Construction Partners, inc (ROAD) Q3 2021 Earnings Call Transcript

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Construction Partners, inc (ROAD -1.37%)
Q3 2021 Earnings Call
Aug 6, 2021, 10:00 a.m. ET

Contents:

• Prepared Remarks
• Questions and Answers
• Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Construction Partners Incorporated Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation.[Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Rick Black, Investor Relations.

Rick Black -- Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and good morning everyone. We appreciate you joining us for the Construction Partners' conference call to review Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 results. This call is also being webcast and can be accessed through the audio link on the Events and Presentations page of the Investor Relations section of constructionpartners.net. Information recorded on this call speaks only as of today, August 6, 2021. So please be advised that any time sensitive information may no longer be accurate as of the date of any replay.

I would also like to remind you that the statements made in today's discussion that are not historical facts, including statements of expectations or future events, or future financial performance are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the Safe Harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, we will be making forward-looking statements as part of today's call that by their nature are uncertain and outside of the Company's control. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to the earnings press release that was issued today for our disclosure on forward-looking statements. These factors and other risks and uncertainties are described in detail in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Management will also refer to non-GAAP measures, including Adjusted net income loss and Adjusted EBITDA. Reconciliations to the nearest GAAP measures can be found at the end of our earnings release. Construction Partners assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. And now I would like to turn the call over to Construction Partners' CEO, Jule Smith. Jule?

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Rick, and good morning everyone. With me on the call today are Alan Palmer, our Chief Financial Officer., and Ned Fleming, our Executive Chairman. I'll begin today by talking about the Third Quarter followed by commentary about our recently announced acquisitions and Alabama in North Carolina. We will then have Alan walk us through the financial results before Ned provide some closing comments prior to us opening up the call for your questions.

I'm pleased with our performance in the quarter with generated top line revenue growth of more than 20% year-over-year. Across our footprint in the Southeast, we continue to win new project work and grew backlog to a record high $823 million. This growth of backlog, combined with a bright outlook for infrastructure funding over multiple years at both the state and federal levels, has compelled us to invest this year in our people and technology to prepare for and support future growth. While this investment for future growth. Creates profitability headwinds in the short term we see these investments is vital for the organization being prepared and ready.

Customer demand project funding and bidding activity remains strong throughout the quarter. However, similar to many Construction and Infrastructure businesses, we experienced project delays due to supply chain and labor constraints affecting CPI operations as well as our subcontractors and vendors. While CPI has a stable and experienced local workforce in our markets and strong purchasing power across our company, we are not immune to these current industry constraints. We believe supply chain disruptions will subside in the coming quarters as we move through Fiscal 2022. Today, we have revised our fiscal 2021 financial outlook to reflect these transitory issues. However, our long-term growth strategy remains firmly intact. Let me say we are very bullish on fiscal 2022 and beyond.

Turning now to acquisitions. We announced 2 significant transactions earlier this week, expanding our geographic footprint in the Southeast and further enhancing CPI's vertical integration and Alabama and North Carolina. Not only did we acquire critical assets and growing markets, we also added significant talent to our teams. These acquisitions totaled approximately $113 million and added 4 hot-mix asphalt plants and 5 aggregate facilities. In Alabama, we acquired Good Hope contracting and its related entities-all headquartered in Coleman, Alabama, In addition to the asphalt plants and for aggregate facilities, the transaction also included a diverse fleet of trucks and construction equipment. These assets will help to support and grow our operations in Central and Northern Alabama under the leadership of Senior Vice President John Harper, the President of our Alabama platform company Wiregrass Construction. The good Hope acquisition substantially strengthens our capabilities, including project acquisition and execution, aggregate sourcing and transportation logistics with these added resources. We are excited to welcome more than a 180 talented hard working employees to the CPI team.

In North Carolina. We acquired Dorothy Springs quarry a crushed stone in aggregates facility located near Glenwood, North Carolina. This transaction enhances our vertical integration strategy of construction materials to support our asphalt manufacturing operations. This aggregate facilities uniquely and strategically located in the rapidly growing Sand Hills region of North Carolina, and we expect to use the aggregates demand from this facility supply multiple asphalt plants we acquired last fall. The facilities proximity to our current operations enhances our project bidding opportunities and we believe this will contribute to future growth in these markets. In the past 9 months, we have acquired a total of 17 hot-mix asphalt plants and added nearly 700 employees.

Looking forward, the acquisition opportunities and the increased pipeline activity especially in new markets is considerable. This is the reason we've revised our capital structure, providing more financial flexibility, which Alan will discuss further in a few moments. We see the opportunities, we have the capital structure and we have been investing in our organization for the future growth ahead, Our senior leadership team continues to actively working to identify and engage companies that may fit well into our future growth plans as well as prepare the organization for growth and advance. As a consolidator in a fragmented industry, we continue to gain momentum through acquiring quality companies assets and people to broaden CPI's relative market share and depth of service.

Turning now to what we are seeing at the Federal Funding level in our industry. Like most of you, we are following the process closely in Washington, DC and we remain optimistic about the prospect for a significant infrastructure bill including bipartisan support for infrastructure legislation. We are confident that our nation's infrastructure investing will continue to be a primary focus for our country, both as an economic driver and is a critical component for public safety. Regardless of the pathway to increased Federal Funding all proposals provide for sizable increases at Federal Surface Transportation funding over the FAST Act. In addition, we expect that the FAST Act reauthorization will be passed before its expiration in September. As a reminder this surface transportation reauthorization along with the part is an infrastructure bill proposal total show a greater than 50% increase over the current funding for the next 5 years. Such legislation would immediately stimulate economic growth and job creation while also driving meaningful project demand in late 2022 and beyond.

Lastly, as we stated before, the most critical component of our success is our people, we are deeply committed to our more than 2,900 employees that are the key driver of our organization and they are crucial for meeting our near and long-term goals. I'd like to personally thank our entire CPI team for their hard work, dedication and commitment to maintaining safe work sites for themselves and teammates as we head toward our Fiscal 2022 the begins in October It's an exciting time for CPI-we currently expect in the next 12 months for potential upside of 20% overall year-over-year increase and infrastructure spending by our states, substantial federal funding increases for our industry, and entry into new markets. I'd like now to turn the call over to Alan, to discuss our financial results.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you. Jules, and good morning everyone. Before I highlight our key performance metrics in the third quarter of fiscal 2021, I want to comment on our strategic acquisitions completed earlier this week. CPI acquired 2 businesses, both of which contribute to expanding our customer footprint and vertical integration efforts. The combined acquisition price was approximately $113 million, which was funded from our recently completed term loan and revolver credit facility. This new facility after completion of these acquisitions, provides the company with $214 million of remaining capital for future acquisition opportunities.

Turning to the Quarter Three results. Compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2020, revenue was $261.7 million, up 20.6%. Acquisitions completed subsequent to June 30, 2020 contributed $31.4 million of revenue and we had an increase of $13.3 million of revenue in our existing markets. Gross profit was $36.6 million compared to $36.9 million in the 3rd quarter of last year as we have stated before, acquisitions initially put pressure on our operating margins. While the 4 acquisitions completed in the first fiscal quarter of this year in the North Carolina market showed significant improvement in this quarter compared to the second quarter, the gross profit contribution for the quarter was only 1% of revenue. General and administrative expenses were $23.2 million compared to $16.9 million in the same quarter last year. The increase in general and administrative expenses was primarily due to $3 million attributable to increased personnel and related compensation initiatives, $1 million attributable to acquisition-related costs subsequent to June 30, 2020 and $1.6 million attributable to information technology and increased professional fees. Net income was $9.3 million for the third fiscal quarter of 2021 compared to net income of $15.7 million in the third fiscal quarter of last year.

Adjusted EBITDA for the third fiscal quarter of 2021 was $29 million compared to $32 million for the third fiscal quarter of last year. You can find GAAP to non-GAAP reconciliations of Adjusted net income and Adjusted EBITDA financial measures at the end of today's press release.

Increases in liquid asphalt and diesel fuel prices during most of this quarter as well as lower than expected revenue impacted our overall gross profit in our existing markets. Our gross profit margin on jobs in our existing markets continue to exceed our prior year margins.

Turning now to the balance sheet at June 30, 2021. we had $135 million of cash and $14 million of future availability under our revolving credit facility after reduction for outstanding letters of credit. As of the end of the quarter, our debt to trailing 12-months EBITDA ratio was 1.86. This liquidity provide us flexibility and capital capacity for potential near-term acquisitions, allowing us to respond to growth opportunities when they arise. Cash provided by operating activities was $9.3 million for the 9 months ended June 30, 2021 compared to $51.4 million for the same period last year. Capital expenditures through the first 9 months of 2021 were $39.6 million. We still anticipate total at capital expenditures for the year of $47 to $50 million. We are reporting a record project backlog at June 30,2021 of $823 million compared to $650 million at June 30 of last year, and $773.3 million at March 31, 2021. Approximately 30% of the backlog will be completed in the last 3 months of our fiscal year and as Jul mentioned, we are revising our fiscal year 2021 outlook for the year with regard to revenue, adjusted net income and adjusted EBITDA. We now expect revenue in the range of $940 to $960 million adjusted net income in the range of $36.9 to $38.4 million, and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $105 to $108.3 million.

In summary, we are pleased with our third quarter results, the recent acquisitions and our project backlog. I'll now turn the call over to our Executive Chairman, Ned Fleming. Ned?

Ned N. Fleming III -- Executive Chairman of the Board

Thank you, Alan. Before we open the call to your questions, I want to reiterate that the company is performing well. We continue to grow organically coupled with an increased pace of acquisitive growth, both organic growth and recent acquisitions further enhanced vertical integration across the organization. The result is relative market share is increasing in our existing footprint while the company is expanding geographically. The leadership team in conjunction with our Board continues to prudently invest in the right people, processes and technology to further strengthen and support a robust yet disciplined growth plan. We are very pleased with the acquisitions announced earlier this week toward the future benefits will continue to be realized for many years. We're gaining scale and depth of service offerings along with a long-term focus of capturing more margin from Rock to Road. These acquisitions bring new service offering and the addition of 5 aggregate facilities, all of which enhance our vertical integration strategy. As a significant consolidator in a highly fragmented industry, we are maintaining momentum through important strategic acquisitions that provide us with quality companies and great people just as we have done for the past 20 years through many different economic cycles. Despite short term headwinds, there is a very positive long-term momentum in the industry and throughout the company.

We expect to carry on with a successful execution of our long-term strategy of disciplined profitable growth to enhance shareholder value in our company. With that, we'll now take questions. Operator?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from Andy Wittmann, with Baird.

Andy Wittmann -- Biard -- Analyst

Hi. Great. Good morning, thanks for taking my question guys. I just have a series of questions here-just all kind of based around some of the changes in the inflationary environment that you have discussed. Here are my questions. And I guess we're almost or I guess the first question is, what are you doing today in the model to address the inflationary factors and particularly those around the labor markets-could you talk maybe a little bit about how the labor market is affecting you. I guess maybe a follow-up to that would also include how are your competitors reacting to these factors, are they adjusting presumably their prices so that you all competing on the same footing? Maybe you could start there. I'm going to keep on with a follow-up from there. But once you are-so you can do with those.

Rick Black -- Investor Relations

Okay. Good morning, Andy. Thank you. Well you know so inflation's a real pain in the economy-the entire economy is dealing with. You know at CPI, one of the things we've talked about is inflation is mainly a pass-through costs for us. So as wages increase we are immediately putting those back into the bids that we then put out, and so that's something that our project duration in our project size-that's an advantage. I would say, so it's business as usual for us-we take the revised input costs and put them into our bids. As far as our competitors they're largely doing the same thing I would say those larger projects, projects with a longer duration, projects that you have to give a fixed price for those are things we're inflation becomes more of a challenge. And, but that's not really the typical nature of our projects at CPI, and so as we've always said, inflation we just -- we try to pass that along very effectively.

Andy Wittmann -- Biard -- Analyst

Okay. So just to drill into that a little bit more. I mean clearly the quarter saw cost pressures here from these factors you call them out, so how much more exposure is in the backlog I guess from contracts that were priced prior to the cost inflation that you've -- that you're seeing today and therefore is that risk, maybe the amount of backlog if you could quantify that or the duration, it sounds like this is going to impact you again in the fourth quarter. Sounded like I think in the press release, you said that it was going to affect you in the 2022. So maybe you could address that a little bit more specifically because clearly it's having an effect and just trying to understand when when the contracts catch up to the dynamics that you're seeing out there today.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Andy. Let me, let me just say in my prepared remarks I addressed dealing with supply chain issues and labor constraints. It's really not cost increases. Let me give you a few examples just to help you see. So while we have a steady workforce, the labor market is so tight right now. We, in any one market may have 20 to 30 dump trucks and on a normal basis they're running wide open this time of the year. This year we're seeing that maybe 2 of those trucks at any one time may be sitting still because of just the need to fund drivers, or we recently had a site work job where the utility crew that subcontracted out-I had to wait a week to get pipe -- PVC pipe. Those are that's normally not even an issue in normal times just the supply chain of getting PVC pipe. And the last example I would give you-w have a milling subcontractor that normally we count on having 3 crews all work season, and recently they let us know, look, we just have to crews right now and so you need to tell us which job can wait until 1 of those crews gets finished. So that's just an example, I would say for us. You know I I use the example of slight running with ankle weights, we've got a record backlog, we've got plenty of open running room and we're running-we're running as fast as we can as hard as we can. But this, these supply constraints, this labor market constraints is like have an ankle weights on your ankles, you just not go run quite as fast. We see those normalizing-we see the labor markets normalizing. Over the next couple of months, we're already starting to see it normalize in 3 of our 4 states, where the federal unemployment benefit is been stopped, but it does have an effect, it's a little bit of a headwind, while you're running. So that's really it. It's not as much cost increases as is just our ability to generate top line revenue when the supply chain issues that a lot of companies are experiencing in CPI and our vendors and suppliers are dealing with those same things

Andy Wittmann -- Biard -- Analyst

That's really helpful context. Thanks, Jule. Just one last, and on this one and then I'll yield the floor. But I was just wondering, having done so many acquisitions, I think you said 17 asphalt plants in the last few quarters here, I was just wondering if, what I would call the more legacy of CPI business this managing their labor relations or ability to deal with some of these challenges differently from the companies that are more recently acquired, where maybe you don't know the full staff as well. Are there differences between what you've bought recently in the legacy company in terms of the significance propensity of these challenges and how you're dealing with them.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Andy, I would say when we acquire a company, one of the things that really helps is that our benefits and our ability to all for growth and advancement-that's a positive. And we've seen that with acquisitions we've made and so in a sense, I think that CPI getting and being able to acquire those new markets is help keep that labor force intact. But in the new markets we're dealing with the same issues as we are in our traditional markets. This is one thing that I can look across the entire Southeast and it's pretty much the same everywhere, it's just -- it's ankle weights everywhere and it's not any one thing this dramatic, it's not any market that get shut down, it's just a little bit of drag across the board and we see that those, the markets are going to normalize, we know that, but it's just something that we just -- like a lot of companies are having to work through in the short term.

Andy Wittmann -- Biard -- Analyst

Got it. Thank you very much.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Thank you, Andy.

Operator

Your next question, Michael Feniger, with Bank of America.

Michael Feniger -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. You only have a few -- hey good morning guys. You had a few weeks left to finish the year, when we look at -- given the low end of your range right now, we're still talking about over 35% revenue growth year-over-year-I think 20% growth on the EBITDA line. In the last 2 quarters, your sales have been up double digits and EBITDA has been down. So, just help us understand on the call, your confidence level even with the guide in the fourth quarter and in the next few weeks there we're going to see that type of revenue growth acceleration on top of these some type of leverage to the bottom line. Is there anything in July that you can tell us that gives you confidence on your ability to hit that?

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, good question, Michael. And I'll take that one to give Jule just a breather. What I would say is what gives us confidence is that there was a significant improvement in what was causing some of that mortgage margin compression in the prior quarter, and then let still into here. And then the situation was the acquisitions that we made in North Carolina had virtually no backlog when we acquired them. They were in a market where 3 of those 4 acquisitions primarily did public and a large percentage DOT work and we all know the status of where the North Carolina DOT was last year in the first quarter of this year. So the backlog that we acquired there-the early backlog that we added there was not at typical levels for an acquisition and for a market. So there was, there has been a dramatic improvement between the second quarter and the third quarter, and how those acquisitions have performed. And so we see that momentum in that improvement flowing into the fourth quarter. So we're, that it was a big drag in the second quarter, much smaller drag. I mean, our gross profit on that revenue was about 1% in this quarter, but it's quickly returning to a more normal.

Our existing operations to the growth that you talked about our organic growth in the third quarter was over 6% year-over-year and that the margins on that work are very much in line with what our original guidance provided about 1% down from last year because of the cost things with liquid asphalt and diesel fuel and the other things that we've talked about many times before. But we see the acquisitions getting in shape and how would say it is it typically we say it takes about 12 to 18 months to kind of get them going, and I would say the first 9 months of this year, they've been well below that, and so we're getting them back to where they typically would have been on acquisition date. So in the, in the fourth quarter we've got about half of a little over half of that growth percentage that you talked about-the 35% is coming from those acquisitions and a little bit from the 2 that we announced earlier this week, and then the remainder of that almost half of it is organic growth, and we see that while not hitting the full 11% to 12% that we thought at the beginning of the year, getting closer to the 8% to 9% organic growth year-over-year this year. So that's what's really given us confidence about that fourth quarter.

Michael Feniger -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Okay. And based on some of the comments about transitory yet -- and this goes back I think Andy's questions earlier. I mean it's transitory yet it could bleed for the next few quarters so I just -- to put a fine point on it, I mean your stock's down 9% today because investors are worrying that these headwinds are going to eat into 2022. Everyone recognizes you guys have an idea, geographic mix, well positioned for infrastructure-that's understood. I guess the question is, if we fast forward to 2022 and you're growing your top line 20%-25%, how much should investors expect the bottom line to grow off that. Do you guys expect to be able to expand margins in 2022, any way to frame that I think will help investors and market understand how much of this is transitory -- how much maybe bleed into the first half of 2022.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Well, I'll answer but our expectations is, it a lot of the margin drag this year. The facts are that a lot of the margin drag this year have been acquisitions and we certainly see those acquisitions, returning to more normal situation. So, in 2022 that has nothing to do with the issues with labor or those type things revenue. Our backlog is -- our margin on our backlog is up compared to what it was. We've worked through a lot of those very low-margin jobs that we've been able to complete and we've also gotten the volume up because a lot of the drag is just been again, in different markets, including the ones that we acquired when you have that lower volume and you've added 13 asphalt plants, there is a lot of fixed cost that in the second quarter until much lesser degree in the third quarter, we didn't recover through those jobs, but our job performance say one thing-our job performance in our existing pre-acquisition markets.

The profit margin is actually up on those compared to the prior year. And again, once you work through some of that acquired backlog, and some of that early backlog that we had to book to keep those operations going, that's not going to carry over into 2022.

Michael Feniger -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Okay. And is there any view internally as management and you guys have done a lot of these acquisitions. Right now we're seeing some of these constraints there any view the hold back a little bit on the M&A strategy right now-digest some of these acquisitions and just get get all your ducks in a row for a home. This infrastructure package is there. I'm curious how you guys are feeling. You guys did a lot of acquisition so far and you're working through it. Is there any view internally to maybe pause on the pace of M&A so far?

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Michael. I would just say this, on the North Carolina acquisitions we made, we took the long-term view. These are great markets, but clearly, we always say in acquisitions we inherit, issues with acquisitions, that's a constant but all acquisitions are different. And these acquisitions, we knew would be coming in with very low backlog as Alan said. The North Carolina team has done a great job integrating them. They are now part of adding to this record backlog, we're adding backlog in these markets at good margins. So, I would just I would say that we know that acquisitions are always going to take time to get our hands around. But with this federal funding bill, one of the things that we are investing in our organization, we are trying to get prepared for the growth ahead, so that we can continue to integrate these acquisitions and we see a lot of opportunity out there. We clearly don't want to get out over our skis too much, we want to be prudent in pace we grow but that's one of the reasons you see us investing in our organization, in our people and our technology is to prepare to be able to handle future growth.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Michael, let me just make one statement there-we've got a long history and proven history of being able to integrate multiple acquisitions and the challenges in North Carolina we're not [inaudible] but to -- what it happen with North Carolina DOT. So, our concern about integrating future acquisitions. There is no concern there because as Jul said the team up here in North Carolina has done an excellent job of doing that, and working through conditions that had nothing to do with the integration, had to do with the abnormal market when those were acquired.

Michael Feniger -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Understood. And 2 of in [inaudible] the last question and I'll yield [inaudible] with the acquisitions that have been completed today, Alan, how much of that -- what's the number that goes into 2022 that would be incremental, so not asking for it obviously, your 2022 guidance but it's based on the acquisitions that have been done through this yea when we think about 2022, how much incremental is that on the top of for next year? Thanks guys.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

I will -- the 4 that were made in North Carolina, we will have months worth of revenue in 2021. So those incrementally you're probably I mean though the remaining portion of their first year, and the new acquisitions we're probably talking somewhere between $90 million and $100 million additional revenue all and because most of those 4 acquisitions, they would have had revenue for 10 months this year.

Michael Feniger -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Perfect, thank you.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Michael.

Operator

Your next question Josh Wilson, with Raymond James.

Josh Wilson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Good morning, guys, thanks for taking my question.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Morning, Josh.

Josh Wilson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Just want to clarify a little more just, what's the moving pieces are on the margins, so presumably you would have seen the known, a lot of the margin headwinds from the North Carolina acquisitions. So can you just give us a little more color on, to what extent the change in guidance was due to any differences versus expectations in the acquisitions, versus the broader market headwinds that you talked about on the labor side.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Josh. I'll take responsibility for that when we make acquisitions we put together projections and models of what we expect them to do, based on their history, but also what we see any synergies or whatever. Because of the timing of these acquisitions, they were added into our 2021 budget if you will, based on those models, which we're modeling normal times. What we -- what I fail to recognize is that we were not making those 4 acquisitions in normal times, and so the margin that we've experienced -- and we had optimism that the we knew what the backlog was we were assuming that we had some optimism that the DOT in North Carolina, that the margins would pick up quicker than they did. And then also just the lack of volume of work in those impacted the margin, so it really was more of a forecasting of what they would do in the first year and not basing it on the actual facts that existed in this market. Our existing operations, acts on that-come in very, very close to what we expected.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And, Josh, this is Jule. I just would say a large part of our revised guidance is simply dealing with the transitory issues I talked about at the beginning, were just headwinds. And we largely see that working its way through in the next few months, but that's the main part of it. I would just say on acquisitions, some of our best markets today in CPI we're acquisitions where we had to work through issues in the first 12 months. So we've done this for a long time and some of our best performing markets right now are no different than what we've had to deal with the North Carolina-the last nine months.

Josh Wilson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

And regarding the growth in the backlog. Can you give us a sense of how much of that was due to the North Carolina acquisitions and how much was in the Legacy business?

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

The North Carolina acquisitions I guess have been in the backlog, since we acquired them, so if any growth in this quarter, would not be -- would not really have affect that much. I mean we started is Jul said earlier, we started adding backlog to those just like we have our existing markets, but we typically say that normally we would have nine months, so backlog is what we would shoot for, and if you took their revenue -- if you're comparing backlog last year to this year, then that probably would be in the $50 to $75 million range of backlog, if you're comparing to last quarter, it was already in last quarter.

Josh Wilson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

And last one for me. Peers have called out margin headwinds from asphalt and diesel. Can you give us a sense of to what [inaudible] commodity costs and timing head on years?

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, the first I'd say is that if you go back to our original guidance this year, we anticipated these cost increases in asphalt and diesel and that really has played out very close to what we expected for the year. If you're comparing to last year, then this year we had -- last year we had -- those things were dropping and gave us some tailwind this year they're giving us a headwind, but really, they have not been significantly different than what we anticipated this year. So, but from a margin standpoint. Compared to last year, it's probably somewhere between $1 million to $1.5 million dollars of impact this year that we didn't have last year. But from what we anticipated, it really is -- it's very little difference.

Josh Wilson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Got it. Good luck with the next quarter.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Next question. Adam Thalhimer, with Thompson Davis.

Adam Thalhimer -- Thompson Davis -- Analyst

Hey, good morning guys.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Adam.

Adam Thalhimer -- Thompson Davis -- Analyst

On the good hope acquisition, can you characterize that for us from the standpoint of does it feel like what you did in North Carolina, or does it feel like they're coming in with a healthier backlog and better momentum?

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Adam, we're excited about the Good Hope acquisition; it's one we've been looking at for a long time and it's a great company. If you look at the map, it's almost a perfect fit with our existing operations between Birmingham and Huntsville. And so we're excited about it gives us 4 new markets for our hot-mix asphalt and ability to do work in those areas and for aggregates utilities that support that they came in with a healthy backlog, there has been no -- there was no abnormal issues like they were in North Carolina in 2019 and 2020. So I would say just feels more like a normal acquisition. It's a large acquisitions, it's the largest one and CPI history. We're excited about it. And so we're in a great and then and we'll be moving forward. We're already winning work in those areas with of the new assets.

Adam Thalhimer -- Thompson Davis -- Analyst

And then, I'd like to your ankle weight comment, but I was, I was thinking as you're going through that, as an industry. Can you guys -- can the industry work its way out of that without seeing it tail off in demand?

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Well, I really just see it. Adam, as a read somewhere where there 7 million fewer workers right now than they were pre-pandemic. And that's a huge impact on the labor markets and whether you're in restaurants or service industries are in the construction industry, that has an impact. And, but I think those are going to normalize as we get back to normal we already see in that. So I don't think that it really will affect demand at all. We're seeing a lot of bidding opportunities. The Southeast has expanding economies. So when you talk about the funding. I mentioned last quarter, our states are going to have 20% year-over-year increases in project lettings due to healthy budgets in the COVID relief funds, we're seeing that in the lettings that we are bidding now. And then with what they're talking about in Washington with reauthorizing the surface transportation bill that's going to be a nice increase even if they don't get this part is an Infrastructure Bill through. Just the surface Transportation Bill alone is going to provide a lot of stability for our industry for the next 5 years. So I think that it's not going to really affect demand and I think what it is going to affect is our ability to generate revenue and get us back to normal.

Adam Thalhimer -- Thompson Davis -- Analyst

Sounds good. I'll leave it there. Thanks.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

All right, thank you, Adam.

Operator

Next question. Andy Wittman, Baird. Please go ahead.

Andy Wittmann -- Biard -- Analyst

Would be good here a little bit more about some of the investments Jul that you're making. You talked about at the top of the Scripps Company's obviously grown a lot, and you're putting some resources behind it. What kind of resources to the, in SG&A or in the project level maybe for you Alan, what's a good new run rate for SG&A recognizing that there have been some deal costs and other things in SG&A historically. So if you could just help us with the channels on that front.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

And I would say, you know, as we look at the healthy southeastern economies and the increased infrastructure spending, but also really just the chance to enter new markets and adjacent states, it is prudent for us to invest in our people and technology right now. It would, be negligent for us not to get ready for the growth that's coming. So we are investing in our staff in our infrastructure technology, and our ability to manage a higher level workforce-a bigger workforce. We are in the middle right now of investing an entire new ERP system. So, those type of things that's planting now for the harvest account, and it is an investment but we really don't look at this quarter-to-quarter, we're managing for the long term and we see that now is the time to get ready for that. And so it does show up in a higher SG&A cost right now but that's the prudent thing to do. I'll let Alan go over the numbers, but that's what we're really doing.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Andy, a lot of the cost and there is call it deal cost if you will, in this third quarter that if we don't make deals and do due diligence on acquisitions would not be in future quarters. But as you've heard Jule say, we're not putting the brakes on that. So those will be in there as far as the fourth quarter of this year. I think the third quarter run rate is plenty adequate to the model out for the, the fourth quarter there will be a little bit of increase there because of the 2 acquisitions that have been made since then, they will have some, but it won't be significant won't be a significant change in the fourth quarter. They will be in there pretty much for 2 out of those 3 months. So going into the future, we will continue as we have opportunities to make acquisitions to do those and that will obviously impact the G&A, lot of the surge in it, if you will, has happened at the same percentage.

Adam Thalhimer -- Thompson Davis -- Analyst

Yeah, OK. And then maybe just one final question here, just on the cash flow, CFO. So far this year, last year was actually good first 9 months. To be sure, but this year is a lot weaker, and I thought maybe you could talk about some, a lot of your working capital accounts or use of capital and certainly, the business has got good growth characteristics but I was just wondering, is there anything else there that we should be thinking about, or that you're thinking about as you look at these working capital accounts in terms of opportunity to get some of the cash back out of the business.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Andy, great question. And we've said this before, when because of the nature of the acquisitions that we make which are asset purchases. Our purchase price does not include working capital that we're going to need for those in the future that those receivables and payables are staying with the sellers, and so then we have to basically fund that working capital post-acquisition. So with the number that we've made this year and the revenue you've got part of that is happening there. The other thing is we inventory cost, whether it be rock, but specifically liquid asphalt, we've got the large facility with the terminal. And you know when we fill those tanks this year it's virtually it's is basically twice the inventory, so just at the liquid asphalt terminal. There is over $8 million worth of more inventory sitting in there than there was last year. Large part of that's price, but also we're filling because prices are rising. We're trying to keep the tanks Fuller. What I'd say as far as the basics of days in receivables and days in payables, which can be a big driver of that-that is not changed our receivables are not any different our aging our payables are not really different. Another thing that impacts that, here is the fact that our private work is from a year ago and private work we have retainage on those, if you look at the contract retainage, it is up, and that's just a function of when you do public work and it's bonded they don't with whole part of the payment. So it's really those factors that are driving it, but at some point that stabilizes, if you're not growing 205-27% in a year so.

Adam Thalhimer -- Thompson Davis -- Analyst

All right, thank you very much.

Operator

Next question. Zane Karimi, DA Davidson.

Zane Karimi -- DA Davidson -- Analyst

Hey, good morning and thank you for taking the time to taking my questions.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Zane.

Zane Karimi -- DA Davidson -- Analyst

So first off, I know you guys touched upon the inflation dynamics at play over the quarter, but to what degree and how would you quantify the project delays around -- and the supply and labor constraints.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Zane. I mean we -- I thought about that. It's hard to quantify exactly I saw somewhere where some other companies said it was about a 5% revenue headwind and I thought about that -that sounds about right, that's about what we adjusted our guidance for the third and fourth quarter. So it's hard to get you the exact but that feels about like what the ankle weights create in the short term, is that, but I would just say we have grown 20% year-over-year. And so we're growing in this environment we're running hard, it's just with these ankle weights were not running is hard, is we had, as we have the opportunity to our backlog gives us ability to run even faster than we are right now. So we're in terms of quantifying, that's probably a good range-anywhere between 5% to 7%.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Zane this Alan. and the good thing is as we've said when we talked about other types of delays, whether it'd be weather or whatever, that backlog doesn't go away-no one cancels or contract or anything. Typically, this time of the year, our backlog, if you went back the last 8 or 10 years other than if we made an acquisition in this quarter. Our backlog would go down, because we're completing 60% of our work in the last 2 quarters, but that backlog-it went up this year. Part of that is the shortfall and completing revenue but over half of that was, that increase was just because of the amount of work that's out there and that backlog continues out there to be done and delays are changing the margin profile of that work either-that's another big factor. And at some point when that additional volume goes through our asphalt plants and goes through our equipment usage, we will regain some of that margin that was lost on those fixed cost that for --that impact us in the part of the year that we only do 40% of our revenue so.

Zane Karimi -- DA Davidson -- Analyst

Thank you. And that lead the next question on backlog,. You guys are pushing all time highs 3 I believe it was, but can you talk maybe a little bit more about the composition of this backlog, either from a geographic standpoint, a margin standpoint or whatever you find most compelling with the current backlog composition.

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. The good news is that backlog is growing in virtually all of our markets and we look at our markets, not as just the state, but we look at all. I guess 52 markets, now that we're in. As far as our hot-mix asphalt plants. So, we're seeing strong demand in all of those were across our entire footprint. Certainly there are some that are stronger than others and the recovery of the DOT in North Carolina, has been a big factor in the places in North Carolina, being able to grow there and that's why it was important that we made the acquisitions, when we did it because it gave us 13 new markets in North Carolina to bidding in. So, but it's really across our entire footprint because all the states that we're in a very strong state DOT budgets, not just the money that's coming from federal but there past gas taxes. Some of those that have been indexed in that are phased in are kicking in, so it really is a strong demand across all of our markets and as Jule mentioned earlier, fortunately, our competitors are seeing that they've got cost increases, so they're raising their cost and we're not seeing any kind of margin compression at the bid table. We've seen that begin to come up as a percentage in our backlog, not just because we're completing some of the low margin work that we completed in these last six months, but also because the margin that we're bidding on new work is is improving so.

Zane Karimi -- DA Davidson -- Analyst

I appreciate the color. I'll jump back in [Phonetic]. Thank you. I will now turn the floor over to management for closing remarks.

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Okay. Thank you, operator. Just want to thank everybody for joining today's call. We look forward to speaking to you again. We're excited about the growth opportunities for the future and we look forward to speaking to you next quarter. Have a good day.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]

Duration: 57 minutes

Call participants:

Rick Black -- Investor Relations

Jule Smith -- President and Chief Executive Officer

Alan Palmer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Ned N. Fleming III -- Construction Partners Inc. -- Executive Chairman of the Board

Andy Wittmann -- Biard -- Analyst

Michael Feniger -- Bank of America -- Analyst

Josh Wilson -- Raymond James -- Analyst

Adam Thalhimer -- Thompson Davis -- Analyst

Zane Karimi -- DA Davidson -- Analyst

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