Core & Main, Inc. (NYSE:CNM) Q3 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Mike Dahl: That’s very helpful, thank you for that color. And then as my follow-up, Mark, in response to Kathryn’s question, I think you mentioned that maybe the initial expectation is that maintenance €“ that municipal remains fairly steady. When we think about potentially kind of budgets resetting and then infrastructure funds flowing in at some point, are there offsets to why we wouldn’t see some improvement in municipal or is that just kind of a conservative approach until you actually see the funds hitting or some timing issue? I know you explained the lag a little bit, but maybe just a little more color on why we wouldn’t see better traction on municipal next year?

Mark Witkowski: Yes. Thanks, Mike. Yes, just to clarify, I would say what the expectation for muni is that we see steady growth and definitely has the potential for some incremental infrastructure spending at some point during 2023. So that would definitely be upside on the €“ any kind of municipal steady growth that we’ve experienced historically. So that’s how we’re thinking about it as we move forward.

Mike Dahl: Got it. Okay, thank you.

Mark Witkowski: Yes. Thanks.

Operator: Thank you, Mike. We have our next question, comes from Keith Hughes from Truist Securities. Keith, your line is now open.

Keith Hughes: Thank you. Question. You made some comments on PVC and some of the prices are coming down. Is PVC going to be down year-over-year in the fourth quarter or are you still dealing with some latent inflation on just a year-over-year basis?

Steve LeClair: Hey, Keith, we said that pricing really normalized through the third quarter and remained at elevated levels. So we haven’t seen a price decrease in PVC. We’re watching it closely to see particularly how seasonality affects it and how we’re dealing with the improved availability and lead times, but we have not seen a price deflation in PVC through the end of third quarter.

Keith Hughes: Okay. And I guess, switching over to the municipal business. You talked about some of the infrastructure spending coming in. Is there any sort of clarity at what time of €˜23 that would really start to hit municipality projects?

Steve LeClair: Yes. It’s difficult to tell. Most of the budgets have been set for a lot of the projects that have been scoped. So we’re just now seeing some of the funds trickle in. And in fact, we’ve seen a couple of projects that have popped that have been treatment plant expansion projects that are going to be utilizing those funds and some really early bidding activity. But that that’s a handful that we’ve seen so far. So there is still €“ we’re still watching that closely. We’re looking at the bid activity that’s coming in. We’re looking at how those types of funds get allocated into the budgets and the project scoping. we will start getting a real clear picture, I think, as we get into spring and the bidding activity to see how that starts flowing. But up to this point, like I said, we see a handful of projects that have been utilizing those funds.

Keith Hughes: Okay, thank you.

Steve LeClair: Yes.

Operator: Thank you, Keith. We have our next question, comes from Joe Ritchie from Goldman Sachs. Joe, your line is open.

Vivek Srivastava: Thanks. This is Vivek Srivastava on for Joe Ritchie. Maybe I wanted to understand the market share dynamics at play here. If you can provide some color how much market share you’ve gained year-to-date and maybe where you stand on the market share front? And then just a follow-up on the same question is just during the last residential downturn, did the market see some kind of trade down to either lower priced or more private label products as bidding activity got more aggressive? And what happened to your market share during that time?