Eagle Materials Inc

Good day, everyone, and welcome to EGLE Materials' third quarter of fiscal 2021 earnings conference call. This call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to EGLE's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Michael Hack. Mr. Hack, please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Lisa. Good morning. Welcome to EGLE Materials' conference call for our third fiscal quarter of 2021. Michael Hack. Joining me today are Craig Kessler, our Chief Financial Officer, and Bob Stewart, Executive Vice President of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Communications. We are glad you could be with us today. There will be a slide presentation made in connection with the call. To access it, please go to eaglematerials.com and click on the link to the webcast. While you're accessing the slides, please note that the first slide covers our cautionary disclosure regarding forward-looking statements made during the call. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ from those discussed during the call. For further information, please refer to this disclosure, which is also included at the end of our press release. Let me start today by acknowledging that we had another solid quarter of increasing earnings and was shaping up to be an exceptional fiscal year for Eagle Materials. Our results reflect that we are entering into a cyclical phase for our businesses where the demand for all of our products are strong. There are two overreaching reasons for this. One relates to market conditions, which are on an improving trajectory in most respects. The second relates to EGLE's high-performing, low-cost, geographically advantaged operations that can take advantage of these market opportunities. Let me start with some foundational comments about market conditions. Housing construction is an important driver for both sides of our business, and single-family starts are especially important for Gypsum Wallboard. There are positive short-term, mid-term, and long-term dimensions to the robust housing related demand for our materials as for the short term wallboard is installed on walls and ceilings in the later phase of the building construction process after framing has occurred this means that the recent increase in starts and permits will have the greatest impact in the months ahead pandemic has resulted in a surge in home buying and that demand that has been swelling over more than a decade of under building now being realized what is more remarkable is even with the improved rate of home construction we as a nation still do not have a balanced supply and demand picture for housing home inventories on the market remain at all-time lows we believe the annual housing supply demand imbalance is unlikely to be rectified by new construction before 2022. This is in part due to the pace of what is possible for home builders to get into production. This supply-demand pressure will challenge housing affordability, but given the Fed's commitment to keep interest rates low for an extended period, it should translate into a multi-year continuation of favorable mortgage rate environment. Another important end-use segment for us is repair and remodeling. Research shows that purchasers of existing homes spend money on remodeling materials in the wake of their home purchase to make the home their own and to more fully conform to their needs and tastes. Longer-term trends also favor our geographic positioning. The exodus from states such as California, New York, and New Jersey to states in the Sun Belt from the Carolinas to Arizona and in the U.S. Heartland, including Texas and Colorado, is expected to continue. This migration aligns well with our network of facilities within Eagle Materials. We have the in-place capacity to flex with the demand growth for wallboard without additional capital investment. We expect to benefit from higher volumes, higher margins, and restrained costs due to our ownership position in our chips and raw materials and papers. Now let me turn to the market outlook as it relates to the heavy side. Infrastructure spend drives about half the U.S. cement demand, with residential being the most important driver. State budgets have been the lion's share of infrastructure spend for many years. We do not want to minimize the pressure that some state budgets are experiencing, but our analysis of the sources of state revenue, including sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, and corporate taxes suggest to us that many states and cities would not be as severely affected as some might fear. This is especially relevant for many of the states in which we operate. What our analysis shows is that income and sales tax, which account for more than half of the state and local revenues, fell in counter but surged above pre-COVID levels in Q3. The states still have choices on what to do with this money, but we maintain our expectation that even without federal support to states and cities, trend demand for cement will be sustained in low single digits across much of our footprint. Of course, state DOTs could receive further federal support with the new administration, and this would provide an uplift to infrastructure construction activity. To be clear, that activity that multi-year federal funding bills generate generally takes years to materialize into demand for our products. Non-residential is the smallest end-use segment for heavy, and we continue to see short-term pressures. Non-residential construction continues to be depressed by the potential dangers posed by many indoor activities. The pipeline for office projects has thinned significantly and is also very geographic dependent. Spending on manufacturing buildings is beginning to see some improvement and warehouse construction trends to be strong in many of our geographies. Now let me address the second factor mentioned, which is the high-performing low-cost network of plants we have created to take advantage of the market opportunities that are presenting themselves to us. Opportunities which, in our view, should continue for some time. The only limitations in our ability to capture these opportunities are in cement. We are operating at very high levels of capacity utilization today, and we are facing a tightening cycle that would challenge our resourcefulness to squeeze out every bit of production through optimization of grinding, seasonal storage, and market selection. Whereas in wallboard, we have headroom for earnings expansion through volume and price growth. Going forward, we expect price will be the most important earnings growth lever for us in cement. Against this positive backdrop, uncertainties abound. Most important of these relate to the pandemic and getting it under control. Because of this, I do not have an update today on timing for the spin, and I won't until there is some increased visibility that we are past the potentially more disruptive effects of this pandemic. We are hopeful that vaccines will be a game changer. The optimist in me believes that risks for the business tilt to the upside and that the best is yet to come. With the introduction on context for our results, let me turn it over to Craig to discuss the financials.

Thank you, Michael. EGLE's third quarter revenue was $405 million, an increase of 18% in the prior year. This increase primarily reflects contribution from the Cosmos cement business we acquired in March. Adjusting for the acquisition and the sale of our Northern California concrete and aggregates business, Organic revenue improved 7%, reflecting increased cement and wallboard sales volume and prices. Third quarter earnings per share from continuing operations were $1.94, an improvement of 87%. As we highlighted in the press release, prior year results included a $0.47 per share asset impairment charge. Excluding the non-routine charge, third quarter EPS increased 28%. Turning now to segment performance, let's look at heavy materials results for the quarter, highlighted on the next page. The heavy materials sector includes our cement, concrete, and aggregate segments. Revenue in the sector increased 21%, driven primarily by the contribution from the Cosmos cement business. Organic cement sales prices improved 4%, while organic sales volume was flat, with our facilities continuing to operate at very high utilization rates. Operating earnings increased 31%, again, reflecting the addition of the Cosmos cement business. And organic operating earnings increased 8%, reflecting primarily higher net cement sales prices. Our concrete and agri-rich business continued to benefit from higher organic sales volume and lower diesel fuel costs, with the margins improving significantly from the prior year. Moving to the light materials sector on the next slide, third quarter revenue in our wallboard and paperboard business was up 8%, reflecting record third quarter wallboard sales volume and a 1% increase in wallboard sales prices. As we highlighted in the earnings release, the quarterly average wallboard price doesn't fully reflect the price increase that was implemented mid-quarter. For perspective, The December average price was $152 per thousand square foot versus the quarterly average of 148. Quarterly operating earnings in the sector increased 1% to $48 million, reflecting the increased wallboard sales volume and prices, partially offset by higher input costs, namely recycled fiber costs. Looking now at our cash flow, which remains strong, During the first nine months of the year, operating cash flow increased 69%, reflecting earnings growth, disciplined working capital management, and the receipt of our IRS refund. Capital spending declined to $46 million. Finally, a look at our capital structure. During the quarter, we continued to prioritize debt reduction as a primary use of cash. providing us significant financial flexibility in light of pandemic-related uncertainties and potential opportunities. At December 31, 2020, our net debt-to-cap ratio was 41%, down from 60% at the end of our fiscal year, and our net debt-to-EBITDA leverage ratio was well below two times. We ended the quarter with $143 million of cash on hand, Total liquidity at the end of the quarter was $888 million, and we have no near-term debt maturities. Thank you for attending today's call. We'll now move to the question and answer session. Lisa?

At this time, I would like to inform everyone. If you would like to ask a question, please press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of trade grants with the agency.

Good morning. Thanks, and congrats on a great quarter. So I guess first off, on the wallboard business, volume was very strong, and it seems like you outperformed some of the industry numbers that we've seen, even for your region. So I guess number one is, do you feel like there was – Any pre-buy going on in the quarter, given the price increases that were announced? Or do you think this is mostly driven by the improvement we've seen in new residential demand? And is there any, or do you feel like there was any market shifts or anything like that in the quarter? I think I know the answer to that, but market share shifts, just given the outperformance.

Yeah, thanks, Trey. It's a good question. Similar to the last couple of quarters, I would tell you that if you look at the regional breakdown of both housing starts and the wallboard shipment data across the country, we once again benefited from a very strong regional footprint where we are generally in the southern half of the U.S. So that's remained consistent from where we've been the last several months. And then in terms of just, yeah, underlying demand for wallboard has been very strong. As Michael commented, you know, 80% to 85% of wallboard is driven by residential construction activity. The most important part of that being new residential construction. And even more specifically within that, single-family construction activity is what really drives wallboard demand at the end of the day. We've all seen the recent housing start data, housing permit data. That has continued to be very strong, which sets up really well for wallboard. I think that's why you're seeing the strength broadly for the wallboard business right now.

Got it. Okay. And then on the pricing, you know, from your October increase, it looks like it's getting traction, especially now. You know, given the details you gave us around, you know, the quarter-ended price, I believe, was 152. So a pretty good sequential improvement. So as we're looking forward, and I know you guys have a January increase. It's, I'm sure, too early to really have a sense for what's going on there just yet. But, you know, bigger picture, as we're looking forward, I know you guys are looking for higher volume. You're looking for higher margins in wallboard. You're getting some traction on pricing. Demand looks good. So how should we be thinking about the longer-term pricing picture for wallboard as we're kind of looking over the next year, two years, as demand continues to increase?

Yeah, look, I think you pointed out several of the important aspects. And the most important part of that is the demand outlook. And with single-family construction activity and, really picking up momentum, momentum that we haven't seen in many, many years. And I don't want to over-exaggerate the move back out to the suburbs and single-family construction activity, but as we've said before, single-family construction consumes more than two times the amount of wallboard that a multi-family unit does. So single-family construction activity is really important, and that's what will be the opportunity for further pricing from here.

Yeah, okay. Well, it seems like a good setup. And then on cement, last one for me, and then I'll hop out and pass it on. But on the JV volume being down, I think 6%, can you talk a little bit about that, the drivers there? It sounds like in most markets you guys are seeing some pretty decent demand. So can you talk a little bit about what was behind the – 6% down in JV and then what you're seeing in that market currently?

Yeah, I could take that one with it. You know, when we look at the Texas market, you know, that plant has been one where we flexed up and down with some oil well cement. While oil well is not a significant portion of our portfolio, that market we are converting more into, you know, away from oil well as we use that as a lever back and forth. And so some of the demand decrease you do see with some of the reduction of oil well drilling this time. And as we work to migrate that into the construction grade materials that we provide with it, you should see that picking up a little bit more and closing that gap.

Okay. Thanks, Michael, and thanks for taking my questions. Good luck in the rest of the quarter.

Your next question comes from the line of Brent Tillman with D.A. Davidson & Company.

Great. Thank you. Congratulations as well. I had a question on the cement business. You made the comment, you know, continue to operate at very high levels of capacity utilization and far back as I can remember, I think you guys have been in that position. I guess my question is, is there, is there a desire to expand the capacity of some of these assets right now? Are you, are you seeking to make any preparations for that?

Well, as you might remember in some of the previous calls, we did some expansions during this year, and we actually set record cement shipment numbers in our base businesses last quarter. Not the last quarter, the quarter before, I should say. You know, we did an expansion at our Sugar Creek facility with grinding capacity. We've also done some work around our networking and distribution channels with it. Right now, you know, when we look at a lot of our assets, we are at capacity. That doesn't mean we're not trying to squeeze every single ton out of every single facility that we have. And we do have some strategic projects ongoing. on the board to look at expanding capacities. It's just not, you know, in the existing facilities, it's just not ones that are significant volume additions with it. So that's why our comments were that we're at or near capacity until some of these projects come in. And then, you know, capacity is not going to grow significantly from our existing structure.

Okay. I appreciate that. And then, you know, you guys have obviously – paid down a lot of debt, leverage ratios coming down. You know, any thoughts on kind of growth initiatives right now? I know you guys are still making preparations around the separation. You know, how do you think about, you know, potentially looking at M&A today, you know, versus a couple quarters ago?

Yeah, you know, every time we're always looking at M&A, and M&A has to meet several thresholds for us, You know, as you're probably well aware, we're very disciplined in where we play and how we view the businesses. You know, we will always look at opportunities that make sense for us, that fit into our network, that cover, you know, returns that we think we could improve those businesses for. You know, so we're always open to that side. Just the opportunity has to be right for our business.

Understood. And, you know, I guess coming back to cement, I'll give it a shot. Just curious if you offer any commentary on any price initiatives, plans for calendar 21. And, you know, I'm curious if you think, you know, just given the fact that you guys and others in the industry are operating at such high levels of capacity, do you think the industry can get back to sort of the traditional plan of two price increases this year?

You know, that's going to be really dependent on, you know, our customer base and what the demand profile looks coming forward. You know, as we said in our comments, we see the demand being very strong this year. You know, typically in the industry, cement price increases come in the early summer, late spring timeframe. So, you know, we are... working with customers on those and having those discussions now. And as those unfold, we'll be able to provide you more insight on to where those reside in the coming quarters.

Okay. Last one for me, just love to get, you know, any perspective you have and just in terms of change administration and, you know, potential, possible regulatory implications to come. Obviously, a different view on things than the prior regime. So, you know, just curious what you're watching from Washington on that front.

Yeah, that's a good question. You know, we, you know, one of the things that has made a lot of highlights is the infrastructure bill. And, you know, we continuously watch that. We do want to be, you know, pretty frank. And you can see in my comments that, you know, We think the states are strong by themselves, but a federally funded infrastructure bill would be a significant benefit to us. Where we want to be cautious with that is those bills are for multi-years. They take a lot of planning up front, which translates into demand for our products later down. We do think that that is a potential possibility with the new administration, and we're going to watch that closely.

Sorry, Michael, I was just referring more from the EPA environmental front. I mean, anything on that end that you guys are closely monitoring?

No, we always continuously watch that and monitor that. You know, our core values are to do more with less. So we are continuously watching on that side. You know, all of our plants have, you know, permit levels and limits that we follow stringently and try to drive value out of those with, you know, doing more with less with regards to, you know, fuels, additives, and everything else. So we continuously watch what the new administration may change in those metrics with it, and we'll keep our eye on that. But we're well prepared for that.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Adrian Herta with J.P. Morgan.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and congrats on the results as well. Just going back quickly on the previous question, do you have any existing plans in place to reduce CO2 emissions? That's my number one question. And then the number two question would be, Have you been looking on blended cement, basically, to be able to reduce the clinker factor? We understand that some DOTs, including the one in Texas, is now allowing for lower clinker factors on cement. So are you looking for any opportunities to reduce it by using other substitutes?

Yeah, you know, when we look at cement as a whole, we've always looked at that side with it. That's something that we've always been interested in, and it ties to your first part of the question on, you know, your ton of cement and CO2 emissions with it. You know, if you can do some blended cement or some other additives into it, you know, we have a flash business. We do pozzolan. You know, we've always been looking at how to reduce, you know, CO2 emissions And part of that is through blending cement. And we also have a slab operation that falls into that same category. So we've been looking at all the aspects of that for several years, and we plan on doing it going forward also.

Thank you, Michael.

Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Paternari with Citigroup.

Good morning. On an organic basis, your concrete and ags revenue is up, I think, 13% year-over-year. I'm just wondering if you can break that out between volume and price, and in terms of what's driving that strength, if it's fair to say that's exposure to residential, and is that kind of growth cadence maybe possible over the next couple quarters, or is there a reason it would accelerate or decelerate?

Yeah, Anthony, good question. I'll make a couple of comments. First, Consider that our concrete and aggregate business is really in three markets today, northern Nevada, Kansas City, and Austin. And when you're in that few markets, you're really subject to a change in one market can really impact the average. So you're right. We saw good with, frankly, the improvement was across both volume and pricing on an organic basis. And we just had some really fortuitous events in a couple of our markets. side, right, lower diesel fuel costs really helped us, and our teams have done a fantastic job of some operational efficiencies as well. So, you know, so far we've done very well. It looks like housing will continue to be strong for us, and that should continue to support our concrete and aggregate volumes. Okay, that's helpful.

And then is it possible to quantify the benefit you saw from hydrocarbon deflation in the quarter? And is there a way we can, you know, think about the impact of that in 4Q, either, you know, lessening or reversing, just based on how these costs are trending in January so far?

Yeah, so when you say hydrocarbons, I mean, you have, you know, along the concrete business, we saw the benefit there. You know, it was under a million dollars in total for the quarter. On the wallboard and paper side where we generally use natural gas, you know, those costs have been pretty flat here for years now, you know, sub $3 a million. So, you know, it fluctuates a little bit within that range, but it hasn't moved dramatically over the last three or four years.

Okay. That's helpful. I'll turn it over.

Your next question comes from the line of Jerry Redman at Goldman Sachs.

I'm wondering if you could talk about on infrastructure. You know, we've seen lettings activity is slowing over the course of this year. And, you know, the last time we had discussions about an infrastructure bill that drove to further slow down the lettings. Can you just talk about what you're seeing in your markets in terms of pace of DOT activity and, you know, if the hope for federal activity

money is driving any change in in the pace of lettings uh either to date or or from here thanks yeah you know uh jerry you know in the you know in in my comment section you know uh kind of i was alluding to some of that is that we see the states you know responsible for a lot of the infrastructure uh building spend and you know the state know, tax receipts, you know, from all of our analysis look to be at or near pre-COVID levels, in some cases higher than pre-COVID levels. There was a dip that we need to recognize in the second quarter there with it. And I know the states are under some pressure on where that money goes to, but we have not seen a significant drop in any of our markets or even a drop in a lot of our markets on that side with it. So we that, you know, the states are more responsible. As it comes to the federal side, you know, those take longer to materialize. That will be some, you know, extra benefit that the states will give for support from the federal government if a bill is to be passed. But again, that would be, you know, by the time those projects come into play, the engineering work's done on those and the work in construction starts, the demand for our products would be kind of like when we say with the housing starts, it's a couple quarters down the road where we'd see the significant on that side. But for the states we operate in ourselves, we feel fairly comfortable with what the infrastructure will be this next year.

Okay. And then... On Wallboard, you know, in the past, you folks had, you know, a single price increase a year, and obviously you put two increases in over a short period of time here. Can you just talk about your pricing philosophy and message to customers going forward? When are you telling customers to generally expect price increase announcements? How much lead time do you expect to give them? You just talk about how the framework has changed versus a couple of years ago when, you know, it was a January 1 date.

Yeah, Jerry, look, I think I would tell you that the demand environment is more important than the cadence of the price increase. As you point out, years ago, we went to an annual price increase setup, and that was the right timing for the situation we were in. Given the demand environment that we find ourselves in today, there's no doubt that And that's very consistent with the demand environment that we see today. So, you know, I wouldn't use past experience to totally count on the cadence of pricing.

And, Craig, the lead time, can you just comment on that? How much lead time do you seek to give customers future pricing actions?

Yeah, we won't go into exactly how we negotiate with customers. It's just going to be demand driven from here. And so far, the demand environment has been very supportive of our Walmart business.

Okay, thank you. And lastly, I appreciate the update on the separation. I'm wondering if you just expand on your prepared remarks and just talk about some of the signposts or some areas that you're working on to complete the separation, and if you care to comment on any updated thoughts on net debt allocation between the businesses.

Yeah, you know, this is, the separation obviously is a standing discussion point at our board meeting, so, you know, we will be having another discussion about this at that time, so I really don't have any further comments or any clarification around that separation at this time until after we have our board meeting and we discuss it. But we discuss it at every single board meeting, and as soon as we have a clear path forward, we will be announcing that out.

Okay, thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Stanley Elliott with Stiefel Nicholas.

Good morning, Michael. Craig, thank you guys for taking my question. Can you all talk about whether it's delivery times on the wallboard side or maybe describe kind of what you all are seeing inventory levels at the dealer level more broadly across the industry?

Yeah, thanks for the question. Look, I think a couple of thoughts there. One is the supply chain and I'll speak more broadly for anything that's supplying the home building business right now is being stressed and stressed in a way that it hasn't seen in many, many years. You know, it's one thing to navigate a million housing starts. It's another thing to navigate an environment of a million and a half or more housing starts. So, you know, whether you're talking about appliances or wallboard, that supply chain is being stressed. And so lead times are extending out a little bit. in that environment. So, you know, other than that, I wouldn't say there's any other significant changes there.

You kind of turn it back to the M&A environment. You mentioned kind of an always-on, kind of always-looking. Would you say you're looking more at the heavy side or on the lighter side, you know, all else being equal, and maybe where are there more opportunities now?

Yeah, so, you know, like you said, we're always looking. We look at a lot of opportunities that come available, and we're very selective in what we choose with it. You know, we've had a long-term strategy to grow our heavy side of the business, and our strategy has not changed over the term on this at all. So, you know, we'll look at opportunities on both sides of the business, but we really focus on the heavy side of the business for the most growth opportunities.

Great, guys. Thanks for the time.

Your next question comes from the line of Adam Thalheimer with Thompson Davis.

Hey, good morning, guys. What is your wallboard capacity? I mean, when we see housing starts and permits up 30%, Just trying to think through how much you can grow your wallboard shipments.

Yeah, I don't know. We disclosed it, obviously, in our Form 10-K. It's just shy of 4 billion square feet with five plants, four of which are located west of Mississippi, sit on the natural gypsum deposits, which are extremely plentiful, right near the facilities. And the other plant is in South Carolina with a long So I think what you've seen is as the housing demand has picked up, that's pushing demand, which is pushing utilization rates. But there is a finite shipping radius from which you can ship from. So that is one thing to keep in mind as you look at growth in wallboard demand. We've been very fortunate that it's grown stronger in our markets than in several others.

But, I mean, you could – conceivably see a scenario where you're at that $4 billion.

Yeah, look, I think we're not there yet. We still have room to go at our facilities, certainly in Oklahoma and New Mexico, but certainly utilization rates have certainly picked up in the last couple of months.

And then, Craig, what should we expect for Cosmos volumes in the March quarter?

Yeah, the market that that plant operates in is more of a northern market. So I would say it's a similar type of environment to Illinois, even Kansas City, where, you know, very strong June, September, and even in the December quarter. But, you know, this quarter, the March quarter, is always about winter and the environment that we find ourselves in. So far, winter has been pretty mild for most parts of the country. That could change, but this will be, and generally is always, the slowest quarter in the cement business because there's more seasonality here.

What did it do last March?

Recall, we only took ownership of that asset like March 6th, so we only had it for a very small portion of the quarter, and so you're still going to have a year-over-year increase you know, comparison issue that we'll highlight for you.

No, no, I get that. But what did Cosmos sell? Just looking at Cosmos, what did they sell in the March quarter last year?

Yeah, so some of that, you know, like I said, for two months of the quarter, we didn't own it. And so, you know, we wouldn't go into that level of granularity, nor would we give you simply the one month that we owned it in March.

Okay. Thanks. I'll turn it over.

Your next question comes from the line of Philip Eng with Jefferies.

Hey, guys. This is actually Colin on for Phil. I just wanted to touch on the costs in the wall board business. It looks like they more than offset some of the margin benefit from the higher operating leverage and higher prices. I was just wondering if you could talk about the different drivers there and how you're thinking about these headwinds going forward and, I guess, just eXp's ability to offset these costs with those price increases.

Yeah, Colin, keep in mind the price increase was only implemented halfway through the quarter, so we really didn't see the full benefit of the price increase this quarter. In terms of on the cost side, there were some input cost increases, predominantly in recycled fiber costs. We did see those creep up a little bit here this quarter. You know, it's too early to tell where those prices are going to go longer term, but that was predominantly what was driving this quarter's cost increase.

Gotcha. And then just on the paperboard business, external volumes are flat, internal volumes are down 3%. But you're adding a high speed capacity, demand for wallboard appears strong and just appears to be getting stronger as we head into calendar year 2021. Can you just walk us through the divergence in volume trends between the paperboard and the wallboard business?

Yeah, and that happens from time to time. Just given inventory levels at the wallboard plants versus at the paper mill, you can see that cadence dislocate for a period of time. And it has to do just with buying patterns that both we do internally and some of our external customers. As we've said, that plant continues to operate in a sold-out position. So in addition to the inventory swells, we have also – moved away from non-contract sales in terms of third-party sales to make sure that we can satisfy the needs of our customers. So the new equipment is installed. We're inoperative. There's some uptime that we'll continue to improve on. But you should see those over a broader period of time, more of an annual basis. You'll see that those volume changes be in line with each other.

Okay, and then just pivoting back to demand on the wallboard side, the robust housing starts and permits and things like that point to some really strong demand, but you're also hearing some bottlenecks from the builders about labor and things like that. So I guess just in terms of wallboard volumes, you typically got into a low single-digit volume over time. Is this 6% trailing 12-month growth rate sustainable in this kind of environment, or do you think that that's a little aggressive just given some of the constraints that the market is seeing?

I think in our markets, and again, I think we've highlighted this multiple times, our markets are continuing to outperform the national average. We don't necessarily give guidance specifically, but given the current strength in home building, this is a pretty sustainable pace. when it comes to what we're demanding, and again, in our markets. I can't speak. We don't go to the Northeast. We don't really go to the Northwest much, but we continue to see strength in our markets, and we like where we're positioned.

Great. Thank you very much.

Our next question comes from the line of Josh Wilson with Raymond James.

Good morning, Michael and Craig. Thanks for fitting in, and congratulations on the quarter.

Thanks, Josh.

I wanted to circle back on the paperboard question. Margins were down a fair amount there. Is that purely a function of the timing of the recycled fiber, and that's a headwind that's yet to come to the wallboard side but should normalize, or are there some other factors impacting the margins?

Certainly the biggest piece of that is the input cost on the recycled fibers. business on a quarterly lag. But as I said, I think we'll also continue to see efficiency improvements now that we've installed all of the equipment at the paper mill. That should benefit us as well. The other thing I do want to make sure and highlight, when you look at operating income, realize there's a pretty decent amount of depreciation that's been added into that business. So you really have to look at it on an even margin basis on a year-over-year comparison because of that incremental depreciation.

Got it. And then your aggregates pricing slipped. Can you talk through what the driver was there?

Yeah. You know, within aggregates pricing, you've got base pricing and sand and rock. And we just had a little bit more base sales on average or on the weighted average relative to where we were last year. And then base is generally lower priced products. So nothing other than that.

Okay. And then last one for me. As it relates to the split, can you give us some more color on what tasks you've completed already to prepare for the split and how quickly you can consummate it once the environment is to your liking?

It's probably a little too early to comment on exact timing or cadence. But, you know, look, there are some long lead items, whether that's with the SEC on the financial reporting side, with the IRS. So, you know, those are things that, you know, we've been working on and will continue to work on. There's other administrative items in the background that will be completed. But that's to be done going forward.

Okay. Good luck with the next course.

At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Michael Hack for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much for attending our call, and we look forward to talking to you at the end of the next quarter.

This concludes today's conference. You may now disconnect.