Installed Building Products, Inc. (NYSE:IBP) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Joe Ahlersmeyer: Appreciate all the thoughts. Good luck.

Michael Miller: Thanks.

Operator: Our next question is from Adam Baumgarten with Zelman. Please proceed with your question.

Adam Baumgarten: Hi, good morning guys. On the volumes, is there a certain region or even builder type, i.e., maybe spec versus build to order, where you’re walking away from more volume and prioritizing margins or is it pretty much across the board?

Michael Miller: Yes. I would say there’s – it would depend upon the market and the individual customers in their market. And keep in mind that even the production builders with very large national footprints, they act differently market to market, right? So there might be an instance where we’re leaning into one builder in Southern California, but we’re leaning away from them in Florida just because of the – our cost of serve and just the relationship that’s there. But I would say that if you – and I think this is consistent with what people’s expectations would be is that clearly, the Western Census Bureau region has been the weakest single-family housing market year-to-date. And obviously, we have a good presence there, and that impacts us as well.

Adam Baumgarten: And then just on margins. I know that there’s been a concerted effort in improving the profitability of the commercial business. Was that also a contributing factor in the quarter on the private side?

Michael Miller: Yes, it was. We have made – and I say we, as if I had anything to do with it. But our team has done an incredible job really turning the ship, if you will, on the heavy commercial business. And while it’s still not at the level of profitability of the rest of the company or where we would expect it to be, it is definitely much more of a tailwind now than the absolute headwind it was in 2022. Yes, we are going back to the earlier question, if I was going to call out anything that was beneficial to both gross margin and profitability in the quarter on a relative basis compared to the last year, it would be the inclusion in the heavy commercial business, but we don’t see that at this point as being transient.

Adam Baumgarten: Yes. Got it. Thanks. Best of luck.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mike Rehaut with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Unidentified Analyst: Hi, guys. Good morning. Doug [indiscernible] on for Mike. You guys referred to a few times throughout the call, a lot of things regarding a price mix being dependent on the market. And I’m wondering if you guys have noticed throughout the data from the past quarter. Are there any particular markets or regions where you’re seeing more of an effect from price or mix in particular?

Michael Miller: Not necessarily. I think it’s fairly balanced. I mean there is various components from quarter-to-quarter from region-to-region and also our penetration of multifamily and the size and scale of particular multifamily projects running through particular regions. Clearly, and we pointed this out in several of the quarterly calls this year that the price mix calculation has been heavily influenced by particularly multifamily jobs and commercial jobs. And our share gains in multifamily have been driven primarily in the mid-Atlantic in the South. And that’s when you have share gains and volume gains in multifamily or commercial, that’s what lifts up the price mix calculation. So I would say that it really is more driven by that demand component or volume component with the different mix components within price mix, if that’s not confusing.

Unidentified Analyst: Got it. Thank you. And then regarding acquisitions, obviously, you guys mentioned that there were a few holdups kind of pushing back some of that revenue. I’m just wondering if the kind of M&A environment and it seems to be across the sector and other areas that some of these acquisitions are taking longer. Has that had any impact on the pipeline and did not – has been kind of general market volatility have an impact on what you see in the pipeline over the past few quarters?