James Hardie Industries plc (NYSE:JHX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 3 of 10

Aaron Erter: Yes, look, we have a lot of good competitors out there, I would say two of our best are vinyl, substrate and wood substrate. And if you remember, Lisa, I mean 65% of our business is repair and remodel, 35% new construction. And R&R is less sensitive, as we just talked about, new construction is much more price sensitive. And thus a much more competitive market at the moment. But we’re prepared for that. We talked about some of the things that we’re doing out there, we talked about bringing Cemplank back. But some of the other things is we have the largest and most knowledgeable sales team in the category, right? So they’re focused on bringing solutions to our customers. And we’re staying really close to our customers to better understand their needs.

We talked about it on the call, but we’re really proud of the fact that if you look at the Top 25 production builders in North America, we’ve signed 20 for them, and with pride for us to be their primary hard siding provider nationally. We had 23 last year. So we continue, we believe to gain share, not only in R&R, but also in this space as well. So in offline, we can go through that calculation with you, if you’re interested.

Operator: The next question comes from Simon Thackray with Jefferies.

Simon Thackray: Thanks very much. Hi, Aaron. Hi, Jason. And, Aaron, just followed drilling to a point — for a point of clarification on slide 18. You’ve got EBIT margins 25 plus percent. You referenced in your pre prepared remarks long term North American margins of 25% to 30%, sort of understand whether though that 25 plus percent applies, you said you want the team to deliver that applies from where we are going forward, and to really feel how your confidence is built around that long term 25% to 30%. How much of it is cost versus how much is prospects? Thank you.

Aaron Erter: Simon, good question. Thank you. What I went through that on slide 18, today is really I was trying to describe the framework of how I’m going to lead this team and how our executive leadership team will lead the business moving forward. I wanted to provide some clarity on how I plan to operate. And the outcomes that we expect, I believe a margin above 25% is highly achievable moving forward. I believe that’s achievable based on our pricing position, our superior value proposition. It’s not something that we’re forcing, because share gain is my number one priority. But that said as I’ve looked at this, and a lot of the volume scenarios for the next 18 months, I really believe we can operate above 25% while still investing in driving growth as well.

Simon Thackray: Thanks, Aaron. That’s very helpful. And then Jason, can I just roll back to you for a comment you made about APAC decelerating quickly? Just specifically, which geographies are you seeing that in the order book?

Jason Miele : Yes, Simon, in Australia, New Zealand, we’ve certainly seen channel destocking and then market activity lower than what we would have entered the year expecting. So the change in market activity from where we were entering the year in Australia to where we’re at, we believe we’ll exit, it’s probably about 8% change, which is quite significant. And as we talked to everyone in the channel, that just wasn’t something that people saw coming in as late as September. And Aaron might add some commentary around that. But we’ve definitely seen the markets in Australia, New Zealand flow quickly, including some channels destocking, which is impacting the third quarter, and the fourth quarter.

Page 3 of 10