Good morning, and welcome to the Janus International Second Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Sara Macioch, Senior Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining our earnings conference call. I’m joined today by our Chief Executive Officer, Ramey Jackson; and our Chief Financial Officer, Anselm Wong. We hope that you have seen our earnings release issued this morning. We have also posted a presentation in support of this call, which can be found in the Investors section of our website at janusintl.com. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that today’s call may include forward-looking statements. Any statements made describing our beliefs, goals, plans, strategies, expectations, projections, forecasts and assumptions are forward-looking statements. The company’s actual results may differ from those anticipated by such forward-looking statements for a variety of reasons, many of which are beyond our control. Please see our recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which identify the principal risks and uncertainties that could affect our business, prospects and future results. We assume no obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statements, and any forward-looking statements made by us during this call is based only on information currently available to us and speaks only as of the date when it is made. In addition, we will be discussing or providing certain non-GAAP financial measures today, including adjusted EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA margin, adjusted net income and adjusted EPS. Please see our release and filings for a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable GAAP measure. On today’s call, Ramey will provide an overview of our business. Anselm will continue with a discussion of our financial results and 2024 guidance before Ramey shares some closing thoughts, and we open up the call for your questions. At this point, I will turn the call over to Ramey.

Thank you, Sara. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. As I go through my prepared remarks, I’d like you to focus on some key themes. First, Janus is demonstrating resilience during a dynamic time in our end markets. Second, looking beyond the current headwinds, we believe the long-term fundamentals in each of our sales channels remain intact. And finally, our financial results, balance sheet strength and reliable cash generation reflect the durability of our business model and continued strong execution by our team. During the second quarter, we encountered more cautious environment in our end markets as a number of factors combined to impact demand from our customers. Concerns around higher-for-longer interest rate environment resulted in some temporary deferrals of projects until the outlook is clear. Self-storage is a long-term business, and our customers are continuing to invest in the long-term future of their assets while keeping a watchful eye on broader market trends. We bolstered our offerings in the commercial market during the quarter through organic investment and M&A in an exciting adjacent category. Working with our customers to better align our structure with their needs, during the quarter, we opened a distribution center in Mount Airy, North Carolina, allowing us to stock on site and fill orders in a timelier fashion. We expect to see benefits from this beginning in the third quarter. On the M&A front, in May, we acquired Terminal Maintenance and Construction, or TMC, a Premier Provider of Terminal Maintenance Services for LTL freight industry in the Southeastern United States. TMC will focus on commercial customers where they provide trucking terminal renovation, remodeling and maintenance services. Over time, we expect to unlock further value by integrating their capabilities to support growth of our Facilitate division, which provides complete facility maintenance services for…

Thanks, Ramey, and good morning, everyone. As Ramey stated, we are executing against a more muted landscape, focusing on what is within our control to better position Janus to succeed through all market cycles. Now, let me dive deeper into the numbers. In the second quarter, consolidated revenue of $248.4 million was 8.2% lower as compared to the prior year quarter, with strength in New Construction more than offset by declines in R3 in Commercial and Other. Together, our self-storage business was down 6.2%. New Construction continued its momentum with growth in the quarter of 7.3% as customers continue to add new greenfield capacity. R3 was off 23.5% for the quarter, driven by continued declines in retail-to-storage conversion activity as well as slowdowns in redevelopment and renovation activity. As the quarter progressed, we saw impacts from our customers delaying projects in both New Construction and R3 due to uncertainty around the sustained challenging interest rate environment. While we haven’t seen a material increase in cancellations, we expect the slower activity is likely to persist into the second half of the year. Touching on the price and volume split for the quarter, which, as Ramey mentioned, was roughly 50-50 this quarter. As we have told you before, our commercial actions are meant to reflect the premium solutions we offer, while always being mindful of defending or expanding our market share. The price component of the impact on revenues reflected our proactive efforts [indiscernible] that market share. Looking forward, we have the capabilities and intend to manage the margin impacts from future commercial actions as they are implemented. It’s important to also note that input costs are down compared to the year ago level. Given a roughly six-month lag, we expect the benefits of these lower costs to be reflected in the…

Thank you again, Anselm. The hard work we have done and the momentum we have built are allowing us to face current challenges while executing against our capital allocation goals on multiple fronts, including the TMC acquisition, debt repricing and share repurchases in the quarter. Our long-term objectives remain intact. We are laser-focused on delivering strong margins and another year of solid cash flow generation. We intend to continue expanding our differentiated suite of offerings and capabilities, helping to cement our position as the industry leader in self-storage solutions. Our balance sheet and expertise put us in a position to seek out and deliver accretive shareholder value-enhancing opportunities. I look forward to continuing to execute our plan as we work to drive long-term value creation for all of our stakeholders. Thank you again for joining us. Operator, we can now open up the lines for Q&A, please.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Daniel Moore with CJS Securities. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Ramey. Good morning, Anselm.

Good morning, Daniel.

Maybe start with the – obviously, the decline in Self-Storage revenue was a bit surprising, more specifically R3 in relation to your typical visibility. So just talk about what you’re hearing from customers. You mentioned you’re not seeing material cancellations but more push-outs. What are they looking or waiting for specifically before moving forward on these projects?

Yes. I think when we look at new construction, we’re still seeing growth there. There’s over 7% kind of growth in Q2. What we’re seeing is customer’s kind of hit pause around interest rates around the broader macro. On the R3 side, it’s a continuation of the conversions and expansions. I think when you look at – when you strip that out and look at truly conventional kind of remix, refurbishment, that’s relatively flat. It’s still active. And then on the commercial side, it’s, again, a continuation of the carport and shed sector of that business that we anticipate a little bit of growth this year, and that’s been pushed out to kind of early 2025.

Got it. And in R3, are we now back to more normal levels, sort of pre-pandemic? Or do you see more correction likely? And how do we think about kind of where backlogs are today overall versus maybe six or 12 months ago?

Yes, the backlogs remained healthy. Projects are just in the backlog a little bit longer, and I think that’s a testament to the uncertainty around the macro. And I still think there’s softness in R3 because of the kind of the pandemic highs around the conversion. So again, strip those out and it’s relatively back to normal, kind of normalization on the refurbishment, remixes. We still think there’s great opportunity as it relates to some of the acquisitions that were made this past year. But again, just a pause in the market due to interest rates and the Presidential election and things of that nature, that’s what our customers are telling us.

Okay. And extending that out, a crystal ball kind of question, but maybe talk to your visibility and the outlook as we think about fiscal 2025, your expectations for growth in Self-Storage as well as commercial and what gives you confidence given kind of increasing economic uncertainty and some of the recent declines in capital spend that we’ve seen from the REITs?

Yes. Thanks, Dan. I think what we’re seeing at this point is like, to Ramey’s point, the higher interest rates have really just pushed out a lot of projects. I think there – our customers that we’ve always talked about the smaller guys get impacted and now it’s that midsized guy pushing out until we see some movement there. And I think with all the market trend indicating that it could be a drop. They’re just waiting to say, hey, look, I can save that 0.5 point, if I push it out a couple of months here. I think as we go into 2025, the market has become more competitive from just pricing than steel price. So if you think about steel, we talked about it last quarter, steel was holding down from the high 1,100 pound down to, call it, the 800 to 850. If you look at that equal to price today, it’s down to 650. So there’s a bit of pressure there that in terms of pricing. So we – unless that really changes, we expect that to go into next year. While the good thing is that, as you guys know how we buy steel and our profile, that five- to six-month lag time, our goal is to kind of match that with any commercial actions we take so that we maintain the margin. That’s what you’ve seen us do. Even despite the volume drop here, we’ve been able to manage our costs to get that margin in that range.

So it sounds like pricing could be a headwind for next year, but more solid, and you expect at least some offset in terms of volumes?

Yes. I think as the market returns to what we say a bit normal from the interest rate side, we should see that start freeing up some of the project delays we’ve seen.

Okay. And just talk a little bit about TMC in terms of strategic fit of the business. Is that a platform for additional acquisitions? And looking at the cash flow statement, it looks like you paid about $60 million. Is that right? And just talk about kind of run rate revenue, EBITDA and what accretion could look like when we get out to fiscal 2025? Thanks again.

Yes. Thanks. Great question. Look that was a bright spot M&A acquisition for us, totally market. These guys are leaders in the Southeast and kind of terminal maintenance refurbishment, very similar to our R3 work. We feel like they have a playbook that we can replicate on the Facilitate side. Very fragmented market. There is certainly a lot of room for kind of additional roll-up that we’re looking at right now. Strong leadership group, strong margins, a lot of blue sky with that business. And Anselm, if you want to talk about some of the financial metrics?

Yes. I think, Dan, if you look at the revenue, obviously, is a partial quarter for that buddy thing is in line with kind of what we thought. It is the price point you said is about what we paid in that $60 million range they saw. Excited about the margin. I think the one thing that we were really scrutinizing about this acquisition was the strategic side of it to make sure that, hey, we could buy something that could help our Facilitate business grow. But at the same time, as we delve into the diligence, the margins, the growth opportunities were really strong and good there. EBITDA margin is similar to what we’ve seen on the storage side. So we’re excited about adding this business and hopefully do a roll-up strategy at the group side.

All right. I’ll jump out and thank you again.

Thank you, Daniel.

The next question comes from Reuben Garner with The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everybody.

Good morning, Reuben.

Good morning, Reuben.

Were you, I know you didn’t have the R3 business in the last kind of downturn, but were you surprised at all to see how kind of abruptly that seemed to slow? And I guess can you talk to us about how backlog works? I understand there’s delays, but backlog still looks solid. Like what – how – could those projects still be canceled in backlog? Are there any kind of penalties in place if they are? Just kind of walk us through how that looks at things get worse than you kind of anticipated?

Yes. Great question. Look, during the last, I guess, the GFC, we did not have the R3 division. That’s kind of what – that was the genesis of it with one of our partners. And I think the really, the theme here is when you look at true R3, the remix, renovation, that’s hanging in there. It’s really the expansions and conversions that really have taken the hit and that were pandemic darlings. That’s what you’re seeing kind of burn off. We’re still very optimistic. We’re hearing some good things from a planning perspective and some of the data we have internally on the drawing side for that R3 sector, but the conversions and expansions have to roll off from pandemic highs. In terms of visibility, we’re still very confident in the long-term framework of the business. The backlog is healthy. It’s slowed a little bit due to, like Anselm mentioned, some weather-related items in the quarter and then also uncertainty around the interest rates. Are we going to get some interest rate cuts in months to come? I think that’s what our customers are waiting on. But long-term, Reuben, we’re very confident. We’re going to use our balance sheet to be creative around M&A and share buybacks and paying down debt. We’ll be opportunistic there. We’re just in a lull right now in terms of the R3 kind of projects and the velocity in which New Construction typically cycles through the backlog.

And just to be clear, Ramey, are the delays – are these projects that New Construction and expansion projects that are just stopping mid job? Or are they jobs that were delayed – the start was delayed months ago, and you’re just now getting insight into it. Can you talk about that?

It’s a little – it’s more of the latter. There are certainly some projects that are midstream that have been put on hold. Particularly, I’ll kind of point to the West Coast. There’s a big portfolio on that side of the country that’s in that situation. But the lion’s share of it is really just new starts hitting pause. Is there a risk in cancellations? There’s always a risk. We’re not seeing that today, which gives us confidence that these projects will move forward. So that’s where we are.

Okay. And I’m going to sneak one more in. Are there any particular customers? I know you’re more exposed to the smaller players now than you have been in the past. Is it size of the customer geography? You mentioned the West Coast, anything else that you call out?

No. I think Anselm mentioned it. It’s the layer below the public REITs, which we consider institutional. They’re being impacted by financing, restriction guidelines and obviously, interest rates. So we said last quarter or past two quarters, it was kind of the smaller mom and pop. It’s kind of crept up into the more larger players that we consider institutional. I mean I think when you look at the REITs, their status quo, they recently reported, and you look at the kind of occupancy rates and you’re looking at like 94%, 92%, which is very healthy. So I think the market remains strong. Self-storage is resilient. We just need to get past some of this uncertainty around interest rates.

Got it. Sorry I missed that. That’s really helpful. Thank you. Good luck, guys.

Thanks, Reuben.

Thanks, Reuben.

The next question comes from Phil Ng with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Hey guys. Sales were down about 8% in 2Q, and I think implicitly, your second half guide implies organic sales down in similar levels. So that doesn’t seem crazy just giving comps to get a little easier. So, I’m just trying to get a gauge, how did orders and sales progress intra-quarter and trend into July? Have you started seeing that pricing dynamic you called out stabilize? Or there is still actually some risk to the downside here? And then you called out weather as well. So when we think about the sales cadence declines in the back half, will 3Q be harder hit versus fourth quarter?

Yes, a lot of things there. So thanks. So I’ll try and get all of them. So our Houston factory was shut down for a week with the hurricane out there. So that would impact the July numbers that we saw. Outside of that trend, obviously, that will have a bigger impact in Q3. That’s why the way we’re looking at it is that, hey, that’s a weather-related thing that we said does impact us, and that’s going to impact the numbers there. In terms of your earlier question about the pricing, what we’re talking about, if you look at this quarter, pricing was about half of the decline that we’ve done. That was just being competitive here and there. I think what we’re referring to is just a longer-term trend is that steel is staying at this lower point. And honestly, you think about the variance going from $1,100 a pound [ph] down to $650. That’s a meaningful drop. So the way we’ve always managed – and Ramey’s done a great job of being competitive, we manage how much we give back, but we manage it with our cost so that we maintain our margins. So we’re just giving kind of an early look and say, hey, we see this coming going into 2025. That’s where majority of the impact of that price commercial adjustment will come in versus this year.

So could pricing step down even more than that, call it, 4% run rate as steel prices flow through? Or that’s kind of a good guy?

Yes, for the balance of this year, it’s probably going to hold in that range because again, we’re bleeding [ph] off the backlog that has that kind of range already in there. The further commercial actions that we would take based on where the steel price is going or staying would be a 2025 impact.

Okay. That’s helpful. R3 started to soften in the back half of last year. So you called out conversion still perhaps not fully flexed out. Ramey, give us a sense when do you expect that to be kind of flushed out to more normalized levels? And can you just give us some perspective like what percent of your business is more conversion versus remix?

Yes. I’ll let Anselm speak to the actual metrics. That’s a tough question. There’s still conversions in the backlog. We continue to quote conversions just not at the levels that we have in the past year, year or two. So that’s a tough one, Phil. It feels like probably 2025 in terms of when that gets flushed out totally. But we’ll just have to monitor that. Again, the opportunity around some of the acquisitions that have happened in the aging facilities, there’s been a lot of new capacity put in the market, in markets with older facilities. So these operators are going to be forced to do something to compete with the new supply that’s coming online.

Yes. I think, Phil, just we don’t disclose kind of the split, but the conversion piece was, a sitting point, it’s down to – it’s still like Ramey said, there’s still a piece in there. I think there will always be a certain amount of just high level. You’re probably talking in R3 bucket. There’s probably less than quarter of it is conversions now where it was meaningful before.

Okay. That’s helpful. Great color.

The next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning everyone.

Good morning, Jeff.

I guess lost in some of the macro headwinds, is this Ion rollout, which you guys seem pretty excited about. Just talk about what’s new in that product, the feedback you’re getting in beta testing and how you think that maybe changes the growth trajectory for the Nokē business.

Yes. Great question. Look, it’s certainly a bright spot. And I understand why it’s kind of being overlooked this quarter. But at the same time, we’re super excited. We’re getting customer feedback during beta, a lot of buildup on the sidelines waiting for – and customers have been waiting for a price point that makes sense to them. So essentially, what we’ve done is we’ve designed an inside-the-door wired solution that’s stripped down from – at its base case is stripped down from a lot of options. And if the customer wants to add options, they can certainly pay for it on the R&R side of it. But we feel like we’ve hit a sweet spot on the go-to-market pricing. It’s extremely stable. The beta that we’re doing right now. We’re learning a lot, getting a lot of good feedback. And like I said, have a growing book of business anticipating the release of that. So we couldn’t be more excited. The Nokē ONE solution and some of the other kind of IoT things are still doing great. You saw the growth that we had last quarter. So we’re excited about it, and that’s certainly a growth engine for the business, and you know the long-term impact that it can have to make this industrial company, industrial technology company once we get the penetration rates that we know that we deserve.

Okay. And then TMC, I don’t know if I missed the revenue, or can you give us what the revenue contribution was this quarter? I guess, it was in there for...

Yes. It was about $4 million of revenue for the business. It’s what we expected is tracking there. So like Ramey said, we’re excited about it because again, we didn’t disclose the margin, but it’s similar to the storage EBITDA margins.

Okay. And then last one back to – I think you said you’re excited about some of the consolidation in the space and what it holds for R3 opportunity, but it sounds like some of that’s been on hold. So what’s the feedback you’re getting around when they ultimately do some of that remix, remodel, rebrand?

Yes. I won’t go into particulars in terms of the customer but – or customers. But yes, it’s active. It’s been slower coming out of the gate; I’ve always referenced that opportunity, a multiyear opportunity for us. Again, doing a lot of work in the background on the design side of it and feel good about that pulling through to revenue.

Is it more of a pull-through into 2025? I mean do you have visibility that it starts to build momentum in 2025?

I think that’s fair, Jeff. Yes, 2025 feels right.

Okay. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

The next question comes from John Lovallo with UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning guys. Thanks for taking my question. The first one is that the outlook for second half EBITDA margins of about 26%, that would be flattish versus the first half. I mean sales will be up slightly half over half. But what are some of the other puts and takes within that? I mean how are you thinking about price cost, channel mix and maybe G&A investment?

Yes. I think what we said in prior calls, the G&A side is – the first half is more on the year-over-year carryover cost. That’s why it was a big step up from prior year. I think the second half will be slower in that point of view because, again, you were lapping the adds that we did in the second half. So probably a little more in Q3 and then Q4 would probably be flattish from a year-over-year perspective in that range. There’s a little investment that we’ve done in the Nokē, as we’ve said, in terms of the back end some of the sales, people adds. In terms of the other margin pieces we’re seeing from a price point of view, we’re pursuing this similar to what we just saw in Q2 from a price versus volume mix probably in that range, could be a little bit on each side. But it’s probably in that range is probably a good way to think about the second half. And then the other thing is that – we didn’t talk about it much here, but commercial, the way we looked at it is that we’re just assuming, unfortunately, the similar trend for the back half of the year that we saw in Q2. It doesn’t – that overall market, while we are still like the long-term trends, at least the short term looks like it’s still staying in that negative year-over-year. We thought there would be some recovery in the back half. It’s just happening slower than we thought.

Okay. Makes sense. And then you mentioned a couple of times how higher rates have been the headwind to the business, particularly for the R3, which makes sense. We have seen some pullback here with the 10-year below 3.95% [ph] at this point versus, call it, 4.50% [ph]as recently as July 1. I mean how long of a lag is there in a pullback in rates before you think you’d start seeing some of that impact in your business?

Yes, it’s hard to tell. I think what we know is the impact is when we talk to our customers, they’re specifically mentioning the rate has put some decisions to say, hey, put some of this on hold and trying to be – if I put myself in their shoes, if you look at it, makes sense, you got potential rate drop in probably September. So if you have the opportunity to delay something before you pull in your construction loans, you probably would do it to get that benefit.

Got it. Thank you guys.

Thanks, John.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Ramey Jackson for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We appreciate your support of Janus and look forward to updating you on our progress. Have a great day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.