Construction Partners - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 FY25 delivered strong growth despite heavy rainfall: revenue $779.3M (+51% y/y), Adjusted EBITDA $131.7M (+80% y/y), Adjusted EBITDA margin 16.9% (up 280 bps y/y), GAAP diluted EPS $0.79; Adjusted EPS $0.81.
• Backlog hit a record $2.94B at 6/30/25 (vs $2.84B at 3/31/25 and $1.86B a year ago); management said backlog covers ~80–85% of next 12 months’ revenue, supporting visibility into FY26.
• Guidance maintained for FY25: revenue $2.77–$2.83B, net income $106–$117M, Adjusted net income $124–$135M, Adjusted EBITDA $410–$430M, Adjusted EBITDA margin 14.8–15.2%.
• Strategic expansion continues: Durwood Greene acquisition adds three HMA plants and a rail-served aggregates terminal in Houston; management sees robust Texas funding and demographic tailwinds.
• Versus S&P Global consensus for Q3: revenue modestly below, Adjusted EPS in line, Adjusted EBITDA above Street definitions diverge; narrative catalysts include margin resilience in adverse weather, record backlog, and acquisitive contributions into Q4/FY26 (see Estimates Context). Values retrieved from S&P Global.*

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Record margin and operating execution despite weather: “driving a record high Adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.9%” with strong cash flow from operations.
• Backlog growth and demand: Backlog reached $2.94B; management cited “healthy state infrastructure budgets… and IIJA federal program funds” driving strong contract awards.
• Strategic footprint expansion: Acquisition of Durwood Greene in Houston deepens Texas presence and vertical integration, with leadership continuity and rail-served aggregates terminal.

What Went Wrong

• Weather headwinds limited paving days: “record or near-record rainfall… May marked the second-wettest month on record,” affecting project timing and fixed asset cost recoveries.
• Higher interest expense with increased leverage post acquisitions: Q3 interest expense $25.2M vs $4.7M y/y; debt/TTM EBITDA 3.17x with plan to delever to ~2.5x by late FY26.
• GAAP EPS optics impacted by financing/transformative acquisition costs: GAAP diluted EPS $0.79; Adjusted net income removes acquisition/financing items to $45.2M ($0.81/sh).

Transcript

Speaker 7

Greetings and welcome to the Construction Partners Inc. third quarter 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, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Rick Black, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners Inc. conference call to review third quarter results for fiscal 2025. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Relations section of constructionpartners.net. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, August 7, 2025. Please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay, listening, or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectation, expectations, or future events or future financial performance, are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

We will be making forward-looking statements as part of today's call that by their nature are uncertain and outside of the Company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our earnings press release for our disclosure on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including adjusted net income, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EBITDA margin. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings release. Construction Partners Inc. assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, and with that, I would now like to turn the call over to Construction Partners Inc. CEO Jule Smith.

Speaker 3

Jule, thank you Rick, and good morning everyone. We appreciate you all being on the call today. With me this morning are Greg Hoffman, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I'd like to begin today by welcoming the 200 employees of Durwood Green Construction in the Houston area that joined our family of companies earlier this week. As a third generation family business that will continue to be led by Brad, Jonathan, and Daniel Green, the company has earned its reputation as a well-respected market leader in Houston, the fifth largest and one of the fastest growing metro areas in the nation. Led by an entire team of knowledgeable and experienced industry veterans, the company operates three hot mix asphalt plants and a rail-serviced aggregates terminal. Durwood Green provides construction and paving services for a variety of public and private projects throughout the Houston metro area.

We expect Durwood Green to continue its legacy of operational excellence and to benefit from vertical integration opportunities. As a subsidiary to our Texas platform company, Lone Star Paving, in Texas, our first year has been exactly as we had hoped, and I want to thank the Lone Star team for their outstanding leadership and dedication. As we begin expanding to new markets, we continue to see strong economic growth, favorable demographic trends, and a well-funded transportation program, as well as additional opportunities for acquisitive and organic growth. The Durwood Green acquisition is a great example of our continued execution of the CPI strategy of seeking out growing markets and partnering with an experienced and talented local management team.

Turning now to the third quarter, our results demonstrate the strength of our people, where despite persistent weather-related delays in the quarter, our teams executed with discipline and delivered robust operational results, driving a record adjusted EBITDA margin of 16.9% in the Southeast alone. May marked the second wettest month on record, leading to project delays and impacting fixed asset cost recoveries. While we can't control the weather, our team's resilience and operational excellence enabled us to still gain margin on many of our projects, generate strong operational cash flow, and build backlog to $2.94 billion. Now let's take a closer look at the current market conditions that are driving our ability to build backlog even during our busy construction work season. On the public side of our business, we see strong public contract bidding throughout our eight states and over 100 local markets.

Supporting this strong environment are healthy state infrastructure budgets, including many supplementary state programs as well as local city and county infrastructure programs and the IIJA federal program funds that all add up to significant year over year increases in contract awards as we begin looking to fiscal year 2026. Beginning October 1, public spending on roads and bridges, particularly for maintenance and lane expansions, is forecasted to once again grow substantially as state and local governments strive to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to keep up with the migration of both residents and businesses to our Sunbelt footprint. On Capitol Hill, both Houses of Congress continue to work with Secretary Duffy on the five year reauthorization of the IIJA and Surface Transportation Program, and this administration continues to prioritize hard infrastructure investments and decrease permitting delays necessary to support a growing economy.

In the commercial markets, we continue to have a steady amount of bidding opportunities with developers and general contractors. In our local markets, the makeup of our backlog and percentage of public work continues to stay remarkably steady over the last several quarters, which indicates that our Sunbelt markets continue to have healthy private economic growth and activity. Our bidding activity remains focused on the nonresidential type projects such as warehouses, industrial parks, schools, and manufacturing facilities. We expect economic growth to continue in our current markets driven by migration to the Sunbelt states by both families and businesses. Finally, we expect to benefit from significant new investments in American manufacturing in our business friendly states as new tariffs begin to incentivize and accelerate the reshoring trend that began after the pandemic several years ago.

Fiscal year 2025 has been a dynamic year of growth for CPI as we have increased the size of our business over 50% through both organic growth and acquisitions. We understand the benefits of and remain laser focused on organic growth. We also continue to focus on the best strategic acquisitions in growing markets, and we are having numerous conversations with potential sellers who would like for their employees to experience the culture and opportunities provided by joining the CPI family of companies. In closing, we are now in the heart of our busy work season, and all of our local markets are at full capacity and utilization.

Having a record backlog to build, adding the Durwood Green Construction organization, and now knowing that our July volumes were strong gives us a confident confidence to maintain our FY25 guidance as we head toward a new fiscal year in the next 60 days. We're excited about the tailwinds at our back, including strong public funding, a growing private economy, and a long strategic growth runway ahead. I'd now like to turn the call over to Greg. Greg, thank you Jule. Good morning everyone.

Speaker 5

I'll begin with a review of our key performance metrics for the third quarter of fiscal 2025 compared to the third quarter a year ago. Revenue was $779.3 million, an increase of 51% compared to the same quarter a year ago. The mix of our total revenue growth for the quarter was 5% organic revenue and 46% from recent acquisitions. G&A expenses as a percentage of total revenue in the quarter were 6.6% compared to 7.3% in the third quarter last year. As we continue to build scale, we are targeting G&A expenses for the fiscal year to be approximately 7.2% to 7.3% of revenue. As a reminder, FY24 G&A expenses were 8.3% of revenue. Net income for the quarter was $44 million and adjusted net income was $45.2 million, $0.81 per diluted share in Q3. Adjusted EBITDA was $131.7 million, an increase of 80% compared to Q3 last year.

Our adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.9% for the quarter, up two hundred eighty basis points over the same quarter last year. In addition, as Jule mentioned, we are reporting a project backlog of $2.94 billion at June 30, 2025. We have approximately 80% to 85% of the next 12 months revenue covered in backlog. Turning now to the balance sheet, we had $114.3 million of cash and cash equivalents and $493.5 million available under our credit facility at quarter end, net of reduction for outstanding letters of credit. On June 30, we amended our credit agreement by providing for a total facility size of $1.1 billion consisting of a term loan in the amount of $600 million and a revolving credit facility in the amount of $500 million.

We utilized the proceeds from the increased term loan to pay down the outstanding balance on the revolving credit facility, realizing the full availability on the facility net of a reduction for outstanding letters of credit. In addition, the amendment extends the facility maturity date to June 2030. As of the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing twelve months EBITDA ratio was 3.17 times. We remain on pace with our strategy of reducing the leverage ratio to approximately 2.5 times by late fiscal 2026 to support sustained profitable growth. Cash provided by operating activities was $83 million compared to $35 million in the same quarter a year ago. We remain on pace to convert 80% to 85% of EBITDA to cash flow from operations in FY25. Capital expenditures for the quarter were $36.7 million.

We continue to expect total capital expenditures for fiscal 2025 to be in the range of $130 million to $140 million. This includes maintenance CapEx of approximately 3.25% of revenue, with the remaining amount invested in new growth initiatives. Finally, we are maintaining our prior outlook with revenue in the range of $2.77 to $2.83 billion. In regard to our overall revenue mix for the year, we continue to expect organic revenue to be in the range of 8% to 10%, net income in the range of $106 to $117 million, adjusted net income in the range of $124 to $135 million, adjusted EBITDA in the range of $410 to $430 million, and adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 14.8% to 15.2%. With that, we will open the call to questions.

Speaker 3

Operator.

Speaker 7

Thank you. 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 your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove yourself from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Your first question comes from Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Speaker 2

Hey, good morning, guys.

Speaker 3

Morning, Tyler.

Good morning, Tyler.

Hey, Jewel.

Speaker 2

Obviously, you know, very solid quarter in the face of what was very challenging weather. I think you talked a little bit about the fixed cost deleveraging, but it doesn't really seem that you guys missed the beat. I mean, gross margins were maybe the best they've been in 20 quarters on my math. Can you just kind of talk about how you navigated weather so well? I mean, how do you flex costs when you have that lack of paving days?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Tyler, we were very pleased with how the quarter, how the margins came through this quarter. I mean, there's no question when you have a quarter with that weather, it's an impact. We play an outdoor game and weather can impact us negatively or if it's really dry, can impact us positively. I would say we just really, our business is clicking on all cylinders. You know, we talk about the three margin levers of building better markets, vertical integration and scale. All of those really are kicking in at the same time, which we expected. Even though we had a wet quarter, it didn't really stop those from coming through. It affected the top line. It affected some fixed asset recovery. Those three margin levers are starting to work really well together and we, you know, we're expecting that to continue in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 2

Okay, that's great. Curious about your comments. I think in the prepared remarks right at the end, you mentioned that you were, quote, unquote, roughly at full utilization. How do we read that?

Speaker 3

Will that be a bit of a?

Speaker 2

Hindrance to organic growth next year, or are you going to need to step up CapEx to support that growth?

Just any color there?

Speaker 3

Yeah, no, I wasn't trying to signal any capacity constraints. I just was basically saying we have a full backlog and we're on full cylinders, and our CapEx program supports our organic growth that we expect. As you know, Greg runs a pretty robust program to look for the best organic growth opportunities, and that's where the CapEx dollars flow. I wasn't trying to communicate any capacity constraints, just that as normal, we are at full utilization in building that record backlog.

Speaker 2

Okay.

Okay.

I just wanted to make sure I had that. Just a quick modeling question, Greg, on the M&A contribution, what will the contribution be here in 2025 that's expected in the guidance, and then again, kind of based on what we know today with deals that have closed, how much rollover benefit should we see in fiscal 2026 already?

Speaker 8

Yeah.

Speaker 5

Tyler, the Q4 acquisition revenue impact is going to be somewhere in the $270 million to $280 million range. Carrying over into 2026, we should see somewhere in the neighborhood of $240 million to $250 million.

Speaker 2

Okay, a good kickstart into 2026. Okay, my last one.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 2

I think you guys are going to do something, call it like $2.8 billion in revenue, $420 million or so EBITDA.

Speaker 3

Da.

Speaker 2

Those numbers are actually right at or above the targets that you set out less than two years ago, and you're achieving them two years early.

Speaker 3

So just.

Speaker 2

I know the complexion of the business has obviously changed a lot, but does it make sense to maybe reset those targets maybe here in the next couple of months?

Appreciate it.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Tyler, I do think that, you know, the Lone Star acquisition was a transformative acquisition. As we said last October. PRI that joined us in May has had a great two months. The Durwood Green acquisition, you know, is going to be very additive. Yes, I mean we're, we need to update and communicate what our business looks like moving forward. Now after those transformative acquisitions, I'm going to throw it to Ned who's got some big picture thoughts. I think that's a good time to let him weigh in on this.

Speaker 4

Tyler, you're a great straight man. I appreciate it.

Speaker 5

Thank you, sir.

Speaker 4

The honest truth is we're trying to make great long term decisions. We don't run this business on 90 day increments. We're trying to make great decisions that continue to compound wealth. A good example of that is Houston. We probably see every transaction that you can see in this space, and we made a decision to invest in Houston. Houston has 7.2 million people. It was the fastest, more people moved there last year than any metropolitan area in the country except for Dallas. Dallas beat it by 16,000 people, I believe. It looks like it's going to continue to grow. That's more people than a lot of states in the country with that kind of growth. The first step is we've got great people there, we've got great growth. You're going to see more things happen in growing areas.

We're trying, and we'll continue as we have from the very start, to make great long term decisions that continue to compound wealth, not just for one or two quarters, but for the next five to 10 years. The answer is yes, you will just, I would say stay tuned. We will have a little bit of a reset here over the next few months as to what we think we're going to do since we hit the projection so quickly. Make no mistake about it, the board is paying attention to where we invested. Several members of the board met the team in Houston. We're paying attention to who we're in business with. That's our first step, where we're placing capital, and we're going to continue to allocate capital that can compound wealth from the next five to 10 years.

Yep, perfect.

Speaker 2

Excellent. Thank you guys so very much.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Darren.

Speaker 7

Next question. Michael Feniger with Bank of America, please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking my questions. I'm curious, you made a comment earlier about public spending for maintenance and lane expansion is forecast to grow substantially in 2026. Is this based on conversations with customers or is this based on your understanding of where budgets are looking? As we fast forward to next year, just love to get a sense if you kind of flesh out your confidence around that comment.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Michael, you know, and you and I have discussed when we're talking about public funding, there's several different ways to measure it and it can get a little confusing. We're talking about contract awards when you add the state programs, which include federal money, local and county programs, because that's all part of our backlog and our bidding. We feel like even though nationally the numbers move around our states, this year in FY2025, contract awards are up about 14%. When we look at those programs, the budgets that they have, where they're going in FY2026, we think it's going to be up a similar amount. That's what I was speaking to is really that contract awards, as we look at the budgets and programs in place on the public funding side.

Perfect. When we think of 2026, I know you're not guiding, Jule and Greg, just kind of following up on Tyler's question about the M&A, just any other puts and takes we should think about for next year? Obviously, if weather normalizes, you know, a positive there. Anything on cost that you're seeing on the liquid side pricing in the backlog? Just kind of thinking the puts and takes as we kind of start looking at the building blocks for 2026.

Yeah, Mike, it's getting about that time, so I'll talk to the backlog and I'll let Greg speak to the cost that he's seeing as we look forward into 2026. Obviously, as Greg just said, we've got a lot of acquisitive revenue rolling over into 2026. We expect organically to be up high single digits like we expect to be this year. We don't really see any change in that. From a growth standpoint, 2026 is looking like a typical CPI year, being up 15 to 20% if not a little more. That's good on the top line side. Greg, you want to speak to what you see on the margin and cost side?

Speaker 5

Sure. I said in the remarks that our backlog covers the next 80% to 85% of our 12-month revenue, and the cost is built in there for the appropriate margin as we think about 40 to 50 basis point improvement in margin. Those costs are set and built in. Certainly, there's some energy pricing that could impact that. We do talk about a slight headwind if energy prices go up, and the reverse is true if they go down. Currently, right now what we see is liquid AC being very stable, diesel has been very stable, natural gas is up a little bit. We do enough hedging to make that a minimal impact on us. Feel pretty good about cost in the future.

Great. I'll just sneak one more in there. The free cash flow was really strong in the quarter. When we look at that and we think about your leverage, any update on the timeline when you think you get inside your range? Jule, do you feel okay still doing some acquisitions while also trying to deleverage, or are they mutually kind of exclusive as we turn the page and go through one more quarter and go into 2026?

Speaker 3

Yeah, Michael, good question. It's something we think about a lot. We're committed to getting back into the target range on our leverage, but at the same time we want to continue to run our business. As Ned said, we're making decisions for five, 10, 15 years. As we look at the acquisitive opportunities, we're passing on some, we're working with sellers to accommodate our timing as much as we can. At the same time, there are several as we've made this year. There are several key strategic acquisitions that we think are crucial and important to the long term health of our business. We're going to delever and at the same time we're going to continue to make good strategic decisions for the business.

Speaker 5

In terms of what I mentioned in my remarks, Mike, our leverage ratio is 3.17. We're expecting, based on normal cash generation through to the end of fiscal 2026, to be near that 2.5 times leverage ratio. To your point, we're going to generate 80 to 85% cash flow from operations, 80 to 85% of our EBITDA into cash flow for operations. The trailing 12 months right now is almost there, 79%. We'll continue to do what we've done, deleverage over time.

Speaker 7

Next question. Andy Wittmann with Robert W. Baird, please proceed.

Speaker 3

Great. Good morning.

Speaker 6

Thanks for taking my question. With all the good demand for your services in your markets driving good growth, I was just wondering how this is affecting the competitive environment as it relates to your competitors maybe also realizing that the services are scarce and they might have some pricing power. Obviously, Jule, this has been a really important part of your strategy to build these better markets. I was just wondering if you could assess for us what you're seeing in your markets to the extent that you've been able to or see the building of those markets being better and what you're seeing in the marketplace today.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Andy, you're right. One of our three margin levers is building better markets. We see that the demand side is helping us with that. When there's a good bidding environment, as you would expect, margins stay healthy. I think you saw that rolling through this quarter, even though our crews and our teams really did a great job growing margin on projects, which we expect, and they had a great quarter doing that. It's really nice to start off with healthy margins at the beginning. The demand environment on the public side and the private side gives us the opportunity to be patient at the bid table, to add projects in our backlog at good margins. I think we continue to see that. It's been something that's been pretty steady for several years now, and we're busy and able to stay patient at the bid table.

Our competitors are also.

Speaker 4

Andy, strategically, Jule and the team have done a great job of picking.

Speaker 3

Markets that are healthy.

Speaker 4

That's an important part of it. Growing healthy markets, Houston is a great example.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 6

I just heard that in Jule's response previously. There are some key markets that you guys want to be in. It sounds like you've identified the next ones that are the good markets that you want to be in as well, right, Jule?

Speaker 3

Yes, Andy. As Ned said, Houston was a great example. You say metro area and you think they're all pretty much the same. Houston, I mean, it's just incredible the amount of people there and the rate of growth when you look at how fast that metro area is growing on an annual basis. Not all states are equal, not all metro areas are equal. For us to generate organic growth, which is a big part of our story, we need to be in.

Speaker 8

Places that are growing.

Speaker 3

As we look to allocate capital, you know, Ned and I talk a lot about where do we want to be in the United States, where do we want to direct our growth. We've got a lot of opportunities, we can't do them all. We just try to make the best decisions on where we can be that allows our business to grow and have healthy margins.

Speaker 6

Okay, Greg, a follow up one for you. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allows 100% bonus depreciation. We're seeing a lot of companies that buy things, equipment like you do, increasing their cash flow guidance.

Speaker 3

A result of that.

Speaker 6

I was wondering if you could help us understand what the benefit is to your cash flow from this year or maybe on an ongoing basis, at least while this law is in effect from that bonus depreciation. Maybe refresh my memory, but I don't know that you updated your cash flow guidance for this, so maybe you did, maybe you didn't. Could you just clarify if there was any change to your cash flow guidance as a result of the bonus depreciation?

Speaker 5

Yeah, I think the guide we've been saying is, you know, like I said earlier, 80 to 85% converting that EBITDA to cash flow. I think we still fall within that range. Andy, how it specifically impacts us. Yes, we do take bonus depreciation. This year it is down to 60%. That was certainly reflected in what we originally talked about in our guide. When asked about what our cash taxes would be, I've said in the $15 million range now that this bill has passed. Interestingly, it's acquisitions for us and or equipment purchases that have occurred after 1-15-2025. Unfortunately, we don't get to pull Lone Star in that. It's still at 60%. Other acquisitions post 1-15-2025 as well as those equipment purchases will be at 100% bonus depreciation. That $15 million goes down dramatically. Probably, you know, $10 or $12 or $13 million.

Obviously, we're still going to pay state. It doesn't impact the state.

Speaker 3

So.

Speaker 5

Yeah, a nice lift.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 6

You're down from $15 million, down $12 million. You're repaying just a few million dollars in federal taxes, what you're saying?

Speaker 5

That's right.

Okay, great.

Speaker 3

Thanks.

Speaker 1

Thank you.

Speaker 7

Next question. Brian Biros with Thompson Research Group.

Speaker 1

Hey, good morning. This is Kathryn Thompson. Thank you for taking my questions today.

Speaker 3

Good morning, Brian.

Speaker 1

Obviously had some tough weather. You guys put up a great result though. Curious to hear about trends in July. So far we've heard that July was a great quarter for many in the industry. I'm seeing volumes up double digits. I'm just curious if you could touch on how July trended for you.

Speaker 3

Yeah, Brian. As I said in my prepared remarks, July had really good volumes and it started out the first week, especially in North Carolina and Texas, it was wet. The last three weeks and especially the last two weeks were really good volume months. As we looked at how to guide for the fourth quarter, we obviously don't know the weather in August and September. Our guide normally just assumes normal weather, right. We know July we had really good volumes and we felt like it was important to communicate that. We saw what, as you said, some of the other folks in our industry have seen, which is that after a very wet spring quarter, it was nice for July to have some weather that we could get out and work.

Got it.

Speaker 1

Q2 record margins, I think up 280 basis points again in a tough weather quarter. Is there a way to frame how much they would have been without weather? I know you mentioned the three levers that are really kind of just driving the performance, not regardless of weather, but taking the weather impact to be not as great. Just trying to think through the exercise of if you had normal weather in Q2, what kind of numbers could we have seen? Trying to think then for Q3 and even just for next year.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's a good question, Brian. It's not an exact science. Greg and I could sit here and argue for an hour about exactly what may have happened had we had normal weather, but there's no question our quarter would have been better. We would have had more revenue, and in the summer where we over recover on our fixed assets, it would have been higher. That's what we're looking forward to happening in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 5

Got it.

Speaker 1

Last one for me, maybe on the Houston market you touched a bit on the call so far. Matthews Market, Houston. Touch on how you plan that market now. Kind of like what services you offer and kind of what adjacent services are still out there for bolt ons, I guess really just the opportunity set there and maybe how that market looks between public and private trends.

Thank you.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Brian, as we start in Houston, you know this week really is our first week with the Durwood Green Construction organization. They look a lot like our typical CPI company. You know, they do paving services, they do some other concrete paving services, which is characteristic of the Houston market. They run three asphalt plants, do a lot of FOB sales, so very much like a typical CPI company. As we've said, as we get going in that market, today's acquisitions drive tomorrow's organic growth. We're going to look for organic growth opportunities in the Houston market just like we do everywhere else. Good here. Thanks.

Speaker 1

I'll pass it along.

Speaker 7

Next question. Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson, please. Go ahead.

Speaker 3

Hey, thanks Jule.

Hey, congrats. Working through some tough conditions here. It's a good showing here. Jule, wanted to maybe ask a different way around the weather in that I'm trying to think about the markets that were less impacted for you through the quarter, and really this is kind of in context of the bigger organic growth outlook for the year. Do you, could you give any context on markets that are just really hitting on all cylinders right now, maybe potentially beyond this 8 to 10% organic growth rate you've talked about for the year? Just trying to think through where are you really seeing some great momentum in the business?

Yeah, Brent, you know we've got a hundred different markets and so I'm trying to think of which ones I would call out because there's a lot of them doing really well. Clearly Florida and Texas are great growth states, but so is South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee. There's a lot of, you know, I would say clearly the Lone Star markets of Austin and San Antonio and Temple Killeen are big growth areas. The Panhandle of Florida, the Research Triangle here in North Carolina. We see a lot of growth in all of our markets. They're not all lethal, but you know, it's hard to call out just a few. The Southeast as a whole, just the region, as I said in the prepared remarks, just continues to see a lot of migration.

The states are trying to keep up with the growth and that's what you see coming through on the public side into funding. As I said, I think with this, the tariffs incentivizing American manufacturing, I think CPI is going to be a big beneficiary of companies saying, hey, we're going to make things in America and where do we want to locate? I think the Southeast and the Sunbelt's going to get an outsized share of that investment.

Yeah, that's interesting. Kind of a good follow on there, Jule. I guess what I wanted to ask is, as that likely plays out here over the next few years, does the acquisition strategy that you have in place today, I mean the types of companies that you're buying, still play well into leveraging that? There's private markets that could certainly pick up in your geographies. In other words, can you continue under the same program you're doing? Are you looking at different types of deals that could potentially leverage that opportunity down the road?

Yeah, Brent, I would tell you, you know, we're talking to a lot of potential sellers right now as we have been. That's a big part of my job is just to get to know these sellers. I would tell you they look very much just like the businesses have for 20 years that CPI has looked at. They're good construction companies. Some of them don't have hot mix asphalt. They're more service related. Those are very value added acquisitions in the right, you know, where we're already in the market. When you look at a PRI or a mobile asphalt or Durwood Green, there's just really still a lot of strategic opportunities in our space that do exactly what we do.

Okay. All right, appreciate it. Thanks, guys.

All right, thank you, Brent.

Speaker 7

Next question. Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis, please go ahead.

Speaker 8

Hey, good morning guys.

Nice quarter considering the weather.

Speaker 3

Thank you, Adam.

I was curious, given how wet the summer has been, Jule, would you say you have any color or thoughts on the potential that the construction season could extend further into the December quarter.

Adam, that's an interesting thought. Obviously, every year when we get into November and December, we have customers that are just begging us to get their projects done. It's a very, very busy time for our different markets. We're going to extend into it to the winter as much as we can. Obviously, weather starts to play a factor, but I don't envision us going into November and December without a full plate of work. With the backlog we already have and what we're bidding now, things will be very busy. If we get a good warm November, December, you're going to see us make a lot of hay in those months.

That's what I figured. I wanted to ask about your recently acquired states: Texas, Oklahoma, to some extent, Tennessee. How would you say that transportation spending is trending versus your initial expectation?

I think that we try to study the spending and the budgets before making acquisitions. I would say that on all three states there, it's played out exactly as we expected. Texas, Oklahoma, and Tennessee all have very healthy programs. I think Tennessee is up quite a bit year over year. We're seeing a lot of bidding activity there. Texas, I mean, frankly, their program dwarfs every other state in the nation. We're benefiting from that and we're happy to be in Houston. I would say all three states are doing very well.

It's good to hear. Lastly, I wanted to ask on labor. There's got to be a lot of value, you know, in your assembled labor force of 6,200 plus. I'm just curious if there's been any changes in the availability of labor either for you or your competitors. What's your sense on that?

I think, Adam, with labor, it's a twofold answer. You know, the labor shortages we saw coming out of COVID, those have dissipated. We're back to a normal labor market. When we were struggling to find truck drivers three and four years ago, that's gone, and labor's available. We're able to build our backlog. The longer term picture, as you've heard me say before, is we're going through a generational shrinking slowly but surely of our workforce. We have a lot of gray hair out on our crews that are retiring, and that has forced CPI to be proactive in saying how do we attract and retain a workforce, whether it be the culture that we have in our companies, whether it be the compensation that we offer our workers, or whether it be the career opportunities. We call it the three Cs: culture, compensation, and career.

We feel like that if we can do a good job attracting and retaining a workforce, it's actually going to become a competitive advantage for us because the businesses in our industry that can attract and retain a workforce are going to be able to keep bidding and growing, and those that don't attract and retain a workforce are not going to be able to keep bidding and growing. It's something long term that we know we have to be proactive. If we are proactive, it's actually going to help us be one of the winners in our industry. Workforce is a huge part of what we focus on every day.

Good color. Thanks, Jule.

Okay, thank you, Adam.

Speaker 7

I would like to turn the floor over to management for closing remarks.

Speaker 3

Yes, thanks to everyone for being with us, and we look forward to speaking with you next quarter. Thank you.

Speaker 7

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.