Vulcan Materials Company

Please stand by, your program is about to begin. If you need assistance during your conference today, please press star zero. Good morning. Welcome everyone to the Vulcan Materials Company Third Quarter 2024 earnings call. My name is Angela and I will be your conference call coordinator today. Please be reminded that today's call is being recorded and will be available for replay later today at the company's website. All lines have been placed in a listen only mode. After the company's prepared remarks, there will be a question and answer session. Now I will turn the call over to your host, Mr. Mark Warren, Vice President of Investor Relations for Vulcan Materials. Mr. Warren, you may begin.

Thank you, operator, and good morning everyone. With me today are Tom Hill, Chairman and CEO, and Mary Andrews Carlisle, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Today's call is accompanied by a press release and a supplemental presentation posted to our website, vulcanmaterials.com. Please be reminded that today's discussion may include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. These risks, along with other legal disclaimers, are described in detail in the company's earnings release and in other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures are defined and reconciled in our earnings release, our supplemental presentation, and other SEC filings. During the Q&A, we ask that you limit your participation to one question. This will allow us to accommodate as many as possible during our time we have available. And with that, I'll turn the call over to Tom.

Thank you, Mark, and thank all of you for joining our call this morning. We continue to execute on our two-pronged strategy to deliver attractive, long-term value creation for our shareholders. Results and activities in the third quarter demonstrate our success in consistently expanding our aggregate and profitability and successfully expanding our reach through strategic acquisition opportunities. Despite the disruption of four hurricanes impacting our industry-leading southeast footprint, both gross margin and adjusted EBITDA margin expanded in the quarter. And -over-year aggregates cash gross profit per ton increased double digits for the eighth consecutive quarter, a testament to the benefits of our unwavering focus on our vocal way of selling and vocal way of operating disciplines. In the quarter, we generated $581 million of adjusted EBITDA, a modest decline versus the prior year, given 10% lower aggregate shipments and the prior year earnings contribution from the now-divested Texas Concrete business. Shipments in the quarter varied widely -to-month and across geographies, reflecting the interruption caused by extreme weather events. So let me walk you through how the quarter played out. In July, seven of our top 10 markets experienced significant -over-year increases in rainfall. And the first of four hurricanes, Hurricane Burl, made landfall in our footprint. Average daily shipments were down mid-teens for the month. Shipments in August rebounded after a slow start due to Hurricane Debbie tracking up the East Coast. Debbie shipments in August, excluding the two shipping days most impacted by the hurricane, were only down 4% consistent with our -weather-impacted demand view. As we are all aware, Hurricane Helene, the second of two September hurricanes, devastated many communities across Florida, western North Carolina, East Tennessee, and other parts of the southeast. I am thankful to report that all of our employees are safe, and I am proud of their immediate efforts to help our communities and neighbors. The catastrophic destruction in western North Carolina and East Tennessee is both tragic and historic. Volcan materials is well positioned in the affected areas to support the immense rebuilding efforts that will be required. Due to the storm, shipments were down approximately 25% in the final week of September, resulting in quarterly shipments finishing 10% below the prior year. In spite of the challenges from volume, the pricing environment remains positive. Freight-adjusted average selling prices improved 10% -over-year, with increases widespread across geographies. We continue to use our Volcanic Selling Disciplines and processes to deliver value to our customers and earn their daily business. We also remain focused on our Volcanic Operating Disciplines to drive efficiencies and lower unit costs. Although weather and lower volumes were an even more significant headwind in the third quarter than the prior quarter, the rate of cost increases moderated. At the end of September, we announced the acquisition of Wakestone Corporation, a leading pure-play agri-supplier in the Carolinas. This acquisition is consistent with our agri-led growth strategy and will be a great addition to the Volcan family. We look forward to welcoming the Wakestone team upon closing later this year. Now, shifting to demand. The overall demand environment is improving, but with different dynamics impacting each end-use. Higher single-family starts over the last three and twelve months provide a solid backdrop for growing single-family demand, particularly with potentially lower mortgage rates on the horizon to help address the ongoing affordability issue. Multi-family starts remain weak, but should also benefit from a lower interest rate environment. Fundamentally, there is a consistent need for additional housing in Volcan markets, which bodes well for future residential construction activity. In private non-residential construction, demand remains varied across categories. Most categories will benefit from improving interest rates since projects in the planning and design pipeline have been accumulating for some time now. Warehouse activity remains a headwind, but comps are easing and starts seem to be stabilizing near pre-COVID levels. Data centers are still robust, and manufacturing remains a catalyst in some of our markets. Over time, light commercial activity should follow the positive trends in single-family housing. We are closely monitoring the macro dynamics and likely timing of private non-residential activity making the turn. On the product side, we continue to expect steady growth for multiple years. Our booking activity points to the conversion of growth in contract awards now flowing into aggregate shipments. I am confident we are well positioned to finish the year strong and deliver approximately $2 billion of adjusted EBITDA in 2024. Now, I'll turn the call over to Mary Andrews to discuss a few more details about the quarter and 2024 before I share some preliminary views of 2025. Mary Andrews?

Thanks, Tom, and good morning. Tom covers for you some of our important achievements in the aggregates business during the third quarter. I want to highlight a few other items that underpin our competence and the durability of our business and the solid execution of our team. Our downstream businesses continue to strategically complement our aggregates franchise and select markets. The asphalt business maintains healthy margins at nearly 16 percent in the third quarter and cash unit profitability improves 11 percent. Our concrete business on the East Coast also delivered unit profitability improvement, while the lower volumes related to weak private demand in Northern California compressed margins in our West Coast concrete business. Our SAD expenses in the quarter were $129 million or 6.4 percent of revenue, 10 percent lower than the prior year, and 20 basis points favorable as a percent of revenue. We remain dedicated to both disciplined cost control and making strategic investments in talent and technology to support our business and drive innovation. Through the first nine months, we have generated nearly $1 billion of operating cash flows through our constant focus on maximizing our cash growth profit on every ton of aggregates we sell. After reinvesting over $400 million to sustain and improve our existing operations and grow our business through greenfield development, we have yielded a 36 percent increase in free cash flows to deploy for expanding our reach through M&A and returning cash to shareholders. Year to date, we have allocated $206 million to strategic bulk phone acquisition and returned $252 million to shareholders through dividends and common stock repurchases. For the full year, we now expect to spend between $625 million and $650 million of capital expenditures. Our balance sheet position provides us the strength and flexibility to grow. At September 30, net debt to trailing 12 months adjusted EBITDA leverage was 1.5 times, giving us ample investment capacity within our target leverage range of two to two and a half times to fund the wake stone acquisition and other growth opportunities that will drive long-term value creation for shareholders. We continue to focus on our return on invested capital, which was 16.1 percent, a 70 basis points improvement over the last 12 months with higher adjusted EBITDA generated on lower average invested capital. I'll now turn the call back over to Tom to provide some preliminary thoughts on 2025 and a few closing remarks.

Thank you, Mary Andrews. As I look to 2025 and contemplate the demand backdrop, I expect aggregate shipments to grow next year. Public construction activity remains robust, and the environment is improving for the private construction activity. I am confident that Vulcan Materials will continue to execute at a high level and compound our industry-leading cash growth profit per ton at double-digit levels. I expect aggregate price to continue to outpace historical norms and improve by high single digit in 2025. I also expect -over-year cost trends to improve through a combination of execution on our Vulcan Web operating disciplines to drive improved efficiencies in our operations and moderating inflation. Vulcan Materials has the right products, aggregates, and the right markets. But more importantly, I am confident we have the right focus and the right people to execute our strategy and deliver earnings growth in 2025. And now Mary Andrews and I will be happy to take your questions.

At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. You may remove yourself from the queue at any time by pressing star two. Once again, that is star one to ask a question. We will go first to Derek Schmoy with Loop Capital. Please go ahead.

Oh, hi. Thanks for having me on today. Good morning. Hey, good morning. I was hoping you'd go over a little more detail on the high single digit pricing outlook for next year. How much carryover is there for big years from this year? Any help on the pacing for pricing next year and any mix impacts we should be thinking about either from a product mix or geographic mix standpoint?

Yeah, first of all, I don't think we have any mix put in there. But let me go back in time a little bit. If you look at our mid-year price increases, they were largely as expected, kind of by market and by customer, very much similar to last year. And so that's a really healthy start for 2025. And I think that if you take mid-year price increases and couple that with what we see in our backlogs, it allows us to carry very good pricing momentum and visibility into next year. As we said, the press release, I think our preliminary view is high single digit increases for 2025. I think I'm confident in that. If you combine that with cost increases, which continue to moderate, I think it makes me feel really good about the continued double digit unit margin growth throughout 2025. As you heard us say in the prepared remarks, we've had eight quarters of double digit cash growth private return growth. And remember, seven of those eight quarters, we were dealing with declining volumes. So I think we're confident we continue that streak in 2025. I guess my I want to thank my teams. That's tough to do given the challenges that we've seen with weather and volume throughout this year, particularly in the third quarter. But I think they continue that success in the next year. And, you know, what that tells me is that the Vulcan team is in control of the destiny, they're controlling what they can control. Yeah.

And remember, Garrett, too, you know, the reason we are so focused on that unit profitability improvement that Tom was talking about is that maximizing cash growth profit on every time is the key to our free cash flow generation. You know, to me, it's notable that on lower ag volumes and lower revenues here today, EBITDA margins has expanded and free cash flows increased 36 percent. So as Tom said, our teams have executed very well in a really challenging environment. And frankly, I think they've provided a perfect example of, you know, just how durable this business is.

Yeah, makes sense. Thanks for the helpful announcement.

We'll go next to Trey Grooms with Stevens. Please go ahead.

Morning, Trey. Morning, Tom. Morning, Mary Andrews. Hope everybody's doing well. So I know it's not always perfect science here, easy to do, but, you know, as you look at the quarter, can you try to parse out, you know, kind of what the weather impacts may have been versus demand and, you know, maybe how each played a role in the down 10 percent volume that we saw here in 3Q?

Yeah, we tried to parse out a little bit by month in the quarter, but obviously weather has been a big story this year and the third quarter underscored that story. You know, if you look at the year, we've had 17 out of our 20 largest markets with more rain than prior year. I would call underlying demand kind of still down mid single digit X weather. Looking forward to the fourth quarter, you know, we saw Hurricane Milton give us a tough start, but since then we've seen we've seen good weather and we've seen our daily shipping rates bounce back, which is, you know, encouraging. But to get us back down to earth is still Q4. So how we finish the fourth quarter, I think will just depend on the number of good weather shipping days. So far so good at this point, but we got to see. I think again, in spite of, you know, extreme weather and volumes, our folks continue to expand your margin by double digits. So, you know, we can't control the weather, but we control, you know, how we service our customers and price and cost. But, you know, again, I would call underlying demand mid single digit and the rest weather and we'll just see how the weather allows us to finish the fourth quarter.

Thanks for that. And I'm sticking to one question, but I did want to congratulate you on the nice improvement there in the gross profit per unit, cash growth profit per unit, you know, especially despite the volume headwinds that you had. So thanks.

I appreciate that. I give all the credit to the people that sell in Crush Rock.

There you

go.

Okay. I'll pass it on. Thanks, everybody.

Thanks,

man. We will go next to Keith Hughes with Druist. Please go ahead.

Thank you. The question is volume and 25. I knew you said they're going to be up, but we have some pretty easy concepts of whether you discussed. How much could it be up and is to getting the pricing that you just discussed for 25 or do you think you'll have to walk away from some shipments to really get pricing that high?

I don't think that there's any if we look at the kind of volume growth at low single digit, I don't think you're looking at any share moving around. I look at volume at 20, 25. First of all, you're going to have some push from 24 to 25, obviously. That volume doesn't go away. It just pushes back. So that'll be a little bit of a tailwind for us. And, you know, we'll continue to, I think, experience demand challenges from like nonres and warehouse construction. Hopefully that drop is slowing. I do think we'll see overall growth in res, additional construction, some challenges on multi, but I think single is and will bounce. And then we'll see growth on the public side. So, you know, a little bit early to call 20, 25. Plenary thoughts would be kind of low single digit with no impact on price. And that's assuming normal

weather.

I don't know what normal is anyway. Whatever normal is. All right. Thank you.

We will go next to Anthony Pedinari with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Tom, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about Wakestone, just kind of, you know, how long you've been looking at that business and maybe the profile, the assets, in terms of kind of the per unit profitability, how it sort of stands up against a larger company, just any other details you'd share.

Yeah, we've known the Braddons for years. And, you know, they run a good company. We're looking at closing that business later this year. So not much of an impact, I would say, for this year. You know, they operate in the Triangle region of East North Carolina, the Raleigh Durham Chapel Hill. And that's one of the 10 fastest growing regions in the country. So a great market. I had the pleasure of meeting with the entire Wakestone team a few weeks ago. They're a talented bunch. And we look forward to them joining the Volkin family. And we are confident that this will have substantial value creation for our shareholders. And I think, you know, we're like our strategy. We will say this is expanding our reach into some very attractive aggregate markets. Okay,

that's helpful. Is there a rough estimated tonnage, or should we wait for that?

You know, historically, they've been in the 8 to 9 million ton range. Got it, got it. That's helpful. I'll turn it over. Thank you.

We will go next to Katherine Thompson with Thompson Research Group. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my question today. You touched on earlier in the Q&A about the volume's down 10 percent, yet you were able to get double-digit cash growth profit per ton in the quarter. And you helped us bridge, you know, how does this achieve. Following in on that, compare and contrast what happened this quarter and in terms of what your outlook is in 25. And are there any particular aspects, including cost, that could be different in 25 versus front quarter? And then maybe also talk about what will be unchanged and what are the things that allow to put up double-digit cash growth profit per ton even in the face of double-digit volume for clients? Thank you.

Yeah, I think this kind of goes, that is the disciplines of the Volcom was selling and Volcom was operating. And that's kind of simply put, you saw us continue pricing disciplines, you know, throughout this year. And I thought the teams did a good job with that. I think that they did a good job with mid-years, which helps us, you know, carry good momentum into 2025 from a pricing perspective. And in the conversations that we've had for the, you know, January 1 pricing, you know, they're not complete, but they're pretty far down the road. And so that gives us some confidence of that high single digit from a pricing perspective. On the cost side, you know, we've been sitting here facing double-digit cost, unit cost for a number of quarters now, which quite candidly is extremely high. A lot of that is inflation driven. Some of that this year is impacted by weather and by volume. But I think that our operating teams continue to execute on the disciplines from an operating perspective. And that is, you know, plant availability, throughput, tons per hour, tons per man hour, and all the metrics that go into what drives costs. So while we continue, I think, good pricing momentum going into 2025, I think we are starting to see our cost increases moderate. And that's a combination, I think, of inflation moderating, but also our operating efficiencies improving. And as far as those operating efficiencies, I think we've got a long way to go. We were, I guess, put back a little bit this year because of implement weather, which gives you wet, sticky material. It's hard to operate. So I would expect over the next few quarters that the operating efficiency to continue to improve.

Great. Thanks so much. And best of

luck. Thank you. Thank you.

We will go next to Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. It's Tom, Mary Andrews, Mark. Congratulations on the strong profitability given the volumes this quarter, mine as well. I want to ask the pricing sequentially, I thought, was quite constructive given the disruption in terms of relative to an attractive part of your footprint here. Can you just talk about how the weaker volumes this year are impacting the pricing cadence? If at all, I'm assuming new stock market business would have come online were it not for the demand decline. And how does that impact the planned pricing cadence in terms of the price increases that you've announced to customers for January 1 for 25 compared to the cadence of pricing actions that you took in the beginning of 24, just to calibrate us?

You know, demand, I mean, volumes going down never helps price, but I think that the visibility to coming demand both on the public side, particularly on the public side, but now also we think some growth on the private side and residential are helpful for price. I think as far as, you know, we talked about mid-year price increases, that's a good step for 25. It helped a little bit in 24. I think if you look at the cadence in 24, we were probably up a little bit higher from Q1 and Q2 than last year, probably not quite as high from Q2 and Q3, but that's just timing. And so I think that you put all that together where demand has been a drag, I think, is us and our customers look to 2025. I think the future looks much better from a public side and from a residential side and probably not as bad from a non-residential side. You pull that together, I think we're encouraged by opportunities for price and unit margin as we look out to 25.

And sorry, Tom, can you comment on the timing part of that question, you know, January 1 versus April 1? How does that look in terms of your plans for 25 compared to the inflows in 24?

Yeah, the vast majority of our prices will be January 1. I'm trying to think if there's any that will be April. I'm sure there's a minority out there, but none that I can think of else out of my head. So, you know, that's changed, been changed now for two or three years, and I don't, I expect to continue January 1.

And just, Jerry, talking about the sequential price, you're right. We thought that, you know, third quarter sequentially played out in line with what we expected given the execution on the mid-year increases. So, you know, good momentum moving into the fourth quarter, which obviously we don't usually see sequential growth, too much mixed really to call that. But tremendous momentum moving into 2025 and those January 1 increases.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll go next to Brent Thielman with VA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Hey, thanks. Hey, good morning. Thanks. Tom, I know a lot of attention on the private sector for 2025 and what may come, but on infrastructure, I mean, I guess some of the leading indicators out there showed some flattening at relatively high level. That's my question is, do you think your business can still see an acceleration in those volumes next year? I know you've got the weather stuff this year, but also just thinking about a lot of projects that are just still getting going that have been released over the last couple years. Do you want to get your sense around that?

Yeah, I think we feel good about the public side. I think we're seeing the IJA and state and local funds flow into highways now. Overall, we see public demand growth. It's this year's similar to Rice Tech's patience, steady growth as we look forward. And then if you look over beyond IJA, you've got substantial state funding. Texas and California are two of our largest states and they're at record-leading levels. And then you've got Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina that all approved large additional funding, state funding. You put all that together. It'll impact some some lettings in 2025, which will help us, but it'll go past that. So you've got six of our largest states at record funding levels, and that should support, you know, public demand this year, next year, and obviously the next 44 years. And then you've got the other infrastructure over beyond highways, the support by IJ that is a little better than we would have expected at this point. So feel pretty good about the public side. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go next to fill in with Jeffries. Please go ahead.

Hey guys. I guess from a cost per ton standpoint, how should we think about the fourth quarter? Does that start to normalize? And when we look out to, you know, 2025, your gross profit per ton's been pretty stellar despite weaker volumes. Does that accelerate a little more if we get a little more volume growth when we think about next year in terms of cost per ton coming down as well?

I would expect simply cost to the cost cost to the cost increases to start moderating. But I think if you, you know, despite the volumes and the weather challenges that we had in the quarter, we continue to moderate that cost looking backwards. And that wet sticking material hurts that efficiency. So, you know, volume growth in a more normal weather pattern coupled with the continued implementation of the bulk of operating, I think will help our cost issues as we move forward and support that double digit margin growth. So simply put, I would expect our cost pressures to start easing over the next few

quarters. Can we get it back to normal like in that low to mid single digit range in the fourth quarter or it's going to take a little longer? And is that a good basis for a 20, 2025?

That's a great target. But that's the target. I'm not claiming victory on that one yet. But yeah, that's our goal is to get it back down to normal. Okay. Super. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go next to Timna Tanners with Wolf Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, Timna.

Hey, good morning. Hello. I wanted to ask if I could about capital allocations and shifting gears. So you paused the buyback wondering why given such a strong forecast the quarter, you talked about more M&A. Is there still some left? I know you accentuated that on last call. And just wondering in general if you could talk about other uses, including debt pay down potentially into next year with a majority in the second quarter.

So I'll let Mary Andrews go first with capital and then I'll talk about acquisitions.

Yeah, Timna, you know, I think through the first nine months, you know, our capital allocation decisions have been consistent with what we always communicate, which is, you know, that the biggest gating item for us is always growth opportunities. We've obviously announced the Lake Stone opportunity and the pipeline, you know, remains active. So I think there's, you know, other opportunities ahead of us. We obviously have the balance sheet well positioned to fund those growth opportunities. And also, as you mentioned, are taking into account the notes that are coming due in April of next year.

On M&A, you know, we saw us close a couple of small bolt-ons in Alabama and Texas earlier in the year. We're obviously excited about Lake Stone and looking forward to closing that one. That aside, I think the M&A pipeline remains active. We're working on some other opportunities that we hope to get to the finish line and talk about in the next few quarters.

Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go next to Michael Dudas with Vertical Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, Mark. Good morning, Mary Andrews. Good morning, Andrews, Mark and Tom. Tom, back to looking maybe at the private sector, can you maybe share how your manufacturing, industrial energy customers, how their plans, their back, how your backlog looks relative to that market? And if you sense any, maybe generally, maybe definitely on the private side across the board, any hesitancy because of the election and once that gets through and with maybe rates, you know, hopefully normalizing, though the biomarker's not cooperating the last couple of weeks, of that giving a little more tailwinds to some of the volume numbers that you're sharing with us today?

Yeah, I think, you know, obviously the warehouses and distribution centers and the light side of our challenges. That being said, I think the drop on that is easing. As you said, it's offset with heavy and heavy manufacturing and data centers. That's been a good tailwind for us. That continues to be a good tailwind for us going into 2025. But I think it's insightful about what you said about what's in the pipeline. I think there's a lot of projects on hold. If you talk to a number of our customers and the large general contractors, they're bidding a lot of work, but nobody's pushing the button. I think that with election being over, interest rates easing, hopefully in the second half of next year, we'll see some of these come off the sideline. But there is a lot of pent up out there that's kind of a wait and see. So we hope that a number of factors helps ease that and we see some of that come off. Second half of, it will impact second half of 2025, but probably a bigger impact on 26. Thank you, Tom. Thank you.

We'll go next to Tyler Brown with Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Hey, Tom. I want to kind of come back to some prior comments, but where are you all on the plant technology journey that you talked about at the analyst day? And what do you think that those efficiencies mean from unit cost, call it disinflation perspective over the next couple of years? I mean, does it shave a point or two off of those unit costs? Is there any way to frame it? I'm just trying to understand just how idiosyncratic it is to Vulcan.

It's insightful. You're inciting. You're what your question is insightful because it's a big deal for us. We're still probably early stages. I think we're probably have that fully implemented in 25, 30 percent of our operations. The capital cost is spent on the remaining operations. Remember, it's about the top 110, 120 plants, which is about 70, 75 percent of our production. You know, what we're seeing out of that is double digit throughput improvements on the plants where it's fully implemented. You know, a long ways to go on that one. I think we make that journey throughout 2025. The weather probably didn't help us with some of that stuff and some of the distractions we have with storms. But I think that, you know, Pruitt and team are making good progress there. And I think they'll get that done sometime early 2026. And it's hard, really hard to call, you know, and we spent some time trying to do it. What is what is the dollar impact for us? And I think we quit doing that and more concentrate on what's the throughput impact because we know it's degrees of good. So we'll hopefully finish that journey by first or second quarter of 26. But you're you're correct. It will have an impact on our cost. Excellent. Yeah, no, that's extremely helpful. Thanks. Thank you.

We'll go next to Adam Thalheimer with Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys. Morning. I'm still a little fuzzy. What do you want us to plug in for volumes in Q4? And then Tom, how much demand variability are you seeing by state?

So on Q4, if you'll give me the weather report for November, December, I'll give you the volume for Q4. It's just it's a hard one to call because it's so dicey. Like I said, you know, October started off slow, but bounce really good. And, you know, it's been dry in October and we've shipped appropriately well. But November, December, we all know what can happen in those. So kind of a hard one to call. I would call you to underlying demand, you know, for the year is that that, you know, probably down mid single digit. We've seen some bounce of that in October. But again, it's how many shipping days do we have? Yeah,

and Brian, I think, you know, overall, our volume guidance from second quarter was minus four to minus seven. And, you know, that's still, you know, what we what we expect for the full year on a demand environment like Tom described as down mid single digits and the rest of that weather impacted. So where we fall within that will depend on, you know, how fourth quarter plays out.

I'm sorry, what was your second question? Oh, demand variability by state.

That was a hard call because who's who get washed out who got washed out what month this year. But I think all of them are OK. I don't see, you know, the Illinois has been a challenge with the public side, more of a challenge than most of our states. I think Virginia has had its share of challenges. And the rest of them, I think, kind of in that in that low to mid single digit rate down of what we've seen. So and, you know, the southeast is probably the healthiest in Texas. When when you look at Texas, when it quit raining, we actually ship quite well, but they got blown out the first half of the year. But second half has been better. But I think most of them are consistently kind of down that mid single digits, except for the challenge ones. I would call out with the Northern California, Illinois and maybe maybe kind of Virginia area. Got it. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go next to Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Morning, Mike. Morning. Thanks for taking my question. All up on WakeStone. So appreciate the volume comment. Can you help us understand just how pricing looks both in terms of kind of where you stand, where that business stands relative to your current portfolio and also just how their pricing strategy has looked over the past couple of years relative to the strategy you employ and what you can do with that. And then if I could make one more on Wake in just any sense of kind of the cash outlay to close the acquisition.

So you probably know, I love my answer, but that's a as you know, that's a new market for us. We've not been in that in the Raleigh-Durham Chapel Hill market before. So kind of new ground from a commercial perspective. So and we've got to get it closed a little bit early for me to make any calls how we operate, how they operate today or what what what we would do differently if anything in those markets. So that was let me get it closed. Let me get a little digested, understand the markets and we can be give you a much better answer on that. As a practice, we don't typically disclose purchase price of acquisitions that aren't matured to the company. So again, give us a little time on these things and let's let's get it closed so we can be a lot clearer on Wake's done. We are, like I said, very excited about this. We're excited about the team, the Wake team, who we think is very talented. We're excited about the assets and we think the markets are, you know, a good addition to that southeastern footprint and markets where we can we can be a leader in the market. So excited about it and we'll have to get back with you a little more information when we can actually close it. OK, thanks. Thank you.

We'll go next to Angel Castillo with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Just maybe wanted to expand on that conversation a little bit more. As you think about more high level kind of competitive pricing dynamics across your markets, just what are you seeing, you know, from maybe kind of the private side of competition in terms of being disciplined on price? And what does that kind of tell you about the price disparity of potential acquisition opportunities versus your corporate level?

It's hard for me to really comment on competitors pricing. Obviously, we get information about markets. But I think that is is people look at the agri-business, they understand the value of the rock in the ground and that that's a depleting asset and that you shouldn't give it away because you can't replace those tons. And people, you know, understand that they got to make a turn on investment, whether that's the private side or the public side. So I think that the pricing in the agri-business is always been good and will continue to be good. And I think the onset of growing public demand and potentially growing private demand only helps that situation. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go next to Michael Finicher with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Morning. Morning. Thank you for squeezing me in, guys. Just Tom, we could just talk about, I mean, two years ago, you guys had the target of 11 to 12 cash gross profit per ton on a much higher number of tonnage than you're kind of doing today. So just how should we kind of be thinking about that as we're starting to close in on that figure? How are you guys kind of thinking about that? And now that we're moving into next year, will it take long to see some volume increase or at least to end these volume declines?

Well, the short answer to that, we've got to give you new goals. We reached a lot faster than we thought we would have. I want to take my hats off to my division presidents and all those division employees who are accelerated that target at a lot lower volumes than I would have expected, particularly in the face of, as I said, seven, eight quarters of falling demand. They just have done a good job and they've executed on the bulk of selling and bulk of operating. But the short answer is we owe ourselves and you new goals because we're facing down that 11 bucks right now. And we plan on giving you some of those new goals in the not too distant future. Great. If I

could just maybe squeeze one more in. I'd love to get a sense, Andrew, just on from next year, maybe just moving pieces for cash flow. You know, obviously, capex, you're going to do some acquisitions. Just kind of how to think about that as we're moving into into 2025. So in the buckets there in terms of working capital or capex in next year. Thank you, everyone.

Yeah, Mike, obviously in February, we'll give, you know, full 2025 guidance and include a lot of the things that you just mentioned. But specific to, you know, capex, you know, we believe we've been reinvesting at appropriate levels for the current business needs. If you look, you know, over the last five years, that's ranged, you know, eight to nine percent of revenue. You know, as Tom said, we don't even have the acquisitions closed yet. So I don't have a specific view on what capex will look like for the acquired operations next year. But as as as you model, I think that our historical level is a reasonable place to be.

It appears we have no further questions at this time. I will now turn the program back over to our presenters for any additional remarks.

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