American Woodmark Corporation (NASDAQ:AMWD) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Scott Culbreth: There’ll definitely be some startup expenses that will have inside fiscal year ’24 as we get the operations ready. Again, we’re just finalizing again the — starting to actually work. I shouldn’t use finalize for Paul, but we’re starting to work on our budget process right now. And as we do start to finalize that, we’ll have a better line of sight. As to those start-up costs, don’t expect any of those really to impact the current fiscal year. But certainly, we’ll have some expense and exposure in the next fiscal year.

Tim Wojs: Okay. Good. Well, good luck on the rest of the year, guys. Thanks for the color.

Scott Culbreth: All right. Thanks.

Paul Joachimczyk: Thanks, Tim.

Operator: Your next question is from Collin Verron from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Collin Verron: Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. In the prepared remarks, I believe you mentioned some destocking headwinds in the retail channel in the quarter. Can you help quantify the destocking that you’re seeing in the retail channel? And at this point, do you think your retail customers’ inventory levels are in a good spot? Or do you think you could see some additional sales headwinds for American Woodmark in the retail channel going forward from this dynamic?

Scott Culbreth: Yes. In the prepared remarks, that was pretty specific to the stock bath category, and really, again, two points inside the current quarter. We had a promo loss that we had realized the year prior. So that gave us a headwind as we looked at the overall quarter. And then, we saw efforts to reduce inventory levels by the key retailers. We have not yet seen substantial movement back in building back those particular inventory levels, but the feedback we’re getting is that is likely in the next 30 to 45 days. So, we believe, and data shows us that we’re below optimal levels in that category at the retailers, and we would look to continue to drive inventory back in the stores to drive POS.

Collin Verron: Great. That’s helpful color. And then, you guys saw some really strong incremental growth in EBITDA margin in the quarter. Can you help walk us through sort of what the price costs look like and then how much of the margin improvement was from those increased efficiencies that you guys called out?

Scott Culbreth: I’ll just go back to the prepared remarks. Price, obviously, is a key contributor and has been the last couple of quarters as we took the actions to offset the inflation, but also operating efficiencies have been really important. And we spent the better part of two years dealing with labor challenges, inflation challenges, volume challenges, and our teams have done a much more effective job of stabilizing the operating footprint. And when we do that, we’re able to drive efficiency throughout the entire process. So that’s been a key contributor for us in the quarter as well.

Collin Verron: Okay. Thank you. Good luck on the next quarter.

Scott Culbreth: Thanks, Collin.

Operator: The next question is from Julio Romero from Sidoti. Please go ahead.

Unidentified Analyst: Good morning. This is on for Julio Romero. Thank you for your time.

Scott Culbreth: Good morning.

Unidentified Analyst: Good morning. My first question is, given the current macro environment, have you been approached on price from builders?

Scott Culbreth: Yes. We’ve been asked about pricing, but we’ve taken no action.

Unidentified Analyst: Thank you. And what was the exit rate in January by channel?

Scott Culbreth: I’m sorry, could you restate the question?

Unidentified Analyst: What was the exit rate in January by channel?

Scott Culbreth: I believe you’re asking me the exit rate. I’m not quite sure I understand the question.