That’s how we think about what we’re doing. So, if we go back to the notion of will commercial excellence continue to be a driver for our organization, and I think make our pricing look fundamentally different going forward than it did, say, a decade ago Yes, I think it probably will. Do I think operationally, we will continue to bring great value to the organization by making our businesses better faster, safer, more efficient, et cetera. Yes, I think we will. But I also think that what you should expect from us, and this ties to a degree to it as well, Jerry we will continue to be a very responsible, very visionary acquirer of attractive businesses in attractive geographies. And I think if you take those building blocks that I’ve taken you through, it gives you a good sense of how to think about the business overall from a commercial perspective.
Jerry Revich: Really appreciate the color. And then you folks have been super busy over Super Bowl weekend. And I’m wondering if you look at the M&A pipeline today now that we’re wrapping up the last deal, hopefully, that announced soon. The M&A pipeline from here, word, what’s the range of outcomes in terms of how much more capital we can deploy over the balance of 2024, you predicted 2024 was going to be a really active M&A year and I’m just wondering how much is left or there to do based on what’s in the pipeline?
Ward Nye: Jerry, that’s a great question. So, here’s the way that I would encourage you to think about it. Let’s assume that Frei’s closed, which it is, and let’s assume the Bluewater was closed. We’d be leveraged at about 1.85 times. So, keep in mind, through a cycle, we like to be leveraged 2 times to 2.5 times. So, we’re still, despite that degree of acquisitive activity, we’re still below where we would typically like to be. So, my point is this, when we’ve seen attractive transactions before, we haven’t done it a lot, but we’ve gone over 3 times. We’ve delevered actually very quickly and easily when we’ve done that. I continue to believe that there will be more transactional activity this year. I would be disappointed if there’s not.
You’re right on our Q3 call back in November, I said at that time, I thought 2024 would be a pretty busy year. Obviously, we’re about a month and a half into it. It’s been a really busy year already. But Jerry, the fact is that I think there’s going to be more, I’d be disappointed if there wasn’t, and you should expect it to be more pure stone type transactions, Jerry.
Jerry Revich: Super. Thank you.
Ward Nye: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is from Philip Ng from Jefferies. Please ask your question.
Philip Ng: Hey guys. Congrats on a really strong quarter. If I take your guidance, Jim, I think you’re calling for flattish volumes for the full year. Not too dissimilar to what you told us back on the 3Q call, but I believe your guide now includes AFS, so that would imply maybe volumes are a little softer, but everything that you mentioned, Ward, sounded pretty constructive. So, I just want to make sure we’re — one, we’re not overthinking about this. And when you look out to the back half, I mean, you kind of talked about rates coming down, that could be a good guide for housing. Could volumes kind of inflect in the back half and go into 2025? Is there a good way to think about the trajectory for us?
Ward Nye: Phil, thanks for your question. A couple of things that I would say. Number one, you’re right. I mean, if we’re looking at bringing in Frei, and let’s call it, 3.5 million tons, one thing that happened in our sale of the Hunter cement plant is we’re actually doing some stone production there as well that was going into the cement production. So, in fairness, that was probably about 2 million tonnes. So, really, if you start taking a look at what went the other way in the Hunter transaction, what’s going this other way near-term and Frei, keep in mind that you’ve got a fairly seasonally impacted business in Colorado as well. Again, I think it leads you back to that relatively flattish. So, I wouldn’t strain too hard on what those numbers look like because there’s just enough movement on the surface of it that it could put you in a much more comfortable place you [indiscernible] booking pure flat.
To your point, though, I do believe if we see interest rate reductions and we see a steady, albeit somewhat slow recovery in housing and then what’s likely to be degrees of light non-res that comes behind that in the second half of the year. I’m not sure how much is going to push volumes up in half two. I think it certainly could push volumes up in half two. I think what it’s really doing is it’s setting up 2025 to be even a more productive year. Obviously, on the infrastructure side, we think it’s going to be pretty constructive all by itself. I mean if you think about the fact that we’re looking at what’s happened on highway contract awards and you’re looking at basic and LTM from December 2019 through 2023, that’s got almost an 11% CAGR involved in it.
