

Brent Thielman, Analyst

Okay. Would it help you going forward, Brian?

Brian Lane, President and CEO

No. I don’t I think it’ll be neutral. I don’t think so.

Brent Thielman, Analyst

Okay. Okay. And then just last one was just on the balance sheet. I mean, it sounds like you’re going to be building cash back up here pretty quickly in the coming quarters, Bill. But when you think about just the scale of the backlog, the overall pipeline, it sounds pretty good. Is there a minimum level of cash you want to keep on the balance sheet as we go forward?

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

If I had my preference, I would prefer to have no cash on the balance sheet, no debt, and no cash at all. To be honest, there is no minimum requirement. However, we will likely start to build cash as the year progresses. We are definitely in discussions about acquisitions, although we have mentioned this before. We are currently focused on making deals only when we have a strong conviction since we've completed many significant acquisitions recently, and they have all gone well. We do not overlook opportunities; we acquire companies when they are ready to sell, typically those we have a relationship with and are strong contenders. It’s difficult to predict exactly, but if I had to guess, I think our cash reserves will increase a bit as we move through the year. Also, you will need to inform me about our stock price movements. We invested $92 million in the first quarter on shares because we believed we could purchase them at 12 times trailing EBITDA, which we considered a great use of our capital as it allows us to increase our modular and manufacturing capabilities. We are very open to buying shares if the market values Comfort at prices that align with our acquisition metrics. We truly value our companies. Yes, we love our business and believe it is exceptional.

Brent Thielman, Analyst

Rightfully so. Thanks, guys. I’ll pass it on.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Thanks, Brent.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Brian Brophy of Stifel. Please go ahead, Brian.

Brian Brophy, Analyst

Thanks. Good morning, everybody. Congrats on a very nice quarter.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Thank you.

Brian Brophy, Analyst

Yes, I wanted to ask on SG&A leverage. Historically, it’s been kind of a net source of margin expansion for you guys, that slowed a little bit this quarter. Just curious how you’re thinking about SG&A leverage for this year.

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

I’m very pleased about this as our percentage remains consistent at 10.6% for both last year and this year, which aligns with what we communicated. I believe we have reached a point where the SG&A leverage has mostly played out. Previously, we were achieving substantial SG&A leverage of 0.3 to 0.5 every few quarters. While it's possible to continue seeing some SG&A leverage, I don’t expect large whole percentage point improvements. Most likely, I hope to be proven wrong, but I wouldn't count on SG&A leverage as a significant contributor to additional net income since we've already benefited greatly from it. The truth is we are investing in SG&A because we see the potential of this business and aim for growth.

Brian Brophy, Analyst

Understood. Yes, that’s helpful. And then just one more on the working capital unwind that you guys saw in the quarter with that large customer. Was that the full 300 million that you guys have talked about in the past that got unwound here? Or is there more to yes, point down the road? And I guess, are there any other large cash items we should be thinking about for the rest of the year?

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

I’m glad you asked. We had around mid-200 million that went to one customer, which accounted for two thirds to three quarters of our remaining balance with them. Is it going to go to zero? I’m not sure, but I believe it will. We think that is mostly behind us. If there is more, and there likely is, we expect there could be another hundred million to go to that customer, maybe a bit more, along with one or two other customers, but primarily it’s one customer. Additionally, you might have noticed we received a $107 million tax payment in April. I mentioned this in my script, or maybe I didn’t, but it’s included in the K and Q. By the end of the day, that represents cash flow in the second quarter, which we believe will offset the additional payments we will make. Thus, I don’t think you will see this reflected in our numbers. We have been publishing for over two years about advanced cash to ensure there are no surprises. That slide will no longer be included. Given the changes in the second quarter, it’s in the past, and we should now return to just cash flowing our net income.

Brian Brophy, Analyst

Understood. Very helpful. I’ll pass it on. All right. Thanks, Brian.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Thalhimer of Thompson Davis. Please go ahead, Adam.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst

Good morning, guys.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Hey, Adam.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst

Hey, sorry if I missed this or you already said it, but when you think about the impact of the tariffs, if any, in April, can you help quantify the actual impact on the prices that you’re giving to customers?

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

On prices, it's generally not noticeable. While I'm not saying it won't be, we primarily base our pricing on labor costs. We calculate our expenses for other cost components, and if we engage subcontractors, we ensure we cover those costs while managing associated risks. We estimate the costs for equipment and materials we'll use and often secure quotes for major equipment before providing estimates to clients since these items are highly specified. For commodities and materials, we purchase them as soon as we’re awarded the job, and sometimes we make purchases opportunistically even before securing jobs. Additionally, we have a track record of receiving support from our customers when circumstances change, and we also return that support when favorable situations arise, as we value these long-term relationships. We are uncertain about the impact of tariffs and broader economic conditions. However, our customers influence our business, and we will respond to how these changes affect them. If there is still a demand for building projects, we are poised to meet that demand with our expertise. Conversely, if interest in construction wanes, we won’t pursue projects without customers. Fortunately, there is significant demand, and as Brian mentioned, we believe we are positioned well in solid markets and verticals, benefiting from favorable timing despite prevailing trends.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst

Got it. And that’s what I’m really trying to get at is to what extent customers are getting sticker shock, in April versus March, if that’s happening at all.

Brian Lane, President and CEO

Not yet. No. Too soon to tell, Adam, really. Question.

Trent McKenna, Chief Operating Officer

Yes. And then to what extent does your Q1 '25 backlog give you visibility into '26?

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

I mean, if you look at, so we are strong this year. We obviously looking at opportunities going to 2026. I think we have more backlog for 2026 at this point in the year than we’ve ever had. So, that’s why we said in the script that we are very optimistic about 2026. Also looking at opportunities on some of the longer-term stuff in '27 and '28, but I think we are feeling good about '26 knowing what we’ve already seen come our way.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys.

Bill George, Chief Financial Officer

All right. Take care, Adam.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Brian Lane for closing remarks. Sir?

Brian Lane, President and CEO

All right, thank you. I want to thank everyone for being on the call with us today. As we have mentioned, our first quarters have always been seasonally lower for us. However, as certain parts of our business such as modular have grown and within an increasing portion of our revenues in markets that do not get as cold such as Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas, seasonality has become less pronounced over the last several years. Even with those trends, this was an especially strong quarter. And I am frankly in awe of what our amazing teams across the country continue to accomplish. I am grateful for their hard work and we will continue to work hard for our people, our customers, and those who have chosen to invest with us. Thank you again. And we look forward to seeing many of you in the coming months. Have a great weekend. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.