Wabash National - Q3 2023
October 25, 2023
Transcript
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
like truck bodies, tank trailers, and parts and services. Together, these segments are poised to contribute significantly, with the potential to generate around $200 million of gross profit in 2024. To be clear, that figure excludes the contribution from dry vans, and it alone surpasses our consolidated gross profit performance in years like 2020 and 2021, reflecting the robust potential within truck bodies, tank trailers, and parts and services. In conclusion, I'm thrilled to check off a meaningful long-term financial target, more than two years ahead of schedule. I'm also pleased to be able to raise our full year guidance again this year, but even more excited about what our 2023 financial performance signals for years to come.
We have a very strong and capable team that has generated our record 2023 performance, and we believe we're still in the early innings of realizing the full capability of our remade company. Perhaps surprisingly, I'm also enthusiastic about our prospects for 2024. For over three years, we've been exploring the potential of our First to Final Mile, One Wabash plan, designed to transform the company's cyclicality. As we look ahead to 2024, we're poised to showcase the continued progress we've achieved in stabilizing Wabash's historical earnings volatility. Wabash occupies a prominent position as an industry leader in transportation equipment and is positioned at the epicenter of an increasingly complex ecosystem of participants within transportation, logistics, and distribution. We are actively collaborating with [Fern] to bring value to this ecosystem by crafting a digital marketplace capable of uniting these diverse stakeholders to address industry challenges.
We firmly believe that this, this initiative will define the next chapter in our journey to change how the world reaches you. It's an exciting time, and we're eager to continue shaping the future of the industry alongside our partners and stakeholders. I'll now turn the call back to the operator, and we'll open it up for questions.
Operator (participant)
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. Your first question comes from the line of Justin Long from Stephens. Your line is open.
Justin Long (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Thanks, and good morning.
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Morning.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Good morning, Justin.
Justin Long (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Maybe to start, I was wondering if you could help us understand the positive impact you saw from material margin in the third quarter, and then as we move into fourth quarter and early next year, how you see that progressing?
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, we did see some positive sourcing-related material cost impact in Q3, non-commodity related, that some of that will continue into Q4, some will not. And that was a partial driver to our beat versus our original guide. So I would expect a little bit of a step down into Q4 in our material margin, which is embedded in our guidance, but not a ton. So we would expect to maintain some of that sourcing benefit that we got. But you will see a little bit of a step down from the material margin perspective.
Justin Long (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Okay. And would you expect that to normalize in the first and second quarter next year? Or at what point will we get to kind of a more normalized manufacturing margin level?
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, Q4 will be, I would say, much closer to what we'd expect to see in 2024 from a margin perspective. But we obviously still have a lot of work to do from a backlog fill perspective before we can give any official guidance. So we didn't give guidance for 2024 yet, so I can't say that will be the exact margin profile, but Q4 will be closer to what we'd expect to see at a runway level.
Justin Long (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Okay. Understood. And maybe following up on what you just said, you gave some helpful puts and takes for 2024, and totally understand or appreciate that the macro environment makes forecasting challenging. But how are you thinking about the range of potential outcomes for the business in 2024? And maybe you could speak to how you're managing resources based on that range. I heard you say at one point that you took some targeted downtime at one of your facilities in the third quarter, but I'm just curious if you could comment on the range for 2024, if you have any thoughts there, and how you manage resources to that range.
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, absolutely. I'll start, and I'll let Brent maybe take the resource part of the other question. But we clearly believe that we're going to see some nice order inflow in Q4, which is not uncommon. In some of the prepared remarks, we mentioned that, you know, if you go to the pre-COVID days, seeing the majority of your backlog fill going into year-end in Q4 was not an abnormal thing. And we're getting back to that calendarization of order fill. We feel pretty good about what we can deliver in Q4 and going into 2024. And also, that's a very much a dry van specific comment.
As I mentioned, we have a lot of other revenue streams that we feel are filling and will provide a lot of support in 2024. And you know, those are the parts and tank trailer and truck body we talked about. So, you know, it's a wide range, which is why we didn't give a formal guidance. But we would expect to see any reduction that happens from the trailer orders that you're seeing from ACT/FTR, we would expect we would not see that big of a drop in revenue for sure, based on some of the support we have in our other value streams. And we'll have a lot more color and context around what we'll see from dry vans at the year-end call.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
... Yeah. So Justin, when you think about it from just a, I think you're primarily talking about hourly headcount, shift structure, and so on. I think the way that we see it is that you gotta go look at Q3 and Q4 of 2023 to bridge the entire story. We specifically are managing this current period of time to position our overall headcount to support how we see the first half of 2024 playing out, and making sure that we're in a great position to react to an increase in demand as we go into the tail end of 2024, and absolutely into 2025. So what does that actually mean?
What that means is, specifically for our dry van operation, we believe we can stay solidly on two-shift operation throughout the year, with the ability of using overtime to flex with, you know, we'll just say opportunistic changes in demand in the early part of the year. And give us a nice, solid baseline that we can grow and prepare for 2025 in the second half of the year. We think the market has the potential to be able to do that, even sitting in with the clarity issues we have today.
To Mike's point on the rest of the business, specifically tanks, truck bodies, and parts, we're actually in a position where we are maintaining, if not growing, headcount in those aspects of the business in 2024, to meet the known market drivers and demand that we have on the table today. So, you know, we are still, what I would say, net-net in a great position in terms of how we think about having an active and robust resource management outlook going into 2024.
Justin Long (Managing Director of Equity Research)
Okay, very helpful. Thanks for the time.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Thank you. Thanks, Justin.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Shlisky from D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.
Mike Shlisky (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Hello, and thanks for taking my question.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Yeah.
Mike Shlisky (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Can we start off? There's one topic you didn't mention for 2024, and that was the reefer business. I know that's in a bit of a transition at the moment. Can you update us on the transition to Minnesota for that business? You know, the cadence of how that might ramp up next year and/or in 2025.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Yeah. So when we think about our cold chain product lineup, Mike, we wanna make sure we talk about it in the total lineup, not just on reefer vans. We're gonna be in a nice place in 2024, where we think we can actually be additive in the total amount of cold chain revenue and kind of overall product output in 2024. That's a combination of you know, a relative amount of maintaining, if not slightly growing, on our EcoNex Reefer Van, but also pulling through additional parts and service revenue. And we are now seeing an opportunity with EcoNex medium-duty truck bodies that we've been able to establish a foothold in in 2023. That's an area of potential expansion for us in 2024.
Mike Shlisky (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Got it. Then just taking a step back on 2024, it sounds like you're already calling that a trough. I guess I'd like to know your confidence level that 2024 will in fact just be a single year downturn, a single year trough. Is there anything about 2025 we should be thinking of, about the regulations or just where you think rates are headed currently, that make you feel like it'll just be a single year?
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Yeah, I think when you look, I mean, first off, Mike, you know as well as I do, we still have yet to unfold, you know, what will happen in the world around us, both globally and domestically. So, you know, I can't speculate on what might happen, but, but what I will say is that if we can keep to one, worst case, two, Fed rate changes, I think we're in a decent place for us to anticipate that overall freight has the ability of recovering to a degree that allows the strongest players in the industry to move forward with their growth, we'll call it aspirations, and strategic direction in 2025. Those happen to be the customers we tend to do business with, based on the backlog slash customer portfolio we've created.
We're in conversations with those customers to understand how they view 2025. That's more important. It's less about how we view it, it's more about how they view it. They view it as a 2025, I would say differently, the tail end of 2024, should start to be able to give them the confidence to lean into 2025 as they look to gain market share, while everyone else is somewhat still reeling from the trough that we're in right now. So that's why Wabash is so pointed in preparing itself to be ready, at the earliest notice, to respond to that demand signal when it comes. We think that will actually come a little bit ahead of what the overall market will be signaling, based off the customers that we do business with.
Mike Shlisky (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Outstanding. Let me just squeeze one last one in here. Can you update us on the impact of the UAW strike on orders of your business? I guess on the truck body side, has there been chassis supply issues? Has it been exacerbated over the last couple of weeks? And on the trailer side, you know, are you getting the sense that some of the fleets are holding off on ordering because they're not sure if there'll be excess capacity, if there's no auto parts or components and autos themselves being shipped around the country?
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Yeah. I'll take the last part of the question first. I don't really believe yet we are seeing a significant impact in any type of 2024 order behavior based off of what's going on with the current state of the UAW strike. I'm not gonna quote them all, but I think there's a series of metrics out there, at least that I've been exposed to, that say that we haven't really even seen any truly material impacts of the UAW strike in terms of real freight impact. We also know that it's not a, what I'd call, full-blown strike yet. It's more of an iterative process that they're going through.
So I don't think it's material yet in any decision-making, and I don't think it would be until we get into something into the first quarter for it to last that long. Even then, it might be somewhat limited to the carriers, which it really does impact. Okay? It's not a high item on that front from a risk management standpoint for Wabash's demand profile. When we think about it from a truck body standpoint, we've had limited impact, and probably will see what I would call limited, incremental. Incremental is not the right word, sporadic impact in 2023 that we're able to maneuver around. Then it's a nuisance, but I wouldn't call it a headache.
If this were to get into 2024, and so this is again, a first quarter, you know, protracted, more full, we'll see a larger amount of impact, but we've got enough lead time, which, like, good or bad, because of the way they've done this, with the incremental nature of how they're rolling this out, not taking them all to their knees right at the moment. We have plenty of time to adjust in how we demand plan to fill the first half of the year, to move away from the chassis pool, you know, Big Three supplied line of businesses. There's enough other out there, specifically during the first half of the year, that we're able to maneuver accordingly.
So while it may operationally change how we do demand management, at this point, I would not see it being a material impact on the actual output of Wabash.
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, I think just to add, Brent mentioned it there, but just to double-click on it, we do have a pretty significant percentage of our truck body build is medium duty, and not dependent on the Detroit Three. So there's a lot of our mix that isn't impacted at all.
Mike Shlisky (Managing Director and Senior Equity Research Analyst)
Oh, great. Perfect. Guys, I appreciate the color. I'll pass it along. Thank you.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Thanks, Mike.
Operator (participant)
Your next question comes from the line of Jeff Kauffman from Vertical Research Partners. Your line is open.
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
Hey, guys, congratulations.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Yeah. Hi.
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you for the view. So I hear your message, which is respite in 2024. You know, you're seeing the numbers already. We're gonna use that respite to make our business stronger. You know, we're gonna have a better bottom. You talked about the big announcement today in Parts and Services as well, and that'll be a bigger piece of the pie. So two questions here. Number one, you've ceded a little share over the last year because you took the factory down to do the transition for the dry vans. You moved reefer up to Minnesota. So you're on track to do about 45,000 trailers this year, give or take, give or take.
So based on what you're saying, is it possible that even if the total trailer industry is down 15% or so next year, I don't know what the real number is gonna be, that you could potentially still be making about 45,000 trailers as you ramp up reefer and you ramp up this new capacity in dry, given some of your market opportunity, or am I thinking about that wrong?
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Well, Jeff, as always, you ask very astute questions. What I would tell you is that. I'm gonna correct one thing, though.
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
The ramping up of our dry van manufacturing and the transition of reefers really has had no real impact on what I would call our literal market share as we think about 2022-2023, in what I would call in any gross material way, that affects 2024 at all, right?
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
I know there's some math in between, but it really doesn't. When we think about market share in 2023, this is much more about a deliberate management decision to drive pricing, to maintain pricing in the second half of the year, based off of a level of demand insecurity that's been caused by the overall freight conditions. We felt as an organization, as the premium supplier into the market, that maintaining pricing was paramount as we move into the order season for 2024. It also just happened to match the level of capacity smoothing that we needed to do to prepare for 2024, and so there'd be no reason to chase pricing, in order to run up against a, you know, a hard stop, and then an inefficiency hit going into 2024.
That would not be the smartest business moves on the planet. So when we think about market share in 2024, I think you're absolutely in the ballpark of, the market share is inherently available for us as we adjust our pricing to still be premium in the market, still be at a much higher level than what we've seen over past cycles. We'll be in a nice place that we can maintain, plus or minus, probably in that range that you're alluding to, with the capacity that we'll have on the ground starting 2024.
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
Okay, thank you. Then just following up on that. I want to follow Mike's question on, you know, is 2024 just a single backward year, and of course, none of us know. But I'm thinking about this big EPA mandate out there for the fleets in 2027, which means you probably get a tractor pre-buy of some kind in 2026. It may even start in 2025, and we all know that, unfortunately, in that situation, even if truck P&L is better, you may get a crowding out of capital for trailers. Maybe not, right? Who knows? But I'm just thinking about the shape of industry demand for the next few years. You know, 2024, we're going to get a respite.
2025, we probably still see a little bit of a respite in the early part of the year, then it starts to get better. But then we start running into this, this tractor buying requirement that a lot of customers are going to have. How do you think the shape of trailers works over the next couple of years? I know it's anybody's guess, but I'm just curious your point of view.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Yeah, I think, I think it's a more complicated question than what is the, you know, one generic shape of how the market will play out based on the factors that you've thrown out there. There's the potential for some level of pre-buy out there based on the facts on the ground. Marginally, yes. Does it affect every fleet in the same way? No, it does not. Those customers, let me say it differently, those carriers, and users of tractors and trailers who have to make discrete choices about how much capital they can deploy, may very well have to fall into a category of what do I buy? Wabash specifically doesn't market or sell to those customers that are in a capital position that have to actually make that level of, we'll call it specific choice.
We tend to sell to those customers that will have ample capital to be able to maintain a more balanced asset base. Reminding everyone that we never, the, you know, the 300,000+ trailers, all said and done, were not bought from 2020 all the way through to 2023, and we clawed into that somewhat, but that's still going to be out there. Fleets are not going to be those that are well-capitalized, well-managed, with a keen eye on operational costs, are not going to want to get further behind on their trailers, even with a pre-buy hanging out there. So when we tend to cater to those customers, we're going to be, I think, somewhat buffered from any effect.
And so when I think about the curve, I think that curve will be different based off of different segmented parts of the overall buying community.
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
Thank you for that. Well, one last question, if I can, this one for Mike. You know, Mike, you mentioned that capital spending this year is going to be about $70 million-$80 million higher than what would be maintenance CapEx, because some of these growth opportunities, which I think is great. You know, it's great that you have that growth project out there. So given your current slate of growth projects, how should we be thinking about the right amount of CapEx as I look out to 2024 and 2025, and just some of the projects that you have that you're spending on right now?
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Yeah, it's difficult to say exactly what 2024 will be, because as you know, we're doing a lot right now, and kind of depending on some of the year-end spend, that can change the 2024 number somewhat. But I would expect to see 2024 to be down 10%-20% from what we saw in 2023. 2023 will be the high, the high point of CapEx for the foreseeable future. But we will have growth projects, highly accretive growth projects that we will have in 2024 and 2025 that will exceed what you may have seen historically from Wabash, but it won't be to the 2023 levels.
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
Well, yeah, and growth is a good thing. I, I'm just curious how to think about the next two to three years of modeling since you do have these growth projects to spend on.
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Yeah.
Jeff A. Kauffman (Equity Research Analyst)
So it was helpful. Thank you. Well, congratulations, guys. Thanks for your time.
Mike Pettit (SVP and CFO)
Thanks, Jeff.
Brent L. Yeagy (President, CEO, and Director of the Board)
Thanks, Jeff.
Operator (participant)
There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Ryan Reed for some closing remarks.
Ryan Reed (Senior Director of Corporate Development and Investor Relations)
Thanks, Rob, and thanks everyone for joining us today. We'll look forward to following up during the quarter. Have a great day.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.