Hey, everyone. My name is Jack Greenberg with the Midwest IDEAS Investor Conference, produced by Three Part Advisors. I wanna thank you all for joining us. Our next session will begin momentarily with the L.B. Foster Company, traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol FSTR. Presenting on behalf of the company today is John Kasel, the President and CEO, and Bill Thalman, the EVP and CFO. John, go ahead and thank you for coming.
Thank you. Morning, everybody. Thanks for joining, Bill and I this morning. We got a exciting pitch to share with you. We were here last year, and we talked about a lot of the things that we wanted to get done, and today we're gonna share with you many of the things that we did accomplish, that will transform the company. Again, I'm John Kasel. I'm President and CEO. I've been with the company for 20 years, and in the role of President and CEO for the last 2.5 years. Bill Thalman will be speaking as well today. He'll introduce himself, but Bill joined the company back in March of 2021, and he has absolutely helped transform the company. A little bit about the company. Markets we serve, where we're at, more importantly, where we're going.
$500 million of revenue, you can see there in 2020, 2022, and our trailing 12 months has improved to $531 million. It's, it's not really about the, the growth of the sales we're gonna share with you, it's about the profitability that comes with it. Our stock price, just at the end of the quarter, of Q2, was $14.28. We closed just short of $19 yesterday. We've had a, a nice run in our stock. We had a really solid performance. Actually, the last three quarters have been very solid, but more importantly, I think it's about the message going forward, what we're gonna do. The company was founded in 1902.
Primarily, most of our sales do hit the United States, $378 million of the $500 million. We United Kingdom is a growing market for us, at $47 million. Canada, and then, is about $38 million, and the rest of which is Asia and South America, represents $34 million. We have three segments. We're gonna get into details of what they are, and more importantly, what they're doing, and where we're adding value to our shareholders. On the rail side, which is transportation segment, we're both on the freight as well as the transit side. Precast industry, we made a big splash, additional splash last year with a significant acquisition we did. We'll talk about that. Then Steel Products and Measurement, which has been an area that Bill and I and the team have really been focusing on.
We had an energy piece in that, I'll talk a little bit about that, and we've been working ourselves out of the energy space. There's some real good assets in this business that we're happy with. Why are you listening to us today, and why are we spending a hot day in Chicago? Well, it's, we think there's a real value in L.B. Foster Company, and much of what we're doing is, has been done as far as the heavy lifting with the portfolio. We're gonna share with you today. What we wanted to get done is, after we did the heavy lifting, is be able to grow organically here in North America and Western Europe. In the last bullet, you'll see there, we're not a big capital play.
For us to grow, we could do it 1.5%-2% of sales. We have the ability to kind of control what we do and how we do it and how fast we grow. More importantly, focused on profitability. The company's had a rich tradition of cash, free cash flow. It wasn't uncommon that we would generate $30 million-$40 million of free cash. Last couple of years, that has not been the case, but Bill Thalman will share with you that we're heading back to that, we're heading that way, and heading that way quickly. Again, quickly on the company, 1902, so we're over 120 years old. The company hit the NASDAQ in 1981. Significant acquisitions, we got on the concrete industry back with the CXT acquisition in 1999.
We made a larger play in what's going on in rail and rail technologies, and especially Western Europe, with the acquisition of Portec in 2010. We followed up-- We liked that so well, we want to follow up with more stuff. 2015, we purchased a technology company in the Midlands, called TEW Engineering, and then we purchased their service arm down in London, called TEW Plus , all in 2015. 2014, '15, I was with the company. I was running the rail business. At that time, the company was doing about $600 million, where our stock price was around $52, and they're trying to understand what to do to grow. We made many end ways to try to grow the rail space. We couldn't get that done.
We looked at doing things in the precast concrete side. We couldn't figure out how to do that. We were in the midstream energy business at that time, and the leaders of the company, including the board of directors, made a decision to go in the energy space. That was a very volatile time, and we made very large acquisitions, spent about $350 million in a very short period of time. We went in the upstream as well as the downstream markets, and really destroyed shareholder value, quite honestly, in a very short period of time. We kind of lost who we are, our focus. We've been around for a long time, and for whatever reason, we lost it. In 2021, the board of directors basically was reshaped, repurposed. They're new.
I was brought in as CEO from COO position at that time, and we hired Bill, and we supported ourself with people that are going to or have been restoring shareholder value for the company. We've been busy since 2021. This chart, this waterfall chart is not really about the sales. It does show, you know, 3% sales over this period of time, back to 2021. It's about the profit improvement, and this is through the portfolio moves that I shared with you earlier. We did 4 divestitures. One of them was energy, 1 energy business. We did the larger of the energy business, the upstream business, we divested that back in 2020. More importantly, we added 3 companies, 2 of them in the U.K., that bring another technology, another market space for us.
We added a nice addition to Van, which is VanHooseCo Precast, which was one year ago. We acquired that facility, multiple facilities, that brought us a larger space in the precast industry. Well, look at the margin growth, though, 3% sales over this period of time, and we've had over 310 basis or 310 basis improvement in margin. That has been our focus. I kinda laid the platform for you, but what is L.B. Foster, and what's the value to you or the investors? Is when we sat back a few years ago, the IIJA Act was in Congress, and we knew it was gonna be something very special.
We could really earmark funding that came out of that, but we haven't seen it in the last couple years. We knew it was coming, and we, we wanted to be poised in position, so when it came, we wanted to be a technology play. Also really focusing on infrastructure and a pure play, 'cause we were kinda all over the map, if you will. With that, we, we cleaned up our business segments. On the technology side, and transportation side, we're in the rail freight, as well as the transit side. It's our largest piece we have. It's the longest, it's been around since the beginning of the company, the $311 million, and it's, you know, it's really the base of the company. It's where we're continuing to grow.
Precast of $124 million has been the largest growing segment that we've had with the acquisition of VanHooseCo Precast. I'll share that with you in a minute. Then SPM, Steel Products and Measurement, is an area, as I mentioned, we've been focusing on. That we've actually been shrinking the top line and focusing on profitability. As you can see on this chart, you know, all the segments, with the exception of one, are, you know, pushing us to 20% gross margins, with the exception of Steel Products and Measurement. Of course, this was over a longer period of time, a 12-month, trailing 12 months. This business did, or segment did, in the second quarter, 20%. We're pleased with the progress that that business and segment has made as well.
A, a little closer look at what's going on in the rail business. Rail products is our mainstay. Basically, when you build track, you go to L.B. Foster. You need rail, you need spikes, you need anchors, you need ties, you come to L.B. Foster, be it on the freight side or the transit side. We like that, but we wanted to be able to manage the relationship between those assets, the track infrastructure, and the customer. To do that, we needed something called friction management. That's where you connect the, the rail car, the locomotive, you know, the rolling stock with the rail. You give it the performance, you give the operational efficiency, you get the fuel savings. That's where we have our global friction management business.
When a train needs to stop, we're there to help it stop, so that's also a very important thing. It also heaps, helps keep the gauge intact, so trains stay on the-- which is a very important asset today, keeping trains on track. That business is growing rapidly for us. That's our global business, if you will, on the rail side. The margins, you can see they're, are very respective, pushing 40%. The last piece is where the acquisitions, additional acquisitions we've just made, which was Skratch and IV, which were two assets that we've done in the U.K..
This right now is an area, you know, U.K. market's a little in turmoil right now, but heading into HS2, coming off a Crossrail, we feel that we're in a great position to be able to have a good ten-year run of bringing our technologies and services to the marketplace there. I've been kinda talking about this all the way up to now, but why, you know, right now, you know, rail's always been a good play. It's only gonna get better. You know, the, the competition between rail, how to move freight, how to move intermodal, how to compete against trucking, is always going to be there. Transit, you know, North America's not anywhere near the rest of the world. The rest of the world as, as far as passengers, is getting back to pre-pandemic levels.
We're about 75% here in the United States, but that's gonna continue. There's a lot of money that's pouring through, the government and other agencies right now, into the transit space and freight space, and that, that Bill will get into the details of that. We ended the quarter, second quarter with record backlog, and a lot, much of that, which was $290 million, much of that was from what's happening in the rail space. Precast is, something that complements the rail. So yeah, we can do, we do rail stuff. You know, we can go in and build products for the rail industry, bridges, little bridges like that. We can do transit stations and stuff like that. Our mainstay, what we do, is recreational-type stuff.
Originally, it was with the state and federal government, which was with our CXT buildings. You can see one of them pictured up here. We wanted to move off of that, not just because state and federal, although it's been a very good business. We wanted to get into the precast concrete products and get into industrial markets as well as residential markets. We need to also expand our geographic reach. Most of the concrete, a good percentage of the concrete, precast concrete, is used in the southeast part of the United States, between Florida and Texas. We purchased VanHooseCo Precast a year ago, and with that gave us the opportunity to reach down in the southeast. We've been very pleased with what we see with that business, more important opportunities to grow both top and bottom line.
With the product comes technology that gets us into residential and industrial civil markets as well. We have the ability now to build apartments if we'd like. We can build. They're pre-built wall, designed and engineered wall systems. Also down in Tennessee, down in Florida, we're building residential homes today. We look to continue to expand that. Water is also a key component in the U.S., as you know, and, you know, with Hilary and everything that's happening just recent, you know, you gotta move your water. With this product, we have the ability to do storm drainage systems underground. It creates a wonderful opportunity for people that buy our product to be able to use the land above the retention ponds, and moving water can now be something you don't see.
Doesn't attract the vegetation, doesn't attract the insects, doesn't attract the animals, and you don't have safety concern for, for people. That comes with this business. What we're most excited is what we see in the bottom here. Look at the growth that we're seeing when you look at quarter-over-quarter, you know, double digit, significant growth, as well as on sales and profitability. Some of that did come with the acquisition, obviously, but the profitability did as well. Before I turn it over to Bill, the last segment that we've been working on and cleaning up, again, part of this was the energy that we divested, which was very important we did. You know, really get back to what our core business, core markets are. There's some really nice gems in here.
, as far as building bridges, rehabbing bridges right now, is booming. Our Bedford facility, Bedford, PA facility, has got record backlog, and we, we basically are at capacity right now, building products for the bridge markets. Protective coatings, primarily, we got two different coating facilities today, both in midstream. One is in-line coater with the CIPCO down in Birmingham. The other is in Texas, which is a special, special coupling as well as connector coating business. The pipeline industry is coming back. We're doing quite a bit of ID coating right now. Basically, it, it hasn't done much the last couple of years, but we're gonna have a very strong year this year, and we're looking for even a better year next year.
Our threading business is just a small little piece that we do for, agriculture, type, water well-type technology and, and systems. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill, and I'll come back with some closing remarks then. Bill?
Thanks, John. Just a couple words on myself. Bill Talman, I'm the CFO of the company. I joined, as John indicated, back in March of 2021. I've got about 35 years of experience, most of it in finance, corporate and operations finance. I did have a stint for a short period of time, about 4 or 5 years, running a division of a business that I used to work for. When I came to L.B. Foster and they presented the opportunity in terms of what they were looking for, to operationalize finance within the organization, as well as lead strategic transformation, the opportunity was really exciting. We've been busy the last couple years, and happy to talk a little bit about our results.
I guess the, the, the key message on this slide is, while there's numbers that show obviously very good improvement, both in sales and profitability over a 3-year period of time, since COVID, it's important to recognize we're a really different business than what we were back in 2020. Back in 2020, we had a large portfolio of energy exposure. We had much greater exposure to what we would call commoditized product lines, that when you look at it from an economic profit point of view, these businesses were upside down.
When, when the, the board, and, and under John's leadership, took the transformation initiative work in hand and began the process of evaluating where we're gonna go, there was a very systematic process that was undertaken to determine where we can win, where we have the right product lines and market potential to grow in a sustainable and steady way. That portfolio work that John went through previously ended up resulting in us having a much more scalable business in markets and with products and services that we know we have a competitive advantage. We believe that the improvements that we've made in the business over the last couple of years are much more sustainable than what we've experienced in the recent past.
We're excited about that, and we feel like we're in a good position to continue to grow at this point. I guess the other thing to highlight is that as John indicated, some of that portfolio work translated into inorganic growth. Our focus at this point, with much of the portfolio work behind us, is really now focused on leveraging those platforms to drive organic growth. This is a little more narrow focus on the profitability that we've experienced, as well as the sales growth over the last four quarters on a trailing four-quarter basis. You know, the chart speaks for itself. We've got double digit 12% organic growth over that last trailing four-month period. Three of those quarters were double digit, about 12% overall.
I guess the other thing to highlight is that we've got a backlog, record backlog of $290 million of orders in hand that with a book-to-bill ratio in the most recent quarter of 1.24. We're growing, the order book is growing. This past quarter, we indicated that we're really now seeing the benefits of the infrastructure spending bills that are coming through in orders from our customers. We think we're only just beginning in terms of a longer-term run of investment in that infrastructure market. The other thing is to highlight, obviously, is the step change improvement in margins, about 410 basis points on a year-over-year basis.
That's a combination of the, the portfolio moves that we've made, as well as the profit initiatives that we had undertaken in the business for several quarters. We were frankly behind about this time last year in terms of recouping price for escalation in, in costs across the business. We had some focused efforts in several businesses to try to get that accelerated. We started to show improvements over the last couple quarters, and it really came through with the volume that we experienced in the, in the second quarter. We're pleased with that, that performance as well. Just a couple comments on leverage and our net debt, and then closing comments on capital allocation.
I guess suffice to say that over a longer period of time, we've been pretty successful in managing the leverage levels of the company. There's been different points in time where we have levered up a bit. You know, we were trading at 1.5 gross leverage ratio for the large part of the 2021, 2022 period, until we did the acquisition of VanHooseCo Precast, which was Q3 of 2022. You see, we shot up to 3.3 times gross leverage. We have systematically began working that number down.
We had a small uptick in the second quarter, just to fund working capital that was necessary to, to, to fund, to put the assets in place, to fund the sales growth that we're seeing, not only in the quarter, most recent quarter, but also the, the outward look for the quarters to come that it's in our order books. We're gonna continue to systematically work that number down. We believe we'll be positive free cash flow in the second half of the year, which will allow us to make progress towards our longer-term goal of holding about 2 times gross leverage for the business. We're, we're, we're happy. We have a capital-light business model. We're making the progress we expect to have, and expect to have made, and we expect to make further progress going forward.
This is an important slide. Let's spend a minute here to talk about where we're going in terms of free cash flow. It's, it's been- we've publicized that we're, we're targeting about $50 million worth of EBITDA in 2025. In our mind, we have a pretty clear roadmap of how we're gonna get there, and it's largely organic growth. We, we expect to see that come through in our growth platforms. A little bit of improvement also in returns. We're targeting $50 million. We think we can get there. Again, we have a capital-light business model.
It might be a little heavier over the next year or two as we fund some organic growth programs, maybe 1.5%-2%, but certainly not significant relative to other industrial companies. Cash interest, we've got swaps in place that keep that number at about a 4%-5% interest rate. We expect that number to be pretty reasonable over that timeframe. We'll, we'll need working capital as we grow, which is certainly expected. Important to highlight that the Union Pacific warranty settlement that was agreed several years ago, it'll be wrapping up at the end of 2024. That's $8 million per year of operating cash flow that comes back to the company, starting in 2025.
Lastly, we have net operating losses of about sorry, about $100 million, largely related to the IOS divestiture, which will temper our federal income taxes here for the foreseeable future. When you look at that, taking a midpoint of about $30 million, that's slightly above the net income that we would expect to have in that time period, based on, tax rates and interest costs and all those kinds of things. When you look at that as a yield to our current stock price, well, when we did this slide, it was a yield of about, 19%. Now the yield's about 15%, given the run-up in the stock. You know, 15% dividend yield, if that number went to a dividend, is obviously very attractive.
We'll talk a bit about free cash flow uses in terms of capital allocation on the next slide. Again, we have line of sight to get to these numbers, and we're confident that we're gonna get there. In terms of capital allocation priorities, I, I, I mentioned that in the past, I think the company did a good job of some soul searching in terms of where, where we've been in the past and some of the moves that have been made. We got a new chairman and a new board, largely a new board that is supporting us in terms of a more disciplined approach and a more sustainable growth program that has disciplined capital allocation priorities outlined. We're gonna continue to focus on debt reduction to about 2 times EBITDA.
I think we can get there within the next 9-12 months, pretty, pretty easily. Capital expenditure is a little elevated, but nothing too significant. We expect those to fund growth programs that will have very, very quick payback periods. We're excited about that, particularly in our growth platforms. We did authorize a $15 million share repurchase program. We were active with that program in the first quarter of its availability. We'll continue to evaluate that option. We have some tuck-in acquisitions that we're evaluating, mostly product line extensions that are relatively minor in terms of funding needs, but makes sense in terms of portfolio expansion and some regional expansion.
Then lastly, as I indicated, with free cash flow prospects improving in the coming quarters and moving into 2024 and 2025, a dividend is something that would be considered at some point in time. Certainly not a priority today, but something that we're focused on as another lever to pull, if that makes sense. We're excited about our prospects. We're pleased with the growth that we've seen, but we got a lot of work to do yet, and we're looking forward to providing further updates in the future. I'll turn it over to John for his closing remarks.
As Bill said, we've been busy, and we, we've done quite a bit here. Behind the strategy, we have what's called a playbook, and we're nowhere near done with the playbook. We're continuing to think through it, reinvent it, and change with the market conditions. The work's not done. We've done a lot of heavy lifting, but it's always about what we can do and, and where we can go from here. The one thing I wanna leave you with, though, we're gonna continue to bring technology innovation to the company. We see that as where the margins are gonna come. We see that as where the global expansion will come. We see that has the opportunity to just give us scale as well as brand recognition that we don't currently have today in all areas.
When we just closed up the quarter, we announced we, we had guidance going into this year, and we, we took the guidance up for the balance of the year. We're pretty bullish on where we're at, more importantly, where we're going. Back in 2021, we put guidance, basically, we, we put our aspirational goals, which you see on the page here, of what we wanna be by 2025, which is really going back to where the company was back in 2014, 2015. That reset, if you will, when we took that the wrong turn into the energy space. $580 million to, you know, $620 million of revenue, which is where we were.
22%-23% gross profit, which we're not too far off of that right now. I think we finished at, what, 21.6% in the quarter? We gotta hold those as well as continue to, you know, grow on those. Between $48 million and $52 million is where we're looking to, to land here in 2025. From that, that closes our presentation, but I think we have a few minutes if we can answer or field any questions. Yes?
2 questions. What's your move on capacity right now to be able to accommodate this, you know, greater than 1 to 1 bill? H- how are you, how are you situated in that regards?
Yeah. I'll, I'll take that. We've got 6 minutes and 45 seconds. I see the clock up here. We brought Lean Six Sigma into the company about 20 years ago. I know that 'cause I brought it to the company. We've really been focused on how do you flow through our factories. Most of our facilities are running under capacity today. Most of them are running at 1 shift today. We really got more agile. COVID was just, you know, really tough on everybody in the market, but I'll tell you what, it made us think differently in how we do things.
We feel very, very good, and that's why this capital we're talking about is not a big reach for us, because we don't have to do much to add capacity to what we currently have today. In many cases, it's just adding more people and adding more shifts. Do you have another question?
Yeah, I was gonna ask you, earlier this year, there was some activist activity.
Yeah.
I was wondering if you could perhaps elaborate a bit on that?
Yeah. Yeah, we've had, in my tenure with the company, again, 20 years, we've had activism twice. I'll go back earlier after the 2014, 2015, Legion Partners came into the company. Basically was an activist, and active, and a guy named Bradley Vizi was given a board seat. He's no longer with Legion, and he's no longer on the board. You're correct, there's a company called 22NW, LP. They are our largest shareholder today. Gabelli is our second largest shareholder, kind of back and forth, quarter to quarter. I would not, nor do they refer themselves as an activist. They did want to come in and have a better understanding of what was going on.
They wanted to maybe help shape some of the narrative, especially as we went out to the market. We came up, we came up with a position called an observership, where this individual, one of the, one of the analysts, who actually lives in Pittsburgh, where we're headquarters, sits in board meetings. Not all board committee meetings, but will sit in the board meeting, and then be giving materials that we deem appropriate. So not- doesn't have a- access to everything, but helps shape the narrative, especially as we go out to the market and do things. It's been a very, very good relationship, honestly. It, it's a been, been a very good partnership. In fact, Bill will be heading, and I will be heading out to see them in Seattle here in a, in a few weeks.
I wish all activists, quote, unquote, "were, were that helpful." Any other questions? We got 4 minutes. Yes.
What percentage of your revenue is from market turmoil?
Yeah.
About 25 goal that, to improve?
Yes. U.K. is right here, is at 47, so about 10% of the business is in the U.K. today. Yes, it is in turmoil, we're holding our own because most of the projects we have are all government ring-fence. They're gonna build the next, you know, extension, HS2, from North London into Birmingham. Right now we're kinda hunkered down. We're keeping our people employed. We're keeping as busy as we can without too much information. We're gonna have a very busy second half. They already started to have a very busy second half of the year. First half of the year was not so good. Second half is gonna be at the runway we're looking and very pleased to see. We expect that to continue into 2025 for those goals as well.
Any other questions? Yes.
Follow on.
Yeah.
What's the spillover into Europe?
Yeah
... standpoint of there that?
We have a, we have a beachhead in Germany, a small town outside Dusseldorf, called Herne. We're there specifically for the FM business, the friction management business. We partnered with Deutsche Bahn, who's basically the largest cred- accreditation as far as rail, moving people in Western Europe. They're headquartered right there in Berlin. That's a significant global strategic play for us, is Western Europe, and we, we're, we feel that's gonna happen in rail, and we also feel that's gonna happen through people like Deutsche Bahn. We also just did a large commercial agreement with FUCHS SE chemical there in Germany, and as well.
It gives us the opportunity not to, just to sell a B2B relationship, but also gives the opportunity to partner with somebody, bring in new technology solutions, in this case, chemicals, and brand, to the marketplace in Western Europe as well. Thank you. Good question. Any other questions? We got 1, 1.5 minutes. I think the heavy lifting for divestitures is behind us. I do think there'll be more trimming of some portfolio, so we always look at that. Our company has a history of thinking we have to produce everything for everybody. We've been cleaning that up, really looking at what's profitable, and what we can protect and not be commoditized. We'll continue to look at product lines.