David Cherechinsky
Analyst · Stifel. Please go ahead
Thank you, Brad, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start by acknowledging the solid execution by our team in the first quarter of the year. Their grit or perseverance and passion, not just for today, but for playing the long game and doing the things today that ensure the enduring success of DNOW inspires me. Thank you for everything you do to support our suppliers and delight our customers. The first quarter of 2025 represents the second-best first quarter EBITDA results in our public company history at $46 million, up 2% sequentially and up 18% year-over-year. For reference, the actual record quarter for first quarter EBITDA was 2023 at $47 million in a period then where we had 29% more active rigs and 18% more new wells completed. I make that reference to illustrate the resilience of the continued earnings power produced by our team. Again, this is notable given the misunderstood perception that the upstream sector alone drives opportunities for DNOW. In the quarter, we delivered top-line growth both sequentially and on a year-over-year basis, beating our February guidance despite headwinds from a slow start to the year, coupled with flat U.S. rigs and lower U.S. completions. Revenue for the first quarter was $599 million, up 4.9% from the fourth quarter and up 6.4% year-over-year. Gross margins remained resilient at 23.2%, better than expected in the first quarter. EBITDA as a percentage of revenue was 7.7%, beating our first quarter target and demonstrating continued earnings strength. We are focused on opportunities that drive accretive margins while diversifying our market mix. We continue to execute our strategy to invest in and grow our core market, capture additional revenues from energy evolution opportunities and diversify our customer base by targeting and realizing revenue from adjacent industrial markets while driving efficiencies across our business. With our current liquidity and capital allocation framework, we have the ability to strike deals at the right time and repurchase shares opportunistically, thus balancing the growth of our business with a return of capital to produce sustainable long-term value for our shareholders. In April, we closed a small but important international acquisition, which provides industrial lighting and electrical bulk materials to the energy and industrial end markets in Singapore and in the Asia Pacific region. The acquisition is complementary to and further strengthens and expands our MacLean International brand, where we have the same electrical manufacturer distribution agreement in the U.K. and Australia, allowing for increased revenue synergies with this key manufacturer and further positions MacLean to capture more market share. Moving to share repurchases. Under the new upsized $160 million program authorized earlier this year, we have purchased $16 million in shares to date. Before I move to our results on a regional basis, I'd like to take a moment to comment on tariffs, some macro uncertainty and the impact on DNOW. As you are aware, the tariff situation is dynamic. As a point of reference, following the first round of tariffs in 2018 and supply chain disruptions faced in 2021 and 2022 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, our supply chain and sourcing teams have repositioned our supply and increased sourcing from domestic producers, reducing our dependence on international sources. Today, in our U.S. operations, our rough estimates are that around 70% of the products we sell are sourced domestically, leaving the remaining products sourced internationally. South Korean, Indian and European supply make up the majority of the directly imported product. DNOW directly imports a negligible amount for products from China, less than $1 million per year. Approximately 20% of our U.S. operations supply for inventory has some exposure to China, mostly raw materials. Neither DNOW nor our key suppliers have dependency on Chinese imports for pipe, fittings and flanges, inclusive of raw materials and semi-finished materials. DNOW valve and pump manufacturers range from 100% U.S. made to varying percentages of critical components to 100% Chinese made. Manufacturers exposed to Chinese-specific tariffs have begun altering supply chains and diversifying outside of China. In response to this, we are taking the following actions to mitigate the impact and protect our margins. We are passing supplier cost increases through as quickly as we can. We are updating our pricing structures to reflect increases as they occur. We are working with our key suppliers to ensure adherence to advanced notification clauses in our agreements. We are using our purchasing power to continue to multi-source key commodity product lines to help our customers. We are working closely with our customers on project materials to solidify commitments ahead of procurement. And we are analyzing alternate manufacturers for qualification to our approved manufacturers list. DNOW has the scale, systems, processes and talent with experience to execute our inflation period playbook. Our suppliers are actively managing this evolving situation alongside us. In conclusion, DNOW is better positioned to navigate these challenges and seize opportunities related to tariff impact. Now, some comments on a regional basis. In the U.S., revenue was $474 million, up $23 million or 5% sequentially. Growth was driven by a full quarter contribution of our fourth quarter Trojan acquisition and increased midstream demand, most notably from our Whitco business. In midstream, we are seeing demand to support continued debottlenecking of midstream takeaway capacity combined with operators' investments in gathering assets. As a result of softening in some areas, we continue to exercise our self-help initiatives by optimizing our branch footprint, leading to some location closures. As we look into the second quarter, we will continue to drive incremental expense savings as we adjust our model to the market, investing in the areas of growth and pruning underperforming areas. In U.S. Process Solutions, revenue increased sequentially from a full quarter of the Trojan business and due to higher demand for our suite of products and services. Growth was driven by demand for Odessa pumps packages, aftermarket service and Trojan rental equipment. Activity remains strong for our Power Service and Flex Flow business, while EcoVapor experienced a decrease due to project timing variations as expected. Our Flex Flow and Trojan rental fleets saw increased demand due to some operators favoring leasing over purchasing to support their maintenance production. Given the rental nature of this business, these are higher-margin product lines, and revenue should increase to the extent customers cut CapEx, another example supporting our resilient business model. We delivered our first power distribution center, or PDC, for a midstream company. This newly engineered unit is a turnkey 16x50-foot packaged unit, an insulated building, including variable frequency drives, panel boards, transformers and HVAC units. We expanded our pump product lines by signing new distribution agreements with a lobe style and vertical slack style pump manufacturer, which expands our addressable market in the produced water transfer and industrial end markets. During the quarter, we commissioned our first horizontal H-pump rental for a liquid CO2 recycle transfer application in an enhanced oil recovery operation for a Permian operator. The performance exceeded customer expectations and expanded our application capabilities for the rental fleet. As part of our Sable Automation Solution, we successfully commissioned a water recycling facility for a leading national egg producer. This system ensures consistent delivery of high-quality water and nutrition in poultry feed, ultimately enhancing egg production. We launched our new Tank Commander EcoVapor product, which addresses the needs expressed by several of our customers. This unit is a vapor management system designed to capture 100% of tank vapor and eliminate venting emissions, thereby enhancing the value of oil and gas assets. This innovation combines our ZerO2 technology with an automated system to control storage tank pressures, allowing operators to sell valuable high-BTU tank vapor gas and reduce Scope 1 emissions. In Canada, revenue was $62 million for the quarter, down $4 million sequentially as a $4 million project from 4Q did not repeat. And in International, revenue was $63 million, sequentially higher by $9 million, or 17%, primarily due to increased project activity with a $15 million project in 1Q not expected to repeat in the second quarter. For DNOW, the energy evolution includes activity primarily associated with carbon capture utilization and storage, direct air capture, hydrogen, and renewable natural gas or RNG-related projects. Throughout the quarter, we successfully delivered a range of PVF+ and EcoVapor products for various projects encompassing CCUS, hydrogen and RNG end markets. Regarding capital investments and expansion in data centers to support AI growth, DNOW is positioned to participate in several areas. First, for data centers powered from natural gas, we see growth opportunities in construction of midstream transmission lines to supply natural gas for our PVF+ products with many of the operators already being customers of DNOW. In the United States, our pumping solutions are being used in cooling systems alongside pipe valves and fittings from engineering, procurement and construction firms who design and build the data centers. And internationally, our MacLean operations in the U.K., Norway, Netherlands and now Asia Pacific are experiencing increasing bidding activity for our electrical cable supports, basketball -- basket trade system supplies and lighting for data center projects as well. Moving to our DigitalNOW initiatives. Our digital revenue as a percent of total SAP revenue improved to 53% during the quarter, driving improved efficiencies through integrated systems. We are not only looking to grow revenues by selling our products in the construction of data centers, we are also deploying AI solutions to drive efficiencies in a number of internal processes across DNOW. One project we recently completed uses AI to index and upload manufacturer test certificates, which are provided along with the products we sell to customers. This project has taken a highly manual process, which is now powered by the use of AI and machine learning, processing up to 85% of requests without any action or manual intervention required. With that, let me hand it over to Mark.