Greetings, and welcome to the Gibraltar Industries' Fourth Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Carolyn Capaccio of LHA Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

Thanks, Christine. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. With me on the call is Bill Bosway, Gibraltar Industries' President and Chief Executive Officer; and Tim Murphy, Gibraltar's Chief Financial Officer. The earnings press release that was issued this morning as well as the slide presentation that management will use during the call are both available in the Investor info section of the company's website, gibraltar1.com. Please note that Gibraltar has classified the industrial business, which was divested on February 23, 2021, as a discontinued operation with fourth quarter 2020 results. Additionally, Gibraltar's earnings press release and remarks contain non-GAAP financial measures. Tables of reconciliation, including GAAP to adjusted financial measures as well as continuing and discontinued operations can be found in the earnings press release that was issued today. Further, results of TerraSmart, which was acquired at 11:59 p.m. on December 31, 2020, had no impact on operations in 2020 reported results. As noted on Slide two of the presentation, the earnings press release and slide presentation contain forward-looking statements with respect to future financial results. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and the Company's actual results may differ materially from the anticipated events, performance or results expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Gibraltar advises you to read the risk factors detailed in its SEC filings which can also be accessed through the company's website. Now I will turn the call over to Bill Bosway. Bill?

Thanks, Carolyn, and good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining the call this morning. I hope everyone is remaining safe and healthy. And navigating through some of the recent winter weather that we've all experienced. Let's start with an overview of our 2020 full-year and fourth quarter results. And then Tim is going to provide more detail regarding our Q4 financials, and then I'll circle back with you and review our strategic priorities and full-year guidance for 2021. And then we'll open the call for your questions. So let's turn to Slide 3. 2020 results. Overall, we delivered record results in 2020 while remaining very focused on health and well-being of our people, of our operations, our customers and, obviously, the communities we operate in. For the full-year, revenue increased 15%. GAAP EPS increased 38% and adjusted EPS increased 18%. And GAAP operating margin improved 140 basis points, and adjusted operating margin improved 40 basis points to 11.3%. And our return on invested capital improved to 17.6%, up over 180 basis points versus 2019. So despite a challenging and I'd say relatively dynamic environment in 2020, we executed well on our key initiatives. We generated strong cash flow, and we continue to improve our operations. We also invested in our organization, adding talent and accelerated our education initiative. We deployed additional digital and IT systems and tools, and we made five acquisitions to strengthen our leadership position and relevance in our key markets. We acquired Thermo Energy Solutions, a leader in the commercial growing infrastructure market; Delta Separations, the leader in process and extraction equipment; Mailboxes is a leader in high-end mail boxes; and TerraSmart and Sunfig, respective leaders in the solar energy space. And as mentioned at the start of the call, we also announced the sale of our…

Thanks, Bill, and good morning, everyone. I'll take you through our consolidated and segment results. My discussion covers results from continuing ops as we classify the Industrial business, which was divested on Tuesday as discontinued operation for 2020. I'll also provide more color on this divestiture shortly. And as a reminder, TerraSmart had no impact on our income statement in 2020 as we acquired the business at the end of the day on December 31. The acquisition of TerraSmart is reflected in our year-end balance sheet and cash flows. So going to consolidated. Consolidated revenue increased 17.3%, driven by growth in the Residential Products and Renewable Energy & Conservation segments, which offset a revenue decline in the Infrastructure segment. Organic revenue growth of 3.6% was driven by continued execution and very strong demand and participation gains in the Residential Products segment, which was partially offset by organic revenue decrease in Renewable Energy & Conservation and Infrastructure segments. We generated 13.7% growth from our first quarter 2020 acquisition to Thermo Energy and Delta Separations and our fourth quarter 2020 acquisition of Architectural Mailboxes. Total backlog at quarter end including TerraSmart is approaching $300 million, up 50% from the prior year, driven by continued end market demand in our Renewable Energy & Conservation segment, and to a lesser extent, demand in our Infrastructure segment. Consolidated GAAP operating income was up 12.4%, and adjusted operating income increased 5.8% in the fourth quarter. Consolidated GAAP and adjusted EPS grew 15.2% and 3.5%, respectively. The increase was a result of organic growth, continued margin expansion in the Residential Products segment, product and services mix, effective price material cost management and ongoing benefits from operational excellence initiatives. As a result of the Industrial business divestiture included in the fourth quarter 2020 loss from discontinued operations of…

Thanks, Tim. Let's turn to Slide 11, and I'll give you an update on the recent actions supporting our three strategic pillars. First, let's discuss our business system. Our focus on executing our pandemic playbook continues and will remain throughout 2021. We obviously must maintain the best and safest work environment for our team so we can execute consistently and continue to support our customers. In 2020, we invested more in digital IT systems, including ERP projects, CRM implementations, remote management capability and cybersecurity to protect how we do business, and we will continue to invest in 2021. The raw material inflation and availability environment will continue to be dynamic throughout in 2021. Our businesses have been implementing actions to minimize and offset this headwind through supply chain planning, price management, productivity initiatives and 80/20 projects. Our second pillar portfolio management. In 2020, we built stronger positions in our Solar Energy, Growing & Processing and Residential Products businesses with 5 acquisitions. We made significant progress integrating our new companies even with pandemic-related restrictions, and our progress will continue in 2021. We also divested, as we mentioned, our Industrial business, enabling us to allocate more time, talent and energy to our faster-growing and more profitable businesses. And third, organization development. In 2020, we added significant talent to the team, upgrading filling gaps in sales, marketing, human resources, engineering, in digital, IT and cybersecurity. We execute our digital education initiative, covering ethics compliance and diversity. The quality of inclusion in cybersecurity with approximately 20,000 hours of employee training, and we expect to complete another 25,000 hours of training in 2021. We are really building a diversity of thought, mentality into our organization, building a team and creating an environment for our people to grow and have success. And in 2020, 50% of…

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you. Our first question comes from the line of Daniel Moore with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Bill, Tim, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions.

Good morning, Dan.

I want to start with renewables on the solar side. Is it possible to estimate the revenue and margin impact of the customer supply chain shortages in Q4, how much lingering impact is likely in Q1?

Yes. It's – what I would say, Dan, it was significant. That's why I want to call it out today and talk through it. It's over a few projects. We don't have complete clarity on the exact amount outside of it being significant. And the reason I say that is each of the projects were in different stages. In terms of when they flow into 2021, that's – we're monitoring that. It may be Q1, it may be Q2. It just – it varies project-by-project and it's case by case. Each project is a little different scenario. In some cases where our customers had a panel availability issue, they may switch to a different panel module. But when they do that, it causes redesign with racking systems, all the things that we do, and that causes a certain type of delay. In other cases, if a customer just says, "Hey, I don't have my panel, and I'm going to delay. They'll work through supply chains to try to get those panels in, and that will be a different type of delay. So in terms of when it actually flows through, those projects are existing, they're out there. They're in process, but it's going to be a combination of flowing into Q1 and some into Q2.

That's helpful. And maybe if you could just elaborate on the permitting challenges that you mentioned and where are those? And what is the likelihood that those challenges linger beyond a quarter or two?

Yes. I think those are more – I think that the supply of solar panels is a temporary situation, but it's driven by some specific things that are being rectified. And we just – we didn't really see much of that when you see – we have 1,000 different projects in flight and 350 going on at one time. What we're really dealing with is 300 different – 350 different supply chains managed by individual developers and customers, right? So same with permitting, we deal with permitting issues all the time. And so it wasn't – I wouldn't say it was a big surprise that we would experience it. I think it's where it happened and what projects it had happened on that was impactful to us in the quarter. And they came late and they happen to be on some relatively larger projects. And then from our history, we've always been in that more of the community solar space, which is kind of 5 megawatt or 3 megawatt and smaller. Our strategy the last couple of years is to move up into some of the bigger projects. And so our – the makeup of our 350 projects in the quarter, still very heavily weighted towards smaller size but we do have more larger projects. And some of those were part of that 50 to 70-megawatt group that got moved. And when you move two or three of those, it's pretty impactful. So we've got a list of each project that moved, and it's a different story for each of the delays. There'll be – those permits will come through, and they'll get back on track. It's just a story for each one is the way it actually works.

Helpful. One more for me, maybe a longer-term question. On the longer-term outlook for Renewables, I think you stated pro forma margins in 2020 above 12%. And would improve as volume grows. What adjusted operating margin range is associated with the $700 million revenue target for 2025? And do we think of that as sort of straight-line improvement, step function? Just any thoughts there?

Yes. Well, I will say, in general, and I'll let Tim comment here too, but I would say this, there's a combination of things that will drive our margin enhancement. Obviously, volume helps. But when you think about how we integrate and scale the business, there will be some step function improvement based on processes and systems, both in our facilities, with our supply chain and in the field. So it's going to be a combination of things that are going to drive our margin enhancement. Go ahead, Tim.

Yes. And Dan, the 2025, we said we'd be 15% plus is our expectation.

Got it. That is still the case. Okay, thank you. I will jump back with any follow-ups.

Thanks.

Our next question comes from the line of Ken Zener with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning, gentlemen.

Hey, Ken.

Hi, Ken. How are you?

I’m well. Thank you. What a year 2020 was for your company. So many moving parts. First, I think you guys did a very good job opening up your portfolio and how you're thinking about it because there is a lot that's happened at your company, to say the least. I guess, let me start with the legacy piece because that's going to be the easiest here. Residential, doing quite well. I don't know, Tim, if you want to kind of just talk about end market demand there and perhaps a first versus second half sense of where the market is? Home Depot earlier this week just said, no guidance. So I mean, I get it. It's a tough end market to figure. But if you could just shed some color in terms of revenue, mix, margin trajectory, anything like that?

I would say, generally, we think housing is – remains pretty strong. The repair remodel, which is going to be the driver, the bulk of our business. No indication that, that's going to change. So we expect – we've got participation gains last year, and we didn't have them all year. So we’d expect revenue growth from that. Ken, look, it's not going to expand like it did 2019 to 2020. I wouldn't expect us to repeat 2020 to 2021. Growth or margin expansion, but our goal is to grow our businesses and make more money every year. So...

Do you think the back half – I mean, not to put you guys on the spot, but a large supplier like Stanley Works talked about high growth in the front half of 2021, but actually being negative in the back half of 2021. Is that a possibility given the 20%? Because I know we talked about your real share gains that you had because you guys didn't shut down operations like other people, so you gained share. Could you maybe qualify how much of that 12% growth you had this year might have come from share gains or just some way to think about how you improved your position because your operations are better first peers as opposed to just a macro tailwind?

Yes. I mean it's a combination of all three, right? We started working on the businesses back in 2019. And started going after some additional customer opportunities once we sort of fix some of the things in the background. So it's hard to say how much is specifically incremental stores versus same-store volumes. It's a mix of that. And then the operations are better structured for higher returns. So Ken, is it – without giving guidance other than for the full year and not by segment, I don't want to go too far. But we think it's a good market. We're not seeing – we don't – we're not predicting a slowdown in what's there today.

Ken. Just the one thing that we heard – and you may hear this from other folks as well. The second half of the year kind of may correlate a little bit with how the pandemic starts to subside over the next, arguably six months or whatever time frame it's actually going to happen. But the access to having labor to drive the residential construction market last year was plentiful because you had so many people coming out of the service industry when it was really hampered by the pandemic and moving into the residential construction industry where you can – there's a ton of lower – less skilled jobs available in the residential construction market. And so there was a huge labor supply going into that, which I think is what also helped keep the pace of residential going. And I think that's true going into the first half because of where we are on a global – on an economic or broad economy basis in the US. As those restaurants and some of the service industries start to pick back up, I do – we have heard and people are concerned a little bit, will we still have labor availability to continue to support the growth that's expected and inherent demand for residential? So yes there's some nuances like that to consider in the second half that maybe what people are pointing a little bit to or concerned with. But from our perspective, we see decent momentum starting out the year and we're going to continue to do the things we talked about. So we'll see how that evolves in the second half.

Now focusing on renewable, I mean just amazing how far that business has come from where RBI was originally. And I'm just thinking about communications. I think you guys are doing a very good job trying to illuminate your end markets that might not be so obvious to people. Do you think – so I understand FY 2021 guidance. I understand uncertainty around 1Q. Clearly, solar, vegetable, cannabis, all these markets seem to be in secular growth mode. Is there a way – do you think the inability to – or to give guidance, is there something structural about those businesses that we should really just think about your ability to offer quarterly guidance is not so much a function of concern or business uncertainty as it is the nature of those businesses? Because I think investors are going to have to grapple with the fact like we always want the quarterly guidance or we want you to know what's happening to the penny. Is that something we should just accept because those markets move on such different cadences from backlog to – I don't know, I'm just interested in your thoughts because I think that's going to be one of the things that I certainly would struggle with relative to your older businesses is clarity, lumpiness, not the growth rates and structure, but just how we think about that. I appreciate it. Sorry about that. Broad question.

No, it's a really good question, and I appreciate you asking it. Clearly, the makeup of the business is evolving to where we've got half our business now focused in these markets and they're project-based businesses. And there's potential movement from one quarter to the next. And we see that every now and then. And it's a little less predictable. You think over time, as you grow in the space and you become more mature, you get a pattern and so the onetime events or some disruptions here and there eventually start to wash themselves out. They do during the course of the year, but as you get a little bit bigger, which we obviously intend to do, I think you'll see less and less concern about that quarter-to-quarter. But the next couple of years, yes, I think there's going to be some of that challenge. The reason – but that's not the reason we're not guiding right now by quarter. We're actually continue to deal with, just like everybody else, infection rate is still pretty high. There's still a lot of supply chain challenges out there not related to those two markets. This huge weather system that just disrupted the U.S. has been a challenge for a lot of different companies where people were mandated to be shut down for eight or 10 days, if you operate anywhere near Texas or Kansas and all that good stuff. So we just have a number of things that I think are kind of unique things that are still out there. That's more of our guidance concern by quarter right now is just we need some of that stuff to settle. But inherently, we think it will. And if you think about it this way, last year – at this time last year, we started to see and hear a lot more about the pandemic. So going into – you're at the begin of the year, you're going into the year, you're thinking, "Oh, my gosh, what's going to happen." We feel like we're coming in the opposite direction now where we're coming out of that and things are getting a little better. They're still challenging, but you have to – we have to believe and we do believe that things are going to get a little more clear as we go forward. The economy should get stronger. The vaccinations are coming – rolling out, the infection rate's come down. And that's going to have, I think, a big impact on just cadence and consistency around being able to predict some things that, for the last 12 months, it's been a bit of a challenge. So it's a combination of things, but I do appreciate the question. I think as we build out our solar and growing and processing business, yes, we'll have a little less predictability quarter-to-quarter. And eventually, that will have a cadence that's more consistent, but we will experience that in interim, I'm sure.

Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Walter Liptak with Seaport Global. Please proceed with your question.

Hi. Thanks good morning, guys.

Hey, Walt.

Hey, Walt.

I wanted to ask an industrial question and make sure that I'm understanding the numbers that – of the business that you sold. So it looks like it was a profitable business that you sold. Is that right?

Yes.

What was the EBITDA level on it?

Well, so we gave you adjusted operating profit, there's probably $1.5 million to $2 million of depreciation in there on top of that.

So $16 million. And then the sale price, I want to make sure I understand this, that was $38 million with some ties to a real estate transaction?

Yes.

Okay. Okay. So the multiple looks fairly low. Was this done under auction? Or how did you – how was that decision made to divest it?

Yes. So Walt, what's not reflected in those numbers that you just looked at was the way we've been really managing that business for the last few years, which was using it to generate cash and not necessarily reinvesting. So it's capital intensive. And there is some deferred capital expenditures that need to be made. So when you look at the EBITDA that we generated, you have to sort of recognize that there's deferred CapEx. So it was an auction, wide. And we went through that and really picked the best buyer.

Okay. And which businesses are you keeping?

Well, what's left is the Infrastructure business that does expansion joints, bearings and sealants for the highway and airport parking room type market.

Okay, right.

Then D.S. Brown. Well, yes, that's what's left.

Okay. Okay. So this was the perimeter fencing and the architectural metals that was sold.

Correct. Yes.

Okay. Okay. All right. Thanks for that. And I want to go back to an earlier question about the renewables. And I wasn't sure I heard the answer about the project delays, what – I think you said it was significant. I don't know if you gave a dollar amount or a ballpark of how much revenue and profit shifted from fourth quarter into next year?

Yes. I didn't give a dollar amount. It was significant for us, 50 to 70 megawatts is a pretty significant number. But I didn't give a dollar amount because I'm not sure exactly where it's going to land, it's going to be to Q1, Q2. And – but it was, I would say, significant relative to the results on Q4 for the solar business. And it really comes down to four or five projects that were of decent-sized projects, bigger than what we traditionally have done or would have been able to support, which has been part of our strategy to get into some of those mid-sized projects. And a couple of those were delayed because of panels. It just didn't show up, and then we had two of them that were delayed just on a permitting issue. So that will all be worked out. It's not a demand – we definitely don't have a demand issue. It's just a timing element. We're quite, quite busy right now.

Okay, great. And then as you do ship these whatever in the first or second quarter, it sounds like there might be – the delays may cause some cost-related issues, some reengineering. I wonder what you're thinking about with these four to five big projects being pushed out? Is there an impact on the margins?

No, not really. Actually, oftentimes it can help us. We don't – we hope our customers don't have to go through that and incur extra cost, but it's not a burden on us. If it's a redesign, it's almost like a new project, and that's just a decision they make, and they look at that relative to the returns they can get on taking that path, either I redesign around a different panel or I wait for my panel that I currently have designed. And, yes, that's a big decision for them to make. And I think it's, again, it's developer that do – developer and size of project that's where you are, it's their set of economics they put into their investment thesis in the first place. So for us, it's not a cost burden or incremental cost, it's like getting another project.

Okay. Great. All right. Thank you very much.

Yes.

Our next question comes from the line of Julio Romero with Sidoti. Please proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning everyone.

Hi, Julio. How are you?

So apologies as I joined your call a little bit late here, but I just wanted to ask about your exposure to Texas. Would you see any short-term negative effects or on the other hand, has that kind of super storm increase the appetite for increased capital investment in solar and kind of grid reliability more broadly?

Well, first of all, we have some operations in Texas really supporting our residential business. And so we experienced some delays over the last 1.5 weeks, like a lot of others. And any suppliers over in that area, we were mandated to be shut down. We couldn't use natural gas to run the – didn't have electricity. So we're up and running now. But – so we've got some catch-up work to do, but there's a bit of a lag, I think there's going to be a bit of a lag in some of the supply chains to catch back up as it relates to at least the first three months of the year. But again, the demand is robust. So we'll keep working that. As it relates to solar, et cetera, I don't see any impact there. We haven't seen an immediate impact there one way or the other. We'll see what happens as Texas comes out of this and maybe reassesses our infrastructure and things of that nature and what they may want to do, but it's probably too early to say on that front. But from an existing workload perspective, it was not hugely impactful to our solar business at least, if that's what you're asking.

Okay. Just turning to your residential side. Can you maybe speak to the integration of your recent Mailbox acquisition?

Yes. I would say it's gone pretty well. We've got a full-time team on it and making progress as we had expected. It's not a huge business, and it's not a large organization. And if you recall, most of what they do is outsourced. So there's not a lot of manufacturing back in, but there are some supply chain things that we've been working pretty hard. There's some in-sourcing opportunities. A lot of 80/20 initiatives around PLS and CLS, and we're in the midst of all that. And I think that's resonating pretty well internally, but also making it a lot simpler for some of our key customers. Because we had a bit of a product overlap in some areas. So yes, I would say, overall, it's on schedule and going as planned.

Got it. And then just last one for me is, I guess, would the tax rate be in line with what you did in 2020 be kind of appropriate for 2021 and beyond?

Yes. Julio, if you look at our guidance in the press release, we've got about 28% in our GAAP and about 27% in our adjusted. And the variance year-to-year is really discrete items that are pretty hard to really estimate as we're at the beginning of the year. A lot of variables that impact us.

Okay. Thanks, for taking the questions and best of luck in 2021.

Thanks, Julio.

Thanks.

Mr. Bosway, we have no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn the floor back over to you for closing comments.

Great. Well, listen, we want to thank everybody again for joining us today. Looking forward, so connecting back with everybody, talk about the first quarter in early May. I think May 5, May 6 time frame. And one other point, I think we are going to try to have an Investor Day later in the year if everything is safe and we have the ability to do that, we'd like to do that in person. So we'll circle back with everybody on when that gets scheduled. And I hope everyone stays safe and healthy, and have a good rest of the week. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day.