Boise Cascade Company (NYSE:BCC) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And in our case, I should remind you, I guess, some of our log costs are linked to finished product pricing. And so given where that has gone, particularly I would, that certainly has assisted us and we’ll continue to do so between now and the end of the year, I suspect.

Kurt Yinger: Got it. Okay. Thanks for the color Mike. And good luck here in Q4 guys.

Mike Brown: Thank you.

Kelly Hibbs: Thanks Kurt.

Operator: Thank you. And one moment for our next question. Next question will come from Ketan Mamtora of BMO. Your line is open.

Ketan Mamtora: Thank you. And good morning. First question, can you give us some sense of how your order books are on the EWP side outside of the seasonal component, which we understand sort of slows in Q4. But have you kind of noticed any change in terms of sort of the activity levels and just your order books?

Mike Brown: Yes, Ketan, I have a few words about that. Thanks for the question. So yes, if I just forget about the seasonality, which is very important, I’m sure everybody on the call realizes that as we get to the end of the calendar year, we normally see a decline in order files as that relates to generally speaking, construction, particularly single-family construction. Our order files have really been quite strong. And I think Nate referred to this earlier in his comments around how we put ourselves in a position to meet demand, both in terms of inventory on the ground and also manufacturing cluster in terms of having people and veneer available. So, while our order files are not as strong as they, are not as strong today as they were perhaps like three months ago, they are still quite strong.

And the way we manage that is we like to be able to ship relatively speaking, quite quickly to our customer base when the orders do come in. So, I think I’d summarize it saying that, yes, the orders are not as strong as they were three months ago, but they are still all things considered, quite good relative to some other times that have been much more challenging than they are today.

Ketan Mamtora: Understood, that’s helpful. And then switching to the BMD side and the BROSCO acquisition, you guys have made a lot of progress on growing sort of the windows, the door, to that side of the – the millwork side of the business, I am sorry. Can you talk to kind of what trends, what you’ve learned as you’ve expanded on that side of the business? And as you look at sort of further opportunity, is this sort of an area where we should expect growth over the next several years?

Jeff Strom: Keith, this is Jeff. I would tell you what do we learn. We’ve learned a lot as we’ve gone in with each one, we’ve done each one, we’ve opened, we take some learnings in the past and gotten a lot better and improve what we’re doing. It’s a good business for us. It fits right with our customers. It’s the same customers that we’re currently serving now. And so we’re continuing to move forward with it. With the BROSCO acquisition, I can just tell you in a short period of time, there’s a lot of learnings from them. They’ve been in the millwork business for a long time. We know we can take some of the processes that they have in place and roll them across our system. And then the future of it, what do we want to do? I can tell you that we’re still actively looking. It’s a good business, we enjoy it, and we know there’s more to go.

Ketan Mamtora: Got it. And then when I just look at the LTM performance, would you consider that as more kind of normalized? Or would you say that was still helped by elevated activity, let’s say, the last three or four quarters? How would you characterize that?