All right. I know there'll be some stragglers that'll walk in, but maybe we'll get started and keep us on time here. We're very excited to have Atkore with us. You know, we have Bill Waltz, who is the President and CEO, and we have CFO David Johnson . Bill joined Atkore in 2013. I think David joined Atkore in August of 2018. You know, since you guys have joined, the stock has only gone up. I'm gonna turn over to you, Bill, to maybe, you know, give us a brief introduction of the company again, for those who don't know it. You know, the company's been around now public for several years, but, you know, maybe there are some people in the audience who don't know it as well.
Maybe talk about the company a little bit. You know, some of the competitive advantages. I think, you know, investors, some investors that I've talked to think of the company as selling commoditized products, but you've highlighted a leading position in several categories. Maybe talk about all that.
Yeah. great question. Good afternoon, everyone. Atkore is a company with two divisions, electrical products and safety and infrastructure. I would say our products, I hate to say it's more on the commodity end, but I would take nothing away from innovation, labor savings, patents, and so forth. Probably if there was a secret sauce, it's the fact that we have a suite of products across a whole breadth where most of our competitors have one or two of those products. You can either go to six or seven competitors to buy a truckload, or you can come to us with one order, one delivery, one invoice, package it all together, quicker delivery, less freight costs, less inventory costs, and bundle. Obviously, Andy, as you mentioned, the stock price, that value more focused on customers is absolutely showing through.
Maybe give us a little more color on that special sauce, Bill, because, like, when you became CEO, I thought you guys were already doing that, but it seems like it sort of really improved in terms of your ability to sort of cross-sell some of the customers, you know, your partnership with the distribution channel.
Yeah, I think it's... You know, where Dave and I have been together now for 5 years and great management team, and I've been here for 10, it's an evolution, so I don't wanna say there was a, you know, a spot, but that whole focus on how we bring the products together, how we bundle the products, how we group rebate the products, how we have one sales force. We have added acquisitions, like recently, the HDPE type of that material and conduit, the fiberglass product. We continue to grow, continue to put these things together, and we really have evolved a more externally growth focus over the last 5 years that's paid dividends.
Got it. Maybe I'll just ask you while we're at it, how have you tweaked the Atkore Business System? 'Cause again, it's, I think, part of your special sauce. Maybe you wanna describe it and talk about it.
Yeah. David?
Well-
Yeah.
I think, Andy, at the beginning, you know, was pretty internally focused, you know, when we're in the beginnings of our public life. Now I would say it's just been more externally focused.
Mm-hmm.
Just how we handle our distribution channel, how we handle those relationships with contractors, so on and so forth. I would say that's the biggest innovation.
Mm-hmm.
Is probably the looking viewpoint of it.
Got it. That's helpful. Maybe just a little bit in the near term, you reiterated your FY23 outlook, mid-single-digit volume growth. You reported, you know, 1Q volume in line with that. You know, there's obviously some concerns out there, like, you know, you and I have talked about, you know, de-stocking is truly over, higher rates, macro uncertainty. Maybe just give us a snapshot of what your channel or your distribution partners are telling you and what gives you the confidence that de-stocking your major markets, including PVC, is over.
Yeah, I think as a whole, de-stocking is over for us. Like David mentioned, our whole management team spends our time externally focused on growth. Whether I'm with customers last week in Phoenix, whether we're with our sales agents in Vegas the week before, that overall, people did buy and had extra inventory, but they worked through a lot of that last year, and at this stage, I think we're really optimistic or optimistic as we go into spring for volumes. You saw it somewhat even in the first quarter, where we had 5% organic growth.
Yeah.
I think as we get in talking later, probably on these secular trends and all the different things that will help us grow, we're pretty excited for the future.
Maybe just to that optimism, Bill, like, you've got a lot of customers. They have their own significant backlogs. Maybe talk about that, 'cause again, we look at you guys as dealing with the channel, but, like, behind that, obviously, is big customer backlogs. You said you go around, talk to a lot of customers.
Yeah.
Sort of what do they say?
Yeah. Do you wanna start with some of the things-
I mean, one of the things, Andy, that we look at is there's, Associated Builders and Contractors, a third party that does some surveys and contractor backlog. Right now, if you look at that, it's about nine months, which is historically pretty high.
Mm-hmm.
It's actually pretty close to what it was before COVID. We also look at those big other players in the electrical industry that have huge backlogs that we know eventually we will tie into their equipment. With those two data points and then construction employment, which has been going up every single quarter, that is super important, I think, to the construction industry, and obviously we'll participate in that.
I'd just add to David, so we have the statistical stuff that anyone, any investor can go confirm, and then just out in the markets, the customers are optimistic. They're focused on partnership, and quite frankly, with some of our products, like HDPE, they're more concerned, can we keep up with the demand?
Got it.
That's a pretty reaffirming thought.
Yeah, that's good. Let me ask you kind of a related question. You have between 60% and 70% exposure to non-res markets, you know. I think we all track ABI and Dodge. There's been some softening in sort of the lead indicators, but, you know, non-res-y space overall seems pretty solid. Can you give us a snapshot of what you're seeing across your non-res markets? Again, I know you go into the channel, but, like, any color you can give us on data centers, warehouses, office buildings, healthcare, those are your sort of major markets, what you're seeing there.
I'll start there, but David. I think overall it's strong. As you mentioned, non-res is slowing down. Let me rephrase that. Single family home non-res. Multi-home is actually growing. Across the gamut, it's going well, the nice thing with Atkore, with our performance, we're taking a lot of that money and reinvesting both into sales channel people, technical sales. I think as we go forward with really strong secular tailwinds, we're well positioned for all these products, whether that's our new product development getting into spec, whether it's the one order, one delivery, one invoice, the technology that that order comes in automatically to us through API. It's a good time, but the markets are strong.
Bill, I think it's a good follow-up question to just ask you in general about the electrification of buildings, right?
Yeah.
When I started covering Atkore, I was like, you know, very interesting company, good systems, all that kind of stuff, but again, maybe a little commoditized. All of a sudden, like electrification took off and to some extent, your earnings took off. We're gonna talk about pricing a little bit later, but like, you know, what do you think in terms of the electrification of buildings impact on your company?
I think it's gonna be huge, both short term and especially long term. Like I'm just picking, Andy, one random thing, but or two or three. One, you think about EV chargers. That really hasn't started yet. It doesn't matter what EV charger. What I can guarantee you, there will be electrical lines, cables, conduit hooking up to that. No matter what product gets installed, our products will be carried along with that. All the different infrastructure. For example, people talk about hardening the grid. Basically a euphemism for taking electrical lines and putting them underground. Whether it's a fire in California or, you know, we're down in Florida here today, you know, hurricanes and so forth. That's again, our conduits taking electrical lines and putting them underground. Across all the different electrifications, I just think it's really an optimistic time for Atkore.
Probably the best time for Atkore, to your point, with all the different trends going on right now.
Are there any bigger drivers? Like when again, I look at it as horses in a race.
Yeah.
Are there any bigger horses, you know, or faster horses that you see now impacting your business?
I'll give two or three, but again, there's just so many. One is, the Inflation Reduction Act or honestly, so much stimulus to go, no, it was part of a different stimulus package. To put fiber optic lines out to, you know, basically everybody's home in the country means a lot of conduit to put those data cable lines in.
Mm-hmm.
Our own internal estimates have that market doubling in size over the next five years. That's like a 15% compounded growth rate that literally the only concerns I think I have are, one, is there enough blue-collar labor to install all those lines? Two, can we actually keep up with the market demand? That's a nice position to be in. That's probably one of them. I mentioned burying electrical lines and so forth being another secular trend there with that. Probably the third one, I'm switching from our electrical division to our safety and infrastructure division. There's a lot of focus with different incentives to make all the torque tubes, which are the backbones of solar panels here in the States. We had already planned two years ago to start up a whole production facility around that.
We were in the solar market. Perfect timing is that we start that factory up here, you know, in the summertime to actually take hold of literally anything made in China with incentives will probably be made here in the States. Again, that's another market poised to double in size very rapidly going forward.
Got it. The fiber optic cable is more of an HDPE application?
That's correct. Yeah, 'cause it's long run, so it could be a little PVC, but basically HDPE.
Okay, got it. On your last earnings call, you mentioned a rebound in metal electrical conduit volumes that you're seeing. I mean, is that because demand is improving in certain non-res markets for you, or was that more of a supply constraint issue that's now been relieved? You know, maybe the same question on PVC markets. Like, you know, price in there looked like it was dropping still, but, you know, how would you define demand for PVC? You know, obviously, we all know about residential weakness, but there are other applications for PVC and such.
I think when you look at metal conduit specifically, we did have some destocking earlier, like mid last year towards the end of last year. I think right now we're to a point where we are seeing the real demand in the marketplace, and you will have a little bit of an impact whenever you start seeing steel costs go up, which they are right now.
Yeah.
People want to make sure they're getting ready for that building season, Andy, and so that's why we're starting to see some volume there. I think PVC is very much in balance, supply and demand in the marketplace. PVC is probably the one that has a little bit more of a effect with winter and what have you, 'cause you do have to put it in the ground. This isn't not the typical busy season for the PVC market. That should be coming up here in the spring. I think we're well positioned. If you look at the way our year is kind of playing out so far, our Q1 actuals and our Q2 guide were pretty similar in nature. I think embedded in that is the stabilization of pricing over that period of time.
John, just to your point on PVC, you know, how much does weather matter? Like, you know, if I look at the home builders and all that kind of stuff, you know, at least their stocks have been up. Maybe that's just rates, but like, you know, generally it's been warmer in a lot of the country. You know, does that matter? Can you see that in your PVC market?
I wouldn't say really single-family homes are a fairly minor component of our overall demand profile. In PVC, if you're building a new, say, entire neighborhood, the first thing you do need is the PVC underground. In that case, I will say we'd see that, but I don't see the warmer. Like, if you're in a winter climate, you know, a lot of contractors, they plan their trips to Florida whether it's 70 degrees in Green Bay or not.
They're all here with us right now.
Exactly.
Okay, got it. You know, obviously another big question for you guys on price, right? You know, maybe again, we could just step back and you give us perspective again on how Atkore was able to record, you know, $1 billion of price versus cost related EBITDA improvement since 2017. We'll start with a simple question.
Yeah. I'll fully start that. I wanna frame it in several ways. First off, underlying Atkore is what we call the Atkore Business System. I think a lot of companies talk about having a business system or process. We truly have a system from how we recruit people to how we price. That was literally like a three-year initiative of all the intricacies of how we do it well, and that's what's paying fruition. Then for Atkore, just to frame it, the biggest thing is supply and demand. Again, if there's demand out there, you don't wanna not... If you think about this, you have a building, and all of a sudden it's being slowed down because of products that we deliver that are literally 2% or 3% of the cost of building.
If you had to pay 20% or 30% premium to ensure you're getting delivery, getting the value, ease of getting the order in, that's the primary driver along with supply and demand. The other thing, Andy, that helps us, so that's what was kind of the catalyst, but then is that ability that literally Atkore has, the competitive, sustainable advantage of one order, one delivery, one invoice. As we continue to do that, David and I have done analysis with our team, for example, that when we package multiple products together, we're getting a high single-digit increase in price compared to what we're even seeing for us selling that same exact product at the same customer, same time, a full truckload.
You can imagine any of us as a consumer, would you wanna just go and buy everything together versus going to seven stores, and would you pay a premium for that? I think those things are the primary drivers that we've done really well. We did well before pre-COVID, but especially with the nuances of different things that happened during COVID. Now it's how do we maintain it, and how do we grow and continue to provide more value as we go forward?
Bill or David, you guys see no evidence that some of your larger competitors who, you know, maybe have a few product lines, but not all the product lines that you have, like that they're trying to bundle a little bit more against you? You know?
Yeah, or nuances. I never wanna say absolutely never, but I don't see anybody making PVC conduit or PVC products going into copper or steel. I don't see the people making steel going into copper or that. Within those realms, there's somebody making copper wire saying, "Maybe I can do a little bit more cable," but-
Yeah.
It's rounding of the edges.
Got it. Got it. Maybe just your partnership with the distribution channel, like how has it changed, if at all, over the last few years? Maybe did that also factor in 'cause you were the only ones that were kinda reliable during the Texas freeze, all that kind of stuff?
Yeah. I think a couple things there. To what David mentioned at the beginning, I'll just re-echo it to go, one of the things that we have done over the last five years with Atkore that's helped with the stock and the value to our customers is become growth focused, externally focused with our commitment to talent. We actually made an acronym around growth, external, and talent to get and double the size of the business-
Mm-hmm.
which we have done already. With that focus, it is all about our mission statement to be the customer's first choice. I could give you so many examples where the distributor association has picked us as Manufacturer of the Year. There's two buying groups. They both picked us as Manufacturer of the Year. Last year, the electrical sales agents picked us as Manufacturer of the Year. Yes, you're seeing it, investors, on our stock price. Our customers with that one delivery, one invoice, are also seeing the value that we're providing to them, so they can focus on what they do best, which is selling to the electrical contractors, kitting projects, logistics, and let us worry about actually providing the inventory to them.
Got it. Let me ask you said 40% of price versus cost improvements that you've had is sustainable. Like, how'd you come up with that particular number, and what gives you the confidence in that number?
We actually did kind of product by product, customer by customer, kind of a bottoms up versus trends we were seeing before COVID, and then the dynamics around, you know, our competition and what have you and where we saw that. That's when we came up with that estimate. I will say that, you know, a large piece of our raise so far this year was I think we were actually a little too conservative in that, in that we feel like pricing is a little stronger than what we had thought going into the year.
Mm-hmm.
I think as we, you know, go through the rest of the year, we'll probably even have a clearer picture on the future there. We actually did go through it in a very detailed, very Atkore systematic way of looking at it.
David, let me ask you on that front. Commodities, you know, we already mentioned steel's bounced off the bottom. Copper's bounced off the bottom. How much of the sort of retainage of price versus cost is that commodities are just higher than you thought versus you guys are sort of keeping the excess?
I still feel like we keep saying it, but demand is by far the most important aspect of this. 'Cause if you have strong demand, which we feel we have across many of our businesses, the opportunity to keep that price where it's at obviously is much higher.
Mm-hmm.
I think it does help whenever you have commodities starting, or at least the mentality of commodities starting to increase, because you start seeing our competitors actually leading price increases on different occasions, which I think helps the industry in total.
I just wanna, if you don't mind, double down what David said. If I was to pray though, supply demand, huge. Atkore's value add. By the way, more than just one order, one delivery, one invoice, but our ability to have every product with a BIM model, so electrical contractor can design their building and then tell the distributor, "I want Atkore products," 'cause it's been designed around that. Innovation, we've taken innovation from 2% to 7% or 8% of our products, which, you know, kind of mature industries. The least factor is, it is a factor, is the actual commodity cost itself. It just isn't what drives us or the industry versus value.
Andy, I know you know this, but maybe that in the electrical business, our pricing is very dynamic, so it's every single day by region, by product, and what have you. We can be very, I would say, agile when it comes to any changes in input costs of any sort, so.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, David, I guess I'll start with you on this question. Like, you know, you said you raised your guidance after just one quarter. It was the reason, you know, mostly or almost all because pricing was a little bit more resilient. Like, when you step back, right, you're already up to $16.80 for 2023.
Mm-hmm.
You said 18+ for 25. You know, what does the raise this year tell you about what you might do in 25?
This would have been a good Bill question, by the way. No, basically it was definitely pricing was holding a little bit firm. I think we're just as comfortable with volume going kind of where we are right now versus going into the year. Our M&A is performing very well too. We bought 6 companies last year. I think in many cases or in all cases they're exceeding our plan. I think that was the basis of kind of where we came out for this year. We are just under $17 right now with the guide. We said $18.
18 plus.
Greater than.
Maybe I just highlight the plus then.
I do think at the end of this year when we typically would do kind of a more formal outlook for the future, we might be adjusting those numbers. I would just say in general we're on track or favorable to where we thought we would be.
Okay, that's helpful. Since you mentioned M&A, Dave, let me just ask about that. You know, again, we've talked about HDPE a fair amount already, but, you know, maybe elaborate on sort of, you know, is HDPE like the new PVC for you guys? You know, how big can you make that market, and can you update us on the competitive landscape there? Is it similar to PVC in metal where it's pretty consolidated, or is it more fragmented?
Walking through, I do think that HDPE can be Atkore's next PVC. A background for everybody, we've done a lot of acquisitions in PVC over the last 10 years where we had one facility, now we have 10, and the next biggest brand has four. It's a geographical play, by the way. You have to be close. These are big, bulky products. HDPE, very similar. We were not in that industry at all two years ago, and now there is one person larger than us, but in the conduit space, we are the second largest player. We're going to continue to look potentially at M&A. We're going to continue to look organically. There's probably more of a tail, so there's still other acquisition targets out there that I think we can bring value.
The other thing to realize with this industry is customers are either, there's like five large ones that are national, or there's two buying groups. They wanna set up programs with a manufacturer that's nationwide. You don't wanna have to set up six different suppliers for the same product. All of a sudden, as we buy some of these smaller regional players, we can introduce them, so to speak, to our large relationships, put them in the same rebate program and grow their sales. Obviously, we can save costs from the manufacturing and supply. It's really synergistic as we continue to buy companies and bring, quite frankly, more value to our customers as we do it.
You already have very significant share for PVC and steel conduit. Do you now have significant share already for HDPE seller number two?
Yeah, I think so. I mean, it may be not quite the same amount, but yeah, we're number two with a tail, yes.
Okay. Then maybe just broadly as you focus on M&A going forward, how are you prioritizing your target pipeline? You still have a strong balance sheet. You know, is, do you wanna add scale? You've talked about international occasionally, but it's still 10% of your business. You know, how do you balance M&A versus repurchases, U.S. versus international?
I think the following. The nice thing in my mind is about any of the three primary uses we're using cash for, in other words, organic investments have a great return. Probably second after that, and we've ramped that up from, you know, $30 million-$40 million to $200 million, which by the way helps give us confidence in that 2025 guide, 'cause we already know the things that will come on board that will be all incremental to what we're already currently doing. I think M&A is second with that list. You know, and there is a lot of opportunities both to either add regional plays, like look at HDPE, and I'm not foreshadowing anything.
Mm-hmm.
It's a competitor listening or customer. To go, we have, you know, several facilities now, but we don't have any in the Northeast. To go, could we acquire an HDPE company in the Northeast and?
Mm-hmm.
You know, help with the geographical play and so forth? Absolutely. There are products, if you were to look back two years ago, we were not in fiberglass conduit, we were not in HDPE. There is other examples like that we can expand our product portfolio. At the end of the day, we're, after we've done those two things really well, I think, you know, we'll continue to buy back stock as, you know, the investors can look. We've been pretty aggressive 'cause we're optimistic on Atkore and its future. Not a bad use of capital no matter what.
Bill, what's interesting to me is like, you know, it seems, you know, in hindsight obvious to move into HDPE as you guys have done, like you've done a good job. Why haven't others tried what you've done? It seems, you know, very positive for you guys.
I think one difference with Atkore, if I had to speculate, 'cause obviously I don't know what's going through our competitors' mind, I think most companies in our space define themselves by their manufacturing core competency. I kind of mentioned, referenced that earlier to go, if you're a metal manufacturer, you make metal conduit. Even, by the way, you may make infrastructure I-beams for the building, but you make metal stuff. If you're copper, you make copper wire and copper cable. If you're PVC, you do that. If you're HDPE. Could a HDPE player expand? I, to date, I'm not aware of a single other competitor that is in multiple categories, whereas we, Atkore, have enough scale that we have good competency, but we really look at it from an end market and how can we provide value.
By bringing all these products together under one pricing regime, rebate program, sales force, technical sales, and obviously, it's a winning proposition that no one else is replicating.
Great. I wanna go back to sort of the horses of growth, if you may, because I wanted to ask you about IIJA, IRA, CHIPS, like, you know. Are you seeing any incremental impact from any of this fiscal stimulus yet? Like, are you dialing any in your 2025 outlook? Like, how'd you think about that?
I think we've marginally had some of that build into our 2025 outlook, honestly, it wasn't that baked in at that point in time. I would also say, like, right now, we're not really seeing a lot in. I think this is more of a really 2024, 2025 kind of thing, except for perhaps that solar Torque Tube that we talked about. I think the demand, you know, here in FY23 is going to be stronger towards the end of the year because of that particular act. I think it's more of a 2024 and beyond.
Got it.
Gotcha.
I think, Bill, you mentioned, you know, undergrounding of transition lines.
Mm-hmm.
Like, how important is that? Maybe talk about, 'cause I think it's an important point, PVC has become more durable. Like, you know, five, 10 years ago, I don't think you could have used it for that application. Correct me if I'm wrong, but like, anyway, so kind of two separate questions there.
Yeah. I'll do the second one first, so to speak. I don't know the exact transition year, but definitely over the last, let's say, decade or so, the move from metal, even there was types that you put, you know, zinc on and so forth, has transitioned to PVC that's much more accepted. To the point of besides conduit is in water applications with all the infrastructure, you know, where there's ductile iron pipes to go, you know, when you think about Flint and lead poisoning, will that be more PVC? I think time will tell, but there's a lot of demand out there for that. To your, the main part of your question, we're seeing PVC used everywhere from California, as you know, all the electrical fires, the utilities out there are putting them under.
Don't quote me, but I want to say it's 10,000 miles of PVC conduit. I definitely know 'cause you could go out to the utilities website. Their projection by year continues to almost go up exponentially. That's an exciting thing. Again, I use, since we're here in Florida, but whether it's Florida or Louisiana, they're doing a lot of stuff. What happens when a hurricane hits? Well, why is people stranded? It's the electrical lines are down. A lot of those lines are being put underground, which is mostly PVC, and then in some cases, HDPE. Either way, the secular trends out there are just astronomical. To your earlier question David answered, then you get all the rest of this stimulus, the CHIPS Act and Inflation Reduction Act. It's pretty exciting for the years to come.
Do these, you know, different bills or whatever, like, you know, I guess the concern, you know, maybe that I would have is that somebody from overseas can come in and try and compete, but it sort of makes it harder, you know, it's more made in America. You talked about the torque tubes, I think that helps you there. Maybe how much does shoring help you?
I think three things. One, there's different incentives like you mentioned with the torque tubes that will actually double roughly the amount of torque tubes made in the States because there's such an incentive by the government. There's just no way the economics would work from Asia anymore. Beyond that, I think the reshoring that we've always been a company like very high, like 1% maybe of stuff not made in the States. As other people reshore products to the States, that's again another secular trend that would help us. Probably the biggest barrier, again, it's not black and white, but to go overall, just our products are big, they're bulky.
It does not make sense economically to make some product in, you know, India, Asia, South America, and put it on a freight liner and bring it in. In the old days, we used to have, the reason we had 10 PVC facilities, for example, is you could say, "Well, hey, you bought them, put them all together in one big facility." Freight is such a large thing that it actually makes sense to have a facility within 500 miles of every customer. If you think about that, I don't wanna be taking products from here in Florida and shipping them to Chicago, let alone trying to make them in Argentina or India and ship them overseas.
Got it. Let me ask you, like, another part of your sort of growth, which is called, you called the conduits of growth, right? Innovation, category expansion. We already talked about M&A. How important has innovation and category expansion been to your outsized growth, and how important will it be moving forward?
Yeah, go ahead. Okay. I think we mentioned on the last earnings calls, but if not, I'll give you some specificity. Again, we have mature products, but we've taken with our investments and kind of our foresight, what was a low single digit, you know, think 2%, maybe 3% new product vitality for growth, up to the very high single digits. We're not at 10% yet, but we're close. Again, those are products that are labor savings. If anything, again, the biggest concern I have is are there enough blue-collar workers to go spend all this stimulus and whatever? The more we can help our customers with new innovations, I think both will save them time, and then it creates pull-through.
It's another value add we can bring to our distributor partners of going, "Hey, contractor wants to buy from Atkore. How can we partner with you, streamline the process, you know, from BIM models to API, that everything just flows naturally?" It's what all of us do. I won't mention the name.
Mm-hmm.
On the consumer side, when you go online and purchase products, you probably don't go to 12 websites. That is where we envision Atkore coming, and it's not happening yet today. It actually is, but not completely. I think over the next two years, we're going to see that fruition. Again, as we mentioned earlier, there's a price premium, an extra 5%, 7% that could be there just to make that so simple for our distributor partners.
Just because you mentioned it a couple times, Bill, like blue-collar workers, are you able to get the people you need? Are you still in hiring mode?
We're, well, we're still in the hiring mode. I think we've transitioned, excuse me, from call it our shop floor workers 'cause of the automation. We have enough there. Where David and I and the management team is now focused is more on the front office. Not to go, we've lost people. We have an exceptionally low attrition rate. We're investing so much. In the guidance that we just rose by $100 million, we've added roughly like 100 extra employees to focus really on that, call it the 2025 and the $18 plus. Really in my mind, for David and I and the leadership team, I'm out beyond that. It's what's in 2027? What's in 2028? Just like you mentioned HDPE.
For us, it really is now focused on what are those things we can start, so that we do continue to have, whether it's the torque tubes, the HDPE, where are the investments there? I would say implicitly, we're not here to reconfirm guidance or anything else, but the management team is saying, "What are we focused on?" It's not this quarter.
Yeah.
It's 2025 and 2028. You can draw your own conclusions on our confidence.
Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask if the audience has any questions. Any questions from the audience? Anything? Okay, I will continue. Just in terms of capacity additions, you've, you know, focused, I think on the renewable side a little bit, the torque tubes are thought about, you know, but you're adding, I think in Dallas, you've added a little bit to Philadelphia. Like, what are you doing for your own capacity?
I think overall we have the capacity by driving lean productivity. Specific areas, as you mentioned, perfect timing for us because we already saw the ability for the solar growth that we were adding torque tubes. Our customers came to us 2-3 years ago. Add on top of that the Inflation Reduction Act and all the tax incentives. We're also adding regional distribution centers because again, the more we can have large distribution centers close to our customer base, so we can package these products together and have them delivered the next day, the more we will drive both organic growth, the more we will drive, quite frankly, price premium here. They're investments like that we're doing.
I would also say HTP, we talked most about our inorganic, you know, the several acquisitions. We had partnered or planned in the meantime to actually order extrusion lines. The kind of confidence where I think Atkore and we are is the fact that we actually bought enough lines that we didn't even know where we were going to place them. We knew with a 1-year or 2-year lead time to go, we're going to have this M&A. We're going to acquire somebody. We're going to have space. Therefore, you know, again, with the market plan to double, we're investing now for those type of things.
Interesting. We've talked about renewables a few times, but maybe, you know, talk about how impactful renewables as an overall end market can be in your business. You know, you're obviously increasing the capacity of torque tubes significantly, but give us perspective on how big the business is now or how big it could be, and do you think it could be a meaningful contributor to earnings over the next one to two years?
Renewables, if you look at our sustainability report, we put some numbers on how big our business is, and that's by and large the torque tubes business. Call it, say, like $100 million easily. It's not like it's completely where all of a sudden it's gonna have a 5% growth rate on the entire company. I think if you could double that size of business, it's a pretty decent sized growth over the next, say, 2-3 years. The other impact that we'll have that's a little bit harder to quantify would be, you know, when you have solar fields out there and they need to be connected and what have you, we will participate through distribution on how that all gets connected to the grid.
Got it. I think we do have an audience question over there.
There.
Hi, it's Jeff Gates from Gates Capital Management. I know you stepped up the CapEx a lot in the last couple of years, and I'm just trying to understand how you evaluate the returns on that CapEx spending versus an acquisition.
It's a very good question. I mean, as you saw, we're up to almost $200 million this year. Most of that increase versus where we were, say, the $50 million-$60 million kind of pre-COVID, maybe a little bit bigger now with the bigger business, was more productivity, a little bit of growth, a little bit of new products. A large piece of that increase is this organic growth, the new plant that we talked about, the Dallas, increasing these lines and what have you. When we look at that, we're looking at, again, return on our cost of capital, 300-500+ basis points. You know, what is the year's payback and how comfortable are we on these investments?
I would say maybe a little bit more of a challenge for us is we have a lot of opportunities. We're very fortunate in the fact that we have a lot of competing opportunities for that capital. It just so happens right now we're in this growth era. I do think we'll capitalize on that not only this year but a little bit into next year too. I don't know, Bill, if you have anything?
Yeah, I was gonna say, the returns I think David hit with three, four year return.
Three years.
Also the other thing I'd say is we're spending a lot on digital right now. Again, you look at what you have on the consumer side, it's just not in the infrastructure. You know, like if us selling to distributors. How we can streamline that process, the order flows through API and shipped overnight and you can track it. We actually did just implement where somebody, just like your experience with a lot of other products consumer, that you can actually watch on your phone the truck come down to your delivery site. It's those type of things. The more we can make it ease for our electrical contractors and our distributor partners, I think the better the whole society will be.
Other questions, guys? Over here.
Hi, I'm trying to build a financial model on your company, and I'm running into a little bit of a problem. Andy, perhaps you can help me here too. Is like, how do you value a company with, say, 22%, 23% operating margin and, you know, this kind of free cash flow and this kind of earnings multiple? I don't know. Something is wrong here on, I don't know, multiple or share price or I don't know.
Yes, Andy, why you?
Wait. Look, I think, you know, it's kind of why I ask all these questions around pricing, right? You know, 'cause it's like, I think what the market has consistently got wrong, but believe that you would give back more of your pricing, that you're giving faster than you're giving it. And it's simple as that. In order to have a very low multiple, you have to believe that earnings are going down, not up, right? You know, which is, you know, obviously you're talking about raising the guidance here, but like, that's kind of the quintessential question, 'cause there's plenty of people that say to me, "Well, you know, eventually..." 'Cause, you know, David said it a couple of times, like it is volume dependent.
If volume were to fall off significantly, then maybe pricing resiliency isn't quite as good as, you know, it could be. Maybe that's what the market is afraid of. Is that fair?
I think it's that. I think there's some people have varying opinions of non-res construction, where I would say the electrification, all these other mega trends may be a little bit different. I will also say it isn't as easy to model. If you look at a model of a traditional industrial company or a traditional commodity company, we're kinda in between. That does make it a little bit more difficult than just give me a growth rate incremental, and then you kinda move on your way. You know, sometimes our EBITDA and our revenue do, I would say model differently at times, depending on what commodities are doing up and down, and that confuses, I think, some people when they make the models.
Yes. My only thing that I had not really used to go, that's why we put the 18 into Andy's point plus EPS, just to put a line in the sand out there two years ago to help with modeling. You have to believe us that we'll deliver that, but hopefully you get a feel of confidence here for what that's worth. The other thing I would say is for whatever you have modeled now, just realize for two years, we have deployed well over $1 billion, a lot larger than that, on both the stock buybacks sum, but on these acquisitions that are just starting and things we've announced and things we haven't announced. Like, our own aspiration is we build another Atkore within Atkore within the next 2-3 years.
That's why I, lack of a better word, sleep well at night.
Sure. Just as a follow-up, just like what kind of range can one expect if you say like volume declines, perhaps? I think half year ago everybody spoke about the recession, not anymore. If there would be a recession and volumes would decline, what kind of range can one expect, like, to the bottom side of that part?
I really don't know 'cause we just don't see it, 'cause we see these nine months of backlog plus all the stimulus money and all this. It's really hard for me to get my head around. I will say a lot of this depend on him. In most cases, we have two or three competitors by product. How would they react and what have you, it's a little hard to predict. I would say, generally speaking, we're in really good industries at this point in time.
We're already over time, so I'm gonna ask you this quick question 'cause I ask, I'm asking all the companies this question, so you can give me a quick answer.
Yeah.
What are the top 2 or 3 innovations and structural changes affecting your company, or more mega trends affecting your company over the next 5 years? Are there any emerging industry trends that are perhaps being overlooked in the current discussion?
Yeah. I would say, as we discussed, the hardening of the electrification as whole. I mean, there's so many stimulus. The hardening of the grid, so therefore burying electrical lines and then the fiber optics run to every by home is 2. One that's more accurate to that longer term is just this industry still is not at the point that you as a consumer have, where you press a button and 4:00 A.M. the next day, a whole suite of products show up.
Mm-hmm.
If we continue down that path over the next 2-3 years, it's just a competitive, sustainable advantage that no one else is even focused on.
The industry's not there yet?
No, not at all.
Okay.
our industry still uses faxes for.
Yeah.
orders sometimes.
You and the medical industry. All right. Thank you very much.
Thanks, everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you.