Titan America S.A. (TTAM) Q4 2025 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings. Welcome to Titan America's Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Daniel Scott of Investor Relations. Thank you, and you may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good afternoon to everyone on the line. Thank you for joining us for Titan America's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Conference Call. I am joined by Bill Zarkalis, President and Chief Executive Officer of Titan America; and Larry Will, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that earlier this afternoon, we released Titan America's fourth quarter and full year 2025 results, which are available on our website at ir.titanamerica.com, along with today's accompanying slide presentation. This call is being recorded, and a replay will be made available on our Investor Relations website. During the call, we will present both IFRS and non-IFRS financial measures. The most directly comparable IFRS measures and reconciliations for non-IFRS measures are available in today's press release and accompanying slides. Certain statements on today's call may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Such statements can be identified by terms such as expect, believe, intend, anticipate and may, among others, or by the use of the future tense. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements, and we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements we make today. For more information about factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from forward-looking statements, please refer to the press release we issued today as well as the risks and uncertainties described in our SEC filings. I will now turn the call over to Bill. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Dan. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for Titan America's Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2025 Financial Results Call. Before I get into the results, I want to take a moment to welcome Michael Bennett, who recently joined Titan America as Vice President, Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. We're very pleased to have him on the team. If you turn to Slide 4 in the presentation, I'd like to begin by highlighting what rendered 2025 a historic transformative year for Titan America marked by strategic milestones. In 2025, Titan America joined the roster of companies that trade on the New York Stock Exchange following a strong period of 11 years of achieving above-market performance and demonstrating we are passionate about providing innovative building materials and solutions that protect life and property, improve the quality of life, generate economic prosperity and connect communities. Equally remarkable was our performance in 2025. In the construction materials market that was affected by soft demand and economic uncertainty, Titan America delivered all-time high revenue, adjusted EBITDA, net income and operating cash flows. This success reflects the strength of our business model, disciplined decision-making, skillful execution across our operations and an unwavering focus on serving our customers. Titan America can grow and outperform organically even in challenging environments. At the end of the year, we concluded negotiations to acquire the Keystone Cement Company and signed an agreement in early January 2026. This strategic initiative marks a foundational investment in Titan American's new era of growth, represents an important step forward in advancing our long-term growth strategy and reflects our disciplined approach to expansion through M&A. Coming now to the specifics. The year presented a mixed demand environment. The residential sector remained challenging for yet another year throughout 2025 due to persistently elevated mortgage rates and low housing affordability. In contrast, robust demand from public sector projects driven by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and strong private nonresidential construction, particularly in data centers, manufacturing, logistics facilities and energy projects supported our performance. Our markets continue to benefit from population growth and business migration, particularly in Florida and the Carolinas, and the data center market remained exceptionally strong with Virginia continuing to represent the largest hyperscale data center market in the world. In the fourth quarter, we achieved 4% year-over-year revenue growth and 12% year-over-year adjusted EBITDA improvement. For the full year, we delivered record revenues, up approximately 2% and record adjusted EBITDA of $390 million. This represented a 75 basis points improvement in our adjusted EBITDA margin, demonstrating the inherent benefit of our vertically integrated business model and our cost efficiency despite a challenging market and macro environment. For the full year, our Florida business segment delivered strong results with solid infrastructure and private nonresidential construction demand offsetting a soft residential end market. Our investments in increased aggregates capabilities and our cost initiatives helped deliver record full year adjusted EBITDA in 2025, reflecting our disciplined execution during the year as well as the benefits of our strategic capacity investments. The Mid-Atlantic business segment was impacted by a combination of tariffs and soft demand in Metro New York and New Jersey, the only regions where we do not operate an integrated business model as well as adverse weather impacting the Mid-Atlantic. Resilient pricing, growth in infrastructure, data centers and private nonresidential investment as well as self-help from cost initiatives partially mitigated the impact from the headwinds in the region. Larry will provide further detail on the segment's performance and our capital investments for 2026 later on. Let's move now to Slide 5. As communicated, we have entered into an agreement to acquire the Keystone Cement Company in Bath, Pennsylvania, expanding our geographic reach in the Eastern Coast of our country while strengthening our vertically integrated footprint in the region. This transaction will add to our domestic cement production capacity. It is synergistic to our existing operations and this pending acquisition demonstrates our disciplined approach to value-creating M&A, and we believe positions us to capitalize on powerful secular growth trends in the region. Keystone is a modern cement facility with approximately 990,000 short tons of current clinker capacity and is well positioned to serve a greater than 6 million short ton addressable market across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and Delaware. These are markets where we have limited, if any, presence currently. Keystone's mineral assets are expected to support more than 50 years of cement production capacity, and the site presents meaningful future commercial aggregates opportunities that fits squarely within our growth playbook. The logistics and customer service network synergies with our existing operations are compelling. The Keystone plant is approximately 75 miles from our Essex Marine hub and approximately 200 miles from the Metro D.C. area, creating strong interconnectivity that we believe will enhance our strategic supply chain and customer service capabilities across the Mid-Atlantic. This acquisition adds to our domestic production capacity at what we believe is an attractive valuation relative to scarce high-cost greenfield or brownfield investment alternatives. The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and is currently under review. We believe it is strongly pro-competitive, and we look forward to providing updates in the near future. On Slide 6 now, it showcases a selection of key projects we participated in during the fourth quarter across both business segments. As we have shared in the past, these projects illustrate both the breadth of our market reach and our technical capabilities in providing specialized solutions across diverse construction sectors. I'd like to highlight today a few examples. At the top left of the slide, we have the Bentley Residences in Sunny Isles Beach in Miami. This more than 60-story ultra-luxury oceanfront condominium tower with more than 200 residences. The foundation work alone is requiring over 23,000 cubic yards of concrete, the largest in Florida history, supporting significant demand for structural concrete and building materials during construction. The next photo to the right shows the job site at the Kennedy Space Complex supporting next-generation starship missions, including a new launch tower and a dual pad lodge facility. The expansion will establish the Florida Space Coast as a major operational hub for starship missions, significantly increasing capacity for commercial and government space missions. The multiyear project is expected to require approximately 120,000 cubic yards of concrete, supporting substantial knock-on construction activity and materials demand across the Florida Space Coast region. On the bottom left of the side, we have PowerHouse 95. This project is a large-scale data center campus development near Fredericksburg in Virginia, located along the I-95 corridor. The project will be built on approximately 145 acres and is designed to support up to 800 megawatts of power capacity, making it one of the larger emerging data center developments in the region. PowerHouse 95 is intended to serve hyperscale technology and cloud computing companies, expanding the Northern Virginia data center ecosystem, Southward and supporting [indiscernible] construction projects. Larry will now provide a more detailed breakdown of our financial results and business segment performance. Larry?

Thank you, Bill, and good afternoon, everyone. Moving to Slide 7. Let me share an overview of our fourth quarter and full year 2025 financial highlights. In 2025, weather played a meaningful role in our results, particularly in the first half of the year. We experienced harsh winter conditions in Q1 across our Mid-Atlantic region and saw continued adverse weather in Q2. Conditions improved by the middle of the year, enabling strong volume recovery in Q3 and our fourth quarter results also benefited from favorable comparison to the hurricane disrupted fourth quarter of 2024. For the fourth quarter, revenue was $406 million, an increase of 4% compared to $390 million in Q4 2024. Net income for the quarter was $44 million, an increase of 19% compared to $37 million in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $94 million compared to $84 million in the prior year quarter, an increase of approximately 12%. Our Q4 adjusted EBITDA margin was 23.1%, up from 21.4% in Q4 2024, reflecting strong operational execution as we closed out the year. For the full year, we delivered revenue of $1.66 billion, up 1.8% compared to $1.63 billion in 2024. Revenue growth was driven primarily by product pricing improvements for aggregates and ready-mix concrete as well as increased aggregate sales volumes, partially offset by lower sales volumes for cement and concrete block, reflecting the ongoing softness in the residential market. Net income for the full year was $185 million, an increase of 12% compared to $166 million in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA was $390 million, an increase of approximately 5% compared to $370 million in 2024. Our adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 23.4%, up 75 basis points from 22.7% in 2024. This margin expansion reflects the benefits from our vertically integrated model, our strategic capacity investments, particularly in aggregates and effective cost management throughout the year. In Q4, operating cash flow was $81 million compared to $51 million in the prior year quarter. For the full year 2025, we delivered a record operating cash flow of $295 million compared to $248 million in 2024. After net capital expenditures of $43 million, free cash flow was $38 million in Q4 2025 compared to $27 million in Q4 2024 when net capital expenditures were $24 million. For the full year, free cash flow was $132 million after net capital expenditures of $163 million compared to $111 million after net capital expenditures of $137 million in 2024. As I will expand upon shortly, our net leverage ratio further improved to 0.64x at year-end 2025. Turning to Slide 8. Let me walk you through our sales volume performance by product line. The fourth quarter showed improved volume performance compared to the prior year quarter, which had been impacted by hurricane activity. Cement volumes increased 0.2% compared to the fourth quarter of 2024, reflecting improvements in Florida, driven by strong private nonresidential construction and infrastructure demand, partially offset by the decline in the Mid-Atlantic region. Aggregates volumes showed strong growth of 10.3% in the quarter, benefiting from the expanded production capacity in Florida. Fly Ash was up 23.2% on increased utility generation, while ready-mix volumes increased modestly with 0.6% growth. Concrete block volumes increased 9.8% in the quarter compared to the hurricane-impacted prior year quarter. For the full year 2025, our cement volumes decreased by 2.4% as continued weakness in the residential sector weighed on demand across our markets. This decline was partially mitigated by stronger demand from infrastructure and private nonresidential construction, including data centers and commercial development. We also saw stronger performance in our other product lines with aggregates volumes increasing by 15.7%, supported by our strategic investments and expanded production capacity. Fly Ash volumes grew by 20.9% from a low base, while ready-mix concrete volumes grew modestly by 0.2%. Concrete block volumes declined 2.1% year-over-year. Turning to Slide 9. Cement pricing in the fourth quarter was essentially flat, while aggregates increased 2.1% year-over-year. Ready-mix concrete pricing improved 0.9%, while concrete block pricing and Fly Ash pricing declined by approximately 2%. For the full year 2025, cement pricing remained resilient on a like-for-like basis, declining modestly by 0.4%, impacted primarily by unfavorable product and geographic mix. Aggregates pricing increased 2.8%, reflecting strong demand growth, while Fly Ash pricing increased 5.6%. Ready-mix concrete pricing improved 1.2%, while concrete block pricing declined 1.7%, impacted by softness in the single-family residential market and elevated regional capacity. Looking at Slide 10. Our Florida business segment delivered outstanding results in the fourth quarter and record performance for the year. Fourth quarter external revenue was $247 million, an increase of 5.1% compared to $235 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, driven by higher volumes in cement and aggregates. Concrete block volumes also improved from 2024's hurricane-affected quarter and the Florida segment adjusted EBITDA was $65 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 22.5% compared to $53 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, primarily due to productivity improvements and the impact of higher sales volumes as compared to the hurricane-impacted prior year quarter. Florida's adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 26.1%, up from 22.4% in the fourth quarter of 2024. For the full year, the Florida business segment revenue was $1.02 billion, an increase of 2.7% from $998 million in 2024. Full year segment adjusted EBITDA was $279 million, an increase of 11.6% from $250 million in 2024. Segment adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 27.2% in 2025 from 25% in 2024, an improvement of 217 basis points. Looking ahead, we expect the Florida market to benefit from strong underlying long-term fundamentals. Population growth and business migration continue to support construction demand and infrastructure investments through projects funded by the moving Florida Forward program and IIJA. While single-family residential construction remained challenged, the structural housing deficit in Florida represents a significant long-term demand tailwind. On Slide 11, let me discuss our Mid-Atlantic business segment performance. For the fourth quarter, Mid-Atlantic external revenue was $159 million, an increase of 3% from $154 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, with volume growth supported by the release of project order book and favorable weather conditions relative to the prior year quarter. Mid-Atlantic segment adjusted EBITDA was $32 million in the fourth quarter compared to $34 million in the fourth quarter of 2024, a decline of 5.4% with segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.4% compared to 22.3% in the prior year quarter. For the full year, Mid-Atlantic revenue was $640 million, up 0.8% from $635 million in 2024. Full year segment adjusted EBITDA was $121 million compared to $135 million in 2024, a decline of 10.6% with segment adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.8% compared to 21.2% in 2024. As we mentioned throughout the year, our Mid-Atlantic segment's 2025 performance reflected 3 distinct headwinds: soft demand in the Metro New York and New Jersey markets, adverse weather in the first half of the year that suppressed volumes across Virginia and the Carolinas and higher raw material costs, including those from tariffs that were not fully offset by product price increases. Looking ahead to 2026, infrastructure demand remains high and data center construction remains robust in both scale and pace in the markets we serve. While tariffs remain in effect, they are expected to represent a smaller year-over-year headwind in 2026. Despite the challenges of 2025, our expectations for 2026 are constructive, and we see clear reason to be optimistic for improved performance in the Mid-Atlantic region. Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flows on Slides 12 and 13. As of December 31, 2025, we had $211.8 million of cash and cash equivalents and total debt of $462.4 million. Our net debt position was $250.7 million, representing a leverage ratio of 0.64x 2025 adjusted EBITDA, an improvement from the 0.71x at the end of the third quarter and 1.21x at the end of 2024. This strong leverage profile provides significant balance sheet capacity to pursue strategic growth opportunities while maintaining our disciplined approach to capital allocation as demonstrated by the previously announced agreement to acquire the Keystone Cement Company following regulatory approval. Operating cash flow for the year was $295 million and free cash flow was $132 million after $163 million in net CapEx investments. As indicated on Page 13, our next meaningful debt maturity is in July 2027. Slide 14 shows our CapEx profile for 2025 and 2024. Net capital expenditures in 2025 were $163 million and focused on several key areas. Among them, investments to expand capacity at our domestic cement plants in line with our previously communicated strategic plan, investments in vertical integration through ready-mix concrete and concrete block facilities that meet customer needs and represent a channel to market for our upstream construction materials, including cement and aggregates. Expanded access to limestone reserves near our Roanoke cement plant, and additional dragline investments in Florida aggregates, driving reliability and operational excellence. On Slide 15, I'll remind you of our capital allocation strategy. We remain focused on 3 key priorities: investing in the business, including organic growth opportunities, pursuing strategic M&A and providing returns to shareholders, all while maintaining a healthy net leverage profile. In 2026, our planned organic growth investments include innovative mining approaches at our aggregates production facility in Miami, development, permitting and construction of our previously announced precast lintel manufacturing facility in Florida, completion of our expanded processed engineered fuel investments at our Miami cement plant, investments in operations and efficiency of our marine import terminals in Virginia and New Jersey, expansion of our rail terminal network in Florida, enhancing our aggregates distribution capabilities, investments to increase our Pennsuco cement grinding capacity in line with our previously announced plans and our vertically integrated investments in ready-mix concrete and concrete block facilities to support upstream volumes and returns. I'd also like to announce that earlier today, our Board of Directors approved an issue premium distribution of $0.04 per share payable on May 8, 2026, to shareholders of record on April 20, 2026. With that, I'll turn it back to Bill for his closing remarks.

Thank you, Larry. Let me say that in conclusion, 2025 was a record year for Titan America despite continued softness in the residential sector, tariffs and a number of challenges in the macro and geopolitical backdrop. We are proud of our strong financial performance in our first year as a public company, which reflects the effectiveness of our unique business model and the dedication of our team. Turning now to our 2026 outlook on Slide 16. In 2026, we expect the softness in the residential sector to continue. The recent surge in oil and energy prices introduces additional risks in an already complex and uncertain economic backdrop. Based on current market dynamics, with fears of inflation fueled by high energy costs, it seems that mortgage rates will remain broadly at current elevated levels and house affordability low. As a result, in 2026, we believe investment in the residential sector may be stabilizing at current lower levels with a much anticipated residential sector inflection point being potentially pushed into 2027. With continued residential softness in mind, our guidance for 2026 on a like-for-like basis anticipates low single-digit revenue growth compared to 2025 with modest expansion in our adjusted EBITDA margins. This outlook reflects our leading positions in our key markets, operational efficiencies and the ongoing benefits of our strategic investments. We remain focused on executing our growth blueprint in the years ahead. As we look to 2026 and beyond, we are excited about the strong growth opportunities ahead. The markets where we operate are the beneficiaries of significant tailwinds, including infrastructure investment, manufacturing reshoring and onshoring and emerging trends in resilient urbanization and overall construction technology. We continue to innovate and expand our product offerings, particularly focusing on meeting the evolving needs of our customers for sustainable, high-performance products, services and solutions. Our investments in new technologies and digital transformation are yielding tangible results in terms of operational efficiency, cost reduction and enhanced customer service. The proposed foundational acquisition of the Keystone Cement Company marks an important milestone in our journey, expanding our geographical footprint into Pennsylvania and Ohio, adding substantial cement production capacity and further strengthening our Mid-Atlantic positioning while reinforcing our commitment to unlocking significant value for all our stakeholders in the quarters and years ahead. Before we open the call for questions, I want to express my sincere gratitude to all our Titan America team members. Their dedication to safety, operational excellence and to serving our customers with care and quality every single day is what makes this company work. I'm proud of what they accomplished in 2025. With that, I'll turn the call over to the operator for the Q&A session. Operator?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Anthony Pettinari with Citigroup.

This is Asher Sohnen on for Anthony. I was just wondering if you could walk through in a little more detail some of the puts and takes driving the guide for '26. I mean you talked already about the push out of kind of a resi recovery into 2027. But just on the infrastructure and private non-res side of the business, how would you compare your expectations now versus 3 months ago? And then also, are you maybe able to break out the guide for revenue between like price and volume?

Yes. I'm afraid our phone went out here just for a minute. If you don't mind, could you just repeat the question? Sorry, very sorry about that.

Yes. So I was just asking about the puts and takes driving the guide. You talked about the resi recovery getting pushed to 2027. But I was wondering if you could talk about your expectations now versus 3 months ago for the private side and the infrastructure side. And then also within the revenue guidance for 2026, is there like a breakout between price and volume?

We don't see any major change in relation to infrastructure and the private nonresidential side. It will continue strong. As we know from the statistics, about 50% of the IIJA funds have been spent. So we expect the rest to be spent in the next 3 years. And also, we expect the momentum to continue either with renewal of the IIJA this year in September or with a continuing resolution. And also, we see positive strength in certain parts of private nonresidential, as you know, data centers, logistics infrastructure, health and other elements like warehousing, the space center in Florida. So overall, we're very confident and optimistic about the non-resi elements. In relation to residential, there was anticipation that potentially in the second half of 2026, we're going to see the inflection point we all are awaiting. But of course, the recent geopolitical events with inflationary pressures potentially fueled by the high oil prices and, of course, the high energy prices. It seems unlikely that the Fed will proceed with reduction of the policy rates. And we see many analysts projecting mortgage rates to stay at or around 6%, so above the level that we were hoping will ease the affordability issues about housing and will trigger the inflection point. That's why we said that it seems likely that the inflection point is being pushed towards 2027.

That's helpful. And then switching gears, I wanted to ask about the Ohio and Pennsylvania markets that you're entering with Keystone. What makes those markets attractive? Can you just kind of compare and contrast those markets with your 2 existing markets?

Okay. I think it's a territory that we're familiar with. We operate the Fly Ash part of our businesses there. You can see them on the map. I think we've scattered them on there -- in some slides that we've presented. So we deal with some of those customers today through that, not through the cement element. When you look at manufacturing, reshoring, Ohio, Pennsylvania are places of attraction and it's a place that we see good growth opportunities ahead. The plant is well set up to fix -- to serve both of those markets. And as we said in the opening comments, that facility also has the benefit of serving our Washington, D.C. area, and we can take then some of that logistics synergies into our business as well as we connect those 2 together.

Our next question comes from Phil Ng with Jefferies.

It's Jesse on for Phil. I just wanted to start with cement on pricing. There was a little bit of sequential decline. Just curious if that was kind of more of the mix pressures. And then if you could kind of remind us what you announced for 2026 and how those conversations are progressing?

I think a safe assumption to say this is into the mix. As you recall, we report across the areas of Titan America. So there are elements of geography mix and also elements of packaging mix and delivery mix, whether it is pickup, customer pickup or delivery. So there is an element of mix. But still, of course, on a like-for-like element, you will see price increases in the low single digits. Now in relation to our announcements, we have announced $12 per ton across the areas where we operate for cement. We have announced $10 per cubic yard across the areas we operate for ready-mix concrete and $3 for aggregates finished goods.

And were all those increases for January or were they spread out between January and April?

Yes. I mean I think -- well, they were for January. And just based on the market, Jesse, we largely pushed those increases into April. That's -- I think the recent events and the war in Iran, for example, may give some additional impetus to increase those. But I think largely, what we'd expect, absent that, is to see price increases that would generally be in line with some of the increases that we have seen over the last year or so. So perhaps more in aggregates, more in ready-mix and a little less perhaps in cement. But we still are developing some of those internally, but that's what we would see today.

Our next question comes from Chad Dillard with Bernstein.

So my question is on fuel cost. What share of that does that represent for your cost of sales? And then I guess, how much of the $100 price of oil is embedded in your guide? Or is this something that might potentially change as we need to mark to market?

Yes. To answer the first question, fuel energy broadly represents about 8% of the cost of goods sold that we have slightly more than that as we closed out last year. You break that down between its components. Obviously, the kiln fuel has a piece, electricity has a piece and what you referred to at the end, their liquid fuel has a piece as well. Each of them have their own characteristics. We've invested, for example, in our capabilities for alternative fuels. We've invested in the capabilities to have multi-fuel sourcing, whether it's solid or natural gas at both cement plants in Roanoke and at Pennsuco. So we have some initiatives that we've taken to help mitigate some of those costs that you described. Having said that, when you look at liquid fuel, for example, we're at $5 per gallon today, this is public information. You can see it from EIA as registered every week. That's higher clearly than it was this time a year ago. For those things that are externally facing things like ready-mix concrete, there are built-in fuel surcharge mechanisms that would generally cover some of those cost increases that we would see. And then on the aggregate side, for example, that's a smaller piece of the overall total, call it, 1/3 then those things we address as we go along, perhaps through price increases that would be supported by those energy cost increases as we were saying before.

So fundamentally, Chad, in relation to the energy bill altogether, I mean, in relation to the fuel, which is the biggest part for our plants. In cement, we have the capability to burn gas, coal, and alternative fuels. And we have recently invested in -- during the maintenance Roanoke, we installed our new state-of-the-art dual burner in order to increase our capability to burn multiple feeds and different types of fuel. And we are completing within April, our investment in new capabilities for alternative fuels in Pennsuco, which is going to grow the use of alternative fuels by 50%. So multiple levers here to face an increase in cost. And as Larry said, the other important element, which is the diesel cost for moving our products. We have automatic surcharges, which are included in our contracts for the products that we sell.

Okay. That's super helpful. And then just another question for you guys on the margin cadence. So you guys are guiding to a modest expansion in EBITDA margins. How should we think about that from a seasonality standpoint? On one hand, you have the tariff headwinds that probably anniversary towards the midpoint of the year. On the other hand, you have the, I guess, the fuel cost and the price increases to offset that. Just trying to level set how to think about that as we move through quarter-to-quarter.

We participate -- we have deep penetration into infrastructure projects and major projects like data center. I mean you saw the example that we brought in terms of what we do in the Space Coast in Florida. These are projects that require large scale, proprietary technical capabilities, ultra-high-performance products that gives us an advantage in order to participate in high-value projects for the customers and also for ourselves, which allows us really to manage our margins successfully. And on top of that, like we've been discussing, we have in progress operational excellence and cost reduction initiatives. You are very well aware about our investment in digital transformation. Our real-time optimizers, I believe many analysts have visited in Pennsuco, which allows us to improve reliability to world-class levels to increase our throughput and our production rates and also optimize the use of raw materials and energy. All this leads to lower cost and margin expansion. On top of that, we have our proprietary maintenance -- the predictive maintenance tools, which are digital tools with machine learning that allows us to improve reliability, increase production, but also decrease our maintenance costs, which again add to the margins. And as we announced last year, we introduced a proprietary digital logistics technology, both in Florida and in Mid-Atlantic, which allows us to reduce our logistics costs and also improve our productivity in relation to cubic yards that we deliver per driver hour. All these had an impact in a very difficult backdrop in 2025, as you saw with our improvement in margins. And we expect the same to take place in 2026 as we continue our self-help initiatives in order to continue improving our margins.

Our next question comes from Brian Brophy with Stifel.

You mentioned increasing domestic cement capacity this year. Is that in relation to 1T or is something else driving that? And any color you can provide on how much you expect to grow capacity by?

Yes. It's 2 things. One is... [Technical Difficulty]

Ladies and gentlemen, please stand by. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your patience. We will be resuming shortly. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you once again for your patience. Larry, you may proceed.

Yes. Thanks, operator. It's -- sorry, it's Larry here. We're going to go with the cell phone. Bill and I happen to be in Brussels. We had our Board meeting here today. So certainly something wrong with the fixed lines here. So we'll try it the old-fashioned way here with the cell phone. So hopefully, you can hear us. Brian, I'm not sure you heard the answer here.

You just started answering.

Yes. So your question was around the capacity expansion, where does it come from, right? So it's a combination of a couple of things. One, grinding capacity that we've talked about investing in the facilities like Pennsuco. We mentioned that in the prepared remarks and the reliability factors that come into place as well. These are the 2 main things that drive the increased production for this year.

Okay. And then I guess similar question on the aggregate capacity side. Obviously, that was a pretty helpful driver last year. How are you thinking about opportunities to grow capacity there again this year? And you also mentioned some innovative mining approaches driving CapEx this year in the deck on the aggregate side. Just any more color on what you were referring to there.

We're going to see, Brian, an increase in capacity and sales in this year, not at the same levels as last year, but we're going to see continued growth, whereas the investment that we have this year is going to give us a next step, the next wave of increased capacity most likely towards the second half of 2027.

There are no further questions at this time. This now concludes our question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the call back over to Larry for closing comments.

Yes. Thanks, operator. And again, apologies for the difficulties we had with the telephones here. Thank you for your patience on that. And thank you for your time today. Obviously, we appreciate the interest in Titan America and look forward to obviously updating you on their progress as the first quarter call comes around in the early part of May. So thanks, and have a great rest of your day. Appreciate it.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines, and have a wonderful day.