The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company (NASDAQ:GT) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And that’s good for sort of a supply-demand equation out there as well as we think about how to manage the demand in the replacement market. And then finally, Rod, I’ll just tell you, in terms of what we’re seeing in the marketplace, we have not seen any decreased demand or trade down in our Tier 1 volumes at all. We’ve seen a little bit in Tier 2 moving toward the lower-tier brands. But I’ll tell you, I’m not sure that’s a trade down or a price issue as much as it is. All those sort of imported tires that were backordered and paid upfront in cash by the distribution, particularly in the U.S. I’m talking here that sort of hit the docks in the past quarters, that obviously drove the industry numbers. All that came, it came late, it was paid for.

And so I think what you see is a lot of push of those tires to turn it back into cash. And I think that’s a dynamic we’re dealing with. But again, that doesn’t really impact sort of our Tier 1 tires or the value proposition for those. So I hope that helps.

Christina Zamarro: Yeah. But I’ll jump in on the non-tire business performance in the fourth quarter. That was principally driven by our chemical business, as you know, that’s a pass-through margin business. And when they’re buying Betadine at higher prices and then Betadine dropped in the fourth quarter pretty precipitously. That means they’re adjusting their pricing real time in the market. So it’s more of a timing issue. As I look to 2023, expecting good growth in these areas, really driven by our aviation business, seeing and expecting strength in volumes, strength in pricing and mix. And we’re seeing that across the portfolio, especially given the reopening and demand pull out of China.

Rod Lache : Thanks for that. And just one more thing, if I can ask. Just taking a step back. Maybe you can just elaborate a little bit on what it will take to close the gap, obviously, on a mix-adjusted basis versus your peers? Presumably some of the capital spending that you were planning was aimed at doing that. And maybe you could just provide a little bit of color on what you’re shooting for here in the next year or two years?

Christina Zamarro: Yeah. So I’ll go ahead and start. I mean we talked a little bit with earlier on the call about the plans for CapEx for 2023 and a lot of that is influenced obviously by the European macroeconomic outlook. I have to say, over the last two to three years, we do feel that we’ve made significant progress on closing our conversion cost per tire gap versus our competitors. I would say two or three years ago, we had estimated that gap to be in and around $4 per tire. And today, we have said with the closure of a very high cost facility in Gaston in the U.S., a big restructuring in EMEA. And then, of course, you add a benefit in as much as many of our competitors had low-cost supply coming into Western Europe out of Russia.

Put all those together, and we think our disadvantage right now is nearly half of what it would have been, say, two or three or four years ago. So we’re feeling well positioned on a relative basis. That’s not to say we’re not going to do the work to move forward. And what I’ll tell you is that the investments that we have in the plan we started last year and continuing in 2023 in the Americas, in Asia-Pacific are very high return projects and as much as they’re more expansionary instead of greenfield type plants. That will help move our low cost percentage forward as part of our footprint and increase our overall competitors as we go.

Rod Lache : Okay. Thank you.

Operator: And we’ll go next to John Healy with Northcoast Research. Please go ahead.