Wabash National Corporation (NYSE:WNC) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Mike Pettit: Yes. I would say that generally the disconnect we saw between our guidance and Q1 results was largely that delayed in pickups that we had. And then you see some of that stepping into Q2 obviously with a little higher revenue and EPS guidance in Q2 versus Q1. We would expect the back half to continue to see moderate increases in revenue and EPS but not significant. So obviously you can do the calendarization with our full year guidance. But we will see that pretty good step up from Q1 to Q2 which will does compensate quite pickup miss that we had and then a little further affirming Q3 and Q4 to set up for what Brent just mentioned what we think will be a much stronger 2025.

Brent Yeagy: Yes. Just to put — I’ll put some additional color to it. Most of the gap in pickups were in January and early to mid-February. And then we saw pickups dramatically improve as we moved into the tail end of the first quarter and then kind of I would say continuing on that pace as we move into the second quarter. So that piece of it has generally abated. And that timing of that gap in January and February kind of really is about fleets really trying to understand what is the operating environment that they’re working into for the first half of the year. Where do they need to move trailers to because remember when they pick them up they’re putting them into service and rounding the areas to create revenue. So they’re waiting to see where that’s going to be. Then once they know they move and we saw that happen, right? And then it just flows from there.

Justin Long: Okay. Got it. That’s helpful. And I guess along similar lines I was wondering if you could talk about the cadence of operating margins that you’re expecting over the balance of the year. If I look at the first quarter you were a touch below 6%. The guidance for the full year is around 7%. So that implies we need to be above that level to kind of average up. So just wanted to get some more color on the cadence you’re expecting and what will drive that improvement sequentially through the year?

Mike Pettit: Yes I think it’s largely going to follow the volume I described earlier because that’s what’s holding it down below 7%. We held our full year at 7% and finished Q1 at 5.7% and less largely a fixed over contribution margin impact of a little lower revenue number in Q1 that we expect will naturally grow as we move into Q2 and the second half of the year. The other thing that we talked about in our remarks is we expect Parts and Services to continue to perform well this year and grow in the second half of the year. That will also be a tailwind to our margin performance as we get into the second half as Parts and Service delivers an outsized margin component of our business compared to the OE side.

Justin Long: Got it. And I think the last one for me along those lines two other areas you’ve talked about historically as being areas of resiliency in addition to Parts and Service are the tank trailer business and the truck body business. So I’m curious if you could talk a little bit more about what’s getting baked into the 2024 guidance for those two segments are you expecting growth in those areas?

Mike Pettit: Yes, we would expect year-over-year growth in truck bodies for sure. Q1 was a little bit some of the things we discussed on the trailer side we were very specific in our trailer commentary but it also pertains a bit to truck body shipments were a little bit weaker than we hoped in Q1 for truck bodies. But we do expect to see some pretty nice sequential step-ups for the truck body business. So we should see shipments increase year-over-year in that business which has always been saying that that’s — while all of our OE products participate in the broader transportation and logistics industries, and so there is some cyclicality it’s less cyclical than we’ve seen in the dry van business. And we would actually expect to see a little bit of growth in truck bodies this year.

Tank is — we’ll see — we won’t see growth in tanks year-over-year this year, but we’ll see less of a pullback in tanks [indiscernible] dry vans. And I think to circle back to conversations we’ve had on these calls tanks, truck bodies, and parts and services really form three legs to a stool of stable earnings, more stable earnings than what we have in our more classic dry van business at Wabash. And we’re excited to continue to show it off this year. So while they all participate in an industry that has cycles, they tend to be less cyclical than we see in dry vans.

Brent Yeagy: Yeah. The ability to see the overall resiliency can be evident in a set of markets that we have today where it’s much more secular in nature where different courses are affecting different sub-segments differently. We’re not experiencing a 2009 event. We’re not experiencing, a macro type of negative set of forces that affect all different groups simultaneously. This is segment based forces, which really allows us to leverage the resiliency of the portfolio.

Justin Long: Okay, great. I leave it there. Thanks for the time.

Brent Yeagy: Thanks, Justin.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Kauffman of Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open.

Jeff Kauffman: Thank you very much. Hey, congratulations everybody.

Brent Yeagy: Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff Kauffman: A couple of modeling questions. I want to get back to the units that were not picked up on time. I mean this happens every now and then. It just is what it is. Let’s just say for argument’s sake that number was 500 in the first quarter. I don’t know what the number is and you guys haven’t thrown one out. But would we normally see something like two-thirds of it in the following quarter and then the one-third of it maybe in the third quarter. How does this typically work when we have this happen? It doesn’t all happen in 2Q necessarily, right?