Atkore - Earnings Call - Q4 2025

Transcript

Speaker 4

Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Atkore's fourth quarter fiscal year 2025 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Matt Kline, Vice President of Treasury and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Speaker 0

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Bill Waltz, President and CEO; John Deitzer, Chief Financial Officer; and John Pregenzer, Chief Operating Officer and President of Electrical. We will take questions at the conclusion of the call. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we may make projections or forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties such that actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings and today's press releases, which identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. In addition, any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA, and any reference to EPS or adjusted EPS means adjusted diluted earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted earnings per share are non-GAAP measures.

Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures and a presentation of the most comparable GAAP measures are available in the appendix to today's presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill.

Speaker 3

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide three, today we will provide an update on strategic actions, discuss our fiscal 2025 fourth quarter, our full-year financial results, and our outlook for fiscal 2026. We will share our perspective on the end markets we serve and our long-term strategic focus. Turning to slide four, before we discuss our results, I want to highlight the announcement we made this morning related to the strategic actions we are pursuing with the goal of maximizing shareholder value. Back in September, we announced that the Board of Directors and the executive leadership team were evaluating a broad range of alternatives to enhance focus on Atkore's core electrical infrastructure portfolio. These alternatives included a potential sale of our HDPE business and the decision to close three manufacturing facilities.

The board has now decided to expand the scope of the strategic alternatives to include a potential sale or merger of the whole company. As a result of the board's decision, I have agreed to stay at Atkore as CEO through at least the conclusion of this strategic review. To date, Atkore has identified and is executing upon a series of actions that we believe will improve the long-term financial returns of the company. The process of selling our HDPE business is ongoing, and we have identified two other modest non-core assets that we anticipate being able to successfully divest in late Q1 2026 or early in the second quarter. In addition, we plan to cease manufacturing operations at the three manufacturing facilities previously announced in the second quarter of fiscal 2026.

By delivering on these actions and the planned divestitures, we expect to improve our financial profile of the company and return to year-over-year growth and adjusted EBITDA in FY2027. Expanding our strategic alternatives also allows us to consider multiple scenarios with the intention of creating shareholder value while positioning Atkore to succeed for the years to come. Turning to our results on slide six, organic volume was up 1.4% in the fourth quarter with contributions from both segments. Notably, we saw double-digit growth in our plastic pipe conduit and finished product category. This includes our PVC, fiberglass, and HDPE products, which all delivered double-digit volume growth in the quarter. Overall, our net sales of $752 million in the quarter exceeded the outlook that we presented in August.

Our adjusted EBITDA of $71 million in the quarter includes approximately $6 million of one-time inventory adjustments related to one of the sites that has been previously announced for closure as part of our planned strategic actions. This inventory adjustment impacted our Safety and Infrastructure segment. Our results also included approximately $5 million of additional non-routine items related to advisory and legal expenses. Excluding the impact of the inventory adjustment and the non-routine items in the quarter, our adjusted EBITDA would have been $82 million and within our expectations set forth in August. Reflecting on the totality of the year, volume was up approximately 1%. This marks three consecutive years of organic volume growth for our company. As we have explained in the past, the breadth of our portfolio prevents overexposure to specific end markets.

This is particularly important in years where certain end markets may be growing at a slower rate or even contracting. Our cash flow generation has been and continues to be a strength of our business. This year, we returned $144 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividend payments. We also preserved financial flexibility by refinancing our existing asset-based lending agreement as well as our senior secure term loan, which moves out our maturity dates beyond fiscal 2030. Looking ahead, our focus remains on creating shareholder value, which we believe will be accomplished with an emphasis on our core electrical infrastructure portfolio. We anticipate generating strong cash flows, which provide us with optionality on how to best deploy capital and create shareholder value.

We are encouraged by the growth projected across several construction end markets in FY 2026, including data centers, healthcare, power utilities, and education, while remaining focused on Atkore's ability to participate in long-term trends related to the adoption of renewable energy, grid hardening, digitization, and the increasing demand for electricity. I'd like to take a moment to recognize Atkore's talented teams for their efforts and dedication to our company. Thank you. Now, I'll turn the call over to John Deitzer to talk through the results from the fourth quarter and full year in more detail.

Speaker 8

Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide seven in our consolidated results. In fiscal 2025, we stayed focused on executing our strategy while also exploring additional ways to strengthen our company for the future. The year was not without its challenges, but we are working to meet these challenges by announcing and completing certain actions in the fiscal year while pursuing additional opportunities to strengthen our financial profile for the future. Net sales in the fourth quarter were $752 million, and our adjusted EPS was $0.69. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $71 million. We generated a net loss of $54 million in the fourth quarter. Within our quarterly net loss was a $19 million non-cash goodwill impairment charge related to our mechanical tube business, as well as a $67 million impairment charge related to certain HDPE assets.

The goodwill impairment related to our mechanical tube business reflects forward-looking cash flows, which now assume lower volumes. The mechanical tube products are made in one of the three facilities that was previously announced to close, as well as another facility that shares capacity with steel conduit. By shifting our focus and priority towards electrical products, we plan to use the available capacity in favor of a higher concentration for our electrical infrastructure portfolio of products. The impairment charge related to our HDPE assets was triggered by the announcement of our intention to explore the sale of our HDPE business at the end of the fourth quarter. The impairment reflects an adjustment of the net assets relative to the forward-looking cash flows across various scenarios. For the full year, net sales were $2.9 billion, and our adjusted EPS was $6.05. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year was $386 million.

Turning to our consolidated bridges on slide eight, in fiscal 2025, net sales increased $22 million due to volume growth, contributing incremental adjusted EBITDA of $10 million. Our average selling prices decreased by $382 million. Bill mentioned that our fourth quarter results included select one-time inventory adjustments and additional non-routine items totaling approximately $11 million. Excluding the impact of those items, our adjusted EBITDA would have been $82 million in the quarter and $397 million for the full year. Moving to slide nine, as Bill mentioned, we are proud to highlight that Atkore has achieved three consecutive years of organic volume growth. We grew volume 3.5% in fiscal 2024 after growing volume 3.2% in fiscal 2023, exemplifying the strength and resilience of our portfolio even in times of fluctuating end market conditions.

As we look forward, construction end markets are expected to grow, and we anticipate our volume growth in fiscal 2026 to be mid-single digits. In FY25, our metal framing, cable management, and construction services products grew low single digits due to increased support for mega projects, including data centers. In FY25, we grew our PVC business, which included high single-digit growth in PVC conduit and especially strong double-digit growth from our fiberglass conduit products, which are increasingly being used for data center projects and included in our plastic pipe conduit and fittings product category. Turning to slide 10 in our segment results in the fourth quarter, net sales in our electrical segment were $519 million, with $7 million contributed by organic volume growth, offset by continued pricing normalization in our PVC products. Our steel conduit products saw sequential price increases for the third consecutive quarter.

Shifting over to our S&I segment, net sales increased 4% during the quarter compared to the prior year. Our S&I segment EBITDA dollars and margin were both meaningfully higher than the prior year, in large part due to better cost management and productivity improvements. As Bill mentioned, we recorded an inventory adjustment in our S&I segment of approximately $6 million at one of the facilities that has been previously announced for facility closure. Turning now to our outlook on page 11, we anticipated mid-single digit volume growth in FY2026 driven by expected growth in all five of our product areas. For the first quarter of FY2026, we are expecting net sales in the range of $645-$655 million and adjusted EBITDA between $55-$65 million. We expect adjusted EPS to be in the range of $0.55 and $0.75.

For the full year, we expect FY26 net sales in the range of $3.0 billion-$3.1 billion and adjusted EBITDA between $340 million-$360 million. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $5.05-$5.55. As we have discussed in the past, our business experiences short lead times and limited visibility to end customer demand. To shift more focus to the medium to long term, we have made the decision not to provide a quarterly outlook starting in calendar year 2026 with our fiscal first quarter earnings call. However, we will continue to refine our full year outlook during each quarterly call as we progress throughout the fiscal year. We expect the first quarter of fiscal 26 to be the softest quarter of the year and for performance to ramp as the year continues.

At this time, we expect the back half of the year to be higher than the first half of fiscal 2026 on an adjusted EBITDA basis. Next, slide 12 summarizes our solid financial profile. Our cash flow generation has always been a strength, which helps support a healthy balance sheet. Our liquidity provides the foundation that enables us to execute key strategic opportunities while returning capital to shareholders. With that, I'll turn it to John Pregenzer to give an update on our end markets and our long-term strategic focus.

Speaker 5

Thanks, John. Turning to slide 14, the breadth of our product portfolio is a differentiator for Atkore. Atkore's products broadly serve construction activities, making their way to each of the relevant end markets. Demand for electricity continues to increase. The need for power centers around the expansion of data centers to support AI. We are now in what some are calling the data era, with reshoring efforts and demand for data centers to help power the expansion of AI contributing to an expected 2.6% compound annual growth rate for electricity consumption through 2035. Electrification is required in most areas of construction. Our products provide comprehensive solutions to deploy, isolate, and protect critical electrical infrastructure, emphasizing that Atkore really is all around you. The demand outlook for FY26 reflects strength in most end markets. It's important to understand both expected growth rates as well as the relative size of the market.

While data centers continue to draw most of the attention within the construction community, that end market in total is still smaller than several other end markets. Nonetheless, data center construction is growing significantly, and we participate in that growth. Renewable energy is expected to increase from approximately 20% of the power generation mix today to 28% by 2035. Solar continues to be the quickest path to online production available to the market, a key advantage for meeting the expected increase in U.S. energy demand. Finally, turning to slide 15, today and into the future, we are focused on prioritizing our portfolio of domestically manufactured electrical infrastructure products and delivering on the strategic actions that we believe will maximize shareholder value.

We remain committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet and financial profile that enables us to return capital to shareholders while making modest capital investments that support operational excellence aligned to the Atkore business system. Our positioning in key electrical end markets gives us confidence in our ability to grow volume over the mid to long term, while our diverse portfolio enables us to maintain resilience while navigating headwinds in certain end markets. We, as a management team, have conviction on our teams and are focused on delivering to our plan. We recognize our recent performance challenges, and we are determined more than ever to drive improved results that create greater value for our shareholders, employees, and stakeholders. With that, we'll turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions.

Speaker 4

At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question today comes from the line of Justin Claire from Roth Capital Partners. Your line is open.

Speaker 7

Hi, good morning. Thanks for the time here. I wanted to.

Speaker 8

Good morning, Justin.

Speaker 7

Good morning. I wanted to start out with the guidance. For fiscal 2026, you're calling or you see mid-single digit volume growth. I think the midpoint of the revenue guide implies 7% year-over-year growth. That would suggest you could see some pricing benefit through the year. Wondering if you could just comment on, is that expectation the expectation and whether or what is driving that potential price improvement?

Speaker 8

Yeah, Justin, you're aligned there. I mean, as I think we said in some of the prepared remarks, we've seen sequential price increases in our steel conduit business. There's some other businesses where we've had pricing growth as well that impacts the sales line, but it's really that price versus cost dynamic too. We do anticipate continuing to have price versus cost headwinds. Where we're looking at where some of the underlying raw material commodity inputs are, where they were versus historically, we are seeing some ASP and sales growth as well, but there is sometimes some price versus cost compression there too. That's some of the dynamics. There would be some embedded benefit or increase, I should say, at the ASP line with some of those raw material inputs at an elevated level this year versus last year, meaning 2026 versus 2025.

Speaker 7

Got it. Okay. Also, on the guidance, when I look at your Q1 guidance and then the full year, for Q1, the implied EBITDA margin, I think, is about 11% and then closer to 12% for the full year. What do you expect to drive the margin improvement through the year? How much visibility do you have there? Is it really the pricing dynamic that's driving that?

Speaker 8

Yeah, it's a great question. We are seeing a little bit of softness here in the first quarter as we sequentially move down here from the fourth quarter. We do have a positive expectation as we ramp throughout the year, meaning we do have line of sight to a lot of the construction services and the mega projects in Q2 to Q4. That is positive as we see through the year. We're also seeing real strength coming through. I think in John Pregenzer's comments, he talked about the growth in solar, and we do anticipate that in 2026 as opposed to 2025, which has had a lot of volatility in the year with that industry and some what was going to happen with or without some of the subsidies associated with the Inflation Reduction Act. We see some positive elements here contributing.

Bill, I'm not sure if you wanted to add anything.

Speaker 3

No, I think that's it. I mean, the cost actions we're taking to help with the margin and so forth, that, again, I think even my prepared remarks and what we sent out September 29 or whatever, that second half this year, as we do get the three facilities closed and continue to drive extra productivity off a really strong 2025 productivity, that I do think things are lined up, especially as we go into the second half of the year here.

Speaker 7

Okay. I appreciate it. I'll pass it on.

Speaker 8

Yeah. Thanks, Justin.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from a line of David Tarantino from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 6

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Speaker 8

Good morning, David.

Speaker 6

Maybe could we start with the strategic review and maybe just kind of walk us through kind of the range of outcomes we could expect and maybe what's the magnitude of the three divestments you outlined and how should we be thinking about a suitable situation where you would consider a sale or a merger?

Speaker 8

Okay. Obviously, it's earlier on. I'll start and then either, especially John Deitzer, I guess, here if there's any add-ons, but it's earlier on. Since we made our announcements, we're still pursuing HDPE. I don't think we can get any more specific, but there's obviously interest there that us with our banks and so forth are working through. That continues to move forward, just like the other actions that we kind of discussed even here with Justin. From there, since that time, let me back up. The board always looks at what's the best outcome for our shareholders. That's part of our discussions. Since we did our announcement at late September, there have been some interesting inbound calls.

Again, it's early on in the process, but the board reflected, and I say a good time, to make sure we're pursuing what is best for our shareholders. We'll keep, obviously, investors and everybody else informed as we kick off the process here. From outcomes, obviously, it can be the full range from, as we said in announcements, and I think I covered this morning, from selling the whole co to the other end where the board decides that the best thing is to continue to run it as is. Right now, we're focused on the strategic alternatives, and we'll see how that plays out over the next several months.

Speaker 6

Okay. Great. That's helpful color. Maybe could you give us some color on the cost savings initiatives? What should we be thinking about around the magnitude of the savings? Maybe should we be thinking about this as a first step? Do you feel that there are more opportunities to take more meaningful cost actions within the core business? Any color there would be helpful.

Speaker 5

Yeah, David. Obviously, the three plants, we've started the process of shutting those down. The teams are well organized. We're still in the early stages, but expect all production to cease by the end of Q2. I think on an annualized basis, we would expect to see about $10 million-$12 million in cost reductions across the fiscal year.

Speaker 6

Okay. Great.

Speaker 8

I think, David, just to add on to that, I think these are just key contributors that we anticipate 2027 to be up versus 2026. I think that's really the balance here of where some of these actions are, plus some other things we're starting to line up.

Speaker 6

Maybe just to follow up on that comment, within that assumption, should we be thinking about kind of the items you outlined today getting you there, or should we expect some more down the line?

Speaker 8

I think without any additional items, just the fact of these actions, HDPE, and then the growth initiatives that are underway that we kind of alluded to, that whether it's solar, where I forget if we have POs, but verbal commitments from customers to be ramping up here early in the calendar year to global mega projects that are expanding into with some well-known customers from one region of the continent to a second region of the continent here, that we see enough pathways right now without additional things to get there. Again, that does not rule out we will continue to do other actions. Again, I do not want to be giving specific guide, David, for next fiscal year, but we are optimistic both for this year and definitely as we get into 2027.

Speaker 6

That's helpful. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 8

Thank you.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup. Your line is open.

Speaker 2

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Speaker 8

Good morning, Andy.

Speaker 2

Bill and John, I just want to focus on less where I think you told us about this $50 million headwind for 2026. As you sort of rolled out your guide, is that still what the amount is? Maybe you can update us on imports in general, like what have you seen from the steel conduit side and the PVC side? Steel was getting better. PVC maybe a little more slowly. What have you seen there?

Speaker 8

Yeah, Andy, I'll start with some of the outlook expectations and commentary, and then I'll turn it to Bill and John here to give some more specifics around what's happening in some of the markets that you're talking about. I would say we definitely have continued price versus cost headwinds going in 2026 versus 2025. We talked about that. In the third quarter call back in August, we said kind of $50 million of unmitigated headwinds. We had expected some volume and some productivity benefits to mitigate some of that. In our outlook this year, it is still within kind of $340 million-$360 million. We're right around that $350 million midpoint. That kind of triangulates versus where we said in August. That being said, I think we are seeing additional improvements we're taking.

As I think about the year, the price versus cost dynamic's really going to impact the first quarter the most. As we go through the year, the price versus cost dynamic will probably ease. Also, as we think about the year, there's going to be a real quarterly ramp in EBITDA, meaning kind of we've laid out the first quarter here. The first and second quarter, definitely the expectation is year-over-year unfavorable. We will continue, and the second half collectively, we anticipate to be up year-over-year. That's kind of how we expect the year to ramp. I'll turn it to Bill here or John to give some comments on the steel conduit market.

Speaker 7

And PVC.

Speaker 5

Yeah, Andy, so steel conduit is relatively strong on the import side, which obviously influences a lot of what we're doing. We have seen a slight reduction in import volume this year. It's down about 2% over last year. It's positive in regards to the many years of double-digit growth. Looking at the impact of tariffs in regards to what's happening, probably not as strong as we would have expected. Spending some time and ensuring that tariff policy is being effectively enforced and working with some different groups there because we would have expected to see slightly stronger year-over-year reductions in steel conduit imports. The market's fairly good. PVC has been strong. I think it's been influenced by data centers.

is a strong demand for large diameter PVC conduit in that space, which will drive the volume numbers or overdrive the volume numbers for that product line. We have seen good growth there and expect that to continue.

Speaker 3

Yeah. I'll just add to John's comment both on two things. To go, obviously, we're still working, the administration's still working on how we can enforce tariffs better. If you look, Andy, and for the rest of the investors, both of these product categories were growing. I'm giving round numbers here over the last couple of years, but 20% a year. To John Pregenzer's point, steel is now for the year down 2% with imports. It's going from growing to flat to slightly down. More to come, hopefully, to make it even stronger for US companies and blue-collar workers in the US. That has been semi-effective. PVC, where to John's point, we're growing. We called out in our prepared remarks, strong double-digit around numbers. PVC, from recollection, I think was up 6% for the year.

Imports are still coming in, but even there, not what I perceive the market is, and also not nearly as much as previous year. It is there, but the tariffs have had a good effect, and we're hoping to make them even greater effect going forward.

Speaker 2

Helpful. I can understand John P's comments about data center markets maybe not being the biggest. At the same time, we've seen, as you guys know, massive orders across the industrial space over the last couple of quarters. When you think about your business, I know you've talked about construction services in the past, and maybe they're on the come, and it takes a while. Why shouldn't we see a bigger impact on 2026, or maybe we will from data centers? Again, there's a massive amount of money there, as you guys know.

Speaker 3

Yeah. No dispute on the massive growth or massive. I'm making my own number, Andy. It depends on who. Yeah, like 15% or something. Definitely strong double-digit growth for anybody making any products. I do think, as we get in kind of the answer I gave to an earlier question, that we are going to see, obviously, our fair share within the products we have relative to the market. We covered that one in John Pregenzer's charts. I also do see our global construction business that's focused on this growing this year at also a very strong, call it double-digit rate. Again, it's how much of our companies that compared to PVC in the chart that John Pregenzer and residential that's still anemic.

I think, Andy, that's why, again, numbers here, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but from our $340-$360 guide, our volume guides, are there pathways to potentially be stronger here? Yeah. We're going to see how things play out. I'm still optimistic here as we go forward.

Speaker 2

Appreciate the color.

Speaker 5

Yeah. I think the product lines that line up with data centers in our portfolio, we see them growing in those type of rates. When you say data centers are up 20% or whatever the numbers are, we're seeing that in certain parts of the portfolio. I think when the global mega projects that we have lined up and we've already started to get orders from and letters of intent from start to kick in the second half of the year, that will have more influence on our overall growth rates that I think John Deitzer alluded to in regards to the overall revenue growth we'll see in the back end of the year.

Speaker 2

Appreciate it, guys.

Speaker 8

Thanks, Andy.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from a line of Chris Moore from CJS Securities. Your line is open.

Speaker 1

Good morning, Chris.

Speaker 4

Chris, your line is open.

Speaker 1

The three plants that are closing, good morning. I'm sorry. Just trying to understand a little bit better what's being produced there. Is there, will there be any learning curve when those products are shifted to other facilities?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I'll start. We have discussed all—I mean, I'll give more color. Yeah, it's all public. I just want to say something to Washington, Chris. We have our Phoenix operation that makes things like metal pipes and so forth, that metal conduit, and also for our safety and infrastructure. We will be moving that production back to plants here, for example, in Harvey, Illinois, Hobart, stuff like that. We have that capability. Most of the capacity from lines, I think we'll be moving one production line out to do this, but most of the capacity is already here. I don't think there's going to be a lot of trying to move machines and so forth. For my 40-year career, I've done that before, and there could be challenges. Here it's just ramping up.

Now, some of it also back to pruning, focusing on electrical products and keeping that market, which we think has the best growth, to the small charge we took in the quarter is we are going to narrow some of the scope, which I think, quite frankly, is exciting purely from one of the things we're going to drive a lot harder is the 80/20 principle and truly focus on our key products with key customers and so forth. I think there's a double win there. The next facility is a PVC facility in Fort Mill. That, again, we don't have to move with our lean production and everything else. We don't have to move any of the production lines. We have to ramp up other locations, but I think the risk is mitigated purely from the standpoint of investments, productivity.

We have that, and we can get rid of the cost and infrastructure without moving machinery. The final facility is we have an operation in Chino, which is around Los Angeles, that makes cable products, and we're moving that back into our facilities here on kind of the East Coast. We have the capacity there. I think it's the right thing to do where we'll continue to work, driving productivity. As I mentioned already, we had one of our strongest years last year in productivity. As we continue to drive lean and so forth, and I think, as John already mentioned, he's driving with monthly formal calls, but obviously following up with teams, and they have a lot of rigor and structure. I think it's a great thing to do for our customers and our shareholders here.

Hopefully, I gave you everything you were looking for.

Speaker 8

No, very helpful. Maybe just to follow up, HDPE, obviously, that is one of the areas in the strategic—sounds like you're in discussions. I'm just trying to understand not specific numbers, but the potential value to be gained from Atkore here. What's the bull case scenario for HDPE for someone outside of Atkore?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I'll give a highlight, but I won't give numbers. John Deitzer, if you want to provide, but I don't think we want to get that specific. I think in this scenario, the good news for anybody in this market is volumes are coming back. We called out in our prepared remarks how we're seeing double digits. I think that's consistent with anybody else that I'm aware of or public corporations, fiber companies, and so forth. The markets are growing, and we are getting our fair share, if not more. I do anything for us, but then I'll get for whoever they were to make the acquisition, the people is to go, one of the things we needed to get to was filling up the factory. It's hard to run a factory efficiently when you're not running long runs. You don't want changeovers.

You do not have full absorption. I think we even have, over time, a pathway to get there to—I say get there, but continue to increase year-over-year productivity and profits and so forth there. From the standpoint of, is it strategic for us to go forward, announcing all these other things? Obviously, at least some people think that it is better in their hands to be run than ours. We are exploring that, and we will see where it goes over the next couple of months here.

Speaker 8

Fair enough. I will leave it there. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3

Cool. Thanks. Good to talk to you, Chris.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from a line of Dean Dre from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Speaker 5

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Speaker 3

Hey. Good morning, Dean.

Speaker 5

Hey. Is there any explicit intention now to run the business more for cash? It looks like you're pulled back a bit on CapEx. Would you consider suspending the dividend here? Your balance sheet's in great shape, but just the idea of running the business more for cash at this stage.

Speaker 3

Dean, let me do it this way. We'll have a good discussion on it. Have a good discussion with the board. As of now, no, we're running—and I'm going to make it clear—one of the calls this morning is our employees and so forth. We're running this business that I'm proud of. I see, to all the other questions, how this is—even you get to the second, and I'll get back to cash in a second. As we implicit in our guide, if you walk through numbers, the second half of the year will be up year-over-year in profits and so forth. Where we drive that into next fiscal year that we already kind of alluded to in the growth initiative. I'll tie it back to cash. No, we're running this business like we would without any change.

Now, to your point, so therefore, no, with no discussion in the board meeting on suspending dividends. Two, to go what we've always said, at least in my mind, is with the CapEx, we made a bunch of investments on all these things like solar and even behind the scenes, the ERP systems. A lot of those things are coming to fruition now. We just don't need the amount of CapEx, and we're getting back more to historical trends. That's where I do think, to prepared remarks and in the charts with very comfortable, great performance on cash, that we're comfortable that we'll continue to deliver strong cash flows here. No, it's not because of exploring strategic alternatives. It's just the right thing to do for the company and our investors.

Speaker 5

You mentioned the board a couple of times, and I know you're limited in what you can say here. Can you just give us a sense of the activist engagement at this stage, the additions to the board? How aligned are you? Is there a cooperative tone here? If you just walk us through whatever you can, we'd appreciate it. Thanks.

Speaker 3

I am glad you're asking because that's probably the biggest softball question of the questions asked. No, totally cooperative. I don't know. I won't mention their names or it's in the press like Adam and so forth. But I'm not suggesting anybody calls. You would find out that we're aligned. Back to my prepared remarks, and I think the beginning question is, as we look through, the board's always looking to do what's best for the corporation, its stakeholders, its investors, and so forth. As inbound calls came in, it made sense to formally do this. Also for us, I think it's the best thing to do after a robust discussion to formally announce it versus I'm sure you're aware of other companies that have sold, but you don't know until they announce it versus let's cast a wide net.

Whether it's a PE firm, strategic, whatever is there. From that standpoint, dealing with Adam, Andy, the Rennick team, we've been aligned since day one. We also believe in the board refreshment and so forth that we were planning to do just as some of our board members now are within a couple of years of retirement. Bringing on Frank to the board that our whole nom and gov team has met with, I've met with, our chairman has met with, I'm excited that Frank's willing to join. We'll have immersion with him and jump into strategic reviews here. We're totally good. It's the right thing to do.

Speaker 5

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yep. Thanks, Dean.

Speaker 4

Your next question comes from a line of Chris Dankert from Loop Capital Markets. Your line is open. Chris, your line is open.

Speaker 1

Sorry about that. Take the questions, guys. I guess on the back half way to nature of the guide, forgive me if I missed it, but I mean, there's some seasonality dynamic there. Can you just kind of walk us through the other components as we think about why the back half is stronger than the first half and kind of how that could change potentially?

Speaker 3

Yeah. I'll start and then kind of let the rest of the team jump in here on what I miss. In the first quarter too, one item is we'll end on December 26th. We have a little bit of a short week at the start of the fiscal first quarter and a short week at the end here. That's a little bit of the compression dynamic in the first quarter that we're seeing. I think it's 10% less shipping days in the first quarter versus the fourth quarter, right? You're seeing that. We always have a normal seasonality decline of a couple of percent from Q4 into Q1. That's the dynamic there. As we look forward, though, the rest of the year, we do see strength coming back from a lot of the investments that we've made.

We have invested heavily in this business, and that's also why we're seeing some of the investments come down. As we had talked, they would come down. Some of those investments we're seeing come through or expect to come through this year would be the solar investments. That industry is really looking poised to have a strong recovery in calendar 2026. That will be, you'll see that come through in the Q2 to Q4. We do have some better line of sight on some of these larger mega projects that we've talked about. They are chunky. When they come, they come in kind of chunks, but they're not as consistent as everyday stock and flow orders. We have better line of sight to some of those. I think John P.

had mentioned that we have some letters of intent and things like that with some big customers. We are excited about that. The initiatives, whether it is on the PVC water side, etc., we have made some investments, and we are expecting those to come through. We have that equipment in place. It is a combination of those factors as we look forward into the back end of the year that the second half in totality, but really the fourth quarter here as we look, should be up. We anticipate it to be up year-over-year. Yeah. I am just going to add color to that to go just like John Deitzer mentioned where either orders, letter of intent with global mega projects, same thing. I think some of the orders in versus verbal commitment from solar customers, a significant ramp-up here starting in the first quarter of the calendar.

For the public, there's a couple of public solar companies. If you read their earnings, they're both bullish in that case and then other private ones as they look forward into next year. The solar market should be growing. We've had verbal, if not purchase orders there. There are some organic things like the regional service centers as we continue, again, with John Pregenzer and other leaders' guide on just how we make it more efficient with the whole and even 80/20. What are the real critical products that we have to drive and continue to perform even better there? That's a winning proposition with one order, one delivery, one invoice that I think we're going to see a good maximization as we get into next year. Not that it hasn't worked yet, but even better.

I think it's a whole cross-section there that makes us excited, Chris.

Speaker 1

No, that's extremely helpful. Thank you for all the details there, guys. I guess just as a follow-up, I mean, John, you mentioned the water investments there. I guess we've been talking about that in the past and then, frankly, raised a couple of eyebrows. I guess any comments you can give in terms of number of locations that have been changed over to water PVC from electrical capacity, expected contribution, and anything at all you can kind of give us to put arms around that piece of the business?

Speaker 3

Yeah. Let me handle this one because I do think, and I own it like everything else, our communication on this. We have around, if we reduce the factory here, but like eight facilities geographically dispersed. As we continue to drive productivity, we are getting more throughput in our lines. These are simple things like less scrap. I won't get too geeky here, but single minute exchange of dies, the turnover time that we have extra capacity here across our facilities. I'll hit then your specific question. We buy resin effectively. In several of our facilities, we're already in these markets. We're not looking at all to cut down on our electrical growth. Actually, we see electrical conduit for all the things we mentioned from data centers to grid hardening continue to grow just like we called out.

They grew double-digit here in Q4 to continue to grow well. Electrical conduit is our main focus. On the same hand, just as an edge-out strategy, let's invest in making one or two additional products. I could say C900 because that's the product, but let's make this one other product that we have the capacity on to further absorb the line, the overhead. It's a good profitable product here. We have made those type of investments in the factory, but it's not like a new factory. It takes nothing away from our primary focus on electrical. We are seeing growth here now in those new products like C900. I'm seeing good solid double-digit growth in those type of things.

I think from an investor standpoint, where we're focused on electrical is absolutely all I say I'm doing acquis is how we utilize an edge-out strategy for something that should add some organic growth to the corporations, additional profits, and so forth. And that's it. It is to John Deitzer's point, with that ramp-up, we see enough growth that it's going to help us drive the second half of the year.

Speaker 6

Yeah. I think to Bill's point, I think we're happy to see the growth in PVC conduit that we've had here in the last couple of quarters. I mean, it's been really positive to see the penetration we've had growing that product line while we expand some capabilities in a handful of our PVC plants that were already doing non-electrical or water products in the past. They can do some additional product lines and have some additional capacity. We really feel that we're on the back end of that investment, and then we'll start to see the commercial benefits as we execute that plan going forward. Again, the primary activity in all of our plants is PVC conduit.

Speaker 1

Got it. Thanks so much, guys.

Speaker 3

Thank you.

Speaker 4

This concludes the question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Bill Waltz for some closing remarks.

Speaker 2

Before we conclude, let me summarize our key takeaways from today's discussion. First, Atkore has a solid financial profile, differentiated product portfolio, and placement in key electrical end markets projecting growth into the next decade. Second, Atkore continues to evolve and drive towards excellence. Our announcement to support strategic alternatives is intended to chart the best path forward. Finally, our decisions now and in the future will be made with a steadfast commitment to creating and maximizing shareholder value over the long term. With that, thank you for your support and interest in our company, and we look forward to speaking with you during our next quarterly call. This concludes the call for today.

Speaker 4

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.