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spk10: Hello, my name is Chris. I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome everyone to the Summit Materials Q4 2022 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad.
spk14: To withdraw your Your question, please press star one again.
spk10: Thank you. Andy Larkin, Vice President of Investor Relations for Summit Materials. You may begin.
spk05: Hello and welcome to Summit Materials' fourth quarter and full year 2022 results conference call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release detailing our financial and operating results. Today's call is accompanied by an investor presentation and supplemental workbook highlighting key financial and operating data. All of this material can be found on our Investor Relations website. Management's commentary responses to questions on today's call may include forward-looking statements, which by their nature are uncertain and outside of some of the material control. Although these forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs, actual results may differ in a material way. For discussions on the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ, please see the risk factors section of some of the material's latest annual report on Form 10-K, which is filed with the FCC. You can find our installation of the historical non-GAAP financial metrics discussed in today's call in our press release. Today's presentation will begin with some CEO and unit providing a business update. Brian Harris, our CFO, will review our financial performance and then Ann will conclude our prepared remarks with our view on the path ahead. After that, we will open the line for questions. Please limit your ask to one question and then return to Q so we can accommodate as many handles as possible in the time we have available.
spk14: I'll now turn the call over to Pam Newton.
spk09: Thank you, Andy, and thanks to everyone joining today's call. Yesterday, we released full-year results that highlighted a number of summit records, but the ones I'm most proud of are on safety. As you see on slide four, we certainly raised the bar on safety with all-time records for reportable and lost-time incident rates, among others. We owe this improvement to our dedicated employees who have truly internalized and live our safety-first culture every day. From an organizational standpoint, we made an intentional shift towards focusing on more forward-looking data points, empowering our people to own risk reduction processes, and endorsing an evergreen approach to continuous safety improvement. Our commitment to safety as a core summit value reflects our view that our people are our greatest asset, and we take personally our responsibility to help safeguard the health and well-being of all 4,800 of our summit colleagues. Turning now to slide five for a 2022 financial review, you'll see that our team delivered admirable results in the midst of dynamic cost and macro conditions. We set annual records for operating income, net income, and pricing growth across all lines of business. The year, as you know, was, however, negatively impacted by significant and unrelenting cost headwinds, supply chain constraints, as well as unfavorable weather conditions. With most of these factors outside our control and not particularly unique to Summit, I believe we did an incredible job controlling what we could and progressing our Elevate Summit strategic priorities. On slide six, you'll see our strategic priorities and enabling capabilities to simply capture, but allow me to elaborate on two areas of focus and achievement for our business. First, slide seven is a snapshot on optimizing the portfolio. Here we have made further inroads towards reaching our Horizon 2 objective of at least 75% of our last 12 months adjusted EBITDA contribution from aggregates and cement. We closed 2022 at 70%, up two percentage points from the prior year and seven points from 2020. We plan to double down on both organic and inorganic growth opportunities to reach and eventually surpass our 75% target. Take, for example, our portfolio moves, divesting three lower growth mostly downstream businesses in 2022, and then more recently adding two aggregates-led acquisitions in targeted high-growth priority markets. The second such acquisition in South Salt Lake City was completed at the end of January and will elevate our aggregates position, strengthen our customer coverage, and capitalize on the strong growth expected in that market. On the organic side, driving towards our profitability north stars for aggregates and cement combined with outsized growth and contribution from greenfields, will help power our path to 75% and improve our overall quality of areas. Moving to slide eight, where we highlight the dimension-wise tremendous achievement of our Continental Cement team to be the first in the industry to fully convert all of our cement production to Portland Limestone cement. PLC helps unlock much needed capacity in a very tight cement market. We sold 1.5 million tons of PLC in 2022, 300,000 tons ahead of our initial target as customer adoption and plant conversion happens faster than originally anticipated. PLC reduces our carbon emissions per ton to such a level that it's equivalent to taking 29,000 cars off the road. And PLC enhances the margin profile of our cement business, lowering our 2022 variable costs by approximately $2.3 million or $1.47 per ton. We highlight this success not to take advantage of that, but rather to emphasize PLC as an ongoing strategic imperative that is better for the environment, margin-enhancing for our business, and undermines our commitment to being the most socially responsible construction materials company in the industry. I'll close my upfront remarks with our summit scorecard on slide nine. Here are the refrains assembled, and one you've heard from us before. Once again, as expected, we closed 2022 setting elevated summit records for both leverage and ROIC. With leverage at 2.1 times, our intention to be more aggressive in pursuit of materials-led M&A is supported by a fortified and flexible balance sheet. That said, we will remain price disciplined and dedicated to maximizing shareholder value as we evaluate deal opportunities. Our ROIC in 2022 was 9.1%, 30 basis points better than the prior year, and more than a full point better than 2020 levels. Shedding underperforming assets, moving towards a more asset-like model, and getting more from existing assets is our playbook for improving ROC, and we don't see any reason why we won't close the gap to our 10% elevated summit target in the year ahead. Finally, in Q4, our LTM-adjusted EBITDA margins improved 20 basis points sequentially to 22.1%, as self-help commercial and operational initiatives have at least partially offset historic levels of inflation and supply chain pressures. Bottom line is that we ended the year improving each one of our elevated scorecard metrics, having a year of tremendous progress, while at the same time providing significant strategic momentum heading into 2023. Now, before I get into our plans for 2023, let me first turn it over to Brian for a more detailed review of our financial performance. Brian.
spk06: Thank you, Anne. I'll begin slide 11 with a full-year look by segment where results were strongest in our west and cement segments. In both cases, price fueled revenue growth more than offset inflationary conditions to drive healthy levels of year-on-year adjusted EBITDA growth. In our east segment, divestitures weighed on reported results and wet weather conditions combined with supply chain disruptions to hold back organic volume growth and led to additional cost headwinds. These factors more than offset high single-digit pricing growth and led to lower adjusted EBITDA in 2022 for our East segment. Turning to slide 12 for pricing growth by line of business. In Q4, we were able to build on our pricing momentum with year-over-year pricing growth accelerating further across all lines of business. In aggregates, pricing increased 13.9% in Q4 and registered 8.2% growth in 2022, ahead of our expectations that the compounding effect of previous pricing actions, along with a fourth quarter increase in Texas, drove a record aggregates pricing year. For cement, pricing accelerated to 16.6% to close out a double-digit pricing year reflective of favorable demand conditions and very tight cement supply in our river market. Furthermore, we saw very strong price realization on our two pricing actions in 2022, which is a positive signal for price reflection in the year ahead. Downstream fourth quarter pricing for ready mix and asphalt increased by 19.6 and 22.8% respectively. Both quarterly records demonstrating our team's ability to swiftly pass through higher input costs. All in, Record pricing in 2022 underlines our value pricing focus, emphasizes controlling what we can, and at the same time, provides a very strong exit velocity and carryover pricing momentum heading into 2023. Volume bridges by lines of business are provided on slide 13, with the impacts on acquisition and divestiture clearly quantified. Fourth quarter organic volumes in aggregates ready mix and asphalt were negatively impacted by cold and wet weather in many of our markets. For added context, our top 20 MSAs experienced 57 more days of precipitation and 52 more inches of precipitation versus Q4 2021, with the harshest conditions affecting our Texas and Southeast markets. Because these markets have the longest construction season, Unfavorable weather experience there had an outsized impact on our fourth quarter volumes. Aside from weather, we are seeing moderating residential demand impact volumes, particularly in Salt Lake City, which also contributed to the sequential decline of organic volume growth for aggregates and rain events in the period. Cement volumes, on the other hand, continue to be strong, up 1.7%,
spk05: representing back-to-back years of mid-single-digit volume growth for continental cement. Moving down the P&L to gross margins on slide 14.
spk06: For our materials lines of business, we closed the year on a high note, expanding fourth quarter adjusted cash gross profit margins in aggregate and cement by 210 and 440 basis points, respectively, accelerating price while Q4 margins also benefited from higher one-time costs incurred in the prior year period. Fourth quarter service margins were relatively flat year-on-year, while products margins decreased 120 basis points relative to Q4 2021. Lower products margins were driven predominantly by asphalt, as adjusted cash gross profit margins in rainy mix were up modestly in Q4 versus the year-ago quarter, thanks to swift pass-through price execution. Asphalt gross margins were adversely impacted by elevated liquid asphalt costs, which can approach 50% of the total variable costs of the finished product. And although we are largely indexed on liquid asphalt, there can be a lag before price fully catches up with costs. Stepping back, like others in our industry, 2022 was a challenging year for margins. driven by unprecedented levels of inflation, due in large part to supply chain disruptions. And in many respects, our gross margins were able to hold up better than some, thanks to portfolio optimization transactions that unloaded less profitable downstream businesses while retaining targeted integrated operations that drive greater aggregate pull-through, and as a result, better end-to-end profitability. Now, in a moment, Anne will discuss our views on the path of inflation. But if 2022 has taught us anything, it's that this dynamic operating environment favors businesses that build organizational and operational resiliency. With that in mind, we continue to press forward on our commercial and operational excellence initiatives in an effort to optimize operational costs and taking every opportunity to further increase efficiencies without sacrificing growth. I'll wrap up on slide 15, where we reported adjusted EBITDA margin in Q4 up 80 basis points year-on-year to 23.3%, driven primarily by materials, cash growth, margin growth I just discussed. Record adjusted diluted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share for the year reflects growth in operating income and lower DDNA expenses versus 2021 levels. Before turning the call back to Anne, I'd like to quickly recap two recent moves we've made to strengthen our capital structure and liquidity. First, we've amended and extended our 2024 term loan, which now comes due in 2027, and in the process converted to SOFR as the benchmark reference rate. And second, we increased the size of our revolver from $345 million to $395 million. This, together with the $520 million of cash on the balance sheet, means we have access to approximately $900 million of liquidity to pursue the highest return capital allocation opportunities and further our strategic objectives. And the final housekeeping item for the purposes of calculating adjusted diluted earnings per share, please use a share count of $119.7 million, which includes 118.4 million Class A shares and 1.3 million LP units. And with that, I'll now pass it back to Anne for our view on 2023.
spk09: Thank you, Brian. Before jumping into the specifics of our 2023 ad club, I'd like to first take a moment to characterize the singularity of the current operating environment. If we are on the precipice of a recession, as many of us think we are, it will be the first recession in my memory that was not predominantly driven by demand disruptions. Rather, today's environment, as I see it, is the result of three interrelated factors. First, exceptional levels of uncertainty, particularly on cost trends. Second, a supply chain that has proven more fragile and less responsive than originally thought. And third, a shifting geopolitical landscape that inserts additional volatility into our systems. Each of these, in isolation, would carry considerable challenges to our planning cycle and process. But when taken together, it really created perilous and unparalleled planning conditions that certainly tested the mental of our leadership team. So the plan you'll hear today is the result of iterative scenario planning, and it's underpinned by what we believe are realistic, if not conservative, underlying assumptions. We've said before, but it's worth reiterating, our material posture, as always, is to reflect the realities as we see them today, but also to plan for downside scenarios which was our approach for the 2023 plan. That said, we shouldn't lose sight of or underappreciate how our portfolio moves, together with sound strategic execution, have enhanced our profitability, strengthened our balance sheet, and improved the economic resiliency of our company. With that as important context, let's turn to slide 17 for an outlook by N. Marcus, starting with residential. Beginning in mid-2022, we have been bracing for a slowdown in the residential market as the Fed's more restrictive policies would inevitably target the housing sector. Thus far, and as a consequence, we've witnessed an orderly pullback in selling prices, a substantial, although not uniform, decline in single-family permits, as well as an uptick in the amount of supply on the market. By and large, our observations, as well as our conversations with customers, indicates the housing market is functioning as intended, and there is an ongoing recalibration on both the supply and demand side of the equation. At Summit, we've adjusted by increasing our bid activity on non-red and public projects. And while we've been successful in shifting our end market mix, there are certain limitations to how much volumes can be shifted. Having said all that, we still see near-term demand supporting single-family construction activities. albeit at a moderating pace. Looking beyond the next few months, however, is frankly a challenge, as visibility is clouded by a mix of data points. On one hand, affordability remains stretched and rents have been declining. On the other hand, mortgage interest rates have moved off peak levels, mortgage applications have increased, and homebuilder sentiment may have bottomed. We are hoping to gain better insights on the duration of the residential downturn as we move through the upcoming spring semifinal. Until then, we have not seen enough evidence, nor have we heard enough confidence coming from our residential customers to call for robust demand in the back half of 2023. Said another way, until we have better visibility, our residential outlook for 2023 includes a material decline in activity. Ultimately, we won't know how the second half will shape up until we gather more data. So the prudent approach and what is factored in today's outlook is for more protracted decline in residential activity for 2023. In lay terms, we are expecting our residential and market volumes to decline at least 30% in 2023, a level that's generally consistent with common industry forecasts. This viewpoint, however, does not change our overall bullishness on residential, especially in our top two markets, Houston and Salt Lake City, each of which has experienced healthy in-migration trends shortages in housing supply, and both benefit from underlying economic conditions that then support strong residential growth over the long run. In short, we are responding with agility to the near-term residential weakness by shifting volumes to growth year-end markets, have taken a cautious planning stance to back half activity, but remain resolute in our bullishness for residential in the long run. Shifting to non-residential on slide 18, and what we're expecting here is for growth trends to diverge between heavy and light verticals. On the heavy side, secular tailwinds supporting offshore critical parts manufacturing, as well as efforts to combat energy scarcity, is creating strong private and public momentum to lower life supply chains and improve overall domestic competitiveness. Construction spending for manufacturing grew 35% in 2022, A trend we expect to persist as legislation, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS bill, should provide a long runway for sustained investment in U.S. value chains. And our view is only bolstered by a full-heavy non-residential pipeline in our markets. Heading into 2023, we see several projects either underway or emerging in our footprint. From food manufacturing, semiconductor factories, and which farms in the Midwest. to large-scale and active LNG projects in Louisiana, to warehousing and EV battery manufacturing in Georgia and North Carolina, we have a high degree of confidence that heavy non-res will experience healthy levels of growth in 2023 because our markets are showing a steep step up in project activity. Light non-residential, on the other hand, is likely to face more challenges this year. Light non-res tends to be the build-out of retail, hospitality, and educational facilities that follows behind new residential development. Our expectation is that a high interest rate environment, along with a residential slowdown, will, as a result, weigh up light non-residential activity in 2023. Despite this, and on balance, we expect the growth from heavy non-residentials to offset the light non-residential slowdown such that we expect non-res to be roughly flat in 2023. Lastly, slide 19 on public infrastructure, where we have a high degree of conviction that mirrors the general consensus surrounding the directionality of this end market. It will unquestionably be the strongest contributor to our growth in the year ahead. The question, therefore, is around the magnitude of public growth for this year. To answer that question, we look at trends on highway awards at state DOTs for fiscal year 2023. And in both instances, we see very encouraging signs. First, looking at the value of highway award contracts in 2022, not only did contract awards increase materially last year, they accelerated substantially in the second half. Starting around July of last year, trading 12-month award growth flipped positive and then continued on that upward trajectory as we moved through the remainder of the year such that our top five states so highway and pavement awards contract values increased 22% in 2022, and up nearly 30% when you set aside Utah, where we typically do less public work. This momentum in awards signals to us that DOTs have assembled robust project lists and have increased confidence to put their dollars to work. That confidence is broadly reinforced by state DOT budgets for 2023. Our top five states, which include Texas, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, and Virginia, have increased their DOT budgets on average by 18% in fiscal 2023. Similarly, strong levels of DOT funding growth is expected in some of our fastest-growing states. In our East Region, for example, Georgia and the Carolinas will increase their budgets nearly 13% on average in fiscal 2023. In most instances, these budgets incorporate additional federal investment from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, But in some cases, like Utah, the current budget may not fully reflect increased federal funding under IIJA. Regardless, the step-up in state DOT budgets points to a very favorable public infrastructure environment in 2023, with the strongest tailwinds in the second half, consistent with prime construction season and catalyzed by IIJA flow through. All in, we expect public buy-ins to be up mid-single digits in 2023, with further acceleration probable in 2024. Having covered demand expectations by end mark, let's turn to the price-cost picture on slide 20. Coming off the year of double-digit cost inflation, we aren't yet seeing any meaningful signs of cost easing. So our planning stance is for costs to remain elevated for 2023. And if that proves to be overly conservative, then that will represent an upside to our 2023 expectations. With ongoing inflation and supply chain constraints as our base case scenario, we need to remain focused on controlling what we can control, both on price and on operational excellence. As Brian mentioned earlier, we expect tremendous exit velocity from 2022 pricing actions. And when you combine that with the widespread pricing actions implemented on January 1st, we are well positioned to deliver significant pricing gains in 2023, particularly for aggregates and cement and particularly in the first half of 2023. And operationally, we are pressing ahead with our continuous improvement projects across each line of business and spearheaded by our centers of excellence. We expect these projects to drop dollars to the bottom line this year, and we have intentionally revised our internal incentive structure to focus behaviors on near-term wins and reward results on this front. That said, supply chain pressures have not eased yet, and we expect certainly input costs to remain challenged in 2023. Specifically, pain points include materials, namely cement, as well as labor and our energy costs, which includes the hedged portion of diesel. On balance, we do anticipate the price-cost picture to improve in 2023, such that we land the year in positive territory on a full-year basis and that we grow at just the deepest of margins for the year ahead. Let's pull together everything on slide 21. For 2023, we expect adjusted EBITDA to come in between $480 million and $520 million based on the following framework. First, due exclusively to the slowdown in residentials, we would expect organic volumes to be down this year. Second, as commercial and operational excellence efforts take hold, we expect to return to a positive price net of cost relationship. And third, we will continue to manage our discretionary spend consistent with market conditions such that we expect G&A spend to be essentially flat this year. Embedded in this plan are two elements. First, we plan to meet or beat 2020 EBITDA margin levels, which if you recall, 2020 serves as a baseline reference point for elevated sum in progress. Here, price and gains and cost of our projects will more than offset volume declines and inflationary cost headings. And second, our wider than typical EBITDA guidance range accounts for the variability and uncertainty of two influential drivers, residential volumes in the second half and cost trends. If both elements break in our favor, we would expect to be closer to the top end of the range, and vice versa if residential volumes and costs are unfavorable. I think you'll agree that we've taken a balanced, if not prudent, approach to setting expectations in a very achievable place for this year. And while we will be focused on meeting and beating this target in 2023, we are unlikely to have strong convictions to materially revise this outlook until we get fully into the prime construction season. Only then will we have a more informed view on critical volume, cost, and margin trends. Nevertheless, in the meantime, we are sure to advance our strategic agenda, including extending our sustainability and innovation arguments, aggressively pursuing a creative, materials-led M&A, all while capitalizing on self-help margin opportunities across the enterprise and uniquely available to summit materials. Let me finish our outlook by outlining our capital allocation priorities, which have not changed. We will first prioritize investments in high-return organic and inorganic opportunities, putting capital to work via greenfields, profit-improving capex, and materials-led acquisitions. Then, when we view our shares as undervalued, we will look to opportunistically return capital to shareholders via share repurchases. We believe this approach, coupled with sound operational execution, is a powerful combination to drive attractive shareholder returns moving forward. In closing, while we operate in an uncertain environment and contend with certain industry challenges, we do so from a position of strength. We have built a talented, high-performance organization that is more capable than ever to navigate ambiguity seize opportunities, and deliver on commitments. We can and will leverage a stronger, more resilient portfolio and our balance sheet firepower to drive towards summit strategic and financial goals in 2023 and the years beyond. Finally, before taking your questions, I'd like to extend a special thank you to those who participated in our recent perception study. We value the feedback of the investment community and believe maintaining a continuous dialogue will inform our decision-making and result in a stronger summit material. I'll now ask the operator to open the lines for Q&A.
spk10: Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. The first question is from Trey Grooms with Stevens. Your line is open.
spk11: Hey, good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon. First, I want to make sure I'm using the right numbers on the guide here. Ann, I think you mentioned meet or beat 2020 EBITDA margin levels. So looking back, it looks like 22.7 on net revs. Is that the margin you're referring to, just to make sure?
spk09: 22.6, and that was when we basically launched our Elevate Summit, so that's what we always died against.
spk11: Yeah, okay, 22.6, all right. So that's... That's implying if we get to the midpoint of the EBITDA guide and we use that 22.6, granted, it should be at least that good, if not better. That's implying revenue about, it's going to look a lot like 22, if my math's right. And if I understood kind of the mix you gave us and everything else and your outlook for those in-market trends, I'm kind of backing into a kind of high single-digit type volume decline, which would imply something like a high single-digit price improvement as well to get to that flat. Am I thinking about that right or am I way off?
spk09: Well, you're pretty close. So let me take care of the volume first. So from a volume perspective, I would guide you overall as mid to high single-digit volume declines. And where that's coming from, Trey, is if you think about the residential being down 30%, you know, 60% of that of our ready mix goes into residential and 30% of our ags. So that's driving a lot of that. Obviously, our asphalt and construction will be up high, so that's not driven by public. And then non-residential is pretty much flat. So the volume, you're right, you're pretty close, but I would guide you to mid to high single digit. Now, on the pricing, obviously, the big driver is going to be in aggregates and cement. We've exited 2022 with tremendous pricing momentum. I would look at ags as being in the high single-digit to double-digit across our geographies and our cement being more double-digit price increases.
spk11: Perfect. Okay, thank you for clearing that up for us. And this is a follow-up. The ROIC target of 10% You guys have made a lot of progress on that. You're getting close here. I mean, you're over 9%, I think, in 22. That target of 10%, any thought on timing there? Is that something you think you might be able to achieve this year, or any update on the timing?
spk09: Well, I think what we've said is the 10% is a what we said as part of our Elevate Summit goals. And we said we did accomplish that over three to five years from the time we launched. To your point, Trey, we're well on track at 9.1% at the end of 2022. We feel very confident that we'll achieve that overall goal that we set in place over that three to five year period. And, you know, we said 10% is a floor that we've got to continually evaluate that and continue to expand our return on invested capital to our shareholders.
spk11: Right. Okay. Well, thank you for that, Ann. I'll pass it on. Keep up the good work. Thank you.
spk14: Thank you, Trey.
spk10: The next question is from Phil Ng with Jefferies.
spk14: Your line is open. Phil?
spk10: We will move on to the next question, which is from Catherine Thompson with Thompson Research Group. Your line is open.
spk01: Hi. Thank you for taking my question today. The top line in volume outlook seems we are more comfortable with outlook and agree with everything that you outlined today. From my perspective, given a choppy 2021 and 2022 in terms of the price-cost balance, As you look into 23 with your guidance and your general outlook, what gives you confidence in terms of consistency and visibility and earnings for each of your major operating segments in light of just both the cost landscape coupled with ongoing pricing actions? Thank you.
spk09: Thanks, Catherine. So let me kind of address that a few different ways. I would say, look, we've been very positive on the pricing, as I said in my prepared remarks, and we see that continuing moving forward. The team's done a very nice job on commercial excellence. What we've said before is our ability to deliver margin expansion is really driven by three things. And the first is where we've done a lot of heavy lifting. It's around our portfolio mix. We've richened that mix such that we end it. 2022 fourth quarter at 70% of our EBITDA being driven from cement and aggregates. And we have opportunity to further, you know, enrich that by our investments in greenfields, in high growth, high margin areas, and also any accretive M&A that's more materials led. So that gives us, that has really stabilized our portfolio that wasn't the summit of the past. So that gives us a lot of confidence that we're improving our consistency of earnings. The other two things are controlling what we can control. Value pricing, which I've talked a lot about on the call here. And most importantly is operational excellence. This is where we have really, we gained some momentum in 2022, but in 2023, we're really doubling down on that. We've set very specific targets in a multitude of areas. And we've set a special incentive plan to drive growth in that area. And I would say, you know, if you look across the board, our aggregates, we have targeted like two continuous improvement events per month. The team's very focused on production execution, footprint optimization. Our cement business is focused on grinding capacity and on gar expansion, which all contributes to that consistency of earnings. And then ReadyMix has done a great job in 2022, not only just holding margins at high material inflation, but also in expanding some margins. And they're doing that through focusing on basically short load fees, and also on their mix optimization. So we have a number of things ongoing. And then the one other thing I would point out that we've built in 2022 that will come into effect in 2023 is we've built a centralized procurement organization that now has the people, processes, and tools to fully leverage some expense. So we'll be really focused on those targets. And that gave us the confidence to go back to it and say we would beat the 2020 EBITDA levels.
spk01: Great. Thank you very much.
spk14: Thanks, Jeffrey.
spk10: The next question is from Keith Hughes with Truist. Your line is open.
spk03: Thank you. Question on the cost side. You highlighted elevated input costs coming into 23. Could you just talk about what kind of percentage gain do you think you could be looking at at this point and break it into cost buckets, if you could, please?
spk06: Yeah. Thanks, Keith. Obviously, going into 2023, we've got a little bit more visibility than we had at the very start of 2022. So, when we think about some of the bigger cost buckets, fuel, for example, diesel, that we buy forward, we've actually hedged about 55% of our estimated usage for 2023 at a price that's very similar to the actual cost for 2022. you know, puts and takes, tailwinds on that would be whatever happens to spot prices for the remaining 45% that we'll buy during the course of the year. On labor, we expect that to be around about mid-single digit. We're in the process of putting our annual review in place right now. On cement, where we're a big purchaser of cement, again, we've seen the signals from our suppliers of cement. And they've announced price increases in the range of $15 to $20 a ton. So we've got good visibility into that. And as I say, most of that cement goes into the ready mix downstream where we will pass that on to our customers. You know, those would be the other major moving parts, energy and hydrocarbon is still a lot of pressure there, particularly on improved coal costs for our kilns. And we see that being significantly higher than it was in 2022. And overall, the supply chain issues have not gone away. We still see those as providing a source of inflation and uncertainty as we go through the balance of the year.
spk03: So would that be all in total, high single digits? type increases, low double-digit, what would be the kind of the final total?
spk06: I think all in for a, yeah, Keith, I think all in for a total cost, we'd say mid to, maybe mid to high, a little bit above mid.
spk14: Okay, excellent. Thank you for your help. The next question is from Anthony Patanari with Citi. Your line is open.
spk16: Good afternoon. With You talked about volume declines, I think, potentially in the mid-single-digit to high-single-digit range. And I'm just wondering if there's sort of any finer point you can put on that, looking across aggregate, cement, ready mix, asphalt. And then again, just looking at your major markets, Texas, Utah, Kansas, Missouri, are there any specific markets that you would flag as maybe being a bit underweight or overweight, maybe based on RETI exposure or anything else you'd flag?
spk09: Yeah, so let me kind of take it on the volume. I think the finest point we can put is by end market. So let's take the one that's just lining. So residential, we said 30% is lying on that. Well, 60% of our RETI mix goes into residential and 30% of our aggregates. So That's a big driver of that reduction. If we look at non-res, we've said that's flat. And then if we look at public, we're calling for mid-single-digit growth. Now, as you translate that to the lines of business, obviously the residential is going to drive ready mix and aggregates down. The public is going to drive up our asphalt and construction. And then the non-res will be a mix of all, and will drive up our cement, actually. So our cement, when we look at volume growth for cement, In 2022, we did mid single digit, roughly volume growth. We are out of capacity because we are running full out. So when we look at into 2023, I would look at cement volumes that being slashed as well. So hopefully that'll give you a little more color there. And with respect to your question about our geographies, I would just say that our two biggest markets in residential are in Texas and Utah. And that's where you would see the biggest reductions on the residential side. with respect to money. Hopefully that answered your question.
spk05: No, that's very helpful.
spk14: I'll turn it over. Thank you.
spk10: The next question is from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
spk00: Yes, hi. Good morning to you folks and good afternoon to everyone else. I'm wondering if we can just talk about the margin cadence in the first quarter because you've got this interesting dynamic where you're going to have probably steeper price increases in the first quarter than the fourth quarter. And at the same time, we're coming off of a seasonally low margin comp. Should we be looking for outsized year-over-year margin expansion, just given that unique dynamic of a low base and pricing significantly ahead of cost as we start out 2023?
spk09: Well, I mean, I would continue to, as Brian pointed out, we're assuming continued supply chain disruption and continued inflation. Now, to your point, I do think because we've ended at such strong velocity on pricing, we've gone with the January 1st price increase that has had strong execution. Our first half comps will definitely look better. As we get into the second half, the comps are a little tougher. So, you know, that kind of informs our overall high single-digit to double-digit price for ags and double-digit pricing for cement. So definitely second half, the comps will be a little tougher, Jerry, to your point.
spk00: You got it. And can I ask just a quick follow-up? So, you know, nice tailwind for price-cost net over the course of this year. I'm wondering if you think about what the industry has learned given inflation. Are you optimistic that We could see price costs continuing to be a tailwind for the industry in 24, given how tough inflation has been for everybody in 22?
spk09: I'm not ready to talk about 24 yet, I've got to tell you, Jerry. 2023 is plenty uncertain for us as we go through. We've just gone with, and we have to plan for as an organization, that inflation is going to continue high. That's what's made our team very agile around pricing. It's making us focus double down on operational excellence, and that's how we get that price net of cost. So I'll talk to you later in 2023 about 2024. Thank you, Bill.
spk00: Fair enough.
spk14: Thanks.
spk10: The next question is from Brent Tillman with DA Davidson. Your line is open.
spk04: Hey, thanks. Good morning. I was interested on the slide on PLC and specifically that $1.47 per ton cost savings in 2022. I guess my question is would you expect that per unit savings to grow in 23 even on the same amount of PLC? I'm just wondering if you've realized all the cost sort of incentives associated with that product line that you got in 22.
spk09: I think we've realized most of the per unit cost, but we'll have more going through because we've converted. We did 1.5 million tons of PLC in 2022. We'll do our full capacity in 2023. But the per unit cost, I think that's a pretty good estimate that we have. I wouldn't expect much more expansion from that.
spk04: And that was my follow-up. So you'll be sort of full out on PLC in 2023, right?
spk09: Yep, we're looking forward to that, and that will allow us to use more of our domestic production versus the high amount of imports that we had in 2022. So that obviously improves the margin, and that's part of our cement team's goal moving into 2023. Okay.
spk14: All right. Excellent. Thank you. Thanks, Brent.
spk10: The next question is from Garrick Chmois with Loop Capital. Your line is open.
spk07: Oh, hi, thanks. Derek Schwoz here. So I wanted to follow up on the margin target for the year and the goal to exceed 2020 levels. Would you anticipate exceeding 2020 across all of your business lines, or would it be carried by one or two units in particular of all of us?
spk09: Well, you know, just by the nature of where our portfolio has gone, cement and aggregates will carry it. But we do always require more margin expansion by all of our businesses, so I don't want to over-index that. But really, when we talked about, if you remember during our investor day, we talked about our aggregates North Star going to 60% cash-adjusted gross profit margin and getting our cement to sustainable 40% EBITDA margins. Our teams are extremely focused on that, driving these operational excellence and commercial excellence initiatives to drive towards that goal. So, That's no different in 2023. As I answered Catherine's question earlier, we are really doubling down on operational excellence because that's what the team can control to drop dollars to the bottom line in 23 and continue with that value pricing excellence that we've really driven some strong execution in 22. And as we look into 23, while we've come out with a strong January increase, I wouldn't rule out multiple price increases given our stance on continued inflation and supply chain disruption.
spk14: Perfect.
spk10: Appreciate the call.
spk14: Thank you.
spk10: The next question is from David McGregor with Longbow Research. Your line is open.
spk12: Hey, good afternoon. This is Joe Nolan on for David. I just had one quick question. Hey, just within the pricing guidance, how much of the Pricing is from the January increase versus how much of that is going to be carryover pricing. And then you just mentioned the potential for mid-year pricing actions, but I'm assuming that that's not baked into the guidance at this point.
spk09: Yeah, so let me give you a little color on that. So we're exiting 2022 with our aggregates full-year price at 8.9% growth. In Q4, we had 14.4%, so double digits. And then we, on top of that, we'll go with the price increase in January. Our guide only has one price increase in it, just for that perspective. And so as we move throughout the year, we would expect that that price would compound in that high single-digit to double-digit range across our geographies for aggregates. Cement is obviously exiting at double-digit price increase, and we've already gone with the $17 per ton price increase. in our January increase. And again, that is all that's baked into the guidance. We have not baked in additional inflation and or additional price increases as we move throughout the year.
spk12: Great. That's very helpful. Thanks. I'll pass it on.
spk09: Thanks, Joe.
spk10: The next question is from Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
spk02: Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple of quick follow-ups on the price-cost dynamics. You mentioned that you'd expect it positive for the full year. When we think about the cadence, and it seems like you've got good carryover price to start this year, and inflation, yes, elevated, but good pricing. Would you make that same comment in terms of first half also being price-cost positive, or was that intentional in terms of full year because you expect some early headwinds, maybe offset by second-half tailwinds?
spk09: It's hard to fully tell at this point in time, but with what we see, you know, I think our comps in the first half will look pretty strong on pricing. I think second half price cost will be a little bit more challenged because the comps are harder at that point in time. So we'll have to see as the year progresses. But overall, we don't give quarterly guidance, but we're very confident that we should be able to get our price net of cost with our improved portfolio focus on commercial excellence and focus on operational excellence as we end the year in 23.
spk02: Okay, got it. And then my second question is on the resi piece. So it makes sense looking at some of the declines recently in permits and starts, obviously some different views out there for how the year progresses. My question is when you think about that 30%, we have seen that in starts and permits, Usually your business might lag a little bit. Is that already what you're seeing in your actual shipment trends, or is that something where you're maybe not experiencing declines quite that severe, but looking at kind of the writing on the wall as you get through 1Q or 2Q?
spk09: Yes, a great question. So as we, Q4, we started to see in our two major markets, which is basically Salt Lake City and Houston, we saw double digits volume declines in our residential. Now, the good news is they're not at a screaming stop or anything. It was kind of an orderly decline and we were able to pivot some of our volume into non-res and public. Now, the other thing we are looking at right through this time is the single family permits from 2022. And if you look on a full year basis on a national decline, it was 13%, but a lot of the decline was in the second half. So it had accelerated in the second half on single-family permit declines. But if you look on a full-year basis, our Houston market fell much in line, about 10% decline, with about 2.2 months of supply. Our Salt Lake City went down 30%. The single-family permits went down 30% overall on J-BREX data. And so we're not terribly surprised by that, frankly, because if you look at both those metros, as we started planning for 2023, we had to look at a couple of factors. One, we're not big into multi-family. We're mainly single-family, so that's where our numbers will come from. The second factor is that we're coming off historic highs for both Salt Lake City and Houston. And just to give you some color around that, our Salt Lake City exceeded the historic average for permits, single-family permits, by 1,000 per year since 2017. So think about coming off these really high residential build-outs. Our decline is going to be probably steeper. So that's what kind of informed our decision. Plus, we're talking to our customers, and they're not having a high degree of confidence. And that really, all those factors, on top of the fact that if you look at, you know, forecasts from NAB and Fannie Mae that are 25% plus on decline, we felt that this was a prudent approach. So we are seeing some of this, and we don't believe that we should be overly bullish by the second half.
spk10: Yep, makes sense. Thanks, Anne.
spk14: Thanks, Mike.
spk10: The next question is from Adam Thalheimer with Thompson Davis. Your line is open.
spk08: Hey, good morning, guys. Quick question on ready mix pricing. What's the range of outcomes if residential does decline 30% plus this year?
spk09: You know, it's interesting. We always watch that very closely. Obviously, if demand comes off, will it impact our pricing? But the dynamic you have this year is these high cement prices driven by high input costs. And generally in our markets, when the cement price stays high, we're able to continue to pass that through, keep our prices high. That will be more challenging this year if demand drops off more than we think at 30%. Right now, our planning stance is that we will pass through as our teams have executed all year long on passing through the high material costs. And in fact, already mixed teams expanded margins in 2022, which was really quite an accomplishment given the cement cadence that they had to pass through. So we think cement stays up, even though demand's down at 30%, our teams can pass through. But I would also say we have additional initiatives, again, controlling what we can control, through our operational excellence, Centers of Excellence for Ready Mix, where we're focused on short loads, additional fees for short loads. Our team's done a great job using AI to optimize our ad mixtures so that they can value price and bring quality into the market. So the combination of all those factors, we believe it will hold, but we will watch it very closely, and our team's working very hard in that direction.
spk08: Thanks, Anne.
spk09: Thanks, Adam.
spk10: The next question is from Phil Ng with Jefferies. Your line is open.
spk15: Hey, guys. Sorry about that. Technical issues, unfortunately. Hey, Ann, that color you gave on terms of how demand's holding up on the resi side was quite interesting. I guess you got some different factors, right? Your comps are much easier on volumes in the back half. Maybe the public stuff ramps up. So in terms of your volume guidance for the full year, Help us think through the shape of the year in terms of the declines and do things kind of flatten out at some point.
spk09: I want to make sure I'm answering your question there. With respect, is your question totally on resi?
spk15: My question is just volume overall for you guys because you've got a confluence of factors. You've got resi, and it sounds like resi is holding up better than the 30% at this juncture, so maybe it's a bad guy in the back half. But infrastructure, I assume, ramps up more than backups. I just wanted to get a better sense of shape of the year in terms of your volumes for 2023.
spk09: You know, we saw Q4 double-digit declines in our resi volumes, and we will, you know, that's not our biggest quarter across the board. So when you think about the compounding effect of those declines as you get into our peak season, that's where we got to our 30% overall declines in the peak season. So You know, while they've started to go down, yes, they will probably go down a little bit more. The rest of the volumes, I think, are driven largely just by the seasonality of our business, if you try and spice it into quarters. Because remember, Phil, you know, only 4% of our EBITDA is made in the first quarter, generally, if you look back over historical averages. So when you look at our business, you've got to really look at May through September, October. That makes or breaks our year. So that's why in my prepared comments I made the comment that we're not going to be in peak season until we really understand the depth of the air pocket.
spk15: That's thoughtful. And if I could sneak one more in. Last year from a productivity standpoint, you guys had some challenges because you couldn't get some equipment you needed. You mentioned supply chain is still a challenge. Are you seeing any of that freeing up that gives you ability to kind of unlock some of the self-help initiatives you guys have targeted?
spk09: We are still having problems with our supply chain. The equipment has not eased up at this point in time. We are hopeful that as the year proceeds, particularly with respect to our capital equipment, that it would ease over time, but our R&M costs are still elevated at this point in time. Brian, maybe you have a little more color around that that you'd like to add for what we're planning there.
spk06: Yeah, there's still delays from some of our suppliers, and oftentimes it's not just, it's one or two small components that can delay the delivery of an entire piece of equipment. So that continues to be a challenge. We did get some new equipment in Q4, but we still have quite a big carryover from things that we wanted to get in 2022. So that remains an issue. And as long as it does, repair and maintenance costs have been elevated, not just because of the delays and having to run equipment for longer, and put more hours on the clock, but also because the costs of the components, frankly, whether they be major components, overhaul components, or consumable spare type items, have also been higher due to inflation. So it's a challenge, and it continues to be so. Typically, we would like to get new equipment on the ground for the start of the season, It remains to be seen how we'll be able to get everything we want by, you know, the April, March, April, May timeframe.
spk15: Okay. Thank you. Great call. Thanks, Bill.
spk10: We have no further questions at this time. I'll turn it over to Ann Noonan for any closing comments.
spk09: Thanks, Chris. I'll just leave you with three takeaways. 2022 is a year of tremendous strategic progress. We ended the year with the strongest balance sheet in Summit's history. set a high watermark for ROIC, began our margin recovery, and set all-time records across multiple safety measures. We'll carry this momentum into 2023 by building on strong pricing growth while focusing on those cost levers within our control. We are confident that our continued focus on value pricing principles coupled with operational excellence initiatives across the enterprise will help counter inflation and over time deliver sustainable margin growth. Today's summit is a talent-rich and materials-led organization that's better positioned to pursue attractive organic and inorganic opportunities than ever before. Armed with an exceptional balance sheet, we will continually optimize the portfolio, invest to grow prioritized markets, and strengthen the profitability and economic durability of our company. As always, we thank you for your continued support for Summit Materials, and we hope you have a nice day.
spk10: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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