Builders FirstSource, Inc. (NYSE:BLDR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Peter Jackson: Yes. No, good question. So, we continue to see — again, it goes to the countervailing trends. We continue to see some erosion in the core market gross margin, less than we expected, but it has continued, and I think we’ll continue to see that through the back half of this year. And then we know pretty — with pretty reasonable accuracy how Multi-Family will play out just because of the timing of the contracts that were related to the current purchase price of commodities and kind of where we’re at. So, we’ve got a pretty decent look. Certainly, there’s been good performance in gross margins throughout the year, and I don’t think July is significantly different, but the trends remain the same with the overlay of Multi-Family’s normalization being pretty significant over the next year.

Trey Grooms: Great. Thank you. If I could sneak one more in, a little bit more higher level. $100 billion or so invested in automation over the last few years, which you said is bearing fruit, which is pretty clear. Where are you in that process, or maybe how should we think about the amount of plants that you have that you would classify as automated? And where would you like that to be kind of over time?

Dave Rush: Yes. I would tell you, we feel really good about the level of automation we have where every plant has some level of automation. Obviously, there’s more opportunity, and we have a pretty long runway there to continue to improve, and we’re excited about that prioritizing those projects. And as you know, as we do acquisitions, typically, there’s a level of automation that we go back in and upgrade those acquisitions with and we’ll have that plan ongoing. We’re a good customer for our automation vendor. And as much as we’re always excited about talking about digital, we’re also on our front foot when it comes to technology in this manufacturing space as well. So yes, we’re excited about where this can continue to go.

Operator: The next question comes from Ketan Mamtora with BMO Capital Markets.

Ketan Mamtora: Thank you. And congrats on a strong quarter. A couple of things. I’m just curious, one, how do you — what is the M&A pipeline looking at this point? And given sort of housing has held in better than what people expected at the start of the year, has there been any sort of change in your approach to M&A or seller expectations?

Dave Rush: Thanks for the question. Yes, the M&A pipeline actually has improved. I think just the fact that things were changing at the beginning of the year and people weren’t sure exactly how the year was going to play out, kept people on the sideline for the first half. We’re seeing more opportunities now in the second half and a couple that we feel like are really good to look at. And we’re excited about how we’ll continue to invest in M&A in the future.

Ketan Mamtora: Got it. And is it possible at all — Peter, you talked about sort of July started off quite well. Is there any way to sort of quantify what the July trend has been like even relative to sort of Q2 or maybe year-over-year?

Peter Jackson: Yes. It’s been a — I don’t know how to describe it other than refreshing year. For all of the concerns that we came into the year with due to interest rates, due to affordability, it has been a surprisingly and refreshingly normal year. We see good progression throughout the year, the normal seasonality that we would expect to see with busier months in the summer. We’ve seen good utilization of our capacity. Nothing’s been overwhelmed. We’ve gotten quite busy in certain areas, but nothing has been catastrophic like during the big run around COVID. Same on behalf of our vendors, they’ve performed very well. Few spots here and there where it’s gotten a little tight, but by and large, the market has adjusted to the new volumes and really sold through quite well.

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