Gary Fields
Analyst · Sidoti & Company. Please go ahead
Good afternoon. Overall, we're happy with second quarter results. We improved production rates to record levels for the second straight quarter and shipped the most amount of product in any quarter in company history. At the same time, our backlog still increased modestly from the end of the first quarter. Demand remains strong, and we continue to book slightly more than we're producing. This positions us well headed into the second half of the year. Another positive is that our lead times are relatively stable throughout the quarter and still remain well below industry average. Today, in early August, we're still booking orders for shipment in 2022. I don't think anyone else in the industry is saying that. Gross margins were a little lighter than we were anticipating. Price cost was the biggest headwind to gross margins in the quarter, difference between pricing of the equipment we ship versus the cost of materials and wages was the largest of any quarter in recent inflationary cycle. The good news is that it began to shift in a positive way in June, we expect it will continue throughout the rest of the year. Pricing of orders in the backlog is much greater than the pricing of the orders that were shipped in the first half of the year. Furthermore, raw material prices have turned down since peaking earlier in the year. So we continue to expect substantial margin expansion in the second half of the year. We continue to face issues with supply chain. However, we're doing a very good job managing these challenges. I have to recognize our operational team for reaching record production rates for second quarter. In this environment, it is certainly very commendable. The flexibility of our custom manufacturing operations and engineering team provide us an advantage as we're able to quickly adapt to supply chain shortages better than most others in the industry. We expect this environment will be with us for a while. But if and when things normalize, we'll definitely see operational efficiencies, because of the learning curve that we've gone through. As I mentioned at the top of my commentary, demand continues to remain strong. Organic orders in the first half of the year were up approximately 60%. Total backlog continues to grow on a sequential basis and organic backlog at end of the second quarter was up 164% from a year ago. Furthermore, June and July bookings were strong everything we're hearing from our sales channel partners is demand remains robust. On a macro level, activity remains strong. This is also consistent to what we're seeing on a macro level. The Dodge Momentum Index, which measures the number of construction projects in the planning stages and is a 12-month leading indicator for nonresidential construction spending was at a 14-year high in its latest reading. The Architectural Billings Index, also a leading indicator for non-residential construction spending remains above 50, indicating our textual billings continue to grow. The latest ABI report also cited that backlogs amongst architectural firms are currently at seven months, which is extremely high in a historical perspective. The pipeline of projects in the industry is strong, and we're seeing that in non-res starts, and spending data. For us, the strength remains very broad-based across all the verticals we sell into. That all said, we're aware of what is going on in the economy with rising interest rates, higher wages, supply chain labor shortages and we're prepared to deal with slowdown if one comes. However, at this time, we're not seeing it in the channels we monitor. I want to shift my focus to basics for a moment. This is an area of our company we're seeing tremendous growth, and I'm very proud of how this acquisition has progressed since closing on the deal in December. Through the first six months of the year, the deal has been accretive to earnings and the second half is shaping up even better. The data center and clean room end markets, which make up a vast majority of their sales are extremely strong. Pipeline of projects extends out multiple years, giving them a tremendous amount of visibility. Since acquiring the business, the revenue synergies have even surprised me. From the end of 2021, to the end of the second quarter, backlog at Basics has increased nearly threefold. Furthermore, subsequent to the end of the second quarter, the business booked a single order were $16.2 million. We plan on leveraging the capacity in our new facility in Longview, to manufacture this product for the basics for this specific customer. This will not only help leverage overhead costs associated with this facility, but it will position us better from a strategic regional manufacturing perspective. It's quite expensive to ship product from Redmond, Oregon to the East Coast. Now, we can better attack that region from a pricing standpoint, when we build it in the South Central in Longview, Texas. There's other projects in the pipeline that are significant size that we have commitment for and looking forward to getting firm purchase orders secured on those soon. This will help maximize Basic's chance of winning future work using this Longview facility to regionally assist us in deliveries. I want to touch briefly on our parts business. Parts still make up a small percentage of sales at just 7%, but it's something we've been focusing a lot on, both internally and with our channel partners, we've been having a great success. Parts sales in the second quarter were up 32%, that was a quarterly record for the company. Moreover, the 32% growth was against a comp of 42% growth realized in the second quarter of 2021. So, compared to two years ago, part sales were up 88% this past quarter. Parts generate very good gross margins for the company. So, growing this business will continue to be a strong focus for us. Before finishing up and handing off the call for Q&A, I'd just like to update you on our capital investment plans. I'm sure you noticed, Rebecca said that we reduced our CapEx budget for 2022 by 27% compared to what we were previously targeting. This by no means is an indication of slowing growth. As I've been saying, demand is robust and we do not see material signs of slowdown. Moreover, we continue to target double-digit organic sales growth for the next several years. The fact is we are regularly challenging the team to look at ways of increasing production capacity and maximizing efficiency in our existing facilities. In recent history, we've done a great job with this and we continue to do so. I want to commend the group that calls themselves space force. They've reallocated hundreds of thousands of square feet in our -- all of our facilities for this. So, the reduction in our 2022 CapEx budget is merely us finding ways to increase capacity in our existing space. I want to assure you, we are regularly monitoring our capacity versus our growth projections, making sure that we've got adequate room for growth. We've detailed plans over the next several years to increase capacity, so we're able to continue to absorb the robust growth that we anticipate. We just took a little pause on it right now because we've discovered additional capacity in the existing facilities. So, in closing, I want to reiterate, we feel very good as we head into the second half of the year. size of the backlog and most important, this is very important. The profitability of the backlog. We've got two price increases that we have not yet realized in the first two quarters of the year that are just right here with this in Q3 and Q4. This positions us for robust sales and earnings growth. Bookings remained strong through July. Pipeline remains very positive, so barring a severe recession, our outlook for the foreseeable future has never been stronger. I want to finish by thanking all of our employees, sales channel partners, and customers, your support is immense and very much appreciated. So, now, I'll open it up for Q&A.