Astec Industries Inc

NASDAQ:ASTE

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Operator]

Hello and welcome to the Astec Industries Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded.

It is my pleasure to introduce your host, Steve Anderson, Senior Vice President of Administration and Investor Relations.

Mr. Anderson, you may begin.

[Stephen C. Anderson, executive]

Thank you and welcome to the Astec Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. Joining me on today's call are President and Chief Executive Officer, Jaco van der Merwe; our newly appointed Chief Financial Officer, Brian Harris; and Vice President of Finance for Infrastructure Solutions, Heinrich Jonker. In just a moment, I'll turn the call over to Jaco to provide comments and then Brian and Heinrich will summarize our financial results.

Before we begin, I'll remind you that our discussion this morning may contain forward-looking statements that relate to the future performance of the company and these statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbor liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.

Any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Factors that can influence our results are highlighted in today's earnings release and others are contained in our filings with the SEC. As usual, we ask that you familiarize yourself with those factors. The company refers to various U.S. GAAP, which are generally accepted accounting principles and non-GAAP financial measures, which management believes provide useful information to investors.

These non-GAAP financial measures have no standardized meaning prescribed by U.S. GAAP and are, therefore, unlikely to be comparable to the calculation of similar measures for other companies. Management of the company does not intend these items to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the related U.S. GAAP measures.

A reconciliation of U.S. GAAP to non-GAAP results is included in our earnings release and the appendix of our slide deck. All related earnings materials are posted on our website at www.astecindustries.com, including our presentation, which is under the Investor Relations and Presentation tabs.

Now I will turn the call over to Jaco.

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Before I begin, I would like to welcome Brian Harris, who, as you know, joined us as Astec's new Chief Financial Officer a few weeks ago. We are thrilled to have Brian on board. He brings with him significant experience, having held leadership roles across several public companies. Most recently, he spent 10 years as the Chief Financial Officer of Summit Materials, a leading producer of aggregates, concrete and asphalt and we look forward to benefiting from his experience.

I will hand it over to Brian to say a few words about himself at the start of the financial results section. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Heinrich for stepping in as Interim Chief Financial Officer and providing the leadership needed at an important time in Astec's journey. I look forward to continue working with Heinrich as Vice President of Finance in our Infrastructure Solutions segment.

With that, we will turn to our third quarter highlights summarized on Slide 5. We remain focused on executing against our strategy and key operational initiatives to strengthen our foundation and position the company for growth. In the third quarter, we had mixed results. On a consolidated basis, we delivered $291.4 million in net sales, which was slightly less on a year-over-year basis due to reductions in equipment and parts sales. Gross margin was stable and generally in line with the prior year. Importantly, we were cash flow positive in the quarter, having generated $19.9 million of free cash flow.

In Infrastructure Solutions, we benefited from the strong infrastructure construction market, which continued to generate healthy demand for asphalt and concrete plant deliveries. The infrastructure construction market is supported by a long-term runway for federal highway projects. Dealer inventory levels and interest rates continue to influence the Material Solutions segment, resulting in slower product conversions. As stated previously, we do believe inventory levels will moderate over the next 2 to 3 quarters and the Federal Reserve's interest rate reduction of 50 basis points in September was welcome news to our dealers and customers.

Finally, turning to backlog. We ended the quarter at $476 million. As I've noted, we saw a bit of a divergence in backlog between our 2 segments, with Infrastructure Solutions evidencing a relatively stable trend and Material Solutions showing moderating trends.

On Slide 6, we gave an update on our strategic road map. As you will recall, we introduced this new strategic framework earlier this year as we align the organization's focus on 3 core pillars: the combination of fostering empowered, enabled and engaged employees; being laser-focused on our customers; and continuing to provide industry-changing innovations is our strategic road map for the remainder of 2024 and beyond.

We are pleased to see our 2024 Voice of OneASTEC employee survey results showed positive trends and alignment on our goals and objectives was evident. The positive changes made to our business over the past 1.5 years will enhance our ability to execute for our customers and drive value for our shareholders.

Turning now to Slide 7. Let me share some observations on our current business dynamics for our Infrastructure Solutions and Materials Solutions segments. While the quarter experienced various sector challenges, the overall outlook for domestic road building is encouraging. The Infrastructure Investment Jobs Act disbursements are expected to continue at a high level and states continue to invest.

For example, Texas Governor Abbott announced a record $148 billion 10-year investment for state transportation infrastructure. In addition, the Federal Highway Administration recently released $134 million to repair roads in North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina damaged by Hurricane Helene.

We expect continued strong demand for asphalt road building and concrete production equipment moving forward. I should note that our paving and forestry products are also sold through a dealer distribution network that experiences the same interest rate pressures felt by our Material Solutions dealer. That said, we are encouraged by the record bookings for parts in our Infrastructure Solutions segment during the month of October.

Many of the factors in the Infrastructure Solutions segment are also positive for our Material Solutions segment. As I'm sure you know, aggregates are used as base materials for roads and are key ingredients for asphalt and concrete. Although dealer destocking continues to present a near-term headwind, lower interest rates promised to relieve debt servicing requirements for our dealers and end users.

Our OneASTEC business model has also helped as we have been able to share facility capacity among site, both of which are beneficial for absorption and workforce retention. As with the Infrastructure Solutions segment, parts bookings for the month of October were strong.

Slide 8 shows our backlog levels, which continue to moderate. As I noted earlier, the backlog trends underscore the relative stability in Infrastructure Solutions, while Material Solutions has been challenged in the short term by excess inventory in the dealer channel and higher interest rates.

On Slide 9, our implied orders of $236 million was slightly higher than the prior year third quarter level of $229 million. Year-over-year growth of Infrastructure Solutions implied orders of $29 million was partially offset by a $21 million decline in Material Solutions.

Despite an overall reduction sequentially, we are encouraged by solid dealer quoting for future Material Solutions bookings and sales. As previously shared, our strategic road map includes an industry-changing innovation pillar and I am proud of our progress on new product development shown on Slide 10.

Through our 52-year history, Astec has been recognized as a leader in innovation, which is a fundamental element of our company. A great example of this is our new Astec ReMix Cold Central Plant Recycle or CCPR system. The CCPR system is a cold recycling technology. It is a sustainable approach to road construction that minimizes the environmental impact.

By using reclaimed asphalt pavement materials and mixing them at ambient temperatures, our system minimize cost by significantly reducing the need for both virgin aggregate and the energy needed for heating the mix.

We have multiple prototypes running in the field with positive results. We are excited about providing this solution to our customers.

Slide 11 also showcases the sustainability of our products, which is a critical important component of our offerings. We strive to be environmentally responsible pillars of the communities in which we work and live. We are also committed to decreasing the carbon footprint of our own operations while supporting our customers on their sustainability journeys.

A good example of this is our 6750B wood grinder, which enables high-volume recycling of organic waste and supports the production of alternative biomass fuels. Another example is our RX-405 cold planner, which utilizes a Stage 5 engine to minimize emissions while facilitating the reclaiming and reuse of asphalt materials from existing roads.

And finally, our double-barrel XHR produces asphalt materials with up to 65% recycled content. These products and many others evidence our commitment to continually develop innovative products that drive progress towards a more sustainable environment.

That concludes my remarks. So let me now turn it over to Brian to introduce himself. Brian?

[Brian Harris, executive]

Thank you, Jaco. It's a pleasure to be here and to be part of the Astec team. Having been in the industry over the last 10 years, I have long admired and respected Astec for its high-quality, innovative products and the high caliber of its people. I am particularly excited to join Astec at this pivotal stage.

Jaco and the team have navigated through a challenging time and have built a strong foundation for the business. There is more work to do, but I'm very encouraged by everything I've seen thus far and I'm confident in the opportunity for growth and value creation ahead.

As I continue to settle into this new role, I look forward to speaking with you about Q4 and fiscal 2024 results in the New Year.

With that, let me turn it over to Heinrich to review Q3 results.

[Heinrich Jonker, executive]

Thank you, Brian and good morning, everyone. Diving into the numbers on Slide 13. Net sales decreased 3.9% to $291.4 million in the quarter year-over-year. As Jaco said earlier, we continue to see strong demand for asphalt and concrete plant equipment and a decrease for Material Solutions products. By region, domestic sales accounted for approximately 72% of consolidated net sales with international comprising the remaining 28%. Overall, net domestic sales were down 8% year-over-year, while international sales increased 9.1%.

By segment, Infrastructure Solutions net sales increased 1.1% year-over-year, while Material Solutions sales decreased 9.6%. Adjusted EBITDA increased 74% and adjusted EBITDA margin increased 270 basis points. As seen on the slide, adjusted EBITDA margins increased largely due to positive net volume, mix and pricing, lower SG&A costs from a favorable legal settlement initially recorded in last year's third quarter, lower bad debt and employee-related costs, offset by manufacturing inefficiencies.

Adjusted earnings per share was $0.31 compared to a loss of $0.01 in the prior year. Adjusted EPS excludes transformation and other costs of $0.58 in the third quarter 2024 and $0.28 in the third quarter 2023. Our adjusted effective tax rate was 18.6%.

On Slide 14, I'll discuss the results from Infrastructure Solutions segment. Net sales increased 1.1% to $165 million, which was a result of a $8.4 million increase in equipment sales that was partly offset by a $7.7 million decline in part sales.

Based on customer feedback, we believe the decline is a result of timing and not a downward trend. Segment operating adjusted EBITDA increased 17.3% to $15.6 million and segment operating adjusted EBITDA margin improved 140 basis points to 9.5%, mainly due to positive net volume, mix and pricing and lower SG&A costs, partly offset by manufacturing inefficiencies.

Moving to Slide 15. Materials Solutions net sales decreased 9.6% to $126.4 million, driven by lower domestic equipment sales, which were attributable to continued finance capacity constraints with contractors and dealers as well as longer product conversions. This decline was partly offset by stronger part sales, which increased 9.6%.

Segment operating adjusted EBITDA increased 52.6% to $14.5 million and segment operating adjusted EBITDA margin increased 470 basis points to 11.5%. This was primarily due to a $2 million benefit from a legal settlement as compared to the initial $6.4 million legal charge in the prior year third quarter.

We continued our cost reduction efforts in the quarter and sharing facility capacity to help meet demand within the Infrastructure Solutions segment, which contributed to our adjusted EBITDA as well.

Turning to our adjusted EBITDA bridge on Slide 16. For the quarter, we delivered a increase in adjusted EBITDA of $7.4 million. We realized the benefit from volume, pricing and mix and experienced negative impacts from inflation, manufacturing inefficiencies and other period costs.

On Slide 17, you can see we ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $52.7 million, available credit of $142.4 million and total available liquidity of $195.1 million. Our operating activities were a $22.5 million source of cash for the third quarter. Our free cash flow was $19.9 million in the quarter and we continue to have ample liquidity and a strong balance sheet. Driving commercial and operational excellence will continue to be our capital allocation priorities while continuing to explore inorganic growth opportunities.

That concludes our financial overview and I will turn the call back over to Jaco.

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Thank you, Heinrich. As noted on Slide 18, we continue to work through a challenging market environment in the third quarter, but made important progress on our key initiatives and the underlying fundamentals of the business remain robust. As we look at our 2 segments, Infrastructure Solutions remains strong with healthy demand for asphalt and concrete plant deliveries through the beginning of 2025. We are seeing strong dealer rental and quoting activity in Material Solutions. However, there continue to be near-term headwinds from ample dealer inventory levels and interest rate carrying costs.

We have taken action to optimize our footprint, which includes cross-site manufacturing at select sites to balance demand and capacity. We are focused on driving cost efficiencies, taking pricing action and making operational enhancements to support margin improvement. We are confident that we are taking the right steps to position Astec to drive sustainable growth as markets improve.

Concluding with investment highlights on Slide 19. Astec is a trusted source of globally recognized brands and high-quality solutions for our customers. Many of our customers have told us they have considerable backlog stretching into next year. Our operational excellence efforts will continue to position us to provide our customers with the products they need when they need them.

Our business has several growth drivers, a few of which are our exciting new product pipeline, a stable and growing recurring parts revenue business that currently represents 25% to 30% of our total revenue, increased multiyear federal and state funding for interstates and highways, expansion opportunities in current and future international markets and inorganic growth opportunities that are strategically aligned and meet our financial criteria.

Based on current sales and order activity in Q4, we expect full year sales to be broadly flat compared to the prior year. The equipment, parts and service mix in Q4 are expected to result in gross margins at the lower end of our previously provided range of 24% to 25.5%. We continue to feel quarterly SG&A will be in the range of $59 million to $62 million. CapEx for the full year are expected to be in the $20 million to $25 million range. We are diligently working to build consistency to realize the full potential of Astec and are excited about the future.

With that, operator, we are happy to take questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from the line of Mirc Dobre of Baird.

[Joseph Grabowski, analyst]

It's Joe Grabowski on for Mirc this morning. And Brian, welcome. Maybe starting with you, maybe talk a little bit more about what attracted you to the opportunity at Astec. And again, maybe a little more on any initial thoughts you've had.

[Brian Harris, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Joe. Thanks for the question and I appreciate everybody's participation on the call today. It's been a journey for Astec. Jaco and the team have been working on their strategic road map and their transformation journey for the past 18 months. They've built this tremendous foundation.

And as I said in my opening remarks, there's a fantastic management team here, deep industry knowledge, great expertise and really professional approach to the business. I saw this as an opportunity for value creation for shareholders.

Jaco just talked about some of the growth drivers that we have in the business from products to parts revenue growth, new product pipeline. We've got a lot of infrastructure funding already in place, which will be there for the next several years, international growth opportunities. So it's really a great time to be at Astec and I'm just delighted to be part of the team.

[Joseph Grabowski, analyst]

Great. Again, welcome. Look forward to working with you. And my next question would be just a clarification. I know last third quarter, there was a $6.4 million litigation charge. Was there a favorable impact to EBITDA from a legal settlement in this third quarter? Or are we just saying it was a favorable comparison?

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

I can maybe start with that, Joe. So first of all, I just want to make a comment overall is that we are really driving consistency here and getting these historic legal cases out of our system is one of those things that we're focusing on.

But yes, last year, in the third quarter, we booked $6.4 million. And then since that time, we've accrued additional expenses for an outcome that we anticipated interest and things like that. So when the case settled, there was about $2 million that was released during Q3 of this year connected to that case.

[Joseph Grabowski, analyst]

Okay. Got it. And then maybe moving on to Material Solutions. You've been talking about dealer destocking for the last few quarters. Maybe how much has dealer destocking been impacting sales and orders? And I know you kind of mentioned it in your prepared remarks, but how do you see that destocking playing out over the next few quarters?

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Yes. We've seen some positive momentum there. Just quarter-over-quarter, we saw about a 4%, 5% reduction in dealer inventory. So they continuously doing the destocking. We speak to our dealers frequently.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we had multiple of our key dealers in place. And they're quite positive about next year. We see strong quoting activity. So it will continue, like we said, for a couple of quarters, but at least we've seen positive momentum in their destocking efforts.

We still have a little bit of finished goods inventory. So we have to work through that. They have to work through their inventory. But looking at our parts business, it's very clear that our customers are running our equipment. Quoting activity is good. So we're cautiously optimistic about next year based on the feedback we get from our dealers, Joe.

[Joseph Grabowski, analyst]

Great. And then last question, maybe just a further expansion on this. You mentioned positive quoting activity in Material Solutions. Do you think that that translates to orders in the fourth quarter? Or is it -- does it maybe shift all the way into the first half of '25?

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Yes. So historically, customers have converted quite a bit of their rental agreements here in the fourth quarter. So if we look at historical trends, we are positive about what we're seeing in the fourth quarter.

I think one of the other things is that over the last 2 or 3 quarters, we've been refocusing the team also on selling larger systems and not just mobile equipment. And we're really seeing that gaining momentum. And I think it will balance out a little bit the business that's purely dependent on rental conversions.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from the line of Steve Ferazani of Sidoti.

[Steve Ferazani, analyst]

I wanted to ask about the -- I want to ask about the ongoing manufacturing [ efficiencies ]. It sounds like you are taking some efforts to reduce that with some cross-sector use of capacity. Can you talk about how you further eliminate that? Or is that really going to require a pickup on the MS side from a demand standpoint?

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Yes. No, good question, Stephen. I will be honest with you, I'm actually very happy with the work our teams have done company-wide. As we mentioned in the prepared remarks, the teams have done a really good job moving production between facilities and between groups as well.

Most of this under-absorption or manufacturing efficiencies comes from 1 or 2 sites and the teams are working through that. We are very positive about that side of the business. And the challenge for us is how do we balance cost reductions with what we expect to see from an output point of view next year. We want to retain our people and because we know the sales is out there once we get the output to the level that we expect it to be during next year.

[Steve Ferazani, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. Given some of the numbers you provided your outlook for 2024, obviously, this was a strong cash flow quarter. Typically, the second half is, but you're guiding for --

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Yes.

[Steve Ferazani, analyst]

-- a higher CapEx quarter in 4Q. Do you think based on the numbers you provided that you can get close to or above breakeven on a cash flow basis this year?

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Yes, for the quarter, we are expecting positive cash flow. Heinrich, maybe you can help on a full year basis.

[Heinrich Jonker, executive]

Yes, Jaco. I mean, for us, on a full year basis, we continue to focus very much here in Q4 on cash flow generation. As Jaco mentioned, for us, Q4 typically is a strong quarter from a cash flow perspective as well. Now however, we do have some additional cash outflow that will happen during the Q.

We mentioned also about the legal case that we settled. That case -- that cash will flow out during the fourth quarter as well for us. But yes, we will continue during Q4 to push very hard on working capital development and focus on receivable and driving inventory down.

[Steve Ferazani, analyst]

Great. That being said, obviously, your CapEx will be well down from where it was last year. As you start budgeting for next year, I'm assuming you're getting close to maintenance levels. How long can you stay at this level of CapEx and still be in a position [indiscernible]?

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Yes. No, good question, Steve. So we still believe that investing in our own operations is a really good use of cash. Over the last couple of years, we've built a really strong operational team. And with that comes some great opportunities for us to further improve and automate our manufacturing processes.

So CapEx next year will be another strong year. We've also communicated to the market our efforts in India and establishing manufacturing operations in India. That has been growing significantly. And we will probably invest in some manufacturing capacity over there in the future. So I will say the range for next year will probably be equal to this year.

[Steve Ferazani, analyst]

Okay. That's helpful. You talked about, obviously, concrete and asphalt plant demand has been very healthy throughout. You talked about demand orders running into early 2025. But can you talk about pace of orders now? Are you expecting it after such strong growth -- such strong demand over the last couple of years, would you expect to see some moderating demand into 2025?

[Jaco van der Merwe, executive]

Yes. Yes, so a couple of things here. As I mentioned earlier, when we meet with our customers and I have the opportunity to do that on a frequent basis, they have strong backlogs. We've seen strong order quoting activity. We have quite a bit of new products that's getting into the market.

So there's a lot of things that gives us cautious optimism for next year, Steve. But obviously, we're early in our process and I think we'll give the market a better idea when we talk early Q1 of next year about our full expectations for the year.

[Operator]

There are no further questions in the queue. I'd like to hand the call back to Steve Anderson for closing remarks.

[Stephen C. Anderson, executive]

All right. Thank you, Kathleen. We appreciate your participation on our conference call and thank you for your interest in Astec. As today's news release indicates, the conference call has been recorded. A replay of this conference call will be available through November 20, 2024, and an archived webcast will be available for 90 days. The transcript will be available under the Investor Relations section of the Astec Industries website within the next 7 days. All of that information is contained in the news release we distributed this morning.

So as we said, this concludes our call. Happy to connect with any of you if you have questions later on. So thank you all. Have a good day.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.