Core & Main, Inc. Price & Performance (CNM)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is Robin Bradbury, Senior Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations for Core and Main. We are excited to have you join us this morning for our fiscal twenty twenty four fourth quarter and full year earnings call. I'm joined today by Steve Leclaire, our Chair and Chief Executive Officer and Mark Wieckowski, our Chief Financial Officer. He will begin today's call by discussing the executive changes we announced this morning. He will then provide an overview of our business and strategy, followed by an update on our fiscal two thousand twenty four accomplishments. Mark will then discuss our financial results and fiscal twenty twenty five outlook followed by a Q and A session. Our press release, presentation and the statements made during call may include forward looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. Such risks and uncertainties include the factors set forth in our earnings press release, and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We will also discuss certain non GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful in assessing the operating results of our business.

A reconciliation of these measures can be found in our earnings press release and in the appendix of our investor presentation. Thank you for your interest in Core and Main. I will now turn the call over to Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Steve LeClaire.

Thanks, Robin. Good morning, everyone. You for joining us today for our fiscal two thousand twenty four fourth quarter and full year earnings call. I'll begin by discussing the executive leadership changes we announced this morning. After much thoughtful consideration and planning, I've decided that now is the right time for a smooth transition of leadership at Core and Main. At the end of the month, I will transition to the role of executive chair while I'll continue to lead the board and serve as an adviser to the business to ensure a smooth transition. I'm pleased to share that Mark Wieczowski, our CFO, will succeed me as CEO and Robin Bradbury, our Senior Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations, will become CFO Mark will also be joining our Board of Directors. Mark and Robin know our business well, have been instrumental in the development and execution of our successful strategy. I have worked with both of them for over a decade and I have full confidence that they are the right people to lead Core and Main going forward. It has been the privilege of a lifetime to lead this great organization. And I am so proud of what we have accomplished together.

Including exceptional business performance, outstanding service for our customers, and meaningful value creation for our shareholders. With this strong foundation in place, now is the right time to transition the leadership of the company to Mark Robin, the rest of our talented executive team. I am confident in their ability to execute against our strategic priorities, and take our organization to the next level. Now turning to our results. We were pleased to finish the year with strong momentum as we achieved 18% sales growth and solid gross margins in the fourth quarter. Our results have truly been a team effort I want to thank our associates for their dedication and commitment to our customers. I'll begin on page five of the presentation with an overview of Core and Main and our market position. Core and Main is a leader in advancing reliable infrastructure, with local service nationwide. As a specialty distributor, with a dedicated focus on water, wastewater, storm drainage, and fire protection products, We provide solutions to municipalities, private water companies, and professional contractors across municipal, nonresidential, residential end markets. We have a deep portfolio of more than 225,000 products many of which are made specific for our sector.

And must meet water industry regulations and local municipal specifications. Our footprint consists of more than three seventy branches across 49 states. Which serves as a critical link between over 5,000 suppliers, and a diverse base of more than 60,000 customers. With no single customer accounting for more than 1% of our annual sales. We are an industry leader yet we estimate we have only 19% share of a highly fragmented $39,000,000,000 addressable market. Our long term opportunity to grow and gain market share is significant as is our opportunity to grow our addressable market over time. We maintain balanced exposure across new construction and repair and replacement projects. Central to this balance is our stable non discretionary municipal demand which accounts for over 40% of our sales. Municipal spending on water infrastructure has demonstrated long term resilience and is expected to continue growing driven by the need to address aging water systems environmental challenges, and water scarcity. Our significant exposure to municipal repair and replacement activity provides the business with a strong foundation ensuring stability even if our other end markets experience a period of volatility. Customers partner with Core and Main for our breadth of products and services.

Extensive industry knowledge, familiarity local municipal specifications, convenient branch locations, and project management capabilities, all of which make it easy to do business with us. We serve both smaller local customers and large regional or national contractors with relevant expertise. Our sales associates take a consultative approach providing tailored solutions for projects of all sizes. And we are deeply involved in our customers' planning processes. All the way from project design through completion. Our strategy is rooted in our people first culture, where we prioritize the well-being, growth, and development of our associates. From there, we thrive by fostering an entrepreneurial mindset at the local level, being action oriented, driving operational excellence, and then rewarding our associates with performance based compensation. One underappreciated element in our operating model is the linkage between local expertise and national capabilities. We supplement our local presence with the power of scale. Enabling us to value engineer complex projects by utilizing our extensive supply chain and national resources. Data centers and other mega projects are great examples of where these capabilities come to life. These projects require a sophisticated approach that blend local presence with national support. They involve intricate technical requirements, ever changing timelines, and a need for precise coordination.

With boots on the ground at the local level, become intimately familiar with the specific needs and challenges of each project. Offering hands on support and quick response times. Our national scale allows us to utilize our robust supply chain to secure access to the right products, while leveraging our distribution network and project management capabilities to ensure an efficient project delivery that meets timelines and stays within budget. And we do all this while maintaining the customer service and reliability that our customers have come to expect from Core and Main. The impact of these capabilities are reflected in the work we do every day to help communities advance reliable infrastructure. We highlight a great example of this on page seven of the presentation. As you know, in August 2023, a devastating wildfire struck Lahaina, Hawaii. Nearly two years later, Lahaina's long cleanup process continues. And efforts to return to a sense of normalcy have progressed with the completion of an elementary school Rebuilding required extensive water infrastructure, and the contractor selected to complete the project relied on Core Main to be its one stop shop provider. The project involved design build plans, So the material list quantities, and product lines changed constantly.

Our nearest branch was a short distance away, enabling our local team to be on the job site daily. Sometimes multiple times a day, to ensure our customer had the right products at the right time. And if our local team didn't have the products on hand because of redesigns or change orders, they called on other core main branches and product specialists along the West Coast for support. The project was completed in an impressive ninety five days marking a significant milestone in Lahaina's recovery. The school serves as a vital stepping stone helping to reestablish a sense of community while Lahaina's permanent infrastructure is rebuilt over the next three to five years. Turning to our recent accomplishments, Fiscal twenty twenty four was a notable year for Core and Main and it marked our fifteenth consecutive year of positive sales growth. Our teams navigated a dynamic environment to deliver strong financial performance including record net sales of over $7,400,000,000 adjusted EBITDA of $930,000,000 and operating cash flow of more than $620,000,000 The consistency of our results is driven by our balanced business mix, the dedication and expertise of our associates, and our ability to generate significant cash flow to reinvest back into the business.

Including investments to support and execute our growth strategies. Our product, customer and geographic expansion initiatives produced strong results throughout the year as we continue to accelerate the adoption of new products in the industry improve our differentiated value proposition. This included strong double digit average daily sales growth in metering, and storm drainage products, high single digit average daily sales growth in treatment plant projects, and additional market share gains as our greenfields continue to grow and mature. We opened two new locations in attractive markets during the year to expand our reach. Building on our commitment to make our products and expertise more accessible nationwide. We also welcomed 10 complementary businesses to the CorenMain family, adding over $600,000,000 of annual sales while expanding our presence in key geographies. Gaining access to new product lines, and adding key talent. In terms of organic sales growth, we believe we outgrew the market by a couple of hundred basis points in 2024. And looking ahead, we have ample opportunities to drive additional growth expand gross margins and improve our operating leverage. We continue to develop a scalable assortment of private label brands and products used in water, wastewater, geosynthetics, and fire protection applications.

We added over 30,000 square feet of distribution space and more than 1,000 private label SKUs to our offerings since the end of last year We ended fiscal twenty twenty four with private label products representing approximately 4% of our sales with an opportunity for it to grow to 10% of our sales or more over time. Our cash flow generation and flexible balance sheet allowed us to invest in the growth of the business while returning capital to shareholders. We deployed $176,000,000 in fiscal twenty four, to repurchase 4,000,000 shares under our repurchase program. We expect to generate similar levels of operating cash flow going forward. Resulting in significant available capital being reinvested in the business and returned to shareholders. Moving to our acquisition strategy and recent success, We are one of only two national distributors competing in our space and the remainder of the market is served by hundreds of other local and regional distributors. Since 2017, we have completed over 40 acquisitions. Most of the deals were proprietarily sourced based on our relationships and reputation in the industry. We are honored that so many owners and operators in our space have chosen Core and Main as a home for their businesses.

And many of them continue to thrive in leadership positions throughout our company. We are well connected with some of the best companies in our industry we have a healthy pipeline of potential deals to pursue. We expect to continue adding and integrating business in 2025 and beyond to support our long term growth and value creation efforts. Before I hand it over to Mark, I want to address a few other recent topics of interest. Starting with tariffs, we do not anticipate a significant impact on our business as most of our products are produced in The United States. Where we do have exposure, we anticipate that it may lead to rising product costs We are working closely with our customers to ensure real time transparent pricing. As I mentioned last quarter, we generally view tariffs as neutral to slightly positive to our pricing and gross margins. The tariff environment continues to evolve creating a level of uncertainty that could limit end market growth in the near term That being said, our spring bidding activity is encouraging and sentiment from our customers continues to be positive. In regards to the status of federal funding, there have not been cuts to any of the water funding set aside by infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

Investments in water infrastructure continue to receive bipartisan support in part due to the extreme circumstances highlighted across the country when water, sewer, storm water management systems fail. While federal grants and low interest loans are available to municipalities to help fund their projects, the vast majority of the municipal funding is produced by local revenue streams. Including local taxes, and utility usage fees. To wrap up my prepared remarks, our teams have had to navigate several challenges and distractions throughout the year. And we consistently rose to the occasion. Demonstrating focus agility, and resilience. Our team's ability to adapt collaborate, and deliver best in class service to our customers speaks volumes about the strength of our culture, and dedication of our people. Thank you all for your ongoing support I look forward to what Core and Main will accomplish in the years ahead. Go ahead, Mark. Thank you, Steve, and thank you to everyone for being with us today. Steve, we have been so fortunate to have benefited from your tremendous leadership for over a decade at Core and Main. I know that I speak for the entire Core and Main family and thanking you for your dedication and commitment to excellence.

You've been the architect behind much of our success to date. And I'm honored to have been able to work side by side with you and now be selected to lead Core and Main in the next chapter alongside Robin and the rest of our executive team.

Having worked closely with Robin for over a decade now, I know she is ideally suited to serve as our chief financial officer. Robin and I played an integral role in shaping Core Main's current [indiscernible] which will remain unchanged during this transition. Our focus remains on driving profitable growth both organically and through acquisitions, while generating strong cash flow and delivering value to shareholders. We will continue to provide the high level of service our customers expect from Core Main while building on the strength of our supplier relationships that are essential in achieving our growth objectives. This is an incredible business with the best talent in the industry and I look forward to collaborating with our associates to build on strong culture we have established. With that, I'll now turn to our financial performance. Fiscal twenty twenty four was another record sales year for Korn Main. Since our separation seven years ago, we have grown net sales at an average annual rate of approximately 15%, while significantly improving profitability. These results have been driven by our team's focus on operational excellence, and delivering exceptional value to our customers. Starting with our fourth quarter results, we grew net sales by 18% to nearly $1,700,000,000 Acquisitions contributed about 9% of our sales growth and organic average daily volumes were up low single digits.

As anticipated pricing was stable on a sequential basis but it was down slightly year over year. Approximately 7% of our sales growth in the quarter was driven by an extra selling week compared to the fourth quarter of last year, resulting in average daily sales growth of roughly 11%. Gross margin in the fourth quarter finished at 26.6%, which was consistent with last quarter. During our third quarter call in December, we communicated our expectation of maintaining gross margins at these levels. Our teams delivered on that by driving consistent performance across our private label sourcing and pricing initiatives. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased 21% in the fourth quarter to $279,000,000 The year over year increase in SG and A primarily reflects the impact of acquisitions inflation investments to support our growth initiatives and additional costs from the fifty third week. Excluding acquisitions and the impact of the fifty third week, SG and A in the fourth quarter was up approximately 2%. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter increased approximately 12% to $179,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 60 basis points to 10.5%. As a reminder, our operating margins are typically lower in our first and fourth quarters, due to a reduction in volumes associated with normal seasonality.

Turning to our full year performance, fiscal twenty twenty four net sales grew approximately 11% to a record of just over $7,400,000,000 The increase was driven by approximately nine points of growth from acquisitions, organic market share gains and approximately two points of contribution from the fifty third selling week, partially offset by a minor impact from pricing. We estimate that end market volumes were roughly flat for the year consisting of mid single digit growth in residential lot development and low single digit growth in municipal repair and replacement activity.

Partially offset by low single digit decline in non residential construction starts. We achieved a couple of hundred basis points of above market sales growth from the execution of our product customer and geographic expansion initiatives as our teams have done an incredible job delivering best in class service to our customers, improving our value proposition to the industry. We also drove additional market share gains from strategic acquisitions strengthening our presence in key geographies and product lines. Gross margins for the year came in at 26.6% compared with 27.1% for fiscal twenty twenty three, a difference of about 50 basis points and in line with our expectations. The year over year decline in gross margin was driven by higher average cost of inventory this year compared to fiscal twenty twenty three, Going forward, we expect to continue driving sustainable gross margin enhancement through the execution of our initiatives. Selling, general and administrative expenses for fiscal twenty twenty four increased approximately 16% to nearly $1,100,000,000 The increase in SG and A primarily reflects the impact of acquisitions, inflation, investments to support our growth initiatives, and additional costs from the fifty third week. Excluding acquisitions and the impact of the fifty third week, SG and A expenses were up about 1% for the year.

Interest expense for fiscal twenty twenty four was $142,000,000 compared with $81,000,000 in the prior year. The increase was due to higher average borrowings partially offset by a decrease in rates on our variable rate debt. The provision for income taxes for fiscal twenty twenty four was $143,000,000 compared with $128,000,000 in the prior year. And our effective tax rates were 24.819.4% respectively. Our effective tax rate for fiscal twenty twenty four reflects a more normalized ongoing rate and the increase over the prior year was due to exchanges of partnership interest in fiscal twenty twenty three resulting in a reallocation of taxes to Korn Main Inc. Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal twenty twenty four increased 2% to $930,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 110 basis points to 12.5%. Moving to our balance sheet and cash flow. Ended the year with net debt of roughly $2,300,000,000 and net debt leverage of 2.4 times. Total liquidity was over $1,100,000,000 consisting primarily of availability under ABL credit facility. We generated $621,000,000 of operating cash flow during the year allocated it to priorities that resulted in growth and value creation for shareholders. We spent $741,000,000 on 10 acquisitions and returned $176,000,000 of capital to shareholders.

Buying back approximately 4,000,000 shares at an average price of approximately $44 a share. We have now returned over $1,500,000,000 of capital to shareholders through share repurchases in the past two years. And as of today, we still have $324,000,000 remaining under our current repurchase authorization. Turning to our outlook for fiscal twenty twenty five. We expect another year of growth in both sales and profitability. While there are uncertainties surrounding interest rates, federal funding tariffs and their potential impact on construction activity, are confident in our ability to navigate these challenges and deliver strong results especially given our exposure to non discretionary municipal water infrastructure projects, and the long runway of opportunities we have to drive above market growth and margin expansion. We remain bullish on the long term fundamentals for residential lot development with mortgage rates trending lower in recent weeks have yet to see that materialize into a release of pent up demand that could accelerate growth. We anticipate an inflection point in residential demand as more mortgage rates fall and sustain at lower levels, But given the uncertainty around timing, we are not factoring that into our outlook. Believe non residential construction starts will be relatively flat in 2025.

The broader macroeconomic environment may continue restraining investment and construction in the nonresidential sector. But some businesses remaining cautious about starting new capital projects. Our broad exposure within this market spanning traditional commercial through heavy industrial and even highway and street projects generally provides stability as demand for these projects can happen on different cycles. Municipal spending on water and infrastructure is expected to remain resilient. With end market growth projected in the low single digit range for 2025. This stability is driven by necessary investments in water and wastewater systems, as municipalities continue to address aging infrastructure comply with environmental regulations. To help fund these initiatives, municipalities have raised water and wastewater utility rates at a mid single digit average annual increase over the last decade. We are optimistic about the growth of this end market in 2025 and beyond. We anticipate that prices will remain sequentially stable through 2025 resulting in a roughly neutral sales impact for the year. We offer a strong value proposition to the industry industry and expect to achieve another two to four points of above market volume growth by expanding our presence in underpenetrated geographies, driving the adoption of new products in the industry, and acquiring and developing new sales talent.

We expect two points of sales growth from the acquisitions that have already [indiscernible] Have a good pipeline of high quality targets and we expect to add more companies the Core and Main family throughout the year. We benefited from a fifty third selling week in fiscal twenty twenty four contributing approximately 2% of our total sales growth. We expect the sales impact of roughly the same amount in fiscal fiscal twenty twenty five due to fewer selling days in the fourth quarter. We expect to drive gross margin expansion in 2025 supported by our private label sourcing optimization and pricing initiatives. With these factors in mind, we expect fiscal twenty twenty five net sales to range from $7,600,000,000 to $7,800,000,000 reflecting year over year growth of 2% to 5% or 4% to 7% on an average daily sales basis. We expect adjusted EBITDA to range from $950,000,000 to $1,000,000,000 reflecting year over year growth of 2% to 8% or 4% to 10% on an average daily sales basis. With adjusted EBITDA margins ranging from 12.5% to 12.8%. We expect to generate strong operating cash flow and our capital allocation priority is to invest in the growth of the business both organically and through the execution of our M and A strategy.

We expect to have excess capital after delivering on these objectives, will allow us to return capital to shareholders likely through share repurchases. In the near term, will continue evaluating our pipeline of priority targets while maintaining liquidity and leverage levels within our stated objectives. As I wrap up, I want to reiterate that we are confident in fundamentals of our industry and Inkorn Main's leadership position. Our sector has strong fundamentals and we have a unique and proven business model to continue strengthening our position. The long term underlying trends of our end markets are favorable and our products and services play a critical role in advancing reliable infrastructure We expect to outperform the market even as the broader economic environment evolves. Our business is well positioned to capitalize on opportunities for growth both organically and inorganically we remain committed to building on our track record of delivering value to shareholders. With that, let's open it up for questions.

Thank you. Our first question for today comes from David Manthey of Baird. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Yes. You. Good morning and congrats to everyone on the role changes within the company.

First question this morning, probably not unsurprising on pricing. Could you tell us what percentage of COGS is PVC today and what expectations are baked into the guidance you provided? And then maybe you could comment on price expectations in any other category, whether it's commodity products or engineered products like valves, meters, fire protection, etcetera.

Yes. Thanks, Dave. It's Mark. The question. On pricing, I would tell you that municipal PVC pipe, that's less than 15% of our COGS. We've seen over the course of this past year some of that come off of its high levels that we saw in 2022. And 'twenty three. So that's played into some of the slight headwind that we saw in 2024. I would tell you as we go forward, as we're thinking about the price environment right now, we believe it's going to be an overall neutral. Environment. We're not going to necessarily guide to specific product categories, but you can assume baked into that, we expect to see some of the price increases that we've seen recently from suppliers stick in the market. And we could have some other categories like we've seen pressure in steel piping throughout 2024. Continue to be a headwind for us at the beginning of the year. But overall, we've been pleased with the resilience of municipal PVC pipe which is another reason why we think overall the price environment is going to be neutral. Into 2025.

Thank you for that. Second, is there any way you could provide some insight into first quarter trends so far? I mean, there's been a little bit of weather early in the year. And any other factors that are in influencing the current environment. It doesn't sound like you're expecting conditions to improve too much through 2025 in your outlook. I just wanted to reconfirm that. And then relative to that also, unannounced acquisitions, there's nothing in guidance for deals you haven't done yet, correct?

Yes, that's correct, Dave. Nothing in the guidance for deals that aren't announced. But we do have about two points of carryover from the acquisitions that we did complete in 2024. As it relates to the start of 2025, I'd say we're very pleased with how things have gotten off here early in the year. I'd say we're kind of right in line with expectations. There was a little bit of weather in January as kind of we finished up the fourth quarter that we experienced there, but wasn't necessarily unexpected given the time of year. So good to see some of the Our bidding activity is strong. Backlog is looking good. And really pleased with how things are starting off in the first part of this year.

Our next question comes from Matthew Bouley of Barclays. Line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. You have Anika Dothian on for Matt today. Thank you for taking my questions, and congrats to you guys on the new roles. So first off, I wanted to talk about the end market outlook. It assumes resi flat, nonres flat, muni low single digit. I'm wondering between resi and non res where you guys see more up upside into taking into account some of the choppier market trends today?

Thanks. Yes, sure. Thanks for the question. You're right on the end markets, the way we're thinking about them right now, just given a lot of the uncertainty that we've been seeing and hearing about in the market. Some of the commentary from the homebuilders has been a little mixed. So we're going into 2025 kind of assuming we see continued steady construction on the private side both resi non residential. We have seen though, I would say mortgage rates start start to creep down a little bit. If we start to see a little bit more relief there. I think on the mortgage side, you'll see good release of a lot of the pent up demand that we experienced on the lot development side. There's been we exited twenty May a little momentum there, but we're definitely going to be cautious on that as we get out into the early part of twenty twenty five until we see some of those rates start to tick down. Non residential, I would say we've got a lot of still good stability in that end market for us with a lot of the road Bridge work continues to be solid. There's a lot of good mega projects that we're involved with that are going strong.

Expect that momentum to continue and help kind of buffer any any softness on more of the commercial side, which tends to follow the residential release after twelve or eighteen months or so. So there's upside, I'd say, on both if we see some of the residential release you'll start to see the commercial side of that nonresidential tick up as well. And then from a municipal standpoint, it's been really strong. It exited the year in 2024. With really good activity and we continue to make really strong investments in that part of the business and expect that to be very steady and resilient throughout 2025.

Great. Thank you for that. And then on your expectation for gross margin expansion through fiscal 'twenty five, I'm wondering on the key levers driving this growth. You have private label, sourcing, pricing. You guys can just bucket that, in terms of what's driving it the most. And then should we assume the cadence is similar to historic or if there's any differences to consider? On that margin expansion through the year?

Thanks.

Yes, sure. From a gross margin expansion standpoint, I would say private label continues to be one of our best levers for expansion there. We made a lot of really good progress on that in 2024. We increased our penetration of private label from 2% to 4% of revenue and really pleased with the continued investments we've made there and the margin that that's producing. Sourcing optimization, I'd probably categorize as second. Really good progress in 2024 as we build scale, especially with some of the acquisitions that we did And then still pretty early innings on price optimization, but we got some really good results in 2024 that really helped offset some of the gross margin normalization that we expected and we're able to outperform that.

Thanks. I'll pass it on.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Next question comes from Joe Ritchie of Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone, and echo everybody's congratulations. Well deserved, Mark and Robin.

So much, for all the help throughout the throughout the year, Steve. Just the my first question, I guess, would be just on margins. And thinking through this guidance of zero to up 30 relative to the long term expectations, and and and what you had previously stated Investor Day.

I think you guys historically been planning for 30 to 50 basis points. Just wondering like whether anything is kind of changed on the margin regarding your ability to expand margins in this environment?

Yes, Joe. Thanks for the comments and appreciate the question there. So I would tell you nothing's really changed in terms of our expectations on the ability to expand margins through this through these cycles. I would say, obviously, the ability to get some additional SG and A in a relatively soft end market is probably the bigger component that's going into our 2025 guide. As we get closer to the kind of the mid single digit expectations on revenue, allows us to be much more productive from an SG and A standpoint. And we continue to make investments to grow revenue and be more productive, but we'll start seeing those pay off. As we get into a little bit better, you know, market environment.

Okay. That's that's helpful, Mark. And then I guess, maybe just sticking with the SG and A piece, you know, thanks for laying out how much SG and A was actually up. I think what you said 1% year over year when you excluded impact from the fifty third week in acquisitions. I guess just in terms of the acquisition, and your ability to get after some of that SG and A, can you maybe just give us some contextualize like what the opportunity is here in 2025 from from the recently announced M and A? [indiscernible] Joe. I mentioned, yes, when you exclude the the fifty third week and the acquisitions, SG and A was up only about 1% for the full year. And that really reflects a lot of continued investments that we've made in the business. In addition, there's been a lot of inflation flowing through a lot of the cost categories, and then we were able to offset a lot of those costs with some other cost out actions I would say on the M and A side, we're typically going to work to scale those businesses as we integrate them. The integration of those businesses from a cost standpoint can take a little bit longer and generally twelve to eighteen months to really start driving more of the revenue synergy to scale those.

And if turns out that we need to take some cost out actions right size some of that, we'll certainly do that as part of the integration process. But I do expect that to be some potential upside as we go into 2025 to get some additional productivity.

Okay. Thanks.

Get back in queue.

Thanks. Thank you. Our next question comes from Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks.

Steve, congrats on a great career.

And Mark, Robin, good luck with the next next step.

Steve, maybe starting with you. I think you've been very involved in the M and A process for Core Main. Just wondering how that cultivation process changes as you sort of move on to the next next steps?

Thanks, Nigel. Obviously, we've had a really successful M and A year this last year in '24. It was kind of lumpy honestly. We had a lot of deals that just came to fruition. Some of that is just typical of the way deals flow and when sellers are ready to go. So we continue to to see a really strong pipeline of deals that are out there. As I transition into this role, one of the things I've I've offered to help with Mark is any type of relationships that we have from an M and A standpoint. I'll continue to be here as an Executive Chair and continue to support that. Continue to work with him along those lines as he wants engagement from me on those. And I'll continue to help in that facility.

Okay. Great. Thanks, Steve. And then just want to dig into the large project pipeline. I think your large competitor talked about the acceleration, especially in some of the larger projects. So just wondering what you're seeing in both non res, but also in in terms of larger projects, especially with some of this IAG funding starting to come through. And I'm wondering, on the larger projects, does the margin profile change at all? Versus, you know, MRO?

What we've seen, the talk a little bit about some of the larger municipal projects out there. We're starting to see a lot of some of the flow down coming through from the IIJ funds about half of them allocated into the states and we're seeing about 10% of those now being allocated into specific projects. But those tend to be bigger long term projects. They tend to be water and wastewater treatment projects. Those fit right into our strike zone and in the ability to leverage not only our local presence, but our national scale on that. The bidding activity when we get involved with these, particularly when we get involved right upfront in these design build applications, we tend to have a lot of a lot of opportunity there to help set some of the specifications. Help coordinate some of the activity And margins can be real positive for us in those and can have a long tail of additional work that leads on the tails of those projects as well too when we get into some of the line work with those municipalities as well. So we're really encouraged by that. We're seeing some good traction in some of the large mega projects a lot of the data center projects out there.

Particularly with the land development that's happening. That involves a lot of storm drainage material. A lot of water, wastewater material as well too. And so really well positioned for those as well.

That's great color. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from Patrick Baumann of JPMorgan. Line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Hey, can you hear me?

Yeah. We can.

Hello? Oh, great.

Okay.

Well, congrats, Mark and Robin, on the new roles. I guess I just wanted to drill down a little bit with Steve Maybe if you could give any additional color on what made the timing right for this change? Obviously, I want intrude too much, but curious if you can give any other color.

Yes. Thanks, Patrick. So that was the business twenty years and leading it for the last decade and obviously I have a real passion for the business and the industry. And as I've gone through all the changes that we've gone through here, just really proud of what the business has accomplished during that timeframe. And I look at all of the accomplishments we've had, the thing I'm really most proud of is really talent that we've developed here. We've got a special culture I want to see that culture nurtured. I want to see it continue to evolve And when I look at where we're positioned right now with the runway ahead of us, and I look at Mark and Robin and our entire leadership team that we've had, just a real passion for the business and it's the right time to make a transition. For me and it's the right time for this business. And I wanted somebody that was really going to have that same level of passion for the industry, the passion for the associates and really the drive to take it to that next level. And I see that clearly with Mark, with Robin and our executive team.

You've seen some of the changes that we made even last year going into position our business for long term success with some of the additions that we made into our executive leadership team. And this is all part of a real planned successful succession plan. And real proud to be able to do that at this time.

Helpful color. Thanks and congrats. A couple other quick ones. One on commodity product pricing outside of PVC. Are you seeing any suppliers reacting to recent moves and underlying commodities for the for those products? Maybe any color on that. And then separately on the SG and A side, any color I mean, guess I could try to do the math, the SG and A growth for '25 how are you thinking about that relative to the 2% to 5% sales growth you're guiding?

Yes. Sure, Pat. First, on the commodity product side, I say for us, it's primarily the steel pipe used in the fire protection product line. Portion of the business and then copper pipe that we distribute into some of the goes into some of the service lines that we that we sell to. I would say on both of those categories, we're seeing more positive announcements. We've seen some good positive movement. More recently in those categories. So viewing those as some potential upside for us. And like I said on the non commodity side, we continue to see some some price increases come through as well here early into 2025. So I would say on really all those fronts, it's been mostly positive in terms of the recent movements.

From a SG and A standpoint What about SG A? Iron pipe?

I would Ductile iron pipe, so that's municipal that we sell similar to municipal PVC pipe, would say, on ductile iron pipe we've seen good increases throughout 2024, and we expect that to be a very resilient product category.

Moving forward.

Thanks.

You asked too on SG and A I'll answer Pat's question on SG and A for 2025. As we think about the 15 basis points of EBITDA margin that expansion kind of at the midpoint, I'd say most of that we expect to come from the gross margin investments and initiatives that we have. And guiding to a relatively, I'd say, flat SG and A for 2025.

Okay. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Mike Dale of RBC. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Chris calling on for Mike.

Just going back to the pricing outlook for this year, what's specifically being assumed for non commodity price inflation?

And when you're thinking about tariffs and the conversations you're having with suppliers, is there any sense or any quantification you provide on potential magnitude of of tariff price increases we could see this year and timing of that implementation Yes. I would tell you for noncommodity and the commodity buckets that we sell, overall, we're expecting neutral.

I mean that's what we're going to provide in terms of the outlook overall. You can assume there's going to be puts and takes into some of those categories as we go forward. I'd say from a tariff standpoint, we've been closely monitoring that. We're in discussions with all of our suppliers about how they're being impacted. But overall, I would say the import product in the sector is still relatively small. I'd say it's less than kind of 15% of the product category. So while there can be some impact related to tariffs where there are some important alternatives we generally expect the overall impact there to be neutral to maybe slightly slightly positive as we work through a lot of those dynamics. But as you know, that's evolving daily. And I'll focused on right now as close collaboration with our suppliers and then early communication with our customers to make sure there is clear as can be and that we're being as transparent as we can on the potential impacts as we see them come in.

Appreciate that. And just is there any change in the competitive dynamics you're seeing in your markets How would you characterize any changes you've seen year to date with the broader macro uncertainty?

Yeah, really no change that we've seen going into 2025. I mean everything that that we've seen, we continue to to gain share through this. There's still a ton of opportunity out there us in so many different markets. So really nothing that's disrupted or changed the competitive environment.

Our next question comes from Brian Berros of Thompson Research Group. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions.

I guess further on the the end market, kind of your market outperformance and share gain expectations for this year, does that differ by end market at all? Maybe it's easier to take share in a slower market for resi or easier in a good market like municipal. Guess just wondering if there's any divergence there or difference to the historical trends given the outlook where we are today.

Yes. Thanks for the question. I would tell you in terms of the outperformance, we do expect that we outperformed the market by a couple of hundred basis points in 2024. I'd say it's generally similar across those end markets that we participate in. If I was going to wait a little bit, I'd say we probably took a little bit more share on the municipal side just given the strength of our smart meter performance and some of the success that we've had there. And then additionally, we saw some really good strength and growth by servicing treatment plants much better in 2024. So I probably weighted a little bit more on the municipal side. But overall, really good market performance across each of those end markets.

Got it. Then maybe on the municipal side or I guess really across the entire business, you seeing any differences from the new administration on the ease of getting permitting or maybe just new projects going? I know rates aren't really helping on the financial part of the equation. We have heard that some things are getting easier or quicker out there when it comes to regulation type things, guess. So just curious if you're seeing any of that across your business. Thank you.

Yes. Brian, we're hearing the potential for that particularly easing of some of the requirements for permitting. But I can't tell you I've got some real specific examples where that's happening just yet. So it's probably a little early to tell. But it does seem encouraging that we could see some acceleration of that. In terms of the regulatory ease of getting some of the particularly the non residential construction up and running.

Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll hand it back to Mark Wieczewski for any further remarks.

Thank you again for joining us today. We are pleased to achieve another record sales year for Core and Main. Marking our fifteenth consecutive year of growth. The long term underlying trends of our end markets are strong, and our products and services play a critical role in advancing reliable and infrastructure. We expect to continue outperforming our end markets even as the broader economic environment evolves Our business is well positioned to capitalize on opportunities for growth and we remain committed to building on our track record of delivering exceptional value to our shareholders. You for your interest in Core and Main. Operator, that concludes our call.

Thank you all for joining today's call. May now disconnect your lines.