Eagle Materials - Earnings Call - Q3 2025

Executive Summary

• Q3 FY2025: Revenue $558.0M, Diluted EPS $3.56, Adjusted EPS $3.59, Adjusted EBITDA $208.8M; sequentially lower on weather and maintenance, but margins resilient at 31.9%.
• Heavy Materials pressured (cement and concrete volumes down on 250% rainfall vs normal in Midwest/Great Plains and $8M maintenance costs) while Light Materials (wallboard/paperboard) delivered volume and price growth; net leverage 1.2x and debt ~$1.0B support flexibility.
• Management announced early-2025 price increases in most cement markets and a wallboard price increase slated for early February; Bullskin Stone & Lime aggregates acquisition closed in January, reinforcing heavy-side strategy.
• Capital allocation remains active: Q3 repurchases ~195K shares for $55M, nine months repurchases nearly 800K shares for $201M; dividend declared at $0.25 per share for April 14, 2025.
• S&P Global Wall Street consensus estimates were unavailable due to system limits, so estimate comparisons are not provided; investors should focus on execution, pricing actions, and IIJA tailwinds (and winter weather risks).

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Light Materials strength: Wallboard volume +2% to 737 MMSF and price +4% to $236.11/MSF; Paperboard volume +7% to 90K tons and price +12% to $627.04/ton; segment operating earnings +18% to $97.4M.
• Pricing power and margins: Company gross margin 31.9% despite weather and maintenance headwinds; cement average net sales price +4% to $156.82/ton.
• Balance sheet and liquidity: Net leverage 1.2x; ~$686M committed liquidity; healthy cash generation (nine months CFO $486M, capex $147M).

Quote: “We generated revenue of $558 million and achieved a gross profit margin of 31.9%...ended the quarter with debt of $1.0 billion and a net leverage ratio...of 1.2x” — CEO Michael Haack.

What Went Wrong

• Weather and volumes: Cement sales volume −7% to 1.7M tons; adverse rainfall (250% of normal) reduced Heavy Materials volumes and drove concrete/aggregates operating loss.
• Maintenance headwind: ~$8M nontypical maintenance at Tulsa and Texas Lehigh pressured cement operating earnings (−18% YoY).
• Higher corporate G&A: +47% YoY driven by ~$1.9M IT upgrades and ~$1.3M transaction-related costs; non-routine items impacted EPS (Adjusted EPS $3.59 vs $3.56 GAAP).

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, everyone, and welcome to Eagle Materials' Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2024 Earnings Conference Call. This call is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Eagle's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Michael Haack. Mr. Haack, please go ahead, sir.

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to Eagle Materials' conference call for our third quarter of fiscal year 2025. This is Michael Haack. Joining me today are Craig Kesler, our Chief Financial Officer, and Alex Haddock, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, Strategy, and Corporate Development. There will be a slide presentation made in connection with this call. To access it, please go to eaglematerials.com and click on the link to the webcast. While you're accessing the slides, please note that the first slide covers our cautionary disclosure regarding forward-looking statements made during this call. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ from those discussed during the call. For further information, please refer to this disclosure, which is also included at the end of our press release. Thank you for joining us today to discuss our FY 2025 third quarter results.

In the third quarter, once again, the operational performance and strategic focus of our team enabled us to deliver positive results and execute on several strategic priorities. This morning, I'd like to start off with some color on several of those strategic initiatives across Eagle Materials. These initiatives demonstrate our approach to investing for the long term to ensure we remain a low-cost producer throughout economic cycles. Let me highlight three areas of particular importance. These are just a few examples of the many things we do to strengthen our core business. First, our primary focus at Eagle is safety. In this regard, I'm happy to report that we ended the calendar year with our lowest total recordable incident rate, or TRIR, since we began tracking this lagging indicator. While this is an achievement, we don't plan on stopping there.

We continue to build out our company-wide safety culture, standardize safety policies and procedures, and ensure we tackle all the necessary protocols for keeping our people safe. We will continue our focus on putting engineering controls in place through the use of leading indicators to continue our journey towards zero. Second, we continue to make meaningful progress on our sustainability initiatives. In our cement business, we have completed investments that are getting us closer to our goal of 100% construction-grade blended cement for our manufactured product. These projects, like our Mountain Cement expansion and modernization, reduce our CO2 intensity while lowering our overall manufacturing cost. We are also making headway on completing our water treatment facility at Republic Paperboard, which should reduce water usage at the plant by 50% and increase the use of recycled water.

The third strategic initiative is our recent acquisition of Bullskin Stone and Lime and its alignment with our overall growth strategy. Bullskin was a rare opportunity to acquire a pure-play aggregate asset that fits nicely within our current heavy materials footprint. This combination provides strategic advantages for us, including our ability to serve our regional customers. The acquisition also expands our presence in Western Pennsylvania, a market with solid growth fundamentals and healthy DOT spending levels. Acquisitions such as Bullskin fit squarely in our broader growth strategy. We will continue to seek growth investments that strengthen our footprint and meet our strategic and financial criteria, as Bullskin does. The acquisition closed in early January, and integration is well underway. I'm excited to welcome the Bullskin employees to Eagle. Now, let me give some details on our operating performance this past quarter and our views on business conditions more broadly.

We generated near-record third quarter revenue despite cement volumes being down 7% because of record rainfall in some areas. In key markets, rainfall reached 250% of historical averages. Our people and our plants executed impressively amidst these challenging conditions. As discussed last quarter, we undertook major maintenance at both our Tulsa and Texas Lehigh cement plants. The work planned was completed timely at both locations. The increased maintenance costs, which did affect us this past quarter, were smart investments for the long term, ensuring increased reliability of both plants and enabled us to get back to a normal maintenance cycle. We also continue to realign our customer portfolio at both our Denver and Kansas City concrete and aggregate sites and feel we can position those businesses well for the future.

With regards to pricing, we have price increase letters out for the majority of our cement markets and our wallboard operations for the first half of 2025. Despite these tougher operating environments, the demand fundamentals for our products remain solid. In cement, federal infrastructure dollars through the IIJA program are just starting to flow through, and private non-residential manufacturing projects should tilt cement consumption higher. Regarding wallboard demand, we're focused on the widely discussed change in the outlook for interest rates and mortgage rates over the next 12 to 24 months. The path to lower rates and the knock-on effects of increased home buying demand is cloudier today than it was just a quarter ago. Single-family housing, the most important end market for our wallboard businesses, will continue to benefit from the drastic need for more housing in the United States.

The affordability challenges facing today's potential home buyers are being made worse by the lack of homes, and thus we feel the underlying demand for residential construction will be positive for wallboard consumption. Regardless of the short-term demand picture, we continue to generate a significant amount of free cash flow and to focus on how we best invest our cash over cycles. Over the last five years, Eagle Materials has put over $3 billion of capital to work on a combination of high-growth, high-return projects and capital returns through share buybacks. These investments include strategic organic investments to improve the reliability of our plants, including an upgrade to our Republic Paper Mill, as well as replacing or repairing critical equipment across our footprint to keep our plants in like-new condition. Investments in raw material reserves to ensure we have multi-decades of material close to our plants.

This is a strategic operational initiative that results in a competitive advantage for Eagle. We also made several strategic inorganic investments to strengthen our low-cost position, including the acquisition of Kosmos Cement, several cement terminals, and multiple aggregate sites. We've made those organic and inorganic investments while maintaining a healthy leverage profile and reducing our outstanding shares by 30% through our share repurchase program. Our commitment to executing similar high-return initiatives through the cycle remains firm as it has for many years. Now, let me turn it over to Craig to go through our financial results.

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Thank you, Michael. Third quarter revenue was $558 million, a slight downtick from the prior year. The decline was driven by lower cement and concrete and aggregate sales volume, partially offset by higher wallboard and paperboard sales volume and pricing. Third quarter earnings per share was $3.56. The quarterly EPS reflects lower earnings, offset by a 3% reduction in fully diluted shares due to our share buyback program. As we highlighted in the press release, we had one non-routine expense item during the quarter. It was $1.3 million of costs associated with business development and transaction-related activities. Turning now to segment performance, highlighted on the next slide. In our heavy materials sector, which includes our cement and concrete and aggregate segments, revenue declined 4%, primarily because of lower cement sales volume, partially offset by cement sales price increases we implemented earlier this year.

Our third quarter cement sales volume was significantly affected by the exceptionally wet weather in our Midwest and Great Plains markets during November. Operating earnings were down 20%, primarily because of the lower cement sales volume, in addition to higher maintenance costs. As we previewed last quarter, we had major maintenance projects at two of our cement plants during the third quarter, which increased maintenance costs by approximately $8 million. The work at both plants has been completed, improving the plant's long-term reliability. As Michael mentioned, we have cement price increases announced in nearly all of our markets for the first part of calendar 2025. Moving to the light materials sector on the next slide. Revenue in this sector increased 6%, reflecting higher wallboard and recycled paperboard sales volume and prices. Wallboard sales volume was up 2%, and recycled paperboard sales volume increased 7%.

In terms of prices, wallboard increased 4% and recycled paperboard 12%. Operating earnings in the sector were also up 18% to $97 million, driven by the higher wallboard and recycled paperboard sales volume and higher wallboard and paperboard sales prices. Looking now at our cash flow, we continue to generate healthy cash flow and allocate capital in line with our strategic priorities and rigorous financial return criteria. During the first nine months of the year, operating cash flow was $486 million. Capital spending increased to $147 million, primarily because of the modernization and expansion project at our Laramie, Wyoming cement plant. We also acquired a small aggregates business for $25 million last quarter, the acquired operations complementary to our existing aggregates business in Kentucky.

Finally, we repurchased nearly 800,000 shares of our common stock for $201 million, in addition to paying our quarterly dividends, returning a total of $226 million to shareholders during the first nine months of the year. We have approximately 5.1 million shares remaining under our current repurchase authorization. Finally, a look at our capital structure, which continues to provide us significant financial flexibility. At December 31st, 2024, our net debt-to-cap ratio was 40%, and our net debt-to-EBITDA leverage ratio was 1.2 times. We ended the quarter with $31 million of cash on hand, bringing total committed liquidity at the end of the quarter to approximately $686 million, and we have no meaningful near-term debt maturities.

As Michael mentioned, subsequent to quarter end, we completed the previously announced acquisition of Bullskin Stone and Lime, which we funded through a combination of cash on hand and borrowings under our bank credit facility. Thank you for attending today's call. We'll now move to the question and answer session. Dave?

Operator (participant)

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Our first question comes from Trey Grooms with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Trey Grooms (Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, Craig and Michael. Thanks for taking my questions. First off, if we could maybe touch on the acquisitions, the pure-play aggregates in Pennsylvania, so Bullskin there and the other tuck-in, maybe any more color on how it fits geographically. Are there other opportunities kind of in that market, or is this one more kind of a one-off in that Pennsylvania market? And then maybe bigger picture, the aggregates has historically been a smaller kind of part of the overall Eagle asset portfolio. But again, you have been maybe a little more active recently on aggregates M&A. Is aggregates a place where we could expect you all to deploy more capital in a bigger way than you have historically, or how should we be thinking about that and your approach there?

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Yeah, Trey, I'll answer that for you. When we look at the aggregate assets that we procured here recently, one is the tuck-in, as you said, and it's in a market that we already have a large quarry for our cement manufacturing. The one we procured actually was right down the road from that and gives us just a little bit more flexibility and secures a couple of different things. It lets us participate in the aggregate market there locally, and it also gives us secondary supply to our cement plant if it was ever needed. We have plenty of reserves at our existing quarry, but just several strategic criteria for us. Up in Pennsylvania, the Bullskin asset, it's not as common to find just a pure-play aggregates resource. We're very excited to have that team join the Eagle team.

As we build out our network of facilities, this one fits very well. We provide cement up into that market, and so it's right in line with our growth strategy, is to have that network and secure that network to make it stronger over time. To your second question of aggregates and deploying capital to aggregates, we've always been a fan of aggregates. We consider that the heavy side of the business. Our strategy has continuously been to grow the heavy side of the business primarily, and we see aggregates as a great fit into that, and if good quality assets that meet our return criteria come available at the right price, we are interested in those assets.

Trey Grooms (Equity Research Analyst)

Got it. Thank you. That's helpful. I guess second one, maybe switching gears a little bit onto wallboard. So wallboard volume held in better than we would have expected. And obviously, the rate environment is now more certain, which you mentioned. But any kind of directional expectations maybe that you could give us for overall kind of wallboard demand as we sit here today? Is it fair to think wallboard volume kind of remains steady, kind of continues to bump along in this range in the medium term until maybe we see some more significant changes on the rate front, or is there a more significant move expected? Any high-level thoughts there would be helpful. Thank you.

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

That's right. Yeah. I think you actually hit the nail on the head. If you were to look at over the last four calendar years, wallboard demand has been plus or minus 1% each year over that four-year timeframe. So look, we've been in an environment where housing has been pretty tepid, pretty mediocre, and wallboard consumption reflects that. We're going to, I think we finished calendar 2024 around 27.3 billion sq ft, and that number has been consistent. And so as you look forward, prior cycles, we've been well north of 30 billion sq ft of consumption in the U.S. So we're still at pretty low levels of total consumption. We've just got, as Michael pointed out, the affordability issue. Certainly, interest rates are a part of that, but there's also good underlying demand. There's healthy employment here in the U.S., healthy wages.

And this rate lock-in and the lack of construction activity for many years now, at least a decade, you've just got a very low level of inventory. So as we start to see the affordability improve, we would expect to see consumption and housing in total increase. We just got to see the affordability improvement.

Trey Grooms (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thank you for all that, Craig and Michael. I'll pass it along, and best of luck.

Operator (participant)

And the next question comes from Brent Thielman with D.A. Davidson. Please go ahead.

Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks. Good morning. Michael or Craig, I know you'd previously talked about price increase and wallboard slated for November. You were going to delay that to the first part of 2025. I mean, any update there, or are you still kind of taking the temperature of the market right now? Just would be curious any comments around that.

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Yeah, Brent, we've got a price increase that we announced for here early February, so shortly after this call, frankly. So we try not to speculate on exact realization and whatnot, but we do have a price increase in the market, and we're going to move forward with that.

Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. And then I guess, Craig, in cement, I mean, obviously a pinch here on volume, which is related to the weather. I just was wondering, any other extraordinary costs to flesh out when we look at the margin in that segment from a year-on-year perspective? I don't know if there's extra maintenance costs or anything else like that in there.

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Yes, Brent. Certainly, and we talked about it last quarter and highlighted it here. We had two maintenance projects at our facility, one of the facilities down in Texas and then in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that were very large, non-typical maintenance programs related to 50-year-old pieces of equipment and the replacement of those. So that was an $8 million headwind in this quarter. So yeah, I would say this quarter had a unique cost impact from those programs, as Michael mentioned, really about improving the long-term reliability of both of those facilities, and the team did a good job with those projects.

Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Got it. Just last one. I know we're only a month in. Not a lot gets done this time of the year anyway, but it doesn't seem like some of these weather conditions have abated from what I can see in the news. Just wondering if you can talk a little bit about that and the current quarter and how we ought to be approaching that as we sit here today.

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Look, I've always said it's tough to draw a trend during January, and frankly, even February, as most of the country is going through winter. This January is no different than that. Certainly, lots of weather activity across the entirety of the U.S. So yeah, January always has those types of issues, and this year will be no different.

Brent Thielman (Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst)

Yeah. Okay. Thanks, guys. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

And the next question comes from Anthony Pettinari with Citigroup. Please go ahead.

Asher Sohnen (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Hi, this is Asher Sohnen for Anthony. So thanks for taking my question. Just on the cement side, can you provide some color maybe on early realization you might be seeing on the January hikes? And then have you had any initial conversations around mid-years or just a sense that customers might be bracing for it?

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Probably a little too early to speculate on a second round of a cement price increase. And as Michael mentioned, we've got price increases in most of our markets kind of throughout the first part of calendar 2025, not all of January, some into the springtime as well. And as I said earlier, certainly with the weather that we've seen for the first part of January, we'll talk about what we realized as we get into the fourth quarter and go through those results. But it's kind of sporadic throughout the springtime.

Asher Sohnen (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Got it. Got it. And then just I think if I strip out the increased maintenance costs of the quarter, it looks like maybe cement margins were roughly flat year-over-year, which is encouraging given the volume headwind. So I just, how should we maybe think about the margin opportunity for cement over the next couple of quarters with no more maintenance headwind and potentially weather easing up?

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Again, we're optimistic about going into the spring. As we think about the construction activity and bidding activity that we see, a lot of that, again, we're down in volumes. We'll be down for the nine months. We're down 4%, 5%. Again, a lot of that has been weather throughout calendar 2024. It's been highlighted, the lack of infrastructure spending coming out of IIJA as those funds start to trickle through the system. There's reasons to be optimistic, not just about calendar 2025, but 2026 and 2027 as well. And improvement in volumes will certainly go a long way on the margin side as well. And as you said, some of this maintenance has been pretty unique to this year and not necessarily repeatable next year.

Asher Sohnen (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Great. Thanks. That's really helpful. I'll turn it over.

Operator (participant)

And the next question comes from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader)

Yes, hi. Good morning, everyone.

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Morning.

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader)

Michael, Craig, hi. The key question that folks have is really given the outstanding wallboard margin performance and continuing soft res data points, people are asking what's different about the wallboard pricing and margins in this cycle compared to, call it, the 2015 timeframe where we saw pricing give back during a similar mid-cycle pause. Would love your thoughts on that and the level of comfort on the sustainability of the current margin structure in an uneven res environment, if you don't mind.

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Yeah. So good question, Jerry. Look, we've talked about it quite a bit. The industry has changed dramatically, and certainly the demand side is one point. And as I mentioned earlier, we've been stuck in neutral as it relates to home building here in the U.S. for quite some time, and therefore wallboard consumption has been pretty consistent at pretty low levels, quite frankly. But on the flip side, the synthetic gypsum raw material issue, when you're talking about 2015, believe it or not, that's 10 years ago now. And as we've seen coal plant closures, some of the synthetic gypsum inventory that had been on the ground has been used. And so you've seen a significant change in the cost structure as that raw material has become more difficult to find and further away, which now has increased transportation costs.

Again, Eagle and American Gypsum are unique in that we have secure and abundant supply of our raw materials. But when you had roughly half of the industry that was relying on synthetic gypsum as its primary raw material, and the shift away from that is going to have a material impact on their cost structure. So we enjoy these margins because of decisions that were made many moons ago, and it's a structural advantage for us. Not everybody is that well positioned.

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader)

And Craig, on that note, given the high-cost position for some of the competitor base, any strategic opportunities emerging for you folks on the wallboard side of the business, or is our capital deployment focus here still strictly on the heavy side?

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

As Michael's always said, we've continued to look at ways to put our free cash flow and our balance sheet to work and take advantage of the position that we have across our wallboard network. So we continue to look at those opportunities with our facilities that are in the western part of the country that sit on decades' worth of raw materials and gypsum. Those are things that we continue to explore. How do we improve those facilities and take advantage of the cost position that we do have?

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader)

Super. And can we shift gears and talk about cement? So your shipments in the quarter, I thought, were pretty good given the maintenance. Normally, your shipments are down 20% sequentially. You were down just 17% sequentially. As we think about the cadence of demand into calendar 2025, it feels like you still have a tough comparison for volumes in the first quarter, but quite the easy one applying normal seasonality in the second quarter. And just would love to get your views on how that normal seasonality math stacks up versus your expectations for volumes in terms of tough comp in the March quarter and then very easy comp looks like in June.

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Yeah. Sitting here today, you'd expect to see pretty normal seasonality. The March quarter is always a typical quarter, just given that two-thirds of it is January and February, which are typically the hardest winter months, and January certainly proved that out here this year. But yeah, as you get into June and get into September, that's when the construction season really starts to kick off. And sitting here today, have optimism around the beginning of the construction season. So ready to get there.

Jerry Revich (Senior Investment Leader)

Good. Appreciate the conversation. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Adam Thalhimer with Thompson Davis. Please go ahead.

Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research)

Hey, good morning, guys.

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Morning.

Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research)

On cement prices, were there any push through in January, or are those more for April?

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

It's a combination across our plants, across our networks. Some markets are in January. Some markets are going in April, some in between. So it's kind of across the board depending upon the market that you're in.

Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research)

Okay, and then, Craig, for Bullskin, how much should we add for aggregates tonnage, and is their pricing kind of similar to your corporate average?

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

Good question, Adam. Look, I would tell you from a pricing perspective, consistent with kind of the average across our markets. In terms of volume, we've owned it for less than a month here. So we'll give you a better update on volumes as we have a little more time with the business.

Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research)

Okay. And then lastly, on the paperboard price, the average pricing jumped up quite a bit in Q3. I'm curious, was that mechanical and that will reverse, or is that kind of the new norm over 600?

Craig Kesler (EVP and CFO)

No, that is mechanical dealing with the price adjustments in the supply agreements within that business, so that price improvement is a function of OCC prices earlier in the year having been higher. OCC prices here in October, November, and December actually came down, and so as we go into the March quarter, you'll see that pricing probably dip back below $600 a ton. Again, it's not a market change. It's just a function of the pricing mechanisms in the long-term contracts.

Adam Thalhimer (Director of Research)

Understood. Okay. Thanks, Craig.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Philip Ng with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Philip Ng (Managing Director)

Hey, guys. There's been a lot of headlines with funding being paused, whether it's for IIJA or IRA since Trump has been back in office. Appreciating this is a super fluid situation. What's the Eagle's house view and what this all means? Have you seen any noticeable pause in activity projects? And then separately, if there are any tariffs potentially being implemented on cement, how do you think that actually impacts your business, good or bad?

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Yeah. On your first question, look, a change in administration always has some speed bumps and bumps in the road as they're going through that transition. This is certainly no different. A lot of noise here recently. But as it relates to the things that matter to Eagle, we don't think there's much of an issue there. We get a lot of noise, but things that matter to Eagle, we would expect to see infrastructure and other construction activity continue. In terms of tariffs on cement imports, TBD, of course, but it would certainly impact the cost of imported product into the U.S. Not necessarily a dramatic impact to us directly, but indirectly, it would cause the marginal supply to be a higher cost ton.

Philip Ng (Managing Director)

Super. But it doesn't sound like you've seen any pause in projects on the public side thus far. I mean, I know there's not a lot getting done in the winter months of the year, but you haven't seen much activity slow down on that front?

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

No. No.

Philip Ng (Managing Director)

Okay. Super. And then on the wallboard side of things, once again, the quarter was pretty impressive. Demand was pretty resilient. And the way that you kind of characterize this environment, muted growth, but pretty steady. Is that what you're seeing on the order front as well? Because some of the distributors out there have talked about demand softening in single-family as well as commercial. But I think the way you've kind of messaged it seems pretty steady. But just want to make sure we're being thoughtful about this.

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Yeah. Again, even though wallboard is an indoor sport, it's always hard to generate a lot of trend activity, whether it's orders or shipments in January. But we haven't seen any dramatic swings one way or the other within the wallboard business.

Philip Ng (Managing Director)

Okay. Appreciate all the great color, guys. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

The next question comes from Jonathan Bettenhausen with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Jonathan Bettenhausen (Equity Research Associate)

Hey, guys. I'm on for Keith this morning. Thanks for taking my question. On wallboard, it looks like the wallboard volumes outperform the industry manufacturer shipment number once again. What are the main drivers of that? Is this more of a regional focus, or are there some share gains going on? Just any color here would be helpful.

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

No. Look, I would say it's right on the margin. I think the industry was down 1.5% or so, and we're up slightly. So very close to being in line with that. Our share hasn't changed much in the last five years. There are certainly regional activities that we benefit from, just given our footprint in the southern part of the country where construction activity is generally more robust. So I think it's more of that.

Jonathan Bettenhausen (Equity Research Associate)

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Haack for any closing remarks.

Michael Haack (President and CEO)

Thank you, Dave. Next quarter marks the end of our fiscal year, and we look forward to reflecting on the year we had while also laying out our strategic priorities for the year ahead. Until then, and as always, we will focus on excellent operational execution and capitalizing on opportunities for our businesses. Thanks to everyone who joined the call today.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.