Concrete Pumping Holdings, Inc. Q1 FY2026 earnings call

• Pleased with first quarter results, revenue up 5% y/y, adjusted EBITDA up 6% due to U.S. concrete pumping growth, solid execution, pricing and cost management. - Renewed growth in commercial and market, strong demand from large-scale data center projects. - More favorable weather patterns contributed to performance. - Residential conditions unchanged with elevated rates and affordability issues. - Infrastructure activity consistent with trends, monitoring federal funding expiration. - Ecopan waste management services had strong quarter. - UK operations impacted by interest rates and economic uncertainty but infrastructure resilient. - On track with capital investment plans, focus on fleet management, efficiency, and capital allocation.

Revenue increased 5% year over year to 90.6 million. U.S. concrete pumping segment revenue increased 5% to 59.9 million compared to 56.9 million in prior year quarter. Concrete waste management services segment (Ecopan) revenue increased 8% to 18.1 million compared to 16.7 million in prior year quarter. UK operations (Camford) revenue was 12.5 million compared to 12.8 million in prior year quarter. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA increased 6% to 18 million. U.S. concrete pumping adjusted EBITDA increased 6% to 9.7 million. Ecopan adjusted EBITDA increased 20% to 6 million. UK operations adjusted EBITDA was 2.3 million compared to 2.8 million in prior year quarter.

• Expect revenue in range of 390 to 410 million and adjusted EBITDA between 90 and 100 million for fiscal 2026. - Expect free cash flow at least 40 million, assuming approximately 23 million of net replacement capex and 32 million of net cash paid for interest. - Incorporating accelerated fleet investment of approximately 22 million in fiscal 2026 pulled forward from 2027 due to upcoming NOx emission standards.

• Fuel prices being a concern, with hope to recoup additional costs via fuel surcharges. - Regulation towards trucks, truck manufacturers' changes to trucks and emissions being a concern as it may affect reliability and functionality of current trucks.

Q: Hey, Bruce. Hey, Ian. Congrats on the quarter here. I guess to start, I wanted to ask a bit more about the momentum you saw in your business this quarter. You know, the midpoint of your guide calls for top-line growth of 2% and no meaningful recovery in the construction market, but you have a pretty strong start to the year here. Can you talk more about the end markets, geographies, or project types that are surprising you to the positive? And if it's really primarily the data center work, was there a significant step-up that you weren't expecting before?

A: Yeah, so there's three things I think. One, we did have better weather this quarter than we had last year, and so that helped with some of the momentum that we're feeling. We have started this next quarter with fairly good weather as well, so that's helped our Q2 to begin with. The data center work certainly has been stronger for us than we had initially anticipated, and it does appear that there could be greater potential in that as the year plays out, and we're monitoring that very closely. And And I guess the third thing is our infrastructure is continuing to do a little bit better as well with dollars that were set aside for those projects many years ago now coming into play, and we're starting to see that momentum. So with those offsetting some of the softness we're seeing in some of the other commercial segments and residential, we're still a little cautious going into the year, but we feel like we have a good start, and we're looking forward to the rest of the year.

Q: Maybe on the flip side of this, I need to ask about, you know, your energy costs. You know, I know it's really early right now in this whole dynamic, and a lot seems to be changing every day. But if oil were to stay sticky at, you know, say $90 a barrel for a while, how should we think about the impact to your margins, you know, and your ability to stay within your guidance range for EBITDA, given, I think, you know, your guide assumes or was assuming similar energy costs as last year?

A: Fuel prices are certainly front of mind for us. We do have fuel surcharges in a lot of our agreements that are left over from the last time we saw price escalation with fuel, and we're also starting to implement fuel surcharges in other areas as well. We do hope it's short-lived. No telling just how long we'll deal with that, but we'll do the best we can to recoup some of those additional costs.

Q: I guess I was curious. I mean, just given that the guidance doesn't assume any volume growth, but you did talk about volume growth and pricing growth. Of the revenue growth, can you break out kind of the split between those two for the quarter? I'm just trying to, I guess, gauge how much – you know, the better weather helped on the volume side.

A: Yeah, Justin, it was almost split about 2% on the volume side. Like Bruce said, that was some part due to, like, more consistent weather that we'd seen that helped us with execution. And then the remaining piece, about 3% on price year over year.

Q: My second question, before I turn it over, I just wanted to understand the language on the CapEx acceleration, which Obviously you talked about that last quarter when you gave the guidance, but there was some additional language where you haven't accelerated anything yet. And I didn't know if that meant that that was still an option that you may decide not to do that 22 million of investment this year, or if it just meant in the quarter, none of that had been spent.

A: Yeah, it was just meant in the quarter. We do anticipate spending that this year. Now, there may be some concerns with whether or not we can get those truck delivered before our fiscal year end, which is in October. And largely, we'll have to have the trucks in place that might be delivered into next year that are 2026 trucks. But some of the changes that you're hearing or that we're all hearing about, the regulation towards trucks, the truck manufacturers are still telling us they're moving forward with the change to the truck and to the emissions, which We talked about on our last call being a concern for us because it won't give us the reliability and really the functionality with the stronger horsepower engines that we currently have that won't be available into the future. So we do anticipate getting out in front of that. Now, that has some benefit with the data center growth that we're experiencing, getting those trucks in a little bit earlier to help us with some of that work has been helpful.