WOR Worthington Enterprises, Inc.
$59.14
Worthington Enterprises, Inc. Q1 F2027 Earnings Call Transcript
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Conference Operator
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Worthington Enterprises Fiscal Year 2027 First Quarter Earnings Call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Marcus Rogier, Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer. Marcus, please go ahead.
Marcus Rogier
Treasurer and Investor Relations Officer
Thank you, Paige. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Worthington Enterprises' first quarter fiscal 2027 earnings call. On the call today are Joe Hayek, our president and chief executive officer, and Colin Souza, our chief financial officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that certain statements made during today's call are forward-looking in nature and subject to risk and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. For more information on these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our earnings release issued yesterday after the market closed, which is available on the investor relations section of our website. Additionally, our remarks today will include references to non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of these measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can also be found in the earnings release. Today's call is being recorded and a replay will be available later on our website at worthingtonenterprises.com. With that, I'll turn the call over to Joe for opening remarks. Thank you, Marcus.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Worthington Enterprises' fiscal 2027 first quarter earnings call. We had a strong start to fiscal 2027. While we faced some market and operating headwinds, our team continued to execute, serve our customers, and make progress on our strategic initiatives. I want to thank my colleagues around the world for the focus, creativity, and grit they bring to Worthington every day. In Q1, we grew sales by 13% year-over-year, including 7% organically. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 10% to $74 million, and we generated $54 million of free cash flow, nearly double the prior year quarter. Adjusted EPS was $0.82 compared with $0.78 a year ago. We continued to deploy capital thoughtfully in the quarter, including the reverses of 335,000 shares of our common stock. While we're pleased with our progress, the quarter was not without challenges. Building performance solutions, as we anticipated, faced headwinds in our cooling and construction business. As channel inventories are right-sized and new home sales are muted, demand for newly mandated A2L refrigerant cylinders is lower than it was a year ago, creating a difficult comparison. Additionally, steel availability across the industry remains tight, and lead times in the quarter were extended. F&M created some disruptions in production and scheduling for both cooling and construction and for our balloon cycles. Our teams are actively working through these issues every day, prioritizing our customers and ensuring that we are the best partner that we can be. While we faced some headwinds in the quarter, our performance was a reflection of our businesses and our people. Resilient. Creating specialty solutions delivered strong sales and even dog growth as that team continues executing at a high level. Our water business is performing very well as our 80-20 work matures and helps us focus on resources on the products and opportunities that create the most value. Wave and Clark Detrick also delivered higher equity earnings and were important contributors in the quarter. We optimize and grow Worthington. Our strategy is not complicated. We are leveraging the Worthington business system, transformation to improve our businesses, disciplined M&A to add capabilities and strengthen our portfolio, and innovation to grow organically where we have attractive opportunities. We continue to use 80-20 to optimize our businesses as we sharpen our focus, improve working capital, and allocate resources where they matter most. We've seen meaningful progress in our water business and are now extending that discipline into our portable fuel and torch businesses. We're also continuing to improve productivity through automation, AI-enabled tools, and other transformation initiatives. We remain disciplined about growth through M&A, and we're focused on opportunities where we believe we can bring unique advantages as an owner and create long-term value. Our integration of LSI continues to progress well, and they were focused on reaching more prospective customers and introducing them to LSI's compelling value proposition. I want to spend a little more time this morning on organic growth because we're increasingly seeing our innovation capabilities translate into meaningful commercial opportunities. One of the most topical examples of the kind of organic growth opportunities we're trying to create and develop at Worthington is our engineered ASME tanks. These engineered tanks have played an important role in commercial buildings across the world for decades. Increasingly, as new shift sets generate significantly more heat, data center designers and operators are embracing liquid cooling. Engineered tanks like ours help manage the cooling fluids used in liquid cooling systems and, as such, are a critical component of those data centers and the cooling infrastructure. We've been a market leader in these engineered ASME tanks for years. A market we believe has consistently been plus or minus $200 million a year for some time. Given the projected growth in data centers and the increasing adoption of liquid cooling in those data centers, industry sources suggest the market for liquid cooling and thermal management ASMB tanks alone could be more than 10 times the size of the legacy market in the next few years. To grow in and with this important end market, we took capabilities we already had listened closely to our customers, leveraged our engineering and innovation expertise, and created an emerging suite of liquid cooling and thermal management solutions. As a result, what started as a promising new application for us has quickly developed into an increasingly meaningful growth opportunity. As a reminder, in fiscal 26, we shipped roughly $13 million of AFME tanks for data centers, In the first quarter of fiscal 27, we generated an additional $13 million of revenue from that value stream, essentially matching what we did in the entire prior fiscal year. Near term, we believe that our ASMA tank revenues will continue to grow sequentially quarter over quarter through the balance of this fiscal year. In addition, while this market is in the early stages of development, our pipeline suggests that one, our solutions can play a meaningful role in this evolving architecture, and two, the market's growth is continuing to accelerate. To be clear, a pipeline is not revenue, and there is always some uncertainty around the timing and conversion of these opportunities. but the size and the quality of the opportunities in front of us is encouraging, and we are investing in equipment, engineering talent, and production capacity to support the customers we're sourcing today and the opportunities we see ahead. Solid financial results we're generating and the great opportunities ahead of us are a credit to our people. Wellington has always believed that people are our most important asset, and that is as true today as it has ever been. As an example, we recently named one of America's most innovative businesses for 2027 by Business Insider. The criteria they used included the number and impact of companies' technological innovations, their reputation among peers for fostering innovation, and how a company's investment in R&D compares to others in their industries. We're also recognized in the quarter by USA Today and Points of Light as one of America's most charitable companies. This honor reflects our deeply rooted commitment to communities where we live and work, including volunteerism and support from the Worthington Companies Foundation. Much is being asked of our teams every day as we navigate volatile markets, geopolitical instability, inflation, elevated interest rates, supply constraints, and operational challenges. We're very grateful for the way our colleagues continue to prioritize our customers and one another. We're proud of how we started our fiscal year. There's more work to do, but we continue to see tangible evidence that our strategy is working. We see it in organic growth driven by innovation, in productivity gains through transformation, in successful M&A integration, and, ultimately, in cash generation. In addition, our end markets, brands, capabilities, and strategy position us exceptionally well to continue driving profitable growth. Most importantly, we have a talented team that cares deeply about each other, our customers, and our company. Before I turn it over to Colin, who will spend a few more minutes on our financial performance in the quarter, I would like to remind everyone that we'll be hosting our Investor Day in New York on November 10th. We're looking forward to discussing our businesses, the opportunities we see for profitable growth, and how we're positioning Worthington Enterprises to create long-term value. We hope you'll join us.
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Joe, and good morning, everyone. We delivered a strong start to fiscal 2027, 1% organic sales growth, record trailing 12-month free cash flow of $196 million, continued improvement across our trade and specialty solutions businesses, strong performance from our joint ventures, and meaningful progress in several of our strategic growth platforms. Gap earnings in Q1 were $0.87 per share compared to $0.70 per share in the prior year period. The current quarter included a net benefit of $0.05 per share from non-recurring and restructuring items, primarily related to a gain realized from a contingent earn-out associated with the sale of our former oil and gas business, which was divested in January of 2021. The prior year quarter included $0.08 per share of restructuring and other expenses, Excluding these items in both periods, adjusted earnings were $0.82 per share, up from $0.78 per share in the prior year quarter. Included in adjusted earnings for Q1 was a net pre-tax benefit of approximately $4 million, or $0.06 per share, related to IEPA tariff refunds. Consolidated sales increased 13% to $344 million, demonstrating continued momentum across the underlying portfolio in addition to the contribution from our recent acquisitions, which added $19 million in net sales for Q1. Gross profit increased by nearly 11% in the quarter, while gross margin was 26.4% versus 27.1% a year ago. primarily reflecting lower volumes and less favorable mix in building performance solutions where cooling and construction faced a particularly difficult prior year comparison. Adjusted EBITDA was $74 million compared to $67 million in the prior year quarter, while adjusted EBITDA margin was 21.5%. Importantly, even excluding the net tariff refunds, adjusted EBITDA increased year over year, reflecting underlying improvement across several of our businesses. On a trailing 12-month basis, adjusted EBITDA increased to $303 million. Turning to our capital allocation, we remain focused on reinvesting in our businesses and pursuing strategic acquisitions while returning excess cash to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases. Free cash flow remains one of our most important operating metrics, and Q1 demonstrated the strength of our cash generation. Operating cash flow was $67 million, up from $41 million a year ago, while free cash flow increased to $54 million from $28 million, which is our second strongest quarter since becoming Worthington Enterprises, behind Q4 of fiscal 2026. Our discipline around cash flow generation was evident again in Key 1, supported by effective working capital management across the organization. On a trailing 12-month basis, free cash flow increased to $196 million, representing a 116% conversion rate relative to adjusted net earnings and our highest mark since becoming Worthington Enterprises. This level of cash flow provides us with the flexibility to reinvest in our businesses, pursue additional growth opportunities, and return capital to shareholders, supporting our ability to create value over time. Capital expenditures total $13 million in the quarter, and we return capital to shareholders through $9 million in dividends and spend $18 million to repurchase 335,000 shares of our common stock. Our joint ventures continue to deliver strong cash generation, providing $36 million in dividends during the quarter, representing 88% of equity income. Turning to our balance sheet and liquidity, we close the quarter with TTM-adjusted EBITDA of $303 million and net debt of $250 million. We continue to maintain a strong balance sheet with significant financial flexibility to execute our strategy. Yesterday, our board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of 20 cents per share, payable in December 2026. Before I turn to segment performance, and as a reminder, we recently renamed our two business segments to better reflect the markets they serve, the solutions they provide to customers, and the continued evolution of our portfolio. Building products is now building performance solutions, and consumer products is now trade and specialty solutions. The names have changed, the composition of the segments, and our historical financial results remain unchanged. In building performance solutions, Q1 net sales grew 16% year-over-year to $215 million, up from $185 million in the prior year quarter. Recent acquisitions contributed $19 million of net sales in the quarter, while organic sales increased 6%, driven primarily by strength in our water and European businesses, partially offset by lower revenue in our cooling and construction business. Adjusted EBITDA was essentially flat at $60 million compared to the prior year quarter, with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 27.8%. As Joe mentioned, the year-over-year comparison for building performance solutions was impacted by the normalization of demand in cooling and construction following the A2L refrigerant transition, as well as less favorable product mix. Tight steel availability and extended lead times also created production scheduling and shipment timing challenges during the quarter. We continue to view the A2L impact as a timing and comparison issue rather than a structural change in the business. Importantly, adoption remains strong and continued installation of A2L equipment supports current demand for our product, while also building an installed base that we believe will create an attractive long-term service and replacement opportunity. Our teams have worked diligently and prioritized customer needs throughout this period, while positioning the business to benefit as these temporary headwinds normalize. We are particularly encouraged by the accelerating opportunity in our water business, where demand for engineered ASME tanks supporting liquid cooling applications for data centers continues to grow. As Joe discussed, this is becoming an increasingly meaningful organic growth platform for Worthington. Wade delivered another record quarter with equity income increasing approximately $3 million year-over-year to $35 million. Clark Dietrich also improved with equity income increasing more than $1 million year-over-year to $7 million despite commercial construction activity outside of data centers remaining relatively soft. We are pleased with the performance of LSI and continue to see attractive opportunities to expand the scale, profitability, and diversification of our building performance solutions platform. In trade and specialty solutions, Q1 net sales grew 8% year-over-year to $129 million, up from $119 million in the prior year quarter, driven by a combination of higher overall volumes and average selling prices. adjusted EBITDA increased to $24 million from $16 million in the prior year quarter, while adjusted EBITDA margin expanded to 18.6% from 13.6%. The improvement in profitability reflected higher sales, pricing, and improved manufacturing performance, along with the net benefit from IEPA tariff refunds we discussed earlier. Importantly, underlying profitability improved, excluding the tariff benefit, particularly in our tools and portable fuel businesses. We were pleased with the performance of the segment, which continues to demonstrate the resilience of our portfolio of market-leading brands. Looking ahead, we remain focused on driving profitable organic growth through the Worthington business system, including continued innovation and transformation across the segment, along with opportunities to expand distribution. We've seen good results from 80-20 in our water business, and we're now applying those same principles to portable fuel and torch to simplify the portfolio, improve mix, and drive sustainable margin improvement. Overall, we are encouraged by our start to fiscal 2027. We are driving continued organic growth through innovation and solid execution, improving performance across several of our wholly owned businesses, strong contributions from our joint ventures, and growing in attractive end markets like data centers, all while generating near record cash flows. These results provide further evidence that our strategy is working. Looking ahead, we see multiple opportunities to strengthen earnings through continued execution, maturing 80-20, normalization and cooling in construction, growth in higher value applications, continued progress integrating recent acquisitions, and continued productivity improvements through the Worthington business system. We believe these initiatives are improving the quality, sustainability, and trajectory of our earnings and cash flows, strengthening our ability to invest for growth and create long-term value for our shareholders. With that, we're happy to take your questions.
Paige
Conference Operator
We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Brian Beros with Thompson Research Group. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Brian Beros
Analyst, Thompson Research Group
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions today.
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
Morning, Brian.
Brian Beros
Analyst, Thompson Research Group
Morning. I want to start with a question just about the steel market overall. You mentioned it's tight, lead times extended, not the ideal supply chain setup, but Worthington should be in a position to, I guess, navigate that better than almost every other competitor you guys have. So maybe help us understand kind of where things stand today in the field and kind of what Worthington can do that others can't to navigate that.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure, Ryan. It's a very topical, good question. And steel market has absolutely tightened. We are seeing longer lead times and certainly the price of steel has come up in certain areas. You probably did start last fall When 232 tariffs on imported raw steel doubled, that really chilled imports. Since then, you've seen the price of steel creep steadily up and the market started to see some lead times get extended. That was certainly the case in Q1. But as you say, tech markets can create challenges, but they're also environments where we think some of our capabilities really do matter. We're a pretty sophisticated buyer of steel. We have very strong supplier relationships, and we have a broad manufacturing footprint. It gives us additional options to manage through periods of constrained supply. So we've been actively managing in that environment by looking across suppliers, products, and our network to be sure that we're serving customers in maintaining access to materials when it's been appropriate. We have taken pricing actions as well since input costs have increased the way that they did. So the availability was a headwind for us in Q1, particularly as we mentioned in going to construction and balloon time. We do think that we're better positioned going forward, certainly through the end of the calendar year. and beyond that we have limited visibility that doesn't mean we don't necessarily think that it'll get worse again beyond that but as i said we just don't have a lot of great visibility kind of into the new calendar year uh you know we we ultimately think about that as it probably cost us you know a few million dollars in the quarter okay thank you and follow-up i guess would be on maybe on the jv wave uh up eight percent great to see on a
Brian Beros
Analyst, Thompson Research Group
already pretty strong comp anyway. So maybe some more clarity on kind of what the driving factor for that was, if that's data center demand starting to flow through distribution yet. Is that pricing just from steel or maybe just strong core end markets? More commentary on kind of the demand for that would be helpful. Thank you.
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
Sure, Brian. So WAVE, as you mentioned, another really excellent quarter delivering record equity income of $35 million. And we continue to be very pleased with the performance of that business and the team there. The end markets at WAVE, they remain generally stable. Although performance varies by sector, so education, healthcare, transportation, and as you mentioned, data centers continue to remain healthy and drive volume, while channels like retail and office are a little more muted. So WAVE also does benefit from meaningful exposure to repair and remodel activity, which tends to be more resilient than the new commercial construction space. So they're a little insulated there, which is good. The team continues to really innovate around solutions that help contractors reduce labor and improve installation efficiency. And that's always going to be and many more. As we look into Q2, you know, there is normal seasonality to the business. Q1 is a strong quarter for them always during the year. But we would expect as we look into Q2 some sequential moderation, but overall they remain very healthy and we're very confident in the team there.
Brian Beros
Analyst, Thompson Research Group
Great. Thank you.
Paige
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Walt Liptyk with Seaport Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Walt Liptyk
Analyst, Seaport Research
Hi, thanks. Good morning, guys, and good quarter. I wanted to ask about the data center product, and it sounds like you hit the targets that you set out to get the $13 million. I wonder if you could talk about just the experience during the quarter, You know, as you're going through any ramp costs or productivity that you're working through, and as you've been able to maintain and come out with the new ASME products, are you able to get more visibility beyond kind of what you've talked about in the past, which is getting to kind of that run rate of $13 million in revenue per quarter?
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure, Walt.
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
Good morning.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
You know, we're talking here about, you know, ASME tanks that people aren't sure if that stands for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. It's a certain code and approval process, but these are tanks that are used in liquid cooling systems that support next-gen computing infrastructure. Their purpose is to build vessels used for liquid cooling and thermal management. And we've actually been in this business for a long time. We've been innovating in pressure and hydronic systems for 80 years. In fact, Antral invented the first pre-pressurized, not to get too technical on you, diaphragm expansion tank seven years ago. So this isn't new to us, but as we listened to customers and understood what they were trying and needed to accomplish, We knew we could be helpful, so we leveraged a core competency, our engineering and innovation expertise, and created this emerging suite of solutions that we think really do help our customers solve problems that they're trying to solve. And so you said it, $13 million last year, $13 million in Q1. We do think that we should grow sequentially in Q2, Q3, and Q4. More of that growth being weighted on the back half of the year, the back part of the year. But keep in mind that this market is still developing, and these opportunities are sometimes 18 to 24 months removed from a quote-unquote announcement that you might hear about a data center being greenlit. And so we do think that we'll have some variability from quarter to quarter, but this is a multi-year opportunity. We think it's Accelerating. And as I mentioned before, we think that the liquid cooling and thermal management market just for data centers could be 10x what the legacy market was in the next few years. And so we absolutely have invested and are continuing to invest in engineering talents, in new equipment, and in production capacity. as we're really trying to be and believe that we're very well positioned to be part of the solution. And so if you think about the way people describe this market, they talk about hyperscalers, data center builders, and then ultimately we get into kind of the picks and shovels that make data centers work. It's oversimplifying, but you can think of our solutions as types of picks and shovels. We make various kinds of tanks and separators, but what really sets us apart is the services that we can provide around these solutions, our engineering expertise, our design expertise, ultimately helping our customers design or refine their designs for these Thank you very much.
Walt Liptyk
Analyst, Seaport Research
Okay, thanks for that. Appreciate it. And yeah, good luck with that rapidly expanding market. I wonder if you could talk about, you know, the strategy that you guys are going after. I think you've talked about some capacity expansions. You just mentioned engineering and production. I wonder if you can talk about what you're doing there.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. So it is a... Pretty fulsome approach, heavy on design, engineering, and process. a lot of capacity expansion and investments in our own facilities but in cases where it makes sense for somebody else to manufacture these we've got a group of partners that we are relying on and that we are partnering with to help us essentially expand our own capacity and ultimately do the design work do the commercial work do all the
Walt Liptyk
Analyst, Seaport Research
Okay, great. Okay, thanks. I'll get back in queue. Thank you. Sure.
Paige
Conference Operator
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. Your next question comes from the line of Susan McClary with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Susan McClary
Analyst, Goldman Sachs
My first question is around the broader state of the consumer and what you're seeing there. It sounds like from what we're hearing from the homebuilders, things certainly moderated in the quarter as rates rose in the geopolitical environment. Can you just talk a bit about what you're seeing now and what that implies as we think about the growth in the next couple quarters?
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. So, you know, within trade and specialty, one of the reasons, obviously, that we have decided to realign and rename those, Susan, as you know, is an awful lot of our products that were sold through what's historically been consumer end up in the hands of contractors. They're working on commercial buildings or Thank you for joining us. Energy around NPD and new products that we expect to see in the back half of our fiscal year. But I would say generally, yeah, you're right. Interest rates are still high, but people are still repairing, remodeling. Unemployment is still pretty low, and we've always used unemployment as a pretty good indicator for us. And so we haven't seen... Any material weakness in our customers' point of sale is hanging in there. And so we think that our products are awfully resilient and have typically shown that way. And it's not as though the market's worse than it was in the past three years. So it's been relatively steady from that perspective.
Susan McClary
Analyst, Goldman Sachs
Okay, that's helpful. And then can you also give us an update on the integration of the recent acquisitions that you've done, and any comments on the M&A pipeline in general, given the operating conditions and the move-in rates?
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, thanks, Susan. So I'll take the pipeline question first, and we continue to see a healthy pipeline of opportunities. A slight uptick, if anything, more recently with just activity there, which is good. And as you know, we're focused on businesses where we see strong strategic and cultural fit. These are in attractive niches and where Worthington has a clear opportunity to create some additional value. And we've got a strong balance sheet. We've got really good free cash flow generation like we talked about earlier. and Low Leverage. And that creates significant financial flexibility for us to pursue these opportunities when they make sense. Our capital allocation framework is balanced, as you know, with a bias towards growth. And we're actively evaluating opportunities and we feel good about what we're seeing there. Just on the recent acquisition, so we also, we continue to feel pretty good about Our most recent acquisitions, both Elgin and LSI, in the quarter, the acquisitions contributed approximately 19 million of sales just in Q1. With Elgin specifically, we've made good progress on that integration. It's been over a year at this point. We're focused heavily on the operations and deploying the Worthington business system to really realize the full potential of the business. The commercial HVAC end markets that they serve remain pretty healthy, and we continue to believe Elgin has significant opportunity over time. On LSI, that's our most recent acquisition. We closed in January. It's earlier in the integration process, but we are very pleased with performance there. It's a high-quality business. really attractive margins, a strong position in a very specialized niche. There are critical components of the overall kind of metal roofing system, which is an attractive market to be in. So we're increasingly focused on LSI with how we can deploy Worthington's capabilities to accelerate growth. We think that's the real unlock for LSI and Most importantly, both of those businesses, Elgin and LSI, are great cultural fits. People are our most important asset, and with the acquisitions, we'd much rather spend our time improving operations, expanding commercial opportunities, than trying to change the culture. In both cases, we feel pretty good about the teams there and the culture at those businesses.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, and Susan, the only thing I would add, Colin, when you talk about the increase in rates and the rate environment, that's actually a good thing for us. We, as you know, have a pretty good balance sheet and have a fair amount of liquidity if competitive situations arise for acquisition that are Thank you, Susan.
Paige
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Walt Liptyk with Seaport Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Walt Liptyk
Analyst, Seaport Research
Okay, thanks. I've got a couple of follow-ups. One on the free cash flow, as you guys pointed out, was very strong. I wonder if you could talk about some of the programs that you guys are doing to improve working capital. And is that sort of a one-time thing? Thank you, Walt. This has been an important point for us, and we're really pleased with the cash flow generation.
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
As you mentioned, as we talked about earlier, up 26 million year over year from a Operating in free cash flow standpoint, $196 million in free cash flow on a trailing 12-month basis. That's the highest it's been. The working capital measures we've been very intentional about, which has been helping us drive that free cash flow generation, and we believe it is sustainable. We've been working hard with our teams to continue to pull levers to really compound our cash flow. And in particular, it's shown up, as we talked about, in our working capital. And so just from a cash conversion cycle standpoint, just over the last year, I think we're down about eight or nine days, which we're really pleased with over that period. And then just from a net working capital as a percent of sales, we're down, I think, almost 3% just over the last couple of years. And so that's a lot of incremental things, working around customer terms, working around our supply base, and then just more efficiently and effectively managing inventory. Things like 80-20 always play a role in that as well. And so we're really pleased with the performance and do view it as sustainable. As we move forward, we're going to continue to drive that free cash flow generation. And there is some normal kind of We do have an extra tax payment in Q2, which is normal, of course. But outside of that, we feel pretty good from a free cash flow standpoint.
Walt Liptyk
Analyst, Seaport Research
Okay. All right. Thanks for that insight. And then just the last one for me, the A2L, tough comparison. We saw that last quarter. It's here again. You know, that inventory correction that's going on, how long do you think it'll take to clear? You know, do you expect more, especially in the second quarter, going into the end of the calendar year? And at what point do you think we start getting on to a positive comp?
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, so Walt, so it is, you know, that transition, you know, it did have an impact in the quarter. The unfavorable mix, you know, was primarily driven by, The cooling construction business and the Dyspo comparison there related to A2L. Just a little more background there. The prior year benefited from this unusually strong demand as manufacturers, distributors, contractors simultaneously established inventory ahead of this regulated transition. and that included kind of heavy demand on our products, obviously. And we estimate the year over year impact to adjusted EBITDA this quarter was approximately $7 million, which is more than we anticipated a quarter ago. And Joe mentioned this earlier, channel inventories are taking a little longer to normalize and particularly against the backdrop of the muted housing environment. We expect Q2 to remain a difficult comparison because of that prior year quarter benefited from the A2L related volumes. But as we move to the second half of the year, Q3 and Q4 are seasonally stronger in this market, including in construction. So we do expect normalization there. And importantly, we continue to view this primarily as more of a timing and comparison issue rather than a change in the long-term fundamentals of the business. Nearly all the new residential equipment now utilizes A2L refrigerants, and so every new installation expands the install base for our products, and over time that should create a growing service and repair opportunity for the products that we sell in this space.
Walt Liptyk
Analyst, Seaport Research
Okay. All right. Thanks very much.
Paige
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Brian McNamara
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Just one for me as all my other questions have been addressed. Can you characterize or quantify the growth you're seeing in data centers outside of ASME tanks, whether it be Wave, Elgin, or LSI? Specifically, are you bundling your solutions there to win business, or has it largely been kind of a la carte to this point?
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
It's a great question, Brian. Good morning, Steve. The way that we think about data centers, we talk a lot about the ASME tanks, but yeah, absolutely. Every data center is a commercial building. and a number of our value streams provide building performance solutions that are integral to the way those buildings function and setting up to do what they're supposed to do. That certainly includes WAVE and Clark Dietrich, LG and LSI. Across those value streams, data centers are a very important part of the growth that we're seeing and I would say our revenues are growing commensurate, maybe a bit better or a bit worse depending on the Thank you for joining us. The bundling would be an overstatement, but we are increasingly collaborating across value streams and talking about opportunities and prioritizing and ultimately making the case that we can refer or otherwise make more introductions for other pieces of our business that we probably couldn't a couple years ago.
Brian McNamara
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Maybe just a quick follow-up on that. I think in Q3 last year, you said that your data center business was expected to triple in fiscal 26. Well, it sounds like the ASME tanks are about to quadruple at least if they sequentially grow each quarter this year. Can we at least characterize the other businesses exposed to data centers that you guys own kind of multiplying this year? Is that a fair way to characterize the growth you're seeing there?
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
So your question, Brian, the non-ASME tax. Yeah. Say that again? I think I misunderstood your question. Can you ask it again?
Brian McNamara
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
Yeah. So I think in Q3, I think you said your data center business overall last year was expected to triple. I don't know where that landed. Are we expecting that kind of same, maybe doubling, tripling kind of this year? It sounds like the ASME tanks are going to at least quadruple if you grow sequentially quarter after quarter this year.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, yeah, right. So, yes, we have $13 million was effectively 3x what it had been the year before. We did that in Q1, which on a run rate, you know, sort of would have it being 4x, but we think that, and we said this much, that we're going to grow sequentially. So, yeah, we do absolutely believe that this market is accelerating.
Brian McNamara
Analyst, Canaccord Genuity
All right. Apologize for the confusion there. Thanks for taking the question.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
No, no, it's my fault. Thank you.
Paige
Conference Operator
Your next question comes from the line of Will Gildia with CJS Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Will Gildia
Analyst, CJS Securities
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking our questions. Can you add some more color on the really solid growth in trade and specialty solutions? I think you described as volume and price driven. Just wondering, are there any product lines and customers where you saw more strength in the quarter?
Colin Souza
Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Will. The trade and specialty solution segment, really good performance in the quarter. Sales increased approximately 8%, driven by a combination of higher overall volumes and selling prices. We saw some good broad-based sales. growth across most of the portfolio, particularly portable propane and tools. Those were driven by higher volumes, expanded distribution, and then both of those segments had some pricing actions as well, which was helpful. The balloon time business was the primary exception. Volumes were down, but that was more a function of a really strong prior year comparison. which impacted in the current quarter. So more broadly, really pleased with the performance of the segment and they had good margin expansion, even excluding the tariff kind of positive in the quarter as well.
Will Gildia
Analyst, CJS Securities
That is very helpful. Thank you. And then just one more, I think you described increasing raw material prices ahead one of a few million dollars. How quickly... Can you mitigate that? And how are you thinking about mitigating that? And does that headwind get worse throughout to the end of the calendar year? Does it improve?
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Just to make sure I clarify, Will, my comment on a few million dollars was around Thank you for joining us. That's not ideal, but we have taken price actions where we thought we needed to. But these are environments where we ultimately can separate ourselves from others. And so with our relationships and our capabilities and our optionality, it's something that we'll continue to address. And I think we'll address it successfully. with the caveat obviously that you know things are certainly more expensive than they were a year ago from a raw material perspective and that's true across the board.
Will Gildia
Analyst, CJS Securities
All right thank you very much.
Paige
Conference Operator
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Joe for any closing remarks.
Joe Hayek
President and Chief Executive Officer
Hey thank you and thank you all for joining us this morning. We look forward to potentially seeing some of you at our investor day in November. Hope you have a great day.
Paige
Conference Operator
And this concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.