Atkore Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Atkore EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $1.50
• Consensus EPS: $1.05
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.45
• One Year Ago EPS: $4.12

Atkore Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $661.60 million
• Expected Revenue: $680.77 million
• Beat/Miss: Missed by -$19.17 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: -17.10%

Atkore Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 2/4/2025
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, February 4, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

Atkore (NYSE:ATKR) engages in the manufacture and sale of electrical, mechanical, safety, and infrastructure products and solutions in the United States and internationally. The company offers conduits, cables, and installation accessories. It also designs and manufactures protection and reliability solutions for critical infrastructure, such as metal framing, mechanical pipe, perimeter security, and cable management. The company offers its products under the Allied Tube & Conduit, AFC Cable Systems, Kaf-Tech, Heritage Plastics, Unistrut, Power-Strut, Cope, US Tray, FRE Composites, United Poly Systems, Calbond, and Calpipe. It serves various end markets, including new construction; maintenance, repair, and remodel; infrastructure; diversified industrials; alternative power generation; healthcare; data centers; and governments through electrical, industrial, and mechanical contractors, as well as original equipment manufacturers. The company was formerly known as Atkore International Group Inc. and changed its name to Atkore Inc. in February 2021. Atkore Inc. was founded in 1959 and is headquartered in Harvey, Illinois.

Atkore Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning. My name is John, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Atkore's First Quarter Fiscal Year 20 35 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed in a listen only mode. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. Thank you.

[Operator]

I would now like to

[Operator]

turn the conference over to your host, Matt Klein, Vice President of Treasury and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.

[Matthew Kline, Vice President of Treasury & Investor Relations at Atkore]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Bill Waltz, President and CEO John Deitzer, Chief Financial Officer and John Pergenzer, Chief Operating Officer and President of Electrical. We will take questions at the conclusion of the call. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we may make projections or forward looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties such that actual results may differ materially.

[Matthew Kline, Vice President of Treasury & Investor Relations at Atkore]

Please refer to our SEC filings and today's press release, which identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward looking statements. In addition, any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA, and any reference to EPS or adjusted EPS means adjusted diluted earnings per share. Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted diluted earnings per share are non GAAP measures. Reconciliations of non GAAP measures and a presentation of the most comparable GAAP measures are available in the appendix to today's presentation. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Thanks, Matt, and good morning, everyone. Starting on Slide 3, our Q1 performance was in line with our expectations. We achieved net sales of $662,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $99,000,000 both of which were within our outlook range. Our $1.63 of adjusted EPS was near the top end of our outlook range. Organic volume declined 5% in the Q1, but this is in comparison to our strong volume performance in the Q1 of fiscal 2024.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Our teams have been focused on executing the growth initiatives that we discussed in November related to water and global construction services. We are on track with our organic initiatives and are planning for those to come online later in the year to support both our PBC and HCP water products. We continue to pursue several opportunities for global megaprojects as we look to grow our pipeline and eventual backlog. We remain committed to returning cash to our shareholders as evidenced by the $50,000,000 in share repurchase in the Q1, which complements our quarterly dividend payment. I'm also pleased to highlight the release of our fiscal year 2024 sustainability report, which we published last month.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

This report details our ongoing initiatives, accomplishments and progress toward our 2025 goals. In the Q1 of 2025, we released additional environmental product declarations for our core products. Atkore has EPDs for our core products covering approximately half of our global sales. When we met in November, we planned our year with an expectation that we would continue to face challenges impacting both our volume and price due to increased foreign and domestic competition. Most notably, these challenges impact our PVC conduit and steel conduit businesses.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Having completed our Q1, we now believe the challenges we outlined in November will have a larger impact on our 2025 performance than previously anticipated. We saw year over year volume increases in imported PVC conduit, which is impacting the market environment. Additionally, we continue to see year over year increases in imports for steel conduit. The imports for both PVC conduit and steel conduit originated from countries where quantity limitations are either non existent or poorly enforced. During the Q1, we saw downstream constraints impacting our utility scale solar market, which impacted our volume.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

However, we are pleased by the improved operational performance within the S and I team and our Hobart, Indiana facility. I am disappointed that we continue to operate in these conditions. The challenges we are navigating are not what we anticipated at the end of fiscal year 2022 when we signal normalization of our record profits. We now expect full year 2025 adjusted EBITDA to be approximately $400,000,000 at the midpoint of our range. Our outlook reflects what we believe is most probable.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

We are pleased that an announcement was made related to tariffs on Mexico. Should these tariffs go into effect, they should have a positive impact on our business. At this time, our outlook does not contemplate any material benefits from tariffs on imported conduit. As a reminder, the recently announced tariffs impacting Mexico and Canada do not affect our PVC conduit business. We are currently forecasting the headwinds impacting PVC pricing may continue.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

In the meantime, we are advancing our key initiatives to expand our business in new market areas. Secondly, we are prudently looking at our enterprise wide cost structure to mitigate the impact of these industry headwinds. Lastly, we are looking at alternative scenarios for certain assets to provide the best economic return. My conviction and our team remains strong and we will lean into our business system to execute our strategy. I'd like to take a moment to thank all of our employees for everything they do to support our key stakeholders.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

With that, I'll now turn the call over to John to talk through the results from the quarter and provide more details on our outlook.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Moving to our consolidated results on Slide 4. In the Q1, we achieved net sales of $662,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $99,000,000 Our tax rate in the Q1 was 21%, an increase from 17.5% in the prior year. As a reminder, the tax rate in the Q1 of last year had benefits from previously granted stock compensation. These outsized benefits contributed to our stronger than anticipated EPS performance in the Q1 of fiscal 2024.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Turning to Slide 5 and our consolidated bridges. Organic volumes were down 5% compared to double digit growth in the Q1 of fiscal 2024 when volume was up over 13%. Our average selling prices declined 12% during the quarter, most of which came from our PVC conduit and steel conduit products. Moving to Slide 6. Our volume decline during the Q1 was across most product categories.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

As we mentioned earlier, volume in the Q1 last year was atypical for what is traditionally our slowest quarter. However, our metal framing, cable management and construction services businesses grew mid single digits in the Q1 of fiscal 2025 after being up high single digits in the prior year. This growth is driven by both an increase in our construction services support of global mega projects as well as the high density of metal framing products required for this type of construction. We anticipate additional growth from these businesses throughout our fiscal year in part due to the addition of new capacity for metal framing to support large construction projects such as data centers and chip fab manufacturing. Our plastic pipe and conduit product category declined mid single digits during the quarter.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

This category grew high single digits in the prior year as the channel was adding back inventory after a period of destocking in 2023. Separately, as Bill mentioned earlier, we are also seeing an increase in imported products coming from multiple locations including Central and South America. The combination of imports remains below 10% of the overall market, but we are continuing to monitor the situation closely. In addition, we are examining the product quality characteristics of these imported materials versus the standards and specifications. Our volume decline for steel conduit was also impacted by year over year foreign competition.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

We believe that imports represent between approximately 20% to 25% of the overall market. As we look beyond Q1, we continue to expect growth across much of the portfolio, including contributions from our plastic pipe category driven by growth in our water related products. Overall, we continue to expect volume growth between low to mid single digits for the full year. Turning to slide 7. Adjusted EBITDA margins compressed in our Electrical segment due to previously mentioned pricing and volume declines.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

The adjusted EBITDA margins also declined in our S and I segment primarily due to lower volume. The S and I segment margins however did improve sequentially from the Q4 2024 and we are pleased with the operational performance and improvements being made in our key facilities such as Hobart. Turning to slide 8. We continue to execute our balanced capital deployment model with an emphasis on returning cash to shareholders along with capital investments to progress our growth initiatives. Our balance sheet remains in a strong position with no maturity repayments required until 2028.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Next, on Slide 9. We expect low to mid single digit percentage volume growth for the full year. We expect our Q2 net sales in the range of $685,000,000 $715,000,000 Our adjusted EBITDA is expected to be in the range of $85,000,000 to $95,000,000 Our adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $1.30 $1.50 Historically, we are accustomed to anticipating some amount of seasonality. We generally build in an expectation that the back half of the year will be stronger than the first half. We believe this will be the case this year for two main reasons.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

First, our overall business is generally stronger in the spring and summer construction season versus the fall winter. 2nd, as we continue to ramp up our initiatives, our volume should steadily increase throughout the year. Therefore, we expect adjusted EBITDA to improve sequentially from Q2 into the second half of the year. As Bill shared, we are also updating our full year 2025 outlook. We now expect full year adjusted EBITDA in the range of $375,000,000 to $425,000,000 and adjusted EPS in the range of $5.75 to $6.85 With that, I'll turn it back to Bill.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Thanks, John. Moving to slide 10, As I and the entire management team focus on executing our growth initiatives and creating greater value for our customers and shareholders, we remain confident that the electrical industry is a great place to be. Atkore's strong balance sheet, breadth of products, service capabilities and goal of being the customer's first choice positions us well to benefit from the strong electrical trends projected across numerous end market categories. We remain committed to returning cash to shareholders through a combination of share repurchases and quarterly cash dividends and look forward to sharing more about our progress against our growth initiatives related to global construction services and water related products later in the year. Through it all, we are guided by our strategy, our process and our people, the 3 fundamentals of the Atkore Business System.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

One recent demonstration of the Atkore Business System at work is our announcement of our new Chief Operating Officer held by John Briginzer. John's multidisciplinary career combined with his experience holding various roles at Atkore since joining in 2015 makes him a tremendous asset and I'm excited by the additional value he will help act or achieve for our customers and our shareholders. With that, we'll turn it over to the operator to open the line for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Your first question comes from the line of Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Hey, good morning, everyone.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Good morning, Andy.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Bill, can you elaborate on the commentary that import competition is gaining momentum in PVC? Maybe what has changed with PVC imports versus the past that you've seen a pretty big move from this Latin American competition? And then metal conduit volume looks like a reverse course and declined in Q1. Is that just tougher comps, project delays or new capacity starting to come in?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes. So let's go through PVC. And I'll go and take your question and give a bunch of details here, Andy. Imports have grown now. There's still single digit numbers, but they've grown over 20% year over year.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

So I just whether it's, hey, as it starts working or they get customers, therefore they increase their shipments and that's probably the primary thing. Again, single digits overall market volume, but driving down price and or competition with slower markets, matching price, all those different things. So now the one thing I want to jump ahead on is in our guide, what we've done this year just because quite frankly for anybody frustrated with not having numbers that we hit and exceed is that we put it out, we have it literally going down to pre COVID levels by the time we exit the year. Now is it our intention to add value and see if we can push price up and see what Trump does and everything else there. But for now, instead of saying, oh, we didn't expect it, we've taken a very aggressive view, quite frankly, a view for price declines in our forecast again, not what we're internally managing to that this would be the worst year for year over year declines in PVC.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

So Andy, I both answered kind of the imports. I also think now again, I don't know anybody's cost base. If you get to that point where it's pre COVID, I don't think they can make money with the additional freight even if they have lower levels. From our analysis, the resin costs in these countries are the same as ours. There's the proportion that's labor is just small compared to everything else that I don't think it would make economic sense anymore.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

So hopefully you get a feel for that. Steel, I think look over my team and so forth, but it's mostly just year over year comp. Imports are still a challenge there, but literally imports have grown like 4%. So I think it's moderating with that. It's just we had a tough comp.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

But again, Andy, one of the things we did with this thing is to go, you know what, we talked in previous quarters, we did not expect much bump from Trump and tariffs versus like, hey, somewhere at the end of the year, things have to steady out. It's like, no, guys, just take a linear or like do not expect any price increase anywhere. So again, I think you have not changed our guide to get on the call, but I think we've taken out all variables and now it's just for us to perform. Any Trump tariff, any quota, anything else is upside to these numbers.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Bill, that's helpful. And then just on the volume side, I just want to make sure of this. Like so volume was down 5%. It looks like that is just tough comps. You're not forecasting any seasonal any cyclical improvement in construction markets.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

It's just seasonal improvement. Is that right? And maybe any sort of commentary on the health of the markets that you see?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes, exactly, Andy. So, no bounce back in industries, no bounce back in residential or anything else there. So it's literally, as I think in John's prepared remarks, I think we will finally get back to normal pre COVID things that there is that 7%, 10% just the summer months and so forth that we'll have that. Otherwise, even most of our initiatives like I'm sure somebody will ask about BEATs and HDPE, we really have going into 'twenty six and so forth.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Okay.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

And just one more for me. Like, can you give more color into your comments regarding looking at your cost structure and or getting value? I think you said value for strategic assets. Might we see bigger activities on these fronts this year? And what could that look like?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

I'll start and turn it over to John Dysart because there's so many things, but I'll steal some of John's just talking this morning. Sorry, John. But give you things we've already done. We had a facility in Tempe, Arizona. And again, we do drive lean.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

We were able to close that operation. So keep the business activity, but move it into Phoenix, move it up into Massachusetts. So that's one example. We did also, as we look forward strategically, look and go, hey, we can produce in some areas, I don't want to get what specific line, but to go, hey, we can actually produce and we don't need this asset. So we sold 2 or 3 production lines.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Again, we will still meet our customer demand without that. We are cutting back on, I say personnel, but headcount freeze for attrition. We're looking at lines back to let's say PVC Condu and Water making trade offs depending on the economic return, making the economic return on how much mechanical product versus conduit products and the list goes on. We have and I think we'll hit this the most aggressive or the highest year over year productivity that I'm aware of in Atkore's history. So Andy, it's a bunch of things we're looking at.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

And could we spin off small businesses that like you bought within an acquisition that weren't strategic? All those things are either have happened or in place as we go.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Yes. I agree with everything Bill mentioned there. I would just add to his point that we did have some positive productivity and we are going through almost at every line item asset by asset, what makes the most sense. So I think we are actively trying to understand what levers we have to pull. Yes.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

And it's Andy, sense for you. I know you appreciate. But again, it's a forecast. We have 2 weeks of backlog, all those other things. But I do think this is a point where I'm just frustrated with the unexpected.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

It's like, okay, guys, let's not assume good things. They will raise forecasts and let's work like hell to get these numbers moving forward.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Appreciate the color and good luck guys.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Thanks, Andy.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Thanks, Andy.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Deane Dray with RBC. Please go ahead.

[Deane Dray, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Hey, Deane.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Good morning.

[Deane Dray, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Hey, so just if I step back and look at the Q1 price and volume both came in largely in line with our expectations. So the cut here is all prospective and how you think the dynamics change for the balance of the year. And maybe if it would be helpful if you could just in broad strokes kind of break out for us on that guidance cut how much is the PVC, how much is steel conduit, just the size kind of the severity. And you hadn't, unless I missed it, talked about the new competitor in PVC, maybe it hasn't really become all that volume online yet, but if you could address that?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes. I'll hit the beginning and then I'll turn it over to my illustrious financial partner just on what level of precision on the breakout between 2 groups. But Dean to the earlier comments I made to Andy, yes, he's out there, others are there. I think it's mostly the imports at this stage that are driving it. And then just market reaction, I would say, and this has been consistent for 10 years that I mean for ACOR ever, supply and demand is the biggest challenge.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

And now December was light. We answered that with the previous set of questions. It's mostly comp. And then obviously, January was light. What I hate to talk about like storms, fires on California and freezing temperatures down south that I but us looking saying, hey, how is January pricing going and what happens if this trend continues?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

I just don't want the optimism this won't continue to happen. So like let's literally extrapolate that. Now I'm not changing to go the 1st week of February, whether the concern of tariffs have actually if we keep this up, it'd be another number, but that's 1 week. So I think we're going through those things and just saying, hey, let's not hit with what we would like to have happened, but what could happen and work our way back up from there. And then John, if you'd

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

address Yes.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

I'll jump in here, kind of help you dimension it, Dean. So from a price versus cost standpoint, we roughly had an outlook of down $300,000,000 previously. Now we're at the midpoint roughly down $400,000,000 So it's $100,000,000 delta from a price versus cost standpoint versus where we were at back in November. I'd say roughly $75,000,000 or 3 quarters of that is on the PVC side and probably 25% of that is on the steel conduit side. So overwhelmingly driven by the changes in expectations from a PVC conduit.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

I'd say that market is changing as we've talked about and I'll probably kick it here over to John Forgenzer, who can kind of give some context on what we're seeing from an import perspective, where it's coming from because I don't think it's just about the domestic competition as well. John?

[John Pregenzer, President & COO at Atkore]

Yes. Thanks, John. Good morning, Deane.

[John Pregenzer, President & COO at Atkore]

So when we look at

[John Pregenzer, President & COO at Atkore]

the PVC market, there's been a number of new entrants from all different sources, whether it's imports from Latin America, from China. We've seen domestic producers diversify out of the water work business to get into the electrical space. And obviously, there's new entrants that are coming in out of nowhere. So it's my career probably the most disruptive period we've ever seen in regards to number of new entrants and that's just creating a lot of pressure on price and spread that we're experiencing. And there's been a significant acceleration here.

[John Pregenzer, President & COO at Atkore]

As we've been tracking this price normalization over the past couple of years, the last quarter to 2 quarters has really accelerated. So I think what we're trying to do is to capture that going out for the rest of the

[John Pregenzer, President & COO at Atkore]

year. Is there anything I'd add?

[Deane Dray, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Go ahead.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Go, Dean, sorry.

[Deane Dray, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

No, I just that's great color to be able to size what those are and to hear John's comments about the how many other entrants are in the PVC side. We were thinking just it was Venezuela and Dominican Republic, but it's much more than that. So that's very helpful. And will I cut you off?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes. No. And the only thing I would put a pin in is like, hey, we have factors you never know, but literally, as I mentioned earlier, to go, okay, let's bring it back to pre COVID levels. And Dean, back to again, I can't commit to this Dean or anybody else, but you've been around for the decades plus or even before that, as you know. But the PBC rule of the 500 miles that like the margins aren't there to substantiate.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

So we actually think before we get to that number, some of this would shut off. But I'd rather have it as best as we can in the forecast.

[Deane Dray, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Yes. That's a great last point there. And just one question and I'll hand it off was, are you suggesting that some of these imports and is it both PVC and steel might not be meeting specs?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes, I would say without getting too specific and looking over my attorney here because there's not a 32nd rewind. We've communicated in the past there's several things occurring. 1, there's products that don't have all the specs. So for example, you can use it in this application, but you can't use it in that. So then a contractor has to decide, are they meeting as they input this and quite frankly, they're not looking to go, oh, it doesn't meet a temperature of 90 degrees Celsius.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

2, we are working with the authorities on products coming in even for example, but I won't call what specific customers and so forth, but where they have to pass like an impact test of 7 out of 10, you have to drop away from a certain thing and not crack. And we've recently tested 1 significant importer and they're passing 1 out of 10. So from authorities to customers to our government relations this also are things that just for the safety of society need to be fixed.

[Deane Dray, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks for sharing that. Appreciate it. Thank you.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes. Thanks, Dean.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of David Tarantino with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

[David Tarantino, Assistant Vice President at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Hi, everyone. Maybe just to put a finer point on PVC, is the revision entirely from the imports or is there also additional capacity domestically? And then could you maybe give us an updated view on the degree of incremental capacity being added, from the market as a whole?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes. I think, David, it's a little abode to what John Forgenzer said. What we don't know was again, we don't talk to our competition. I don't know how much is additional lines coming on board versus just the mix of some of the people who go, hey, I'm in municipal just like we're moving into like we generically call it the water market. You got ag, you got plumbing, municipal within there.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

But how much of these others saying let's expand some I say expand, but sign up an agent and so forth. So is it capacity versus expanding their market presence? That's a little bit tougher. But it is imports is a large part. What I'm saying large, again, I'm trying to dimensionalize it, so less than 10%, but it was up over 20% year over year.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

And then it's expanding out with some of the U. S. Manufacturing companies.

[David Tarantino, Assistant Vice President at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

And just to confirm, this quarter's revision was mostly just the imports, is that?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Well, I think it's pricing, Joe. The one problem with this even I've talked in the past whether it's steel, Condor, whatever else, it's like I'll brag for Atkore and then I'll try to answer your question. I still think we're the market leader out there. We have the full breadth of products. We have regional service centers.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

We have national footprint. Because of our spend, we have relationships with all these companies and we're kind of the first choice and last look. But people trying to enter the market, trying to grow will leverage price. It's hard to say to go, well, hold it, who was the one that dropped their price? Or now that somebody dropped their price, even a well known recognized competitor of ours, called a Tier 1 person has been around for a century or something that PVC hasn't been long that long, but you get it to go, hey, now they're matching or now they think that's the market price.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

So David, it's just so hard to say here is the one causing it. I think it's more the imports, but I just can't say or you can't point it down to one specific one. Does that make sense hopefully?

[David Tarantino, Assistant Vice President at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Yes, yes, that's helpful. And then on the volume growth, is there a way to break it out between kind of end market expectations and the internal initiatives? And maybe on that, could you give us an update on the progress around the growth initiatives, particularly between solar and water?

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Yes, absolutely, David. Thank you. So I would just think about the framework we laid out on Page 6 is a good way to start. That metal framing cable management construction services business did very well in the Q1 mid single digit growth after high single digit growth in the previous year. This is where we have really good exposure to some of the strongest growing end markets like data centers and some of the large manufacturing projects.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

And then we have the capability that we've talked about from construction services as well as we have some new equipment related to the metal framing product line that we think will really help us here drive a significant portion of that growth. That product category continue to grow in the back half of the year. Probably that would be a key driver for us. As you mentioned, the other key driver, the plastic pipe conduit product category, we think with the new water related products that will have that's the next biggest growth driver in the back half of the year, especially as we manage through some of these comps. We talked about the Q1, made the difficult comparison around last year with the restocking, things like that.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

But now we have that equipment and benefiting. So that's probably the next biggest driver. And then we expect the metal conduit electrical cable, there should be that kind of market level growth of low single digits for the overall non residential market, but we do have the competitive factors, especially thinking about the steel conduit dynamics. And then the mechanical tube area, we were soft here in the Q1. We do anticipate that getting better in the back end of the year, but there is challenges with the solar market in general.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

We are performing well as we mentioned, but there are some dynamics that I think some people are trying to sort through. So that's kind of the construct and the framework on how to still get to that low single digit volume growth for the back end of the year. I think it's the there are some positives. We've talked about a lot of unfavorable items here. We are positive here.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

This metal framing construction services is doing well. And I think not just this year, but as we look into the future, this is a really key area for us to combine a few different offerings. So I think it can be really good for years to come.

[David Tarantino, Assistant Vice President at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Okay, great.

[David Tarantino, Assistant Vice President at KeyBanc Capital Markets]

Thank you.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Thanks, David.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Dankert with Loop Capital. Please go ahead.

[Christopher Dankert, SVP - Equity Research at Loop Capital Markets LLC]

Hey, good morning guys. Thanks for taking the questions.

[John Deitzer, VP, CFO at Atkore]

Good morning, Chris.

[Christopher Dankert, SVP - Equity Research at Loop Capital Markets LLC]

Forgive me if

[Christopher Dankert, SVP - Equity Research at Loop Capital Markets LLC]

I'm misunderstanding, but the expectation around profitability is now that we're kind of reset the pre COVID levels on the PVC side. However, we've seen more imports come in. We've seen more domestic production. So how do we be confident that that is actually the right level and not something lower than pre COVID?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Okay. So I'll go through that. There's no guarantee. But what I would say, Chris, to my earlier remarks, at first off, I'll even clarify a little bit. What we have in here is our pricing down to that level.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

And then the nuance of that is, I think everybody would agree that labor costs going through COVID at double digit inflation for a couple of years, transportation going up that the margins we have at the end are even lower than pre COVID, like what we're thinking for industry level. And then to answer I gave earlier, again, I don't know others' cost position. But at some point, our quick analysis, she says, is just no longer effective because of the freight. Back in the day, I'm seeing pre COVID, we used to have this general rule that you didn't ship more than 500 miles, 700 to 800 miles because back then freight was around 7% to 8% of revenue. You just see it's a big bulky light item, it cubes out, it doesn't wait out for the pricing.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Therefore, at some point, imports coming from across the globe no longer, in our opinion, from our analysis at the moment, make economic sense. So I can't guarantee the future there, but I just think at some point you start getting down to your cost position. And from that standpoint, I feel good with Atkore because we are one of the largest resin buyers. We've talked in previous it has been massive over the last couple of years just for the pricing. But we have automated factories where people have things we automatically onto our products and the 20 other things, mix things that people do manually that I think we have a good efficient process.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

And as I mentioned earlier, even this year alone, including PVC should be our best year for productivity that I'm aware of pre or post IPO.

[Christopher Dankert, SVP - Equity Research at Loop Capital Markets LLC]

That's extremely helpful. Thank you for the color there. And then I guess just on Hobart, I mean maybe can you Telfort production levels are kind of at versus target? And then to my understanding, if the IRA or those incentives are narrow changed, whatever, that doesn't particularly shift the profit pool for Hobart, right? Like most of those incentives are passed along to customers, correct?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Yes. So a couple of things. Operations is doing well now. I think even to the point of where I was on a call with the operations teams last week saying, hey, look in a different plant, what are you going to do? And there was a little bit of bravado.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

I think I wish I had it a year before, but the team going, well, what we did at Hobart, we're going to now come do there. And my point there is operations are hitting speeds, productivity, all the different things that we're expecting at the time. So it's now back in our one of our top sales teams to go, okay, now that we got this in addition to solar customers or anything else go fill the mills, expand beyond and so forth. So we're in a good spot there in general. Again, now it's let's go get volume.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

As for the IRA and so forth, our expectations, whether it's that or no one's asked me about BEATs and HDPE that I think these were all bipartisan acts that is spending that hit most states, therefore, whether you're red or blue. So I don't see things changing and or if there's less back to our current President, if there's less incentives, you would think there's a tariffs to offset that he has spoken to how he would rather run things. So short term, when you get to solar, and I think in the prepared remarks, we talked about there is some hooking up to the grid. I'm well beyond my skis here, but if anything, as President Trump talks about deregulation, over time that could be an enabler that we get things moving quicker as we add more solar capacity. 1 of I'd like to reference other people.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

In other words, this is just Agbor. 1 of the largest solar trackers I think already had their earnings announcement and they talked about record backlog and so forth. So again, I'm not getting into the quarter, but longer term I still think this is a great market to be in. And by the way, we started the solar torque tools before there ever was like an IRA tax credit. So we're prepared to grow this market with or without incentives.

[Christopher Dankert, SVP - Equity Research at Loop Capital Markets LLC]

Got it. Well, thank you so much for the color there and best of luck guys.

[Christopher Dankert, SVP - Equity Research at Loop Capital Markets LLC]

Thanks, Chris.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

[Chris Moore, Senior Analyst at CJS Securities]

Hey, good morning, guys. Most

[Chris Moore, Senior Analyst at CJS Securities]

of it answered.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Good morning.

[Chris Moore, Senior Analyst at CJS Securities]

Maybe good morning. Can you provide me perhaps the puts and takes as to why fiscal 2025 will be the bottom from a revenue and adjusted EBITDA standpoint?

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

So here's the puts and takes. We do expect is that I had mentioned earlier and I'll give you some caveats to think through with models, Chris and everybody else that like the PVC and so forth that has to go, okay, let's just take it down.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

It's not going to all drop in January again or February right now. 1st week of February is pretty damn good. But over time, let's just bring it down. As I already answered, that's on price and there's more costs than there was 5 years ago in the industry. So we think it's a natural number and then it's our productivity, our growth in global mega projects, and so forth that will actually be upsides.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Now the one thing in the model that people have to think about is going into next fiscal year, there would be some pricing levels out the end of the year, there would be some decline in 2026 because if you just think about comps, to think about October of 'twenty six versus October of 'twenty five, pricing dropping this year will make a tougher comp at the beginning of next year. So now we're not here to give guidance on 'twenty six yet. I want to show and perform over the next 3 quarters in Atkore and drive these initiatives. But do we have enough productivity? I really think and I look forward in future earnings, talk about global mega projects and what we have accomplished there and various things, the puts and takes.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

But that's, Chris, our thought on on 'twenty six going forward.

[Chris Moore, Senior Analyst at CJS Securities]

Fair enough. I will leave it there. Thanks, guys.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Thank you, sir.

[Operator]

This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to Bill Waltz for closing remarks.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

Thank you. Let me take a moment to summarize my 3 takeaways from today's discussion. First, Atkore continues to evolve as we expand our products and services portfolio through our initiatives, which we believe are natural extensions of what we've built over many years. 2nd, we continue to monitor the overall market dynamics and competitive landscape and believe several factors could have a positive impact for us as we move throughout the year. Finally, we remain committed to our capital deployment strategy to create shareholder value over the long term.

[William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer at Atkore]

With that, thank you for your support and interest in our company. We look forward to speaking with you during our next quarterly call. This concludes the call for today.

Participants

Executives

• Matthew Kline, Vice President of Treasury & Investor Relations
• William Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer
• John Deitzer, VP, CFO
• John Pregenzer, President & COO

Analysts

• Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi
• Deane Dray, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets
• David Tarantino, Assistant Vice President at KeyBanc Capital Markets
• Christopher Dankert, SVP - Equity Research at Loop Capital Markets LLC
• Chris Moore, Senior Analyst at CJS Securities