Core Molding Technologies, Inc. (AMEX:CMT) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Tim Moore: Great. And actually two more questions for Dave. What would you say you’re kind of anything you might be in use the base format for too long? On the operational and efficiency improvements I saw you added a new board member appointment. Looks like sell ads more operational manufacturing experience in Canada Mexico. But how far along do you think you are on the operational efficiency improvements? And when you think you’ll be done?

Dave Duvall: Yes. So, we’ll be done when we talk about the must-win battle. That was the focus on the three SMC plants really focusing on two of them majority wise that was predicted or forecasted 20% improvement. So, we’ll have that. We’re at that now. So, really what we’re moving into is a corporate-wide continuous improvement and consolidating those. So it will be ongoing. But it’s not 20% per year per plan.

Tim Moore: No. That’s helpful color. And then my last question is you mentioned some commentary a little bit about this in your opening remarks about, acquisitions. Can you just remind us is still a capital allocation priority for process equipment? And what do you seeing out there? Do you think you’re going to have to probably do acquisitions to acquire five to seven presses? Or given that there’s such a long wait list and not much availability for new presses?

Dave Duvall: Yeah. That’s a big point relative to if you’re trying to install the capacity from a greenfield site, by the time you build the site and order all the equipment. You’re talking about a multiple year endeavor. So really what we’re looking at is I call bolt-on or tuck-in acquisitions anywhere up to say $30 million $40 million. And it’s really about what sales channels can we get similar to what we did with the previous acquisitions, because then we’re able to also cross-sell and sell multiple composites into that customer, through our other processes and products.

Tim Moore: Great. That’s very helpful. Thanks a lot Dave and John. And I’ll hand it back over to the operator.

Dave Duvall: Thanks Tim.

John Zimmer: Thanks Tim.

Operator: Thank you. And our next question comes from Jeff Geygan with Global Value Investment Corp. Please go ahead.

Jeff Geygan: Thank you. Good morning, guys. Appreciate your time here.

Dave Duvall: How are you doing Jeff?

John Zimmer: Hi Jeff.

Jeff Geygan: Doing well. I’m curious, what type of visibility do you have into your customers inventory levels?

John Zimmer: I don’t know — we would say we have a direct visibility. We don’t have a data set to go directly into. And so a lot of it is demand feedback that we’re getting. They do provide us EDI data out into the future. And I think we’ve talked about that before EDI. As you get out past a month gets a little bit — it can change. It’s not guaranteed one way or the other. And so, what we do know is that some customers during this quarter have come to us and said, we got ahead of ourselves. And so, we aren’t taken as much product at least in this quarter and maybe a little bit into the first quarter next year. Now, again, what we stay close to home is we’re hoping — the nice thing is that this is a short-term issue for them.

They’ll get through that inventory. And they’ll start taking sales again. And so it’s a period of time that will work itself out. It’s not the sales have gone away is to really a correction for a period of time. And so we’ll work with them and hopefully get through this. And then you’ll be back on with a lot of [indiscernible] in the first quarter next year sometime in the first quarter next year going into the second.

Dave Duvall: Yeah. It’s a good point. When you see it, it’s on the — especially when you start looking at industrial and utilities because you have such a long supply chain between inventory at our location inventory at the job sites and inventories in our warehouses. So I think at the end of the year, they had looked at what their inventory levels throughout that supply chain and made a correction. But the business is still there. I think it’s more a matter of adjusting their inventories at the end of the year.