West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. (NYSE:WFG) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 5 of 5

So I’d welcome Ray or Sean to kind of add to that if they’ve got other thoughts on that.

Ray Ferris: No, nothing to add, Chris.

Ketan Mamtora: Okay. So Chris would it be then, fair to say that 2024 CapEx should be actually similar to 2023, if not higher? Is that directionally the right way to think about it?

Chris Virostek: Yes, we’ll release our CapEx guidance when we put our year end financials out just as we put our shipment guidance for next year out at that same point in time. And so that’s when we’ll be driving CapEx for the next year. But there is a – we started with a range of 500 to 600 this year, and we’re saying that there’s probably 50 to a 100 that’s going to spill over into next year is carryover on top of maintenance and the other stuff that we wouldn’t ordinarily do next year.

Ketan Mamtora: Got it. No, that’s fair. Maybe when shifting to capital allocation, obviously balance sheet is in a very strong position. You’ve got a lot of sitting on quite a bit of net cash. Can you talk about one sort of how is your M&A pipeline looking at this point have seller expectations moderated, given what you’ve seen so far this year? And then on the other side, how you think about sort of appetite for kind of larger share repurchases? Thank you.

Chris Virostek: I can start there and then if Ray wants to jump in and Ken [ph] as well too. On the M&A front, there’s been a number of active years. I think, participants in the industry understand that there’s cycles here and valuations don’t really sort of wildly adjust whether you’re in a soft market or a frothy market here. It’s really about asset quality which has been of particular importance to us in the last few years when you look at our strategy around how we’ve deployed capital. So there’s always stuff happening for us Ray said earlier, we’re going to be quite selective around the opportunities that we action because they need to be high quality opportunities. And we believe we’re positioned with the balance sheet that if those opportunities are there, we’re well positioned to take advantage of those high quality opportunities.

On the share buybacks, there’s lots of things that impact that decision process, including our view on the macro environment. We’re not going to commit to where and when and how many on a call like this. But we can say when it’s at a discount to intrinsic, when the balance sheet is where we want it to be, and when our other priority uses of cash are met, we have that opportunity to return capital through the buybacks and our track record shows that we do that. So I think that’s about all that we would say on share buybacks.

Ketan Mamtora: That’s fair. Appreciate the prompts. I’ll turn it over. Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed.

Ray Ferris: Well, thank you everyone, and thanks. And as always, Chris, Robert, Sean and I are available to respond. Thank you for your participation and like you, I’ll look forward to turning into the next quarter and hearing the update. Thank you. Bye now.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now ended. Thank you all for joining. You may all disconnect.

Follow West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd

Page 5 of 5