Advanced Drainage Systems - Q1 2025

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Advanced Drainage Systems' first quarter of fiscal year 2025 results conference call. My name is Amy, and I'm your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and if you would like to ask a question after the presentation, please press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad.

If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star and the number one. I would like to now turn the presentation over to your host for today's call, Michael Higgins, Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy. Sir, you may begin.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. Appreciate everyone taking the time to listen to our results today. With me, I have Scott Barbour, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Cottrell, our Chief Financial Officer. 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 the conference call available via webcast on the company website. With all of this said, I'll turn the call over to Scott Barbour.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Thank you all for joining us on today's call. The first quarter of revenue results were in line with our expectations, and we achieved an impressive 33.8% Adjusted EBITDA margin. Demand in the construction market was strong for both ADS and Infiltrator, with growth across the non-residential, residential, and infrastructure markets.

From a non-residential perspective, the first quarter showed the strongest growth in nine quarters. We saw good activity at distribution and in the commercial end markets. Geographically, places like Florida, Texas, and other southeastern states continued to perform well, giving us confidence in our long-term material conversion strategy.

The residential market also continues to perform well, with 4% growth overall. Infiltrator revenue increased 6% in the quarter, driven by double-digit growth in tanks and advanced treatment products.

In addition, the ADS residential business, tied to land development, increased 8%. As many of you know, residential is an important market share opportunity for both ADS and Infiltrator, and our long-term view of this market remains favorable due to the four million unit undersupply of single-family homes.

Over the last several years, we have dedicated resources to the residential market in order to establish relationships with large national and regional home builders and these efforts continue to pay off as developers value the benefits of faster and safer installation, as well as the expertise and resources ADS and its distribution partners provide to contractors at the local level.

The robust residential market growth in the Infiltrator and ADS land development businesses was partially offset by weaker multifamily development, as well as a 12% decrease in the retail business, which is only about 6% of our sales overall. We continue to see strength in the infrastructure market, with 19% growth in the quarter.

This market benefits from the federal funds allocated under the IIJA, and we continue to see good activity at the local level in roads, highways, airports, and rail projects. We expect the infrastructure market to continue to outperform other construction end markets throughout fiscal 2025.

Importantly, the pricing environment in the overall construction markets remains in line with our expectations. In the agricultural market, the Midwest area of the U.S. experienced heavy rainfall in the quarter, which is where ADS's agricultural sales are concentrated.

The wet spring, combined with weakening crop prices, farmer sentiment, and an early breaking winter, impacted sales negatively in the first quarter. Moving to profitability, the 33.8% Adjusted EBITDA margin in the first quarter marks the second most profitable quarter in company history, only suppressed by last year's first quarter margin of 36.2%.

Profitability was generally in line with expectations, as we saw the benefit from positive volume in the quarter due to the favorable demand backdrop, as well as strong sales mix of Allied Products and Infiltrator growing faster than the pipe business.

Manufacturing costs benefited from favorable fixed cost absorption, which was partially offset by higher transportation costs as we continue to invest in customer service, for example, by moving inventory throughout the network to the appropriate locations. In short, the year started right on planning.

We saw good activity generally across our end markets in April and May. In June and July, the market activity remained favorable, albeit a little bit choppier, but generally in line with the plan. Our forward-looking indicators, such as backlog and order rates, also remained stable, and therefore, we are reaffirming our previously issued guidance today.

We will continue to monitor the further reaching indicators, such as project identification, quoting, and design services activities, to give us better insight into expected activity in the back half of the year. As you may have seen, two weeks ago, we released our fiscal 2024 Sustainability Report.

One of the great things about ADS is how sustainability is embedded in the business. We manage water, the world's most precious resource, and we are committed to protecting and managing water by providing sustainable solutions that safeguard the environment and build resilient communities.

In addition, we do this using a high content of recycled material. As one of the largest plastic recyclers in North America, we consume over 500 million pounds of recycled material every year, a critical component driving a circular economy and reducing the carbon footprint of water infrastructure.

We included some new information in this year's report, including statistics on our waste footprint and diversion efforts, as well as our approach to materials and chemical safety. In addition, we saw limited assurance of Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions for the first time, further underpinning our commitment to sustainable business practices in transparency and reporting.

The strength of our market position and resiliency of the ADS business model gives us confidence in the long-term business outlook, as we are well-positioned to be part of the solution to changing climate patterns.

Significant storm events have become more common, in turn, driving the need for more resilient water management solutions. For example, Hurricane Beryl was the fourth hurricane to hit the Houston, Texas area since 2001, whereas in the previous 25-year period, there was only one hurricane.

As a result of the changing weather patterns, the city of Houston and surrounding Harris County have increased retention system requirements by up to 2×-3× times their previous capacity, among other regulatory updates. This type of regulatory change takes years to implement and requires intensely local understanding.

This is one example of a secular tailwind supporting ADS's future growth and the high relevance ADS has in these local markets. As you know, Texas is a priority state for ADS, as it is the largest stormwater market in the country.

In addition, the Texas Department of Transportation approval created an opportunity for the company to grow in the public markets. We have scaled up our resources in Texas over the last several years, building a team that understands the local regulatory environment, and we also have the manufacturing and logistics capabilities to effectively service the market.

As you can tell, we are eager to capitalize on the opportunity in Texas. It is a large market with low plastic pipe penetration that is well-positioned to benefit from funds allocated under the IIJA. We continue to focus on making progress at the local level, and over the last year and a half, we've obtained five additional local approvals for the use of plastic products in the Texas market.

As a pure play water company, the products and solutions we provide play a critical role in ensuring quality of life in communities like Texas by reducing flooding, recharging aquifers, improving food security, and mitigating the risk of water scarcity.

Our leadership position, scale, and balance sheet give us a platform to continue to advance the industry through highly engineered solutions, and we are excited to share that we began moving into the ADS world-class Engineering and Technology Center earlier this summer. In this facility, we have material science, product development, and manufacturing engineering under one roof, and already we are seeing improvements in the collaboration.

Once this facility is fully operational with all equipment moved in, we look forward to hosting interested parties for a tour and visit. With that, I will turn it over to Scott Cottrell to further discuss our financial results.

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

Thanks, Scott. On slide 6, we present our first quarter fiscal 2025 financial performance. From a top-line perspective, we generated year-over-year growth across all of the businesses. Revenue in the legacy ADS business increased 5%, including Allied Product growth of 8%, and revenue in the Infiltrator business increased 6%.

Our residential and non-residential end markets increased mid-single digits, and the infrastructure end market increased an impressive 19%. The overall revenue increase of 5% was driven by strong volume growth across the markets previously mentioned.

From a profitability perspective, we were pleased with the 33.8% Adjusted EBITDA margin in the first quarter. As communicated on our last earnings call, we expected our fiscal first quarter margins to be challenged year-over-year due to the price-cost comparison.

Manufacturing costs were favorable in the period due to fixed cost absorption, as well as the benefit of prior investments we've made in the business. This favorability was offset by investments in transportation as we continued to deploy resources to ensure we have best-in-class customer service.

Selling, general, and administrative expense was unfavorable in the period, driven by higher commissions associated with the increase in volume year-over-year, as well as continued investments in talent to support strategic areas such as engineering and product development. From a year-over-year comparison, SG&A was largely flat as a percentage of sales, and we continue to expect full year SG&A expense to as a percent of sales to be flat year-over-year, or approximately 13%.

On slide seven, we present free cash flow. We generated $126 million of free cash flow year-to-date, compared to $202 million in the prior year. Our year-to-date capital spending increased 37% year-over-year to $58 million. Thoughtful capital allocation continues to be a key focus for the management team and the board, given the strong cash generation of the business.

With that in mind, we continue to expect to spend between $250 million-$300 million on capital expenditures for the full year, focusing on productivity and automation, debottlenecking our recycling operations, the completion of our world-class Engineering and Technology Center, and supporting growth we continue to see in certain geographies.

With ample liquidity and low leverage, we are in a great position to execute on our capital deployment priorities, to grow the business organically as well as through M&A. At the end of the first quarter, our Net Debt to Adjusted EBITDA leverage was 0.9×, with $542 million of cash on hand and $590 million of availability under our revolving credit facility.

Moving on to slide eight, we present our fiscal 2025 guidance ranges, which are unchanged. We expect revenue to be in the range of $2.925 billion-$3.025 billion, and Adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $940 million-$980 million.

These ranges result in an Adjusted EBITDA margin of 32.1%-32.4%, approximately flat to last year's record margin. We expect the second quarter revenue overall to be in line with the first quarter. The cadence of revenue in fiscal 2025 will be similar to fiscal 2024, with approximately 55% of our revenue coming in the first half of the year.

In addition, we expect the margin in the second quarter to be comparable to the prior year. We remain focused on executing on our long-term strategic plan to drive consistent long-term growth, margin expansion, and free cash flow generation. With that, I will open the call for questions. Operator, please open the line.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, again, please press star and one on your telephone keypad. If you are called upon to ask a question and are listening via loudspeaker on your device, please pick up your handset and ensure that your phone is unmuted when asking your question.

We do request for today's session that you please limit to one question and one follow-up. You may reenter the queue if you have more questions. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Halloran with Baird. Your line is now open.

Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Hi, morning, everyone.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

Hey, Michael.

Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

So, just kind of simplifying things a little bit. As you look through the trends in your end markets through the quarter, in the core ones, the non-residential side and the more traditional residential side, certainly heard the weaker multifamily and the retail side, so we can leave those aside.

But those two core markets, broadly speaking, how did things track through the quarter, and how are those forward conversations looking? Punchline is, how much change has there been in your thinking based on the trends in those two core markets, as we think about the guidance and as we think about the cadencing for the rest of the year?

Scott Barbour (CEO)

All right, good morning, Michael. This is Scott Barbour, and probably I'll give you some insight, and then, Mike Higgins might give you some, too. So let's start with the non-residential, and, you know, as we look at that, it's really behaving quite similar to the way it has been behaving for the last, several quarters, or last two quarters, let's say.

What do I mean by that? You know, geographically, it's, you know, kind of Florida and Southeast, you know, a few other, a few other areas that are doing that. Allied Products continue to grow well, and I think we continue to gain share there. Order pace, engineering service activity, that's where we do the design work around the StormTech and things like that.

All that today is behaving very similar as it has over, let's say, the past 4-5 months. So that's kind of the non-residential picture. Now, we watch this like a hawk. You know, we are constantly asking questions and trying to get insights about how things are going. You know, this heavy rainfall in the Southeast and in Florida over the next these days right now, that work isn't gone.

You know, some of us might slow down for a while, but those projects will catch up, you know, on that kind of thing. On residential, you know, you picked up that, you know, retail is negative, multifamily is negative, but the Infiltrator business and the pipe sales to the land development segments are pretty darn good and continue to move at a decent pace.

So that's how we kinda look forward in those two major initiatives, is things are kind of behaving right now as they have been behaving in terms of orders and outlook. That said, you know, we watch this, we don't see any, you know, big recessionary thing coming at us. It's kind of steady, steady, steady. But as always, you know, we're watching it and cautious.

Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

That, that makes a lot of sense. Then, was there something else? Sorry.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

No, I was looking at tickets to see if you wanted to add, 'cause I missed it, you know.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

No, I, I would just say, Mike, you know, Scott summed it up very well. I would go to, you know, hey, we've talked a long time now, for the past five or six years, about our focus on these priority states, which is in the lower half of the U.S and, you know, when Scott says, "Hey, things are kind of highly variable by geography," you know, we continue to see strength in, you know, both non-res and res in the lower half of the U.S.

On the forward-looking indicators, why some of them, you know, have been flattish and maybe not expansionary, they're not deteriorating any further, and they kind of look like they've looked over the past six to nine months. You know, so we clearly watch that. It's a big part of the business, but, you know, we feel good about what we're seeing right now.

Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

No, that helps. Then just a clarification on the weather piece. So ag was a headwind from a weather perspective this last quarter, fiscal first quarter. Doesn't sound like there were other impacts in the fiscal first quarter in the other verticals.

Second quarter might be some headwinds, but just punchline here, you're basically saying if you smooth that out over the course of, you know, the year or the first three quarters, you don't see weather as much of an impact, just might move the timing of when these shipments go out a little bit.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

That's certainly true, 100% on the non-res and the res. The ag piece, you know, we were... I don't like to blame weather, you know, and, and stuff like that, but certainly, the weather up in your part of the country, and in western Minnesota and all that, I mean, all that stuff impacted us really hard. In our ag business, it was down 20%-25% or something like that.

I mean, we definitely felt it. Farm income sentiment is not good, you know, so, you know, we might. That could move, you know, to another season, and we're working our plans around that. But in our other markets, you're 100% right.

You know, this stuff kind of smooths its way out. What happened in Houston and what happened in is happening right as we speak in the Carolinas and Georgia and Florida. By the way, when Houston, like, the biggest market in the—I mean, there's a huge pipe market, and it's offline with no power for a week, you know, that's a big. That hurts, so. But we overcame it. We grew in Texas.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Yeah, we were up, we were up modestly in Texas for the quarter-

Scott Barbour (CEO)

We were up modestly.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

...despite that weather, and I think we've said before, you know, while weather clearly can impact us because it's a product that's delivered and installed outside, it necessarily won't wreck the quarter for us-

Scott Barbour (CEO)

Right

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

... in those construction end markets. So while, you know, people probably have questions about the storm in Florida and moving through the Southeast, you know, that'll slow us down for, you know, a couple of days, a week, but, you know, that, that will quickly pick back up, and, you know, again, we don't think there's gonna be some major negative adverse impact on the results.

Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

It's already embedded in Scott C's comments on 3Q as well as the overall guidance, right?

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Yeah. Yeah.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

Yeah.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Exactly.

Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Yeah.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

It all ties together.

Michael Halloran (Senior Research Analyst and Associate Director of Research)

Okay. Thanks, everyone. Appreciate it.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Thanks, Mike.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

All right.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Matthew Bouley with Barclays. Your line is now open.

Matthew Bouley (Managing Director)

Morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the questions. So kind of jumping down into that guide, I think, Scott C, you mentioned that the second quarter would see margins flattish year-over-year, if I heard you correctly. So as I kind of play with the bridge, I mean, does that mean that price-cost is starting to get closer to neutral? I'm also curious if you could unpack that transportation cost, how that would flow into Q2 and second half with your investments there. Thank you.

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

Yeah, Matt, I think the important, and why we wanted to make the comment was, when you looked at the agriculture end market being down 25% year-over-year, and kind of that phasing and how we see some of that moving or a lot of that moving into Q2, it's our lowest profitability end market. So there's, there's an impact there.

We've talked about price-cost and our, and our pricing largely being flat with kind of the run rate that we've had last year. So when you kind of negate the mix impact of that, higher percentage of agricultural sales that we now predict in Q2, again, we're still seeing the, the same thing, there. So that's kind of where we're at.

So again, margins in Q2, more comparable with the prior year than what we saw in the first quarter. On the top line, we, we do and continue to still expect to see kind of the revenue number in Q2 being much like what we saw in the first quarter. So, tried to add some clarity there.

On the transportation side of the house, again, we talked about the fact that we are investing a lot in processes, systems, and improved customer service. One of the pieces there was to get our inventory health where it needed to be, and that includes having the right product at the right place at the right time. So we spent a lot of effort and time and investment to get the pipe in the right regions where it needed to be entering into this construction season.

So there was more transportation costs sitting on our balance sheet coming into the year, and that released, as we saw it. So, we'll expect transportation costs to be a little bit elevated as we move through the year, versus year-over-year.

Again, part of that is related to customer service, part of that is the increased demand, and making sure we can get the right diameters and the right pipe where it needs to be, right now. So that's in our forecast. It's embedded. So that's the way we're looking at it.

Matthew Bouley (Managing Director)

Got it. Perfect. Thank you for that. Then, secondly, kind of stepping back to the higher level, you guys held the CapEx guide, obviously. I'm curious, as we kind of think about this capital investment cycle, if you could kind of elaborate on the progress you're making.

Then more specifically, as you think about the intentions of this capital investment cycle, could you sort of speak to what you're investing in and, you know, as we think about the profitability and productivity that you should get out of this, you know, how to think about what you're trying to do across, especially the pipe business? Thank you.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

Okay, Matt, this is Scott Barbour. You know, I think of our capital as going to places that are growing the fastest. You know, the areas of the Southeast, the major kind of capital that we've done in those places or in our recycling activities, which tends to have a very, you know, high payback quickly, in particular on the recycling activities.

Our pipe manufacturing might take a little more time to ramp up and those would be our focus there. The other place we would be investing is in tooling for new products. We've tooled several new tanks at Infiltrator over the past 18 months, which are now driving growth. So that capital was spent over 18 months ago. Those tools were built, qualified, and now are generating revenue.

There'll be additional things like that that we'll do on pipe. The new pipe tooling that we're introducing into our network, really to increase capacity, particularly of large diameter products. So I know there's kind of a lot packed in there, Matt, but, you know, one of the things we're seeing is growth in our HP products.

Those are the gray polypropylene products. Those are the products that are in larger diameter, have the most market participation opportunities versus reinforced concrete pipe. So I would say, you know, a disproportionate of our pipe investments are around polypropylene, large diameter products, geographies that are growing well for segments like residential and infrastructure. So lots of activity around that.

Matthew Bouley (Managing Director)

Excellent. Well, thanks, guys, and good luck.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

Okay, thanks.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Garik Shmois with Loop Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Garik Shmois (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Oh, hi. Thanks. Just wanted to follow up on the transportation cost piece, one more time. You know, it, it more than offset the, the benefits you got from, manufacturing cost improvements. So I'm wondering, you know, how we should expect that, that piece of the, the EBITDA bridge, to track in future quarters. Do you think the, the transportation costs are gonna remain elevated and offset manufacturing, or do you think you can get to favorability?

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

Yeah, Garik, the way I think about that is manufacturing and the positive absorption impact we get, you know, should be a good guide year-over-year as we go through the year, the remainder of the year. Transportation, like, I said in response to Matt's question, should be, again, we're, we're moving pipe around.

We're seeing good growth as we had put out in our guide and consistent with our expectations. So it'll be a little bit elevated as we move that pipe around the network to get it where it needs to be. But again, that's all factored into our guide and our forecast as we go through the year.

So, you're not gonna see a bar that's gonna be the size of the negative that we saw in this quarter as we go. You're gonna have a good guy for manufacturing and then a little bit of a negative hit to transportation as we move through the year.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

You know, this is Scott B., Garik. And this—think of this as a cost to serve your customer. You know, we made a commitment to get our delivery rates up, to get product in place, so we could meet lead times, so we could, you know, meet customer needs around availability, and this is a cost to serve, and we had to push these costs through the network.

Now that we've pushed them through and see them, we are working on, you know, making them more efficient and effective like that. I mean, but this is all in the mode of doing a better job for our customers because when we do that, we win. If there's a slight cost to that in a short period of time, I'm gonna do that, because we're playing the long game of winning, winning and creating stickiness with these customers.

Garik Shmois (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, that makes sense. Wanted to follow up just on the comments you made on the choppiness near term. Apologies for the near-term question, but you know, any additional color as to what you saw in June and July related to you know, certain end markets with some of the weather impacts, some of the end markets related to multifamily and retail that were weak? Just any additional color around the near-term choppiness that you called out.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Yeah. Hey, Garik, Mike Higgins. You know, I would say, you know, kind of what we have seen is really kind of goes back to what we talked about. You know, most of probably the choppiness I say, would be contained in kind of what we're seeing in the non-residential end market. Again, being highly variable by geography.

But when we look at residential, specifically the sales that we do into single-family development and then infrastructure, those have continued along at a good pace that we saw. You know, whether you wanna look at Q1 to July, or you wanna look at April, May to June, July, those have remained very consistent in terms of what we're seeing. Allied Products, pretty solid, as well. But, you know, most of that choppiness continues to be in non-res.

Again, you know, when you think about the kind of overall macro picture, that really hasn't changed much. You know, we said that a lot last year, that things were kinda moving sideways, you know, getting better in some geographies, but, you know, kind of not seeing any kind of rapid deterioration. I think that's what we see. It's just a little bit of, you know, highly variable by geography.

Garik Shmois (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.

Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

Good morning.

Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Just wanna come back to the, you know, I guess, sequential margin dynamic. You know, flat sales, and then it looks like if you're, you're flat year-over-year, you're down, you know, 200+ basis points. I heard the, the mix comment on ag, but just wondering if there's anything else, you know, mix or, or cost timing, et cetera, that, that would drive that, you know, sequential margin decline?

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

No, that, that's the only thing, Jeff, as we look at it, right? As you go into the back half to get to our guide, then you can see kind of that improvement that we expect from a margin perspective. Again, that's our normal DNA and drivers, right, related to the business, based on that strong Infiltrator and Allied Products mix that we have, higher growth, higher profitability that comes in there.

Price-costs largely being aligned with kinda what we've been seeing since the back half of last year, and a little bit less SG&A on a dollar basis. So, all those things come into play, and again, the only unusual item there was just related to Q2, and we thought it important to pull it out or to mention it.

Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Then just on, you know, it sounds like pricing and price-costs kinda unchanged and on plan with your guidance, but we've been hearing kinda more broadly about some deflation or disinflation and just wondering, you know, as you had those conversations with your distributor partners and your customers, if you're seeing any kind of incremental risk on price?

Scott Barbour (CEO)

So this is, Scott B., Jeff. Incremental risk on price. I would, I would term in our construction markets, in particular, that the pricing environment is very, consistent with our expectations, for both the Allied Product and the pipe products. Where we have, pricing issues, they don't tend to be unanticipated.

They're kind of built into our plan. Many people play the same play time and time again in these kind of environments. In our ag business, which is the most competitive, it's kind of what we thought it would be, and we're trying to-- and we're managing our way through that and we're working our input costs very heavily. The Infiltrator guys are doing a great job on the inbound, not only in procurement, but mixing of the materials.

We're working the same on the ADS side, you know, and very hard on the procurement side right now across many different things, 'cause you gotta do both of those. You gotta... You know, you've gotta price competitively in the market, you gotta win, but then you also have to be procuring this material smartly and effectively. So we'll, we'll continue to work both of those, but I wouldn't say anything that is unanticipated-as we looked at and set out this year.

Jeff Hammond (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Perfect. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from John Lovallo with UBS. Your line is now open.

John Lovallo (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions as well. The first one here is just on the price mix materials. I think the expectation was for that to be worse in the first quarter. So is the expectation that that will be, you know, not as much of a headwind, that $17 million hit as we move forward into the next couple of quarters?

Then, along the same lines, if I remember correctly, I thought the plan was for transportation deflation to sort of offset the negative price-cost. Seems like that might not be the case now. So is there a little bit of change in communication there? Just wanna better understand that. Thank you.

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

Yeah. So again, I think let me take your the second part of the question, John, first. I would say on the transportation side, largely aligned with what we thought might be a little bit more cost in there than what we thought going into the year, but again, something that we're managing through.

I'd say on the other side, what we see on the, on the manufacturing, side of the house is actually at or a little bit better than what we thought coming into the year as well. So, I think you're thinking about that the right way. On the price-cost side of the house, yeah, like we've been talking about, you know, we see yields as we refer to our pricing, largely aligned with what we saw in the back half of last year.

We've talked sequentially, largely aligned by those end markets. The only piece that you'll have there in the second quarter will be a mix impact related to the higher percentage of our total sales coming from agriculture, like we mentioned on the call. So that, that'll be the only thing there that we'll be monitoring and keeping in front of us.

John Lovallo (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, that's helpful. Then, you know, maybe digging into the gross margins a bit. The Infiltrator gross margin was really strong at 66.4%. I think that was up, you know, call it 500-600 basis points, both sequentially and year-over-year. What was kind of driving that? Then conversely, Allied Products was down a bit, year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter, despite higher sales. So any color there would be helpful.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

So Scott, it's Scott Barbour here, John, and I would say the Infiltrator is, yeah, I mentioned earlier, doing an excellent job of managing their incoming costs. Very high content of recycled polypropylene there, and then how they blend and mix those materials, you know, how they formulate their recipe.

Then lastly, at Infiltrator, 'cause those are extraordinary margins, I get it, is the, again, paying off on the automation and new equipment investments we made down there in Building 7, that just continues to ramp up and get better and better.

I'd say probably a little bit of volume effect in there, too, as their volumes have returned. Allied Products, I think there's some mix going on in there amongst the, you know, there's a lot of products in there. I think there's a bit of a mix effect in there.

Honestly, the way we kind of work those Allied Products is we wanna grow. I mean, those are very profitable products. We wanna make sure they're growing and growing. So we're really pleased with that growth that we had there in that quarter of 8%, but I don't think there's anything going on in there in terms of price or cost.

John Lovallo (Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Thank you, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Trey Grooms with Stephens Inc. Your line is now open.

Noah Merkousko (Senior Research Associate)

Good morning. This is Noah Merkousko on for Trey, and thanks for taking my questions. So first, I just wanna get a bit of clarity. I think in the prepared remarks when you were talking about the full year guide, saying margin flat compared to last year's record. First, did I hear that right, and is that to kind of point to the low end of the guide?

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

Again, we're keeping the guide flat for the full year. So the first half, to the extent we've talked about the second quarter being more comparable to the last year's second quarter than what we saw in the first quarter, that means that the second half will be up on a year-over-year basis to get back to that place.

So that's the way to think about our guide from a 1H, 2H perspective. Again, we're giving a little bit more color to second quarter, just to give, give you guys a little bit more insight there as to how we see the phasing.

Noah Merkousko (Senior Research Associate)

Got it. That makes sense. Then to follow up on the ag mix headwind that's gonna impact 2Q. Will that be contained to 2Q and won't bleed into the back half?

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

Yeah. Yeah. Yes, that's the right way to think about it. Yeah.

Noah Merkousko (Senior Research Associate)

All right, great. Thanks for taking my questions.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Ryan Connors with Northcoast Research Partners. Your line is now open.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Good morning. So, a question, can you give us an update on the active treatment side? I know it's a business that you called out during the investor day a couple of years ago as a really nice growth business across the cycle. So I'm curious how that's working for you now in a little more challenged environment and whether, you know, what the growth rates are like there and what kind of contribution, that was, if any, to the growth rate in the quarter.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Yeah. Hey, Ryan, Mike Higgins. So I, I would say just kind of the broad statement, we're very pleased with the progress that's been made there. You know, strong growth rates, you know, much stronger than the company, much stronger than the Infiltrator organic growth rate, but still a relatively small part of the business.

I would say what we've seen, what we've done, or if you remember a couple quarters ago, we released a new product in Florida, Infiltrator did, that's focused on, you know, regulations that we see evolving and coming into play there that are requiring these septic systems to remove nitrogen at much higher levels to, you know, prevent further, you know, wastewater pollution or contamination of bodies of water there and so we've been off to an excellent start there.

Great market acceptance of that product, both from contractors, distributors, and regulators. So we continue to be very, very bullish about the long-term opportunity in that business and, you know, we've talked in the past, and these things still remain on our radar, you know, kind of new product development for other products that go into that market.

Then also, you know, it's a highly fragmented industry, a lot of different technologies out there, and not necessarily always clear in what geography, what technology will win. So we see that as a very attractive space for potential acquisitions as well.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Got it. Thanks for that. Then my other one was, you know, you talked a lot about flooding and wet weather. Obviously, that's disruptive in the short term, but on the other hand, it actually sort of speaks to the opportunity around stormwater management.

So could we see a tangible impact on reactive stormwater infrastructure spending in the wake of some of these things in some of these areas that could impact, maybe not fiscal 2025, but, you know, into fiscal 2026, you know, communities reacting to these things by saying, "We don't wanna go through this again, and we're gonna invest in infrastructure?" I mean, is that-can that turn around that quickly, or is that, would that be kind of just farther out?

Scott Barbour (CEO)

So, this is Scott Barbour, and the short answer to your question is yes and yes, and we will give you an example of, you know, hurricanes that happened in 2017 year timeframe in Houston. You know, regulations rewritten 2× or 3×, more retention required, a lot more attention to planning and approval of site plans down there, and we are seeing the benefit of that now in 2024.

We started seeing the benefit in 2023. So it might not be one year, but it does come, and we're doing a pretty thorough look and study internally to try to get a handle on how many communities or geographies are rewriting their standards.

We tend to be a one influencer, a very important influencer, as those standards are written, and it's encouraging, and I do think it speaks to the long term. It's probably never quick enough for you guys, but I mean, this is a game of just staying at it, staying at it, staying at it, and these things stack on top of one another.

Honestly, that's why we are where we are today because we've been doing that, you know, following that strategy for a long time, and it's built a business of scale and high relevance. So I would say go ahead.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

I was gonna say, there's another tangible impact I think we see as well, not only from, like Scott described, this change in regulations and the awareness of the need to have better stormwater management infrastructure to, you know, kind of manage these events. But, you know, Scott mentioned earlier about kind of the growth of our larger diameter pipe, meaning kind of pipe that's greater than 30 inches, so 30-60 inches in diameter.

What we do see, kind of even, I guess I would describe it, kind of without regulatory change, is design engineers being more kind of aware of the intensity of these events and when they're designing stormwater systems on project sites, incorporating greater quantities or much larger diameter of pipe to handle, you know, this intensity of rainfall, that tends to happen, very large storm event, very short period of time and we can see that in a lot of geographies.

Florida being one of them, of course, where, you know, just the, the growth of those diameters of pipe and what we see on designs is, we think, part of or directly connected to the, the, the awareness of the change in climate and need, the need to manage stormwater runoff better.

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

That's driving our capital investment.

Michael Higgins (VP of Investor Relations and Corporate Strategy)

Yeah.

Scott Cottrill (Former CFO)

As an earlier question was, what kind of capital are you investing in? A lot of it is in that large diameter pipe. So, you know, it all kind of ties together. I mean, I think that's what we're trying to say.

Ryan Connors (Managing Director and Research Analyst)

Well, that's great insight. Thanks for your time.

Operator (participant)

At this time, there are no further questions, so I would like to turn it back over to Mr. Barbour for closing remarks.

Scott Barbour (CEO)

All right. Thank you, Amy, and we appreciate the questions. We appreciate your time this morning. You know, we said it a couple of times. You know, we hit our plan. We're on our plan that we've done. We've maintained the guidance. We have visibility that gives us confidence over the next period of time.

We're not tone deaf. We're still watching all of the different signals out there and what's going on. We don't see any cliffs coming up. That said, you know, we'll always be a little cautious about what we try to say and do. But anyway, we continue to kind of march forward on our plan. I'm sure we'll be talking to many of you later today, and we appreciate your time and investment. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.