Earnings Labs

Wabash National Corporation (WNC)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Wed, Oct 28, 2015

$8.59

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Wabash National Third Quarter Earnings Call. My name is Paula, and I will be operator for today's call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Mike Pettit. Mike, you may begin.

Mike Pettit

Management

Thank you, Paula, and good morning. Welcome everyone to the Wabash National Corporation 2015 third quarter earnings call. This is Mike Pettit, Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Following this introduction, you’ll hear from Dick Giromini, Chief Executive Officer of Wabash National on the highlights for the third quarter, the current operating environment and our outlook for the remainder of 2015. After Dick, Jeff Taylor, our Chief Financial Officer, will provide a detailed description of our financial results. At the conclusion of the prepared remarks, we'll open the call for questions from the listening audience. Before we begin, I'd like to cover two quick items. First, please note that this call is being recorded. Second, as with all of these types of presentations, this morning's call contains certain forward-looking information including statements about the company's prospects, the industry outlook, backlog information, financial conditions and other matters. As you know, actual results could differ materially than those projected in the forward-looking statements. These statements should be viewed via the cautionary statements and risk factors set forth from time-to-time in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. With that, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to Dick Giromini, President and CEO.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Thank Mike. Let me start by saying, we are extremely pleased with the continue progress we are making with the overall business and the ongoing execution of our strategic plan. The third quarter was without question the strongest quarter in the company's 30-year history. Our team achieved all-time record for any quarter in revenue, gross profit and margin, operating income and margin, in addition to operating EBITDA. These outstanding results truly demonstrate the transformative nature of our corporate strategy and our numerous diversification initiatives. We continue to establish new records for company performance during each of the past six quarters, as a result of specific strategic actions and productivity improvements executed during the past three years. Leveraging these strategic initiatives, all three segments contributed significantly to our record breaking results during the third quarter. First, our Commercial Trailer Products strategic commitment and focus on favoring margin over volume, along with continued productivity improvement have been key contributors to our recent performance. Second, the establishment of the Diversified Products Group which is a combination of strategic and organic growth initiatives as a significant contributor to overall company results has enhanced our business stability and reduced our cyclicality. Third, the addition of tank trailer parts and service into our Retail business has not only improved the overall profitability, but had operating stability and growth opportunities to this segment. Finally, our commitment to grow our end markets, while leveraging our scale to drive supply chain efficiencies has provided a solid foundation for continued margin improvement. We look to further leverage these actions that we -- as we move through the remainder of 2015 and into 2016. Turning to third quarter results, trailer shipments remained strong for the quarter at 16,500 units just within the range of our shipment guidance of 16,500 and 17,500…

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Thanks Dick and good morning everyone. In addition to the earnings release, we filed the 10-Q after the market closed yesterday. So let’s get started. Overall, it was an outstanding third quarter which is reflected in the results. All three segments contributed measurably to our record-breaking quarterly performance, which demonstrates the benefits of our strategic diversification efforts as well as the continued improvement in our operational execution. With that, let’s look at the third quarter financial highlights. Consolidated revenue for the quarter was $531 million on total new trailer shipment of 16,500 units. Just within our guidance range, a 16,500 to 17,500 units and 900 units higher year-over-year. Sequentially, consolidated revenue increased $17 million or approximately 3%. Commercial Trailer Products’ net sales were $387 million, which represents a $35 million, or 10% increase on a year-over-year basis due to higher new trailer shipments of approximately 800 units. New trailer average sales price, or ASP increased approximately 3%, primarily resulting from improved pricing and an improved product mix that was biased towards higher products such as refrigerated trailers and higher spec driving trailers. Diversified Products net sales improved 4%, or $4 million on a year-over-year basis to $120 million. Diversified Products’ Group revenue improved year-over-year due to increased tank trailer shipments and improved composite products sales, partially offset by a decrease in aviation and truck equipment and process systems business unit sales. Retail segment net sales decreased approximately $3 million, or 7% on a year-over-year basis and lower new and used trailer sales, partially offset by higher sales from parts and service. Overall, the Retail segment experienced improved margins and bottom-line performance. Looking at our various revenue streams, new trailer sales of approximately $442 million on 16,500 units increased $41 million, or 10% year-over-year. This year-over-year increase is due to increased…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Mike Shlisky from Seaport Global Securities. Mike, please go ahead.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Mike, please go ahead

Good morning, guys. I wanted to maybe…

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Michael.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Mike, please go ahead

Good morning. I wanted to maybe touch first briefly on the 2016 review that some of the forecasters are putting out there. They both are saying down a little bit. In some cases maybe missing digits here. I was kind of wondering if you can maybe just sketch out for us what you mean by -- having EPS at $1.40 or even higher than that given that kind of declining environment for your core market, do you have any significant market share gains planned or will you have perhaps a little bit more leaving room in your production lines is where the margin is there? Can just give us a little bit of color there, I would appreciate it?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. The decreases that the ACT Research and FTR are looking at the two main forecasting arms, are looking at our slight when you look relatively at a strong demand that we've been experiencing throughout this year. It’s really stressing the system and actually a little bit of lightning and demand can actually help suppliers and help manufacturers become even more cost effective and more efficient in their operations as they depend less on overtime to produce and optimize their business to be able to produce the product. So we don't see much of a difference between numbers of 305,000 and numbers of 295,000. Even though you calculate there is a few percent decrease, it really actually helps manufacturers in getting consistency and cost effectiveness in the operation. So from that standpoint, it's plenty of volume, plenty of demand on the trailer side to sustain the success that we and other manufacturers are having during this time.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Mike, please go ahead

So maybe just -- maybe add a little follow-up to that question then. It sounds like in a slightly down environment, you will have the same or if not better margins than you had sort of a 4. Obviously things aren’t going to be at least on '16 as bad as they were about when things turned maybe the prior cycle. I guess my kind of question is what would be a more normalized margin run rate if we were to see things eventually return back to normal, not necessarily next year but in any future year? Can you give us kind of a sense for how much higher you think your company's margins have come between this cycle and the prior cycle?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Well, I don’t know if we want to -- the prior cycle was such an anomaly, I don’t know if you want to use that as any kind of a baseline and our business is so much different than what we experienced back then. Back in the 2008-'09 timeframe, we were predominately a dry van business, with also having refrigerated trailers and platform trailers. But our dependency on the dry van segment that was most affected by the downturn was significant as we stated in the formal comments in excess of 75% of our business was really dependent on that segment and it went down about 80% in demand. So a whole different environment today, we’re just over 50% dependent on the cycle, we continue to grow other parts of our business to decrease that dependency and we’re much stronger in that business than we were even previously. So all-in, we’re much different business and comparisons to last cycle are almost meaningless. What I can assure you is that we will be successful no matter what the crazy global economy and domestic economy can throw at us.

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

I was going to say what I think we take into the -- when we see the next downturn Michael is all of the improvements we’ve made in our operations we will maintain those and we will get the benefit of those when and if that next slowdown occurs. And so that’s one thing. And then secondly as Dick pointed out, we’re a different company today than we were in the last downturn. The Diversified Products Group is significantly bigger portion of the overall company. It’s going to contribute nicely. In that environment, it’s a much more stable business, weathered the last downturns much better than the core trailer business did. So overall, I think the whole company we expect it to perform well when we face those types of challenges.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Mike, please go ahead

Okay. Great. I think just squeezing one last one here. Your backlog is $1.1 billion, are you booked to reduce say well into let’s say 2Q of next year, do you still pretty confident that your next two quarters at the very least are I want to say in the bag but looking awfully good right now already?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

The bulk of the $1.1 billion obviously falls in the dry van refrigeration van space where we get the most forward view of the market. That’s where the largest customers are. They are the ones who get into their coating process earlier and any year for the following year. So the majority of it is in that dry van refrigerated van segment. So yes in that part of the business, there is good visibility into mid and second half of next year and other parts of the business, you don’t get those kind of backlogs and customers don’t order quite that early in the process. So we will see what happens over the next several months as we build the backlog in the rest of the business, but certainly for the CTP business the dry and refrigerated earned a good position.

Mike Shlisky

Analyst · Seaport Global Securities. Mike, please go ahead

Okay. Great. I will hop back in queue. Thanks, guys.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Alex Potter from Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead.

Alex Potter

Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Hi, guys, very nice job this quarter. I was wondering if you could talk about non-trailer revenue in Diversified Products. It looks like obviously DPG overall did a really nice job, a lot of tank trailer deliveries freeze there, but if you feel that way and just look at the non-trailer revenue, it looks like we’re still comping down versus last year, obviously waiting to get some contribution from the new products that you mentioned, also some silos I guess. So basically, I guess the question here is when do you expect that specific sub within DPG to start posting some positive growth?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, those are a little tougher, my comments, my formal comments, that’s one of the challenges that we continue to have is getting consistency and more stability in the flow of order input into the businesses, the non-trailer side. They come in bunches, in some quarters you just don’t get orders in place, in other quarters you do, and that’s true of the Composites business and the Process Systems business both. They both seem to have those challenges. In the Process Systems business there were some delays as a result of weather early in the year caused delays in placement of orders, decision making by some customers there. And in the Composites business, it really is I don’t want to say a crapshoot, but very unpredictable as to when orders end up getting placed. In the third quarter the Composites business had a good quarter. They had some good solid orders that they were able to execute on. Typically for them fourth quarter tends to be a little bit softer. Conversely Process Systems fourth quarter looks like their order book is stronger and finally starting to may be catch up a little bit. So I wish I had a better response for you on that. We certainly expect with all of the initiatives that we have in place the Frankfurt facility with all the new aerodynamic offerings, the truck box offering, and then on the Process Systems would be the silo initiatives for our Mexican operation. We do expect 2016 to return to growth for that side of the business, but right now it’s just going through a little bit of choppiness.

Alex Potter

Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Okay. Very good. That’s very helpful. Also I guess you mentioned there was some benefit when we’re looking at pricing for the trailers themselves, you had a year-over-year increase. Some of that sounds like it was just general across the board price increases because of the strong market. Some of it sounds like it was mix. So trying to parse through there and see how much of that ASP increase is going to stick versus being kind of a one-time shot in the arm in the quarter?

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Yeah, Alex, I think in general, the pricing -- you hit it right on the head in terms of the contributing factors there. I mean, there is a net price increase in the quarter. Based on the strong backlog and the strong order activity that we’re seeing, we expect that’s certainly to continue. There is an element there of some higher price product and some mix in it. It’s a smaller component. That’s one that we take the mix that we get from our customers. But overall the pricing environment continues to be a very favorable and we expect it to continue based on the activity and the backlog we have.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. So just breaking that down a little bit Alex, the net pricing improvement that I commented on of about 3% was real pricing related, net of all of the other mix and product and all so, and that’s really been driven by a very strong environment that the team has really taken the opportunity to get good margin recovery for what would had been placed previously to really raise the overall margin for the business.

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

So about two-thirds of the total year-over-year when we talked about what 480 basis point improvement from…

Alex Potter

Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Gross margin.

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So about 3% of that was tied to the net pricing.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

And then there is operational efficiencies in that margin.

Alex Potter

Analyst · Piper Jaffray. Please go ahead

Sure. Okay. Very good. Thanks a lot.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Alex.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Brad Delco from Stephens. Please go ahead.

Brad Delco

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead

Good morning, Dick. Good morning, Jeff.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Brad.

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Good morning.

Brad Delco

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead

Dick, fantastic gross margins on CTP, 13%, it’s even above, I think the range, you’re reporting us towards this cycle of 11% to 12%, can you talk about maybe more specifically the drivers of that and whether or not that’s sustainable, was there any benefits from raw material costs or anything that would maybe suggest to us that’s not sustainable in this type of demand environment?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

It’s certainly sustainable in this kind of demand environment, I mean that’s the opportunity that you always get when you’re facing a very strong demand environment. A lot of it is execution on the factory floor. The workforce is much more stable, much more mature, much more proficient, they are able to handle and absorb a lot of the velocity optimization test time reduction initiatives that have been going on in my comments 1200 unit, more units produced with the same staffing levels, same operating shifts than what we had previously, and that’s a testament to those efforts. So, truly that is sustainable now that we’ve got to that point. There is always going to be some influence as the team continues to work to increase the amount of indirect channel that is served rather than just the direct channel said another way. You have better pricing capability in the indirect channel than in the direct channel with large customers that have somewhat lower spec product, but obviously more pricing influence. So that’s what some of the efforts. And the material cost side of that from our sourcing, our purchasing group doing an outstanding job of taking advantage of the continued growth of the business and using that to achieve year-over-year improvements in pricing from the supplier community. I’m certainly not going to deny that that our favorable commodities environment can always play in to an extent. But I would remind everyone that we go out and we forward contract on our aluminum and on our steel pricing. Once we get assigned order from a customer, we mitigate risk upward down by locking the price and locking those units that are needed to build out that orders. So while some who sit and float with commodity pricing might get even more benefit. We try to mitigate the risk. So, we are not seeing as much of a commodity play to the numbers as some others who are going out and taking forward positions.

Brad Delco

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead

That’s a great color. Thanks for that. And then Dick I think you even mentioned some mix data points in the market and you talked about positive drivers of your demand being overall freight demand and carrier profitability. I mean, I would you imagine you’ve seen what’s going on in the transportation market and there is a lot of concerns out there about decelerating demand and what that will mean for contract pricing and everything else going into the next year. I mean do you at all have concerned over what the demand environment may look like? I know today it looks quite unique and things that held a very well for trailers, but anything specifically that you’re keeping a closer eye on or a pulse on or maybe keeping more cash for any particular reason that would maybe give us a sense of what maybe different about the Wabash in this type of cycle versus what we saw last time?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Well, certainly we try and monitor all of the data points that I share of course. We watch what’s going on from an overall GDP, we watch the truck tonnage, we watch the loadings, we watch the carrier profitability. We are sensitive to all of the same types of things that you all are watching of course and the pricing, year-over-year pricing opportunities for the fleets. We monitored that, we talked to our customers and what their confidence level is and how they are doing in the marketplace. And based on what we continue to hear from the primary customers that we deal with, they still feel overall pretty good about what's happening. It's not as robust as what they would like. There are pockets of strength and pockets of softness, but overall we have not got an indication that that our key customers are overly concerned. I am trying to be selective with my words here because I don't want to try and put words in their mouths either. But they seem to be pretty comparable, there's still an expectation that demand will tighten or capacity will tighten, I should say. As we proceed through the balance of the year, as once the inventory buildup that had occurred earlier in the year is depleted, there is going to have to be more inventory replenishment, that's the belief by many of the fleets, many of the shippers also, who have said that that they would expect capacity tightening. And that's why you're not seeing a lot of aggressive negotiations going on. And you see the dedicated contracts side still being year-over-year increases and you see the spot market be in the one that is using question. So we still feel very comfortable. We know the age of the fleet,…

Brad Delco

Analyst · Stephens. Please go ahead

No. I appreciate that color. You guys have certainly stood out, so congrats on these good numbers and good outlook. Thanks for the time.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from John Mims from FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

John Mims

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead

All right. Thank you. Good morning, guys.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Good morning.

John Mims

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Dick or Jeff, could you repeat or just walk through what you said in prepared comments about DPG softening going into fourth quarter. Is that more of a revenue, or is that a margin comment?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

I think -- it could end up being both top and bottom line. Just because of the tremendous strength in the third quarter of trailer shipments that they are able to make. So, we know that as I stated little earlier in the Q&A, the process systems, we did get orders coming in through that are going to help them in the fourth quarter. So that’s a plus but typically the composites business tails off a little bit in the fourth quarter. So, we expect that again this quarter and we certainly don't expect the tank trailer business to be able to ship as many units as they did. So, we could see slight falloff on the topline. But I would think that the margins and the contribution would be more significantly impacted. More or like, maybe what we are seeing for the most part of last year.

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Yeah. John, the margin in Diversified Products this quarter was the highest it’s been expense in the last three to four years as Dick pointed out in his comments. So, I think we would expect the margin to be in that normal range that we’ve talked about in the past and it is going to be based on the mix profile that we ship in the quarter.

John Mims

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Sure. But those are other two slightly different things because the comps from last year were difficult because you are working through some of those issues. So, when you finish last -- fourth quarter of last year, sub 20%. Even though we would expect some normalization from third quarter that still within the 20s, or is a teens type of number normal fourth quarter?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. John, when we moved the wood products I'll put it under the Commercial Trailer Products business beginning the year. We pro form out all those numbers. So the business was running more in the 21%, 22% gross margin when you pro forma out the wood products. So that's -- my comments are referencing those pro forma published numbers.

John Mims

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Perfect. No. No, fair enough. Fair enough. Then let me ask you. So when I look at the tightened shipment guidance and as some of that shows out in what we just discussed. But still earnings -- your EPS estimate, I mean your guidance is obviously points to a very strong EPS quarter in fourth quarter. But shipment numbers going down, which means good pricing, great margins, limited build slots, all year has helped that. But when we carry that into 2016, are you concerned at all about the competitive response from the industry standpoint in terms of Wabash is putting out these great numbers, we've all had a really good year. People -- there's more demand than supply. Are people adding build slots that concerned you when you look at the ACT numbers that -- who knows that still end up being, right? But right now there is trending down slightly for the next three years. So, how sustainable do you think the pricing and margin performance that we've seen in the last couple quarters then we should see in fourth quarter is over the next two years?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. You are getting out there, of course. Certainly 2016, we feel very good about the position we are in and the ability to sustain and even improve on what we are already doing. That's consistent with my comments a little earlier, so I won’t go through that again. When you get out into 2017 and beyond, obviously a lot can happen between now and then. We do know about some additional capacity that some other folks are just starting down the path to put in. So there's going to be some of that out there. But that's still won’t get us back to the capacity that existed in this industry prior to the last downturn where based on our estimates, about 50,000 units of capacity came out of the industry. And based on the estimates and what we have heard around the industry, it looks like 20,000 to 25,000 units could be added maybe at the lower end of that number to it and that should be over the next, probably year and a half to two years when you think about the time it takes to either retrofit any existing facility or build a greenfield plan to get it facilitate up and running ramped up and all. So, probably mid to late 2017, you'll start seeing more of an impact of that as the number slow so you’ll have to see how we make out. Our intention is to be able to continue to be less dependent in all of this capacity that I’m referring to that we’re hearing about would be in that primary core space, the driving and refrigerated type product. So our intention and our focus has been to continue, as I stated earlier, continue to diversify, so that we’re not dependent on any one lever in the business or certainly less dependent on it. So we don't face what we faced during the last downturn. I think we hinted at that at our Investor Day that we want to continue to decrease the driving and dependency. It’s at just over 50% today in our business. And we’re shooting it getting it down lower into 30%, 35%, 40% dependency over the next two years or so and that will really help us weather any storm.

John Mims

Analyst · FBR Capital Markets. Please go ahead

True. That’s really helpful. Thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Steve Dyer from Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead.

Steve Dyer

Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead

Thanks. Good morning, guys. I'm wondering as I look at your shipments in backlog growth and the quarter was a little bit less than the overall industry. And I'm wondering if that sort of combined with the pricing and the margins and so forth would seem to indicate that you're being really pretty selective with what you're taking in at this point, is that fair assessment?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. We’ve been on this path since 2012. And as we like to call, we’re favoring margin over volume. So as we look at each and every bit opportunity, we assess the quality of that potential order. And we’re trying to maximize the utilization or optimize utilization of the build slots to get the best we can. Obviously, we’re going to support our large long-term customers. And we've been successful with getting much more fair pricing for that product. And we’re going to continue to drive our indirect channels to try and fill in as much capacity with that kind of product and we've been successful in this market.

Steve Dyer

Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead

Okay. And then I think you noted that this quarter was on the light end, I guess, of your guided range due to some delays in some customer pickups. But then you guided the full year, you narrowed that to the low end of the range, which would seem to indicate that nothing really is going to slip into Q4. Can you just kind of talk through how you see Q4 playing out?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I mean, we think it’s going to be a very solid quarter. It just really comes down to the ability of certain key customers who have large quantities of equipment and their ability to be able to pick those trailers up during the fourth quarter, which is always a little bit trickier in the fourth quarter than in the third and tied to weather conditions. We know in these past two years, it became two years ago very, very difficult and challenging for customers. The last year, not quite the challenge, so it's a little unpredictable, even with good intentions for customer. So our numbers that we provided are the numbers that we feel most confident that it can be achieved for the year.

Steve Dyer

Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead

Okay. Two more quick ones for me, you noted that tractors have soften some and I think are anticipated to a little bit more in the next year. With at least, according to what we’re looking at the average number of trailers per tractor ratio, sort of at a recent high, typically these two never devoured for long tractors and trailers. So I’m just wondering kind of why you would think trailers will remain strong next year in the face of tractors and some of these other factors?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. What’s unique about this versus old history is that the last downturn 2008, ‘09 and I’ll even argue 2010, that period of time only 350,000 trailers were purchased during that time. And generally -- and I'm talking the dry van segment mainly but the numbers I'm using are for the whole industry but the dry van usually are 60%, 65% of the total. And when you look at the target audience of equipment that would've been targeted for replacement, it would have been equipment that were built 8 to 10 years prior to that. And if you take 10 years as nominal, it's 1998 through 2000 trailers. And there were 863,000 of those trailers, all in total those three years. So you got over a 500,000 unit delta between the trailers built in the late 90s to the trailers built 2008, ‘09, ‘10. Many of those pieces of equipment are still out on the highways running, especially by the big truck load guys. And they’re ‘15, ‘16, ‘17 years old now. They have to get out of the system. The customers recognize that and that goes to my earlier comment that a number of customers have said they would be replacing even more, purchasing even more trailers if they could do it. They recognize the challenge that they have in attracting and retaining drivers if they have old equipment. Remember now that since the advent of CSA, the trailer is important to the driver now. The driver gets measured on the low worthiness of the equipment that he is operating, both the tractor and the trailer. Prior to CSA, the trailer was an afterthought and it was always talked that the tractor attracted and retained drivers. Now both of them are important. Customers understand that. So they are aggressively trying to make their fleet younger. The other factor is the trade cycle itself. The tractors have already coming out of the downturn have already gone through multiple trade cycles, three to five-year turnaround. In the trailer industry when you’re talking eight to 12 years typical and you’ve got these excessively old, it hasn’t gone through that whole cycle. And that’s why you still got pent-up demand and ketchup demand that be the fleets are dealing with. So it’s a numerous factors, but that's the one point that folks typically miss is he can’t just look at the average age of the equipment, you have to look at the age profile of the equipment. How old are each groups of it, how many of them are in each age group and that’s the main tractor.

Steve Dyer

Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead

Great. That’s helpful. And last one for me, obviously, your free cash flow is very, very good. I was just looking at kind of some of your buyback information in the Q and you’re pretty aggressive in Q2 bought back 1.5 million shares. I’m showing closer to $14 on average and you haven’t bought any stock according to that since July? So I’m just wondering if there's another reason maybe you’re building cash whether it be for acquisitions or what have you? But maybe any color just kind of given the continued strength of the free cash flow, why you took the foot of the gas there?

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Hi. Steve, this is Jeff. Its just one other things where we manage the working capital of the needs based upon the seasonal profile there and so that something we’re going to evaluate each quarter. As we’ve talked about before, it’s an ongoing discussion and dialogue we have with our Board of Directors. So given the strong outlook, the strong backlog, the fact that we would expect to build some working capital early in 2016, we’re in good position there from our cash balance perspective. In regards to our capital allocation, our approach hasn’t changed. We continue to maintain a balanced approach to capital allocation. Certainly over the long-term, wouldn't get too caught up with any action in one individual quarter. But, certainly, overtime, we’re going to allocate capital to the four major buckets we’ve talked about, investing in the business, debt reduction, return the capital to shareholders and strategically growing the business. So I think what I’d say is that, we feel good about what we’ve done year-to-date in terms of shareholder return, return of capital and that something that’s going to -- we’re still committed to, so stay tuned.

Steve Dyer

Analyst · Craig-Hallum. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

And our last question comes from Jeff Kauffman from Buckingham Research. Please go ahead, Jeff.

Jeff Kauffman

Analyst · Buckingham Research. Please go ahead, Jeff

Thank you very much. Hi, guys. Yeah. Congratulations. Fantastic, fantastic quarter. So, Jeff, if I read between the lines when does the dividend start?

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Well, Jeff, as you know, we don’t currently have a dividend authorized by our Board of Directors, but that’s the part of our ongoing conversation around the return the capital to shareholders. So once again stay tuned.

Jeff Kauffman

Analyst · Buckingham Research. Please go ahead, Jeff

Very good. It’s a quality problem they have for sure. Dick, I want to come back to some comments you made on the facilities that a number of us did have the opportunity to tour at your Analyst event? Maybe part of the answer to how do you guys feel good about growing when trailers eventually do slowdown as, hey, we got these new products and they can make a difference? Can you give us an idea about how big the end markets are for some of these new products you’re going to be rolling out there and maybe what they might be able to contribute over a period of say, the next two years? And as these new products come into the CTP, are we going to see any kind of cosmetic changes to say, mix via average price or anything like that that may throw the traditional metrics off a bit?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. I -- at this juncture, I would not want to try and paint a picture of how big we’re going to play, since we've done a lot of analysis. We believe there are segments of the market that we want to focus on. And the team is continued to evaluate what those opportunities would look like in full. So, I think it be a little premature to try and respond in any concrete fashion to the question you have, Jeff. We’ll be much better prepared as we get through and get fully ramped up with this to see what the reception is. As I stated in my formal comments, this product being displayed right now at the IFDA show over in Phoenix and we’re getting a lot of good feedback there and that will give us a lot of better insight to what we can do and what parts of the market we can play in.

Jeff Kauffman

Analyst · Buckingham Research. Please go ahead, Jeff

Are you comfortable talking about how bigger potentially addressable market it is?

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Not at this juncture.

Jeff Kauffman

Analyst · Buckingham Research. Please go ahead, Jeff

Okay. Very good, guys. Congratulations and thank you.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Jeff.

Jeff Taylor

Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Jeff.

Operator

Operator

I will now turn the call over to Dick Giromini for closing comments.

Dick Giromini

Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Paula. In conclusion, we’re obviously, extremely pleased with the results we’re able to deliver in the third quarter 2015. That said, we see even further opportunities to accelerate our topline growth, expand our product and market breadth and delivering greater performance in almost all aspects of our business. With a hyper-focus on execution and delivering results, I’m certainly confident that we'll do just that. Thank you for your interest in and support of Wabash National Corporation. Jeff, Mike and I, all look forward to speaking with all of you again on our next call. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

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