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

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Peter Jackson: Well, I think normally, we would perform a bit lower in the fourth quarter just as a seasonal representation. Qs 2 and 3 are always better than Qs 1 and 4. This year, and I think it’s based on what I said before, we think it’s likely to be more normal. So, we would expect Q4 to be a bit weaker. Certainly, as always, that’s the weaker part of my forecasting confidence it’s one quarter out, we feel pretty good; two quarters out, gets a little more murky. So maybe the right way to think about it.

Joe Ahlersmeyer: Understood. And then on the inventory balance, that’s come down as commodity costs have come down and rolled through the P&L. But is there additional productivity you’re looking to gain on the inventory balances, or given what we’ve seen in the market, could we actually see it go the other way where you’re preparing, I guess, for a stronger spring in 2024, making sure that you have inventory on hand to service the market?

Peter Jackson: Yes, probably more the latter. So I’ll start by saying your observation is absolutely correct. We’ve had great performance. Operating teams have done a fantastic job of sort of continuing to clean up post the craziness of the supply chain over the last couple of years, clearing out excess that we feel we had on hand tightening up, whether it be windows or millwork or whatever, the teams have done a great job of really managing on — in a very streamlined just-in-time way, the inventory that we’ve got rolling in and out of our facilities. But you’re right. When we grow, we absolutely have more working capital inventory included. So, coming into the future where we do see, at least based on what we’re seeing right now, growth on the horizon, we would expect working capital to stop being a tailwind and start being the usage into that group.

Operator: The next question comes from Collin Verron with Jefferies.

Collin Verron: You’ve highlighted the acceleration in orders from the public builders and the Census Bureau data really bouncing off the bottom here. I was just hoping you guys could talk about any differences you’re seeing between your customers with the large production builders and the smaller builders. And then a comment on this — at this point, do you see the bottom in Single-Family being behind BLDR at this point, particularly from a Single-Family sales perspective?

Dave Rush: Well, we were certainly really encouraged by both the results that our public builders were reporting and even more about the projections for the rest of the year. So, we feel really confident that — again, I’m not calling this robust, but it’s certainly better than everyone expected over the second half of the year and stable to up over the back half of the year. And that gave us the confidence that we have for being able to project what we feel like we can do in that environment.

Collin Verron: Great. That’s helpful. And then you guys provided some good color on the digital adoption, providing some takeoff figures. Can you just quantify those maybe in terms of revenues and talk about where you guys are in your journey in reaching that $1 billion sales opportunity?

Peter Jackson: Yes. We’re excited about digital. It’s continuing to move along. The technology is coming together. The pilots are going well and we’ve given sort of a few hints about some metrics and what that looks like internally but it’s all very, very early days, to be honest. We’ve got some revenue, but it’s pretty modest. It’s not the focus. The focus is not really growing that right now. It’s tuning. It’s completing the technology, tuning what we have built, making sure the technology is sort of stable and capable of running at the scale that we intend to put through it. That’s this year’s goal. We’re certainly expecting pretty significant increases in ‘24 and beyond. And we’ll have some more information on the timing of that and the layout of that as we get into our Investor Day in December.

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