Canadian National Railway Company (NYSE:CNI) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 6 of 10

Ghislain Houle: It’s the — we are assuming that we will do the entire program. So we’re assuming — I mean, we’re finishing at the end of January, the $5 billion share buyback program, and we’re assuming that we will do the entire program, the $4 billion, we’re assuming we’ll do that up until the end of January of 2024.

Operator: The next question is from Fadi Chamoun from BMO.

Fadi Chamoun: Yes. And, Ed, nice to have you back on this call. I hate to make you endure one more question on guidance. But I hear you talking about how operationally things should continue to improve this year and pricing ahead of inflation and you’ve got the share count going down in the 3%, 4% on average this year potentially. Just how bad do you think the volume could be this year? Just seems to be kind of the variable that may be keeping you on the edge a little bit with the guidance. Are there kind of specific end market you’re worried about? Are there other cost items that outside of the labor that maybe just last are factored in this guidance that you may be missing?

Tracy Robinson: Thanks, Fadi. Let me take a start at that one. We think it’s prudent given the uncertainty of the volume environment, the economic environment to be a little bit cautious here. As we said, North American the production — industrial production slightly negative. We believe on volumes, we’re going to do more than that. We’ve got the next schedule. We’ve got all the building blocks that we’ll continue to work on the next step up on the scheduled railroading, a little bit more velocity. Doug, on the 1/3 that’s opening up is going to go after pricing ahead of inflation. As Ghislain said, we’ve got some headwinds on the labor side that we’re working through. We hope to be able to mitigate. But we think it’s prudent given where we are in the year, to be a little bit cautious here.

So that’s where we’re sitting at this point. We recognize that as the year unfolds, this could be more optimistic or even, I guess, there’s a scenario where it’s more pessimistic. This is where we’re sitting right now.

Operator: The next question is from Scott Group from Wolfe Research.

Scott Group: So obviously, we’re all trying to figure out like how much of this is macro uncertainty, conservatism versus reality. So maybe Ghislain, like you talked about the $100 million headwind from the paid sick and work rules. Anything else just you want us to be considering. Is pension a headwind? I know fuel was a big tailwind last year. Does that turn into a headwind this year? Anything else that you just want us to be thinking about? And then I didn’t hear a CapEx number. I don’t know if I missed it, but if not, can you just share CapEx for the year?

Ghislain Houle: Yes. So yes, the big ticket items, obviously, is what I mentioned in terms of the labor headwind. In terms of pension, we don’t see a big headwind on pension. I think we see even a little bit of a tailwind next year. And I think on CapEx, I think that we did not talk a lot about CapEx. I think you can assume that we would continue to invest in the range, high level of the last few years. And those are the big ticket items. I think that when you look at fuel, it could be a bit of a headwind in terms of fuel surcharge. When you look at our average OHD last year, is — it was around $480. And I think that the spot rate on OHD so far is about $450. So if you assume that the $450 million remains, then that could be a bit of a in terms of fuel surcharge for 2023. But I would say that these are essentially the big ticket items.

Page 6 of 10