You know how everyone's talking about the artificial intelligence boom? Well, it turns out you can't run ChatGPT on hopes and dreams. You need massive, power-hungry data centers. And someone has to build them. That's where Comfort Systems USA (FIX) comes in. The company, which you might think of as an HVAC and plumbing contractor, just reported a fourth quarter that shows it's become a central player in the AI infrastructure gold rush.
Shares of Comfort Systems rose Friday after the company posted numbers that didn't just beat expectations—they obliterated them.
The Numbers That Matter
Let's start with the headline figures. For the fourth quarter, Comfort Systems reported earnings per share of $9.37. Wall Street was expecting $6.75. Revenue came in at $2.646 billion, comfortably above the consensus estimate of $2.337 billion.
But the real story is in the growth. Net income more than doubled year-over-year to $330.8 million from $145.9 million. Revenue jumped 41.7% to $2.65 billion. The company's profitability improved too, with gross margin expanding to 25.5% from 23.2%.
For the full year 2025, the picture was just as strong. Revenue hit $9.10 billion, up from $7.03 billion in 2024. Net income soared to $1.02 billion, or $28.88 per share, which includes a small tax benefit. That's up from $522.4 million, or $14.60 per share, the prior year.
So, where is all this growth coming from? During the earnings call, CFO Bill George pointed directly to the technology sector, specifically data center projects. This segment accounted for a whopping 45% of the company's total revenue in 2025. A year ago, it was 33%. That's a seismic shift for a company traditionally known for commercial and industrial building systems.
The $12 Billion Question: What's in the Pipeline?
In the contracting world, backlog is everything. It's your future revenue, sitting there waiting to be built. Comfort Systems' backlog is… enormous.
As of December 31, 2025, the company's total backlog stood at $11.94 billion. To put that in perspective, it was $9.38 billion just three months earlier and $5.99 billion a year ago. On a same-store basis (which excludes acquisitions), backlog more than doubled from $5.99 billion to $11.58 billion.
CEO Brian Lane didn't mince words about what this means. "Unprecedented demand and our reputation for delivering outcomes led to new levels of backlog despite ongoing burn," he said. "Specifically, we achieved a third consecutive same-store backlog increase that exceeded $1 billion, with backlog growing by more than $2 billion this quarter. Backlog is just under $12 billion, and it has roughly doubled since the beginning of the year."
He also highlighted a major milestone: "In addition, in 2025 both our net income and our cash flow eclipsed $1 billion."
Looking ahead, Lane sounded optimistic. "We continue to experience persistent demand and strong pipelines. Given the strength and excellence of our workforce, we are optimistic about our prospects for 2026."
The company's financial firepower is solid, too. It generated $1.19 billion in operating cash flow and $1.04 billion in free cash flow for the year. It ended the period with a war chest of $981.9 million in cash and only $145.2 million in debt. With that kind of balance sheet, the board felt confident raising the quarterly dividend by 10 cents to 70 cents per share, payable in March 2026.
