Transcat - Q1 2024
August 1, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Greetings, and welcome to the Transcat Q1 fiscal year 2024 financial results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Tom Barbato, CFO. Please, sir, you may begin.
Tom Barbato (CFO)
Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your time and your interest in Transcat. With me here on the call today is our President and CEO, Lee Rudow, and our Chief Operating Officer, Mark Doheny.
We'll begin the call with some prepared remarks, and then we'll open up the call for questions. Our earnings release crossed the wire after markets closed yesterday. Both the earnings release and the slide that we will reference during our prepared remarks can be found on our website, transcat.com, in the Investor Relations section.
If you would, please refer to slide 2. As you are aware, we may make forward-looking statements during the formal presentation and Q&A portion of this teleconference. These statements apply to future events, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from where we are today. These factors are outlined in the news release as well as in the documents filed by the company with the SEC. You can find those on our website, where we regularly post information about the company, as well as on the SEC's website at sec.gov.
We undertake no obligation to publicly update or correct any of the forward-looking statements contained in this call, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, except as required by law. Please review our forward-looking statements in junction with these precautionary factors. Additionally, during today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP measures, which we believe will be useful in evaluating our performance. You should not consider the presentation of this information, additional information, in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP.
We've provided reconciliations of non-GAAP to compared GAAP measures in the tables accompanying the earnings release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Lee.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Thank you, Tom. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on the call today. I'd like to start with Transcat's overall performance in the Q1 of fiscal 2024. We delivered better than expected revenue, margins, and earnings across our entire business portfolio. Consolidated revenue was up 11% to $61 million, driven by strong demand from our unique suite of diverse complementary services, including calibration, pipettes, instrument rentals, and NEXA cost control and compliance services. Consolidated gross margin expanded 160 bpss to 30.9% and was driven by margin expansion in both our service and distribution segments. Adjusted EBITDA, a key metric for us, given our successful acquisition strategy, grew 16% to $8.5 million and expanded 60 bpss over prior year.
Turning to our service segment, Q1 service revenue totaled $40 million, up 18% from prior year. Organic growth was up 11% as we continue to benefit from recurring revenue streams in highly regulated markets, our unique and differentiated value proposition, and growth synergies between our combined business channels. The service growth in the Q1 represents our 57th consecutive quarter of year-over-year growth. That's every quarter, year-over-year, for a little over 14 years. We also reported a service gross margin of 32.5%, which represents a 50 bps increase over prior year. The margin expansion, which exceeded our expectations, was a result of double-digit organic growth combined with increased productivity in our lab operations. Lab operations continued to drive automation and continuous process improvement throughout our traditional and client-based lab network.
Moving to distribution, Q1 gross margins expanded 270 bpss from prior year, driven in part by 15% growth in the high-margin rental business. We continue to see strong demand for our rental offering, which is an important differentiator as it enhances Transcat's ability to offer solutions to challenges our customers face. Our distribution segment, including our rental channel, continues to foster organic service growth by generating a significant number of leads and strengthening our overall value proposition. Looking at the entire business portfolio over the Q1 of fiscal 2024, we benefited from our differentiated value proposition that is resonating throughout our expanded addressable markets. We also demonstrated the inherent operating leverage in our service business as we generated strong incremental gross margins from our double-digit organic service growth.
The NEXA business continues to see good growth, benefiting from synergies with Transcat's core calibration business, and the pipeline of synergistic opportunities is compounding at an impressive rate. While the traditional calibration service market continues to be fragmented, we're seeing similar market attributes in the spaces where NEXA competes.
Early in July, we were able to capitalize on the opportunity to acquire SteriQual who specializes in instrument commissioning, qualifications, and validation services to pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic manufacturers. SteriQual also provides process engineering, quality assurance, and project management to recent clients like Thermo Fisher, Pfizer, Lonza, Charles River Labs, and others. We view the acquisition of SteriQual as another important differentiator, as NEXA delivers a single-source solution platform, which complements Transcat's calibration services. At the start of the Q1, we also acquired the bulk of an acquisition of St. Louis-based TIC Metrology Services.
The newly acquired calibration operation will be integrated with our current lab in St. Louis within the next year, and we anticipate the operation will support solid revenue growth and the realization of various cost synergies as we consolidate the labs into 1. Overall, our balance sheet remains strong, and our current leverage ratio is 1.5 times. We've done an excellent job managing our working capital, and in the Q1, we generated $7.5 million of free cash flow. Over the course of fiscal 2024, we expect to continue to deploy capital to margin and revenue-enhancing initiatives, along with the execution of our ongoing acquisition and integration strategy. With that, I'll turn things over to Tom for a more detailed look at the financials for the Q1.
Tom Barbato (CFO)
Thanks, Lee. I'll start on slide 4 of the earnings deck posted on our website, which provides detail regarding our revenue on a consolidated basis and by segment for the Q1 of fiscal 2024. Q1 consolidated revenue of $60.6 million was up 11% versus the prior year on service segment strength and solid revenue performance in our distribution business. Looking at it by segment, service revenue growth remained very strong at 18%, with 11% of the growth coming organically and the other 7% from acquisition. As Lee mentioned, demand in our service business remained strong in the quarter. Turning to distribution, revenue of $20.7 million was consistent with prior year. Within the distribution segment, we continue to see excellent performance in the high-margin rental business.
Turning to slide 5, our consolidated growth profit for the Q1 of $18.7 million was up 17% from the prior year, and our gross margin expanded 160 bpss to 30.9% in the Q1. Service growth margin expanded 50 bpss. The service margin increase further demonstrated our ability to leverage higher levels of technician productivity and our differentiated value proposition, which continues to drive high levels of demand. Distribution segment gross margin of 27.7% was up 270 bpss, driven by strong performance in the previously mentioned rental business. Turning to slide 6, Q1 net income of $2.9 million decreased 4% from prior year, and our diluted earnings per share came in at $0.38.
Net income was negatively impacted by a shift in stock-based tax benefits from Q1 of last year to Q2 of this year, as well as higher interest expense. The combined year-over-year impact of these two items was $0.11 per share. We report adjusted diluted earnings per share as well to normalize for the impacts of upfront and ongoing acquisition-related costs. Q1 adjusted diluted earnings per share was $0.52. Flipping to slide 7, where we show our adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin. We use adjusted EBITDA, which is non-GAAP, to gauge the performance of our business because we believe it is the best measure of our operating performance and ability to generate cash.
As we continue to execute on our acquisition strategy, this metric becomes even more important to highlight as it does adjust deal-related transaction costs, as well as the increased levels of non-cash expenses that will hit our income statement from acquisition purchase accounting. With that in mind, Q1 consolidated Adjusted EBITDA of $8.5 million was up 16% from the same quarter in the prior year, and Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 60 bpss. Both segments had Adjusted EBITDA growth compared to last year. As always, a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to operating income and net income can be found in the supplemental section of this presentation.
Moving to slide 8, operating cash flow was $7.5 million in the Q1, which was up significantly year-over-year. Q1 capital expenditures were $400K higher than prior year and continue to be centered around service segment capabilities, technology, including automation and future growth projects. At quarter end, we had a total net debt of $46.2 million, with a leverage ratio of 1.5x. We had $37.5 million available from our credit facility. As previously announced, we acquired SteriQual for $4.25 million just after the end of the Q1, paid 100% in company stock. Lastly, we expect to file our Form 10-Q on August 2nd, after the market closes. With that, I'll turn it back to you, Lee.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Okay. Thanks, Tom. I'll wrap things up by pointing out that Transcat has continued our track record of consistent performance over many, many years and over various economic cycles. We've generated profitable growth in what has proven to be a very resilient business model. Perhaps most important, we've assembled a very skilled leadership team, which we believe is the ultimate competitive advantage. As we look forward, we expect to deliver strong performance throughout the balance of fiscal 2024. We expect organic service growth in the high single-digit to low double-digit range, the gross margins will continue to increase over time. We'll continue to execute our acquisition strategy to add capabilities and expertise, expand our geographic footprint into important regional markets, and to bolt on opportunities that leverage our current lab infrastructure.
From both an organic and acquisitive perspective, our focus will remain on our diverse strategic channels, including calibration, pipettes, instrument rentals, and NEXA suite of cost control and compliance services. As in the past, we will leverage the highly regulated markets where the cost of failure is high and our unique value proposition resonates the most. Our go-to-market strategy remains the same, that is to demonstrate to our demanding regulated customer base that Transcat can be trusted as their risk mitigating service partner. We do this by leveraging our core competencies, which allows them to focus on theirs. In other words, we win together. As we work our way through the Q2 of fiscal 2024, our acquisition pipeline remains strong, and our initiatives designed to drive organic service growth and margin improvement continue to gain traction.
Effective allocation of capital has always been a hallmark of Transcat and at the heart of our growth strategy. We expect our balance sheet to remain strong and supportive as we drive sustainable long-term shareholder value. We like the trajectory of our business and the leadership team calling the shots. In many ways, as we discuss internally amongst our leadership team, we feel like we're just getting started. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.
Operator (participant)
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 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your headset before pressing the star key. One moment please, while we wait for questions. Our first question comes from Greg Palm with Craig-Hallum Capital Group. Please go ahead.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)
Awesome. Thanks. congrats on the great results, everyone.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Hey, thanks, Greg.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)
I wanna just maybe start with the quarter. Wasn't, that long ago, what, 2 months ago, since, since you, you gave an update, you nicely exceeded expectations. more surprisingly, you, you raised the outlook for the full year. At least on the service side, for organic growth. I'm just curious, did you see, an uptick in June specifically, or what are you seeing in July that makes you confident that 1 quarter out of the gates, you, you raised the outlook for the year?
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Okay. Yeah, Greg, Greg, I appreciate where that question is coming from. It's. We talk a lot about it internally, as you can imagine, it's really quite simple. We've had three consecutive quarters of double-digit growth. We like the pulse going into Q2, or at least, we're almost halfway through Q2. We just look at our pipelines and look at the business activity in general. We think the pulse supports, being in the range that we stated. Not a major change, more of a subtle one, but I think appropriately timed.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)
Yeah, makes sense. Any, specific, end markets or areas that are maybe outperforming relative to what your expectations were a couple months ago?
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
I, I wouldn't point to anything specific other than to say, we, we like the way some of the synergies are working, between NEXA and Transcat. I think these two businesses continue to complement one another, and by complement, I'm referring to, the business activity levels that are on the increase as a result of working together, work- versus working separately or in before the acquisition. I think that's gained some traction and momentum, probably as much or more than anything.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Then just shifting gears to distribution, what really caught us surprised in a positive way was, was the gross margin there. I guess it, somewhat a byproduct of strength in rentals. Any way you can give us a sense of what rentals growth was and, maybe ballpark, where rentals is in terms of mix as a part of distribution overall?
Tom Barbato (CFO)
Yeah, Greg, it's Tom. I'll, I'll take that one. I would just, I would characterize the rental growth as, stronger than, it's at a higher level than what we're seeing on the service side, on for the rental standalone business. it, it continues to perform well, with, as we've said in the past, the margins are, significantly favorable to, the overall distribution business. I'll, I'll also point out that, we, we have been able to continue to do some, advance buys, which continue to benefit, the margins overall on the distribution side as well.
It's not only, the rentals, but we see that moderating as we get into the second half of the year, as well, so.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. But just to be clear, I mean, that, that margin in distribution specifically was I don't know if it was a record, but certainly one of the best that, that we've seen since, since we've been tracking the company. I'm assuming that's not sort of a, a normalized rate going forward, but, but maybe you can help us, figure out what the normalized run rate is, just given rentals is a, a bigger part of the mix. I think we used to think of it as a low-to-mid 20s, but, obviously you had a good year in fiscal 2023 and really an outsized result here in, in fiscal Q1.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Well, I was gonna say one thing real quick. what you're seeing on the margin side is, is, is intentional from our perspective. we've done a lot of focus on allocating, dollars to where we'd like to see the mix, where we'd like to see the growth mix come from. So, as long as we continue to invest in the, in the, in the higher margin mix over time, and it becomes concentrated more over time, we may see this business pick up from, more of the low margins, low twenties to the high twenties over time. I think, we're seeing some of that transpire as we speak, in this past quarter. I don't think it's an anomaly.
I think as the mix changes, by design and we allocate capital towards higher margin channels, you're gonna see that continue to increase. I mean, Tom, do you see it any differently?
Tom Barbato (CFO)
No, I think, the other thing I'll just add is that, we're making a conscious decision to shed some of the lower end, margin business, the traditional distribution business as well. The growth in rentals is giving us the opportunity to step away from some, some of that less desirable business.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
We're in a nice position to do that now, Greg, versus, a couple years ago.
Greg Palm (Senior Research Analyst)
Yeah. Understood. All right, well, congrats again. Best of luck. Thanks.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Take care.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from Gerard Sweeney with Roth Capital Partners, LLC. Please go ahead.
Gerry Sweeney (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, Lee and Tom. Thanks for taking my call.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Hey, good morning.
Gerry Sweeney (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
I wanted to spend just a little bit of time on NEXA, and strategy isn't the right word, but maybe I want to see if you could talk a little bit more about the opportunity behind NEXA and sort of that entire market. I'm not sure, market size, opportunity, acquisitions, it's been a great it's been a great purchase for you. Obviously, you're following it up with SteriQual, but, just wanted to get a better feel for what really lies out there on that, on that side of the business.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Right. Well, well, first, I mean, just, just to take one small step back to describe the different models. on the traditional Transcat side, we do calibration services. On the NEXA side, they don't perform calibration services at all, but they do everything around that, around the calibration process. They're in the calibration ecosystem. we use the words cost, control, and compliance because most of their work is done in large life science companies, where, they're doing CMMS work, where the data is being consolidated from one system to the next, where they're looking at ways to be more efficient to lower their costs over time, through anything from efficiencies of usage of the instruments, uptime, reliability, could be interval adjustments involved. They essentially improve calibration programs.
We do the calibration work, so you can see the natural complementary nature between the two. We can bring them into our clients, of which we have over 30,000, when we see an opportunity to, where cost is a factor or efficiency is a factor. They can bring us into opportunities when they see a problem at one of their clients because the calibration vendor isn't performing, effectively. There's just a natural good fit. When we go together and sit at the same table, and this is probably the biggest point, Gerry, and we're, we're, we're sort of pitching our value props to a customer together, it is really effective. It's, it's difficult to compete against us when we, when all the stars align in that way.
That's where we're seeing the growth, both from an organic Transcat perspective and also from a NEXA perspective. It's just working well, and we think it's going to continue.
Gerry Sweeney (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Certainly get that. I apologize, maybe it wasn't 100% clear, but, I'm curious to how big of a market maybe that, cost control and outsourcing and efficiency market that is NEXA. How big is that opportunity?
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
That, that's something, we're working on to try to come up with, with, with a range that would, that would be meaningful to our shareholders. I'm not gonna be able to give you that size of the market other than -- today, other than to say it's significantly larger than just calibration. the calibration world is a $1.5 billion-$2 billion market, in North America. It's gonna be significantly larger than that because their, their business is driven -- well, in a sense, now that SteriQual in particular is part of the, the, the NEXA value prop, you get commissioning, you get startups in, in plants and so on and so forth.
So as, as capital, a capital spend to, build facilities around the country, and there's, there are certain estimates about, life science, capital spend that we take a close look at. While they, that market's getting bigger and bigger for us as we expand the services within that ecosystem. We'll, we'll try to work on a figure, but I will say it's significantly, could be 10x larger in that range from the traditional calibration business.
They'll help us gain share and then, and then we'll gain share inherently by, the, the nature of their business and, and the channels that they serve.
Gerry Sweeney (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Yeah. Suffice to say, it dramatically expands your addressable market. While you're pretty small, Mason, in that market, a lot of runway, lots of synergies and strengthens both sides of the house.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Yeah, we, we think so. And, and then we're doing business in Ireland as well, but the, the nature of their business is. It's not that difficult on their side of the equation to scale their business, even beyond Ireland. we've, we've done some work, I think we said last quarter, in Belgium and Germany, because you have the same customer as another facility, in Europe, in a different country. It's, it's not a big leap to service them, to do an on-site visit, go back to Ireland, do 80% of the work behind a computer, so to speak, and, and periodic visits. It's unlike calibration, which we will scale and have scaled, it's a little bit easier, as you cross borders. That's another attribute of the business that we like.
Gerry Sweeney (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. Is the market fragmented or similar to what the calibration market is? I mean, calibration, there, there's a couple larger players and a bunch of small players, but how does the market look from that perspective?
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Well, well, we're learning more and more about the market, as each quarter goes by. The answer to that question is we think so. Part of the script in, in this particular release was to say that, we're discovering, as we do our development work on the acquisition side, that it is fragmented.
It may be equal to or even more fragmented than the calibration business. It lends itself to those acquisition and integration opportunities that we, we see with traditional Transcat. We like that, that's why we mentioned it, in the earnings script.
Gerry Sweeney (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. One last question. I think this is all positive. This is why I'm just trying to be-
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Yeah.
Gerry Sweeney (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
by the way. what, and I, maybe I should know this, but, what does the margin profile look like in this business? You actually talked about it's easier to leverage. There -- it sounds like there are some either margin components or at least leverage opportunities on, on the NEXA side. Maybe.
Yeah, I mean, Gerry, it's, I mean, what we've said in the past, right, is that the, the, the gross margins for NEXA are generally higher than they are for the overall services. We'll just, we'll leave it at that.
Okay. Got it. Okay. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it, Brent.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
You're welcome. Well, appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
Our next question comes from Ted Jackson with Northland Securities. Please go ahead.
Ted Jackson (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning, guys. Congrats on the quarter.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Morning, Ted.
Ted Jackson (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Just I'm gonna keep it to two questions and let things go forward. One is, I want to talk a little bit about the client-based labs. in the first half of the, guess calendar year, we know there was some discussion about some impact with margin with regards to some of that new stuff coming online. I'm curious what we could expect to see with regards to, to an operating margin in the back half of this, calendar year as we roll through and that moves behind. Then tied into that is, what the pipeline looks like with regards to the new opportunities there. Then I've got a follow-up.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Okay. Yeah, I get it. Yeah, CBLs, we have one, a handful of CBLs early in the year, or at the latter stages of last year. as is typical, when you land a CBL, the first couple of quarters tend to have a bit of a drag on service gross margins just for reasons that make a lot of sense. your new staff, the lay of the land, learning the processes of the lab that you're operating. There is definitely a couple quarters where you're not at peak efficiency. That tends to correct itself routinely over time.
I think when you look at some of the margin expansion in the 1st quarter, we didn't necessarily anticipate coming out of 4th quarter. some of it, I can't put a number on it, and I don't think any of the guys here can, but some of it definitely is a byproduct of getting up and running in the CBLs over one quarter or two since they started. There's always gonna be that factor, and we know how to overcome it in a relatively short period of time, but the margin drag does exist at the outset. Yes, we've made some progress there. As far as the pipeline, which is the 2nd part of your question, the pipeline is pretty solid.
It's as solid as it's ever been, and I think, from a CBL perspective, from a client-based lab perspective, I think that continues to be a product of the difficulty the market has finding technicians. Even our customers that would normally run an in-house lab, when, when they struggle to find technicians, it's not like we don't struggle, but they struggle in a different way. They don't have a technician school, Transcat University, that you set up. They don't have the networks that we have. Quite frankly, there's no way in the world, when they hire, 3 technicians a year, and we hire, hundreds or 100 technicians a year, that they're gonna be as, as, proficient at it. We've got the techs, we've got the backup. We can move people around like we always have.
That's, that, that adds a lot of value to these client-based labs who could, at any given time, be struggling. I think that's, those types of, labor-tight environments is always gonna be a good thing for us growing our CBL business, our client-based lab business. We're that's playing out this year as well.
Ted Jackson (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Great. let me move on to my next, which is going around NEXA and the M&A pipeline. I mean, you know what I mean, the last time, we spoke, I mean, it was clear that, the pipeline for, opportunities with M&A was robust and that there was a fair amount of discussion around opportunities within M&A on, accentuating, adding to the NEXA portfolio. Then lo and behold, you made your first acquisition on that front. What's the pipeline look like in general? How does it look like with regards to the consulting services?
when you look into that area on the consulting side, which I'm a little bit more interested in, I mean, where do you see the opportunities, and then, like, where do you feel like would be the, like the areas within your NEXA business that you'd want to bolster?
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Well, I think, we, we look at some of our growth, strategic growth opportunities across calibration. We, we'd say this for Pipettes, rentals, we'd say for NEXA as well, and we're always looking for, acquisition opportunities that, that meet our sort of stringent criteria. we're very disciplined, so if you don't have a track record like we do, in terms of, success versus lack of success, unless you're very disciplined at the outset and up front. We, we remain disciplined in that way. We've got a great process and a great team that does this sort of work. Just having said that, sort of, as a, as a foundational comment, we are looking at the NEXA space, that cost control and compliance, services space, because we, we think it is a good fit.
SteriQual is an example of that. I feel pretty comfortable saying SteriQual won't be the last acquisition we ever make on the Nexa. the Transcat way is: Let's walk before we run, and let's prove this out. Let's make sure that it fits as well as we think it's gonna fit, and that their leadership team can integrate this as well as we plan on integrating it. I like to see things proven, and so I get the question. Yes, there will be more acquisitions likely in this space. We would expect that, we're not gonna rush it until, the opportunity hits us that we think fits and that our leadership team has proven that on that side of the equation, they can do well with acquisitions.
I have every reason to believe and every confidence that they will, but it's just the Transcat way to prove it before we jump in too far. I want to make that comment. Again, it's the same way with all of our acquisitions. Our pipeline is diverse because we want to be able to support all these areas, and it just made sense. SteriQual was the next one up that fit and, there, there'll be others, in time.
Ted Jackson (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Thanks. Can I, just sneak in one quick last one, which is around the distribution side of the business? you, you clearly are seeing some really big growth in the rental side of the equation there. probably, as you mentioned, answering a prior question, on the, the equipment actual sales side, you're exiting some of the lower end stuff where there's, low margins, a lot of competition and stuff. Not that nothing's a secret there, but how should we think of that in an aggregate going forward? in the past, you've always viewed it as, call it a GDP growth line item,
I mean, as you're, sort of retooling that business and, walking away from, things that you should walk away from, things where, there's really not much of a profit margin in it and the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Does that change that calculus in terms of how we should think about the longer term growth for distribution?
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
I'm not sure I would characterize it exactly the way you did in that we're not directly exiting the distribution business. I think it's, it's more.
Ted Jackson (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
I think in that way.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
No, no, no, I totally get it. Totally get it. I'm thinking, I'm thinking more in line with allocation of future incremental capital. as we have capital to spend, and we look at, well, we've got the service business over here with recurring revenue streams and driven by regulation. We've got the NEXA business with cost control and how that plays between, some of our other channels. We've got rentals, which is like a bridge to everything. when we look at how we allocate capital, it's just that core distribution allocation is decreasing as a % on a go-forward basis. By the way, it has for the last 5 years. we've had investors over time that says, "Can you double the size of your distribution business?
can you make it $150 million?" We say, "Well, we could, but we won't, because that's not our strategy." So, as we go forward, think about we like the rentals mix more than the old line distribution mix because the margins are better, and it has more of a recurring nature to it, by customer. So we've incrementally spent more dollars, and that's been for the last 3, 4, 5 years running. That's how we got these margins. That's why they're sustainable. This is not an overnight thing. This is something that's evolved over the last half a decade and continues to pick up momentum. That's how I'd characterize it.
If we continue, if you draw the line out, it continues that, that, that pattern of allocation, you're gonna see similar growth results, I think, in that margin over time and that profile over time. That's, how... Tom, would you describe it that way or Mark or?
Tom Barbato (CFO)
Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately, Ted started with the question of, is, is a GDP-like growth rate, what we should expect going forward? I would just say yes. Again, there's, we expect to continue to, to perform well here. the only caution I would say is that, we have, we have been getting some of the some benefit from these advance buys that we've been doing. I think that's the piece of it that, that will moderate as we get into the second half of the year and, change the, the trajectory on the margins a little bit.
Still, I think we're, we're talking about a, a mid-20s, margin business versus, a low 20s margin business that we, we had, 3 or 4 years ago.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
It's more sustainable.
Tom Barbato (CFO)
It's more sustainable. Yeah.
Ted Jackson (MD and Senior Research Analyst)
Okay. Yeah, Tom, I did catch that comment with regards to the advanced buy. Thanks for reiterating. Again, congrats on the quarter.
Tom Barbato (CFO)
Thanks.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Okay. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to Lee Rudow for closing comments. Please go ahead.
Lee Rudow (President and CEO)
Well, thank you all for joining us on the call today. We certainly appreciate your continued interest in Transcat. We will be participating at the Oppenheimer conference, which is the 26th annual tech conference for them on August 9th. We'll be participating. Feel free to call on us there or join us. If not, feel free to check in with us at any time. we look forward to speaking with everybody again at the end of next quarter. Again, thanks for participating.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a good day.