Earnings call transcript: Quanex Q2 2025 earnings surpass expectations

Quanex Building Products reported a strong second quarter for fiscal year 2025, with earnings per share (EPS) and revenue exceeding market expectations. The company posted an EPS of $0.60, surpassing the forecasted $0.48, and generated $452.5 million in revenue, beating the anticipated $440.05 million. Following the earnings announcement, Quanex’s stock surged by 18.23% in regular trading, closing at $20.01. According to InvestingPro data, the company currently trades at a P/E ratio of 67.7x, suggesting a premium valuation relative to peers. The stock’s recent performance marks a notable recovery, though it remains significantly below its 52-week high of $34.97.

Key Takeaways

• Quanex’s Q2 2025 EPS of $0.60 outperformed expectations, marking a significant earnings beat.
• Revenue reached $452.5 million, a 70% increase year-over-year.
• Stock price jumped 18.23% post-earnings, reflecting strong investor confidence.
• The company increased its cost synergy target from the Tymon acquisition.
• Quanex reaffirmed its FY2025 guidance, projecting net sales between $1.84 billion and $1.86 billion.

Company Performance

Quanex demonstrated robust financial performance in Q2 2025, with net sales climbing to $452.2 million, a substantial 70% increase from the previous year. The company’s strategic focus on integrating the Tymon acquisition and optimizing its operational footprint contributed to this growth. Despite challenges in certain segments, Quanex maintained its competitive position by localizing supply chains and exploring new product developments.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $452.2 million, up 70% year-over-year.
• Earnings per share: $0.60, exceeding the forecast of $0.48.
• Adjusted net income: $27.9 million.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $61.9 million, a 54.7% increase.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Quanex’s actual EPS of $0.60 surpassed the forecasted $0.48, representing a 25% positive surprise. This significant beat reflects the company’s effective cost management and strategic initiatives. The revenue of $452.5 million also exceeded expectations by approximately 2.8%, underscoring strong operational execution.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings release, Quanex’s stock experienced a notable increase, rising 18.23% to close at $20.01. This surge indicates positive investor sentiment, driven by the company’s impressive financial results and reaffirmed guidance. The stock’s movement was in stark contrast to broader market trends, highlighting Quanex’s unique position in the building products sector. Despite the recent rally, InvestingPro data shows the stock has declined 41% over the past six months, suggesting potential recovery room. With eight additional exclusive ProTips and comprehensive valuation metrics available, investors can gain deeper insights into Quanex’s market position through InvestingPro’s detailed analysis.

Outlook & Guidance

Quanex reaffirmed its full-year 2025 guidance, expecting net sales between $1.84 billion and $1.86 billion and adjusted EBITDA of $270 million to $280 million. For Q3, the company anticipates an 8-10% increase in revenue compared to Q2, along with an EBITDA margin expansion of 250-300 basis points. These projections reflect confidence in ongoing operational improvements and market expansion efforts.

Executive Commentary

"We are extremely pleased with the progress of the Tymon acquisition integration," said George Wilson, CEO. He emphasized the company’s structured approach to new operating segments and the potential for margin improvement. Wilson also highlighted the focus on driving above-market growth and enhancing the margin profile.

Risks and Challenges

• Tariff Exposure: 22% of total cost of goods sold (COGS) is exposed to tariff risk, which could affect profitability.
• Market Volatility: Declining consumer confidence in North America and geopolitical tensions in Europe pose challenges.
• Supply Chain Disruptions: Potential disruptions could impact sourcing and operational efficiency.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the increased synergy target, which was attributed to procurement and corporate function efficiencies. Discussions also focused on the potential for additional cost synergies and the company’s domestic manufacturing opportunities. Analyst consensus remains strongly bullish, with a "Strong Buy" recommendation and price targets ranging from $28 to $42. For comprehensive analysis including Fair Value estimates, financial health scores, and detailed metrics, explore Quanex’s full Pro Research Report, available exclusively on InvestingPro.

Full transcript - Quanex Building Products Corp (NX) Q2 2025:

Conference Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Second Quarter 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 Zilke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer. Please go ahead.

Scott Zilke, 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. Overall, we are pleased with the results from our fiscal second quarter as we did see the traditional seasonal uptick and volumes were as expected despite ongoing global macroeconomic uncertainties. I’d like to start my commentary by providing an update on the status of the Tymon acquisition integration. We have been extremely pleased by both the depth and pace at which the integration has progressed. We have structured new operating segments, finalized and staffed our operational and commercial teams, and are in the process of finalizing the back office support teams that will service both of those groups.

As a result of these efforts, and as announced in our earnings release, we now expect to realize cost synergies of approximately $45,000,000 over time, which equates to a 50% increase compared to the original target. In fact, on a run rate basis, we now expect to achieve the original $30,000,000 of cost synergy targets by early fiscal twenty twenty six. The newly formed operating segments are functioning well, and we feel that there still is a pathway to additional cost synergies. Operationally, our strength has always been around controlling what we can control, and that cultural trait is core and foundational to what we are building. We are delighted with what the team has accomplished in the ten months since the deal closed, and we look forward to keeping you updated on our continued operational progress.

The second phase of integration is now beginning, and it will be based around 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 are most, are more medium term focused, but very much aligned to the profitable growth strategy that we outlined at our Investor Day in February. Our objective is to drive both above market growth and improve margin profile. Now, turning to the markets we serve in North America and Europe. In North America, volumes increased month over month throughout the second quarter, which gives us continued confidence in the normal seasonality pattern we have historically seen.

We did see volume decline year over year in the second quarter, driven by low consumer confidence related to higher interest rates and tariff implications, but this was not surprising. As it relates to tariffs, there remains much uncertainty, which continues to be a headwind to the confidence level of our ultimate end consumers. Specifically, from a Quanex perspective, our team has done a great job of positioning us to minimize any tariff impacts by localizing supply chains where possible to mitigate both supply and cost risks. We also continue to explore alternate supply sources and are constantly evaluating and monitoring potential shifts in demand. In situations where we were unable to avoid tariff impact, we have utilized surcharge pricing mechanisms to pass on most of the cost.

Overall, approximately 22% of our total cost of goods sold is exposed to tariff risk. And breaking that down further, 13% of total COGS exposure is specific to Mexico and Canada. And since we are USMCA compliant, the tariff rate is essentially zero for those countries at the moment. Overall, we are confident in our ability to minimize any potential margin impact as it relates to tariffs. Looking at market conditions in Europe, consumer confidence continues to be negatively impacted by higher interest rates and conflicts in The Middle East and Ukraine.

However, market share gains in both our vinyl extrusion and IG spacer product lines have helped offset market weakness. Pricing continues to be pressured, but the Quanex team has done a great job of using operational performance to offset any price concessions. From a capital allocation perspective, we made the decision to take advantage of our low share price, and we repurchased approximately $23,500,000 of our stock in the second quarter. We remain focused on maintaining a healthy balance sheet that continues to give us flexibility to execute on all of our strategic opportunities. For the remainder of this year, we will continue to prioritize debt repayment and investment in organic projects that enhance our margins, while opportunistically buying back shares when it makes sense to do so.

We still have approximately $35,600,000 authorized on our share repurchase program. In summary, we are extremely pleased with the progress of the Tymon acquisition integration. The Quanex team continues to execute at a high level, which has resulted in excellent safety performance, as well as delivering better than anticipated synergies. The integration now begins to shift towards growth focused and customer value projects, which we believe will drive margin expansion and create opportunities in new markets. The team continues to control the controllable and we will be well positioned to capitalize on opportunities as they arise.

I’ll now turn the call over to Scott, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.

Scott Zilke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks, George. On a consolidated basis, we reported net sales of $452,200,000 during the second quarter of twenty twenty five, which represents an increase of approximately 70% compared to February for the same period of 2024. The increase was primarily driven by the contribution from the Tymon acquisition that closed on 08/01/2024. Excluding the Tymon contribution, net sales would have declined by 1.4% for the second quarter of twenty twenty five, largely due to lower volume in North America. We reported net income of $20,500,000 or $0.44 per diluted share during the three months ended 04/30/2025, compared to net income of $15,400,000 dollars or $0.46 per diluted share during the three months ended April 2024, sorry.

On an adjusted basis, net income was $27,900,000 or $0.60 per diluted share during the second quarter of twenty twenty five compared to $24,000,000 or $0.73 per diluted share during the second quarter of twenty twenty four. The adjustments being made to EPS are as follows: transaction advisory fees and reorg costs restructuring charges related to severance and disposal of software, amortization expense related to intangible assets and attention settlement refund and other net adjustments related to foreign currency transaction gain or loss and effective tax rate. On an adjusted basis, EBITDA for the quarter increased by 54.7% to $61,900,000 compared to $40,000,000 during the same period of last year. The increase in net income and EBITDA for the three months ended 04/30/2025 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 $151,000,000 in our North American Fenestration segment for the second quarter of twenty twenty five, a decrease of 5.5% compared to $159,800,000 in the second quarter of twenty twenty four. We estimate that volumes in this segment declined by approximately 7% year over year with pricing up approximately 1% versus Q2 of twenty twenty four. Adjusted EBITDA was $21,300,000 in this segment for the second quarter compared to $25,400,000 in the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Our European Fenestration segment generated revenue of $61,300,000 in the second quarter of twenty twenty five, which represents an increase of 8.3% compared to $56,500,000 in the second quarter of twenty twenty four. After adjusting for foreign currency, revenue increased 7.9%.

We estimate that volumes for the quarter were up approximately 9% year over year in this segment, with pricing down by approximately 1%. Adjusted EBITDA increased slightly to $13,200,000 in this segment for the quarter versus $13,000,000 during the same period last year. We reported net sales of $51,200,000 in our North American Cabinet Components segment during the second quarter of twenty twenty five compared to $51,100,000 for the same period of 2024. We estimate that volumes declined by approximately 3% and price increased by approximately 3% in this segment for the quarter. This price movement was largely related to index pricing tied to hardwood costs.

Adjusted EBITDA was 3,100,000 in this segment for the quarter, which compared to $3,400,000 for the second quarter of twenty twenty four. The Timon business reported net sales of $190,100,000 for the second quarter of twenty twenty five. Since we didn’t own this business in the second quarter of twenty twenty four, there is no comp in the earnings release. However, we believe revenue was down approximately 2% in this segment in the second quarter of twenty twenty five compared to the second quarter of twenty twenty four, mostly due to soft market demand in North America, which is consistent with what we saw in the legacy Quanex business. Adjusted EBITDA came in at $26,800,000 for the quarter in this segment.

Moving on to cash flow and the balance sheet. Cash provided by operating activities was $28,500,000 for the second quarter of twenty twenty five, which compares to cash provided by operating activities of $33,100,000 for the second quarter of twenty twenty four. Similar to Q1 of this year, Q2 was impacted by layering in the Timon acquisition as the legacy Timon business is very much a make to stock business and the legacy Quanex business is very much make to order. Free cash flow was $13,600,000 for the quarter, but keep in mind that one time items related to integration costs and achieving the cost synergies impact free cash flow. As a reminder, to acquire Timon in August of twenty twenty four, we borrowed a total of $770,000,000 through a $500,000,000 Term Loan A and drawing $270,000,000 on our revolver.

As of 04/30/2025, our leverage ratio of net debt to last twelve months adjusted EBITDA decreased 3.2 times. The leverage ratio for our quarterly debt covenant compliance was 2.7 times. This debt covenant leverage ratio excludes real estate leases that are considered finance leases under U. S. GAAP and is calculated on a pro form a basis to include last twelve months adjusted EBITDA from the Tymon acquisition, 30,000,000 of EBITDA for the original cost synergy target related to the acquisition, less cost synergies achieved and cash only from domestic subsidiaries.

The debt covenant leverage ratio would be 2.4 times if calculated using the full cash and cash equivalents amount on the balance sheet as of 04/30/2025, and adjusting for the cash used to repurchase our stock during the quarter. As noted in our earnings release, based on year to date results, combined with our operational execution, cost synergy realization, conversations with our customers and recent demand trends, we are reaffirming net sales guidance of approximately 1,840,000,000.00 to $1,860,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA guidance of $270,000,000 to $280,000,000 for fiscal twenty twenty five. From a cadence perspective, on a consolidated basis for the third quarter of this year versus the second quarter of this year, we expect revenue to be up 8% to 10% and we expect adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of two fifty basis to 300 basis points. Lastly, the finance and accounting teams continue to work with our external auditors on resegmenting the business and our goal is to report in the new operating segments this year, either Q3 or Q4. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.

Conference Operator: Our first question comes from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis. Your line is open.

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

Scott Zilke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Adam.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Can you give a little more color on raising the synergy target from $30,000,000 to $45,000,000 and I think you even said there was potential beyond that?

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes, it is a combination of things that we have seen. Obviously, am very pleased about the new segments and I think even as highlighted in previous calls that we felt once the new segments would be kind of running from an operational perspective that new opportunities for cost takeout and just being more efficient would bubble up and be able to be realized. And that’s exactly what we have seen. They have been split between just more efficient and taking out headcount, being more streamlined in how we have built the organization as well as some additional sourcing and purchasing synergies. As I mentioned in my script, we are still a little early on new revenue synergies that will come as a result of the go to and geographical strategy refinement.

But kind of in summary, Adam, it’s really just the new segments identifying and becoming very efficient in creating what we knew was going to be there. So, I think that there is still some pathway going forward. Too early to tell because again, we are fairly new into this, but again, it’s just confidence on how well the teams are performing.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Okay. And then I wanted to flip the tariff issue and ask if that’s actually given your domestic manufacturing footprint, if that’s actually an opportunity for you guys and if you’re seeing bids related to customers looking to increase domestic sourcing.

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: You know, we have. I do think it is, I think how we have structured our supply chain and all of the work that we have done that really started kind of coming out of COVID and into some of the global supply chain challenges has really benefited us. I think that that footprint that we have that really capitalizes on serving our customers being geographically diverse is starting to show some benefits as it relates to, I guess, supply chain risk mitigation for our customers. We have seen some increases in quoting opportunities and have converted and been able to execute some spot purchases, more so on the cabinet segment. That’s where we’ve seen it first because some of the cabinet market has relied a little heavily on international and Asian sourcing.

So we have seen some opportunities and I think that will continue to present itself.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Perfect. I’ll turn it over. Thanks, guys.

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

Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Julio Romero with Sidoti and Company. Your line is open.

Justin, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Good morning. This is Justin on for Julio.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Good morning. Good morning.

Justin, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Can you give us a little more meat on the bone as to where in the timing portfolio have you been able to realize cost synergies faster than originally expected?

Scott Zilke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I think the main bucket for the increase versus the original expectation George mentioned is really on the procurement side. Once you get those two teams together and really start scrubbing all of that data, there just ended up being more opportunity than originally estimated. And then across what we consider the corporate bucket, which is things like finance, internal audit, HR, IT, legal, all of the above, we’re seeing higher realized and potentially realized synergies out of those groups than we did originally.

Justin, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Great. Thanks for the color there. And then on guidance for D and A, is the $6,500,000 in intangible asset amortization that was realized in 2Q a good go forward quarterly run rate? And what do you expect for the full year D and A both on a GAAP basis and an adjusted basis?

Scott Zilke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes, I think so what happened was for intangible amortization, think 2Q is a pretty decent run rate. I think we originally guided to around $60,000,000 for adjusted D and A for the year, which excludes intangible amortization. That’s still a good number.

Justin, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Great. Thanks. I’ll turn it back now.

Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: All right.

Conference Operator: Thank you. I’m showing no further questions at this time. I would now like to turn it back to George Wilson for closing remarks.

George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thank you for joining the call today. We look forward to providing you with another update when we report our Q3 earnings in September. Thank you.

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

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