Quanex Building Prods (NYSE:NX) released third-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Friday. Read the complete transcript below.
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Summary
Quanex Building Prods reported Q3 2026 net sales of $501.8 million, a 1.3% increase from Q3 2025, driven by favorable pricing impacts.
Net income was $26.5 million, a significant turnaround from the prior year's loss due to a goodwill impairment.
Adjusted net income rose to $36.0 million with improvements in pricing and reduced expenses contributing positively.
Strategically, the company is in the optimization stage post-Tyman acquisition, focusing on the 80/20 principle to improve performance.
Operational performance remained strong despite macroeconomic challenges, with targeted price increases helping to narrow the cost-price gap.
Cash flow was robust, allowing for debt repayment and stock repurchase, with liquidity increasing to approximately $363 million.
The company anticipates 2-3% revenue growth and EBITDA margin expansion in Q4 2026, despite ongoing macro pressures.
Management is cautiously optimistic about long-term residential housing market prospects but remains prudent with near-term outlooks due to inflation and geopolitical factors.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the third quarter 2026 Quanex Building Prods Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again.
Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer. Please go ahead.
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Thanks for joining the call this morning. On the call with me today is George Wilson, our President and CEO. This conference call will contain forward-looking statements and some discussion of non-GAAP measures. Forward-looking statements and guidance discussed on this call and in our earnings release are based on current expectations. Actual results or events may differ materially from such statements and guidance and Quanex undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement to reflect new information or events.
For a more detailed description of our forward-looking statement disclaimer and a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please see our earnings release issued yesterday and posted to our website. I'll now turn the call over to George for his prepared remarks.
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
Thanks, Scott, and good morning to everyone on the call. Similar to prior calls, I'll start with our perspective on the current macroeconomic environment. Then I'll walk through our results for the quarter and I'll close my prepared remarks with our priorities for the balance of the fiscal year. Three months ago I described housing demand in North America and Europe as showing early signs of stabilization with a recovery that would proceed gradually.
Since then, the data has been mixed. On the new construction side of the market, activity has been weaker than we anticipated. The July New Residential Construction Report put single-family starts at an annual rate of 808,000, which is down roughly 16% from a year ago and the lowest monthly reading since late 2022. Single-family completions, the more direct driver of demand for our products, came in at 878,000, which represents a decrease of about 13% year over year and down about 10% year to date.
Units under construction were down roughly 7% from a year ago. That said, there is a moderately positive signal underneath these numbers: permits have held up nicely. Total permits in July were up 3% year over year, single-family permits were modestly higher, and the number of homes authorized but not yet started is up about 10% from a year ago. This means that builders are keeping their entitlement pipelines intact but are choosing not to break ground.
That is a decision that can reverse relatively quickly when affordability and consumer confidence improve, and it's why we continue to view the current market as being demand deferred rather than demand destroyed. In the UK and Europe we see the same general dynamics as in North America, though the impact varies significantly by region. We believe recovery is underway in the new-build glazing and fenestration markets in both Iberia and Scandinavia, while softness persists in the UK, Germany, France and Italy.
We expect that future recovery in these segments will be driven by consumer confidence improvements and government-sponsored social housing initiatives across the continent. Turning to the ongoing inflationary pressures around input costs, the picture remains highly variable. The inflation we described on our last call in June has not stopped, but it does appear that the pace has diminished. Raw material, energy, freight and logistic costs all remain elevated and the disruption to international shipping routes continues to add both cost and lead time.
Our response has not changed since we last discussed this issue in June. We said then that we would implement targeted price increases in the mid-single digit to low-teens range, phased in through the third quarter and tailored by product line, and we have executed on that plan. Scott will provide more color in his comments, but we believe we have meaningfully narrowed the cost-price gap. That said, we also recognize that any further change in this dynamic will require additional discussions with our customers or additional surcharges to protect margins.
Moving on to operational performance for the quarter, despite the macro headwinds the market continues to face, volumes were in line with our expectations and our operational teams performed well. As you know, shortly after we acquired Tyman a little over two years ago we initiated a project to re-segment our business units to better support our customers, enable organic growth and improve both operational and financial performance. A great deal of heavy lifting and integration work goes into this type of project and I am pleased with the progress to date since the acquisition.
The plan has always been to execute our strategy in three stages: stabilization, optimization and growth. I am extremely pleased with the progress made across all our reporting segments as we have worked to steady the combined business over the past two years. As we now move into the optimization stage, we continue to advance strategic projects built around the 80/20 principle and are completing several value stream mapping exercises. These projects are designed to improve our customer performance, optimize our footprint and cost structure and strengthen our margins.
We will continue focusing on serving our customers while improving our footprint and cost structure so that when the markets do improve, we are ready to capitalize on those opportunities. Finally, I'd like to comment on free cash flow generation and capital allocation priorities. As we have said previously, most of our free cash flow is generated in our final two fiscal quarters, and given the normal seasonality we have been experiencing, this year should be no different.
I am very pleased with the work of our team in managing working capital, which enabled us to pay down debt and repurchase shares during the quarter. Going forward, our focus on reducing inventory through 80/20 projects, simplifying our footprint, and reducing intercompany transfers should translate into stronger cash flow generation. For the current quarter, our cash priorities will be to continue paying down debt and to fund organic projects that drive financial returns.
I will now turn the call over to Scott, who will discuss our financial results in more detail.
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Thanks, George. On a consolidated basis, we reported net sales of 501.8 million during the third quarter of 2026, which represents an increase of 1.3% compared to 495.3 million for the same period of 2025. The increase was mainly due to favorable impacts from pricing, partially offset by the impact of tariff reimbursements to customers. We estimate that volumes were flat, pricing was up about 3%, and the negative tariff refund impact was approximately 2%.
Foreign exchange didn't really influence the quarter. We reported net income of 26.5 million, or $0.58 per diluted share, for the three months ended July 31, 2026, compared to a net loss of 276 million, or $6.04 per diluted share, for the three months ended July 31, 2025. The reported net loss during the third quarter of 2025 was primarily the result of a 302.3 million non-cash goodwill impairment related to the Reeves segment of our business. The effective tax rate in the third quarter of 2026, excluding discrete items, was approximately 23%, which matched our expectation.
On an adjusted basis, we reported net income of 36.0 million, or $0.79 per diluted share, during the third quarter of 2026, compared to net income of 31.6 million, or $0.69 per diluted share, during the third quarter of 2025. The adjustments being made to net income are primarily related to severance and other expenses associated with manufacturing footprint and operational performance optimization, including reorganizational and restructuring charges, transaction and advisory fees, amortization expense related to intangible assets, foreign currency impacts, and goodwill impairment.
On a consolidated basis, the increase in reported earnings for the third quarter of 2026 compared to the third quarter of 2025 was mainly due to improved pricing, lower depreciation and amortization expense, and lower interest expense. On an adjusted basis, EBITDA for the quarter was 72.7 million compared to 70.3 million during the same period of last year. Now, results by operating segment. We generated net sales of 220.9 million in our Hardware Solutions segment for the third quarter of 2026, a slight decrease compared to 227.1 million in the third quarter of 2025.
We estimate that volumes were down about 0.5%. Pricing was up by about 1.5% in this segment. The negative tariff impact due to customer reimbursements was roughly 4%. The absence of the operational issues we had in Monterrey, Mexico last year had a positive impact of about 0.5%, and foreign exchange translation had a negligible impact. Adjusted EBITDA was 27.1 million in this segment for the third quarter of 2026 compared to 24.7 million in the same period of 2025.
The increase was largely due to improved pricing and the absence of operational issues in Monterrey, Mexico that impacted Q3 of last year. Our Extruded Solutions segment generated revenue of 179.3 million in Q3 of this year, an increase of 2.8% compared to 174.4 million in Q3 of last year. We estimate that volumes for the quarter were down about 0.5% year over year in this segment, with pricing up almost 3.5% and a very minor negative foreign exchange translation impact.
Adjusted EBITDA declined slightly to 35.6 million in this segment for the quarter versus 37.1 million during the same period of last year, mainly due to general inflationary pressures, partially offset by improved pricing. We reported net sales of 111.0 million in our Custom Solutions segment during the quarter, which represented growth of 8.5% compared to prior-year revenue of 102.3 million. For the quarter, we estimate that volumes were up about 3%.
Pricing increased by about 5.5%, and the pass-through of tariffs was a minor benefit. Adjusted EBITDA declined to 12.0 million from 12.9 million in this segment for the quarter, mostly due to the inflationary pressures we have already discussed, partially offset by improved pricing. Moving on to cash flow and the balance sheet, cash provided by operating activities was 58.6 million for the third quarter of 2026, which compares to 60.7 million for the third quarter of 2025.
Free cash flow increased by 3.5% to 47.8 million in Q3 of 2026, compared to 46.2 million in Q3 of 2025. We generated sufficient cash to repay 42.25 million of debt during the third quarter of 2026, and we also repurchased 1.7 million of our stock. As of July 31, 2026, our liquidity, which is really just the borrowing capacity under our revolver combined with the cash on the balance sheet, was approximately 363 million, an increase of 10.5% versus Q2 of this year.
We expect liquidity to improve again in the fourth quarter. As of July 31, 2026, our leverage ratio of net debt to last 12 months adjusted EBITDA decreased to 2.8 times. We continue to believe we will exit 2026 with an even lower net leverage ratio as we continue to generate cash and repay debt. Our long-term view for the residential housing market remains positive. However, due to the ongoing macroeconomic challenges, we remain cautious on the near-term outlook.
We continue to monitor the situation in the Middle East, which is still having an impact on transportation costs and the price of raw materials and energy. We do believe that the initial rate and magnitude of inflationary cost pressures have somewhat subsided. For modeling purposes, please use the following cadence for the fourth quarter of 2026 versus the fourth quarter of 2025. On a consolidated basis, we expect revenue growth of 2% to 3% and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of 50 to 75 basis points.
In addition, we believe an estimated tax rate of approximately 24% should be reasonable for the fourth quarter of 2026. As always, we will stay focused on the things that we can control, with near-term emphasis on generating cash to reduce debt while opportunistically repurchasing our stock and identifying further operational improvements and efficiencies that can benefit us when economic conditions improve. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.
OPERATOR
Thank you. At this time we'll conduct a question-and-answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you'll need to press star-1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star-1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. And our first question comes from the line of Julio Romero of Sidoti. Your line is now open.
Julio Romero, Analyst at Sidoti
Great, thanks. Morning, George and Scott. Wanted to start on the Hardware Solutions segment. You realized year-over-year gross margin improvement of about 160 basis points there. Can you speak to how much of the margin expansion reflects price realization from the increases phased in during the third quarter versus operational improvements versus 80/20 initiatives? And then also, can you speak to how much of the announced price increases were realized and how much of the benefit is there to come in the fourth quarter?
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
I don't know if I can get to specifics about that, but in general, I would say that the price increases we implemented in the third quarter were phased so that we do expect a bigger, more full impact in the fourth quarter of this year, since we'll get the full quarter impact there. From a pricing standpoint, I would say that year over year, quarter over quarter in Hardware Solutions—I'm talking about adjusted EBITDA—price improved by about 3.1 million of the increase.
Julio Romero, Analyst at Sidoti
Okay, and how much was—if we're speaking about the EBITDA line—can you speak to the 80/20 benefit in the quarter for that segment?
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah. So as it relates to the 80/20 projects that we have going on right now, I would say the benefits are minimal versus prior year because they're just now starting. I would say we've taken some actions on reducing some SG&A, but we're in the infancy stages of that. So I think you'll see those continue to pick up in the fourth quarter, and then into next year you'll see more meaningful benefits. So pretty negligible year over year for Q3, but the momentum and progress of those projects will continue to pick up and continue to add benefit as we go forward.
Julio Romero, Analyst at Sidoti
Okay, great. And then last one for me is, Scott, I think you called out in the prepared that the tariff reimbursements to customers was a 2% headwind in the quarter. How much of a headwind remains for the fourth quarter?
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
A lot less than that. So magnitude really mostly in the Hardware Solutions segment was roughly 9 million on the revenue side impact in the third quarter. So something significantly less than that in fourth quarter is expected.
Julio Romero, Analyst at Sidoti
Got it. I'll pass it on. Thanks, guys.
OPERATOR
Thank you. One moment for our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Adam Thalheimer of Thompson Davis. Your line is now open.
Adam Thalheimer, Analyst at Thompson Davis
Hey, good morning, guys. Congrats on the solid Q3.
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Thank you.
Adam Thalheimer, Analyst at Thompson Davis
Hey, Scott, your margin guidance for Q4 struck me as particularly impressive—you know, at least up 50 basis points, I guess, sequentially and year over year. Where should we model that from a segment standpoint? Where do you think that strength comes through?
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah, I would focus more on the Hardware Solutions segment, mainly because if you think back to last year 4Q, we still had a pretty big impact from the Monterrey issues that shouldn't be there this year. And then the other piece along with that, like we just talked about with Julio, is that you're obviously going to get the full benefit of a full quarter's worth of the pricing impact. So those two things, compared on a year-over-year basis, should—especially in the Hardware segment—stick out the most.
Adam Thalheimer, Analyst at Thompson Davis
Okay. And you had good SG&A control in the third quarter, so I guess that continues in Q4.
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
It's obviously a focus of ours. As we've gotten all of the new segments stabilized, finalized, and we're operating in a really pretty efficient manner, we can identify opportunities to continue to improve. Obviously, the basis of everything that we're doing from an 80/20 perspective evaluates the amount of SG&A that you're using to support very little levels of revenue, and we're trying to address those. So I appreciate the comment. I think that it's a focus of ours, and you'll continue to see improvements both in fixed costs and SG&A.
Adam Thalheimer, Analyst at Thompson Davis
Great. And then I wanted to ask about—because the revenue growth was impressive in Custom Solutions, and within Custom Solutions, it's particularly impressive within Wood Solutions—so I was curious, within Wood Solutions, how does the growth break down between kind of core volume, price, and then the outsourcing opportunity that you had this year? And what's the outlook for that segment?
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
So yeah, for Wood there's a couple things playing into the improvement in revenue. From a volume perspective, the market in general is still soft in that business. However, we were—and I think we commented on this before—able to win some new business that started hitting us earlier this year, to the tune of like 10 million a year. So that is definitely helping that business this year, which is in contrast to what the market is doing. Now on a go-forward basis—so we started picking up that business at the very end of our Q4 and really Q1 of this year—so you'll probably see one more quarter of year-over-year benefit.
And as we discuss the tariffs and obviously what's going on between the U.S. and Canada, depending on where all those tariffs settle out, that could be an opportunity for more insourcing of cabinet products because of the reliance on the wood and the wood tariffs between the two countries. So more to come. It's fluid as it relates to the tariffs, and it seems to change every day, so could be some upside there but more to come.
Adam Thalheimer, Analyst at Thompson Davis
Are you having active discussions on those, or you're just saying that the backdrop remains favorable?
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
What I would tell you is that the quoting activity has significantly picked up, and I think customers that are sourcing product from Canada are trying to find options to determine what it needs to be on a go-forward basis. So they're doing their due diligence by finding opportunities, and we're actively quoting. So again, really fluid. Every day is different.
Adam Thalheimer, Analyst at Thompson Davis
Okay, sounds great. And then lastly, obviously very good cash flow, debt paydown. I just wanted to think kind of big picture, multi-year, because before you bought Timan you had actually flipped to net cash. And I just wonder, as you let the model run out here, maybe we get into a better demand environment, is getting back to net cash a goal, or would you rather get back to doing tuck-in M&A?
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
You know, one of the important parts of our thesis in acquiring Timan and resegmenting is that we've identified opportunities for future growth down the road. So I don't think it would be prudent for us to be in a net cash-plus position. You know, I think if we can't find opportunities to grow both organically and inorganically in adjacent markets, we're not doing our job. So I think, you know, if we get down to one, one and a half times, I think you would see us probably looking to do more transformative type of things.
But again, we're a fairly conservative company in that regard, and we manage our debt, I think, very prudently. So I think you'll see the near-term focus continue to be paying down debt and reducing the interest expense so we can grow organically. And then once we continue to drive it down, our goal is to expand into adjacent markets both organically and inorganically. So I don't think you'll ever find us—or it's not a goal—to be in a net cash-plus position.
Adam Thalheimer, Analyst at Thompson Davis
Okay, good color. Thanks, guys.
OPERATOR
You have one moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Stephen Ramsey of Thomas Research Group. Your line is now open.
Stephen Ramsey, Analyst at Thomas Research Group
Good morning, everyone. Wanted to start. Yeah, wanted to start with the spacers product within extruded—very strong results year to date and again in the quarter. And it's a high-margin product for you. Can you go into some details on the demand and the pricing in that category, and can you talk about the mix impact it's bringing to the segment margins?
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
Yeah, as we look, obviously I don't think we gave any breakdown by product line, but that's obviously a part of the Extruded Solutions segment, and that market has grown very nicely. And the warm-edge spacer markets are very much tied to high-end, energy-efficient windows. So I think as energy costs continue to be elevated and people are being able to justify replacing windows to get energy savings, the demand for our spacer product will continue to grow.
You know, that started long ago in Europe, which has always been kind of the leading indicator for what's going to happen in North America. And I think we're seeing that. You know, it's been influenced, and most of that product line—especially in North America—are on index pricing mechanisms, and a lot of that is petroleum-based. So, you know, a lot of the price of that product we've been able to pass through and cover inflation very well. So, you know, overall I would say our margins have done well.
It's a very efficient plant, and we have pricing mechanisms in place to protect us from inflationary pressures.
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah, the only thing I'll add there, Stephen, is within that Extruded Solutions segment, yes, you have the IG spacers business, which everybody knows is a good profitability business for us, but you also have the linear business in the UK, which is the vinyl extrusion business, which is also a very good, highly profitable business. So the reasons for that segment being high margins is because of the product mix. Those two product lines make up, from a revenue perspective, like 65% to 70% of the revenue of that segment.
So that should give you some color.
Stephen Ramsey, Analyst at Thomas Research Group
Yep, that's great color and great, great performance there. Also wanted to dig into the screens performance—very good in the quarter and up on a, I believe, up on a year-to-date basis. Can you talk about the screens performance within Hardware, what the outlook is implied there in the fourth quarter, and do you see the strength sustaining beyond this fiscal year?
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
You know, the screens segment and product line within the Hardware segment has been a good, growing business for ours. You know, we continue to service the customers well. It is an area that at times has outpaced market growth because the OE window makers, the ones that insource that, it's one of the first things that they can look to outsource if they're having a hard time getting labor or it's taking up too much floor space in their manufacturing facilities.
So we've been able to grow share probably a little faster than the market has grown, and we continue to like that business. I think we're working very hard on footprint optimization—things to drive more efficiency. So over the course of the last couple years, we closed a couple facilities on the West Coast and are able to service that area from bigger plants and get some operational performance benefits out of that, and I think we'll continue to focus on that.
In terms of our portfolio, the entry-level screens business is near a commodity product that we sell, but I think we're doing some really nice things to continue to buffer that margin, and I think the future is bright for that group.
Stephen Ramsey, Analyst at Thomas Research Group
Okay, that's helpful. Thank you for the color.
OPERATOR
Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Ruben Gardner of Stonex. Your line is now open.
John McGlade, Analyst at Stonex
Hey, good morning, guys. This is John McGlade on for Ruben Gardner.
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
Hey, John.
John McGlade, Analyst at Stonex
So most of my questions have been asked or at least touched on to an extent. Just one quick one. Just kind of based on the prepared remarks there, it sounded like, you know, the tariff refunds and pass-throughs were a detriment to, you know, Hardware Solutions. But then it sounded like you said there was a benefit. I was just wondering if you could kind of outline, you know, was that a full pass-through you did to customers? Was it kind of product by product or categorized in some extent?
Any details there? Just, you know, we've seen a lot of companies of late kind of hold on to those refunds and kind of justify that in the sense of, you know, new tariff policies and the inflationary pressures. Just anything you could provide color-wise on the impacts there and strategy of passing those along.
Scott Silke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer
Yeah, so the tariff refunds really only impacted the Hardware Solutions business during the quarter. The slight improvement or benefit in the Custom Solutions segment, we're just talking about passing through tariffs like we had done prior to last quarter in most of the other businesses. So it's just a nuance there.
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
And on your last point, you know, I think it's important that I do note as it relates to giving back or, you know, retaining and holding tariffs, you know, our philosophy has been we are not trying to use tariffs as a margin-generating item, especially in a market or an environment where the consumers are pressured so hard. So our philosophy has always been that we are going to be very transparent with our customers. I think it's the way we try to do business.
And so, you know, if we've passed through or pushed a tariff through and we've gotten a refund as a result of it, it's not our money to keep, and, you know, it's just the core operating philosophy of how we're going to treat our customers. So everything we've done has been a direct pass-through, and if we get refunds, we'll pass it directly back through to the customer. It's not meant to be a margin grab for us.
John McGlade, Analyst at Stonex
All right, that's great color, and I'm sure your customers appreciate that as well. Good luck in the quarter ahead, guys.
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'll now turn it back to George Wilson for closing remarks.
George Wilson, Chairman and CEO
I'd like to thank everyone for joining the call today, and we look forward to providing the next update in early December. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
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