James Hardie Industries plc (NYSE:JHX) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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And we’re going to make sure we stay disciplined. I will say as we look forward and we look at some of the changing market conditions, if it’s the right move to use it to defend a position, we will do that. So as we think for with Cemplank, we would only offer that to some of our large builders. So that’s our stance on Cemplank. But we like our strategy. We think we have a strong value proposition. As I mentioned before, the products and services we provide, and we’re targeting them at the right segments.

Peter Wilson: Okay, thank you. And to you Jason, just a follow-up on Sam’s question around the second half margin, North America. I’m not really understanding where the margin growth is coming from. Because you’ve just reported 27.1% EBIT margin for the first half, 28.4% for the second quarter, and then the midpoint of your guidance would imply 31% in the second half. So I’m just wondering, what’s causing that? Is there some lagged price or other.

Jason Miele: Yes, Peter, as we talked about in August, we were showing you a chart that would have shown additional price. So the June 22, 2022 price increase, we wouldn’t fully realize that in Q2 and get some more of that in Q3. And then we have the annual price increase on January 1. So you got those two items across the two quarters. We do expect — we have seen as I talked about on the call, we’ve seen freight improvement in Q2, and we see that improving into Q3 as well. In Q2, as I discussed earlier, we saw that offset with other increases natural gas, we do expect some of that to moderate. So we do expect to see total COGS improvement per unit on top of the price increases, helping offset the lower volumes.

Peter Wilson: Okay, thank you. I’ll leave it there.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Brook Campbell-Crawford at Barrenjoey.com. Please go ahead.

Brook Campbell-Crawford: Yes, thanks for taking my question. Just following up on the last points around price, can you confirm what your price increase is in North America for January ’23? And if you’re able to sort of comment on sort of gross price increase in expectations around rebates coming through, I guess probably asked to happen in the new construction channel. So any color on that will be great. Thank you.

Jason Miele: Yes, Brook, for North America for January we’re targeting 5% price increase.

Brook Campbell-Crawford: And that is a net price increase after rebates?

Jason Miele: Yes, that would be net, sorry.

Brook Campbell-Crawford: Okay, brilliant. Thanks. A couple of other questions around the idea of ramping up capacity into a slowing market. I mean, I guess just to follow-up on that, I mean, are you thinking about even if you ramp up, Alabama 3 and 4, which I guess is already underway. Are you considering mothballing all the plants? Like, I guess what the business did back in the early days of COVID, taking down some of those I guess you’ll have the fixed cost recovery issue to sort of work through.

Aaron Erter: Yes, as we look at our plant network, one of the things is having multiple plants around the country. We have the ability to flex, where we think the volume is going to be and so we will make sure that we’re doing that as we continue to monitor the market conditions.

Brook Campbell-Crawford: Okay, thanks.

Operator: Thank you. Your next question comes from Paul Quinn at RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Paul Quinn: Yes, thanks very much and good morning, guys. So just checking on your North American sales guidance for the plus 13% for fiscal year ’23, my rough and dirty math has your second half sales down 12% over the first half. Is that correct?

Jason Miele: Sorry, Paul, not sure I’m tracking with you. We’d expect sales to be up in the back up here.

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