RPM International Inc. (NYSE:RPM) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Jeff Zekauskas: And then maybe a question for Rusty your payables were lower year-on-year by $100 million in the quarter. Do you think your payables will be lower year-on-year in the fourth quarter?

Rusty Gordon: Well, I would think our purchases, if we look back 1 year ago exactly, Jeff, we were probably buying more for the sake of resiliency due to uncertain supply and we’re not in that situation today. So I would think that we would not have the same level of purchasing in the same level of payables this year versus last year.

Jeff Zekauskas: Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Rusty Gordon: You are welcome.

Operator: Our next question comes from Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.

Frank Sullivan: Good morning, Mike.

Mike Harrison: Good morning, Frank. Hi, everybody. Just wanted to see if I could get you guys to talk a little bit about 2024, Rusty, I think you mentioned in your comments that visibility is limited, but you expect some of the internal actions that you’re taking to continue to be a positive and expect some of these cost headwinds to abate. But as we’re starting to kind of turn our attention to fiscal €˜24, any modeling guidelines that you could maybe help us with in terms of sales growth, margin improvement or earnings growth would definitely be appreciated?

Frank Sullivan: Sure. So I’ll give you some broad thoughts on that, Mike, and then we will be in a position to provide more detail when we release our fourth quarter in July. But I think, obviously, volume is a key area to look at. And I say that because in the second half of €˜23, we will take an absorption hit of somewhere between $40 million and $50 million associated with our own destocking and inventory leveling activities. And that is aside from the impact of lower unit volume. And so when we correct those and we see a return to more normal throughput, there should be a meaningful improvement in gross profitability, particularly in the second half of next year. So that’s something to think about. As I indicated earlier, and this is really repeating, we see good backlogs and strong growth in our Performance Coatings Group, driven by infrastructure and capital spending, industrial capital spending very much in line with the comments that Matt made.

We anticipate improvement in consumer takeaway. And as Rusty commented, we are playing offense in our consumer business in ways we have it in the last 2 years relative to supply chain issues and we feel pretty good about that. I believe that the residential and commercial construction markets are going to be challenging for the rest of calendar €˜23. And we’re doing what we need to do to adjust to that, but we don’t anticipate those underlying markets getting better probably until the spring of next year. Beyond that, I think we would provide €“ we will provide some more detail both on a consolidated basis and broadly by segment when we release results for our year ended July.

Mike Harrison: Alright. Thank you. That’s very helpful. And then the other question I had was on the consumer business. You kind of indicated that your key retail partners are keeping inventory levels low, they are being cautious as we’re heading into the busier season. Just any thoughts on kind of how you’re predicting the DIY season to play out and whether we could see some pickup in inventory levels depending on €“ I don’t know what the key variables are if it’s weather or if it’s €“ what happens with interest rates or other consumer factors?

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