Good morning, and welcome to the Douglas Dynamics Second Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Nathan Elwell, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Drew. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us on today's call. Before we begin, I would like to remind you that some of the comments that will be made during this conference call, including answers to your questions, will constitute forward- looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause our actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters that we have described in yesterday's press release and in our filings with the SEC. Please note, we have published a one-page fact sheet on our IR website that summarizes our results for the quarter. Joining me on the call today is Mark Van Genderen, President and CEO; and Sarah Lauber, Executive Vice President and CFO. Mark will provide an overview of our performance, followed by Sarah reviewing our financial results and guidance. After that, we'll open the call for questions. With that, I'll hand the call over to Mark. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Nathan, and welcome, everyone. I'm pleased to say it was another good quarter for our company with both segments executing well and a continuation of recent trends. Overall, our results were comparable to the same period last year. Solutions delivered another record quarter, the fifth in a row and with an impressive profit increase. Preseason demand and shipments at attachment were generally in line with our expectations. When combined, this has allowed us to narrow and increase our guidance ranges for the year. Sarah will speak to that later. Our business is running at a high level of efficiency and effectiveness right now, and it's great to see the strong engagement of our teams. Let me run through our performance in each segment, starting with Work Truck Attachments. Snowfall last year was about 10% below the longer-term average, but up compared to the previous two winters. Ice events were well above average. This weather, coupled with dealer inventories moving in the right direction, position us well as we proactively address the elongated equipment replacement cycle. More specifically, the ratio of preseason shipments in 2025 is expected to be closer to the more traditional 55% to 45% split between the second and third quarters. Last year, in 2024, we shipped 65% of preseason in Q2 and 35% in Q3. This was unique as higher finished goods inventory at the end of Q1 last year drove a stronger shipment mix in Q2. As we've noted, company-owned attachment inventories this year has decreased significantly compared to last year. We are also seeing dealer inventories coming back in line with expectations after a couple of years of being elevated, which, assuming we receive a normal amount of cooperation from other nature, bodes well for us this winter. We will be paying careful attention…

Thanks, Mark. I will walk through the quarter. I'll explain our increased guidance and then open it up to questions. Before I talk to the numbers, unless stated otherwise, all the comparisons I'll make today are between the second quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2024. I am pleased to say it was a positive and straightforward quarter. The record results at Work Truck Solutions offset the anticipated lower volumes at Work Truck Attachments, and our overall performance was essentially in line with last year. Consolidated net sales decreased just 2.8% when compared to 2024 due to the expected lower volumes at Attachments related to the timing of preseason shipments. SG&A expenses decreased 6.9% to $21.8 million for the quarter based on lower stock-based compensation and employee benefits costs. Interest expense decreased 27.9% to $3 million due to lower borrowings on the revolver and term loan. GAAP net income for the quarter was $26 million or $1.09 per diluted share, an increase of 6.6% and 6.9%, respectively. Adjusted EBITDA was $42.6 million and margins were flat to last year at 21.9%, which reflects the strength of Solutions margin improvements that offset the impact of lower preseason shipments in attachments. Overall, results were positive and could be classed in either in line or better than our expectations. When combined with a strong first quarter, we produced a robust first half of the year that has allowed us to narrow and raise our guidance ranges, which I'll get to later. Okay. Let's look at the results for the two segments. Overall, Work Truck Attachments had a good quarter and our preseason is progressing generally as we expected. Net sales of $108.1 million and adjusted EBITDA of $31.6 million are lower, but that's due to the anticipated timing of preseason shipments.…

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Mike Shlisky with D.A. Davidson.

What would lower interest rates do for demand in the back half of the year? If we see a rate cut by the year-end or maybe early winter, would it be too late to stimulate some last-minute fourth quarter demand for additional snow and ice control equipment? And I guess maybe similarly on the commercial side, what's been a little bit challenged more recently, could you squeeze in some deliveries at the end of the year if we saw lower interest rates or would anything have to wait until 2026?

Yes, Mike, it's Mark. I'll take that one. I would say, generally, no, you have to see some pretty significant decreases to ultimately end up with consumer interest rates, contractor consumer interest rates at a point where that would, I'd say, move the needle. For us, it's really more around the average snowfall or above in the fourth quarter.

Yes. I would just add, Mike, I mean, any, I guess, positive economic sentiment that we start to feel from a demand perspective, if that were to occur to have the capacity and be able to deliver additional snow and ice equipment and/or commercial volumes, we have the capacity and would be able to do that if we actually felt enough of that lift that you're describing.

And I would add on top of that, too, to Sarah's point, if over time, you're kind of talking short term. If over time, we were to see interest rates move down to where they were on average 2, 3, 4 years ago, so say, from the -- at the consumer level from the 8% to 10% range to the 2% to 4% range, that certainly has a positive impact on the business because it's our equipment and then in a lot of cases, it's the new trucks that are being purchased at the same time.

Great. And other question was, I want to follow up on your comment about capacity. If you're adding 10% more capacity for municipal business, does that mean that you're reducing commercial capacity? Or are you overall increasing your capacity? And just want to make sure that what you're adding isn't just crowding in, but there's some decent margin on the new capacity.

Yes, it's a great question. This -- when we talk about it on the municipal side, it's additional capacity that isn't replacing anything in the fleet or dealer. So a lot of it's really driven. I mentioned the new facility that's currently being built for Henderson, both for new vehicles production as well as for servicing in Columbia, Missouri. We broke ground on that with our partners about a month ago or so, and they're currently on track. That's going to be a beautiful purpose-built facility that's going to increase capacity overall for Henderson.

The next question comes from Tim Wojs with Baird.

Maybe just my first question, just as you're kind of looking at the channel now for attachments, I know that there's an elongated kind of replacement cycle, but how would you kind of characterize the inventory levels relative to kind of what you would see on a -- I don't know if it's a 10-year average or something like that? Just trying to get some context about where the channel is on the attachment side?

Yes. We really -- we look at inventory and kind of through two different lenses, what's our inventory and then what's the dealer inventory? And I guess I'll start with ours. I know you talked about channel, but I'll talk just a bit about ours. Our current inventory, and both Sarah and I noted on it is I think we're in very, very good shape right now just in terms of overall production, in terms of production planning. The whole centers of expertise that I discussed has really helped us with, I'd say, optimal inventory control and then increased flexibility should we see demand move up or down, and we're certainly hoping, planning and expecting it to be up this winter with additional, hopefully, normal snowfall. In the dealer channel, I've spent a lot of time talking with our dealers. Our sales team would tell you that on the plow side, it's come down nicely over the last couple of years. Is it exactly where we'd like it to be? I think it's getting pretty close. And between kind of our, what I'll say, cautious approach to production, coupled with a normal snow year, you'd see the dealers in a really good spot this year as it relates to inventory. I think on the hopper side, just based on the fact that last season, we had such a strong year as it relates to snow and ice. Certainly, from a qualitative standpoint, again, at the shows and in talking with dealers, there's a real desire for that product. I think inventories, I would say, are generally in very good shape. And I think the addition of us introducing this new auto speed controller that I shared and we launched a couple of months ago, and that's retroactive back for several years. I think that really bodes well for hoppers. So in a nutshell, I'd say, again, plow inventory pretty close to where we'd like it to be, maybe a little bit of an opportunity at the dealer level to get it better, which will happen with our production and a good snowfall year and hoppers and spreaders pretty much right on where we would want it to be.

Okay. Okay. Great. That's really helpful. And then just on the Solutions side, you mentioned mix was favorable. Was that mix within kind of just muni versus commercial? Or is it mix within mix, like the mix within one of those businesses? Just some added color on that.

Yes. It was really more mix within the municipal side of the business. So we have a lot of contracts that we're aware of. And as you know, we have pretty good visibility in that business. For the first and second quarters, we did have quite a few trucks going out the door that are at a higher than typical margin. So it will be a little bit choppy in the back half of the year, but I still expect full year improvement for solutions at the margin level when all is said and done.

Okay. Okay. And then how much price is kind of going through your top line in both segments this year?

Yes. Both segments are pretty consistent in the low single-digit range and that is what we saw in the second quarter. It's also what I expect for the full year.

The next question comes from Greg Burns with Sidoti & Company.

I just wanted to kind of follow up on the margin expectations for the Solutions segment in the second half. I guess that the guide still is implying -- I know you mentioned that you're expecting for the year to be up, I guess, I don't know by how much over 24%, but that would imply a decent decline in margin versus where you were for the whole of the first half and it doesn't seem like demand is falling off broadly, especially in municipal. So production levels, I would expect would be okay in the second half. I'm just trying to get a better understanding of why you expect margins to decline appreciably from the first half and the second half.

Yes. I wouldn't -- I don't know that I would agree that it's appreciably. It's -- I expect for the full year that we continue to improve the margin. It is going to be close to 24%, but certainly in the low double-digit range. I do think the back half of the year is going to be more difficult, clearly, as you're speaking to from a comp perspective, but the shipment mix that I have expected for the back half of the year is not as great when you think about sequential margins. So they've been outperforming year-to-date. Could there be a little bit of that? I don't know. We are not predicting that with the product mix that we're expecting. What I'm pleased about, though, is that I really feel like we are stabilizing our margins in that segment at a higher level. And when I think about the longer term, it can be lumpy quarter-to-quarter as we're talking about it through the year, but the important thing is that we're seeing that improvement and stabilization at the higher level.

Okay. Great. And then getting the acquisition engine going again, could you just maybe talk about what the pipeline looks like out there, what you're seeing and maybe any particular areas of focus that you'd be looking to add to the portfolio?

Yes, absolutely. It's -- as we talk about that third area, kind of our strategic area of focus of Activate, it's one we've been spending a lot of time on because we're now, as we noted, in a position from a financial health standpoint, I think from a solid leadership standpoint and really kind of a vision standpoint of saying, hey, what might be available. And as we look at where our strengths are as a company, we're certainly -- I'd say, we've got strengths really in two areas. One is in the manufacturing of attachments. That's everything from engineering, supply chain, optimizing operations, great sales and marketing. We really lead the industry in snow and ice. And then certainly, over the last several years, we have improved and understood more as a company how upfitting can be a part of that as well. What we're really focused on now is in the attachment space. Our last couple of acquisitions have been more in the upfitting space, really looking at the attachments and saying, hey, what are transferable -- what are additional markets that our capabilities as a company, our expertise as a company are transferable to. So certainly, we think about it as truck attachments kind of at the center of that bull's eye. And then we look at other vehicle attachments, there's a lot out there, and we're just at the beginning of scratching the surface to understand it, but activating specific relationships, getting a better handle on what that looks like and realizing where we could apply, again, our strengths in engineering, operations, supply, sales and marketing against the backdrop of companies that are most likely outside of the snow and ice industry is really what we're looking at right now.

[Operator Instructions] This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mark Van Genderen, President and CEO, for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you. And thanks, everyone, for your time today. We appreciate your continued interest in Douglas Dynamics, and we look forward to talking with you soon.

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