John Peterson
Analyst · Nomura Instinet. Please proceed with your question
Good morning, everyone. As Jerry noted, we had a solid third quarter. Looking at Slide 6. Consolidated revenue increased 7.9% to $489 million, primarily driven by sales volume and improved selling prices at both TruTeam and Service Partners, as well as $24.4 million of revenue from companies acquired since August 2016. On a same branch basis, revenue increased 2.7% compared to third quarter 2016. These results were negatively impacted by adverse weather in the range of $6 million to $8 million. Gross margin expanded 80 basis points to 24.7% compared to the same period a year ago. Adjusted operating profit grew 27% to $50.3 million with a corresponding margin improvement of 160 basis points. Both gross margin and operating margin improvements were driven by volume leverage, higher selling prices, and improved labor productivity; partially offset by higher health insurance costs, higher material costs and some inefficiencies tied to weather. Third quarter 2017 adjustments totaled $700,000, primarily related to the consolidation of certain back office operations and acquisition-related expenses. Third quarter adjusted EBITDA was $57.6 million compared to $44.6 million in 2016 and our EBITDA margin was 11.8%, a 190-basis point improvement from third quarter 2016 and a 350-basis point improvement from third quarter 2015. This margin improvement is a direct result of the transformative changes we have made at TopBuild to improve our operations, increase labor and sales productivity, optimize our footprint and streamline many of our processes and procedures. Profitable growth continues to be a key focus for everyone in our business. We were also pleased to report a strong dropdown to adjusted EBITDA margin of 36%. On a same branch basis, adjusted EBITDA was $53.7 million, a 20.3% increase and our dropdown to adjusted EBITDA was 74.2%, driven by improved selling prices, strong cost control and continuing leveraging of our platform. For the first nine months of 2017, adjusted EBITDA was 36.3% to $139.7 million and our dropdown to adjusted EBITDA was 35%. Incremental margin related to our seven acquisitions was 16.3%, a 380 basis-point improvement from last quarter. This clearly demonstrates our success in acquiring high-value businesses, successfully integrating them into TopBuild and delivering strong returns to our shareholders. Acquisitions remain our number one capital allocation priority after internal investments. TopBuild’s third quarter SG&A increased $2.2 million or 3.2% to $71.3 million, but declined 60 basis points as a percent of revenue to 14.6%. The majority of the increase was driven by the impact of acquisitions as well as higher stock-based compensation. Moving to Slide 7. Adjusted income from continuing operations for the third quarter was $29.7 million or $0.83 per diluted share compared to $23.8 million or $0.63 per diluted share. For the first nine months of 2017, adjusted income from continuing operations was $71.6 million or $1.94 per diluted share compared to $51.9 million or $1.37 per diluted share. On Slide 8, you can see CapEx for the first nine months of the year was 13.1 million and working capital as a percent to sales for the trailing 12 months was 10%. Working capital as a percent of sales was 110 basis points higher than prior year due to higher commercial sales mix, driven primarily by the impact of our two large commercial acquisitions earlier this year, Midwest Fireproofing and Canyon Insulation. Commercial projects typically have a longer collection cycle than residential jobs. To a lesser degree, adverse weather conditions in September also had some impact on our quarter-end collections due to closed TopBuild branches and customer pay offices in the affected regions. We expect working capital to be in our targeted range of 7% to 8% of sales for year-end 2017. Operating cash flow was $54.6 million for the first nine months and cash on the balance sheet was $18.5 million on September 30. Net leverage for the quarter was 1.28% with total liquidity available of $316.4 million, inclusive of the available balance on the revolver of $197.9 million, the delayed draw of committed funds on our term loan of $100 million and cash of $18 million. Our effective tax rates for the third quarter and nine months were 33.4% and 33.8%, respectively, lower than the 38% tax rate we guide to. The lower rate was primarily due to excess tax deductions driven by share-based compensation. I want to turn to annual guidance, on Slide 9, which was published in today’s press release. As we announced and commenced on our Investor Day, we are now providing guidance for revenue and adjusted EBITDA. For the full year 2017, we expect revenue to be between $1,890 million to $1,905 million, a tightening of the range previously provided of $1,880 million to $1,905 million. For adjusted EBITDA, we’re guiding to $190 million to $195 million versus previous guidance of $183 million to $193 million. Going forward, we anticipate updating annual guidance quarterly. On our fourth quarter call next February, we will provide annual revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance for 2018. At Investor Day, we also provided three-year targets, which include some changes to what we’ve modeled in the past. For residential growth, we have combined repair and remodel with residential new construction and we are now projecting $60 million of residential revenue for every increase of 50,000 housing starts. Commercial is unchanged with annual revenue growth expected to be at least 12% per year. Both residential and commercial growth assumptions exclude any impact of future acquisitions. CapEx, which we’ve traditionally guided to 1% of revenue, is now projected at 2% to 2.5% of sales. This increase is driven by a change in how we will be acquiring our vehicles. Starting this quarter, we are moving to low cost debt financing for fleet acquisitions and away from full service lessors. Over time, our historical operating leases will wind down and be replaced with depreciable assets. For the first two years of the transition, we expect negligible impact to operating profit. We are now breaking out incremental EBITDA on sales growth between our organic business and acquisitions. For acquisitions, we expect incremental EBITDA margins for the first year to be between 11% and 16%. Incremental EBITDA margins on organic growth are now projected at 22% to 27%. For those of you who model our company, due to the change in how we will be acquiring and financing our vehicles, we expect to see an additional add-back of depreciation as the historical operating leases expire and are replaced with depreciable assets. This should add an incremental $1 million to $1.5 million of depreciation in 2018, $4 million to $5 million in 2019 and $7 million to $8 million in 2020. So keeping 2017 annual guidance and these long-term metrics in mind, Slide 10 shows what TopBuild, without additional acquisitions, could potentially look like, assuming we reach 1.5 million starts in 2021. We would be generating almost $2.5 billion of revenue and reporting EBITDA between $312 million and $340 million with corresponding margins of 12.6% to 13.7%. This doesn’t include the additional add-back of depreciation just discussed. Of course, we will make additional acquisitions, the results of which will further enhance these estimates. We think that’s a great story for shareholders. Let me now pass the call over to Robert who will discuss operations and segment results. Robert?