Herndon, VA - Beacon Roofing Supply, Inc. announced results for its first quarter ended December 31, 2014 (“2014”) of the fiscal year ended September 30, 2014 (“Fiscal 2014”).
Paul Isabella, the Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, stated: “We again achieved solid top line growth for the quarter. We started the quarter exceptionally strong, but ended the month of December on a soft note as a result of some very challenging weather conditions in our Northern regions. We were very pleased to see a strong rebound in commercial roofing this quarter as we continue to focus on diversifying our lines of business. In addition, we are seeing success with our new branch opening process and believe we will exceed our initial targets and may open as many as 25 branches in Fiscal 2014. A challenging pricing environment continued to drive down gross margins again this quarter, although our long standing culture of cost control was able to mitigate some of the negative impact through leverage of our operating expenses. Despite the challenges with pricing, we continued to generate solid cash flows from operations and fully repaid our revolving credit facility during the quarter. We believe market pricing will improve in 2014 as demand increases as we exit the winter months, and we intend to continue to leverage our operating expenses as we grow our revenue base.”
Total sales increased 7.5% to $552.1 million in 2014 from $513.7 million in 2013. Existing market (organic) sales, which exclude branches acquired after the beginning of last year’s first quarter, increased 3.3% (the first quarter of 2013 and 2014 both had the same number of business days). In existing markets, residential roofing product sales increased 1.4%, non-residential roofing product sales increased 6.6%, and complementary product sales increased 1.0%.
Net income for the first quarter was $15.0 million compared to $18.2 million in 2013. First quarter diluted net income per share was $0.30 compared to $0.37 in 2013. Net income for the quarter was unfavorably impacted by lower gross margins driven primarily by lower average selling prices for our residential and non-residential products and a higher mix of non-residential roofing products. This was partially offset by a lower rate of operating expenses and lower effective tax rate.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, and stock-based compensation (“Adjusted EBITDA”), which are reconciled to the net income in this press release, were $37.5 million in 2014 compared to $41.8 million in 2013, a decrease of 10.4% driven primarily by the lower net income.
Cash flow from operations was $54.2 million in 2014 compared to $47.3 million in 2013. This increase in operating cash flows was influenced mostly by a larger benefit from net working capital changes this year. Cash on hand increased by $22.4 million to $56.4 million at December 31, 2013, compared to $34.0 million at December 31, 2012. This increase was due primarily to a reduction in cash used for investing activities in 2014, compared to 2013. As of December 31, 2013, we had available borrowings under our revolving lines of credit of $332.1 million.
