Blue Bird Corporation (NASDAQ:BLBD) Q4 2022 Earnings Conference Call December 12, 2022 4:30 PM ET

Company Participants

Mark Benfield - Head, Investor Relations

Matthew Stevenson - President and Chief Executive Officer

Razvan Radulescu - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Eric Stine - Craig-Hallum

David Johnson - D.A. Davidson

Operator

Good afternoon and welcome to the Blue Bird Corporation Fiscal 2022 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mark Benfield, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Mark Benfield

Thank you and welcome to Blue Bird’s fiscal 2022 fourth quarter earnings conference call. The audio for our call is webcast live on blue-bird.com under the Investor Relations tab. You can access the supporting slides on our website by clicking on the Presentations box on the IR landing page.

Our comments today include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others matters, we have noted on the following two slides and in our filings with the SEC. Blue Bird disclaims any obligation to update the information in this call.

This afternoon, you will hear from Blue Bird’s President and CEO, Matthew Stevenson; and CFO, Razvan Radulescu. Then we will take some questions. Let’s get started. Matt?

Matthew Stevenson

Thank you, Mark, and good afternoon, everyone. Razvan and I are incredibly excited to share an update on the progress of Blue Bird. No doubt fiscal year ‘22, which closed on October 1, was a challenging year due to the residual effects of COVID that impacted our business, which included exhaustive supply chain disruptions and unprecedented industrial inflation. However, I am proud to say through the hard work of the Blue Bird team, we have navigated these turbulent seas and have positioned the organization for significant success in this current fiscal year 2023.

On Slide 6, you can see we did that by executing our plan in several key areas, along with the added benefit of strong market fundamentals. Overall, industry demand is robust and is driving a record backlog for Blue Bird this time of the year. We also continue to hold a leadership position in alternative fuel and electric buses.

Throughout the year, we aggressively increased forward pricing and we partially recovered pricing on the backlog to match inflationary economics. In addition to raising prices, we dramatically drove cost out of the business and not just for the short-term. We reorganized our functional areas to be more efficient and leaner and we eliminated several non-value-added operations across the business.