Hillman Solns Q3 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Hillman Solns (NASDAQ:HLMN) reported third-quarter financial results on Tuesday. The transcript from the company’s third-quarter earnings call has been provided below.

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Summary

Hillman Solutions reported record net sales of $457 million for Q3 2026, marking an 8% increase and the highest in the company’s 62-year history. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 2% to $90.2 million.

The company completed the acquisition of Cambridge, a distributor of fasteners, which is performing ahead of expectations and aligns with Hillman’s strategic growth plans.

Hillman Solutions updated its full-year 2026 net sales guidance to between $1.66 billion and $1.68 billion, with a midpoint representing 8% growth. Adjusted EBITDA for the year is expected to be $285 million.

The RDS segment saw significant growth with a 19% increase in net sales, driven by the rollout of Minikey 3.5 machines, which are expected to contribute to continued growth into 2027.

The company remains focused on strategic initiatives, including M&A and expanding its Pro and industrial channels, aiming for 8% to 12% annual growth and $2.5 billion in net sales by 2030.

Full Transcript

Grace (Conference Call Operator)

Good morning, and welcome to the third quarter 2026 results presentation for Hillman Solns. My name is Grace, and I will be your conference call operator today. Before we begin, I would like to remind our listeners that today’s presentation is being recorded and simultaneously webcast. The Company’s earnings release and presentation were issued yesterday, and the 10-Q was issued this morning. These documents and a replay of today’s presentation can be accessed on Hillman Solns’ investor relations website at ir.hillmangroup.com.

I would now like to turn the call over to Michael Koehler with Hillman Solns.

Michael Koehler, CTP, IRC (Vice President – Corporate Development, Investor Relations & Treasury)

Thank you, operator. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Hillman Solns’ third quarter 2026 results presentation. I am Michael Koehler, Vice President of Corporate Development, Investor Relations and Treasury. Joining me on today’s call are Hillman Solns’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Jon Michael Adinolfi—JMA, as we call him, and our Chief Financial Officer, Robert Kraft. I would like to remind our audience that certain statements made today may be considered forward-looking and are subject to the safe harbor provisions of applicable securities laws. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors, many of which are beyond the Company’s control and may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected in such statements.

Some of the factors that could influence our results are contained in our periodic and annual reports filed with the SEC. For more information regarding these risks and uncertainties, please see slide 2 in our earnings call slide presentation, which is available on our website, ir.hillmangroup.com. In addition, on today’s call we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. Information regarding our use of and reconciliations of these measures to our GAAP results are available in our earnings call slide presentation.

JMA will begin today’s call by discussing our strong quarterly results and providing an update on our guidance. Thereafter he will discuss the market, the traction we are seeing with our initiatives, and our performance by business. Rocky will then walk through our financials and guidance before turning the call back over to JMA for some closing comments. Then we will open the call up for your questions. It’s now my pleasure to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Jon Michael Adinolfi—JMA.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks Michael. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. The third quarter was another strong quarter for Hillman Solns, highlighted by our record top line and record bottom line results driven by 8% net sales growth, plus we completed the acquisition of Cambridge. Cambridge serves as a long-tail master distributor of fasteners for industrial distribution customers. As the long-tail distributor, Cambridge provides its customers a wide assortment of hard-to-find and low-turnover products from a convenient single source.

In total, Cambridge stocks over 44,000 SKUs and can ship orders the same day. Similarly, Hillman Solns serves as a long-tail mass distributor of fasteners for our retail customers. Together we are now one of the largest long-tail distributors of fasteners to retail, pro, and industrial. When you combine having all the products our customers need, supported by our industry-leading sales and service team, you can see how the Hillman Solns moat continues to widen.

We closed the Cambridge acquisition ahead of schedule and are pleased to report that the business is performing ahead of our expectations so far. We believe we purchased one of the best businesses in the space and Cambridge is a great fit for our long-term strategic growth plans. During our Investor Day in March of this year, we highlighted M&A as a crucial part of our blueprint for strategic growth. This plan also includes fortifying and growing our retail, pro, and industrial channels. Looking forward, we remain confident that we can grow net sales between 8% and 12% per year and by 2030 we expect to reach $2.5 billion in net sales. During the third quarter, net sales increased 8% to $457 million. We’re especially proud of these results given the challenging macro environment that is impacting the DIY and the residential pro portions of our business.

Our top-line results were a record for Hillman Solns, marking the highest quarter of net sales in our 62-year history. Additionally, the 8% growth during the quarter is in line with our long-term growth targets. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter increased 2% to a record $90.2 million, surpassing our previous high of $88 million during the third quarter of 2025, and free cash flow during the quarter totaled a very healthy $51.1 million compared to just $9.1 million in the year-ago quarter.

RDS had a great quarter. Net sales growth accelerated 19% versus the year-ago quarter driven by performance of Minikey 3.5. The RDS field service team has done a great job executing the retrofits and installing these machines across the country. Well done team. Since we began rolling out this enhanced technology platform to our top two customers, we’ve seen healthy growth in our overall Minikey business. The economics per upgraded 3.5 machine are meaningful and improved over the previous generation.

Minikey 3.5 continues to prove itself as a platform for both top- and bottom-line growth for Hillman Solns. Today we have approximately 4,800 Minikey 3.5 machines in the field, bringing the total number of installs to over 1,700 this year. We’ll finalize the deployment of these machines at our top two customers during the fourth quarter. We expect RDS will see another strong period of growth during Q4. This momentum will carry into 2027 and beyond as we continue to strengthen our strategic partnerships with our top customers.

For the third quarter of 2026, our 8% net sales growth was driven by approximately 5 points of growth from new business wins, 5 points of growth from M&A, partially offset by a 2-point headwind in core performance. As a reminder, core performance represents a combination of market volume, customer footprint expansion, category management, FX, product mix, and price. We think of our core performance to be similar to our customers’ same-store comparable sales metrics.

Of the nearly five points of new business wins, about three and a half points were driven by new wins in retail highlighted by the sizable builders hardware expansion at one of our top customers, and nearly 1.5 points were driven by new business wins in the pro channel where we continue to make progress. Hillman Solns generated over $460 million of net sales with the pro last year. Using this existing foothold with our pro base, our renewed strategies to gain share are working. Whether it’s new lumberyards, our retail partners shipping Hillman Solns products directly to their pro customers, or growth in our commercial and industrial businesses, it all contributes to pro growth for Hillman Solns. We are taking share in the pro channel. Our pro business is and will continue to outgrow the market.

These proof points, among many others, demonstrate Hillman Solns’ right to win in the pro space. For 2026, we believe new business wins in pro will generate about 1% of top-line growth for all of Hillman Solns. This is about $16 million of new business wins. For 2027, we are confident new business wins in pro will continue to accelerate. We expect this can generate 2% top-line growth for all of Hillman Solns, which is over $33 million. Now to turn to guidance for the year. Given our year-to-date performance and expectations for the rest of the year, we are updating and narrowing down our net sales guidance. We now expect our full-year net sales to be between $1.66 billion and $1.68 billion. The midpoint of $1.67 billion now represents nearly 8% growth versus 2025, which is just shy of our long-term growth targets. Our previous guidance assumed a modest sequential improvement in market volumes during the second half of the year.

While volumes have improved, they were lower than anticipated. As a result, we’re lowering the midpoint of our full-year net sales outlook by about a point and a half. We continue to believe our full-year adjusted EBITDA will be approximately $285 million, marking an increase of 3.5% over last year. And we continue to believe our full-year free cash flow will be between $105 million and $115 million. The midpoint of $110 million marks a meaningful increase over 2025 when cash flows were severely impacted by tariffs.

Speaking of, the net impact of tariffs during the quarter remained consistent with the first half of the year. That said, during the third quarter we received modest net tariff-related refunds which contributed to our adjusted EBITDA. The reason that benefit was modest is that it was mostly offset by tariff-related adjustments from Section 232 steel tariffs. Our supply chain team continues to be a strength for Hillman Solns. Our dual faucet strategy gives us flexibility to quickly react to changes in the geopolitical and tariff landscape.

Recently I had the privilege of attending our annual Supplier Summit with our global supply chain team in Vietnam. It was great to be able to interact in person with well over 100 of our vendors. Our relationships with them continue to be very healthy and they’re excited about the M&A activity because they see new growth opportunities with Hillman Solns. This annual event serves as an important in-person touch point to strengthen relationships with our supplier partners, which is especially important given the environment.

We view our supply chain and global logistics team as a critical advantage over the competition and one of the most important core competencies. Now let’s turn to results by business for the quarter. Hardware and Protective Solutions is our biggest segment and is the foundation of Hillman Solns. Our breadth of product offerings, diversified supply chain, and world-class service is a moat that keeps widening, and it’s the platform we’re now extending to the pro. HPS grew 5% in the third quarter. Driving this was an approximate 2% lift from new business wins split equally between pro and retail and a 5% benefit from M&A. These were partially offset by a 2% headwind in our core performance.

RDS is our highest margin segment and had another great quarter. As I mentioned before, net sales in RDS were up 19% versus the year-ago quarter and adjusted EBITDA increased by 13%. Robotics and Digital Solutions, or RDS, is our high-margin technology-enabled platform. We have over 31,000 kiosks in retail locations across North America, which are destinations that solve a critical need for our customers. Adjusted gross margins and adjusted EBITDA margins at RDS were both healthy during the quarter, totaling 79% and 30%, respectively.

Turning to Canada, Canada was another standout during the third quarter with net sales up 9%. That was driven by 8 points of new business wins, the majority of which came from the pro channel, and 1 point of core performance growth. New wins included revenue generated from new product categories at an existing retail customer and a bulk fastener program with one of our top customers in Canada. Our Canadian team continues to execute very well and has had a great year.

We expect that momentum to continue through year end. In summary, Q3 was another quarter of proof points as we execute our blueprint for strategic growth. We delivered record net sales and record adjusted EBITDA, strong cash flow, a Cambridge acquisition that closed early and is outperforming, and an RDS business with accelerating growth. I’m proud of our execution this quarter and how we continue to take care of our customers. We are excited about the opportunities that lie ahead and I’m very confident Hillman Solns is poised for a great 2027.

With that, I’ll now hand it over to Rocky to take you through the numbers.

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, JMA. Let’s get to our results then we will review our guidance. Net sales in the third quarter of 2026 totaled $457.5 million, an increase of 8% versus the prior-year quarter. Third quarter adjusted gross margin was 50.8%, down 90 basis points compared to a year ago, but improving 370 basis points sequentially and consistent with our expectations. We expect our full-year 2026 margins to be approximately 48%. Adjusted SG&A as a percentage of sales was 31.2% during the quarter, relatively consistent with a year ago.

Adjusted EBITDA in the third quarter totaled $90.2 million, increasing 2.4% versus the year-ago quarter. Adjusted EBITDA to net sales margin during the quarter totaled 19.7%, down 100 basis points from a year ago, but improving sequentially by 230 basis points. As you can imagine, our margin percentage performance over the past several quarters has been heavily influenced by the timing and magnitude of tariffs. Now, turning to our cash flows for the quarter, net cash generated by operating activities was $69.9 million and free cash flow increased to a healthy $51.1 million, which was in line with our expectations. From a liquidity perspective, we ended the third quarter of 2026 with $933 million of total net debt outstanding, which increased due to the recent Cambridge acquisition. Assuming that we had benefited from the approximately $29 million of EBITDA that Cambridge has generated over the past 12 months, our net debt to trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA ratio would be 3.1 times.

Assuming we do not do any other meaningful M&A, we should end 2027 at roughly two and a half times leverage, which is the high end of our long-term leverage target. That said, we continue to evaluate the market for accretive acquisition opportunities. During the quarter we closed a new $735 million Term Loan B and put in place our new $375 million ABL revolver. Shortly thereafter we executed an additional $200 million add-on to the term loan to finance the Cambridge acquisition. This activity extended our Term Loan B maturities to 2033 and our ABL maturities to 2031. Pricing on these was consistent with our prior facilities with the Term Loan B at SOFR + 200 basis points and the ABL currently at SOFR + 125 basis points.

During the quarter we deployed $5 million to buy back 639,000 shares at an average price of $7.75 per share. We continue to be in the market buying stock back. Now let’s talk about our guidance. As JMA mentioned, we now anticipate 2026 net sales to be between $1.66 billion and $1.68 billion with a midpoint of $1.67 billion. We continue to expect our full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA to be approximately $285 million. We continue to expect our full-year 2026 free cash flow to be between $105 million and $115 million with the same $110 million midpoint, and we continue to expect our full-year 2023 CapEx to be in the $70 to $75 million range.

Now as we start to think about 2027, we expect growth to be in line with our long-term growth targets, which is between 8% to 12%. Driving this growth will be new business wins in both pro and retail as well as M&A. We believe M&A will contribute between 3% and 4% of growth next year. Unfortunately, at this point we are not anticipating the macro will be a tailwind next year. We expect our CapEx to increase slightly compared to what we will do this year as we will continue to invest in organic growth opportunities in HPS and RDS as well as our facilities and distribution network.

Of note, we plan to continue investing into the consolidation of our new state-of-the-art distribution center in Cincinnati, which we plan to start to move into during 2027. Additionally, we will make planned capital investments into the facilities at Campbell Chain and Fittings, which we acquired in April of this year. Let me leave you with this. In 2026, we expect to deliver record net sales and adjusted EBITDA. We’re on track for roughly three times the free cash flow of last year. We’ve closed three acquisitions, we refinanced our capital structure, pushing our maturities out to 2031 and 2033. And we did all of this while absorbing a challenging tariff and macro environment. We are not slowing down. In 2027, we expect to meet our long-term growth expectations powered by new business wins in retail and pro as well as M&A. We’re a bigger, stronger, more cash generative Hillman Solns than a year ago and we’re just getting started. With that, I’ll turn it back to JMA.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Rocky. Before we open up for Q&A, I want to thank our associates across Hillman Solns for their continued commitment and hard work. Your dedication and execution are what enable us to deliver for our customers every day. To our customers, partners, and stakeholders, thank you for your continued trust and partnership. We’re proud of our execution this quarter and confident in the opportunities ahead. We remain focused on executing our plan, building on our momentum, and delivering long-term value for our shareholders.

We look forward to updating you on our progress in the near future.

OPERATOR

Please open up the call for questions. Thank you. At this time we will conduct the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. Please limit yourself to one question with one follow-up and hop back in the queue. Please stand by while I compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Lee Yagoda with CJS Securities. Your line is live.

Lee Yagoda (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Morning, Lee.

Lee Yagoda (Analyst)

So start with a couple easy ones. Do you have the Cambridge revenue and EBITDA contribution for the partial quarter in Q3?

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Lee, we’re not breaking out Cambridge separately. The acquisition actually performed quite well. We’re really pleased with the momentum, and it’s certainly a part of our Pro and industrial strategy. So you can take away from this that we’re really pleased with the momentum for the first couple of months we’ve owned it.

Lee Yagoda (Analyst)

Okay. And then, Rocky, just the guidance. You give soft guidance for 2027, the 3% to 4% from M&A. I assume that’s stuff that’s already been completed that anniversaries next year and not incremental M&A. Or am I thinking about that wrong?

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

No, you’re thinking about it the right way, Lee. That’s just the anniversary of the deals that we’ve done.

Lee Yagoda (Analyst)

Okay, perfect. And then maybe one more, if I can. On the RDS side of the business, growth was great. It looks like it was all key and key accessories. What are the biggest drivers of that? Because I assume foot traffic is not in your favor. And can you talk through the incremental margins on that growth, both in Q3 and how we should think about it going forward to the extent that that level of growth is sustainable?

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, Lee, let me take the business side of it first. We’re really excited, encouraged by the traction we’re getting with 3.5. The new capabilities we’ve talked about in the past continue to come to life in the field. So that, from us expanding from home and office to auto, is really the biggest tract there of that opportunity with our two largest customers. So that’s what’s really driving the growth. Getting the 3.5 machines in, seeing them ramp, and continuing to drive that technology has been very, very impactful. We’re excited about the progress we made in the quarter and equally as excited about what we’ll do in Q4. Rocky will add some color.

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I would say, Lee, just from an economic perspective, as we think about RDS, we’re always targeting 30% EBITDA margin, and everything we’re doing kind of comes out at that rate. So you can see it for the quarter, we were right at like 29.9% in that business. We feel really good about where we are, and that’s how we’re kind of pricing all of the new services as we go forward.

Lee Yagoda (Analyst)

Okay, thanks very much.

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, Lee.

OPERATOR

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of David Manthey with Baird. Your line is live.

David Manthey (Analyst)

Yeah, thank you. Good morning, everyone. So, back to the 2027 guidance. Rocky, if we assume the midpoint there and three and a half from M&A, 2% from new business wins, the remaining four and a half percent, you’re saying that happens without help from the macro? Could you talk about what drives that remainder? Is it expected price? What other sources do you see there?

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I think I’ll just take you back, Dave, to our investor day and the algorithm, right? If you think about M&A at 3% to 4%, that’s pretty much in line with what we said. Again, that assumes that we don’t do any more transactions in 2027, and we’re obviously hopeful that there’ll be some businesses that meet our thresholds that we can acquire. New business wins, we’re feeling really good about where we are. The number where we are in the third quarter, to be above kind of our goal, was a good sign, and we expect that to be at least four as we go into next year. The remainder is that core performance. So you think about price, you think about market, you think about what we do every day at the shelf — that’s what drives that incremental piece.

Again, as we think about next year and what we’re seeing in the marketplace today, we just thought it was prudent to tell folks we’re not going to plan for the markets to get better. We’re not going to plan for them to get worse either, but we’re going to plan for them to be kind of a bit of a headwind as it is today.

David Manthey (Analyst)

Okay, did I… I thought JMA said 200 basis points from new business wins in ’27. Was that not correct?

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

No. I think JMA was talking about the Pro — that we expect that to be two plus. This year we’re running at one plus, and we’ve really just kicked off a lot of those initiatives in the last six to nine months. And so as it continues to gain momentum, I think you look at two plus from the Pro and then two plus from our normal retail business that we’ve done historically.

David Manthey (Analyst)

I see. Okay. And then on pricing, container prices, tariffs, general inflation, I think we know how that mechanically works through the core Hillman model. Could you discuss how Cambridge deals with those inflationary forces and sort of what’s been their track record over the past five to six years?

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, very similar. They’ve actually done a great job of pricing their business accordingly based on market conditions. And that’s actually one where we view as a positive for us. We believe that the combination of the Cambridge business — which, as I said, has performed well, strong gross margins, great service — adding our global sourcing team and logistics, we actually believe we’ll be able to make them, one, better, and two, they’ll continue to factor that into their annualized prices they put in the marketplace.

So they’ll deal with the market pressures that you mentioned there in that business as well.

David Manthey (Analyst)

So the price pass-through at Cambridge, more of just a product pricing exercise as opposed to a shelf price exercise? As you said, their experience over the past five, six years has been pretty good doing that, translating that to the market, and keeping ahead of it.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yes, they have. They’ve done a really nice job being able to manage that over time. We’ve got a great team that’s in the business, still operating it today, and we feel very confident. Not only have they done it, to your point, over the last, I’ll say, five plus years, and really over their entire history — they’ve been in business for over 50 — we feel like that will continue in 2026 into 2027. So yes, they’ve covered it and will continue to do so.

David Manthey (Analyst)

All right, thanks very much.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Dave. Thanks.

OPERATOR

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Carter at Stifel. Your line is live.

Andrew Carter (Analyst)

Hey, thank you. Good morning. First thing I wanted to ask is, just going into the fourth quarter, what you’re implying — just assuming RDS holds steady — is kind of a core performance across the other businesses kind of flat up six. You take out the new business wins and kind of some residual pricing, your volumes are down mid-single digits to flat. Is that fair? Does it assume just kind of steady from the year to date? And have you seen — really as existing home sales have come on — any pressure in that core, in the HPS and Canada business?

And of course that’s also an impact to RDS. Thanks.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Andrew, when you think about where we are — when you think about the market first, and I’ll hand it over to Rocky to go through the specifics for the quarter — from a market perspective, if there is a bright spot here, we’ve seen the market improve throughout the year, or be less negative. That’s what we continue to expect. Q3 was better than Q2 and we believe Q4 will be slightly better than Q3. I’ll let Rocky add on some color here for numbers, but that’s how we’re thinking about it.

While existing home sales have not improved, I agree they’ve stabilized, and we view that as a small positive, if you will, in where we are in the market. I don’t know where they’re going to go from here, but we feel pretty good about what we can see in Q4.

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I guess what both of you — Andrew, you and JMA — said, I’ll just reiterate. As you think about the market, we anticipate that it will continue to be a headwind in the fourth quarter, although more like the third than in prior quarters, and maybe even a little better than that. Price becomes less of a tailwind in the fourth quarter as we continue to lap price in the third and fourth quarter that we took in the prior year. We do expect that we’ll grow new business as we have — so call it somewhere north of three and a half up to 5% in that range.

And then obviously in the fourth quarter we will see more benefit from M&A than we have throughout the year, just given the fact that we’ll own Cambridge for the entire period.

Andrew Carter (Analyst)

Thanks. And just wanted to ask: your trailing twelve gross margin in Hardware & Protective is 43.1%. I just want to confirm — is that a good all-in number that’s a run rate for the tariffs? And of course you have one month in Cambridge in there. And then I think you have $60 million of revenue from Delaney and Campbell, which I would assume is gross margin dilutive — correct me if I’m wrong — but just all in, that 43.1% for that business, is that a good run rate?

Plus, of course, Cambridge, as it gets fully anniversary, will be accretive.

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Yeah, I think if we think about it, that’s a good number. When you put all the numbers together, we’re at a good baseline, we believe, around the gross margin. The only thing I would say is you have to remember that there is seasonality in our business, so we’ll see lower gross and EBITDA margins in the first and fourth quarters, and in the second and third, when we have higher volumes, we will see higher rates in those quarters. That would be the only caveat I would give to the numbers that you articulated, Andrew.

Andrew Carter (Analyst)

Final question on RDS. The performance you have this year, as you broke out the new business wins — which would be the Minute Key 3.5 — I guess as you sit there and think about run-rating both the new business wins you have as they fully anniversary next year plus the pricing that you put into place that you called out, what would that say for RDS growth next year? I’m assuming you put all that together, you will be above that four to six, or the kind of company long-term rate that you put for RDS next year.

Of course that’s all organic. Thanks.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, I think what we would say there, as you think about next year, the third quarter was a little bit of outsized growth. As we think about 2027 in RDS, it would be our expectation that it would definitely be above fleet, and then likely that it would be double digits as we think about just the continued rollout of 3.5 and the year-over-year roll of 3.5 and the benefits.

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Sorry, just to tack onto that — that goes back to our organic growth being plus 3% for the quarter. Really important proof point for us. RDS obviously drove a good piece of that, but we’re really excited about not only RDS but also the HPS business, which had a good solid quarter. I think it just gives you an idea of what we’re expecting and what we’ll continue to drive in Q4 and into ’27.

Andrew Carter (Analyst)

Thanks. Pass it on.

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Thanks, Andrew. Thank you.

OPERATOR

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 11 again. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Boulay at Barclays. Your line is now open.

Matthew Boulay (Analyst)

Morning everyone. Thank you for taking the questions. Just wanted to ask on the SG&A — looked like it was, as you mentioned, kind of flattish as a percentage of sales year over year, maybe even delevered slightly. Obviously had some good growth in the quarter. Anything kind of one-time in there? I know in the past you talked about bonus accruals in Q3. So just anything we should consider about how to model that going forward?

Robert Kraft (Chief Financial Officer)

Yes. No. The only thing I would call out there, and I don’t think it’s one-time, Matt, is, you know, as we grow our RDS business, you do see rev share — you know, the revenue share that we pay to our customers is a big portion and a big percentage and it’s in SG&A. And so that number does move a little higher because of the outsized growth in that business. Again, we love clearly the EBITDA rate that we get from RDS and we love the gross profit rate, but it does increase what we see as an SG&A percent.

When you just look at SG&A, if you were to take out that growth, we do believe there was a bit of leverage. Again, it was modest in SG&A for the quarter.

Matthew Boulay (Analyst)

Okay, got it. Thank you for that, Rocky. And it does explain just the RDS margin as well a little bit — very helpful there. Secondly, just personal protective, it still seems like it’s under a little bit of pressure. Maybe just kind of unpack what’s going on there and any kind of visibility to sort of flattening out, if not even recovering, in that business. Thank you.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, Matt, very fair. PPE had a challenging Q3 in our business there. We certainly continue to see that business — a little bit less promo activity out in the marketplace certainly impacted us in Q3. We do actually see that starting to improve, and we expect that to improve in Q4. And we have some really solid growth plans into 2027. So we’re excited about getting that business back to flat and then growing it off that base. So, yeah, tough quarter, but we’re excited about where we’re going in Q4 and beyond.

Matthew Boulay (Analyst)

Cool. Thanks, guys. Good luck.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Matt. Thanks, Matt.

OPERATOR

One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara at Canaccord Genuity. Your line is live.

Brian McNamara (Analyst)

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. I’m curious if you can kind of give a little more detail on your progress in Pro, particularly new business wins, and kind of split that out between, you know, your current retail DIY customers and brand new customers.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah. So as I mentioned, over close to a point and a half of Pro growth. And that is, you know, most of that actually is outside of the, I’ll say, retail channel that has a Pro component to it. So, Brian, we’re really excited about proof points that we’re seeing in the resi and the commercial Pro side. I’ll start there. But we’ve seen a number of — you know, I won’t go into each of the details, but we certainly are seeing traction at the Pro level with customers outside of retail.

We’re seeing traction fastening as well as even our glove business. And we’re excited about what the Rezi Pro and our commercial Pro teams are putting together and laying out. That’s why we’re so excited about 2027. And then the other piece on Pro is industrial. We’ve talked already quite a bit about Cambridge, but I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention our Canadian industrial business has had another excellent quarter. Really impressed with what that team’s been able to do and drive. So that’s more about winning with, I’ll say, smaller opportunities on a repetitive basis. And we’re really excited about the momentum in both of those businesses and we’re going to keep leaning into it in Q4 and beyond.

Brian McNamara (Analyst)

Great. And then just a quick follow up on the M&A environment. Obviously the macro picture has probably not gotten better in the last three months since we last spoke. I’m curious what that means for bid-ask spreads and just market activity. Thanks, guys.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, we continue to see volume fill. We have M&A opportunity, so there are deals in the marketplace. Yeah, I think your question is a good one as far as the bid and the ask. I mean expectations are still, I’ll say, moderate right now. So, you know, there’s still good, high-quality businesses that we think we can buy at attractive prices. But it has — you know, there has definitely been a little bit of a, I’ll say, softening in my expectations. So pipeline’s filling up. There is still activity there, and we’re, you know, excited about the three deals we did in 2026 and want to make the right next move. And if it comes up, we’ll keep you posted on what it is.

Brian McNamara (Analyst)

Great. I’ll pass it on. Best of luck guys.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Thanks, Brian. Thanks, Brian.

OPERATOR

Thank you. This now concludes the Q&A portion of today’s call. I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Adinolfi for closing comments.

Jon Michael Adinolfi (Chief Executive Officer)

Yeah, thank you very much. Well, I appreciate everybody joining today. I want to leave you with three elements to remember Hillman Solns by. So first, organic growth solid in the quarter. We expect that to continue. Really proud of what our team’s been able to do there and what we’ll continue to drive in Q4 and beyond. M&A — solid acquisitions in 2026, and we expect those to continue to deliver accretion in 27. And then the strategic blueprint proof points, which we touched on a number of points during the call, the Q&A. But excited about new business, and I’m even more excited about what we’re going to do in 2027. Traction with the Pro — we’ve got many different, I’ll say, irons in the fire and traction is starting to read — and then the industrial momentum.

So with that I want to thank everybody for joining us this morning. We look forward to updating you soon. Have a great day. Thank you.

OPERATOR

Founded in 1964 and headquartered in Cincinnati, Hillman Solns is a leading provider of hardware and related products serving retail, pro distribution and industrial MRO customers. Over the last six decades, Hillman Solns has built a legacy of service and growth by forming strategic partnerships with North America’s leading home improvement, hardware, and farm and fleet retailers. Hillman Solns differentiates itself from the competition with its dedicated field sales team of 1,200 associates, direct-to-store distribution capabilities, and world-class global sourcing and supply chain expertise.

Hillman Solns offers an extensive product portfolio of more than 111,000 SKUs including fasteners, hardware, project gear and supplies, and keys and engraving services.

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