NPK International Inc. (NPKI) Earnings Call Transcript

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to NPK International 2Q '26 Earnings. [Operator Instructions]. I will now hand the conference over to Gregg Piontek, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. I'd like to welcome everyone to the NPK International Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Joining me today is Matthew Lanigan, our President and Chief Executive Officer. Before handing over to Matthew, I'd like to highlight that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements regarding future business and financial expectations. Actual results may differ significantly from those projected in today's forward-looking statements due to various risks and uncertainties including the risks described in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update our forward-looking statements. Our comments on today's call may also include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Additional details and reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures are included in our quarterly earnings release, which can be found on our website. There will be a replay of today's call that will be available by webcast within the Investor Relations section of our website at npki.com. Please note that the information disclosed on today's call is current as of July 30, 2026. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will open the line for questions. And with that, I would like to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Matthew Lanigan.

Thanks, Gregg, and welcome to everyone joining us on today's call. Our solid second quarter results yet again demonstrate our team's commitment to growth, the continued momentum in our core markets and the operating leverage inherent in our business model. During the quarter, we made meaningful progress on our strategic priorities, including our manufacturing expansion, which has us well positioned for further scale and strength moving forward. Looking at the quarter, we delivered $82 million of revenue, an increase of 20% from last year with strong profitability capture driven by year-over-year growth in both product sales and rentals. Total rental and service revenues achieved another quarterly high at $54 million, a 16% year-over-year increase. This result was particularly pleasing due to the unique nature of our second quarter. As we mentioned on our Q1 call, our Q2 expectation was influenced by the anticipated completion timing of multiple large-scale projects, which ultimately represented over 25% of our domestic mat fleet. Despite the accelerated timing relative to previous expectations, our ability to absorb these large project transitions while continuing to grow profitably in the quarter once again demonstrates the benefits of our scale, the resilience of our business model and our operations team's ability to manage multiple large project transitions for our customers. Product sales demand was very strong, contributing $28 million to second quarter revenue, a 28% year-over-year increase, reflecting continued strong demand from our utility customers along with international sales. As a result of this continued quarterly growth, combined with solid operating leverage, we delivered $26 million of adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, representing a 37% year-over-year improvement and a 31.5% adjusted EBITDA margin. Off the back of the strong profitability, we are again raising our full year profitability guidance, which Gregg will cover in more detail in his prepared remarks. As I mentioned earlier, we also made solid progress on our manufacturing expansion project in Louisiana, investing $4 million in the quarter. We are confident that this expansion, which is expected to increase our production capacity by approximately 50% as well as our continuing debottlenecking initiatives will support our long-term growth and composite matting market share expansion for the foreseeable future while also enhancing margins through reduced usage of cross rental mats. We are also very pleased with our second quarter cash flow, delivering $22 million of cash from operations and $6 million of free cash flow, while also expanding our mat rental fleet by 3%. We maintained our strong financial position, ending the quarter with net debt of just $2 million, providing ample financial flexibility to continue executing on our strategic objectives. Overall, Q2 once again demonstrated our consistent strong execution, which we believe is a direct reflection of our commitment to our key strategic priorities. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gregg for his prepared remarks.

Thanks, Matthew. I'll begin with a more detailed discussion of our second quarter and first half results, then provide an update on our operational outlook and capital allocation priorities for the remainder of 2026. The second quarter results were highlighted by strength in product sales and continued growth in rental revenues, which reflect the momentum in our end markets. As Matthew touched on, product sales grew by 21% sequentially and 28% year-over-year, primarily benefiting from continued strong demand from utility customers, along with elevated international sales. Rental and service revenues grew 3% sequentially and 16% year-over-year to a quarterly record $54 million despite the accelerated completion of the large-scale projects that Matthew mentioned. Breaking the revenue down further, rental revenues grew 18% year-over-year, reflecting 4% organic growth, combined with a $4 million contribution from the Grassform acquisition. The organic growth reflects the impact of improved pricing, partially offset by the lower fleet utilization attributable to the large project completions and the natural lag in the fleet redeployment. Service revenues grew 12% with substantially all of the increase coming from the acquisition. Turning to gross profit. The second quarter gross margin was 37%, representing an 80 basis point sequential improvement and in line with prior year. The sequential gross margin improvement primarily reflects the effect of stronger product sales activity and stable rental margins, while the year-over-year comparison reflects the effects of stronger product sales and increased manufacturing operating leverage, offset by lower rental utilization. Second quarter SG&A expenses totaled $14.2 million compared to $13.2 million in the first quarter and $13.7 million in the second quarter of last year. As noted in yesterday's press release, the second quarter results included a $900,000 charge resulting from a Board-approved modification to the retirement eligibility terms applicable to long-term incentive awards to better align with market practices. Income tax expense was $3.9 million in the second quarter, reflecting an effective tax rate of 25%. Adjusted EPS from continuing operations was $0.15 per diluted share in the second quarter compared to $0.12 per share in the first quarter and $0.11 per share in the second quarter of last year. For the first half of 2026, total revenues have increased 18% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS grew by 25% and 20%, respectively. Looking at first half revenues by geography and sector. Our U.S. revenues increased 11% year-over-year to $138 million, including 11% growth in rental revenues, with the utility sector driving the substantial majority of that growth. U.K. revenues more than doubled year-over-year to $19 million in the first half of 2026, primarily reflecting the Grassform contributions. Turning to cash flows. Our Q2 performance remained relatively in line with prior quarter. Operating activities generated $22 million of cash in the second quarter, including $25 million from net income adjusted for noncash expenses, somewhat offset by $3 million of cash used by a net increase in working capital. Net CapEx used to $16 million, which includes $10 million of net investment into fleet expansion and $4 million to fund the manufacturing expansion. We ended the quarter with total debt of $11 million and total cash of $8 million for a net debt position of $2 million. Additionally, we have $148 million of availability under our bank facility, providing us with ample financial flexibility to continue executing on our strategic growth objectives, including our manufacturing expansion. Now turning to our business outlook. Overall, our customers remain highly constructive on the near- and longer-term outlook for utilities and critical infrastructure spending, which we see within our robust quoting activity. As for the near-term outlook, despite Q3 being our typical seasonal low point in customer project activity and the effects of the ongoing redeployments from recently completed large-scale projects, we expect total Q3 rental and service revenues to remain fairly in line with Q2 levels, reflecting a year-over-year improvement of more than 20%. Product sales are expected to revert back to levels more in line with Q1 following the exceptionally strong Q2 result. Q3 gross margin is also expected to be roughly in line with the first half result but remain dependent on the specifics of project timing. In light of the strong first half profitability and favorable near-term outlook, we have revised our full year 2026 outlook, narrowing the total revenues range to $313 million to $323 million and increasing adjusted EBITDA to a range of $97 million to $103 million. The midpoint of our range reflects 15% revenue growth and 32% adjusted EBITDA growth over 2025. The midpoint of our revenue guidance continues to reflect double-digit organic rental revenue growth, along with the contribution from the Grassform acquisition, while product sales are expected to grow modestly from 2025 levels. Our CapEx plan for 2026 has been reduced, primarily reflecting changes in timing of the manufacturing expansion expenditures. So this does not impact our anticipated midyear 2027 start-up date. Total net CapEx is now expected to be $65 million to $80 million for the year, including $20 million to $25 million of current year spending for the manufacturing expansion project, along with $35 million to $45 million targeted for the rental fleet expansion. This level of investment is expected to grow our DURA-BASE rental fleet by a low to mid-teens percentage, supporting our organic growth and also displacing a portion of cross-rent assets currently deployed on projects. Our SG&A expectation remains unchanged at roughly $13 million quarterly level in the near term, while tax rate is expected to remain relatively in line with the first half rate for the remainder of the year. As highlighted previously, we entered 2026 with roughly $40 million of NOLs and other tax credit carryforwards, which when combined with the accelerated deductions for capital investments are expected to significantly limit our cash tax obligations for the next several years. As it relates to our capital allocation strategy, we continue to prioritize investments in the growth of our rental fleet and our manufacturing capacity expansion as well as strategic acquisitions while also remaining committed to returning a portion of free cash flow generation to shareholders through our disciplined share repurchase program. And with that, I'll turn the call back over to Matthew for his concluding remarks.

Yes. Thanks, Gregg. As we close out the first half of the year, we remain confident in our double-digit growth outlook and commitment to the execution of our strategic priorities in 2026. Our primary focus remains the scale-up of our rental platform, which generates the highest long-term returns for our business. As we have discussed, our strategy includes a combination of geographic expansion and market share growth in the U.S. and U.K. Our quoting pipeline continues to support our confidence with roughly 20% year-over-year increase in quoted volumes with over half of that volume being originated in our expansion geographies. We remain confident that the strong momentum in these markets will support our continued fleet and operational expansion, though as we saw this quarter, we recognize the quarterly cadence remains dependent on project timings, particularly for large-scale projects. To support our strategy, we remain committed to making the necessary investments for growth, investing in the expansion of our DURA-BASE composite mat rental fleet while also advancing our manufacturing expansion project. Our decision to expand our Louisiana facility was driven by superior economics relative to other alternate locations as this location maintains our proximity to strategic raw material supply, captures operational benefits and efficiencies through co-location with our existing infrastructure and skilled workforce and continues our decades-long investment in and support of the local community. Our second focus area remains on driving organizational efficiencies across the business. We continue to see this play out in both gross margins and SG&A as a percent of revenues as we are on pace to exceed 30% EBITDA margin in 2026. As we continue to grow, we see opportunity to continue to expand our EBITDA margins and returns on invested capital through operating leverage while also making targeted investments to drive sustainable long-term revenue growth for the company. And as Gregg touched on, our final priority is the allocation of capital beyond our organic requirements. With a strong balance sheet and disciplined approach, we remain active in the evaluation of core strategic inorganic opportunities that increase our market coverage, value and relevance to customers in key critical infrastructure markets as well as the continuation of our share repurchase program. As it pertains to strategic inorganic execution, I wanted to call out our recent U.K. acquisition and our entire U.K. team who are integrating our 2 U.K. platforms while running ahead of expectations and delivering excellent results. The combined U.K. entity provided our business with strong profitable growth during the quarter, while our U.S. team successfully managed the large-scale project transitions, which are a natural part of our business strategy and cadence. With robust market outlooks in our served geographies, a clear strategic focus and a robust balance sheet, we remain on pace to deliver another strong year of profitable growth for 2026. In closing, I want to thank our shareholders for their ongoing support, our employees for their dedication to the business, including their commitment to safety and compliance and our customers for their ongoing partnerships. And with that, we'll open the call for questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question is from the line of Aaron Spychalla with Craig-Hallum.

First, can you maybe talk about visibility and confidence into the guidance? You talked a little bit about project timing, the 20% growth in the pipeline. Just curious if you're seeing any impacts from any data center slowing or just secondary impacts on customer spend?

Yes. Thanks, Aaron. I think the short answer to that is that we're not seeing any impact of, I think, what's been affecting participants in the space over the last few days. Our pipeline is fairly advanced and locked in. So we're not concerned about any risk there and visibility is good. What I will say we're always kind of alerting people to the fact that timings are not necessarily under our control, so they could shift a little bit, which may impact here or there. But the way we see it looking at it today, second half is very much in line with the guidance that we called out.

Great. And then just second, I mean, obviously, really good margin performance. Can you just talk about some of the drivers there, again, confidence in kind of the outlook? And then just the impact from cross rentals on the business, what has that been? And just how might that reverse or see a benefit next year as you bring on capacity?

Yes. So the -- I guess I'll start with that one first. The cross rentals, the cost has been fairly stable. It's about 3 points of headwind basically on the R&S margins overall. And as we had talked about, we see over time, we'll be reducing that. So you'll see some lift from that. But in terms of the improvement of the margin, you got a little bit of mix. The rental versus service continues to trend more towards the rental, which is the higher margin. But then within that, it's a lot of operating leverage and cost management, both on the rental operations side as well as on the manufacturing side, the increasing -- the increase in the manufacturing volume and just the leverage that you're getting there. That's really what's driving it. And as we look ahead, we don't see a substantial change to that.

Your next question is from the line of Laura Maher with B. Riley Securities.

So for my first question, the release cites strong demand from key customer accounts. Could you give some color on how concentrated rental growth was this quarter? And then can you -- like some more color on the customer base broadening among your top accounts?

Yes. I think when you look at this quarter, a lot of the demobilizations were attributed with one of our larger customers, Laura. So if anything, that would have kind of addressed any concentration associated with the overall rental mix. And so other than that, I think it was a fairly standard distribution across multiple regions. And so I think that would be how I'd summarize that one. You'll have to remind me the second part of your question.

Do you see the customer base broadening among your top accounts?

Yes. Thank you. Yes, we do actually. I think I touched on it in my pipeline commentary that we're seeing buildup in our kind of emerging or growing regions. So we're happy with the way that our geographic distribution is starting to play out. Obviously, we've got some work to do to have it balance out our historical footprint, but encouraging that we're starting to see a broader distribution of geographic regions in our activity.

Yes. I think going back to our commentary over the past several quarters, the good news with the success that we saw in 2025 with these larger projects, we saw a great uptake with one particular customer that's what caused that customer to be, what, 19% customer here in 2025. And here in '26, the -- a key focus of ours is diversifying and finding the next customers to really help diversify that and so it's kind of playing out as we expected. We know these things take a little bit of time to get there, but we're on a good path.

I guess a follow-up on that then. How much of the fleet is deployed on transmission and distribution work versus data center development and other end markets? Could you give color there on if there's any update on the change in the mix?

Yes, Laura, I'll start by saying we have no mats deployed on data center build-out or development. So I just want to kind of point that out on the -- as of.

Yes. The majority of our products, the rental distribution largely reflects the revenue concentrations that Gregg spoke about, 70-plus percent of the fleet would be on transmission projects and the balance largely domestically on our oil and gas footprint around fracking basins in the country. And then obviously, in the U.K., more concentrated again on transmission and perhaps rail and general construction.

Your next question comes from Bill Dezellem with Tieton Capital Management.