Adjusted EBITDA grew 14% to $111 million versus $98 million last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 110 basis points to 11.9% for the first quarter of 2024. Our overall effective tax rate was 10.6% for the first quarter compared to 20.1% in the prior year. The decrease in the tax rate in the first quarter was due to the tax benefit related to the vesting of share-based awards and the increase in Patrick’s stock price. We expect our effective tax rate to be approximately 22% to 23% for the full-year, implying 25% to 26% for the next three quarters. Looking at cash flows. Cash provided by operations for the first three months of 2024 was approximately $35 million compared to an outflow of approximately $1 million in the prior year period, primarily due to working capital management and stronger net income.
This quarter, purchases of property, plant and equipment were $15 million, reflecting maintenance CapEx, automation projects and select facility improvements. We remain committed to allocating capital to our automation initiatives as we reinforce innovation, efficiencies and long-term value for our customers and stakeholders. We estimate our 2024 capital expenditures will total $70 million to $80 million. Our goal is a disciplined capital allocation strategy, and we continue to evaluate possible organic growth initiatives, while maintaining a robust acquisition pipeline. We plan to continue to assess these growth initiatives, while maintaining a strong balance sheet with ample liquidity. Our net leverage at the end of the quarter was 2.8x, down from 2.9x on a pro forma basis at the closing of Sportech in January.
During the quarter, we generated $20 million of free cash flow. For the trailing 12-month period, we generated $391 million of free cash flow compared to $352 million for the same period last year. At the end of the first quarter, our total net liquidity was $413 million, comprised of $18 million of cash on hand and unused capacity on our revolving credit facility of $395 million. With no major debt maturities until 2027, we continue to have the balance sheet strength, flexibility and liquidity to remain on offense and assess the potential to seize profitable strategic growth opportunities as they arise. We returned $13 million in the form of dividends during the quarter. We will remain opportunistic on share repurchases and have $78 million left authorized under our current plan at the end of the first quarter.
Moving on to our end market outlook. We continue to expect the current interest rate environment to negatively impact consumer demand and dealers’ willingness to hold inventory during the year. Based on recent trends, we estimate full-year RV wholesale unit shipments will approximate 320,000 to 340,000 units as dealers remain cautious about the carrying cost of inventory in this rate environment. We currently expect full-year RV retail shipments to be down approximately 5% to 10%, implying approximately 350,000 units at the midpoint. In our marine market, we estimate 2024 total industry retail will be down 5% to 10% and wholesale units for our overall product mix will be down 10% to 15%. In our Powersports end market on a pro forma basis, including Sportech, our full-year 2023 revenue was $385 million, and we estimate Powersports unit shipments in our product categories will be flat in 2024.
For modeling purposes, we expect to gain organic content in the mid-single digits. On the housing side of our business, we estimate MH wholesale unit shipments will be up 5% to 10% for 2024, with retail sales absorbing available wholesale production on a real-time basis. In our residential housing end market, we estimate 2024 new housing starts will be flat to up 5% versus 2023. Given the current end market outlook we’ve outlined, we estimate our 2024 operating margin will improve by 30 to 50 basis points on an adjusted basis versus 2023. We estimate our full-year 2024 operating cash flows will be between $390 million and $410 million, implying free cash flow of $310 million or more based on our CapEx estimates. That completes my remarks. We are now ready for questions.
Operator: Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first questions come from the line of Mike Swartz with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Michael Swartz: Hey guys. Good morning. Just maybe starting out on the outlook. I think one of the biggest changes versus maybe what you talked about a couple of months ago was just on the marine side. So maybe, I guess, just frame up from a wholesale shipment perspective, and maybe how you’re thinking about the year now versus prior? Is it deeper cuts in first half, second half is kind of unchanged? Or just maybe any guidelines around how you’re thinking about that?
Andy Nemeth: Sure, Mike. This is Andy, Andy Nemeth. As we’ve looked at marine and really looking across the industry sector in total, and we look at our mix of business kind of geared towards higher end and higher engineered product lines with some really strong presentation and concentration in the ski and wake sector as well as the pontoon sector. We just — we looked at that model, and we’re seeing dealers and OEMs alike remain very, very disciplined. And so we felt that it was prudent to kind of pull back just a little bit, especially given what we’ve seen so far. I think we noted a greater than 50% decline in ski and wake and greater than 40% decline in pontoon in the first quarter. And we just see that discipline continuing through the second quarter, especially when we look at kind of when the new model year is going to come through with some stabilization expected in the back half.
So we just pulled things back just a little bit, especially as it relates to our industry-specific concentration.
Michael Swartz: And the thought would be that the rate of decline you saw in some of those key categories in the first quarter, that kind of continues into the second quarter. Is the thought on a year-over-year basis? Or does it get better on a year-over-year basis? Because I think most of the destocking was — or restocking was done first quarter last year?
Andy Nemeth: Yes. We still think that kind of Q1 run rates are going to continue through Q2 at this point in time. So that’s really kind of driving that model.
Michael Swartz: Okay. That’s helpful. And then on the — just on the operating margin outlook for the year, you’ve reiterated that. Any thoughts on just how that should kind of trend or play out through the year. I think seasonally, the second quarter has the highest margin, and it kind of drops off over that time period over the rest of the year. But given the comments on marine, which is one of your higher margin businesses, would that be expected to look any different this year than maybe years prior?
Andy Nemeth: So we still think we’re going to see a sequential margin improvement, and I’m talking quarter over the prior year quarter in each of our quarters for 2024. And our business is well diversified as we’ve looked at it. Our marine business has a strong margin component, is highly engineered, highly innovative. And so just with some of the — as we talked about the mix, pulling back that segment a little bit with some of the strength that we’ve seen offset with our housing business in particular, we just felt like, again, we want to keep it at that 30 to 50 bps of improvement. I think if we see some uptick in the back half as it relates to the kind of that marine business, we would expect to see some margin lift on that. But overall, we feel again pretty consistent that we will see some improvement each quarter over the prior year’s quarter in our financials.
Michael Swartz: Okay. That’s super helpful. And then just one last one for me quickly. Just the revenue growth, the components of that in the quarter on a year-over-year basis, how much was that, I guess, organic volume, pricing, M&A, all that good stuff?
Andrew Roeder: Sure, Mike. This is Andy Roeder. Good morning. Yes, for Q1, overall industry was down 3%. Acquisition growth was up 5% and organic was up 2%. And that organic is broken down by pricing was down 3% and shared content was up 4%.
Michael Swartz: Okay, great. That’s awesome. Thank you.
Andrew Roeder: Yes.
Operator: Thank you. Our next questions come from the line of Scott Stember with ROTH MKM. Please proceed with your question.
Scott Stember: Good morning guys. And thanks for taking my questions.
Andy Nemeth: Good morning.
Scott Stember: I imagine that right now, you guys are having discussions on the RV side with the OEMs on where their pricing is going to be looking. Just got off a call this morning with one of the bigger dealers. It sounds like they’re not expecting to see a material change in pricing from ’24 to ’25. What are you guys hearing on your end? And how should we look at that from a content standpoint throughout the balance of the year?
Jeffrey Rodino: Yes, Scott, this is Jeff. As we go into the model year, every year, were we go through and price our product appropriately going into the model year. And we’ve seen a lot of our commodities flatten out. As we’ve talked in the past, we do pass along pricing on a real-time basis with commodities and where our inventories stand. And we’ve seen kind of a lot of those flatten out over the fourth quarter and into the first quarter of this year. So there’s some up, there’s some down. It’s kind of, I would say, almost flat. In particular to what you’re saying about the dealer earlier thinking they’re going to be flat. We’re seeing the same from our commodities and the pricing that we’re putting out there.
Scott Stember: Got it. And then looking into the Powersports side of it, if we could just take a little bit of a deeper dive. I know you’ve talked about how you guys are pretty much aligned heavily with the side-by-side utility piece. But can you maybe just overall, just trying to get a sense of how much of the Powersports business would be considered mission-critical types of things versus more importantly, maybe just utility, utility or mission-critical. Just trying to get a sense of how this — we should expect this business to perform in the event that the industry really tapers off a lot this year?
Andy Nemeth: Scott, as we look at Powersports, in particular, in our spread across the Powersports market, which we talked about is going to include the side-by-side utility primarily, golf carts and motorcycles. When you’re thinking about utility, we again expect to see — we’re seeing our content rise in that sector on the units that we’re going into a market right now that when you look at the recreational side is a little bit down. But as we look at the model overall and the opportunities to continue to drive organic content amongst our product categories and bring solutions to those customers, we expect to continue to be very aggressive on taking market share there and gaining content. So overall, while the market is in a little bit of a volatile place today, if you just look at kind of the recreational versus utility, we’re well aligned with utility.
