Jeff Edwards
Analyst · Bob Wetenhall with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question
Thanks Jason, and good morning to everyone joining us on today's call. I'm happy to have the opportunity to talk to all of you about our first quarter results. As usual, I will start today's call with some highlights and then turn the call over to Michael Miller, IBP's CFO who will discuss our results in more detail before we take your question. This year is off to an excellent start driven by strong first quarter operating and financial results. The first quarter is typically our seasonally lowest quarter for revenues and profitability and as you may remember, last year's first quarter benefited from a significant catch-up in completion which favorably influenced IBP's revenue mix and profitability. This year is also off to a strong start though for different reasons leading us to believe that 2017 is shaping up to be an excellent year and yet have more of a normal seasonal pattern. As a remainder, the insulation installation process of a single-family home typically requires three separate trips to the construction site. The first phase is primarily associated with preparing and air sealing the house as well as install and insulation in locations that become difficult to access later after other trades performed, their rough in work prior to insulation install. This phase is more labor intensive with typically lower margins. We do a higher mix of this type or work during the first quarter. The second phase typically involves installing fiberglass batts in the wall cavity and the final phase primarily consists of blowing loosefill insulation in the attic. These later two phases are typically higher margin jobs and represent a greater mix of the work we complete during the second half of the year. Last year's first quarter benefited from a higher amount of phase two and three insulation installation services as there was a catch-up in the lag between starts and completion that built during the second half of 2015 which isn't generally what we see during our first quarter. This year is following more normal seasonal pattern we believe will be more similar to 2015 than 2016. As a result, profitability during the 2017 first quarter is not directly comparable to the prior year period from a gross margin and same branch incremental adjusted EBITDA margin perspective. You know I'm very pleased with the strong gross margins and adjusted EBITDA margin we have experienced in a seasonally low quarter. So, with this as a backdrop, let's talk more about first quarter's operating and financial results. First quarter total revenues increased 33% to $256 million driven by same branch growth, the contribution of our recent acquisitions and a strengthening housing market. The higher revenues we experienced in the first quarter combined with controlled spending helped improve our first quarter profitability with a 36% increase in adjusted EBITDA and 35% increase in adjusted net income per diluted share. We continue to produce strong operating cash flows in during the three month period ended March 31, 2017. We generated $16 million of cash from operating activities. In addition, in April, we successfully refinanced our senior secured debt with new credit facilities to provide IBP with significant capital and financial flexibility to achieve our established growth strategy. During the 2017 first quarter, we saw strong growth across all of our end markets. Single-family same branch sales increased 4.4%, while total single-family sales increased 14.4% compared to the increase in total U.S. single-family completions of 10.9%. Within the multifamily market, our locations benefited from robust demand and during the 2017 first quarter same branch multifamily sales increased nearly 44% while total multifamily sales increased 150%. IBP's total residential same-branch sales increased 8% for the 2017 first quarter compared to total completions growth of 10.7%. Over the past 12 months, our total new residential same branch sales have increased 11.4% compared to total U.S. completions growth of 7.7%. We expect residential end markets to improve toward stabilization of approximately 1.5 million total housing starts over the next several years and our business continues to benefit from the recovery in housing industry. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's historical data in the April 2017 Blue Chip consensus forecast for housing starts, total U.S. housing starts are forecasted to increase a 9% compound annual growth rate from 2016 to 2018. During the 2017 first quarter, total U.S. housing permits increased 10.5%. This was primarily due to a 13.2% increase in single-family permits, while multifamily permits increased 5.6%. We expect residential end markets to benefit from various factors, including improving employment, rising household formations and historically low mortgage interest rates. Acquisitions continue to enhance our financial performance. In the first quarter, we acquired Atlanta-based Custom Glass Atlanta, Inc. and Atlanta Commercial Glazing, Inc. with combined annual revenue of $11 million and Arctic Express an insulation installer located in Corpus Christi, Texas with $1.6 million in trailing 12-month sales. We also closed the acquisition of Trilok Industries, Inc. Alpha Insulation and Waterproofing, Inc., and Alpha Insulation and Waterproofing Company, a provider of waterproofing, insulation, fireproofing, and fire stopping services to commercial contractors with nine locations throughout the southern U.S., and 2016 revenues of $106 million. I'm encouraged by the first quarter's contribution from the Alpha Insulation and Waterproofing acquisition, which we successfully closed and began integrating into our operations in January. Alpha has exceeded our initial expectations helping to drive a significant increase in acquired revenues, while improving the Company's adjusted EBITDA contribution margin from acquired businesses to 14.4% in the quarter compared 11.2% for the same period last year. Alpha's backlog at the end of the first quarter was $87 million, a 4% increase since the start of the year. With the addition of Alpha, IBP has developed a strong commercial platform that is well positioned for sustained growth. For the 2017 first quarter, commercial revenue represented 18% of total revenue compared to 11% for the same period last year. We are focused on leveraging Alpha's commercial experience throughout IBP's nationwide branch network and expect commercial revenues will become a greater percentage of IBP's total revenue. Additionally, we have completed two more recent acquisitions. In April, we acquired Minneapolis based Horizon Electric Company with annualized revenue of $1.2 million and in May, we acquired Sanford, Florida based Legacy & Glass, LLC., with annualized revenues of $5.4 million. Year-to-date, these five acquisitions represent a total of $125 million of acquired revenue. We continue to deliver on our acquisition strategy and remain confident in our ability to identify candidates successfully integrate newly acquired companies and immediately achieve operating synergies through our scale and national buying power. Our pipeline of potential residential and commercial deals over the next 12 months is robust and we anticipate the remainder of the year will be strong. I want to emphasize again what a strong quarter IBP had in light of the difficult comparison to the first quarter of 2016. With nearly 5% growth in the number of completed jobs on the same branch basis, and a 4% gain in price mix, existing branch locations performed exceptionally well and the addition of key acquisitions impressively improved our end market diversification and profitability. As the spring selling season continues to provide strong indicators through our volume of work in future quarters, I'm very pleased with our strong start to the year and expect 2017 will be another record year as we are positioned to achieve over $1 billion in revenues. IBP has a fantastic team of experienced, dedicated and motivated associates and I'd like to thank all of them for their hard work. Finally, on behalf of everyone at IBP, I'd like to also thank our suppliers as well as our homebuilding, multi-family and commercial customers. We appreciate your support and we are dedicated to providing each of our customers with superior committed an excellent installation services. Thank you. Michael, I'd like to now turn the call over to you to provide more details on our first quarter results.