Wabash National Corporation (NYSE:WNC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Justin Long: Maybe to start with a question on the guidance, you provided the outlook for the first quarter, Mike. Obviously, a pretty big step-down from an earnings perspective versus what we just saw in the fourth quarter. And I know there’s some seasonality but I was just curious if you could speak to kind of any other drivers sequentially that are causing that pressure in earnings. And as you think about the quarterly cadence of EPS over the remainder of the year, is 2Q to 4Q — do you think that cadence looks — like those quarters look pretty similar? Or is this a ramp over the course of the year? Is there any more color you can give us on that front?

MikePettit: Sure. I’ll start with that one first. The Q1 is typically the lowest quarter of the year in a normal seasonality year for us. And so, we’re going to see that. So you’ll obviously see a step-up in the other 3. And right now, with the caveat, we want to see when ’25 is going to really start to pull but for now, we believe the calendarization of earnings in Q2 to Q4 will be relatively flat. Might be a little higher in Q2 but for the most part, I think it’s going to be relatively flat in the last 3 quarters of the year. And then, the step-down from Q4 to Q1, again, not uncommon. We see that a lot. It can be a low time for — seasonal time for demand. There’s going to be a little bit of year-over-year pricing in there, Q4 to Q1 but volume seasonality is the biggest driver.

Justin Long: Okay, that’s helpful. And I guess kind of building on that question, one thing that you’ve talked about strategically and I think, Brent, you mentioned this on the last call, is that your plan is to maintain headcount in this environment despite trailer production moderating. And in doing so, that puts you in a better position to respond to the next upturn. So is there a way to think about the financial implications of that? And what the kind of cost or earnings headwind is this year and the near-term pain you might be taking for the longer-term gain?

Brent Yeagy: Yes. So we’d frame it this way. When we think about headcount across the business, it is not one answer across the board. We had some aspects of the business such as with truck bodies that we’re adding headcount and — versus trailers, where we’ll be looking at holding headcount. And we’re not holding headcount in a manner which it is not — is underutilized or non-utilized labor. We’ve been able to secure sales and a backlog and are filling in order to utilize that labor in a standard efficiency way. So right now, there would be little to no, what I would call, detrimental impact from a labor cost standpoint within our margins. Most of the right sizing of dry van capacity has been through shifting volume to the added capacity that we brought online and then taking out our third shift, levelling the plant on a 2-shift operation. And then, workforce we have shed has been on the temporary side, again, leaving our full-time workforce intact.

Mike Pettit: The only thing I would add to that is, if you think about it, since we believe this is more of a short-term thing, there’s some downtime in the plant as opposed to mass layoffs in the plant. So that’s — we’re taking — we’re normalizing that cost, as Brent mentioned, by taking some temporary downtime because we believe it’s going to come back. We’re trying to maintain that. That’s how we handle that without having a significant cost change.

Brent Yeagy: Yes. And then, there’s the added upside of how we manage the workforce today. And then, throughout 2024, as we bring our, we’d call, more efficient, higher throughput manufacturing capability for dry vans at scale with added demand as we prepare for ’25 really, what I want to say, allows us to utilize this headcount that we have in a really efficient way and not have to take on as much of the headcount inefficiency as we move into and throughout 2025, right? So it’s really not about accepting added cost right now. It’s about building capability to defer and prevent inefficiency in outer, we’d call, periods and years.

Justin Long: Okay, that’s really helpful. And I guess, lastly for me, I think the ACT forecasts have maybe been tweaked a little bit for 2024 on trailer production. But just based on the order season that you’ve seen thus far, I’m curious if you still feel those ACT forecasts are a good best guess at this point. And then, just real quickly on the guidance, Mike, curious if that includes any impact from buybacks.

Mike Pettit: No, the guidance does not include impact from buyback. But as far as ACT forecast, I think we feel like that’s generally in the ballpark.

Brent Yeagy: Yes. The customer behavior, customer sentiment, forward-looking views that they provide us are really right in line with where they were even at the third quarter call and are reflective of the general market. I think ACT is as right as they can be based on the market.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Kauffman with Vertical Research Partners.

Jeff Kauffman: Congratulations on [indiscernible]. I guess, I want to follow up on the last question a little bit first and then maybe talk about some of these other new businesses or new focuses. So in terms of looking at the guide and I know we got to set the bar somewhere. So the ACT Research forecast has trailers coming down about 20% for the year. Now, you had 44,000 trailers, give or take, this year. But I would argue your production probably shouldn’t come down in line with the industry because you were out about 10,000 trailers worth of capacity in dry and you were also out, I don’t know, 2,500 trailers in capacity in reefer as you were switching that to the other facility. So in theory, as that capacity starts to come back, your production should not be down as much as the industry.