The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. (NYSE:GBX) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Lorie Tekorius: Thanks, Ken. Yes, it’s a good question. And what’s interesting is you have to step back and look at the strength [Technical Difficulty] origination. So same customers, same car type, same commodity. While we are growing our own balance sheet lease fleet, it is still a fairly modest fleet. And sometimes the size of those orders are such that it would really skew our concentration.

Ken Hoexter: Lorie, I don’t mean to interrupt, but your line went quiet for like the first third of your answer. I’m sorry to do it. But I’m getting IB that other people, they went quiet. Do you mind just starting from the beginning there?

Lorie Tekorius: Oh, my gosh, it was the most brilliant thing I’ve ever thought. So it’s probably because every one of our field sales people was hurriedly calling in because I was complementing our sales — can you still hear me?

Ken Hoexter: Yes, perfectly.

Lorie Tekorius: So we often can originate some very large leases. So a large number of cars, same customer, same car type, same commodity. While we’re excited to grow our own balance sheet lease fleet, it is still a relatively modest and I’m probably being generous size. Therefore, any of those orders could really skew our concentrations in any number of those areas. So we will continue to work with our syndication partners so that we can diversify and keep that disciplined approach to how we’re growing our own balance sheet portfolio. Sometimes our syndication partners are not as keen on our fiscal year, quarter ends or year ends as others might be. So we’re going to take those opportunities when they arise. And we’re going to close those transactions as appropriate for the business.

So that will continue to cause some lumpiness from quarter to quarter. But you can understand that they the basis is we’ve got strong commercial lease origination capabilities. And we’re keeping an eye on having a very disciplined approach to how we’re growing the fleet on the balance sheet.

Ken Hoexter: And then I’m throw at you for my follow up a quick numbers question. So I’ll follow up with a kind of follow on question. But the backlog new orders came in at about 123 revenues per car down from your printed 141,000 in that third quarter. Is there anything more to that than then mix? Because that just seems like an extraordinary shift? And then I guess to wrap up, you said you weren’t surprised by anything in the quarter yet, you raised your outlook. So I just want to understand what changed, was there something in there that that did change that led you to raise the outlook?

Brian Comstock: So Ken on the ASP question, our ASP on the June order activity is more in line with our Q1 and Q2 activity. And it really is just mixed primarily from that perspective versus the Q3. And I think on the outlook question, obviously, Lorie can correct and chime in as needed. But bear in mind that we as we have been working through and navigating some of the supply chain issues, the first six months of the year, were challenging, and we wanted to make sure that we were able to perform as we expected and deliver cars on time to our customers. And we had some bumpiness in the first part of the year. So now is that seems to have sunset and we are getting our operating momentum and getting our legs under us. We are feeling more confident.

Ken Hoexter: Wonderful. Thanks for the time. Appreciate it.

Operator: Our next question will come from Allison Poliniak with Wells Fargo Securities, you may not go ahead.