Installed Building Products, Inc. (NYSE:IBP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And keep in mind, as I think everybody on this call recalls, ‘22 was an extremely volatile pricing environment from a material perspective. The fact that, that has stabilized combined with our ability to improve operating efficiencies, particularly at the installer level, has helped to continue to improve gross margin throughout the course of the year. And it’s not just multifamily, it’s across the board that we’re seeing that benefit.

Stephen Kim: Yes. That’s encouraging, Mike. So really nothing to special to sort of call out here that we might want to adjust for on a go-forward basis is what I’m hearing you say, which is great. I was – I know that early a couple few quarters ago, this was a topic of conversation about maybe leaving – not walking away per se, but sort of deemphasizing certain projects or maybe you sort of felt like you didn’t get the value for your services that you desired. Could you remind us again, is that a fair characterization that you kind of have left those for some smaller players in the industry? If you could just sort of describe those for us again, how we should be thinking about what those kinds of business opportunities are?

Michael Miller: Yes. We again, we continue to focus less on volume and more on value and profitability. And keep in mind, I just want to be careful because I think a lot of times, when we say profitability or value, people think of that as just price – and it’s not. I mean, there are – it’s really selecting and working with the best builders and the best general contractors that allow you to be the most efficient from an install perspective. And that in many respects is more important, quite frankly, than price can be just because it allows you to be efficient in the way that you’re scheduling and the way that you’re performing your work for those jobs, those contractors and those builders. So to the extent that we don’t necessarily like to say walk away, but that we choose not to do work or bid on work for a particular general contractor or a builder.

A lot of times, it’s not really a question of price as much as it is how can we most effectively service and be the most productive with that work. And that’s where we’re very selective.

Stephen Kim: That’s really interesting.

Michael Miller: It’s fairly straightforward really, I mean, too because we’re still – we’re busy enough to in the market is good enough, too, that you can be somewhat choosy on the work that you take, right?

Stephen Kim: Would you characterize that as maybe more like a product type, there are certain products or structures that – where you have just maybe more downtime or more propensity for callbacks? Is that what you’re talking about? Or is it really just down to the kind of the human level, certain counterparties just maybe aren’t quite as organized as others? Is it that sort of thing?

Michael Miller: Yes, it’s more the human level. I mean because if you said it was at the product level, those are products that likely we shouldn’t be if we can’t make the kind of margins that we associate with this business and the things we install and that a particular product line, we shouldn’t be in it, right? But to the extent that we are in it and the margins are good, we just, at the human level, decide who we might be doing work for.

Jeff Edwards: And interestingly, to that question, which was a good one, is that on the product level, there is – I mean, you could be in one market where a single customer might be a great insulation customer, but they’re a terrible gutter customer. So you don’t want to do their better work on they want to do their insulation work.

Stephen Kim: Great. Super interesting. Thanks so much guys.