Earnings call transcript: Quanex Building Products misses Q3 2025 EPS forecast

Quanex Building Products reported its Q3 2025 financial results on September 4, revealing an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.69, which fell short of the $0.85 forecast, marking an 18.82% miss. Despite net sales reaching $495.3 million, slightly surpassing expectations, the company’s stock tumbled 16.36% in premarket trading, closing at $17.49. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears undervalued at current levels, with analysts maintaining a "Strong Buy" consensus recommendation.

[Want deeper insights? InvestingPro offers 8 additional key insights for Quanex Building Products, along with comprehensive financial metrics and expert analysis.]

Key Takeaways

• Quanex’s Q3 2025 EPS of $0.69 missed the forecast by 18.82%.
• Revenue exceeded expectations at $495.3 million.
• Stock dropped 16.36% in premarket trading.
• Operational issues in Monterrey impacted earnings.
• European market performance showed gains.

Company Performance

Quanex Building Products experienced a mixed quarter, with a notable shortfall in earnings per share. The company reported an adjusted net income of $31.6 million, driven by revenue growth of 77% year-over-year. InvestingPro data shows impressive revenue growth of 70.18% over the last twelve months, with a healthy current ratio of 2.2x, indicating strong liquidity. However, operational challenges, particularly in its Monterrey, Mexico facility, weighed on the results, contributing to a net loss of $276,000.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $495.3 million, a 77% increase YoY.
• EPS: $0.69, down from the forecasted $0.85.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $70.3 million, a 67.2% increase YoY.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Quanex’s Q3 results showed a significant EPS miss of 18.82% compared to forecasts. While revenue slightly exceeded expectations, the earnings shortfall was substantial, reflecting operational difficulties and market conditions.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Quanex’s stock experienced a sharp decline of 16.36% in premarket trading. This drop underscores investor concern over the earnings miss and operational challenges, despite some positive notes in revenue performance and European market gains. The stock now trades significantly below its 52-week high of $32.23, with analyst price targets ranging from $28 to $38, suggesting substantial upside potential.

[Access comprehensive valuation metrics and analyst forecasts with InvestingPro, including detailed Fair Value analysis and growth projections.]

Outlook & Guidance

For FY2025, Quanex projects net sales of approximately $1.82 billion and adjusted EBITDA of around $235 million. The company anticipates continued soft volumes through Q4 2025 but expects market improvements in FY2026. Cost synergies from the Tymon acquisition are projected to reach $45 million. InvestingPro highlights the company’s 18-year track record of consistent dividend payments and a "Fair" overall financial health score, suggesting resilience despite current challenges.

Executive Commentary

CEO George Wilson highlighted the company’s strategic focus: "We are confident that mid and long-term indicators favor a strong recovery when rates drop and consumer confidence is restored." He also emphasized efforts to address operational challenges: "Our focus right now is really on doing everything we can to protect our customers and get our delivery levels back to where they need to be."

Risks and Challenges

• Operational issues in Monterrey, affecting EBITDA.
• High interest rates impacting consumer confidence and demand.
• Market saturation and competitive pressures in key regions.
• Potential delays in realizing synergies from the Tymon acquisition.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the timeline for resolving operational issues in Monterrey. Management expressed confidence in moderating these challenges by Q4 2025 or early FY2026. Additionally, there were questions regarding the potential for further synergies in commercial cross-selling and operational optimization.

Full transcript - Quanex Building Products Corp (NX) Q3 2025:

Conference Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q3 twenty twenty five Quanex Building Products Corporation Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks for joining the call this morning. On the call with me today is George Wilson, our Chairman, President and CEO. This conference call will contain forward looking statements and some discussion of non GAAP measures. Forward looking statements and guidance discussed on this call and in our earnings release are based on current expectations. Actual results or events may differ materially from such statements and guidance, and Quanex undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statement to reflect new information or events.

For a more detailed description of our forward looking statement disclaimer and a reconciliation of non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please see our earnings release issued yesterday and posted to our website. I’ll now turn the call over to George for his prepared remarks.

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks, Scott, and good morning to everyone joining the call. Although macro headwinds persisted this quarter, I’m pleased with the resilience of our business in the current environment. Following a significant amount of work by our team, new operating segments are in place, synergy realization remains compelling and the cash flow generation of the combined entity has been strong. We are confident we are on the right path. We remain focused on achieving our financial and operational objectives and our team continues to prioritize driving both above market growth and an improved margin profile over time.

Our third quarter results were largely shaped by three key factors. First, the macroeconomic environment and the resulting demand and order patterns. Second, the resegmentation of our business units and a resulting goodwill impairment. And third, the integration of Timon and the synergies we’re beginning to realize from the combination. Let me start with comments on the macroeconomic environment in the markets we serve.

In North America for the 2025, volumes increased compared to the prior quarter, but not at the rate normal seasonality would have suggested. U. S. Customers took extended downtime around the July 4 holiday and volumes remained relatively soft for the remainder of the month. While tariffs continue to add uncertainty, there is also a sentiment that delays to both R and R and new construction projects are a result of consumers waiting for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates.

Altogether, this has led to increased pressure on discretionary spending, resulting in a headwind to consumer and end consumer confidence. While volumes are expected to remain soft through the end of the year, we are confident that mid and long term indicators favor a strong recovery when rates drop and consumer confidence is restored. Looking at market conditions in Europe, consumer confidence continues to be negatively impacted by higher interest rates in The Middle East and Ukraine. However, market share gains in both our vinyl extrusion and insulating glass spacer product lines have helped offset market weakness. Despite ongoing pricing pressure, the Quanex team continues to deliver quality products with excellent operational performance.

Now turning to the resegmentation of our business. As we have discussed on prior earnings calls as well as our at our Investor Day earlier in the year, completing the resegmentation of our business was important for our future success. With this work complete, we are better able to achieve expected synergies, drive innovation and organic growth and expand into adjacencies. I would like to thank the entire Quanex team for working so hard and efficiently to get us where we are today. From an accounting perspective, one of the impacts of any business resegmentation is a goodwill impairment review.

And as you saw in our earnings release, this review resulted in a non cash goodwill impairment. I want to be clear that this impairment is not related to any performance indicators or changes to the long term profitability expectations for our business. In fact, the new reporting segments continue to create new opportunities for cost takeout and efficiencies, which will allow for improved performance. However, per accounting rules, we performed goodwill impairment testing on all new reporting units before publicly reporting in the new operating segments, which resulted in the non cash goodwill impairment. Regardless of the impairment, our business prospects are unchanged.

Quanex has strong growth potential and as macroeconomic uncertainty subsides and customer confidence improves, we believe we are well positioned to capitalize on pent up demand. Finally, I’d like to discuss the ongoing time and integration process. We continue to make substantial strides on the integration and have finalized and staffed our operational and commercial teams. We have also made significant progress toward building the back office support teams. As we move ahead, our team is capturing meaningful synergies unlocked by the transaction and we also continue to identify and pursue additional synergies on an ongoing basis.

After factoring in these additional synergies, mainly related to headcount, adjusting for lower volumes and pushing out the timing of when we should realize procurement savings, we still see a path to realizing approximately $45,000,000 in cost synergies related to the Tymon acquisition over time. As a reminder, dollars 45,000,000 in cost synergies is above our initial projection of $30,000,000 at the time of the transaction announcement. We expect to see further synergies, particularly those related to revenue in the second phase of integration, which is underway. This second phase is rooted in four major themes: go to market and geographic expansion strategy operational footprint optimization, new product and materials development, and finally, current product line portfolio analysis. Each one of these themes is more medium term focused and directly aligned to the profitable growth strategy that we discussed at our Investor Day in February.

Operationally, we are pleased with what we have accomplished in the first year since the deal closed. We are well positioned due to our healthy balance sheet, flexible financial foundation and advantaged strategic positioning. Despite the macro challenges, our strong cash flow enabled us to repay over $51,000,000 of bank debt during the quarter. This demonstrates the potential ahead for Quanex as we continue to progress toward our goals and we remain extremely optimistic moving forward. I want to also take a moment to detail some operational issues we inherited that are specific to our window and door hardware business in Mexico, which impacted results in the third quarter more than expected.

Specifically, we identified tooling and equipment issues at our Monterrey, Mexico facility, which among other things impacts backlog and leads to inefficiencies and increased costs for items such as expedited freight. These operational challenges negatively impacted EBITDA in the Hardware Solutions segment by almost $5,000,000 in the third quarter alone. As soon as we identified the extent of these issues, we took action. We made leadership changes and are dedicating additional resources and capital to the facility to address and resolve these issues in an expedited manner. We are upgrading the facility’s capabilities, processes and equipment to Quanex standards, laying a stronger foundation for years to come.

We are confident in our recovery plan, although we want to note we expect continued pressure on results in the Hardware Solutions segment in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, we anticipate gradual progress as we execute on the recovery plan with tangible benefits early in fiscal twenty twenty six. Before I conclude my prepared remarks, I want to note that we are updating our guidance for fiscal twenty twenty five due to recent demand trends and updated cost synergy realization and timing model, conversations with customers and a realistic timeline to address the operational issues in Mexico. Scott will take you through the details, but we remain confident in the strong Quanex team. We have a proven track record and a breadth of products that are unmatched in the industry.

We look forward to capitalizing on the opportunities ahead of us and we’ll be positioned to benefit when the macro environment begins to improve. I’ll now turn the call over to Scott, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks, George. On a consolidated basis, we reported net sales of $495,300,000 during the 2025, which represents an increase of approximately 77% compared to $280,300,000 for the same period of 2024. The increase was mainly driven by the contribution from the Tymon acquisition that closed on 08/01/2024. Excluding the Tymon contribution, net sales would have increased by 1.4% for the 2025, mainly due to increased pricing, which includes any tariff impact offset by lower volumes. We reported a net loss of $276,000,000 or $6.4 per diluted share during the three months ended 07/31/2025, compared to net income of $25,400,000 or $0.77 per diluted share during the three months ended 07/31/2024.

The decrease was primarily the result of a 302,300,000 non cash goodwill impairment related to the resegmentation of our business at a point in time when consumer confidence is low and equity values for building products companies are challenged. As George mentioned, the noncash goodwill impairment is not related to any performance indicators or changes to the long term profitability expectations of the business. The resegmentation constituted a triggering event under ASC three fifty, requiring a quantitative comparison of each reporting unit’s carrying value to its estimated fair value. At the 05/01/2025 trigger date, our stock price was at $16.59 per share, which is less than the agreed valuation for the Tymon acquisition. Because market capitalization is a key input in determining fair value, the lower share price on the trigger date reduced our market based valuation despite management forecasts reflecting higher long term cash flows.

As a result, the fair value derived from the market evidence fell below our internal forecast and the carrying value of goodwill leading to the non cash impairment. On an adjusted basis, net income was $31,600,000 or $0.69 per diluted share during the 2025 compared to $26,900,000 or $0.81 per diluted share during the 2024. The adjustments being made to EPS are as follows: transaction advisory fees and reorganization costs restructuring charges related to severance and disposal of software noncash goodwill impairment, expenses related to plant closure or relocation, amortization expense related to intangible assets and a pension settlement refund, onetime depreciation adjustment and then other net adjustments related to foreign currency transaction gainloss and effective tax rates. On an adjusted basis, EBITDA for the quarter increased by 67.2% to $70,300,000 compared to $42,000,000 during the same period of last year. The increase in adjusted earnings for the three months ended 07/31/2025 was mostly attributable to the contribution from the Tymon acquisition combined with the realization of cost synergies.

Now for results by operating segment. We generated net sales of $227,100,000 in our Hardware Solutions segment for the 2025, an increase of two zero one percent compared to $75,500,000 in the 2024. We estimate that volumes for the legacy Quanex product lines in this segment declined by 2.4% year over year with pricing up 1.9% and a tariff impact of 7.9% versus 2024. The legacy Tyumen product lines included in this segment, which we didn’t own in the same period of last year, made up the remaining 193.5% increase in net sales in the 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $24,700,000 in this segment for the third quarter compared to $9,500,000 in the 2024.

As previously mentioned, the operational issues specific to the window and door business in Mexico negatively impacted EBITDA in this segment by approximately $5,000,000 during the 2025. Our Extruded Solutions segment generated revenue of $174,400,000 in the 2025, which represents an increase of 29.6% compared to $134,600,000 in the 2024. We estimate that volumes for the legacy Quanex product lines in this segment were down by 2.6% year over year, with pricing up 0.6%, a 1.9% FX benefit and no real tariff impact. The legacy time and product lines included in this segment again, which we didn’t own in the same period of last year, made up the remaining 29.7% increase in net sales in the 2025. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $37,100,000 in this segment for the quarter versus $27,700,000 during the same period of last year.

We reported net sales of $102,300,000 in our Custom Solutions segment during the 2025 compared to $72,700,000 for the same period of 2024. We estimate that volumes for the legacy product lines in this segment increased by 0.8%, driven by increased spot business in the Wood Solutions Group, with price increasing by 2.2% and a minimal tariff impact of 0.3%. The legacy timing product lines included in this segment made up the remaining 37.5% increase in net sales in the 2025. Adjusted EBITDA was $12,900,000 in this segment for the quarter, which compared to $6,100,000 for the 2024. Moving on to cash flow and the balance sheet.

Cash provided by operating activities was $60,700,000 for the 2025, which compares to cash provided by operating activities of $46,400,000 for the 2024. Free cash flow increased by 15.1% to 46,200,000 for the quarter, and we were able to repay $51,250,000 of bank debt. As of July 31, our leverage ratio of net debt to last twelve months adjusted EBITDA decreased to 2.6 times. The leverage ratio for our quarterly debt covenant compliance was 2.4 times versus the current leverage covenant ratio of 3.75 times, so we have plenty of cushion. During the quarter, we remained disciplined in our capital allocation strategy.

In addition to paying back over $51,000,000 of bank debt as part of our efforts to maintain a healthy balance sheet and improve liquidity, we continued to return capital to shareholders by opportunistically buying back shares. We repurchased 100,000 shares of common stock for approximately $2,100,000 during the 2025. We still have approximately $33,600,000 remaining under our existing share repurchase program. Before I open it up to Q and A, I want to discuss our updated guidance for fiscal twenty twenty five. As George mentioned, the update is based on our results year to date, recent demand trends, an updated cost synergy realization and timing model, conversations with our customers and a realistic time line to address the operational issues in the window and door hardware business in Mexico.

On a consolidated basis for fiscal twenty twenty five, we now estimate that we will generate net sales of approximately $1,820,000,000 which we expect will yield adjusted EBITDA of approximately $235,000,000 For modeling purposes, please use the following assumptions for the full year 2025 to back into what Q4 should look like: gross margin of approximately 27%, which reflects the operational issues in Mexico SG

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: and

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: A of approximately $264,000,000 adjusted D and A of approximately $58,000,000 interest expense of approximately $53,000,000 and adjusted tax rate of 24.5. This tax rate is slightly higher than the previous guidance of 23.5% because of some nondeductible interest. CapEx of approximately $75,000,000 and free cash flow of approximately $80,000,000 Operator, we are now ready to take questions. Certainly.

Conference Operator: Our first question will be coming from Steven Ramsey of Thompson Research Group. Your line is open, Steven.

Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Hi, good morning. To start out with the big picture on demand, understand that it remains subdued out there broadly, heard that from many companies and from channel checks. But wanted to parse out if you feel like if in any segment there is a change in the competitive landscape or just even in the near term as competitors react to this market, if that’s also changing the volume picture?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks for the question, Stephen. The way I see it right now and the detail that we have coming flowing in, it is more macro related than competitive. I think we’ve been able to do a very good job on the competitive front across regions and across product lines. So really the softness that we see is more specifically related to the softness in both R and R and new construction.

Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Okay. That’s helpful. And then wanted to hone in a little bit in Europe, the pockets of strength that you called out there. Maybe can you go into a little more detail on why that strength is there? Why it’s sustaining?

How much of it is consumer demand for it versus internal moves you’re making?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: When we look at the strengths, the product lines in Europe continue to perform very well and have taken some share. And that’s really built on the operational foundation that we have in both of those product lines being the extrusions and the framing systems as well as our spacer business. We continue to provide excellent service, quality products that are high level in terms of energy efficiency and thermal performance. So I think that constant delivery of quality products has helped us continue to perform. So that remains a strength.

And that’s exactly what we’re trying to duplicate in the hardware product lines that we acquired through time. And that has been a strength. And in The U. S, I think we continue to see strength in our ability and I would say in the legacy Quanex lines of converting our demand into cash flow at a very good rate and that remains a strength. We’re making some progress, as we’ve talked about on previous calls, starting to transition the time and products from a make to stock to a make to order.

That continues to be a really big opportunity for us. We’re starting to show the beginnings of that transition, which has translated into positive cash flow, which is why we even despite the softness in the market, the cash flow generation continued to be really strong and we were very happy with the performance there, which allowed us to pay down debt and buy back shares.

Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: For sure. Okay. And then last one for me. Time in Mexico, maybe to clarify, you called out a $5,000,000 EBITDA headwind in the third quarter. Do you expect the fourth quarter to be a similar dollar amount headwind wise or that to moderate a bit?

And then to make sure I understand, do you think this EBITDA headwind is gone to start 2026? Or do you think it starts to balance out and then go positive later in that fiscal year?

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes. So I think we do expect an impact in the fourth quarter. It may be similar to 3Q depending on the progress that we show during the quarter. But we are expecting some progress towards the end of the fourth fiscal quarter and then into early twenty twenty six. It’s hard to say when will we completely resolve, but we are working quickly and we realize this is a top priority.

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Our focus right now, Stephen, is really on doing everything we can to protect our customers and get our delivery levels back to where they need to be. It’s our complete focus has been on our customers. So we’re not sparing any expense and trying to be cute. We’re fixing the solution. We’re putting systems in place and we’re spending money on assets, as I mentioned, to bring both the equipment and the tooling up to what our standards are, which has always been a strength of Quanex and we’ll make it a strength of the time and products that we purchased as well.

Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Makes sense. Thank you.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thank you.

Conference Operator: And our next question will be coming from Reuben Garner of Benchmark.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: I guess, can you walk through the what the balance of the, I guess, lower than expected results in the third quarter was? I think $5,000,000 accounts for roughly half of it, if my math is right. The top line was mostly in line with what you were looking for last quarter. Was it just a split between volume and price? Was there higher costs from tariffs or other pressures that led to the profitability pressure that you saw?

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes. I mean outside of the market and the volume, which you just outside of the Mexico impact, it’s really split between market and then procurement synergies specifically. As we looked hard at that and kind of updated our model for the lower volumes and the timing at which we expect to realize those synergies, some of those were just pushed to the right. So I think those three things, Mexico market and then procurement synergies.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: So was all of that pressure in the final month of the quarter? And basically, the guide in the fourth quarter now implies that you have three consistent months of that kind of pressure? Like was it $5,000,000 in one month and now that’s going to be $5,000,000 a quarter in the fourth quarter? Or talk to me about how to think about that. Okay.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: No, it wasn’t all in July, if that’s what you’re implying. It definitely started earlier in the quarter and kind of ramped up through the quarter. Now that we have a really good handle on what’s going on, we do expect some progress towards the end of the fourth quarter.

Conference Operator: Thank you.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: Sorry. One more if I could sneak one in. I was on mute. I guess what are your customers saying? There’s been a bit of a resurgence in refinance activity of late as rates have come in.

It sounds like you’re not expecting volume to bounce back anytime soon. Was there any element of destocking that took place? I know a lot of your products are kind of made to order, but some of them, maybe the spacers can be, stocked. Was there any destocking that’s taken place that’s kind of onetime in nature? What’s the expectation, I guess, as you get into your next fiscal year from a demand perspective?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: No. We see any signs of anything in terms of destocking or anything specific because that usually indicates one or two specific customers. And it was pretty consistent in terms of the slowdown across all of the customers that we serve. So we don’t anticipate any levels of destocking. What I would say is our expectation of things continuing to be soft into the fourth quarter really falls a little bit into what we’ve always seen in terms of weather and the build season.

Now even though you’ve got some refinancing activity that kind of is starting to ignite and maybe showing signs and I know that there’s some hope and optimism that there will be a rate cut in September by the Fed and maybe another even in this year. Effectively, in half of The U. S, the build season is coming to a conclusion. So that’s not going to flow through until our 2026 fiscal year. And

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: I said last one, but I do want to sneak one more in. You’re a little over a year into this deal now. I think you mentioned, like, potential for more synergies that you found. Any more color there? Like, what, in terms of, you know, facility count, location, how you’re running the business, like, what these could look like from a numbers perspective?

Or is it still too early to tell?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I think it’s still too early to tell from a numbers perspective. Obviously, we put some of our expectations and thoughts on a waterfall chart that showed our pathway to growth at our Investor Day back in February. Those goals and objectives are still absolutely valid, and that’s exactly what we’re driving I think we’re excited as we build out our commercial teams and we start to look at what that looks like. So I do think that there’s some opportunities that will present themselves from a commercial cross selling, bundling of products, development of new systems that will absolutely pay benefits. I think now that we’re operating in the new segments, each one of the groups will evaluate hard what their new consolidated footprint looks like.

And it’s our job as a manufacturing company to be as efficient and cost effective for our customers as we can be. So I think the groups are also looking at where are the best plants to manufacture products, how do we optimize the logistics of our shipments to both our customers and raw materials and then they start developing operational plans and develop synergies based on that. So I think my expectation is not changed at all from what we presented in terms of that waterfall chart back in February and probably more confidence now that we’re actually operating in the new groups.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: All right. Thank you, guys. Good luck.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks. Thanks.

Conference Operator: And our next question will be coming from Adam Thalhimer of Thompson Davis. Your line is open.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Hey, good morning, guys.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Scott,

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: I’m still trying to understand the top line for Q4. So that’s so Q4 top line down about 20,000,000 to $25,000,000 sequentially. What’s driving that? Was there some tariff related pre buys in Q2 and Q3? Or is that all just that’s how bad the demand environment is now?

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: No. I mean, I think it’s more reflective of just the current market and what we’re seeing sitting here today.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Okay. And then maybe it’s unfair to ask, but I mean, you have any insight into Q1, Q2 of next year and where that where the demand might be?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: We just started our budgeting process. So I think it’s a little too early for us to kind of go out with guidance. A lot’s going to probably depend on what the Fed does here over the next course of two to three months and what sort of reaction in terms of consumer confidence and some stability on inflation and tariffs. So I think we’re not quite ready. I think our expectation is next year will be better than what we’re seeing here in the second half, but still a little too early to come out with any specific guidance.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Okay. And then cash flow was a good story in Q3. Congrats on that. Also good Q4 cash flow guidance. Just curious what you guys are going to prioritize with the Q4 cash flow.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes. I think as always, we’re going to balance debt repayment and potentially some opportunistic stock repurchases through the quarter. But clearly continuing to strengthen our balance sheet in this environment is a top priority and you should expect that to continue.

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes, I would reinforce that. I mean, I think that there’s always we’ve always believed our leverage was at a level that was absolutely manageable, but I think that there were some that were approached three times concerned about that. And so even in a soft environment, we’re able to continue to drive cash flow into this business. We’ll continue to strengthen the balance sheet, as Scott said, and a lot of it is situational when the market opens back up. As a reminder, are opportunistic buyers.

We don’t have any sort of 10b plan established for the company. So we have limited time to be in the market, but we’ll evaluate where our share price is and we’ll continue to prioritize our shareholders in what we feel is the best return for them. Perfect.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: Thanks guys.

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks. Thanks.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And our next question will be coming from Julio Romero of Sidoti and Company LLC. Your line is open, Julio.

Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company LLC: Thanks. Hey, good morning, George and Scott. Going back to the time in Mexico for a bit, if I recall that manufacturing business in Mexico is largely labor intensive and very manual in nature. And I thought you mentioned it was a tooling and equipment issue. So I was hoping you could kind of talk to the issues a little bit there.

And does the labor intensive and manual process of that business kind of affect your ability to implement the remediation plan at all?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Actually, the Monterey facility is a mix between manual assembly as well as a significant presence for injection molding and metal die casting. So there is a lot of injection molders and die casters and tooling in that facility. What we identified is really the systems underneath of how do you methodically anticipate and plan for tooling repairs. I don’t want to say it was nonexistent, but again, not up to the standards. And you get to a point where if you’re not maintaining tools and equipment, but you continue to try to run and you block off cavities, then it creates quality problems and other issues and it will eventually catch up to you.

And I think what we identified midyear here, as we get deeper and deeper into the integration and we start understanding of the processes and kind of put Quanex procedures and policies into places that we were underinvested and that the tooling condition and the equipment condition was not where we wanted to be and it was not going to be healthy to support our customers. So we had to make some changes and fix some things before it was catastrophic.

Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company LLC: Good color there. Thank you. Very helpful. And how is the remainder of the time in integration aside from Mexico performing from an operational perspective?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes. As I said in my statements, we’ve been very pleased with the progress to date. We’ve got the commercial teams developed. And I’ve said in other calls, I think our job throughout the integration was try to combine the best of both companies and make it into something new and stronger. And although we have a short term issue in one plant, when you look

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: at overall throughout the rest

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: of the integration, I think timing was probably more aligned to be a commercial type of business. And so the marketing, the product management and the sales teams and the sales leadership from Timon have a bigger play within the role of Quanex. And the Quanex strength of being a manufacturing company is being integrated into the time and facilities. And I think we’re making some very, very good progress. And as we mentioned, I think when the market does recover, we will have the systems in place and we’ll continue to fix the issues in Monterrey, but we’ll be ready to grow.

So I’m very excited about the progress that we made and I think it’s going to there’s a lot more to be done, but we’re well on track and right where we thought we would be minus the impact in Monterrey, which we identified. Our systems are what caused that. So we’ll fix it and we’ll move forward and we’ll be ready to go. But very pleased with the progress.

Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company LLC: Understood. Understood there. And sorry if I missed it, but did you guys provide a new time line for the $30,000,000 in synergies to kind of that first tranche of synergies? Is that still expected by the 2026?

Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I think we said early twenty twenty six. I think that’s still pretty accurate.

Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company LLC: Okay, got you. So there’s no push out announced from the time line there?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: No. I mean some of it will be market dependent. I mean if the market were to go worse, that impacts the procurement synergies, but we’re not anticipating a significant degradation from where we’re at today. Got

Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company LLC: you. And then one more if I could. On the Custom Solutions business, there’s been some announcements of industry consolidation from some larger OEMs and it also wouldn’t be the first time that you guys have seen industry consolidation. So can you maybe talk to any expected impact to Quanex from that? And some historical context you could provide us to how you’ve worked through industry consolidation of customers in the past?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: So what we’re seeing in the Custom Solutions, it was announced that it’s too early in the combination of those companies, which is more on the wood product side, I’m assuming that’s what you’re referring to. It’s too early to tell. We’ve seen significant customer consolidation there. So I think we’re not anticipating any major impact as a result of that. We have relationships with all of the OEs and we anticipate that will continue on a go forward basis.

As they go through the integration or even the approval of that consolidation, we’ll get more information and we’ll develop our plans from there. In other markets, I think mainly in the window and door segment, I think we’ll continue to see some consolidation. The national players will continue to, I think, grow. And we sell something to almost everyone. So it may have some mix issues from the different product lines that we sell.

But for us, the consolidation is expected. And I think the fact that we have exposure to almost every window company, I think we’re well positioned to be able to capitalize on that as long as we’re continuing to provide the basket of goods and servicing our customers the way we need to. And for us, again, the priority is fixing Monterey and getting that solved.

Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company LLC: Got it. Thanks for taking the questions and just wanted to say congratulations on completing the resegmentation. Nice job Thank

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: you.

Conference Operator: Thank you. And our next question will be coming from Reuben Garner of Benchmark. Your line is open, Reuben.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: Yes. Just a quick follow-up on the Mexico facility. What percentage of your business or how much revenue comes from that facility?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: We don’t we haven’t given that level of disclosure. It is a cost center, so the revenue actually flows through other facilities. So they’re doing some extrusion and then it’s dispersed. We’ll have to get back to you. But we haven’t publicly disclosed what that amount is through the hardware business.

Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: Okay, great. Thank you, guys.

Conference Operator: Thanks. And I would now like to turn the conference back to George for closing remarks.

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thank you. As we head into the fourth quarter, we are encouraged by the completion of our resegmentation and the overall resilience of the business in the current environment. Our team is focused on advancing our integration and capturing the synergy opportunities available. We remain optimistic about our prospects for profitable growth and value creation moving forward. We look forward to providing you with another update when we report Q4 and our full year 2025 earnings in December.

Thank you.

Conference Operator: And this concludes today’s conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.