American Woodmark Corporation (NASDAQ:AMWD) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Tim Wojs: Okay. Okay, so the main point would be, from a dollars perspective, you would expect those things to kind of offset, but it could kind of push the margins around from a timing perspective?

Scott Culbreth: You got it. Exactly.

Tim Wojs: Okay. Okay, got you. Good. Awesome. So, thanks guys, and good luck on the year.

Scott Culbreth: Thanks, Tim.

Paul Joachimczyk: Thanks, Tim.

Operator: The next question is from Julio Romero of Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Julio Romero: Thanks. Hey, good morning. I wanted to ask about the gross margin performance in the quarter. Just wondering if there’s any way to put a finer point on how much of a benefit was the operational efficiencies and the streamlining you did in late calendar ’22?

Paul Joachimczyk: Yes. Julio, won’t dial in exactly, but a lot of the benefits that we received in our fiscal fourth quarter were due to some of the operational improvements that are out there. Not only are our plants running at our historical normal operating performance is kind of pre-COVID levels, we’re seeing improvements across our supply chains that are out there as well, too. And then just — we talked about automation. Some of those efforts are now starting to take hold and really kind of, say, setting us up for success in FY ’24 as well, too. So I know it’s not an exact answer. I know you’re looking for a percent or a dollar amount, but those things are actually taking hold and are going to carry forward for our performance in the future.

Julio Romero: Got it Thank you for that. The commentary is helpful there. And then just thinking about the balance sheet and your capital allocation priorities, just how much more aggressive should we expect you to be with opportunistic repurchases in ’24, just given the free cash generated in fiscal ’23 and the debt reduction you guys just did in the fourth quarter?

Scott Culbreth: I would just say we’re going to be opportunistic. I would focus on that word. Obviously, we didn’t do any repurchasing in ’23. Our focus was on deleveraging debt, so we’ve done that. We’ve gotten below 1.5 times, which is a fantastic result for this business. So we’ll now look at opportunistic repurchases. And Paul walked you through the various things that we’ll focus on. We’ve got a plant expansion we’re dealing with. We’ve got the automation that we’ve talked about, and then we’ll look at shares.

Julio Romero: Really helpful. I’ll hop back in the queue. Thanks very much.

Scott Culbreth: Thanks, Julio.

Operator: As I do not see that there is anyone else waiting to ask a question, I would like to turn the line over to Mr. Joachimczyk for closing comments. Please go ahead, sir.

Paul Joachimczyk: Since there are no additional questions, this concludes our call. Thank you all for taking the time to participate.

Operator: The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.

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