Insteel Industries Stock

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to the Insteel Industries Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions].

I will now hand the conference over to H. Woltz, President and Chief Executive Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for your interest in Insteel and welcome to our third quarter 2026 conference call, which will be conducted by Scott Goffredi, our Vice President, CFO and Treasurer; and me. Before we begin, let me remind you that some of the comments made in our presentation are considered to be forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual materially from those projected.

These risk factors are described in our periodic filings with the SEC. By falling short of our expected financial performance in Q3, we believe the upturn in business activity we reported previously is still intact I'll turn the call over to Scott to comment on our financial results. And following his comments, I'll take the call back up to discuss our business outlook.

Thank you, H, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. As reported in our earnings release this morning, third quarter results benefited from higher average selling prices and improved shipment activity. However, those benefits were more than offset by higher costs resulting in net earnings of $9 million or $0.46 per share compared with $15.2 million or $0.78 per share in the prior year quarter. Despite the decline in earnings, underlying demand trends remain generally favorable. Third quarter shipments increased 1.7% from the prior year quarter, supported by healthy infrastructure activity, although conditions across much of the broader private nonresidential construction market remains soft.

Wet weather in certain regions, together were scheduling and delivery delays on several customer projects, including data center-related projects, moderated pace of shipments during the quarter. We continue to view these project delays as timing related rather than indications of weakening underlying demand. Overall, customer sentiment remains positive and activity across our key markets continue to support our outlook.

Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the Insteel Industries Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Becky and I will be your operator today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to your host, H. Woltz, CEO, to begin. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Becky. Good morning, and thank you for your interest in Insteel, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 conference call which will be conducted by Scot Jafroodi, our Vice President, CFO and Treasurer; and me.

Before we begin, let me remind you that some of the comments made in our presentation are considered to be forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risk factors are described in our periodic filings with the SEC.

Despite falling well short of our expected financial performance in Q2, we believe the upturn in business activity we reported previously is still intact. Winter weather is a [ fact of ] life in our business. and happens that during Q2, conditions were severe and prolonging in many geographies, particularly compared to recent years and project delays, while undesirable are rather common in the industry. We regret that we experienced both of these phenomena during Q2, but we're confident that short-term weather conditions and project delays neither create nor destroy demand and that postponed demand will be evident during the balance of fiscal 2026.

I'm going to turn the call over to Scot to comment on our financial results. And then following his comments, I'll kick the call off to discuss our business outlook.

Thank you, H, and good morning to everyone joining us on the call. As we reported earlier this morning, our second quarter results were weaker than expected, reflecting the compounding impact of winter weather disruptions, lower spreads and higher unit conversion costs. Net earnings for the quarter were $5.2 million or $0.27 per share compared with $10.2 million or $0.52 per diluted share in the same period last year.

Shipments for the quarter declined 5.9% from the prior year but increased 6.9% sequentially from the first quarter. While the second quarter typically reflects some seasonal softness, conditions this year were significantly more severe. Following a solid start in January, we experienced extended periods of winter weather across most of our markets, with reduced construction activity and disrupted operating schedules for both our customers and Insteel, which weighed out order flow and shipments. In addition, certain projects originally scheduled for delivery during the quarter were deferred to later in the year for reasons related to weather. Although we are still early in the third quarter, recent order activity has been solid, with April shipments trending above forecasted loans.

With that backdrop on volumes, we'll turn to pricing. Average selling prices were up 14.2% year-over-year driven by the pricing actions we put in place throughout fiscal 2025 and into the current year to offset higher [indiscernible] costs, increased Section 232 tariffs and rising operating expenses. Sequentially [indiscernible] up 1% from the first quarter even as wire rod costs continued to move higher. For context, published prices for Insteel wire rod primary raw material rose $90 per ton during the quarter. Although we implemented additional price increases during Q2, the limited sequential improvement in ASPs was influenced by products, existing contractual pricing and softer volumes. We expect these recent pricing actions, along with the additional price increase implemented in April to provide further benefit in the coming periods as they are more fully reflected in our realized pricing.

Gross profit declined $8 million year-over-year, $16.5 million, and gross margin narrowed to 9.6%. The decline primarily reflects lower shipment volumes, reduced spreads between selling prices and raw material costs and higher unit conversion costs resulting from lower production levels and weather-related operational inefficiencies. Sequentially, gross profit declined $1.6 million and gross margin corrected by 170 basis points as the slowdown of shipments, delayed the tailwinds of recent price increases and extended the lag between raw material cost increase and realized pricing.

As we enter the third quarter, we expect several factors to support a recovery in gross margin. Demand is improving as we move into the seasonally stronger portion of the year. Recent price increases are beginning to gain traction, and our current raw material carrying values are more favorable. In addition, higher operating rates across our facilities should enhance fixed cost absorption. Taking together, these factors are expected to support a gradual improvement in margin performance as the quarter progresses.

SG&A expense for the quarter decreased to $9.7 million or 5.6% of net sales compared to $10.8 million or 6.7% of net sales in the prior year period. The decline was primarily driven by a $1.1 million reduction in compensation costs tied to our return on capital based incentive plan, reflecting weaker financial performance this year.

SG&A expense was also affected by $203,000 unfavorable year-over-year change in cash [indiscernible] value of life insurance policies, reflecting the downturn in financial markets and its effect on the underlying investments.

Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 23.3%, which is up slightly from 23.2% last year. Looking ahead, we expect our effective tax rate for the remainder of the year to be approximately 23% and subject to the level of pretax earnings, book to tax differences and the other assumptions and estimates underlying our tax provision calculation.

Turning to cash flow statement and balance sheet. Operating cash flow provided $4.8 million in the current quarter compared with using $3.3 million of cash in the prior year period, driven primarily by the change in net working capital. Net working capital to use $1.4 million in cash in the second quarter, reflecting a $16.8 million increase in receivables resulting from higher sales and average selling prices, partially offset by a $13.3 million reduction in inventory as the scale back raw material purchases.

Our quarter-end inventory position represented approximately 3.4 months of shipments on a forward-looking basis calculated off of our third quarter forecast. That's down from 3.9 months at the end of the first quarter. As we mentioned on our Q1 call, we increased inventory levels early in the year as we supplemented domestic wire rod with offshore material, and that build naturally ease as we move through the second quarter. Looking at [indiscernible] we expect a modest increase in inventory as we move into the seasonal busy period, positioning us to support higher shipment volumes. Additionally, our inventories at ended the second quarter were valued at an average unit cost that approximates our second quarter cost of sales and remain stable relative to current replacement costs, which will have a positive impact on spreads and margins as we move through the third quarter.

We incurred $4.4 million in capital expenditures in the quarter for a total of $5.9 million through the first half of our fiscal year, and we remain committed to our full year target of $20 million. Finally, from a liquidity perspective, we ended the quarter with $15.1 million of cash on hand and no borrowings outstanding on our $100 million revolving credit facility, regarding us ample liquidity and financial flexibility going forward.

Turning to the macroeconomic indicators for our construction end markets, the latest readings from our 2 leading measures, Architectural Billing Index and the Dodge Momentum Index [indiscernible] an environment that remains uneven, but generally stable. Architectural Billing Index typically leads nonresidential construction activity by approximately 9 to 12 months improved to 49.4% in February from 43.8% in January, while the index remained below the breakeven level of 50%, the improvement indicates that the [indiscernible] contraction moderated with fewer firm reporting decline in dealings compared with the prior year. Additionally, the Dodge Momentum Index attracts nonresidential bid projects entering the planning phase increased 1.8% in March. The gain was driven by a 7% improvement in commercial planning activity, which continues to be supported by strong data center construction.

Monthly construction spending from the U.S. Department of Commerce suggests only modest growth in overall activity. In January, total construction spending on a seasonally adjusted annualized basis increased approximately 1% year-over-year. Nonresidential spending was essentially flat during the period with public highway and street construction, one of our key end-use markets remain comparably stronger, increasing around 4% from the prior year.

As we closed out the second quarter, we remain encouraged by the demand trends we're seeing across our core end markets, while the broader macroeconomic backdrop continues to evolve, including the risk of renewed inflation, uncertainty around the timing of interest rate cuts, potential changes in tariff policy and the geopolitical developments affecting energy and shipping costs, our customers remain engaged and project activity continue to move forward. Our ongoing dialog customers combined with recent improvement, several leading indicators support our confidence in the direction of the business. At the same time, we recognize that these external factors could influence the take of the activity in the near term. Even though underlying demand conditions remain healthy, and we believe we are well positioned as we move through the second half of the fiscal year.

That concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn the call back over to H.

Thank you, Scot. As I noted in my opening comments, we were affected during Q2 by weather-related and nonweather-related circumstances that resulted in our operating rate, shipments, financial performance, following short of expectations. Making matters worse, we had staffed up at certain facilities ahead of the seasonally more active part of our year in anticipation of expanding operating hours, which would reduce lead times and result in increased shipments. So we carry the cost of ramping up through the quarter, but were unable to operate at expected levels. While we continue to believe that demand will be solid during 2026, we will reduce costs if this forecast fails to materialize. At this point, however, we do not expect to be in a cost reduction mode driven by demand-related concerns.

Turning to another subject, the steel industry may have been more affected by the administration's tariff policy than any other industry. The Section 232 tariff of 50% on imports of steel as called market prices in the U.S. for hot-rolled wire rod, our primary raw material, to rise to a level that's 50% to 100% over the global market price. While last summer, we questioned the effectiveness of the derivative products tariff strategy implemented by the administration, we are glad to report a significant decline in the volume of imported PC strand that is in the U.S. since the tariff was increased to 50% and derivative products, including PC strand [ recover ]. From August to December, the 5-month period following the changes the administration made to the Section 232 [ tariff regime ], PC strand imports fell by more than 50%. The application of the Section 232 tariff to PC strand, together with global uncertainty and higher transportation insurance and insurance costs related to the conflict with the Iran clearly work in the favor of the domestic industry. Turning to the raw material environment. Investors should understand that Insteel operates in a small segment of the domestic hot-rolled carbon steel market Domestic production of steel wire rod, our primary raw material is approximately 3.5 million tons per year, while U.S. production of all hot-rolled carbon steel is roughly 100 million tons per year. Difficult economic conditions in recent years for producers of hot-rolled wire rod, resulted in the permanent closure of 2 producing mills and financial struggles together with significantly diminished output for a third producer. Altogether, these curtailments reduced actual domestic production of wire rod by more than 800,000 tons per year, and reduced domestic capacity to produce wire rod by nearly 1.2 million tons per year relative to apparent domestic consumption of wire rod of approximately 5 million tons per year. So by our calculation, capacity equal to nearly 20% of parent domestic assumption is offline, most of it permanently. These capacity curtailments together with [indiscernible] to the Section 232 tariff caused the U.S. market for wire rod to tighten significantly and created serious questions about the adequacy of domestic supply. Insteel, therefore, was forced to turn to the offshore market for a portion of its supply. The economics of offshore transactions, which include substantial freight costs, require the purchase of large quantities with the resulting impact on inventories and net working capital requirements as reflected on our balance sheet. Net working capital rose approximately $45 million over the last 12 months. We will continue to import a portion of our raw material requirements until such time as domestic availability improves, and we will incur excess net working capital requirements as compared to purchasing domestically, although we have some options to mitigate this adverse impact.

Finally, turning to CapEx. As mentioned in the release, we expect to invest approximately $20 million in our plants and information systems infrastructure during 2026. Our investments will support the growth of our engineered structural mesh business, reduce our cash production costs and enhance the robust nature of our information systems. Consistent with past practice, we will provide quarterly updates on our investment activities and expectations as the year progresses. Looking ahead, we are aware of the substantial risk related to the state of the economy and the administration's tariff policies Regardless of developments in these areas, we are well positioned to pursue growth-related activities, both organic and through acquisition and to pursue actions to optimize our costs.

This concludes our prepared remarks, and we'll now take your questions. [indiscernible], would you please explain the procedure for asking questions?

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Julio Romero from Sidoti. Please go ahead.

H and Scot, can we start on volumes a bit and talk a bit about the projects originally scheduled for the quarter that were delayed into later quarters. Any way you could help us better understand how much of this was weighed on -- may weighed on your shipments? And secondly, if you could expand on the drivers of the project delays. I think you mentioned they were unrelated to weather. Just hoping you could elaborate there a little bit.

Well, so if you can envision a construction project that the owner and contractor, would like to start the project and operate continuously until the finish of the project or a portion of the project, but they don't want to open up mother earth. 2 months ahead of having all of their other needed materials and suppliers in line. And so therefore the project that we're involved in was delayed and should -- we should begin shipping it in the current quarter. The delays are unfortunate, but I don't think they're surprising at all. And as we try to emphasize, this is a delay of business. It's not a cancellation. So we just -- we'll have to sit tight and see that come to fruition in the current quarter. And this project will go through our fiscal year and into 2027.

Okay. Great. Very helpful. And then you talked about April shipments trending above forecasted levels. Just what's your sense of how much those shipments are related to the project delays pushed to the right, maybe some catch-up from the February weather delays or any other underlying demand trends that are a [indiscernible] there.

I don't think any of it is related to project delays because it's still delayed, and we should see some benefits later in the quarter of that. But the current performance and current shipping performance is pretty solid relative to our expectations and our prices are coming up as we expected them to.

Okay. Perfect. And maybe last 1 for me here is you talked about project mix a little bit impacting the ASP numbers, the other numbers within your release. Can you talk a little about where ESM mix stands today.

Can you ask that question again, Julio?

Yes. Just talk a little bit about -- this is the second quarter where you were talking about project mix kind of impacting the ASP number and maybe the spread number. If you could just talk a little bit about whether ESM is playing a factor in that at all? And just broadly where ESM mix kind of stands at the moment?

Let me start at the beginning. So you'll understand the difficulty that we have in trying to quantify some of these things. And also while we don't spend a lot of time on trying to dissect the reality of the market. But if you'll recall, in February the adverse winter weather began in Texas and ended up in New England. That means that it affected 9 of our 11 facilities, which is pretty unfortunate, but it's just what happened. So we had issues in various geographies of various types. In some cases, we had, we had roads that were not passable or stayed hazardous for extended periods of time. But the other reality setting aside road conditions and moving around is that when it's very, very cold, you can't pour concrete. Various people have various opinions about the level or the temperature at which hydration becomes a big concern, but suffice it to say at low temperatures, foreign concrete becomes not feasible. So in North Carolina, for instance, we had multiple weeks of cold weather where I don't think the temperature ever broke freezing. And while the roads were unpassable for a period of time, the temperature stayed low were probably more significance, so I guess the reality is we didn't go through every customer in every plant and try to quantify the impact, we're more concerned about getting our plants operating and covering the eventual demand that would come back as weather conditions improve. .

Our next question comes from Tyson Bauer from KC Capital. Please go ahead.

when you talk about the freight expenses, are there 2 considerations there, the increased freight cost to get your imputed supplies in on the imported side as far as the inventories that you're looking -- where you have to absorb per se as opposed to making shipments from your facilities that maybe you're able to do surcharges and recoup those, the freight cost is even though it may be at 0 margin, but you're getting it in the revenue line there. So is there 2 different pods here on the freight charges, 1 you have to absorb and the other that you can pass along?

I wouldn't look at it that way, Tyson. In terms of the raw materials that we're importing, we're very well located for inbound freight cost purposes, if you were to compare that to our locations relative to domestic supplies. So I don't think we incur any excess inbound freight costs because we're importing. Now freight costs, whether inbound or outbound have risen substantially following the conflict in Iran, and it happened extremely quickly and it coincided with the immigration efforts of the administration that took thousands of truck drivers off the road who couldn't speak English. And without commenting on good, better and different, the practical impact of those 2 things of much higher diesel cost and far fewer drivers has meant that our costs have gone up and it also means that many of our loads have been rejected by carriers who we could count on in the past. And they reject loads because they can find 1 that pays more. And certainly, we're working through those issues, but I was reading just recently that in the flatbed sector of the freight market, more than 40% of loads tendered to carriers have been rejected, and that's not just in our industry, that's overall in the entire economy. So we're dealing with something there that is that is out of our control, but certainly, it's our responsibility to deal with it from a cost point of view. And we debated surcharges or we debated price increases, and we've elected just to increase our prices.

Okay. So you are recovering those as of now.

Well, I wouldn't say we recovered them prospectively. But certainly, we absorb some of those costs until the effective, the effective data price increases that will, among other things, serve to recover these higher costs.

Okay. And regarding price increases, you've done some early in your fiscal year in Q1. You've done some you announced in April. Any -- you have a magnitude of those? And are we expecting additional price increases to try to get yourself whole?

Let me answer the last part of the question first. Our price increases are implemented to reflect what's happening in our marketplace, both with our raw material costs and with the other costs that we incur in our operations. And addressing the operating costs, we see these rather rosy inflation numbers that are published by the federal government. But I would tell you that the impact on our operations has been much more significant than you might think, by looking at official government statistics. Everything from labor to chemicals to everything that we consume, electricity, natural gas, all -- everything has gone up substantially, and wire rod has continued to increase substantially as well. So we're primarily looking to recover our costs by implementing price increases. And we've implemented 3 since the first of the year. And when volume falls as it did in Q2, we honor the commitments that we've made to customers. And let's say, we're not operating on the basis of pricing effect at time of shipment. We are honoring the commitments that we've made, and it would be the next the next orders that are affected by price increases. So that's the way the business is done and that Insteel is operating.

Okay. And I don't know if you want to take a stab at this 1 or not. But on April 2, supposedly, there was clarification on Section 232 for steel and aluminum, would you want to provide your two cents whether that did indeed provide some clarity as far as foreign content, U.S. content and different baskets, not some of these imports fall into at different rates.

Yes. So we are affected by 2 different types of tariffs. The Section 232 tariff is the primary effect on our business. And there was confusion that was created by the administration's inclusion of derivative products, which occurred last summer, and that confusion was related to how do you calculate the tariff on the product. And so to know for sure how the tariffs are being calculated. We went back to the entry documents and could confirm that in practically all cases, PC strand that was entering was being assessed a 50% tariff rate. We did not pick up that a lot of importers of record, we're playing games with this and trying to trying to minimize their tariff exposure. So because of that, the recent clarifications really don't have on 232, the recent clarifications don't have a whole lot of impact on us because we don't believe we were being nickeled and dimed on falsification of values to begin with. So now, I guess, any questions about how the values are calculated have been put to rest, but we weren't really a victim of that. On the other side or the IEEPA tariffs and IEEPA tariffs would have affected any capital equipment that we purchased as well as primarily our purchases of spare parts, and I'll point out that purchases of spare parts are not really discretionary. There -- we just have to do it. And the importer of record declares the value of that part and applies the tariff to it. And in most cases, the tariff was a line item on our invoices. So we're we are studying now the implications of the Supreme Court's action on IEEPA tariffs and the Court of International Trade requirement that those tariffs are rebated to -- well, actually, the tariffs are rebated to the importers of record, but that's not Insteel. So we're going to be in the position of talking with our vendors about first, their obligation to recover those tariffs. And second, what do you do with any refunds that you obtain because we actually paid those tariffs. But we're not going to be rebated by the government, that will go to the importer of record. So I would -- and then all of that is overlaid by the question of where is the money going to come from? I understand that they've collected $160 billion of IEEPA tariffs. And I guess, expensively, all that has to go back to the people who paid it, but I would bet you a lot that it won't happen that simply. And as we've discussed it here, we certainly will not be booking any types of receivables for tariff collections because I think it's highly improbable that it will happen in any simplistic kind of way.

Yes. I kind of figured we'll leave the refund item off the model for -- well ever. The last question for me. Data centers as kind of a headline catalyst for nonres and that obviously gets a lot of attention. Those are the most prone to delays it sounds like from reports, not necessarily due to anything that you specifically do but because of transformers, switches anything that relates to power and the actual operations of the data center. So a lot of announcements, a lot of expectations, especially in out years, but the reality is those that have been announced have been getting pushed to the right for permitting reasons, supply issues, those things. Is this one of those that it's a great opportunity but it's going to be ripe for these kind of scenarios where things continually get pushed to the right.

Well, I think I would look at it from a broader perspective, that from our point of view, the good news is that we don't think that the data center phenomenon goes away in 2026 or '27. I think you have 5 solid years of data center activity. And as we pointed out in our last earnings release and conference call, it's a really good thing that's here because the rest of the of the private nonres market seems to be on its back. So the delay is a delay. My guess is when we look back at it is reasonably insignificant, the better news is that this is going to be a solid marketplace for a pretty good while. And while we're doing business on site with some of these projects. When I recall reports from our salespeople who are dealing with our legacy business, it's hard to tell how much data center business is really included in the legacy business. We'll sell [indiscernible] at reinforcing products who makes wall panels or double tees, but we don't necessarily know where those are going, and there are more and more references in call reports to data centers that are consuming products out of our legacy business as well as from our [indiscernible] business.

[Operator Instructions] We currently have no further questions, so I'll hand back over to H for closing remarks.

Okay. Thank you. We appreciate your interest in Insteel. We look forward to talking to you next quarter and encourage you to call if you have questions in the meantime. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Hello, and welcome, everyone, to the Insteel Industries First Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Becky, and I will be your operator today.

I will now hand over to your host, H. Woltz, CEO, to begin. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for your interest in Insteel, and welcome to our first quarter 2026 conference call, which will be conducted by Scot Jafroodi, our Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, ME. Before we begin, let me remind you that some of the comments made in our presentation are considered to be forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risk factors are described in our periodic filings with the SEC. The upturn in business activity we reported previously continued during our first quarter, and our fiscal 2025 acquisitions continue to perform well.

While our ability to forecast future activity is limited, we are encouraged by the level of optimism in our markets as well as brisk order entry up to this point in January that causes us to believe that 2026 will be a strong year for the company. While the relative strength of our markets is real, we are aware of uncertainties created by the administration's trade policies the nation's fiscal conditions and by the economic cycle.

I'm going to turn the call over to Scot to comment on our financial results and following Scot's comments, I'll pick the call back up to discuss our business outlook.

Thank you, H, and good morning to everyone joining us today. As highlighted in this morning's press release, we delivered a strong start to the year. First quarter results benefited from improved demand for our concrete enforcing products which support a wider spreads between selling prices and raw material costs. Net earnings for the quarter rose [ $27.6 million ] or $0.39 per share compared with $1.1 million or $0.06 per share in the same period last year. It's also worth noting that last year's first quarter results included $1 million of restructuring charges and acquisition-related costs, which collectively reduced earnings per share by $0.04.

First quarter shipments, which are typically our softest period due to winter weather conditions and holiday schedules, increased 3.8% year-over-year. On a sequential basis, shipments declined 9.7% from the fourth quarter which is consistent with normal seasonal patterns. The year-over-year growth in shipments reflect improved demand across our commercial and infrastructure markets, along with incremental volume from the acquisitions we completed early last year. As we move forward, our year-over-year bottom comparisons will normalize now that these acquisitions are fully integrated into our run rate.

Turning to pricing. Average selling prices increased 18.8% year-over-year, this reflects the pricing actions we took throughout fiscal 2025 to offset higher steel wire rod costs, which were driven by tight domestic supply conditions and increased Section 232 steel tariffs as well as to address rising operating costs.

Sequentially, average selling prices were essentially unchanged from the fourth quarter as we did not take additional pricing actions during the current period. However, with scrap and wire rod prices now moving higher again, we implemented our oil price increases across most product lines, which took effect earlier this month.

Gross profit for the quarter improved to $18.1 million from $9.5 million a year ago, with gross margin expanding 400 basis points to 11.3% from 7.3%. This improvement was driven by widening spreads, higher shipment volumes and lower unit manufacturing costs.

On a sequential basis, gross profit declined by $10.5 million from the fourth quarter and gross margin narrowed by 480 basis points, driven primarily by the consumption of higher cost inventory. As I just mentioned, the price increase implemented in January are expected to benefit second quarter spreads and margins as higher selling prices begin to align with the assumption of lower cost inventories over the first in first out accounting methodology.

SG&A expenses for the quarter rose by approximately $900,000 to $8.8 million or 5.5% of net sales compared with $7.9 million or 6.1% of net sales in the prior year. The year-over-year increase was driven primarily by an $800,000 rise in compensation expense under our return on capital based incentive plan, reflecting stronger financial performance in the current year. As you may recall, we did not incur any incentive compensation expense in the first quarter of last year.

Our effective tax rate decreased 21% compared to 26.1% in the prior year period. The decline was primarily driven by a reduction in the valuation allowance on deferred tax assets, along with the discrete tax item related to the calculation of state deferred taxes.

Looking ahead, we expect our effective tax rate for the remainder of the year to be approximately 23%, substitute a level of pretax earnings, book to tax differences and the other assumptions and estimates underlying our tax provision calculation.

Moving to the capital statement, the balance sheet. Cash flow from operations used $700,000 in the quarter compared to providing $19 million last year. Net working capital used $16.6 million in cash in the first quarter, driven primarily by $34.5 million increase in inventories partially offset by a $14.1 million reduction in accounts receivable.

The inventory increase reflects higher raw material purchases, including a meaningful amount of offshore material, along with an increase in the average carrying value of inventory. And on the receivable side, the decline was largely tied to lower shipments, which is consistent with the normal seasonal slowdown in sales we see this time of the year.

Our quarter-end inventory position represented approximately 3.9 months of shipments on a forward-looking basis calculated off of our forecasted second quarter volumes compared with 3.5 months at the end of the fourth quarter. As we discussed on our prior call, we expected a temporary inventory build in the first quarter as we supplement domestic wire rod supply with offshore purchases. Looking ahead, we expect inventory levels to moderate over the course of the second quarter as purchasing activity normalizes and shipment volumes increase.

It's also worth noting that our first quarter inventories are carried at an average unit cost that is generally in line with our first quarter cost of sales and remain below current replacement levels. We incurred $1.5 million of capital expenditures in the first quarter and we remain committed to our full year target of $20 million. H will provide more detail on this topic in his remarks.

In December, we returned $19.4 million of capital to our shareholders through the payment of $1 per share special cash dividend in addition to our regular quarterly dividend. This marks the ninth time in the last 10 years that we have issued a special dividend and also during the first quarter, we continued our share buyback, repurchasing $745,000 of common equity equal to approximately 24,000 shares. From a liquidity perspective, we ended the quarter with $15.6 million in cash on hand and no borrowings outstanding on our $100 million revolving credit facility.

Turning to the macro indicators for our construction end markets. The latest readings from 2 key leading measures, the Architectural Billing Index and Don Momentum Index continue to signal a mix and somewhat cautious outlook for nonresidential commercial -- construction activity. In November, the ABI ratio of 45.3 remaining firmly in negative territory in reading below 50 indicates the construction activity. This marks the 13th consecutive month of declining billings and course new projects showed only modest improvement and the value of newly signed design contracts continue to soften.

In contrast, the Dodge Momentum Index -- strengthening activity, right, I think, 7% in December and supported by more than 3.5% growth in commercial planning driven in large part of data center construction. Year-over-year, the DMI was up both, it was up 50% overall, including a 45% increase in the Commercial segment.

Turning to the broader market backdrop. The most recent construction spending data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that through August total construction spending on a seasonally adjusted basis was down about 1.6% year-over-year. Nonresidential spending declined 1.5% and public handling street construction, one of our key end markets was down about 1% compared to the same period last year.

Finally, the U.S. Cement shipment is another key measure that we monitor fell 4.3% in August and were down 3.4% year-to-date. That said, as we closed out the first quarter of fiscal 2026, we are encouraged by the steady demand we are seeing across our core markets.

While we recognize the broader economic backdrop remains uncertain, the demand trends we're seeing and the conversations we're having with customers give us confidence as we look ahead to the balance of the year.

This concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn the call back over to H.

Thank you, Scot. As I noted in my opening comments, we're pleased with the acceleration of business activity that continued through our first quarter. Our first quarter performance will never be strong due to the limited number of working days in the quarter after giving effect to Thanksgiving and Christmas shutdowns through much of the industry and to seasonal weather patterns. So our first quarter results are never indicative of the level of demand for our products. But nevertheless, we're pleased with the performance for the quarter and see no indication that the level of activity in our markets is poised to subside.

As we consider the drivers of demand for our products, the facts are no clearer to us today than they have been in the past. We believe, however, that funding from the infrastructure investment and Jobs Act is responsible for much of the uptick in demand we've experienced, although we cannot definitively state that any single project was funded by IGA. I suspect the same is true for our customers. They have enjoyed better volume levels without knowing the precise source of funding that drives demand for their products while IGA funding expires in the fall of 2026, funded projects will proceed in 2027 and beyond.

And the consensus today is that there is bipartisan support for replacement infrastructure funding mechanism. Of course, that remains to be seen. The other notable source of demand that we expect to remain robust into 2027 is from the data center construction boom that has been well publicized. While community pushback seems to be growing as the scale of data center resource intensity is more fully appreciated we have commitments from customers from projects that have been approved and funded and that should run through calendar 2026.

The timing of the data center activity is fortuitous since other sectors of the private nonresidential construction market are weak. We believe the data center work will serve as a timely bridge while we wait for a recovery of more traditional private nonresidential projects.

Turning to another subject. The steel industry may have been more affected by the administration's tariff policy than any other industry. The Section 232 tariff of 50% on imports of steel has caused market prices in the U.S. for hot-rolled wire rod, our primary raw material, to rise to a level that is 50% to 100% higher than the global market price. While we're fortunate that imports of PC strand are now subject to the Section 232 tariff under the derivative products provision, domestic wire rod prices have risen to an extent that dilutes the benefit of the Section 232 far-off on PC strand.

Probably of more importance is the uncertainty that continues to surround the administration's tariff policy. Recently, I had that the Secretary of Commerce had speculated that the 232 tariff might be modified or removed with respect to the Europeans, if the right trade deal was struck between the U.S. and European Union. It's reasonable to assume that this could be true with respect to other countries as well.

Inevitably, negotiations surrounding USMCA comes to mind such speculation by the administration increases uncertainty and instability in U.S. markets. It's important for investors to understand that Insteel operates in a small segment of the domestic hot-rolled carbon steel market. Domestic production of wire rod our primary raw material is approximately 3.5 million tons per year, while U.S. production of all hot-rolled carbon steel is roughly 100 million tons per year.

Difficult economic conditions in recent years for producers of wire rod, resulted in the permanent closure of 2 producing mills and financial struggles together with significantly diminished output for a third producer. Altogether, these curtailments reduced actual domestic production of wire rod by more than 800,000 tons per year and reduced domestic capacity to produce wire ride by nearly 1.2 million tons per year relative to apparent domestic consumption of approximately 5 million tons per year.

So by our calculation, capacity equal to nearly 25% of apparent domestic consumption is offline, most of it permanently. These capacity curtailments together with the imposition of the Section 232 tariff caused the U.S. wire rod market to tighten significantly and created serious questions about the adequacy of domestic supply. In still, therefore, turn to the offshore market for a portion of its supply. The economics of offshore transactions, which include substantial freight costs require the purchase of large quantities with the resulting impact on inventories and net working capital requirements as reflected on our balance sheet.

Networking capital has risen over $50 million in the last 12 months. We expect to continue importing a portion of our raw material requirement until such time as domestic availability improves. We believe, however, that the net working capital impact of importing will be more muted going forward and that we'll see significant working capital release as market conditions normalize. But it's not possible to quantify this at the present time.

Finally, turning to CapEx. As mentioned in the release and by Scot, we expect to invest approximately $20 million in our plants and information systems infrastructure during 2026. You can expect our investments to support the growth of our engineered structural mesh business to reduce our cash production costs and to enhance the robust nature of our information systems. Consistent with past practice, we'll provide quarterly updates of our investment activities and expectations as the year progresses. And we believe our estimate is conservative in keeping with prior forecasts for CapEx levels.

Looking ahead, we are aware of substantial risks related to the state of the economy and the administration's tariff policies. Regardless of developments in these areas, we are well positioned to pursue growth-related activities, both organic and through acquisition and actions to optimize our costs.

This concludes our prepared remarks, and we'll now take your questions. Becky, would you please explain the proceeds for asking questions.

[Operator Instructions]. We have our first question from Julio Romero from Sidoti Company. Please go ahead.

To begin, you sounded pretty constructive on the overall demand outlook, particularly with the data center at IIJ related projects. And you mentioned the commitments you have from customers on the data center side that have been approved and funds didn't run through calendar '26. Can you give us a little bit more color on these commitments? Are these new commitments in your pipeline? Have they been accelerating? And what's your sense of how far out these commitments are beyond calendar '26?

Well, I mean, the data center business is new in steel as it's new to much of the economy. I think 2025 was the first year we had done any significant data center business. But certainly, now that we're in that market and connected with some of the customers that regularly do that business, we're seeing repeat opportunities and robust demand, which comes as -- based on what's been publicized about that industry and that build-out.

Got it. That's helpful. And talking about the volumes in the quarter that you experienced growth of roughly 4%. Can you talk about how that was affected, if at all, by constraints of wire rod, both on this quarter and on a go-forward basis?

Do you mean just the domestic situation?

Yes. I think the last couple of quarters, you called out that raw material constraints have kind of constrained your volume output in the quarter, but it sounds like -- that was less of an effect in the quarter.

So the reason that I went through the mill closures and sort of the macro picture with respect to wire rod supply and demand is to get readers of our release and participants on this call essence require inventories have grown. Our inventories have grown because we are unable to acquire sufficient quantities of wire rod domestically, and we are forced to go offshore, and I'll point out that the situation in the wire rod market is very different than the situation that confronts purchases of other hot rolled steel products because the wire rod capacity has contracted significantly and capacity has expanded significantly in other hot-rolled products.

So when we concluded that it was unlikely we could support our business objectives by buying solely domestically we went to the offshore market to fill the gaps, and we'll continue doing so until such time as we see that availability improves in the U.S. and suppliers, again, are willing to work for an order.

Very helpful context there. Last one, if I may, and I'll pass it on, is on the SG&A front. You were able to grow sales by 23%, while SG&A grew by 11%. My question is, are you beginning to realize SG&A leverage from your acquisitions of EWP and OWP at this point in time? Or is that leverage still come in your view?

Well, I mean, we've certainly realized the synergies we expected to come from the acquisition. And in I would say that's really the -- that, together with the added shipments and sales volume is really what that acquisition was all about. And we're pleased with this performance, and we're moving along well.

[Operator Instructions]. Our next question is from Tyson Bauer from KC Capital.

Insteel has consistently been able to run counter to the industry stats as far as your ability to grow shipments, your ability to grow as a company versus I think you mentioned 13 straight months of billings -- ABI billings below 50 and some of the other general industry stats. What has allowed you to run counter to those -- and are we seeing an underlying acceleration away from just standard rebar to more of your ESM products and other products that would account to your ability to grow facing those kind of industry headwinds.

Well, if I remember correctly, Tyson, the first time that business conditions for in steel seem to diverge significantly from what the major macro indices would indicate was 2025. And several things to happen that internally that have helped us with that. Our work in the cast-in-place market has helped our acquisitions have helped. So I think there are things going on internally that are different than what you may see in macro indicators for construction activity in the U.S. market. And we'll continue to pursue in the paths that we're pursuing now.

Okay. In the past, you benefited from when we were going into 2000, 2001 with the distribution centers. Now we're looking at data centers, both DC ironically. You're working with those contractors that specialize there. Are you being spec-ed into those designs as you were with some of the online retail customers before in the DCs, and that's -- as we see that develop in that industry grow, you're kind of lockstep with that.

Yes. Every project is different, but as a general I would say no, we are not spec in rebar aspect, and we make a conversion of rebar applications to engineered structural mesh applications and rely on the value proposition of our product and particularly with respect to data centers, one of the significant value propositions that we offer at speed. And these owners and less sort of these centers are really focused on constructing them and getting them up and operating quickly. And our product helps with that whole charge.

So you do have an inherent advantage based on what you're product is to grow along with that growing segment that niche?

Yes. I mean I think there is -- the value proposition of our product relative to rebar is solid. There's no question about that.

Okay. Inventory levels, it sounds like that may have peaked this past quarter. we'll see a gradual downtick. Will that downtick accelerate as we get into fiscal 3 and fiscal 4?

Well, I think it depends on the level of shipments that we see and in the scenario that we believe will unfold actually unfolds and that is 1 of strong business conditions in 2026. And then I think that's correct. But keep in mind that we will go back to the offshore market for Q3 and for if we don't see significant improvements in the balance of supply and demand domestically.

Okay. The CapEx, $20 million, is that roughly split 50-50, maintenance $10 million, $10 million for, whether it be cost reductions or product line expansions, more of the growth side or improvement in margin? Is that kind of the split you're looking at?

I'd say that's close to correct. We're still identifying some of the capacity expansion opportunities that exist out there. And of course, we're always interested in incorporating new technology into our manufacturing operations that will help us reduce the cash cost of operation. And we still have we still have the underlying labor availability issue. And as you might suspect, the more new technology we bring into the plants the less labor-intensive our operation is. So we're very much oriented toward looking at that.

Okay. And last one for me. As the administration goes to Davos is supposed to lay a plan to increase and incentivize greater activity in the residential side, which is about 15% of your overall business. betting against the administration has proved the free tile. So you kind of go with what they're pushing, especially in an election year, how quickly can that residential market for you turn where it becomes a benefit as opposed to just kind of being stuck in the mud the last couple of years.

And my view would be probably not fast enough to have any meaningful impact on 2026 for Insteel. More importantly, our participation in residential markets would be related to slab-on-grade construction of housing units where the slabs are post tensioned, and we're using PC strand. And that is the segment of business where we knock heads with the imports most closely.

Okay. I'm going to sneak one in. Labor costs outlook. We've heard other companies talk about general wage increases, health costs on that side of it. Have you indexed or looked at labor cost increases for this year? And what kind of offsets you have there?

Yes. So we have 11 or 12 different considerations because -- we look at prevailing labor markets in each of the areas where we operate, and they're each different. But the upward pressure on labor cost, still exists. We're incurring significant reciprocal and Section 232 tariff expenses in purchases of non-raw material items like spare parts. We're seeing energy increase the inflationary environment is alive and well within our operations and it really -- like I say, everyone is an independent -- is an independent event.

Okay. Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you. We currently have no further questions. I'll hand back over to the management team for closing remarks.

Okay. Just we appreciate your interest in steel and its operating results, and we look forward to talking to you next quarter. In the meantime, if you have questions, don't hesitate to follow up with us. Thank you.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines.

Good morning, and thank you for Attending the Insteel Industries Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. My name is Brika, and I will be your moderator for today.

[Operator Instructions] I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Mr. H. Woltz, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer at Insteel Industries. Thank you. You may proceed.

Thank you, Brika. Thank you for your interest in Insteel, and welcome to our fourth quarter 2025 conference call, which will be conducted by Scot Jafroodi, our Vice President, CFO and Treasurer; and me.

Before we begin, let me remind you that some of the comments made in our presentation are considered to be forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. These risk factors are described in our periodic filings with the SEC. The upturn in business activity that we reported previously continued during our fourth quarter and our fiscal 2025 acquisitions performed well.

While our ability to forecast future activity is limited, we see no evidence of a broad-based slowdown in our markets, although housing continues to lag significantly as it has all year. While the ongoing recovery of our markets is real, we are aware of uncertainties created by the administration's trade policies and from the economic cycle.

I'll turn the call over to Scot to comment on our financial results. And following Scot's comments, I'll pick the call back up to discuss our business outlook.

Thank you, H., and good morning to everyone joining us today. As noted in this morning's press release, we delivered a strong fourth quarter performance, supported by higher shipment volumes and a continued recovery in spreads between selling prices and raw material costs. Our net earnings rose to $14.6 million or $0.74 per diluted share compared to $4.7 million or $0.24 per share during the same period last year. Quarterly shipments increased 9.8% year-over-year, driven by contributions from our recent acquisitions and stronger demand across nonresidential construction markets.

On a sequential basis, shipments declined 5.8% from the third quarter. Supply constraints for steel wire rod, which we discussed during our third quarter call, eased gradually during the quarter, allowing us to better align production with customer demand and begin reducing lead times as we close out the quarter. That said, residential construction continues to be a headwind for volumes with activity levels remaining subdued and has yet to show any meaningful signs of recovery. Average selling prices for the quarter rose 20.3% year-over-year and 4.7% sequentially from Q3, reflecting continued pricing momentum. As we discussed on our prior calls, the U.S. steel wire rod markets have remained tight through much of 2025 and the increase in Section 232 tariffs have added further upward pressure on raw material costs.

As a result, wire rod prices have moved meaningfully higher since the start of the year. In response, we have implemented a series of price increases throughout fiscal 2025, including further adjustments at the beginning of the fourth quarter to help offset these higher costs and support our margins. Gross profit for the quarter rose $16.3 million year-over-year to $28.6 million, with gross margin improving by 700 basis points to 16.1%. The increase was largely attributed to wider spreads as higher average selling prices more than offset the rise in raw material costs. As we discussed on previous calls, our results typically benefit during periods of strong demand and increasing steel rod prices, both from the timely execution of price adjustments to recover higher replacement costs and from the flow-through effect of lower cost inventory under our first-in, first-out accounting method.

On a sequential basis, gross profit fell $2.2 million from the third quarter and gross margin narrowed 100 basis points, reflecting lower shipments and a slight decline in spreads. SG&A expense for the quarter increased to $9.7 million or 5.5% of net sales compared to $7.5 million or 5.6% of net sales in the prior year period. The year-over-year increase was driven primarily by a $1.3 million rise in compensation expense under our return on capital-based incentive plan, reflecting stronger financial performance in the current year. We also recorded an additional $300,000 in amortization expense related to intangible assets from our recent acquisitions, along with a $200,000 unfavorable year-over-year swing in the cash surrender value of life insurance policies.

Our effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was 24.4%, up from 23% in the same period last year. The increase was mainly driven by changes in book tax differences and the true-up of state apportionment percentages. For the full year, our effective tax rate was 23.8%. Looking ahead to next year, we expect our effective rate will run around 23.5%, subject to the level of pretax earnings and other tax-related assumptions and estimates that compose our tax provision calculation.

Moving to the cash flow statement and balance sheet. Cash flow from operations used $17 million in the quarter compared to providing $16.2 million last year. Net working capital used $37.4 million of cash in the fourth quarter, primarily reflecting an $18.6 million increase in inventories and a $23.4 million decrease in accounts payable and accrued expenses. The increase in inventories was driven by the timing of raw material purchases and an increase in the average carrying value of inventory. The reduction in accounts payable and accrued expenses primarily reflect the timing of supplier payments. At the end of the quarter, our inventory position represented 3.5 months of shipments on a forward-looking basis calculated off of our forecasted Q1 shipments compared with 2.7 months at the end of the third quarter. As you may recall, inventories have fallen below desired levels in Q3 due to stronger shipment activity and limit wire rod availability from domestic suppliers.

To address this, we supplemented supply in Q4 with offshore rod purchases, which allowed us to increase production and rebuild inventories. Looking ahead, we expect inventory to rise in the near term as an additional import shipments are received before gradually normalizing as raw material purchasing volumes moderate in the coming months. Additionally, it's worth noting that our inventories at the end of the fourth quarter were valued at an average unit cost that was both higher than our beginning inventory balance and our Q4 cost of sales. As such, we could experience some margin compression during the first quarter as the higher cost of materials consumed, depending on our ability to push through additional price increases.

We incurred $1.7 million in capital expenditures in the fourth quarter for a total of $8.2 million for the year, which is down $10.9 million from last year. Looking ahead to fiscal 2026, we expect capital expenditures to total $20 million. H. will provide more detail on this topic in his remarks. In addition to our ongoing investments in the business, our financial strength has enabled us to continue returning capital to shareholders.

In fiscal 2025, we returned $24 million through a combination of dividends and share repurchases. This included a $1 per share special cash dividend and 4 regular quarterly dividends, marking the eighth year out of the last 10 that we have paid a special dividend. We also repurchased approximately 76,000 shares of our common stock during fiscal 2025, representing $2.3 million under our share buyback program.

From a liquidity perspective, we ended the quarter with $38.6 million of cash on hand, and we're debt-free with no borrowings outstanding on our $100 million revolving credit facility. Going forward, our capital deployment strategy will remain focused on 3 objectives: one, reinvesting in the business to drive growth and to improve our cost and productivity; two, maintaining the appropriate financial strength and flexibility; and three, returning capital to shareholders in a disciplined manner.

Looking at the broader economic picture as we enter fiscal 2026, conditions remain mixed. Raw material availability has improved and demand across most nonresidential markets is generally strong, but residential construction continues to lag. At the same time, macroeconomic uncertainty remains. And while potential rate cuts from the Federal Reserve could provide some support, we're approaching the year cautiously.

On the demand side, we continue to monitor leading measures of nonresidential construction activity. In August, the Architectural Billings Index rose slightly to 47.2% from 46.2% in July, but remained below the 50% threshold signaling growth. Although fewer architectural firms reported decline in billings compared to the prior month, the overall trend continues to point downward. Meanwhile, the Dodge Momentum Index showed continued strength and a healthy project pipeline, rising 3.4% in September and now up 33% year-to-date, driven by strong commercial construction planning activity, particularly in the data center development. In contrast, U.S. cement shipments, another proxy for construction activity declined 2.2% year-over-year in June and are down 5.3% year-to-date, reflecting some underlying softness in the sector.

Finally, the most recent available construction spending data from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that through July, total spending on a seasonally adjusted basis was down about 3% from last year. Nonresidential construction held relatively steady, while public highway and street construction, one of our major end markets was essentially flat compared to a year ago. Even with the mixed demand backdrop, we're entering fiscal 2026 with solid momentum. The actions we took during the past year, including completing 2 acquisitions, consolidating our welded wire operations and maintaining pricing discipline have strengthened our position and improved our ability to adapt to changing market conditions. While we remain mindful of broader economic uncertainty, our focus on serving customers and executing on our key priorities give us confidence in our ability to manage near-term challenges and continue building long-term value for our shareholders.

This concludes my prepared remarks. I'll now turn the call back over to H.

Thank you, Scot. We noted a substantial acceleration of demand for concrete reinforcing products early in fiscal 2025 and commented that we expected the demand recovery to continue through the fiscal year. We're glad to confirm that positive trend continued through our fourth fiscal quarter, giving us confidence that we should perform well for the balance of the calendar year. The accelerated pace of business we experienced over the past few months is not reflected in the broader macroeconomic indicators that are generally [indiscernible] to measure the strength of the construction industry, but the demand recovery is nonetheless real.

The confidence level of most customers and interactions between our salespeople and customers leads us to believe business conditions should remain reasonably robust into calendar 2026. As most of the people on this call are aware, housing is not a major driver of demand for Insteel. We estimate that about 15% of our revenues are derived directly from housing construction with standard welded wire reinforcement and PC strand intended for slab-on-grade posttension applications being the product lines most affected by this sector. Demand for new housing continues to be weak and inventory of both materials and finished housing units are too high.

With respect to finished housing units, we hear from customers that builders are experiencing the affordability problem created by higher material prices and interest rates that we've all read about and that they are derisking their businesses by reducing inventories. We hear that this process, which has been underway for quite a while, may run its course by the first of the year when volume begins to recover to more normal levels. Over the past several months, we have spent substantial time and resources understanding the administration's tariff plan. As with any conversation about tariffs, we can speak about what we know now, which may or may not be true tomorrow.

But as of now, we are affected by tariffs in 2 ways. First, the most significant tariff exposure we have is the Section 232 tariff on steel and aluminum, which is 50% of the value on all raw material imports purchased by Insteel. As a point of interest, the 50% Section 232 tariff also is applied to imports of PC strand under the derivative products provision. The 232 tariff has caused domestic steel prices to rise to levels that reflect the 50% tariff on imports and predictably, imports have declined precipitously. This is particularly notable in the hot-rolled wire rod segment of the steel industry as it has been recently undersupplied domestically, making imports necessary for Insteel and other consumers. The increase in our net working capital for Q4 is largely attributable to imports of wire rod that were delivered during Q4 and additional quantities will be delivered in Q1 2026.

These purchases were made because domestic sources could not or would not provide assurances that our needs will be covered and they're priced competitively after giving effect to the Section 232 tariff. You may recall last quarter, we expressed concern that the administration's proclamation doubling the Section 232 tariff to 50% may have diluted the effectiveness of the tariff with respect to imports of PC strand. Up to this point, we do not believe this has occurred, although we are requesting that the administration clarifies its expectation that the tariff is to be applied to the full customs value of imported PC strand. Because Department of Commerce statistics are offline during the government shutdown, we are unable to monitor the collection of tariffs applied to PC strand imports, but we will be active again as soon as services are restored.

The second way we're affected by the administration's tariff policy is through our purchases of any imported goods that are subject to reciprocal tariffs in addition to Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum. Practically, all of our production equipment is imported and purchases of spare parts, which are not discretionary, are subject to Section 232 and reciprocal tariffs. Administration of the tariff regime largely falls on our suppliers who must sort through the exposure to Section 232 and reciprocal tariffs for each part shipped to the U.S. I want to reiterate that only about 10% of Insteel's revenue base is directly affected by imports and therefore, potentially subject to unintended consequences of the administration's tariff policy. This is not coincidental as we recognize the futility of competing in markets where imports constitute a major source of competition.

Moving to acquisition activity. We continue to be pleased with the operation and results of our Upper Sandusky, Ohio facility that was acquired during Q1. Our Texas acquisition, while considerably smaller, has also yielded the expected benefits. While improvements are ongoing, we consider the integration of these operations to be complete and successful.

Turning to CapEx. As mentioned in the release, we expect to invest approximately $20 million in our plants and information systems infrastructure during 2026. You can expect our investments to broaden our product offering, reduce our cash production costs and enhance the robust nature of our information systems. Consistent with past practice, we will provide quarterly updates on our investment activities and expectations as the year progresses.

Looking ahead, we're aware of the substantial risk related to the administration's tariff policies and the future performance of the U.S. economy. Regardless of developments in these areas, we are well positioned to pursue actions to maximize shipments and optimize our costs and pursue attractive growth opportunities, both organic and through acquisition.

This concludes our prepared remarks, and we'll now take your questions. Brika, would you please explain the procedure for asking questions?

[Operator Instructions] The first question we have comes from Julio Romero with Sidoti & Company.

To start on demand, it sounds like the confidence level of customers continues to be positive. And then last quarter, you mentioned your view that data center construction and infrastructure projects were kind of filling the gap from commercial and residential. Does that still stand the same today? And is there any incremental kind of data points or anecdotal points that have materialized since the last quarter that can better support that view?

Well, I think it continues to be the fact that the data center construction is filling a hole that has existed in other markets. But consistent with what we've said for many quarters, our view is not several months long. It's only several weeks long. So we see the activity out there. We think it will continue, but our lead times remain compressed just by the nature of the industry.

Okay. Got it. That's helpful. And on the raw material front, it sounds like you ended the quarter with 3.5 months of shipments of inventory. How would you describe the current supply of raw material? Would you describe it as normalized at this point? Or is there still improvement to come?

Well, I mean, the first thing we want to do, Julio, is operate our plants effectively. And during our fourth quarter, particularly at the beginning of our fourth quarter, we were unable to do that because of supply constraints. So the quantities that we imported, we imported for a distinct reason to -- for distinct applications and at plants that were deficient in domestic supply. And so we're not surprised at all by where we stand, and we're not disappointed by where we stand that we have what we need and the market -- the import market has changed some whereas we used to be able to buy 3,000 or 4,000 tons at a time, those quantities have moved up just based on the origin and shipping costs that are associated with imports. So all things considered, we're exactly where we thought we would be.

Okay. Got it. And with a year under your belt for the Engineered Wire Products deal, I believe, this month, any way you could have us think about the year 1 contribution from EWP, whether it's on an earnings or margin or mix basis? And then secondly, H., as you've mentioned in the past that acquisitions are made not really for year 1, but with the longer term in mind, do you feel like the true synergies from EWP are still to come?

Well, we can't really calculate the exact impact of EWP at the Upper Sandusky site itself. And that's because a considerable amount of the output of Upper Sandusky has been moved to other Insteel production facilities that are better located to customers and suppliers than Upper Sandusky. With that said, the financial performance of Upper Sandusky has been solid and exactly where we thought it would be. It has a very attractive product mix. It's a very effective manufacturer, and we're pleased as punch with that transaction.

Very helpful. Last one, and I'll pass it on after this is you mentioned residential still remains soft. And I think historically, you've described it as comprising around the 15% of sales range. But you've acquired EWP and it's obviously made up less of a portion of sales. I guess just if you could give us a sense of where that stands as a percentage of your mix.

Yes. Keep in mind that it's really difficult for us to pinpoint the exact end markets that our products go into. And if you'll look back at my comment a few minutes ago, I referred to the direct impact of housing on our business. The indirect impact is infrastructure that goes into housing developments and streets and sanitary sewers and storm sewers. And so when our customers ship a joint of concrete pipe or a box culvert out, they don't necessarily know exactly what that application is. And if it goes into infrastructure in a development, the way that we look at it, it's not a direct housing application. It's more of an infrastructure application. So it's really difficult to pinpoint the end use.

[Operator Instructions] And we now have a question from Tyson Bauer with KC Capital.

Just going to follow up on that last question. In general, with your comments on demand for '26, and obviously, that's for fiscal '26, it sounds like you're not baking in any real meaningful recovery in residential. You're treating that as something that is a wait-and-see portion of your end markets. You're looking at strength in demand in other areas in the nonresidential really being the lead dog here. And residential, you're just -- you're going to wait until you actually see some evidence of any kind of recovery.

Yes. I mean I think nonresidential is always the lead dog for Insteel. And we know what our customers tell us about residential demand and applications. And I think there's some thought that the inventory issues will have run their course through the end of the calendar year. And therefore, we should see improved residential demand. But as we've said on multiple occasions, we really don't see out very far. So yes, we're not banking on a huge housing recovery in 2026.

Right. Okay. In regards to the inventory carry strategy, given the current environment and domestic supply issues, should we continue to see a heavier carry or elevated levels in that inventory? And if so, will that then increase the variability of your margins given the FIFO accounting, we could see some more quarter-to-quarter variability.

I think through our second quarter, inventories will be somewhat elevated relative to where they might be if we were acquiring raw materials domestically to a larger extent, but probably no higher than they are now. So -- and here's the other thing about imports. Of course, we acquired offshore products at a known cost. Nobody knows what the cost domestically is going to be. So I think there's a benefit from just a pricing point of view of knowing what the price is going to be in those out months. So all things considered, we're not at all displeased with where we are or where we think we're going to be with respect to our sourcing activities and the cost of our raw materials.

Does that actually make your pricing strategy a little -- I don't want to say easier, but a little more you know what you need to hit given that certainty on the inventory side? Or as we go into some of these seasonally weaker quarters, pushing through those price increases can be a challenge.

Yes. I mean I would say the answer to that is all of the above. In certain of our markets, the price will move as the price moves irrespective of what happens in the raw material markets. In other project-related business where we had to give a price for a project that is some months out, the import pricing is actually a huge advantage for us. So it's a mixed bag. But keep in mind, the underlying reason that we went to the offshore markets was the inability to assure that we had availability domestically, and that's it.

And in the fourth quarter, when we look at that shipment volume sequentially and the 5.8% decline, it doesn't sound like demand was the issue for you at all. Was a lot of that just based upon production supply issues and not being able to run efficiently and meet time lines on shipments? So how much of the quarter and the shipment decline was really related to the production issue side as opposed to demand?

I can't tell you how much, but the answer to your question is yes. Early in the quarter, we were operating short weeks at plants that were unable to get adequate quantities of raw materials.

And that situation has been resolved as we've entered into current quarter?

Yes. Both domestically, there's additional production as compared to our third quarter. And we took action offshore, as we've talked about extensively.

Okay. And the last question for me. You talked about -- you don't know exactly what your products are used for as far as the final destination. We kind of were able to derive that when distribution centers were the hot item a few years back. That was tilt up kind of construction. So you kind of had an idea based on the specs and what you were shipping out. Do you have that ability to have some kind of inference on what goes into data centers? Is that a tilt-up type construction? Is that other that's more specific? Any clarity on that side that you kind of have an idea of where or how much that is helping?

Yes, we know. I mean, certainly, we know when demand is project related, we can pinpoint it. When demand is more generic in nature, we can't necessarily pinpoint the end use. But the data center construction has been important to the company and will continue to be. And probably more than just data center that our venture into the whole world of cast-in-place applications for our product is interesting and will be a source of growth for us. But it's not a segment of our business that we plan to disclose details on.

[Operator Instructions] And we now have a follow-up from Julio Romero with Sidoti & Company.

Could you guys just maybe speak a little more to demand from a geographic standpoint? What areas are you seeing demand strength compared to 3 months ago? And what areas may be relatively weaker?

I don't know that there are any geographic trends that jump out at us. The legacy business of our supplying precasters is pretty steady over the entire country. The cast-in-place business that we do is so project-oriented that it could be in Miami today and Las Vegas tomorrow. So it's not dominated by any one geographic region, neither of our product lines or activities is.

Got it. One other question. It's about water infrastructure. I know you guys make the concrete pipe culverts that are used in water treatment facilities and sewer systems and other kind of related applications there. There's states that are making initiatives to address aging water infrastructure. Texas is talking about passing Prop 4 in November, which would add a lot of state taxes towards that initiative. Can you -- would that benefit you guys at all, particularly the Prop 4 in Texas?

Yes, I think it's positive, Julio, to the extent that additional funding is available in those sorts of projects. There's going to be plastic pipe. There's going to be all kinds of nonconcrete product that goes into those applications, but there'll also be concrete pipe and there'll be box culverts and concrete-related things that definitely help Insteel. And I would tell you that I think that part of the recovery in demand that we've seen has been related to the funding provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which is now 5 or 6 years old. But I think those funds are beginning to find their way into the market and translate into demand, although I would hasten to say that we can't track any particular shipment that we've made to an IIJA funding mechanism. But nevertheless, something is responsible for the uptick that we see, and I believe it's funding related.

And to that last point, H., you mentioned IIJA funding is several years old. But you guys are basically just kind of beginning to see that push now and then therefore, there is runway to when the IIJA funds. There's a multiyear runway remaining to -- as regards to the benefit of IIJA funding to Insteel's P&L.

Yes. I mean I have no objective data to support my belief, Julio, but I think the answer is yes. And if you go back to the Department of Transportation's comment on IIJA some years ago, they said, this is not a stimulus program. This is a new way we're considering a funding infrastructure. And they acknowledge that the lead time is measured in years, not weeks or months between the funding being available and translating into actual activity on job sites. And to the extent that, that's the case, I think we're now seeing activity on job sites.

We currently have no further questions. [Operator Instructions] I can confirm that does conclude the question-and-answer session here. And I would like to hand it back to the management team.

Okay. We appreciate your interest in Insteel. We look forward to talking to you next quarter. And if you have questions, don't hesitate to follow up with us. Thank you.

Thank you for dialing in for the Insteel Industries Fourth Quarter 2025 Earnings Call. Today's call has now concluded. Thank you all for your participation, and you may now disconnect.