Eagle Materials Inc. (NYSE:EXP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Brent Thielman: Okay. And then just one on Wallboard. Michael, I appreciate your — sort of your comments around advantaged cost structure, those sorts of things, all very valid. Have you seen any disruption either lean of competing assets within your footprint, those that just can’t be as cost competitive in this environment, just wondering if you’ve seen any sort of changes in competitive dynamics around your markets you play in, in the Wallboard business?

Michael R. Haack: No, when you look at how Eagle is structured, we’re not dependent on any third parties for our raw material supply. We’re located in the Sun Belt regions. I love where we’re located. I love how we control our own cost structure with it. We don’t have any plant that is disadvantaged in any way to compete in these markets.

Brent Thielman: Okay, alright, thank you.

Operator: The next question comes from Anthony Pettinari with Citi. Please go ahead.

Anthony Pettinari: Good morning. On Cement, it sounds like the demand outlook is pretty positive despite past issues. And I’m just wondering, understanding you don’t always know your cement is going. Are you starting to see IIJA spending flow through and volumes and are you seeing that maybe replace weaker residential activity or just wondering sort of the end markets and that infrastructure impact?

Craig Kesler: Yes, Anthony, good question. Look, the infrastructure spending is supported in a couple of different ways. There’s no doubt state spending has taken the bulk of the financing effort over the last several years, and that has continued to remain very robust in our markets. To your point, you have federal spending that is on top of that going forward. It’s hard to parse out exactly what’s funding an individual project sometimes. But anecdotally, you are starting to hear that those monies are starting to impact planning and individual projects. So that side of the business continues to do very, very well. I’ll point out, we also continue to see recovery and strength in the private nonresidential construction activity, especially in our markets around some of these very, very large projects that are just starting to get underway.

Anthony Pettinari: Okay, that’s very helpful. And then just a quick one on the Wallboard Paperboard side. I mean the decline in OCC late last year was pretty dramatic, and I’m just wondering what you thought maybe drove that and the sustainability of that? And if you can just kind of remind us maybe the margin benefit that you could accrue from there and what the sort of lag is there?

Craig Kesler: Yes. So as you saw this quarter, the lag is pretty quick within the paper business itself. So that contributed to a large majority of the improvement and the profitability in the paper business. It then does take a quarter or two lag into the Wallboard business. But what has been a headwind in what I’m going to say, calendar 2022, fiscal 2023, has certainly turned around from OCC prices as we look forward into calendar 2023 and our fiscal 2024. A lot of international reasons why OCC prices go up and down relates to generation and overseas purchases. But the spike that we saw a year ago, probably wasn’t sustainable, and these are a little bit more normal levels.

Anthony Pettinari: Okay, that’s helpful. I will turn it over.

Operator: The next question comes from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Jerry Revich: Yes, hi, good morning everyone.

Craig Kesler: Good morning Jerry.

Jerry Revich: I’m wondering if you could just talk about Cement margins when your footprint was smaller. Some 20 years ago, you folks were able to get that business up to 30% margins. And I’m wondering what the price increases that you have in place now, do you think you could approach that level of margin in this cycle?