West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. (NYSE:WFG) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 15, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Sean McLaren - President and CEO

Chris Virostek - Chief Financial Officer

Matt Tobin - SVP, Sales and Marketing

Conference Call Participants

Ben Isaacson - Scotiabank

Ketan Mamtora - BMO Capital Markets

Hamir Patel - CIBC

Sean Steuart - TD Securities

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to West Fraser's Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. Please note, that all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

During this conference call, West Fraser's representatives will be making certain statements about West Fraser's future financial and operational performance, business outlook and capital plans. These statements may constitute forward-looking information or forward-looking statements within the meaning of Canadian and United States securities [Technical Difficulty] Such statements involve certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions, which may cause actual results or future results and performance to be materially different from those expressed or implied in these statements.

Additional information about these risk factors and assumptions is included both in the accompanying webcast presentation and in our 2023 annual MD&A and Annual Information Form, which can be accessed on West Fraser's website or through SEDAR+ for Canadian investors and EDGAR for United States Investors. Thank you.

I will now hand the call over to Mr. Sean McLaren. Please go ahead.

Sean McLaren

Thank you, Jenny. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our Fourth Quarter 2023 Earnings Call. I am Sean McLaren, President and CEO of West Fraser. Joining me today are Chris Virostek, our Senior Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer; Matt Tobin, our Senior Vice-President of Sales and Marketing; and other members of our leadership team.

I will begin today's comments with a brief overview of West Fraser's Q4 and fiscal 2023 financial results, and then pass the call to Chris for additional comments before I share some thoughts on our outlook and make some concluding remarks.

West Fraser generated $97 million of adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter of 2023 as we continue to experience mixed results across our business segments, with strength in our North American engineered wood business, partially offset by continued soft demand for our North American lumber products.

While new home construction in the US remained resilient through the quarter, supporting demand for OSB, relatively high mortgage rates and continued constrain existing home sales activity which tempered repair and remodeling spending and lumber demand. For full year 2023, we generated $561 million of adjusted EBITDA, representing a 9% margin.