Weyerhaeuser Company (NYSE:WY) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Mark Weintraub: Thank you. One question, and I’m certainly not projecting that this would be the case. But if markets were very weak in a given year and it ended up that your FAD wasn’t at a level where even at 75%, you would meet the base dividend, would you still meet that? Or again, just it’s not even in the contemplation universe right now, so you haven’t really assessed that question.

Davie Wold: Yes. I mean, look, Mark, we’ve — when we established the dividend framework, we looked at a number of different scenarios in establishing the level where we were going to put that base dividend and we feel confident in our ability to meet that. And I think coming back to some of the things we’ve been doing with that base dividend being tied primarily to the Timberlands and Real Estate, Energy and Natural Resources businesses, the Carolinas acquisition, for example, that helps us have confidence in our ability to increase that base over time and meet that and additionally, the work we’ve been doing in the Natural Climate Solutions business to increase that target over time, along with our day-to-day commitment to OpEx and innovation. So I would say that gives us a lot of confidence in our ability to meet that over time.

Mark Weintraub: Sure. And then just philosophically, is it fair to say then that if there were for whatever reasons, there was this short-term issue that led to a shortfall that you would cover it with the high degree of confidence you have that over time, it’s a very, very manageable number, is that fair?

Davie Wold: Yes, absolutely.

Mark Weintraub: Two other quick ones. One, Devin, you talked about price realizations, Pacific Northwest and kind of the drivers there for the Timber business. In the South, we’ve seen obviously, packaging demand has also been quite weak recently. And you laid out kind of some of the challenges in housing. Is that just a much stickier in pricing framework? So, what do you expect to see in the U.S. South for realizations as the year proceeds?

Devin Stockfish: Yes, Mark. I mean, first of all, you’re absolutely right. With the South, it’s just a much less volatile pricing dynamic than you see in the West. So you’re not going to see those big quarter-over-quarter, year-over-year swings in pricing in the South. I think when we look out to 2023, particularly the first half, I do think we’re going to see some moderation in terms of the pricing dynamic, probably be down just a little bit. And that’s a reflection of a couple of things. One, we do see end market pricing softening, and that’s true both on the Wood Product side but also the pulp and paper side in general. But I think the bigger issue is one of the drivers in the South that’s been keeping prices high the last couple of years has been a general — I would call it, urgency on the behalf of mills to keep high inventory levels of logs.

And that was really just to mitigate downside risk because of the supply chain challenges, trucking, logging capacity, et cetera. So, I think that was a little bit of a support mechanism for pricing over the last couple of years. I still don’t think we’re in a place where you have an overcapacity of logging or hauling capacity in the South, but it’s eased around the margin. So, I expect pricing to soften just a little bit, broadly speaking, across the South in the first half. But the trajectory of pricing in the South, we still believe will be up over time with capacity additions and all the same drivers that have been really kind of pushing that up over the last couple of years.