With a combined revenue of $21 trillion and $2.1 trillion in profits, the 2026 Fortune 500 is the definitive list of America's largest companies.

Fortune 500

AI is a major force shaping this year’s list—but it’s far from the only story.

World's Most Admired Companies

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Leaders in all industries rely more than ever on Big Tech—and appreciate the giants that deliver, at scale, without drama.

The first-ever European edition of the Fortune 500, ranking companies by revenue. 

F500 Europe 2023 Ferguson OY1014OK01_229H.TIF

Ferguson ranks 125 with $29.7 billion in revenue (up 4.1%). The Britain-headquartered wholesaler has 35,000 employees and made a profit of $1.9 billion (down 11%).

Fortune 500 Europe

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Sector

Industry

Current All-Star Rank

Previous All-Star Rank

Industry Rank

Previous Industry Rank

Overall Score

Innovation

People Management

Use of Corporate Assets

Social Responsibility

Quality of Management

Financial Soundness

Long-Term Investment Value

Quality of Products/Services

Global Competitiveness

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Founded in 1953, Ferguson Enterprises distributes plumbing, HVAC, lighting, and waterworks products, as well as appliances in the North American construction market, serving both residential and nonresidential customers through a network of distribution centers, branches, and e-commerce channels. The company offers expertise, solutions, and products in areas such as infrastructure, fire protection, fabrication, and specialist water and wastewater treatment, along with customized services such as virtual design, project management, and after-sales support.

Q2 2026

Q1 2026

Transition period

Q4 2025

Q3 2025

Q2 2025

Ferguson Enterprises (FERG): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

Ferguson Enterprises

ferguson enterprises

The announcement is available in the Investors section of our corporate website and on our SEC filings webpage. A recording of this call will be made available later today. I want to remind everyone that some of our statements today may be forward-looking and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, including the various risks and uncertainties discussed in our Form 10-K available on the SEC's website. Also, any forward-looking statements represent the company's expectations only as of today, and we disclaim any obligation to update these statements. In addition, on today's call, we will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Therefore, all references to operating profit, operating margin, diluted EPS, effective tax rate, and EBITDA reflect certain non-GAAP adjustments.

Please refer to our earnings presentation and announcement on our website for additional information regarding those non-GAAP measures, including reconciliations to their most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. With me on the call today are Kevin Murphy, our CEO, and Bill Brundage, our CFO. I will now turn the call over to Kevin.

Thank you, Brian, and welcome to the Ferguson plc Fourth Quarter Results Conference call. On today's call, we'll cover highlights of our fourth quarter and full-year performance and our market performance for fiscal year 2025, including additional details on our customer groups and growth focus areas. We'll turn the call over to Bill to review financials, the change in our fiscal year, and our new calendar year financial outlook before I wrap up with a few final comments. We'll have time to take your questions at the end. In the fourth quarter, once again, our expert associates drove market outperformance and strong growth as they continued to serve our customers in a challenging market environment. Sales of $8.5 billion increased 6.9% over prior year, driven by organic growth of 5.8% and acquisition growth of 1.1%. Gross margin of 31.7% increased 70 basis points over the prior year.

We remained disciplined on costs and generated $972 million of operating profit, which grew 13.4% over last year. Diluted EPS increased 16.8% over prior year to $3.48. We continue to execute our capital priorities, deploying $483 million this quarter. Our investments in key growth areas, HVAC expansion, waterworks diversification, and large capital projects in Ferguson Home yielded solid results. We also announced four acquisitions in the quarter and one subsequent to the quarter, which focused primarily on HVAC and waterworks diversification. We'll provide more details on these growth areas and the recent acquisitions later on the call. We're pleased to return $354 million to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends, and our balance sheet remains strong with net debt to EBITDA of 1.1 times.

While we continue to operate in an uncertain environment, we remain confident in our markets over the medium term, leveraging multi-year tailwinds in both residential and non-residential markets as we invest to support the complex project needs of the water and air specialized professional. Turning to our performance by U.S. end market in the fourth quarter, net sales increased 7.1%, driven by our strong growth in non-residential markets. The residential end market, which makes up about half our U.S. revenue, has remained subdued due to weakened new construction starts and permit activity, as well as soft demand in repair, maintenance, and improvement. Residential revenue was flat in the quarter. Non-residential end markets, representing the other half of U.S. Revenue showed continued resilience with increased activity on large capital projects. We continue to grow share with non-residential revenue growth of approximately 15%.

We delivered 17% and 13% growth across commercial and civil infrastructure end markets, respectively, while industrial grew 5%. Our intentional balanced end market exposure and focus on key growth initiatives continue to position us well both in the current environment and into the future. Moving to our U.S. performance by customer group for the quarter, HVAC revenue was slightly down due to softer market conditions impacted by the industry's transition to new efficiency standards and weak new residential construction activity. Despite these conditions, we were pleased with market outperformance during the quarter, particularly given the strong prior year comparable. Residential trade plumbing revenues decreased 2%. The business continues to face headwinds in new construction and ongoing PVC price deflation, while repair, maintenance, and improvement are performing better.

As we previously shared, we've merged our residential building and remodel and our residential digital commerce customer groups into a unified brand called Ferguson Home. This customer group accounts for approximately 19% of U.S. sales and focuses on the higher-end project market, which delivered Ferguson Home revenue growth of 3% in the fourth quarter. Both waterworks and commercial mechanical continued to drive strong activity on large capital projects. Commercial mechanical revenue grew 21%, and waterworks revenues increased 15%, both on top of prior year growth comparables. Our industrial, fire and fabrication, and facility supply customer groups delivered a combined net sales growth of 5%. Our multi-customer group approach uniquely positions us to solve complex project requirements and drive market outperformance. Turning to our full-year performance, our teams delivered solid results while faced with challenging markets and periods of deflation. Revenue of $30.8 billion was 3.8% ahead of last year.

The actions we took to streamline our business and manage costs more diligently resulted in operating profit of $2.84 billion, up 0.6% and representing a 9.2% operating margin for the year. Diluted EPS came in at $9.94, a 2.6% increase over last year. Cash generation was strong with $1.9 billion of operating cash flow, which allowed us to continue investing in our growth areas and executing our capital allocation priorities. We returned $1.4 billion to shareholders via dividends and share repurchases during the year, while also welcoming associates from nine acquisitions, continuing our strategy of consolidating our fragmented markets. We continued to deliver strong overall returns on capital of approximately 29.4% for the year. Despite the challenging environment, we outperformed our markets, delivered solid volume growth, and drove profit expansion in fiscal 2025. Next, our performance against the broader end markets for the year.

Our residential end markets declined approximately 3% due to a combination of weak new construction and softer RMI markets. We outperformed with organic revenue up 1%. Non-residential markets were approximately flat, as large capital project activity offset the weaker traditional non-residential activity like warehouse and office space. As we discussed in the past, we believe our scale, our size, and our multi-customer group approach uniquely position us to provide value on large capital projects. We delivered 6% organic growth in the year, outperforming our typical 300 to 400 basis point market outperformance. Our balanced end market exposure continues to serve us well, and we've continued to take share across both end markets. Now let me highlight our four key growth areas that continue to show ongoing returns from our multi-year investments. Our HVAC revenue increased 8% for the year, driven primarily by organic growth and approximately 1% from acquisitions.

By leveraging the synergy between our residential trade plumbing and HVAC customer groups, we continued to outperform the market. Dual-trade counter-conversions, geographic expansion of our HVAC network, and strategic acquisitions make up the multi-pronged approach of our HVAC everywhere strategy. We've completed over 600 counter-conversions, nearing our goal of 650, which we expect to achieve in early 2026. Our dual-trade counters are uniquely positioned to serve approximately 65,000 dual-trade contractors, which continue to make up a growing share of the HVAC and plumbing markets. Our recent acquisitions of Manufacturer Duct and Supply Company out of Atlanta in the fourth quarter and Moore Supply out of Chicago, which was subsequent to year-end, further strengthen our HVAC strategy by expanding our footprint and continuing to support this dual-trade professional.

For waterworks, our revenue grew 10% in fiscal year 2025, driven by our diversification efforts as we expanded our capabilities to deliver a more integrated solution and address the nation's aging infrastructure. We've expanded our role as a strategic partner by collaborating with engineers and construction professionals during initial project stages and broadened our product offerings to include process equipment solutions. Specifically, our recent acquisitions of Templeton and Ritchie Environmental Solutions strengthen our expertise in water and wastewater treatment plant design. This adds to the existing breadth of solutions we already provide for water, wastewater, and green stormwater management, as well as erosion control, treatment plant construction, and metering technology. Our unique approach to large capital projects and the rise in number of projects helped drive 7% total non-residential growth for the year.

We're pleased to be a trusted partner in managing these complex projects that require expertise, scale, operational agility, and value-added solutions. By bringing together the capabilities of underground waterworks infrastructure, commercial and industrial PVF, and fire protection, we create a compelling solution, particularly for data centers, large manufacturing operations, life science, and healthcare facilities. Onshoring and reshoring initiatives aimed at growing domestic production are further driving activity of large capital projects. We believe our early alignment with owners, engineers, and general contractors, combined with our deep contractor relationships, our scale, and our ability to offer a suite of value-added solutions, will continue to position us for success with these projects. Ferguson Home began its rollout in February and is a key milestone in delivering a seamless customer experience across all touchpoints, including online and in-person.

It represents another compelling example of the value our multi-customer group approach brings to the market. In addition to enhancing the experience for residential customers, Ferguson Home is supported by a network of dedicated outside sales and showroom consultants who serve our specialized professional customers. These associates bring deep product expertise and personalized service to builders, designers, and other trade professionals, helping meet their unique project needs with precision and care. Bringing together residential building and remodel and residential digital commerce reinforces Ferguson's role as a trusted partner for the professional. We're pleased with the ongoing success of these growth areas and will continue investing in them to leverage the unique advantages we can bring to the market that drive outperformance. I'll now pass to Bill, who will discuss the financial results in more detail.

Thank you, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Let me start by covering our fourth quarter financial results in a bit more detail. Net sales of $8.5 billion were 6.9% ahead of last year. Organic revenue increased 5.8%, with an additional 1.1% coming from acquisitions. During the quarter, we saw a return to mild inflation, with pricing contributing approximately 2%. We saw improvement in finished goods pricing, while commodity-related categories were down low single digits. Gross margin of 31.7% increased 70 basis points over last year, driven by our associates' strong execution and the timing and extent of supplier price increases. We tightly managed operating expenses, benefiting from the streamlining actions we took earlier in the year, while we continued to invest in core capabilities for future growth.

As a result, operating profit of $972 million was up 13.4% on the prior year, delivering an 11.4% operating margin with 60 basis points of expansion over prior year. Diluted earnings per share of $3.48 was 16.8% above last year, driven by operating profit growth and the impact of share repurchases. Our balance sheet remains strong at 1.1 times net debt to EBITDA. Moving to our segment results, net sales in the U.S. grew 7.1%, with an organic increase of 6.1% and a 1% contribution from acquisitions. Operating profit of $962 million increased $118 million over the prior year, delivering an operating margin of 11.9%. In Canada, net sales were 4.8% above last year, with organic growth of 0.3% and a 4.9% contribution from acquisitions, partially offset by a 0.4% adverse impact from foreign exchange rates.

Residential activity has continued to be softer than non-residential, where the market has remained more resilient. Operating profit of $24 million in the quarter was $2 million above the prior year. Turning to our full-year results, our associates delivered growth amid a challenging market backdrop. Net sales were 3.8% above last year, with organic growth of 3.2% and an acquisition contribution of 1%, partially offset by a 0.4% adverse impact of one fewer sales day. Pricing for the year was slightly down as a result of deflation in certain commodity-related categories, particularly early in the year. Gross margin of 30.7% was up 20 basis points. Operating profit of $2.8 billion grew 0.6% over the prior year, delivering a 9.2% operating margin. Diluted earnings per share of $9.94 was up 2.6% on the prior year. Next, our cash flow performance.

EBITDA of approximately $3.1 billion was up $44 million on the prior year. Working capital investments of approximately $300 million and interest and tax of approximately $800 million were generally in line with the prior year. As a result, operating cash flow was $1.9 billion, up $35 million on the prior year. We invested $305 million in CapEx and generated $51 million in proceeds from asset sales, resulting in free cash flow of $1,654 million, an increase of $132 million over the prior year. Turning to capital allocation, as previously mentioned, we invested approximately $300 million in working capital and another $300 million in CapEx to drive further above-market organic growth. Our board declared a $0.83 per share quarterly dividend. This is consistent with the third quarter and represents a 5% increase over the prior year, reflecting our confidence in the business and cash generation.

We continue to consolidate our fragmented markets through bolt-on geographic and capability acquisitions. As Kevin Murphy mentioned, we completed four acquisitions during the fourth quarter, including HPS Specialties, a manufacturer's representative of HVAC, plumbing and hydronic supplies serving commercial mechanical and industrial engineering professionals in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Ritchie Environmental Solutions, a process equipment manufacturer's representative serving the water and wastewater treatment market in Virginia. Manufacturer Duct and Supply Company, an HVAC supplies and parts distributor covering the Atlanta and Southeast markets, and Water Resources Inc., an exclusive distributor of Neptune Technology Group products and water meters in the Greater Chicago metro area. In total, we completed nine acquisitions in the fiscal year. Subsequent to year-end, we purchased Moore Supply, an HVAC distributor based in Chicago that serves HVAC and dual-trade professionals. As we look forward, our acquisition pipeline remains healthy.

Finally, we are committed to returning surplus capital to shareholders when we are below the low end of our target leverage range of 1 to 2 times net debt to EBITDA. We returned $948 million to shareholders via share repurchases this year, compared to $634 million in the equivalent prior year period. This year, we have reduced our share count by approximately 5 million and still have approximately $1 billion outstanding under the current share repurchase program. Now, let me address the change of our fiscal year end from July 31st to December 31st. This move shifts year-end activities from our seasonally busiest time of the year to our slowest, allowing our associates to remain focused on our customers during their peak season. A five-month transition period will span from August 1st through December 31st, 2025.

During this time, we will release earnings on December 9th, covering the three-month period of August 1st through October 31st. We plan to announce our five-month transition period results in late February. Our new fiscal year will begin on January 1st, 2026. As a result of this change, we are providing guidance for the 2025 calendar year. Before I move to the guidance, we have presented our first half performance on a calendar year basis for background. For the six months ended June 30th, sales of $15.6 billion grew 5% over the prior year. Operating profit of $1.5 billion increased 8%, resulting in an operating margin of 9.6%, an improvement of 30 basis points from 9.3% in the prior year. Further historical financial information for calendar quarters with relevant reconciliations can be found in an appendix at the end of this slide deck.

Now, turning to our guidance for the 2025 calendar year, where we have provided the relevant comparative results from calendar 2024. We expect mid-single-digit revenue growth in calendar 2025, and we expect an operating margin range of 9.2% to 9.6%, an improvement of between 10 and 50 basis points over the prior year. Interest expense is expected to be between $180 million to $200 million. Our effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 26%, and we estimate capex will be between $300 million to $350 million. Despite the market uncertainty, we are leveraging the strength of our supply chain, tailored value-added solutions, innovative digital tools, and the expertise of our associates, enabling us to capitalize on multi-year tailwinds and drive outperformance. Thank you, and I'll now pass you back to Kevin.

Thank you, Bill. Let me again thank our expert associates who delivered strong results to finish this challenging year by continuing to take care of our customers and execute our strategy. Our ability to offer a scaled multi-customer group approach on a project is unique and important to our key growth areas, including HVAC expansion, waterworks diversification, large capital projects, and Ferguson Home. Our performance continues to deliver results from these multi-year investments as we help meet our customers' needs. While we continue to operate in an uncertain environment, we believe our markets remain attractive over the medium term, and we continue to invest in our expert associates and our value-added capabilities to drive growth. We're committed to supporting the project needs of our water and air specialized professional customers by delivering scale locally and providing exceptional customer service. Thank you for your time today.

Bill and I are now happy to take your questions. Operator, I'll hand the call back over to you.

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to remove your question, please press star followed by two. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your phone is unmuted locally. The first question goes to Matthew Bewley of Barclays. Matthew, please go ahead.

Morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the questions. Kind of a broad question on growth and the end market outlook here. Obviously, a lot of cross-currents recently around new residential, HVAC, et cetera, all of that. Meanwhile, you showed that this strong non-residential result and inflation is improving. Really, I'm asking, looking ahead, kind of thinking about this mid-single-digit growth for the total calendar year, just trying to put all these trends together. I guess it would be helpful on kind of price and volume quarter to date to sort of help us out there. What are your assumptions going forward on these kind of changing end markets here over these next few months? Thank you.

Good morning, Matt. Thank you for the question. Maybe I'll take a little bit about the markets and then let Bill fill in with a bit of color. You know, if I take a step back, if we look at when we entered fiscal year 2025, we came into the year believing that our markets would be down low single digits. We thought that the residential markets would be down low to mid-single digits, and we thought non-res would be roughly flat. Suffice it to say, we're pretty pleased with a Q4 plus 7% and a year to date of plus 3.8%. Probably even more pleased that our key growth areas that we wanted to focus on drove that growth, whether it's HVAC expansion, Ferguson Home, waterworks diversification, and then what we were doing with what we believe is a strong value proposition on large capital projects and non-residential.

That really did drive the growth. If we then take a shift into where we are currently and how we view, call it the back half of calendar year 2025 or this stub period of five months, we think that growth could be a bit softer in half two of calendar year. We really recognize that new residential construction weakness continues. We've seen continuation of softer RMI or repair remodel markets. Candidly, when we look at some of our larger growth areas like HVAC, we have an affordability issue with a pressured consumer and a movement to more repair versus replace. The non-residential markets really continue as traditional non-residential activity isn't going to step up or we don't see that step up happening. The strength of large capital projects and that being our growth area does play out.

We do recognize that that residential new construction and RMI market can be a bit more challenged.

Yeah, Matt. Maybe just to build on that, if you look at the first half calendar results that we just walked through and that we put in the slide deck, revenue was up about 5% for the first half. I would tell you July was a strong month, a solid month in line largely with what we saw in Q4. As we stepped into August, we did see that growth come down a touch. August sales per day were up about 5%. I say sales per day because we had one fewer sales day, which we'll pick back up in September. It did step down to about 5%.

To Kevin's point, as we look into the back half of the year and we provided a full-year guide of mid-single digits, we would expect the overall growth rate to maybe be a touch softer in the second half. The market dynamics that Kevin outlined are certainly the driving force of that. If you just look at our comparables, our volume comparables do step up as we go through Q1 and into our old fiscal Q2, which would be November, December. We feel good about the guide that we've provided. We think we will continue to have good growth in the second half, but probably a touch softer than half one.

Okay. Yeah, that's all super helpful, exactly what I was looking for, given these, again, clearly dynamic end markets here. That leads to the second question. You know, Kevin, you really touched on it, the large capital projects. It just seems like, you know, all your efforts are coming to fruition here. Around this kind of multi-customer group approach, you mentioned waterworks, commercial PVF, fire protection, et cetera, with these large projects. Can you go into maybe just some more specifics, number one, just around how do you go to market, you know, with these customers, with the different types of contractors around actually leveraging your multi-customer group approach and kind of how that actually all comes together? Then, you know, just more specifically, anything around kind of data center and what the pipeline going forward of these large capital projects looks like for you guys. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt. We really did build the organization to be better together than apart and a multi-customer group approach. It plays quite well in large capital construction projects, which, as we've discussed, are really driving a day in non-residential activity. We go to market being best in class for the individual contractor or trade professional for that particular customer group, whether it be commercial mechanical, waterworks, fire protection, industrial pipe, valve and fitting, making sure that we're the best provider on that job for the contractor. We then elevate and go towards the source of funds, if you will, the engineer, the architect, the owner, to try and make sure that we are engaged from a supply chain perspective, from a design perspective, to make sure that that project can get completed on time and on budget.

That work up funnel closer to the source of funds allows us to be a best solution for the individual trade on the job, and it's served us well. As we look at waterworks being up 15% in the quarter, commercial mechanical being up 21%, and our industrial business and our fire protection business being up 5%, it's paving the way for future growth. You asked a bit about what we see in the end markets. Just like the rest of the world, we're seeing that activity from a data center construction perspective continuing to accelerate. We haven't seen pauses or cancellations, and that activity is stepping up, and it's stepping up in a variety of geographies across the nation. Those are great projects for us.

They're great projects for us on piping systems as well as valve and automation, fabrication, and virtual design, which are some of the other value-added services that we're bringing to the market that help us to earn that business from the local contractor as well as the trust of the owner and the engineer.

All right. Thank you, Kevin. Thanks, Bill. Good luck, guys.

Thanks, Matt. The next question goes to Phil Ng of Jefferies. Phil, please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Congratulations on a really impressive quarter in a tough environment. Kevin, I just want to drill down a little bit more on the non-res piece. Sounds like the data center side of things remains really strong. We appreciate comps to get a little tougher in incoming quarters. Just give us a little perspective. What are you seeing on the momentum side of things? You talked about bidding activity still being strong. Just give us a little more color on where you're seeing the strength, the bidding activity within non-res, and how far are you bidding out in just the backlogs in general?

Yeah, the backlogs are tough to really get after. The reason that I say that is our backlogs are building, and they're quite healthy across commercial mechanical, across fire protection, across waterworks, and across industrial pipe, valve, and fittings, so more broad-based. The tougher part is, as we've discussed in the past, the gestation period of these projects does vary. For us, it really is around what that operational agility is, if you will, of making sure that we have the supply chain tightened up right so that the piping system and the valve project are done in a timely fashion because these are incredibly large projects relative to historical standards. Making sure that you've got that in the right place at the right time is challenging. Those backlogs are building. It's not just in the data center activity. We're seeing it in biotechnology and pharma.

We're seeing it in some large-scale hospital work as well. We're starting to see that play out in the water and wastewater treatment plant side of our business, which again plays well to our waterworks business, but also plays well to industrial pipe, valve, and fitting because those two customer groups work very well together on the construction of water and wastewater treatment plants. You saw that play out in our results. You also saw that play out in what our M&A strategy is as we look to get again closer to the design and specification side of the world and broaden our offering on process equipment solutions, pump packages, valve offerings, and overall controls inside the water and wastewater treatment plant. We're building out that capability very much in sequential lines with our strategy.

Okay. Great color, Kevin. From a price and margin standpoint, both really impressive. Pricing inflected nicely in this quarter. Bill, I guess question for you. Should we expect pricing to kind of build from here, or this is a kind of good run rate? I know the commodity side of things were still negative. Are you starting to see that stabilize? Essentially, we got an avenue for that to inflect. On the gross margin side, you know, strong, nice expansion there. Was there any timing nuances with like inventory profit gain? Should we see some moderation, or we can build off these gross margins, assuming obviously normal seasonality?

Yeah, first just to start on price and margin, we were pleased to see price inflect positive. As we've talked about over the last couple of quarters, we came into this year expecting our suppliers and the industry to return to, call it, low single-digit inflation and passing through annualized price increases. We saw that step up a bit with initial announcements of tariffs. We then saw that pull back a bit when the reciprocal was pulled back and paused. We have seen a lot of noise in the system. Overall, we've seen price move back into that low single-digit rate. It's difficult to predict how that plays forward, but I would expect, and we are expecting, some modest level of overall inflation as we play through the calendar year.

On the commodity side, as you mentioned, as we noted, the commodity basket as a whole is still in low single-digit decline. We have seen movements in the different product categories. Clearly, copper tube and copper fittings are in, I would call it, healthy levels of inflation. We have seen, as steel tariffs came through, steel pipe, carbon steel, and stainless steel move back towards flattish, maybe up a little bit. There is still pressure on PVC, both on the plumbing side of the world and waterworks, which is still in deflation. As a basket, those are still in modest deflation, and it's difficult to predict how that plays forward. If I take a step back from that, again, our best view is that probably some modest level of inflation as we round out the calendar year.

On gross margins, we were really pleased with the 31.7% gross margin delivery in the quarter. We did see the benefits of the actions that we took earlier in the fiscal year. We talked a lot as we came out of Q2 and into Q3 that we had focused our sales teams, we had made some pricing tweaks, and we had made some adjustments to ensure that we were properly charging for the value that we provide in the market every day. We saw that start to play through as we exited Q2 into Q3 and then certainly through Q4. There is no doubt we saw some temporary benefit in the quarter based on the timing and the extent of supplier price increases.

When we take a step back, we've been, I think, pretty consistent with our view that the overall underlying ongoing normalized gross margin of this business is somewhere in that 30 to 31% range. We would expect that we would settle back down into that range as we move into the future. If you look at, we talked about August revenue, but if you look at August gross margins, we started to see that normalization play through. We're very confident with the underlying gross margins of the business, and the teams are doing a great job executing every day for our customers.

Really appreciate the color. Thank you, guys. Continue the good work.

The next question goes to John Lavallo of UBS. John, please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions as well. You know, and you may have answered this partly with Phil's question, but sort of back of the envelope at the midpoint, it seems like the implied calendar year second half operating margin is expected at about 9.2% versus 9.6% in the first half. That comes despite what looks to be about a 1% improvement in sales half over half. You know, what's sort of driving that expected margin decline? Is it the timing of the pricing that you just mentioned, or are there other factors as well?

Yeah, it's a great question, John. I think we'll, as we get more used to calendar quarters, get more used to the seasonality of the business. I would point mostly to that seasonality. If you go back to last calendar year in the second half, we delivered about an 8.8% operating margin. Your back-of-the-cocktail napkin math is spot on in terms of the guide for the full year at 9.2% to 9.6%, which implies that the second half will be somewhere in the upper 8% to, call it, mid 9% range in the back half of the year. We are expecting continued improvement year over year. I'd point a bit more towards seasonality, that the second half of the calendar year will be typically a touch lighter given November and December with the holidays from a seasonality perspective.

Okay, that's helpful. Last quarter, I think you guys talked about $100 million of expected annual savings from restructuring actions, and I wasn't expecting much impact in the fourth quarter of the fiscal year, fourth quarter. How should we sort of think about the cadence of those savings as we move forward here?

Yeah, we are pleased with the execution of those streamlining actions, and the cost savings are playing through in the underlying cost base of the business. Maybe more importantly, the speed and agility of decision-making has improved in the field. That was really the primary reason for some of the organizational design changes that we made, moving those decisions closer to the customer. We did quote about $100 million of annualized cost benefits. We did see that play through in the fourth quarter, and I would expect that, call it roughly $25 million year over year to play through over the next three quarters. If you look at the fourth quarter and just take a step back, our cost as a percentage of sales were roughly 20.3%, which is roughly flat to last year. We got good underlying cost reductions from the streamlining actions.

We had a bit of cost increase driven by sales volume and a touch of cost inflation. Certainly, every one of our associates has a variable component of their pay that's linked to performance. Given the strong financial performance in the second half, our associates were appropriately awarded for that performance. We very much believe that the cost base is positioned well as we look to the second half and would expect a bit of operating leverage, assuming that the sales environment plays out like we expect.

The next question goes to Brian Lantz of BED. Brian, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Kevin, Bill. Good morning. First question, Bill, you gave some nice detail on commodities pricing. I was wondering if you could just give us an idea by segment, sort of high-end versus low-end of the pricing spectrum by segment, just so we understand how that sort of lays across your reporting segments. You mentioned the kind of the reversion of the gross margin to that 30, 31%. I guess that kind of implies 100 basis points maybe of incremental benefit in the period because of some of the inventory gains that would be temporary. Is that in the range? Is there anything left over as we look to the October quarter? Should we expect some residual benefit as well there, or are we pretty much worked through now?

Yeah, I'll start with the commodities and pricing. If I go back to my comments earlier, having seen a bit more inflation in copper and then steel returning towards flat to up a little bit, you should expect that our non-res business has a bit more inflation in it right now than our residential business. It does vary by customer group, and we generally don't provide a lot of detail by customer group. I would consider that waterworks is slightly down on price, largely driven by PVC, and with the majority of our customer groups slightly up from an overall inflation standpoint. Maybe, again, a touch more inflation on the commercial mechanical side of the world, given copper and steel. In terms of the gross margin, we do expect, again, it to land somewhere in that normalized range of 30% to 31%.

If I look at last year in the second half of the calendar year, we were right about the mid-30% range, 30.4%, I believe. We would expect there to be some relative performance to last year. We would expect, again, the temporary benefit that we've seen over the last quarter, quarter and a half, driven by the timing and extent of supplier price increases, to start to wane as we go through the back half.

Okay, thank you. Specifically on HVAC, you didn't mention that as it relates to pricing, but maybe if you could help us understand the benefit from pricing and acquisitions in the HVAC segment that netted to the number we saw. Any comments you have regarding the refrigerant transition, like, you know, do you have any R410 systems left at the end of July? Multifamily is a hot topic lately. Any other commentary around HVAC would be helpful.

Yeah, HVAC overall on equipment, we are going through the transition, as you noted, from 410A to A2L. A2L systems have a higher price point. We are clearly working through that transition as we went through the back half of the calendar year. There is a bit of inflation on overall equipment. We're also seeing a lot of repair replace, and not nearly as much inflation on parts and supplies. I would consider HVAC, you should think about it as very low single-digit overall inflation in the overall business. Again, a bit more on equipment, a bit less on supplies and parts. When you look at the overall market and what our business was, Dave, we were pleased with being, call it down 1% in Q4 on a plus 9% prior year comparative.

If you look at the business overall, we continue to get after counter conversions to address the dual-trade contractor and be the source of supply for them. We've done about 600 of them. We'll continue with, call it, 50 plus more as we go into early 2026. You've seen us expand our geographic footprint. We will continue to open up new stores that are dedicated to serving that dual-trade HVAC and plumbing contractor. You've seen it play out in the M&A side. There is clearly a move towards more repair versus replace in today's world. We have sold through the majority of our 410A. That was in place as we went through the fourth quarter, which is why, as Bill Brundage indicated, low single digit is probably the inflation number you should be thinking about. That will clearly move as repair moves a bit more to repair moves to replace.

As we start to see that A2L play into the system as the system of choice, you've also got the balance between ductless and unitary systems playing through as well. Generally speaking, we're very pleased with the strategy. We're very pleased with the execution. We'll continue to have that as a major source of growth for us on the residential side of our house as we go forward.

That all sounds good. Thanks very much, guys.

The next question goes to Sam Reid of Wells Fargo. Sam, please go ahead.

Thanks. You called out a little earlier some softness in residential remodel. I just wanted to unpack that a bit more because you've got a really strong presence in remodel with higher income consumers, and that's historically insulated you from some of the category slowness. Are you starting to see demand crack from that higher income consumer? Can you just give us a sense as to where remodel backlogs sit today versus, say, one to two quarters ago?

Yes. The remodel market is continued pressure. We're seeing continued pressure there. We've said that the higher end of the market will continue to perform better than the rest. We're pleased with a +3% growth rate in Ferguson Home, especially as we brought those two channels together. If you look at our showroom business in particular, it is predominantly that remodel space today. It's primarily that remodel project work for the higher end of the market. We've seen traffic continue to be healthy, so we'll look at that continuing to be the driver. On the lower end of the market, we saw that pressure play through in residential trade. Along with new construction pressure and PVC price deflation, that put that business under a little bit more pressure in a down 2% position. Generally speaking, we're pleased with that higher end of the market with Ferguson Home.

That helps. Just switching gears and drilling down a little bit more on waterworks, I mean, really strong results here, especially in the context of some peer reads. Can you just talk to more specifically what you're hearing from your large home builder customers? It sounds like there was a pullback that accelerated in August, you know, in demand for what's called new residential subdivision projects. I just want to confirm that. Can you just give us a rough sense as to where your resi waterworks business sits from a geographic standpoint? Do you under-index, for instance, in markets like, say, Florida? I'd love some additional context there.

Yeah, I'll start with we don't under-index in Florida. If I take a step back and look at our business, clearly, we're really pleased with a +15% in the quarter. We're really pleased with a +20% on a two-year stack inside that waterworks business. It's a testament to what the group has built over time and that diverse business mix that they have: residential, commercial, public works, municipal spend, water wastewater treatment plant, stormwater management, geosynthetics, and even moving closer to that engineering environment, as I referenced earlier, with pumps, valve packages, process equipment, and controls. That continues to play well for us. Perhaps the biggest impact that we've seen is in that large capital project non-residential space as the water piece of that business is quite impactful. The multi-customer group approach on non-res is playing out.

If I then shift to your residential portion of the question, we have a pretty broad-based business residentially across the U.S. We have strength in the Southeast. We have strength in the South. It's pretty broad-based. If you look at what we're seeing, I'll take aside conversations with the large builder. We've clearly seen pressure on that new residential construction space, as has the rest of the country. If you look at our bidding activity, we have not seen a significant falloff in residential bidding activity. That said, we have no idea how that work will be released, will it be released at all, and what does that look like in terms of sections or phases and how that plays out. We do anticipate that in the near term, we'll see some continued pressure on that new residential waterworks installation space.

Really appreciate the context. Thanks so much. I'll pass it on.

The next question goes to Ryan Merkel of William Blair. Ryan, please go ahead.

Hey, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to follow up on the new residential construction market. You mentioned that trends have weakened. Can you just give us a little bit more color? We've heard the Sunbelt in particular has weakened recently, and Lot development feels like that's slowed quite a bit. Curious if you're seeing that. For the guide, are you assuming that it gets worse from August to December for new resi?

Yeah, maybe, Brian, I'll start with the guide. Again, we don't see anything falling off of a cliff from where we sit today. We think that new resi will be a bit weaker as we move through the back half of the calendar year. Therefore, we think that our growth overall for the second half of the calendar year could be a bit below the first half. First half was clearly at 5%. I'd read that to be sub 5%. Again, don't see that falling off dramatically. To Kevin's point, we're still seeing decent activity out there. If I go back to kind of how we saw the residential markets playing through our fiscal year, we've been pretty consistent and kind of seen a bit more softening as we've come through, but expected those markets to be down low to mid-single digits.

Now expect them to be down maybe a touch more in the second half of the year. Ryan, it's precisely why we are pleased with the balanced business mix that we have inside the organization and the growth areas that we've got with HVAC, waterworks diversification, large capital, and then that higher end of the remodel market of residential with Ferguson Home.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. My second question, just back to the non-resi market, you know, up 15% is a really good number. When I look at the details, industrial is up 5%. Could you comment on why, you know, that particular market might be a little bit slower than the others? You mentioned the onshoring theme, which is very real. Just curious if you expect the, you know, the industrial market to stay softer than commercial and civil.

I'll give you a bit of color, and then Bill can fill in. If you look at that plus 5 number, that's inclusive of our fire protection business, our industrial business, and our facility supply business together. If I think about the fire business and the industrial business, they still were working through periods of commodity deflation. As Bill indicated, we haven't seen a massive ramp-up in steel pipe pricing across those markets. We were very pleased with what those businesses have done in market share, and especially in our industrial business, and what they've done to work together with our water business and our commercial mechanical business on the valve packages and the valve actuation and automation pieces of large capital projects. We're pleased with that. I wouldn't read too much into the plus 5 against the plus 21 of the commercial.

The next question goes to Mike Powell of RBC Capital Markets. Mike, please go ahead.

Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Just to go back on HVAC for a minute, I wanted to dive a little bit deeper. Obviously, a lot of concern from some of the OEMs and voicing some much sharper declines in the near term. A similar question as you just answered on waterworks, but when you think about what the guide embeds for the balance of the year, you know, the OEMs seem to suggest that the near term is going to be quite pressured on HVAC volumes, but then potentially even better price mix than what you've articulated. Just give us a little more detail on how your guide embeds kind of that HVAC growth in the second half.

Mike, thank you for the question. Good morning. If you look at the HVAC business, as we looked at the fourth quarter, as Bill indicated, we would see low single-digit price embedded. We clearly believe that that will increase on the equipment side as 410A moves over to A2L. We also had that mix move from replace to repair, which had muted what that overall inflationary impact is. If I also look at a down one number in the quarter, it really was the tale of, call it, two geographies, if you will, inside of our company. Very strong performance on the East Coast, the Mid-Atlantic, up through the Northeast and the Midwest, with some challenging weather environments and sell-through inside the Western United States. It really was bifurcated. We know there's going to be pressure on new res construction.

We know there's going to be pressure on affordability with the consumer as we go through the next several months. We are pleased with what has been happening from a volume perspective, especially as we've got a lot to go after in the market and continue to expand. As I indicated, we're going to expand our counters, we're going to expand our locations, and we're going to continue to focus on that from an M&A perspective. The market's going to be a bit challenging, but we're bullish on what that looks like over the medium term. Mike, that's effectively embedded in the guide, again, being not to be too repetitive, but the second half being down a bit from the first half would play through. Our expectation is that that's driven by that new resi weakness and a bit of HVAC softness. We've seen that in August.

HVAC was down a touch in August, still low single digits. I don't see that falling off a cliff from our revenue perspective. We're coming up against some pretty tough comparables in HVAC. Start to lapse some double-digit comparables. Probably some softness in the near term on HVAC, all embedded in the guide with a touch softer revenue in the second half.

Okay, thanks. That's helpful. Shifting gears just on the balance sheet and capital allocation, you've done a good job deploying a decent amount of capital. That said, your balance sheet's still being pretty conservatively managed around the low end of your target range. There's obviously a lot of differing views on where we are in the cycle right now. From your standpoint, what would it take for you to deploy capital even more aggressively towards the midpoint or upper end of your leverage range? Is that more likely, as you sit here today and look at your M&A pipeline, to come through increased focus on M&A or a step up in buybacks?

Yeah, I'll start with we try to be very consistent, and I think we've delivered consistency when it comes to capital allocation. We like having a strong balance sheet. It gives us that optionality to scale up and to go after growth investments. We intend to operate towards the low end of that leverage range of one to two times net debt to EBITDA on an ongoing basis. In terms of scaling up, you would see us scale up where there were really good organic growth opportunities or maybe more so in the near term where there would be more M&A opportunities. There's nothing large in the pipeline right now, but we have that balance sheet flexibility to take advantage of those opportunities should they occur.

Thank you. We'll take our last question from Anthony Petinari of Citi. Anthony, please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Just following up on the last question on M&A, I think you indicated there's nothing large in the pipeline, but I'm wondering if you could talk maybe more generally about what the pipeline looks like as we get closer to the end of the year. I guess specifically, you know, valuations, seller expectations, whether you're seeing any increased competition for assets in water and air, maybe from new parties. Is there anything that's kind of changed about the landscape and the model?

Yeah, Anthony, no real significant changes in the landscape. I mean, it's been a pretty competitive environment in water and air for a number of quarters and years, quite honestly. Valuations still probably towards the upper end of our typical, call it 7 to 10, 7 to 10 enterprise value to EBITDA range. We have a good actionable pipeline. As I mentioned, nothing really large in that pipeline. Quite frankly, that's what the industry is. The industry lends itself to 10,000 plus small to medium-sized competitors that are out there. Our focus has been on consolidating those markets over time. Our strategy is very consistent. Our pipeline is pretty healthy, and we think we have a good opportunity to continue to consolidate the industry.

Okay, that's very helpful. Just following up on maybe some of the earlier questions on margin, you said you expect some level of inflation over the next few quarters. Does that anticipate any specific tariff-related price increases, or are we pretty much kind of level set on tariffs essentially sort of being in prices right now?

Yeah, Anthony, as Bill Brundage said earlier, we expected earlier in this year to get annual price increases. That's happened. We thought we would see some additional increases based on a variety of factors. That's happened. It was offset by continued commodity deflation, principally in PVC. At 2% inflation in the quarter, that's modest overall inflation. We expect that to continue. It's a pretty uncertain environment. As Bill Brundage indicated earlier, manufacturers reacted quickly to the reciprocals, then pulled back in large part. They've been slower to address those changes and taken a more wait-and-see approach. The good part for us as a business is that the cost of product pales in comparison to the cost of labor. We wake up every day making sure that we're driving construction productivity for that water and air specialized pro.

We expect some degree of modest inflation, but we're going to compete every day in the market and make sure that we leverage scale, that we're sourcing product from 37,000 different suppliers, and that we're getting the right price for the right project and getting it at the right time to get that project done. It will be modest inflation as we go forward, but still a lot of uncertainty out in the marketplace right now.

Thank you. I'll now pass back to Kevin Murphy, CEO, for closing remarks.

Ferguson Enterprises (FERG) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Company Participants