Q4 2022 GMS Inc Earnings Call
Greetings and welcome to the G M S fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2022 earnings conference call.
At this time, all participants will be in listen only mode.
A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation.
If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference. Please press star zero from your telephone keypad.
Please note this conference is being recorded.
At this time I'll turn the conference over to Carey Phelps Vice President of Investor Relations Carey you may begin.
Thank you Rob.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us for the Gms earnings conference call for the fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2022, I am joined today by John Turner, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Deakin, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In addition to the press release issued this morning, we have posted Powerpoint slides to accompany this call.
Call in the Investor at investors section of our website at Www Dot <unk> Dot com.
Turning to slide two.
Today's call management's prepared remarks and answers to your questions may contain forward looking statements as defined in the private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Forward looking statements address matters that are subject to risks and uncertainties many of which are beyond our control and may cause actual results to differ from those discussed today.
As a reminder, forward looking statements represent management's current estimates and expectations. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statement in the future.
Listeners are encouraged to review the more detailed discussions related to these forward looking statements contained in the company's filings with the SEC, including the risk factors section in the company's 10-K and other periodic reports.
Today's presentation also includes a discussion of certain non-GAAP measures definitions and reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures are provided in the press release and presentation slides.
Please note that references on this call for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 relate to the quarter ended April 32022.
Finally, once we begin the question and answer session of the call in the interest of time, we kindly request that you limit yourself to one question and one follow up.
With that I'll turn the call over to John Turner J T. Thank you Carrie.
Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today.
At the end of April we capped off an all around remarkable fiscal 2022, achieving record levels of net sales net income and adjusted EBITDA for both the fourth quarter and the full fiscal year.
Our team's ongoing success in navigating elevated inflation and supply chain constraints amid strong residential demand and our commitment to provide high levels of customer service helped drive this record setting performance.
Looking at slide three and going into more details of our fourth quarter results.
We grew net sales, 38% with just over 40% gross profit growth as our teams continued to do an outstanding job passing through higher pricing across our product portfolio.
We recorded more than 20% sales growth with double digit organic increases in each of our four major product categories with volume gains in wallboard ceilings and complementary products.
Net income improved 126, 7%, while adjusted EBITDA grew 69, 1% and adjusted EBITA margin of 12% was up 220 basis points from a year ago.
As expected as we saw supply chain improvements, particularly in steel, we brought down inventory and drove significantly improved free cash flow of $191 $6 million, which was 124% of adjusted EBITDA compared with 80% of adjusted EBITDA a year ago.
And finally during the quarter, we continued to expand our platform opening six new greenfield locations and three new Ames stores.
Turning next to slide four and our full year highlights.
Both net sales and gross profits grew just over 40% for fiscal 2022 as compared to the prior year principally on the pass through of increasing prices throughout the year.
For each of our four product categories, we achieved more than 25% revenue growth with positive year over year increases in volumes.
The inflationary pricing environment combined with our continued operating cost discipline enabled us to improve our SG&A and adjusted SG&A percentages of sales by 260 basis points each.
Full year adjusted EBITDA margin of 12, 2% represents a 250 basis point improvement as compared with a year ago.
Our strong balance sheet and liquidity position enabled us to continue to drive growth through numerous greenfield openings and acquisitions during the year.
Yeah.
Moving to slide five.
This highlights our fiscal 2022 progress in advancing our four primary strict strategic priorities.
First expanding share in our core products.
Our teams worked diligently throughout fiscal 2022 to maintain exceptional levels of customer service and ensure product availability even through periods of tight supply.
We recorded year over year volume growth in each of our four product categories for fiscal 2022, despite continuing relative softness in commercial demand.
And we recorded organic revenue growth of roughly 20% for both wallboard and ceilings for the year.
As a leader in the markets, we serve our customers have come to rely upon the benefits of our scale provides to secure the products they need which.
Which we expect will continue to help us gain share as we move forward.
Second growing our complementary products.
We continue to diversify and profitably expand our offerings, thereby enhancing our value to our customers. During fiscal 2020, do we experienced double digit year over year growth in complementary products each quarter with full year net sales growth of 28% as a result of both price increases and higher volumes are.
<unk> are diligently working to drive growth in this category.
For example in certain regions, we have added specialists and dedicated locations to help drive sales in certain products, such as tools and fasteners exterior envelope and roofing in Canada. In addition, we are revamping some compensation incentives to better align with our goal of growing this product category as a.
Both of these initiatives as well as our strategic platform expansion activities. Our teams delivered double digit revenue growth for nearly every product line within our complimentary product segment.
Third expanding our platform through accretive acquisitions and greenfield opportunities.
For the full year, we invested approximately $350 million to purchase five specialty products distributors, most notably west side building material one of the largest independent distributor of interior building products in the U S with locations in California, and Nevada.
And aims taping tools, the leading provider of automatic taping and finishing tools and related products to the professional dry wall, finishing contractor aim.
Ames in particular was an important and margin accretive addition to our complementary product offerings.
Also during fiscal 2022, we opened 13 Gms greenfield yards in some cases, expanding our service territory, while in others, we enhanced our product assortments within an existing gms market.
And since its purchase we opened five new AME stores during fiscal 2022, plus five more after the end of April .
Finally, our fourth strategic priority is to drive improved productivity and profitability.
We are continuing to leverage our scale and employ technology and best practices to ensure that we deliver a best in class customer experience.
Dividing our customers with the ability to easily transact with us implement automated orders check delivery status and received proof of delivery notifications and photos all make us a more valuable partner.
Moreover, internal initiatives that the customers don't necessarily see but certainly enjoyed the results of our helping to drive further operational efficiencies. For example, we are equipping our yard workers with automation tools to improve picking loading and staging efficiencies, thereby improving delivery turnaround and customer wait times we've.
Implemented important fleet upgrades to reduce idle time increased fuel efficiency and promote safe work practices and.
And we are arming our sales teams with tools to easily access customer and product data to enhance execution and the overall customer experience in short we are building the gms yard of the future to improve efficiency productivity and profitability, while delivering greater value to our customers and stakeholders.
As we kick off fiscal 2023, despite some uncertainties in the broader economy, which I will discuss later in this call. We have a solid backlog of residential demand providing confidence in our near term outlook and while we do expect some longer term softening in residential we remain committed to the successful execution of our strategic priorities.
Yeah.
With that I'll now turn it over to Scott to provide more perspective on our results Scott. Thank you J T and good morning.
Well affordability continues to be pressured by the recent rise in interest rates and continuing operating costs and product price inflation.
Residential construction activity as well as commercial sentiment remains relatively strong.
As with the first three quarters of our fiscal year solid residential demand, coupled with an inflationary pricing environment and our commitment to ensuring product availability and outstanding customer service drove our results as we closed out fiscal 2022.
While supply chain constraints continue to disrupt and extend project cycle times, our teams have done a remarkable job supporting and providing value to our customers.
Looking at slide six net sales increased 38, 2% year over year to $1 $3 billion for the quarter.
Organically sales rose 28, 9%.
Adjusting for one less selling day year over year net sales on a per day basis increased 44% or 39% organically.
From an end market perspective, both residential and commercial fourth quarter sales in the U S were up nearly 40% organically year over year.
Wallboard sales of $491 million increased 33% in total and 32, 3% on a per day basis comprised of a 27, 7% increase in price and mix and a four 6% increase in volume.
Organically fourth quarter Wallboard sales grew 26, 5% year over year comprised of a 24, 9% increase in price mix and a one 6% increase in volume.
Multifamily volume growth remained very high in the mid teens outpacing single family or supply chain related delays again held volume growth to the mid single digits.
Commercial activity in wallboard improve sequentially.
So while we still saw year over year declines in the market our volumes were only down in the mid single digits as compared to the double digit declines we've experienced during each of the first three quarters of fiscal 2022.
Our average realized wallboard price has increased sequentially for the past six quarters and given another round of recently announced manufacturer increases. We expect this trend of higher sequential wallboard prices to continue for at least the remainder of calendar 2022.
For our fourth quarter, the average realized wallboard price was $416 per thousand square feet up more than 5% sequentially and up 26, 5% from the fourth quarter of last year.
Moreover, on strong underlying volume wallboard pricing has gone up since then to $435 per msf.
For me.
Ceiling tile and grid fourth quarter sales of $148 $9 million increased 22, 7% year over year and 24, 7% on a per day basis.
Comprised of a 29% benefit from price and mix and a three 8% increase in volume.
Organic sales in ceilings grew 17% with 19% of price and mix and a 2% decrease in volume as declines in Canadian sales due to the timing of certain larger projects offset increases in the U S.
Yeah.
Fourth quarter steel framing sales of $276 $9 million increased 93, 3% or 96, 3% on a same day basis as steel price and mix increased 101, 8% with.
With volumes down five 5%.
On an organic basis steel framing was up 81, 6%.
Apprised of a 92% benefit from price and mix, partially offset by a 10, 4% decrease in volume.
Labor delays inventory unwinding within the contract pipeline and project mix, along with a tough comparable period last year all contributed to this decline.
While commercial quoting activity remains solid project execution remains constrained by labor availability.
Complementary product sales of $371 $8 million for the quarter grew 27, 9% year over year or 29, 9% on a same day basis.
As we benefited from positive contributions from acquisitions as well as strong pricing across the category.
On an organic basis sales of complementary products were up 11, 1% with the increase coming mostly from price and mix with increased volume as well.
As J P mentioned earlier complementary product sales, which comprised nearly 30% of our total net sales for the quarter and full fiscal year.
As a category that we are actively seeking to grow.
We took a step forward in this regard with three acquisitions and numerous organic initiatives over the last year.
Breaking this category down a bit further for the full year of fiscal 2022, our five largest product groups were installation at 19% of the category.
Tourism fasteners at 18%.
Joint treatment at 15% lumber.
Lumber at 13% and finally stucco and <unk> at 9%.
Now turning to our gross profit during the quarter, our gross profit of $412 $8 million increased 45% as compared with a year ago, principally due to our successful pass through of product inflation.
<unk> strength in residential market demand and incremental gross profit from acquisitions.
Gross margin percent for the quarter came in better than expected at 32% of steel prices remained higher than initially anticipated.
As a reminder, during our last earnings call, we indicated that we'd assumed steel prices would decline 5% sequentially. However, among other factors the war in the Ukraine and the relative importance of that region to the raw materials market contributed to steel prices remained flat sequentially.
Our 50 basis point year over year improvement in the fourth quarter gross margin was due to our successful pass through of product inflation continued strength in residential market demand improved mix and benefits from margin accretive acquisition activity.
From a product line standpoint year over year gross margins were up in three of our four product categories as steel and ceiling prices remained strong and complementary products benefited from our recent margin accretive purchase of veins.
Meanwhile, as has been the case throughout fiscal 2022 wallboard gross margin some moderate compression on fixed dollar supplier incentives and the continued lag in realizations sales price pass through and persistent progressive increases from suppliers.
Turning to slide seven as is a common theme across most industries, we are seeing operating cost inflation, particularly in items, such as labor and fuel.
Plus we saw increased general delivery expenses and higher incentive compensation driven by our robust levels of activity and strong results. This year.
However, price inflation on the product side and a result of increases in both revenues and gross profit dollars have outpaced these pressures.
As a result, adjusted SG&A expense as a percentage of net sales for the fourth quarter improved 170 basis points year over year to 22%.
Adjusted EBITDA improved $63 million to a $154 2 million for the quarter up almost 70% as compared with a year ago.
Adjusted EBITDA margin improved 220 basis points year over year to 12% for the quarter, representing an incremental margin of 17, 7%.
For the full year, GM or us realize incremental EBITDA margins of 18, 5%.
Slide eight highlights our attractive capital structure and solid balance sheet, which provides a foundation and support for the execution of our strategic priorities at quarter end, we had cash on hand of $101 9 million.
And $337 million of available liquidity under our revolving credit facilities.
We have no near term debt maturities and our net adjusted EBITDA debt leverage at the end of the quarter improved to one eight times down from two five times a year ago.
Cash from operating activities for the fourth quarter was $199 $5 million compared with $84 8 million in the prior year period.
And free cash flow was $191 $6 million compared with $72 8 million a year ago.
These increases in cash flow were primarily due to our improved operating results and a release of inventory held in prior quarters to ensure product availability and manage price inflation amid what was then an environment of even tighter tight excuse me, even tighter unless reliable supply.
As a reminder, we expect through the cycle longer term free cash flow in the range of 40% to 50% of adjusted EBITDA.
Capital expenditures of $7 9 million for the quarter compared to $12 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2021, which was higher due to our real estate purchase made during the prior year period.
Full year capital expenditures were $41 1 million compared with $29 $9 million in fiscal 2021.
We expect for fiscal 2023 capital expenditures to be roughly comparable to those of fiscal 2022.
Finally, before I turn the call back to Jay.
Reflecting our board's and management's confidence in the strength and future prospects of our business. We announced this morning that our board has approved an expanded share repurchase program under which the company is authorized to repurchase up to $200 million of our outstanding common stock.
Historically, we use the share repurchase program, principally to offset equity based compensation grants.
Going forward given current market conditions excuse me given current valuations, we explore could expect more activity with regard to our stock repurchases as we continue our commitment to drive long term shareholder value with a disciplined capital allocation strategy that balances investing in our organic.
Growth initiatives pursuing accretive M&A transactions, and opportunistically leveraging favorable market conditions for share repurchases as they arise.
JT you her final remarks before we open the line for questions. Thank you Scott.
We are pleased with our record performance our team achieved for the fourth quarter and full year fiscal 2022 during what can only be characterized as extraordinary times with supply chain constraints lingering effects of the pandemic unprecedented inflation and external geopolitical factors all influencing the broader economy.
So looking at slide nine <unk>.
Despite growing macro uncertainties the fundamentals supporting our near term outlook remains strong we continue to see high levels of residential activity.
Currently hindered by isolated challenges within the market to secure enough labor and product to meet that demand.
Our scale and supplier relationships help us in this regard and provide a competitive advantage for our team.
Our gaps between housing starts and completions provides confidence for the remainder of calendar 2022 as builders need to complete their backlogs have already started homes.
While favorable demographics and an under belt industry provides support for the longer term.
To be clear affordability impacted by rising interest rates, coupled with inflation and geopolitical concerns does create an unknown as we look beyond this calendar year. However, we remain optimistic about our near term outlook and the future of Gms Wild.
While residential may face some pressure later in the year, we are continuing to see signs of improvement in commercial construction.
Office, R&R, which traditionally is an important demand driver for Gms remained subdued.
And presents opportunity for incremental growth.
The investments we've made over the past several years have helped position us well for not only the near term supply and demand dynamics, but more importantly for our long term success, including.
Opening 25 Greenfield locations since the start of fiscal 2020, enabling us to provide enhanced customer service and offerings and added efficiencies within our existing markets.
We also added 12 strategic acquisitions during that same time period, all while keeping our net debt relatively flat from Q4 2019 to Q4, 2022, and reducing our net debt leverage from three six times to one eight times at the end of fiscal 2022.
Our M&A and field teams have done a remarkable job of identifying value added opportunities to drive growth in our product lines diversification of our offerings and expansion of our service territories. We.
We've made crucial investments to modernize and upgrade our fleet, adding essential safety features to protect our employees and customers and also importantly, providing some risk management benefits plus our fleet upgrades help us control, our fuel consumption and improve the overall efficiency of our field and yard operations.
Finally, other technology investments like those that I mentioned at the start of this call to automate much of the customer experience as well as the behind the scenes work within our yards and support functions are making us more productive and better operators.
All in all we believe we are well positioned with a balanced mix of products and expertise to serve both commercial and residential customers, allowing us to flex our efforts. According to the demands of each market.
With that as our backdrop, our current expectations for our fiscal first quarter are shown on slide 10.
Based on the continued strength, we expect in near term residential demand. We currently expect to generate year over year organic sales growth in the low 20% range or approximately 30% total net sales growth inclusive of our already completed acquisitions.
And we expect first quarter gross margin to be generally consistent with that of the prior year using the assumption that steel prices will pull back modestly while wallboard prices should increase sequentially.
Each in the low to mid single digits.
We again expect product price inflation to exceed inflationary and accelerated activity driven increases in operating expenses.
Therefore, we expect incremental EBITDA margins to moderate to roughly 12%.
Over the long term, we are focused on leveraging our scale, our extensive product portfolio, our expertise and ability to serve both commercial and residential customers our platform expansion activities and our commitment to delivering best in class service to drive growth and bring value to all of our stakeholders.
Thank you again for joining us today, operator, we are ready to open the line for questions.
Thank you well now be beginning a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question. Please press star one from your telephone keypad and a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue.
Maybe first start to view relate to move your question from the queue.
All participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.
So let me address questions from as many participants as possible. We ask that you. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow up.
One moment, please while we poll for questions.
Thank you and our first question is from the line of Trey Grooms with Stephens. Please proceed with your questions.
Good morning. This is actually Noah murkowski on for Trey grooms Congrats on the strong results.
Thank you Noah and good morning, good morning, good morning.
So I wanted to dig in on the wallboard pricing.
Make sure I heard everything right Youll gave some sounded like positive commentary.
So wallboard price is expected to improve sequentially throughout.
Balance of the calendar year.
Does that assume maybe just help me understand.
How are you getting confidence in that does that only assume the most recent well.
Manufacturer price increase or do you need to see more from them.
And then just given all the concern on the residential side with the potential slowing how do you kind of match that with your expectation for continued improvement in wallboard pricing.
Sure.
Just last week and early this week, we see manufacturer price increases manufacturers are running.
Capacity at high levels and demand has remained strong I think one thing to focus on that we look at as completions.
And completions ticked up in May I think a $1 465, but thats still significantly below starts.
Our single family completions and starts balanced out for the first time in May So we didn't see any new single family added to the backlog, but theres still quite a backlog in single family with multifamily being very strong.
I mean, clearly at the moment, it's going to be more difficult to get price increases as builders are nervous about what's going to happen over the course over the next year.
As we all deal with the higher interest rates all that being said I think there is real inflation.
The manufacturers are dealing with so we're going to be pushing back on on our manufacturers to some degree, but we're also going to be having to take price increases and so that's why we really believe wallboard pricing will remain.
Not only stable, but will probably continue to increase through the balance of the year at least through the next quarter or two and you can already see we gave you a may number with significant acceleration coming out of our fourth quarter.
The other thing to keep in mind as we've talked about throughout the last year is that we've got a little bit of a lag in terms of our realizations price on wallboard.
As we work with <unk>.
Particular large national homebuilders around the realization of those and that catch up effect will be part of the dynamic as well.
Got it that all makes sense and then shifting gears a little bit for my follow up I was hoping you could give a little bit more color on your expectations for non res at least as we look through the balance of this calendar year. Thank.
Thank you mentioned seeing positive signs.
Is that.
And end market that we could see.
Growth come next quarter or is that still pushed a little bit out and then again with the uncertainty in the macro backdrop are there any cautionary signs that youre seeing in non res projects, maybe getting pushed to the right than you would otherwise have expected.
I think the recoveries muted because of the increase in costs in.
In the channel for sure I don't think rising interest rate is going to help that.
Dramatically for sure obviously being facetious there.
I would tell you that there is a the biggest issue in the commercial space today is labor and that's what we hear all the time the delays in projects is really based upon the ability of all of the trades to do their work.
<unk> our trades.
That we support but clearly there are many trades up in front before we get there.
That are labor constrained all that being said as we mentioned here in our notes, but also over the course of the last four quarters, we've seen sequential improvement every quarter in volume into that channel with the exception of steel in the last in the last quarter.
We did also mention that commercial R&R large office R&R remains muted that's a big driver of our steel business.
We will see if that materializes in a lot of theories around that regarding back to the office et cetera.
And what happens with that we're seeing good tenant improvement work small tenant improvement work individual tenants improving their spaces.
And then of course, you have the macro indicators like the Abi that are again positive I think 16 months in a row.
Reading North of 50, so tremendous amount of design activity out there and architectural billings activity out there.
I would expect we should start seeing some improved commercial about now I think this is about as late in my previous comments. If you go back two or three quarters. I think we were talking about calendar Q2 of 2022 is probably when we could expect to see the materially materially improving commercial market.
Really based on the Abi and some of the other forecast like the AIA consensus et cetera, which we'll get another reading I think the end of this month.
And hopefully everybody is current on that so we can get a good feel for what the consensus forecasts are but I think we're about another week or two away from that but I'm not expecting it to be a negative reading.
Got it. Thank you that was really helpful color.
I'll leave it there and good luck with the rest of the year. Thank.
Thank you Noah.
Sure.
Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Bouley with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking the questions.
I guess just back to the topic of residential.
It sounds like J T you're speaking about.
Clear.
Sort of visibility to the near term as you mentioned the backlogs are still long.
But clearly some of the starts data has started to roll a little bit and I'm sure you've heard everything from homebuilders the past couple of weeks.
Yeah, how do we think about sort of the timing of how all that might may play into your business should I don't want to put words into your mouth, but is that the kind of thing where this backlog sort of fuels the balance of calendar 'twenty two or should we see some of this.
More recent trends, perhaps manifesting for you guys earlier than that how are you guys kind of planning for our for all of that to end up rolling up to yourself. Thank you.
Again here, we are at almost the end of June .
So I would say that the balance of the calendar year should be busy.
November December could drop off but usually that's the time when builders are trying to close out.
Their homes also to help close their years.
And I feel like there is still enough backlog I mean, even last week I think we're going to pull forward. Some demand you saw the increase in the mortgage applications for purchase went up 8% last week on week over week basis. There is an increase in adjustable mortgage demand went up to 10% of the.
<unk>.
The mortgage applications are now adjustable rate mortgages, so I think you're going to see a lot of that going forward.
As people try to get in front of some of these rate increases.
And again I think if you looked at <unk> theyre going to close 68000 homes. That's what they said they would close before and Thats. What they are saying there is still going to close for their fiscal I think can be home yesterday came out with a pretty strong report quite frankly.
And that was through April or excuse me through may so that they had started to experience, where we're a little bit of demand destruction.
To be wearing rose colored glasses, and say, we're not going to see the continued reduction in starts as I think there will be some cautiousness, but I also want to point out that again that completions number is what matters for us and that completions number just got to $1 4 million. This last month that was reported so I think starts would have.
To drop precipitously from here to really create a big volume dropped.
In in our industry now it could certainly happen and we could have a pause during that period of time, probably will be we'll be looking at this time next year. The homebuilding season, we'd be talking to you about the end of April next year at this point and Thats, probably when whatever manifests itself in starts between now and then is probably when we'll be talking about seeing.
Whatever that dip is.
How deep that that might be but for the balance of this calendar year I think we feel pretty comfortable with with the residential backlog.
Got it that's very helpful color there. Thank you for that J D.
Second one I might have missed it in the opening remarks, but just on ceilings and.
Pricing there I think we've seen some.
You know a larger price increases from suppliers, there as well given everything going on in the in the raw material backdrop can you guys speak a little bit about sort of your thoughts on ceilings price.
As we go through the year some of the stickiness of that and just how you guys are going to operate around that thank you.
Yes, so I think.
There's two pieces to it to keep in mind, obviously, there is a grid element to it and then there is with tile on the Asps piece of it we see some decline on the grid piece, just following sort of the underlying dynamics of raw materials and steel.
So sequentially, you will see a little bit of a decline and thats factored into our Q1 number.
As far as the tile and the Asp's are things go.
That part of the market has been typically more mature in terms of its ability to put price increases out in the markets and have them stick and we would expect with that generally that trend will generally hold going forward as well. So we don't see as much much decline there, it's not going to be significant it's not going to be.
The higher levels of increases we've seen.
The course of the last fiscal year.
Across all of our product lines.
The traditional more moderate increases we would expect those to continue.
Got you much I appreciate it Scott Thanks, J T. Thanks, everyone.
Absolutely. Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl with RBC capital markets. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, Thanks.
Thanks for taking the question.
I just wanted to revisit the.
And your thoughts around pricing power in wallboard.
Obviously, you expect continued strength you saw.
Through may.
Thank you.
When we think about demand presents Matt.
The client, Brian can materialize quality versus powder.
First half of calendar 2023.
How are you guys thinking about industry pricing power in that environment and your ability to hold these robust pricing can you can say on that but.
I guess, it's all going to depend upon the degree of decline in.
Inactivity and homebuilding right if it's a moderate decline if you see a 10% reduction again.
Hey, Keith.
<unk> same dead horse around completions, but if you see a I mean, we were at $1 8 million starts in April . So if you see $1 4 million starts that's a fairly significant drop $1 3 million starts from the peak.
Back to 2019 early 2019 late 2018 levels.
Yeah.
Multifamily is going to continue to be pretty robust. However.
Because there is still huge huge rising rents out there and there still is that underlying demand for for housing, but let's say home starts got to $1 to $1 $3 million and you're completing 1.2 of $1 3 million Youre completing $1 4 million now so you're at 10% reduction in total demand.
I don't see that as being anywhere near the kind of driver that we would've seen lets say mid decade last year, where there was 30% 40% of excess capacity from a manufacturer's perspective.
Might be sitting on 10% right now theres very little capacity I mentioned it in my comments that we're actually seeing service problems in wallboard in certain places based purely upon availability of the product to ship what we're shipping today. So there are some issues in and around capacity in the in the wallboard industry when it comes to Geos.
<unk>, particularly there are there were over demand the demand is higher than capacity in certain places in the country. So we're having to move things a little bit further overall theres enough capacity, but I think we're getting close to it today.
So again, if it's if housing completions drop.
30%, well, then we could be having a different discussion, but if they dropped 10%.
There'll be some declines in the price there could could flatten out a little bit it could we're pretty high levels right now I guess the only other thing I would say is that there is again that underlying inflation at the manufacturing level, where I think gas prices and you look at some things that theyre dealing with from starch and transportation of natural gypsum versus synthetic gypsum et cetera.
There is still some forces that would probably keep prices.
Up versus 2017 2018.
Levels.
Remind you of the mechanics of the P&L all of the inbound freight.
As in cost of sales for us so to <unk> point around gas, it's modeling natural gas from a manufacturing standpoint, but it's steel and all the logistics costs that go into the equation as well that ultimately supports what the manufacturers are doing with regard to their pricing whether additional increases including the current one will be risk.
<unk> by the market and accepted by the market is one thing, but in terms of being able to support certainly at the current levels.
Are those underlying cost dynamics are part of the equation as well.
Understood. That's helpful. And then just for my second question turning to steel.
You guys your outlook.
For some modest decline steel biopsy the year over year increases have remained robust. So any way you could help us think about the magnitude of year over year.
Price mix increases we should expect.
And <unk> and then regarding that the volume declines you saw this quarter you attribute some of that to the project delays should we think of that as a continuing drag on volumes.
Yes to the counter half of second half of this year or is that kind of more temporary.
I'll speak to the price aspect of it and J T can cover the volume piece there is still.
Even at.
With a decline in sequential pricing there is such a it's still such a high level of increase versus the prior year.
The fourth quarter.
U S organic just as a proxy for things we're still talking in the <unk> in terms of the overall price increase there we do expect some sequential declines over the course of the.
The coming quarters.
Indicated we've got some.
Expectation for that in this first quarter, both in terms of underlying steel as well as grid.
In the sort of LSD range.
We're thinking about.
That's probably something that we'll see in coming quarters as well could it be more significant than that yes, but based on the.
The discussions we've been having with those in the field based on just the underlying supply chain dynamics, leading into and what we see from our suppliers directly we think thats, a pretty reasonable expectation for now.
But it could could given how high it's gone up it could ultimately be a little bit more significant than that.
Reflecting as I say in the LSD sort of range over the next couple of quarters.
From a volume perspective, I do expect steel.
To continue to be a little bit challenged.
At least into the next quarter.
If we see a recovery in that larger R&R office R&R I think then we might see that flip. The other issue is we're just going to rollover big numbers.
Because of our strategy last year, which we talked about which was we used the balance sheet, we used our ability to get steel.
We loaded up on.
On inventory when the supply chain had extended to 10 15 20 weeks on.
On availability will add back down to a week today. So as we're unwinding that inventory what you saw in the quarter, which we said we would do generate really strong free cash flow last quarter.
I do think that that will probably see steel declining 5% in volume.
Maybe quarter to quarter, even into the second quarter.
And then we'll have to kind of take a view of what it looks like after that.
Got it appreciate the color.
Absolutely thanks for the question.
Our next question comes from the line of David Manthey with Baird. Please proceed with your questions.
Yes. Thank you good morning, everyone.
First off setting volume aside for a second it seems we could see an environment, where product prices fall, which of course would drive fewer GP dollars, but even in that environment I would think that hourly and salary components of your labor costs will remain structurally higher going forward.
Could you discuss relative to your total SG&A costs back approximately how much of that is variable compensation or incentive compensation today versus what that might have been say two three years ago.
And I don't have it Dave and specific percentage terms for you, but what I can tell you is and recovered a little bit of this in the commentary.
Incentives in general.
A significant part of our cost structure in this last year.
Both on the sales side.
In general.
Centers for all of the increased activity in.
Candidly higher levels of profitability, we had we had that that was definitely a factor.
What I can tell you is that in terms of our leverage dynamics over the course of this last quarter.
Bonus and incentives were by far the biggest driver we did have some increases in general salary wages contract labor, particularly in CDL operators as an example.
<unk> costs were a big part of that both activity based as well as inflationary based and then we saw some just general increases as we continue to move past a lot of the restrictive types of things we are doing pre COVID-19.
More training, we have a little bit more travel those types of things and.
And the other dynamic I would factor into it as well as you heard in our discussions a lot of commentary about all of the things we're doing around Greenfields a lot of greenfield activity.
Take a little bit of time to get seeded for those.
New locations to really gain some traction.
As part of the dynamic as well so hopefully that gives you a little bit of color on what we're seeing on the SG&A side.
Yeah, Okay. Thank you and second.
It seems like we've been talking about nonresidential stability and a potential upturn to this point and I know the comps got tougher here, but the year to year trends youre seeing in steel and ceiling volumes concern you at all relative to future nonresident activity.
It's interesting because ceiling volumes have actually been fought I mean, we had volume growth in ceilings and steel is the one that is at the moment soft and it's really a mix of projects is what youre seeing so.
Right now we're doing a tremendous amount of multifamily there's actually stick built and so what youre, saying is youre not seeing the the <unk>.
<unk> the huge towers going up in.
In multifamily what Youre seeing is youre seeing that low rise multifamily everywhere.
And so we're supplying that but youre not supplying any steel into.
Into those into those projects and really until we see a significant either.
That dynamic I think steel could be relatively flat from a commercial perspective next two quarters I expect to be like I mentioned, I expect probably volumes to be down a little bit over the next couple of quarters, and then kind of flattish after that unless we see that big.
Office R&R <unk> large scale.
Condo multifamily.
Improve the balance of the commercial space and you can look at it in the put in place numbers other than hospitality.
And office R&R those are the two that have really been hit and stay down.
Anything else is kind of coming back in with backlogs are pretty good.
In commercial at the moment and we are seeing in our wallboard trends. So it's a little bit of a disconnect from historical where you would ship steel and then you chip wallboard.
Go up on that steel a little bit of a disconnect based on the project mix that's out there today.
We said in our opening comments as well that commercial in prior quarters in the fiscal year were actually double digit year over year declines in the fourth quarter based on the sequential improvements that narrowed to a single digit declines still down but on a momentum basis improving from what it was earlier in the year.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much guys.
Our next.
Is from the line of Steven Ramsey with Thompson Research. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, Good morning, maybe just start with the complementary sector organic.
Growth, mostly driven by price, you said where volumes comparable to the other core products and then thinking about the decline in lumber prices and how you shared the magnitude of the lumber as a percentage of total sales how are how is that impacting the Q1 guide.
The expected growth in that segment aside from lumber.
Admittedly our data around complementary is a little bit more difficult to give you.
Quite the level of visibility to price versus volume on complementary but basically.
Our expectation is it's roughly 70% the trends we've been seeing is roughly 70% price from 30% volume growth. So.
When you say comparable to the other products the other products.
<unk> within them, but generally that's an indicator of sort of what we've been seeing there.
I will take the longer well.
Lumber so I think lumber was $29 million total revenue for the year. So on four five plus billion, we did $29 million in total revenue and lumber so it's almost like an inflation.
The inflation adjusted piece of it well, it's really a Canadian issue for lumber. So I would expect our Canadian which we actually have in our numbers here, our Canadian numbers are going to be a little bit difficult for the first quarter.
Which is also a result of strike that happened in Toronto, which I'm sure you guys are aware of a five week strike in <unk>.
Toronto, Thats going to put us back a quarter or two.
Again.
Lumber up and down in Canada is more meaningful but for us in total.
I don't expect it to be material and that's that $29 million to $30 million number <unk> talked about really it was very front end loaded in terms of the fiscal year and that progressively came down as we've all seen the lumber pricing come down so.
Flattish to a decline from fourth quarter into first quarter is what we've got factored into our actuals as well as our outlook.
And I should point out that of those complimentary products really the key focus most complementary products on a organic basis is really installation and then if you could talk about the ability to do both organic and M&A, it's in tools and fasteners and eastern stucco and then lumber as an organic effort and it is.
Really limited pretty much to Canada, we do not have a major lumber effort underway in the United States.
Right Okay helpful.
And then thinking about the $200 million buyback authorization, maybe just a little more detail on your thought process in the likelihood or eagerness to deploy this and how you think about balancing holding cash for acquisitions versus repurchasing stock.
So you look at our numbers, we actually ramped up a little bit of our share repurchase activity over the course of this last quarter as well.
For a $200 million authorization.
I say this with the understanding that.
As we talked about it in our opening comments are.
Our capital deployment is going to be focused on a number of different areas, which is continuing our organic growth or M&A activity or acquisitions et cetera.
With this level of valuation and given sort of the market dynamics, we needed to have a little more flexibility around that we thought that was prudent to do the last authorization. We had was coming to its end.
And so this is a replenishment of that.
From a.
Capacity standpoint, and capacity standpoint, it wouldn't be out of around to see us do in the ballpark of about $25 million a quarter.
That authorization would be over the course of a couple of years, but again, we will balance that against the needs. We have for acquisitions and the needs. We have to continue to drive our strategic initiatives for the business as well.
Helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. Our final question comes from the line of Chip Stevenson with loop capital. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, Thanks for taking my questions today, and congrats on the strong quarter.
Thank you.
So should we expect to continue to see low single digit organic wallboard volume growth run rate in the next couple of quarters, given you see residential backlog through the end of the calendar year, and then improving commercial environment as well is that the right way to think about it.
I think so yes.
Okay, great Great and then.
Our ceilings manufacturer mentioned they saw some channel destocking during the start of the year and I was wondering if you could comment on that and talk about if there's been any changes sequentially in sell in versus sell through or ceilings demand.
I think that is.
Pretty much stabilized at this point I think the all of the channel the distribution channel probably had a little bit higher inventory in most categories.
Into this calendar year based upon the concerns and supply chain disruptions and pre buy et cetera. So grid as an example grid moves in price with steel. So there was a lot of effort to try to understand what was going to be needed and get that into the house and now as those things are stabilized right. There was some destocking in that area I think Nat.
Really there is some destocking and titles that went on in the first quarter, but I think that we're pretty much normal inventory levels.
Normalized in ceilings, I would say right now.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you.
Reached end of our question and answer session and this also concludes today's conference.
Connect your lines at this time, we thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day.