My name is Becky, and I will be your operator today. All lines will be muted throughout the presentation portion of the call, with a chance for Q&A at the end. If you wish to ask a question in this time, please press star, followed by one on your telephone keypads. I will now hand over to your host, Brian Lantz, to begin. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Ferguson's Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. Today's call will also cover an update on our market opportunity and strategy. Hopefully, you've had a chance to review the earnings announcement we issued this morning. The announcement is available in the investor section of our corporate website and on our SEC Filings webpage.
A recording of this call will be made available later today. I want to remind everyone that some of our statements today may be forward-looking and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, including the various risks and uncertainties discussed in our Form 10-K, available on the SEC's website. Any forward-looking statements represent the company's expectations only as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update these statements.
In addition, on today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. All references to operating profit, operating margin, diluted earnings per share, effective tax rate, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization reflect certain non-GAAP adjustments. Please refer to the appendix of the accompanying presentation for additional information regarding those non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures.
Please note that some of the information discussed on this call is derived from third-party sources. We have not independently verified this data and make no representation as to the accuracy of this data, nor do we undertake to update such data after the date of this presentation. Please refer to the accompanying presentation for additional information. With me on the call today are Kevin Murphy, our CEO, and Bill Brundage, our CFO. I will now turn the call over to Kevin.
Thank you, Brian. Welcome everyone to Ferguson's conference call. Before we begin, we'd like to flag something from this morning's release. I'd like to congratulate Brian on his decision to retire in May and thank him for his significant contribution to Ferguson over the past five years. He has been instrumental in our transition from the United Kingdom to the United States, in setting up our New York Stock Exchange listing, and in establishing a strong Investor Relations presence here in the U.S. We're also pleased to announce that Pete Kennedy has been promoted to Vice President of Investor Relations, based out of our headquarters in Virginia. He's been with Ferguson for more than 10 years, initially in finance, in the past seven years within Investor Relations. Thank you both. Again, congratulations, Brian.
Moving back to today's call, we'll initially cover highlights of our recent performance and our calendar 2026 guidance before moving on to a broader update on how we are uniquely positioned to provide essential water and air solutions for the complex needs of the specialized professional, looking specifically at how our scale and capabilities, combined with multi-year market opportunities, allow us to continue outperforming the market and deliver shareholder value over the longer term. We'll have time to take your questions at the end. Turning to our full year performance, our associates delivered another strong year while faced with a challenging market. Revenue of $31.3 billion was 5% ahead of last year.
The actions we took to diligently manage gross margins and streamline our business resulted in operating profit of $3 billion, up 11.3% and represents a 9.6% operating margin for the calendar year. Diluted earnings per share came in at $10.58, a 13.4 increase over last year. Cash generation was strong, with $2.2 billion of operating cash flow, which allowed us to continue investing in our growth areas and executing our capital allocation priorities. We welcomed associates from eight acquisitions, continuing our strategy of consolidating our fragmented markets, while also returning $1.6 billion to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases during the year. We continued to deliver a strong overall return on capital of 31% for the year.
We're also pleased to declare a quarterly dividend of $0.89, which will be paid in April. Despite the challenging environment, we drove continued outperformance in our markets and delivered strong profit expansion in calendar year 2025. Turning to our performance by end markets in the United States, net sales grew by 5%. Residential end markets, representing approximately half of revenue, remain challenged. New residential housing starts and permit activity were down on the prior year, and repair, maintenance, and improvement work also remained soft. Overall, we continued to outperform weak markets, with residential revenue flat for the year. Non-residential end markets performed better than residential. Our scale, expertise, multi-customer group approach, and value-added solutions drove strong share gains, with non-residential revenue up 11%. Large capital project activity remains good, and we've seen solid shipments with growth in open order volumes and bidding activity.
Our intentional, balanced approach to end markets continues to position us well. Moving next to the full-year revenue performance across our customer groups in the U.S. We grew Waterworks revenues by 13% as our highly diversified customer group saw strength across large capital projects, public works, general, municipal, and metering technology, offsetting weakness in residential. Ferguson Home grew 1% in a challenging new construction and remodel market. Our ability to present a unified experience, combining best-in-class showrooms with a digital experience as we cater to higher-end projects, drove outperformance against the broader market. Residential trade plumbing declined by 3% due to headwinds in both new construction and RMI construction. HVAC declined by 1% against a strong 10% comparable and weaker end markets, impacted by the industry's transition to new efficiency standards and weak new residential construction activity, as well as a pressured consumer.
We remain pleased with our execution of our counter build-out for the dual trade, our greenfield expansion, and M&A opportunities. The commercial mechanical customer group grew 18% on top of a 5% prior year comparable, driven by large capital projects such as data centers, and partially offset by weaker activity in traditional non-residential projects. Our fire and fabrication, facility supply, and industrial customer groups all saw growth during the year as we take share and leverage the benefits of our unique multi-customer group approach. Our customer groups are better together as we share expertise to provide end-to-end solutions that help simplify complex projects and drive construction productivity. Now, let me pass the call over to Bill for the financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, everyone. Calendar year 2025 net sales of $31.3 billion were 5% ahead of last year, driven by organic revenue growth of 4.5% and acquisition growth of 1%, partially offset by 0.4% from one fewer sales day and 0.1% from the combined adverse impact of foreign exchange rates and a divestment in Canada. Price inflation was low single digits for the year, with improvement in finished goods pricing offset by deflation in certain commodity-related product categories. Gross margin of 31% increased 70 basis points over last year, driven by our associates' disciplined execution, as well as the timing and extent of supplier price increases.
Operating profit of $3 billion was up 11.3%, delivering a 9.6% operating margin with 50 basis points of expansion over the prior year. Diluted earnings per share of $10.58 was 13.4% above last year, driven by operating profit growth and the impact of share repurchases. Our balance sheet remains strong at 1.1 times net debt to EBITDA. Turning to the calendar fourth quarter results. Net sales of $7.5 billion were 3.6% ahead of last year, driven by organic revenue growth of 3% and acquisition growth of 0.9%, partially offset by 0.3% from the combined adverse impact of foreign exchange rates and a divestment in Canada. Price inflation was low to mid-single digits.
Gross margin of 30.6% increased 90 basis points over last year. Operating profit of $625 million was up 13.8%, delivering an 8.3% operating margin with 70 basis points of expansion over the prior year. Diluted earnings per share of $2.10 was 11.7% above last year, driven principally by operating profit growth. Moving next to our calendar fourth quarter revenue performance across our customer groups in the U.S. Many of the trends that Kevin highlighted for the full year have remained consistent during the quarter. We've continued to see strong Waterworks growth, up 9% on top of a 10% growth comparable. Commercial mechanical also saw a strong performance, with 18% growth against a 5% growth comparable.
The more residential-exposed customer groups have been more pressured due to weaker markets. Ferguson Home was flat, residential trade plumbing was down 4%, and HVAC was down 7% against a very strong 16% comparable. We're pleased with the continued growth of fire and fabrication, facility supply, and industrial as we rounded out the year. Across our two end markets, our residential revenue was down 2%, and non-residential revenue was up 10% in the quarter. Once again, our multi-customer group approach and balanced end market exposure continue to serve us well. Moving next to our cash flow performance for the year. EBITDA of $3.2 billion was $338 million ahead of prior year.
Working capital investments of $294 million were up from $106 million in the prior year, as we selectively invested to support growth areas in the business. Interest and tax remained broadly stable year-over-year, resulting in operating cash flow of $2.2 billion, up $110 million on prior year. We continued to invest in organic growth through CapEx, investing $354 million during the year, resulting in free cash flow of $1.9 billion, compared to $1.8 billion in the prior year. We also invested $276 million in M&A, returned $656 million to shareholders in dividends, and repurchased 4.5 million of our shares for $902 million during the year.
Turning to our calendar 2026 guidance. While our markets remain mixed as we enter 2026, we expect another year of outperformance, strong operational execution, and continued investment to expand our market-leading capabilities and scale. We expect markets to be broadly flat for the year, with residential down low to mid-single digits and non-residential up low to mid-single digits. Against this backdrop, we expect low to mid-single-digit revenue growth, and we expect an operating margin range of 9.4%-9.8%.
Interest expense is expected to be approximately $200 million. We estimate CapEx of approximately $350 million-$400 million, and we continue to expect an effective tax rate of approximately 26%. We believe we are well positioned as we head into the new calendar year. Now, let me pass the call back to Kevin to give an update on our market opportunities and strategy.
Thank you, Bill. Moving on to our update on market opportunities and strategy. Our goal today is to provide a clear view of who Ferguson is, our core strengths, and the structural trends that we believe will drive continued market growth over the medium and long term. Ferguson is the largest value-added distributor of essential water and air solutions. We are proud to partner with our customers as they build and maintain the infrastructure that keeps North America running on projects big and small, in communities across the country. Together, our residential and non-residential construction markets represent a $340 billion market opportunity. Even with our current size and scale, there are still tremendous growth opportunities ahead. Our intentionally balanced business mix allows us to capitalize on the full spectrum of demand across our markets.
Our balance of 50% residential and 50% non-residential, with 2/3 repair, maintenance, and improvement and 1/3 new construction, help provide durability and resilience regardless of market conditions. Our strategy is built on a foundation of core strengths that allow us to leverage our size and scale to provide exceptional service in our local markets, as this is an intensely local business. Our business strategy is aligned with structural trends that are shaping the North American construction market in the short, medium, and long term. We're well-positioned to take advantage of these structural tailwinds to deliver a strong and consistent financial performance. Ferguson is operating from a position of strength today, and our business model will allow us to continue to compound growth and deliver shareholder value.
One of our most powerful differentiators is our ability to integrate across multiple customer groups and provide products and solutions across the full life cycle of water and air applications, from water treatment and transmission to stormwater management, to plumbing and HVAC systems, to industrial pipe, valve, and fittings, fire suppression, and much more. Our associates collaborate as experts on the entirety of the project, partnering with our customers in early stages of the design and engineering process. We aid decision-making while providing products and solutions throughout the life cycle of the project, whether new construction or RMI. Our comprehensive water and air expertise allow us to help simplify complexity for our customers and provide end-to-end solutions that our communities rely on every day. The ability to deliver these solutions is made possible by where we are positioned in the broader supply chain.
We connect 37,000 suppliers with over 1 million customers, providing them with choice of over 1 million products, all delivered through our extensive supply chain network. We strive to be the best path to market for our suppliers. Our scale allows us to offer customers more product options with shorter lead times and convenient delivery options. Our relationships in the local market ensure our customers receive the right product at the right time from people they like and trust. Additionally, our markets are highly fragmented, with more than 10,000 small and mid-sized competitors serving individual geographies or specific customer types. This creates opportunity for consolidation and reinforces the relevance of our scale in enabling us to deliver differentiated value to both customers and suppliers.
The projects we support demand the expertise of specialized professionals, plumbers, HVAC technicians, waterworks contractors, fire protection installers, commercial mechanical contractors, and the many skilled trades that keep water flowing, buildings functioning, and essential infrastructure operating across North America. The tangible value we provide is even more important when you consider the environment our customers are operating in, essentially, a trade-starved world. Skilled labor is increasingly scarce. Demand continues to rise, and the pressure on contractors to do more with less has never been greater. As these labor pressures intensify, our ability to unlock productivity becomes even more valuable to the over a million customers that we serve. Our job is to make their job easier. We help the industry overcome these challenges and unlock construction productivity through our ability to deliver the right products, the right solutions, guided by our people, when and where our customers need them.
Our strategic footprint puts 95% of our customers within 60 miles of a Ferguson location and allows us to deliver same day or next day. Our product strategy includes access to over 1 million products with a multi-brand offering in almost every major category. This includes 21 own brands that make up approximately 10% of our overall revenue and span multiple product categories across our customer groups. The backbone of our business is the 35,000 associates that bring deep industry knowledge, technical expertise, and strong long-term customer relationships. Our trainee program is designed to build a solid pipeline of talent, and our culture emphasizes long-term career development and an unrelenting commitment to service. Our multi-customer group strategy allows us to serve customers and have a greater impact on the entire project, whether it's a multi million-dollar data center or a residential remodel.
We currently hold leading positions in the markets that we serve. We believe we are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the growth opportunities created when these groups come together on large, more complex jobs that are tailor-made for our business, jobs that require scale, product breadth, and the ability to coordinate across multiple trades. For our customer, it means fewer handoffs, fewer delays, tighter coordination, and a level of integration that drives meaningful construction productivity. In a trade-starved world, our customers don't just need product, they need productivity, and that's exactly what our value-added solutions deliver. We're continually looking for ways to save our customers time on the job and deepen our partnership with them based on the unique needs of that project.
We have intentionally added or expanded services like virtual design and construction, custom fabrication, and valve automation to streamline design, bidding, ordering, staging, and overall project management. Our digital tools give customers the ability to transact with us 24/7, making it easy to do business with us when and wherever they need. Shifting to a more macro view, we've identified four structural trends that are shaping the residential and non-residential markets. Large capital projects, water infrastructure, climate and comfort, and aging and underbuilt housing, each represent fundamental trends that are tailwinds for our business and catalysts for future growth. We are well positioned to capitalize on these trends, providing a foundation for long-term, consistent, above-market growth.
Across the U.S., we're in the middle of a once-in-a-generation build-out of large capital projects, with more than 4,000 projects planned through 2031 and an estimated $6 trillion of projected spend. This represents a potential market opportunity across our customer groups of approximately $90 billion. Data centers, semiconductor facilities, advanced manufacturing, energy, biotech. These are long-cycle, high-complexity projects that require the very best in water and air solutions. The demand we're seeing for these types of projects goes beyond incentives. It's demand from onshoring, reshoring, GLP-1 production, AI infrastructure, and power generation, demand that we believe will continue well into the future. We're not securing these jobs by being a distributor, moving boxes from point A to point B. It's because of the value Ferguson can uniquely bring to projects of this size and scale.
From our multi-customer group expertise and our speed of our supply chain to full project management capabilities and value-added solutions. These projects are tailor-made for Ferguson. As an example, this data center project demanded scale, highly technical precision, and coordination across multiple trades. We partnered with the general contractor and the contractor on the virtual model design and led the development of the liquid cooling build strategy in early stages of the project. Our skilled associates are using industry-leading fabrication technology to preassemble the custom design piping system. This project will deliver 5,700 liquid cooling assemblies, 57,000 valves, 12 mi of copper pipe, and over 19 mi of water and fire lines. To date, we've generated over $40 million in revenue, with over $100 million in open orders.
By combining the expertise and capabilities of our four specialized customer groups with our project management capabilities, we will seamlessly support coordination and execution throughout every phase of the project, both on and off-site. As we shift to water infrastructure, the reality is America's water systems are aging, underfunded, and in need of modernization. Significant investment is required to upgrade and replace critical water, wastewater, and stormwater infrastructure. Our Waterworks business engages early in the project with both public and private utilities, as well as engineers, to offer solutions for the entire life cycle of water, from collection and treatment to transmission and distribution. We're also on the forefront of smart technology in the water space, providing the metering, monitoring, and intelligent infrastructure tools that help utilities manage usage, detect leaks, and improve efficiency.
Wherever water flows, we play a vital role, and we're well positioned to take advantage of one of the most durable, high priorities, and essential needs in the country with scale, capabilities, and customer reach to lead it. Warmer summers, higher cooling loads, changing regulations, and rising expectations for indoor comfort. It's changing how we heat, cool, and ventilate our homes and buildings. We don't see this as a one-season trend, but as a long-term shift in how climate systems are being designed, installed, and serviced. Demand is moving more toward efficient equipment, smarter systems, and dual trade capabilities that blend HVAC and plumbing. Consolidation in the industry has led to larger multi-trade businesses with broader footprints and the need for a partner that understands this evolution and can scale with them.
Ferguson now has over 650 full-service, dual trade, HVAC, and plumbing locations that offer broad access to multiple equipment lines, parts, and supplies, and includes Ferguson's own brand products, as well as national partnerships with the industry's leading manufacturers. We continue to invest in additional counter expansion, greenfield locations, and M&A to drive further growth while expanding our digital tools to help our customers be more productive. We view climate and comfort as a durable structural growth driver for Ferguson, and our investment initiatives, along with our strong position in both HVAC and plumbing, provide us with a unique opportunity to capitalize on this industry evolution. While the residential market remains challenged in the short term, we believe the combination of aging housing stock and a housing shortage underpins strong demand over the longer term.
The average home in America is now more than four decades old, and we're still millions of units short of meeting our current demand. That gap isn't closing quickly. It's a long-term challenge and a long-term opportunity. Older homes need repair, they need replacements, they need upgrades, and when new homes are built, they require everything from water delivery and metering to rough and finish plumbing, to HVAC, appliances, lighting, and in some cases, residential fire protection. Ferguson is uniquely positioned to serve both new construction and repair, maintenance, and improvement through our multi-customer group approach. At Ferguson Home, we combine a nationwide builder sales force, best-in-class showroom experience, and a strong, connected digital experience to serve builders, remodelers, designers, architects, and homeowners. These customers value our personalized, consultative approach to design and product selection, and we're known for our strong relationship-driven approach.
Once again, with our multi-customer group approach, we're poised to take advantage of a residential recovery. Ferguson combines the reach, resources, and capabilities of North America's largest value-added distributor, serving the water and air specialized professional, with the speed, relationships, and decision-making of a local partner. It's how we leverage our scale, earn trust in the local market, and drive organic growth while also helping our customers be more productive in today's trade-starved world.
When you look at it, the favorable long-term structural trends in front of us, our strategy, capabilities, and value-added solutions position us to take advantage of the demand created by these tailwinds. These are multiyear, multi-decade opportunities where we believe Ferguson is uniquely positioned to lead. The result is a sustainable business model that's designed to deliver strong, consistent financial performance, driven by above-market organic growth. I'll now hand over to Bill, who will expand on our financial opportunity.
Thank you, Kevin. You've heard today about who we are, how we win, and the significant opportunities ahead of us. At our foundation, we have a long-term, proven track record of consistent execution and strong financial performance. Looking back over the past decade, we've generated annual revenue growth of 8%, with operating profit growth of 11% and operating margin expansion of 210 basis points to 9.6%. Over this time, our sustainable business model, with balanced end market exposure, has proven an ability to perform against a wide range of market conditions, from a more steady market growth period to a hyperinflationary, supply chain constrained period, to a deflationary period with a more challenging market in recent years.
Through this time, we've reached record sales of $31.3 billion, record operating profit of $3 billion, and a new level of operating margin, while delivering a 545% total shareholder return. We've done this while generating strong cash flow and cash conversion. We take a disciplined approach to working capital investment, balancing the growth needs of the business while continuing to optimize our supply chain network. Over the past five fiscal years, we've generated approximately $9 billion in operating cash flow, with an operating cash flow to net income conversion of 107%. We allocate that cash across four clear capital priorities. First and foremost, we make the investments necessary to drive above-market organic growth. Next, we invest in bolt-on geographic and capability acquisitions. We've moved this up in our allocation framework ahead of the dividend.
While we've not had to choose between acquisitions and sustainably growing our dividend, we believe this repositioning more appropriately reflects our growth focus and the returns we can generate for shareholders on quality acquisitions. Next, we look to sustainably grow the dividend over time. Finally, if we're below the low end of our target leverage range of one to two times net debt to EBITDA, we return capital to shareholders via share repurchases. That consistency of capital allocation has enhanced growth and shareholder value. Over the past five fiscal years, we've deployed nearly $12 billion of capital, and we've done this while driving strong returns on capital and maintaining a strong balance sheet that will provide great resilience should we encounter a tougher economic cycle, and also optionality to further invest as opportunities arise. Turning now to acquisitions.
We have a proven track record of success buying quality businesses in our highly fragmented markets. Over the past five fiscal years, we've completed over 50 acquisitions, bringing in over $2 billion of revenue and accounting for just under 2% of our annual growth over that period. We acquire these companies at attractive multiples, then leverage our scale to drive revenue, gross margin, and operating cost synergies to generate strong returns. Our strategy targets two types of bolt-on acquisitions. First, geographic, which allow us to expand and fill in our existing footprint, consolidate our markets, and bring in local associate expertise and customer relationships. We have a repeatable process that allows us to quickly integrate these acquisitions, leverage our scale, and generate synergies.
In addition to geographic opportunities, we look for capability acquisitions, in which we bring in new products, new value-added solutions, associate expertise, and new vendor relationships that we can leverage across our platform. In both cases, while we're acquiring physical assets, such as locations, trucks, and inventory, the real gain we have is from the people, their expertise, and the customer and vendor relationships they bring into our business. We spend significant time evaluating cultural fit and alignment of values to support successful acquisitions. As we look forward, our pipeline remains healthy, and acquisitions will continue to be a core component of our growth focus. Turning to our financial opportunity in the future. We are, and will continue to be, an organic growth-first company.
Historically, our markets have outgrown GDP. We believe a reasonable expectation of market growth over the long term is approximately 2%-4% a year, and we will continue to take share and outpace these markets. We've demonstrated a track record of above-market organic growth. We believe our market-leading capabilities and favorable structural trends will drive continued above-market growth in the range of 300-400 basis points a year. We'll continue to consolidate our fragmented markets through acquisitions, driving a further 1%-3% incremental annual growth. Our markets, our overmarket growth, and our acquisition strategy collectively result in a total annual growth expectation over the long term in the range of 6%-11%. In addition to continued growth, we have a wide variety of initiatives focused on driving sustainable margin expansion.
We're utilizing analytics and dynamic pricing tools to enhance project bids and quotes while tailoring pricing based on segment, service level, and job complexity. We're expanding value-added solutions and ensuring that we charge for that value. We guide our customers to the right product for their project. In doing so, we can drive higher-margin products, leveraging our vendor partnerships, and in some cases, own brand, to enhance overall gross margins. We're focused on improving the productivity of our operations, leveraging technology and AI to drive labor and cost productivity. We're further investing in and optimizing our supply chain network and automation to drive efficiencies to reduce the cost to serve our customers. As we invest in these areas, we expect to incrementally expand our operating margins over time. As we bring all this together, we will continue to execute our growth and improvement strategy.
Over the long term, we expect revenue growth rates of 6%-11%, combined with flow-through in the range of 11%-14%, resulting in operating margin expansion of roughly 10-30 basis points a year. As we do this, we will continue to deliver strong cash flow and cash conversion. We'll remain disciplined in the deployment of that cash across our four capital priorities, all while maintaining a strong balance sheet. Collectively, this will drive continued strong earnings per share growth, which we estimate would be in the low double digit to mid-teens range.
To give a sense of our growth trajectory, we believe the combination of our large, fragmented, and growing markets, our ability to deploy scale locally, our ability to capitalize on structural market trends, and our disciplined approach to capital allocation will propel us over the medium term to deliver our next milestone of $40 billion in revenue with over $4 billion in adjusted operating profit at over a 10% operating margin. We have laid a firm foundation and believe we are strongly positioned to continue generating additional shareholder value. Thank you again for your time, and now let me hand it back to Kevin to wrap up.
Thank you, Bill. Ferguson is North America's largest value-added distributor of essential water and air solutions, from water treatment and transmission to stormwater management, to plumbing and HVAC systems, to industrial pipe, valves and fittings, fire suppression, and more. We operate in large, fragmented, and growing markets. We believe our business is well positioned to take advantage of durable, long-term structural trends across large capital projects, water, climate, and housing.
What differentiates us is a set of core strengths that allow us to win in the marketplace while driving construction productivity for our customers. Scale deployed locally, a multi-customer group approach, and a strong combination of supply chain capabilities, value-added solutions, and expert associates. This has resulted in a long track record of growth and outperformance, and combined with our disciplined capital allocation, positions us to compound growth and drive shareholder returns over the medium and long term. Thank you for your time. Bill and I are happy to take your questions.
We will now begin our Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now. If you feel your question has been answered or for any reason you would like to remove yourself from the queue, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your device is unmuted locally. Our first question comes from Philip Ng from Jefferies. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Congrats, Pete and Brian, and then Kevin, thanks for all the great color in terms of how you guys are positioned longer term. I mean, I think-
Thanks.
-has been standing out in your really strong performance the past year is certainly the non-res capital project side of things. Give us a little more color on how you're thinking about the outgrowth in that category when we think about 2026. Are you starting to see share gains there accelerate? Give us a little perspective in when you bid for these projects, is that competitive landscape pretty limited? Just because I would figure there's not a lot of competitors have that ability, or that's not even how the process works. I mean, you foster a relationship where it's pretty sticky, it's really just you in some of these projects.
Yeah, thank you, Phil. Thank you for both the comments as well as the question. When we look at large capital construction projects, it really does take a structural trend that is very attractive and put it together with what our business strategy has been over the past 5+ years, as we've looked to develop a multi-customer group approach, bring scale to best local relationships, and then engage earlier in the project to help with the design process so that we can deliver the right product at the right time on budget. All that's come together well. Is there a competitive dynamic that's different than the general market that we compete in from a non-residential perspective? Slightly.
We still compete with great local competitors in every one of our different customer groups. We think that we offer something different collectively as we engage with the GC, the owner, and we think we bring something different when you talk about the supply chain being able to deliver on those local relationships. Additionally, what we've seen, especially in the data center market, is the need to complement some of the activities of the contractor base in areas like fabrication, valve and automation, and offsite construction, to make sure that they can deliver on that project on time. The competitive landscape, albeit different, is very much attractive for the business model that we've built. People ask us all the time about the large capital construction project tailwind. When that goes away, what does that mean?
It really is a new way of operating for us as a company that we think will serve us well for decades to come. Phil, you're seeing that in the growth rates on non-res over the last three quarters, you know, three quarters in a row of double-digit growth rates. Back to the multi-customer group approach, as Kevin outlined, you know, real strength in not only the commercial mechanical business, up 18% in the quarter, up 18% for the calendar year, but also in the waterworks business, up 9% in the quarter and 13% for the year. Really seeing that strength play across that multi-customer group approach.
Okay, super. Question for you, Bill. The outlook for 2026, top line looks really good. Margins look quite good, but you're calling for more flattish margins. You typically do see some sort of flow-through with organic growth. Are there any things that you wanna call out from an investment standpoint that you're making that could mitigate some of these gains from a top-line standpoint, or there's mixed dynamics perhaps we're not really appreciating?
Yeah, maybe to give a little bit of context and color on it. First off, if you take a step back, Phil, we grew the operating margin of the business from 9.1% in calendar 2024 to 9.6% in calendar 2025. We had a 50 basis point, very strong step up during the year. As we went throughout the year, we did highlight that we had some outsized gross margin quarters, driven by the timing and extent of supplier price increases that came through the middle part of the year. We flagged that there was gonna be some normalization on that gross margin. That's what you've seen as we've stepped through the back half of the calendar year. For the full year, we delivered 31% gross margins.
As we exited the year, you saw that gross margin come back into a more normalized range at about 30.6%. If you just roll that forward into next year, there's gonna be a little bit of year-over-year gross margin compression, which we tried to flag as we went through those summer months, as that being a bit of an outsized gain. There'll be a touch of gross margin pressure. We do expect to generate good SG&A leverage to offset that. Of course, we've provided a range of operating margin outcomes, so 9.4%-9.8%. The top end and the bottom end of that range are largely gonna be bookended and driven by what kind of market we find ourselves operating in.
If we find ourselves operating in a bit of a stronger market and growth is a bit on the higher end of our expectation, we would expect to expand those operating margins and get a little bit more SG&A leverage. Then if markets are a bit weaker, we'd expect to be towards the bottom end of that range. Regardless, when you take a step back and you look at the progression of the operating margin of this business over time, we continue to improve it over the long term, and that's our expectation as we look forward.
Okay. Really appreciate the color, Bill.
Thanks, Phil.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Sam Reid from Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thanks so much, guys. Brian, congrats on the forthcoming retirement.
Thank you.
Awesome. Yeah, just wanted to stick on the EBIT topic here for a second. Looking at your long-term growth target on top line, I believe it's 6%-11%. You know, just wanna contextualize that in the context of your long-term EBIT margin expansion outlook, and maybe talk to how EBIT margins look over the long term in a scenario where growth tracks at the low end or below the low end of that top line growth target. Just wanna think through, you know, how EBIT could look, let's just say, if growth doesn't always cooperate. Thanks.
Yeah, sure, Sam. Thanks for the question. To your point, we've provided that long-term growth algorithm of 6%-11%, and if we're within that range, we expect to expand those operating margins in that roughly 10-30 basis points a year range. Look, if growth is a bit lower than that, certainly there are continued investments that we make in the business. Certainly, there's a bit of wage inflation that we expect to have in the business. Generally, we say, if we're growing in the low single-digit range, we will work very hard and can kind of hold serve on operating margin.
When you get to that mid-single-digit growth range, we can generally generate a touch of SG&A leverage, and then when you get it, obviously into that, call it mid-single-digit to low double-digit range, that's the growth algorithm. That's where we get a bit more flow-through and operating cost leverage. You know, certainly we're continuing to add value-added services and solutions, and so we do expect each of our businesses, each of our customer groups to incrementally grow those gross margins over time. Clearly, we expect the progression of operating margins, as I said earlier, to be expansionary as we look forward over the medium to long term.
As we've said, we believe that as the specialized professional in the trades for water and air continues to be pressured from a headcount perspective and growth of those trades, productivity inside the construction space is gonna become even more paramount. If we can add those value-added services that Bill referenced, we believe that we can expand our gross margins over time because we're more valuable to the supply chain as a whole.
That helps, guys. Maybe one, let's call it, bigger picture question here. You know, it looks like the business is about 1/3 new construction today. I believe you've brought that down over the last decade, and by comparison, also brought your mix of RMI up as well, which is great. What I'd love to hear, though, would be the split, that 1/3 new construction between residential and non-residential, just so we have a rough sense as to how much of your business is being driven by new commercial construction. Maybe contrast that with the new build channel on the resi side. Thanks.
Yeah, Sam, it's broadly similar across residential and non-residential in terms of that 1/3, 2/3 split. Today, to your point, there's probably a touch more new construction, slightly higher than 1/3 on the non-residential, just given the large capital projects. A lot of the work that we're doing, in the non-res space, particularly when you look at things like waterworks infrastructure, is still repair, replace, remodel.
That helps. I'll pass it on. Thanks!
Thanks, Sam.
Thank you. Our next question is from Ryan Merkel, from William Blair. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Hey, everyone, thanks for the question. My first question is just on calendar first quarter. If sales is trending in that low single digit to mid single digit range, or, you know, we've had a bit of weather, and I know the new resi construction is soft. Just a little clarity on what you're seeing would be helpful.
Ryan, to date, in the Q1 , revenue has been a touch weaker than Q4. We're trending in that low single-digit range. To your point, we're continuing to face that new residential weakness along with a bit of HVAC pressure. Look, while we never want to blame the weather, there's certainly been some year-over-year negative impact from the number of severe storms that we've seen in January and February. A touch softer at the start of the year than Q4, but we expect modest improvement in growth as we move throughout the year, and that's embedded in our low to mid-single digit guidance for the full calendar year.
Got it. All right. That's helpful. My second question is on the 2026 guide. It looks like volumes are kind of up in that 1% range, so correct me if that's not correct. Could you just talk about, you did 5% volume growth in 2025. Frame for us why it's a bit slower as you're thinking about 2026. I realize the market is muted, yeah, just talk about why the volumes are a bit slower in the outlook.
To your point, with a low to mid-single digit overall revenue guidance, look, there's very little acquisition tail in that, so the vast majority of that is organic. From a planning assumption perspective, and it's really hard to predict, but we are expecting, call it, low single digit inflation, so that does imply a little bit of volume growth through the calendar year. It really goes back to why has that stepped down from last year?
It goes back to those same headwinds that we're facing, particularly early in the year on new residential, along with HVAC, and then a touch of weather at the start of the year. We would still expect volume growth, but maybe a bit on the lighter side, versus last year, again, driven by that resi pressure, as we're still seeing good, strong volume growth on non-res.
Yeah, and clearly, we are seeing across the market, the pressure on movement to repair versus replace on the HVAC side of the world when it comes to equipment sales. We enter the calendar year with that pressure, that we think will start to alleviate as we go through the calendar year.
Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Thank you. Our next question is from Keith Hughes, from Truist. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. This question on pricing, with the tariffs changing, are you anticipating any price pressure, assuming tariffs fall away on some of the imported goods as you progress through the year?
Yeah, Keith, I mean, the short answer is, thank you for the question. Sitting here today, we don't anticipate deflation. We continue to see normal annual price increase announcements across our finished goods spectrum. If you recall, when we had deflation back in 2023 and 2024, that was driven by commodities, not finished goods. As we've said, you know, earlier, PVC pipe still remains in deflationary territory, but we have seen a mild step up in inflation across finished goods.
If you go back to some previous quarters when we were talking about tariff impact, we told you that the vast majority, if not all of the realized price increases that we saw, were not attributable to tariffs, but were part of, like, a normalized price increase environment after what was really several quarters of flat or deflating pressure. In fact, as you know, going back to that commodity side, during 2023 and 2024, we experienced six straight quarters of deflation. We're not s itting here today anticipating deflation.
Okay, great. I guess, kind of a little bit long-term question. You had the four pillars of growth. Waterworks was one of them. If you could talk about what kind of growth you would expect out of the sector, and then maybe your growth on top of that over the next several years. What, what role does it play in the 6%-11% that you highlighted as your long-term growth goals?
Maybe I'll take a step back, Keith, and just talk about why we are bullish on that trend and the business generally. If I take our business, we have worked very hard to make sure that we have a diversified waterworks business. Coming from a place years ago, where we were very much a new residential construction business, to one that is broadly based in residential, commercial, public works, water, wastewater treatment, soil stabilization, stormwater management.
That's served us very well. As we look out, not only is waterworks a key component to large capital projects, and we are performing well with that multi-customer group approach and how we're driving up funnel, but we're also seeing when you think about data center activity that's out there today, there is a knock-on effect for power generation needs as well as water.
When you look at water and wastewater treatment and what that investment looks like, that is a very good place for, again, that diversified Waterworks business. We think the public works side of our Waterworks business will be a strong tailwind for us as we go forward and set up well for the company.
When you say diversified waterworks, do you mean both fresh and wastewater, or what exactly is entailed in that?
I mean, transmission mains and the reinvestment in transmission and distribution, water and wastewater treatment plant construction, as well as rehabilitation. What we look at in controls, pumps, and process equipment inside of those water and wastewater treatment plants. As we see that moving maybe to even private installations adjacent to data center construction. There are good tailwinds that are out there that play well to the business.
Final thing on that, you're really talking about a combining of the traditional wastewater with some of your commercial and industrial capabilities. Is that what I'm hearing in what you just listed out?
That, and in addition, new product categories that expand the addressable market and allow us to be involved in specifying complex projects that would normally not lend themselves well to distribution.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Thank you, Keith.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Matthew Bouley, from Barclays. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions, and congrats to Brian and Pete. On non-residential, you know, really helpful color there. You updated the TAM for large capital projects to $90 billion. I think it was $50 billion a couple of years ago. My question is maybe just kind of link that with the next 12 months, your non-residential guidance for low to mid-single digit in 2026. You know, you just grew 10% in Q4.
Obviously, everything you're saying today, it sounds like that portion of non-res continues to be strong. Is this just sort of tougher comps, kind of light commercial activity, a little bit choppy? You know, is there scope to maybe outperform that low to mid-single digits as you look out, kind of giving, you know, in light of that large capital projects business? Thank you.
Yeah, thanks for the question, Matt. When you look at our guidance and on the low to mid-single digit growth for non-residential, that is our market guide, clearly. That does assume that large capital project strength is still there. To your point, light commercial, traditional non-res is still a bit pressured as we go through the year. Against that backdrop, we do continue to expect to outperform that market. Not to repeat everything that we've said today, but we do believe we're well positioned to continue outperforming that market given our investments and the multi-customer group approach.
As you look forward to what does that mean for actual growth rates for us on non-res as we go through calendar 2026, certainly there is some reality to those tougher comps. I just talked about earlier, three quarters in a row of low double digit to mid double digit, or to mid-teens growth rates that we're going to comp against. Regardless of that, we are expecting strong non-res growth out of our business. When you take a step back further, our open orders and our backlogs are continuing to build, particularly in the commercial mechanical space as well as the Waterworks space. We feel pretty optimistic about another strong year out of our non-res customer groups.
Perfect. Okay, that's very helpful color. Yes, the expectation is to continue to outperform that market guide. Perfect. I wanted to ask the second question on M&A. I think you did basically 1% in 2025. Obviously, you're talking about 1%-3% going forward. I guess, just if you look back, kind of what drove you towards the lower end of that in 2025, you know, in terms of target availability, anything along those lines? When you look at these, I think you said 100 top targets, you know, where are you focusing that M&A investment by customer group? Where is it you want to continue to lean into? Thank you.
Yeah, if you look at the historically on M&A, we highlighted this throughout the prepared comments, you know, we've delivered roughly 50 acquisitions over the last five years, roughly 2%. Certainly over the last 12 - 18 months, that delivery, the number of deals that we've executed, has been a bit on the lighter side.
Our pipeline still remains extremely healthy. We're still very bullish about our opportunity to consolidate our markets. Quite frankly, with M&A, sometimes you just can't control the timing, what assets are available, when those assets come to market. As we look forward, we do expect calendar 2026 to be a more active year from an M&A perspective than what we had in calendar 2025.
It's fair to say that we have a pretty full pipeline right now of opportunities that are out there. If you look across our customer groups and where our focus areas are, although all of our customer groups are growth engine businesses, as we look at them, we have a fairly good focus on the residential side of our house within the HVAC space as we look to build out our capabilities, build out our equipment brands across the country, and build out those local relationships.
On the non-residential side of the house, we are focused on those areas of capabilities that we can then leverage across the nation and across our customer groups to add construction productivity, areas like fabrication, valve and automation, process equipment, and applied services. There's a good pipeline that's ahead of us, both on the non-res side as well as on HVAC, on the residential side.
Great. Thanks, guys. Good luck.
Thanks. Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Michael Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions and the mini investor day here. Okay, obviously, some of these long-term dynamics, your growth algorithm, the opportunities, it's all really compelling. I think if I had to maybe critique or question one thing, the opportunity set has grown so dramatically over the past few years, and your capabilities have improved so much.
Your execution's been great, when we think about all these large capital projects, the HVAC and water. If I compare your set of midterm expectations today versus your virtual investor day in 2022, all of those assumptions are largely similar. I think growth is actually a touch lower. The margin assumptions are pretty similar. I think the question would be, you know, why are they similar?
What are some of the puts and takes and things that have kind of held you back on, maybe even stronger growth outside of, you know, obviously, the near-term macro or more specifically, margin progression? I would think some of the scale benefits your margins even more so over time, given how things are evolved. Maybe just walk us through how you thought about that.
Yeah, sure, Mike. When you take a step back and you look at the overall growth algorithm, certainly what underpins that is the assumption on what the market growth is going to be. You look at, historically, our markets have outperformed GDP. We do expect that to continue as we look forward. Based on some of the tailwinds that we talked about today, we think our markets are gonna be healthy over the longer term. As we think more near term, there's certainly more short-term residential pressure, so we've maybe been a touch conservative on our expectation of market growth of 2%-4%. That's where that slight difference came from our investor day a few years back.
Regardless, I think all of us would have a difficult time predicting what the market is going to be with precision over the long term. Regardless of that, the key for us is continuing to outperform that on an organic basis. We believe 300-400 basis points is still a strong performance, and it still gives us the right, it's still the right place for us to be as we think about approaching this with a balance of continued investment for the long term, as well as we develop those capabilities and outperforming a strong underlying market. We still believe that somewhere in that mid-single-digit to low-double-digit growth rate over the long term is a good place for us to be.
We believe we can generate strong operating margin leverage there and real high-quality EPS growth, as well as returns for shareholders. If you look at that progression, going back a few years, I mean, this was a sub 8% operating margin business. We built it to a, call it, mid-9%, 9.6% operating margin business, and we intend to continue to expand that over time.
Okay. Yeah, thanks. That's helpful. I think just then, dovetailing to that, again, obviously, it's all been really strong, particularly on the large project work. Maybe on Still on that margin dynamic, I know there's a different mix of business that goes into that might be lower gross margin, but then cost to serve or scale benefits kind of offset that. Can you just update us on kind of directionally, what are your typical margins on jobs like that, on data centers or large capital projects? If you have any updated figures to give us on kind of what your relative market share or win rates have been in those categories versus maybe the last couple of years or your broader business overall?
It's one of the reasons. The mix of our business, the type of jobs that we have, will clearly vary across our customer groups. It's one of the reasons that we really focus on guiding to operating margins rather than the components of gross margin and SG&A leverage. When you look at large capital projects, in general, given the size and scale of them, they have slightly lower gross margins, but also a slightly lower cost to serve. Net operating margins are very strong, and returns on capital are very strong for them. We could see some mix impact on the gross margin line over time within our business. Overall, we again, intend to and expect to continue to grow those operating margins, regardless of the mix across those customer groups.
Mike, we've been very pleased with our outperformance, and it being even better than our traditional outperformance in the non-residential space. If you look at +18 on the commercial mechanical side of our business, +9 on the Waterworks business, +7 on the industrial business, that plays out to a better share performance inside that large capital construction project space. We'll continue to press that advantage as we look at working up funnel, making sure that we've got access to the best product breadth. We're gonna continue, as Bill said, on the working capital side of the large capital project space.
We're gonna make sure that we've got the right product at the right time for that customer in the local market, because this is a unique opportunity, and we wanna make sure that we take advantage of it.
Great. Thanks, Kevin. Thanks, Bill.
Thank you, Mike.
Thank you. We will now take our final question from David Manthey from Baird. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Kevin, Bill, good morning, and congratulations, Brian and Pete. My first question is, as we look at the long term, it looks like slide 22 is pretty well unchanged versus what you said previously. Slide 24, and I think we've talked about a little of this, but the revenue growth is down just a touch. The contribution margin, up slightly on the high end. I know these are minor changes, and you talked about these, but I'm interested always in these long-term trajectory changes because they matter when you're launching satellites. Can you just talk about the thought process behind those slight changes in that in the growth outlook?
Yeah, I think, Dave, we just talked about with Mike, you know, the slight changes in the market growth assumptions, but no changes in the underlying outperformance expectation and the acquisition expectation. To your point, we did take the flow-through or the incremental operating margins up slightly on the higher end, as we're continuing to invest in the business, and we talked about some of the margin expansion opportunities we have, where we're driving additional productivity within the business.
That has moved up a touch. Given the fact that our baseline operating margins are now 9.6%, we've got to continue to expand that over time to keep that 10-30 basis point year in, year out expansion. No real significant change, but we are trying to drive and do expect to drive a touch more productivity, particularly with technology and AI investments, in the core of the business.
Okay, thank you. That's clear. moving M&A up the capital allocation hierarchy, is that a reflection of a better pipeline or just a change in strategy? Bill, earlier, you mentioned that the pipeline was strong, but I'm not sure if you mean it's stronger relative to 1-2 years ago, or if it's just characteristically strong, normally today?
I would judge it as more characteristically strong. I mean, M&A does ebb and flow. We're at a point now, as Kevin said, the pipeline is very healthy, and we would expect 2026 to be a more active year. I would characterize it as that. In terms of the movement from, you know, bucket number three in our capital priorities to bucket number two, I think that just reflects the growth aspirations that we have and the growth focus that we have, but also is probably a more appropriate reflection of the returns we expect we can generate on M&A versus shareholder returns. I think it's important to go back, and we said this in our prepared comments.
You know, we've never had to choose historically between doing a specific deal or doing acquisitions and growing the dividend sustainably over time. We don't expect to have to make that decision or choice. It's not a binary choice in the future, but we think it more appropriately reflects growth and returns that we can generate.
Okay. Some small changes around the edges, but a good strategic update. Thank you very much for doing this.
Thanks, Dave.
Thanks, Dave.
Thank you. I will now hand the call back to Kevin Murphy, CEO, for closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. I'll close with a special thank you to our associates who delivered another strong year while faced with overall what is a challenging market? Add in a thank you to our customers and suppliers for their ongoing support of our company as we go through these markets.
We're really pleased with the continued growth and improvement inside the business and what it delivered in calendar year 2025, but we're more pleased with what the future can hold with large capital projects, with water infrastructure, wastewater infrastructure, with climate and comfort, and with what will be a residential rebound, both in RMI as well as in new construction, in time. We wanna say thank you to all that are on the call for your time. We appreciate it more than you know. Please take care, and we'll talk soon. Thank you.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining us. You may now disconnect your lines.