Good morning. My name is Mandeep, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Atkore's second quarter fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press the star key followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Deitzer, Vice President of Treasury and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Bill Waltz, President and CEO, as well as David Johnson, Chief Financial Officer. We will take your questions after comments by Bill and David. I would like to remind everyone that during this call we may make projections or forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties such that actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings in today's press release, which identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. In addition, any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures and a presentation of the most comparable GAAP measures are available in the appendix to today's presentation.
With that, I'll turn it over to Bill.
Thanks, John. Good morning, everyone. Starting on slide 3 in our results in the second quarter. I'm pleased to share our earnings performance, which was slightly better than our expectations and reflects the strength of our business model. At a high level, volume in the quarter was up 4% in line with our expectations for mid-single-digit volume growth for the full year. As expected, pricing continues to normalize versus the record highs of last year, which drove the year-over-year change. Net sales, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS all increased sequentially from the first quarter. Overall, the team delivered solid results. Additionally, cash flow has been very strong in the first half of the year, allowing us to continue to execute our capital deployment strategy.
During the second quarter, we repurchased $119 million in shares. We've continued to actively repurchase shares in Q3 while also investing in our conduit to growth. We are encouraged by the positive trends we are seeing so far in 2023. We've updated our outlook for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS for the fiscal year. I would like to thank all of our employees for everything they do to support our customers. It is because of their tireless efforts that Atkore is able to achieve the results and success that we continue to deliver. Their dedication reinforces my confidence in the future. With that, I'll turn the call over to David to talk through the results from the second quarter.
Thank you, Bill. Good morning, everyone. Moving to our consolidated results on slide four. In the second quarter, net sales were $896 million. Adjusted EBITDA was $276 million, and adjusted EPS was $4.87. We expect further normalization of our business in 2023 as compared to last year's outperformance but are pleased with our margin performance in the quarter with adjusted EBITDA margins of 31%. While this is down year-over-year versus previous record highs, it's still a very strong and healthy level. Turning to slide five in our consolidated bridges. The overall quarter was in line with our expectations for revenue and slightly favorable for our expectations for earnings. Volume was up 4% with S&I out more than 20%, mainly due to increased mega project activity.
PVC volumes were down double digits in Q2 when compared to our strong FY2022 Q2 outperformance, resulting in unfavorable mix for the quarter. Excluding the PVC impact, Atkore's volume would have been up close to mid-teens with a solid incremental benefit. The year-over-year PVC volume reductions were mainly for utility projects on the West Coast and the expected slowdown in residential activity. Contrasting the year-over-year reductions, PVC volume was up versus pre-COVID levels and up 14% sequentially from Q1. One new item to call out on this page is the introduction of an adjusted EPS bridge, which demonstrates the progress we are making toward our goal of greater than $18 per share of adjusted EPS in 2025. On this bridge, we've also isolated the impact of the solar credits related to the Inflation Reduction Act that began in calendar 2023.
As we've mentioned previously, the majority of this credit related to the manufacturing of torque tubes will be passed through to our customers. Moving to slide 6 in our segment results. Margins compressed in our electrical segment with the previously mentioned pricing normalization and lower volumes in our PVC related products. We saw a solid margin growth on this S&I side. Our S&I business had 15% growth in adjusted EBITDA, with adjusted EBITDA margins of over 15% in the quarter. S&I volumes were up 20% in the quarter, led by the increase in demand for our metal framing and solar related products. Our metal framing, cable management, and Unistrut construction businesses are well positioned to capture the growth in mega projects both in the U.S. and internationally.
Our product line diversification and the resiliency of our business model enables our ability to execute our strategic plan through various market cycles and macroeconomic conditions. Our products are integral to the construction life cycle across all verticals. They're supported by key mega trends, and we have deep customer relationships, all which give us confidence in our value proposition as we move into the future. Moving to slide 7. We're pleased with the strength of our cash flow and balance sheet. In the first 6 months of fiscal 2023, our cash flow from operating activities was 116% of our net income over the period, and up 150% compared to the first half of fiscal 2022. As Bill mentioned, we've been executing our capital deployment plan by investing in our business and repurchasing shares.
The strength of our cash flow and balance sheet provides a strong foundation for our company. With that, I'll turn it back to Bill.
Thanks, David. We are pleased with what we've accomplished in the first half of this year. We're excited about what lies ahead as we execute our three conduits of growth highlighted on slide 8. Our M&A pipeline remains robust both in North America and Europe. Atkore is well-positioned as a buyer's choice given current market conditions and the strength of our financial profile. Our category expansion initiatives related to solar and HDPE are progressing well. We've expanded our assembly and service capabilities to better support some of these larger projects, both in the U.S. and around the world. New product innovation as a percent of net sales reached 9% in the second quarter. Our innovative MC Glide platform continues to be recognized and well-received in the marketplace.
These three platforms are pillars of our strategy to drive results in the back half of this year and into the future. Moving to our outlook on slide 9. Given the strong performance we have delivered so far in 2023 and the positive trends we are experiencing, we are increasing and narrowing our expectations for adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. I'm incredibly proud of the team, strategy, and processes we have in place. I have full confidence in our ability to achieve our goals for the future. With that, we'll turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Deane Dray from RBC. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Hey, good morning, Deane.
Morning, Deane.
Hey, I was hoping to get some more color and hopefully some specifics on the pricing dynamic this quarter. This is all part of the normalization process. To be clear, that down 17% essentially matched our estimate, so no surprises at the kinda headline level. If you could take us through the components and the inputs on the pricing dynamic here. I always look at it in kind of 3 buckets. How was market demand? The 2nd bucket, the supply side, capacity at Atkore, maybe some color on backlog. 3rdly, what's going on on the input cost side? You know, the resins and steel and so forth. If we could start there, thanks.
Great question, Deane. Obviously a couple parts to that. I'll start with, as you mentioned, and we did in our pre-prepared remarks, we're basically right on track, if anything, slightly better, I think, because again, we exceeded anybody's expectations for the quarter. We're raising guidance. Compliment to the team across the board. Market demands are good. You know, then, you know, like if you look at, I think what David mentioned, you know, like even PVC sequentially up 14%. If, so I'm just repeating David's comments, if you go back to pre-COVID, where everybody was trying to buy as much as possible during the COVID period, if you go back and look at like our fiscal Q2, there's higher demand, what we're selling, for example, in PVC, than any quarter in Atkore's history going backwards, you know.
Pre-COVID
... yeah, pre-COVID. You know, overall things are going well. I would say, just in case anyone else asks, you know, buyers are buying just what they need almost to the, you know, your future questions of. You know, supply is coming in, work, you know... So are our competitors, by the way. Shipping pretty much on time and things like that, so there's no need for somebody to do a, you know, spring buy and so forth. That actually gives me optimism. In other words, there is no extra supply in the channel because people are buying as they need it. You know, the next quarter and so forth as we give guidance to this quarter should be good, and I'm optimistic for future years. Market demand overall good. You know, nothing lazy, but totally solid.
Supply is good, both us and our suppliers. Input costs are kinda all over the place, Deane Dray. I say that from a standpoint of if you look at things like steel costs, from a year-over-year perspective, they're down 30%. If you look like from the first quarter to the second quarter, it's up 20%. I'm starting to see, now this is me projecting, steel costs go down again. It's all in what time period. Same thing with like copper, down 10% year-over-year, but up 12% quarter from Q1- Q2. PVC has dropped. Literally, the input cost to us, down almost 50% year-over-year and 25% just from Q1- Q2. I expect that, again, these are market forecasts here, continue to go down a little bit.
You know, again, as you know, Deane, and I think most of our shareholders know, the biggest thing that controls our profit is just supply-demand in the market. Second thing is Atkore's ability, which I think we do really well, shipping on time, co-loading, all the value we bring. Third thing is the input costs and us keeping up. That's not as big of a factor on how we, you know, market price and so forth. Hopefully, Deane, I answered all your questions in that.
Yeah, Deane, the only thing I would add to Bill's comments is on the S&I side, when you look at these big manufacturing plants, mega projects and whatever, we've always said we have really good content there. You have metal framing, we have wire baskets, so on and so forth. You see that, you know, 20% up in volume in S&I, you know, add in some solar, we're starting to see the results of all those projects.
That's really helpful. Just a couple clarifications. It sounds like lead times are now back to normal, and that would also suggest that backlogs have come in and are kind of at normal levels. If you just clarify those. Then broadly, this question comes up a lot and it gets asked regularly, but just how much of the price do you expect to hold on to? Cause, you know, we hear PVC down 50% on the input cost, but certainly your pricing's much better than that. Just, you know, the question about holding onto price. Thanks.
Deane, I'll start and then I think David may weigh in. How I would think of pricing in general, you're right, our pricing is not down 50%. It's down, but we are doing better than expected. I would refer everybody to our best guess still is what we put in the November earnings deck to go what pricing we think we could get back and how that bridges to the future, how that bridges to $18 plus EPS. I would say we're 2 quarters in to a 3-year plan, but we're as comfortable today as we were in November when we put the plan together. Everything's really.
I'm, quite frankly, very proud of the team on just trying to look into a very murky crystal ball and call it shot by shot, and we are on track, which is the Atkore business team and an amazing set of leaders.
On the backlog question, Deane, you probably have two different sets. The flow products are major product categories that we have. Our backlog's back to, I would say, somewhat normal. Remember, that's like two weeks. It's like two to three weeks. It's not much backlog. Then when you look at more on the project side, where we talked about some of these megaprojects and whatever, and international, you know, backlogs are up as you would expect that they would be.
Great. just a last question over on the cash flow side, which is exceptionally strong. David, can you just take us through the dynamics there? What's been the difference maker? I appreciate that bridge that you gave us as well, but just the conversion on operating cash to free cash flow is much stronger than what you've done seasonally. just help us with some insight there, please.
Yes, Deane. It's actually fairly simple and straightforward. You know, last year we were building working capital throughout the year, and basically now, you know, as your pricing comes down, some receivables will come down. I think our inventories are in really good shape. At the end of the day, the major delta is in the fact that we've taken out some working capital versus investing in working capital.
Great to hear. Thank you.
Thanks, Deane.
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Dankert from Loop Capital. Your line is open.
Hey, morning guys. Thanks for taking the question.
Yep, good morning, Chris.
I guess maybe if we could dig into S&I a little bit. You know, you cited the mega projects. Maybe you could give us a little more context, just exactly where some of the wins are coming. Maybe just to kind of expand further how, you know, RDOF and some of the other stimulus is also kind of rolling through the P&L or kind of what you expect for the rest of the year there.
Yeah. Chris, I'll try to give you as much color without saying specific customers and/or it's hard to say the city, because then it kind of goes back to who has the global project there. As should come to no surprise to anyone, a lot of investment, not just in the United States as David Johnson called out in the pre-remarks, but across the globe, the Middle East, Europe, in the States, whether it's data centers, chip manufacturing, startup of EV battery places and so forth, and the list goes on. What we found compliments to our international team, compliments to our, I'd say, our domestic team, but here in the States, is the value add of us going in and being able to work directly with the manufacturer.
We're still working through distribution, we sell it, but the partnership of things like Unistrut, the, you know, the brand has been around now for 100 years. Well-known, consistent across the globe. We're doing things like kitting and so forth, where we're bringing it all in, setting up a job site, and we're winning a lot of jobs there, a lot overseas. Again, Middle East, Europe and so forth, that are growing, quite frankly, rapidly, and we're putting a full team together in areas like that.
Chris, like, our value proposition with our Unistrut construction, our international teams, where now you can do more of the fabrication or so on and so forth with sub-assemblies offsite so that you don't hold up the site itself. I think that value prop is resonating quite a bit with the end user, so.
No, that's great color. Thank you so much for that. Dave, if we could just dig in a little bit, you know, obviously the M&A's been pretty impressive here. Can you just kinda update us on the status of the integration there and kind of, you know, if everything's on track and what you've been expecting from, you know, Talon, Poly and Elite?
Overall for our HTP acquisitions, which are the ones you mentioned, everything's on track. The team's doing a really good job there of integrating. When I'm saying integrating, bringing them into our culture, ERP systems over the next year and so forth, but also sharing facilities. In other words, it doesn't make sense to ship if we had a facility in Texas and we had a facility in a different state, you know, to one in Texas ship past the other one versus let's move the production around. Really great team coming together, sharing best practices, very optimistic for the future that we will hit or exceed our numbers for our integration models. As I assume either you know or David's explained in previous quarters, you know, obviously they're pretty synergistic, well above our weighted average cost of capital.
Everything's looking along just as planned again.
Good to hear. well, thanks again and congrats on the quarter.
Cool. Thank you, Chris.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz from Citigroup. Please, your line is open.
Good morning, everyone.
Hey, good morning, Andy.
Bill or David, can you give more color into your volume assumptions for the rest of the year? Is the deceleration in year-over-year sales in Q3 that you're guiding to versus Q2 all price? Are you still thinking mid-single digit volumes for the year overall? Have you seen any new incremental signs of destock? As I know you're aware, one of your competitors talked about a little bit of distributor destocking that hit their order profile late in their calendar Q1.
Yeah, Andy, I'll start and then obviously David may wanna add. Our assumptions are to continue to have mid-single-digit growth and volume. As you know, pricing as we've called, for example, on some products will still go down. Revenue, I would look at the last page of the prepared remarks on what that means for, you know, Q2 or Q3, excuse me, down 10%-15%, but that's because of the pricing and a question Dean asked where like, "Hey, steel costs are down dramatically, PVC costs are down dramatically." We're still making good, think of as gross margin, you know, the revenue line down some. Volume continued to go up. I would claim we do not have any destocking.
I would reference that to go 14% up sequentially quarter-over-quarter in PVC, and I'm using PVC as an example, you know, up to pre-COVID levels. What I do see and, you know, whatever, is no one's stocking up. There's no one driving to put pre-buy in just because, you know, you and customers are listening to this call, the revenue is going, you know, the pricing's going down a little bit. There's no incentive when you know a manufacturer like us can deliver on time to put an extra two or three weeks of inventory in. That's actually good news if you look at it the way I am, glass half full.
The future, we're gonna hit our numbers, we're gonna grow it, you know, low single digits to mid-single digits in volume. There's no artificial buy-up at distributors now as we go into, let's say even fiscal year 2024. Hopefully, that answers the question, or if there's follow-up, Andy.
Yeah, Andy, I mean, we are when you look at PVC for instance, I mean, inventory levels would be lower than they were last year, because last year we had talked about Q3 or Q2 and Q3 where people had bought, I would say, in addition to what they were seeing because they had multiple orders out there, so on and so forth. We're looking at this more sequentially and seeing what distributors are doing, and like Bill had mentioned, you know, that's a positive trend.
Yeah. Andy, one other thing. There's when we're making statements like this, there's lots of additional backup material. I forgot the precise number that's out there with the Associated Builders and Contractors. Within like 0.2 months, the contractors backlog is as strong as it's ever been. I think it's, like I said, down from like 9 months to like maybe 8.8 months, give or take. Basically, you know, there's a lot of indications... To a question asked earlier that I probably didn't address is something from Chris, a lot of the stimulus, still the states are trying to figure out how to, you know, to fund it. Again, you look out into future years and say, "Hey, when this stimulus actually hits that people can spend it, i.e....
The states, there should be additional pickup in volume and so forth. We're optimistic, and that's why, you know, the infamous $18+ EPS is definitely in our targets.
let's really-.
We're delivering that plus now, so you know.
Yeah, no.
Sorry, Andy.
for sure. Like, that's very helpful. Maybe just a follow-up to that, like obviously you guys follow, you know, Dodge Momentum, ABI, things like that. You know, you see DMI, it's, you know, coming down a little bit sequentially, but still up 11%, you know, in April year-over-year. Maybe if you just sort of parse out for us, you know, the markets overall. I think last quarter you cited data center, chip fabrication facilities driving your results. Are you still seeing that? Are you seeing any areas that, you know, maybe you're a little bit more worried about on the non-res side? Just as you said, contractor backlogs are strong, so across the board things are still okay.
Yeah. Okay. I'll start with the key takeaway. contractor backlogs are strong, and we're still optimistic for the future.
Can I say one other thing too? Remember too, other manufacturers' backlog that we will eventually hook into is at record levels too.
Yeah. Oh, one more and then I'll get to the parsing of the specifics. Andy, the other thing I hope every shareholder understands is the amount of self-help. You know, like in other words, to go those three conduits of growth and go on our expansion in HDPE, our expansion into global mega projects. There's other things like we've talked about the RSCs and literally becoming the one-stop shop instantaneous. Those things and other things we're working on, we're just not ready to pre-announce, give us huge confidence even if down markets that we will drive forward and continue to be successful like we have been for the last half decade and plus. Andy, to your specific thing, I say obviously, but residential markets are down. Non-residential, almost all commercial things we're expecting for this year to be down. Industrial's probably like a push.
Healthcare continues to be up with investments. As you mentioned, Andy, the things that don't get caught once in a while, like in a Dodge sq ft and so forth is, you know, utilities and all this infrastructure build. You know, as I mentioned in an earlier question, whether it's chip manufacturers across the globe, whether it's EV charging stations and battery charging stations and data centers, we're finding those markets. I would assume other people in our space are really strong right now. That's carrying, you know, the business forward here.
One last thing. Whenever you look at like Dodge starts, whenever you have a predominance of these mega projects, the starts are still important of course, but then you might have a start, but these projects go on for multiple years. You do see business for a much longer duration than you would say, a start on an office building or something like that.
Helpful. Last question. You mentioned strong growth in solar related products in Q2. Can you give us a little more color how solar is contributing to your performance? We know you have a Torque facility coming online in Q3. Is it possible to quantify how much incremental growth your solar business can have, you know, in the second half of your fiscal year, maybe versus last year or the first half of this year?
David, I like, I know the numbers, I'm just hesitant. I would say it gives us strong confidence. Well, look at S&I for example. global mega projects hit it, but literally S&I, shout out to that organization, you know, when they're up 20% year-over-year. solar will be a good portion of that in global mega projects. Those two things are what's driving above market growth.
I think, you know, it's probably more of a story of FY 2024 than FY 2023 as you're looking at this. The factories coming online, obviously that takes some time, getting started up and so on and so forth. I really feel like we'll be talking about this in our fourth quarter when we give guidance for FY 2024. It'd be a much bigger part of the story.
Appreciate all the color guys.
Thanks, Andy.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Chris Moore from CJS Securities. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning guys. Maybe we just talk a little bit more about HDPE. I know you said the integration is going well, but could you maybe talk a little bit more about the market dynamics specifically there and, you know, what your expectations are versus, I know it's an area where potentially lots of growth, just kind of maybe get an update there from a market perspective?
Yeah. Chris, I'll start with short term. Like some other markets, I hate to even get into the infamous weather, but there were, you know, obviously storms on the West Coast and things like that where these are products being put underground. You know, average for this quarter, it wasn't like, oh my god, gangbusters, but all good. Totally on plan as we go forward for the year. If not, I think there's slight upside where through our business models and so forth. Talking to our team and talking to customers, very optimistic for the future. Because this ties back to, and I'm quoting a number I think I'm right on, but the bead, which has an acronym to it, but for putting it in fiber optics, you know, that was like $65 billion allocated.
That's where, like David mentioned just a moment ago with solar, it's really a story I think you're going to see play out in next fiscal year. Not that there's any issue now. We're hitting numbers, integration going well, just great people. I mean, half the thing I love with teams is what's the talent we've brought into the family. Everything on track. I would also tell you, like as I'm traveling out with customers unsolicited. I, again, can't get too specific. I'd be with a customer just going, "Hey, how's it going?" They're saying, "We're on plan." Then they'll make a comment, you know, as the weather breaks, if they're north, "We're really excited about this future growth in HDPE." Like, unsolicited, you're hearing comments there from customers to me on the, you know, the upside opportunity.
long-winded story to say everything's totally on track and optimistic for the future.
Got it. Very, very helpful. Maybe just my second one. You know, recognizing that, you know, all things being even, distributors like higher prices, you know, commissions, percentage of revenue is what they live for. How much conversation are they having with customers regarding the margin that Atkore makes on its products, especially, you know, PVC conduits? Do you even hear much on that front?
No, I don't, Chris, with the following things. In fairness, I haven't really asked the question, but what I would tell you that we've quantified in the past is if you add up all the products Atkore sells and you add up all of our competitors and look at a cost of availability, it is low single digits. At the end of the day, whether the price of just PVC conduit, steel conduit, armor cable is 2x, 1x, it's not going to change the overall cost of availability just by, you know, the math alone. It's more about labor is the biggest challenge. The biggest, you know, kind of governor of growth in the industry, not the backlog, not the future incentives, and therefore obviously making sure product comes on time, has quality is important.
Where we're winning across numerous things is our new innovations that save labor time. That's why you're also seeing Atkore at its highest levels, 9% new product vitality. Who would have thought for an industry like this that you would have this level of new product vitality? That's a compliment to our team working with our customers to come up with new things that save labor and are safer to install. Long-winded answer, Chris. I don't think there's any concern there.
Yeah. Chris, I would also say that our co-load strategy through our distribution, whenever you're able to put multiple products on a truck and deliver on time at the right time, that service, the ability for a construction site to utilize that labor on construction as efficiently as possible is much more important than whatever the piece price of whatever part of our products would be.
Perfect. I'll leave it there. Thank you, guys.
Thanks, Chris.
Thanks, Chris.
Your final question comes from the line of Alex Rygiel from B. Riley. Your line is open.
Good morning. I think you said that the PVC volume was down for utility projects on the West Coast. Was this more a trend or was it weather or was it just timing of projects?
Great clarifying question. Purely weather. Maybe timing behind the scenes that I don't know about, but no, we're really optimistic. There's projects cutting loose. For example, where I will mention a customer because this is public, things like PG&E, the California utility that's committed, I think it's 10,000 miles to put above ground electrical lines of below ground. That's, you know, over the next 5 years, 7 years, and each year they're ramping up to kind of triple their current run rate. All public information. That gives you a feel, Alex, again, of all these secular trends that are adding up to make us optimistic as we go forward.
Thank you very much.
Cool. Thanks, Alex.
This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Bill Waltz for closing remarks.
Before we conclude, let me summarize my three key takeaways from today's discussion. First, we continue to expect mid-single-digit volume growth for the full year. Second, we are increasing our expectations for full year earnings based on the strong business momentum so far in 2023 and the robust dynamic supporting our business. Third, we're pleased with the strength of our cash flow and balance sheet. Our solid financial position is the foundation of our future growth, and I firmly believe the best is yet to come for our company. With that, thank you for your support and interest in our company, and we look forward to speaking with you during our next quarterly call. This concludes the call for today.
This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.