are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Rick Black, with Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin. Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners conference call to review third quarter results for fiscal 2024. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Relations section of constructionpartners.net. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, August 9th, 2024. Please be advised that any time-sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay listening or transcript reading. I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events or future financial performance, are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. We will be making forward-looking statements as part of today's call that, by their nature, are uncertain and outside of the company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our earnings press release for our disclosures on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including Adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings press release. Construction Partners assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. Now, I would like to turn the call over to Construction Partners' CEO, Jule Smith. Jule? Thank you, Rick, and good morning, everyone. Joining me on the call today are Greg Hoffman, our Chief Financial Officer, and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I want to start by directly thanking the more than 4,800 men and women across the CPI family of companies for their hard work this quarter. The story of this quarter was operational excellence across the Southeast on hundreds of projects under construction and many days and nights operating asphalt plants, quarries, and terminals. CPI's success has always been driven by our talented, dedicated construction professionals, and as our work season shifted this quarter into high gear and long hours, our team delivered. Q3 was a strong quarter for CPI. Compared to a year ago, we grew revenue 23%, adjusted EBITDA 31%, and our margins increased to 14.1% for the quarter. It's also important to note that of the 23% revenue growth in the quarter, 13% was organic growth. Year to date, organic growth represents 9.3% of our total 18% revenue growth. This is consistent with our outlook on organic growth for the year to account for approximately half of our total growth. On a daily basis, we focus on organic growth in our current and adjacent markets, which is a critical component of our strategy to achieve our Roadmap 2027 goals. During the quarter, the economic conditions were stable for our industry, and demand for the type of construction projects we perform remains high. Public project lettings continued to be strong, supported by the healthy funding programs at the state, local, and federal levels throughout our southeastern states. These public investments include a variety of infrastructure projects, ranging from highways and bridges to airports, railroads, and military bases. We also continue to see steady demand for commercial projects, with many fast-growing economic centers within our local markets. In particular, we continue to see areas of strength in the private market for manufacturing, corporate site development, large economic development projects, and residential. This sustained demand continues to drive project backlog growth, which again increased during the quarter. As of June 30th, our backlog was $1.86 billion. Turning now to our strategic growth model, we have acquired seven companies this fiscal year, beginning in October. Two of these acquisitions were made since our last earnings call. In June, we acquired Hudson Paving in Rockingham, North Carolina. Hudson extends our reach into the Sandhills region of North Carolina. Now, as part of our Fred Smith Company platform, this new plant and construction operation in Rockingham allows us to fully serve the rapidly growing Pinehurst and Southern Pines market area. Last week, we announced the acquisition of Robinson Paving Company in Columbus, Georgia. This expansion of 3 new hot mix asphalt plants and construction operations in Columbus and the surrounding area positions CPI in a strategic location adjacent to our existing operations in both Georgia and Alabama. As a growing economic market supported by Fort Moore in Columbus, this represents an important market for us and a natural next step for our growth in the state of Georgia. Robinson Paving has long been a highly respected contractor in Georgia, and will continue to operate as a branded division of our Georgia platform company, The Scruggs Company. We're excited to have added these high-quality companies with excellent reputations into our organization, and we wanna welcome both the Hudson Paving and Robinson Paving employees as teammates within the CPI family of companies. Acquisitions have always been a part of our growth model as we enter new areas, expand market share, and add capacity, services, and talented new team members. Importantly, our acquisition strategy also fuels our future organic growth, helping keep us on a path to achieve our Roadmap 2027 goals, which are annual revenue growth of 15%-20%, with approximately half of the growth being acquisitive and half organic, and expanding our EBITDA margins in the range of 13%-14% by 2027. Currently, we continue to see a very active environment for acquisition opportunities as our industry is going through a generational transition, and we believe we're the leader in building a scalable business by acquiring great privately held construction companies. While we continue to have conversations with potential sellers, both inside and outside of our current states, it's important for us to remain patient and focused on finding the best strategic acquisitions that will bring operational excellence and add to the great culture of the CPI family of companies. In summary, we had a record third quarter, and consequently, are raising our fiscal 2024 outlook. Our record backlog provides visibility for the remainder of fiscal 2024 and allows us to enter fiscal 2025 with momentum and growth. Finally, we remain optimistic about the future based upon our healthy local markets across the Southeast, the numerous opportunities available as we continue to execute on our growth strategy, and most importantly, the continued development of our talented workforce to lead and manage a larger and more profitable CPI into the future. I'd now like to turn the call over to Greg. Thank you, Jule, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin with a review of our key performance metrics for the fiscal third quarter compared to the fiscal third quarter in 2023. Revenue was $517.8 million, up 22.7%. The increase included $40.9 million of revenue from acquisitions completed during and subsequent to the three months ended June 30, 2023, and an increase of approximately $55 million of revenue in our existing markets. The mix of total revenue growth for the quarter was approximately 13% organic revenue and approximately 9.7% from these recent acquisitions. As Jule mentioned, for the nine months year to date, our organic to acquisitive mix is half and half, with organic growth through three quarters of 9.3% out of our total growth of 18%. Gross profit was $83.5 million, an increase of 30% compared to the same quarter last year. General and administrative expenses were $38.9 million, or 7.5% of total revenue, compared to $32.2 million, or 7.6% of total revenue in the same quarter last year. We remain on pace for G&A expenses to end the fiscal year at approximately 8% of revenue. Net income for the quarter was $30.9 million, up 42.4% compared to net income of $21.7 million in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA was $73.2 million, an increase of 30.5%. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter was 14.1%, compared to 13.3% in the third quarter last year. You can find a reconciliation of net income to adjusted EBITDA in today's earnings release. In addition, we grew project backlog to $1.86 billion at June 30, up from $1.79 billion at the end of last quarter. We now estimate that we have 80%-85% of the next twelve months contract revenue booked in backlog, which is up from 70%-75% at this time last year. Turning now to the balance sheet, we had $58.4 million of cash and cash equivalents. As it relates to our credit availability, during the quarter, we converted our $200 million accordion for the terms of the credit agreement into an additional $75 million of revolving credit facility availability, as well as converting $125 million under the revolving credit facility to term debt. As a result, we now have $309.7 million available under the credit facility, net of a reduction for outstanding letters of credit. We have $397.5 million of principal outstanding under the term loan and $81.9 million outstanding under the revolving credit facility. The additional availability on our credit facility and cash generation will continue to provide flexibility and capacity to allow for potential near-term acquisitions and high value growth opportunities. ...As of the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing twelve months EBITDA ratio was 1.81 times. Our expectation is the leverage ratio will maintain a range of 1.5-2.5 times, while continuing to add sustained profitable growth. Cash provided by operating activities was $35 million. Year-to-date cash provided by operating activities for fiscal 2024 and 2023 was $113.2 million and $94.5 million, respectively. Trailing twelve months return on capital employed was 11.4% as of June 30th. Net capital expenditures year-to-date were $62.4 million. We expect net capital expenditures for fiscal 2024 to be in the range of $90-$95 million. This includes maintenance CapEx of approximately 3.25% of revenue, with the remaining amount invested in high return growth initiatives. Based on our performance to date and our visibility through the remainder of the year, we are raising our FY 2024 outlook ranges as follows: Revenue in the range of $1.835 billion-$1.860 billion. Net income in the range of $73.5 million-$76 million. Adjusted EBITDA in the range of $219 million-$228 million. This indicates an adjusted EBITDA margin for fiscal 2024 in the range of 11.9%-12.3%. And with that, we are now ready to take your questions. Operator? Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For a participant choosing speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. We ask that you please limit to one question and one follow-up question. Our first question is from Kathryn Thompson with Thompson Research Group. Please proceed. Hi, thank you for taking my questions today. Good morning. Good morning. First, want to focus on backlogs and parsing out a little bit more detail in terms of what is driving this. You've seen 15 quarters in a row of sequential backlog growth, but still are on that path to 13%-14% EBITDA margins, which is a difficult thing to do, to have both hand in hand. Could you give a little bit more clarity on public end market included in the backlog versus private end market? Understanding that the public has a greater percentage of more ongoing repair and maintenance, and private being more new construction. Thank you. Hey, Kathryn. Thank you. You know, it has been 15 quarters now of the backlog increasing, and I've said for two or three years now that that's abnormal. That CPI, through its history in the summer work season backlog, went down sequentially. So, I'll say it again, I'm starting to wonder myself, but really it just is a reflection of our demand markets continuing to be strong. Let's just take them each one. Private, the private market continues to be steady. We continue to see a lot of opportunities to bid there. And then in the public markets, you know, each of our states is now getting the IIJA money. We're in our second year of really them using that money, and so we're seeing plenty of opportunities to bid there. Four of our states have passed supplemental funding, and so that's just creating a continued good market to bid in. So we're seeing good work on both added to our backlog. You know, Greg and I noticed in our backlog this quarter that the percent of public backlog maybe went up a couple percent from 65% to 67% or 68%, which you would expect as the IIJA is really now in full gear. So I wouldn't be surprised to see that come through on the P&L in the next twelve months. But it's nothing, it's no big change, it's just, you know, just a slight tick up in public. So, you know, we're excited about just the visibility the backlog gives us going into 2025. You know, we're gonna continue to be patient. That's what a good backlog gives you. You know, you talked about the margins. Part of our margins getting to 13%-14% is, you know, being able to be patient at the bid table. Okay, thanks. And just to follow up, in particular on the private end market. What types of projects are you seeing? And, have you seen any change as the years progressed with the residential end market? Thanks very much. ... Yes, we, you know, as we said in the prepared remarks, it's, it's really more of what we've been talking about, which is just a lot of the projects that you would expect come with the reshoring of businesses moving to the Southeast. So we've seen corporate manufacturing facilities, corporate headquarters, industrial parks that can service, give businesses a place to operate. Residential's been steady. We really haven't seen any huge uptick or shrinking of that market. It's been pretty steady for the developers building subdivisions. Just a clarification, have you seen any change in the residential cadence? Because it is a little different than what we have heard from other markets. It could be just your geographic focus, but any sequential change with residential? We really haven't seen much change at all. I mean, residential is not a big part of what we do. But in the places where we do it, in the Panhandle of Florida and Raleigh and other places that we're really involved with residential developers, they've been pretty steady. Okay, great. Thanks very much. Best of luck. Okay. Thank you, Kathryn. Thank you, Kathryn. Our next question is from Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Please proceed. Hey, good morning. Good morning, Tyler. Hey, Greg, appreciate all the guidance. You guys have been quite active on the M&A front, and I appreciate that maybe half the growth here in 2024 will be from M&A. But as you look at it right now, how much from acquisitions that you have already completed here in 2024 should roll into 2025? I guess my point is, do you already have two or three points of growth kind of in the bag from the rollover benefit of deals you've already done? Yeah, Tyler, we do. We, we would estimate that to be in the 90-110 range right now, rolling into 2025. An incremental benefit in 2025. Right. Okay. Well, that's pretty good. Okay. I want to talk about this really quickly because I think this year you put some unannounced M&A into your guide, given the mechanics around the Analyst Day. But as we start to think about how you guys think about your fiscal 2025 guidance, what is your philosophy going to be around M&A? Should we expect you to put some unannounced M&A in that guidance, or will you only include the M&A that has been announced? And I don't mean to split a lot of hairs here, but I do think this is gonna be really important on how we think about your guide into 2025. Yeah. Tyler, great question. As you know, typically, we don't, we don't put unannounced or, you know, aspirational acquisitions into our guide. We did last year just simply for it to be to make sense at our Analyst Day, but we envision just getting back to our normal guidance methodology of just putting in what we've announced so far. And so, should be easier to move forward into 2025. Excellent. Very helpful. Just let me squeeze one last one on margins. Obviously, great improvement there. You know, I'm a pretty simple guy here, so when I think about margin improvement, that's either a function of you bidding better with maybe more sophisticated tools, or are you seeing more cost disinflation than you had been expecting? Maybe I'm missing it altogether. Maybe, maybe public mix is helping. Just any big-picture thoughts, that really got you to that 14+% margin this quarter? Thanks. Yeah. You know, Tyler, we've talked about three levers of margin expansion. One being just building better markets and being able to put more money on the bids. And so that's certainly one. The other is vertical integration. And so our terminals and aggregate facilities are contributing a little more each year, and then the third is scale. And so I feel like all three of those are contributing and working together. And so that, that's really continues to be the story on the margins. Yeah. Excellent. Thanks. Good job. Tyler, this is Ned. I would tell you one thing, the people in the... as we look at the statistics, the people that are laying asphalt, that are working hard every day in the hot weather and the cold weather, they're doing a fantastic job. Their productivity continues to increase, their team orientation continues to increase. Jule and the management team are leading well in that area. So I think, you know, one of the things I would say with margin is you got to go to work every single day in this business, and those people are doing an absolutely fabulous job, led by people that respect them, that trust them, and that encourage them, and Jule and Greg, and really, this whole team, all the way down. That's, that's—you're not gonna put a number to it, but I'm just telling you, watching how hard those folks work, and we wanna treat them well, is a huge benefit to the margins as we move forward. Hmm. Yes. Thanks, Ned. That's great. Thank you. Thank you, Tyler. Our next question is from Andrew Wittmann with Baird. Please proceed. Yeah, great. I guess, maybe I'll launch off of the last series of questions there and ask you, Jule, a little bit to expand a little bit about that first thing about building better markets and how, if at all, your bidding process is allowing you to compare your current backlog, your new win margins to what you've done maybe over the last year. Are you still seeing as-bid margin growth? Maybe you could comment on that, please. Yeah. Andy, you know, it's a good question. It's one that we can't ever take our eye off of. You know, our industry's competitive, and that's not gonna ever change, and so we have to be the low bid. But what we're trying to do is be patient at the bid table and use our good backlog to be disciplined and patient. But also, if we continue to work on costs and keep your costs down, as Ned said, if we can be more productive in the field, you know, that gains margin as well. But one of the things CPI has always done, and we're seeing the return to that, is the guys in the field find ways to win and beat production. And so on more jobs than not, we finish at a higher end margin than we bid. And so that's one of the things that really helped this quarter, was just the ability to write up projects as they're getting built. Yeah. That's helpful. And then, maybe just a comment here, guys. We had hurricane season start a little bit earlier than normal here in your fiscal fourth quarter, and I was just wondering how, through today, you know, the quarter is unfolding. Has it slowed you down, and you need to make it up in the back end of the quarter? Maybe just some comments around where you are with the weather. Well, you know, we've had two quarters in a row now, Andy, where weather's really balanced out. You know, a wetter than normal month is balanced out with a drier than normal month. And that's what we try to, you know, communicate to the market, is over, over time, weather evens out. July, so far this quarter, has been wetter than normal, and then first week of August, we've had a hurricane march through four of our states, and just left Raleigh this morning. So but we'll just have to see how the rest of the quarter goes. You know, we could have really good weather the rest of August and September and be just fine. So we don't try to get ahead of ourselves there. But as it relates to that fourth quarter guidance, you feel like you've discounted what you've seen so far through the quarter so far? I'm gonna let Greg answer that as to what he's factored in, and, put him on the hot seat. Greg? Yeah, no, I think we've just tried to think about this quarter the same way we've realized the earlier two, that the quarter balances out. We always talk a lot about the first half of the year and the second half of the year kind of balance. And oftentimes, that occurs within the quarter, and that's kind of what we're anticipating happening this quarter. All right. Fair enough, guys. Have a good weekend. Thank you. Thanks, Andy. Thanks, Andy. Our next question is from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis and Company. Please proceed. Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on a nice beat. Thank you, Adam. Good morning. Wanted to ask about sequential backlog growth. How much of that was organic, and how much of that was acquired? Well, we had about $40 million come in through acquisitions this quarter. So you know, it you know, as our acquisitions come in over the year, they have different impact to the quarter, but this quarter was about $40 million, so the rest was organic. Sounds like a similar mix to revenue. That's right. And then what would be your thoughts on some potential... You talked about M&A, but on the growth CapEx side, growth projects, maybe a, maybe a new asphalt terminal. Any thoughts there? Adam, we're always thinking about vertical integration and things like that. I will tell you, I want to use this question to just really, brag on Greg. You know, he has really instituted a very disciplined growth CapEx process with all of our operating companies and evaluating where to invest our growth CapEx money on the projects that are gonna make the most impact. And I think you're seeing that come through in the organic growth this quarter and this year. You know, there's, there's a lot of good opportunities, and we can't invest in them all, and I think he's done a really good job of, putting the investments where it's gonna make the most difference. Sounds good. Thanks, guys. Thank you, Adam. Thanks, Adam. Our next question is from Stanley Elliott with Stifel. Please proceed. Hey, good morning, everybody. Thank you for the question. Hey, Stan. Hey, could you talk a little bit about—I mean, we're pretty much through the earnings season. You know, the numbers you guys are putting up on the organic side, 13%, is vastly different than a lot of your, the folks that are supplying rock to you guys. Can you talk about some of the disconnect on, you know, how you guys are so positive and, you know, a lot of those other businesses were kind of flat, likely down, on an organic volume basis? Yes, Stanley, I can only speak to what we're doing. You know, we're continuing in the markets we're working in to grow market share and to work in adjacent markets on greenfields. And we've got a great demand environment, so that's really driving our ability to grow organically. And where we have the opportunities, we're adding crews and able to do more work. And as I said in the remarks, the acquisitions we did a year ago and a year and a half and two years ago, they're creating opportunities for us to grow organically. And I think Hudson Paving and Robinson, a year from now, are gonna give us the opportunity to grow organically in 2025 and 2026. So we're continuing to just execute on our strategy. We've always been a growth company of 15%-20%. We see that continuing and about half organic, and that's really what we see moving forward. Yeah, it's kinda what I had thought, and nice to hear. And then, Jule, you mentioned the crew productivity increasing. Do you guys think that's a function of you all have more people and more crews to be able to put to work, and so you can flex to various locations? You know, if the weather's an issue, move to another location, or the ability to flex or work longer hours because of the number of people, or even maybe it's you have more machines to help with the laydown. Just curious, kind of, if you could kinda parse out a little bit about what you're doing on the productivity side to drive this outsized growth. Yeah. Great question. I'm glad you asked that, Stanley, because what Ned said is so important, and it really isn't a function of having more machines. What it is, is just great leadership and great people throughout our organization. And we've talked a lot over the last three years about workforce development and focusing on building people, training them. And Robert Baugnon, our VP of Personnel, has worked with the operating companies on attracting and retaining the best workforce, 'cause it just really comes down to the people. The equipment doesn't make a big difference at all in our business. It all comes down to the people. And the greater team we have, that's when you start to see the results come through. You know, we're building thousands of projects at one time, and so if you have great people, they're gonna find ways to win more often than not on those projects. Perfect, guys. Thanks so much, and, best of luck. Thanks, Stanley. Our final question is from Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Please proceed. Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Morning, Brent. I had a few questions here. First, Jule, any initiatives to try to increase the penetration into some of these sort of non-DOT public areas? I heard you call out airports and military bases. My understanding is that those sorts of opportunities can be margin accretive, since you may not have as many people that are expect to get into those types of facilities. So just thoughts on that, if you've got more initiatives around that, and I guess if those are margin accretive to you. Yeah. Yeah, Brent, you're exactly right. You know, some projects are very difficult, require a lot of prequalification and skill expertise, and those are gonna have less, less people bidding on them. Military bases and airports are certainly two, just like you said. And so where we can, work on those type of projects, we absolutely are. Our new acquisition, our newest teammates, Robinson Paving in Columbus, they literally are right outside the gates of Fort Moore, one of the largest bases in the Southeast. They have spent decades working at Fort Moore, and so that's a very attractive, you know, addition to our team and, and universe. Got it. Thanks, Jule. And then, I've heard a little bit about it, some shift in the competitive landscape. Just where some of the slowing in these private sectors, obviously influenced to some degree by interest rates, has shifted some contractors towards public work. Obviously, there's great funding and visibility there. I suspect this is pretty regional, but just wondering if you're experiencing any of that. You know, Brent, we've addressed that for a few quarters, and we keep looking to see if the commercial private market is slowing down. And the reality is, we just don't see that. It's staying steady. If anything, it's a little better this year than it was last year. You know, we're bidding both types of projects, public and private, but we really haven't seen a big slowdown in our commercial opportunities. But it's something we watch closely. But even if it did slow down, our crews would simply switch to doing more public work. And so it's not something that we, you know, worry about a lot. We just. We have a certain amount of capacity to make asphalt, lay down asphalt, move dirt, and our crews can work either on public jobs or private jobs. Yep. Jule, maybe just one more. I mean, one of the things that seems noticeable to me is there's been a propensity for some larger projects getting released out there. And I know you guys manage that and try to focus on the smaller stuff, but has there been any shift to maybe try to work a little more with some of those general contractors as a subcontractor to try and get a more of a piece of that pie? Again, I understand you wanna manage the size of stuff that you're approaching, but it seems like there's opportunity there. So just curious how you're approaching that. Yeah. No, Brent, you're right. There are larger projects coming out now with IIJA, and we're participating in those as subcontractors. When they're letting our markets, we're very active with those, either as a dedicated subcontractor or as a subcontractor as a JV partner. So while we don't wanna build mega projects and take that risk as the prime contractor, that's just not something we see as the best use of our resources, where we can participate in the projects as a subcontractor, that's very good work for us. Okay. Hey, great. Thanks, guys. Appreciate you taking the question. Okay. Thank you, Brent. We have reached the end of our question- and- answer session. I would like to turn it back over to management for closing remarks. We appreciate everyone joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you again soon. Thank you. This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines.