So I think that’s indicative with our footprint being as large as it is, I think that’s indicative of what’s going on in the economy. And it sort of appears to be a soft landing scenario, but there’s certainly no underlying real growth in the economy, not at this point. If some of the infrastructure spending occurs the way it is planned to occur in 2024 and 2025, I think that could certainly accelerate development.
Mary Anne Whitney: What I’d add to that, Stephanie is just that that’s not a material change from what we’ve been saying really for the past six quarters or so. There’s just not been a lot of movement.
Stephanie Moore: Thank you.
Mary Anne Whitney: Thank you.
Operator: Thank you. And today’s final question comes from Stephanie Yee with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Stephanie Yee: Hi, good morning. I was wondering if you can give us some color on what you’re seeing in the M&A market. And just who you’re coming up against, is it other strategics or financial players? And how are valuation levels trending? And just any color on where you’re doing the acquisitions, maybe the geography or type of business that you’ve been acquiring?
Ron Mittelstaedt: Well, let’s start with the last one easiest. I mean, the geography is throughout the U.S. and Canada. We’ve had a little more focus on the West Coast over the last 18 months or so. And of course, we’re acquiring our typical solid waste disposal, collection, and transfer type companies. Who do we compete with? We obviously compete with the other public companies, and we certainly compete with some regional, private equity backed companies, and then private mom and pop companies executing their own growth strategy. So, as far as valuations, we’ve seen valuations probably over the last four months or so, probably pull back about a turn to maybe two turns of EBITDA from where they sort of peaked in, I’d say, late 2022.
And we would probably expect that to continue to tighten a little bit as interest rates have continued to rise and are expected to perhaps have another adjustment or so and being in a relatively flat economic environment. So that’s – that hopefully would be the answer to those questions you had, Stephanie.
Stephanie Yee: Yes. No, that is very helpful. Thank you.
Ron Mittelstaedt: You’re welcome.
Stephanie Yee: And I was – just one follow-up, just on the intention for share repurchases and I know you renewed your issuer bid, but I guess just in terms of how you’re thinking about M&A versus share repurchases, it sounds like M&A is still in your view the best use of capital. Is that correct?
Ron Mittelstaedt: Well, that may be changing rapidly, but yes. Yes, no, it’s clearly M&A is still our best use of capital on any long-term basis and how we should create the most value. But we clearly are opportunistic in the share repurchase and will continue to stay opportunistic in that way.
Stephanie Yee: Okay. Sounds good. Thank you so much, Ron.
Operator: Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question-and-answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to the management team for any closing remarks.
Ron Mittelstaedt: Okay. Thank you, operator. Well, if there are no further questions, on behalf of our entire management team, we appreciate your listening to and interest in the call today. Mary Anne and Joe Box are available today to answer any direct questions we did not cover that we are allowed to answer under Regulation FD, Regulation G and applicable securities laws in Canada. Thank you again. We look forward to seeing you at upcoming investor conferences or hearing from you on our next earnings call.
Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today’s conference call. We thank you all for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.
