Ascent Industries Co. (NASDAQ:ACNT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Vincent Anderson: Okay. All right. Excellent. And then I know Bryan came in with a lot of experience and we’ve talked a bit about the commercial side already, obviously. But curious if you shared any initial thoughts on your procurement and inventory management side of things and just if you’ve had a chance to do like a proper post-mortem on how the business was managed through the last couple of years on that front.

Chris Hutter: Yes. The high-level view is he has and we’ve already recognized opportunity and we have a team being put in place. Bryan’s a very aggressive, hard-working person that has deep connections within the chemical business. And he’s already identified a few people that he’s brought on board with him and we continue to upgrade the talent really on a weekly basis. So we’re feeling really good. We had a meeting last week with Bryan and I think Ben and myself, Bill and the entire Board are very optimistic about what he’s going to deliver.

Vincent Anderson: Great. And then — so to move to tubular for just a minute, Chris, I know you hate to look like you’re hiding behind the macro environment when the business isn’t operating as well as you want it to, so if I can pose this as a hypothetical instead. If the tubular business was already where you wanted it to be coming into the year that we’ve had in 2023, looking at the environment right now, what parts of the portfolio, whether it’s the sales channels or just specific products, would you really be leaning on in this environment to support your through-cycle margins? And which parts would you have to just kind of set expectations lower and focus on costs?

Chris Hutter: No. I mean I’ll fall on the short here. I mean there’s tremendous opportunity in tubular. Again, you have to look at each business unit specifically. Especially pipe and tube, they’re killing it. They’re doing a great job. They’ve got demand and there’s tremendous opportunity in growing that business. As well as the oil and gas market which is one of the larger markets in Texas. Bristol is — we definitely — we missed the mark. There’s huge demand for our large-diameter pipe that goes into infrastructure applications and just didn’t deliver on the sales forecast. So there’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes on improving the team there and getting that dialed in. But I mean that’s a very good business when it’s operating the way it should operate. Just not on the way it needs to. So we have work to do there. Absolutely.

Vincent Anderson: All right. That’s fair enough. Do you have — I mean I assume it’s a constant review from your perspective but are you still looking for any key leaders in the steel business? Or do you feel pretty good already?

Chris Hutter: Yes. I mean I think we’re always looking for the right talent leaders and we’re always discussing how we grow the business and who we have run the business. So we’re always looking for the right opportunity.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] I’m showing no further questions in the queue at this time. I would now like to turn the call back over to Chris Hutter for any closing remarks.

Chris Hutter: Thank you, Sheri. We’d like to thank everyone for listening to today’s call and we look forward to speaking with you again for our fourth quarter and full year results for 2023.

Operator: This concludes today’s program. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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