Worthington Industries, Inc. (NYSE:WOR) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Andy Rose : Yes, from an automotive standpoint. Year-over-year, we were up about 7%. And North American production was up about 7% as well. For the year, we follow IHS and they’re predicting 15 million units for calendar ’23, which is 5% over last year’s14.3. 15 million units sounds like pretty strong, but at the end of the day, it’s still quite far behind the units that were produced on average in ’19 and ’18. So they did about 16.6 in ’19 and ’18. And as you say, supply chain problems, they’re not talked about as much, but they’re still there. So there’s lots of varying things out there. Interest rates are going up, dealer inventories improved a little bit. So there’s lots of things happening out there. But at the end of the day, we think automotive is going to be up about 5% this year.

Phil Gibbs : Thank you. And that as it relates to the separation coming in the next couple of quarters, is there anything that you all need to do in terms of IT investment or transition there? I would assume most of that stuff was pretty fresh in [ph] including the last several years, but any sort of systems modifications, you guys need to do that are material before that point in time or you feel like you’re pretty sad.

Joe Hayek : Well, it’s an opportunity to give a shout out to the folks that work in our IT group, because we have an excellent group of people that keep us up and running consistently. And they’re shouldering a lot of the burden of the separation, because that’s where a lot of it has to happen. But the short answer is, there’s a little bit of investment. But it’s somewhat of a rounding error relative to our total CapEx in terms of what we need to do to separate. And some of that will happen before we separate, but some of it will also happen post-separation. But it’s not a material amount of investment that’s got to happen to do that. That makes sense.

Andy Rose : Yeah, Phil, it’s a little unique to us, but the business is actually run on different ERP systems today. So they’re a bit more portable, than a situation where you would have to kind of carve something out of a different company. But more broadly, on W24, everybody asks about timelines. We did, as we thought we would we did file our initial full Form 10 with the SEC, during our Q4, are kind of in that process. And then certainly our fiscal year just ended. And so we’ll get our audit done in the next kind of month or six weeks. And then hope to get that on file with the SEC and start those conversations. And we’ll go from there.

Phil Gibbs : Thanks, guys. Good job.

Andy Rose : Thank you.

Operator: The next question is from John Tumazos with John Tumazos Very Independent Research. Your line is open.

John Tumazos : Thank you very much for $12 or $13 of earnings the last two years with steel prices falling $1,250 a ton. It just boggles my mind, you did so well. Congratulations. I wish I could shine your shoes.

Joe Hayek : That’s very kind of you, John. But we believe our steel processing business is the best around, so they’re showcasing what they can do.

John Tumazos : How much was the total percentage for 2023?

Andy Rose : Total percentage in 2023, for the entire fourth quarter, fourth quarter was 43%.

John Tumazos : So —

Joe Hayek : It was probably not a lot higher than that, John, for the fiscal year. This was the first quarter where we saw year-over-year growth in tolling having most — mostly having to do with the geographies where they are and some of their mill partners getting back up and going.