Advanced Drainage Systems - Q1 2024
August 3, 2023
Transcript
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Thank you. Good morning. With me today, I have Scott Barbour, our President and CEO, and Scott Cottrill, our CFO. I would also like to remind you that we will discuss forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those forward-looking statements because of various factors, including those discussed in our press release and the risk factors identified in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC. While we may update forward-looking statements in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, all of which speak only as of today. Lastly, the press release we issued earlier this morning is posted on the Investor Relations section of our website. A copy of the release has also been included in an 8-K submitted to the SEC.
We will make a replay of this conference call available via webcast on the company website. With that said, I'll turn the call over to Scott Barbour.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Thank you, Mike. Good morning. Thank you all for joining us on today's call. We appreciate your time. The first quarter was a solid start to the year and highlighted the resiliency of the ADS model, even in the face of lower market demand. The net sales and Adjusted EBITDA results exceeded expectations, primarily driven by better-than-expected performance from the Infiltrator business and the Allied Products portfolio. Importantly, the positive mix effect from these two segments, as well as strong execution on pricing, good control over material and operational costs, and the benefit from actions we took during the second half of last year to reduce manufacturing and transportation costs in the lower demand environment, led to a record 36.2% Adjusted EBITDA margin.
This is the highest quarterly margin in the company's history and 350 basis points higher than the same quarter last year. This record profitability was achieved despite a 15% demand-driven sales decline in the quarter. I'd like to highlight growth in three highly strategic areas of the business today that are, in part, representative of the large opportunity in front of the business. Sales of Infiltrator's active treatment products and ADS's HP Pipe and water quality products all increased this quarter due to the successful execution of the market share model. In particular, sales of the active treatment and water quality products are dependent upon the intensely local knowledge of our sales force as product requirements and standards vary significantly depending on the local regulations. Our business model incorporates a high-touch sales team, combined with a national distribution footprint and engineering services support.
The growth of these products in the quarter demonstrates the resilience of that business model, even in the unfavorable demand conditions. As communities and developers deal with the increasing effects of heavy rainfall and water scarcity, ADS is a trusted resource in the development of standards and practices around management of water, the world's most precious resource, helping to safeguard our environment and communities. Developers, contractors, and distributors recognize our expertise and value proposition as they continue to choose ADS and Infiltrator as the premier partner for water management solutions.
Water management remains a critical aspect of proper infrastructure development and stormwater management, highlighting the ADS brand promise, "Our reason is water." Whether it be flood mitigation, nitrogen removal, water quality improvement, or water conservation, we remain focused on staying true to our foundational mission to provide clean water management solutions to communities and deliver unparalleled service to our customers. Now, let me provide an update on what we are seeing in the end markets. From a residential perspective, the overall shortage of available housing and lack of existing homes for sale in the United States continues to give us confidence in the long-term market growth potential and opportunity for further market penetration. The outlook for single-family housing starts has improved since the beginning of the year, which in turn benefited sales of Infiltrators, leach field chambers, and septic tanks.
Though demand was down overall, sales picked up sequentially through the quarter alongside the improvement in single-family housing starts. This improvement in outlook has not yet resulted in increased residential land development activity, where ADS products are sold early in the development cycle. However, as single-family housing starts improve, the available inventory of land will decrease, driving the land acquisition and development activity to follow. In the non-residential market, we primarily participate in horizontal, low-rise construction projects. Financing in the non-residential market can be impacted by credit availability from small and regional banks, including tightening credit standards and higher loan-to-value, value requirements. We are seeing this impact the demand for speculative development projects. For-purpose projects, such as the ADS Engineering and Technology Center we are building and many large-scale development projects, continue to move forward.
There continues to be uncertainty as to how the back half of this year will play out and whether the government stimulus programs, like the IIJA, IRA, and CHIPS Acts, will be able to offset the impact of lower demand in other segments of the residential market. We are closely tracking projects related to these government stimulus programs, including semiconductor, automotive, battery, and EV projects, among others. We quote on these projects, utilizing our business development team to pursue relationships with contractors, distributors, and engineers that are working on these projects. This is the same strategy we previously used to successfully build relationships with the related parties in warehouse and data center development, as well as the large national and regional home builders. Within the infrastructure market, which increased 1% this quarter for us, the IIJ activities are starting to pick up.
As we have talked about before, the initial funding has primarily been allocated to repair work, and the real capacity expansion projects are still to come. We continue to see good quoting activity for airport projects, where the transportation benefits of ADS products are very attractive to contractors. In the agriculture market, our outlook remains favorable as farm economics continue to do well. We expect to see that business pick up in the fall. In areas less impacted by late-breaking winter or heavy precipitation, like the lower Midwest, the spring season was basically on plan. Moving to profitability, our Adjusted EBITDA decreased 6% this quarter on a dollar basis due to the lower demand environment. The Adjusted EBITDA margin increased 350 basis points to 36.2%.
The short-term weakness in demand we began to see in the back half of calendar year resulted in lower fixed cost absorption in the period. However, the actions and initiatives we've taken to align our costs with this lower demand environment allowed us to mitigate some of the headwinds we faced. Our first quarter results are the product of the ADS resilient business model and the successful execution of operational strategies at both ADS and Infiltrator. I want to highlight the progress on our world-class Engineering and Technology Center. Since we talked to you last, we've erected steel beams for the structure, which is on track to open in 2024. I'm very excited that this facility will bring product design, material science, and manufacturing technology under one roof to increase our pace of innovation and incorporate more recycled content into our products.
In summary, we're off to a very good start to a good start to the year in the lower demand environment. ADS's value proposition, solutions package, conversion strategy, and unique sustainability position in water and recycling remain highly relevant, and we are committed to being the leader in sustainable water management solutions. We will continue to manage costs and production to meet our commitments in this lower demand environment that's in front of us. Importantly, we are managing the business for the upturn in the residential and the non-residential markets. We will continue investing in capacity in underpenetrated geographies, new products, automation, safety, and maintenance to ensure that when the market ramps up, we have good service and the right capacity to be the partner of choice for contractors and engineers. With that, I'll turn the call over to Scott Cottrill to further discuss our financial results.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Thanks, Scott. As Scott has largely covered revenue and profitability results for the quarter, I will move straight to slide 7, where we present our free cash flow. We generated $202 million of free cash flow year-to-date, compared to $214 million in the prior year. Our year-to-date capital spending increased 17% year-over-year to $42 million, as we continued to make investments to grow our manufacturing and recycling capacity, make productivity improvements, as well as build out our new world-class ADS Engineering and Technology Center here in Columbus, Ohio. Our capital allocation strategy and priorities remain unchanged. First, investing in the business organically through capital investments in growth, productivity, recycling, and innovation. For the full year, we expect to spend between $200 million and $225 million on capital expenditures.
Second, we'll continue to focus on acquisitions that are close to our core, while being open to close adjacencies that will provide future platforms for growth and expansion of our current addressable market. Third, we will continue to buy back shares under our current share repurchase program. In the first quarter, we repurchased 500,000 shares for a total of $48 million, leaving $377 million under our current existing authorization. Finally, we are committed to the quarterly dividend paid to shareholders. This year, we are returning $0.14 per share quarterly, an increase of 17% from the $0.12 per quarter we paid in the prior year. We also will continue to return excess cash to shareholders through our share repurchase program and recurring dividend as we move through the year.
Moving on to Slide eight, we show our fiscal 2024 guidance ranges, which are unchanged, with revenue at $2.6 billion-$2.8 billion and Adjusted EBITDA expected to be between $725 million-$825 million. We are encouraged by our results in the first quarter. The demand environment in July continued to perform in line with the trends we saw in the first quarter. We are also keeping a close eye on order rates and backlog so we can respond quickly to changes in the demand environment when needed. Given today's results, it is fair to say we are trending to the upper end of our Adjusted EBITDA guidance range, though there still remains uncertainty in the non-residential market as to the impact of credit tightening on developmental projects.
We will revisit our guidance at mid-year and update you as appropriate on our next quarterly earnings call. We remain focused on executing the plan and investing in the business for the long term, for long-term growth, margin expansion, and free cash flow generation. With that, I'll open the call for questions. Operator, please open the line.
Operator (participant)
If you would like to ask a question, please "press star and then one" on your telephone keypad. Your first question will come from the line of Matthew Bouley with Barclays. Your line is open.
Matthew Bouley (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the questions. Congrats on the results. I guess, I'll start with a question on, on price. You, you guys spoke to pricing discipline, holding. I'm just curious, kind of what you're seeing from a competitive perspective, in light of this kind of, you know, volume softness in the market. What are you seeing and hearing on the pricing side, and sort of how do you expect price to trend this year? Thank you.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Good morning, this is Scott Barbour. I would say, there, you know, there's always regional flare-ups of, of price activity by competitors. It might be a little more than, let's say, a year ago, but I wouldn't say it's, it's a raging fire, if that's, if, if, if that's kind of how, how we did it, how we think about it. You know, honestly, you know, we see things that we got to go do, to remain the market leader or competitive, we'll, we'll go do that. Obviously, it's not, it's not been, you know, kind of a, a, a situation beyond anywhere near what we expected or beyond what we feel like we can, can adequately control.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Yeah, Matt, as we continue to say, we expect to hold on to the majority of the pricing, Right, we've gotten over the last two years, and that's consistent with what we saw in the first quarter and what we see going, going forward. Again, you know, our, our brand recognition, the brand of ADS, it, it's more than just a, a price competition that's out there. Solutions package, all the other things that you know about us. We're able to deal with those pockets of competition pretty effectively, and we haven't seen that move a whole lot here in the last 30 days from. Yep. Yeah, we'll be smart out there, as always.
Matthew Bouley (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Great color. Thank you for that, guys. Second one, kind of zooming into the near term. You know, given where you started the year from a margin perspective, I know you just mentioned there at the end, Scott C., that you're tracking towards the high end of the guide for the full year. You know, given the 36% margin in the 1st quarter, you know, it looks like transportation is starting to go in your favor. You know, you mentioned material costs kind of stable sequentially. How do we think about kind of the cadence of margins, you know, these next couple quarters and sort of, you know, where you think EBITDA margins can go, especially into the 2nd quarter, given where your starting point here? Thank you.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Yeah, I think, Matt, we'll, we'll keep to the 28%-29% we've been talking about. The midpoint of the guidance range is 28.7%. Obviously, very encouraged by the first quarter results. We'll have to see where the trends are. We purposely have been conservative in, in how we're, we're talking to guidance and, and waiting till after, you know, mid-year, after our second quarter. You know, that commercial real estate, that credit tightening, that impact on developers and that non-res, that's something we really need to keep our eye on. There's a lot of reasons why we're being, you know, encouraged by the first quarter, yet being very prudent in how we think about giving that guide. That applies to the margins as well.
The EBITDA bridge that we put in here, you can see, and that margin expansion, where we like to see it, was from gross margin expansion year, year to date. Really good performance in every line item there, but we're not gonna get over our skis, and we'll still talk to kind of that end goal of 28%-29% margins by the end of 2025, although we are very much aware of the strong start out of the gate. We'll see how it progresses.
Matthew Bouley (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Perfect. Thanks, guys. Good luck.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Thanks. Thanks, Matt.
Your next question comes from the line of Michael Halloran with Baird. Your line is open.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Hey, good morning, everyone.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Good morning.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Just clarifying that last point. If I think about the cadence through the year that's assumed in guidance, if 2Q is probably at the upper end of the full year range, maybe a little better than that, and then back half, we're probably tracking to the low end or below the range, relatively typical seasonality. Is that, is that the thought process as far as the margin cadence that's assumed in guidance as of today?
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Yeah, absolutely, Michael, you're spot on. That's exactly the way to think about it.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Okay. Also just back to the, the, the first question here. When you think about the price cost commentary and the price cost curve on a forward basis, recognizing that there are some dynamic things going on market to market, it, it doesn't feel like you feel all that differently about your ability to maintain a pretty healthy price cost spread as we go forward from here, correct?
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Correct. Yeah. I [crosstalk] I'd say sequentially, that's it just be aware on the year-over-year comps, it's gonna get more difficult as we get to the back half, but sequentially is the right way to think about that comment that you just made, Michael.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Yeah. Any way to help on how much mix was a benefit in the quarter on that margin line?
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Mix, it was a benefit. It's not significant. It is absolutely something we keep in mind and look at. We did, Scott mentioned about the ag season be a little bit compressed in the spring, but again, we still remain bullish on that for the full year. We'll see. that, that favorability in Q1, if, if it comes to fruition like we think in the, in the fall, then we'll have a little bit of a negative impact from mix coming up. That's the way we're thinking about it.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Better, better volume behavior.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Yeah. Exactly.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
A little negative mix, right?
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Better fortune.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
All those.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
No.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
I think if I looked at that green bar, Mike, of $50 million, you know, it's kinda minimal mix.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Mm.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Hold it. Doing well, doing pretty good on price. It's more material driven. You know, what we've really seen is the composition of that bar, while remaining green, the drivers of it have shifted from price to materials and a little bit of mix in there, just like we thought.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Got it.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Yep. Nope, that makes sense. On the non-res side of the things, you know, recognizing you're super early in the process, you know, and also understanding the credit tightening concerns out there, do you think, how would you characterize the level of projects available in the marketplace? I don't necessarily mean ready to go today, but from a backlog or a frontlog perspective, that maybe if people fee a little bit more comfortable with the backdrop, they could start putting shovels in the ground somewhere quickly.Just kind of any thoughts on that side?
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah, that's. There's a lot to unpack underneath that. Let's start with our quoting activity remains positive year-over-year. Now, that's on a kind of a, a, a dollar basis. The composition of the projects underneath there has changed a bit. There's a lot more big projects in there as we pursue some of the onshoring stuff, and, and, and, the EV and the battery things. Quoting is good. I would say, though, there are less projects on the street, particularly projects that might have been speculative in nature. We've kind of dug around on that, and we use the, this anecdote that what, what we hear is: I did four projects last year. I'd like to do four again. I can probably only do two because my credit circumstances have changed.
I have to go find, you know, more equity to put into a project or I can't fill it up quite yet. That's kind of what we hear. As we look underneath that quoting activity, it's being backfilled decently by these large onshoring projects and other stuff that we're pursuing, and the geographies are helping us out. As you know, we put more resources in, in what we call these high-priority states, and that's helping us. The backdrop, you know, of, of kind of business activity, we probably feel a little bit better today, including Infiltrator, than we did 30 or I mean, 90 days ago when we were speaking with y'all.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Last one from my perspective. The residential side, you know, one side, you're seeing a little better starts, a little more optimism on starts, hasn't hit the property development side yet.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Right.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
If you look back in history, what kind of, what kind of lag is there normally between when those starts start improving a little bit versus when that starts hitting the next wave of property development?
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Yeah. Hey, Mike, it's Mike Higgins. I mean, I think, probably 8+ months is probably kind of that, that timing, right? You know, I think that might be different this time around because, you know, it just depends on, you know, the, the home builders and how much land they're holding and how much more land they have to go and acquire to develop, put the underground infrastructure in before they can start building the homes on top. You know, I, I think we have, like we said in the comments, we haven't, even though the starts have kind of stabilized and look like they're going to improve, you know, we don't see kind of the same level of activity in that land development just yet.
I would expect that improvement, if things continue to follow the path they are, we would expect to see some benefit from that, you know, in our next fiscal year, which, you know, starts kind of April of, of 2024.
Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)
Great. Appreciate the help on all those questions.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Thanks, Michael.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Garik Shmois with Loop Capital. Your line is open.
Garik Shmois (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Oh, hi. Thanks. wanted to follow up on the residential piece as it relates to Infiltrator, you know, given that these projects tend to go in after a house is completed, but we're seeing starts and completions narrow fairly significantly. Just wondering what the outlook for Infiltrator growth is over the next several quarters. You know, you've seen some declines or the, the, you know, kind of improvement in the rate of declines of late, but, you know, should we continue to expect that path, or, or could you see a bit of an air pocket here?
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah, Garik, yeah, very encouraged by Infiltrator results. You know, we had talked about the first half of the year for the entire company being down 15%-20%, but when you look at those housing starts and the impact on Infiltrator, we thought their impact was gonna be much greater than that average for the company. It, and it didn't come to fruition that way. I'd say that right now, our line of sight would, would expect that favorability from what we thought, looking at how dire those housing starts were 6 months ago, 9 months ago, to continue, but it's definitely something that we're, we're watching right now.
Garik Shmois (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Understood. Yeah, thank you.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
We, we made the comments in the call, Garik, you know, the two things that are also helping Infiltrator there is, you know, these septic tanks have a large conversion opportunity, and we've made some investments, you know, over the past couple of years at Infiltrator to give them, you know, the capacity to sell these and then, you know, kind of take the handcuffs off the sales guys and have them go out and, and chase and sign up more distribution, sign up more contractors. You know, that's helping. You know, even though the, the gap's narrowing. that kind of conversion story in the tanks and then the active septic are helping kind of offset some of the weakness that you're seeing in their traditional leach field chamber business.
Garik Shmois (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Understood. No, thanks for the color. follow-up questions on SG&A. You know, in light of the headcount reductions you recently announced, are the SG&A would cost savings fully baked in at this point, or should we expect, you know, continued improvement, on the SG&A line moving forward?
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Yeah, I think right now we're, we're happy and in line with our expectations. We've, we've managed those costs so that, you know, we're still investing in certain areas. You think about the Engineering Technology Center, engineering, and those kind of areas. You think about our service capability and other things that we're investing in. Right now, on a dollar basis, we're pretty much flat first quarter to first quarter, but a little bit of a impact from a margin perspective. That 350 bips year-over-year, very much gross margin, offset by a little bit of degradation on the SG&A side. I would expect that largely to continue.
Again, actions around T&E and a lot of other things that we put into place, advertising and other things will continue as we go through the year, and monitor such. I would say generally, those programs are in flight and having the desired impact.
Garik Shmois (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)
Got it. Okay, thanks again. I'll pass it on.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of John Lovallo. Your line is open.
John Lovallo (Analyst)
Hey, guys, thank you for taking my questions. Maybe just, first one, following up on, on Garik's question there on SG&A. $ were flat on a year-over-year basis on a decline in revenue of, you know, about 15%. Well, I guess, what, what's driving the or what's maintaining sort of the stickiness in SG&A there, and how should we sort of think about that as it, it plays out through the remainder of the year?
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Yeah, I, I think in there, there's, there's really nothing in there, other than the fact that you've got favorability from how we're looking at, T&E, advertising spend, all the other cost reductions that we took, on our spend. But we're still making investments in areas that are gonna be for our long-term growth and profitability, areas around engineering and technology, IT. We're not, we're, we're not gonna cut those programs that support the service and logistics and other things that are gonna differentiate or continue to differentiate ADS and make us more competitive. So we're, we're ramping up those investments, and those are offsetting the cost, cutting actions that we've taken to get to a flat dollar basis, and that's exactly what we intended, to do coming into the year. So it's, it's not a surprise to us.
It's exactly where we wanted it. That'll continue as we march through the year. We'll see gross margin favorability offset by a little bit of margin degradation because of SG&A, because of the lower demand environment. We're not gonna cut these programs short based on a lower demand environment this year.
John Lovallo (Analyst)
Okay, understood. Then, you know, given some of the improved manufacturing strategies and efficiencies and, you know, the lower transportation costs, how should we think about incremental margins in a scenario where volume comes back, you know, maybe sooner than expected?
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Yeah, I mean, you, you've seen, you know, you've seen our results and what we can do in those areas. I think the exciting piece about it is, obviously, you got to look at that price cost bar and, and what do you think is gonna happen to resin materials in a, in a higher demand world? Usually, those tend to go up, but our ability to price and recover, that goes up as well. But that fixed cost leverage that we get, when you start seeing that leverage come to bear, especially given the investments we've made around productivity, automation, and growth and capacity in certain geographies of the country, those are really gonna kick in. And we're already getting the productivity savings out of those new machines and new investments we've made.
We start getting the volume when we do see that turn the corner and those green shoots arrive, we're gonna get really good fixed cost leverage, and that's something that lends to really good expectations around incremental margins. I'm not gonna give you a range or a %, although the fact that it should be very leveraging.
John Lovallo (Analyst)
Gotcha. Thank you, guys.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Yeah. Thanks, John.
Operator (participant)
Your next question will come from the line of Joe Ahlersmeyer with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.
Joe Ahlersmeyer (Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, everybody, and nice job on the quarter.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
Thanks, Joe.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Thank you.
Joe Ahlersmeyer (Equity Research Analyst)
I just wanted to go back to the infil-Infiltrator results in the quarter and, and thinking about also the comment around the sales improving sort of in line with the improvement in starts in the quarter. Maybe if you could talk about the relationship with completions, if you think maybe since completions in the second quarter on single family were roughly flat, slightly down, if that had anything to do with the sort of maybe the lag in strength that you may not have expected if you were just looking at starts? Then on that improvement alongside starts, does that have anything to do with the destocking that you saw in the fiscal second quarter of last year? You know, maybe inventories were too low, and so now the starts are improving. You're seeing ordering and inventories coming back up. Just a theory, but would be curious your thoughts.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah, this is Scott Barbour, Joe. I would say yes, yes and yes.
Joe Ahlersmeyer (Equity Research Analyst)
Go ahead
Scott Barbour (CEO)
I, I think as, you know, probably the distribution overcorrected a bit, and as they saw housing starts getting better, that's demand for that septic distribution. They started to bring in at a slightly better pace than we anticipated, and that's how we exceeded expectations.
I think completions, starts and completions have kind of narrowed again, back to kind of more traditional, time lags and stuff like that. So I think that has, has benefited Infiltrator. I would also say that probably where they participate in those kind of ex-urban or suburban or rural homes is probably, more, more consistent and sticky than, you know, kind of the volume homes, which has been the big swing kind of in, in, in starts and whatnot. So there's a lot. I, that kind of threw a lot at you. That third one is more, you know, kind of our belief and somewhat, somewhat kind of tribal. But I think those first two things of, you know, probably overcorrected is just distribution overcorrected.
The demand looked better, the distribution began to kind of bring in at normal rates, 'cause we went back and looked at that. If you kind of looked at seasonally and historically, it was kind of normal rates that they were bringing in. We'd add that, you know, the, it looks to be flowing through on our channel checks, and reorder patterns look to be pretty normal right now for an August, late July, August period of time. I, I do think that, you know, the Infiltrator piece is, is on a good trajectory. Y'all were, you know, so one of the questions about, you know, how to leverage and gross margins and stuff like that, and, and, you know, this Infiltrator, you know, sequential, even year-over-year, is gross profit.
Performance is a really good example of operating well, where last fall, we took a lot of, lot of actions around drawing our materials down, you know, working our headcount, you know, we shut some machines down, all that kind of stuff, and we underabsorbed, for sure, for two or three months. As we've come back, we've been able to take advantage of some really good material buys because we had low inventory, and it flowed through fast. You know, we leveraged our costs very nicely there. Guys did an excellent job, of, of, of doing what they needed to do, and they're coming out of it great. Oh, by the way, we did that in the midst of a management change, with Roy retiring and Craig taking over. Lots of good continuity there.
I know we've gotten those questions in the past about Roy retiring and that great management team we have at Infiltrator, and I think this is just a great example of how they have stayed the course and kind of worked their way through it. We're really, really pleased and proud of how they're, they're operating right now.
Joe Ahlersmeyer (Equity Research Analyst)
Really appreciate all the detail there. Am I to interpret that, phasing relative to the destock last year, as you, you probably think sales dollars for Infiltrator are up year-over-year in, in fiscal 2Q? And then I-
Scott Barbour (CEO)
I don't thing we believe that. It's just better than we expected. You know, Scott said it, we thought that thing was going to be down 25% or 30%. Ended up being down 15. I mean, that, and it, it, with that kind of mix effect, that kind of profitability, you know, given this kind of actions I said that they took, and that was really nice.
Joe Ahlersmeyer (Equity Research Analyst)
Yeah.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Well earned by us, I think, in, in that team. Let's not read into it that this thing is going to explo, you know, demand is going to come off the charts here in the next 90 days or 30 days.
Scott Cottrill (CFO)
It's just not as bad as we thought it was going to be.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
It's just not as bad. You know, I kind of said it, but we've been trying to describe it. You know, the pipe business really performed. Mix was a little different, but exactly the demand at the end of the day, the volume that we thought going into the quarter. We've done a nice job of executing against that. Infiltrator, better than planned from a demand standpoint and execution standpoint. Allied Products, which you all know is a very nice line of products for us, better than planned from a volume, pricing, execution standpoint. This breadth of product line we have here, you know, really worked to our favor nicely over this past quarter, and I think that'll repeat in the second.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
I, you know, we said a lot through that, those comments, but I think just for kind of everybody, you know, we're happy with-
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
the quarter. It was in line with our expectations. You know, again, Infiltrator, better than we thought. Through four months of the year, we're not ready to declare victory yet.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
No.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
There's still a lot of uncertainties in the market.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
We're going to continue to, to execute our plan.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah, always a downer.
Joe Ahlersmeyer (Equity Research Analyst)
One step at a time, nothing wrong with that. All right, I'll pass it on.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Thanks, Joe.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Josh Pokrzywinski with Morgan Stanley.
Josh Pokrzywinski (Equity Research Analyst)
Hi, good morning, guys.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Good morning.
Josh Pokrzywinski (Equity Research Analyst)
Scott, and I'll let you guys figure out which Scott I mean.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Okay.
Josh Pokrzywinski (Equity Research Analyst)
Can we talk a little bit about tower count between some of these mega projects, stimulus, nearshoring, some of the bigger stuff versus your more run rate business? The only reason I ask is that, you know, I'm thinking kind of two-dimensionally, low rise along the ground is, you know, a big chip plant in, you know, Texas or Ohio, sort of comparable to, you know, half a dozen Walmarts in Florida. Because obviously, your guys' content doesn't necessarily shift around as much as, as some other folks out there. Any way to sort of dimensionalize, you know, relative importance or how much of your business you think some of the, the bigger projects could be, you know, once we're a little farther along here?
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Yeah. Hey, Josh. Excuse me. It's Mike Higgins. I would say your analogy you just used is.
Josh Pokrzywinski (Equity Research Analyst)
Pretty correct.pretty spot on, right? You know, you would have on a, what you described, like a chip, a chip development semiconductor plant. Yeah, I think we've used this analogy before. It's, you know, for us, $1 million-$1.5 million worth of product, which is a big order for our guys, and, and we're not kind of trying to downplay that. You know, if you took 6 or 7 kinda typical Walmarts, those type of developments, the content of that is gonna be about pretty close to the same, right? You know, again, as we've said in the past, we're and Scott said in the comments, you know, we're, we're very hyper-focused on these kind of manufacturing, industrial construction projects that, you know, are, are growing. We're chasing those hard, got good line of sight on some of those.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
You know, we're either tracking, quoting, shipping on some of those right as we speak. It's just gonna help offset, you know, the weakness that we see in that low rise, which, you know, in the end, for us, is where the volume of the activity is. Right.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah, the preponderance of our business is in that, that, that Walmart.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Yeah, that horizontal, low rise.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
That horizontal, low-rise construction. Josh, I think we've done a nice job with these business development resources, which is a team we built starting before the pandemic, of pivoting them, starting about probably 18 months ago, pivoting them onto the engineering firms, the GCs, that, that, that really do these big onshoring projects. And between, I would say, those guys hitting it at the top and our local guys, because ultimately these get executed locally, has been a nice combination, and I think allowed us to be super agile in this.
Josh Pokrzywinski (Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. That's helpful. Maybe taking a step back, trying to piece together some of the comments you guys have made thus far. I mean, seems like current quarter is off to the start you expected. It sounds like as, as, as much as, you know, maybe there's some, you know, some reasons to be cautious on the non-res side, there are also reasons to be optimistic. Scott, I guess, what, what would sort of inform, you know, being, you know, just call it at the high end of your range or, you know, maybe even closer to the midpoint? Because I would have guessed before the call started, oh, it's, you know, the more traditional non-res stuff maybe rolling over, but it doesn't really sound like that's what you're seeing in the business.
Just wondering where you see kind of the real sensitivity there, outside of the fact that, hey, it's just early in the year, and, you know, we wanna wait and see some more.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Well, part of it is, it's kind of early in the year. Don't, don't underestimate our, our, the learning we have, the three of us, versus last year. And it's early in the year. However, your question is very good because I really think this is a question of demand. I think material, price, price costs, our ability to execute in the factories, et cetera, we feel pretty darn good about that stuff. What we worry about and what would inform us as we move, you know, to 90 days from now, is really that, that demand picture that we see. In 90 days, you know, it's gonna be all about kind of, how did the fall ag season develop? How has the Sun Belt continued to build out?
You know, are these onshoring and large projects, are we winning what we think we should be winning there? It'll, it'll be demand driven, be demand driven for sure. We like that because we know demand eventually comes back, you know, and we're really... Scott kind of said it, you know, around some of those SG&A questions. You know, we're building our cost structure, you know, to, to be able to take that uptick and execute super well against that. Not only in kind of our manufacturing space, in our manufacturing engineering space, but also our engineering, the investments we're making in that, to staff that ADS Engineering and Technology Center and increase the use of recycled materials, our pace of product improvement and innovation. We think that's gonna win, you know, and we wanna be ready for that.
Josh Pokrzywinski (Equity Research Analyst)
Yep, all makes sense. Best of luck here as the year goes on.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Thanks.
Operator (participant)
As a reminder, if you would like "to ask a question, dial star and one" on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. Your next question comes from Brian Blair with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
Brian Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Thank you. Good morning, guys. Let's start to the year.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Morning. Thank you.
Brian Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
I know that the, the dollar level of quoting activity is, is higher year-over-year with pretty notable shift in, in mix or composition that should ultimately be favorable for, for your team. I'm wondering if you could drill down a bit more on regional quoting activity and if there's any, any notable sequential change to call out there?
Scott Barbour (CEO)
I would say there's, there's much change in that. This is Scott Barbour, by the way. Good question. What we would tell you is, that, you know, the, the, the robust areas of the, of the, of the geographies continue to be robust. We have seen the Northeast and the Northwest, particularly Cal, California, come back up. I guess that is a sequential change where they had been, you know, rather down for almost nine months, 12 months. That's been good news, and we believe that there's probably, you know, that'll kind of steady state as we go through. You know, Florida is still strong, you know, the California and New England, those places kind of coming back, which has been good.
The Midwest, good, with some of these very large projects. You know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't characterize a big change there besides kind of the California and the Northeast.
Brian Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay, understood. That's helpful color. How about Texas? You know, the, the approval, you know, still kind of early stage in that, but you did note last quarter that, you know, activity had-
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah
Brian Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Had started to ramp.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Yeah, that's a good question.
Brian Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Anything to note there?
Scott Barbour (CEO)
You know, I think we're getting on designs, and plans, at a pretty good rate. We continue to be encouraged by the awareness within the Texas DOT engineering community of our products and this approval. You know, once you get it, you got to go out and tell people about it. I think we're, you know, still in that process of getting winning bids. They're not really shipping yet, I guess, is the point. It is developing probably a little faster than we thought from just a bidding and winning perspective. Then as these things mature, and they're going to spend a lot of money in Texas over the next five years, we continue to be encouraged by that.
I also think this has helped us on the private side, where we've had, you know, continued to have good uptake on our HP Pipe, and Texas helped drive that growth that I mentioned, in HP Pipe, which is our higher performing polypropylene product.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Yeah, I mean, I would just add, like, our order book that we've seen kind of in infrastructure, where, where this kind of Texas DOT approval would play is, is at good levels, you know, versus maybe the same time last year.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Oh, yes.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
We're, we're seeing some things. It's just as we've told you guys, this, this stuff ramps over time, and, you know, we'll look back, you know, a year from now, it'll be much better. 3 years to 5 years is where you'll really see kind of the impact of this approval and our ability to get that implemented and execute against it in the market.
Brian Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Understood. That's good to hear. One, more quick one, if I may. Any comments you can offer on the deal environment? We know that you're, you're spending a lot of, you know, capital organically. It's high return. Yeah, the outlook is great on that front. Just curious, you know, what you're seeing in terms of, you know, seller expectations the availability of assets, whether we may see a, strategic deal come through in your fiscal 2024.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
I don't think you'll see a huge strategic deal in 2024. There's other things we're working on that are, that are smaller. I mean, they're all kind of strategic to us, but I know what you're, you're talking about. You know, availability is, is, you know, it's not a huge space, so availability can, can be an issue. We have several, several ones where we are talking, talking to and talking about, and engaging, but it's, it's tough to get them in the boat. I would say seller expectations are still pretty high, to tell you the truth.
Brian Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst)
Okay, got it. Thanks again.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. Your line is open.
Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, good morning, guys.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Good morning.
Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Just a, just a couple, just a couple follow-ups. On these mega projects, can you just talk about, you know, price competition and, and mix and what your experience has been early on?
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Well, we compete against reinforced concrete pipe there, pretty, pretty much all the time. Every now and then, we'll run into one of our plastic pipe competitors, but I'd say on the big, the big, you know, onshoring industrial ones, it's concrete that we're competing against. What wins is our value proposition of fewer trucks to the site to make the deliveries, fewer joints, safety, less labor intensive, you know, less heavy equipment needed to kind of install versus those. It, it's really those pieces of our value proposition that win the day, because on those projects, unlike some other projects, time is really important to get those, those factories built and get that work starting to move for from a supply chain perspective or a localization perspective for these companies.
I think we've said this before, you know, that part of our value proposition really rings when people are concerned about kind of number of trucks to the site, how much labor do I need to install this stuff? What's my time to get this stuff up and going? I mean, that was big part of our success in the warehouses is, you know, they like to get that stuff up and going because they have a, a time, a very definitive in those models, time to revenue, and these big manufacturing projects are the same.
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Yeah. I would say, Jeff, also, ease of installation, speed of installation, and then Scott hit on this, this too, but that, you know, service and delivery capability, right? The national footprint with our manufacturing, plants, and then, you know, our long relationships with all the big waterworks distributors and their ability to kind of fill in and service locally, too, as well, is, is big, right? These are big projects. They need to keep moving.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
That's absolutely-
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Our ability to get product to a job site on time is really important.
Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, great. Then just, just back on, on res, you know, I think you said you haven't seen the land development, but just if you look at past cycles, what's kind of the timeline before, you know, we bounce off the bottom with starts, and you start to see that, that next layer of, of land development?
Mike Higgins (VP of Corporate Strategy & Investor Relations)
Yeah, I think we had the question earlier, you know, we feel it's kind of 8 months plus, right? You know, it's when you see, some of the factors in that are, you know, these guys, how much land do they have kind of in the bank available to develop? You know, that it might happen quicker if they're kind of, you know, they're more of a land light asset model now. Do they need to ramp land purchases up, you know, for the development because they don't have a lot, a, a huge land bank? You know, I think that's, I would say in this cycle, that's kind of feels like the timing.
The, the previous cycle where, you know, we had the financial crisis, you know, I think housing starts started to bounce back up in, like, our fiscal 2010, fiscal 2011. I would say, you know, we didn't see the bump until fiscal thirteen, fiscal fourteen. I think the difference now versus then is, you know, there was a lot of land already kind of developed or improved with the infrastructure, and so the guys had to exhaust that inventory, you know, building homes on top of that land before they really got back into buying and developing for new subdivisions. There was a lot of land and homes kind of already there, you know, ready to be absorbed, which, you know, is clearly not the case now. There's not a lot of, you know, available homes for sale, so, you know, it might be a little quicker this time around.
Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, appreciate it.
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions. At this time, I will turn this call back over to Scott Barbour for closing remarks.
Scott Barbour (CEO)
Well, thank you very much for the really good questions and discussion. As usual, you guys have, you know, pretty, pretty sharp questions and insights into our business, and we appreciate that. You know, to really summarize, we, we, we like how the first quarter ended up and exceeded our expectations. Like Scott, Scott C. said, you know, we're kinda in that, in that zip code of the upper range of our guidance. You know, we're off to a decent start this, this quarter, and we'll continue to execute. You know, that's what we do. I think, you know, it'll be interesting discussion in 90 days as we get a little bit further down the road in our fiscal year, and we'll see how it, how it develops.
With that, we appreciate your time, and I'm sure we'll be on the phone with many of you later in the day, have a nice weekend. Bye-bye.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.