Quanex Building Products (NX) Q3 2026 earnings call transcript

I would like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO, and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Thanks for joining the call this morning. On the call with me today is George Wilson, our President and CEO. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements and some discussion of non-GAAP measures. Forward-looking statements and guidance discussed on this call and in our earnings release are based on current expectations. Actual results or events may differ materially from such statements and guidance, and Quanex undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect new information or events. For a more detailed description of our forward-looking statement disclaimer and a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please see our earnings release issued yesterday and posted to our website.

I will now turn the call over to George for his prepared remarks.

Thanks, Scott, and good morning to everyone on the call. Similar to prior calls, I'll start with our perspective on the current macroeconomic environment, then I'll walk through our results for the quarter, and I'll close my prepared remarks with our priorities for the balance of the fiscal year.

Three months ago, I described housing demand in North America and Europe as showing early signs of stabilization with a recovery that would proceed gradually. Since then, the data has been mixed. On the new construction side of the market, activity has been weaker than we anticipated. The July new residential construction report put single-family starts at an annual rate of 808,000, which is down roughly 16% from a year ago and the lowest monthly reading since late 2022. Single-family completions, the more direct driver of demand for our products, came in at 878,000, which represents a decrease of about 13% year-over-year and down about 10% year-to-date.

Units under construction were down roughly 7% from a year ago. That said, there is a moderately positive signal underneath these numbers. Permits have held up nicely. Lastly, total permits in July were up 3% year over year, single family permits were modestly higher, and the number of homes authorized but not yet started is up about 10% from a year ago.

This means that builders are keeping their entitlement pipelines intact, but are choosing not to break ground. That is a decision that can reverse relatively quickly when affordability and consumer confidence improve, and it's why we continue to view the current market as being demand-deferred rather than demand-destroyed.

In the UK and Europe, we see the same general dynamics as in North America, though the impact varies significantly by region. We believe recovery is underway in the new-build glazing and fenestration markets in both Iberia and Scandinavia, while softness persists in the UK, Germany, France, and Italy. We expect that future recovery in these segments will be driven by consumer confidence improvements and government-sponsored social housing initiatives across the continent.

Turning to the ongoing inflationary pressures around input costs, the picture remains highly variable. The inflation we described on our last call in June has not stopped, but it does appear that the pace has diminished. Raw material, energy, freight, and logistic costs all remain elevated, and the disruption to international shipping routes continues to add both cost and lead time.

Our response has not changed since we last discussed this issue in June. We said then that we would implement targeted price increases in the mid-single-digit to low-teens range, phased in through the third quarter, and tailored by product line. And we have executed on that plan. Scott will provide more color in his comments, but we believe we have meaningfully narrowed the cost-price gap.

That said, we also recognize that any further change in this dynamic will require additional discussions with our customers or additional surcharges to protect margins. Moving on to operational performance for the quarter. Despite the macro headwinds the market continues to face, volumes were in line with our expectations, and our operational teams performed well. As you know, shortly after we acquired time and a little over two years ago, we initiated a project to resegment our business units to better support our customers, enable organic growth, and improve both operational and financial performance. A great deal of heavy lifting and integration work goes into this type of project, and I am pleased with the progress to date.

Since the acquisition, the plan has always been to execute our strategy in three stages, stabilization, optimization, and growth. I am extremely pleased with the progress made across all our reporting segments as we have worked to steady the combined business over the past two years. As we now move into the optimization stage, we continue to advance strategic projects built around the 80-20 principle and are completing several value stream mapping exercises. These projects are designed to improve our customer performance, optimize our footprint and cost structure, and strengthen our margins. We will continue focusing on serving our customers while improving our footprint and cost structure so that when the markets do improve, we are ready to capitalize on those opportunities.

Finally, I'd like to comment on free cash flow generation and capital allocation priorities. As we have said previously, most of our free cash flow is generated in our final two fiscal quarters, and given the normal seasonality we have been experiencing, this year should be no different. I am very pleased with the work of our team in managing working capital, which enabled us to pay down debt and repurchase shares during the quarter. Going forward, our focus on reducing inventory through 80-20 projects, simplifying our footprint, and reducing intercompany transfers should translate into stronger cash flow generation. For the current quarter, our cash priorities will be to continue paying down debt and to fund organic projects that drive financial returns.

I will now turn the call over to Scott, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Thanks, George. On a consolidated basis, we reported net sales of $501.8 million during the third quarter of 2026, which represents an increase of 1.3% compared to $495.3 million for the same period of 2025. The increase was mainly due to favorable impacts from pricing, partially offset by the impact of IEPA tariff reimbursance to customers. We estimate that volumes were flat, pricing was up about 3%, and the negative tariff refund impact was approximately 2%. Foreign exchange didn't really influence the quarter. We reported net income of million or per diluted share during the three months into July 31 2026 compared to a net loss of million or per diluted share during the three months into July 31 2025 The reported net loss during the third quarter of 2025 was primarily the result of a million non Goodwill impairment related to the re of our business The effective tax rate in the third quarter of 2026 excluding discrete items was approximately 23 which matched our expectation On an adjusted basis, we reported net income of $36 million, or $0.79 per diluted share, during the third quarter of 2026, compared to net income of $31.6 million, or $0.69 per diluted share, during the third quarter of 2025.

The adjustments being made to net income are primarily related to severance and other expenses associated with manufacturing footprint and operational performance optimization, including reorganizational and restructuring charges, transaction and advisory fees, amortization expense related to intangible assets, foreign currency impacts, and goodwill impairment. On a consolidated basis, the increase in reported earnings for the third quarter of 2026 compared to the third quarter of 2025 was mainly due to improved pricing, lower depreciation and amortization expense, and lower interest expense. On an adjusted basis, EBITDA for the quarter was $72.7 million compared to $70.3 million during the same period of last year. Now results by operating segment. We generated net sales of $220.9 million in our hardware solution segment for the third quarter of 2026, a slight decrease compared to $227.1 million in the third quarter of 2025.

We estimate that volumes were down about 0.5%. Pricing was up by about 1.5% in this segment. The negative tariff impact due to customer reimbursements was roughly 4%. The absence of the operational issues we had in Monterey, Mexico last year had a positive impact of about 0.5%, and foreign exchange translation had a negligible impact. Adjusted EBITO was $27.1 million in this segment for the third quarter of 2026, compared to $24.7 million in the same period of 2025. The increase was largely due to improved pricing and the absence of operational issues in Monterey, Mexico, that impacted Q3 of last year. Our extruded solution segment generated revenue of $179.3 million in Q3 of this year, an increase of 2.8% compared to $174.4 million in Q3 of last year.

We estimate that volumes for the quarter were down about 0.5% year-over-year in this segment, with pricing up almost 3.5% and a very minor negative foreign exchange translation impact. Adjusted EBITDA declined slightly to $35.6 million in this segment for the quarter versus $37.1 million during the same period of last year, mainly due to general inflationary pressures partially offset by improved pricing.

We reported net sales of $111 million in our custom solution segment during the quarter, which represented growth of 8.5% compared to prior year revenue of $102.3 million. For the quarter, we estimate that volumes were up about 3%, pricing increased by about 5.5%, and the pass-through of tariffs was a minor benefit. Adjusted EBIT had declined to $12 million from $12.9 million in this segment for the quarter, mostly due to inflationary pressures we have already discussed, partially offset by improved pricing.

Moving on to cash flow in the balance sheet, cash provided by operating activities was $58.6 million for the third quarter of 2026, which compares to $60.7 million for the third quarter of 2025.

Free cash flow increased by 3.5% to $47.8 million in Q3 of 2026, compared to $46.2 million in Q3 of 2025. We generated sufficient cash to repay $42.25 million of debt during the third quarter of 2026, and we also repurchased $1.7 million of our stock. As of July 31, 2026, our liquidity, which is really just the borrowing capacity under our revolver combined with the cash on the balance sheet, was approximately $363 million, an increase of 10.5% versus Q2 of this year. We expect liquidity to improve again in the fourth quarter. As of July 31, 2026, our leverage ratio of net debt to last 12 months adjusted EBITDA decreased to 2.8 times. We continue to believe we will exit 2026 with an even lower net leverage ratio as we continue to generate cash and repay debt.

Our long-term view for the residential housing market remains positive. However, due to the ongoing macroeconomic challenges, we remain cautious on the near-term outlook. We continue to monitor the situation in the Middle East, which is still having an impact on transportation costs and the price of raw materials and energy. We do believe that the initial rate and magnitude of inflationary cost pressures have somewhat subsided. For modeling purposes, please use the following cadence for the fourth quarter of 2026 versus the fourth quarter of 2025. On a consolidated basis, we expect revenue growth of 2% to 3% and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 50 to 75 basis points. In addition, we believe an estimated tax rate of approximately 24% should be reasonable for the fourth quarter of 2026.

As always, we will stay focused on the things that we can control with near-term emphasis on generating cash to reduce debt while opportunistically repurchasing our stock and identifying further operational improvements and efficiencies that can benefit us when economic conditions improve. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Good morning.

So, I don't know if I can get into specifics about that, but in general, I would say that the price increases we implemented in third quarter were phased, so that we do expect a bigger or more impact a full impact in the fourth quarter of this year since we get the full quarter impact there From a pricing standpoint I would say that year over year quarter over quarter in hardware solutions I talking about adjusted EBITDA price improved by about million of the increase Okay, and how much was, if we're speaking about the EBITDA line, can you speak to the 80-20 benefit in the quarter for that segment?

Yeah, so as it relates to the 80-20 projects that we have going on right now, I would say the benefits are minimal versus prior year because they're just now starting. I would say, you know, we've taken some actions on reducing some SG&A, but we're in the infancy stages of that, so I think you'll see those continue to pick up in the fourth quarter, and then in the next year you'll see more meaningful benefits.

So pretty negligible year-over-year for Q3, but the momentum and progress of those projects will continue to pick up and continue to add benefit as we go forward.

A lot less than that. So magnitude, really mostly in the hardware solution segments, was roughly $9 million on the revenue side impact in the third quarter. So something significantly less than that in fourth quarter is expected.

Thank you.

Where do you think that strength comes through? Yeah, I would focus more on the hardware solution segment, mainly because if you think back to last year, 4Q, we still had a pretty big impact from the Monterey issues that shouldn't be there this year. And then the other piece along with that that we just talked about with Julio is that you're obviously going to get the full benefit of a full quarter's worth of the pricing impact. So those two things, compared on an annual year-over-year basis, should, especially in the hardware segment, stick out the most.

It's obviously a focus of ours. You know, as we've gotten all of the new segments stabilized, finalized, and we're operating, you know, in a really pretty efficient manner, We can identify opportunities to continue to improve. Obviously, the basis of everything that we're doing from an 80-20 perspective evaluates the amount of SG&A that you're using to support very little levels of revenue, and we're trying to address those. So, I appreciate the comment. I think that, you know, it's a focus of ours, and you'll continue to see improvements both in fixed costs and SG&A.

So, yeah, for wood, there's a couple things playing into the improvement in revenue from a volume perspective. Market in general is still soft in that business. However, we were, and I think we've commented on this before, we were able to win some new business that started hitting us earlier this year to the tune of like $10 million a year. So that is definitely helping that business this year, which is in contrast to what the market is doing.

Now, on a go-forward basis, you know, so we started picking up that business at the very end of our Q4 and really Q1 of this year. So you'll probably see one more quarter of year-over-year benefit. But, you know, and as we discuss the tariffs and obviously what's going on between the U. S. and Canada, depending on where all those tariffs settle out, you know, that could be an opportunity for more insourcing of cabinet products because of the reliance on the wood and the wood tariffs between the two countries. So more to come. It's fluid as it relates to the tariffs, and it seems to change every day. So could be some upside there, but, you know, more to come.

What I would tell you is that the quoting activity is significantly picked up, and I think customers that are sourcing product from Canada are trying to find options to determine what it needs to be on a go-forward basis. So they're doing their due diligence by finding opportunities, and we're actively quoting. So, again, really fluid. Every day is different.

You know, one of the important parts of our thesis in acquiring time and in resegmenting is that we've identified opportunities for future growth down the road. So I don't think it would be prudent for us to be in a net cash plus position. I think if we can't find opportunities to grow both organically and inorganically in adjacent markets, we're not doing our job. So I think, you know, if we get down to one, one and a half times, I think you would see us probably looking to do more transformative type of things. But again, we're a fairly conservative company in that regards, and we manage our debt, I think, very prudently. So I think you'll see the near-term focus continue to be paying down debt and reducing the interest expense so we can grow organically.

And then once we continue to drive it down, our goal is to expand into adjacent markets both organically and inorganically. So I don't think you'll ever find us – it's not a goal to be in a net cash plus position.

Very strong results year to date, and again, in the quarter, and it's a high margin product for you. Can you go into some details on the demand and the pricing in that category, and can you talk about the mixed impact it's bringing to the segment margins? Yeah, as we look, obviously I don't think we gave any breakdown of by product line, but that's obviously a part of the extruded solution segment.

And that market has grown very nicely, and the warm-edge spacer markets are very much tied to high-end energy-efficient windows. So I think as energy costs continue to be elevated and our people are being able to justify replacing windows to get energy savings, that the demand for our spacer product will continue to grow. You know, that started long ago in Europe, which has always been kind of the leading indicator for what's going to happen in North America, and I think we're seeing that. You know, it's been influenced in most of that product line, especially in North America, on index pricing mechanisms, and a lot of that is petroleum-based. So, you know, a lot of the price of that product we've been able to pass through and cover inflation very good.

So, you know, overall, I would say our margins have done well. It's a very efficient plant, and we have pricing mechanisms in place to protect us from inflationary pressures.

Yeah, the only thing I'll add there, Stephen, is within that extruded solution segment, you actually have the IG Spacers business, which everybody knows is a good profitability business for us, but you also have the linear business in the UK, which is the vinyl extrusion business, which is also a very good, highly profitable business. So the reasons for that segment being high margins is because of the product mix. Those two product lines make up, from a revenue perspective, like 65% to 70% revenue of that segment. So that should give me some color.

You know, the screen's segment and product line within the hardware segment has been a good growing business for ours. You know, we continue to service the customers well. It is an area that at times has outpaced market growth because the OE window makers, the ones that insource that, it's one of the first things that they can look to outsource if they're having a hard time of getting labor or taking up too much floor space in their manufacturing facilities. So we've been able to grow share probably a little faster than the market has grown, and we continue to like that business. I think we're working very hard on footprint optimization things to drive more efficiency. So, you know, over the course of the last couple years, we closed a couple facilities in the West Coast and are able to service that area from bigger plants and get some operational performance benefits out of that.

And I think we'll continue to focus on that. So in terms of our portfolio, the entry-level screens business is probably near commodity product that we sell, but I think we're doing some really nice things to continue to buffer that margin, and I think the future is great for that group.

I was just wondering if you could kind of outline, you know, was that a full pass-through you did to customers? Was it kind of product by product or categorized in some extent? Any details there? Just, you know, we've seen a lot of companies of late kind of hold on to those refunds and kind of justify that in the sense of, you know, new tariff policies and the inflationary pressures.

Just anything you could provide color-wise on the impacts there and strategy of passing those along? Yeah, so the tariff refunds really only impacted the hardware solutions business during the quarter. The slight improvement or benefit in the custom solutions segment was just talking about passing through tariffs like we had done prior to last quarter in most of the other businesses. So there's just a nuance there.

And on your last point, I think it's important that I do note, as it relates to giving back or retaining and holding tariffs, our philosophy has been we are not trying to use tariffs as a margin-generating item, especially in a market or an environment where the consumers are pressured so hard. So our philosophy has always been that we are going to be very transparent with our customers. I think it's the way we try to do business. And so, you know, if we've passed through or pushed a tariff through and we've gotten a refund as a result about it, it's not our money to keep. And, you know, it's just a core operating philosophy of how we're going to treat our customers.

So everything we've done has been a direct pass through. And if we get refunds, we'll pass it directly back through the customer. It's not meant to be a margin grab for us.

I will now turn it back to George Wilson for closing remarks. I would like to thank everyone for joining the call today, and we look forward to providing the next update in early December. Thank you.