Mary Andrews Carlisle: And one other thought on pricing for the rest of the year is that we’ve had positive momentum over the last 12 months in our bid work, and that should also be a good catalyst for us from where we ended Q1 to where we expect to be for the full-year in addition to whatever is realized on midyear increases.
Michael Dahl: Okay, great. Thanks for that.
Thomas Hill: Sure.
Operator: We’ll go now to Garik Shmois with Loop Capital.
Garik Shmois: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask on the M&A environment. If you could provide a little bit more color on the bolt-on that you just completed? And is it possible at all to maybe size how much, you anticipate spending on acquisitions this year and the types of deals you’re looking at?
Thomas Hill: Yes. As you saw, we had a small but strategic bolt-on kind of northeast of Birmingham up towards Guntersville. It’s about 2 million tons of aggregates and just under 0.5 million tons of asphalt. It fits us well. I think as you look at the full-year, in the next 12 months, M&A outlook is quite good. So more to come. And having a lot of those conversations and very encouraged by it. I think it’s always M&A will be aggregates-led and conducted with discipline. But I think we feel very confident that this will be a busy M&A year for us.
Garik Shmois: Okay. Very good. Thank you.
Thomas Hill: Thank you.
Operator: And now we’ll go to David MacGregor with Longbow Research.
David MacGregor: Yes. Good morning everyone. Thanks for taking the questions. Tom, I guess I wanted to kind of tap your many years of experience in this business with respect to the second half of this year in election years. And in an election year, do you find that projects kind of accelerate as people kind of focus on work? Or do you think things maybe slow down a little bit as people get a little more [indiscernible] and wait to see how the election plays out? I’m just trying to get a sense of how you’re thinking about the risk around second half volumes in public sector spending?
Thomas Hill: I don’t see – I will take it in pieces. Overall, I don’t see any impact with the election year on our demand. I think that our guidance is – has taken the factors into account. I don’t think election year moves the needle on that. I think on the public side, it is really the DOTs trying to get highways dollars into lettings and into projects. And I think that’s happening. And I think we call that, as you know, mid-single digit on the private side, I think, as we said, we’ve got some challenges on – on non-resi and multi. And I think that single-family is recovering with health. So that’s how I look at it with not much impact from the election year.
David MacGregor: Thanks very much.
Thomas Hill: Thank you.
Operator: And next, we have Timna Tanners with Wolfe Research.
Thomas Hill: Good morning, Timna.
Mary Andrews Carlisle: Good morning
Timna Tanners: Hey. Good morning. Thanks a lot. I wanted to ask about a little bit more on the demand side as well. How is the government infrastructure dollars, how are they flowing through? How are you seeing the pace of that activity? Any evidence of some of those larger IRA projects? And any sign that data centers could make much of a dent against the decline in warehouse demand? Thanks.
Thomas Hill: Yes. I will start with highways. We’re seeing the IIJA money and the local funds flow into lettings. At this point, we’d stick with that mid-single-digit growth on the public side this year, which is both non-highway infrastructure and highways. And we see that kind of steady growth for years to come. We also are seeing additional state funding come into play. We’ve got three states with some big dollars. Tennessee added $3 billion, Florida I think added $4 billion and Georgia just added $1.5 billion to their funding. I think when it comes to public demand, slow and steady wins the race on this, and particularly when you’re compounding your margins like we are, so I think a good healthy sector with steady growth for years to come. And I think the DOTs will continue to work hard to get those dollars into lettings.
Mary Andrews Carlisle: And Timna, you also mentioned data centers, which have really provided some good opportunities for us in some markets. I can think of some projects we booked recently in Virginia, Alabama, Georgia. And it’s obviously a subject that’s getting a lot of press. But I do think it’s important to remember that the square footage according to Dodge for data centers is only a low single-digit percentage of total non-res start. So as you know, there are a lot of different categories and dynamics and private non-res, so data centers may not move the needle overall. But overall, for us, in non-res, right – so far, it’s playing out as we expected with kind of all those different dynamics.
Timna Tanners: Okay. Helpful. I’ll leave it there. Thanks again.
Operator: We’ll go now to Tyler Brown with Raymond James.
Thomas Hill: Hi, Tyler.
Tyler Brown: Good morning.
Mary Andrews Carlisle: Good morning.
Tyler Brown: Hey. So you all are doing a great job on unit margins. But I am curious what you’re seeing on the plant productivity side. Because If I go back, Tom, to the Vulcan Way of Operating, some of the technology rollouts in the plants that you talked about at the Analyst Day, I’m just kind of curious how those are tracking if you’re seeing improved plant utilization? And is that kind of a continued good guidance to 2025?
Thomas Hill: Yes. I think that where we are on that, and you’re talking about the process intelligence on those plants. As we said, we did that in our top 100 plants, which is about 7% of our – roughly 7% of our production. The tools are all there. About 25%, 30% are actually – of those plants are actually fully utilizing those tools. And there’s a lot of work that has to go into that to get the screens right and everybody trained in those, we’re seeing marked progress as we march through kind of this year, maybe the first part of next year, we’ll get up to 100% of those. But – and as we do, we’ll see improvement. So where it’s working. I think it’s working well, maybe a little slower than I would have wanted it to go through as far as full implementation, but we’re getting there.
And I think we’ll see that. As you said, we’ll see progress to that show up in our numbers in 2024 and in 2025 and into 2026, to be honest with you. So, so far, so good, and we’ll keep plugging at it.
Tyler Brown: Yes. Perfect. Thank you.
Thomas Hill: Thank you.
Operator: And now we’ll hear from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis.
Thomas Hill: Hi, Adam.
Mary Andrews Carlisle: Good morning.
Adam Thalhimer: Good morning, guys. Great quarter.
Thomas Hill: Thank you.
Mary Andrews Carlisle: Thank you.
