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Core & Main

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Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Core & Main Q2 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 one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Landon Althoff, Vice President of Investor Relations. Landon, please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm Landon Althoff, Vice President of Investor Relations at Core & Main. We appreciate you taking the time to be with us today for Core & Main's fiscal 2026 second quarter earnings call. Joining me this morning are Mark Witkowski, our Chief Executive Officer, and Robyn Bradbury, our Chief Financial Officer. Brad Cowles, our President, is also with us and will be available for the question and answer portion of today's call. Mark will begin with a business update, highlighting our quarterly performance and the continued momentum across the business, including large project opportunities, greenfield expansion, and our M&A pipeline. Robyn will follow with a review of our financial results and outlook for fiscal 2026. We will then open the line for questions before Mark wraps up with closing remarks.

As a reminder, our press release, presentation materials, and the statements made during today's call may include forward-looking statements. These are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations. For more information, please refer to the cautionary statements included in our earnings release and our filings with the SEC. We will also reference certain non-GAAP financial measures during today's discussion. We believe these metrics provide useful insight into the underlying performance of our business. Reconciliations to the most comparable GAAP measures are available in both our press release and the appendix of today's investor presentation. Thank you again for your interest in Core & Main. I'll now turn the call over to our Chief Executive Officer, Mark Witkowski.

Thanks, Landon, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. During the second quarter, we delivered growth in sales, Adjusted EBITDA, and EPS with momentum building across the business. We see it in our healthy backlog, growing participation in large, complex infrastructure projects, and increased activity across our acquisition pipeline. Combined with our strong cash generation and balance sheet flexibility, Core & Main is well positioned to capitalize on the opportunities ahead, drive long-term growth, and create value for shareholders. Net sales in the second quarter were approximately $2.1 billion, up 2.5% compared with the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA grew approximately 3% to $274 million, while Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 10 basis points to 12.8%, reflecting disciplined cost management and meaningful SG&A leverage. Adjusted Diluted EPS was $0.94, an increase of 8% over the prior year. These results reflect consistent execution throughout the business.

Growth in the quarter was driven by continued strength in treatment plant solutions and fire protection, along with a growing contribution from data center projects, which has nearly doubled year-over-year. Treatment plant, data center development, and other large-scale infrastructure work increasingly draw on what differentiates Core & Main: deep local expertise, strong supplier relationships, and the technical and project support capabilities needed to execute reliably over the multi-year project cycles. As these projects become a more meaningful part of our growth profile, we continue investing in the capabilities and product breadth needed to capture the opportunity ahead. We also continued to execute our long-term growth initiatives, expanded our footprint with new greenfield locations, and advanced strategic opportunities across our M&A pipeline. Additionally, we put our strong cash generation and balance sheet flexibility to work and executed our second consecutive quarter of record open market share buybacks.

Since our IPO, we have repurchased nearly 25% of the shares outstanding. Robyn will work through the details shortly, but these repurchases reflect our confidence in the long-term value of Core & Main and our disciplined, opportunistic approach to allocating capital where we believe returns are most attractive. Turning to our end markets, municipal demand continued to be a source of strength. The long-term need to repair, replace, and expand critical water infrastructure remains significant and continues to support investment across the municipal end market. The EPA estimates the U.S. drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater systems require more than $1.2 trillion of investment over the next 20 years to replace, rehabilitate, and expand aging infrastructure. After decades of underinvestment and deferred maintenance, many water systems face increasing pressure to replace aging infrastructure before failures, water loss, and service disruptions become more frequent or costly.

At the same time, municipalities are investing to improve water quality, comply with evolving regulatory requirements, expand treatment capacity, adopt Smart Utility technologies, and support population-driven growth. These investments are essential, largely nondiscretionary, and supported by a diverse mix of state, local, and federal funding sources. The vast majority of municipal water infrastructure spending is funded at the state and local level, which helps support consistent investment activity regardless of the federal funding environment. While the pace and timing of individual projects may vary, the underlying need remains clear. Water infrastructure continues to be a critical priority for municipalities and utilities, supporting our confidence in the opportunities ahead. Our treatment plant initiative delivered another quarter of strong double-digit growth and remains one of the most compelling growth opportunities within our municipal platform.

Leveraging our deep municipal relationships, we continue to expand our product offering, technical expertise, and project support capabilities to support a larger share of treatment plant projects. As a result, treatment plant projects have grown to a mid-single-digit percentage of our sales mix, with substantial opportunity for further expansion. We are particularly focused on increasing our mix of higher-value specialty products, which deepen our involvement and expand the content we provide on each project. With significant runway ahead, we see meaningful opportunities to grow this business through both organic expansion and strategic acquisitions. Within Smart Utility, we continue to see strong underlying demand and are winning projects across municipalities and utilities of all sizes. Recent wins reinforce our confidence in the business's growth trajectory, with a number of larger projects expected to continue over multiple periods as deployments ramp.

We believe Smart Utility is well positioned to benefit from continued investment in system visibility, water loss reduction, billing accuracy, and operational efficiency. Within non-residential construction, performance continued to vary across project types, but we saw encouraging strength across several key categories. Fire protection delivered another strong quarter, with sales increasing 14%. Growth was driven by higher volumes on continued share gains and higher steel pricing. Momentum remains strong across the business, supported by our expanding geographic footprint, broad capabilities, and a steady stream of project wins. Data center development remains one of the most active areas of infrastructure investment today and continues to drive opportunities across multiple product categories. We support these projects from the earliest stages of site development, providing the water, wastewater, and storm drainage infrastructure needed to prepare and serve these facilities.

As construction progresses, we also provide the fire protection systems that support these critical assets. We continue to see a growing contribution from data center-related activity across our business. The impact extends beyond the data center itself. These large-scale developments often require municipalities and utilities to expand water and wastewater capacity and can spur additional commercial and residential growth in surrounding communities. As a result, data center investments can create broader infrastructure demand over time. Residential lot development remained challenged during the quarter, as expected, particularly in markets that benefited from strong development activity last year. While affordability concerns and higher interest rates continue to influence near-term activity, we expect comparisons to become considerably more favorable in the back half of the year. Over the long term, the fundamentals remain strong.

Population shifts, household formation, and a structural housing shortage continue to support the need for additional residential development, giving us confidence in the long-term opportunity within this end market. As we look ahead, we continue to build for the long term, expanding our large project capabilities, extending our geographic reach, and advancing opportunities across our acquisition pipeline. Geographic expansion remains an important part of our growth strategy. So far this year, we've opened seven new greenfield locations, including two recent openings in attractive markets where we see opportunities to improve our customer proximity, expand our reach, and gain share. We evaluate new locations based on market size, infrastructure demand, customer needs, and our competitive position. While greenfield locations require investment and time to mature, they allow us to strengthen local relationships, expand service capabilities, and build market density over time.

We are on track to open a record number of greenfield locations this year, extending our national capabilities into new and under-penetrated markets. Alongside our organic expansion efforts, we continue to see compelling opportunities to grow through M&A. Following quarter end, we completed the acquisition of Walker Industries, a provider of storm drainage products in Hawaii. This acquisition broadens our product offering in the market, complements our existing operations, and represents just one example of a growing number of larger opportunities ahead. More broadly, our M&A pipeline has meaningfully accelerated. We continue to advance discussions across a range of opportunities, including acquisitions that expand our geographic footprint, broaden our product offering and capabilities, and strengthen our position in attractive end markets. These opportunities span a range of transaction sizes from complementary bolt-on acquisitions to larger strategic transactions.

Many of these businesses are seeking a long-term partner that can provide additional resources, expand product breadth, and future growth opportunities while preserving the local relationships that have driven their success. For Core & Main, these acquisitions expand the solutions we can offer customers, help simplify increasingly complex projects, and create opportunities to deepen customer relationships and drive long-term growth. Our customer-focused operating model, strong culture, long record of successful integrations, and commitment to local market leadership continue to resonate with business owners, and we believe Core & Main remains uniquely positioned to be that partner. Supported by our strong balance sheet, ample liquidity, and proven acquisition playbook, we remain well-positioned to pursue opportunities that expand our capabilities, extend our geographic reach, and create long-term value for shareholders. With that, I'll turn it over to Robyn for the financial update.

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. I'll begin on page seven of the presentation with an overview of our second quarter results. Net sales increased 2.5% to $2.1 billion, with volume, price, and acquisitions each contributing positively. As Mark mentioned, municipal demand remains a key source of strength, supported by a broad range of activity across water and wastewater infrastructure. Within non-residential, activity was led by data center construction, offset by ongoing softness in light commercial and retail. Residential lot development remained challenged against a tougher prior year comparison, in line with our expectations. Pricing was up slightly in the quarter as increases across much of our portfolio more than offset lower year-over-year PVC pricing.

Gross margin was approximately 26.7%, similar to the prior year, as benefits from our margin initiatives, including private label, were offset by normal shifts in project mix and a stabilizing price environment within certain product categories. Our private label and sourcing initiatives remain on track and continue to support our long-term margin objectives. Total SG&A was approximately $301 million, roughly flat with the prior year period, while improving approximately 40 basis points as a percentage of sales. Notably, we held SG&A dollars flat while growing net sales 2.5%, even as we continue to invest in greenfields, growth initiatives, and acquisitions. This was enabled by disciplined cost management and executed savings initiatives that offset inflation and supported our strategic investments. We delivered Adjusted EBITDA growth of approximately 3% to $274 million, compared with $266 million in the prior year period.

Strong SG&A leverage drove a 10-basis point increase in Adjusted EBITDA margin to 12.8%. Adjusted Diluted EPS increased 8% to $0.94, compared with $0.87 in the prior year, marking another quarter of strong per share earnings growth. The result reflects growth in adjusted net income and the benefit of a lower diluted share count resulting from our substantial share repurchase activity. Turning to the balance sheet, cash flow, and capital allocation, we ended the quarter with net debt of approximately $2.2 billion and net debt leverage of approximately 2.3x within our target range. Total liquidity was approximately $1.5 billion, including over $300 million of cash, with the remainder primarily available under our ABL facility. Operating cash flow was $62 million during the quarter and $144 million throughout the first half of the year.

Our cash generation reflects disciplined working capital management and the strength of our asset-light business model. As is typical with the seasonality of our business, we expect the majority of our operating cash flow generation to occur during the second half of the fiscal year. Over the last 12 months, we have generated a free cash flow yield of 7.5% of our market capitalization. That is more than double the average of S&P 500 companies and meaningfully above specialty distribution peers. During the quarter, we further strengthened our capital structure through refinancing transactions that extended our debt maturities and enhanced financial flexibility. These actions position us to support future growth opportunities while maintaining a strong and flexible balance sheet. Our strong cash generation and balance sheet flexibility also allowed us to return significant capital to shareholders during the quarter.

We deployed $169 million to repurchase 3.7 million shares, marking our second consecutive quarter of record open market repurchases. Including buybacks completed subsequent to quarter end, we have now deployed nearly $270 million to repurchase approximately 5.7 million shares during fiscal 2026. Since our IPO, we have deployed nearly $2 billion to repurchase approximately 58 million shares, representing almost 25% of the shares outstanding at the time of our IPO. This level of capital deployment reflects our ability to generate strong cash flow and our confidence in the long-term value of Core & Main. At the same time, our balance sheet and liquidity continue to provide substantial flexibility to invest organically, expand our greenfield footprint, pursue acquisitions, and return capital to shareholders through opportunistic share repurchases.

Turning to our outlook, we are affirming our full year guidance for net sales of $7.8 billion-$7.9 billion, Adjusted EBITDA of $950 million-$980 million, and operating cash flow conversion of 60%-70%. We remain confident in our ability to deliver our full year outlook. Our second quarter results demonstrated the strength of our operating model, driving meaningful SG&A leverage and Adjusted EBITDA margin expansion. Continued strength in fire protection, treatment plants, data centers, and record greenfield openings are increasing our visibility into demand and reinforcing that confidence. Backed by a strong balance sheet, substantial liquidity, and consistent cash generation, we are well-positioned to continue generating profitable growth while returning capital to shareholders through share repurchases over the short, medium, and long term. With that, we will open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one 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 is from the line of Brian Biros with Thompson Research Group. Brian, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions this morning.

Morning. Municipal, again, called out as a source of strength. Can you maybe just talk a little bit more about that end market, where we sit today? I know you provided some high-level details in the prepared remarks, but maybe if you could talk a little bit more direct to the quarter or even the near term. I think there may be some mixed views on that end market, just how strong it really is or can continue to be. So maybe just talk about what you're seeing in that segment on the ground would be helpful.

Yeah, sure. I'll take that one, Brian. Thanks for the question. I'll start talking about municipal. I would say overall, the market is vastly in line with what we expected and in line with what we've been seeing over the last couple of quarters. Municipal continues to be strong, stable, steady, kind of up in that low single digits range. Good funding sources, consistent repair and replacement activity, and that's an end market that we expect to be strong and stable as we go forward. On non-residential, it was kind of flattish to maybe up slightly a little bit in the quarter. Most project types within non-residential are on the weaker side, especially that traditional or light commercial type of work, but it's really being uplifted by that data center activity.

As you heard in our prepared remarks, we are seeing a lot of really good data center activity and a lot more projects for us there. That is really what is helping hold non-residential up. Residential continues to be more of the same. We saw that decline in the back half of 2025. It has not really moved up or down since that point in time. It was down kind of high single digits or so in the quarter. Those comps for us do get easier in the back half of the year as we anniversary the decline in last year. Expect that the residential market would be flattish to down slightly in the back half of the year, and residential would be down mid-single digits for the full year.

Got it. Helpful. Second question for me would be on the fire protection share gains there. Can you talk more about that? I guess just how are you measuring what counts as a share gain, who you think you are taking share from, large competitors or mom and pops, and I guess what is kind of triggering that customer to switch to the Core & Main offering?

Yeah. Thanks, Brian. This is Mark. I will take that one. We have been really pleased with the performance of our fire protection product line here over the last, I would say, 12 to 18 months. It has definitely been supported by increases in steel pricing that we have laid out. That has been a portion of the strong growth. But definitely from a volume perspective, they are seeing the same kind of softness across the construction that the rest of the business is. But seeing a lot of really good share gains really across the board. We have had some white space in the fire protection area, so we have added some really good locations here over the last couple of years that are benefiting from share gains.

I would say beyond that, we have been a very consistent, kind of reliable partner to our contractors that we do work with there. I believe we have been taking share really from, I would say, various other competitors across the board of all sizes. That team is really firing on all cylinders right now. They are just doing a great job. So real pleased with the performance there.

Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Bouley with Barclays. Matthew, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the questions. I wanted to touch on the overall guide for the year. The question's really just around some of the moving pieces in that. It seems like in the quarter, maybe you got a little bit of positive price. On the other hand, at least the gross margin was a little bit lighter than our own model. Maybe if you can dive into those couple pieces. Is the gross margin coming in any lower than you guys expected internally, and what would be some of the offsets within the overall guide there? Thank you.

Sure, Matt. Thanks for the question. You are right, the guide is unchanged. Everything's coming in line with our expectations. The market's really in line with what we expected. EBITDA's in line with what we expected. Margins are down from the first quarter, which can happen. We can see variability from quarter to quarter, but we really made up for that on the SG&A. If we look into the second half of the guide, we expect our EBITDA rate to be positive year-over-year. We expect that to be mostly driven by the fourth quarter, but do expect for the full year to get a little bit of improvement in gross margin and a little bit in SG&A to meet that guide. Overall, we are confident in our gross margins being supportive and our SG&A being supportive in meeting that EBITDA guidance for the year.

Okay. Got it. That is helpful. Secondly, just diving into the Smart Utility and the meters business. It looked like, at least in the commentary, that you may have had some positive price there, and I was not sure if the volumes had actually pulled back a little bit in that business. So maybe if there is anything there around large project timing or just your broader visibility into how the Smart Utility business may play out here into how you are expecting the second half of the year in that segment. Thank you.

Yeah. Hey, Matt. Thanks for the question. This is Brad. I will take this one. There was a little bit of price, but volume was essentially flat. It did not go backwards at all. So it was netted out to about that plus one for the quarter. We see in that business pretty good fundamental flow on our. Think of the business we have got as an installed base across a growing list of municipalities as our Smart Utility initiative has had tremendous success, particularly in the recent years. We have got a pretty good install base, and that install base is performing well. It is delivering that groundswell of flow. We are winning an increasing number, as we have talked about, of really large and exciting Smart Utility projects that are of significant size and complexity.

And I think with that definitely comes some challenges getting some of these projects started. The early phases of these large projects have a lot of variability in the timing, pilot phases, all sorts of interesting challenges to overcome. We are seeing a little bit of a large project start timing impact here that is keeping us in that flat range on top of that great run rate business. But we have a tremendous backlog. We do continue to win some projects, medium, large, that are going to give us some exciting execution, we think, starting in latter in the year into 2027 for sure.

Got it. Well, thanks, Brad. Good luck, guys.

Your next question comes from the line of Matt Johnson with UBS. Matt, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Appreciate the time. My first question is on pricing. I know last quarter, PVC pricing was, I think, a bigger topic, but it sounds like a lot of those price announcements from earlier this year didn't really stick. I guess, could you guys just give us an update on what you saw in terms of municipal PVC pipe pricing through the quarter, your expectations into the back half? Also, I guess similar to that but different, is just on HDPE pricing, what you've seen there, given the similar disruption in the resin costs.

Yeah, got it. This is Brad again. I'll take that. Just what I'm seeing from the field. There were a lot of price signaling when we talked at the last quarter that prices might go up, and we didn't have full confidence in that. We weren't seeing, in this particular end market, the likelihood of that price sticking, and that's why we weren't overly excited about changing anything with respect to PVC price. On the bright side, we're encouraged that PVC pricing has stabilized and been in a pretty flattish mode as opposed to its continual decline that we've been living through for the last period. That part of it has been pretty good. But we have just seen an inability, I guess, of the market, given where it's at, to support any pricing increases.

Net, we continue to remain steady with pricing on PVC, and we see it sitting there for the time being. We do not really have any indication until demand really picks up in those end markets that are heavy PVC consumers that that is likely to change. On HDPE, I will hand it over to Mark.

Yeah, Matt, I will cover the HDPE. We have two different pipe categories there that utilize that kind of product. There is corrugated HDPE that goes into the storm drainage market, and then there is fusible HDPE that is used across the various different applications. I would tell you on the corrugated HDPE storm drainage side, I would say the pricing in that area has been relatively steady.

On the fusible HDPE side, that is a little bit more of a commodity type product. It is a very small percentage ultimately of what we sell, but that has seen some spikes recently. The disruption in the Middle East definitely impacted resin. That product typically follows some of those resin spikes. So we have seen some increases there with pricing in that category. A little bit of a mixed bag, just depending on the nature of that application.

That is great. Appreciate that color. I guess if I could just follow up on the meters business. Is there any update you guys could give or have just on the status of the Miami-Dade contract and when that could begin shipping? Just any additional color on the timing or magnitude of some of these additional large project wins you guys talked about. I guess also just bigger picture, as you guys mix towards more of these large projects moving forward in the meters business, is there any sort of margin impact we should think about there as you guys take on some of those additional services?

Yeah, I'll take that one. Let me see if I can unpack all of that. Starting with Miami-Dade, that's the largest project we think there's ever been in this space, and we're excited to be a part of it. That said, it probably exemplifies the amount of pilot work and pre-work that has to be done before that project really hits its stride. We're anticipating, in fact, we're in the middle right now of a number of small pilot stages that are going to start to ramp up. We think we'll see some Miami-Dade volume move towards the end of the year. It'll be a relatively small percentage of the overall project, somewhere between 5% and 10%, I would estimate. Then we fully expect by 2027 for that to hit its full run rate. It's about a five-year project implementation. So it's a pretty strong number.

100,000 m being installed and connected to the systems per year is approximately what we would expect. So, pretty significant volume, the most significant we've done. But with that, there's a lot of challenges and a lot of moving parts that we just continue to manage with our team there. Just one mention I'll make, we were able to win a project with Connecticut Water that's a pretty substantial scale, and that's pretty exciting for us. We've become a really strong metering smart utility player in our Northeast region, which has really paired up perfectly with our core waterworks distribution growth in the area. Again, that's a pretty substantial project. So it's got a lot of work between here and the starting point of getting that really up and running.

That's pretty characteristic of what we're seeing, a nice win like that popping up every now and then in a number of smaller ones along the way. Then I think your final question was talk about pricing. The larger these projects, there can be a competitive nature there where you got to be at the right price and you got to partner with the best manufacturers to get the solution in place. But the solutions that we provide, which do extend into services and software and integrations and the like, those can carry some exciting margin profiles along with it that kind of tends to blend up, if you will, any volume effects that we might have on pricing in the project.

We see them as pretty much in line with the rest of our meter business, which is still kind of to the exciting side on the margin line.

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Joe, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Anvi on for Joe. Good morning.

I just wanted to follow up on the gross margin piece. I know you discussed it briefly in your prepared remarks as well, but I am just trying to understand or bridge into the back half. Can you touch upon some of the puts and takes, be it product mix, end markets, even the pricing comments that you made? What would it really take to see a sequential or even a year-on-year expansion in the back half? What are some of the things, maybe private label, or if you could size the benefit coming from that as well?

Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. We had a really good gross margin in the first quarter. We always can expect fluctuation from quarter to quarter, depending on seasonal mix, project mix and timing. The way that our gross margin works is it is very local and it is based on local project wins. With some of that seasonal mix and project mix can come with some lower SG&A and some lower load for the branch and favorable EBITDA rate, which is what we saw in the quarter. As we look into the back half of the year, we do expect EBITDA expansion, like I mentioned, in the back half of the year, most of that driven by Q4. We expect overall EBITDA margin expansion and expect that to be driven a portion by gross margin and a portion by SG&A.

We do have a kind of a tougher margin comp in Q3 versus Q4, so would see kind of more of a year-over-year margin benefit in Q4 versus Q3. From an SG&A standpoint, as we start to see growth in the back half of the year, we will be able to leverage that more, and so should see some good SG&A leverage in the back half of the year given our cost-out actions plus some growth that we can leverage in the back half.

Got it. That is helpful. If I can just follow up on the M&A and the greenfield activity that you have seen. It was good to see the seven greenfield locations opened year to date. I think from an M&A standpoint, what would you call out as your key focal points today in terms of market? Where are you seeing the attractive opportunities, and then how are you balancing some of this incremental buyback that you are doing against the M&A?

Yeah. Thanks for the question. I will take that one. I think what is most exciting about our strategy that we have to grow this business is that we are fully capable of, given our cash flow characteristics, of delivering on all three fronts there. So we continue to invest in the business organically. You have seen that through the Greenfield additions there. We added three locations, kind of western part of the U.S., two locations kind of in the southeast area, and then two up in Canada where we continue to build out our presence in that market. So that has been really exciting growth for us. I would say over the last 12-18 months, the M&A activity that we have seen in the market has just been pretty limited.

We have been able to complete some M&A, as you have seen, despite it just being limited opportunities. But we have seen that, I would say, pick up pretty significantly here over the last three to six months. And I have been really excited about the opportunities that have come across our desk that our team has sources from a proprietary standpoint. Then we have seen some other ones kind of come to market. So it has been exciting to see that activity pick up. We have advanced now several, I would say, through the LOI stage. So we are making some really good progress there. And I would say the focus there continues to be what we have looked at historically, which is continued bolt-ons right in line with kind of the core waterworks business and fire protection.

And then we look for ways to continue to add complementary products and solutions to our offering that fit right with our existing customer base. So, no change in focus there and really like what we are seeing. And given some of the actual M&A activity has been a little lighter that we have closed over the recent quarters, we have been able to do a lot of repurchase activity in the market as well. So again, we have got all three of those opportunities and we will continue to look at it and deliver on that going forward.

Your next question is from David Manthey with Baird. David, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good to hear on the M&A pipeline and from what I am hearing you say, Mark, it was just a, for whatever reason, a lack of targets that were available and that has since started to free up. Am I hearing you right on that?

Okay. Main question here is on the major commercial projects and data center. Can you size those for us just in terms of percentage of your sales that are going to some of these major projects? I assume data center is a low single digit, but could you just sort of frame what that is for you? Then second, there is a lot of talk around water usage at these data centers and I am just wondering from a Core & Main standpoint as you are selling into these, does it matter if the data center is a traditional evaporative situation or if they are engineering that to be more of a closed loop or zero water system?

Hey Dave, this is Brad. I will try to unpack all of that. First of all, on the size, we have said that the data centers, especially as they have become such a widely dispersed phenomenon across the country, it plays so well into our strengths because we have got branches everywhere, as you know. They are all outstanding service providers and have great local relationships. When a data center gets built in a place like Indiana, ultimately the people that are putting the underground water utilities or treatment plant into the area are local and we own those relationships. As that has been occurring, we have seen our data center project run rate, as Mark said, we have doubled this quarter year-over-year, which is pretty exciting from my seat.

That has taken it from, I would say low single digit to the mid single digit range in terms of our total business. What is exciting for me is we have talked about data center kind of making up for a lot of drag in the classic light commercial work that has been a mainstay for years, offices and retail and the like. The data center is now in the high single digit range as a percentage of our non-residential work. It is great for us. We are well positioned. It looks a lot like our core business. It is not significantly different from a technical perspective. It just requires an elevated level of service and that is what we are really good at. It is kind of sweet spot meets sweet spot and we are pretty excited about it.

As far as the types of demand, different data centers and their cooling approaches, almost all data centers have some mix of cooling that can be recirculated or there is a lot of HVAC component that still evaporates a lot of water. Regardless, they need water and sometimes the water volumes we are delivering are higher, sometimes they are lower, but it is always good and it always leads to a pretty material percentage of the project being underground water utility. Then I think one of the biggest switches that can flip is whether the local municipality is already prepared or not to supply treated water to that data center or whether there needs to be some private investment in water treatment, either on-site or near-site, or some other public-private coupling to kind of accelerate local water demand.

We are kind of excited about the first order effect of the data center itself, and then that second order effect is just increasing municipal water demand from that business and all the businesses that grow up around it.

That is helpful. I guess what we are seeing with electricity, it sounds like you are seeing a similar effect on the water side. It is sort of bring your own water as opposed to just tapping into the municipality. Is that what you are saying?

That is what I'm saying, and it's an interesting comment because there's sort of a trade-off between how much electricity you have to spend cooling versus how much water you can evaporate to cool. The data centers are trying to find those locations where they can get both, and they often cannot get both and get one or the other. More electricity for the closed loop systems to refrigerate that water and move the heat. If not, they need more water to evaporate. So it's kind of driving general municipal demand for energy and water, whichever way you slice it.

Yeah. Very interesting. Thanks a lot, Brad.

Your next question comes from the line of Sam Reid with Wells Fargo. Sam, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks, everyone. Wanted to dig a little bit deeper into resi. You mentioned on the call that the comps obviously get easier in the second half, which is great. Can you just decompose a little bit more what you're embedding specifically in the second half for resi relative to the high single digit decline in the second quarter?

Sure, Sam. I'll take that one. For resi, the way that the year is trending, it was down about low double digits in the first quarter, in the second quarter, it was down kind of high single digits. In the back half of the year, when we anniversary the decline, we expect it to be flat or maybe down slightly. Overall, that gets you to kind of a mid single digit down on residential. That doesn't assume residential gets any better or worse. It's been kind of bumping along at the same levels, and that's what we've got assumed in the overall guide. That assumes kind of flattish overall markets for the full year.

That's helpful, Robyn. Switching gears here. There's some questions that we're getting on ARPA funding rolling off at the end of this year. Just curious, your perspective on how much that was potentially benefiting the muni segment through 2026, and also just any updated perspective on highway funding initiatives. Mixed reads there, but I've heard potentially some of that's coming in light, so just curious any implications. Thanks.

Yeah. Sam, I would tell you just in general on municipal funding, we definitely have heard some mixed messages in the market. I would just reiterate that the vast majority of the funding of the type of work that we do in the municipal area is funded through those local water municipalities and the rates they charge the consumers. We've continued to see that as a positive from the standpoint of they continue to look to pass rate increases to help close the funding gap between the need for those municipalities to upgrade their systems and the funding they have available. That overall kind of big large pocket of funding continues to rise. Beyond that, there's been additional funding mechanisms at the state and federal level that have been supportive in the backdrop, ARPA funding being one of them.

That was helpful I'd say back several years ago, and obviously funding is coming off, but you've had the increase in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act money that sits at that state level that's now been kind of fully allocated down to the states, but municipalities have just pulled a small portion of that to the local level. There's plenty of federal funding out there to go get. It becomes whether the municipalities have the capacity and resources to go through the requirements and regulations to go get that funding.

I don't see that as any kind of a risk or slowdown with that federal side of it, and we're really positive on the fact that the 50,000+ municipalities still continue to try to get the value of water to align more with what the needs are and continue to believe that'll be a good backdrop to support our municipal and market demand over the next several years.

Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari with Citigroup. Anthony, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good morning. On fire protection, I was wondering if it's possible to parse out the sales growth that you saw in the quarter between volume and price and given the strength in the category. Do you run into tougher comps in the second half? I'm just wondering if you could talk about the sustainability of the strength we've seen there.

Yeah. Thanks for the question, and like mentioned earlier, we're really excited about the fire protection product line and the growth that we've had there. For the quarter, it was split between price and volume, a little bit more weighted towards volume. A lot of that driven by share gain and performance and things like that. But there was about two-thirds of it, of the growth or so that was pricing-related, specifically related to steel pricing. As we get into the back half of the year, the fire protection product line's been performing well for a while now, but I wouldn't say that the comps are meaningfully different. We do expect to see a good finish to the year for fire protection.

Great. That's very helpful. Then maybe just a random one. With Canadian tariffs, do you see any impact on product price hikes or products that cross the border or just demand at your Canadian branches? Any potential impact there?

Yeah. No, thanks for the question. At this point, we don't see any major movement there. Our exposure in Canada, as we sit here today, is still pretty light relative to the overall business. But, at this point, as we unpack all the tariffs and retaliatory tariffs there between the countries, we don't see any major implications of it here today.

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Mike, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Robyn, just to go back to the gross margin dynamic one more time. Understanding there's always elements of mix that can produce differentials. I think your guidance or your comments that gross margin will still end up slightly for the full year would require you to be back in that 27-ish range in the back half, so up sequentially. Can you be a little more specific about some of the mix dynamics or other drivers that you see in the second half that would produce that slight uptick relative to what you just posted in Q2?

Yeah, sure. It depends what we see in the back half of the year as far as project mix, and like I said, a lot of that is local, and those local project wins will help drive some of that. If we do see gross margins a little bit lower in the back half, then we would expect to see lower SG&A to come along with that. As far as the project mix, and like I said, we can see sequential declines from the first quarter to second quarter. Some of that given seasonality. There's projects that are more underground. There can be more direct ships, so there can be less demand on that local branch, less variable costs associated with that.

Our underground business is more seasonal, so as you see quarters like the first quarter when we have areas like fire protection that is less seasonal, we have more of a private label mix in there. It can vary from quarter to quarter. The good news is that, if that gross margin is a little bit lower because of project mix, then we would expect the SG&A to be lower. That would help support the EBITDA margins overall.

Okay. That is helpful, understanding that it really is just that mix dynamic, not necessarily getting squeezed on something idiosyncratic to gross margin. The second question, just a little more near term. Can you talk through the growth, how we exited the quarter and what you are seeing quarter to date and, obviously, you maintain the full year sales guide, but maybe a little more color on how Q3 is shaping up so far would be great. Thanks.

Yeah, sure. I will take that one. As we exited the second quarter, I would say we felt really good with the momentum building, especially into July, and then August reflected that momentum as well. So that is what gave us those couple of points that we saw some good acceleration that was supportive of the bidding activity and the project wins that we were seeing. So that felt really good and, as we talked about some of the comps on resi that has been a headwind for us get a little easier. Now, obviously, we are not expecting resi to get a lot better, but it helps to have a little softer comp in the back half and allows a lot of the progress that we have made with many of our growth initiatives to shine more without that headwind.

That coupled with the stability we have seen with PVC should put us in a good position to show some really good growth here in the second half.

That's great. Thanks, Mark. Thanks, Robyn.

Your next question is from the line of Keith Hughes with Truist. Keith, your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. How much did acquisitions add in the quarter? I know it's a small number, but what is it exactly?

It's a little less than a point, Keith. We had 2.5% growth in the quarter, and we had volume, price, and acquisitions all contribute slightly to that 2.5% growth.

You made some positive comments early in the call about potential deals coming down the pipe. It has been a slow period here. Assuming you get a reasonable number of those, what kind of future growth would those represent to sales?

Yeah, Keith, we have laid out in terms of our long-term strategy, we expect M&A to contribute in the kind of two to four points of growth range. Obviously in the recent year or two, we have been under that. So it is possible we could exceed that in any given year as activity picks up. But we generally expect it to be in that kind of 2-4 points of incremental sales growth, just based on our long-term strategy. I tried to highlight that we have got several that kind of advanced through that LOI stage, and we are in diligence now. So, expecting a good finish to the year and should set us up for some really good growth in 2027.

Okay. Final question. You had talked, very beginning of the call, that it was about mid-single digit growth coming from the treatment centers. Is data centers part of that? Is that a separate number? I heard about high single digits of non-resi. I am just trying to get as a percentage of total sales, get it straight.

Core & Main Q2 2027 Earnings Call Transcript | Fortune

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Core & Main (CNM) Q2 2027 Earnings Call Transcript

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