Earnings Call: Q1 2025

May 15, 2025

Q1 2025 financial results presentation. This slide is our preamble and summary of our legal disclosure. The following content is fully qualified by the legal disclosures on the next two slides. Our goal is to share with you some of the strategic thinking and financial analysis we're using to guide the growth of our business. This content aligns with our principles of being accountable and transparent with shareholders. We operate in a hyper-dynamic economic environment. That's a fancy way of saying things change quickly. What we're telling you today is based on our best estimates and assumptions. We reserve the right to revise our views as new information becomes available. Despite uncertainty, we must plan. We must make operating and investment decisions. This presentation lays out some of that thinking for your review. Let me hit a few high points, which I'll go into more detail on later. First, Capstone's 2025 target remains unchanged. $100 million in run rate revenue and $10 million in run rate adjusted EBITDA from Capstone's operating businesses. Our acquisition pipeline is building as expected. We continue to see a target-rich environment with acquisitions priced in the 4-6x EBITDA range. Instone had a slower start to the year, mostly due to a harsher than usual winter and politically induced economic uncertainty. Still, Instone is reaffirming full year revenue guidance of $47.5-$49 million. Gross margins were affected by a slower start to the year. Fixed freight and overhead costs were spread across lower volumes. We expect margins to normalize as the year progresses. SG&A remained well controlled, thanks to cost reductions implemented in 2024. Finally, as we aim to close transactions in our acquisition pipeline, we have secured an equity line of credit, a flexible capital source to fund accretive acquisitions and minimize dilution. Capstone reaffirms its 2025 targets. $100 million in run rate revenue and $10 million in run rate adjusted EBITDA from our operating subsidiaries. We have an active pipeline of acquisition candidates and multiple ongoing discussions. Based on what we see today, we believe this is an achievable goal. Our near-term focus is to close on one or two strategic acquisitions to build momentum. For those new to our strategy, we group acquisitions into three categories. First, tuck-ins. Smaller companies that we fold into a platform like Instone to accelerate organic growth. Second, sister companies. Independent businesses with product or channel synergy. These create opportunities for cost savings or mutual growth acceleration. Third, and further down the timeline, new platforms. Larger standalone businesses that can pursue their own tuck-ins or sister company acquisitions. For 2025, our focus is clear. Tuck-ins to expand Instone into the Southeast and Mountain States. We've secured an equity line of credit to help fund our acquisition program. This gives us the flexibility to raise capital as needed, supporting earnings accretive acquisitions while avoiding unnecessary capital drag or dilution. We're committed to deploying capital wisely into companies that generate cash flow and build long-term shareholder value. Let's take a closer look at Instone's Q1 performance. Two external factors shaped the quarter: rising interest rates and unusually cold weather in key regions. After early optimism, rates began to rise again due to broader uncertainty, causing many customers to delay purchases, especially on larger projects. At the same time, extended freezing temps in the Northeast and Midwest impacted job site activity. Many of our products require mortar, which can't be installed in sub-freezing conditions, so several jobs were pushed into Q2. Despite that, underlying demand remains healthy. We expect a strong second half as economic activity normalizes. Gross margins should also normalize, and our SG&A discipline continues to deliver. We're seeing strong traction from Toro and Pangaea as we enter new markets and look forward to continued growth on our new products. This chart illustrates how seasonality affects Instone's revenue. During years with colder winters, Q1 slows but rebounds in Q2 or Q3 as activity catches up. During years with warmer winters, Q1 may be stronger, but then a slightly slower Q2. Over the year, these effects generally balance out. On this page and the next, you'll find a summary of Q1 results. Please refer to the 10-Q for more detail. Now let's turn to our expectations for the rest of the year. 2025 has started off more challenging than we had hoped, but we remain focused on delivering our initial full-year guidance. Customer conversations continue to show demand is delayed, not canceled. Toro and Pangaea are gaining traction in new territories, and our Aura line is also expanding. Instone continues to target revenue of $47.5 million-$49 million and adjusted EBITDA of $3.1 million-$3.5 million. We'll refine this guidance each quarter to provide a clear view of performance. As a public company, Capstone incurs corporate costs beyond those of its subsidiaries currently in stone. We incur fixed costs, including leadership, board, legal, and compliance, and variable costs like IR and marketing that can be scaled upwards or downwards as needed. When valuing our core business, we believe many corporate costs, including Capstone overhead, are not essential to our subsidiaries' operations. This page shows how Capstone's corporate costs break down. Variable versus fixed. In Q1, Instone charged Capstone a one-time fee to help cover management time spent on the Capstone offering. These are our key principles, a promise to our investors. We will be transparent. We will always tell you how we are doing. We will be accountable. We will make commitments and share targets. Some may be stretch goals, but we will put our full effort behind them. We will be adaptable. Markets change, conditions change. We will adjust and keep you informed. Our goal is to always outperform. Thank you for listening. Please feel free to reach out with any questions.