Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc. (NYSE:WMS) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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And I think we’ve said this before, that part of our value proposition really rings when people are concerned about kind of number of trucks to the site, how much labor do I need to install this stuff, what’s my time to get this stuff up and going. I mean that was a big part of our success in the warehouses is they like to get that stuff up and going because they have a time, a very definitive in those models time to revenue. And these big manufacturing projects are the same.

Michael Higgins: Yes. I would say, Jeff also ease of installation, speed of installation and then Scott hit on this too. But that service and delivery capability, right, the national footprint with our manufacturing plants and then our long relationships with all the big waterworks distributors and their ability to kind of fill in and service locally to as well is big, right? These are big projects they need to keep moving. So our ability to get product to a job site on time is really important.

Jeff Hammond: Okay. Great. And then just back on res. I think you said you haven’t seen the land development. But just what — if you look at past cycles, what’s kind of the time line before we bounce off the bottom with starts and you start to see that next layer of land development?

Michael Higgins: Yes. I think we had the question earlier, and we feel it’s kind of eight months plus, right? It’s — when you see and some of the factors in that are these guys, how much land do they have kind of in the bank available to develop that it might happen quicker if they’re kind of — they’re more of a land-light asset model now. So do they need to ramp land purchases up for the development because they don’t have a lot — a huge land bank. I think that’s — I would say, in this cycle, that kind of feels like the timing, the previous cycle where we had the financial crisis, I think housing starts started to bounce back up in like our fiscal ’10, fiscal ’11, but I would say we didn’t see the bump until fiscal ’13, fiscal ’14.

But I think the difference now versus then is there was a lot of land already kind of developed or improved with the infrastructure and so the guys had to exhaust that inventory building homes on top of that land before they really got back into buying and developing for new subdivisions. There was a lot of land and homes kind of already there ready to be absorbed, which is clearly not the case now. There’s not a lot of available homes for sale. So it might be a little quicker this time around.

Operator: There are no further questions. At this time, I will turn this call back over to Scott Barbour for closing remarks.

Scott Barbour: Well, thank you very much for the really good questions and discussion. And as usual, you guys have pretty sharp questions and insights into our business, and we appreciate that. To really summarize, we like how the first quarter ended up and exceed our expectations. Like Scott C. said, we’re kind of in that ZIP code of the upper range of our guidance. We’re off to a decent start this quarter, and we’ll continue to execute. That’s what we do. And I think it would be interesting discussion in 90 days, as we get a little bit further down the road in our fiscal year, and we’ll see how it develops. So with that, we appreciate your time, and I’m sure we’ll be on the phone with many of you later in the day and have a nice weekend. Bye-bye.

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

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