Operator
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Worthington Enterprises Fiscal Year 2027 First Quarter Earnings 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 Marcus Ragier, Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer. Marcus, please go ahead.
Thank you, Paige. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Worthington Enterprises' first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call. On the call today are Joe Hayek, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Colin Souza, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made during today's call are forward-looking in nature and subject to risk and uncertainties that can cause actual results to to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For more information on these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our earnings release issued yesterday after the market closed, which is available on the investor relations section of our website. Additionally, our remarks today will include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can also be found in the earnings release. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be available later on our website at worthingtonenterprises.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Joe for opening remarks. Thank you, Marcus. Good morning, everyone.
Welcome to Worthington Enterprises Fiscal 2027 First Quarter Earnings Call. We had a strong start to Fiscal 2027. While we face the market and operating headwinds, our team continues to execute, serve our customers, and make progress on our strategic conditions. I want to thank my folks' creativity and grit they bring to Worthington every day. In Q1, we grew sales by 13% year-over-year, including 7% organically. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 10% to $74 million, and we generated $54 million of free cash flow, nearly double the prior year of quarter. Adjusted EPS was $0.82 compared with $0.78 a year ago. We continued to deploy capital thoughtfully in the quarter, including the reverses of 335 000 shares of our common stock while we're pleased with our progress the quarter was not without challenges face headwinds in our cooling and construction business as channel inventories are right sized and new home sales are muted demand for newly mandated a2l refrigerant cylinders is lower than it was a year ago creating a difficult comparison additionally steel availability across the industry remains tight and lead times in the quarter were extended from disruptions in production and scheduling for both cooling and construction and for our balloon classes. Our teams are actively working through these issues every day, prioritizing our customers and ensuring that we are the best partner that we can be. While we face some headwinds in the quarter, our performance was a reflection of our businesses and our people. Resilient, strong sales and even dog growth as that team continues executing at a high level is performing very well as our 80-20 work matures and helps us focus on resources on the products and opportunities that create the most value. Wave and Clark-Dietrich also delivered higher equity earnings and were important contributors in the quarter. When we optimize and grow Worthington, our strategy is not complicated. Transformation to improve our businesses, disciplined M&A to add capabilities and strengthen our portfolio, and innovation to grow organically where we have attractive opportunities, 80-20 to optimize our businesses and allocate resources where they matter most and are now extending that discipline into our portable fuel and torch businesses. Continuing to improve productivity through automation, AI-enabled tools, and other transformation initiatives. And we're focused on opportunities where we believe we can bring unique advantages as an owner and create long-term value. Our integration of LSI continues to progress well and there we're focused on reaching more prospective customers and introducing them to LSI's compelling value proposition. Time this morning on organic growth because we're increasingly seeing our innovation capabilities translate into meaningful commercial opportunities. One of the most topical examples of the kind of organic growth opportunities we're trying to create and develop at Worthington is our engineered ASME tanks. These engineered tanks have played an important role in commercial buildings across the world for decades. It generates significantly more heat, data center designers and operators are cooling fluids used in liquid cooling systems, and as such are a critical component, market leader in these engineered ASME tanks for years, consistently been plus or minus $200 million a year for some time. Given the projected growth in data centers and the increasing adoption of liquid cooling in those data centers industry sources suggest the market for liquid cooling and thermal management ASMV tanks alone could be more than 10 times the size of the legacy market in the next few years. Fortin M market engineering and innovation expertise and created an emerging suite of liquid cooling and thermal management solutions. What started as a promising new application for us has quickly developed into an increasingly meaningful growth opportunity. As a reminder, in fiscal 26, we shipped roughly 13 million dollars of AFME tanks for data centers. In the first quarter of fiscal 27, we generated an additional 13 million dollars of revenue from that value stream, essentially matching what we did in the entire AFME tank revenues will continue to grow sequentially quarter over quarter through the balance of this fiscal year. This market is in the early stages of development. Our pipeline suggests that one, our solutions can play a meaningful role in this evolving architecture and two the market's growth is continuing to accelerate to be clear a pipeline is not revenue and there is always some uncertainty around the timing and conversion of these opportunities but the size and the quality of the opportunities in front of us is encouraging and we are investing in equipment engineering talent and production capacity to bursting today and the opportunities we see ahead the opportunities ahead of us are credit to our people that people are our most important asset that is as true today as it has ever been recently named one of america's most innovative businesses for 2027 by business insight number and impact of companies technological innovations their reputation among peers for fostering innovation and how a company's investment in r&d compares to others ordered by usa today and points of life as one of america's most charitable committed to communities where we live and work including volunteerism and support from the Worthington Company's foundation. Geopolitical instability, inflation, constraints, and operational challenges. We continue to prioritize our customers and we continue to see tangible evidence that our strategy is working driven by innovation to continue driving profitable growth. Most importantly we have a talented team that cares deeply about each other.
We'll spend a few more minutes on our financial performance in the quarter we would like to remind everyone that we'll be hosting our investor day in new york on november the 10th we're looking forward to discussing our businesses the opportunities we see for profitable growth and how we're positioning worthington enterprises to create long-term value we hope you'll join us thank you joe and good morning everyone we delivered a strong start to fiscal 2027 percent organic sales growth record trailing 12-month free cash flow of 196 26 million dollars continued improvement across our trade and specialty solutions businesses strong performance from our joint ventures and meaningful progress in several several of our strategic growth platforms the app earnings in q1 were 87 cents per share compared to 70 cents per share in the prior year period the current quarter included a net benefit of five cents per share share from non-recurring and restructuring items, primarily related to a gain realized from a contingent earn-out associated with the sale of our former oil and gas business, which was divested in January of 2021. The prior year quarter included $0.08 per share of restructuring and other expenses. Excluding these items in both periods, adjusted earnings were $0.82 per share, up from $0.78 cents per share in the prior year quarter. Included in adjusted earnings for Q1 was a net pre-tax benefit of approximately four million dollars or six cents per share related to IEPA tariff refunds. Consolidated sales increased 13 percent to 344 million dollars demonstrating continued momentum across the underlying portfolio in addition to the contribution from our recent acquisitions which added $19 million in net sales for Q1. Gross profit increased by nearly 11% in the quarter, while gross margin was 26.4% versus 27.1% a year ago, primarily reflecting lower volumes and less favorable mix in building performance solutions where cooling and construction faced a particularly difficult prior year comparison. Adjusted EBITDA was $74 million compared to 67 million dollars in the prior year quarter while adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.5 percent. Importantly, even excluding the net tariff refunds, adjusted EBITDA increased year-over-year reflecting underlying improvement across several of our businesses. On a trailing 12-month basis, adjusted EBITDA increased to 303 million dollars. Turning to our capital allocation, we remain focused on reinvesting in our businesses and pursuing strategic acquisitions while returning excess cash to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases. Free cash flow remains one of our most important operating metrics, and Q1 demonstrated the strength of our cash generation. Operating cash flow was $67 million, up from $41 million a year ago, while free cash flow increased to $54 million from $28 million, dollars which is our second strongest quarter since becoming Worthington Enterprises behind Q4 of fiscal 2026. Our discipline around cash flow generation was evident again in Q1 supported by effective working capital management across the organization. On a trailing 12-month basis, free cash flow increased to 196 million dollars representing a 116 percent conversion rate relative to adjusted net earnings and our highest mark since becoming Worthington Enterprises. This level of cash flow provides us with the flexibility to reinvest in our businesses, pursue additional growth opportunities, and return capital to shareholders, supporting our ability to create value over time. Capital expenditures total $13 million in the quarter and we return capital to shareholders through $9 million in dividends and spent 18 million dollars to repurchase 335 000 shares of our common stock our joint ventures continue to deliver strong cash generation providing 36 million dollars in dividends during the quarter representing 88 percent of equity income turning to our balance sheet in liquidity we close the quarter with ttm adjusted ebitda of 303 million dollars and net debt of 250 million dollars we continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with significant financial flexibility to execute our strategy yesterday our board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share payable in december 2026. before i turn to segment performance and as a reminder we recently renamed our two business segments to better reflect the markets they serve, the solutions they provide to customers, and the continued evolution of our portfolio. Building Products is now Building Performance Solutions and Consumer Products is now Trade and Specialty Solutions. While the names have changed, the composition of the segments and our historical financial results remain unchanged. In Building Performance Solutions, Q1 net sales grew 16 percent year-over-year to $215 million, up from $185 million in the prior year quarter. Recent acquisitions contributed $19 million of net sales in the quarter, while organic sales increased 6 percent, driven primarily by strength in our water and European businesses, partially offset by lower revenue in our cooling and construction business. Adjusted EBITDA was essentially flat at $60 million compared to the prior year quarter, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 27.8 percent as joe mentioned the year-over-year comparison for building performance solutions was impacted by the normalization of demand in cooling and construction following the a2l refrigerant transition as well as less favorable product mix tight steel availability and extended lead times also created production scheduling and shipment timing challenges during the quarter. We continue to view the A2L impact as a timing and comparison issue rather than a structural change in the business. Importantly, adoption remains strong and continued installation of A2L equipment supports current demand for our product, while also building an installed base that we believe will create an attractive long-term service and replacement opportunity. Our teams have worked diligently and prioritized customer needs throughout this period while positioning the business to benefit as these temporary headwinds normalize we are particularly encouraged by the accelerating opportunity in our water business where demand for engineered asme tanks supporting liquid cooling applications for data centers continues to grow as joe discussed this is becoming an increasingly meaningful organic growth platform for worthington wave delivered another record quarter with equity income increasing approximately three million dollars year-over-year to thirty five million dollars. Clark Dietrich also improved with equity income increasing more than one million dollars year-over-year to seven million dollars despite commercial construction activity outside of data centers remaining relatively soft. We are pleased with the performance of LSI and continue to see attractive opportunities to expand the scale, profitability, and diversification of our building performance solutions platform. In trade and specialty solutions, Q1 net sales grew eight percent year-over-year to $129 million, up from $119 million in the prior year quarter, driven by a combination of higher overall volume than average selling prices. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $24 million from $16 million in the prior year quarter, while adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 18.6 percent from 13.6 percent the improvement in profitability reflected higher sales pricing and improved manufacturing performance along with the net benefit from IEPA tariff refunds we discussed earlier importantly underlying profitability improved excluding the tariff benefit particularly in our tools and portable fuel businesses we were pleased with the performance of the segment which continues to demonstrate the resilience of our portfolio of market-leading brands. Looking ahead, we remain focused on driving profitable organic growth through the Worthington business system, including continued innovation and transformation across the segment, along with opportunities to expand distribution. We've seen good results from 80-20 in our water business and we're now applying those same principles to portable fuel and torch to simplify the portfolio, improve mix and drive sustainable margin improvement overall we are encouraged by our start to fiscal 2027. we are driving continued organic growth through innovation and solid execution improving performance across several of our wholly owned businesses strong contributions from our joint ventures and growing and attractive end markets like data centers all while generating near record cash flows these results provide further evidence that our strategy is working looking ahead we see multiple opportunities to strengthen earnings through continued execution maturing 80 20 normalization and cooling and construction growth and higher value applications continued progress integrating recent acquisitions and continued productivity improvements through the worthington business system we believe these initiatives are improving the quality sustainability and trajectory of our earnings and cash flows strengthening our ability to invest for growth and create long-term value for our shareholders. With that, we're happy to take your questions.
Operator
We will now begin the 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. 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 the line of Brian Biros with Thompson Research Group. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions today.
I want to start with a question just about the steel market overall. You mentioned it's tight, lead time is extended, not the ideal supply chain setup, But Worthington should be in a position to, I guess, navigate that better than almost every other competitor you guys have. So maybe help us understand kind of where things stand today in the field and kind of what Worthington can do that others can't to navigate that.
Sure, Brian, good question. And the steel market has absolutely tightened. We are seeing longer lead times, and certainly the price of steel has come up in certain areas. you know it probably did start last fall when the 232 tariffs on imported raw steel doubled that really chilled imports and you know since then uh you've seen the price of steel creep steadily up and the market started to see some lead times get extended that was certainly the case in q1 but as you say you know type markets can create challenges but they're also environments where we think some of our capabilities really do matter we're a pretty sophisticated buyer of steel we have very strong supplier relationships and we have a broad manufacturing footprint gives us additional options to manage through periods of constrained supply so we've been actively managing in that environment work to be sure that we're serving customers maintaining access to materials when it's been appropriate we have taken pricing actions as well since input costs have increased the way that they did so you know the availability was a headwind for us in q1 particularly as we mentioned in going to construction and balloon time we do think that we're better positioned going forward certainly through the end of the calendar year and beyond that we have limited visibility that doesn't mean we don't necessarily think that
it'll get worse again beyond that but as i said we just don't have a lot of great visibility kind of into the new calendar year uh you know we ultimately think about that as it probably cost us you know a few million dollars in the quarter okay helpful thank you and follow up i guess would be on maybe on the jv wave uh up eight percent great to see on a already pretty strong comp anyway so um maybe some more clarity on kind of what the the driving factor for that was if that's data center demand starting to flow through distribution yet? Is that pricing just from steel and maybe just strong core end markets? More commentary on kind of the demand for that would be helpful, thank you.
Yep, sure, Brian. So Wave, as you mentioned, another really excellent quarter delivering record equity income of $35 million. And we continue to be very pleased with the performance of that business and the team there. The end markets, that way, they remain generally stable, although performance varies by sector. So education, healthcare, transportation, and, as you mentioned, data centers continue to remain healthy and drive volume, while channels like retail and office are a little more muted. So WAVE also does benefit from meaningful exposure to repair and remodel activity, which tends to be more resilient than the new commercial construction space so they're a little insulated there which is good the team continues to really innovate around solutions that help contractors reduce labor and improve installation efficiency and that's always going to be valuable in the market and they continue to create meaningful value for their customers that way and and that supports the attractive economics of the business. And so, you know, more broadly, Wave is just a great example of the types of businesses that we like to own. They're a market leader in an attractive niche with strong customer relationships, differentiated products, and the ability to perform very well across different market environments. And as we look into Q2, you know, there is normal seasonality to the business. Q1 is a strong quarter for them always during the year. But we would expect as we look into Q2 some sequential moderation. But overall, they remain very healthy and we're very confident in the team there.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Walt Liptych with Seaport Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks. Good morning, guys, and good quarter. I wanted to ask about the data center product, and it sounds like you hit the targets that you set out to get the $13 million. I wonder if you can talk about just the experience during the quarter, you know, any, you know, as you're going through any ramp costs or productivity that you're working through. And, you know, as you've been able to maintain and come out with the new ASME products, are you able to get more visibility beyond kind of what you've talked about in the past, which is getting to kind of that run rate of $13 million in revenue per quarter?
Well, good morning. And, you know, we're talking here about, you know, ASME tanks that people aren't sure if that stands for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. It's a certain, you know, these are tanks that are used in liquid cooling systems that support next-gen computing infrastructure. The purpose is build vessels used for liquid cooling and thermal management. And we've actually been in this business for a long time. We've been innovating in pressure and hydronic systems for 80 years. In fact, ANTROL invented the first pre-pressurized, not to get too tight, diaphragm expansion tank, seven years ago. So this isn't new to us, but as we listened to customers and understood what they were trying and needed to accomplish, we knew we could be awful. So we leveraged the core competency expertise and created this emerging suite of solutions that we think really do and so you said it 13 million last year 13 million in q1 we do think that we should grow sequentially and you know q2 q3 and q4 more of that growth being weighted on the back half of the year the back part of the year but you keep in mind that this opportunities are sometimes 18 to 24 months removed from a quote-unquote announcement that you might hear about a data center being greenlit. And so we do think that we'll have some variability from quarter to quarter, but this is a multi-year opportunity. We think it's accelerating because, as I mentioned before, we think that the liquid cooling internal management market just for data centers could be 10x what the legacy market was in the next few years. And so we absolutely have invested and are continuing to invest in engineering talent, in new equipment, and in production capacity as we're very well positioned to be part of the solution. And so if you think about this market, they talk about hyperscalers, native center builders, and then ultimately we get into kind of, you know, it's oversimplifying, but you can think of our solutions as types of picks and shovels. And so, you know, we make various kinds of tanks and separators, but what really sets us apart is the services that we can provide around these solutions, our engineering expertise, our design expertise, find their designs for these. You know, we get sort of things like the basis of design, but we'd like to get specced in to some of these designs as we go forward. And I think we'll get this market pretty nicely.
Thanks for that. Appreciate it. And, yeah, good luck with that rapidly expanding market. I wonder if you could talk about, you know, the strategy that you guys are going after. I think you've talked about some capacity expansions. You just mentioned engineering and production. I wonder if you can talk about what you're doing there.
Pretty fulsome approach. Facilities for somebody else to manufacture these, we've got a, and that we are partnering with, do the commercial work, do all the things that need to happen.
Okay, great. Okay, thanks. I'll get back in queue. Thank you.
Operator
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. Your next question comes from the line of Susan McClury with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
My question is around the broader state of the consumer and what you're seeing there. It sounds like from what we've been hearing from the homebuilders, things certainly moderated in the quarter as rates rose in the geopolitical environment.
Can you just talk a bit about what you're seeing now and what that implies as we think about the growth in the next couple quarters? sure so you know within within trade and specialty one of the reasons obviously that that we decided to to realign and rename those business as you know is an awful lot of our products that historically been consumer end up in the hands of contractors uh you know they're working on commercial buildings or in residential buildings but uh for us it's it's that team continuing to execute exceptionally well. They've got good pricing discipline. They've done a really good job commercially. There's a lot of energy around NPD and new products that we expect kind of to see in the back half of our fiscal year. But, you know, I would say generally, yeah, and you're right. Interest rates are still high, but people are still repairing, remodeling. Unemployment is still produced unemployment as a pretty good, so, you know, we haven't seen any material weakness is hanging in there. And so, you know, we think that, uh, you know, our product.
And then can you also give us an update on the integration of the recent acquisitions that you've done and any comments on the M&A pipeline in general, given the operating conditions and the move-in rates yeah thanks susan so um i'll take the uh pipeline question first and we continue to see a healthy pipeline of opportunities you know a slight uptick if anything you know more recently with just activity there which is is good uh and as you know we're focused on businesses where we see strong strategic and cultural fit these are in attractive niches uh and where Worthington has a clear opportunity to create some additional value and we've got a strong balance sheet. We've got really good free cash flow generation like we talked about earlier and low leverage and that creates a significant financial flexibility for us to pursue these opportunities when they make sense. Our capital allocation framework is balanced as you know with a bias towards growth and we're actively evaluating opportunities and we feel good about what we're seeing there. Just on the recent acquisitions so we also we continue to feel pretty good about our most recent acquisitions both Elgin and LSI in the quarter you know the acquisitions contributed approximately 19 million of sales uh just in q1 with elgin specifically we've made good progress on that integration it's been been over a year at this point uh we're focused heavily on the operations and deploying the worthington business system to really realize the full potential of the business uh the commercial hvac and markets that they serve remain pretty healthy and we continue to believe elgin has significant opportunity over time On LSI, that's our most recent acquisition, we closed in January. It's earlier in the integration process, but we are very pleased with performance there. It's a high quality business, really attractive margins, a strong position in a very specialized niche. There are critical components of the overall kind of metal roofing system, which is an attractive market to be in. So we're increasingly focused on LSI with how we can deploy Worthington's capabilities to accelerate growth. We think that's the real unlock for LSI. And most importantly, both of those businesses, Elgin and LSI, are great cultural fits. People are our most important asset and with the acquisitions, we'd much rather spend our time improving operations, expanding commercial opportunities than trying to change the culture. And in both cases, we feel pretty good about the teams there and the culture at those businesses.
Yeah, and Susan, the only thing I would add, Collins, absolutely, right? When you talk about the increase in rates and the rate environment, you know, that's actually a good thing for us. We, as you know, have a pretty good balance sheet and liquidity acquisition are borrowing based and our borrowing basis is probably going to be better than a lot of folks that we might be in competition with. So environments like this are relatively speaking than when interest rates are very, very low.
Yeah. Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you both for the color and good luck with the porter.
Your next question comes from the line of waltz lipdick with seaport research your line is open please go ahead okay thanks i've got a couple of follow-ups one on the um the free cash flow as you guys pointed out was very strong i wonder if you could talk about uh some of the programs that you guys are doing to uh improve working capital and is that sort of um is this sort of one-time inflow of uh of uh cash from uh working capital accounts or is this going to be a you know can you continue to generate high levels of free cash flow yeah so thanks walt uh it's been um this has been an important point for
us and um we're really pleased with the cash flow generation um as you mentioned as we talked about earlier up 26 million year over year from uh operating in free cash flow standpoint under 96 million in free cash flow on a trailing 12-month basis. That's the highest it's been. The working capital measures we've been very intentional about which has been helping us drive that free cash flow generation and we believe it is sustainable. We've been working hard with our teams to continue to pull levers to really compound our cash flow and in particular it's shown up uh as we talked about uh in our working capital and so just uh you know from a cash conversion cycle standpoint just over the last year i think we're down about eight or nine days which we're really pleased with um you know over that that period and then just from a net working capital as a percent of sales we're down i think almost three percent just over the last couple of years uh and so um that's a lot of you know incremental things working around customer terms um working around our supply base and then just more uh efficiently and effectively managing inventory uh things like 80 20 always play a role in that as well and so uh we're really pleased with the performance um and uh do view it as sustainable um as we move forward you know we're going to continue to to drive that free cash flow generation and you know there is some normal kind of cyclicality or seasonality to it we do have uh extra tax payment in q2 which is normal course uh but outside of that uh we feel pretty good from a free cash flow standpoint okay all right
Thanks for that insight. And then just the last one for me, the A2L tough comparison. You know, we saw that last quarter, you know, it's here again. How, you know, that inventory correction that's going on, how long do you think it'll take to clear? You know, do you expect more, especially in the second quarter going into the end of the calendar year?
And at what point do you think we start getting on to a positive comp? yeah so waltz so it is um you know that that transition you know it did have an impact in the in the quarter the unfavorable mix you know was primarily driven by the cooling construction business and the difficult comparison there related to a2l um just a little more background there the prior year benefited from this unusually strong demand as manufacturers distributors contractors simultaneously established inventory ahead of this regulated transition and that included kind of heavy demand on our products obviously and we estimate the year-over-year impact to adjusted EBITDA this quarter was approximately seven million dollars which is more than we anticipated a quarter ago and Joe mentioned this earlier channel inventories are taking a little longer to normalize and particularly against the backdrop of the muted housing environment. We expect Q2 to remain a difficult comparison because of that prior year quarter benefited from the A2L related volumes but as we move to the second half of the year Q3 and Q4 are seasonally stronger in this market including in construction so we do expect normalization there and importantly we we continue to view this primarily as more of a timing and comparison issue rather than a change in the the long-term fundamentals of the business nearly all the new residential equipment now utilizes a2l refrigerants and so every new installation
expands the installed base for our products and over time that should create a growing service and repair opportunity for the products that we sell in this space okay all right thanks very much thanks wall your next question comes from the line of brian mcnamara with canaccord genuity your line is open please go ahead hey good morning guys thanks for taking the question uh just one for me as a all my other questions have been addressed um can you characterize or quantify the growth you're seeing in data centers outside of asme tanks whether it be wave elgin or lsi and specifically are you bundling your solutions there to win business or has it largely been kind of a la carte to this point?
It's a great question Brian good morning it's Joe the in the way that we think about data centers we talked a lot about the ASME tanks but yeah absolutely every data center is a commercial building a number of our value streams provide building performance solutions that are integral to the way those buildings function and setting up to do what they're supposed to do. That certainly includes WAVE and Clark Dietrich, Belgian LSI. Across those value streams, data centers are a very important part of the growth that we're seeing. And I would say our revenues are growing commensurate, maybe a bit better or a bit worse depending on the application with the proliferation of data centers. Because of the market and data centers decentralized from a construction and from a Guts perspective, we are increasingly collaborating across value streams and talking about opportunities and prioritizing and ultimately kind of making the case that we can make warm introductions for other pieces of our business that we probably couldn't a couple years ago.
Maybe just a quick follow-up on that. I think in Q3 last year, you said that your data center business was expected to triple in fiscal 26, but it sounds like the ASME tanks are about to quadruple at least if they sequentially grow each quarter this year. Can we at least characterize the other businesses exposed to data centers that you guys own kind of multiplying this year? Is that a fair way to characterize the growth you're seeing there? I think you said your data center business overall last year was expected to triple, I don't know where that landed. Are we expecting that kind of same maybe doubling, tripling kind of this year? It sounds like the ASME tanks are going to at least quadruple if you grow sequentially quarter after quarter this year.
Yeah, yeah, right. So yes, we have $13 million was effectively 3x what it had been the year before. We did that in Q1, which on a run rate, you know, so would have it being 4x, but we think that, and we said this much, that we're going to grow sequentially. So yeah, we do absolutely believe that this market is accelerating.
I apologize for the confusion there. Thanks for taking the question.
Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Will Gildia with CJS Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Can you add some more color on the really solid growth in trade and specialty solutions? I think you've described it as volume and price-driven. Just wondering, are there any product lines and customers where you saw more strength in the quarter?
Yeah, so thanks, Will. so the the trade and specialty solution segment uh really good performance in the quarter sales increased approximately eight percent uh driven by a combination of higher overall volumes and and selling prices we saw some good broad-based growth across most of the portfolio particularly portable propane and tools those were driven by higher volumes expanded distribution and And then both of those segments had some pricing actions as well, which was helpful. The balloon time business was the primary exception, volumes were down. But that was more a function of a really strong prior year comparison, which impacted in the current quarter. So more broadly, really pleased with the performance of the segments. And they had good margin expansion, even, you know, excluding the tariff kind of positive in the quarter as well.
That is very helpful. Thank you. And then just one more, you know, I think you described increasing rural material prices as a headwind of a few million dollars. You know, how quickly can you mitigate that and how are you thinking about mitigating that? And does that headwind get worse throughout the to the end of the calendar year? Does it improve?
Yeah, so I'll just make sure I clarify Will. My comment on a few million dollars was around steel being late and ultimately us needing to prioritize and think about shipments and manufacturing and things like that. We do think that near term we'll be in better shape there. steel is more expensive than it was a year ago but also as we mentioned but we have taken price actions where we thought we needed to but these are environments where we ultimately can separate ourselves from others you know and so with our relationships and our capabilities and our optionality it's something that will continue to, you know, things are certainly more expensive than they were a year ago from a raw material perspective. And that's true.
All right. Thank you very much.
Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Joe for any closing remarks.
Paige, thank you. And thank you all for joining us this morning. Looking forward to potentially seeing some of you at our investor day in November. Hope you had a great day.
Operator
This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.
