Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Core & Main's First Investor Day. We're so glad you could join us today, whether in person or over the webcast. I'm Robyn Bradbury, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations for Core & Main. I've been with this business for over a decade, as have many of the presenters that you will hear from today. I'll start with the exciting legal disclaimers. I must point out the obligatory safe harbor statement. Please make note of it on page three of the presentation. I'm happy to share that we have made a donation in your honor to two charities that are important to us. Folds of Honor is a charity that provides scholarships to children and spouses of fallen and disabled service members and first responders. This is a cause we have supported for many years.
Supporting our military, veterans, and first responders is important to us. Many of our associates are military veterans themselves. The second cause is the Maui Fire Disaster Relief Fund, sponsored by the United Way. The fund has allowed United Way to fast-track donations to make a difference for Maui's survivors. It's important to us to support our local teams when disasters occur. In addition to our philanthropic efforts, we are committed to bettering our communities in ways that are core to our business. Our products and services help provide clean water to local communities and aid in water conservation efforts. We partner with our customers to provide solutions to the impacts of droughts and flooding, and our fire protection products help protect people and property. We have a great lineup of presentations this morning. We have a break in the middle and Q&A session at the end.
We will close the event with some live product demos and displays, followed by lunch. We hope you leave here today with a deeper understanding of the uniqueness of our industry, our competitive advantages within the industry, our organic growth, inorganic growth, and margin expansion strategies, our people-first culture of agility, innovation, and execution, and lastly, our long-term financial outlook. To kick it off, we have a short video to show how we partner with our customers and suppliers to advance reliable infrastructure with local service nationwide. And then our CEO, Steve LeClair, will take the stage. Enjoy!
Infrastructure: It's at the center of how we live, work, and play. It connects us, protects us, and sustains us. At the heart of infrastructure is Core & Main. In a world challenged by population growth, extreme weather, and aging infrastructure, our top priority is to partner with our customers and communities to protect water integrity and advance reliable infrastructure. We support our customers' complex projects with local service, backed by a nationwide network. From pre-project planning through completion, our products, services, and capabilities keep communities moving forward without delay. Our local expertise enables us to provide solutions that cater to the unique product specifications and engineering standards of each municipality. Our clean water, wastewater, and storm drainage solutions support health and safety, protect the environment, and enable sustainable growth. Our fire protection solutions protect property and save lives by stopping fires before they spread.
We reduce water loss, lower costs, and improve community satisfaction by helping our cities adopt the latest metering technology. Our geosynthetics and erosion control solutions utilize advanced materials that stabilize the earth, improve drainage, filter impurities, and control erosion. From local to nationwide, with quality and expertise, our commitment is to advancing reliable infrastructure. We build a brighter future for all generations to come.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Core & Main's first Investor Day. I'm Steve LeClair, CEO of Core & Main. I'm excited to be here today, really, for a couple different reasons. First, since our IPO in 2021, you've mostly heard from Mark Witkowski, Robyn, and myself. But today, you're gonna hear from the leadership team that made all of these great results happen. I'm so excited to demonstrate their talent, but even more importantly, to demonstrate the depth and breadth of the leadership at Core & Main. So second, for each of these earnings calls that we have done, we spent much of our time talking about past quarter results, whether it's been margins or pricing, acquisitions that we've done, and really the near-term outlook.
Today, I'm excited to share our vision for the future, the five-year outlook, and our business model, and how our business model and capital allocation strategy comes together to drive growth and value creation for shareholders. Let's dive in. For some of you that may be newer to the story, we are an industry leader and a specialty distributor in a very fragmented market with long-term secular tailwinds. You've seen how our resilient business has been over the last two years through COVID, supply chain disruption, and our uncanny ability to enhance margins and profitability despite all those hurdles. You're gonna experience firsthand from the presentations and displays, our entrepreneurial and people-first culture today.
Finally, we'll share more information about our strong cash flow and the flexibility this gives our business to compound value creation and execute on a clear strategy to deliver $10 billion of net sales and 15% adjusted EBITDA margins by 2028. So Core & Main is a specialty distributor based in St. Louis, Missouri. In fiscal 2022, we delivered $6.7 billion of revenue and $935 million of adjusted EBITDA. We have very well-balanced end market exposure, with 39% municipal, 39% non-residential, and 22% residential. And we are evenly split at about 50% new construction and 50% repair and replacement, which provides great stability. And on the right-hand side, you can see that we have 320 branches, close to 4,500 employees across this country.
But what really stands out to me is the Lego-level of fragmentation of our customer base. We have over 60,000 customers, and not one representing more than 1% of our total net sales. And so for our 4,500 suppliers, many of which are dedicated to this sector, we play a critical role in getting their products to market in this very fragmented customer base. So while we can trace our roots back to 1874, really over the last two decades, we've been consolidating in this space. But the story really gets interesting in 2017. In 2017, we were a division of HD Supply, till we were carved out as part of an LBO, as a standalone business.
Really, for the first time in this industry, and the first time in our business's history, there was a business with national size and scale that was dedicated to this sector. Why was that so transformational? We were now able to reinvest our free cash flow back into the business, and as such, we were able to execute our strategic plan and unlock explosive growth. Following that success in 2021, we launched our IPO in what was a very crowded field. We were one of the largest industrial IPOs in the last several years. Two years later, we stand here as one of the most successful IPOs in that class across all sectors. While we are incredibly proud of our track record, today we are gonna focus on our vision for the future.
Across our enterprise, we have launched our objective to become the undisputed leader in each of our end markets and in each of our product categories. We are the tip of the spear to drive the adoption of new products and technologies, delivering modernized solutions for critical infrastructure needs, and maximizing our growth potential to deliver sector-leading shareholder returns. This is a great chart that highlights how our industry is differentiated and how Core & Main is differentiated within our industry. I'm gonna start here on the left. Our industry is regulated at the federal, state, and local level. In addition, our waterworks and fire protection products have rigorous specification requirements, once again, at the national, state, and local levels. This complexity creates a challenging matrix of highly specialized and localized product requirements.
The suppliers of these products, many of them are dedicated to this sector, look for distributors with knowledge at the local levels to reach this very fragmented customer base. Because of that, most of these suppliers have limited distribution access rights. Since most of our customers are looking to fulfill infrastructure projects that require multiple product categories, pipes, valves, fittings, and restraints, all of which have limited distribution rights, this becomes a significant competitive advantage for distributors with size and scale. New entrants have to be able to secure multiple lines of products that each have limited access, which makes it very difficult. On the right-hand side, Core & Main differentiates by having the leading industry expertise with award-winning training programs, developing some of the best-trained salespeople and operators in the industry.
Our size and scale gives us the unique capability of driving the adoption of new products and technologies for both our suppliers and our customers, driving the growth of smart meters, fusible HDPE pipe, and other new and innovative solutions to digitize and provide reliable infrastructure. You're gonna hear from Jessica Killian a little later this morning on our proprietary technology and innovation tools that have been specifically designed for application in this sector, providing robust applications, delivering productivity for both our customers and our associates. I think this has been one of the least understood aspects of our business. Between the uniqueness of the industry and our strong competitive position, this creates a very favorable industry structure for long-term, sustained growth.
So if you look at our industry structure, Core & Main participates in a large and growing $40 billion addressable market. We are one of two national distributors competing in this space. The remainder of the market is served by hundreds of local, regional, and specialty niche distributors, and to a much lesser degree, direct sales from suppliers to end users. Aging infrastructure and non-discretionary repairs and upgrades create a very stable but growing base. And as I mentioned earlier, we play a critical role in driving the adoption of new products to water municipalities across the country. The demographic trends and population growth fuels new residential construction and commercial construction projects to support the expansion of suburban communities. Now, on the right-hand side of this page, we have a great track record of increasing market share.
You will hear firsthand from our leadership team about our strategy for driving above-market growth with local share gains, geographic expansion, expansion of new product offerings, and strategic M&A. We benefit from secular growth trends that underpin each of our end markets. Municipal demand has shown steady growth over the long term due to the critical need to replace aged water infrastructure. With better access to capital and increased water utility rates, we expect these trends to continue for the foreseeable future. We also believe we can capitalize on the anticipated long-term growth in residential and non-residential development, both of which remain below long-term historical averages and are expected to benefit from both population growth, the historical underbuild of housing, the population shifts, and the need for non-residential development to follow.
So most of you know the sorry state of our water infrastructure in the United States, and these stats give a pretty good flavor of the extent of repair and replacement opportunity. The average age of pipe and service today has risen to 45 years. The cycle of repairing and patching pipe, it only leads to failure in the next weakest link of that pipe in that system. These extreme cycles of weather also perpetuate what is an already strained system in so many communities today. Water main, water main breaks happen at a rate of about 800 per day. You're going to be hearing from our CHRO, Laura Schneider, a little later today. She's had firsthand experience with this. four years ago, she built a new home in St. Louis, and while the home was new, the water main was not.
She's experienced three water main breaks in front of her home, ultimately wiping out her landscape three times, that have all been replaced, until that water main was ultimately replaced. It's kind of funny. She would actually call Jack Schaller, our President, about trying to get it fixed. But anyways, but that's really indicative of the change that is now happening in this industry. Municipalities are no longer just patching up the problem. They are now utilizing rate increases and additional sources of funding to finally replace this failing infrastructure. And that is why sustainability is at our core. Helping our municipal customers solve these problems and providing reliable solutions for their infrastructure needs is the core of what we do.
In addition to that inherent role that we play at local, regional, and national levels for advancing reliable infrastructure, we have also used our size and scale to drive awareness of underrepresented groups in our industry. Nearly a decade ago, we founded a women's network with the goal of driving better visibility and representation in the construction industry. I'm proud to share with you that this organization has reached well beyond the walls of Core & Main and into our suppliers and into our customers, increasing our industry's collective approach to diversifying our leadership and our workforce, and you're going to see that firsthand today. Finally, I'd encourage all of you to look at our previous released ESG reports and the progress we are making across the entire ESG spectrum.
So to meet some of the demands of the crumbling infrastructure, we are seeing critical investments in the past infrastructure bill that we believe will provide incremental funding and tailwinds into the future. We are just now starting to see those funds sprinkle into our State Revolving Funds. Particularly, there's over $55 billion allocated to clean drinking water and over $50 billion to protect against droughts and floods. And those who are here in New York understand what floods are all about. Last week, as you saw, an inundation of flooding that happened, that really brought the city to its knees. So in addition to the magnitude of these investments, there's additional tailwinds that come from the disbursement of these funds to the states.
Municipalities will now have access to low-interest loans to fund these projects, and they will pay back these loans back into the state revolving funds, creating a regenerative source of funding that will extend beyond the initial disbursement, creating a great flywheel effect for many, many years to come. So let's take a look at our product portfolio. As mentioned earlier, whether it's pipe, valves, fittings, or our storm drainage and retention systems, these products are unique to our sector. You won't find them at Home Depot or Lowe's, and nearly all of them have limited distribution rights. In addition, these products are rarely ordered on a standalone basis, but as part of a larger project, meaning that you need to bundle a broad assortment of these highly specified items from multiple suppliers to meet your customers' project needs.
You're going to have the opportunity, and I encourage you to take this opportunity, to see some of the products that are on display out here... So here's an example of how these products come together in the communities we live, work, and play in. From the pipes and lift stations below ground, to smart meters and sprinkler systems, we play an integral role in the communities that we serve. The other thing I'd share is that this is a very generic representation of a city. In reality, each municipality, each water system is unique. They are unique due to a number of factors. Factors including population density, topography of the land, the water source, pressures, frost line depths, water tables, and soil acidity, and even the age of the existing infrastructure. As we flip to the next page, here's a real-world example of how these situations emanate.
So as Laura can tell you, water main breaks are bad, but sewer main breaks are even worse. So not far from here, in a community in New Jersey, they experienced a break that released more than 5 million gallons of untreated sewage into the streets, inundating a local neighborhood. The pipe that failed was installed nearly 75 years ago, manufacturer is no longer in business, and it was an odd diameter. Our specialists were immediately on site and designed, engineered, and constructed a customized fitting from other materials. They even provided the equipment and training for their personnel to complete this connection. So this was far more than just supplying a product in an emergency. It was utilizing local knowledge and national scale to deploy resources and expertise in a true emergency situation.
I know of no other company that could bring together those resources, that knowledge base, in this timeframe to address a situation like this, and this is the type of work that Core & Main does every day across this great nation. That was a great review of our history and an overview of our industry and our end markets. Over the past several years, we have benchmarked our performance against the best-in-class specialty distributors, and operationally, I can boldly say we have outperformed all of them for our key metrics of sales growth, Adjusted EBITDA growth, and Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. Our track record is undisputed, and now I'm excited to introduce for the first time our long-term financial targets.
We expect to deliver 9% net sales CAGR over the next five years, a 12% Adjusted EBITDA CAGR, and more importantly, a 210 basis points improvement in Adjusted EBITDA margins. Given our efficient and resilient business model, we expect to generate $3.5 billion-$4.5 billion of operating cash flow, which provides excellent flexibility for strategic investment. You will hear about our immense growth opportunities from the rest of the presentations today and what we plan to do to meet these targets. We'll focus now on our growth engine we've unlocked, how we capture organic growth, scale and expand our operating margins, and compound value creation with M&A. As we've rolled out our vision of being undisputed leaders in every market we serve, our field teams look to drive share locally.
We do this by developing and attracting the best sales talent and strengthening our position in under-penetrated geographies through greenfields. We look market by market at our product penetration, identifying opportunities in products like storm drainage, geosynthetics, fusible HDPE solutions, and we ask ourselves, "Do we have dots on the map in all the right places, and are we pulling through all of our product lines in those dots?" In this very fragmented customer base that we have, our local relationships have also become instrumental in driving the adoption of new products and technologies. Take advanced metering systems, for example.
Not only do we have the reach to introduce these systems to rural and suburban municipalities, we also have the resources to tackle the large metropolitan areas like Miami and Chicago, where we simplify the installation for them, where we integrate the software, and we even manage the network over the life of that product. Because we are local in those markets, that creates a level of trust and accountability unmatched by OEM, by any OEM trying to sell directly. Now, let's talk about how we utilize size and scale to expand our margins. Because our pricing is local in nature and complex, we have utilized advanced analytics to provide real-time insights to our local branches on product costs and market pricing.
As you've seen over the last several years, this has allowed us to take price increases into the market quickly, while making sure our customers are well aware as they plan their projects. And because many of our customers' projects can have longer term durations, six months or longer, we can often provide insight and lock-in prices for those specific projects, working directly with our suppliers, and to ensure that there's both price and availability to keep these projects on time and on budget. And this is a tremendous value to our customers, as it eliminates so much of the risk and something that only size and scale can provide. Secondly, you're going to hear from Brad later today. We are in the early innings of our private label initiative. Currently, a little over 2% of our products are sold via private label.
In other industries, as much as 10% of products goes private label or is direct sourced. Our gross margin on these products is generally 1.5-2x our standard rate, and we see a long runway ahead to drive sustainable margin enhancement through private label as we expand both our product portfolio and the distribution logistics capabilities. Since 2017, we have deployed over $1 billion of capital for M&A, closing 28 acquisitions and generating over $225 million in incremental adjusted EBITDA. Nearly every deal we did was proprietarily sourced based on our relationships and reputation in the industry. We consistently have been able to add 100-300 basis points of gross margin improvement and 100+ basis points of cost synergies with each deal.
But more importantly than driving some of these operational synergies, has been the ability to attract great talent and new platforms for compounded growth. So you will hear from three of our leaders that have joined the Core & Main family through M&A, Ken, Michael, and Wade, and the positive impact this has had, both for the growth of their business and the development of their own associates. So we are truly the acquirer of choice in our industry, and later in the day, Jeff will be covering more detail about our unmatched M&A process, the pipeline, and the long runway ahead for us. So one of the great elements, as I shared earlier, of the Investor Day, is the opportunity to showcase the depth and breadth of our executive team.
This team has accomplished so much, from standing the business up on its own in 2017, to unlocking unprecedented growth and profitability, to driving one of the most successful IPOs in 2021, and most importantly, charting our path and our vision for the future. Each plays a vital role in our operating model, and you're gonna get a chance to hear firsthand the passion and excitement they bring to the table, making Core & Main a differentiated business and investment. So let me now introduce you to the framework for our operating model. It starts with people first, even from the formation of our name, Core & Main, which was established from a submission by one of our own associates in South Carolina branch, to our values and family-driven culture.
From there, we have thrived by keeping this entrepreneurial mindset, being action-oriented and driving operational execution and strategy execution. As I shared earlier, our history is unique, given its large size, its fragmented customer base, and its complex structure. One element that I've always felt has been underappreciated in our operating model is the strong linkage between local expertise and national capabilities. That has underpinned our ability to create value in this space and has truly differentiated us, and you will see numerous examples of that throughout the day. So to summarize, Core & Main has a clear, sustainable, competitive advantage in a large industry with high barriers to entry, significant organic and inorganic growth opportunities in a highly fragmented market, sustainable margin enhancement initiatives, and strong cash flow generation, fueling ongoing value creation for shareholders.
Before I hand it over to Jack and Robyn to talk about why we win, let me first play a quick video to show you how we deliver superior value to our customers.
The beauty of Core & Main is our name is throughout the entire country. Our customers know if they do jobs, East Coast, West Coast, down in the Southeast, we have a local presence, and we can help them build these projects.
There is a tremendous amount of growth that is happening in the cities of Franklin, Nashville, Murfreesboro. Growth isn't slowing down. So this project is about 18,800 foot of 24-inch ductile iron pipe for sewer forcemain, and we're tying from a pump station that's being built right now to the treatment plant for Murfreesboro Water Resources. Getting material now, especially with ductile iron, has become a major issue. Core & Main helps us with their relationships. They go above and beyond to try to get us the material that we need to save us time, so we can build the project quickly. Also, with their expertise, not only do they know the product, but they know how to install the product, too.
If there's any questions that we have about installation, specs on the product, we can call them, and we know that we can get an answer quickly.
Local knowledge and local presence is extremely important in this industry. If a contractor is doing a project and they encounter any sort of issues, spec questions, that's where Core & Main's relationship really helps the situation, because we can go directly to the engineer, we can go directly to the utility, and we can get an answer for our contractor within minutes.
Everybody knows at night that when you depend on somebody, that most people won't answer the phone. We needed a part that night. We called our Core & Main salesman. Not only did he answer the phone, he found what we needed and even had another Core & Main employee come in and open up the branch so we could get what we needed. That's just hard to find a trust like that in a company.
You may not be able to see the pipe in the ground, but the water you drink, the sewer systems that we are tied into, they all affect our daily lives. It is very important that the infrastructure is built to quality.
... It's very rewarding at the end, after the project is built, it's online, the city's happy, the contractor's happy. Core & Main was part of the entire project from beginning to end.
The reason someone would like to partner with Core & Main is 'cause you're building a long-lasting relationship that is not gonna only drive your success, but drive their success, as well as the success of Tennessee and the success of America.
That video provided an example of how we partner with our customers on their complex infrastructure projects. Jack and I are here to talk to you about why we win through some of his past experiences in the industry. I'd like to introduce Jack Schaller, President of Core & Main. Jack has been with this business for over 40 years, starting in the warehouse in 1979. Jack is an industry icon that is well-respected by our customers and suppliers. Jack, tell us a little bit about your career.
Thanks, Robyn. Good morning, everyone. Yeah, mic's okay. I started in this industry August 27th of 1979 with a local company in St. Louis called Sidner Supply, privately held. The very first day on the job, I took it as a job. I didn't look at it as a career, but I quickly saw that this could become a career. My first day on the job was a rather memorable one. It was a typical sweltering day in St. Louis, in high heat, high humidity. A tractor-trailer full of... A closed 40-foot tractor-trailer van pulled into the yard, and the warehouse manager looked at me and said, "That's your job." So I had to unload the entire truck by myself that day. So kind of a tough first day.
At the end of that day, I remember overhearing my manager at that time say: "If this kid comes back tomorrow, he's a keeper.
Were you a keeper?
I think so. I think I was a keeper because I cared. They hired me to do a job, and it never even crossed my mind not to come back the second day. So I did come back that second day, and I did a lot of different things through the years. After about 30 days in the warehouse, I moved inside to counter to wait on customers as they came in at the city counter. I did inside sales, I did purchasing, I did outside sales. I became a branch manager. I actually opened up... I moved around a couple of times, opened up a couple of branches in Chicago and in Columbia, Missouri.
I actually then implemented a new computer program, computer system for our company, and taught that to our 18 locations throughout Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. I eventually became president of that company, and I had some grand ideas about M&A and growing and with greenfields, but the owner of the company, a Mr. Larry Sidner, was in his eighties at that time, did not really have a good succession plan, and I told him if we stood still, we were gonna go backwards. So I convinced him to sell the company, which we did, but in 1997. But that, my career progression is not really unique to me. A lot of our key folks have gone through that same progression, done the inside sales, outside sales, and managers.
It's really, really pretty remarkable that how many people have come through that same pipeline. Really, for some reason, when you get in this industry, it's kind of a sticky industry. Once we get in, we don't seem to get out. Obviously, I'm a working example of that 44 years later. I think it's really part of why we win, is the depth of knowledge that we have in our team.
When did you start to see this job as a career?
I quickly saw the value of the industry by working with the customers as they came into the yard. I visited job sites. I'll be quite honest with you, I was pretty naive back then. I used to think when I first started in the industry, there's only so many hydrants you can sell. There's only so much pipe you can sell, that there was a finite amount. Boy, was I wrong! This industry will never die. And once I realized that, I saw that a career was possible, and it was not just a pipe dream, no pun intended.
Let's talk about the value we add in this industry, specifically to our customers. As Jack said, customer relationships are critical. There are many ways that we add value to our customers, so let's walk through a couple of those. We have a broad product offering and access to product with limited distribution rights.
Yeah, a great example of that is the supply chain issues of the last couple of years that we had. Because of our size and scale that Steve had mentioned, we were able to get product quicker in better deliveries than most of our competitors.
We partner with our customers from pre-project planning all the way through delivery. How does that work?
When a set of blueprints come out, we utilize a digital software called PlanSwift that is integrated with our packaging system, our bid packaging system called PowerScope. Gives you a complete take off of all of the pipe, valves, fittings, and the proper specifications and the proper number of feet and pipes that you need.
What about job site logistics?
Very, very important. We have over 1,400 delivery vehicles delivering to the job site, and a lot of times, our job sites do not really have an address. It's a field somewhere. So when a customer calls and needs some material, we can put it on one of our trucks and get it there when they need it.
We have local expertise and knowledge in each market that we operate.
Yeah. That is really, really critical, the local knowledge and expertise with our... We have over 1,700 sales reps in 320 branches in 48 states. We're the local experts there. When a customer comes in and asks about the specification of a particular municipality, we have that knowledge.
As Steve mentioned, we also introduce new products to our customers. We'll hit on that in a minute. But what about around-the-clock availability? Why is that important?
Well, it's important because water mains don't break between eight and five P.M. They always seem to make a break in the middle of the night for some reason. And as Steve mentioned, did you know that there's over 800 water main breaks a day? And just since Robyn opened up the this conference this morning, there's probably been about 35 water main breaks just since we've been sitting here. Pretty awe-inspiring, isn't it?
They never happen between eight and five. How do we support the customer after hours?
Yeah, we hundreds of times a year, we're open up after hours. Our Westport in St. Louis branch near our corporate headquarters opened up over 200x last year, twice on Christmas Day. We know what product's in the ground, and we know what they can help and, but the key here is we just don't open in emergencies. We're open every day, Monday through Friday, helping the customers with their supplier, their material needs. So not only do they come to us in emergency situation, but also in non-emergency situations.
When a water main breaks, it's not only that people are without water, which is a big deal, but there's other downstream impacts. Can you give us an example?
Yeah. I'll refer back to a time when I was the branch manager in Columbia, Missouri branch. It was about a week before Christmas, and I got a call in the middle of the night, while there was a blizzard going on outside, from a customer in Macon, Missouri, which is about 30 miles north of Columbia. Said they had a water main break that was supplying water to a factory that employed over 200 people. They said that we had to get the water main back in service, and if we didn't get that, they were gonna have to call the 200 employees there and tell them they were either gonna have to take a day of PTO or a day without pay. Nobody wanted to deliver that message a week before Christmas.
Well, he came down through. He started on his journey down to meet me at the branch. The good news is I got to the branch on time. The bad news, the snow was so thick and that I couldn't get to the pipe. So I became snowplow boy that day, and I hooked up the snowplow to our 1-ton truck. I cleared a path to the 10-inch PVC that he knew that he needed. By the time I had done that, he got there. I put 40 feet of 10-inch pipe on his truck. I asked him a few questions about how he was hooking that up.
He said, "I think it's ductile iron pipe." And I asked him what the OD was, and he gave me the OD, and I confirmed it was ductile iron pipe. So I made sure that he had the right material to hook up ductile iron pipe to PVC pipe. I put him on his way, and about 5:30 A.M. that morning, he gave me a call back and said, "Thank you for coming out in the middle of the night, in this snow storm, in this blizzard. We got the water main fixed, and every employee is coming into work that day.
Let's talk about these customer testimonials on the right-hand side of this slide. When we were preparing for Investor Day, I asked Jack to send me a couple of these, and I think he sent me about 100, and I had to ask him to stop.
Yeah. When I reached out to my regional vice president to ask me to send some of those, I had to tell him to turn the faucet off. We literally get hundreds of emails, and texts, and letters, and phone calls thanking us for what we do. We take pride in what we do for our customers, and they see the value.
Just like our customer relationships, our supplier relationships are critical. We have 4,500 suppliers. How do we support our suppliers, and why are we important to them?
Well, first of all, we're just about every supplier's biggest customer, and as Steve mentioned, size and scale certainly do matter. Our geographic footprint and our local relationships are critical to getting their products in the market. With 320 branches, 1,700 sales associates in 48 states, and we're an extension of their supplier's sales force. We have knowledge of the local markets. We have our delivery logistics of over 14 delivery vehicles. These are things that our suppliers cannot do without us.
I want to talk about this opportunity in Texas, where we're partnering with our supplier to drive product into the customer projects, helping transition future projects from reinforced concrete, concrete pipe into corrugated HDPE. Tell us a little bit about this one.
Yeah. Typically, in most states, including Texas, the specification for storm drain is reinforced concrete pipe. We partnered with one of our key suppliers that manufactures corrugated HDPE. They were calling on the Texas DOT and engineers for many years. Finally got the approval to allow corrugated HDPE as an alternative to concrete, which was very welcome to us because concrete typically is not sold through distribution. Now we have an alternative where corrugated HDPE was able to be sold. It's something we keep in stock. It's easier to install, it's lighter in weight, and we have it in stock. So, right after that, we hired a...
We have now a dedicated team calling on engineers, calling on customers, calling on municipalities, letting them know that HDPE, corrugated HDPE is an alternative to reinforced concrete pipe.
That's an example of how all of us can win together-
Exactly
... coordinating our suppliers.
Our customers, our suppliers, and our customers all win in that situation.
It's a big opportunity that we're really-
Absolutely
... excited about. Speaking of specifications, one thing that's unique about our industry is how many of our products are highly specified. Specifications are mandated locally by 50,000 municipalities across the U.S. Why do municipalities need these specifications?
Well, I think it's pretty important for the municipality to have consistency in what they have in there. The consistency of quality and the preference of the products that they have, they need to know what's in the ground. When something breaks or they need repairing, they need to know what's in the ground. And imagine, I'll use the hydrants up there, you look at the screen up here, as an example. Imagine if the hydrant tights were not tight, the specs were not tight. These different specs for the different cities around and municipalities around can vary from municipality to municipality.
It can vary by depth of bury, it can vary by the threads on the pumper nozzle, by the threads on the hose nozzle, the operating nut, whether it opens left or open right, and even the color of the hydrant. So can you imagine if the specs were wide open and they didn't have tight specs? Anybody could put any hydrant they wanted to. There's a fire, a building on fire, that the fire department comes to put the fire out. They try and hook up, and it's not the right connection. It'd be. So what a tragedy that would be if the specs were not tight.
We have local specifications across many of our product categories, not just hydrants, pipes, valves, fittings.
Absolutely.
Our local knowledge and expertise are so valuable, given the diverse specifications across the markets. To close it out, we are well positioned to continue to win in this industry where relationships matter, we have significant size and scale, and we have deep knowledge and understanding of products. Jack, anything you wanna leave the group with?
Yeah, I guess I would just say that I really love this industry. I've grown to love the industry. Obviously, I wouldn't be here 44 years later if I didn't love the industry. Our well-trained associates are passionate about what they do. I've always had the personal philosophy, no matter what job or position I had within the company, I wanted to do it better than anyone else had ever done it before. I think that translates into our associates, that they want to be the best. This is still a relationship business. We celebrate our wins with our suppliers and our customers. Winning is still exciting, and winning never gets old. We have a significant opportunity for growth, and the future is bright.
Thank you for allowing me to talk a little bit about why we win and the importance of relationships. To talk a little bit more about our growth opportunities, let me introduce Mr. Brad Cowles.
Thanks, Jack, and thanks, Robyn. Great setup. So my name is Brad Cowles. I'm the other half of the presidential team here at Core & Main. A little bit about me: I started my career as a mechanical engineer. I worked for the Michelin Tire Company for about a decade in the U.S. and France, and I got to design and manufacture some of the world's greatest tires. But 18 years ago, I started on this Core & Main journey when I joined The Home Depot, and I had the opportunity to lead the information technology integration of about 30 acquisitions and a handful of divestitures during our formation of HD Supply.
I learned a lot of our businesses through the lens of IT leadership, and I eventually became the company's chief information officer in 2015, and during that time, our technology teams, many of whom have joined me in this Core & Main journey, built tremendous digital solutions to boost our productivity. We built mobile apps for our field associates, and we improved customer stickiness with web and customer self-service applications before those things were even cool. We even broached the $1 billion mark in e-commerce during that time. But I had an opportunity to return to my product roots in 2017 when I joined Steve, Jack, and Mark Witkowski, as we began the process of carving out what would become Core & Main from HD Supply. Believe me, it's been an exciting ride.
What excites me most, and it's what I get to talk to you about today, is our growth. I'm lucky to be part of a company that is built from, for growth from the ground up, really, what we'd say, the branch up. Every one of our branches, every day, is trying to sell more product to more customers and to do so more profitably. We arm the branches with data about their financial performance, about their growth opportunities, about their share of wallet, and they give us back a wealth of knowledge and ideas about organic growth opportunities, sales talent to pursue, and they even give us a long list of complementary acquisitions that we could pursue to complement our company. With 320 branches and over 4,500 well-trained associates, we generate a lot of ideas, and that could be overwhelming.
But we have a continuous process to collect and evaluate and vet those ideas and sort them into the best of the best, and that culminates each year in our strategic plan. That strat plan crystallizes those few opportunities that we're really gonna pursue and invest in, whether they be organic or inorganic or, better yet, a combination of both. Sometimes it's as simple as pulling a product through in branches that may not be selling a lot of it. Other times, we have to learn something new, and when we do, we're very careful to make sure we're still leveraging our core competencies, our branches, our customers, suppliers, things we know. In other words, we like our adjacencies to really be adjacent. Those few ideas that make the cut, we bring them to life as initiatives.
We resource them for scale, and we measure them with a focus on profitability. What you see on this page is a set of initiatives that we have in place currently, some focused on product, others focused on strategic partnerships, others yet focused on penetration into under-penetrated geographies. I'm gonna show you this morning how all of this comes together to drive growth in excess of the market. But first, I wanna show you a short video about our metering initiative and how a decade of innovation can help Core & Main and the communities we serve.
The average citizen probably doesn't even know where their water meter is, but they were upset about inaccuracy in readings. They were upset about inconsistency in billing. Core & Main was able to come in and provide a solution to a problem, a real-world problem, for the city officials here in Brandon. I believe that solving that problem for the city allowed them the ability to focus their attention on other things that they wanted to do to help the citizens.
We had to make the best decision we could for the public. We could have gone back with what we had before, same type of technology, but Core Plus offers real-time information. We press a few buttons, and all the meters are read, and we can read them as many times as we need to throughout the month.
... Core Plus is Core & Main's program to provide a solution to whatever, need that the utility has. We offer not just meters, but we provide billing solutions, kiosks, customer portals, and installation. We can provide software solutions, provide project management, and it doesn't have to be a big plus something, it can be a small plus something. What we like to do is go in and listen to the utility and try to understand what they're struggling with, what they need help with, and then try to provide them with a solution to address that issue. That's Core Plus.
The ability to accurately and consistently meter usage is really an integral part of how we're gonna be able to move forward. Core & Main really took that aspect of what we do off of the list of things that we have to worry about.
Anytime you can't read a meter or you have problems with, you know, any kind of pressure, anything like that, revenue goes down. What I like about Core Plus is we can use the system and the analytics to find problems for the city and get ahead of it, instead of, you know, wasting millions of gallons of water a year. It doesn't matter if it's midnight or middle of the afternoon, people rely on us to have the water flowing through the pipe, getting to their house, and that's what I try to help Brandon do as much as I possibly can.
I love that, and as you can see in the video, you know, our own associates are literally out there in the community, bringing the value of Core Plus directly to their doors. In this case, we helped implement an advanced metering system that brings not only better economic, but also better environmental performance to the utility. And our thanks to Brandon, Mississippi, for sharing that great story. So what is this meter initiative all about? Well, if you think, not too long ago, what used to be a mechanical meter that was buried in the mud, was read by someone who walked by on foot, and kind of rubbed it off.
That's now a digital device that's relaying data to a series of network collectors, and that data is aggregated and processed, not only for water flow, which is the main point, but also information about potential failures in the metering system, potential leaks in the piping system. That data is pumped over into customer billing systems, and often these days, self-service customer portals on the web and in the palm of your hand. That complexity can be difficult for the 50,000 water departments across this country to implement, so we bring it to them the easy way with Core Plus.
As they talked about in the video, that's just an ever-expanding basket of services and software that complement the meter, and it helps us not only provide a better solution and win projects, it helps those communities adopt these advanced technologies more quickly, and better yet, helps them realize the benefits. In the center of this page is fire protection, another initiative that started with an idea from our field when some of our contractors used to cross over from waterworks into fire protection, so we started selling them sprinkler pipe, and valves, and fittings. We grew this initiative tremendously with three key acquisitions in California, in the Carolinas, and most recently in New York.
Along the way, we've invested tremendously in organic growth, and we now have a world-class network of 55 supply locations and 22 fabrication facilities, where we make, bundle, and assemble custom kits of pipe, sprinklers, and valves. Those kits help our customer, the fire sprinkler contractor, efficiently install these life-saving systems that are over your head right now. Finally, to the right, if you're looking at a set of plans and you're selling pipes and valves and fittings into a waterworks project, it's inevitable that those plans are also calling for drainage. We learned from our own field a decade ago that some branches were really good at selling drainage and other branches were not. So we turned it into an initiative, and we educated the company. We taught our estimators how to spot and quote these opportunities.
We developed national supplier relationships that gave everybody the product and the pricing that they need, and then we sat back and we measured the results. 16% CAGR over a 10-year history kind of speaks for itself. All three of these initiatives have an impressive 10-year track record, and each of these three has accelerated since we became an independent company in 2017. Collectively, today, these three initiatives alone are driving $2 billion of annual revenue. So how do we top that? Well, as I said in the opening comments, the ideas just keep coming, and fortunately, we've got a deck of ideas about this tall. I wanna talk to you about three that are getting some great traction, although I would say they're still in early innings, starting on the left with fusible high-density polyethylene, or HDPE for short.
This is a solution that's born in the oil fields, but with the help of Core & Main, we're bringing it into the waterworks industry because it provides a better, more economical solution in certain circumstances. Directional drilling techniques and the unique tensile strength of this product and the way that it's fused together at the joints, allows us to put new or replacement water infrastructure under existing roads, bridges, and highways. The product might cost a little more, but the avoidance of disruption and cost to replace that above-ground infrastructure more than offsets it. We're becoming a leading player in HDPE in the water industry, and it's bringing us not only product revenue, but also services revenue for technicians, rentals. We're getting equipment sales, and we're also getting into a whole new area of fabrication.
Think of HDPE as another product that we can bring our existing customers, and it also opens the door to adjacent markets where HDPE is more common, like agriculture, and mining, and landfills. Now, in the middle, the treatment plant, the unspoken hero of the water system, and every water system starts and ends with one. You got to get clean water at the front end, and you got to treat the sewer at the back end. And traditionally, Core & Main has focused on selling the products that connect these treatment plants to the customers.... But with our treatment plant initiative, we're getting up inside the fence and we're getting access to a huge new basket of valves and equipment.
But in order to do this, we've had to hire some really specialized talent that understands the unique specifications of treatment plants, and more particularly, understands the complex project and funding processes that these treatment plants follow. Our partnerships with national contractors has given us great access to these opportunities, as has our advocacy of the Design Build process, which is a newer, lower risk way to design and fund and execute these projects. Our treatment plant team now has an industry-leading 20 professionals certified by the Design- Build Institute of America. And finally, to the right, very similar to me, to the storm drain story I showed you a moment ago. If you're looking at plans for any construction site that moves dirt in the United States, there's an extensive call for erosion control products.
You would see that most visibly as silt fence, but there's a lot more to it than that. There's also a call for more permanent products like geotextiles, geogrids, retaining wall structures that are gonna hold that earth in place for the life of the project. Really excited about this. We're in very early innings. We've completed four acquisitions to begin the life of this initiative, and we've got a long way to go. So collectively, these three, just three of the ideas in the stack, give us an incremental $10 billion of addressable market opportunity. And as you can see from the numbers, we're in very early innings with a lot of runway. These things, and what I showed you on the prior page, is how we're gonna continue to drive growth in excess of market of 2%-4% each year.
Now, it's not always about the products that you carry. Sometimes you got to be conveniently located next to the work that's being done. And nobody knows better how to identify gaps on the map than our local field teams. With their insights and our market data, we have significantly expanded the geographic footprint of Core & Main since we became an independent company. It's hard for me to believe now, but we had right around 200 branches when we separated, and as you've heard today, we have 320. Now, how did we do that in just 6 years? Well, we start with greenfields, and greenfields are a great way to get into new geography, and we can do that really well because we have deep talent pools. We can attract and train people right away.
We have supplier relationships that let us stock up on the right product instantaneously, even if it's new geography. These branches don't cost a lot in terms of CapEx to open and operate, and our track record is excellent. The 20 greenfields we've started since 2017 have generated positive operating income within the first two years. Together, those 20 branches, even though some of them are quite new, are delivering right now $200 million in annual revenue. Since local relationships are often key to getting into these markets, sometimes bolt-on mergers and acquisitions are the right way to go, and you can see that in the numbers. Fortunately, M&A is something that we're very, very good at.
28 acquisitions have added another 95 branches to our footprint over that same period of time, and you'll get to hear a lot more about that from our business development leader, Jeff Giles, in a bit. But what I like about this is we take all the benefits of those product initiatives, and we compound it by continuing to enter under-penetrated geographies through a balance of greenfields and M&A. I want to transition a bit. I've talked a lot about how hard we work to grow the businesses, but to expand the margins, I say you've got to work smart. Now, gross margin, at its essence, is the spread between what you pay for the products that you sell and the price that you sell them at. Some people think, "Oh, you've got to be the low price provider to get the job," and that is definitely not true.
Most of the time, we can command our value with the price, and for that reason, we leave pricing decisions to the local field. But they're not alone. Behind them is a team of pricing analysts that run analytics across our extensive transaction set. And right in our systems, they get not only a recommended starting price, they get an indication of the margin sensitivity if they have to change the price. And we even give them our best guess as to what the competitor down the street, who lacks our scale, is paying for the same product. That way, they can make fully informed pricing decisions, whether they're prioritizing market share gains or their own margin expansion.
Now, on the buy side, you know, when you're sourcing product, our teams come in and leverage our national buying power to get us the best back-end programs and the best pricing right out of the gate. But as Jack mentioned, those deep supplier partnerships can also not only help us weather, but capitalize on unique situations that occur in the supply chain, like the disruptions that we experienced coming out of COVID, or more recently, all of the activity on price and price changes. Moving to the right, private label, just to say for now that you put yourself in the very best cost position if you become your own supplier. Now, this is a subject that I'm really passionate about, and I'm gonna talk about that a little bit more in just a moment.
But finally, dropping all of that gross margin through to the bottom line, it's all about operational excellence. We're lucky to have a very efficient cost structure already, and we make that cost structure even more efficient as we grow. And it's not for lack of effort. I teased in the intro that we have a legacy of digitization and innovation, and our field operators are not only seasoned and well-trained, but they're incentivized by their compensation plan to grow sales, to grow margin, and to grow EBITDA and improve cash flow. And for those reasons, they generate a ton of ideas, and Jessica Killion is going to talk to you how we take that immense set of inputs from our field and turn it into continuous innovation....
So all of this is what I'm talking about when I say work smart to expand margins, and it's why we're positioned to deliver continuous operating leverage for the years to come. Now, private label, as I said, an area that is very special to me. Whether you are directly sourcing commodity products like gaskets or nuts and bolts, or you're developing great brands of your own, like Trumbull municipal accessories or Gruvlok grooved fittings and couplings, or more recently for us, Earth Saver erosion control products, private label is a powerful lever to expand margins. We have already developed a substantial private label capability, and we deliver it to our branches through an internal master distribution network of five DCs and counting. Our brands are well-respected in the industry because we develop premium, not low-cost products, and we give them enhanced features wherever possible.
We constantly solicit feedback on the quality, the pricing, and the packaging of these products, and we aim to be the number one service provider to our branches every day. And best of all, we capture all of that incremental margin at the master distributor level. Now, as an engineer, I'm pretty passionate about this area because it not only involves product design, but I've personally gotten to travel to countless countries, and factories, and boundaries as we've established manufacturing partners with those that we trust to make our products. Now, I say that because private label is not easy. Anyone that tells you otherwise, I think is overstating it. But it is a powerful lever, and these products deliver 1.5-2x the margin profile of the products that they replace.
As Steve mentioned in his opening remarks, as good as we are, we're in very early innings. Maybe 2% of what we're selling today is private label. We see the opportunity as in excess of 10%, and every percentage point along that journey expands Core & Main EBITDA margins by 15-20 basis points. So I hope you can see and feel why I'm so excited about this business. We're built for growth. We are a perpetual motion machine of idea generation, and we've proven we can take the best of the best of those ideas, turn them into initiatives, and execute them at scale to drive growth in excess of market. Then we add sustainable margin enhancement to that mix with our capabilities to price, to source, to digitize, and to private label.
And then we compound it all with our geographic expansion through greenfields and M&A. To me, that is an exciting formula for growth. With that said, I'd like to introduce our Vice President of Corporate Development, Mr. Jeff Giles. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Jeff Giles, Vice President of Corporate Development for Core & Main. I appreciate you spending some time with us today to hear our unique and compelling story. And I'm excited to share why I believe we are incredibly well-positioned to continue driving value creation through M&A. I joined Core & Main almost six years ago to build out and lead our corporate development team with responsibility for M&A and strategic planning. I have almost two decades of M&A, business development, and strategic planning experience in both private equity and corporate environments. I began my post-MBA career at Emerson Electric in business development and strategic planning before transitioning into a series of private equity and corporate development roles. Most recently, I led corporate development for Barry-Wehmiller, a St.
Louis-based, privately held $3 billion global business, primarily focused on capital equipment manufacturing that is known for its people-centric culture. In the five years I was there, we nearly doubled the size of the company, primarily through acquisitions. Now, when I joined Core & Main, I was tasked with building out a world-class M&A organization and firmly establishing Core & Main as the acquirer of choice in our industry. We spent the last 5+ years striving to do just that. We aren't planning to stand still, as we have tremendous opportunity ahead to drive profitable growth through M&A. I'm thrilled to be here and to share with you what we've accomplished so far, along with a few key messages that highlight why we are so well-positioned for continued success in our M&A journey.
We built an experienced, motivated team, driving an M&A platform built around people and process that is highly refined and repeatable. In aggregate, my team has combined to complete over $2.5 billion in M&A throughout our careers. We have a robust pipeline of actionable opportunities, cultivated through years of research and analysis and relationship development, all in partnership with dozens of our field team leaders. Our approach is highly disciplined in terms of how we value businesses and select the right partners, as well as our approach to synergy, identification, and realization. And not only have we been the most active acquirer in our core markets, we have proven our ability to expand into complementary markets to increase our TAM and drive profitable growth. I'm incredibly proud of our strong track record of M&A.
As you've heard, we've completed 28 acquisitions since becoming an independent company in August 2017, adding nearly 100 branches, more than $1 billion in revenue, and generating over $225 million in incremental adjusted EBITDA. We completed our first acquisition as a standalone company just 2 months after our carve-out from HD Supply, when we acquired Minnesota Pipe, adding 3 branches to our footprint in Minnesota. You'll hear from one of the former owners and now a key leader in the region, Wade Baumberger, in our upcoming panel discussion.... As we moved into 2018, we continued to build out the team, refine our process, and started building momentum, completing 4 acquisitions, adding 4 branches.
In 2019, we added 27 branches through four acquisitions, including one of our largest in Long Island Pipe Supply, which transformed our fire protection business and brought us great talent and capabilities that launched our private label business, as Brad mentioned. Michael Moss, one of the former owners who now leads our private label business, is also with us today, and you'll hear from him in our upcoming panel discussion as well. Despite a short pause due to the uncertainty around COVID in 2020, we remained active, adding 15 branches through two acquisitions, including R&B Company, which is one of our largest and most strategic waterworks acquisitions, filling in key white space in Northern California.
After our brief COVID slowdown, we ramped up our volume again in 2021, completing five acquisitions that added 18 branches, including L&M Bag and Supply, our first major acquisition in the geosynthetics industry. We also acquired Pacific Pipe in 2021, based in Maui. We're fortunate to have the former owner, Ken Oda, here with us today, all the way from Maui, so he can share his personal story about bringing his people into the Core & Main family. Fortunately, Ken and the rest of our team members in Maui were not harmed in the tragic fires that impacted Lahaina, but we know many of the families weren't so lucky. Our thoughts and prayers remain with all those impacted, and we'll continue to do what we can to help them with their recovery and rebuilding.
We're grateful to have Ken here today in his capacity as an Area Director for Core & Main. 2022 was a record year from a volume standpoint as we acquired seven companies, adding 14 branches across the country, across waterworks, geosynthetics, and private label, including Trumbull Manufacturing, an iconic waterworks brand and now a key component of our private label business. So far, this year has been another productive one on the M&A front, as we've already completed 5 acquisitions, adding 14 branches, over $200 million in revenue. Most recently, we welcomed the JW D'Angelo Company team into the Core & Main family, which brought us even further great talent in California and great capabilities in both our core waterworks and fire protection businesses.
Clearly, we've accomplished a lot since 2017, and along the way, we have strengthened our M&A capabilities and created a highly refined and repeatable process, enabling us to deploy $1 billion on M&A in that time frame. At the outset, I mentioned our commitment to establishing Core & Main as the acquirer of choice in the industry, and I firmly believe our pace, volume, and the quality of the companies we've acquired warrants this accolade, but we certainly didn't get here by accident. This has been a purposeful approach, driven by a number of key factors. We leverage our strong reputation as a tough but fair competitor with the most knowledgeable and experienced associates in the industry. We've established an entrepreneurial pay-for-performance culture, supported by world-class training that differentiates us from our competitors and helps us attract and develop industry leaders.
You'll hear more on this from Laura when she dives into our people-first culture and our commitment to being the employer of choice in the industry. Our intense focus on people throughout the acquisition process enables us to ensure cultural alignment, which is one of our most critical filters. Our people are the most important part of our business, and we have built a process that provides a high-touch, empathy-driven approach to understanding the perspectives, feelings, and motivations of all associates we welcome into the Core & Main family.
We are acutely aware of how our soon-to-be new team members feel when they first hear their company is being acquired, and we're right there on day one to ensure we can deliver the appropriate messaging, answer their questions, directly address their concerns, and begin to share all the positives that go along with joining the Core & Main family, including the tremendous training and career advancement opportunities that generally didn't exist for them previously. Our large national footprint and capabilities are second to none, but what sets us apart. One of my first days on the job, almost 6 years ago, I was speaking with one of our long-tenured sales reps, who shared a story that really resonated with me and exemplifies our dedication to local service nationwide.
He was speaking with a longtime customer who had just read an article about Core & Main that referenced the 240-plus branches we had at the time. Well, apparently this came as a surprise as the customer shared they had no idea Core & Main was such a large national business, saying, "I've always thought of you as my local Core & Main branch down the street." That really resonated with me, because in a way, that's who we are. Our integration process and playbook are well-defined, scalable, and highly flexible based on the needs of each company that we welcome into the Core & Main family.
While our preference is generally to partner with management teams and owners and want to continue working for Core & Main post-close, and you'll meet a few great ones here shortly, but we can also accommodate scenarios where owners are only interested in a short transition period before riding off into the sunset. Because of our deep bench of experienced leaders, we are uniquely well-positioned to provide a solution like this. We're also happy to continue using the brands of companies we acquire, if there's value in the market or if it's important to recognize the legacy of the company that we're acquiring.
I've spoken a lot about process and how it's incredibly important to what we do, and one of my primary goals from day one was to establish a formal, disciplined process that is both repeatable and scalable, with a clear focus on a well-defined set of strategic and financial filters. We are highly focused on acquisitions that will increase our geographic footprint, augment our product portfolio, have strong cultural alignment, and of course, enhance our talent and capabilities through the addition of great people....We're focused on select critical infrastructure industries and fragmented markets that require a high degree of expertise and highly specified products. Our financial filters are straightforward and guide us to pursue the most attractive opportunities that exceed our return hurdles, are margin accretive through synergy realization, and have low CapEx requirements, allowing us to generate a high degree of free cash flow.
Our focused approach positions us incredibly well to continue our core market consolidation and expansion into complementary markets that provide profitable growth and margin enhancement opportunities. As I've shared, we have a process-driven approach to help us develop and capture a significant M&A pipeline opportunity. As Brad mentioned, our strategic planning process guides our action and sets our direction on which opportunities to pursue. But to do this successfully, we need good data. So one of my first priorities when structuring our strategic planning process was to build out a comprehensive market map, so we have a clear picture of the competitive landscape in our core markets, with granular data down to the district level.
Because of this, I believe we have the most detailed and accurate market-level data, thanks to the close collaboration with over a hundred field team members who are continuously involved in our target identification and market mapping exercises, which ensures we maintain a clear view of the opportunity in front of us. Our deal sourcing methodology leverages data and analytics, as well as the close collaboration I mentioned with our incredibly knowledgeable and experienced field team leadership. Through this work, we've developed a comprehensive proprietary database of acquisition targets, and we're building relationships with owners and management teams on a daily basis. While the majority of our deals have been and will continue to be proprietary, those that were in a formal auction were generally limited, and we came in as the preferred buyer.
I take great pride in the teams we've built that have accelerated our efforts, cementing M&A as an integral part of our growth story. We have dedicated M&A and integration teams in place with a strong track record of execution, working in close partnership with field leadership and functional teams. As we continue to identify opportunities to grow our TAM, we've rolled out our market mapping exercises across several complementary markets, leveraging our proven core market M&A playbook alongside highly customized third-party research needed to give us the detail we need to execute on our inorganic growth strategy. We've already made great progress with our expansion in geosynthetics, natural gas, and concrete structures, and we're continuously evaluating additional markets that align with our growth strategy.
Through all of this work, we've identified, contacted, and begun planting the seeds with hundreds of acquisition targets, which enables our relentless pursuit of a vast acquisition target universe. Our active deal pipeline generally consists of around 15 active opportunities at any given time, but not every opportunity is right, or at least not right now. On average, we review 50 or so opportunities annually, only pursuing those that align with our focus and pass our strategic financial filters. Given our track record and all the work we put into developing relationships with the owners of the hundreds of companies in our proprietary target database, we see a clear path to $1 billion of incremental revenue through M&A over the next 5 years, and significant runway to continue acquiring great companies that comprise our $40 billion fragmented industry.
Now, I've shared with you how we've achieved our position as the acquirer of choice in the industry with our intense focus on people and process. What I'm sure you really want to hear is how our M&A strategy creates value for our shareholders. Given our size and scale, we are optimally positioned to realize synergies through M&A, driving significant value creation. We primarily think about synergies in two ways: revenue and margin. On the revenue side, we've consistently proven our ability to drive above-market growth in companies we acquire through access to our functional support capabilities and our focus on operational excellence. The companies we acquire gain access to our broad array of products virtually overnight, given Core & Main's nationwide one-stop-shop offering.
On the margin side, we're able to migrate acquired companies to our preferred supplier programs, which can immediately add 100-300 basis points to the bottom line. We've proven our ability to achieve scalable growth on our existing cost base. Given our nationwide footprint, in some cases, we're able to optimize our branch footprint through consolidation, and our private label products provide opportunity for immediate pull-through. What I really love about our model is our ability to implement cost-saving initiatives to drive meaningful margin improvement without a focus on stripping out people or cutting costs that may put revenue at risk. We've proven our ability to create a real win-win scenario where 1+ 1 = three or more. As you've heard, we've acquired 28 companies, generating over $225 million in incremental Adjusted EBITDA, and I feel pretty good about that.
But what is even more compelling, as I just alluded to, is our ability to create value through synergies and operational excellence, which has allowed us to achieve an implied multiple of approximately 4-6x on a post-synergy basis. I'm incredibly proud of what we've built over the last 6+ years with the right people and process in place, and a sincere commitment to furthering our reputation as the acquirer of choice in the industry. And while we have accomplished a lot in a relatively short period of time, what is most exciting to me is the immense opportunity in front of us and the long runway for future acquisition growth, combined with our unique ability to drive immediate value creation through M&A. Thank you all for allowing me to share what I think is a pretty cool story.
And now, I'm thrilled to welcome our three special guests to the stage... Wade Baumberger, District Manager, Minnesota and North Dakota, and former owner of Minnesota Pipe. Michael Moss, Senior Director of Supply Chain, the man driving our private label initiative, and a former owner of Long Island Pipe Supply. And of course, Ken Oda, Area Director of Hawaii, and the former owner of Pacific Pipe Company. Welcome, gentlemen.
Hi.
Thanks for making the trip. Appreciate having you here. So, we're gonna start with a brief introduction from each of you, and then we'd love to hear a little bit about your interaction with Core & Main prior to the, you know, the acquisition, and just a little bit about your legacy companies. So, let's start with Wade.
Thank you. Wade Baumberger, I'm currently a district manager for Core & Main, and my responsibility is Minnesota and North Dakota. So prior to that, I was a partner and a president of a company called Minnesota Pipe and Equipment, that was founded in 1989, and had grown to three branches in the Minnesota market. I was a competitor of Core & Main's, and I knew Core & Main very well. I knew their... A lot of their people, met 'em at trade shows, had a respect for each other, and they were a great competitor. I mean, as far as a competitor goes anyway, so...
In the spring of 2017, my partner, he had been retired for a couple of years, and he came back from Florida after the winter, and we sat down, and he was finally deciding he wanted to figure out an exit strategy. And we had a few discussions, and it was a lot for my wife and I. My wife's also involved in this business and has been for her whole career also. And for us to take that on and buy him out, and plus try to continue our to grow our business was felt like a lot. So we made the decision that it was time for us to look at selling the business.
So we put the business up for sale and had a lot of interest, and I presented to private equity, I presented to national companies, independent companies, but Core & Main was... I knew who they were. They were the clear choice. I wanted-- It was a very important decision for me. I mean, I had a small company with 25 employees, and this decision was very important, that your employees are your family, they're your friends, they're who you spend your weekends with. That's what this business does to you, that your... They're your family. So it was really important for me to find the right partner, and I knew Core & Main was a leader of Waterworks, and I wanted to, I wanted to go with a company that I felt the most comfortable with for, for my people and, and myself.
I wanted to continue on, and I wanted to work with the best, so that's where we ended up.
Well, thank you for that, Wade. We're thrilled that you and Bonnie chose Core & Main and trusted us to bring your family into our family.
Thank you.
Happy to have you here. Michael, let's move on to you.
Yes. Good morning, everybody. Michael Moss, I am the Senior Director of Supply Chain. Some people at this company can say they've been here for 50 years, and I can proudly say I've been here for 50 months. Previously, I was with my family business, which was founded by my father, Robert Moss, in 1975, which was Long Island Pipe Supply. We were a fire protection fabricator and distributor, and we led in our markets with service, and what we had felt was industry-leading expertise up and down the roster of 350 or so employees, which ultimately led to remarkable growth. At the time we sold the business to Core & Main in July 2019, we had 22 locations spanning across 11 states. What made Long Island Pipe unique were two different business units.
The first, focused in domestic manufacturing, which is Albany Pipe and Nipple, and of course, our private label division, with global supply chain, capabilities. Now, in regards to our, relationship with Core & Main, prior, we were competitors. But I would say I would categorize it as a, a healthy competition. Core & Main definitely pushed us, as a regional business to continually enhance our product offering, our service level, and of course, our strategy.
Thank you for that, Michael. As we talked about, the Long Island Pipe acquisition was transformational for our fire protection business and brought us incredible capabilities in private label, which you're helping drive today, and we've got plenty of opportunity ahead there. Ken, how about you?
Well, good morning, everyone, and aloha from Hawaii. I've probably traveled the farthest, 5,000 miles and 11 hours away, and this guy traveled about 5 miles.
But it still took 2.5 hours.
That's right. I've been in the business, in this industry for the last 31 years. It's an incredible journey for me, and it's an opportunity that I just enjoy being in this industry. I have four locations in Hawaii, one island of Hawaii, on Maui, and also on the Big Island, and on Oahu. It's been a wonderful journey, just going through all the life cycles of opportunity for growth in Hawaii, and it's been a journey that I want to continue on.
Thank you for that, Ken, and we certainly want you to continue on as well. From the first day we met Ken and the team in Hawaii, it was immediately clear that the cultural and strategic fit was just incredibly strong, and it's really proven that so far, and we're just getting started.
Thank you.
Next question I'd like to ask, why did you choose to partner with Core & Main, and in your opinion, what do you think mrkes Core & Main the acquirer choice? Ken, we'll start with you on that.
So the biggest important part of making those big decisions on our side was really just the culture and opportunity for growth, specifically for Hawaii's growth and our people. So the culture side of it was really important on our side to how do we have that balance of values, that, how it correlated with Core & Main. It was collaborative teamwork that it checked off the box for Core & Main. It's mutual respect, checked off the box. It's abundant generosity that I've seen of what Core & Main is all about, just helping the coworkers, helping the community, and helping our customers. It's all those things that the value was so important for our family at Core & Main, which we call the Ohana. It was a mutual respect of understanding and getting a point across, of having ideas and having opportunities for growth.
When we looked at growth for our side, we generated. So it's my anniversary. It's been about two years since I'm Core & Main, and we increased our EBITDA by 65%, and I credit for Core & Main's opportunity for growth because of the new revenue stream we had from erosion control, wastewater treatment plants. We've never had the opportunity for that growth of different sectors in our industry itself. So it just gave us that opportunity, but also it gave us a lot of referrals also coming to Hawaii of national account, national contractors. So you had that opportunity for growth and expand and get better.
Yeah, thank you for that, Ken. Certainly a great story. We talked about the broad array of product offerings that we enable our acquired companies to take on. It's a perfect example there, and obviously, the success speaks for itself. But more importantly, the cultural fit has just been incredibly strong, and we're thrilled to have the new team as part of the Core & Main family. Michael, let's move on to you.
Yes, of course. As Ken mentioned, anniversary, you know, selling your business is sort of a very, you know, not sort of, it is a very big decision. It's sort of like getting married. So, Jeff, you've been married how many times?
28, I guess.
From a geographical perspective, Long Island Pipe was very complementary to Core & Main Fire Protection. Our business was concentrated in the upper Northeast, really in the New York metro area, where we filled a lot of the white space, which excited us, that we were able to bring value back to Core & Main. As a family, with our private label division, we always had this dream of having nationwide distribution. With joining forces with Core & Main, that gave us access overnight to, at that time, over 250 local branches. Partnering with Core & Main also gave us access to new product lines to better service our customers. For example, fire pumps, to name one.
But just partnering with Core & Main, not only was a great decision, you know, understanding the culture, and joining forces, but it just further entrenched our relationships with our customers, with that new added, expanded product offering.
Yeah, certainly. And as I mentioned, the acquisition has been transformational. You and your brother and your father were running a remarkable family-owned business and certainly could have kept doing that. But I think when we got together, during what was a relatively long courtship process, we all saw what the combination of the two companies could really build. Another one of those examples of one plus one is certainly more than three. So thank you again for selecting us. We're gonna move over to talk a little bit about the integration process and your experience with that, and whether or not it aligned with your expectations coming in. Wade, we'll start with you on that.
Well, the integration process is... That's the big challenge, right? I mean, we hear this, one plus one equals three, and Steve told me that very early on: "Wade, well, we bought your company, now, now I need you to go turn this one plus one into three." So I was like, "Well, what's this all about?" But I quickly understood what he wanted to happen here. So, you know, the first step was getting the two sales teams together. I felt that was the big challenge. You know, you have. They acquired our company, and we had two sales teams that were competitors, you know, so they didn't... As you understand, they're competitive people. Salespeople are very competitive, but we brought those two sales teams together. There was give and take.
They, the new team had to understand that, I was a new leader. They had to learn, you know, learn about me, and I think what they figured out... They got to see the passion that I had, and they knew that I was there to fight with them. I love the battle, and I love to win. So those integrating, that was the big key for us, I think. And then after that, we could find the synergies and start growing, figuring out how, where the synergies were and how we're gonna make one plus one equal three. And we did that with, you know, they had a St. Michael, Minnesota branch of Core & Main, has a fusion initiative, a big fusion tech team there, and they're amazing. We didn't have that at Minnesota Pipe.
They had a Sensus water meter line. You heard about the water meters and what goes on with that. That was not part of what Minnesota Pipe had, so that was a big add, another synergy. And tell you a little story about within a couple of months after we were acquired, I was at a trade show, and I ran into another independent, a guy that was running another independent waterworks company that I had known over the years, just like I knew a lot of the Core & Main people, and you exchange pleasantries. But he was kind of more . . . cornered me and asked me about what was going on, and how did this go with Minnesota Pipe? And pretty soon I could tell he was . . . he wanted a little more than that.
So we had more discussions, and pretty soon, within six months, I had brought him on board with Core & Main and six of his employees, and we started a brand-new branch in Fargo, North Dakota. So it was; it's kind of crazy how having even relationships with some competitors and being cordial to each other and being able to have a beer at a trade show can turn into something like that. So it was pretty amazing we were able to open up a new branch, and that's why I tell Steve one plus one really equaled four and approaching five.
There you go. Love that. You know, that's one of our favorite acquisitions that really wasn't an acquisition. We got a whole branch and a team through Wade's relationships, and it, it's just a great example of relationship development, again, success breeding success. So, excellent story there, Wade. Ken, if you could share a little bit about the integration process and how if that aligned with your expectations coming in?
Sure. So it was all about, for us, it was about being emotional comfort, trying to acquire or at least get the understanding of these, the integration staff of helping, caring, very authentic on Core & Main style. Their integration department, their team, is just first class. It was welcoming. It was, it was amazing. They did one-on-one interviews of just having to make sure all of our understanding of our... From the medical to all of our HR. It was incredible of what they've done, and I think it was such an important, 'cause that's right out of the gates, we had to move forward, and they just did a wonderful job.
Thank you. It's good to hear. We talked a lot about the importance of people and process, and certainly the people aspect of an acquisition is the most important. If you don't get that right, nothing's gonna go well. I can share that we had no shortage of people that wanted to sign up to help with the integration process in Hawaii there.
Yeah, and I'd like to add on to that. I mean, we were the first acquisition, and this had to be new for the Core & Main team and the integration people, and the fact that they were there, a lot of anxiety with my employees and, you know, I'd telling them, "I'm standing here with you," but just having the Core & Main team there at our branches, bringing that data across, and it was amazing that we could write orders and purchase orders and sales orders and take care of all of our legacy customers immediately from day one, you know. And so I just . . . They—that was really a great integration process.
Yeah. Well, thank you for that, Wade, and again, very purposeful. So, love to hear that it's working out. So obviously with acquisitions, there's a lot of change, right? Want to chat through some of the differences in your businesses following the acquisition, and then, like, really operating under Core & Main with our... Wade, let's start with you on that.
Well, you know, so I'm coming up on my sixth year, but a lot of the differences were some of, you know, the estimating, the synergies that the innovations team brought. They were more efficient. We were able to combine the two estimating teams into one instead of... So that was a synergy. We combined our treatment plants, we both had a treatment plant, into one, and now we are the undisputed leader in treatment plant business. We went from three stores to six stores in my Minnesota market and now grew North Dakota to two stores. But having six stores, you know, what-- why is that? What is so great about that? Well, what's great about that is your ability to service to our customers and the locations of these strategically placed branches.
I tried to strategically place my branches where I had an advantage or where I could service in growing communities, and maybe Core & Main or HD Supply didn't have a branch. But now we had six branches across a whole market, and when a contractor wins a bid, and you have a store that can service a project within miles of the project, it's a big deal. So that was one of the differences, and just the fact that we didn't have to... I, my wife and I didn't have to worry about AP and AR and all the training. I mean, that's a lot when you're trying to run your own independent business, and now you have all that support behind you, so we could focus on the operations and how to make our business grow and be more profitable.
I could help, you know, more time for me to work with the sales team, and that's what I love, selling and winning.
Yeah, thanks for that, Wade. Some great examples of, you know, we're not just buying companies for growth's sake, right? We're buying the right companies in the right geographic locations, bringing in the right people, the right teams, and then equipping with capabilities to improve their operations, with the ultimate goal of serving our customers in those local markets. Michael, let's hear from you.
Yeah. So, I would say one of the benefits has been the training and learning programs. It gives our employees the opportunity to grow within the organization, as well as better service our customers. As Wade mentioned, the support of the functional units, we don't have to worry about fleet or real estate. That's handled by all the corporate functional units and allows us to run our business more efficiently, as well as scale up. The continued investment in technology and innovation has been life-changing for our business. And most importantly, the unwavering commitment into the private label product offering. At the time we sold the business, we had roughly 2,500 SKUs, and we were really focused in fire protection at that point.
As we stand here today, we have, with our, now with our diversification into waterworks, we have nearly 8,000 SKUs. It gives you a little bit of an understanding of our growth of the last years.
I like the nice extra margin we're making on those valves.
... Thank you for that, Michael. Yeah, you touched on a few key things there. I mean, again, these were great entrepreneurially run businesses prior to us acquiring them, and they were doing a great job in their own right. But when combined with Core & Main, we're able to offer additional training and career development opportunities, innovation, software, tools, and products. So again, we're better together, and that's really one of the goals. Thank you for sharing that, Michael. So one final question for each of you. Obviously, all of you have been incredibly successful, part owners of a business that sold to us, didn't necessarily have to keep working, yet here you are. So Wade, we're going to start with you. What keeps you here at Core & Main?
Well, early on it was, you know, I wanted to... I didn't want to end my career just taking a check and walking away. I was young. I wanted to, I wanted to follow through. I appreciated that Core & Main believed in, in my company and was willing to, to give me a nice check and ask me to continue on and lead the team, and I wanted to lead the team. I wanted to be there for, for sure, for my employees who are my family, and then, look, you know, get to know the new family on the Core & Main side. And, you know, there's a lot of talk about culture and, and I'm sure companies that, that said all the time, but the crazy thing is, this is actually true. There is an amazing culture.
Competing with these guys and these sales guys that I knew, and the managers and the team at Core & Main, prior to HD Supply in my market, you had pleasantries, you knew each other, but now they're part of my team, I'm part of the whole team, and I've created all these new friends. It's... I'm afraid to walk away from it because it's your family and your friends, and you enjoy it, so.
Well, Wade, thank you for not walking away. You've provided tremendous value to us, and we're honored to welcome your family business into our family business. So thank you for that. Ken, how about you? What keeps you at Core & Main?
It's two things. It's for us, it's just for me to stay because the people and the entrepreneur spirit of Core & Main's style and how they do business. So it's going back to why I chose Core & Main in the first place. It's really Core & Main's family's culture and values. And it, it's example, even exactly what Wade was saying, it's we live and breathe every day about our culture, our values, and I'm so happy of that decision, and that's why I'm staying from a Core & Main standpoint. I enjoy the business. I enjoy the industry. What Wade was saying also, it is just part of the family. We celebrate our wins together. We see our family that is also part of Ohana outside of work.
It's just so enjoyable. The entrepreneur spirit side of being responsible for our P&Ls. So our district is responsible for P&Ls, and we're accountable for it, and I really enjoy that. Being entrepreneur and going back now to Core & Main, we're still responsible for P&Ls and making sure our EBITDA is at the highest level it can be, making sure our expenses are controlled. So it's been... I look forward to doing that on a daily basis also. The last thing I want to say on why I stay with Core & Main is how they view and they support our community, and this what the community on, and the thriving, growing our communities, and it's our help of Core & Main. We provide infrastructure for many generations, and it's the-- and it hits home for me.
I'm born and raised on Maui. With Lahaina's tragedy, we've got 2,200 structures that was destroyed, and 86% of those structures was homeowners. We want to be part of the solution. We want to help the community get back on schedule, get back and have that, have that opportunity to live in the Lahaina city. So I'm looking forward to helping the community. But I thank Core & Main also for making the donation as part of this event. It really hits home, and I love to help the Lahaina community get back on its feet.
Thank you for that, Ken. Yeah, certainly a tragedy, as we discussed, and our thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted. Of course, we'll continue to do everything in our power.
Thank you.
- to help rebuild that community. Thank you for putting your trust in us. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and your team, and
Thank you
... I'm glad you decided to stick around. Michael, last but not least, what keeps you at Core & Main?
All right. Well, Jeff, have you ever heard the philosophy, "Love what you do, and you'll never work a day in your life"? I was born in this industry. I grew up in this industry. However, sometimes family businesses can be challenging. I'll be the first to admit, I was nervous joining this organization. I didn't know what to expect. But as Wade and Ken have mentioned, the culture here is warm and welcoming, and I feel like this has been not only the perfect fit for myself, but my team. Brad and Steve have mentioned, private label is in the early innings, and I feel that I'm here to lead us through those innings to a perfect or a complete game. And I'm just excited to see, watch us scale that business.
And as Ken, you say, you may say it a little bit better, but we're one Ohana.
Yeah. Thank you. That's great.
Thank you for that, Michael. Yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure welcoming you and your brother and the broader team into the family, transforming fire protection and really as a rising star in our organization, Michael, and with you at the helm of our private label, I know we've got a bright future there.
Thank you. One last comment.
Sure, yeah.
You know, I just wanted to say, if I can turn back time, I wouldn't change a thing. It's been-
Ah, love it! ... What a great message to end on! Thank you all for being with us today, making the trip, and sharing your story. I know it helps to hear from someone who's actually lived it. So thank you all for that.
We were going to start singing, but they-
I'm now going to turn it over to Robyn to take it from here.
All right. Thank you for that. That was awesome. We will now take a short 10-minute break, so please be back in here by 10:55 for the second half of our presentation.
All right. Welcome back, everyone. We're gonna kick off the second half of our presentations with a short video, and then Laura Schneider, our CHRO, will take the stage.
When we do this, and we do it well, we really do blur the line between work and play. Our ability to work with not only our own associates, where they become like family members, whether it's bidding jobs, becomes a team effort and a rallying point. Winning those jobs gives reason for celebration, then executing the jobs, the reason for even more teamwork. When that happens, you build these bonds with your associates in those branches, with the folks in credit, folks in AP. It draws you in, makes you want to be part of it. I think it's so true about this industry, even more true about Core & Main.
When I look at that video each time, it just makes me so incredibly proud of our people and the impact that we have on our communities. Let's get back to business. Welcome back, everyone. I'm excited to kick off the second half of our Investor Day by addressing our culture, why it is unique, and why it is a competitive advantage. I'm Laura Schneider, CHRO, and I've been with Core & Main for over 12 years. Prior to my time here, I was with Anheuser-Busch InBev for 28 years, leading HR teams in manufacturing, sales, and distribution. You know, Jeff mentioned earlier that 35 water mains break every hour in the last hour, and I was thinking, "I sure hope it's not another one in my backyard." As Steve mentioned, our team has accelerated significant growth and change since 2017.
Spinning off from HD Supply, rebranding the company to Core & Main, taking the company public and completing 28 acquisitions, all the while consistently delivering profitable growth. Our people-first approach is our foundation and why we win, both now and into the future. Our culture is entrepreneurial, purpose-driven, and authentic, and it is our competitive advantage. So here's three reasons why. One, we are committed to being the employer of choice, attracting, retaining top talent, because we know that those with the best talent win. Our people-first approach sets us apart in the marketplace, and we strive to make the entire industry better by developing industry leaders across our 320 branches with local expertise nationwide. And three, our pay-for-performance philosophy aligns our business strategy with our financial objectives and drives an entrepreneurial mindset across local markets.
At Core & Main, we've remained steadfast on cultivating top talent to plan now and for the future. A people-first approach starts with attracting the best talent and striving to be a talent destination. I'd like to highlight some of our talent attraction initiatives on the left side of your slide. Our value proposition of bettering our communities by advancing reliable infrastructure authentically resonates with all generations. Candidates want purpose in their work, and we offer it. As Brad mentioned, we utilize local market knowledge to identify gaps in our service area and identify top sales talents to staff Greenfields and under-penetrated markets. We supplement that local market intelligence with sourcing tools and virtual talent communities for a broad reach. These tools, along with targeted veterans programs like Heroes Make America, help us cast the net wider to source a broad range of qualified and diverse candidates.
We believe in and support diversity because it is good for business, supporting innovation and reflecting the communities that we serve. As an example, we have more than doubled the representation of women on our senior leadership team since 2017. We'll talk more about training later, but it is a big attraction for talent. 87% of our associates tell us that learning is an important part of their daily work. Jeff talked about being the acquirer of choice. We're also committed to being the employer of choice. We're recognized as an industry leader for robust career development, and we've been named a top workplace for seven consecutive years in a row. We build trust and ownership through our family-oriented and performance-based compensation, and we incent associates to act like owners.
Our decentralized leadership approach is authentic and feels like a small local business, but with vast resources. Our associate-run Culture+ and Women's Network organizations demonstrate our commitment to diversity and the advancement of women in the industry. Our operating model is agile, and whether it is COVID, inflation, expanding into 2 new markets or product lines, or other changing market conditions, we are agile, and we can pivot quickly. We see that our approach is working because 85% of our associates recommend Core & Main as a great place to work, compared to a benchmark of 73%, and that's pretty significant. As Jack mentioned earlier, we offer not just a job, but a career in a winning people-first culture. Our culture and local experts are the backbone of our business.
We talked earlier, but we value experience at Core & Main, and our dedicated workforce of 4,500 associates has nearly doubled since 2017. We focus on retention and celebrate the tenure of our associates. Our average tenure at the manager and above level is 14 years, and we maintain an exceptional retention rate of 87%. Despite our significant growth and transformation, we've continued to improve our engagement scores year-over-year, with a 78% positive engagement score, up from 73% in the prior year. Because of our strong focus on development, we enhance external recruiting programs by growing our own internal talent. We identify feeder roles like operations managers or inside sales roles. We move high-potential talent through intentional career progression. These programs are strong retention tools in the long run.
Our structured early career programs, which you'll hear more about today, are in very high demand by our managers, and they deliver top talent to our outside sales and leadership tracks. But as demographics continue to shift, we continue to minimize our talent gaps through annual talent reviews and succession planning. Our leaders know firsthand the value of succession planning. As last year, we seamlessly transitioned four out of eight new regional vice presidents, accelerating their structured knowledge transfer without missing a beat. Maintaining a positive culture through significant change and growth is a constant effort, and we've created avenues where all associates have a voice, where they can give and receive feedback. Having a multifaceted listening strategy helps us measure how we're doing as leaders and allows us to address issues quickly.
Our strong retention enables knowledge sharing and continued growth, and as Jack and Brad often tell me, everyone in the industry knows that Core & Main is the place to be. We have demonstrated our commitment to building industry leaders. Our training is best in class and has been recognized as number 23 globally by Training Magazine. But what really sets us apart is our in-person training. Each year, we bring in over 700 associates into our training center to be immersed with senior leaders and other associates across the country. Our courses are designed and taught by top industry veterans, sharing best practices and driving innovation. Over 90 of them volunteer their time to mentor and give back to the organization.
Our people know more about fire hydrants and sprinklers than you can imagine, and that makes them great teachers, but you might not want to stand next to us at a cocktail party. These learning experiences are so much more than courses. They have been transformational for our business because they allow us to unify common goals and operating procedures, identify talent, successors, and career progress, communicate strategic initiatives quickly, like inventory rebalancing and the path towards undisputed leadership, solve problems in real time, and create cohorts with formal and informal mentors. COVID really forced us to think about training differently, and we have expanded our offerings to a wide breadth of training programs beyond in-person immersion to leadership academies, which are certificate programs, e-learning courses with over 65,000 completions last year, role-specific training for our operators and sales force, and hundreds of multi-level leadership and coaching programs.
When your people are highly trained and engaged, they are agile and confident, and have an entrepreneurial mindset to continuously improve. We continue to invest in our people because they are critical to driving profitable growth in a highly specialized, increasingly complex industry. Another unique aspect of our culture is our pay-for-performance philosophy. It incentivizes our associates to embrace a growth mindset of operational excellence, innovation, and value creation. Almost all of our associates, 90%, are on a performance-based compensation plan, and this is critical to our success because it aligns us on growth metrics, and it incentivizes them to act like owners and consistently go the extra mile for our customers. Leadership and branch incentive programs link compensation to the achievement of profitability and working capital efficiency. Sales plans drive profitable growth.
So whether you are a sales associate, a leader, or an individual contributor in a profit-sharing program, your actions align to the goals of the company and contribute to the bottom line. Our incentive compensation programs contribute to retention and recruitment of key associates. Our performance-based compensation is a key differentiator in our culture. So to close out, I have three things for you to take away today. First, we believe that those with the best talent win, and that is why we're committed to being the employer of choice to attract, develop, and retain talent. Two, as our industry continues to become more complex, we continue to be well-positioned to set the bar by providing well-trained industry leaders with local expertise nationwide. And finally, our pay-for-performance philosophy aligns strategy to our financial goals and drives ownership at all levels of the organization.
Each of these components is unique to our people-first culture, which is our foundation for profitable growth and our path towards undisputed leadership. Our culture is our competitive advantage. Now it's my pleasure to introduce Jessica Killion, Vice President of Strategic Operations.
Thanks, Laura. Good morning. I'm Jessica Killion. I lead our strategic operations function here at Core & Main. That includes our innovation, M&A integration, and our pricing and operational support teams. This week, I am celebrating my fifteenth year with Core & Main, and I've never been more proud to be a part of this great team. We continuously hunt for opportunities to improve our business and create a seamless experience for our customers. Today, I get to showcase some of the innovations that our size and our scale have allowed us to bring to our customers. You've heard a lot of references to innovation today throughout the presentations. To us, innovation means getting creative to solve business challenges. Sometimes that's through technology, other times it requires process changes or investments in resources.
But regardless the approach, our focus is always on these three things: driving profitable growth, enhancing our customer experience, and driving margin enhancement. To get started, I thought it would be helpful to take you through the life cycle of a project. You heard a lot today about some of our tools, so I'm hoping this can help you connect the dots and show you how our industry-leading tools have digitized this effort from start to finish. I need to point out that our customers are our contractors on these projects, and as you've seen in the video from earlier, they are incredibly busy people and rely on us to elevate and streamline each step in this process so they can focus on what they do best. I'm gonna start from left to right, so hang with me, please.
Projects start off with an engineer's drawings, blueprints, which we translate into a precise set of materials. We call this our estimating process. Sometimes we refer to it as our takeoffs, and the irony of calling it our estimating process is that there is no guesswork involved here. Our customers are relying on us to be incredibly precise, complete, and compliant with the local specifications of each municipality. We utilize state-of-the-art estimating software to create this list of materials, alongside a custom integration to our proprietary bidding solution. I'll cover these two steps in more detail here in a bit. Once our customers are awarded the projects, it takes us to our third step, our submittal process. This is where we're working with project engineers to prove that the materials we're going to supply are compliant with local specifications.
We're typically providing a large packet of manufacturer specification sheets, which the engineers will go through and review and approve. This is typically a very time-intensive process. Takes a lot of time for us and our customers, but it's critical because mistakes in this area can be very costly. Mistakes mean digging up and reinstalling material. So we innovated and introduced PowerDocs. PowerDocs is our proprietary submittal software that allows us to pull together these big packages, with hundreds of documents through the click of a button. Our associates love the simple use of the tool, and our customers love the very professional manner and packaging, which they can flip through and approve quickly. Once submittals are approved, we go to the fourth step, our delivery coordination. Step four is an iterative process, occurring many times through various phases of installation.
It's not typically a one-time delivery for projects. It is imperative that our communication throughout this process is excellent. Any delays in materials can result in our customers' crews sitting idle and delays in their construction schedule. For this, we utilize digital tools, providing our customers delivery text messages with our estimated time of arrival so that they can pre-prepare for the unloading and installation. Finally, we ensure our customers have all of the documentation they need to handle their funding submissions and manage their jobs, which they can access through our online customer portal. So you can see there's a lot going on here. Our digital solutions ensure excellent project execution, start to finish, positioning us as the partner of choice. I'm going to dive a bit deeper into our estimating process. So why is this so critical for our customers?
I mentioned our first step is our material takeoff, and this is where we're taking an engineer's set of drawings, and creating a comprehensive list of materials from this. We are not just responsible for measuring all of the lengths of pipe and counting the number of fittings, valves, and hydrants needing to be installed. Our customers are relying on us to ensure the material we're supplying is compliant and will pass local inspection. You heard Jack and Steve talk a lot about the importance of municipal specifications. This is where our expertise really shines. This knowledge is not found on a set of engineer's drawings. Drawings are focused on technical function. Sometimes drawings even contradict the requirements of local inspectors. So our customers are relying on us to get this right every time. How do we do this?
We utilize a digital takeoff tool called PlanSwift, alongside a custom integration to our proprietary bidding platform, PowerScope. Together, these two tools provide a unique custom solution tailored to our business, which serves two important purposes. First, we're able to pre-load our municipal specifications into this tool in order to ensure our takeoff is compliant. So when we go to count the number of hydrants for a project in the city of St. Louis, for example, we're tabulating the precise part number that meets the specifications for St. Louis, and we know it's going to comply. Second, the online interface allows us to zoom into an engineer's set of plans and easily take pipe length measurements very precisely, count the number of pipe valves and fittings. This is able then to be accurately priced and turned into a professional quote for our customers.
For many in this industry, this is an intensive paper, pencil, and ruler exercise that is error-prone and takes a considerable amount of time. Our custom tools have increased our efficiency by 100%, and we are not only faster, but we are more precise and more compliant. This is so critical because we are doing 350,000 bids per year, equating to about 1,400 per business day. This may be the only thing that happens more frequent than a water main break in our industry. The bottom line here is that our digital tools are enabling our customers to bid more projects and win more jobs, which in turn helps us win more customers. Besides winning more jobs, our tools enable our customers to be more efficient and more profitable.
The left side of our page highlights our advanced delivery tools, which provide our customers a mobile delivery app, provides our drivers a mobile delivery app, and provides our customers real-time visibility into our arrival times. When you go to order a pizza online, you can track its progress till it's delivered at your door, right? Our customers deserve these same privileges to help with job site coordination and their efficiencies. We coordinate over 800,000 deliveries per year on our own fleet of approximately 1,400 vehicles.... Every delivery is an opportunity to strengthen our customer relationships. Our digital tools are enabling our drivers to succeed in each and every one of these interactions, making them some of our best salespeople. The right side of our screen highlights Online Advantage, which is our proprietary customer portal. Timely information is critical in today's world.
It's important to you and I. It's what we've all grown accustomed to expect, and your customers are no different. They can log in to Online Advantage and obtain important documents such as invoices, proof of delivery photos, and review job status reports, which tell them what we've shipped so far on the job, what is left to ship, and they can review their release schedule, along with many other offerings. We are leading the industry in digital adoption by bringing modern technologies that we've grown to expect in our daily lives to this industry and to our customers. Our solutions are driving profitable growth for our customers and our company. In addition, our tools help us attract, experience, and high-quality talent. We love to see our newly acquired associates' eyes light up when they see the tools we have to offer them and their customers.
Before I wrap up my presentation, I wanted to touch on an area that is critical to drive margin expansion, and that is our focus on pricing. As you heard Brad mention, the ability to provide localized, market-specific pricing is an important part of our business. Our branches require autonomy to set pricing for their markets. They know it better than anyone else. This has some inherent challenges, though. You can imagine the complexity associated with establishing system pricing for 60,000 customers across 48 states, over 200,000 SKUs. We have millions of data points we're managing at any point in time. A few years ago, we innovated and invested in a model, creating a standardized or centralized team of pricing analysts to manage the data and system updates while allowing our branches the autonomy necessary to set their own pricing.
Our pricing analysts are an extension of and a strategic enabler for our branch teams. They are well integrated and leverage robust analytical tools to provide data, insights, and pricing optimization opportunities to help our branches make great decisions. This team was established just in time to navigate us through some of the volatile pricing environment our supply chain experienced over the last couple of years. Supplier cost increases were coming in at rates 4x higher than we had ever experienced, and we were able to come out on top and grow our margins by 600 basis points through that time. This was a huge win, but we are really just getting started. The tools and the capabilities we have built will continue to drive margin enhancement well into the future and serve as a key enabler on our path toward 15% Adjusted EBITDA margins.
So in wrapping this up, you can see that we are committed to ensuring every day we are better than the day before. We are laser-focused on providing a seamless experience for both our associates and our customers, which drives profitable growth and margin enhancement. We are proud of the work we're doing to lead our industry in digital adoption. We know we have something special here that really sets us apart. And now, I have the pleasure of turning the mic over to our final speaker, our CFO, my friend, and the wise man who hired me, Mark Witkowski.
Thank you, Jessica. Great job bringing our technology investments to life. I think you can see why I hired her. For those... And hey, thanks for everyone for being here today. It's really nice to see some familiar faces here in the audience. You know, for those that I haven't had the opportunity to meet yet, I'm Mark Witkowski. I'm the CFO for the last eight years and been with Core & Main for the last 16 years. During this time, we've achieved tremendous growth, enhanced our profitability, and generated significant cash flow. We also separated the company from HD Supply and took the company public in 2021.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our associates that have contributed to our success over this time period, including all of those associates across the country in our branches and our administrative associates that have contributed in so many ways, often behind the scenes. As I get started, just a few reminders of what you've heard about so far. You've heard about our vision for the business. You've heard about our significant and sustainable competitive advantages. You've heard about the opportunities and initiatives we're pursuing to drive long-term, profitable growth and margin enhancement. And you've heard about the significant value we create through M&A. With that perspective, I plan to cover how that translates to the following three topics. First, that we have a resilient business model with a track record of operational excellence, driving superior financial performance.
Second, that we have a proven playbook of repeatable value creation targets that drive long-term, profitable growth. And third, that we are a strong cash flow generator with substantial financial capacity to execute our growth strategy while returning capital to shareholders. I'm extremely excited about where we're headed, and I'm even more excited to be here sharing it all with you. I'll start by highlighting our significant accomplishments and superior financial performance over the past five years. It's important to understand our historical financial performance as it sets the stage for why we have confidence in our ability to achieve similar results over the next five years. Starting with net sales, which has grown at a compound annual rate of 20% since 2018, growing from $3.2 billion to just under $6.7 billion at the end of 2022.
Our end markets delivered roughly two percentage points of annual volume growth, despite seeing impacts from COVID during 2020. We delivered three points of annual above-market growth, resulting from our investments in new sales talent and expansion in under-penetrated geographies and product lines. We also drove additional share gains by demonstrating trust with our customers through operational excellence and by delivering products to them when and where they were needed. Post-COVID, we saw the supply of products in our sector become challenged due to raw material shortages and labor shortages at our suppliers. At the same time, we saw demand for our products increase, which drove additional shortages in product availability. As a leader in our sector, we worked closely with our customers to communicate the cost increases we were experiencing and the longer lead times.
This information, along with our preferred access to products, helped our customers complete projects successfully. The price increases we were able to pass along drove a portion of our net sales gains in 2021 and 2022. Prices have remained resilient while supply chains have improved in recent quarters. In addition to this organic growth, we also added $1 billion of net sales from acquisitions over this time horizon, contributing nearly four points of annual growth. We grew adjusted EBITDA over the last five years at an annual rate of 38% or nearly 2x the sales growth. Adjusted EBITDA margins expanded by 600 basis points from 8.1% to 14.1% at the end of fiscal 2022. That was through a combination of accretive M&A, the execution of our margin enhancement initiatives, and leveraging our cost structure as we grew.
We delivered this exceptional margin expansion despite making significant and critical investments over the last 5 years to operate as a standalone public company. During this period, we also reduced our net debt leverage from nearly 6x in 2018 to just under 1.5x at the end of 2022, creating significant capacity for us to reinvest in the business and return capital to shareholders. So far this year, we have deployed over $600 million back to shareholders through share repurchases. We benchmark this performance against other leading specialty distributors, and we believe our performance is best in class. This superior performance is a direct result of the hard work of our associates to advancing reliable infrastructure across the country. Our past performance and success didn't just happen. We have a culture of operational excellence that drives this performance across the business.
And as Laura mentioned earlier, the culture starts with a growth mindset and a pay-for-performance philosophy that aligns our business strategy to our financial objectives. Nearly all of our associates are compensated with metrics that drive profitable growth and cash flow generation. They are trained on the levers to drive performance, and they are rewarded when we achieve our objectives. This alignment, coupled with our strategic initiatives, has been a strong contributor to the performance we have achieved. With our historical performance as a backdrop, let's turn to the future and discuss what our business can produce on an ongoing basis. As you heard Steve earlier, our markets have grown in the low single-digit range historically, and we expect the fundamental demographic trends and drivers of growth in our end markets to continue. We expect multiyear tailwinds in the residential and non-residential end markets.
When coupled with healthy municipal budgets and the potential for significant federal proceeds, we believe end market growth over the long term will be two-four percentage points annually. We've also demonstrated a history of organic above-market growth, producing three points of market outperformance over the last five years. We believe that our capabilities and operational excellence will continue to drive organic above-market growth in the range of two-four points annually. Our M&A pipeline is healthy, and we continue to acquire businesses in our highly fragmented markets through bolt-on and complementary acquisitions, driving another two-four points of annual net sales growth. Collectively, our end markets, above-market growth capabilities, and M&A strategy result in total annual net sales growth in the range of 6%-12% annually.
In terms of margins, we expect to continue executing our margin initiatives, and we'll leverage our scale, productivity, and operational excellence to drive 30-50 basis points of Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion annually. We'll strive to do this while continuing to produce strong operating cash flow at a rate of 60%-70% of Adjusted EBITDA, underpinned by a strong balance sheet to provide robust capital deployment. As we dive into each of these targets in more detail, I'll start with our sales growth objectives. We have a clear path to $10 billion of net sales by 2028 by generating $1 billion of incremental growth from our end markets, $1 billion from organic above-market growth, and $1 billion from M&A. We expect our end markets to grow approximately 3% annually across this horizon.
Our municipal end market is expected to experience multiyear tailwinds, backed by resilient municipal spending to repair and upgrade our nation's aging infrastructure. We expect meaningful growth resulting from the proceeds available under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Residential and non-residential construction markets are expected to continue to benefit from demographic shifts, coupled with the undersupply of available lots and housing shortages that currently exist. In addition to market growth, we expect to drive organic above-market growth, and we believe we can achieve an additional $1 billion of net sales through the three ways that Brad mentioned earlier. First, we expect above-market growth from the adoption of new products and technology in our industry. For example, with smart meters and storm drainage technology and solutions.
Second, we expect above-market growth by making investments to expand into underpenetrated geographies through greenfields and continuing to train and add sales talent. And third, we expect above-market growth by driving the adoption of new or complementary products to our customers, like we've done with fusible HDPE solutions, treatment plant, and erosion control products. In addition to organically driving above-market growth, we expect another $1 billion of net sales from acquisitions over the next 5 years. We've developed strong M&A capabilities, as you've heard Jeff describe earlier. We have hundreds of potential targets that are sourced by our corporate development team in partnership with our local teams, and in many cases, they have decades of experience in this industry.
Our deep knowledge of the industry provides a significant competitive advantage as we execute our disciplined strategy to increase our geographic reach, expand our product portfolio, and bring in key talent. This disciplined approach, combined with synergy capabilities, drives significant value creation opportunities. The next component of our long-term financial targets is driving Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to 30-50 basis points annually. This equates to growing our margins by approximately 210 basis points from 2023 to 2028, reflecting Adjusted EBITDA margins of approximately 15% or $1.5 billion. We have several initiatives in place to drive margin improvement, which you've heard about earlier in the presentation. You've heard Brad talk about the opportunities for our margin expansion initiatives, including pricing analytics, sourcing optimization, private label expansion, and operational excellence.
You've heard Jessica talk about our focus on technology and innovation to operate more efficiently and drive productivity to offset inflation and leverage our fixed cost structure. We expect M&A to continue to drive margin expansion as we execute our acquisition strategy with clear and immediate synergies. Over this time horizon, we also expect to continue making several investments in SG&A to drive long-term growth and margin enhancement. In addition to the greenfield expansions, we will continue to invest in technology to ensure the modernization of our systems and processes. These investments include customer-facing and internal technologies to maintain and enhance our industry-leading platforms. Combined, these three initiatives are expected to expand margins by 30-50 basis points each year. The final component of our long-term value creation targets is generating operating cash flow conversion of 60%-70% of adjusted EBITDA.
One of the most underappreciated aspects of this business is our ability to convert profitability into strong operating cash flow. Over this five-year period, we expect to generate roughly $6 billion of adjusted EBITDA. We operate an asset-light model with working capital typically ranging from approximately 16%-18% of net sales. We expect our cash taxes to be 19%-20% of pre-tax income, and we have a significant portion of our debt locked at fixed interest rates, providing a relatively stable cash interest expense, estimated at $75 million annually. With these considerations in mind, we expect to deliver $3.5 billion-$4.5 billion of operating cash flows through fiscal 2028. That's consistent with our 60%-70% conversion target for adjusted EBITDA.
At a leverage target of approximately 2x Adjusted EBITDA, that provides another $2 billion of balance sheet capacity for capital deployment. With a total of $5.5 billion-$6.5 billion of capacity, we believe we will have ample capacity to drive our organic growth and M&A strategies you saw earlier, while still having excess capital to return back to shareholders through share repurchases or dividends. We'll use that available capital to drive organic growth and productivity, with continued investments in technology, facilities, and equipment at a rate of 0.5% of net sales. We expect to deploy around $1 billion over the next five years, executing our M&A strategy, and the balance of our capital will be available for potential repurchases or dividends. In the near term, we expect to remain flexible and will consider share repurchases when opportunities arise.
This may include share repurchases concurrently with secondary offerings by our largest shareholder. We're also evaluating the timing and the amount of an ordinary dividend program, and we'll consider various factors, including market conditions, available liquidity and cash flow, relative share price performance, and the progress on our other capital deployment priorities. We believe that the targets we've laid out here today create significant value creation opportunity. We are confident we have the right strategic initiatives and the team to deliver them locally and nationwide. Establishing appropriate targets is a combination of demonstrated historical success and continued investment in the business. Our strategy that you've heard here today gives us the confidence that we can continue to drive out performance and create value for shareholders. To close it out, we have a resilient business model and a track record of operational excellence, driving strong financial performance.
We have a proven playbook of repeatable value creation targets to drive long-term profitable growth, and we're a strong cash flow generator with significant financial capacity to execute our growth strategies while returning capital to shareholders. With that, let me invite Steve back up here for his closing remarks, and then we'll open up for questions. Thank you.
So you've had the opportunity to hear firsthand from our team on the history and track record of success, the differentiated industry structure, and the leadership position we have to move it forward. How we've overcome and thrived through COVID and supply chain hurdles to launch one of the most successful IPOs in 2021. Operationally outperforming the best-in-class specialty distributors that we have benchmarked ourselves against, to ultimately seeing our vision to take Core & Main to whole new levels of performance and shareholder value. So our operating model, fueled by a powerful entrepreneurial culture, operational excellence, and strong operating cash flow, this will continue to deliver exceptional results, and our runway is unlimited. So I've been here 15 years, and in that time, I have never been more excited or energized about the opportunity stack Core & Main has in front of us.
We have more levers than ever for driving growth and profitability. We have the cash flow generation to capture it and the leadership team to execute on it. With that, I want to thank all of our presenters today who did such a great job passionately presenting and demonstrating their expertise. I especially want to thank all of our investors that are attending today in person and virtually. Your time is precious, and we hope this gives you greater insight to Core & Main. Thank you, and we're going to move to Q&A here, and we'll take a minute to set up. Thanks.
All right, we'll now open it up for questions. If you have a question, raise your hand. We've got a couple of mic runners out there, so we'll get a microphone over to you. Please, when you get the mic, please say your name and the firm that you're with. Let's go first here to Anthony.
Hey, Anthony Pettinari, from Citi. Steve, you know, since you've IPO'd, you've had very strong kind of underlying demand and inflation, you know, helping price. I'm just wondering how you think the business could perform in a downturn, you know, just hypothetically, if we had a sharp recession or if, you know, muni or private markets came under pressure. If you could talk about kind of variability of the cost structure and maybe how you might perform versus previous cycles, previous downturns, or going back to the HD Supply days.
Yeah, sure. You know, certainly when I look at our operating performance and the resilience of the business model, you know, even during downturns, the municipal piece has held up incredibly strong. And I think we're really encouraged by what we see, not only with the opportunity there going forward, but we also look at, you know, historically, how things have changed. You know, the downturns that we're seeing right now, if you look at residential and non-residential, it's been such a smaller part of our business, and our business has still been resilient. And if you look through kind of the impact that it's had just in this last year, you're seeing volumes down, you know, really low single digits. And we think that's gonna...
We think while there could be some challenges in the future, long term, if you look at that five-year outlook, the housing demand, everything is really lined up well for us. So we may have a quarter or two, as you've seen in the, in the, you know, with many other companies in the past that have had some residential structure, but we don't see that, and we're preparing for growth. The other thing I'd just share with you from an operating standpoint is, you know, we heard—you heard a lot about our pay for performance and our compensation programs, and that works both ways. So when we go into a downturn, and we hunker down, you know, a lot of those metrics and that cost comes out automatically because we have so much variable cost associated with our employment base.
That's a big part of the flexibility that we have to be able to move quickly and adapt to market conditions should we get into something like that.
Thank you. Dave Manthey with Baird. First of all, thanks for the presentation. This was very helpful to get some of the color on the company. We appreciate it very much. Steve, my question for you is, in your presentation, you mentioned rate increases and additional funding to help municipalities upgrade their systems. And then you said something about a flywheel-
Effect.
- That'll help, that'll help fund that system. If you could talk about that. And then the second is a quick one, for Mark. Your operating cash flow conversion, I guess, it went from 55% to 65%, up to 60%-70%. Minor change, but if you could just talk about the reasons behind that.
Mark, you think about that one, and I'll get to it.
Got it.
Yeah. One of the unique characteristics about this infrastructure bill is the way it's structured today, particularly for the Clean Water Act. $55 billion will be dispersed by the EPA into each of the state's revolving funds. Those revolving funds are really meant for funding mechanisms for individual municipalities. As the municipalities start borrowing from that, with low interest loans, they pay back into that revolving fund. So it creates a regenerative source in which we should have years and years beyond the original disbursement of funding capability for those municipalities. It really is a flywheel effect. That money goes in and gets reused, specifically back into water projects, which should have a very long-term impact for our end markets.
Yeah, Dave, and on the operating cash flow, really, you know, a fairly minor adjustment that we made to it, you know, raising it from 55 to 65, up to 60%-70%. But it, it really reflects, I think, additional confidence we have in terms of the level of working capital that we need to carry going forward. We obviously made a lot of prudent investments into inventory during these supply chain challenges in 2020, really through 2022. And, we've made a lot of great progress here in the first half of 2023. It's given us more confidence about the level of cash flow generation we're going to have on an ongoing basis.
Matt?
Hey, Matt Bouley, Barclays. Thanks, guys, for all the detail today. My question's on the private label strategy. You know, I know you've brought on some brands with the acquisitions over the years, so maybe that's part of the answer. But my question is, you know, why has that private label penetration only been 2%? As you mentioned, other places, it might be more like 10%. You know, is there something structural in there? Is it something to do with the products that has, you know, prevented that? Is it just something you didn't really focus on in the past? So maybe kind of put that in context versus how you bring up to the 10%.
Brad, do you want to take a look?
Yeah. I, as I mentioned in my remarks today, I—you know, private label is not easy. I wanna say that. It's not something you do kind of from a spreadsheet, and that's why I think it hasn't really been tackled. We had had some, I would say, some early starts with it many, many years back. But when we acquired Long Island Pipe Supply, it gave us this nucleus, this great talent, Michael Moss and his team, and a good starter kit of products. And I think it just, at that time, we were independent from HD Supply, and we're really able to choose to invest in it, and that's what we've done.
We've seen its power, and I think there's a certain reluctance by, you know, certain people in our industry to embrace that at first, and then when they see what it can do, great products, great features, your own supply base inside your own company, it sort of caught fire, I would say. We just become even more committed as we go.
...And, having a team that understands global supply chain, manufacturing partnerships, and as Michael pointed out, some domestic operations that we even run ourselves, it's just given that ability with all the data we have, to say, "Where should we go next to minimally impact, like, our strategic partners, but go after product that's, you know, really perfectly suited to our private label distribution capabilities?" So you'll see that continue to grow.
Go ahead, Keith. It's right behind you.
Thanks. Keith Hughes, Truist. Question on the 2%-4% industry growth rate. Could you talk about how much IIJA is gonna add to that, and, is there any price in the 2%-4%?
Yeah, Keith, thanks for the question. You know, the 2%-4% annual end market growth we talked about is really volume-based. We're assuming kind of a neutral price environment over that five-year horizon. We may see it go up, a little bit here or there, down a little bit here or there. So it's really a volume target, and I would say, as we see more of that federal funding dollars release, that put us more at the higher end of that 2%-4% range. We've always felt like that would add about 1-2 points of additional growth to that municipal end market. So overall, I'd say it put us at the higher end of that end market growth if we see more and more of that money released.
If we go back in history, you showed on one of the charts where there was a contraction in spending in like the, I don't know, 2015-2018 period, something like that. What happened during that time in the market that there was a contraction? It's so unusual.
You know, I think the bigger question was, the municipalities at that time were not really reinvesting back into their infrastructure. You heard a lot about this patch, repair, and replace type thing. We just saw a lot of smaller projects going on back then. What we're seeing now is their ability to get rate has now gotten much better, and their ability to invest back into municipal infrastructure and their own operations has improved significantly. Access to funding has gotten better. All of those things have kind of given a little tailwind over the last 5-6 years. When we came out of COVID, we were seeing really strong municipal demand starting to build, and that's really held true. It's been really incredibly resilient through here.
Municipal budgets are strong, their access to capital is strong, and that gives us a lot of confidence as we go forward. And you throw on an IIJA bill like we see, that's just additional funding that's out there, which I think is gonna strengthen the long-term view that we see in municipal.
Thank you.
Let's go to Ryan in the back.
Thank you. It's Ryan Connors, North Coast Research. I wanna also say thanks for the presentation. Very well done, very well articulated. So I know Jeff's not on the stage there, but this might actually relate more to M&A. A question about sort of the complexity. You mentioned how many different suppliers you have, and, you know, you might have a sales team in one market saying, you know, "This metering brand is the best," and then that sales team, you know, a few miles across saying, "Hey, you gotta buy this metering brand." And when you, when you're buying different acquisitions, you know, how do you manage that complexity? Is there a goal to kind of unify into single-source suppliers in certain areas? Just curious about that, that quilted, supplier network.
Sure. I'll tackle this one. You know, part of the process that we look at when we look at, you know, different acquisition targets is exactly the alignment of certain product categories. And in some cases, some product categories may not align with, you know, what we're currently carrying. Some cases are complementary, and that's exactly why we do the acquisition. We did an acquisition in Colorado to get access to a meter line that we didn't have before. So in nearly every case, we look at that, and that's really done upfront to understand what the, what the benefits are of the different product line alignments that we have. And, you know, in some cases, there's some conflict, and what we, we generally deal with is what's the most prudent approach to go? We are not looking for one unified source across this country.
You've seen and you've heard over and over today about the varying specifications that happen at local levels. You know, having one source anywhere is, you know, really ties your hands on what you can do to grow this business. So we will look at each individual case, each individual product line, and we make a lot of decisions along those lines.
Let's go here in the middle, Glenn.
Brian Biros, Thompson Research. I wanted to ask about the cash conversion again. It's probably arguably just back to normal, but it's about double what it has been historically. That was arguably suppressed during COVID times. Does this allow you to change any capital allocation priorities or maybe accelerate something you haven't been able to do the past few years, as cash has been tied up in other initiatives?
Yeah. Thanks, Brian, for the question. You know, first, I think I'd take you back even further. As you look at this business and the amount of cash it's generated, this has always been a very strong free cash flow business, fairly low capital requirements to grow organically. That continues to be the model going forward. You know, the organic growth that we laid out, the 2%-4%, we can capture that with the 0.5% of net sales, in terms of, you know, capital deployment there. That is our number one priority for capital deployment. Second is that significant opportunity at, in our highly fragmented industry from an M&A standpoint. You know, again, we think we got about $1 billion there we can deploy over this period.
But yeah, that operating cash flow does allow us to not only do that, but also, as you've seen now, return capital to shareholders through share repurchases. And we think now, even longer term, given that operating cash flow, we'll have the opportunity to introduce dividends here at some point.
John?
Joe Ahlersmeyer at Deutsche Bank. Same topic. Just if you could talk to the level of confidence in the $1 billion to deploy, if you'd maybe characterize that more as aspirational or, a minimum that you'd look to target. And then if you actually had more opportunity than the $1 billion, would that come from the return cash to shareholders, or would you take up debt even further in that case?
Yeah, thanks for the question. You know, strong confidence in the M&A. You've seen us be a consistent deployer of capital on M&A since we've been a standalone public company. We have hundreds of opportunities out there. Jeff and his team, our local teams, do a phenomenal job building those relationships. These are long-term relationships that we've built. Nobody can really match that. That's what gives us the confidence that we are the acquirer of choice. We can continue to deploy capital that way. I don't see us needing to really make choices there in terms of the capital deployment. The organic growth will be number one, M&A will be number two, and given that confidence in the operating cash flow, we'll have plenty to deploy beyond that, I think, to back to shareholders.
Again, we'll do that through repurchases or dividends at the right time.
Let's go over to Mike.
Mike Dahl, RBC. Look, the long-term targets are clearly pretty compelling. I wanted to ask about cadence on margins, specifically. You know, Mark, I think you've articulated that in the near term, you viewed your gross margin more 25.5-26, which actually would still imply a little pressure beyond what you've guided to for fiscal 2023. So when you think about the cadence in this five-year horizon, are you raising your expectation for near-term normal on gross margins, or do you think we could kind of see a dip in 2024 and reacceleration into the out years in the plan?
Yeah. Thanks, Mike, for the question. You know, we've been pretty consistent in terms of, you know, how we've talked about the gross margins and some of the normalization that we expect there. You know, our focus today has really been on the long-term targets and the ability to generate that 30-50 basis points of EBITDA margin expansion. I'd say any further kind of normalization that may experience in 2023 or into 2024 is kind of embedded in that already. So, we believe that kind of 210 basis points that we laid out over that five-year period is what we can achieve with the initiatives that we have, which, you know, would include any normalization that could happen here as we finish the year.
The back.
Thanks. Hi, thanks for the question. My question is on these mega projects. Your market share is about 17%. Would you say within these mega projects, like chip plants, battery plants, your fair share should be higher because there are only two really big competitors out there? And any signs of early wins on some of these projects?
Yeah, you know, we really compete well in those projects because there's not a local distributor that can handle a lot of that emergency, urgent, demand that's happening in those projects. You know, in cases that we've done big projects before, like, you know, just take a Las Vegas Raiders Stadium, for example, we were able to supply all the fire protection products in there, miles and miles of fire protection pipe and sprinklers, because we're able to fabricate it across multiple locations, kit it, and get it on site. That's a huge value to these contractors out there. They're looking to move quickly, and they're looking for quick capacity, and they're looking for quick assembly. And those... That skill set lends in well to our operating capabilities on a nationwide footprint, for sure.
Go back to Mike.
I've got a question on digital. You know, I think across scale distribution, you're seeing now a proliferation of both proprietary and third-party sourced digital solutions. And you know, some of those your smaller competitors may be able to access, some of them might be more proprietary. Can you just go into a little more detail about, like, maybe what you think is the most proprietary part of what you're doing that can't be replicated, or also help us kind of quantify the magnitude of capital spend and ongoing investment that can help kind of frame the moat that you're building around there?
Yeah. I'll start that one off and hand it to Mark about kind of the investment cadence that we have. But that linkage that Jessica explained, going from a drawing into our quotation package through the filter of, "Are these the right products to meet the spec?" is something that's truly unique. And in our years and years of looking at this, there was never a third-party solution that was able to really meet the need. We began this process many, many years ago to digitize something that was really such a bespoke, sort of, you know, knowledge-based, pencil and paper-based process. I think that capturing that digitally, as we have masterfully done, I think Jessica pointed out we're doing, it's like 30,000 of those quotations a month.
It's a monumental achievement, and we don't believe anybody is even close on that. So that sets us up to not only give the exact correct product, as you heard, the automated submittal package, which has long been the last job anyone in the branch ever wants to tackle. All that stuff is now digital and super fast and super efficient, and it also produces a quality product that our customer can go and help win the job with. That professional package as their underpinning makes them tremendously confident to go in and quote themselves on that larger job. So, to me, that's one of the best pieces of technology we've developed.
...You know, what I'd say on the investment cadences, that we're continually evaluating our systems and processes. You know, you don't have people like Ken and Wade and Michael that want to win and not have best-in-class technology. So, we follow a lot of their lead to make sure that we're investing in the right technology so they can win locally. And, I think we've been very successful in that. A lot of that's been embedded in our SG&A run rate or capital rates, that we've had historically and are in our plans as we go forward to continue to make those investments.
We'll go back to Matt.
Hey, thanks. Matt Bouley, Barclays, again. So question on, on the, pricing analytics. You know, I, I guess stepping back, if you could sort of remind us what portion of your portfolio, from a pricing and inflation perspective, would you consider to be sort of more commodity-oriented, that might move a little more with the underlying commodity versus more finished goods? And then taking that kind of, you know, with, with some of these pricing initiatives, you know, how are you using those to help sort of manage, you know, limit the volatility you might see in your products versus those underlying commodities?
Yeah. Thanks, Matt. I'll take that one. You know, in terms of the mix and the products, we really think of the commodity products as more of some of the tubing products, some of the ancillary items that Brad mentioned earlier. Those tend to move with some underlying index. You know, for example, steel tubing can move with steel. You know, we had called that out at one point. So that's a relatively small portion of what we do. That's less than 5% of the business. The other products that you're starting to see here more in person, and they're large scale, pressure pipe, these are things that are more unique to this sector. You won't see those anywhere else you're out shopping. So those tend to move with more of a supply and demand characteristics in this industry.
I'd say from a pricing analytics standpoint, a lot of that comes down to how we bid the jobs and how we're going to market. So, some of the projects that we do are competitively bid, and our teams then have the information locally to be able to make those decisions to win and grow their margins locally. So we have a team around them to support them with a lot of data across the country, but that's really how we're using a lot of that data.
There's a lot of other opportunities where customers do come in, and they need product, and we can see where we're doing it really well across the country, where are we pricing optimally, and we use that team to help drive that part of the business to make sure we're capturing as much margin as we can throughout the year.
Hi, Pat Baumann from JP Morgan. One on the TAM. So you talk about, like, a $40 billion TAM, like, you're close to 20% share, I guess. But then you also show something about a $10 billion TAM on some specific opportunities in, like, HDPE, treatment plant, geosynthetics, where you have a smaller share. And then there's another slide on opportunities to expand the TAM, where you cite things like natural gas and concrete structures. Can you expand a little bit on the potential TAM expansion, where you have lower share, and is that gonna get a bigger portion of the M&A dollars? Or do you see kind of a balance between, like, core waterworks, TAM expansion? And then maybe secondarily, like, what's the thesis behind some of that TAM expansion opportunity? Like, why do you want to go into concrete structures, natural gas?
I don't know. Anything else you guys are looking at?
You want to talk about the TAM, then I'll talk about-
Sure. Yeah, Patrick, on the, you know, on the TAM that we laid out, you know, $40 billion, we've got about a 17% share. What we talked about in certain product categories, they're newer, they've been initiatives, and there's still significant opportunity to grow those. So things like, fire protection, the storm drainage area, you know, meters is kind of in that $10 billion that's a part of that $40 billion TAM today. We keep growing that. There's opportunity to get that share up. And then we've added some complementary, products as well, like geosynthetics and erosion control, also in the $40 billion that we've laid out, but share much lower, less than 5%, in some of those, product categories.
As we go forward, and we look at some other complementary areas, natural gas has been one of those, concrete structures. These are some more recent acquisitions that we've done. We're evaluating the success of those. They've been very successful for us, and as we decide to expand more into those and, deploy more of the capital to that, you'll see those opportunities actually expand that $40 billion for us. They're not included in that yet.
Yeah.
Back to Dave.
Thanks. Dave Manthey again. Brad, I wanted to ask you about, private label. You, you talked about private label being 1.5-2x better gross margin. I, I wonder, given that there are aspects of private label as it relates to sourcing and inventory and other, elements that, would get in the way of that profitability as it works its way down to EBITDA. Could you just talk about, from an EBITDA perspective, what we're talking about there? And then, second, on the target of 10%, just to get an idea of, of how to size that, does that represent the percentage of an average bid that you see that is sort of unspecified, or is it, is it actually larger than that, and this is just an interim target for you?
I don't want to get ahead of ourselves here, but just to give us an idea.
10's a big number already. Yeah, yeah.
... So, let me start out with that percentage piece. You know, we are still learning at this. In particular, we've gotten quite mature in fire protection, and that's where you know, really started from. We've started to enter the waterworks market and understand the degree of, you know, unspecified product. We're not here to develop, you know, proprietary products that compete with, you know, specified stuff from our key suppliers, but there's just an immense amount of room. And we've done a variety of spot checks on the sectors, on the average bid or the average product.
We've demonstrated in fire protection how you can sort of get yourself over a couple of key hurdles, like, "Hey, we really could do this kind of product." We just believe that 10% number is a great aspiration for us. It's very hard to get there. We see an opportunity to probably move that needle about a percentage point a year, and that's a lot of work and some key acquisitions, but we feel really good about our ability to do that. Now, as far as delivering that product and dropping that margin to EBITDA, that's actually a better story than you might think.
If the reason is, we have this master distribution company kind of within a company, and that doesn't really require a sales force that you might traditionally have, or the SG&A related to the level of marketing and other costs that you'd have if you were an independent supplier trying to sell to Core & Main. We sort of sell through our initiative work by education and so forth. So we can actually make the entire company more efficient, for example, by putting what used to be product from 10 or 15 different suppliers on a single order, single invoice. We can do milk runs with our tractor trailers out of our distribution centers and very efficiently deliver the product to the branches. So our conversion of that to EBITDA is actually accretive to the overall company, if you zoom in on that, master distribution level.
Yeah.
Go ahead, Keith.
Thanks. Keith Hughes, Truist. So you've seen just tremendous inflation in products, and if product prices, of course, come down. I'm not asking for a five-year prediction, but I am looking at the next three to four months. Are we at a detente, if you will, in terms of the effects of inflation? Is this gonna be more than, you know, what we viewed potentially normal moving forward?
Yeah, Keith, you know, great question. You know, obviously, you know, we'd love to have a crystal ball over the next five years. What I can say has happened is the supply chains in our space have improved over the last several quarters. Demand has stayed resilient in our, in our sector, and we've actually seen the, the pricing be pretty stable overall. Again, we sell a solution to our customers. That's been a very stable environment for us. If you go back historically, I always view the "Hey, what's happened in the past" as a likely indicator of the future. I'd say pricing in our industry has always been pretty stable. I've seen price come in a little bit each year.
You know, that's the probably the best, you know, prediction you could look at as you look out over the next five years. Again, we're assuming it's kind of a neutral environment in our outlook, but we've been very pleased with what we've seen here over the last several quarters as that supply side has improved and the stability of the pricing that we've seen.
Okay, thanks.
All right. I think that wraps us up. That concludes our Q&A session, our Investor Day presentation, and the webcast. Thank you all for joining us today. We're so glad you could make it.