As you know, if you’re in the business of crushing stone, you’re in the business of destroying iron. So, the fact is we will stay probably in those ranges that Jim spoke about a few minutes ago, but he going to more detail. And then lastly, is returning of cash to shareholders through two things; a meaningful and sustainable dividend, and we say both of those words very intentionally and share buybacks at the right time. So, the capital allocation priorities simply do not change. Now, more to your question on how does this portfolio evolution that we’ve seen change the way that we look at CapEx for that over to Jim.
Jim Nickolas: Yes. So, I would expect it to go either be very constant with historical levels or maybe a little bit higher as we as we look to replant many of our aggregate plants to keep them efficient and highly automated. So, as far as cadence for the year, I would expect it to be similar to last year and the year before Q1 and Q4 a little bit heavier on the CapEx, Q2 and Q3 a little bit lighter. But of course, the things that can throw that out of whack — on occasion would be the occasional opportunistic generation of land purchase. That would be something that could, of course, grow those percentages and historical patterns out of kilter. But hopefully, that answers the question, Kathy.
Ward Nye: And Kathryn, let me add one more note to that as well because keep in mind, when we’re doing replants or otherwise, we’re doing those because the income rates of return on those projects is so compelling. We almost would feel silly if we didn’t do them. At the same time, part of what’s still compelling about an aggregates business is we have the capacity if we need to, and we did it in COVID, and we’ve done it before, to pull back on that CapEx lever. If we ever need to, we don’t see a need to do that. We think we can do it very constructively. We think we can do it in a very value-additive way. But again, I think as you just step back from our industry compared to others, and you look at the degrees of agility that we can bring to something like CapEx in a heavy industry is decidedly different and we think it’s advantaged Martin Marietta. So, again, we hope that’s responsive to your question. Jim’s got one more point.
Jim Nickolas: One more point kind of an overall cash perspective, Kathryn. So, our operating cash flow grew tremendously this year. I’m comparing year-over-year now. Our CapEx did grow, but our cash conversion ratio improved in 2023 over 2022 meaningfully. So, we’re very mindful of our cash flow. We think it’s good and getting better even with slightly higher CapEx in 2024. We think that trend will continue.
Kathryn Thompson: Okay, great. And very helpful. And just one quick clarification on guidance on interest expense, that you released today, seeing a little light, but just wanted to hopefully can give a little bit of clarification on your interest expense guidance? Thank you.
Jim Nickolas: Sure. Yes. It’s actually, it’s net interest expense. So, it’s gross interest expense of, call it, $160 million interest income of, call it, $100 million. So, net interest expense of about $60 million at the midpoint.
Kathryn Thompson: Great. Thank you very much.
Ward Nye: Thank you, Kathryn.
Operator: Thank you. Your next question is from Timna Tanners from Wolfe Research. Please ask your question.
Timna Tanners: Hey, good morning. I wanted to follow-up a little bit on the benefits you’re seeing from IIJA and any color you can provide on the cadence that you’re seeing there and your visibility? We all follow the [Indiscernible] awards data, and it’s been quite strong, but kind of leveled off over the last several months. So, just wondering if you can provide some more color on what you’re seeing there.
Ward Nye: Timna thank you for the question. Number one, we are starting to see that weekend to pull through. And what I would say, obviously, when you’re looking at what you and I know, is a $1.2 trillion bipartisan law, that’s the big amount of money. That’s $110 billion to roads. It’s $66 billion for railroad maintenance. It’s $42 billion for port and airport infrastructure. But what’s important is to start drilling down and seeing what’s going on in many respects on a state-by-state or at times MSA-by-MSA basis. So, if we look at where NC DoT is, for example, their budgets up 11%. They’re obviously going to see nice federal money flowing through as well. What we’re basically seeing is they’re increasing infrastructure funding here by $7 billion over the next decade.
