Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Joe O’Dea: I want to start – morning. Could you just help a little bit with the bridge from fourth quarter margins to first quarter margins, if we take it both from a gross margin and an SG&A approach. What it was that sort of led you to be able to achieve kind of flattish gross margin sequentially? And then similarly on the SG&A, is that all a function of commissions or anything else going on there?

Neil Ashe: Yes, I’ll start and then Karen keep me honest here. So sequentially, I think the – Joe, as you know, we have lower sales in the first quarter versus fourth quarter. So the ability to deliver consistent gross margin was a solid performance on the gross profit side. That was largely driven by two things, one is our ability to maintain price, and the second was our ability to maintain the levels of productivity in our own production facilities. And then on the operating expense side, as Karen has indicated, really the whole story has been commissions. So that relatively mild increase in investment in commissions is what has delivered the operating profit where it is. And as I said to Chris’s, question, we’re confident that, over time, we can leverage those expenses.

Karen Holcom: Yes. And Joe, the only other thing I would add is, when you – when I mentioned ISG in my opening comments, they did have a really strong margin performance this quarter as – their electronic component availability improved and they were able to clear some of the backlog that really did result in some favorable margin for them.

Joe O’Dea: Got it. That’s all helpful. And then on the demand environment. I know – just sort of days into the calendar flip. But I’m just curious is, you’re seeing sort of supply-chain ease and maybe a little bit more comfort out there, and at the same time, some of the macro uncertainty that you touched on, just as we think about sort of cadence over the last few months, anything you’re seeing in terms of sort of shifts in demand, whether you’re seeing a little bit more caution and wait-and-see. Obviously, we see kind of the ABI over the past couple of months, but sort of what you’re tracking on the most real-time on the demand front?

Neil Ashe: Yes, so Joe, I’ll start and Karen add to anything that you want to on this. So obviously, we’re focused on the economy, so inflation, the Fed interest rates, et cetera. And we, obviously, don’t have a crystal ball better than the market, so we’re paying attention to that. As I indicated, there’s two other things that we are paying a lot of attention to. The first is that, as component availability, as you indicated supply chain, there will be – we will start to be able to return to more normal lead times, and so that transition will impact – probably impact demand for a short period of time as we work through where people have probably bought ahead a little bit, so that they could ensure that they have availability.