Good morning, everybody. We're going to give folks an additional 30 seconds to join before we get started. Morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Sidoti & Company's June 2026 Small-Cap Virtual Conference. My name is Julio Romero, and I cover building products, industrials, and engineering construction at Sidoti & Company. Really pleased to be able to host L.B. Foster.
Their ticker is FSTR. With us today are Bill Thalman, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Sean Reilly, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Lisa Durante, Director of Financial Reporting, Investor Relations. The format of this is going to be a presentation followed by Q&A towards the very end.
If you have any questions for L.B. Foster, feel free to type them into the Q&A section at the bottom of the screen. I'm happy to ask on your behalf. Also, quickly like to congratulate Bill and Sean, who were recently promoted to their respective positions of COO and CFO as of June 1st, 2026. Well deserved. Congrats again, and the floor is yours.
Thanks so much, Julio. Good morning, everybody. As Julio indicated, I started a new role with the company on June 1st. I've been with the company since March of 2021. Joined the company as the CFO during a very exciting time. Sean Reilly joined the company as the Controller in late 2021 and was recently promoted to the CFO role.
Lisa's been with us for about four years at this point as well. We got a great story to tell and hopefully you guys are as excited as we are about our prospects. On slide four of the presentation, just a couple of key points. Company's been around for about 125 years, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Largely a North American-based business. About 90% of our revenue is in the North America region.
Simply said, we're an infrastructure solutions provider that's focused on the rail and civil construction markets, again, largely in North America. We operate the business under two operating segments: Rail and Infrastructure. Lisa, if you jump to the next slide, we'll talk a bit about those segments. Rail is just over $300 million and represents about 60% of the business. Infrastructure, just shy of $240 million, represents right around 40% of the business.
You can see the margin profiles for both businesses are pretty close, just in the low 20%. Those are gross margin profiles, of course. Those margins are improved significantly in both segments over the last 45 years based on the strategy work that we've been able to get accomplished, which has improved the profitability profile of the business.
We'll get into that a little bit more here on the next few slides. On the next slide, a little bit of a deeper dive in the Rail segment. We have three product lines or business units within Rail. Rail Products, which is our rail distribution business, as well as our Rail Products product lines of transit fasteners and insulated rail joints, represents about $200 million in revenue.
The lion's share of that business is our rail distribution business. Pretty steady element of the portfolio, and it grows at a low single-digit growth rate over the years. Solid business, low capital needs, and important part of the portfolio. The next two product lines, Global Friction Management and TS&S, includes our track monitoring product lines.
Higher margin profiles for these parts of the business, growing at a much faster growth rate based on the need for these products in the rail networks across North America. You'll see in a few slides here, this has been where we've seen an extraordinary amount of growth in the business and feel like there's more runway ahead with the investments we're making there.
Next slide, please. In terms of addressable market, we try to provide this profile so you can see a view of where we sit. It's about $450 million for Rail Products. We have a nice share position in terms of what we haven't covered with our addressable market, right around 44%. We're growing pretty much at the market rate with these product lines and we'd be satisfied with low single-digit growth rates over time.
The numbers are a little bit lower on this chart just in terms of growth rate recently. That's due to softness in 2025. That is pretty much behind us at this point. We would expect growth rates to be longer term in the low single digits. On the rail technology side, we have more room to grow, and we have seen a greater amount of growth with Friction Management and TTM, Total Track Monitoring.
Our share position is lower in this particular space, and suffice to say that we're creating new markets there or expanding our current market with greater deployment of these technologies over the rail networks. We'll cover that here in a couple more slides as well. Next slide. Moving over to the Infrastructure side of the business, there's two business units, Precast Concrete and Steel Products.
The Precast Concrete component is about $170 million, the lion's share of the business. Steel Products is about $70 million. There's a variety of different product lines within Steel Products. Most interesting element of that portfolio is our pipeline business, which has been growing very nicely in recent quarters because of renewed investment and renewed interest in U.S. energy security and infrastructure investment.
Our Precast Concrete business has been growing double digit for several years. Some of which was M&A related, but most of which was organic growth in our CXT buildings, as well as precast forms supporting civil construction markets. We're making investments in Precast Concrete. We think that's a solid growth platform in the business, and we've been enjoying that growth over the last several years with investments we've made in that space. Next slide.
We've only provided a slide on the infrastructure side in terms of segment and market participation for the product lines within Precast Concrete. Our CXT buildings enjoys a very nice market share. We're a well-recognized brand in that space. We continue to see the opportunity to displace site build construction projects with our CXT buildings. We're looking at expanding our capabilities in that space, and we feel like there's more opportunity to grow, and gain share in that space as well.
The counter to that is we have a very low share of precast products or precast forms. It's a very large market that's somewhat fragmented, and we see the opportunity there is to continue to grow our own organic capabilities, but to also look at M&A opportunities to identify tuck-ins and build out a regional capability in certain spaces where we compete today.
We think there's greater room for growth on Precast, as well as a result of both organic and inorganic opportunities. Next slide. While we have our segment reporting for the business, we also look at it from a strategy point of view with this lens. We have returns platforms components and growth platforms. This was a structure that was established back in 2021 when we refreshed our strategy.
The return platform businesses are an important part of the portfolio in that they provide capital for us to invest in our growth platforms. The return platforms, our Rail Products, our U.K. technology business, and our Steel Products businesses.
Those businesses are relatively low capital needs, steady growth, and provide cash to be able to not only invest maintenance capital needed for those businesses, but allow us to take that cash and invest it in growth opportunities, both organic and inorganic, in our growth platforms. Our growth platforms are Friction Management, Track Monitoring, both within Rail, as well as our Precast Concrete business.
The next slide. You can see on this slide where we've benefited from the investments and the focus of our strategy in the growth platforms over the last five years. The margin profiles in these businesses are higher. We've taken cash that's been generated across the portfolio, but primarily in the returns platforms, and we've invested that cash into our growth platforms.
You can see the growth rates on a combined basis in that space are about 115% over that five-year period or about 20%-25% growth in that timeframe. We feel really good about the growth that's been achieved there, that has transformed our margin profiles and our returns of our business, and we feel like there's more runway to grow with the execution of this strategy by focusing the investments that we have within our portfolio in those growth platforms.
Sean's going to spend a little bit of time taking you through the financial results that we've achieved over the last several years as a result of that strategy, and I'll come back in a few minutes to talk about our outlook. Sean?
Thank you, Bill, good morning to everyone. I'm going to start with a summary of our Q1 performance. Overall, it was a very strong quarter for L.B. Foster. When we take a look at sales, they were up 23.9%. Now, I do have to point out that the prior year was weaker than normal due to a pause in government funding. That being said, our Rail segment was up 38.4%.
Our Infrastructure segment was up 5.9%. When we take a look at our EBITDA, it expanded $3.3 million or 183%. Our net debt decreased by $24.2 million. Our gross leverage ratio declined from 2.5 x to 1.2x . Our backlog and order book were a little bit down year-over-year. However, that is the ebb and flow of the business. If we look at Q2, our backlog is building.
We'll go on to the next slide. Strategic transformation. What has occurred over the business in the last five years is us taking a look at the portfolio of businesses and products that we have. That resulted in us getting out of six different businesses or product lines over the last few years. Those low-margin products often came with high working capital requirements.
If you go down to the bottom of the page, what you'll see is, at the end of the day, our sales were up 10%, but our gross margin expanded 440 basis points. That's the benefit of all the hard work that went into aligning the product portfolios. We'll go on to the next page. Continuing that trend, the structural improvements can also be seen in our adjusted EBITDA.
When we take a look, once again, sales were up 10%, but our EBITDA dollars doubled, and our EBITDA increased 390 basis points. Once again, this is the benefit of all the work that was done to transform the business and to align our products to profitable higher-margin products with lower working capital requirements. We'll go on to the next one.
On this slide, the first thing I just want to point out is when we take a look at our net debt, our net debt will move around based on, of course, the seasonality of the business. Our Q1 and Q2 historically have resulted in higher working capital requirements. In Q3 and Q4, that's when we really generate the free cash flow that this business can generate. When we take a look at our funding capacity, we have $94 million of funding capacity available.
On top of that, our gross leverage ratio, once again, is 1.2 x. When we take a look at the capital-light business model, this is what's really impressive about this business. Per year, over the last three years, on an adjusted basis, we generate $28 million of free cash flow. We'll go on to the next page. Capital allocation. One of the things that we have done over the course of the last few years is share repurchases.
We still have $28 million remaining under that share repurchase agreement. We have taken out approximately 9% of the outstanding shares over the course of the last three years. From a debt reduction perspective, we talked about how we have been able to manage our debt levels over the course of the last few years. We target a 1x to 1.4 x gross leverage ratio.
Now, of course, if we do some tuck-in acquisitions, that may move a little bit, but that is our target. When we think about capital, this year we will spend approximately $15 million in cap spend. That is up from last year, solely because we have growth opportunities in some of our marketplaces where we are seeing above-normal growth rates, and we are taking this opportunity to deploy that capital and deploy that cash into areas where we feel very confident about the growth potentials.
Then finally, tuck-in acquisitions. We have done a substantial amount of work to position the portfolio. Now we are ready to take a look at tuck-in acquisitions to help us continue that growth journey. Next slide, please. Finally, from a valuation perspective, I just want to point out a couple things. One is improved volumes in 2026.
Our volumes are up approximately 50% so far this year, and that definitely helps from a liquidity perspective, as many investors know. The next thing I would like to point out, though, is our cash flow yield, 4%-6%. That is what we target as a result of running the business and managing our working capital, and most importantly, removing some of the businesses that had high working capital requirements.
Then finally, if you take a look at the enterprise value to adjusted EBITDA calculation, of course, we have increased from 2025 to where we are today. However, a lot of that is driven by a strong price performance. What we are focused on is continuing to expand our EBITDA and to grow this business. With that, I will turn it over to Bill.
Thanks, Sean. Next few slides, I will wrap things up, and we will have a Q&A session at the end with Julio. In terms of our market outlook for the year, we feel really good about where the business is developing and the market opportunities that are in front of us. The easiest thing to say about 2026, especially as it relates to the rail business, is it is more of a return to normal situation.
Sean mentioned that in early 2025, some of the government funding programs that were in place and have been in place for a number of years were paused with some of the activities in Washington early part of 2025. That pushed a lot of the project work in last year to the back half of the year.
The profile and the demand levels that we are seeing here in 2026 are much stronger than what they have been in the past year. We would say it is much more of a normal year than what we experienced last year. The backlog was a little bit softer for rail at the end of Q1 after a really strong start compared to Q1 last year.
As Sean indicated, the backlog overall in the early part of Q2 was up about 15%, and we are starting to see that order rate continuing and is improving our backlogs as we speak. Not concerned about the outlook for Rail. It looks good, and 2026 should be more of a normal year. On the Precast side, again, another strong start to the year within Precast. There has been an emphasis on infrastructure investment in the U.S. for a number of years.
That's going to be a variety of different civil projects, road construction, data center support, a variety of different residential or non-residential community construction, which all requires precast forms. If you think about anything that is moving dirt, any project that is reshaping a landscape, there's a need to manage water, and precast forms are used in those construction sites to manage water.
We feel like we've definitely seen an uptick in that business in the growth markets that we participate in, and we're investing further to be able to drive that growth and capture more market share potential. The last thing I'll highlight is the energy renaissance that's occurred with pipeline coating. We are a coater of oil and gas pipe with our partner, ACIPCO, in Birmingham, Alabama, and we also have a facility just outside of Houston where we coat pipe.
That business was very strong prior to the pandemic. It basically was much softer for a four-year period of time. Just within the past year and a half or so, there's been a renaissance in domestic energy investment, and we're starting to see an uptick in that business, which is improving the outlook for the steel products element of our portfolio and specifically the pipeline coating piece.
All in all, we feel really good about the growth prospects continuing with the recovery in rail in 2026 and steady growth continuing for Precast Concrete, in particular, with an improving demand outlook for pipeline coating. Next slide. Before I wrap up, just a couple of comments on our investment thesis, which remains pretty consistent. We've done a lot of heavy lifting to improve the profitability profile of the company.
You can see it in our results, and we think that the moves that we have made are sustainable, and that should be able to drive profitable growth, particularly in our growth platforms. The organic growth opportunities that we see in our growth platforms are really being driven by investment in infrastructure, which we expect that to be a multi-year outlook for investment needs primarily in the North American market.
Sean mentioned earlier that our average free cash flow over the last three years has been about $28 million per year. We generate a lot of cash from our businesses, and some of that cash is being invested to drive further growth.
Overall, we would say we have a relatively capital-light model for the business, which allows us to generate a lot of cash and creates optionality in terms of how we invest that cash or return it to shareholders through appropriate shareholder enhancement programs.
I guess suffice to say, we're going to be very disciplined about how we approach capital allocation, making sure that we're staying in our swim lanes, investing in where we think we have the opportunity to grow, and we have a right to win. We're going to be systematic and disciplined in that approach. Next slide. I guess I'll conclude by saying that through 2025, we've seen a significant improvement in the business since we started back in 2021.
You can see the sales growth there of about $25 million over that five-year period of time, or four-year period of time is not overly exciting, but the profitability growth is significant, and it was obviously driven by the strategy execution that we've had and accomplished. The cash flow generation has improved significantly in that timeframe.
The outlook for 2026 is also really solid. I guess one way to look at it is that our trailing 12-month sales and profitability are pretty close to our guidance for 2026, or at least the midpoint of our guidance, we'll say. So we feel like we've gotten a significant amount of growth and improvement already in the bag. Then from this point forward, we expect to continue to see growth that should allow us to stay tight with our guidance and continue to drive improvements in 2026 and beyond.
I guess I'll close with that. We feel like it's a great time to invest in L.B. Foster. We think we've demonstrated a disciplined approach to driving the business forward, and we expect to remain on task to continue that journey into the future. Julio, I'll turn it back to you for any closing questions.
Excellent. Thanks so much for the rundown. Again, if you have any questions for L.B. Foster, type them into the Q&A section. Happy to ask on your behalf. I'll kick it off here with a few of my own. I guess, again, congratulations on the respective promotions. Can you maybe speak to a little bit of the rationale there? Is one to think about that the focus for the company is shifting from one where the portfolio transformation and major heavy lifting is largely complete and the internal focus is now shifting towards one of operational execution? Maybe speak to that to start off.
Yeah, I think it was frankly just a natural progression in terms of members of the team on John's staff, and where there could be some additional focus in the future. I feel like with my background, I provide the organization an opportunity to continue to drive operational execution. We've got a few specific growth programs that we want to make sure are getting strong traction, particularly in our Total Track Monitoring portfolio, and our Precast Concrete space.
So those are areas where I hope to have an influence and provide some guidance and leadership to the team. Frankly, it was just a good opportunity for me to move out of the way and provide Sean the opportunity to lead the finance organization, which he's demonstrated that he's ready to do that.
Excellent. Good color. Then, if I could maybe ask you guys to share one key priority for the new roles, maybe starting with Bill. What's a near term or medium term focus for you in the role?
As the CFO, I would say I'm certainly aware of everything that's going on in the organization. In the COO role, my goal is to get a little bit deeper in a few specific areas where we want to make sure that the execution of the strategy is working as we expect, related to growth in both organic growth as well as inorganic growth. Getting closer to understanding what those challenges are, what those opportunities are, and helping the teams figure out the best way to optimize the opportunities in front of us. Sean?
Julio, from my perspective, the balance sheet is in really good shape, and we have done a lot of work to position the portfolio correctly. Now, as the CFO, the goal is to pivot and start to take a look at the growth side, and how we make sure that we can continue to balance a really strong balance sheet with the prospects for future growth.
Excellent. Thank you for that, Bill and Sean. Can we maybe talk a little bit about the margins in the portfolio? Obviously, the gross and operating margins are trending positive directionally. Maybe speak to what's a medium term ceiling for gross margins, particularly as the growth platforms comprise a greater portion of the mix over time. Somewhat related, but kind of same question, but for operating margins.
Sean?
Yep. Thank you, Bill. When we take a look at it, Julio, you definitely identified a piece of the story, and that is, we have businesses that have a much higher gross profit and operating margins than some of the other ones. Bill had articulated a little bit around the returns business and the growth businesses. As we continue to grow in areas where we have higher profitability, we will see those margins continue to increase. The other item that will really impact the margin portfolio, Julio, is also the volume of business.
As we continue to see top line grow, we'll be able to leverage our manufacturing and leverage our operating structure more effectively, allowing our operating income to expand as well. It's a combination of two things. One, it's volume, growth definitely helps. The second one is the product portfolio and how we continue to amalgamate it towards the higher margin products.
Very helpful there. Thank you for the context. On the Precast Concrete side, can you talk a little bit more about the increased demand for water management, and how that's factoring into the equation here? How much of an uptick have you seen from that specific portion of demand recently, or is that still more to come?
Yeah. I don't have the specific percentages, but I can tell you that we're investing in water management capabilities within our plants because we feel like there's more to come there. There's a lot of civil construction projects.
Just conceptually, if you think about onshoring, and if you feel like onshoring of manufacturing capability is something that's going to occur over time within the U.S., there's going to be need for precast forms, precast capabilities to be able to execute those construction projects. We think it's a long tail. It's a variety of different areas where water management is going to be needed, and we feel like we're well positioned to be able to benefit from that with these investments.
Very interesting there. One more on that topic is just on how should we think about maybe the end markets that could potentially be served there, right? I think you outlined some particularly driven by reshoring. Is there a potential for you guys to serve some of the technology oriented sectors out there?
Yeah. Obviously, data center production, construction is an area where water management is needed. There's different types of water management, of course, right? Ours is going to be more around the civil construction side of things. To the extent that some of those projects are taking up demand in the precast space, we're able to fill that other demand that might be out there, just because there's an overarching demand for precast forms. There's some very specific markets that are very hot, one of which is in Texas, which we have a large presence there. We feel good about where we are.
Excellent. Last one from me, guys, is that you're asset light, this year you mentioned you're spending a little bit more on your CapEx. The structural cash flow change is still intact. That's still something you guys expect to continue to be strong going forward. Is that fair?
Yeah, absolutely, Julio. Yeah, definitely. When we take a look at the investments that we're making, they will take a little bit of time to get up and running, we would expect a return on those investments pretty quickly.
Excellent. Well, Bill, Sean, Lisa, thank you for taking the time.
All right, Julio. Take care. Thanks for your time.
Thank you.
Thanks.