Ferguson on Tuesday reported stronger sales, profit and margins in the first quarter of the year, as well as disclosed six completed or pending acquisitions.
The Virginia-based plumbing and PVF distribution giant posted sales of $7.47 billion in the first three months of the year, an increase of 3.6% compared to the same period last year. The company’s organic revenue increased by 2.8%, while recent acquisitions contributed an 0.8% increase to that total; price inflation, the company said, was in the “mid-single digits” during the quarter.
Ferguson’s operating profit, meanwhile, jumped by more than 20% year over year to $612 million. Its gross margin of 31% was up 30 basis points, while its 8.2% operating margin was up by 120 basis points.
Ferguson CEO Kevin Murphy said that the company delivered “solid results in a challenging market;" the distributor maintained its original 2026 forecast of “low to mid-single digit” annual sales growth.
“While the economic environment remains uncertain, we expect to continue to outperform the market by deploying scale locally while leveraging the long-term growth drivers of water infrastructure, large capital projects, climate and comfort and aging and underbuilt housing,” Murphy said in a statement.
Ferguson’s earnings release also officially announced two first-quarter manufacturer’s rep acquisitions in its waterworks operations — Technology Sales Associates Inc. in New Hampshire and Chesapeake Environmental Equipment in Maryland — as well as a more recent buyout of Michigan HVAC distributor Carrier Great Lakes. The company additionally disclosed three more deals that it expects to wrap up in the current quarter: HVAC distributors Dealers Supply Company in Georgia and New England Applied Products in Massachusetts, and Ohio valve distributor PRD Technologies Group.
Terms of those deals were not disclosed, but Ferguson expects them to add some $350 million in “aggregate annualized revenue.”
The company, which shifted its headquarters from the U.K. to Virginia in 2024, also said that it is reviewing its secondary listing on the London Stock Exchange and could cancel that listing altogether. Ferguson anticipates completing the review in the current quarter.
Ferguson’s industrial operations ranked at no. 15 on ID’s latest Big 50 list.
