Eagle Materials Inc. (NYSE:EXP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Craig Kesler: Yes. So in terms of the lower OCC prices, they really didn’t have much of an impact on the Wallboard business. As I said, it manifests itself first within the paper business as they’re purchasing on a daily basis. The shift to the pricing to the ultimate Wallboard business happens over a one to two quarter lag. So that margin improvement that we saw this quarter didn’t really have much to do with OCC. That is still yet to come for the Wallboard business.

Tyler Brown: Okay. That’s super helpful. And I don’t want to be super near-term focused, and I think there’s some questions out there that I want to talk about Wallboard volume. But just any color on how January is tracking, I mean are volumes still positive, it just seems like if you use normal seasonality, Wallboard volumes could be down year-over-year in Q4, just any color there?

Craig Kesler: Yes. Look, I think as we said, I think Michael’s comments are orders and shipments have remained steady during the quarter and even here into a little bit of early January. So as Michael has been saying, we haven’t seen any change in that.

Tyler Brown: Okay. And just my last one here, just a big picture question. It kind of comes again back to this idea around Wallboard margins more in the intermediate term. But doesn’t the outlook look pretty good there, I mean, one, you’ve still got the OCC benefit kind of on the come, they’re saying what looks to be kind of lower for longer. Two, freight rates have peaked in the near term. In my view, they’re going to be deflationary in 2023. Three, diesel and gas prices are both fading. And four, I think labor starts to disinflate as the year goes on. I mean doesn’t that lend itself to durability around margins at a minimum or an ability to, I guess, at a minimum, at least absorb any pricing weakness that may be on the horizon in Wallboard?

Craig Kesler: Yes. Look, Tyler, I think you pointed out some very good positive trends for the industry and for us. I would add to that, just again, for our unique position and the surety around supply of gypsum that we have. So, many of these things that you were mentioning were macro more general ideas. But as it relates to Eagle and the other, there’s that surety of supply at a reasonable cost for us. So yes, we think our business, our Wallboard business is very well positioned.

Tyler Brown: Yeah, perfect. Okay, thanks guys.

Operator: Next question comes from Keith Hughes with Truist. Please go ahead.

Keith Hughes: Thank you. Most of my questions have been asked, but one quick one on Wallboard. What are you hearing from your distributor customers on how they feel about their inventory positions heading into this season, any kind of indication, light, heavy, just directional commentary would be great?

Craig Kesler: Keith, at the end of the day, there’s really not a lot of inventory in the channel. Wallboard is a perishable product so it degrades if it’s kept outside. So you’re talking about weeks. So — and it’s always hard at this time of year. You exited the holidays and you’re into January where you can have weather disruption. So I don’t know if that’s much of an issue.

Keith Hughes: Okay. And secondly, on Cement and particularly in the JV, the amount of tons has come down the last couple of years. I know you’ve got the issues we discussed earlier in the last couple of quarters. But longer term, is there any reason it wouldn’t get back to the kind of tons we saw a couple of years ago, particularly given the tight market in Texas, you’ve been discussing?