Sterling Infrastructure - Q4 2025
February 26, 2026
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Sterling Infrastructure 4th quarter and full year webcast and conference call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode, following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. As a reminder, this call is being recorded on Thursday, February 26, 2026. I would now like to turn the call over to Noelle Dilts, Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy. Please go ahead.
Noelle Dilts (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)
Good morning to everyone joining us, welcome to Sterling Infrastructure's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm pleased to be here today to discuss our results with Joe Cutillo, Sterling's Chief Executive Officer, and Nick Grindstaff, Sterling's Chief Financial Officer. Joe will open the call with an overview of the company and its performance in the quarter. Nick will discuss our financial results and 2026 guidance, after which Joe will provide some additional commentary on our markets and outlook. We will open the call up for questions. As a reminder, there are accompanying slides on the investor relations section of our website. These slides include details on our full year 2026 financial guidance. Before turning the call over to Joe, I'll read the Safe Harbor statement. The discussion today may include forward-looking statements.
Actual results could differ materially from the statements made today. Please refer to Sterling's most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings for a more complete description of risk factors that could affect these projections and assumptions. The company assumes no obligations to update forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Please also note that management may reference EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted net income, or adjusted earnings per share on this call, which are all financial measures not recognized under US GAAP. As required by SEC rules and regulations, these non-GAAP financial measures are reconciled to their most comparable GAAP financial measures in our earnings release issued yesterday afternoon. Our discussion of all results today, including revenue and backlog, refer to figures that adjust prior period results to conform to the current accounting of our RHB JV, unless otherwise noted.
I'll now turn the call over to our CEO, Joe Cutillo.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thanks, Noelle. Good morning, everyone, thank you for joining Sterling's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. I'd like to start by thanking our team for delivering another outstanding year in 2025. We achieved strong revenue growth of over 32% and adjusted diluted EPS growth of over 53%. This is the fifth consecutive year we have achieved adjusted EPS growth of over 35%. Full year gross margins reached 23%, adjusted EBITDA margins exceeded 20% for the first time in our history. The strength of our margins reflect our continued focus on pursuing opportunities that offer the most attractive returns. Additionally, our operating cash generation remains strong at $440 million. We are pleased to discuss these results with you today, even more excited about the opportunities ahead of us.
The Sterling Way, which is our commitment to take care of our people, our environment, our investors, and our communities while we work to build America's infrastructure, remains our guiding principle as we execute our strategy and grow the company. Moving to the fourth quarter results. Revenue grew 69%, fueled by 123% growth in E-Infrastructure Solutions and 24% growth in our Transportation Solutions. Organic growth in the quarter was 36%. We grew adjusted earnings per share by 78% to $3.08, and adjusted EBITDA by 70% to $142 million. Additionally, operating cash flow generation in the quarter was again very strong at $186 million. Our backlog position and strong visibility drive our confidence in the future.
Signed backlog at the end of the quarter totaled $3 billion, a 78% increase from year-end 2024. On a same-store basis, backlog increased approximately 50%. When you layer in our unsigned awards of $301 million and pipeline of future phase opportunities, which now exceeds $1 billion, we have visibility into a pool of work approaching $4.5 billion for Sterling. I'd like to discuss our segment results for the full year and fourth quarter in more detail. In E-Infrastructure, full year revenue grew 59%, including 40% organic growth, and adjusted operating income grew 67%. Adjusted operating margins reached nearly 25%, an increase of more than 120 basis points. This was driven by our shift towards large, mission-critical projects...
where our superior project management and ability to finish jobs on or ahead of schedule is extremely valuable to our customers. In the fourth quarter, revenue grew 123%, including 67% organic growth. The data center market, again, was the primary growth driver in the quarter. Additionally, our geographic expansion efforts are really paying off. Our Rocky Mountain site development operation, which is solely focused on mission-critical work, grew more than 150% from the prior-year period. Adjusted E-Infrastructure operating income grew 91%. Operating margin for the legacy E-Infrastructure site development business were flat with prior-year levels. Margins continued to benefit from our focus on large, mission-critical projects and strong execution. The CEC acquisition is performing very well. In the quarter, CEC revenue increased 21% from its prior-year fourth quarter, and margins were in line with our expectations.
The Texas market, in particular, is very strong. We continue to see tremendous opportunities ahead for both electrical and site development. Our multi-year visibility in the E-Infrastructure Solutions business remains excellent. The aggregate of our E-Infrastructure Solutions signed backlog, unsigned electrical awards, and future phase site development opportunities totaled more than $3 billion. Mission-critical work, including data centers, large manufacturing projects, and semiconductor, represented 84% of E-Infrastructure Solutions signed backlog at the end of the year. Future phase work is predominantly related to mission-critical projects. Moving to Transportation Solutions. For the full year, revenue grew 17% and adjusted operating profit grew 66%, driven by strong market demand and the benefit of mix towards higher-margin services. Fourth quarter revenue grew 24% and adjusted operating profit grew over 100%.
We ended the quarter with Transportation Solutions backlog at $1.1 billion, an 81% year-over-year increase, driven by strong award activity and the conversion of unsigned backlog to signed backlog. Shifting to Building Solutions, full year revenue declined 6% and adjusted operating profit declined 23%. In the fourth quarter, segment revenue declined 9% and adjusted operating margins were 10%. Overall demand for homes has been impacted as potential buyers struggle with affordability challenges. Even with the headwinds in Building Solutions, the strength of Sterling's diversified portfolio and strategy to focus on growth in high margin end markets enabled us to deliver another fantastic year. With that, I'd like to turn it over to Nick to give you more details on some of our financial metrics and the 2026 guidance. Nick?
Nicholas Grindstaff (CFO)
Thanks, Joe, and good morning. I'll begin with our consolidated backlog metrics. Our year-end backlog totaled $3 billion, a 78% increase from year-end 2024, or 49% excluding CEC. Combined backlog of $3.3 billion increased 81% from prior year-end or 42% excluding CEC. Q4 2025 book-to-burn ratios were 1.64 times for backlog and 0.81 times for combined backlog. Moving to our cash flow metrics. Cash flow from operating activities for 2025 was a strong $440 million. We expect continued strength in operating cash flow in 2026 in both the legacy and recently acquired businesses.
Cash flow used in investing activities for 2025 included $77 million of CapEx and $482 million for acquisitions, including CEC. 2026, we are forecasting CapEx in the range of $100 million-$110 million, with the increase driven by investments to support growth and productivity. Cash flow from financing activities was a $162 million outflow, primarily driven by share repurchases of $74 million at an average price of $168.72 per share. In the quarter, we deployed $26 million into share repurchases at an average price of $310.09 per share. Remaining availability under the existing repurchase authorization is $374 million. We will remain opportunistic in our approach to share repurchases.
We are in great shape from a balance sheet perspective. We ended the quarter with $391 million of cash and debt of $291 million, for a cash net of debt balance of $100 million. Our $150 million revolving credit facility remained undrawn during the period. Given our strong liquidity, we are in an excellent position to continue to take advantage of both organic and inorganic growth opportunities in the years ahead. I'd like to discuss our guidance. Our current backlog, visibility, and strong market tailwinds position us well for another great year ahead.
We are initiating the following guidance ranges for 2026: revenue of $3.05 billion-$3.2 billion, diluted EPS of $11.65-$12.25, adjusted diluted EPS of $13.45-$14.05, EBITDA of $587 million-$620 million, adjusted EBITDA of $626 million-$659 million. The midpoints of these ranges reflect strong year-over-year growth of 25% or higher for each of these metrics. Now, I will turn the call back to Joe.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thanks, Nick. As we look to the future, we remain very bullish on the multiyear opportunity in each of our markets. Our strong backlog, future phase opportunities, and conversations with our core customers on the size and number of future projects contribute to our confidence. In E-infrastructure site development, we anticipate that the current strength in data center demand will continue for the foreseeable future. We have discussed for some time that we're in conversations with our customers regarding how we can best support their strong multiyear capital deployment programs. As part of this, we are getting pulled more rapidly into new geographies, including Texas and the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, our projects are getting larger and are spanning longer time periods. In the semiconductor and manufacturing markets, there remains a very big pool of mega projects on the horizon for the later part of the decade.
This would include planned semiconductor fabrication facilities. We believe that some of these projects are close to shore and will be awarded in 2026. In e-commerce distribution, awards strengthened significantly in 2025 as large customers restarted their investment programs following the post-COVID build-out and correction. We believe that that momentum will continue into 2026 as these programs accelerate. Together, these dynamics across our end markets support strong growth opportunities over a multiyear period. We have very good momentum in our electrical business for 2026. Customer demand is very strong, particularly in the Texas data center market. We have a high degree of confidence in our ability to leverage the combination of our site development and electrical services to drive growth and margin expansion across the platform. For 2026, we expect to deliver E-infrastructure revenue growth of 40% or higher.
This includes 20% growth or higher in the legacy business. Adjusted operating profit margins for E-Infrastructure are expected to be in the 23%-24% range. In Transportation Solutions, we're in the final year of the current federal funding cycle, which concludes in September of 2026. We have built over two years of backlog and continue to see good levels of bid activity. For 2026, we anticipate continued growth in our core Rocky Mountain market. The downsizing of our low-bid, heavy highway business in Texas is progressing according to plan, resulting in some moderation of Transportation Solutions top line and backlog, which should continue to drive margin improvement as we move through the year. We expect Transportation Solutions revenue growth in the low to mid-single digits in 2026 and continued margin expansion.
In Building Solutions, we believe the business is well positioned for growth over a multiyear period. Our key geographies of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and Phoenix are all expected to see population growth, driving new home demand. Additionally, there is an opportunity for share gain coming out of a down cycle. In the near term, we believe the current soft market conditions will continue. We anticipate that Building Solutions revenue will decline in the high single to low double digits in 2026, and that adjusted operating margins will remain in the low double digits. As a reminder, from a seasonality perspective, our fourth quarter and first quarter tend to be slower than our second and third quarter, with the first quarter typically our lowest of the year.
On the acquisition front, we are continuing to look for acquisitions that are the right strategic fit to enhance our service offering and geographic footprint. We are seeing more high-quality acquisition targets in the market today than we did a year ago. Moving to our full year 2026 guidance. The midpoint of our guidance range would represent 25% revenue growth, 26% adjusted EPS growth, and 28% adjusted EBITDA growth. With that, I'd like to turn it over for questions.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. Should you have a question, please press the star followed by the one on your touch tone phone. You will hear a prompt that your hand has been raised. Should you wish to decline from the polling process, please press star followed by the two. If you are using a speakerphone, please lift the handset before pressing any keys. One moment, please, for your first question. Your first question comes from Brian Brophy from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Brian Brophy (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Yeah, thanks. Good morning, everybody. Appreciate you taking the question. I guess just wanted to ask about transportation awards and backlog. It seems like it was a lot stronger than folks were expecting. Anything notable to call out there? Were there any large awards worth highlighting? Thanks.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah. Thanks, Brian. nothing in particular. There wasn't one big giant project or anything. I think what people tend to get confused with is, even though we're coming to the end of a, of a funding cycle, only about 50%-60% of the total funding has been spent. We will continue to see good bid activity through that September timeframe, as projects are continuing to be let, which will obviously be built for a time period after that. We feel very good, of where we're positioned, and we like the bid activity. Nothing, nothing major, just kind of good, singles, doubles, and maybe a little triple now and then, as we go forward.
I also wanna just remind you and everybody that, at the end of the funding cycle, the world doesn't stop. This isn't a toggle switch. Generally, what happens if they don't have the next funding bill in place, is they will do an extension of the existing funding bill. They have generally or historically adjusted that for inflation, and as a result, bids will continue to come out.
Brian Brophy (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
That's helpful. I guess just as a follow-up, you touched on this a bit in your opening comments, but hoping you could expand a little bit more. Just an update on some of the progress entering into Texas on the site prep side, and how is progress going, kind of marrying that with some of the joint awards at CEC? Thanks.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah. We're really excited about the Texas market, one, from the CEC side on what we're seeing for data center expansion, electrical. Two, we're getting pulled very rapidly on the site development side. I think in the first half of this year, we're gonna be able to talk about some very nice awards that take place in Texas. We have been, I will tell you, what I believe, ahead of schedule and we're optimistic about the strength of putting these two together, and the responses that we're receiving from customers. We're very pleased on the thesis is coming true, and I think we'll see some very good activity in the first half of this year that'll make everybody happy.
Brian Brophy (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Great to hear. I'll pass it on. Thank you.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thanks, Brian.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question comes from Brent Thielman from Davidson. Please go ahead.
Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, thanks. Great quarter, guys. Hey, Joe, maybe.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thanks, Brent.
Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
To tack on to Brian's question, if you could get out a little bit more about how the pipeline has evolved at CEC since you've acquired it? Are the award opportunities getting a lot bigger? Maybe if you could comment on kind of what you're doing or seeing already that might support a higher threshold for margins for that business going forward?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah. Yeah, we are. The jobs are getting a lot bigger. You know, these data centers in Texas, we were joking at our a recent leadership meeting. Our team said, "Remember when we were so excited we got the first 100-acre data center?" This is just a few years ago. We said, "Yeah, we thought it was, you know, the biggest project," and all that kind of stuff. They said, "Yeah, we just started one in Texas, and the parking lot is 100 acres," right? To kind of put it in perspective. These things keep getting larger and larger, are having more and more. You know, these aren't data centers anymore, they're data campuses. I think people get confused about that, and we'll have multiple buildings on them.
CEC is has got great traction in combined the site development and CEC are getting great traction. We see margin improvements in a couple areas. Obviously, as CEC moves more of their mix shift towards data center, that margin is historically better than the smaller kind of industrial commercial jobs. Also, as we're combining the exterior electric with the site development, we have already seen significant margin improvements with the small dry utility business we bought in Georgia last year, the exact same thing will happen with CEC over a period of time. We're in the early phases of getting into those projects.
That's why I say I think we'll see some great progress in the first half of this year. We'll start seeing some of that impact as we get to the second half of this year.
Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. All right. Thanks, Joe.
... Maybe just on the legacy site development margins, as you mentioned, sort of flat here, obviously at great levels. Maybe, Joe, you could just comment on why we shouldn't think they peaked at this point?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Sorry, Brent, I misheard you. You're asking about site margins, site development margins in the quarter. We don't see them going negative, that's for sure, especially as we're seeing larger and larger jobs come out. We're also seeing some opportunities in the Northeast for some larger jobs that will help their margins improve significantly. One of the things we'll begin talking about more and more, is we said in the script, our Rocky Mountain site development business grew 150% year-over-year. We're really excited about that. One of the things we have, that hurts our margins, out in that area is we tend to have a little bit smaller and different equipment suite than we use on the East Coast.
We're gonna be investing in some capital and doing some different capital planning that we think we can drive their margins up, a fair amount as well, just by duplicating exactly what we do in the Southeast and the East Coast. Strategically, we'll continue to look at more vertical integration. There's some leverage and productivity we can get out of vertical integration. As we move to a new geography, that's not where we start. We kinda get our feet wet, get into the site development, execute that. Gives us time to evaluate, some of those players around the vertical integration, pick the best ones, and you'll see over the next 12 to 18 months, us tucking in, some of those around the U.S.
I do wanna add one more comment, though, on your CEC question on how rapid they're growing and everything else. I would tell you, if I had another 1,000 electricians in Texas, and I have a much bigger number, I think we could put them to work in 30 days or less. When we bought CEC, they had a small modular build facility. We just are in the process of signing a lease to triple the size of that. That will also help their margins, so we can start pre-building more in a factory condition and ship those to the field.
Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question comes from Manish Somaiya from Cantor. Please go ahead.
Manish Somaiya (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Good morning, Noelle, Joe, Nick. Congrats on the quarter. Couple of questions for me, maybe beginning with Joe. You talked about $1 billion of high probability future phase work. Can you give us a sense if that's tied to existing customers or programs, or is it completely new? How should we think about the expected conversion window?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Well, first, that $1 billion plus is tied to projects we're actively working on today. That's real work. That's what it's gonna take at a minimum, to finish out those projects. If you remember, as they continued to design, they released that work in a package. We did that next phase of work, and then we execute it. It's very solid. We can't technically call it backlog, but internally, for capacity planning and everything else, it's backlog for us. It's tied to existing customers, but we're always getting a new customer here and there. We're not just fixated on 1 or 2.
The lion's share of that are with the big-name hyperscalers, that everybody knows, that have all announced their budgets, plans, and future forecasts, which are all up significantly. I will tell you, as we look ahead to the next three to five years, and work with them on their planning, we don't see anything slowing down. If anything, we continue to see it accelerate.
Manish Somaiya (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
A question for Nick. You know, as you guys scale up the E-Infrastructure business, how should we think about investments in working capital and free cash flow conversion?
Nicholas Grindstaff (CFO)
We expect to continue to have strong free cash flow conversion. I mean, you know, conservatively, we're seeing free cash flow conversion to EBITDA in the 80% range or so, and that's a conservative number. We expect that to continue as we move further into the infrastructure space throughout the year.
Manish Somaiya (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Okay. back to Joe. As we think about capital allocation, Joe, you mentioned, obviously you have an active share buyback program, $400 million, initiated back in November of last year. You talked about M&A. You're talking about good assets coming on the market, you know, which is interesting because I haven't heard that in a while. Obviously, multiples are high, but maybe if you can just give us your sense of your priorities. Is that a fourth leg that we should be thinking about to the Sterling business? How do you sort of think about allocation, capital allocation, M&A, fourth leg, and why this whole abundance of good acquisitions? Because we've heard that on a couple of calls, and it's been a little bit surprising.
If you can, please, help us understand that. Thank you.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Our focus won't be necessarily on a fourth leg. It's really around when we step back and we look at data centers, semiconductors, pharma is coming, some other manufacturing that we see along with longer-term projects. For the next five to seven years, the best returns for us are going to be how do we grow, expand, good services and geographic footprint within the infrastructure? That's not to say we won't, if the right fourth leg came along, we wouldn't aggressively go after it.
Right now, the opportunities that are ahead of us and what our core customers are asking us for, and asking locations to go to, services to provide for the next 3 to 5 years, really has us focused on continuing to look for that geographic expansion of site development, and then also incremental electrical footprint and services and skills. We will be looking at mechanical along the way as well, as kind of a natural natural progression. That's where we're focusing. Why do I think there's more quality businesses on the market? I think two things. Multiples are certainly up, some on the businesses.
2, I think, a lot of these owners see this tremendous opportunity ahead of them, and they're not able to capitally fund the growth, and they feel like they're going to miss the opportunity. Frankly, if they don't team up with somebody big, they're going to be on the outside looking into this, and they're going to ultimately lose that work. You know, they've been around this world a long time, and this is something that, you know, none of us have seen in our career from a standpoint of the. It's not $ billions. I think it'll get the $ trillions of infrastructure spend that's coming in front of us, that whether it's our yellow iron or our electrical skills, or some of our other things fit right into.
Manish Somaiya (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
That's super helpful. Thank you, Joe.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question comes from Alex Rygiel from Texas Capital. Please go ahead.
Alex Rygiel (Managing Director and the Head of Equity Research)
Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. When you talk about manufacturing and high tech and fab plants, can you sort of help us to maybe understand how big that market opportunity could be, sort of in the coming years?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Well, let's start, we can start with the semiconductor stuff, and I'm a believer that we are, we're at the early innings of semiconductor. I don't think we're going to see the, you know, a major phase of semiconductor come on until 2030 or so, just with the length of time of the announced capital spend that it takes to get a project ready to break ground. In the meantime, there are a few projects that are going to be hitting here, in the near future. To put it in perspective, a data center job for us is, you know, kind of a 3-year average, I would say. A semiconductor plant that are coming out will be closer to 7-10-year projects.
Instead of hundreds of millions of dollars, the total scope of those projects could approach $1 billion. That's pretty sizable for us. The pharma plants have announced multiple facilities around the country. Again, don't get confused when they announce it. From the time they announce to the time anything happens, is going to be 3-5 years. It's just the cycle. By the time you get the land, you permit it, you get utilities run. They have to purchase equipment. Usually, that's specialty equipment, and it's not quick turnaround, so there's anywhere from 2-5 years of lead times, depending on the parts and components in the industry. We see all of that coming. In parallel, I will tell you, our data center customers over that same time horizon are not slowing down.
They're talking about bigger builds, more builds, and working with us to try to commit capacity and capabilities. Also, when you see our geographic expansion taking place over the next 12-18 months, it's not necessarily because there's something there today, it's because we know something is coming in the future, and we're working with our customers to be prepared for that. The Texas market is on fire, to say the least. It is unbelievable what is happening in Texas, and we're attacking that from the east, and we're attacking it from the west, and then we've got our CEC business right in the middle of Dallas. We feel very, very good about what Texas will add to our company over the next 3-5 years.
Alex Rygiel (Managing Director and the Head of Equity Research)
Very helpful. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question comes from Louie DePalma, from William Blair. Please go ahead.
Louie DePalma (Senior Research Analyst)
Hello, Nick and Noelle. Good morning. I'm sorry that I joined the call late.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Good morning.
Louie DePalma (Senior Research Analyst)
Joe, you previously on past calls, you've discussed Sterling's entry into West Texas. Are you able to further expand into Texas to cover other key markets? I know you said that you're attacking it from the east and attacking it from the west. Have you already, you know, won jobs on the east side of Texas and in other markets across the state?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah. Let me talk about attacking from the east, attacking from the west, and then the market, okay? Just to make sure I don't create more confusion. West Texas is growing very rapidly, and I will tell you, we're actively working and winning jobs in West Texas, that we'll be able to announce in the first quarter. What we consider east is kind of Dallas, Houston, that corridor. Not East Texas is the piney forest. There's not a lot going on there yet. Maybe there will be. When I say we're attacking it from the east and attacking it from the west, we're using our Plateau business to come and start hitting what we call East Texas.
That Dallas market, there's stuff going on up in Oklahoma in the near future that's coming out. Then, believe it or not, what most people don't realize is it's almost the same distance from Houston to West Texas as it is from Salt Lake City to West Texas. That's how big the state is. We're attacking the west using our Rocky Mountain resources and assets. And we'll be looking for strategic acquisitions, obviously, within Texas or closer proximity, to continue to add assets and resources and capability and capacity. Does that help?
Louie DePalma (Senior Research Analyst)
Yes, that was, that was great, Joe. Should investors view 2026 as a year in which you're focused, you know, in terms of your geographic expansion, you're focused mostly on Texas? Are there other data center and mission-critical geographies, you know, outside of the Southeast and outside of Texas that you can potentially expand into for 2026?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah. Yeah, I think in 2026, the lion's share of the data center growth will come in those areas. There's some good activity taking place now in the Northeast. It's early. We're excited about some projects up there. The two other markets that are out there, in one, I think, in 2026, you'll see us start moving more assets and resources to the Pacific Northwest. Again, there are several projects that will probably be released in 2027 up there that could be very exciting for us. The market we haven't figured out how to get into yet, is kind of the Ohio, Indiana market. You know, that's always a potential for us.
I won't tell you we're on the 10-yard line of getting in there or anything else, but that's, you know, that's another fairly sizable market. When I step back and I just look at the Southeast, a few of the projects up in the Northeast and Texas, man, you got the lion's share of the new stuff coming out, at least with our core customers. The size of those projects really fit our profile, versus when you get into, like, the mid-Atlantic, there's a lot of number of data centers, but they're small and, you know, just don't necessarily fit our profile.
Louie DePalma (Senior Research Analyst)
One, one final one related to this discussion. For your entry into, you know, new markets, is it reasonable to assume that the profitability in terms of, you know, the operating margins will be lower than, like, the profitability for, you know, your core, you know, E-Infrastructure, mission-critical business? Such that as investors and the sell side, as we're modeling, you know, should there be any, you know, negative impact from expanding into Texas and expanding into the Northwest, or how should we consider that?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah, I think, you know, depending on if we, if we move equipment suites, as an example, from the Southeast to Texas, we're gonna see the exact same margins. We've seen a little lower margins, the same pricing, same kind of process, a little bit lower margins in our Rocky Mountain. Not because of the market, just because we're ramping up that equipment profile. Remember, we kind of converted highway assets plus some large assets to get them underway. As we continue to build that out, those margins will grow. Where I think we will see when we look at acquisitions, as an example, most acquisitions' margins are a little bit lower than ours, right?
We believe that after we get those acquisitions in our footprint, introduce our processes, our procedures, our technology, and do those sort of things, we can continue to grow those margins up to where we are. Just the other thing to keep in mind, Louie, is our projects, remember the multi-phase is anywhere, 3, 5, 7. They always start out at a lower margin, those margins improve based on productivity and what we're able to do, staging earlier phases to help productivity on the future phases.
Louie DePalma (Senior Research Analyst)
Excellent. Thanks. Thanks, Joe, and thanks, everyone.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your next question comes from Adam Thalhimer from Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.
Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research and a Partner)
Hey, good morning, guys. Nice quarter.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thanks, Adam.
Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research and a Partner)
Joe, can you talk more about the CEC modular expansion? Curious what that'll take you to on a square footage basis, and what exactly are you doing modularly versus in the field?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah. Our simple take on that is, you know, we're not the only ones doing modular, but anything we can take out of the field in prefab to move into the field reduces the number of electricians we need on that site, right? It also improves productivity and cost. The new facility is over 300,000 sq ft. I will tell you that we're looking at, does it or doesn't make sense to have multiple facilities throughout the U.S. that can make these components. We're doing everything from the exterior piping and conduit around the duct banks to the actual cabinets that go into these centers. And we're looking at how do we continue to expand that capability and growth.
It's pretty exciting because it really when you run the numbers, it's significant on what it frees up for capacity and how it positively impacts your margins.
Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research and a Partner)
Future of construction.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
What's that?
Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research and a Partner)
I said I guess it's the future of construction.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah, dude, I think we will see, you know, regardless of us or our space or other spaces, you're gonna continue to see modular activities grow. As the labor pool just gets tighter and tighter, it's the, you know, it's the most logical thing to do, right?
Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research and a Partner)
Just lastly, I wanted to see where your head was at on the residential biz. Does it make sense to do an acquisition there when multiples might be more depressed, or does it just make sense to let that play out?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah, we don't. I'd like to tell you there's light on the horizon. I think it's gonna be, you know, a tough, certainly first half of 2026. Things are just. There's nothing positive that's happening to spark or drive, you know, the residential business turnaround. I'll also warn everybody that, you know, once it does turn around, there's 3 or 4 months of inventory on the ground that these builders are gonna sell before we start seeing new builds start, right? I think that's just a fact. You're not far off. You know, I will tell you, if the right acquisition came along in residential, and, you know, multiples are down, and by the way, their earnings are down.
you know, we feel optimistic long term because the last time when we went back and looked at Tealstone coming out of the last downturn, they picked up significant market share on the back half of this, and we think we'll pick up market share coming out of this, especially in the Houston and Arizona markets. If we found the right acquisitions, we wouldn't shy away from them, and we'd get them at a huge discount, and we'd look really smart, you know, 18 months from now.
Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research and a Partner)
Perfect. Thanks, Joe.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Okay, thanks.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. Your last question comes from Julio Romero from Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead.
Julio Romero (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Thanks. Hey, good morning, Joe, Nick and Noelle. you know, wanted to stay on the topic of these projects getting bigger. As you said, Joe, they're not even data centers anymore, they're data center campuses. as these mission-critical projects get bigger, more complex, is the mix of above-ground work versus underground infrastructure changing at all? If so, is that mix shift margin accretive?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah, I won't tell you, we've seen any significant shift on above ground versus below ground. I think what we will see, you know, kind of the next generation of these projects are gonna have self-power generation on them. That will create more development opportunities on these, because if you have a power plant, you got all the underground, whether it's water, utilities, you got the electrical coming in, all that stuff. We think that the size and scope of these projects, not only in physical size, will get bigger, but the amount of stuff that we will touch will continue to grow. You know, those projects really won't start hitting till 2027, 2028. We may see one this year, but that's the lion's share.
It also opens up opportunities to look at other goods and services that we can add to those projects.
Julio Romero (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Does that change at all, if the mix within mission-critical begins, you know, does skew over time to semiconductor and advanced manufacturing?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Yeah. No, there's not a tremendous difference. Obviously, you got duct banks in the data centers, but, you know, there's all... What people don't realize is any of these facilities, literally, there's thousands of miles of underground pipe and wire and everything else. It's a, it's an underground city. So for us, you know, we're not concerned if the mix shifts more towards semiconductors and away from data centers or more towards manufacturing. We've historically seen, you know, we've got more data on the site development side, obviously, but we've seen comparable margins, those. That's the beauty of the model we have, and now with electrical and as we continue to expand the footprint of electrical and capabilities, our stuff's fungible.
We really, you know, big projects obviously are much better for us, but we don't really care if it's a data center or a chip plant or a large automotive facility or a battery plant.
Julio Romero (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Very helpful. I wanted to ask how Sterling is positioned amongst other specialty contractors with regards to AI-driven tools? As these tools kind of become more adopted across the industry, Joe, how are you thinking about staying ahead of competitors? I'm sure some of those competitors would say they're probably using AI to narrow the gap of reliability, you know, or maybe scale versus Sterling. How do you see Sterling positioned in that context? Could you be using these tools to maybe widen your differentiation versus some of these peers?
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Well, I certainly would not be able to speak. I don't know where our peers are. I can tell you where we are. I think people would be shocked at what we've done and what we're doing in and around AI, and how we're tying that to not only the estimating and bid process, but the project execution. We did 3 pilots last year. To say the teams were excited is an understatement. They, you know, when we first started them, everybody said, "How is AI applicable to what we do?" Remember, we're running drones, we're running all kinds of analytics off our equipment. We're now tying all that into project management and making things happen faster. We picked up just in...
Remember, our capacity constraint in site development is project managers. We picked up somewhere between 15%-20% of incremental capacity on project managers just from our first AI project. We've got 6 AI projects underway right now. I will tell you, it's when people talk about, well, is AI real and all that. I always say, if guys like us are running very quickly at this. Our guys, every time they touch it, they come up with 4 or 5 other things that we can incorporate, which will improve the efficiency, the effectiveness, the quality. Just as importantly, there's some really cool things we're doing on the safety side with this that will help make our employees even safer than they are today.
Julio Romero (Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Absolutely. Thanks again for taking the questions.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Joe Cutillo, you may continue.
Joseph Cutillo (CEO)
Thank you. I want to thank everybody for joining today's call. If you have any follow-up questions, please contact Noelle Dilts. Her contact information is in the press release. Hey, I appreciate it. I appreciate what our team did. Another great quarter. Have a great day.
Operator (participant)
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference call for today. We thank you very much for your participation. You may now disconnect. Have a great day.