Armstrong World Industries, Inc. (NYSE:AWI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Vic Grizzle: Yes. I think the €“ again, the office segment is about 30% of our business, right? So, it’s not the majority of our business, but it certainly is impactful in the Mineral Fiber business, as you’re referencing. So, I think we were well on our way, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, with the back-to-office activity, I think people were getting back to a normal cadence around their maintenance and their tenant improvement work. I think the uncertainty in the back half of the year around the economy, of course, I know companies are thinking about their profitability and pulling back on expenses, these discretionary projects and offices clearly got pulled back. So, to your question about what has to happen? I think the uncertainty needs to get cleared up.

And then I think we’ll get back to that office segment healing itself, as people get back into the offices. And again, a lot of this renovation work is sitting there. It still needs to get done. It hasn’t gone away. But I think for the funds to find those projects, I think we’re going to have to have some of this uncertainty clear up. And that’s €“ I think that’s what’s going to be required for us to get back on to a growth curve in the office segment in particular.

Susan Maklari: Okay. Thanks for all the color and good luck.

Vic Grizzle: Yes. Thank you, Susan.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Keith Hughes with Truist. You may proceed.

Keith Hughes: Thank you. On the guidance for the year, you’ve given kind of a framework for it, but is it fair to assume that you’re expecting every one of your end-user markets to contract or in volume? Or is there some kind of standout positives? Can you give some sort of idea what the flavor of what’s going on?

Vic Grizzle: Yes. I think broadly speaking, Keith, we’re expecting traction and activity across all of the verticals. I think there’s a couple of standouts. Let me just €“ I mean, transportation, I mentioned the Pittsburgh Airport project, but there are several other airport projects that we’re winning. And I would expect us to outperform in the Transportation segment. And that’s going to show up mostly in the Architectural Specialties because the majority of those products tend to be on that side of the business. But with that said, it does pull-through Mineral Fiber volume. So, that’s a bit of a standout. When I look at the Dodge bidding activity, and I’m tracking that, the one standout that continues to be positive with all the other verticals being negative is education.

And again, that stands to reason when you think about the funding behind education right now, the funding from the CARES Act, the majority of that still hasn’t been spent. And that would make sense that as some of that starts to come through, we’ll see more project activity there. But I think generally speaking, most of the verticals we’re expecting softer market conditions.

Keith Hughes: And there was a comment earlier about the second half of the year, I guess, being weaker. Is that a volume comment or I just kind of missed what you were going towards with that?

Vic Grizzle: That’s a volume €“ referencing to market activity and its impact on volumes, Keith. But again, I think as I’ve been around, Keith in talking to our customers, I think they have visibility in the first half, and they kind of see it as a run rate similar to the fourth quarter run rates. The back half has got the most uncertainty in it right now. I think people are still trying to figure out, what’s going to get spent and what kind of activity will we have based on the macroeconomic conditions and what the Fed does and so forth.

Keith Hughes: Okay. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Garik Shmois with Loop Capital. You may proceed.

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