Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Astec Industries, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASTE) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript February 25, 2026

Astec Industries, Inc. misses on earnings expectations. Reported EPS is $0.517 EPS, expectations were $0.74.

Operator: And these statements are intended to qualify for the safe harbor liability established by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. In an effort to provide investors with additional information regarding the company’s results, the company refers to various U.S. GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures, which management believes provide useful information to investors. These non-GAAP measures have no standardized meaning prescribed by U.S. GAAP and are therefore unlikely to be comparable to the calculation of similar measures for other companies. Management does not intend these items to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for the related GAAP measures.

A reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results is included in our news release and the appendix of our slide presentation. And now turning to slide three, I will turn the call over to the CEO.

CEO: Thank you, Steve. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. We were pleased to report hard work that produced a successful year in 2025. On slide four, we highlight our fourth quarter and full-year performance. For the quarter, we achieved record fourth-quarter net sales of $400.6 million. Full-year net sales increased 8.1% due to a combination of organic and inorganic growth. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was a solid $44.7 million. This yielded an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.2%. Adjusted EBITDA of $140.7 million for the year was at the upper end of our guidance range. The full-year adjusted EBITDA margin was 10%, which was a 140 basis point increase over the prior year. We are optimistic about 2026 due to our progress on internal initiatives and positive customer-centric momentum.

Full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance range is $170 million to $190 million. We continue to generate positive free cash flow, which allows us to fund both organic and inorganic growth. In 2025, we saw healthy demand for asphalt plants and concrete plants within the Infrastructure Solutions segment, while forestry and mobile paving equipment were challenged. During the fourth quarter, we saw an increase in the backlogs for forestry and mobile paving equipment, though they remain at the lower end of historical ranges. The Material Solutions segment demonstrated anticipated recovery late in the year with a combination of organic and inorganic growth. Federal funding, healthy state and local budgets, and the construction of data centers are expected to drive multiyear demand in the Material Solutions and Infrastructure Solutions segments in 2026.

Parts sales increased 19.7% versus the fourth quarter prior year. For the year, parts sales totaled $432.7 million, representing an 11.5% increase over the prior year and 30.7% of total net sales in 2025. As previously stated, growing our parts and service business continues to be a priority. We were pleased to show an increase in backlog to $514 million. This represented sequential and year-over-year growth of 14.4% and 22.5%, respectively, through a combination of organic and inorganic activity. On slide five, we highlight the acquisitions of TerraSource and CWMF that collectively represent over $200 million of annual revenue acquired by Astec Industries, Inc. As part of the TerraSource integration, we will share the new brand and designs at CONEXPO.

The new designs are consistent with existing Astec Industries, Inc. products and incorporate our name and logo with the TerraSource legacy flagship brands, including Gunlop, Jeffrey Rader, Pennsylvania Crusher, and Elgin. Our joint teams are busy expanding the parts sales force, coordinating sales channels and cross-selling strategies, pursuing new product development, and assessing opportunities for optimal use. We anticipate benefits from these actions will be realized in 2026. On 01/01/2026, we were excited to welcome the skilled and dedicated employees of CWMF to the Astec Industries, Inc. family. As a reminder, CWMF is a highly respected manufacturer of portable and stationary asphalt plant equipment and parts primarily concentrated in the Midwest, South Central, and Great Lakes regions of the United States.

Our organizations are a strong cultural fit, and we expect CWMF to be accretive from day one. Slide six provides detail on the state of the U.S. infrastructure and aggregate industries. Astec Industries, Inc. benefits from strong road construction and aggregate markets in the United States. As you may know, in 2022, Congress approved a five-year $347.5 billion infrastructure investment bill. Funds committed within the bill totaled $148 billion, or 71%, through 11/30/2025. Congress recently reached an agreement on transportation spending legislation for the remainder of fiscal year 2026. Street construction also supports the U.S. aggregate industry, as aggregates are used in asphalt, concrete, and as base. In addition to expected increases in federal funds for roads and bridge construction, 2026 state transportation budgets anticipate growth as well.

Data centers, and the aggregates and the infrastructure necessary to support them, are also expected to drive multiyear demand. In an October 2025 study by Thompson Research Group, aggregate quarries within a 30-mile truck distance of a major data center construction project saw demand for aggregate tonnage that nearly doubled that of pre-construction levels. Overall, a healthy compound annual rate of 3.41% is expected for the U.S. aggregate markets through 2033. These industry trends provide advantages for Astec Industries, Inc., a company specializing in the rock-to-road sector. Ongoing infrastructure enhancements contribute to sustained demand for our equipment, parts, and implied orders, which were up $46 million, or 11%, from the prior quarter in 2024.

Our book-to-bill ratio was 116% on a consolidated basis. Furthermore, our backlog grew to $504 million, an increase on a sequential and year-over-year basis by 14.4% and 22.5%, respectively. In forestry equipment, we are especially pleased with increased backlog in our Material Solutions segment. I will now turn the call over to Brian Harris for the financial results.

Brian Harris: Thank you, Jacob, and good morning. Next I will cover our fourth-quarter consolidated results, detail by segment, liquidity and leverage, along with some 2026 outlook detail. Capital equipment and aftermarket parts adjusted EBITDA and margins increased due to strong volume, favorable pricing, and product mix. For the fourth quarter, adjusted earnings per share was $1.06. For the full year, net sales grew 8.1%, which was attributable to incremental net sales from the acquired TerraSource business, as well as positive organic volume and mix coupled with favorable pricing. As Jacob mentioned, we were pleased to report an adjusted EBITDA of $140.7 million, which was at the high end of our guidance range. Both segments experienced growth as adjusted EBITDA margin expanded by 140 basis points on a consolidated basis to 10%.

Adjusted earnings per share for the full year ending 2025 was $3.33, representing a 28.6% increase over the prior year. On slide 11, we show the Infrastructure Solutions segment, which generated fourth-quarter net sales of $223.6 million. This measured to a strong prior-year comparison of $248.8 million as solid demand for asphalt and concrete plant sales was offset by softness from mobile paving and forestry equipment. Aftermarket parts sales were relatively flat, albeit at healthy levels. Q4 sales increased $20 million, or 2.4%. Segment operating adjusted EBITDA was $134.3 million for 2025, compared to $121.5 million for 2024, for an increase of $12.8 million, or 10.5%. Full-year adjusted EBITDA margin grew 120 basis points to 15.7% compared to 14.5% in 2024.

Increases were primarily due to the impact of net favorable volume and mix from inorganic and organic operations, coupled with favorable pricing. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter increased 530 basis points to 11.8%. For the year, net sales increased 18.2% to $553 million over the prior year, and the adjusted EBITDA grew 49.5% to $55.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin in 2025 reached 10.1% compared to 8% in 2024, an increase of 210 basis points. As shown on slide 13, our balance sheet remains strong, supported by substantial liquidity. At quarter end, we had $70 million in cash and cash equivalents along with $244.7 million of available credit, resulting in total liquidity of $314.7 million. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA of approximately 2 times is well within our target range.

For 2026, account for the following anticipated full-year ranges: adjusted EBITDA of $170 million to $190 million; an effective tax rate between 25% and 28%; capital expenditures of $40 million to $50 million; depreciation and amortization of $55 million to $65 million; and the quarterly range for adjusted SG&A of $70 million to $80 million. I will now hand the call back to the CEO.

CEO: Thank you, Brian. Moving to slide 14, please mark your calendars to visit us at the 2026 CONEXPO-CON/AGG Trade Show in Las Vegas from March 3 through the 7th. Our display will be located in the Central Hall in Booth C30236, where we will showcase several new products. We will also demonstrate our existing new signal. Slide 15 provides an overview of our key investment highlights. We are proud of Astec Industries, Inc.’s long-standing reputation and premium solutions for our customers. Our team is highly engaged with customers. Based on recent interaction, customers have a favorable outlook. Efforts within our manufacturing and procurement are enhancing efficiency, and we are seeing continued improvement in adjusted EBITDA.

Our growth is supported by several promising opportunities, including growing our recurring aftermarket parts business, which remains a top priority for the Astec Industries, Inc. team; advancing our robust pipeline of innovative new products, many of which will be on display at CONEXPO; having consistent multiyear federal and state funding for interstate and highway projects within our core U.S. market; exploring expansion possibilities in both established and emerging international markets; and pursuing inorganic growth with our demonstrated disciplined and focused approach to strategic acquisitions. As Brian mentioned, our strong balance sheet provides flexibility to fund our growth initiatives and manage leverage effectively. With that, Operator, we are ready to draw your questions.

Operator: Simply press 1 again. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A. Your first question comes from the line of Steve Ferazani with JMP. Please go ahead.

Q&A Session

Steve Ferazani: I am really surprised by the strong backlog in 4Q, the orders as well as the guide. So I want to dig into some of those pieces. As far as what you are seeing in Material Solutions, it looks like that is where you really significantly beat on the top line in the quarter. I am assuming that is what is contributing to the strong guide. Higher interest rates as they came down, that could help as well as well as all of those products were underused. Just because some of the smaller customers were not ready to buy, and it was coming.

CEO: And now we see it is coming even if we back out TerraSource. We saw it on the organic side. Can you inmates and PSG business. I will say PSG also came through really strong during the fourth quarter, and we got the results that we were looking for when we did the business. I will say we talked a lot about the state of inventory in our dealer network, and we have seen and spoke to our dealers just here recently. They have very healthy backlog situations now. They have very healthy inventory. For a while there, they did not necessarily have the right inventory. We worked through all of that. We have also seen a very positive development around data centers that is affecting this business. We see multiple of those super large projects coming through, and our team is very well positioned to enjoy some of that business, and I know our dealers are are highly engaged.

These last projects. So, yes, we are also excited about this. I think our team is ready to take advantage of this and enhance the output that we provided for 2026.

Steve Ferazani: Okay. And flipping over to Infrastructure Solutions, that backlog actually was ahead of where we were thinking as well, just because our expectation was as you enter the last year of the current highway funding bill, maybe you would see a slowdown in concrete and asphalt plant orders. That does not seem to be happening.

CEO: Yes. No. You are right, Steve. So we are happy with how the year ended. Obviously, we had a very strong comp versus the prior year, but bookings stayed pretty strong. And I am happy to say here in the first couple of weeks of the year, MS and the IS business, the order intake has been strong as well.

Steve Ferazani: And you are a little bit closer to this. Any updates on what you think highway funding might move forward this year, and are there any concerns on your end if it slowed down?

CEO: Yes. So, you know, a couple of things on that. We believe that conversations are on track, that we will hear something about an infrastructure bill here in the next couple of months. On a positive note, as we mentioned in our prepared remarks, funding for 2026 was actually approved by Congress. So, overall, I think our customers are in a good space. We know that most of them have very good backlogs for the year. So I think our customers are really focused on the long term. The need for infrastructure is there, and I think our customers are looking beyond just the full year at the end of the year. Of course, if we do get the bill, I think it will be very positive for us and for the customers.

Steve Ferazani: Got it. That is helpful. I want to turn to the guidance, which is certainly on EBITDA well above where we were. I am trying to think about, since you have taken over, you have tried to improve production efficiencies. I know you have made investments in the plants. You have been growing parts sales, higher margin. I am trying to think of how much of this growth is driven straight by top line or how much you think this is on margin beyond just the margin improvement generated by higher throughput?

CEO: So, if you look at the walk from 2025, which will basically be workforce for the full year, we built some synergies in there for those two deals, and we feel pretty good about our progress around synergies. Obviously, these synergies take a while to work through the inventory that we already have. And we do see some organic growth for this year, and we have baked some of that into the number. If we get a highway bill or a new infrastructure bill, we could probably go to the higher end of the range, but we felt that that range is something that we feel makes sense this early on in the year.

Steve Ferazani: You have not talked that much about the numbers around CWMF. I know CWMF is much smaller. Can you talk about what that contribution is to your range in 2026? And then as a follow-up, how we should read through on what your M&A strategy is with TerraSource and now CWMF?

CEO: Yes. So, you know, on CWMF, obviously, we disclosed the profitability. We have not shared exactly what their sales are, but, Steve, we did mention that it is accretive from day one. So we are very happy with where they fit, their margin profile fit. From an acquisition point of view, we have a good momentum right now. I will say our team has done a fantastic job with teeing these two deals up. The integration has been going really well. And we have the team available to continue to go down this path. Our liquidity is in a strong position right now. So we are going to continue to look, and there are a lot of opportunities for us still to grow both in the U.S. and internationally. So, and CWMF to add to the team.

Steve Ferazani: Right. Thanks so much.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Ramsey with Thompson Research Group. Please go ahead.

Steven Ramsey: Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thanks. What I wanted to start with, maybe kind of continue the CWMF topics, and seeing that it is accretive day one, if you could talk to their parts contribution and maybe where Astec Industries, Inc. can help on that front.

CEO: Yes. No. Absolutely. When I look at the CWMF business, the first thing is the owners, Colby and Travis, they have done a fantastic job with this business. They have created a great culture, and that culture fits in so well with Astec Industries, Inc. It is amazing to me just how fast our teams have come together here. Obviously, we know this business in and out, and the discussions between our teams around working together, integrating sales structures, synergies, has gone as good as what we could have imagined. This business and the previous owners, they have done a fantastic job creating a very nice manufacturing facility with good capabilities. And we see opportunities to use that facility and grow the output together with the rest of our Astec Industries, Inc.

Asphalt teams. From a parts point of view, their parts mix is a little bit lower than what we have on our traditional asphalt business, Steve. So there is a big opportunity there to grow that. We are going to do the same thing with them to make sure we have great parts availability. And we will give our customers the support that they deserve and they are used to from a legacy Astec Industries, Inc. point of view. So we are excited about this. This buy will give us much more than just another asphalt product line. It will give us manufacturing capability, as it brings a great team to the table. So we feel very confident about what this will look like in a couple of years.

Steven Ramsey: Excellent. And then sticking to recent acquisitions, for TerraSource, can you talk about the progress with this business? Good to see margin improvement in the Materials segment. And can you talk about the improving fill rates within TerraSource? I know that was a focal point. Can you talk about where it is now versus where it was when you closed the deal?

CEO: Yes. No. Steve, obviously we are still pretty early in that improvement cycle. One thing that I will say is that our teams have done all the calculations. We know exactly what we need to do and what is the inventory that we need to put on the shelf. That process is going, and I will say within the next three to six months, we are going to be very close to where we want them to be. And we know that that will have a positive influence on the business. So good interaction, good buy-in from the team. They are running with this, and the Astec Industries, Inc. team just supports them. The other thing that we are making sure of is as we bring this inventory in, we make sure that we take advantage of the synergy opportunities that we have so that we can bring that inventory in at the levels that we can buy for in our legacy Astec Industries, Inc.

business. So we are excited about that. Overall, the performance for TerraSource for the six months we have owned them has been in line with our expectations. And I will say here in the last couple of weeks, we have made significant improvements in the integration of the team. Just yesterday, I listened to our engineering team talking about the products that we are going to have at CONEXPO, and this just fits in so well with the Astec Industries, Inc. business. So we are excited about what they are going to bring to the table in the future.

Steven Ramsey: Okay. That is great. You pointed out, obviously, infrastructure activity and data centers, and on the Material Solutions segment, can you talk a little bit more on data centers and how your equipment is being deployed there, and how much of your data center growth is following customers versus intentional efforts on your part, and then maybe one other thing on data centers is ballpark how, if you can gauge it, how much data center exposure you have.

CEO: We actually try to calculate that a little bit because I will say the majority of the crushing and screening that is going to be needed to get these data centers built will be done by companies that we already do business with. So it is not that you will see a huge amount of new start-ups popping up. These are customers that we have relationships with. They are close to our dealers. And we have seen quite a few large projects that are coming our way, and we are going to try to take advantage of that as much as we can. We are adding capacity in our facilities again to make sure we can take advantage of this. So, Steve, I think we are well positioned. Exactly how much it will contribute, we have not got to a number that we feel comfortable with yet, but we can see what is in our quoting pipeline, and we feel that this business will be strong and support our EBITDA guidance range for the year.

Steven Ramsey: Okay. That is excellent. And to clarify, the demand for data centers that you are seeing, is it being filled through dealers primarily, or is there any direct business?

CEO: Yes. No. Most of that is through dealers. Our crushing and screening product line goes through dealers. Obviously, there is concrete needed there as well. That goes through a dealer structure. Any asphalt that is done around data centers, we sell directly to customers. And once again, a lot of our existing customers are involved in that construction.

Steven Ramsey: Okay. That is helpful. And one thing I wanted to make sure of with the EBITDA guidance: do you expect margin expansion in both segments?

CEO: Yes. So, Steven, we have been talking about growing our margins 0.7% to 1.5% a year on average. And if you go and look at the last three years, I think we have successfully done that. It is our aim to build on that and continue to try to achieve those improvements year over year. We will not do our job if we do not do that again this year. Obviously, there is a lot of work to be done to achieve that, but I think we have shown that we can do it. The team is ready to go this year. We know how to do it. We know that we have the opportunity. So now it is just up to us to go and execute.

Steven Ramsey: Excellent. And then last quick one for me. CONEXPO, a big event that clearly does not happen every year. Can you talk about in the past if this helps sales in the coming quarters to a degree as you roll out new products or highlight improvements to existing products? And is there any scenario where CONEXPO is a needle mover enough to shift the guidance or go to the high end?

CEO: Yes. These big shows can always raise the question, is it delivering good return on investment? I will just say we are very excited about this CONEXPO. Basically, every product that we have on display is either new or substantially upgraded. We are going to launch our Signal digital platform there that I am very excited about. So, Steven, I will say, are we going to walk away there with $100 million in new orders? Probably not. But will this send a signal to the market and to our customers that Astec Industries, Inc. is strong? We are unified under our brands. We will have TerraSource on display. Our CWMF team will be part of us. I think we are going to show really strong, and it is going to give our customers confidence.

And I will be honest with you, I think it is going to give our own team members a boost just to see how well we show up now as still a relatively small player in the market. So, yes, I am excited. Hopefully, we will see you there next week, and hopefully, we will have great—

Steven Ramsey: Yep. I will be there. Looking forward to it. Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of David MacGregor with Longbow Research. Please go ahead.

David MacGregor: Yes. Good morning, everyone, and congratulations on the strong results.

CEO: Morning, David.

David MacGregor: Good morning. I wanted to begin by just maybe picking up on your last point there with regard to rolling out the digital platform at CONEXPO. Maybe you could just talk about progress on building out digital solutions generally. I know this is something you have been doing a lot of work on, but I guess the goal is ultimately to make Astec Industries, Inc. easier to buy from. And just how should we think about this as a revenue growth facilitator in 2026?

CEO: Yes. No, David. That is a great question. If I look at the state of our industry and some of the larger players and where we want to take this business, the world is going to look at what I call dumb iron and how we make this dumb iron more productive and more reliable. That is one of the things that we want to achieve with our digital platform. We want to give our customers great visibility around how their equipment is performing. Are they getting the utilization of their equipment? And then, most importantly, how do we help our customers to ensure that their equipment runs all the time? Our digital platform is going to help them to do that. We see various opportunities coming out of that: driving parts business and increasing our service offerings.

It will help us to grow that parts and service business in the future. There is a big opportunity here. I will say we are just scratching the surface on what this business can become, and if you go to CONEXPO, you will see how this is now integrated in every piece of equipment. I hate to use the AI term here, but our teams are doing really good things to start to bring more and more opportunities that we can help our customers, using the data to make better decisions. We have multiple large customers now that are standardizing on our platform, and they are going to be the beneficiaries of this. They are all looking forward to next week because they are going to see the full capability. We are excited. I think it is going to be great for us long term.

Yes, it is exciting.

David MacGregor: Second question for me, you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you were seeing a modest positive inflection in orders within the forestry business. I just wanted to maybe get you to talk about that a little bit further and what you think you are seeing there and the extent to which you may expect some follow-through.

CEO: Yes. The forestry business was an interesting one the last 12 to 18 months. We have owned the Petersen business now for, I think, 12 to 13 years, and this down cycle was probably the worst we have seen since we have owned it. A couple of things there: the paper and pulp industry is a little bit in turmoil. And then, thank goodness the U.S. did not have much storm damage last year, but, obviously, that typically drives quite a bit of business for us. I am, however, happy to say that the last couple of weeks we have actually seen some decent order intake there. That is a business that traditionally, when it was running at full cylinders, made really good profit. So if that comes back, it will add to our profitability. We baked some of that in already in the EBITDA outlook.

David MacGregor: Okay. Good. Thank you for that detail. I wanted to get you to talk a little bit about the parts business in 2026 as well. I know that you did a lot of work in the strategic inventory investments and expanding the service support. How should we think about the drivers here in 2026? What changes, if anything, in terms of how you go after that business?

CEO: Yes. A couple of things there. We are continuously looking at the way we go to market. One of the platforms that you will see at CONEXPO is what we call MyAstec, and that is a digital platform that we have created starting for asphalt plants, where we are creating a digital twin for our customers that makes the ordering so much easier. That platform is rolled out. We have just started to now introduce that to the concrete plant side of the business. We are really trying to find ways to make it easier for our customers to do business with us. That is one thing. The second thing is, as you know, we are continuously strengthening our presence in the market. So with CWMF on board now, we got some parts sales guys from them.

We have broken up our territories a little bit. Now we have even more feet on the street for parts on the asphalt side. And then, of course, the TSG side, big opportunity there. These guys, when we bought them, were in the, I will say, second or third innings of reviving these historically strong brands, and we are enabling them, focusing on fill rate. We are adding salespeople to go after that parts business. David, obviously, these things take time. The actions of last year will pay off this year, and the actions we are putting in place now will play out well later in the year and into next year.

David MacGregor: Got it. Last question for me is maybe for Brian, just on working capital in the model for 2026 and how we should be thinking about source versus use, and I guess within that, I know that on the equipment side, you have seen people ordering on shorter lead times. Does that give you the ability to fund growth in parts inventory with maybe a little less equipment inventory?

Brian Harris: Yes. Thanks, Dave. Thanks for the question. Working capital continues to be an area of focus for us, obviously. The better the cash flow that we can generate, the more ability we have to grow. I think in 2026, we are going to see further opportunities to improve our working capital management. It is always a little bit tricky to judge exactly where you will be at the year end. We ship a lot of inventory, but sometimes it goes into receivables in the short term, so year-end forecasting can be a little challenging. But overall, I do see opportunities for continued improvement. And, of course, we are going to drive cash through increased operating earnings as well. And then we have got, as you see in our guide, capital expenditures of $40 million to $50 million next year.

We have a lot of good projects in our plants for operational improvement, improved quality, and automation. So we will be reinvesting some of that free cash flow back into the business. But overall, I think working capital should improve slightly.

David MacGregor: Okay.

CEO: Yes. David, maybe one other comment just to add to that. A lot of our ETO business, we do not have finished goods inventory. So the real opportunity is strengthening that parts availability, and you hit the nail on the head there by saying that we want to make sure we drive that. On the TSG side, we have done the calculations, and yes, it will take a couple of million or so of inventory, but it is not that it is going to be a double-digit number that we need to add to fix that. It is doable within a pretty decent investment.

David MacGregor: Great. Thanks. Congratulations again on all the progress, and look forward to catching up with you next week.

CEO: Thank you.

Operator: That concludes the Q&A session. And now I will turn the call over to Stephen C. Anderson, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations.

Stephen C. Anderson: All right. Thank you. We appreciate your participation in our conference call this morning and thank you for your interest in Astec Industries, Inc. As today’s news release states, this conference call has been recorded. A replay of the conference call will be available through 03/11/2026, and an archived webcast will be available for 90 days. The transcript will be available under the Investor Relations section of the Astec Industries, Inc. website within the next five business days. This concludes our call, but we are happy to connect later if there are additional questions. Thank you all, and have a good day.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.