BuildDirect.com Technologies Inc

BuildDirect.com Technologies Inc

2.58
CAD
-0.02
(-0.77%)
-0.11EPS
130.55MMarket Cap
Nov 12Next Earn

Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptAugust 26, 2026

Bob Chen

Second quarter 2026 financial results conference call. My name is Bob Chen, and I'll be moderating today's call.

On the call today are Shawn Wilson, Chief Executive Officer, Cary Biggs, Chief Financial Officer, and J Allen, President, Digital and Commercial. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's presentation contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws, including statements regarding the company's growth strategies, acquisition plans, integration objectives, margin targets, and business outlook.

These statements, based on management's current expectations and assumptions, are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. Please refer to advisories on slide two of today's presentation and to the risk factors described in the company's continuous disclosure filings available on SEDAR+.

The company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. If you have any questions during the call, please send them in using the Zoom Q&A function at the bottom of your screen or email them to [email protected].

We'll address these questions during the Q&A session. A replay of this call will be available approximately 24 hours after the conclusion of this conference call and will be posted on the Investor Relations section of our website at ir.builddirect.com.

With that, I'll turn the call over to BuildDirect CEO Shawn Wilson. Shawn?

Shawn Wilson

Great. Thanks, Bob, and good afternoon, everyone.

We appreciate you joining us. The second quarter was a strong quarter for BuildDirect and strong in the way we've been telling the market to measure.

We grew, we stayed disciplined, generated cash while doing it. Revenue increased 16% year-over-year to $19.7 million.

Gross profit increased 14% to $7.7 million with the gross margin holding at 39.2% despite the mix shift that comes with the the acquisitions. We reported net loss of $0.19 million, adjusted EBITDA of $0.39, and a positive operating cash flow of $0.45 million.

Just as important is the shape of the quarter against the first quarter. Q1 was soft as we said at the time.

In Q2, our revenue increased 34% sequentially, well ahead of the normal seasonal lift. Adjusted EBITDA swung from -$0.34 million to +$0.39 million.

The net loss narrowed from $1.8 to $0.2. That rebound reflects the contribution of the businesses we acquired and reflects execution across locations we already owned.

All right. I want to be straightforward about the composition of our growth because straightforward is how we want to be measured.

Acquired businesses contributed roughly $3.4 million to second quarter revenue. Excluding acquisitions, same-store revenue declined about 4%.

Soft demand is real across the flooring industry. We're not going to pretend otherwise.

Our answer to a soft market is not hope, it's the two engines you see this quarter: buying great businesses well, and running everything we own with increased discipline. I'll now turn the call over to Cary, who will discuss our Q2 and first-half 2026 financial results.

Kerry Biggs

Great. Thank you, Shawn, and good afternoon to everyone on the call.

Starting with the consolidated second quarter of '26, revenue was $19.7 million, up 16.6% from $16.9 million in Q2 of 2025. Gross profit was $7.7 million, up 14.7% from prior year and gross margin was down slightly, 70 basis points to 39.2%.

Decline reflects acq- acquisition mix rather than pricing erosion. Both segments maintained pricing discipline overall.

Adjusted EBITDA was $0.39 million compared to $0.6 million a year ago for the same quarter, reflecting business and sales mix and softer legacy business demand. I would note the $1.08 million bargain purchase gain on TOA as a non-cash item, which you'll see in our P&L and excluded from adjusted EBITDA, along with restructuring and other items detailed in the reconciliation in our MD&A for the for EBITDA.

Operating cash flow was positive $0.45 million for the quarter through two integrations and cash at June 30th was $4.1 million. Just talking our first half of '26, overall, revenue was $34.3 million, up 7.2% from $31.9 million in the first half of '25.

Gross profit was $13.6 million for the first half of '26 at a 39.6% gross margin. Adjusted EBITDA for the first half was $0.06 million, mainly driven by the soft first quarter, which Shawn noted, which had a negative adjusted EBITDA of $0.34 million, but again recovered positive for for Q2.

On to the the segment segment level. By segment for Q2 2026, e-commerce revenue grew was that actually $4.5 million for the quarter, up 22.8% year-over-year driven by the Grain acquisition, which closed in February.

Excluding Grain, e-commerce revenue declined approximately 12% on a same-store basis, reflecting softer demand and lower quality inbound lead flow during the quarter. Gross margin remained very strong, 48.3%, our highest margin segment, while adjusted EBITDA was flat in the quarter versus a positive $0.03 for the overall first half.

Moving on to the next slide, for the Pro Centers, Q2 2026 Pro Center revenue was $15.2 million, up 14.9%, representing 77% of consolidated revenue overall for the business. If we exclude Tile Outlets of America, TOA, same-store Pro Center revenue declined roughly 2%, primarily reflecting softness in our Michigan locations.

Pro Center gross margin was 36.5% for the quarter and segment adjusted EBITDA grew to $1.55 million in the second quarter and $2.17 million overall for the first half as noted earlier. Finally, on the the balance sheet and liquidity side, cash ended the quarter $4.1 million, down from $8.2 million at at year-end, primarily reflecting the deliberate deployment of capital into the TOA acquisition and related working capital, again partially offset by positive operating cash flow.

Total acquisition cash outlays for the first half of the year were approximately $4.5 million across the two transactions that we've noted. Our revolving credit facility was drawn to $4.8 million at quarter end compared to $3.6 million at year-end, reflecting acquisition-related working capital, as well as the timing of certain quarter-end working capital payments.

Finally, total assets increased $9 million to $47.2 million, largely reflecting the acquired businesses and associated working capital that came along with them. Our focus in the second half is working capital optimization across our inventory and payables, disciplined capital deployment, and maintaining appropriate liquidity to support the ongoing needs of the business.

Appreciate the time. With that, I'll hand it back over to Shawn.

Shawn Wilson

Great. That brings me to what I think is the most important story this quarter: the acquisition platform is working.

We closed two acquisitions in the first half: Grain Custom Wood in February, added premium custom hardwood and national big box marketplace channels to our e-commerce segment, demand sources we did not previously reach, fulfilled through logistics infrastructure that we already owned; Tile Outlets of America in May, which added three established, profitable tile showrooms in Tampa, Sarasota, and Fort Myers, and anchored in a Florida cluster alongside our current existing operations there. Look, we we bought them well.

TOA was acquired far below the fair value of net assets, roughly $0.78 paid per dollar of net assets, producing a $1.08 million bargain purchase gain, which, to be clear, we exclude from the adjusted EBITDA. Grain acquired only a modest working capital true-up in the quarter and both were funded from operating cash flow and our revolving facility onto our last equity raise.

This is the model: profitable flooring businesses bought with discipline, folded into a shared infrastructure, all made better on our platform. Looking further out, we see a long runway of highly accretive growth.

The flooring industry is large, fragmented, and full of succession-driven sellers, exactly the condition the conditions, rather, the consolidator is built for. As of recent acquisitions season, we are approaching a meaningful annualized revenue milestone and believe the same playbook that got us here scales well, well beyond it.

J will now take us through our acquisition playbook and the Grain and TOA case studies.

Jay Allen

Thanks, Shawn. Good afternoon, everyone.

On the next three slides, I'll walk through how we're applying our acquisition strategy in practice: what we're looking for, how we're underwriting the transactions, and how we're integrating each of the businesses onto our BuildDirect platform. We're targeting profitable, specialty flooring retailers and distributors with strong local customer relationships and established operating economics.

These are often founder or family-owned businesses that are facing a succession decision. The opportunity can include both physical showroom networks and e-commerce or marketplace-type platforms.

Price discipline is central to our strategy. Tile Outlets of America is a really good example of this.

We paid approximately $3.9 million for preliminary net identifiable assets valued at approximately $5 million, or about $0.78 for each dollar of net assets acquired. That resulted in a $1 million non-cash bargain purchase gain.

Our acquisitions are are funded prudently using available cash, operating cash flow, and our revolving credit facility. We're underwriting each based on its existing cash flows and asset value with the expectation that it will be accretive, not on any assumptions that the market needs to recover.

Once a transaction closes, we apply standard integration playbook using common systems and reporting, consolidating purchasing, aligning our merchandising, and sharing back office resources. Our goal is to add acquired revenue while keeping corporate overhead largely stable.

Regional density also matters. Clustering location locations allows us to share inventory, management resources, and freight lanes.

As our purchasing volume grows, we also expect to create opportunities for improved profit margins across our platform. Grain Custom Wood is a good illustration of the e-commerce side of this strategy.

We acquired Grain on February 2nd. The business added premium custom hardwood products and access to national big box marketplace channels.

This is customer demand that we did not previously reach directly. Grain is a capital-light addition because its orders can be fulfilled through warehouse and logistics infrastructure that BuildDirect already operates.

It also diversifies our e-commerce segment beyond demand generated through builddirect.com and paid search marketing. Grain contributed approximately $1.3 million of second quarter revenue.

Based on our internal operating results, it was accretive to the e-commerce segment during the first half. The business was onboarded onto BuildDirect systems and fulfillment processes during the first quarter of ownership.

We've also seen improved gross margins as fulfillment and purchasing have moved onto our logistics network and supplier programs. Overall, I think Grain demonstrates how we can add new products and sales channels and leverage the infrastructure we already have in place.

Tile Outlets demonstrates the showroom side of this strategy. We completed the Tile Outlets acquisition on May 12th, adding three established Florida locations in Tampa, Sarasota, and Fort Myers.

The approximately $3.9 million cash purchase brought us roughly $5.4 million of inventory together with the showroom operations and their associated lease arrangements. TOA contributed approximately $2.2 million of revenue during the roughly seven weeks between the acquisition date and quarter end.

Based on our internal operating data, its gross margin was approximately 46% compared with 36.5% for the overall Pro Center segment in the quarter. That made TOA margin accretive to the segment from the outset.

Integration is now underway. We're moving systems, reporting, and merchandising and purchasing onto our Pro Centers platform and we're connecting the three showrooms with our existing Florida operations.

As purchasing is consolidated onto BuildDirect supplier programs, management is targeting an improvement in TOA's gross margin from approximately 46% towards 50%. That's a forward-looking management target, not guidance, and it depends on purchasing integration, product mix, and volumes.

I think this shows that we have two different businesses we acquired, but they demonstrated the same underlying model: buy profitable flooring businesses with discipline, integrate them into shared infrastructure, and use the combined platform to create operating leverage for the business. With that, I'll turn it back to Shawn to discuss our long-term outlook.

Shawn Wilson

Great. Let me close on how we think about the path from here because the the quarter matters less than the pattern.

The framework we manage is pretty simple. We buy profitable flooring businesses at one to two times post-synergy EBITDA, largely backed by inventory and hard assets.

We run acquired locations toward 12% to 15% four-wall EBITDA over our ownership period, and we hold corporate costs largely flat as acquired revenue lands, operating leverage, not financial engineering, is what compounds. Those management targets are not uh, management targets, not guidance.

The assumptions behind them are uh reflected in today's materials. Our priority for the balance of 2026 follow the ones on the slide: integrate what we bought, rebuild the organic demand engine, and stay disciplined on the next acquisition.

We maintain regular, ongoing discussions with potential partners and we'll update the market if and when there's a definitive transaction to announce. I want to thank our teams across every location, including the people who joined us from Grain and Tile Outlets of America this year, for a quarter that shows what this platform can do.

With that, Bob, let's open it up for any questions.

Bob Chen

Thank you, Shawn. We'll now begin the Q&A session.

For those who have not submitted their questions, please submit them using the Zoom Q&A function at the bottom of your screen or can send an email to [email protected]. The first question we have here: "Your previous acquisitions were smaller, single-store or e-commerce acquisitions, but TOA was a sizable, high-quality business you purchased at a bargain price.

Are there other acquisitions like TOA's quality and size in the funnel?"

Shawn Wilson

Absolutely, and I've commented on this in the in the past that TOA acquisition is a good is a good indication of what's what's out there. The part that I would just think about a bit more basically is, except for the Grain acquisition, which is obviously more of a marketplace with a great opportunity we saw to leverage, if you buy one one of these locations or five, the economics are relatively the same.

Intuitively, it's a bit, it's a bit easier to process a handful at a time versus one at a time. That's really more of our target base.

When you think about what we find the sweet spot, it's, $20 to $40 million companies with anywhere from three to, five or six locations that are clustered. That's the ideal target.

As I mentioned, really now for a while, there's, we'll run out of out of time before there's a lack of targets in that in that range. Very very much the case.

Bob Chen

Another question we have here: "Can you expand on the TOA margin target?"

Shawn Wilson

Kind of a vague question. [laughter] Anything else followed on that one or just are you are you referring to like just the bridge up or--

Bob Chen

Yeah. It's, "What can you expect Can you expand on the TOA margin target?"

Shawn Wilson

Okay. I'm going to assume I'm going to assume the the question is pertaining to where margins are now and and where they're where forecast to go.

J, do you want to take that one? Probably a mix of

Jay Allen

the

Shawn Wilson

assortment items along with the pricing, product line structure, things like that. Sure.

Jay Allen

That's Yes, that's exactly how I would interpret it, and that's how I would explain it. I think there's a couple of things going on.

One is we were able to take advantage of some pricing opportunities and increase margins pretty much right out of the gate, and we continue to see some opportunities there. The second big piece in my mind is the is our supply chain and utilizing our supply chain to both bring in BuildDirect core items into that business and then also optimize how they're bringing product in as well and gain some margin opportunities there.

I think those are really the two big pieces we see working for us.

Shawn Wilson

Great. All right, Bob, anything else?

How is the

Bob Chen

How is the M&A progressing on the pipeline versus last quarter? Is it about the same, or is there an increasing pipeline?

Shawn Wilson

I would say with that, our play is to buy, integrate, and then continue on. We don't, obviously comment on on these aside from we're constantly maintaining and talking to to partners, but we also don't plan on just sitting on our on our hands.

One thing I could say, the Grain acquisition and integration went very well, was obviously wrapped up and finished before we bought the the next one, Tile Outlets, which that one is, effectively on the tail end of of of any kind of, remaining integration work. There's obviously always proven ideas and opportunities.

Those carry both ways, I should mention. Like we buy great businesses with great team members.

They have really great ideas. We find synergies that we kind of identify going into the business, but then candidly in both cases, we found things that frankly they were doing much better than than our core was, and we then start pulling back through.

That that's like a a continuous synergy process that will get, like just kind of keeps on rolling. When it comes to integration, our teams will be relatively free to process the next one from a bandwidth perspective and our intent is to keep keep the machine, keep the pattern rolling.

Bob Chen

Next question: "What is the state of the flooring industry today versus even 12 months ago and how does this impact the M&A landscape?"

Shawn Wilson

I would say just, I'll kind of address that one and you guys can fill in any details you'd like. I would say, first off, the overall industry, like in a really bad year, it's a bit off and in a really great year, there's a bit of a tailwind.

It doesn't have wild swings like other categories like cabinets, roofing, siding do and that's mainly because flooring is highly concentrated with residential remodeling, which is why it's, in my opinion, a great a great industry for a strategic roll-up. A lot of stability there.

You do have swings in some in some spots, like for example, in new home construction, that that is what it is. Housing turnover, when it increases, it's a tailwind for the industry.

People are moving, they change floors to sell their house, and then people change floor when they buy houses, you definitely don't see a lot of that happening right now. Look, we get asked, "What's our point our forward view on what rates are going to do?"

I don't know. Who knows?

That's not something we think about or waste time with. We just focus on what we can control and right now it's not caused that big of an issue.

It's if anything is having having us focus on commercial flooring opportunities more so than onboarding just net-new builders for sure. When it comes to the what's what's it doing to the industry, I would say fatigue.

You have a lot of a lot of folks you talk to, they rode out the COVID time, the PPP funding, all these great programs, and a lot of volumes, and the real estate, appreciated quite a bit on the commercial side, the building they bought for $1 million is now worth $5 million, and the noise of the tariffs and, housing turnover, on and so forth, we we perceive it definitely has caused just fatigue and like a desire to transition for those who might have been on the fence other otherwise. That was part of our thesis kind of going after this this this play a few years back.

Not didn't think it'd be be this hectic on the tariff side, like for example, the new ones that were announced with with Canada. I'd say if anything, it's just caused a bit of fatigue there, which is fine for us.

We're well equipped to to work through, process, and in and compete in that kind of environment. It definitely is built built for it, for sure.

That's kind of my thoughts there.

Bob Chen

I don't think we have any more questions. That concludes today's Q&A session.

I'll now turn the call back to Shawn for any final remarks before we end this conference call.

Shawn Wilson

I just want to thank everyone for joining, following the story, your support. As I've said a few times, we're just getting started.

It's going to be a great a great play and we are having a blast doing it. Take care, all, and we'll see you next time.

Bob Chen

Thank you, Shawn. This concludes BuildDirect's Q2 2026 conference call.

A replay will be available on the company's Investor Relations website. Thank you, everyone.