Suburban Propane Partners, L.P. (NYSE:SPH) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Mike Stivala: Yes. So I’m not going to get into specific pricing of the contracts for sure. All I would say is that particular contract is market-based, market-based pricing allows us to be able to take advantage of whatever hedging profile that we decide to use, just like we do in our propane business. So I think that’s how that particular contract works. It is market based, and that’s sort of what you’d want to be. It’s not a fixed price. So it’s not as though we’re locked into something that is outside of what the market pricing structure would accept. So the risk is not really tied to something that we can’t control. The market is something we can’t control. But as long as we’re moving with the market, we have the opportunity to make those hedging decisions just like we do in our propane business.

Jay Kanive: Okay. And then I guess just one last question. Just at a higher level. Like how do you think about your capital allocation strategy going forward? You’ve talked a lot about continuing to invest in renewable natural gas. You do have your core propane business, which there seems to be — it’s still very fragmented tuck-in acquisitions there makes sense. But as you look at this, you still have a large ability to also increase your dividend. What is your overall thoughts and mix between acquisitions, debt reduction, increasing the dividend? You do have a really stable business that gives you a lot of opportunities to manage all three. And I just kind of wanted to get your high-level thoughts on how you would look to manage that mix going forward.

Mike Stivala: Yes. And you sort of answered your own question at the end there by saying we have this great, stable business that we can manage all three. You’re right. I mean that’s what we’ve been doing for years as far as where do we go from here? Look, I said it in the end of my remarks, we have a great business that I’ve been here for more than 20 years involved in the leadership of this business. We are the best-in-class in running the propane business. The first thing I would say is we are not deviating from our core propane business. Our GoGreen initiative that we launched in 2019 had two tenants; one, advocacy for propane as a long-term solution in a lower carbon economy; and two, innovation for the clean energy of the future.

And that’s what you’re seeing us execute on right now. We’re enhancing, preserving we’re advocating for our propane business. The propane business has always been a great cash generator. And I referenced some of the excess cash flow earlier. The past couple of years, we’ve used a lot of the excess cash flow to delever because we are taking a very long-term strategic approach to set this business up for the future and for growth. And so I think we don’t set arbitrary targets on specific allocation of that excess cash flow because we look at every deal on its own right, whether it’s a propane deal, whether it’s a renewable energy deal, it’s got to stand on its own merits, which is also why we don’t go out there and talk about big broad targets for what the business makeup is going to look like five or 10 years from now.