Simpson Manufacturing Co., Inc. (NYSE:SSD) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Timothy Wojs: Hey, good afternoon guys, nice job.

Michael Olosky: Hey, Tim.

Timothy Wojs: Maybe just to start off on the revenue line. I know that you may be expecting starts activity to be less bad than maybe you thought six months ago or than three months ago. I guess as you kind of think about the overall kind of revenue number for 2023? I mean even with the starts seemingly kind of down in the second quarter for you guys, you still posted revenue growth. So I guess my question is, even if starts are less bad than they were before, I mean, is it possible you can grow the top line organically in ’23?

Michael Olosky: Well, from a — just to remember to level set, ’23 has got the full four quarters of ETANCO versus ’22 only having the three quarters company-wise, company-wide. And then — but taking that out of the equation. Let’s see, let me pull that up. Going to be relatively flat on a like-for-like basis when we take the ETANCO extra quarter into consideration, which would be up compared to where we were entering the year.

Timothy Wojs: Yeah, okay. And is there a difference there like retail and some of the growth drivers? I think that would be, I guess, more positive than I think I would have expected just given more starts or kind of that even year-to-date.

Michael Olosky: Yeah, Tim, let me go back to the market. So when we were budgeting for this year, we were thinking the residential starts would be definitely more than 10% down. Now we’re thinking based on everything we’ve heard from our customers, it’s going to be 10-ish may be right around that 10% down. So again, less bad. On the national retail home center story, we were also expecting that to be a negative market. But with the lower lumber costs, a lot of projects that have been sitting on the side are coming in. So we actually expect that market to be market again positive. And then the strategies we have to drive growth in the National Retail segment we’re pretty excited about and we think that’s helping us drive above-market growth in that area.

And then if you look at the other market segments that we’re in, OEM, albeit still small, we’re still driving a big growth in that segment, volume and revenue perspective. And on the commercial side, we still think we’re in good shape on that area as well. So add it all up, the market is getting better than we had budgeted. And we think the strategies that we have in place are delivering.

Timothy Wojs: Yes. Understood. And then maybe just on the margin line. I think last quarter, Brian, you talked about kind of EBIT margins being kind of flat year-over-year in Q2 and Q3 and then maybe being down a little bit in the fourth quarter. I guess, how are you thinking about the back half margins now? Because I think if I kind of assume they’re flattish in Q3 and Q4 for the rest of the year, I’m kind of at or maybe even above the updated EBIT guidance.

Brian Magstadt: Yes. So from an operating income perspective, Q3 pretty comparable to prior year. And then I would think Q4, let’s see, again fairly comparable.

Timothy Wojs: Okay. Okay, good. And then just the last one on the Gallatin or the Tennessee facility. Could you just kind of step back and kind of give us some kind of color on why you’re kind of replacing that facility and what kind of the benefits that Simpson would be? And then also maybe just kind of the total capital outlay for that?