Louisiana-Pacific Corporation (NYSE:LPX) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call August 2, 2023 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Aaron Howald - Vice President, Investor Relations

Brad Southern - Chief Executive Officer

Alan Haughie - Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Susan Maklari - Goldman Sachs

Michael Roxland - Truist Securities

George Staphos - BofA Securities

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Sean Steuart - TD Securities

Kurt Yinger - D.A. Davidson

Mark Weintraub - Seaport Research Partners

Paul Quinn - RBC Capital Markets

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to LP's Second Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Aaron Howald, Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development. You may begin.

Aaron Howald

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss LP's results for the second quarter of 2023, and our outlook for Q3 and the remainder of the year. My name is Aaron Howald, and I am LP's Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development. Joining me this morning are Brad Southern, LP's Chief Executive Officer; and Alan Haughie, LP's Chief Financial Officer.

During this morning's call, we will refer to an accompanying presentation that is available on LP's IR webpage, which is investor.lpcorp.com. Our 8-K filing is also available there, along with our earnings press release and other materials detailing LP's strategy and sustainable business model.

Today's discussion will contain certain forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial metrics, as described on Slides 2 and 3 of the earnings presentation. I will incorporate those slides by reference rather than reading them. The appendix of the presentation also contains reconciliations that are further supplemented by this morning's 8-K filing.

And with that, I will turn the call over to Bret.

Brad Southern

Thanks, Aaron. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us. I'll briefly describe LP's results for the quarter before I turn my attention to the future and discuss LP's strategy of growth, innovation and efficiency, and how it positions us exceptionally well to benefit, not only from the ongoing rebound in new construction, but also from the improvement in repair and remodeling that we expect will eventually follow.

The second quarter ended with encouraging signs of an improving housing market. While single-family starts are down 21% for the first half of the year compared to 2022, May and June saw stronger-than-expected building activity. As housing starts have rebounded, demand for LP's oriented strand board has followed, pushing prices meaningfully higher and improving LP's EBITDA and cash flow outlook. By contrast, the repair and remodeling market appears to be comparatively weak and softening, likely due, at least in part, to constrained home inventory and reduced home sales.