Acuity Brands, Inc. (NYSE:AYI) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Neil Ashe: Yes. Thanks, Joe. The — as we’ve said pretty consistently, obviously, we get to these projects through multiple different channels which you see in our disaggregated revenue around C&I and our direct which is — which would be the two most. In terms of end markets, they obviously vary in different ways. So the infrastructure government dollar projects are not going to be impacted by this. The educational market impacts are not going to be impacted by this. But some of the others obviously are. We don’t have a perfect quantification of that for you. And we’re not sure that we have a perfect crystal ball on how this is going to play out. So the process — the C&I project business would be the big bucket that would be most impacted by this. And of that business, it’s probably half of that business that’s — that would be most impacted by this; those are just round numbers.

Joe O’Dea: Got it. Okay. And then can you expand a little bit on cost coming down and the degree to which — that you’re seeing that in component costs. How much of that is, as supply chain eases, there’s just smoother operations and that enables some costs coming down? How much of that is you sort of be more proactive at the negotiating table? And then given the recent move up in steel, how you’re thinking about the durability of some of those costs coming down?

Neil Ashe: Yes. So we have been very intentional about our managing of input costs going forward. So first of all, on the component side, those — the electronic components, those prices are not changing much. In fact, their prices and terms are largely staying the same. Beyond that, we’ve been intentional about what we’re sourcing, who we’re sourcing it from on all of the other inputs. We feel really good now about our ability to manage those going forward. You highlighted steel; we’ve improved our steel sourcing fairly significantly. Another one we’ve called out is transport costs which have come down. And we’re now working towards designing our products so that our products are designed so that it’s easier to source at the appropriate levels. So the combination of all of those things, we think, positions us with some durability going forward on the input cost side.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chris Snyder with UBS.

Chris Snyder: So prior communication suggested that gross margin would step up in the back half relative to the first half. Is that still the case, just given the higher first half starting point and then some of the cycle concerns called out in the back half?

Neil Ashe: Basically, it started to perform the way we expected to perform earlier than we expected it to perform that way. So we’re not surprised by these gross margin levels.

Chris Snyder: Okay, appreciate that. And then, Neil, I think earlier, you kind of called out taking a more strategic approach to pricing. Can you just maybe provide a little bit more color on that? And does this mean essentially a trade-off of higher gross margin maybe at the expense of volumes? Is that the right takeaway?

Neil Ashe: Yes. Thanks, Chris. I mean, look, this is a very, very important topic. So we want to be strategic about our pricing, so we can manage the relationship between volume and margin. We believe that as the largest player in the industry, we’re demonstrating pricing — a very important strategic pricing. We compete every day on everyday products with our Contractor Select portfolio. We think that’s working; obviously, it’s growing. It’s growing in the face of a couple of things. One is Asian imports. Census data suggests that Asian imports are down over 30%. Obviously, we’re growing. And our portfolio is a portion of those numbers. So it’s obviously differentiating. So that relationship is working. We’re delivering higher value at the same — kind of at competitive price for both the customers and margin for us.