Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Operator: The next question is from Tom Wadewitz from UBS.

Thomas Wadewitz: I wanted to ask a bit about how you think about pricing against this backdrop of weaker cyclical backdrop. I think the commentary from the Canadian rails in 2022 was pretty optimistic, tight capacity, pretty favorable trends in pricing. Would we expect that to ease meaningfully against weaker volume backdrop? Or you think there’s some momentum that carries through that you still have a maybe stronger than normal pricing in 2023?

Doug MacDonald: Thanks, Tom. It’s Doug. So once again, I’ll say we have — about 1/3 of our book of business comes up every year for repricing. So we do — we have seen a strong pricing environment continue. We do have some catch-up to do from prior years. And our goal continues to be pricing above rail inflation. And we really don’t see any issues with that at all so far.

Thomas Wadewitz: So can you kind of comment on pricing this year versus last year? Do you think it’s similar or a bit lighter given the volume backdrop?

Doug MacDonald: It’s very similar right now. We expect a pricing overall for — or costing for overall for the rail industry. We expect to stay ahead of that. So right now, it’s showing very high when you look at the all-inclusive index and things like that, and we continue to be above that.

Operator: The next question is from Brian Ossenbeck from JPMorgan.

Brian Ossenbeck: I just wanted to ask, Ghislain, you mentioned some headwinds on Work/Rest Rules and paid sick days. I wanted to see if you could elaborate on that is that the federally mandated one that kicked in at the end of last year? And how is that going to impact the financials or headcount? And how should we expect that to kind of roll out throughout the year?

Ghislain Houle: Yes. Thanks, Brian. Yes, definitely some headwinds there. Ed and the team will work hard to try to minimize the unfavorable potential impact of those headwinds. But I’d say that when you put them together, they could be as much as $100 million of headwind in 2023. So we’ll see, but that’s certainly something we have to deal with.

Brian Ossenbeck: Would that be — would that require additional headcount to cover some of the…

Christian Wetherbee: That’s the notion. The notion is that you would have to have more people to do the same amount of work, and therefore, it does create a financial unfavorable impact. But as I said, Ed will — and the team are working to try to minimize the impact. But — so we’re all over this as we speak.

Edmond Harris: Brian, if I could just add, it’s Ed Harris. We’re looking at the operating plan very closely, and we look at it every day, which is no secret to anyone. I think the things that you have to remember with a stronger operating plan and better system performance, we’re taking out a lot of unnecessary operating expense like recrewing trains, the die and route or deadheading to a better schedule. And there’s quite a bit of savings that we’ll see through that as we get stronger in our operating plan. So that’s one of the ways that we’re thinking about offsetting some of the headwinds. We talk about this quite a bit, and we got a pretty good plan we’re working on.

Operator: Thank you. The next question is from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins Capital Markets.

Benoit Poirier: Yes. And welcome back, Ed, to CN. Obviously, a lot has been accomplished since April, but could you provide more color about some changes that you’re looking to implement that would bring the company to the next level? And maybe if you could expand a bit on the headcount for 2023 and CapEx envelope in order to drive the operations.

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