Veritiv Corporation (NYSE:VRTV) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Sal Abbate: Thank you, Sandy. Yes, that’s clearly the most challenging part of 2023 really being caused from the spillover from 2022 with respect to inventory. So we do expect the first quarter and frankly the first two quarters to remain challenge now that is reflected in our overall guidance range. But while we expect 2023 to have more acute decline in volume than we’ve seen in three or four years, we do expect that to be somewhat softening as 2024 and beyond approaches. And again, that’s just this whiplash effect of the inventory situation from last year. The two things that we are really expecting to help us maintain our Print margins one is this the continued capacity that’s come out of the business. So over the last three years, about 6% of the capacity has come out each year and while we expected 2023, to be a little less than that, there has been an unplanned announced closure just recently, that says capacity coming out of the system for 2023, could be again, somewhere around 5% or 6%.

The other issue around sustainability of pricing is the much needed and long overdue maintenance downtime that the mills are taking to really catch up from the under capacity and the overwork from 2021 and 2022 strain supply chain. So those two factors are expected to maintain print pricing and not only in the first half of the year, but most likely the full year. There is always risk with respect to further demand decline that could challenge that. But our guidance reflects those two elements being stable, regarding prices for 2023. The third element is that we have combined our print and publishing operations, they used to be two separate businesses. And there’s further efficiency to gain there. And that is why we suggest that we are going to maintain the majority of our adjusted EBITDA margin improvements over the last couple of years in 2023.

Steve Smith: Yes, Sal I was just going to supplement that on your third of your three points was, which is to connect the first question to the second question, which is that because of the operational efficiencies, including the DCs that were consolidated over time, the company, including the print segment, have lowered the breakeven point of all the segments, particularly in print. So even with volatility in price and volume that you mentioned in points one and two, we still will have, we believe the majority of the margin improvement in ’23 because of that those costs and operational efficiencies, both in the past and then as you mentioned going forward.

Sal Abbate: Thanks, Steve.

Sandra Liang: Thank you. Thank you, and good luck in the year.

Sal Abbate: Thank you.

Steve Smith: Thank you, Sandy.

Operator: There are no further questions at this time. I would now turn the call back over to Sal Abbate for any closing remarks.

Sal Abbate: Thank you Colby. I want to thank our team members for their hard work and dedication to our customers. Every day our approximately 5000 world class team members work tirelessly delivering products and solutions that delight our customers. Thanks to their dedication earlier this month, Veritiv was named one of fortunes 2023 world’s most admired companies. This achievement is truly a testament to our hard working team members and a milestone for our company. Thank you all for joining us today. For our next earnings call in May we will be joined by Eric Garin, our current SVP of finance, who will assume the role of Chief Financial Officer on March 1. We look forward to speaking with you again soon. Colby this now concludes our call.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.

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