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Chief Executive Officer — Shyam K. Reddy
Chief Financial Officer — Christopher Kelly Wall
Chairman of the Board — Thomas C. Morabito
Shyam K. Reddy: Thanks, Tom. Good morning, everyone. We are off to a good start in 2026, as our first quarter results reflect our ability to compete effectively and deliver positive performance despite market headwinds, unforeseen cost inflation, and competitive pricing pressure. Our disciplined approach to executing our channel and product strategies enabled us to manage margins and to continue growing volumes across multiple product categories and key customer channels. During the first quarter, revenues increased 3% year-over-year, driven primarily by Distero specialty sales and higher volumes in our key specialty product categories, which helped offset ongoing pricing pressure in specialty and structural products and margin pressure in specialty products.
Specialty and structural gross margins were 18.1% and 10.9%, respectively, reflecting the strength of our customer value proposition and effective inventory management. Our specialty product strategy continues to deliver results, with engineered wood, siding, millwork, industrial, outdoor living products, and other specialty products representing 70% of net sales and approximately 80% of gross profit in the quarter. While overall market conditions remain soft, our deliberate alignment of key supplier branded product expansion with strategic channel growth initiatives is enabling us to drive better commercial outcomes and allocate working capital more effectively.
Last week’s announcement of Westlake Royal’s TrueExterior siding and trim products in 12 BlueLinx Holdings Inc. markets, including six of the country’s top 50 MSAs, reinforces our commitment to this alignment. As you can see, our commercial strategic focus and our customer value proposition are accelerating our product and geographic expansion efforts with key vendors. We continue to see positive momentum across our commercial growth vectors: the multifamily channel, builder pull-through initiatives, and national accounts business, all of which are key elements of our channel strategy. These efforts are helping us drive incremental volumes, convert projects and customers to key brands we carry, and strengthen our position as a preferred growth partner for suppliers.
While multifamily sales typically involve longer inventory cycles and lower gross margins due to direct sales and competitive pricing, this channel remains an important source of demand and a critical component of our long-term growth strategy to support total housing starts at scale. Operationally, our results also reflect disciplined inventory management. Our ability to quickly adjust inventory levels to market conditions demonstrates the strength of our commercial execution and operating discipline. As market conditions improve, we expect these institutional capabilities to support stronger cash flow generation. From a strategic accelerant perspective, we continue to make meaningful progress in our AI and digital transformation initiatives, with particular focus on enhancing our master data platform and optimizing our Oracle Transportation Management system.
We also remain committed to supporting the advanced digital platforms of our largest customers and leveraging AI-driven solutions to improve productivity and efficiency across the organization as we continue to explore and develop AI and digital tools for commercial sales, operational excellence, and e-commerce. Finally, our financial position remains strong, with $659 million in available liquidity at the end of the quarter, providing us with the flexibility to reinvest in the business, pursue growth opportunities, and continue navigating a challenging market environment. Overall, we believe our disciplined execution, resilient operating model, and focused strategy position us well as we move through 2026.
We also returned capital to shareholders by repurchasing $3 million of shares in Q1, and the total current availability under our share repurchase authorization is nearly $56 million as of quarter end. This demonstrates our commitment to returning capital to our shareholders and our continued confidence in the company’s long-term growth strategy. Now for a few more highlights on our first quarter results. We generated net sales of $731 million and adjusted EBITDA of $23.5 million for a 3.2% adjusted EBITDA margin, a significant improvement on a year-over-year basis. Distero contributed nearly $21 million of net sales and over $2 million in adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted net income was $1.7 million, or $0.21 per share.
Specialty product net sales increased nearly 7% year-over-year due to solid volumes across the board, with Distero’s product portfolio and our engineered wood products and siding leading the way. Unfortunately, price deflation and margin compression in several categories offset the benefit of our net sales and our volume increases in the business. Although structural product revenues decreased nearly 5% year-over-year, due largely to price declines in lumber and panels, we were able to offset the impact by driving higher lumber volumes and gross margins. As a result, we delivered higher structural gross profit on a year-over-year basis. Our strategic sales and product expansion efforts led to higher volumes and increased net sales at solid margins.
Eighteen percent volume growth in multifamily and over 3% volume growth with key national accounts demonstrated another quarter of key channel growth tied to disciplined execution of our strategy. Our builder pull-through programs tied to partnerships with strategic customers led to key channel and specialty product growth. Our differentiated value proposition led to geographic and product expansion with key suppliers, with meaningful year-over-year growth across multiple product lines that align with our channel growth strategy. For example, our EWP and siding volumes and sales were both up low single digits on a year-over-year basis despite consistently declining housing starts.
As I mentioned a minute ago, the addition of Westlake Royal’s TrueExterior siding and trim products significantly adds to our specialty product assortment, while demonstrating another example of geographic and branded SKU expansion with a key supplier. We also delivered solid gross margin performance despite difficult market conditions, cost inflation, and a competitive pricing environment, with specialty products at 18.1% and structural products at 10.9%. Our focus on the product and channel strategy, fueled by our operational and business excellence initiatives such as effective pricing, value-add services, strong customer service, branded product expansion gains, and disciplined inventory management, all helped drive this performance.
The macroeconomic backdrop for building products distribution continues to depress demand for projects tied to new builds and repair and remodel activity. Historically low levels of consumer confidence and persistently high inflation, economic uncertainty, and geopolitical volatility are also suppressing the cyclical housing tailwind from materializing, which I expect to continue through 2026. These soft market conditions have led to lower volumes in certain traditional customer channels and highly competitive market pricing. At the same time, however, the K-shaped economy continues to provide opportunities in certain parts of the country across all customer channels, another reason why our scale and geographic footprint helps smooth out our overall performance.
In any event, we have overcome market challenges by increasing volumes and maintaining solid margins via intentional growth tied to our channel and our product strategies. We are also actively managing our cost structure, passing along cost increases, optimizing inventory, and prioritizing high-margin categories to optimize performance in an otherwise challenging market that we do not expect to abate anytime soon. Overall, we are off to a good start in 2026, as demonstrated by our solid financial performance for the quarter. We will continue to execute our strategy through the current cycle, which will position us for better-than-market growth when the housing recovery occurs.
To wrap up, I want to thank all of our associates for their commitment to our customers, our suppliers, each other, and the communities we all serve. Now I will turn it over to Kelly, who will provide more details on our financial results and our capital structure.
Christopher Kelly Wall: Thanks, Shyam. Good morning, everyone. Let us first go through the consolidated highlights for the quarter. Overall, both Specialty Products and Structural Products delivered solid volumes and gross margins in what continues to be a challenging macro environment. Net sales for the quarter were $731 million, up over 3% year-over-year. Total gross profit was $116 million, and gross margin was 15.9%, up from 15.7% in the prior-year period. SG&A was $96 million, up $2 million from last year’s first quarter. This increase was mainly due to the addition of Distero, offset by $1.9 million of business interruption insurance received in the quarter.
Given the difficult demand environment and continued pressure on wages and other operating costs, we remain focused on rigorous expense management and on identifying opportunities to further improve efficiency. Net loss for the quarter was $1.5 million, or $0.18 per share, primarily due to higher net interest expense and higher depreciation and amortization. Adjusted net income was $1.7 million, or $0.21 per share. Our effective income tax rate for the quarter was not meaningful given the level of our pretax income and the impact of several small discrete items. Adjusted EBITDA was $23.5 million, up approximately 20% from the prior year due to increased sales, including Distero, improved overall gross margins, and disciplined expense management.
While we are very pleased with the year-over-year increase in adjusted EBITDA in the first quarter, we do not expect similar performance over the balance of 2026, reflecting ongoing demand pressures in a still soft housing environment. These pressures include affordability constraints and elevated mortgage rates, muted consumer confidence, ongoing political uncertainty and interest rate volatility dampening the typical spring selling season, continued cost inflation, and the challenges associated with passing those costs on in a soft market. Turning now to the first quarter results for Specialty Products. Net sales for Specialty Products were $512 million in the first quarter, up nearly 7% year-over-year.
This increase was driven by Distero sales and higher volumes in most product categories, partially offset by year-over-year pricing pressure in nearly all categories. Gross profit from Specialty Product sales was $93 million, up over 3% year-over-year. Specialty gross margin was 18.1%, down from last year’s 18.7%. Excluding a $2.4 million duty-related benefit in 2025, gross margin was down 10 basis points from last year. Sequentially, specialty gross margins were flat when compared to 2025. For the second quarter of the current year, we expect Specialty Product gross margin to be in the range of 17.5% to 18.5%, with daily sales volumes higher than 2026 due to normal seasonal patterns, and lower than 2025. Now moving on to Structural Products.
Net sales were $219 million for Structural in the first quarter, down nearly 5% compared to the prior-year period. This decrease was primarily due to lower pricing for both lumber and panels when compared to last year, offsetting the higher lumber volumes we generated. Gross profit from Structural Products was $24 million, an increase of 12% year-over-year. Structural gross margin was 10.9%, up from 9.3% in the same period last year. Sequentially, structural gross margin increased 90 basis points. This increase was primarily driven by higher lumber and panel market pricing, with lumber and panel prices 16% to 4% higher versus the fourth quarter.
We expect Q2 gross margin for Structural Products to be in the range of 9.5% to 10.5%, which has been positively impacted by sequentially higher lumber and panel prices from 2025 through early Q2 of the current year. We also expect daily sales volumes to be higher than 2026 due to normal seasonal patterns and slightly lower than 2025. Turning now to our balance sheet. Our liquidity continues to be very strong. At the end of the quarter, cash and cash equivalents were $319 million, a decrease of $67 million from Q4, largely due to the seasonal changes in working capital.
When considering our cash on hand and undrawn revolver capacity of $340 million, available liquidity was approximately $659 million at the end of the quarter. Total debt, excluding our real property financing leases, was $377 million, and net debt was $58 million. Our net leverage ratio was 0.7 times trailing four-quarter adjusted EBITDA, and we have no material outstanding debt maturities until 2029. Additionally, given the strength of our balance sheet and continued strong liquidity, we remain well positioned to support our strategic initiatives.
These strategic initiatives include continued growth with our largest customers and in the multifamily channel, with this focus also benefiting our traditional dealer customers; demand pull-through efforts to drive strategic product sales that benefit our customers; continued specialty product expansion with key suppliers; our business and digital transformation efforts; and other organic and inorganic growth initiatives. Now moving on to working capital and free cash flow. During the first quarter, we had negative operating cash flow of $57 million and free cash flow of negative $60 million, primarily due to the seasonal changes in working capital ahead of the spring building season. Now to capital allocation.
During the quarter, we incurred $2.6 million of CapEx, primarily related to investments in our facilities, technology, and fleet. For 2026, we plan to manage our CapEx in a manner that reflects current market conditions and allows us to maintain a strong balance sheet. Our remaining capital investments will focus on facility maintenance and improvements, further replacement of trucks and trailers, and the technology improvements that support our business and digital transformation. During the first quarter, we repurchased $3 million of shares. From the end of the quarter through April 21, we have repurchased additional shares, bringing the total dollar amount purchased year-to-date to $5 million.
As of today, we have a total of $54 million remaining under our share repurchase authorizations. Our guiding principles for capital allocation remain consistent with prior quarters. We intend to maintain a strong balance sheet which enables us to invest in our business through economic cycles, expand our geographic footprint, and pursue a disciplined inorganic growth strategy demonstrated by our acquisition of Distero, and opportunistically return capital to shareholders through share repurchases. We also plan to maintain a long-term net leverage ratio of two times or less.
Overall, we are pleased with our solid first quarter 2026 results, particularly in light of current market conditions, but remain more muted in our expectations for the remainder of 2026 given that the housing environment remains soft. We will now open the call for questions.
Operator: At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Jeffrey Patrick Stevenson with Loop Capital. Please go ahead.
Zack Pacheco: Good morning. This is Zack Pacheco on for Jeff. Thanks for taking my question. First, how much restocking ahead of the spring selling season contributed to the strong Specialty Products volume growth during the quarter in categories such as EWP?
Shyam K. Reddy: Good morning, Zack. When you say restocking, are you talking about on the part of our customers? I would not necessarily characterize it as some unusual restocking or even historical restocking. Our EWP growth is tied to very specific product and channel efforts that we are driving in key segments. For example, our builder pull-through programs that are being aligned with strategic dealer customers are driving EWP growth in some markets, and we have wrapped around creative pricing and rebate programs to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. Even in a soft market, we are able to grab share.
If you look over the last five years and even over last year to this year, single-family housing starts continue to decline, and repair and remodel activity continues to be either volatile or soft or projected to continue to be soft over time. So it really has more to do with very specific actions we are taking to gain share or otherwise grab a greater share of the existing wallet, even if the overall market is shrinking due to soft market conditions. As part of our channel strategy, we are also focused on larger customers so we can grow faster at scale. We have been expanding stocking programs with certain key partners.
So there is a twofold answer to your prior question.
Zack Pacheco: Thank you. And then secondly, any color on the impact of UFP’s acquisition of MoistureShield on the business and the opportunity to grow and expand with the Deckorators line of products?
Shyam K. Reddy: Honestly, that is a great positive story for us. Deckorators is viewed as the number three largest outdoor living or decking products supplier. It is a very well-known branded product carried throughout the country. Between it and MoistureShield, we have expanded the branded assortment within our portfolio that is viewed as a top-tier brand, so it fits squarely within our specialty mix-shift strategy in terms of growing one of our key five specialty product categories.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of The Benchmark Company. Please go ahead.
Analyst: Thank you. Good morning, everyone. I was wondering if you could discuss what favorable changes happened in the gross margin profile since your guide back in February. For specialty, I think you were looking for 17% to 18% margins. In March, you probably had to deal with some transportation and diesel-related inflationary pressures, and yet you were able to come in above that range. Can you talk about what the positive factors were, and was there any incremental price-cost pressure in March that you were able to overcome with other factors?
Christopher Kelly Wall: The biggest driver of our margin improvement in the quarter was on the structural side. We finished the quarter at a 10.9% structural margin, up 160 basis points from last year, and we benefited significantly through the quarter with a rising commodity pricing environment for both lumber and panels, mostly on the lumber side. If you go back to the end of Q4, that increase in commodity pricing continued into April and then flattened out a bit and came back some during the last week or so. In a rising commodity pricing environment, we are able to expand margins by virtue of market pricing being higher than the inventory levels we are carrying.
That was a large driver of the margin improvement on the structural side, and we were not anticipating that prolonged and consistent increase to the extent we experienced. On the specialty side, it is continued efforts to serve our customers and price in the value-added services that we have been providing across all categories. We saw price increases quarter to quarter in all categories except for one, and the one that did not see price increases was less than a 1% decline.
We are very focused on continuing to not only match products that our customers need but also services that allow us to drive margin, combined with an increased focus on making sure that we are pricing effectively given the availability of products in the market.
Shyam K. Reddy: We are very pleased with the Distero acquisition, which supports our specialty mix-shift strategy. It is a 100% specialty wood distributor that services high-end homes across the country. We have been able to leverage Distero’s strengths to support our specialty mix-shift and provide not only strong EBITDA contribution but meaningful net sales at stable, higher margins despite softness in the market. Pricing has stabilized within our ranges, and we have done a good job managing those margins, but we continue to face margin pressure within specialty products due to competitive pricing in certain categories. Given our value-add services and go-to-market strategy, we are mitigating those risks.
In addition, our institutionalized inventory management system allows us access to competitively priced wood, which can enhance margins in a rising price environment.
Analyst: You mentioned that pricing was stabilizing, but you still have a competitive environment in some categories. Which specific product categories within specialty are more stable now than they were in January or February, and which ones are still seeing sequential competitive pressures?
Shyam K. Reddy: EWP continues to be competitive. Fortunately, it has an inherently higher margin profile, but it is very competitive in terms of winning projects. We are making it up with good volume with key strategic customers while managing through pricing competitiveness given our value-add services. Siding continues to be pressured as well on the fiber cement side. As we drive multifamily growth, that tends to have a lower margin profile, especially given a portion of it being direct business. We still believe operating at scale to solve for total housing starts as opposed to just single-family starts is important to our long-term growth thesis.
Analyst: Historically, the first quarter is usually the low watermark for the year for revenue and margins. Is there any reason why this year that would not hold true?
Christopher Kelly Wall: Typically, that is what you would see. One thing that is different at the start of this year is the performance from a margin perspective for structural, which is a big driver that could cause Q1 to look a little different than it has in the past. We said we expect the remaining three quarters to continue to be pressured by a weaker end market than what we anticipated on our prior call. Typically, we would see higher earnings in Q2 and Q3 and then lower again in Q4.
Q1 is probably a bit higher than what we would normally expect, but as we go through the course of this year, I expect it to return to a more typical pattern.
Shyam K. Reddy: Even if you look at Q1 selling activity and listings, despite there being demand for housing, inventory levels continue to rise with very tepid buying activity on the existing sales front. You see the numbers for single-family housing starts, permits, and multifamily. We are outperforming the market on multifamily, but the margin profile is different. Seasonal patterns typically hold true, and I do not think that changes. Based on what we are seeing heading into this spring and summer selling season, conditions do not seem any different than last year. There is nothing to suggest that what we saw in Q1 should be extrapolated. Our performance reflects consistent execution of our strategy.
Analyst: Are there any categories within specialty where you are seeing price increases from manufacturers that are difficult to pass on to your customers?
Shyam K. Reddy: We have been hit with supplier increases from more than 40 vendors, often with multiple increases that we need to push through. From a two-step distribution standpoint, supplier increases are typically accepted, with notification periods that allow us to notify customers. In many cases, suppliers announce increases to the market as well. Depending on customer arrangements, it may take more time to pass those through, but that can be done in collaboration with suppliers to minimize the impact to BlueLinx Holdings Inc.
Analyst: Got it. Thanks, guys. Good luck.
Operator: Your last question comes from the line of Kurt Willem Yinger with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.
Kurt Willem Yinger: Thanks, and congrats on the strong quarter. I wanted to go back to the TrueExterior announcement with a two-parter. First, is there any way to size what the contribution from that expansion might look like as you get product on the ground and sell through over the next several quarters? And second, with that move, are there any associated changes to existing siding vendor relationships? Is this displacing someone else or expanding into new markets for Westlake?
Shyam K. Reddy: It is not often you can work with a key vendor to roll out 12 markets all at once, especially covering as many top 50 MSAs as we are. That reflects strong confidence on the part of Westlake Royal in our channel growth strategy. This is a brand-new rollout of a brand-new product across multiple markets, so I cannot provide a specific revenue contribution outlook today. We are focused on proving and demonstrating our value proposition in rolling out new product lines in multiple markets consistently to help our suppliers grow at scale like we want to grow at scale.
We executed a big load-in of product across multiple markets very quickly, which I would posit is highly unusual for two-step distribution but consistent with our value proposition. Over the coming months, our plan is to accelerate sales activity of those product lines with the inventory we put on the ground. As it relates to other categories, we view TrueExterior as complementary. Siding and trim are strategic growth categories for us across multifamily and single-family channels. We are selling multiple lines with multiple vendors and are pleased with the bundling opportunities and value proposition we can provide customers, especially those where we have dedicated scale-focused efforts. It is an exciting launch for us.
Kurt Willem Yinger: Appreciate the color. On the outlook for daily sales volumes being a little bit lower in Q2, first, does that include Distero? And second, have you seen any meaningful change in customer order patterns as you worked through April relative to normal seasonality?
Christopher Kelly Wall: Our view on volumes being slightly lower than last year does include the impact of Distero. It is driven by end-market demand for building activity that we expect to take place this year versus last year, which continues to be down, and the general views have worsened through the last several weeks. As it relates to competitive dynamics, they remain intense, which is a continuation of what we saw last year after many channel partners ran inventories down at year-end.
Shyam K. Reddy: It will be highly competitive depending on the market. Weather impacted business in the East early in the year, but the East has solid housing-related activity, especially on the pro contractor R&R side. Other states that were strong during the pandemic, like Texas and Florida, are tougher, but we are seeing stabilization and opportunities for growth that we are taking advantage of with our channel and product focus. We use our competitive value proposition to mitigate the adverse impacts of the highly competitive environment, and as our results demonstrate, we feel like we are doing that well. Distero has also helped shift our specialty mix and drive good EBITDA contribution at solid margins.
Kurt Willem Yinger: Lastly, on capital allocation, how are you thinking about share repurchases relative to inorganic growth opportunities, particularly given where the stock is trading and the traction on strategic initiatives? Has the relative attractiveness changed versus generating smart inorganic growth?
Christopher Kelly Wall: We continue to take the same approach to capital allocation. We are committed to investing in initiatives that are delivering results. M&A continues to be a focus, and we will remain disciplined as it relates to valuation and the assets we pursue, with a strategy intended to grow our geographic presence in markets we are not currently in, as well as continuing to drive growth in our specialty products similar to what we did with Distero. We are expecting free cash flow to be consistent with, if not a little bit lower than, last year, even with the strong quarter we had in Q1.
If we do not have opportunities to invest that cash in areas that drive business growth and earnings going forward, then we would look to buy back shares similar to what we did in the prior quarter.
Operator: That concludes our Q&A. I will now turn the call back over to Thomas C. Morabito for closing remarks.
Thomas C. Morabito: Thanks, Operator. Thank you again for joining us today, and we look forward to speaking with you in August as we share our second quarter 2026 results.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude today’s call. Thank you all for joining, and you may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
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BlueLinx (BXC) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool