Hello, everyone and welcome to the Core & Main Q3 2023 Earnings Call. My name is Seb and I’ll be the operator for your call today. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand the floor over to Robyn Bradbury, VP, Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. This is Robyn Bradbury, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations for Core & Main. We are excited to have you join us this morning for our fiscal 2023 third quarter earnings call. I am joined today by Steve LeClair, our Chief Executive Officer; and Mark Witkowski, our Chief Financial Officer. Steve will lead today’s call with a business update, followed by an overview of our recent acquisitions and long-term value creation targets. Mark will then discuss our third quarter financial results and full year outlook, followed by a Q&A session. We will conclude with Steve’s closing remarks. We issued our fiscal 2023 third quarter earnings press release this morning and posted a presentation to the Investor Relations section of our website. As a reminder, our press release, presentation and the statements made during this call include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from our expectations and projections. Such risks and uncertainties include the factors set forth in our earnings press release and in the filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe are useful in assessing the operating results of our business. A reconciliation of these measures can be found in our earnings press release and in the appendix of our investor presentation. Thank you for your interest in Core & Main. I will now turn the call over to Chief Executive Officer, Steve LeClair.

Thanks, Robyn. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. If you’re following along with the third quarter investor presentation, I’ll begin on Page 5 with a brief business update. Core & Main delivered another quarter of strong results. Sales in the third quarter were just ahead of the prior year and up 30% from the third quarter of fiscal 2021. Demand from our customers remains resilient, and we continue to execute our organic and inorganic growth initiatives. Municipal repair and replacement activity in the third quarter remained stable on a year-over-year basis. Despite still being below prior year levels, new residential lot development improved sequentially from the second quarter. There continues to be a shortage of existing homes for sale, which is driving a need for new lot development and new home construction. Many national homebuilders have been reporting resilient results by providing incentives such as interest rate buy-downs to ease affordability challenges and attract prospective buyers, which provides tailwinds for our business. We began to see nonresidential volumes stabilize late in the third quarter due to our balanced exposure across various nonresidential project types. We continue to see good growth in highway and street projects, an increasing trend of mega projects across the country, both of which are included in our nonresidential end market and have offset some of the softness in multifamily and warehouse work. Price contribution to net sales was flat for the quarter when compared to the prior year. Most of our products are either highly specialized or made specific for our sector, which provides a resilient pricing framework for our industry, especially when roughly half of the demand for our products and services is non-discretionary in nature. Gross margin in the third quarter was 50 basis points lower than last year as inventory…

Thanks, Steve, and good morning, everyone. Our third quarter results reflect our operational excellence and the resilience of our business model. We maintain a healthy balance sheet and are prudently deploying capital to the highest return opportunities. We’re leveraging our sustainable competitive advantages and financial position to drive future growth and value creation. I will cover a few topics with you this morning. First, I’ll recap our third quarter earnings, followed by an update on our cash flow and balance sheet highlights. Then I’ll provide our updated financial outlook for fiscal 2023 and a preliminary framework for fiscal 2024. I’ll begin on Page 9 with highlights of our third quarter earnings. We reported net sales of just over $1.8 billion for the quarter, which was just above the prior year period and consistent with our expectations. Price contribution was flat for the quarter while organic volumes were down low single digits. The cumulative effect of acquisitions over the past year contributed approximately 3 points of growth to net sales. Gross margin of 27% was 50 basis points lower than last year as inventory costs continue to catch up with current market prices. Our local teams have executed very well to sustain our margins by optimizing inventory levels, reacting with discipline to market prices and continuing to drive our gross margin initiatives. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased 4% to $240 million for the third quarter. The increase in SG&A reflects the impact of acquisitions and cost inflation. Interest expense was $20 million for the third quarter compared with $16 million in the prior year period. The increase was due to higher variable rates on the unhedged portion of our senior term loan. We recorded income tax expense of $39 million for the third quarter compared with $40 million in the…

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Joe Ahlersmeyer from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thanks very much for taking my question and congrats on the strong results.

Thanks, Joe. Thanks for the question. Yes. We can hear you, now. Thanks.

Hey, sure. Okay, great. Yes. Thanks a lot for the early insights into next year’s volumes flat to have low singles. That’s pretty good. I’m interested in just kind of getting into what the different thoughts are around the end markets, maybe at the low end of that and at the high end of that, kind of what you see R&R on resin and new res doing next year?

Yes. Sure, Joe. Thanks for that question. And yes, we did – for 2024, we think overall, the end markets or this – at least at this point, looking to be kind of flat to low single digit. And as we talked about, our municipal base, which is roughly 40% or so of the business, we believe, is going to continue to be very stable going into next year in that kind of low single-digit range. We’re coming off a really weak residential year, as we’ve talked about on prior quarter’s calls. So we do expect some growth coming out of resi. Now that does assume that we do see mortgage rates in an environment where maybe those come down a little bit. Here is the Fed stabilizes some of the rate movements that they have been looking at. And then from a non-residential exposure, like we talked about, that’s a very broad exposure for us. And while there is different pockets within there, we believe that’s going to be flattish as we go into 2024.

Understood. Thanks a lot for those detail. And then just thinking about the share repurchase commentary. I’m wondering, a year where going forward, M&A activity may be below your annual target in any given year, would you be sort of more programmatic about letting that excess capital flow to repurchases? Just kind of thinking about your philosophy around letting cash build and letting leverage come down.

Yes, Joe, the way we’re thinking about capital deployment right now is, as you’ve seen, we’ve really generated some really strong cash flow here throughout 2023, expect 2024 and beyond to be really strong cash flow generation years for us. And with our current debt leverage at about 1.5x. So I believe that provides us ample capital to be able to deploy not only to M&A, which heard Steve talk about the healthy pipeline that we have, but also give us that opportunity to be opportunistic with share repurchases as opportunities arise there. And then beyond that, potentially being able to do dividends at some point in the future. So we’re going to look to do all those things to return capital to shareholders. We think those are all attractive opportunities for us, and we will continue to look at it that way.

Alright. Thanks for all the detail. Goodluck in fourth quarter.

Yes. Thanks, Joe.

Our next question is from David Manthey from Baird. Please go ahead. Hello, David, your line is now open. Could please check and unmute. Unfortunately, we are not able to hear anything from David’s line. So we will move on to the next question. The next question comes from Kathryn Thompson at Thompson Research Group. Kathryn, please go ahead.

Hi, thank you for taking my question today. So looking forward into next year and thinking tagging on the question on M&A. First, could you give a little bit more color in terms of how the appetite may have changed for targets as you go into next year? What’s the difference? And how do you feel about M&A environment next year? And then have your priorities changed in terms of types of end markets given the changing landscape for mega projects? Thank you.

Hi, thanks, Kathryn. Yes, as we look at certainly the existing pipeline that we had and that we’ve executed on this year and what we’ve got in store as we look through in the future here, we really haven’t seen much of a change at all and what our appetite is. We continue to see great businesses out there across a broad spectrum, whether they are simple bolt-ons or getting us access to new products and new categories for us. So I think we will continue to build on that. And so we don’t really see a change in that in our appetite for that. And then – I’m sorry, can you give me your second part of that question again?

And it’s really how has the appetite changed? Or have there been any changes in terms of your targets in terms of being more or less open to M&A?

Yes. I would say that business environment – yes, the business environment, many of the sellers have operated in and many of our competitors have operating have been pretty challenging. So I would say we’re starting to see that break loose a little bit more. And certainly, if you look at the volume of deals that we’ve done this year, we think that’s pretty indicative of what we see in the pipeline ahead. We’ve been – if you look back over the last several years, it looks pretty consistent in terms of the amount of volume we’ve been able to do accretively to each year in that 2% to 4%. We’re certainly in the high end of at this point. And I think we continue to see that going into certainly ‘24 and beyond.

Okay. And then finally, we’re getting from – just based on our industry context, getting a wide range of feedback in terms of – on the non-res, in terms of cancellations or pushing out of projects. But in general, on your lighter non-res you are seeing some pushout or cancellations, but for large or not. What are you seeing in terms of project delays and/or cancellations in the more in the traditional non-res end market? Thank you.

Yes. We saw softness really continue in Q3, but we did see the volumes stabilize late in the quarter. If you look at a couple of the areas that have been very strong for us, we look at highways and street projects have been very robust while we’ve had some – had to offset, obviously, warehouse construction and multifamily has been softer than normal. But I think if you look at what a broad category that is for us with non-residential, it really gives us a lot of stability as we go forward. And we think we’re incredibly well positioned as we get into 2024.

Great. Thank you.

Thanks, Kathryn.

Our next question comes from Nigel Coe from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for the question. Sneak another one on the back end of that. The unit cost of inventory…

Nigel, you cut out on us. If you wouldn’t answering – or asking that question again.

Sure. Just on the inventory, good progress on working down inventory from where it was this time last year. How much of the to go on this inventory rebalancing process? I’ll ask a follow-up question.

Yes. Great. Thanks for the question, Nigel. Yes, we heard you on that one. I appreciate the question. On inventory, I would tell you that we did make a lot of good progress in the third quarter on inventory. We’ve had, I’d say, some movement on certain product categories that’s really allowed us to work through a lot of the excess stock that we had what we were cushioning for some of the supply chain challenges. I’d say there is still a handful of product categories that we’re working down yet. I expect us to make continued progress in the fourth quarter. But as we’ve talked about, seasonally, volumes do come down in the fourth quarter. So it’s hard to say how much progress we will make against those remaining product categories as we wrap up this year. So I think we will make good progress, but there could be some of that that leaks into 2024 yet that we will continue to work to optimize.

Okay. So it sounds like there might be a slight tailwind in ‘24, but it looks like we’re in good shape. But then on the second part of that question is really around the cost of inventory and what I’m trying to get at here is, obviously, it seems like we’re getting close to the back end of the price cost sort of headwinds. I’m just curious if we’re now at the point now where we’re seeing the unit cost of inventory really stabilizing Q-over-Q at this point?

Yes. Nigel, thanks for the question on that. Yes. I think similarly, as it relates to margins, the inventory is working similarly. I mean we have experienced some of that gross margin normalization across certain product categories that we’ve been able to really flush through and get current on. There is still a handful of categories that we’re still carrying some low-cost inventory and expect we will work through the remainder of that as we get into Q4 and into next year. So I still think there is a little bit of normalization that’s going to happen here. But we’ve been able to offset a lot of that. We’ve been – we’ve had some accretive M&A come through here in 2023. We’ve been able to deliver synergies on top of that at the gross margin level and then frankly, made a lot of really good progress on some of our gross margin initiatives, especially here in the third quarter. So those are some areas we will continue to work to offset that normalization, but I do expect some of that to continue here into Q4 and into the first half of 2024.

Okay. I will leave it there. Thank you.

Yes. Thanks, Nigel.

Our next question is from Anthony Pettinari from Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Asher Sohnen on for Anthony. Thanks for taking my question. You talked about volumes flat to up low single digit in 2024. But I was just wondering if you could share your outlook maybe for price in 2024, at least directionally. And if you’ve announced or planning any kind of pricing actions?

Yes. We continue to watch the price, obviously, in the current market and spend a lot of time talking to our suppliers about what their plans are going forward. And at this point, we’re – as we look into ‘24, we’re really assuming a neutral price environment. So we could see some ups and downs in any particular product category there, but really believe overall, from a price contribution standpoint, it should be really a neutral environment into 2024. But we will provide some more color on that as we get into next quarter’s earnings call and whether or not we see any other price movements, especially as we roll into the early part of 2024.

Got it. That’s super helpful. And then just another one. Can you provide maybe an update around what you’re seeing in terms of IIJA spending flow through to your end markets? Your expectations around that for 2024, and maybe how that plays into your volume framework for 2024.

Yes. Thanks. The IIJA funds have certainly been slower than we would have liked or anticipated as we’ve gotten into the back half of this year. What I would say is that we’re starting to see some green shoots in this, particularly in the upper Midwest. There is a couple of states that started to see projects BrinkLoose and actually funding go through, particularly in Michigan, Wisconsin and the Dakotas, there is been some projects that have been utilizing that funding. So we’re really anticipating that we will see some more volume start to BrinkLoose in 2024, and that should be some tailwind for us on the municipal side.

Thanks, that’s very helpful. I will turn it over.

Thank you.

Our next question is from Joe Ritchie from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hi, this is Vivek Srivastava on for Joe. And thank you for the question. Maybe just starting with gross margins. Your gross margin performance has been pretty impressive for the last few quarters. And just wanted to understand how much are synergies contributing? Particularly after you close the deal, when do you start realizing some of those gross margin synergies?

Yes. Thanks, Vivek, for the question. As we talked about, we expected some gross margin normalization throughout 2023, kind of in that 100 to 150 basis points range. And we did definitely experience some of that pressure on some of these product categories like I’ve talked about that we’ve flushed through that lower cost inventory. And really, the offsets that we’ve seen there have been, as you mentioned, some of the accretive M&A, which has also brought some synergy with it. I’d say probably more so just given the timing of some of those acquisitions, more of it’s just been the accretive nature of it. There is some work that we will do yet to deliver on some of those synergies to drive some more of the gross margin improvement. And then I would say a lot of good progress in the quarter and some of our sourcing optimization work that’s brought in some nice over-performance, more so than I would say, we were expecting in the third quarter. So, those are really the elements of it. In terms of breaking them all out specifically, we are not necessarily going to do that, but I did want to give you some additional color there on what some of those drivers are.

That’s helpful. Thanks for that. And just on the SG&A front, it looks like last four quarters, your SG&A has been growing faster than the revenue growth. How long can this trend continue? And when do you expect it to normalize?

Yes, sure. As it relates to SG&A, there is really a handful of factors in there. I would say some of these M&A acquisitions that we have done, while they brought us higher gross margins, many of those also have had a little higher SG&A base. So, that’s put a little more pressure on SG&A. And then I would say some of the cost inflation of SG&A has trailed some of the product cost inflation that we have seen. So, there is still a little bit more, I think the flow-through from an SG&A perspective. And then we have made a handful of, I would say, growth investments that have been SG&A impacting into the results. So, I am expecting some more SG&A pressure in Q4. And I think normally, we would expect some SG&A productivity for a full year in 2024. But just given the timing of the M&A that I talked about and some of these investments, we are probably going to see a little bit more pressure as we look out throughout 2024, but those are really the drivers of it.

Great. Thanks.

Yes. Thank you.

Our next question is from Ryan Connors from Northcoast Research. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the private label side and if you can give us an update on your progress there. It looks like Enviroscape is a private label deal. And also, I assume the greenfields help you to accelerate that somewhat. So, you have talked about going from 2% to 10% private label. Can you talk about where – like if we are 12 months from now, kind of ‘24, what the vision is, does some of these things move the needle and we are – what inning are we going to be in as we move through ‘24? Is it a material improvement from the 2%?

Yes. Ryan, this is Steve. So, I appreciate the question. Yes, certainly, Enviroscape has some private label content to it for our geosynthetics business for sure. As we look at how we expand that, there is just a broad assortment of products and accessories out there that we have been able to develop beyond certainly geosynthetics, but when we get into other accessory kits and things along those lines. So, we will continue to do that. The long-term plan we had was getting into this 10%-plus in terms of private label. So, we will be making investments and we will continue to enhance that performance through next year. We will have a little bit more color to share on that as we wrap up the year-end.

Got it. Okay. And then my other question was on specific line, which is water metering and AMI. Any – can you give us any update on what you are seeing there, both in terms of the near-term demand cadence and also M&A, it seems like metering was more of an M&A focus a few years ago, but kind of the recent deal flow doesn’t seem like metering has really been as much of a part of that. So, is that – just curious whether that’s intentional or whether that’s just a function of what’s for sale out there?

Yes. If you look at our quarterly results that we had, meter was an incredibly strong quarter. And a lot of that was backlog that we have had for projects that were executed where now we are starting to see that supply chain ease up with a couple of our key manufacturers and getting that product out to go execute. Bidding activity remains incredibly strong. You are certainly seeing where AMI and advanced metering has become much more broadly accepted and we play a key role in helping to get that out to those customers, whether they are small rural customers looking at AMI systems or even some of the large metropolitan areas. So, we continue to see really a lot of strength in that end market. From an M&A perspective, we did a couple of acquisitions early on to get access to certain lines. As we look across the country right now, we certainly have coverage of many different lines all across the country at this point. So, from an M&A perspective, you may not see a whole lot of activity in that as we feel pretty secure with the access to the products that we have got across the broad portion of the country.

Got it. Very helpful. Thanks for your time this morning.

Thanks Ryan.

Our next question comes from David Manthey from Baird. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you. Good morning guys.

Good morning.

Mark, flat to up low-single digits, just so understanding that clearly, I believe you are talking about market volume growth there. And if you could just give us a little bit of color in terms of what informs that outlook, understanding it’s preliminary, but is this discussion with your larger builders, some visibility in the municipalities’ fiscal year budgets? How do you build that up?

Yes. Dave, thanks for the question. So, we got you back. Yes, as we look out into 2024, Dave, it’s really all those factors. We look at large amount of external data sources, which is important for us. But we have a large volume of internal data that we look at from bidding activity that’s likely to produce results into 2024 and then a lot of discussion with our local teams that are looking at and talking to their customers about what to expect for 2024 and then obviously, also comparing those expectations relative to the numbers that have flown through in 2023. So, it’s a lot of different sources that we are looking at there. I would say we always place the most reliance on the internal data that we get from our teams and that we track, which really helps inform us for like we talked about, at least at this stage, what to expect for 2024, but we do plan to update everybody on that in our call here for the full year of ‘23 on next quarter’s call.

Got it. Thank you. And second, a little bit more of a broad question here. Could you talk about technology and how important that is relative to your long-term outgrowth versus your competition?

Yes. I would say from a technology standpoint, a major driver of our business is productivity and effectiveness of quoting our customers. That’s really the starting point. We had laid out a lot of that technology in our Investor Day presentation. And then we have a number of tools available for our customers to really drive some stickiness from our perspective with those customers that just make it easy to do business with us. I would say less so from a driver of revenue growth or e-commerce related. While we have capabilities for that, that’s really not a driver of majority of the revenue that we have as a company. So, really I think as it relates to being more productive, getting in front of our customers faster than our competitors and then having technology that drives stickiness with tools like online advantage and others that really provide that stickiness is how we think about it from a technology perspective.

Perfect. Thank you.

Alright. Thanks Dave.

Our next question comes from Andrew Obin of Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi. This is David Ridley-Lane on for Andrew Obin. At the Investor Day, the slide on the bridge to the 15% EBITDA margin goal included a 30 basis point decline in fiscal ‘24, given some of the gross margin normalization, given you are raising fiscal ‘23 EBITDA margin by about 55 basis points, should we think about that as being more like an 80 basis points to 90 basis points decline in ‘24, or are some of these margin improvements, sustainable, i.e., is this sort of a timing impact, or have you been sustainably outperforming your plan on gross margin?

Yes. David, thanks for the question on that. I would say we have definitely been pleasantly surprised with the gross margin performance throughout 2023 and definitely, the pricing stability that we have seen in the market has helped drive some of that. So, while we are seeing some low-cost inventory catch up with market prices, stability of pricing, I would say, has provided better results than we had anticipated early on when we kind of laid out the gross margin normalization. There is still risk and we will watch that while prices are stable, that can put some pressure on margins. So, we are still guiding towards gross margin normalization in Q4 and some of that spilling into 2024. But if we can keep executing on our gross margin initiatives, we are going to be in a good position to offset as much of that as we can and hopefully minimize what that impact looks like in these out years.

Got it. I mean I guess another way of asking it, you have talked, I think in the past about 100 basis points to 150 basis points of one-time gross margin benefit. Are you thinking now more closely to the 100 basis point piece of that range?

Yes. David, I have just said, I think with the pricing stability that’s resulting in better margins than we had anticipated. I wouldn’t say we are ready to update range yet of expectations, but definitely something that will be a focus as we lay out our kind of more detailed planning for 2024 on next quarter’s call. But I think you can gauge from my comments that at this point, we are pleasantly surprised with how that’s come in here for 2023.

And if I could sneak one more in, you did mention sourcing optimization has been helpful. I am just thinking all you, your peers, everyone is destocking. So, I am wondering if some of the benefit there is suppliers, have suppliers offered any incentive to take product, right, because if all the distributors are destocking, the suppliers are seeing lower orders, right? So, are you seeing any of that kind of incentive activity?

Yes. I would say as we think about sourcing optimization and the benefits we saw there, definitely going into a year where we were reducing inventory pretty significantly, and you have seen our inventory come way down. We do have certain volume incentive tiers with suppliers, and we kind of think about it as getting spend into the most preferred programs and getting into the right buckets. And as we started the year, I think we had some concerns that we could really achieve all of the benefits there that our suppliers provide us just given the reductions in volume. But I think the – our sourcing teams have really done a great job of getting the spend in the right buckets, and that’s driven some better margin performance than we had anticipated.

Thank you very much.

Alright. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Patrick Baumann from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Sorry, I missed some of the call. But did you provide any update on kind of what you are seeing from a non-res perspective in terms of multifamily. I know that, that was the reason why you tweaked down your outlook, maybe that was a quarter ago from a top line perspective. So, wondering if you have an update on what you are seeing in terms of starts activity in specific verticals like multifamily?

Yes. Patrick, this is Steve. Yes. We definitely saw softness coming into Q3, and we saw it stabilize as we got into the back half of the quarter. So, multifamily was challenging as was warehousing, but really started to see some good growth in highways and projects. And so when we looked out across the whole spectrum that what we cover particularly if we look at some of these big mega projects, we really saw that stabilize towards the back half of the quarter, and we are pretty pleased with kind of how that came in.

Okay. And then the ‘24 outlook there, you had – you described, I am just looking at notes that someone sent me it’s kind of flattish for non-res. Is that the way you are describing ‘24?

Yes, I would say we provided a range of market for 2024, kind of saying flat to up low-single digit. I think on the low end of that, it’s probably down a little, on the high end of that is probably flattish in that range.

That’s non-res? That’s total, I guess?

Non-res. Overall market would be flat to up low-single digit.

Got it. Thank you. Sorry for having to rehash that. And then in terms of – not to beat the dead horse on the gross margin dynamic, but – so 27% or so in 2022 and like year-to-date, similar to that has been the level that you have been able to achieve. So, you are still – so you are not ready to update kind of that 100 basis point to 150 basis point of drag. So, potentially – so we should, for lack of an update, kind of assume that, that is – that’s a reasonable base case to think about for gross margin in terms of drag from that? And then maybe some offset will come from your initiatives, but something down in the 100 basis points in terms of gross margin next year is kind of like reasonable base case, is that fair?

Probably the way I would think about it is we have experienced some of that gross margin normalization in 2023, which we have been able to offset and we will experience some of that into 2024. So, it kind of gets split period-over-period. So, it’s probably not the full amount into 2024, but that’s the piece we do plan to provide, obviously, a lot more guidance on as we get into our full year release for ‘24. But that’s the way we are thinking about it right now is we definitely know we have experienced some of it, a lot of which we have been able to offset and likely to experience the balance of it in 2024, but it’s probably not a full year impact of it.

Okay. That’s different than I interpreted it. So, I appreciate the color there. Thanks a lot and best of luck.

Sure. Alright. Thank you.

We have no further questions on the call. So, I will hand back to Steve LeClair for closing remarks.

Thank you all again for joining us today. It was a pleasure to have you on the call. Our consistent execution quarter-after-quarter is a result of the hard work of our branches and functional support teams, our focus on operational excellence, and the diversity of our products and end markets. We have more levers than ever for driving growth and profitability, the cash flow generation to capitalize on it and the team to execute on it. Thank you for your interest in Core & Main. Operator, that concludes our call.

Thank you all for joining today’s conference call. You may now disconnect your lines.