Dycom Industries, Inc. (NYSE:DY) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Noelle Dilts: Sure. Okay. And then on Lumen now is one of my other questions, they’ve been pretty vocal about pausing the quantum fiber build, they actually use the word stop spending kind of in their fourth quarter, it doesn’t, and then you come out with 65% growth with Lumen. It doesn’t seem like it’s really hitting your numbers. How do I sort of reconcile their comments that they’re basically at least paused for a period of time. But it really doesn’t seem to be touching what you’re seeing in your numbers at all?

Steven Nielsen: Well, I think it’s important to remember that we provide other services for Lumen. So we’re actively employed in supporting their network across a large part of the country. I think the other thing that as we looked at their comments, I think it was pretty clear that they had reassessed how they had been planning their fiber build. And then as that completed, they have targets for this year that we’re pleased to help accomplish. And so I think more, I guess, the way I would put it is, they may have stopped in the approach that they were taking, but to the extent we were working on projects that fit the new approach, then we really wanted to continue.

Noelle Dilts: Right. Okay, great. And then last, I was hoping you could comment just on AT&T, they’ve reiterated their 30 plus million home targets for 2025, but have talked about sort of a slower pace of core passing. Maybe some math differences in how they’re defining those homes. But then obviously, they’ve talked about this, this JV build with BlackRock, can you maybe talk about how you’re thinking about the opportunity, how the opportunity compares, when you look at the core opportunity versus the JV? Thanks.

Steven Nielsen: Yes, I think again, Noelle, we do lots of things for AT&T as we talked about last quarter, we started a pretty sizable locating contract for them at the first of the year. So we’ve added a couple 100 employees for them. In terms of the fiber passings, I mean, we may see some moderation in our business, we don’t work for them everywhere. They’re big customer. But we’re still encouraged with the commitment that more generally that customers have made to the targets that we’ve set forth and generally frame those, as those are the targets they’d like to hit, or more, if that makes sense in their business.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Christian Schwab with Craig-Hallum.

Christian Schwab: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a follow up on the previous question on Lumen. And their new approach kind of targeting more NFL cities, if I understand what they’re conveying correctly. I just want to make sure that what I heard there, Steve, is that new approach and that new shift, do you feel extremely well positioned to benefit from, is that what I heard?

Steven Nielsen: Yes, we widely support Lumen in their efforts, not only on this program, but in other areas. And as always, as we always say, Christian, we’ve got to earn that business every day. But we feel like we’re in a good position to provide a valuable service to the customer, again one day at a time.

Christian Schwab: Yes, understood. And then as far as the follow up in the line of questioning the first line of questioning on the top line growth, all of our checks versus your competitors, public and private are extremely excited about their growth opportunities and wireline for the broad cross current of things that you highlighted. And they’re looking for strong double digit growth rates. Is that something we should be assuming? You’ll see as well.