Construction Partners, Inc. Q2 FY2026 Earnings Call

Greetings, and welcome to the Construction Partners Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Rick Black of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners conference call to review second quarter fiscal 2026 results. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Relations section of constructionpartners.net. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, May 8, 2026. Please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay listening or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance, are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We will be making forward-looking statements as part of today's call that, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our earnings press release for our disclosure on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings press release. Construction Partners assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. And now I would like to turn the call over to Construction Partners' CEO, Jule Smith. Jule?

Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call. With me this morning are Greg Hoffman, our Chief Financial Officer; and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I'd like to begin by thanking our approximately 7,000 employees for their hard work and excellence in achieving a great second quarter, exceeding profitability expectations and growing backlog, which allows us to meaningfully raise our outlook for FY '26. While the financial results of focusing on our family of company's culture are hard to measure, we know that building a great culture does have a real impact on bottom line results. At CPI, we hold ourselves accountable by constantly measuring several key areas of cultural health. First, we focus on keeping a low turnover of employees, which increases the experience and stability of our workforce. Second, we strive to lower benefit costs, so we maximize the take-home pay to our employees' families. This helps us attract the most talented folks to our teams across all 110 local markets. And finally, every year, we survey all 7,000 employees for honest and candid feedback, which gives us vision on how to improve and innovate as a company. Maintaining this focus on our culture will continue to drive performance and produce great results. In Q2, we grew revenue, adjusted EBITDA and backlog. Favorable weather in the quarter provided the ability to advance work efficiently and exceed expectations. We play an outdoor game. And when we have dry weather, we can work more days and consequently increase our volumes. Looking at the cost environment during Q2, energy volatility had a limited impact on results due to the protection of the liquid asphalt index on more than 80% of our total revenue, the physical hedging of diesel fuel and the oil price hedging mechanism inherent to our vertical integration at the liquid asphalt terminals. Today, we source more than 50% of our liquid AC needs internally. As we look to the future relative to building our backlog, our pass-through cost model reacts quickly to rising commodity prices. Turning now to the demand environment. Construction project demand throughout our footprint remains strong for both public infrastructure work as well as commercial development for new construction. Our teams are actively bidding and building a wide range of commercial projects. A few examples to highlight. In Texas, Four Star Paving is working on a portfolio of eight data center projects totaling approximately $100 million of contract value. In Tennessee, our new acquisition, Four Star Paving, is currently working on 12 warehouse projects in the dynamic Metro Nashville market, totaling a contract value of approximately $28 million. And in Alabama, Wiregrass Construction is working on a Mag 7 data center in the Northeast region of the state valued at approximately $4 million. Taken together, these projects reflect an expanded backlog and pipeline of opportunities entering the second half of our fiscal year. These are just a few examples of the approximately 1,000 commercial sector projects we will participate in building this year across our eight and over 110 local markets. On the public side, both the federal and state governments are continuing their investment in infrastructure to keep up with the growing economies in the Sunbelt. This is particularly true with the small- and medium-sized recurring maintenance projects for state DOTs, cities and counties that represent a majority of our work. Some new public projects include: in the Houston area, Burwood Green has won several multimillion-dollar projects, which are part of the city's infrastructure preparations for the upcoming FIFA World Cup this summer. In North Carolina, Fred Smith Company won a contract for multiple road widenings and improvements valued at approximately $150 million to prepare for the U.S. Open's return to Pinehurst in 2029. And in the Florida Panhandle, CWR is working on a taxiway reconstruction project at Eglin Air Force Base added approximately $27 million. These projects represent just a few of the different types of public projects we are working on today. With respect to federal funding for the Surface Transportation program, we continue to engage in productive discussions with key members of Congress regarding reauthorization. Encouragingly, both parties and both chambers are actively working to release a markup of the bill this month to advance a new 5-year authorization somewhere in the $500 billion to $600 billion range. This would represent a substantial increase in investment in our nation's transportation infrastructure. Turning to our growth strategy. Last month, we completed our latest strategic acquisition with the purchase of Four Star Paving, the premier commercial paving contractor in the Nashville Metro area. I want to welcome all the great folks at Four Star Paving to the CPI family of companies. Their assets and customer relationships across Central Tennessee will serve as a valuable extension of our platform company in the state, PRI. Four Star represents our fourth acquisition in fiscal 2026 and our 17th since the beginning of fiscal 2024, underscoring the continued momentum of our disciplined M&A strategy. These acquisitions are all fully integrated and meaningfully contribute to the growth of our financial results. Today, the generational transition of family companies continues in our industry, and we have a robust pipeline of attractive acquisition opportunities across our existing footprint and adjacent states. We remain in active dialogue with a number of prospective sellers. We also remain focused on organic growth as a strong driver of shareholder value. Our new Gastonia, North Carolina greenfield will begin operations this quarter and soon will be servicing a large $60 million contract expanding and widening I-85 through Gaston County near Charlotte. As a key part of our organic growth, there are several more greenfield facilities that we plan to bring online later this year and early next year. Before turning the call over to Greg, I want to reiterate that our family of companies is now in our busy work season, executing on a record backlog and continuing to deliver excellence to our customers in both the public and private markets. As reflected in our revised guidance, we expect fiscal year 2026 to be another strong year, reinforcing our confidence in achieving our ROAD 2030 growth plan to double the size of the company, generate $1 billion of annual EBITDA and expand EBITDA margins to approximately 17%. And with that, I'd like to now turn the call over to Greg. Greg?

Thanks, Jule, and good morning, everyone. As Jule mentioned, we reported a strong second quarter, maintaining the outperformance we experienced in Q1 to start the year. I will review the quarter in more detail before discussing our raised outlook ranges. I'll start with a review of our key performance metrics for the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Revenue was $769.2 million, an increase of 35% compared to last year. The breakdown of this revenue growth was 11% organic and 24% acquisitive. For the fiscal 2026 year, we continue to anticipate organic growth of approximately 7% to 8%. Gross profit in the second quarter was $98.9 million, an increase of approximately 39% compared to last year. As a percentage of total revenues, gross profit was 12.9% compared to 12.5% last year. General and administrative expenses as a percentage of total revenue in the second quarter were 8.3% in FY '26 and 8.2% in FY '25. Net income was $9.2 million and adjusted net income was $10.4 million. Earnings per diluted share for adjusted net income was $0.18. Adjusted EBITDA was $93.3 million, an increase of 35% compared to last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 12.1%. You can find GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations of net income and adjusted EBITDA financial measures at the end of today's earnings release. Turning now to the balance sheet. We had $77 million of cash and cash equivalents and $150 million available under our credit facility at March 31, net of a reduction for outstanding letters of credit. As of the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing 12-month EBITDA ratio was 3.23x. We remain on pace with our strategy of reducing the leverage ratio to approximately 2.5x to support sustained profitable growth. To that end, we anticipate cash flow generated during the third quarter to fund the Four Star Paving acquisition without the need for additional long-term debt, demonstrating the strength of cash flow from our operating model. In the second quarter of fiscal 2026, cash flow from operations was $65.2 million, up from $55.6 million in Q2 of fiscal 2025. We expect to convert 75% to 85% of EBITDA to cash flow from operations in FY '26. These are our new ranges. Revenue in the range of $3.59 billion to $3.65 billion, net income in the range of $159 million to $162 million, adjusted net income in the range of $170.4 million to $174.2 million, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $552 million to $564 million and adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 15.38% to 15.45%. Lastly, as Jule mentioned, we had a project backlog of $3.14 billion at March 31, 2026. We have approximately 80% to 85% of the next 12 months contract revenue covered in backlog. And with that, we will open the call to questions. Operator?

Our first question will be from Kathryn Thompson with Thompson Research Group. We are having some technical difficulties. Please stand by.

Sorry, everyone. We appear to have technical difficulties right now. Operator, can you provide an update on being able to put in our questioners?

Just one moment, please, while we try to reconnect. I can take the next available question we have from Kathryn Thompson of Thompson Research Group.

All right. Well, it's the case of the Fridays. I wanted to follow up on — this has been a fairly active year with M&A. And as we think about modeling for the back half of the year, in light of companies you've acquired, how should we think about contribution from acquisitions, margin profile and any other factor we should think about when taking into account these acquisitions?

Yes. Kathryn, I'll speak to just the M&A environment since you asked, and I'll call on Ned, who works closely with us on growth strategy. And then Greg can give you sort of the modeling question. We've had a busy year with M&A. We continue to talk to a lot of folks in a number of states. We said that the three platform acquisitions we did last year would create opportunities in those states, and you saw that happen in Tennessee this past 30 days with Four Star Paving. So we're busy. We're talking to a lot of folks trying to make good decisions. I'm going to turn the call over to Ned and then Greg.

Thank you, Jule. I think, Kathryn, it's really interesting, having been part of this now for 26 years. We continue to see an industry that's in growth mode. I don't think anybody goes anywhere where they say, "Wow, the roads are perfect." So the demand curve for that with the voters has increased over time. You have a large growing industry. The demographics are still moving toward the Sunbelt, which is really our focus and will continue to be our focus. We see more and more people moving there, more and more businesses moving there. If you were to chart data centers, you would see more and more data centers moving there, which creates opportunities for us. And you still have an industry that's very fragmented where generational transition is happening; people every year are getting older. We see more and more opportunities. It's almost amazing. We see a lot of bolt-on opportunities because of the new states that we've entered. We're seeing real benefits in Texas from doing the acquisitions in Houston, and that's just a booming market, both from the standpoint of public services as well as private enterprise and commercial. The last piece is we still have no technological obsolescence. There are ways for us to utilize technology and AI, and there's some really terrific benefits for the company, and I think we're ahead of the curve on that. But AI is not going to lay asphalt or pave or grade the road. For us, I think we see an environment that's almost better today than it was 25 years ago for growth, and we see a lot of opportunities that we pass on. As you look to the back half of this year, you'll see us do some acquisitions that we think are strategic where it fits the culture and where there are great long-term benefits as we move into those territories, both bolt-ons. We also see new platforms in new states. I don't know that we'll do any of those at this stage of the game, but we certainly see them. So growth at this stage continues to be a bright future.

Yes, Kathryn. As far as your modeling questions, for the remaining 6 months, we'll have about $225 million to $235 million of acquisitive revenue. If you do the math there on the center of our guide, that puts us about right in the heart of that 7% to 8% organic growth with our 11% in Q2. Organic growth, that kind of is a 7% to 8% organic guide all year.

Okay. That's very helpful. And then you touched on in your prepared commentary some various jobs in major markets, Texas, Tennessee and along the East Coast. Are you seeing any change in the momentum either positive or negative with that reindustrialization trend? And maybe putting a finer point to it, if you look at the types of jobs that you have in your backlog today, how does it look today versus 2 years ago?

Yes, Kathryn. When we look at our backlog, as we've talked about for several years, we still have a good breakdown of public and commercial projects, but the commercial projects are much more weighted toward manufacturing, corporate centers and warehouses. The reindustrialization trend that started with COVID supply chain shifts and has accelerated this past year to 18 months is affecting our opportunities. There's no question. Q1, our country had record investment in capital infrastructure, and the Sunbelt states are getting a lot of that investment. An article came out this week that NVIDIA and Corning are investing $2.7 billion in three facilities in North Carolina and Texas. Those are two of our key states, and we're going to look to participate in that investment. So I would say that reindustrialization is a tailwind for the next several years.

The next question is from Rohit Seth of B. Riley Securities.

This is just on the liquid AC and the diesel and the energy shock. Is there any sort of timing delay between when you incur those costs and when you get the rebates from the DOTs on the escalators as we think about going into the third quarter?

Yes, Rohit. No, actually not. They're settled monthly in the progress payment that we get from the states. From the time we bid the job, the index is set at the bid date and compared to the date we made it. Then in that month, that settlement is done in that month's payment.

Okay. All right. And then just regarding the IIJA reauthorization and your ROAD 2030 target, when you contemplated ROAD 2030, were you of the view that funding level is going to come out to the $500 billion to $600 billion that you mentioned in the prepared remarks?

Yes, Rohit, that's a good question. I would say the answer is no. We anticipate that each year, the investment in infrastructure at the federal level will go up because it always has. But we don't assume a large increase tied to a specific reauthorization. We don't model a 20% to 40% increase even if the reauthorization were in the $500 billion to $600 billion range. That would be nice and beneficial for the country, but we model normal mid-single-digit annual increases, which is what's happened for the last three decades.

Okay, fantastic. And then on the data centers, you mentioned several data centers. Is that becoming a more sizable portion of your book? Is there a way to frame the size of the impacts relative to the size of the business at the moment?

Yes. I would say that data centers are becoming more of a part of what we do because more are being built in our markets. As we get involved with the people building data centers, we build relationships and that allows us more opportunity to participate up front, help them plan their projects and participate as they're built. We see data centers as a very good opportunity across a number of our states given the investment being discussed for the next five years.

The next question is from Michael Feniger of Bank of America. I do apologize. It looks like Michael — we just lost his connection. So we'll just go to the next questioner for now, Andrew Wittmann of Baird.

I guess I just wanted to dig in a little bit more on crude here. Maybe, Greg, first, can you talk about what the crude energy assumptions are in this revised guidance? Obviously, the margin percentage range didn't change very much, but I still wanted to understand how you're thinking about that. And maybe just to kind of put a stake in the ground, can you quantify the impact year-over-year that those prices did have in the one month of the quarter that was affected?

Sure. Diesel and natural gas run our equipment in our plants. Liquid AC goes into making hot mix asphalt. Our guide is cautious; we're concerned about the future like everyone is. But we don't think it will make a huge difference for us because liquid AC at our terminals is driving a partial offset and diesel has not moved materially in a way that changes our view. Natural gas has been steady. It really didn't have much impact in the quarter.

But my understanding is you use FIFO accounting on your liquid AC in your terminals. Can you remind us how many months of production you have there, recognizing that you said you supply about 50% of your own liquid AC. Are you bought under contract for the other 50%? I know you have pass-through for 80% with the customers. I'm just trying to understand how FIFO accounting is a factor, if at all.

Yes. If you were following liquids in the quarter, pricing actually was going down for the first couple of months. Our average pricing in the terminals was less than it was a year ago, less than $9.30 per ton. As prices go up, the value in those terminals increases, which is powerful for us. We have about 2 to 2.5 months of availability of liquid at this time of year.

Okay. And then just maybe a final one. Jule, as we're getting into the busy season, could you talk about your April awards? Backlog sequentially had a lot of burn but was kind of flattish organically. As we go into the busy season, what's your expectation for book-to-bill for the rest of the year? Will you continue to see book-to-bill above 1?

As I've said many times, we're pleased with the amount of opportunities we have to bid. On the private side in our markets, we're still seeing good opportunity, and on the public side, state and local DOT contract awards will be up this year somewhere between 10% to 15% overall. We're bidding a lot of opportunities, but with the size of the backlog we have, we can bid patiently, which we're doing. I feel like backlog will continue to build. Historically, backlog has gone down sequentially in our busy season. For the last 20 quarters, it's gone up. It would not surprise us or bother us if it went down sequentially in our busy season; that would be fine. We hope to have the weather and the opportunity to burn off a lot of backlog in the next two quarters, and we're going to continue to build it.

The next question is from Michael Feniger of Bank of America.

I guess the first question: with these data centers, obviously large projects, is this changing your overall average project? Does your risk profile change at all as you do more private work for these big projects? You have historically done a lot of smaller-scale projects. I'm curious if the risk profile is evolving with these larger projects.

That's a fair question because when I highlight projects, I don't necessarily highlight the $2 million or $3 million county resurfacing jobs, which are still the vast majority of what we do. I don't think our risk profile has gone up. We have always had larger projects on both the commercial and public sides. Our overall average project size hasn't changed materially other than inflation. Our strategy remains the same: work on many projects in the $2 million to $3 million range that have less risk and higher margins, while continuing to participate in data center projects in our markets.

Yes. To add on the liquid asphalt and diesel question: when prices go up, there will be a slight headwind; when they go down, a slight tailwind. We're not immune, but we've evolved since the last spike. Terminal ownership, storage capabilities, vertical integration and a more mature hedging program for diesel and natural gas help mitigate volatility. We're not trying to manage 100% of the risk away, but we do manage some of that risk.

Helpful. One more: if we wake up in a couple of months and it's a continuing resolution, how do you see DOTs responding? Do they pivot to more private work or continue as-is? How are people on the ground thinking about this heading into October?

Working under a continuing resolution is something we've done several times. It largely feels like business as usual. States continue to work because they are still funding, and a CR would likely fund at the same levels. If there were a CR this fall going into 2027, it would be at record levels because 2026 is a record investment year. States would likely continue maintenance jobs and small- and medium-sized projects; they might delay mega projects until there's certainty. For what we do, it's very much business as usual.

It's an interesting question. Historically, six of the eight years of the prior administration had continuing resolutions, and we continued to grow this business at over 20% a year. So it's business as usual. The states understand how to operate under CRs. We don't anticipate it being the length of time seen historically.

The next question is from Adam Thalhimer of Thompson, Davis & Company.

Can you provide some additional details on Four Star? I'm curious how it fits with existing Tennessee assets and how many employees they have.

If I remember correctly, there are about 150 employees in Tennessee. It's a great fit. PRI, our platform company in Tennessee, does a lot of public work and pavement preservation. Four Star does a different type of work. We've known Four Star for years. They're a great customer in Nashville and the premier commercial paving contractor in the Nashville Metro area. They work about a 70 to 80-mile radius around Nashville and have deep relationships with developers and general contractors in a fast-growing market. We're excited about what they bring to the table.

Nice. Thanks for that. You said over 50% of liquid asphalt is supplied internally. Do you have a goal to raise that up, or is that the right percentage long term?

Good question. First, over 80% of our use is indexed; many private contracts have an index. Over half of what we use now is internally sourced. It's our goal to grow that as part of our vertical integration strategy to enhance margin profile by sourcing more liquid internally at wholesale and selling at retail. That's a big part of our strategy, and our goal is to increase that percentage over time.

There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

We want to thank everybody for joining us today, and we look forward to talking in the future.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.