Insteel Industries Fourth Quarter 2026 Earnings Call - INSTEEL INDUSTRIES INC

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the InSteel Industries fourth quarter 2026 earnings call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to H. Waltz, President and Chief Executive Officer. H, please go ahead. Good morning. Thank you for your interest in InSteel, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2026 conference call, which will be conducted by Scott Giuffruti, our Vice President, CFO, and Treasurer, and me. Before we begin, let me remind you that some of the comments made in our presentation are considered to be forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risk factors are described in our periodic filings with the SEC. Looking back at 2026, public funding for infrastructure improvements continued to be a solid foundation for InSteel's markets. for data center activity, private non-residential markets were disappointing, and housing, the smallest of InSteel's markets, was weak and adversely affected by a host of unfavorable developments. I'll turn the call over to Scott to comment on our financial results, and following his comments, I'll pick the call back up to discuss our business outlook. Thank you, H, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. As reported in our earnings release this morning, our fourth quarter results reflected the challenging cost environment that persisted throughout fiscal 2026. Net earnings were $7.7 million or $0.40 per share, compared with $14.6 million or 74 cents per diluted share in the prior year quarter. This quarter results included $700,000 of restructuring charges related to the consolidation of our welded wire operations announced in August. These charges reduce net earnings by 3 cents per diluted share. Before discussing sales and shipments, I'd like to note that fiscal 2026 was a 53-week year, resulting in a 14-week fourth quarter compared with 13 weeks in both the prior year fourth quarter and the third quarter of fiscal 2027. Accordingly, net sales and shipment volumes benefited from the additional week. Net sales for the quarter were $209.3 million, up 17.9% from $177.4 million in the prior year period. Total shipments increased 10.6% year-over-year and 2.5% sequentially from the third quarter, with both comparisons benefiting from the addition week in the current year quarter. On a comparable 13-week basis, shipments increased 2.2% from the prior year quarter, but decreased 5.4% sequentially from the third quarter. From a demand standpoint, fourth quarter shipments remain supported by healthy infrastructure spending and ongoing data center-related construction activity. Continued expansion of our engineered structural mesh business also contributed to shipment activity and helped offset softness across much of the broader private non-residential construction market during the quarter we began shipping on several projects that had previously been delayed although scheduling and delivery delays continue to affect the timing of certain shipments we believe these issues reflect project specific timing factors rather than any deterioration in underlying demand overall customer sentiment remains generally positive supporting our confidence in the demand outlook across our key end markets as we enter fiscal 2027. Moving from shipment activity to pricing, average selling prices increased 6.6% from the prior quarter and increased 3.3% from the third quarter, reflecting pricing actions implemented to recover higher steel wire rod, freight, and other operating costs. We continue to closely manage the spread between selling prices and our underlying costs to support margins and profitability. Gross profit for the quarter was 21 million compared with 28.6 million a year ago, while gross margin declined 610 basis points to 10 percent from 16.1 percent. The year-over-year decrease reflects narrow spreads between selling prices and raw material costs, higher freight and manufacturing expenses, and elevated unit conversion costs due to lower than expected production volumes. Pricing actions partially offset these pressures, but the increase in average selling prices was not sufficient to fully recover the higher costs. Sequentially, gross profit increased by $0.9 million from $20.1 million in the third quarter, while gross margin edged down to 10% from 10.2%. Looking ahead to the first quarter of fiscal 2027, we expect to see increasing benefits from the closure of our Upper Sandusky facility and the consolidation of our welded wire operations, which should contribute to lower costs and improve operating efficiency. Elevated input costs and seasonally lower demand are expected to continue pressuring margins in the near term. However, our recently announced price increase, together with the savings and efficiency gains from the Upper Senesci closure and welded wire operations consolidation, should provide additional margin support and position us to improved profitability as we move through the year. SG&A expense for the quarter was $10.4 million, or 5% of net sales, compared with $9.7 million, or 5.5% of the net sales in the prior year period. The year-over-year increase primarily reflected higher payroll and other labor-related costs associated with the additional week in the current year quarter, as well as a $666,000 year- over-year unfavorable change in the cash surrender value of life insurance policies, resulting from weaker financial market performance. These increases were partially offset by $700,000 reduction in compensation expense under our return on capital incentive plan, reflecting lower financial performance relative to the prior year. Our effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was 24.2% compared with 24.4% a year ago. For the full fiscal year, our effective tax rate was 22.8 percent compared with 23.8 in fiscal 2025. The decrease was mainly driven by changes in book to tax differences. Looking ahead to fiscal 2027, we expect our effective rate to run around 23 percent subject to the level of pre-tax earnings, book to taxes differences, and the other assumptions and estimates that compose our tax revision calculation. Turning to the cash flow statement and balance sheet, operating activities generated $18.2 million of cash during the fourth quarter, compared with a use of $17 million in the prior year period. Changes in net working capital contributed $4.6 million of money to cash, primarily due to lower inventory levels, partially offset by an increase in accounts receivable. For the full year, cash provided by operating activities increased $36.6 billion from $27.2 billion in fiscal 2025. Our inventory position at year-end represented approximately 3.4 months of shipments on a forward-looking basis, calculated from our first quarter fiscal 2027 forecast, down slightly from 3.5 months at the end of the third quarter. Inventory remained elevated throughout fiscal 2026 as we supplemented constrained domestic broad availability with imported material to meet customer demand and reduce supply risk. We expect inventory balances to remain near current levels through the first quarter as we continue to offset limited domestic supply with offshore purchases. At the end of the fourth quarter, inventory is valued at an average unit cost generally consistent with the costs reflected in fourth quarter cost of sales and favorable to current replacement costs. We invested $2.7 million in capital expenditures during the fourth quarter, bringing total capital spending to $11.8 million for the year, compared with $8.2 million in fiscal 2025. Looking ahead, we expect fiscal 2027 capital expenditures to total approximately $30 million. H will provide more details in his remarks. While investing in business to support growth and reduce costs remains our top priority, We continue to return capital to shareholders throughout the course of the fiscal year. The combination of a $1 per share special dividend paid in the first quarter and four regular quarterly dividends of $0.03 per share result in a total dividend of $1.12 per share for the year. We also continue to repurchase shares under our existing buyback program, acquiring approximately 15,000 shares during the fourth quarter and approximately 114,000 for the full year at total cost of $3.2 million. We remain confident in the long-term value of our shares and view share repurchases as an effective component of our disciplined capital allocation strategy. We close the fiscal year with $37.5 million in cash and no borrowings outstanding under our $100 million revolving credit facility, leaving us well-positioned to fund our operating needs and pursue investment opportunities. Turning to the macro indicators for our our construction end markets recent data continues to present a mixed picture for the outlook in september the architectural billing index declined to 44.7 from 47.2 in august indicating a further deterioration of business conditions at architectural firms the index remains below the 50 threshold that separates expansion from contraction with the pace of decline accelerating during the month while increase for new projects increase newly signed design contracts weakened significantly suggesting continued pressure on future non-residential construction activity the dodge amendment index which measures non-residential building projects entering the planning stage increased 2.4 percent in september the gain was driven by a 9.4 increase in institutional planning supported by strength and education health care and government projects commercial planning declined 1.3 percent of slower activity and data center and warehouse projects more than offset improvement across several other commercial categories. Overall, the index continues to indicate a healthy pipeline of projects, although the composition of planning activity remains uneven. The most recent construction spending data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that total spending increased 29 percent on a seemingly adjusted annual basis in August, but declined 1.7 percent from a year earlier non-residential construction spending increased 0.7 from july and 0.5 year over year while highway and street construction a key end market for our products increased 0 2 from them for the month and 4.6 percent from the prior year taken together these indicators suggest that non-residential construction conditions remain mixed as we enter fiscal 2027 public infrastructure spending and data center investment continues to support demand while activity across much of the broader private non-residential market remains soft against this backdrop we remain focused on the factors within our control managing cost improving operating efficiencies and allocating capital in a disciplined manner this concludes my prepared remarks i'll now turn the call back over to h Thank you, Scott. As we reported last quarter, infrastructure markets have been reasonably strong for the company, and we believe we will see a repeat performance from infrastructure applications in 2027. Funding at state and federal levels looks like it will be fairly flat in 2026, but will remain at healthy levels as analyzed by ARPA, among others. Concerning private non-residential construction markets, we believe the data center momentum will continue through 2027, and we're evaluating many non-data center projects, which gives us confidence we will see more well-rounded demand in broader market segments than in 2026. In other words, it looks like a recovery may be underway in the private nonresidential market. During our Q2 and Q3 conference calls, we reported delays in shipments to data center projects, which seemed to ripple throughout the supply chain. We can now report that the delays were, in fact, delays and not cancellations, as shipments have commenced on essentially the schedule originally communicated, just later. Clearly, though, the delays came with minimal notice, and there was little we could do to backfill the holes created by project delays. Lower shipping performance was the result. Housing, of course, has been stuck in a trough for several quarters, and we see no reasonable prospect for a meaningful recovery in 2027. At the same time, we do not expect further deterioration in housing. It should be noted that over the last couple of years, we have dramatically expanded the market for our engineered structural mesh, and shipments have grown to become a meaningful part of our business. While the general softness in construction markets masked our progress, our performance would have lagged substantially had we not pursued new applications and new markets. We expect to continue growing in 2027 and beyond. With fewer growth paths in our traditional markets, we expect growth in those to mirror the growth in the overall construction market. Unfavorable market trends in housing and light private commercial construction together with insufficient domestic wire rod supplies, led to severe margin compression during fiscal 2026 in the standard welded wire reinforcement market, with the expected impact on shipments and profitability. Another obstacle adversely affecting our financial performance has been the impact of inflation on nearly every product or service we acquire to operate our plants. The situation is particularly concerning with respect to our primary raw material, hot-rolled steel wire rod, following the Section 232 tariff rate rising to 50% and adding Canada and Mexico to the list of covered countries. Canadian mills, which were regularly active in our supply chain, immediately became uncompetitive relative to domestic prices and other offshore prices. Since the Section 232 tariff changes in 2025, we have been unable to source adequate volumes of wire rod in North America and have been forced to purchase significant quantities from other more remote producers. By our calculation, there is a supply deficit of steel wire rod produced in the U.S. of approximately 1.3 million tons. With few, if any, investments being made to expand domestic output of wire rod, the deficit must be imported, which has become more difficult as we navigate around anti-dumping and countervailing duty orders in addition to the Section 232 tariff. Today, it appears domestic wire rod producers have little competition in their markets and have elected to make hay while the sun shines and eschew investments in additional capacity. Domestic prices have risen to the extent that the Section 232 tariff applicable to derivative products, such as PC Strand, has become nearly meaningless. Offshore competitors once again have a distinct advantage relative to domestic producers of PC strand. Needless to say, the housing downturn, together with trade policies adversely affecting domestic PC strand producers, severely pressured shipment volumes and profitability in the slag-dome grade post-tension market for PC strands, where import competition is rampant. Aside from inflationary trends and trade policy obstacles affecting raw material markets, costs have also risen rapidly for labor, electricity, chemicals, carbide, copper, spare parts, and nearly every other input into our manufacturing process. Notably, diesel fuel prices have surged in recent months, dramatically increasing costs for inbound and outbound transportation. Our company has always focused intently on managing costs, but today's environment has overwhelmed all efforts to stem the tide of rising costs through internal actions. As a result, we've implemented six price increases since December 2025, and a seventh has been announced with an effective date of a few days from now this is unprecedented in my years in this business turning to capex as mentioned in the release we expect to invest approximately 30 million in our plants and information systems infrastructure during 2027 our largest investment approximating 20 million is focused on expanding our engineered structural mesh capacity with the addition of a new production line and an existing facility we also plan to install new equipment to service the pc strand market which should increase output and reduce manufacturing costs other investments will constitute replacements and upgrades to existing equipment and facilities that will reduce costs and or improve product quality i would point out with respect to our engineered structural mesh investment that we know existing capacity will be consumed in the near term which will adversely affect customer service and stymie growth if not addressed but we do not know the market conditions that might confront us upon startup of the new line our judgment is that the company and its shareholders are best served by making this capacity addition now rather than a year from now. In the short term, our timing may be good or it may be bad. In long term, however, the investment is essential. Consistent with past practice, we will provide quarterly updates on our investment activities and expectations as the year progresses. Finally, let me mention that activities surrounding the closure of the upper sandusky ohio facility and the redistribution of that demand to other instill facilities are proceeding on schedule and as expected the upper Sandusky workforce is a can-do group and we're very appreciative of their professionalism through this difficult process as we've indicated on several occasions the closure is not related to the people at the plant or their effectiveness the plant is simply in the wrong location to fit well into instil's manufacturing footprint and other instil facilities have ample excess capacity to handle the output heretofore produced at upper sandusky this was not a close call but it was a difficult call by our management team that is committed to doing the right thing for instil looking ahead we're aware of the substantial risks related to the state of the economy and the administration's tariff and trade policies regardless of developments in these areas we're well positioned to pursue growth related activities both organic and through acquisition and actions to optimize our costs this concludes our prepared remarks and will now take your questions. Melissa, would you please explain the procedure for asking questions again? Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Julio Romero with Sidoti and Company. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Thanks. Hey, good morning, H and Scott. Good morning. Good to hear that the show shipments began on on several of the delayed projects and then the last call you said you expected those shipments to to pick up in the September quarter and remain strong through calendar year end um I think you also mentioned some potential continued scheduling delays if I'm not mistaken uh just help us think if if the strength through the end of the calorie calendar year is still the right expectation and then also could you help us you know size how meaningful the the the shipments were in the quarter well as you know it's um a week-to-week business in in a lot of respects julio and um and our forecast is um reflective of the conditions that that we currently see for our first and second quarters and and how that all shakes out remains to be seen um in our engineered structural mesh business i expect that we'll continue to see the good growth. Understood. On the engineered structural mesh business, you mentioned, H, you're evaluating many non-data center projects. As the engineered structure mesh wins those projects, can you help us think about who drives the decision there? Is it the owner, the engineer, or the contractor, and are you increasingly seeing it designed from the start rather than substituted for rebar at the mid-stage in answer to your last question that is no we're not seeing projects um begin to be designed with our material we have to convert them all and and with respect to to your previous two questions i'd really rather not get into detail about how we identify these projects and where we're going with them. Got it. I guess maybe ask a different way. Just help us kind of understand to the extent that you can how durable the demand might be on the non-data center project side. well so so so in the project oriented sector of our business we're looking at a lot of projects that are that are not data center related um we're also looking at a lot data center projects but but i would tell you that as as as um an early sign of what's happening in the market we may be seeing a recovery in in non-residential markets that um were woefully uh underwater during fiscal 2026 but but it's not like we have a big backlog of business in our pocket that we can that we Can talk about but before we get in order we've got got to see that the project's out there, and we are seeing that now. Understood. Last one for me before I pass it on is just on the CapEx of $30 million that caught my attention. And then you mentioned the $20 million committed to the – for ESM capacity, for engineer structural mesh capacity. How much does that add to your current capacity to the extent that you can tell us – when do you expect it to be in service? And I think I know the answer to the second part of my question, but is that size to any committed demand from your customers, or is that kind of more line of sight that you currently have, but not formalized? Thank you. James Jensen- Julio, there is no committed demand from our customers for anything we produce. So all of our actions are based on our knowledge of the market and our expectations. Now, I can tell you that we've committed to the 20 million, and I can't tell you what we'll get out of that, except we wouldn't have made the commitment had we not expected to need the capacity. And in terms of volumes, it all depends on what goes across the equipment, that the nature of the product is that we can produce a huge number of tons across a piece of equipment or only a few, just depending on what the mix looks like. So we're very well cognizant of that. We're very cognizance of the wide range of conversion costs that come with that fact. we've substantially beefed up our internal resources to be able to understand those costs. Very helpful. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll pass it on. Okay. Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Tyson Bauer with KC Capital. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Good morning, gentlemen. Good morning, Tyson. You talked about six price increases since last December, one more coming in the coming weeks. When you do your cost accounting and you're looking through these price increases of what you need to do or want to do, when you're identifying recoverable costs versus non-recoverable costs, what exactly is that looking like and what's in those categories where you're looking at we can recover some of that wire rod freight pass through those areas but is there just this onslaught of increase in cost in general that has you bailing water as fast as you can but you're just not catching up well let me say first that that i'm unaware of any cost that's not recoverable that our expectation is we recover all increased costs the easiest thing for us to look at is raw material costs because we know precisely what what those costs are and we see them coming when when we receive a price increase letter from from one of our suppliers with every other cost that we're incurring that is escalating rapidly. We know that only when we incur the cost. Nobody tells us that copper or cobalt or chemicals are going to go up in December. We know it when we place an order. So we try to stay on top of all of those elements of our conversion costs that are rising and to recover those as we move forward. But we don't know how to anticipate those, and we only react to them once they have hit our costs. But we believe they're all recovery. As long as the market allows you to. Well, I guess I would say that my expectation is that all our competitors are experiencing the same phenomenon that we are, and it is having the same impact on their financial performance as we see on ours. So, I guess there is a leap of faith that has to be taken there, but the market will not let us affect increases that are not market-related. And so far, there's good evidence out there that we're all in the same boat. Okay. Okay. You talked about two areas of strength, the infrastructure and also data centers, kind of the highlight area. As a percentage of your total sales, are you moving more toward large project activity versus smaller projects, or how has that trended over the last 12 months? It depends on what we see out there. um that that the project related work that we're doing um generally is is characterized by by much better repetition and it is fundamentally different than our Legacy business um but but and we obviously want to rank order in terms of desirability the projects that we see that may be available, but it's impossible to project what that's gonna look like. And in terms of how project-related work stacks up in terms our total revenues, to the extent that we're new in this business and we continue to build it, yes, it's growing as a percentage of the total, and we want it to continue growing, but um but it's not like we're forfeiting any of the legacy business um because we want to replace it with project project business that's that's not happening we want the project business to be incremental okay so you have enough available capacity that it's just an add-on that helps your overall cost per unit. But you see it as purely incremental as going forward. It is purely incremental. And I would just, maybe to help you understand why we're putting a lot of money into the business, customers expect quick delivery. If your lead time is four weeks or six weeks, then you probably not set yourself up for success in this business. You need to be able to deliver the product in two to four weeks. And if you can't do that, then then you're out of the game. And we're not going to be out of game. Given how fast costs have risen, and when looking at these large projects I'm guessing you're having to rebid as these delays occur with price increases or adjustments as you go through that process is that fairly standard that you're seeing if you have a delay or otherwise and all of a sudden wire rods up $50 a ton or more in a month you've got those escalators already factored in now I mean the way the way we handle it and it it's the same for our legacy business or or any other businesses that a price that we quote is is good for a period of time and if we don't ship the product in that period of times then we talk about price again okay are you seeing uh facility variability across your different regions based on demand activity. Obviously, certain areas are more favorable for on-shoring facilities, data centers, other things that are going on. And does that make operational where you put these orders and what facilities fulfilling them make that a little more difficult? Well, let me try to answer the question this way, saying that if we go back several years, our company took a couple years and a lot of money and we put our equipment and by the way our equipment is specific by product line it's not that that one production line will serve all markets that's just not the case that's not the way it works so we identified the markets that we serve out of each of our physical locations and we put the equipment that is most hospitable to those markets in those locations and, we tried to optimize both our inbound and outbound freight costs by getting as close as we could to our raw material suppliers. Now, as you fast forward to where we are today and looking at some of the project work one of the unintended or let's say unanticipated benefits that we have is a nationwide footprint so that that we don't have to ship product from North Carolina to Arizona or from from any other remote remote location because we have production facilities that are located everywhere. So we can assign the work that we get in the marketplace to the location that is most logical to ship that product. And it's a huge benefit, and it's one that I would admit readily, was a happenstance. We did not configure the company this way for that purpose, but it turns out to be a tremendous advantage for us. Okay. And the last question for me, you talked about the possibility of seeing the inventory build as we go through the first quarter, the first half of fiscal 27, and those networking capital requirements. Does that impact at all the board's decision or philosophy when they review whether or not a special dividend will be paid this year? I think we've already taken the working capital hit that is associated with being required to go offshore for substantial quantities of raw material. I wouldn't expect that you'd see any working capital bill or any inventory bill in 2027 that is not like what you've seen in any of our other seasonally weaker periods. There should be nothing in 20 27 that's extraordinary. Okay. And regarding the special dividend philosophy, you feel given your outlook and where you're at that uh that's still something you expect to continue um i would tell you that i expect to be in the position to do whatever we want to do sounds great thank you gentlemen thank you there are no further questions at this time i will now turn the call back to h waltz for closing remarks. Okay, we appreciate your interest in InSteel. We thank you for your time today and encourage you to follow up with us if you have questions going forward. With that, we'll conclude the call and look forward to talking to you next quarter. Thank you. This concludes today's call. Thank You for attending. You may now disconnect.