Cactus, Inc. (NYSE:WHD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Kurt Hallead: Hey, Scott. Doing well. Thanks. So, Scott, it’s a risk of you not directly answering this question as well. I’ll take the chance anyway. So, look, in the context of providing a teaser on product enhancements going into next year, you provided some color around an enhancement around the longer lateral. So, just wondering if you might provide maybe a couple of additional teasers on what we could be looking for, and just in a broader context on what these enhancements are going to address.

Scott Bender: Yeah. So, Kurt, I hate to answer this question, but I’m going to answer it anyway. So, the product enhancements, not surprisingly, involve both our rental business and our wellhead business. In our rental business, we expect the product enhancements to have a meaningful impact on our maintenance costs and our repair costs. So, we’ve finished prototyping. We’ve been spending, I guess, the last nine months, almost a year, prototyping a new frac valve design. And we’ll be introducing that next year. And so, I’m very hopeful that you’re going to see some margin impact from that. In terms of wellhead, as we actually started from a relatively clean sheet of paper, we’ve got a new wellhead that’s going to be highly — even more highly value engineered, if you catch my drift, as well as adding features that are, as I mentioned earlier, responsive to this tendency towards longer laterals.

Kurt Hallead: So, that’s good color. I really, really appreciate that. Now…

Scott Bender: That’s too much color.

Kurt Hallead: A follow-up here for Steve. And congrats on your new role, Steve.

Steve Tadlock: Thank you.

Kurt Hallead: Just kind of curious in the context of as you’ve entered into this new role, right, is there a significant shift in strategy direction? What do you see in terms of opportunities now that you’re sitting in that seat?

Steve Tadlock: No, I wouldn’t say there’s a shift. I think the company was in a good direction. And I think really my job is just to keep it going in that direction and help shepherd the growth. I’m really excited about it. I think the quality of the people — I mean, obviously, I’ve spent a lot of time with people over there in the last, I guess, nine months now, but spending even more time in the last month. I’m just really impressed with the people and the product and the processes that they have in place. So, it’s really just infusing a little bit more of the Cactus culture and taking it from there.

Kurt Hallead: Great. Thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate it.

Operator: Please stand by for our next question. Your next question comes from Stephen Gengaro with Stifel. Go ahead, your line is open.

Stephen Gengaro: Thanks. I’m trying to think of something you won’t answer.

Scott Bender: Oh, good.

Stephen Gengaro: I think first, and this might be in a category actually, but given what you mentioned about the privates maybe pulling back a little bit, I think last quarter, you referenced that on the wellhead side that your share was probably at an all-time high. Are you continuing to see kind of similar numbers on the share side?

Scott Bender: Gosh, Stephen, I thought that was going to be the very first question. And you know that we had this discussion collectively before the call, thinking we’re trying to divorce ourselves from discussing market share. But let me pat you on the back and say, do not worry about market share.

Stephen Gengaro: Okay.

Scott Bender: Without me telling you what the market share is, will that satisfy you by telling you not to worry about it?

Stephen Gengaro: That works for now.

Scott Bender: In other words, don’t factor a market share loss into your numbers.

Stephen Gengaro: Got you. I understand. That makes sense. The…

Scott Bender: Let me say more of that — let me just tell you even more. I think that this tendency towards consolidation is — I’ve always said it’s going to be constructive. I still believe that it’s going to be constructive.

Stephen Gengaro: Okay. That’s helpful. That was one of the follow-ups I was going to ask about, so that’s helpful. So, now you…

Scott Bender: [So, that’s] (ph) your follow-up?

Stephen Gengaro: We won’t count that.

Scott Bender: Okay.

Stephen Gengaro: The — repair is the wrong word, but the movement of the balance sheet back to being positive cash, honestly, very rapidly post a large transaction with FlexSteel, you’re going to probably start building cash over the next year. Can you talk about either your approach — well, just basically, what’s the approach to capital allocation from here as capital build?

Scott Bender: My first choice — first of all, we consider the dividend to be pretty sacred to us. That’s why we kind of started at a low level and it moved it up slowly. We announced a share buyback, which is still in place. My first choice is inorganic growth. I want to grow this business, and I want to grow it primarily internationally. So, to do that, we need cash. Fortunately, since I’ve been in this business for four-plus decades, this has always been a highly positive cash flow generating business. And it still is. So, I think we’ll have plenty of currency to do what we want to do, including taking care of our shareholders on a quarterly basis.

Stephen Gengaro: Great. Thanks. Thanks for the details.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] This time I’m showing no further questions. I’d like to now turn it back over to Scott Bender for closing remarks.

Scott Bender: Thank you all for joining us this quarter. I look forward to speaking to you next quarter. And trust me when I tell you we’re working hard to provide for industry best shareholder returns. Have a good day.

Operator: Thank you for your participation in today’s conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect.

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