TopBuild - Q4 2025
February 26, 2026
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings, and welcome to TopBuild's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press *0 on your telephone keypad. Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to P. I. Aquino, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
P.I. Aquino (VP of Investor Relations)
Good morning, and thanks for joining us. With me today are Robert Buck, our President and CEO, John Achille, our COO, and Robert Kuhns, our CFO. Our earnings release, senior management's formal remarks, and a deck summarizing our comments can be found on our website at topbuild.com. Many of our remarks today will include forward-looking statements, which are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in this morning's press release and in the company's SEC filings. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements because of new information, future events, or otherwise. Please note that some of the financial measures to be discussed during this call will be on a non-GAAP basis. These non-GAAP measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP.
We've provided a reconciliation of these financial measures to the most comparable GAAP measures in today's press release and in our presentation, both of which are available on our website. Let me now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Robert Buck.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Thanks, good morning, everyone. We appreciate you being with us. As P.I. mentioned, Rob and I are joined by John Achille, our COO. I've asked John to start joining us, so he can share his business insights, including our ongoing efforts to drive operational excellence across the organization. Many of you remember meeting John at our Investor Day a few months ago. We're really pleased to see many of you at our Investor Day in December, and if you weren't able to attend in person, I hope you've taken the opportunity to watch the replay on our website. I'd like to start my comments today by reiterating a couple of the key themes and messages that we shared in December. First, we have a clear, profitable growth strategy and a proven track record of delivering compounded growth and strong shareholder returns.
Second, we have significant growth opportunities across our $95 billion total addressable market, which has increased non-cyclical and non-discretionary revenue drivers. We generate very strong free cash flow, and we're disciplined in deploying capital, both organically and through M&A. Third, we have a differentiated business model, and we will continue to leverage our connected technology platform to continue driving growth and operational excellence to improve the customer experience. Finally, we have a cycle-tested leadership team. We're proud of the people-first culture we built at TopBuild, and we're grateful for the commitment of our nearly 15,000 employees to growing our business and to working safely every day. Let me transition now to discussing the operating environment at a high level. In the fourth quarter, weakness in the residential and light commercial end markets persisted.
Consumer confidence remains low, interest rates are still elevated, and affordability continues to be an issue. All drivers of muted demand in the current environment. We continue to believe the underlying fundamentals are strong, supported by household formations and an underbuilt housing market, this means there is great long-term opportunity for new residential construction across a variety of verticals. Bidding and backlogs are healthy, we're well positioned to capitalize on that growth, both in the insulation and commercial roofing space. Turning now to our results. Fourth quarter sales rose 13.2% to $1.49 billion, fueled by the 7 acquisitions we completed last year, including SPI in the 4th quarter. We finished the year with over $5.4 billion in revenue and adjusted EBITDA of $1.04 billion or margin of 19.2%.
Rob will discuss the financials in more detail later in today's call. Acquisitions continue to be our top priority for capital allocation. Last year, we deployed $1.9 billion in capital across the business, adding approximately $1.2 billion in annual revenue. Our M&A pipeline continues to be very healthy. The environment is active and we're off to a solid start this year, having recently closed the acquisitions of Applied Coatings and Upstate Spray Foam. We also announced our second commercial roofing acquisition earlier this week, Johnson Roofing. Last year, we returned approximately $434 million to shareholders through our share repurchase program, demonstrating our ongoing confidence in our business and long-term, and I'll come back at the end with some closing thoughts.
John Achille (VP and COO)
Thanks, Robert. I'm glad to be here with you today. I'd like to cover two key areas: the supply chain environment and our ongoing efforts to drive operational excellence across the business. As housing demand has softened, we've seen the supply of building insulation, and more specifically, fiberglass, loosen and become more available. In the second half of 2025, we saw a couple of fiberglass lines come down for extended maintenance as manufacturers work to balance supply with demand and stabilize pricing. We have strong relationships with our suppliers, and our conversations are ongoing. Importantly, we are leveraging our tools and technology platform to manage inventory across the branch network....On the spray foam side, we continue to see plenty of availability.
For mechanical insulation, fiberglass pipe insulation remains on allocation, and we continue to work closely with our supplier partners to ensure that we receive our fair share of existing supply. Turning to operational excellence, we have great control of our business. You'll remember that in the first quarter of 2025, we were able to quickly take actions to align our cost structure with the demand outlook. Our work here continues as we navigate changes in the macro environment. We talked at Investor Day about how we leverage technology and take information from our businesses to share best practices, be more efficient, and further optimize the network. Everything from installer productivity, to job site routing, to shipments. Our field teams are doing a great job managing profitability. As soft demand has persisted, we are responding appropriately and making disciplined pricing and volume decisions at the local level.
Our efforts to optimize our cost structure across the business are ongoing, and ops leadership continues to focus on the bottom quartile of our branches to improve performance. On the specialty distribution side of the business, we are making great progress on integrating SPI. Late last year, we realigned specialty distribution field leadership to better serve our customers, and we've identified several cross-selling opportunities we expect to realize over time. On the supply chain side, we're capturing rebates and building on existing supplier relationships. Finally, our teams are working diligently to transition the SPI business to our technology platform, and importantly, do so in a way that is seamless for our customers. We expect the IT integration to be completed by the end of the second quarter. As we move forward, we're confident that we'll meet or exceed our original synergy targets.
Let me also say a few words about our commercial roofing business. Nick Hadden and the team continue to do a great job. As Robert mentioned, we announced the acquisition of Johnson Roofing this week and expect it to close later in the first quarter. Johnson Roofing generates about $29 million in annual sales and is based in Waco, serving the Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma markets. The acquisition will enable us to maximize many of our relationships with general contractors in the area that serve the technology, industrial manufacturing, and education verticals. We're really excited to continue expanding our commercial roofing platform in a very large and highly fragmented space, which looks a lot like insulation did 20 years ago. Finally, I wanna echo my thanks to our employees across the network.
We appreciate your hard work to lead your business, work safely, and drive operational excellence in everything you do. With that, I'll turn it over to Rob.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Thanks, John. 2025 marked our 10th year as a standalone public company, I thought I would take a quick second to reflect back on our growth. Over the past decade, we have grown our sales and adjusted earnings per share at compounded annual rates of 13% and 31%, respectively. This extraordinary growth has been the result of our unique business model that is driven by our people and culture. I wanna take this opportunity to thank our teams in the field and at our Branch Support Center for their efforts in delivering these results. While we are proud of TopBuild's past successes, we are even more excited about the growth opportunities that lie ahead, which we detailed at our Investor Day in December.
Before I dive into the numbers, I wanted to point out that we provided a little more detail in our presentation this quarter to split out our same branch results versus M&A results. Given the sizable impact of the Progressive and SPI acquisitions that we closed last year, we thought that would be useful. Shifting to our fourth quarter results, total sales were $1.49 billion, up 13.2% to prior year. Acquisitions contributed 23%, as both Progressive and SPI had solid quarters and exceeded our expectations. Pricing added 0.7%, as positive price on gutters and mechanical insulation was partially offset by lower pricing on residential insulation products. Volume declined 10.5%, driven by ongoing weakness in the residential and light commercial end markets.
Turning to our segments, Installation Services sales of $798 million rose 1.2% compared to last year. The M&A contribution of 16.3% more than offset the volume decline of 14.5% and pricing decline of 0.5%. Specialty Distribution sales totaled $755 million in the quarter, up 25.5% versus last year. Acquisitions added 28.9% and pricing rose 2.2%. This was partially offset by a volume decline of 5.5%. Fourth quarter adjusted gross profit was $416 million, with a margin of 28%, down 190 basis points to prior year.
100 basis points of the decline in margin was driven by a higher mix of distribution versus Installation Services sales as a result of the SPI acquisition and weaker sales volumes in the legacy Installation Services segment. The remainder of the gross margin decline was driven by price cost pressure and deleveraging on lower sales volumes. Adjusted SG&A as a percentage of sales in the fourth quarter was 14.1%, compared to 13.2% last year. The increase in SG&A was driven by acquisitions, including amortization of customer lists and trade names. On a same branch basis, SG&A was down $19 million or 20 basis points due to cost reduction actions taken during the year. TopBuild adjusted EBITDA in the quarter totaled $265 million, or a margin of 17.9%, down 180 basis points compared to prior year.
The drivers of the EBITDA decline were the same as discussed with gross margins. Installation Services adjusted EBITDA margin was 21% in the fourth quarter, down 40 basis points year-over-year. Specialty Distribution adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.4%, down 230 basis points to last year's fourth quarter. Excluding the impact of M&A, EBITDA margins were down 80 basis points to prior year. Fourth quarter interest and other expense rose to $36 million due to the expansion of our credit facilities and the addition of the $750 million bonds due in 2034. Fourth quarter adjusted earnings totaled $4.50 per diluted share, as compared to $5.13 in 2024. Moving to our balance sheet and cash flow, total liquidity was $1.1 billion at the end of the year.
Cash was $185 million, and availability under our revolver totaled $934 million. We ended the quarter with net debt of $2.7 billion, and our net debt leverage was 2.35 times trailing twelve months adjusted EBITDA. Working capital was $959 million, or 15.4% of sales. For the full year 2025, we generated $697 million in free cash flow. We deployed $1.9 billion for acquisitions and returned $434 million to shareholders via share buybacks. Turning now to our 2026 guidance. While there are signs for cautious optimism in our end markets, significant near-term uncertainty remains as the residential market continues to deal with challenges from consumer confidence and affordability.
We remain highly confident around the long-term demand fundamentals and the 2030 projections we shared at our Investor Day in December. As we work through our guidance for 2026, our overall philosophy at the midpoint was to assume no significant change in end market conditions. Under that lens, our 2026 guidance is for sales of $5.925 billion-$6.225 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of $1.005 billion-$1.155 billion. The midpoint of our revenue guidance at $6.075 billion, is based on the following key assumptions. Overall, we expect volume and price to each be down low single digits in 2026.
From an end market perspective, residential sales, which account for roughly 52% of our total sales, will be down mid-single digits, inclusive of both volume and price. Commercial and industrial, approximately 48% of our total sales, is expected to grow low single digits inclusive of volume and price. We expect M&A, which we have closed in the last 12 months, to contribute $800 million-$850 million of revenue. The midpoint of our adjusted EBITDA guidance at $1.08 billion assumes the following: an EBITDA decremental of approximately 27% on lower volumes, $55 million of price cost headwinds, and EBITDA margin on M&A in the mid-teens, inclusive of $15 million of Progressive and SPI synergies that will impact 2026.
Those synergies are in line with our initial projections, and we remain highly confident in delivering at or above the high end of our two-year synergy targets. With regard to the quarters, we expect quarterly sales to range between $1.4 billion and $1.6 billion, and our EBITDA margins to range between 16.5% and 18.5%, with the first quarter being the weakest and the third quarter being the strongest. Finally, let me give you a few additional inputs for your models. We expect the combination of interest and other will be $143 million-$149 million. Our tax rate will be approximately 26%. CapEx will be between 1% and 2%, and we expect working capital to be in the range of 15%-17% of sales.
With that, I'll turn it back over to Robert.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Thanks, Rob. Let me close with a couple of thoughts on our outlook. On the residential side of the business, external forecasts vary with some optimism for the back half of the year. While we expect demand will improve, it's not yet clear what that timing will be. It is too early in the year to bank on a second-half recovery. This uncertainty is baked into our guidance, as Rob discussed. Should the environment improve over the course of the year, we are very well positioned to capitalize. On the commercial and industrial front, bidding activity and backlog are solid. We're poised to capture growth in those verticals that are expanding. While near-term uncertainty exists, we remain bullish about the underlying fundamentals of our industry, our $95 billion total addressable market, and our ability to capitalize on both organic and inorganic growth opportunities.
We have a proven track record of success, fueled by our unique, flexible, and capital-efficient business model. We're well diversified between residential, commercial, industrial, between Installation Services and Distribution, as well as between cyclical and non-cyclical revenue. We have great control over our business, and we have demonstrated the ability to adapt quickly and navigate broader changes in the environment. Finally, we're disciplined stewards of capital. We have an active and robust M&A pipeline, and we'll continue to focus on compounding returns and delivering increased shareholder value. With that, operator, let's open up the line for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. With that, we will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you'd like to remove yourself from the question queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. One moment while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from the line of Sam Reid with Wells Fargo. Please proceed with your question.
Sam Reid (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Awesome. Thanks so much, guys. Maybe starting off with a big picture question, wanted to dig a little bit deeper into the guide path for single-family start, as we move through the year. It sounds like you're rightfully embedding really no recovery here, which I think is probably the right call. We obviously do have a lot of detail from the public builders, especially on the production side, on their outlook for starts. Just curious kind of what you're hearing from the private builders and perhaps any differences in what those private builder conversations sound like versus what the public sound like? Thanks.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Good morning, Sam. This is Robert. You're right, you get a lot of color from the public builders, which I'm sure you've seen in their guides, as well as discussions came out of the builder show last week. I'd say the regional builders, the private regional builders are, you know, keeping very cost competitive there, you know, pushing to make sure that they hit their volumes and maintain their own compared to the publics. I'd say on the, you know, smaller custom builders, you know, they're probably the least impacted, so they seem to be definitely be holding their own relative to demand, when you think about their customer base as well. That's some of the color we see, regional privates as well as the custom privates.
Sam Reid (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
All helpful color there. Then maybe switching gears, it does sound like you're seeing some relatively solid backlogs on the commercial industrial side. I did perhaps pick up on a little bit of a delineation between light versus heavy commercial. Would just love to hear kind of where we are on the light commercial side and maybe just talk through kind of how a recovery on the light side could potentially work. Thanks.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think we typically see, you know, the light follow residential. I think we see some positive trending in some of our backlogs on the light side. As we talk about backlogs relative to commercial, industrial, as we think about mechanical installations, we think about roofing, we see those probably trending at a faster clip. Typically, lighter commercial does follow residential. We see some trending there in the right direction, we believe. Again, more optimism on the mechanical and the commercial roofing side.
Sam Reid (Executive Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Michael Rehaut with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.
Michael Rehaut (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
Hi, thanks. Good morning, everyone, thanks for taking my questions.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Morning.
Michael Rehaut (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
First, wanted to also kind of delve in a little bit to the outlook, you know, and really focusing around the pricing trends. You mentioned that embedded in your outlook is $55 million in price cost headwinds, and also that your mid-single digit decline for resi is inclusive of pricing, so I guess more of a revenue type of number. Just wanted to get a better sense for, you know, when you think about the $55 million, how much of that is negative price, or if all of that is negative price, and how you would expect that to flow through and impact the results throughout the year, if it's gonna be more first quarter or first half weighted.You know, just trying to get a sense of the degree of impact, you know, particularly as we start out the year.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Mike, this is Rob. You know, similar to last year, you know, we started talking about these price cost headwinds. Definitely something, you know, we started seeing pockets of in different markets as certain markets slowed, pressure picks up around that side of things. We obviously were pretty successful last year, doing a lot to take cost out, both, you know, through negotiations with our suppliers, but also, you know, a lot of costs we took out in the business to help maintain margins. Certainly, that's gonna be the focus and the things that we can control in 2026. You know, since the, you know, the main tenet of our guidance was really around, hey, the environment here from a macro standpoint, we're not gonna forecast, you know, it improving dramatically.
We do think we'll continue to see those headwinds, similar to what we saw last year. You know, it pops up in different pockets and different markets. As you go through the year, I'd say, you know, just like we said last year, it probably, you know, progressively gets a little worse as the year goes on. You know, we definitely saw some of that pressure in the fourth quarter. Not quite as much as we had thought in our guidance, but, you know, we thought it was prudent to continue that given the macro environment we're in right now.
Michael Rehaut (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
Got it. I appreciate that. I guess secondly, just looking at the fourth quarter results. We saw a pretty big differentiation in, you know, relative to our estimates at least, you know, with significantly lower sales, but much better margins for both segments. So I apologize if I missed this in the prepared remarks, but I was hoping to get a sense of what were some of the drivers there, and, you know, with, you know, how you had that better margin result despite, you know, at least relative to our estimates, a big gap in some of the top line.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah. You're talking about our margins on the installation side of the business, primarily?
Michael Rehaut (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
actually, results for both segments.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Okay. Yeah, I mean, the big drivers of that are like what I said. I mean, we did a lot of work this year in terms of cost reduction and productivity. You know, we did some branch rationalization in the first quarter that's helped take costs out. You know, we realigned our headcount, given the volumes we're seeing right now. We continue to do all the same things we've done in the past around focus on bottom quartile and focus on operational excellence. Those things have helped offset, you know, some of the price cost headwinds we've seen in the markets.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
I would say, Mike, this is Robert. I'd say the teams in the field did a nice job. I mean, they remained very disciplined. you know, they were driving where they could, the operational excellence piece that Rob talked about. They did a nice job staying very disciplined during the year, and John spoke to it in his prepared remarks about, you know, the appropriate actions that were taken there being taken in the field. I think nice job by the field teams in navigating the year as well.
Michael Rehaut (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
Thank you.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Kim with Evercore ISI. Please proceed with your question.
Aatish Shah (Analyst)
Hi, this is Aatish for Steve. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanna start with kinda how you see the M&A landscape in commercial roofing following the recent acquisition. How do you see the pacing of additional acquisitions in that space? Have you observed any increased competition for those assets, as you're looking at rolling those up? Thanks.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Hi, Aatish, it's Robert. Yeah, very active on that front. We were excited to announce Johnson Roofing earlier this week. You know, we spent time in the first 6 months with Progressive, working the M&A process, working the integration of the M&A process, in a really good space there relative to, you know, how our process works and even, you know, front end of identifying deals to diligence, to the back-end integration. We've made a lot of progress there. Very active on the front, I would say, smaller deals to bigger, chunkier deals.
I would say, given the relationships that the Progressive team have on some of the smaller deals and some of the relationships we have in the industry, I'd say, we're not competing right now in those discussions that we're having for the majority of assets that we're talking with. Pretty excited about it. We see the pace keeping up here, as we've always said, we're gonna be disciplined. We're looking for good quality companies, we're definitely building some re-relationships and evaluating several right now.
Aatish Shah (Analyst)
Great. That's super helpful. Thank you for that color. Switching topics here a little bit. On the prepared remarks, I think you mentioned the realignment in the Specialty Distribution field leadership. Can you talk about that a little bit more and kinda what the intention was there?
John Achille (VP and COO)
Yeah. This is John. You know, as far as the changes that we made, you know, when you think of, you know, three distinct businesses that we have on the Specialty Distribution side, just making sure we had the right leadership in place. I think coming off the SPI acquisition, you know, we got some nice talent there that was able to accent with our existing talent. Just, you know, really good experience that we have leading those businesses today, driving the operational excellence that we expect of those teams. That was really the biggest change there.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
I think, Aatish, it really speaks to the pace at which John and the team have really worked the integration piece. You know, really quickly getting the right leadership team in place, which, by the way, some of that was SPI folks from the SPI side, some of our folks from the DI side. A nice mix of the team, which we think is driving buy-in and integration pretty aggressively here. I think we said in our prepared remarks, highly confident in, you know, the top end or exceeding, you know, our synergy number that we talked about whenever we announced that deal.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah, then just one more comment on that, just around guidance, right? In terms of, you know, we've included, you know, the run rate that we signed up for year 1 around synergies. You know, if there's anything we see opportunity in this year in terms of overachieving, you know, the midpoint of our guidance, it's definitely around the synergies, right? That's why, you know, when we think about, you know, what we can do, we're about controlling the controllables. The macro is gonna be what it's gonna be, we're, you know, focused 100% on driving these synergies and getting the results that we can control there.
Aatish Shah (Analyst)
That's great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Susan Maklari with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your question.
Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Md)
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My first question is on the cross-selling opportunities that you highlighted in your prepared remarks as you're working on the integration of SPI. Can you give a bit more color on what those are and how we should think about them coming through?
John Achille (VP and COO)
Susan, this is John. Yes, I would say today, cross-selling for us it's very much just, you know, people talking to other people within our business, right? We could have a DI customer that we have a great relationship with, that happens to be, you know, working on a job where we can also offer that customer, you know, an install service. You know, today it's really just connecting, our sales teams and our managers. We do plan on, you know, putting some digital resources behind that in the future, and really making that, you know, kind of just leveraging another one of our strengths, where we touch, you know, all these, different types of projects, through different, businesses that we have.
it's an exciting opportunity for us, and we plan on investing to make it, to make it even seamless for our internal staff.
Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Md)
Okay. That's helpful. As we do enter another year, that seems like it could be fairly challenged as we think about the outlook for housing and the macro. Can you talk a bit about the cost structure across the business? How you're thinking about your positioning? Are there opportunities to perhaps make further adjustments in there, and what you're watching to determine if that needs to happen?
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah, I mean, Susan, this is Rob. That's something we're, you know, constantly monitoring. Certainly something we have an advantage, given, you know, a common ERP across our footprint, our ability to see activity going on in the business on a daily basis and make adjustments. You know, last year was a great example as we saw things begin to slow early in the year, we quickly took action. We'll be doing the same thing this year, right? We're gonna continue to monitor the macro situation, continue to monitor what's going on. You know, more than 70% of our costs are variable, you know, we can adjust quickly and make changes where we need to.
Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst and Md)
Okay. Thank you, guys, and good luck with the quarter.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Philip Ng with Jefferies. Please proceed with your question.
Margaret Grady (Equity Research Associate)
Hey, guys, this is Maggie on for Phil. First, I wanted to dig into the pricing outlook. I mean, pricing held up pretty well in the quarter and even stepped up in distribution, maybe a function of the end market exposure. How should we think about that guide for down low single-digit pricing and the outlook between the two segments and how the $55 million price cost headwind is split? I think you also said 4Q, or maybe it was 20-25 total. You saw some inflation in gutters and spray foam, and fiberglass saw some pressure. Any color on how that's trending into 2026?
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah, Maggie, this is Rob. Yeah, that price cost bucket, it's obviously a mixed bag of products, some with price inflation, some with price pressure and price deflation. You know, it's one of the good things about the diversification we have in our model now, right? You can see that coming through particularly on the Specialty Distribution side, where, as you pointed out, pricing, you know, actually increased in the fourth quarter on the Distribution side, and that's because of the, you know, heavier exposure to the commercial products on that side, the mechanical insulation, and also a heavier, you know, concentration of gutters on Distribution than what we have on the install side.
When you think about that mixed bag of products, we've you know, throughout last year, I'd say we started the year with some carryover pricing and fiberglass that was favorable, but definitely as the year progressed, you know, saw that get pressured and saw prices, you know, go down a bit the back half of the year. you know, pretty similar on spray foam. mechanical, we saw good price increases throughout the year. Commercial, projects were strong, particularly on the mechanical side, and had really good pricing there. gutters, because of tariffs, saw some pricing. When you put that all together for the year, we netted out to positive sales price.
I'd say it was still a drag on margins when you netted everything out from a cost perspective, you know, roughly about 10 basis points when you net everything we were able to do from a cost perspective. Not, you know, terribly impactful. As we look out, like I said earlier, we expect a similar environment. We expect pricing on mechanical, you know, to be strong, given the strong demand there. you know, the pricing on fiberglass and spray foam, we think we'll continue to see pressure as we did the back half of this year, and that's really the biggest driver of the, you know, the price pressure that we're talking about in 2026.
Margaret Grady (Equity Research Associate)
Okay, got it. That was all really helpful. Next on the margin guidance, you know, the pressure makes sense with volume deleverage and the price cost headwinds you've outlined, but you're always doing stuff on the bottom quintile branches and the special ops teams to drive margins. Wondering if the outlook incorporates any of those productivity initiatives or if that could be upside to the guide? Then maybe just walk us through some different levers you have if demand is weaker than the outlook currently.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah, Maggie, this is Rob. You know, in the, in the prepared remarks, we tried to give you some bookends around where EBITDA margins will be, you know, throughout the year. I'd say, you know, like we said in the prepared remarks, the strongest quarter will be Q3, probably, you know, in the neighborhood of 18.5% or call it 18%-19%. You know, more in that 16.5%. Yeah, we're definitely seeing, you know, we've talked a lot already about kind of some of the price cost pressure, and like we've said, we've done a really good job of offsetting a lot of that with cost reductions, and we plan to continue to do that.
The other thing that's really, you know, impacting margins too is M&A, particularly, you know, the SPI transaction, with that being a 10% EBITDA business that we acquired in the fourth quarter. It's still running around 10% today, obviously, like we talked about, we see a lot of opportunities on the synergy side. We're moving quickly there, and, you know, with synergies, you know, the goal would be to get that to the mid-teens this year. We'll see that improve as the year goes on that piece. That's definitely a big lever in terms of what we can do this year. Then, like I said earlier, I mean, the other levers are, you know, around our cost structure, and we're gonna continue to monitor the environment.
We feel like we made the adjustments necessary for the current volume environment we're in, but we'll make. You know, if that does get worse from here, we'll adjust and take more action. You know, that volume guide we talked about and saying, "Hey, you know, we expect volume down, you know, low single digits for the year," but talked about a decremental of 27%. I mean, that includes us taking cost out to get to that 27. Definitely something you know, we've done in the past and something we're comfortable we'll be able to do this year.
Margaret Grady (Equity Research Associate)
Okay, great. Thanks, guys.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Kenneth Zener with Seaport Research. Please proceed with your question.
Kenneth Zener (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
Good morning, everybody. Welcome, John.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Good morning.
Kenneth Zener (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
Can you guys talk to This is gonna be more residential focused. The guidance for res is down mid-single digit. Can you bridge the dynamics between, you know, kind of on the install side, the 15% decline we see, realizing some res is rolling through Specialty Distribution, which is down 6? Talk to the persistence or the dynamics, why on the install side, the volume is down, and if you see an equivalent decline, I guess, in the same residential products that you're not installing.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Ken, this is Rob. From a, you know, volume perspective on the install side in the fourth quarter, you know, we definitely saw, you know, residential down, single family and multifamily. As we've seen throughout the year, we would definitely say, you know, particularly December slowed down significantly. We were well ahead of our expectations at the end of November, and then, you know, December slowed significantly on the resi side. On the install side, our commercial business, as we've talked about throughout the year, about half of that business on the installation side is light commercial work. That's been slow throughout the year, so that also has been a drag on volumes on that side.
That's, you know, the resi side and light commercial side, really driven by, you know, the slower starts environment. On the Specialty Distribution side, because of the diversification of our end markets there, right, and now that being a much, heavier commercial, focused business, you're not seeing as big an impact. We definitely have the resi products down, and that's why, you know, volumes overall were down. We were able to offset, a good portion of that with, you know, a really good year in mechanical insulation. And also on some of the other commercial products we move, you know, through the Service Partners side of things and through our metal building business.
Kenneth Zener (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
Okay, thank you. Given that you guys have a very, probably the best, amongst the best visibility on what builders, you know, what you're bidding on, the mid-single-digit decline, could you comment on, you know, Florida, Texas, if you would feel comfortable, you know, kind of talking about the dynamics you're seeing given that those markets were certainly, you know, impacted by COVID? It seems like we're kind of coming through that more in Florida versus Texas. Could you talk to how that is impacting your business, if you would? Thank you.
John Achille (VP and COO)
Yeah, Ken, it's John. You know, on the resi side, Florida, you know, you hit on it. It's a bit optimistic down there. We're seeing things start to recover. You know, I would say, there's a good story coming there. Versus Texas, probably still a little flat to slow. You know, we're seeing a little mixed bag between those two. You know, maybe just take the opportunity to take you know, take you around the country a little bit. You know, the Northeast, off to a bit of a flat start, but I would say there's a good story coming there. Probably impacted by weather, you know, as that area just got hammered again this past week. You know, nothing surprising there.
Midwest, a bit flat, but really down the middle of the country, we see some good optimism, you know, through Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, you know, some probably nice story gonna shape up there. As you work out west a little bit, Colorado is still a little slow out of the gate. Just west of that, though, some of the northwestern, you know, the Pacific Northwest, we've got probably a good story coming there, Montana, Utah. Really the only one that's not showing signs of improvement is more around California. You know, that's the only one that I've marked as, you know, probably, you know, probably hasn't necessarily bottomed out yet.
Kenneth Zener (Md and Senior Equity Analyst)
Excellent. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Michael Dahl (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Morning, thanks for taking my questions. sorry to belabor the pricing point. I just wanna make sure we understand kind of the out-the-door pricing versus the cost you're taking. Our sense has been that on the resi fiberglass side, there is kind of low single-digit price pressure that the OEMs are also seeing. If you're looking for down low singles on price out the door, is that worse for you in the resi installation, and that's why you're seeing the price cost pressure? Just maybe a little more color on that kind of differential and what's actually driving that. I think Maggie asked this, but also, just another clarification on how much is assumed within the install versus distribution sides.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah. This is Rob, Mike. We don't break out the guidance by segment, but to give you a, you know, try to give a little more color on the pricing, I mean, we have seen, you know, there is price pressure obviously in the market. You know, the builders are dealing with affordability challenges, demand challenges, so there's, you know, been price pressure from that side. Like you said, you know, the manufacturers are definitely feeling that as well. You know, so there have been price reductions. I mean, for us, what I have to always remind folks is, I mean, pricing is a local decision in our business, right?
It's a local, you know, the builders are making local decisions, so, you know, it's literally thousands of decisions being made around pricing. We, we think we do a really good job of adjusting to local markets and controlling that and putting guardrails around it with our, with our ERP system. Just given the macro environment, we, you know, we saw it in the fourth quarter, you know, we do see markets where, you know, things are getting more competitive, you know, prices are picking up. We're gonna do what we can to recover that. Even if we recover dollar for dollar with what we're seeing there, you know, that can be a margin headwind for us as well.
You know, we're gonna do our best to offset it, but like we said, in the midpoint of our guidance, we've got a headwind baked in there.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Mike, this is Robert. Just to build upon that, I mean, I think, you know, we've done exactly what we said, right? We talked about being disciplined in 2025, but volumes have stayed, you know, slower for longer. As they stay slower for longer, you get the, you know, things that John talked about in his prepared remarks, where, you know, we're making some good, disciplined decisions at the local level, which is what Rob just talked about. Discipline, and then as things stay slower for longer, then we appropriately stay disciplined but pivot appropriately as well.
Michael Dahl (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. That's, that's helpful. I appreciate it. My second question, just on the commercial roofing dynamics. I appreciate some of the high-level commentary. Since that business has some today, pretty concentrated geographic exposures, can you help us understand, at a market level, what you're seeing on the commercial roofing kind of end market volume growth and then, maybe then the outgrowth that Progressive is seeing and what you're assuming versus the market in 2026?
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Yeah. Maybe I'll this is Robert, I'll start looking backwards a little bit. Progressive Roofing had a great 2025. Some nice organic growth in the business, really strong execution in Q4. If we look at, you know, back half of the year, our ownership of Progressive Roofing. Great job of 20 in 25. As we look at 2026, I think I mentioned a while ago, those backlogs are growing at a steeper clip. You're right, I mean, great footprint in the Southwest, in Arizona, Texas, those areas. Johnson Roofing, obviously, we just purchased is focused Texas, but also did some work in Oklahoma and Louisiana as well. We got a nice footprint down there. You know, we do quite a bit of travel in that work picked up a major project in Idaho.
We're doing some projects up in Utah as well. We'll travel for some of the bigger projects, but as we do M&A, as you think about the future, we'll build out that footprint. That's part of, as we're looking at companies, looking at where we want to be, that type of thing, part of it is building out that footprint. We think a great 2026 coming on the commercial roofing side, and the leading indicator of that is backlogs and obviously staying close to the Progressive team. As John said, they're doing a fabulous job and again, a platform that we see building upon here with a high level of confidence
Michael Dahl (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
That's great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Trey Grooms with Stephens Inc. Please proceed with your questions.
Trey Grooms (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah, thanks for taking the question, and good morning.
Operator (participant)
Good morning.
Trey Grooms (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
You know, you guys have been realigning headcount and some other actions you've taken. You know, when.
... back into an eventual kind of, you know, recovery mode. I guess the question is: How much of these cost outs do you see as, you know, sustainable versus, you know, kind of what you need to bring back pretty quickly, as you look at the different levers you guys have been pulling?
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah, Trey, this is Rob. I'll start. you know, from a cost perspective, there's definitely, you know, a portion of what we did last year that we think will stick, right? I mean, some of the facility consolidations, that rent cost, you know, isn't gonna, isn't gonna come back on us. you know, some of the back office fixed costs, you know, we like to try to move on. You know, we're trying to do things in the back office to automate and do things more efficiently. you know, our hope there would be to not have to add back as much on that side. Then, obviously, the installer side, we're gonna need to add back to adjust to the volumes as they go.
That's where our, you know, our recruiting practices and our, you know, our skill at doing that comes into play, and we've always, you know, outperformed at that. We're, we're confident we'll be able to adjust and get labor back as volume comes back.
Trey Grooms (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
All right, thanks for that. I know you touched on this a little bit, but, you know, as we're looking at the guide on the margins, the puts and takes there, you know, you mentioned synergies as an area where, you know, there may could possibly be some upside there. You seem pretty confident in that. you know, as we think about the high end of the margin range versus the low end, again, we're specifically asking about the margins. what would be the other swing factors there, in your opinion, you know, to get us to the high end versus the low end, outside of the synergies? is that gonna be more, you know, volume related, or could there be some swings in price cost?Where are the more likely kind of swing factors there?
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah, I mean, you kind of hit on the two key ones there. I mean, for sure, it, you know, the higher end of our range assumes higher volumes, and if that comes, you know, we'll definitely, you know, like we typically say, we expect our incrementals to be in that 22%-27% type range, and we're gonna, you know, increase margins by putting volume in at that level. If demand is stronger, we would expect, you know, the price-cost situation to improve as well. That's, you know, the second piece of that. Those are really the two other things. I mean, the other piece is what we can do with the cost structure, which is like what I referenced earlier in terms of our focus.
We're focused on what we can control there, and so we're, you know, doing all the things we always do around operational excellence. This year we have the unique opportunity with the synergies to, you know, to outperform on that piece as well.
Trey Grooms (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. Thanks for the color, Rob. I'll pass it on.
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yep.
Trey Grooms (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Adam Baumgarten with Vertical Research Partners. Please proceed with your question.
Adam Baumgarten (VP and Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning. Just back to the price cost outlook. I guess, is it fair with headwinds, you noted that $55 million will felt more acutely in installation than specialty distribution, given the competitive behavior that you guys mentioned earlier?
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
I'd say, I mean, the price cost pressure on the residential products, we've seen more of it in distribution, right? Because of the labor component on install, it, you know, it's less, less pressure there. It doesn't mean we don't have any pressure there, but the. We've seen less. The distribution side, it doesn't show up as much in the PNL because of the diversification of the business on that side. From a pure, you know, impact of what you'll see, yeah, more than likely, I'd say more of it would be on the install side, just because of the business mix piece of it.
Adam Baumgarten (VP and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. Just since John brought it up and when he was through the markets, just any kind of sizing you could do on the weather impact you've seen in 1Q so far, given the couple storms?
Robert Kuhns (CFO)
Yeah, really hard at this point, given we're still, you know, shoveling out in certain parts of the country. It's definitely, you know, significant, you know, and definitely, you know, baked into kind of that, or at least what we know of as of today, baked into, you know, kind of that bookend we gave around quarterly revenue.
Adam Baumgarten (VP and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, got it. Thanks.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Reuben Garner with The Benchmark Company. Please proceed with your question.
Reuben Garner (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Most of my question's been answered. I just have one on the commercial business and outlook. I was wondering, you know, data centers have been a pretty big focus of late, but I was wondering if you could go into a little more detail on some of the other, some of the other areas that you're seeing that are driving growth in your mechanical and commercial segment. You know, if you had to pick, is this the mechanical side where you see the most upside to your outlook at this point this year?
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Yeah. Good morning. This is Robert, Reuben. I would say, as we think about some of the other verticals here, obviously data centers is, you hear everybody talking about that. I think, you know, the one thing is we look across the verticals, make sure we're bidding across the verticals so you don't become too heavily reliant on one. I would say education is big right now, healthcare for sure.
We're seeing manufacturing as well. We're seeing it really across the board, you know, even some things, food and beverage on the mechanical side. Really diverse. Several of them growing there, we're making sure that we're bidding across all the different verticals from that. That's why we talk about, you know, we do think there's upside there. There's gonna be growth, where I've talked about in the guidance of commercial industrial growth, we do see upside potential there. We think both top line and bottom line. We talked about how we're gonna leaning in on the synergies, highly confident in our synergy number around the SPI and DIs, also the Progressive synergies. It was a smaller number, we're highly confident in that.
I talked about how the outlook is on commercial roofing for 26 as we look at backlogs and work that we're securing there. Definitely commercial, industrial, mechanical, and roofing. We would say those are upsides and really across the different verticals.
Reuben Garner (Md and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Great. Thanks, guys, good luck.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from the line of Collin Verron with Deutsche Bank. Please proceed with your question.
Collin Verron (Equity Research Analyst)
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. just one for me. You talked about pricing some of your categories, but I don't think you mentioned commercial roofing. I know it's a smaller piece of the pie right now, but it's growing. I'd just be curious as how prices are tracking there and if the price cost expectations differ from the consolidated company at all in 2026? Thanks.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Obviously for in our guide right now, any pricing related to roofing, or at least, you know, for half the year, is baked into the M&A number. You know, overall, I'd say in general, pricing is flattish on the commercial roofing side. From what we're seeing, they can get a little bit different pricing depending on their mix of business from, you know, new roof to re-roof, and depending on, you know, new roofs, what end market it goes into. There's a little bit of a mix element there. You know, from an overall pricing perspective with the suppliers, I'd say it's an overall flattish environment right now.
P.I. Aquino (VP of Investor Relations)
Operator, do we have anyone else in the queue?
Operator (participant)
No. With that was the last question. I would like to pass the floor back to Robert Buck for any closing comments.
Robert Buck (President and CEO)
Okay, thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We look forward to seeing many of you at the upcoming conferences. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. With that, ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. We thank you for your participation, and you may disconnect your lines at this time, and have a wonderful day.