Eagle Materials Inc

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Eagle Materials' fourth quarter of fiscal 2021 earnings conference call. This call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Eagle's president and chief executive officer, Mr. Michael Hack. Mr. Hack, please go ahead, sir.

Good morning. Welcome to Eagle Materials' conference call for our fiscal year and fourth fiscal quarter of 2021. This is Michael Hack. Joining me today are Craig Kessler, our chief financial officer, and Bob Stewart, Executive Vice President of Strategy, Corporate Development, and Communications. In addition, joining us today is Mike Nicholas, Eagles Chairman of the Board, who is here to comment on two noteworthy developments that were included in our earnings release, one related to the Board's decision to remain a combined company and the other to the reinstatement of our quarterly cash dividend. We are glad you could be with us today. There will be a slide presentation made in connection with this call. To access it, please go to www.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 this 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. I'll begin today with some perspectives on the quarter, the fiscal year, and our outlook. Our latest results represent a culmination of a decade of sustained top-line growth for the company, while our bottom line has grown by more than 20-fold. In every respect, fiscal 2021 was an extraordinary year for Eagle Materials. Our resilient business model and our team's commitment to Eagle's vision and strategic priorities have enabled us to achieve record financial results, integrate the largest acquisition in the company's history, operate all facilities safely during COVID, and quickly rebound from a historic winter storm. These results would not be possible without the extraordinary, talented, and dedicated employees of Eagle Materials. My personal thanks goes out to all of them for navigating these challenging times safely. We have long emphasized the favorable cash flow characteristics of Eagle Materials, and this was never more clearly illustrated than during this year. In effect, we were able to repay the entire $665 million purchase price of the Cosmos acquisition during the fiscal year, providing us with significant balance sheet firepower and financial flexibility going forward. A few additional strategic items that I would like to highlight are around our completion of the expansion of our vertically integrated paper mill and some portfolio shaping. The paper mill expansion added 20 percent additional capacity, allowing EGLE to set a monthly production record for wallboard paper in March. The expansion will also provide cost and value benefits that we expect to realize longer term. The business portfolio shaping involved the divestiture of Eagle's profit business and other non-core assets in Northern California. We found buyers where alternative ownership value exceeded operating value for us. With regards to operations, I'm especially pleased with our safety performance in this disruptive pandemic year. Progress on our relentless focus on safety was confirmed by our leading and lagging safety indicators. Our safety culture has never been stronger, with leading indicators of safety observations increasing by 114%, resulting in all of EGLE's businesses outperforming industry metrics yet again, and this gap is widening. Another important topic that we are very excited about is our progress on our environmental and social agenda. We will post an updated environmental and social disclosure report to our website this quarter, and it will give a more comprehensive and granular expression of our ESG agenda and to our progress, both of which were a source of pride for us. ESG is well integrated into our strategic planning and investment decision-making process at EGLE. Let me now turn to some specifics around our demand outlook and why we believe the underlying demand fundamentals in our markets will continue to be strong see strong volume and pricing strength like we saw during the second half of our fiscal year. Residential construction and repair and remodeling are very closely related and are important demand drivers for EGLE materials. These two items drive approximately 80% of the demand for gypsum wallboard and about 30% of the demand for cement. In this regard, the outlook for housing starts, especially single-family starts, which are particularly important for wallboard demand, is strong. We have been underbuilding against underlying demand in the U.S. for over a decade. This underbuilding has led to a record shortage of homes at the same time that household formations are expanding. As long as mortgage interest rates stay in the lower quartile by historic standards, this demand growth should be largely sustainable through the midterm. Now turning to cement. Approximately half of cement demand is from investments in infrastructure. There has been a lot of discussion about President Biden's intentions around federal funding for infrastructure, and this is needed and it is welcome. Implementation will further challenge U.S. cement supply in many parts of the U.S., which is already straining to meet current demand. It is also important to remember that the lion's share of funding for infrastructure comes from states, not the federal government. There was quite a bit of concern about state budgets being impacted by the pandemic, but as we shared in our prior earnings calls, our analysis of sources of state funding suggested the impact would likely not be as great as some feared, especially in the U.S. heartland states in which we operate. In fact, remarkably, state and local tax revenue grew by 1.8% in 2020. This is largely because state and local personal income tax receipts rose 3.4%, and state and local property tax receipts were up 3.9%. On top of the tax revenues, states were provided federal grants as part of President Biden's American Rescue Plan. Finally, non-residential demand is the smallest demand driver for EGLE. We have seen strong demand in distribution centers, warehousing, and data centers, But overall, this area has been less certain. As America continues to reopen after COVID, we expect this demand driver to continue to strengthen. The point of this is that the demand picture is robust for both of our businesses. The factors driving the strength should be sustainable, at least through the midterm. Moving from the demand side to the supply side, we have been talking for some years about the diminishing supply of synthetic gypsum in the eastern half of the U.S., This is due to less burning of coal as power plants change fuel sources from coal to natural gas and from outright closure of coal-fired power plants. With a diminishing supply of synthetic gypsum, existing synthetic wallboard plants will be limited in their ability to fully utilize current capacity, increase current capacity, or build new capacity. Conversely, almost all of Eagle's plants have many decades of raw material supply, which are primarily owned natural gypsum deposits. We are largely insulated from the direct effects of this diminishing synthetic gypsum trend, while our plants are also in a position to indirectly benefit from the supply dynamics that this trend creates. In this way, It is notable that the gypsum wallboard industry is increasingly looking more and more like the cement industry. With respect to our cement business, there are significant regulatory and capital barriers to the U.S. cement capacity expansion, whether it be at existing facilities or through the construction of new ones. In face of the increasing demand and with industry capacity now nearing full utilization, clinker capacity and the number of cement kilns has not only not expanded since 2010, but clinker capacity and the number of cement kilns has actually been reduced in the U.S. This trend is why imported cement will increasingly be required, but is increasingly expensive with rising Baltic Freight Index rates. Imported cement also carries a much larger carbon footprint than locally produced cement because of the ocean freight and logistics required to get it to the point of use. Eagle is well positioned in the heartland of the U.S., away from the seaboards, and here, too, the company will be affected largely indirectly in a positive way by these trends. In short, favorable demand outlooks, constrained U.S. manufacturing supply capability, and limited practical substitutes for both businesses add up to a very bright future for Eagle Materials. With this backdrop, I would be remiss if I did not spend a little time on our pricing initiatives. With regards to wallboard, subsequent to the quarter, we implemented a price increase effective in April and have announced a further price increase for June. For cement, we have implemented a price increase in April across our network and announced a second price increase in Texas for mid-summer. We are continuing to see growing demand in our other markets and will update you on future calls on any further price increases we implement later in the year. Now, before I pass the baton over to Mike, I'd like to take just a moment here to again formally thank our dedicated employees for their extraordinary efforts and focus over this unprecedented year. Thank you. Mike, thanks for joining us today. Let me turn it over to you.

Thanks, Michael, and thanks for the invitation to join the call today. The first key announcement is that EGLE's Board of Directors has decided to remain a combined company, as you've read in our press release. And I'm here because I'd like to share some perspectives around this decision. Much has transpired since the separation announcement that has caused the Board to reevaluate the separation's merits. First, the size and financial strength of the combined company with its diversified asset base, geographic diversity, and robust balance sheet have provided great comfort, stability, and value to our shareholders, employees, customers, and suppliers during an unprecedented and uncertain time. Second, given the continued consolidation of the industries in which we participate, and the company's rigorous examination of a number of strategic alternatives since the announcement of the proposed separation, it has become clear that a combined company with greater financial scale and flexibility will be better positioned to pursue key strategic growth options and enhance shareholder value. Third, since the announcement of the proposed separation, the company has streamlined its business portfolio, including the divestiture of its oil and gas profits business, and other non-core assets. There is no question that the company is exceedingly well positioned and is performing as well as at any time in its history. Both major business segments continue to post industry-leading metrics on just about every measure. As a shareholder, I could not be more pleased with the position of the company. While the Board will continue to evaluate the merits of a separation on a periodic basis, as we have in the past, It is concluded in consultation with external advisors that the combined company is in the best position to create long-term shareholder value. This was an important decision for EGLE and for the Board, and one that was very carefully considered. A second decision that the Board has made relates to our quarterly cash dividend. This decision is an important one in the context of our capital allocation priorities, which I might add remain unchanged. We have three capital allocation priorities. The first are growth investments that meet our strict financial returns criteria and which fall squarely within our strategic focus boundaries. The second investment priority is organic improvement investments. These are investments to maintain our facilities in like-new condition, strengthen the low-cost producer positions, and to ensure the long-term sustainability of our operations. The third priority is the return of cash to shareholders, and this has been primarily through share repurchases. In fact, over the past three years, we have invested just over $625 million in share repurchases and dividends. This compares with nearly $700 million in growth acquisitions and $300 million in organic improvement investments over that same time period. Currently, over 7 million shares remain under the current repurchase authorization. Now, let me turn to the quarterly cash dividend decision. Pandemic uncertainties urged an abundance of caution broadly around capital allocation at Eagle until we could regain confidence around the sustainability of the recovery. As part of that cautiousness, we suspended our quarterly cash dividends. Our confidence in the sustainability of the recovery is now high. while our cash position is very healthy. As such, I'd like to announce that we are reinstating our quarterly cash dividend of 25 cents per share on our common stock. The dividend will be payable on July 16th, 2021 to shareholders of record at the close of business on June 18th, 2021. This amount represents a 150% increase over the quarterly dividends that had been paid preceding the suspension. We're very pleased to be able to make this decision on behalf of our shareholders. The reinstatement of the dividend reflects EGLE's strong operational and financial performance, our confidence about the resilience of the business, and our commitment to reward shareholders. Our strong balance sheet combined with a robust cash flow outlook allows us to pay this dividend while very importantly preserving the financial flexibility to continue to grow and improve EGLE and create long-term shareholder value. With that, now let me pass the baton over to Craig for the regular business of the earnings call with the discussion about the financials.

Thank you, Mike. Fiscal year 2021 revenue was a record $1.6 billion, up 16% from the prior year. The increase was driven by contribution from the acquired Cosmo cement business, and increased cement and wallboard sales volume and pricing. The Cosmo Cement business contributed approximately $176 million of revenue during the year. Revenue for the fourth quarter was up 12% to $343 million, reflecting a very strong end to our fiscal year. Annual diluted earnings per share increased 46% to $7.99, reflecting a contribution from the Cosmo Cement business improvement in the organic businesses, and a gain of approximately 98 cents per share on the sale of our Northern California businesses during the first quarter. The fourth quarter EPS comparison was affected by the CARES Act, which generated a $37 million, or $0.76 per share, benefit in the prior year period. This year's fourth quarter financial results were affected by the disruption of Winter Storm Uri. Prior to and during the storm, we brought down operations at all our Oklahoma and Texas facilities. This was done in a controlled manner to ensure the safety and security of our employees, communities, and assets. I commend our manufacturing teams for their focus as these facilities ultimately lost utilities, including electricity and natural gas. Fortunately, we avoided significant damage to our critical equipment and our operations were fully restored by late February. The total financial impact from the winter storm was approximately $12 million during the fourth quarter. Most of the impact resulted from higher variable costs, namely higher energy. However, we also had negative fixed cost absorption, freeze-related repairs, and restart costs. On the flip side, we were able to curtail other operations and sell a portion of our natural gas commitments to offset these higher costs. These offsets were included in other non-operating incomes. Turning now to segment performance, let's look at heavy material results for the year, highlighted on the next slide. This next slide shows the results in our heavy materials sector, which includes our cement and concrete and aggregate segments. Annual revenue in the sector increased 19%, driven primarily by the acquired Cosmo cement business and higher cement sales volume and pricing. This was partially offset by the divested concrete in aggregate's business results in the prior year. Operating earnings increased 27%, again reflecting the acquired business and increased sales volume and pricing. And margins improved 140 basis points to 23%. As I mentioned earlier, our cement and concrete operations in Oklahoma and Texas were negatively affected by winter storm URIE. The impact to this sector was approximately $6 million and mostly reflects higher energy costs. As Michael mentioned previously, we recently implemented cement price increases across our entire cement network. The price increases ranged from $6 to $8 per ton and were effective in most markets in early April. Moving to the light materials sector in the next slide, annual revenue in our light materials sector increased 5%, reflecting improved wallboard sales volumes and prices. Annual operating earnings increased 2% to $193 million, reflecting higher net sales prices, partially offset by higher input prices, namely recycled fiber costs and the impact of starting up the paper mill after the expansion project. As with the cement business, our wallboard plant and paper mill in Oklahoma experienced production curtailments and significant spikes in energy, during the February winter storm. The biggest impact was at our paper mill, which was fully curtailed for the week, and during the shutdown process experienced escalating energy costs. Again, as Michael highlighted, subsequent to the quarter, we implemented a wallboard price increase in early April and announced another price increase last week for early June. Looking now at our cash flow, which remains strong, during fiscal 2021, operating cash flow increased 61% to $643 million, reflecting earnings growth, disciplined working capital management, and the receipt of our IRS refund. Meanwhile, capital spending declined to $54 million. The increase in our cash balance combined with debt reduction enabled us to repay the entire Cosmo cement purchase price during fiscal 2021. In fiscal 2022, we expect capital spending to increase to a range of $95 to $105 million as we restart several projects that were delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. And finally, a look at our capital structure. During the year, we prioritized debt reduction as a primary use of cash, providing us significant financial flexibility in light of pandemic-related uncertainties and potential opportunities. At March 31st, 2021, our net debt to cap ratio was 36%, down from 60% at the end of the prior year, and our net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio was 1.3 times. We ended the year with $264 million of cash on hand, and total liquidity at the end of the quarter was approximately $1 billion, 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. Josh?

Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To answer your question, press the pound key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from Trey Grooms with Stevens. He may proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. First is on pricing. You guys have seen nice traction on wallboard pricing to date, and as you mentioned earlier, You've announced an April increase and then also a June increase in wallboard. And then likewise in cement, you announced an April increase and a second increase in Texas. To the extent you can, can you talk about how those are going in wallboard and cement? And are you thinking about the possibility of a second price increase in cement in any of your other markets?

Yeah, Trey, this is Michael. Thanks for the question. You know, for the wallboard one, again, you know, we've just announced that we need time for that to be our discussions with our customers and the market and everything. Moving to the cement side, you know, we announced in Texas, and we are going to look at, you know, the demand drivers on the cement side of the the business in each market individually and see where that resides in the coming months, and then we'll make a decision what we do with pricing in those markets, working with our customers at that time. So we are constantly evaluating every market in the cement side to see how the demand maintains throughout the year.

Okay, fair enough. And Secondly, you know, clearly the outages during the quarter impacted the margins on both businesses. And, you know, but with production back online, have these margins, you know, I guess back to wallboard and cement both, have the margins bounced back to what you would expect there or those margins? Are there any lingering issues or cost impacts, whether it be raw materials or energy, anything like that that are lingering on, or should we expect kind of a bounce back there in the margins?

Yeah, no, thanks, Trey. This is Craig. No lingering issues from the winter storm. March was a very strong month for us. And on the cost side, again, We're a little unique in that we own our primary raw materials on the cement side. That's limestone. We generally have close to 50 years' worth of limestone located right near our facilities, and that's the primary raw material. On the wallboard side, it's gypsum. Again, very similar. Our raw material reserves are close to the plants. We've got a good, solid foundation of deposits there. Energy prices are still low. Gas is still below $3 a million this morning. So from a margin perspective, you know, we're in good shape.

All right. Thanks, Greg. I'll leave it there and pass it on. Thanks. Good luck.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brent Dillman with DA Davidson. Can we proceed with your question?

Yeah, great. Thank you. Are you able to provide the specifics of the price increases that have been announced to customers?

Brent, as we said, so the April price increase in cement was $68 per ton across our entire network. On the wallboard side, those specific price increases were communicated directly with customers. We haven't given any quantification there. We'll certainly do that for you in our call in a couple of months here in July.

Okay, fair enough. Maybe just your thoughts, where you're seeing the strongest demand sort of momentum in your wallboard markets right now?

Yeah, Brent, you know, again, fortunately, we sit in the southern half of the U.S. with our operations generally. And, you know, look, we're seeing it across all of our markets, you know, from the west coast to the east coast, single-family. And, again, remember, within the demand dynamics for wallboard, single-family construction is is the biggest driver the intensity of wallboard in a single family home is much greater than it is a multi-family unit and so as we've seen single family construction activity pick up that's been very meaningful for us and it's been very strong across all of our markets okay great um and i guess with the decision to stay as a combined company curious which of the two platforms you see the best opportunity to grow and

And I guess through this process of evaluating the spend and also just thinking about your ability to pay off Cosmos so quickly, any change in views of what your tolerance for leverage is? Is three times still kind of the upper band of what you'd want to push to?

You know, Brent, let me say it this way. One of the hallmarks of Eagle has been to understand how to manage cycles. And a big component of that is managing the balance sheet. so that when opportunities come our way, we have the balance sheet capacity to execute on those transactions. You know, that has served us very well during uncertain financial times like the great financial crisis this past 14 months with the COVID pandemic. And, you know, recall that over the last eight years coming out of the financial crisis, we've more than tripled the cement business, which was a billion and a half dollar investments. and the quality of the assets that we were able to acquire are without question. Keep in mind, at the same time, our balanced approach to capital allocation, we've also taken out 15% of the float over that same time period. So I continue to look at the capital allocation priorities as the commitment we've always had to a high degree of, financial requirements with their strategic background as well, for sure, as we look at M&A, and we look at it across the company. And when those opportunities don't meet our hurdle rates, we have been very happy to return cash to shareholders, and we've generally done that through share repurchases.

Okay. Last quick one. Just the other non-operating income, I think, related to the natural gas commitment, is there going to be any carryover of that in the first quarter, or should we sort of see that line item normalized?

Yeah, that will normalize. That was very specific to the 7- to 10-day winter storm that we dealt with.

Yeah. Okay. Great. Thanks for taking the question.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Adrian. Where's that with JP Morgan, you may proceed with your question.

Hi. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Going back again to the capital deployment, will the focus continue to be more to look for opportunities on the heavy side versus the light side, and any potential to get into other new businesses as well on the heavy side that are not necessarily just cement or ready mix?

Yeah. Thanks, Adrian, for the question. This is Michael. You know, as Craig said, we are very disciplined in how we approach stuff. Our strategy in the past, as Craig highlighted, is we've grown the heavy side of the business. We continue to look for opportunities on the heavy side of the business, as we always do. We will stay to our core values of we have really two businesses that are two pure play businesses with the heavy and light side with it, and that is going to be our focus areas is growing either one of those businesses with special emphasis on the heavy side of the business.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Anthony Petanari with Citi. You may proceed with your question.

Good morning. In cement, you saw volumes down 2% in 4Q, I think, ex-Cosmos, and I'm guessing that was due to the weather impact. I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how volumes have trended quarter to date, and do you see that as kind of a potentially a good run rate for volumes over the course of the year in 22?

Jason Gildea- Yeah, so, Anthony, you know, we had the little hiccup, you know, with the winter storm coming into play, and we had some there. You know, cement during this time of the year is more weather dependent than anything else with it. If we get lots of rain in areas, we have less shipments. You know, with what we look at for the demand drivers, which went through with the earnings, you know, with the preamble side, you know, our demand across all markets is very strong. We've also talked to everybody in the past in earnings calls on, you know, the capacity expansions we've done with grinding mills and everything with it you know, our cement plants pretty much across our network are nearer at capacity. So we feel very, very strong. The demand picture looks good. Our plants are operating well, and we should return to a normal shipment schedule that you've seen in the past. Okay, that's helpful.

And then on the JV, I think volumes were significantly below your wholly owned business. And was that due to disproportionate impact of the weather or I think you had some reduced oil well cement activity. Have you lapped that or do you start to lap that soon? Just any caller there.

Yeah, Anthony, this is Craig. Certainly the winter storm impacted Texas in a way that we haven't seen in quite some time. So February was a rough month. You know, the construction season has gotten off to a very good start, you know, here in April. You know, oil well cement, you know, really has become a non-factor in this business and for our company at least, for the last several years, you know, it hasn't been meaningful for quite some time.

Okay, that's helpful. I'll turn it over.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. He may proceed with your question.

Yes, hi. Good morning, everyone.

Morning, Jerry. Good morning.

I'm wondering if you could talk about just the range of strategic options that you evaluated for each business. Just expand on the opening remarks, if you wouldn't mind, as well. It sounds like there was a really extensive process. I'm wondering if you could just, to the extent you can comment, just say more, please.

Yeah, Jerry, look, we wouldn't, as a matter of course, talk about specific items there. Look, I think as we've always done and we continue to do, It is turning over every rock and trying to figure out the best ways to enhance shareholder value and growing the company. And that's where we would end it. But it was a very extensive process, no doubt.

Including acquisitions and other business combinations beyond just separate listing, correct, Craig? Correct.

We have looked at every way to enhance shareholder value and being very creative, and we didn't leave any stone unturned. Okay. And, Jerry, I might add to that, that continues, right? So we will continue to go through that exercise, and I'm looking for ways to enhance value and grow the company, again, against a very specific set of strategic priorities and and financial requirements as well.

I'm wondering if you could talk about the wall board pricing cadence over the course of the quarter. How did that evolve as you had additional job quotes rolling through? Did we exit at a higher pricing point than we entered the quarter?

I would say we were largely, so remember we had a price increase that was implemented in November, another one in early January, and then the next price increase was in early April. So the quarter really reflects the January price increase. We try not to get too granular month by month, but we largely ended the quarter in line with the average, and then the April price increase would be incremental, as would this additional June price increase that we recently announced.

Okay. And Craig, to your point, you know, between the April increase, the January increase, and the June increase, I mean, we haven't seen this type of pricing in the market for, you know, five or so years now. Can you talk about how you see the environment today comparing to, you know, 2012, 2013 timeframe when you folks were posting, you know, price increases that are similar to what's been announced by the industry so far? What are your key cyclical observations comparing this environment to the environment at that point?

Yeah, look, this is a very different demand environment that we're operating in. You've seen housing starts over the last nine to 12 months really accelerate, and that's what's driving this opportunity. As demand has increased, Michael highlighted in the beginning that You've got some supply constraints, certainly around the synthetic gypsum shortages and diminishing availability. Utilization rates, therefore, are much higher than where we were in 2012 and 2013, just coming out of a financial crisis. So, you know, much better demand environment than we've seen for quite some time.

Okay. Terrific. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Kevin Hasselbar with North Coast Research. Can we proceed with your question?

Hey, good morning, everybody. I'm wondering if you could comment on the Wal-Mart side. I think you guys, on your, you know, some of your investor presentations show you have about 4 billion square feet of nameplate capacity. You've got, you know, you're operating at just under 3 billion square feet of sales volumes at this point. But I think, you know, sort of it seems like there's a lot of room to grow there. So I'm wondering how much capacity you do have to grow there. Cause it's, you know, one of the things I think that I've at least learned currently is that I think main plate capacity for the entire industry is like 33.4 billion square feet, but it seems like we're operating well below that. And we're in pretty much sold out conditions with lead times extended and everything. So I'm curious how much capacity, and maybe part of that is the synthetic gypsum shortage and, and you know, some of the COVID related downtime, some of these plants have had, but can you comment on, Can you ultimately sell 4 billion square feet? Can you get to that nameplate capacity? Or how much room do you have to grow, available capacity you have to grow, within that wallboard business? What's a realistic amount that these plants can actually produce, I guess, an effective utilization you can get to?

Yeah, and it's a good question. We look at our plants – weekly or monthly on what the capacity is. Those capacities are good capacities that we publish out there that you quoted with it. We can get to those capacities. And the one advantage we have that Craig really highlighted before is we own our natural gypsum reserves. So when we look at expansion opportunities or anything or bringing on an additional line or increasing capacity at any of the facilities with it. It's really just a people and small amount of capital addition with it. We are not constrained by raw material side of the business, which we feel some of our competitors may be constrained at some point if the synthetic chips and market does go with the trend we're seeing today.

Okay. And can you comment on the OCC costs? You know, what type of inflation did you see here in this quarter and You know, what type of impacts are you expecting in fiscal 2022?

Yeah, OCC prices, you know, one of the raw material ingredients into paper. We've seen that tick up slightly over the last couple of months. Just recall, Kevin, that the majority of that gets passed through. It does happen on a quarterly lag, but our supply agreements in the paper business allow for that pass-through to happen.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Adam Thalmer with Thompson Davis. He may proceed with your question.

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I wanted to ask on organic cement volumes. Not sure how to think about those over the next couple of years, just given your preamble about capacity being tight. Is there anything you can do to expand capacity, or is FLAT kind of the right expectation for the next couple of years?

We continuously look at ways to get an extra ton out of our facilities. If we can get that ton out, we're going to continue to be diligent on that side. We have a fantastic engineering group that we've been able to squeeze extra capacity out, but right now we are running at or near capacity at all of our facilities. So we will continue to progress to see whatever ton we can get out of that facility, but I don't have a quantified value of what that would be.

All right, and I just kind of wanted to push back a little bit on your midterm housing outlook. Curious how you see rising material prices playing into that.

Yeah, look, Adam, it's a good question. You know, I think as many have said, we've underbuilt homes in the U.S. now for over a decade. And, you know, that has led to an extreme shortage of homes in most markets and There's no existing homes for sale, and the only way to create inventory is to build new, albeit while costs are going up. Interest rates are still very low. Affordability is still very good. And this idea of going out to a single-family home versus more of a densely populated multifamily unit has certainly continued to push the demand level for single-family homes. So our view on the near term and the medium term is very positive, very constructive around single-family construction.

Okay. And then just quickly, Craig, on state budgets, is there any state – call out in terms of, you know, where you're seeing either improvement or cause for concern?

No. Look, we're seeing good growth in DOT budgets across our network. And, again, what we like about our network is it's pretty diversified. We stretch from Northern California all the way east to Ohio and Pennsylvania and south to Texas. So, you know, markets are in good shape. Those state budgets are in good shape as well.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question goes from the building with Jeff Rees. You may proceed with your question.

Hey, good morning, guys. So it looks like you're, you know, pretty much sold out in cement in your footprint. Do you have any color in terms of how your competitors are running? Are they running pretty full in the regions that you compete in? And then any color in terms of the markets that you're in where it's a little more tight? I mean, you kind of hinted that Texas is obviously quite tight because you're going for a second increase there.

Phil, you know, we don't want to speculate on where our competitors are with it. You know, we'll talk a little bit about ourselves. And as you stated, you know, we're pretty much at capacity at our cement facilities across our network. So we see the demand fundamentals and the markets we operate as very strong at this time. Okay.

And outside of Texas, are there any markets that you compete in cement where you've seen your competitors actually announce a second cement price increase already? I'm appreciating, Michael, you're still assessing at this point.

Yeah, again, you know, I don't want to talk about what our competitors may or may not be doing. You know, we evaluate each of our markets independently, and we look at ourselves and say, you know, what does our supply-demand outlook look like, and what does our cost structure look like, and we make our decision independently.

Okay, fair enough. You know, wallboard demand was up a solid 3%, but just given how strong housing is and the way you kind of characterized the demand backdrop, I would have thought shipments might have been a little better. Was there any pre-buy dynamic in the quarter, and did you see any impact from storms that may have weighed on shipments in the quarter?

Yeah, Phil, I would point you to the latter. You know, pre-buy activity was interesting a decade ago when economic activity was low. It's less interesting today. But that winter storm really did shut things down, especially in Texas, for pushing 10 days. And then you've got to remobilize crews, et cetera. So I would have told you, as you looked at the cadence during the quarter, you know, the January and March months were very, very strong, where February just had a big impact from the storm.

Okay, super helpful. Sorry, just one last one. Michael, you highlighted SYNGEP having an impact on potentially down the road or now on the synthetic gypsum side. Have you seen extra tightness in the market where some of your competitors have had idle capacity or the cost could really tick up? And then I know in 2018 when freight did get a little tighter, that kind of limited your ability in just the broader market. moving board around so that naturally tightened the market as well. So just curious, both on the synthetic gypsum side as well as freight, are you seeing, you know, governor dynamics in terms of supply just creating a little tighter market all in all?

Yeah, so Paul, the answer to that is, you know, we have one plant in the East Coast area that we do run synthetic gypsum. We have a fantastic partner with Santee Cooper there that, you know, we have a great relationship with. You know, the only perspectives I could give you on that is that plant has been at capacity, and we continuously look at how we get the next MSF of board out of that plant with it. So, you know, it's something that we look at continuously on that side, and, you know, the demand in that market has been strong. And in the freight dynamic, Michael? Yeah, freight dynamic, that's an interesting point. You know, we continue to monitor the freight side with the business right now, and, you know, that's one thing that is a higher cost driver for us, so we're going to continue to keep monitoring that. We've seen a little bit of creep on the freight rates with it, and we'll continue to watch that and work with our suppliers, our vendors on that side with it, but it is something that we are going to watch closely over the coming term. Okay, super. Thanks a lot, guys.

Thank you. Our next question comes from Josh Wilson with Raymond James. You may proceed with your question.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and good execution despite the tough weather.

Thanks, Josh.

I wanted to get into the strategic growth opportunities you talked about being better addressed as a combined company. Can you give us a sense of how much that was an inorganic comment versus an organic comment and what the possible timing of either of those might be?

Yeah, look, it's certainly an inorganic discussion. You know, the building of new facilities, more greenfield or organic, is something that we could manage. But again, because of permitting restrictions, difficult to do that in a meaningful way. So it's really looking at the M&A landscape where the larger transactions are. And again, we won't go into specifics, but certainly that's the direction we're talking about.

And as we think about your capital needs, your guidance for 22 is still not where you were prior to the pandemic. How should we think about either the split maintenance versus growth or how that might evolve in the coming years?

Yeah. So, you know, look, this past year at $54 million was on the low end of the sustaining needs of the business. It's closer to a $60 to $70 million type of level, which, again, is what you might consider low. I would say pre-pandemic, there were a number of large businesses. Expansion projects we're going through, for example, the paper mill, as that's completed, that doesn't happen again. So it's going to be in this range until there's specific projects that meet our hurdle rates. But this is kind of where the business is. And as well, you love these businesses. They don't require a tremendous amount of cash on an annual basis, and that's why they do have a high free cash flow generation capability. Got it.

Thanks. Thank you. And our next question comes from Keith Hughes with Truist. He may proceed with your question.

Thank you. We've heard a lot over the last couple of weeks about some non-residential construction seeing some life. I guess my question for you, particularly on the cement side, are your salespeople starting to see flotation activity things picking up that we could see a pickup in that business this calendar year or next?

Yeah, look, the private non-residential construction side is really the hardest to predict. There's so many subcategories, as we highlighted earlier. Things like warehouses, data centers, those things have been strong and are only continuing to grow. And as you say, some of these other sectors, subcategories, are starting to percolate and improve a little bit. I'd add to that Right, then you've got to look at geographically where you are. And, again, we're fortunate where we're located, better economies generally. So New York might be very different than Texas, for example. We're not in New York. So, you know, and then I'd last add to that. We don't necessarily sell direct to a specific job. We're selling through to a ready mix company or on the wall board side and be a distributor. So we don't have the direct end consumer market. our project in sight, but I think I generally agree with you that the non-res side has started to pick up a little bit.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, and I'm not showing any further questions at this time. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Michael Hack for any further remarks.

Thanks, Josh. Thank you all for joining us today, and we look forward to talking to you again here in a couple months.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.