Transcript:
Caroline Woods
Madison Air isn’t a household name, but it sits underneath some of the biggest themes in the market right now, and it’s officially public. Joining us now is Jill Wyant, CEO of Madison Air. Jill, congratulations. Thanks so much for being here.
Jill Wyant
Thank you. Thank you for having me. So proud of our team.
Caroline Woods
Yeah. Big day. Madison Air trading under the ticker symbol MMR for investors who don’t know the name. Give us a quick overview. What do they need to know? Why is this important right now?
Jill Wyant
Well, very few people think about air, but we take up to 25,000 breaths a day, spend upwards of 90% of our time indoors, where the air can be up to five times more polluted than the air we breathe outside. So while most of the world overlooks air at Madison Air, we see it very differently. So we bring highly engineered, custom air quality solutions to commercial and residential markets that are driven by high performance feeds, from hospitals to data centers to advanced manufacturing environments to healthy homes.
Jill Wyant
We are really everywhere. Air drives performance, productivity, reliability and human health.
Caroline Woods
So my mind initially goes to data center. So when I hear air, even though air is involved in so many other facets of life. But tell us where is the strongest demand right now?
Jill Wyant
Yeah. So I frame it a little bit differently. We have a commercial segment. The is organized into two segments. Commercial is about two thirds of sales, about $2.2 billion in 2025. And there we really are around a diverse more than 15 and market verticals where air impacts the customer success. So data centers is one of them by virtue of it’s about 20% of the commercial segment sales.
Jill Wyant
But we provide highly engineered, air quality solutions to pharmaceutical manufacturing sites, semiconductor chip fabs, complex manufacturing and logistics environment and the like. So that segment grew 17% last year as a focus as a result of that very balanced growth across 15 and market verticals.
Caroline Woods
Where do you think you’ll see continued growth? And if we were talking next year, what do you think the strongest segments would be? I mean.
Jill Wyant
So one of the great things of our business, we have an 8% share and a $40 billion market, and the markets we serve are really underpinned by strong secular tailwinds. So AI and compute is of course one. But rising demands for energy efficiency, aging buildings, both commercially and residentially. So we see lots of opportunity across a balanced set of markets.
Caroline Woods
How much of your growth is tied to AI and efficiency versus just where we are in the economic cycle?
Jill Wyant
Well, I would say I mean, clearly the data center, you know, end market is benefiting from where we are in the AI cycle. I would say more broadly, I mean, the economy is not great, which is why the company grew 12% last year. If you pass that into our segments, our commercial segment from 17% last year, and even without data center performance, that was high single digit.
Jill Wyant
So we and we really attribute that to three things. You know, first, we’re differentiated by return on IR. We sell highly custom solutions in high performance markets where air is critical to the customer success. And what we do helps power better business outcomes for our customers. As you’re asking, we leading growth markets. Data centers have one of them.
Jill Wyant
But so is, you know, manufacturing logistics, clean rooms and the like. And last but not least, we think we are very differentiated by unique value creation models. So mission driven company, highly decentralized so that we are focused on the customer and very lean at the center. So, you know, we think that will allow us to really have outperformance relative to large and small peers over time.
Caroline Woods
It’s interesting because you say the economy isn’t great. So I’m curious about what you’re actually seeing on the ground. Are your customers actually accelerating builds right now or are you finding that they’re more cautious right now?
Jill Wyant
Well, I would say a lot of, you know, our growth is rooted in the fact that we have tripled our total addressable market in the last three years. So we have not waited for GDP to improve. We never do. I think like any great growth company, we are all about expanding the size of our opportunity and we are disproportion we are in we have our portfolio really pointed in the right places.
Jill Wyant
So we’ve expanded into data centers, as you’ve talked about, into clean rooms, life sciences, biologics and the like. So it’s really we see very, very good growth. If your portfolio is pointed to the right end markets, which we’ve worked very diligently to do.
Caroline Woods
Digging into data centers just a bit. Right. Do you find that those customers are designing for long term demand or a bit more short term because everything is changing so fast? You know, the technology alone is changing so fast.
Jill Wyant
Well, we really you know, I think by virtue of who we serve, we serve the largest hyperscalers and a subset of the locators that serve those hyperscalers. So we are in pursuit of very resilient demand. And those customers, to your point, are really looking at not only the data centers will be built this year, but the rack of the future, you know, five years down the road, ten years down the road.
Jill Wyant
And so we, the real differentiator for us in the data center space beyond the fact that we have a full array of air, liquid and hybrid cooling solutions, is we are custom. So we are across the table from the customer at the design table, helping them solve their ambition to achieve max compute at lowest net impact. So we’re excited about data centers.
Jill Wyant
But again as one of 15 verticals that we grow and cultivate.
Caroline Woods
If energy prices stay elevated, how does that impact your business?
Jill Wyant
Our customers need us more than ever when energy is high.
Caroline Woods
So why is that?
Jill Wyant
Because you I mean, so, for example, 40% of the cost of operating a data center is cooling. Powering the cooling, energy is key in ventilating spaces and, you know, so when we bring custom design technology that is designed to use, you know, the least amount of water and the lowest amount of electricity, we call that return on air.
Jill Wyant
And so in a challenging world where inflation is is rampant, that rich with that custom solution that we design precisely to their needs ultimately is a big piece of helping them lower their energy bills.
Caroline Woods
So for the investors who are watching and considering investing in air, what’s one thing they should focus on getting right?
Jill Wyant
Well, I think for us it’s, you know, the balanced set of, the balance set of markets that we sell into residential markets where we are not in traditional Hvac. Instead, we are in all of the elements of healthy air at home. And then from a, from a commercial perspective, you know, good end market growth. That’s diversified.
Jill Wyant
We’re not a data center, pure place. So if you were looking for exposure to a unique custom set of solutions across commercial and residential markets, I think Madison Air is a very investable stock to put your money in.
Caroline Woods
Who are your biggest competitors?
Jill Wyant
Well, I would say the competitive landscape. You mean in terms of comps or and market competition? Both. Yeah. So we don’t have a perfect comp, but the ones that typically I think the best proxies are train and space technologies. The, the, the the thing I would leave you with there is we are a $40 billion Tam, which is really separate and distinct from traditional Hvac.
Jill Wyant
And so a lot of those players scale manufacturing and are very, very good at it. We really scale custom design. And so we design, you know, directly to meet the customer’s needs. We’re better by design as a result. And we’re really good at scaling customer design and delivering superior customer impact.
Caroline Woods
All right. And just finally, I have to ask you about timing. Of course, with any IPO, why now especially given I mean the market’s at all time highs. But investors are a bit more selective right now it seems.
Jill Wyant
Yeah. So for us the Y you know the Y underlying our IPO is really access to a permanent capital structure that the public markets provide that will allow us to continue investing and growing and scaling our mission to make the world safer, healthier, more productive. And I really believe that it’s also a function of the company. We built, you know, our team, our brands, our performance and our momentum.
Jill Wyant
You know, strong growth momentum. And so, and it is, you know, certainly I always talk in terms of why now is and literally in this moment with the amount of volatility that’s happening in the macro economy, I talk currents and waves. So the waves are choppy, right? I mean everybody’s getting a little water splash in the boat.
Jill Wyant
But when you think about the currents underlying Madison, there’s opportunity strong durable trends growing and markets where air is essential to operating in those environments. And real durability across economic cycles. So we’re looking to, you know, for more investors to join us on this journey to build a remarkable business that we believe should outperform across economic cycles.
Caroline Woods
And just finally, what’s one area that we’d be surprised to know how important is because data centers immediately comes to mind. You mentioned hospitals. What’s an area that we might not realize?
Jill Wyant
Yeah, I mean, in your own home. So for decades now, homes have been built, you know, really for energy efficiency. And well, that’s great. It typically has come at the expense of the quality of the air in your home. So if you’re not properly ventilating your home, the air in your home can be 2 to 3 years old.
Jill Wyant
That can exacerbate allergy issues. It can make it an uncomfortable environment in which you’re living. And in an era when we’re all spending so much time at home, home preservation priorities are critical for consumers. So I think that really with the awareness around sleep and fitness and what we’re eating, people should prioritize the air, their breathing, it has a direct impact on health, comfort and preservation of your home.
Caroline Woods
Yeah, and certainly not something that we think about or even think about. Yeah.
Jill Wyant
So just by taking 25,000 barrels a day.
Caroline Woods
Interesting. Well, Jill, thank you so much for shedding some light on the space. And congratulations again. Exciting day for you. As we said, Madison Air trading under the ticker symbol MAIR that’s Jill Wyant, CEO of Madison Air.
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