BlueLinx - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 revenue declined 2% year over year to $709.226M with gross profit of $111.129M and gross margin of 15.7%; GAAP diluted EPS was $0.33 and adjusted diluted EPS was $0.27.
• Versus S&P Global consensus, BXC slightly missed revenue ($709.226M vs $713.879M*) and slightly beat EPS ($0.27 vs $0.265*); adjusted EBITDA was roughly in line with S&P’s EBITDA consensus ($19.6M reported vs $19.9M*).
• Early Q2 quarter-to-date indicators: specialty margins 17–18%, structural margins 9–10%, with average daily sales volumes improved vs both Q1 2025 and Q2 2024, positioning the stock for volume-driven recovery headlines if sustained.
• Management emphasized resilient specialty and structural margins despite price deflation/volume headwinds, reiterated strong liquidity ($795M) and continued buybacks ($15M in Q1; $31M remaining authorization) as capital return catalysts.

Note: Asterisked estimate figures are Values retrieved from S&P Global.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

• What Went Well

  • Maintained solid specialty (18.7%) and structural (9.3%) gross margins despite price deflation and weather-driven volume pressure; CEO: “continued ability to drive profitable sales… despite challenging weather and market conditions”.
  • Volume gains in engineered wood products (EWP), lumber and panels; structural revenue rose 3% YoY on higher lumber prices and volumes; management believes it is gaining share in multifamily and EWP.
  • Strong balance sheet/liquidity ($449M cash; $795M liquidity) and active capital returns ($15M repurchases in Q1; $31M remaining), preserving flexibility into recovery.

• What Went Wrong

  • Gross margin contracted 190 bps YoY to 15.7%; specialty margins fell 200 bps YoY (20.7% → 18.7%), partly due to smaller duty-related benefits ($6.5M in 1Q24 vs $2.4M in 1Q25) and deflation/volume pressure.
  • SG&A increased $2.8M YoY to $94.1M on digital transformation and higher logistics, pressuring operating leverage in a softer demand environment.
  • Seasonally weak cash flow: operating cash flow -$33.9M and free cash flow -$39.8M in Q1; inventories and receivables used cash as weather slowed activity early in the quarter.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the BlueLinx Holdings first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen only mode and today's call is being recorded. We will begin with opening remarks and introductions. At this time I would like to turn the conference over to your host, Investor Relations Officer Tom Morabito, please.

Tom Morabito (Investor Relations Officer)

Thank you, operator, and welcome to the BlueLinx first quarter 2025 earnings call. Joining me on today's call is Shyam Reddy, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Kim DeBrock, our Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Interim Principal Financial Officer. At the end of today's prepared remarks, we will take questions. Our first quarter news release and Form 10-Q were issued yesterday after the close of the market along with our webcast presentation, and these items are available in the Investors section of our website, bluelinxco.com. We encourage you to follow along with the detailed information on the slides during the webcast. Today's discussion contains forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ significantly from those forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties, including the risks described in our most recent SEC filings.

Today's presentation includes certain non-GAAP and adjusted financial measures that we believe provide helpful context for investors evaluating our business. Reconciliations to the closest GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix of our presentation. Now I'll turn it over to Shyam.

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Thanks Tom and good morning everyone. Our first quarter results were highlighted by gross margins of over 18% for specialty products and just over 9% for structural products, despite the impact of continued price deflation in some categories and lower volumes than others due to weather and macroeconomic forces. Broadly speaking, while market driven price deflation has improved since Q4, it continues to have an impact on our financial results, especially in certain product categories. That said, we partially offset this deflation by driving volume growth in engineered wood products, lumber and panels. We continue to execute on our local and national market share gain strategies to grow our key specialty product categories engineered wood, siding, millwork, industrial and outdoor living products at a higher rate than our structural product business. In order to shift the product mix over the next several years across all of our customer segments.

Our digital transformation efforts are on track with phase one set to be completed by Q3 2025. We believe that our continued focus on modernizing the business with new technology will ultimately enable us to differentiate ourselves in the market, allowing us to accelerate our profitable sales growth and operational excellence initiatives. We also continue to explore and evaluate Greenfield and M&A opportunities to expand our geographic reach and to support our specialty product sales growth initiatives. Our Greenfield in Portland, Oregon is performing better than expected and has been expanding its product offering every month. Leading products currently include LP siding, followed by structural panels and lumber. We expect to continue expanding our product offering by leveraging key supplier relationships. As we roll out additional Greenfields and high potential locations, we expect to apply best practices learned in Portland.

Now turning to our first quarter results, we generated net sales of $709 million and adjusted EBITDA of $19.6 million for a 2.8% adjusted EBITDA margin. Adjusted net income was $2.3 million or $0.27 per share. Specialty products continue to account for approximately 70% of net sales and about 80% of gross profit. For Q1, specialty product net sales declined nearly 5% year over year due to continued price deflation, mostly in engineered wood products and millwork. Volume pressure, most notably in siding and industrial products, also played a role as poor weather, lower housing starts, and lower R&R activity depending on the market had an impact. Our West region, and in particular Texas, experienced significant headwinds due to the challenges faced by large tract builders.

As I mentioned earlier, these declines were partially offset by strong volume growth in EWP where we are gaining market share in the strategically important category. We also delivered gross margin performance of 18.7% in specialty products. I would also like to note that the results for specialty products improved significantly in March when compared to January and February. Structural product revenues increased more than 3% largely due to significant price increases in lumber combined with volume increases in both lumber and panels. These increases in volume were largely due to growth in our multifamily business where similar to EWP we believe we are gaining market share as a result of our focused multifamily share gain strategy. For the quarter industry average lumber prices were up 13% while panel prices were down 13% year over year.

We once again leveraged our strategic approach to inventory management and our centers of business excellence to manage margins. Our focus on business excellence continues to deliver solid gross margin performance quarter after quarter and despite challenging market conditions. Furthermore, our focus on driving an enterprise wide corporate strategy enables us to better leverage our diversified customer base, geographic footprint and scale to navigate the challenging landscape effectively. This disciplined approach positions us very well for the housing and building products market recovery when that occurs. Lastly on the quarter, our financial position remains strong and our significant liquidity leaves us well positioned to achieve our vision and execute on our profitable sales growth strategy and take advantage of share gain opportunities as the market rebounds.

We also continue to have the flexibility to demonstrate our commitment to returning capital to shareholders by repurchasing $15 million in shares during the first quarter. Now let's turn to our perspective on the broader housing and building products market. As you all know, the housing market is challenging, which is putting pressure on the building materials sector. Housing affordability and high mortgage rate concerns were being addressed with value engineering, builder concessions and declining mortgage rates heading into the year. The impact of these measures are now being tempered by declining consumer sentiment tied to tariffs, stock market declines and inflation fears, to name a few. On top of that, we're operating in the lowest existing housing sales backdrop in 30 years, which is a powerful force for driving repair and remodel activity.

The impacts of the new administration's policies should be temporal as the long term fundamentals of housing are strong. Currently, the U.S. is 4 million homes short, which is better for the building product sector than being in a situation where supply far outstrips demand, a problem the building materials and housing sector experienced during the financial crisis in the aughts. At some point, homeowners will need to improve their existing homes or drive existing home sales activity to meet family formation and other personal needs, thereby driving greater repair and remodel activity. In the meantime, there will continue to be general uncertainty about the timing for sustained housing recovery. In fact, we're seeing this flow through various indicators of builder and consumer sentiment. March total and single family housing starts were down considerably.

On the other hand, multifamily housing starts were significantly higher on a year over year basis. Builders confidence in consumer sentiment levels are trending downward as well. Repair remodel spending continues to be soft given low existing home sales. Despite this softness, our strategic focus on national accounts is enabling us to grow this business on a year over year basis. As the housing turnover increases, we believe the investments we're making today will accelerate our growth efforts in the repair remodel driven business when the markets improve, which we cannot predict the timing of. Although the near term outlook remains uncertain, we continue to believe in the long term prospects of the housing and building product sector.

It is estimated that more than 1.5 million homes need to be built every year for the next 10 years to meet the anticipated housing demand, which is probably a low estimate based on the actual need due to a variety of demographic trends. We took the anticipated demand curve and the fundamental drivers for housing and building products into account when we developed our share gain strategy to drive profitable sales growth. Tariffs, however, will put pressure on our gross margins even though we expect to pass them along via price increases. We believe that it will be difficult to maintain our most recent margins with certain product categories given the expansive scope and magnitude of the tariffs. Regardless of market conditions and administration policies.

We will continue to emphasize our product and channel growth strategies and in particular our multifamily growth strategy to gain share in an otherwise challenging market. I remain convinced that our enterprise wide product and channel strategies are good for long term success as they are designed to fully leverage our scale to drive profitable sales growth in the toughest and best of housing market conditions. Through the first four weeks of Q2 2025, margins for specialty products were slightly below Q1, which is largely attributable to regional and competitive dynamics surrounding certain specialty product categories. Structural product margins were slightly better during the first four weeks, which is mainly due to higher lumber prices when compared to earlier in the year. Daily volumes are up mid double digits for specialty products and up mid single digits for structural products in Q2.

In addition, it is important to note that while industry driven specialty products price deflation continues to impact our top line and cost of goods sold, the situation once again improved in Q1. In the first quarter specialty pricing was down low single digits, while in the fourth quarter of 2024 specialty pricing was down mid single digits and in the third quarter of 2024 pricing was down high single digits. For the first four weeks of Q2, pricing has been generally flat relative to Q1. Given the political backdrop, inflationary pressures and discussions with our vendor partners, we are optimistic that the specialty pricing volatility will stabilize at some point. However, the outlook for volumes may be tempered significantly by these same factors tariffs, high mortgage rates and general economic uncertainty. In summary, we delivered solid results for the first quarter of 2025.

We're also delivering on our strategic priorities as seen by our specialty product expansion efforts, margin performance, and capital allocation initiatives. Focus and clarity will continue to be critical in the successful execution of our strategy for the remainder of 2025. I'd like to end by thanking my fellow BlueLinx associates for their continued perseverance and can-do spirit within a challenging housing market and for their dedication to our customers, our suppliers, and the communities they serve. Our teams are committed to generating profitable specialty and structural product sales to ensure that we position ourselves for long-term success regardless of short-term market conditions. Now I'll turn it over to Kim who will provide more details on our financial results and on our capital structure.

Kim DeBrock (VP, Chief Accounting Officer, and Interim Principal Financial Officer)

Thanks Shyam and good morning everyone. Let's first go through the consolidated highlights for the quarter. Overall, both our specialty and structural products businesses delivered solid gross margins despite the impact of price deflation and a challenging macro picture. Pricing and volume declines in specialty products were partially offset by pricing and volume gains in structural products. Net sales were $709 million, down 2% year over year. Total gross profit was $111 million and gross margin was 15.7%, down 190 basis points from the prior period. Similar to previous quarters, our first quarter 2025 results for specialty products included a net benefit for import duty related matters of $2.4 million. More details on these matters are available in our 10-Q. SG&A was $94 million, up $2.8 million from last year's first quarter.

The increase was mainly due to continued investments in technology associated with our digital transformation and higher logistics costs. Net income was $2.8 million or $0.33 per share. Adjusted net income was $2.3 million or $0.27 per share. Tax expense for the first quarter was $1.3 million or 32.3%. For the second quarter we anticipate our tax rate to be in the range of 29%-33%. Adjusted EBITDA was $19.6 million or 2.8% of net sales and includes the favorable duty related matters. Not including these matters, adjusted EBITDA would have been $17.1 million or 2.4% of net sales. Turning now to first quarter results for specialty products, net sales were $480 million, down 5% year over year. This decline was driven by overall price declines, primarily for engineered wood and by overall volume declines, mostly for siding, partially offset by volume increases for engineered wood.

As Shyam mentioned, given current market conditions we are optimistic, but still specialty pricing volatility will abate at some point. Gross profit from specialty product sales was $90 million, down 14% year over year. Specialty gross margin was 18.7%, down 200 basis points from last year's 20.7%, primarily due to price deflation, decreases in volumes and the impact of duty related items. Excluding these items for both periods, specialty products gross margin would have been 18.2% in the first quarter of 2025, down 120 basis points from first quarter 2024's 19.4%. Through the first four weeks of Q2, specialty product gross margin was in the range of 17%-18% with daily sales volumes higher when compared to both the first quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2024. Now moving on to structural products, net sales were $230 million up over 3% compared to the prior year period.

This increase was primarily due to higher lumber pricing and increased lumber and panel volumes when compared to last year. Gross profit from structural products was $21 million, a decrease of 10% year over year and structural gross margin was 9.3%, down 130 basis points from the same period last year. In the first quarter of 2025, average lumber prices were about $456 per thousand board feet and panel prices were about $534 per thousand square feet, a 13% increase and a 13% decrease respectively compared to the averages in the first quarter of last year. Sequentially comparing the first quarter of 2025 with the fourth quarter of 2024, lumber prices were up about 6% and panel prices were down about 2.5%.

Through the first four weeks of Q2 structural products gross margin was in the range of 9-10%, with daily sales volumes improving from both the first quarter of 2025 and second quarter of 2024. Looking now at our balance sheet, our liquidity remains excellent due to the strong execution of our strategic initiatives and effective management of working capital. At the end of the quarter, cash on hand was $449 million, a decrease of $57 million from Q4, largely due to the normal seasonal changes in working capital. When considering our cash on hand and undrawn revolver capacity of $346 million, available liquidity was approximately $795 million. At the end of the quarter, total debt excluding our real property financing leases was $374 million and net debt was a negative $75 million. Our net leverage ratio was a negative 0.7 times.

Given our positive net cash position and we have no material outstanding debt maturities until 2029, our balance sheet and liquidity remains strong and when combined with our solid EBITDA generation, we are well positioned to support our strategic initiatives, including our digital transformation efforts. These strategic initiatives include investments in our highest return prospects such as organic and inorganic growth initiatives and opportunistic share repurchases. Now moving on to working capital and free cash flow. During the first quarter we generated operating cash flow of negative $34 million and free cash flow of negative $40 million, primarily driven by lower net income and changes in working capital. Turning now to capital allocation, during the quarter we spent $6 million in CapEx primarily tied to our digital investments and to improve our fleet and distribution facilities.

For 2025, we plan to manage our CapEx relative to market conditions and our plan to maintain a strong balance sheet. These investments will focus on facility improvements, further upgrades to our fleet, and the technology improvements previously discussed. Our digital transformation will also have approximately a $5 million impact on operating expenses in 2025 related to software license implementation as well as increased headcount associated with this initiative. As Shyam mentioned, during the first quarter we repurchased $15 million of stock and we had $31 million of repurchases remaining at quarter end on our current share repurchase authorization. We are committed to our share repurchase efforts and plan to remain opportunistic in the market. Our guiding principles for capital allocation remain consistent.

We intend to maintain a strong balance sheet which enables us to invest in our business through economic cycles, expand our geographic footprint and pursue a disciplined M&A strategy as well as return capital to shareholders. We also plan to maintain a long term net leverage ratio of two times or less. Overall, we are off to a solid start in 2025 and we're pleased with our gross margins in both our specialty and structural products. In light of the challenging macroeconomic environment, our strong balance sheet and our liquidity positions us well to execute on our strategy and continue to opportunistically return capital to shareholders. Operator, we will now take questions.

Operator (participant)

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 will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah, thanks. Good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to start with the specialty gross margin commentary because I think I heard a couple things and I just wanted to clarify a few of that.So.

Can you talk about the impacts and the associated sort of outlook as it relates to kind of the challenges in the overall market and then how does, how does tariffs tie into that? Because it sounds like the quarter to date commentary was more along the lines of a market related slowdown and some sort of, you know, maybe some implied competition. I think you also mentioned, you know, tariffs and not being able to pass all along. I just wanted to kind of get your thoughts on, you know, those two variables as it impacts specialty gross margins.

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Thanks for the question, Greg. Excuse me. Basically to your point, we've had competitive pricing pressures, unconstrained supply and softer demand just due to market conditions that have put pressure on certain specialty margins. As it relates to tariffs, we absolutely plan to pass along the impact of tariffs, which would go through COGS, go through pricing, etc. You know, the question will be will the market be able to not only take the price increase due to tariffs, but also take the required margin expansion in order to maintain historical margins? That's the real question. We may.

You know, the simple math is we would generate the same gross profit dollars driving the tariff cost through via pricing, but then the margin would come down to some degree depending on the magnitude of the tariff in the country involved on just an apples to apples basis.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Just to be clear, have you or the market adjusted pricing in certain categories at this point, or is this just dependent on what happens, you know, over the coming months?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, no, no, nothing has changed with respect to our pricing. You know, like for example, our pricing strategy and how we go about pricing effectively based on the services we provide as it relates to tariffs. To the extent that tariff is actually implemented and it flows through because we pass that through. There hasn't been a major market lift due to, due to tariffs other than in the early days of tariff conversations, we saw lumber pricing pick up in advance of potential tariffs on Canadian lumber. Otherwise, we know that the 10% tariff across the world, that's one thing, it's reciprocal tariffs that have been paused. Right now the market is just passing along any costs that come through and sort of maintaining the course until more clarity is provided from a cost of goods standpoint.

As we look at all of our and look at the impact of tariff increases, we expect a single-digit impact to COGS if the ones that have been announced actually go through. That's all up in the air as we all know.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, that's helpful. I guess just as it relates to inventory levels which are a little bit elevated relative to the last couple of years, are you able to sort of break that out or which segment or categories that's most being impacted? Just on a go forward basis, how are you managing things?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, I would say, first of all, we continue to maintain our disciplined approach to inventory management and we have a very regular cadence around that inventory management around the two categories, specialty and structural. There are, you know, turn day goals, inventory reduction targets, etc., that we manage over the course of the year. As it relates to the build, a lot of that is a function of the soft, the soft start to the year, some of which was due to the weather. You know, if you look at the weather this year, which we talked a little bit about on the February earnings call, the difference between this year and last year is the bad weather continued for a longer period of time and hit some of our bigger markets more so this year than they did last year.

On top of that, even if you did not have a blizzard per se, you had extended periods of cold weather, which had an impact on building. For example, in certain markets, you know, on a very simplistic basis, the nail guns would not work. That led to some of the inventory build and the softness in the market. As we stated heading into Q2, our volumes are up pretty significantly on a sequential basis and they are up on a year-over-year basis. That is a function of our channel and product strategy on top of potentially some pent-up demand that got released in Q2.

Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)

Makes sense. Okay, I will leave it there. Best of luck. Thanks.

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Thanks Greg.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from the line of Reuben Garner with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Reuben Garner (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning everybody. Sorry to harp on the specialty margin.

The tariff thing, but I do.

Have two follow ups there.

On the specialty side, I guess.

Why would you know your volume's up sequentially, your volume's up year over year and you're starting to see competitive pressures here in April, I guess the first four weeks your margins are lower. Can you help me kind of connect those dots? Like if the, if your volume is.

Getting better, and I assume the market's getting better as kind of some of.

The pent up demand from the winter.

Weather issues, like why would it be more competitive now than it was over the more challenged winter months?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah. The market is softer to some degree. There is a lot of competitive pricing pressure in the market to win programs or to maintain programs. We are playing that game. Right. We have no choice but to not only maintain our own, but we are gaining new programs. There is enough supply in the market, especially relative to demand or the demand curve as it relates to the incremental volume growth. As we think about how we are gaining share, we have this dedicated focus on the multifamily segment. As I have said before, we clearly have a shortage. That shortage will exist over the next decade. It is getting worse, not better. The only way to bend the curve is to build more faster, which multifamily helps.

Do we also have the right set of products that support multifamily in a very healthy way? That dedicated focus or that greater emphasis on multifamily is enabling us to gain share in a number of markets. At the same time, we have greater emphasis on national accounts, which can truly take advantage of our scale. There are certain categories where we're driving growth, for example, like EWP, whereas in the past we didn't necessarily sell as much EWP through national account channels. It is an exciting time as it relates to our strategy from a channel standpoint and then from a product standpoint, we continue to expand our geographic reach with respect to certain strategic product suppliers. At the same time, we're expanding our SKUs with our suppliers.

All of that said, despite the fact that we're growing margin and gaining share, we're doing so in very challenging market conditions, which is leading to some competitive dynamics at the local level, depending on the market. Right. The West, for example, as I mentioned in my remarks, is very challenged due to some demand softness with respect to tract builder business as well as multifamily in Texas in particular.

Reuben Garner (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. And to be clear, some of the.

New channels and geographies you're trying to grow in, are those also pressuring margins?

In the near term as you ramp up your multifamily exposure, as you ramp.

Up your Greenfield, as you ramp up.

Growth in some of these other categories.

In different markets, are you taking a gross margin hit initially and in time that will recover, or is that not a factor?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

You know, actually, as I think about our greenfield opportunity, for example, in Portland, and as I said in my remarks, we're doing better than we expected. There's nothing different up there tied to the Greenfield in and of itself. There are normal market conditions that from a softness standpoint, the Pacific Northwest that are being, that are flowing through the P&L. That said, as it relates to volumes and our EBITDA, our adjusted EBITDA in that market, we're doing better than expected. We're managing our costs more effectively. We're also gaining new business because we're closer to the customer as it relates to our cost of service.

There are a number of things that we're able to do because we're in market in terms of expanding our product sales to those customers in that market, which is allowing us to expand faster than we expected. You know, that said, again, there's still softness in the market up there, and normal competitive pressures apply there just as much as they apply in other parts of the West.

Reuben Garner (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, and then last one for me.

On the tariff, what exactly are you selling that would be exposed to tariffs?

Other than, you know, just commodity lumber and sheet goods?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, we had. Under one of our brands, PrimeLinx , which is our millwork category, we source a fair amount of millwork internationally. We also have some rebar that we source internationally, but it's such a small amount and it's primarily from the millwork category. The structural products were lumber category.

Reuben Garner (Equity Research Analyst)

All right, thank you guys.Good luck.

Operator (participant)

Next question comes from the line of Kurt Yinger with DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Kurt Yinger (Senior Vice President of Research Analyst)

Great, thanks. Good morning everyone. You know, recognizing the technology investments and the transportation management system investments, I guess, are there opportunities to maybe protect profitability a little bit better in this environment from an SG&A perspective and how should we think about, you know, run rate SG&A going forward relative to what we saw here in Q1?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, so, yeah, I don't have. From, from an SG&A standpoint, you know, we'll continue to focus on operational excellence and our other pillars of business excellence in order to continuously improve on that front. You know, at the end of the day, as we go through the summer, the SG&A as a percent of sales should, should improve. Obviously with this past quarter, it was a little bit challenging given market conditions. Look, at the end of the day, I mean, we're continuously focused on managing, managing our cost structure so that it aligns with the sales function even after taking into account the digital investment. Even on the digital investment side, there continue to be opportunities for improvement and to be more efficient as we move forward and continue meeting additional milestones along phase I.

As we go into phase II, we should get some, we should get greater leverage off the investments we made in phase I. At this point, other than being committed to managing our cost structure in a responsible way, there's really no, no change to our cost structure. SG&A right now, although, like I said, we are absolutely focused on being as efficient as possible in light of current market conditions without losing sight of our, the investments we need to make to drive our strategy.

Kurt Yinger (Senior Vice President of Research Analyst)

Okay, all right.

Reuben Garner (Equity Research Analyst)

Can you maybe just talk a little bit about, you know, your visibility into customer inventory levels at this point in the year? Maybe how you would characterize that relative to normal and what you're seeing in terms of, you know, just general seasonality here going into Q2?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, customer inventory levels were lower, generally speaking, just from a build up standpoint. At the same time, however, usually when that happens and there's more uncertainty, two step distribution can actually be very valuable because your customers want to buy less more often. Instead of bringing in rail cars and materials, they'll bring in truckloads, which is perfect for us in terms of really making our just in time, our just in time delivery proposition that much more valuable. Our warehousing or working capital management that much more valuable. You know, with uncertainty, there's a desire to try and, you know, make sure your balance sheet is strong at the customer level. There's a little bit, there's incremental value for us as we move through the coming months.

Yes, we did see some of that and as they're working through it, combined with market conditions and weather, there was a little bit of a softening from a buy standpoint. As I said earlier, we're picking up in Q2.

Kurt Yinger (Senior Vice President of Research Analyst)

Okay.

Lastly on capital allocation, I mean, recognizing the desire to grow, we've been talking about M&A for a couple years now and recognizing it's tough to pinpoint when or if transactions were to materialize, I guess just with the stock where it is.I.

mean, does it make sense with what you're seeing on the M&A side, looking at some of these transactions relative to where you're trading, or how are you prioritizing buybacks just given where the stock's trading today?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, we will continue to review our capital allocation, our capital allocation strategy on top of the, you know, the plans that we had for the year based on current and then current market conditions. It is one of the reasons why we said we're reviewing our CapEx, for example, as the market continues to evolve this year. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we are committed to Greenfields and M&A that support strategic growth. We are also committed to being opportunistic with respect to share repurchases and investing CapEx into the business that will support our growth objectives. At the end of the day, we also are committed to maintaining a leverage target below 2. All of those factors will come into play as we review our capital allocation over the course of the year.

From an M&A standpoint, if there's a great deal to be had, we'll absolutely do it if it supports our specialty sales growth objectives, our channel and product growth objectives, our geographic expansion objectives. At the end of the day, we need to make sure it makes sense for the business. If it makes sense for the business, then we'll put our capital to that higher and better use in order to drive the business.

Kurt Yinger (Senior Vice President of Research Analyst)

Okay, and maybe just two follow ups. Is there kind of a baseline level of kind of cash on hand that you would like to maintain? Second, when you kind of reference the 2 times leverage target and I guess where you would conceivably let the balance sheet and leverage go to, is that based on the kind of current net cash position or would that include a net debt figure that would include some of the real property leases.

Kim DeBrock (VP, Chief Accounting Officer, and Interim Principal Financial Officer)

I think when we think about our leverage, we're really looking at it net of the real property finance leases. I mean as it stands today, our goal is to keep our net leverage at two times or less. As market conditions change and we continue, continue to evaluate how the year progresses, we'll continue to evaluate our cash needs. You know, we have lots of available capacity with our ABL.

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, look, the point is we have the levers we can pull in different directions depending on what the then market, current market conditions are to pull to make sure that we are within optimal leverage. I mean that's, that's just which is a great place to be. For example, even on the, on the CapEx. The CapEx at this point, especially given the investments we've made over the last four years, for instance, give us a tremendous amount of flexibility now as we manage the timing of CapEx over the next 12 months to 18 months and which we can do depending on market conditions without losing sight of what the strategic, which the strategic goals are.

Because look, we want to be well positioned to not only do well in challenging market conditions, all things considered, but more importantly to be able to take advantage of the unlock on the housing recovery when it does come. It will come. Hence why we're making these strategic investments today.

Kurt Yinger (Senior Vice President of Research Analyst)

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Your last question comes from the line of Jeffrey Stevenson with Loop Capital. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Stevenson (VP of Equity Division)

Hi, thanks for taking my questions today. What percent of your lumber is sourced from Canada and could you make adjustments to your sourcing strategy if higher tariffs are implemented? You know, following up on that, if the increased Canadian lumber tariffs go into effect, do you believe it could help stabilize EWP pricing and potentially inflect higher later this year as well?

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, so look, we have less than 20% exposure to Canada. And you know, to your point, the products that we primarily source from Canada based on how they flow through the market will accept the increase in cost or increase in price to cover the tariffs and in very short order very quickly, because as you know, lumber and panels are priced on a weekly basis. Given how we manage our commodity wood products strategically, I'm very confident that we'll be able to do that, you know, in real time. No issue there from a pass through standpoint. As it relates to EWP, we are most pretty much all EWP manufacturers in the U.S. source web stock from Canada.

We will all be in the same boat as it relates to passing through that, passing through that cost of any EWP stock that comes in from Canada that may be subject to a tariff, although nobody really knows what the end result will be. The point is that as it relates to Canadian sourced products, we all believe that we can pass the cost through and with it ultimately being reflected in price. You know, at this point right now, the softness in the market combined with competitive market dynamics are really putting pressure on EWP. That has not, you know, kept us from gaining share and growing our volumes with EWP, including in markets like the Pacific, as we continue to move forward in the Pacific Northwest.

Jeffrey Stevenson (VP of Equity Division)

Understood. Thanks, Shyam, for that and, you know, thanks for your commentary early on, you know, in market outlook. It's been, you know, kind of well understood that, you know, the builder spring selling season is coming in below expectations due to ongoing affordability challenges and macro uncertainties. I wanted to ask, you know, if you could provide an update on the progress of your pilot program implemented last year to increase your sales concentration with production builders over the coming years.

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Oh yeah, sure. We invested in builder pull through capabilities and as a result of that, our focus on regional builders has led to programs that we've developed with them. Those programs are pulling our product through our customer base, our primary customer base. That's been great. We've seen this in the build to rent area. We've also seen it with traditional big builders as well, you know, and most of this progress is being made in the east, in the south, and we have some opportunities that we're exploring in the west as well. We feel pretty good about it, you know, and that is honestly contributing to our, contributing to various volume improvements in certain categories, especially given market decline, you know, general market declines not only across the country, but in certain key markets.

The effort is actually offsetting some of the decline you might already see. At the same time we're actually leveraging it to gain, to gain share. It's working and we're excited about continuing to make the investments we need to, to drive further growth.

Jeffrey Stevenson (VP of Equity Division)

Great. No, it's good to hear. Lastly, I appreciate your comments to, you know, Kurt's question on capital allocation. One of the things that's, you know, held you back from doing M&A over the last year or so is, you know, seller expectations. I just wondered if those have started to come in given the, you know, recent market uncertainty along with, you know, the deflationary pressures the industry experienced the last, you know, one to two years.

Shyam Reddy (President and CEO)

Yeah, we're starting to see more deal flow and the expectations are coming down. The spreads are narrowing much faster than they were before. We feel as we expected, we thought expectations would come down as they are. More importantly, we're actually seeing more opportunities today than we saw, say, 12 months ago.

Jeffrey Stevenson (VP of Equity Division)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

That concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back over to Tom Morabito for closing remarks.

Tom Morabito (Investor Relations Officer)

Thanks, Bella. Thank you again for joining us today. We look forward to speaking with you in late July as we share our second quarter 2025 results.

Operator (participant)

That concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.