DXP Enterprises, Inc. Price & Performance (DXPE)

This is Kate E, and welcome to DXP's Q4 twenty twenty four conference call.

To discuss our results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year ending 12/31/2024. Joining me today is our Chairman and CEO, David Little. Before we get started, I want to remind you that today's call is being webcast and recorded and includes forward looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by these forward looking statements. A detailed discussion of the many risk factors that we believe may have a material effect on our business on an ongoing basis are contained in our SEC filings. However, DXP assumes no obligation to update that information because of new information or future events. During this call, we may present both GAAP and non GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of GAAP to non GAAP measures is included in our earnings press release. The press release, an accompanying investor presentation are now available on our website at ir.dxpe.com. I will now turn the call over to David Little, our Chairman and CEO to provide his thoughts and a summary of our fourth quarter and fiscal twenty twenty four performance and financial results. David? Thanks, Ken. And thanks to everyone on our twenty twenty four fourth quarter and fiscal twenty twenty four conference call.

I am pleased to report another record year for our key financial metrics sales, sales per business day, gross profit margins, and adjusted EBITDA margins. These results demonstrate the power of our people products and processes to serve the needs of our customers. They also highlight the benefits of our broad and diverse exposure to different end markets and regions and our disciplined capital allocation strategy.

It is my privilege to share DXP's fourth quarter and fiscal twenty twenty four results with you on behalf of over 3,028 DX people.

Congratulations to all our stakeholders and a special thanks to our DX people you can trust. Physical twenty twenty four was another successful year for DXP growing sales 7.4%, to $1,800,000,000 We are excited to move into fiscal twenty twenty five with the momentum and results of our 2024. DXP had another year of winning at max margins and gross profit margins increased by 77 basis points. To 30.9% Fiscal twenty twenty four was about winning at Mac margins while also operating efficiencies and investments. We accomplished this goal by either maintaining our increasing margins on our business segments and executing seven acquisitions in fiscal 'twenty four. Fiscal 'twenty four was a record year in terms of sales dollars, achieving new high sales watermark for DXP, while achieving the second physical year of 10% plus adjusted EBITDA margins.

We continue to successfully execute on our end market and scale, And at the end of fiscal 'twenty four, oil and gas was 23% of our business followed by water and waste water and chemical at 10% and food and beverage and manufacturing at 7% and general industry at 13%. And our To deliver on balancing our risk from an end market perspective and we have experienced that in the last two years and specifically in 2024. We look forward to the interplay of these markets in 2025. Thank you, DX people, sales and operational professionals for teaming up together and winning for our customers and stakeholders. Thank you to our corporate support team for their effort to support both internal and ex and thank you DXP people for an awesome year. Our future looks bright. In fiscal twenty twenty four, I mentioned we continue to soundly execute on diversifying our end markets. With a focus on water and wastewater and other industrial markets continue to continuing to execute on acquisitions. Adding seven great companies during the year, including Hennys Mechanical Seal, CAPI Associates, Pro Seal Manufacturers Edge, Hardwell, MaxTac, MBGA, Gurney. We also continued executing on our share repurchase program.

And refinanced our debt in the second half of twenty twenty for positioning DXP for organic and in organic growth in 2025. We continue to be excited about the two creating an engaging winning culture for DXP and in investing in the business to strengthen our core capabilities and drive long term growth. For fiscal twenty twenty four, total DXP sales were up 7.4% operating income was up 4.8% compared to twenty three Fiscal year twenty twenty four sales and adjusted EBITDA were $1,800,000,000 and $191,000,000 respectively. And adjusted EBITDA margins up 10.62%. Our strategy has always been to combine physical strength talent, resources, technology and capabilities of a large company with the fast flexibility, entrepreneurial capabilities of local businesses to deliver superior value to our customers. And our suppliers while providing better growth opportunities for our DX people. We continue to believe in this approach and look to renew our commitment to people, processes, resources and technology as we scale DXP and remain focused on doubling the size of our business over the next three to five years. While making strategic investments that match the evolution of DXP. From a sales per business day standpoint, DXP experienced continued improvement throughout the year with Q1 averaging $6,550,000 sales per business day ending the Q4 averaging 7,595,000.000 sales per business day.

Total DXP sales for Q4 were $470,900,000.0 or $7,595,000 per business day. Our profits for the quarter were positively impacted by a sequential increase in gross margins as well as an increase in SG and A associated with continued investment in our business. However, in the midst of continued change in growth, our year over year earnings showed improvement resilience and we grew diluted earnings per share. Again, thank you to the three thousand and twenty eight DXP people for your hard work and dedication and finishing the year as strong as possible. It is always my pleasure to share our fourth quarter and year end financial results on your behalf. In terms of cash flow and liquidity, we generated $77,000,000 of free cash flow in the fiscal twenty twenty four. Which reflects DXP's focus on generating consistent cash flow while investing in related working capital as the business continues to grow. This combined with a flexible capital structure put us in a position where we could keep executing on our acquisition strategy as well as return capital to our shareholders via opportunistic share repurchase. As we discussed, acquisitions have continued to diversify our end market exposure and position us well through various economic cycles and we are excited about 2025 and the growth we are pushing to see both organically and through acquisitions as we continue to have a strong pipeline of opportunities.

We are excited to have seven new companies join us during the year of 2024 on top of the three we completed during fiscal twenty twenty three. All of our acquisitions have been great additions to DX family. To all of our recent acquisitions, welcome to DXP. And we are excited to support your future growth as a part of DXP. DXP people have continued to find ways to deliver financial results and position us well for our stakeholders in the face of extraordinary challenges. This is evidenced by our sales growth, improved gross profit margins, acquisitions and the overall teamwork of the DX people. We continue to build our capabilities to provide complementary sets of products and services in all our markets. Which makes DXP very unique in our industry and gives us more ways to help our customers win. We also are constantly looking at reviewing We complement our strategy with relentless drive for progress that includes business and operational initiatives we are that we believe will allow us to steadily improve our performance for our stakeholders. As we go into 2025, we're excited about the opportunity ahead and the potential DXP has to continue to scale and grow within existing and new markets.

Total DXP sales for fiscal twenty twenty four were up 7.4% with innovative pumping solutions leading the way growing 47.7% year over year to $323,000,000 followed by service centers growth of 1.9% to 1,200,000,000.0 and then supply chain services at $256,400,000 In terms of IPS, Innovative Home Solutions, as we discussed in more detail in Q3, we have two broad businesses tied to capital budgets and project work. DXP's heritage energy related project work and DXP's water. For fiscal twenty twenty four, DXP's water is 44% of IPS' sales last year. It was 32% last year, I'm sorry. Yes. DXP is 4444% of DXP sales and then last year was 32. As we grow our DXP water platform, we have increased both margins and operating income margins for the segment and for DXP. DXP water backlog continues to grow both organically and through acquisitions. In fiscal twenty twenty four, we added four acquisitions to the DXP Water including Hennessy, Gapi Associates, Hartwell Environmental MBGA, Gurney. We Our energy related bookings and backlog continue to show resilient and performance above our long term averages sat at all time highs. Our Q4 average energy backlog continues to stay ahead of DXP's average going back to 2017.

Additionally, our year to date average continues to exceed our long term average IPS backlog going back to 2015. Which we highlighted occurred for the first time in the second quarter of twenty twenty three. And continues as we move forward to fiscal year twenty twenty five. That what this indicates is that we are [indiscernible] bookings and we feel good at this point in the cycle on energy and waste and waste wastewater related project work. We look forward to seeing how this impacts our results and project revenue both in energy and water and wastewater as we move through 2025. As we maintain growth, our main focus within IPS will be managing to the demand levels we have finding opportunities in all markets such as energy, biofuels, food and beverage, water and wastewater, and pricing appropriately given the supply chain dynamics and ebbs and flows of inflation. In terms of service centers, the diversity of end markets, multiple product division approach, and our MRO nature within service centers allows us to continue to remain resilient and continue to experience top line year over year growth in fiscal twenty twenty four. From a regional perspective, region that experienced year over year growth included North Central, South Rockies, Southwest, our Canadian rotating equipment business, We continue to expect our end markets will remain constructive over the near term We have also seen in our U. S. Safety Services division and Metal Working Product divisions which is great to see.

Supply Chain Services experienced a slight decrease year over year primarily due to some facility closures by our customers and small declines across our energy related SCS sites. That said, SES has also invested in customer care model, allowing customers to utilize DXP remote tech for a full time on-site presence. This model enables DXP to with smaller sites and expand the business relationship. SES remains committed to expanding our industrial customer base through enhanced smart and lead generation tools, And as we go into physical '25, we believe demand for SCS' services is increasing because of the proven technology and efficiency they DXP's overall gross profit margins for the year were 30.9%, a 77 basis point improvement over 2023. This displayed constant gross margin performance within our different segments throughout the year and added accretive gross margin gross margins. Through we added accretive gross profit margins through our acquisitions. That said, service centers had meaningful improved gross margins year over year IPS sales, contribution was 18% of total sales in 2024 and thirteen percent of total sales in 2023. Overall DXP produced adjusted EBITDA of 191,300,000.0 or an increase of 9.8% year over year. Adjusted EBITDA as a percent of sales was 10.62% or an increase of 24 basis points compared to 2023.

In summary, we are pleased with our overall performance in 2024. Look to continue to drive improvement improvement our organic sales and marketing strategies and drive further sales growth through acquisitions and anticipate fiscal twenty twenty five to be a to be focused on maintaining margins while driving and laying the groundwork for long term operating efficiencies. Overall, through our strategic investments and initiatives, we will remain focused on providing world class tools, processes, training and technology to deliver value to our customers and suppliers and help our DX people be more productive so they can better help our customers win. Would like to sincerely thank all our DX people who continue to show up to work with their passion, commitment, teamwork and selfless service. We have a tremendous team and it is an honor to deliver value for all our stakeholders. I am pleased with our performance in fiscal 'twenty four, I'm proud of our efforts to continue to improve We are growing sales in excess of market and expect into the and expect the same in the near future. We expect to drive SG and A leverage, manage working capital, generate free cash flow and if organic sales slow, then free cash flow will grow and we will take advantage of the economy to grow profitability both organically and through acquisition.

If inflation rears its head, DXP is not concerned As a distributor, we pass on increases to our customer DXP is experienced in navigating inflationary environment. We have grown sales on a compounded annual growth rate of over 15.7% since 2020. We have achieved new highs in both sales and profitability and I would like to thank our stakeholders With that, I'll now turn it back over to Kenji. Thank you, David. And thank you to everyone for joining us for our review of our fourth quarter and fiscal year twenty twenty four financial results. Fiscal twenty twenty four was another record year a new watermark in terms of sales and gross margins. Additionally, it's our 10% plus adjusted EBITDA margins.

We are excited to report these results and we look forward to moving into fiscal twenty twenty five. Specifically, fiscal year twenty twenty four financial performance reflects our ability to continue to execute on key themes that we have been focused on on over the past three to five years. Overall, DXP's fiscal twenty twenty four financial results reflect the following. Strong year over year sales growth driven by innovative pumping solutions and continued gross margin strength and stability, consistent operating leverage leading to sustained adjusted EBITDA margins, more notably our second year of 10% plus adjusted EBITDA margins, continued execution on our acquisition strategy, completing seven acquisitions and DXP Water crossing the $100,000,000 plus sales mark, successfully refinancing and repricing our Term Loan B, including raising an incremental $105,000,000 and reducing interest costs by 100 basis points and continued capital return to shareholders through our share repurchase program. Total sales for the fourth quarter increased 15.7% year over year to $470,900,000 That said, this reflects improvement in sales per business day going from $7,390,000 in Q3 to sixty four business days to sixty two days in Q4 or 7,595,000.000 sales per day in Q4. Acquisitions that have been with DXP for less than a year contributed 34 Total sales for DXP for fiscal year twenty twenty four were $1,800,000,000 and [indiscernible] For the full year, acquisitions contributed $98,500,000 in sales.

Average daily sales for the fourth quarter were $7,595,000 per day as previously mentioned or up 2.8% compared to Q3 twenty twenty four and were up 13.8% versus Q4 of twenty twenty three or a sales per business day of $6,670,000 in Q4 of twenty twenty three. Average daily sales for fiscal year twenty twenty four were $7,123,000 per day versus $6,661,000 per day in fiscal twenty twenty three, a 7% increase. In terms of our business segments, Innovative Pumping Solutions grew 47.7% year over year This was followed by service centers growing 1.9% year over year and supply chain services slightly declining at 1.5% year over year. In terms of innovative pumping solutions, we continue to experience increases in the energy and water related backlog, Our Q4 energy related average backlog grew 17.5% over our Q3 average backlog, which continues to be a notable compared to Q1 of this year and continues to be ahead of our 2015, 2016 and 2017 average backlog. It is worth noting that our energy backlog includes a significant project win that is currently Adjusting for this project, our energy backlog grew 8.7% sequentially. That said, the conclusions continues to remain that we are trending meaningfully above all historical sales levels and we are moving towards 2014 sales levels based upon where our backlog stands today.

We also see strength in our IPS water backlog it continues to grow due to a combination of organic and acquisition additions. In terms of our DXP Water backlog as of Q4, are up 108% compared to Q4 of last year. Adjusting for recent acquisitions, the DXP Water backlog is up 39.5% organically. We have been experiencing strong organic sales growth within IPS and spec and expect that trend to continue in 2025. In terms of our service centers, regions within our service center business segment which experienced notable sales growth year over year include the South Rockies, North Central, and the Southwest. Additionally, we saw notable strength year over year in our Canadian rotating equipment and U. S. Safety Services businesses.

Key products and end markets continue to drive sales performance also include rotating equipment, water and wastewater, food and beverage and energy. Supply Chain Services performance reflects the impact of some facility closures with our customers and declines across our energy related SCS customers. As well as the streamlining inefficiencies we brought to our new customers that we have added over the last couple years. As we move into fiscal twenty twenty five, we will look for new customer additions and a return to sales growth. Turning to our gross margins, DXP's total gross margins were 30.87%, a 77 basis point improvement over fiscal year twenty twenty three. This improvement was driven by strength in our service center business segment showing the greatest improvement in margins improving 83 basis points on a year over year comparative basis. This was followed by 114 basis point improvement from supply chain services. That said, from a segment mix sales contribution, Service centers contributed 67.9%, innovative pumping solutions 17.9% and Supply Chain Services was 14.2%. Compared to last year, IPS mix contribution was higher at 17.9% in 2024, which impacted margins positively. Versus 2023. In terms of operating income, combined, all three business segments increased 27 basis points in year over year business segment operating income margins or $18,800,000 versus fiscal twenty twenty three.

This was primarily driven by improvements in operating income margins across Innovative Pumping Solutions and Supply Chain Services business segments. IPS operating income margins improved 57 basis points driven by the addition of water and wastewater acquisitions and overall improvement within the energy related IPS business. Supply Chain Services operating income margins improved 21 basis points on a year over year comparative basis. Total DXP operating income increased $6,700,000 versus fiscal twenty twenty three to $145,400,000 Our SG and A for the full year increased $44,300,000 from fiscal twenty twenty three to 410,900,000.0 The increase reflects the growth in the business, including acquisitions, and associated incentive compensation, as well as DXP investing in its people through merit and pay raises as well as the addition of new personnel. SG and A as a percentage of sales increased slightly to 22.8% versus 21.8% of sales in fiscal twenty twenty three. We still anticipate that DXP will benefit from the leverage inherent in the business despite increased operating dollars supporting our growth and the impacts of acquisitions. Turning to EBITDA. Fiscal twenty twenty four adjusted EBITDA was $191,300,000 Adjusted EBITDA margins were 10.6%. This is our second fiscal year with adjusted EBITDA margins in excess of 10% and we will look for this to continue in fiscal twenty twenty five.

Year over year adjusted EBITDA margins increased 24 basis points or $17,000,000 This reflects the fixed cost SG and A leverage we experienced as we grow sales. This translated into 1.3 times operating leverage. In terms of EPS, our net income for fiscal twenty twenty four was $70,500,000 Our earnings per diluted share for fiscal twenty twenty four was $4.22 per share versus $3.89 per share last year. Adjusting for one time or non cash items associated with our $650,000,000 refinancing during Q4, and other items, our earnings per diluted share for fiscal twenty twenty four was $4.51 per share. Our adjusted diluted EPS in Q4 was $1.38 per share. Turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. In terms of working capital, our working capital increased $20,900,000 from December of twenty twenty three to 296,300,000.0 As a percentage of sales, this amounted to 16.4% which is in the lower half of our targeted range of 15% to 20% of sales. At this point, we have moved in line with our historical averages or ranges in terms of investing in working capital and we have moved off our Q3 twenty twenty two high point of 19.9% of LTM sales. We do anticipate further acquisitions as we move into fiscal twenty twenty five, This could cause us to move upwards, albeit we are focused on focused on managing working capital as efficiently as possible as we scale and grow.

In terms of cash, we had $148,300,000 in cash on the balance sheet as of December 31. This is a decrease of $24,800,000 compared to the end of Q4 twenty twenty three and an increase $113,300,000 since September. This reflects the refinancing of our existing Term Loan B in the fourth quarter and the strong cash flow generation we experienced to the during the fourth quarter, which we will touch upon later in my comments. As it pertains to our Term Loan B, as a reminder during the fourth quarter, we announced that we refinanced and repriced our Term Loan B which maintains our maturity at October 2030. We successfully repriced the new term lumber loan B reducing our borrowing costs by 100 basis points to SOFR plus three seventy five versus SOFR plus four seventy five while also raising the incremental $105,000,000 in capital to support our acquisition and investments program over the next nine to twelve months. In terms of CapEx, CapEx for fiscal twenty twenty four was $25,100,000 versus $12,300,000 in fiscal twenty twenty three. This increase reflects reinvestment in some of our facilities and equipment, software and related investments to drive improvement in efficiencies on behalf of our employees.

As we move forward, we will continue to invest in the business as we focus on growth. Turning to free cash flow. We generated solid operating cash flow during the fourth quarter as we did during the fiscal twenty twenty four, we had cash flow from operations of $32,100,000 and $106,200,000 respectively. For fiscal twenty twenty four, this translated into $77,100,000 in free cash flow. While we continue to make improvements in our free cash flow, when we are growing DXP tends to make significant investments in inventory and project work in our facilities, equipment and software, similar to what we did in 2023. That said, a majority of our CapEx is growth oriented and controllable, and we have an ability to pivot if necessary. Return on invested capital, our ROIC for fiscal twenty twenty four was 39% and continues to be above our cost of capital and is reflecting our improved profitability levels and efficient working capital management. As of December 31, our fixed charge coverage ratio was 1.7:one and our secured leverage ratio was 2.4:three:one with a covenant EBITDA for fiscal twenty twenty four of $206,200,000 Total debt outstanding on December 31 was $648,900,000 In terms of liquidity, as of December 31, we were undrawn on our ABL with $9,400,000 in letters of credit with $125,600,000 of availability and liquidity of $273,900,000 including $148,300,000 in cash, which some of it has already been used to finance the purchase of a Royal Process Equipment, which we closed subsequent to the fourth quarter.

We are excited to have them and they will start reporting with us for the first quarter of twenty twenty five. Welcome to DXP. DXP's acquisition pipeline continues to grow. And the market continues to present compelling opportunities. Looking forward, we expect this to continue through fiscal twenty twenty five and we look forward to closing a minimum of one to three additional acquisitions by the middle 2025. In terms of capital allocation, we repurchased or returned $28,800,000 to shareholders via our share repurchase program in fiscal twenty twenty four or a total of 566,000 shares of DXP stock. The last item that I want to briefly touch upon is the outstanding progress we have made with our accounting and finance team. As I mentioned last year, we have invested heavily in growing our finance and accounting department. This has allowed us to continue to path of continuous improvement, which this year is expressing itself in full remediation of all material weak weaknesses. Progress is never a straight line and we are staying nimble as we continue to grow.

We are at an inflection point and I'm excited to work with PwC our enhanced team and the entirety of DXP as we are scaling in real time organically and through acquisitions. In summary, we are pleased with our fiscal twenty twenty four performance. We achieved record adjusted earnings performance at $4.51 per [indiscernible] higher earnings and improved working capital efficiency delivered a 40% free cash flow conversion to EBITDA on 7.4% sales growth. These achievements contributed to a remarkable annual ROIC of 39% demonstrating gains from our strategic initiatives as well as our disciplined approach to capital allocation and our acquisition strategy. Heading into 2025, we refreshed our balance sheet, which allows us to both organically and through acquisitions, while also returning capital to our shareholders. An exciting time to be a part of DXP. We are excited about the future. We will keep our eyes on focus on those things we can control and what is ahead of us. What is in front of us is always bigger than what is behind us and the best is always ahead. We look forward to a to a successful fiscal twenty twenty five. I will now turn the call over for questions.

Your first question comes from the line of Zach Mariott with Stephens.

Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you for taking my questions. Good morning, Zach. Is there any color you can share on daily sales trends by month for both Q4 and so far into Q1?

Yes, no, absolutely, Zach. Starting back in Q4, our in October, if you will, Sales Per Business Day, was $7200000.07500000.0 and then $8,100,000 for December. And then starting off here in 2025, sales per business day for for January and February were 6,800,000.0 per day in January. And then 7,800,000.0 per day in February.

Great. Thanks for that color. And then also for margins quarter over quarter, how are those trending? And are there any noteworthy factors in March that may change that trajectory?

I don't think we have full visibility into our margins at this point in time for Q1 necessarily. But I think what you're getting at Zach, is from Q3 to Q4, our gross margins went up pretty significantly. And I think that's just a continued function of mix. Overall, once again, our water wastewater acquisitions tend to be at an overall higher gross as well as EBITDA margins and with us at the end of the year closing out some of the acquisitions and then performing with us longer they started to contribute in a higher fashion. So I think that's what you saw [indiscernible] going from Q3 to Q4 and obviously going into Q1 up we would like for that to continue. But But we also have some once again, always some strong initiatives in driving sales dollars, if you will, that impact mix on our base businesses.

Got it.

I want to jump in and add just a little bit Our Our goals have have been to get to 10% EBITDA margins. We were told that would make a big difference in the valuation of our company. And so we hit that. And so now we've changed our goal to 11 People are in a lot their pay is in alignment with those goals. And so they obviously make more if they hit them. Than if they don't.

And so we're really pleased with the progress we made throughout the year and we look we look forward continue to improve.

Great. Thank you both for the color and I'll turn it back I will now turn the call back over to David Little Chairman and CEO for closing remarks.

Please go ahead.

Thanks, Eric. Yes, [indiscernible] our peer group didn't have really any growth this year. And most of them had some negative growth. And of course, I'm trying to change our peer group from being oil and gas people. And so we've done a really really good job of continuing to sell as many pumps and equipment as we can into the oil and gas deal, but at the same time, reduce it as a percent of our overall business. And so we're kind of doing everything that's really possible in terms of taking the company into a more diversified market [indiscernible] And and we're being rewarded for that. We're also doing everything we can to increase gross profit margins. And yet be fair to our customers. And we also are looking at a lot of a lot of things where we're kind of heavy on the investment side on trying to drive scale and efficiencies, but but we see some improvements coming as we continue to move forward. And so, I think our goal of 11% EBITDA margins is very obtainable. And pretty much obtainable in a a short period of time. The [indiscernible] goes against that a possible headwind is if all these tariffs and things like that slow the economy down then it's obviously hard to get scale when your sales are are declining.

We don't see any of that yet. We see the uncertainty of comments that are being made around tariffs and inflation will reiterate that inflation is within reason is good for us. It raises our sales and raises our value of inventory. And we don't we don't get we don't really get pressures to lower our margins. So in general, that's that's good.

Of course, have to follow that up with pay raises for our people and things like that. Things cost a little more, but managed all properly, that doesn't doesn't affect us and we're pretty good at that because we've had a lot of inflation over the years that I've been at the helm.

So I think we feel good. Again, I want to thank our DX people. We're working on a lot of different projects and in addition to their normal daily routine. And so I appreciate all those efforts performing pretty well So from a stakeholder point of view and I'm a large one, I appreciate those efforts. And so I think with that, I'd just like to thank everybody and And of course, that the stock too low, well then I'm going to buy back and if it's too high, I'm going to celebrate. So you very much and you all have a great day.

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining and you may now disconnect.