Quanex Building Products Corporation reported its fourth-quarter and full-year 2024 financial results, revealing a mixed performance against market expectations. The company's earnings per share (EPS) fell short of forecasts, while revenue surpassed predictions. Following the announcement, Quanex's stock experienced a decline in after-hours trading.
Key Takeaways
- Quanex's Q4 2024 EPS was $0.61, missing the forecast of $0.63.
- Revenue for the quarter reached $492.2 million, exceeding expectations.
- Stock price dropped by 3.15% following the earnings release.
- The company restructured into three new segments and completed the Tymon acquisition.
- Market conditions remain challenging, with a rebound expected in late 2025.
Company Performance
Quanex Building Products reported a significant increase in net sales for the fourth quarter, up 67% year-over-year to $492.2 million. Despite this growth, the company recorded a net loss of $13.9 million for the quarter. For the full year, Quanex achieved net sales of $1.28 billion, a 13% increase from the previous year, with a net income of $33.1 million. The company has been focusing on restructuring and operational efficiencies, which include the sale of certain business units and the acquisition of Tymon.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $492.2 million, a 67% increase year-over-year.
- Earnings per share: $0.61, compared to a forecast of $0.63.
- Adjusted EBITDA: $182.4 million, a 14.3% increase and a new record for the company.
- Free cash flow: $51.7 million, a 53% decrease year-over-year.
Earnings vs. Forecast
Quanex reported an EPS of $0.61, slightly below the forecasted $0.63, marking a shortfall of approximately 3.2%. This miss contrasts with the company's previous quarters, where it often met or exceeded expectations. However, the revenue significantly outperformed forecasts, coming in at $492.2 million against an expected $440.48 million, a positive surprise of about 11.7%.
Market Reaction
Following the earnings release, Quanex's stock price fell by 3.15%, closing at $28.91. This decline reflects investor disappointment with the earnings miss, despite the strong revenue performance. The stock's movement aligns with broader market trends, where companies missing EPS forecasts have faced negative reactions.
Company Outlook
Looking ahead, Quanex expects a challenging market environment through the holiday and winter months, with a potential rebound in the latter half of 2025. The company forecasts a 50-52% year-over-year increase in Q1 2025 revenue, although volumes are expected to decline. Quanex is also targeting debt reduction, with a current leverage ratio of 2.3x.
Executive Commentary
CEO George Wilson stated, "We are entering the next stage of our evolution," emphasizing the company's strategic restructuring and focus on profitable growth. He noted the sluggish demand anticipated during the winter months but expressed optimism for a market rebound in the second half of fiscal 2025.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the progress of the Tymon integration and the potential for portfolio optimization. Executives expressed confidence in achieving $30 million in synergies from the Tymon acquisition and highlighted ongoing efforts to improve margins and explore divestment opportunities.
Risks and Challenges
- Continued high interest rates may dampen consumer confidence and spending.
- Geopolitical uncertainties could impact global market conditions.
- Potential supply chain disruptions and tariff implications pose operational risks.
- The company's ability to meet synergy targets from recent acquisitions remains critical.
- Market saturation in key segments could limit growth opportunities.
Full transcript - Quanex Building Products Corp (NYSE:NX) Q4 2024:
Conference Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the 4th Quarter and Full Year 2024 Quantex Building Products Corporation Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speakers' presentation, there will be a question and answer session. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.
I would now like to hand the conference over to our first speaker today, Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer. Please go ahead.
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks for joining the call this morning. On the call with me today is George Wilson, our Chairman, President and CEO. This conference call will contain forward looking statements and some discussion of non GAAP measures. Forward looking statements and guidance discussed on this call and in our earnings release are based on current expectations. Actual results or events may differ materially from such statements and guidance, and Quanex undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward looking statement to reflect new information or events.
For a more detailed description of our forward looking statement disclaimer and a reconciliation of non GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, please see our earnings release issued yesterday and posted to our website. I'll now turn the call over to George for his prepared remarks.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks, Scott, and good morning to everyone joining the call. I'll begin today's call with a brief strategic overview, followed by some commentary on the quarter and the broader macro environment. After that, I'll hand it back over to Scott, who will provide a more detailed financial discussion. As we close fiscal 2024 and reflect on the past year, I'm incredibly proud of the progress we've made in executing our strategic plan. At the core of this plan has been the creation of a solid operational foundation that drives strong cash flow and will provide support for our organic and inorganic growth plans.
Building this foundation takes time and significant effort and doesn't happen without the right culture. Looking back over the uncertain and challenging macroeconomic environment of the past few years, it is clear that our operational performance has remained consistent and resilient, positioning us well for the next phase of growth. With this strong foundation in place, our profitable growth strategy has been focused on expanding existing market channels, enhancing our manufacturing capabilities and opening new addressable markets. To achieve this growth, we have strategically employed both debt and equity financing, all while maintaining a healthy balance sheet. I'm pleased to report that our acquisitions of LMI and Timan have met all of these objectives.
Looking ahead, we are entering the next stage of our evolution. Our overarching goal of continual profitable growth remains unchanged with a heightened focus on strengthening the operational foundation of our newly scaled organization. As part of this evolution, we are restructuring our operating segments. Going forward, our structure will be centered around our core competencies in material sciences and manufacturing rather than the previous geographic and market based segments. We believe this shift will create the best opportunities to leverage synergies, capitalize on our strengths and fuel growth both in our current markets and in new adjacent areas.
I'm excited to announce that going forward, we will operate the business in 3 new segments: hardware solutions, extruded solutions and custom solutions. We created these segments with a global reach in mind and they are structured to foster the sharing of best practices and designed to maximize synergy opportunities positioning us for future growth in both existing and new markets. We are enthusiastic about our new organizational structure and the immense potential it holds for our customers, shareholders and all of my teammates at Quanix. To provide further insights into our evolution, we've scheduled an Investor and Analyst Day at the NYSE on February 6, 2025. During this event, we will introduce the leaders of each segment and offer a deeper look at our company, product lines and strategy.
Turning to our fiscal Q4, market conditions and order demand came in very near to our expectations. Volumes remained consistent with our anticipated return to a more traditional seasonality pattern. Despite Fed rate cuts and greater certainty around the U. S. Presidential election, we are still operating in an environment with weakened consumer confidence amid high interest rates and inflationary concerns.
Global geopolitical uncertainties and higher energy costs continue to impact markets worldwide. With that being said, we expect sluggish demand throughout the holiday and winter months, but remain optimistic for a rebound in new build and R and R activity in the second half of our fiscal twenty twenty five as consumer confidence improves. From an operational standpoint, the Quanix team continues to perform exceptionally well with a focus on the integration of Tymon and the pursuit of ongoing capacity and margin optimization projects. I'm pleased to report that the Tymon integration is ahead of schedule and the expected synergies are being realized as planned. We will provide more detailed updates on synergy progress as the year unfolds.
On the margin and capacity optimization front, one project completed during the quarter was the sale of our Richmond, Kentucky vinyl extrusion facility. As mentioned over the past few years, the vinyl window extrusion market in North America has faced challenges due to excess capacity. We successfully sold the Richmond, Kentucky facility during the Q4 for a gain of approximately $5,000,000 while simultaneously improving the cost structure of the remaining North American vinyl extrusion business. We also sold our North American vinyl fencing business as a part of this sale, which generated revenue of approximately $13,000,000 in fiscal 2024 at a very low margin. In closing, I want to thank the team at Quanix for their continued hard work and performance, and I'd also like to welcome all of our new teammates from Tymon.
We've executed well on our strategy, and we're very excited for the next steps in creating value for all of our stakeholders. I will now turn the call back over to Scott who will discuss our financial results in more detail.
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks, George. On a consolidated basis, we reported net sales of $492,200,000 during the Q4 of 2024, which represents an increase of approximately 67% compared to $295,500,000 for the same period of 2023. We reported net sales of $1,280,000,000 for the full year, which represents an increase of approximately 13% compared to $1,130,000,000 for 2023. The increases were primarily driven by the contribution from the Tymon acquisition that closed on August 1, 2024. Excluding the contribution from Timan, net sales would have declined by 2.3% for the Q4 of 2024 and 5% for the full year, largely due to lower volume.
We reported a net loss of $13,900,000 or $0.30 per diluted share during the 3 months ended October 31, 2024 compared to net income of $27,400,000 or $0.83 per diluted share during the 3 months ended October 31, 2023. For the full year 2024, we reported net income of $33,100,000 or $0.90 per diluted share compared to $82,500,000 or $2.50 per diluted share for the full year 2023. On an adjusted basis, net income was $28,600,000 or $0.61 per diluted share during the Q4 of 2024 compared to $31,200,000 or $0.95 per diluted share during the Q4 of 2023. Adjusted net income was $80,400,000 or $2.19 per diluted share for fiscal 2024 compared to 90,900,000 or $2.75 per diluted share for fiscal 2023. The adjustments being made to EPS are primarily for transaction and advisory fees, amortization of the step up for purchase price adjustments on inventory and AR related to the Tymon acquisition, expenses related to a plant closure, loss on damage to a manufacturing facility caused by weather, pension settlement expense and foreign currency translation impacts.
On an adjusted basis, EBITDA for the quarter increased by 59.6 percent to $81,100,000 compared to $50,800,000 during the same period of last year. For the full year 2024, adjusted EBITDA increased by 14.3 percent to $182,400,000 which is a new record for Quanex compared to $159,600,000 in 2023. This equates to adjusted EBITDA margin expansion of approximately 20 basis points year over year. The increase in adjusted earnings for the 3 months 12 months ended October 31, 2024 was mostly attributable to the contribution from the Tymon acquisition. However, the increase in adjusted earnings was also due in part to lower cost of sales including labor related to lower volumes and deflation in the price of raw materials.
Now for results by operating segment. We generated net sales of $172,000,000 in our North American Fenestration segment for the Q4 of 2024, a decrease of 4.7% compared to $180,500,000 in the Q4 of 2023. We estimate that volumes in this segment declined by approximately 6% year over year with pricing up approximately 1% versus Q4 of 2023. For the full year, we reported net sales of $650,000,000 in our North American Fenestration segment, a decrease of 2.6% compared to $667,500,000 in 2023. The decrease was mainly due to softer market demand and lower pricing.
We estimate the volumes in this segment declined by approximately 3% year over year in 2024 with pricing up slightly versus 2023. Adjusted EBITDA was $30,100,000 in this segment for the 4th quarter or 1.5% higher than prior year, which equates to margin expansion of approximately 110 basis points year over year. Adjusted EBITDA was $93,900,000 in this segment for the full year or essentially flat versus 2023, but equates to margin expansion of approximately 50 basis points year over year. This group has done a good job of controlling costs despite lower volumes. Our European administration segment generated revenue of $65,100,000 in the 4th quarter, which represents an increase of 1.4% compared to $64,200,000 in the Q4 of 2023.
We estimate the volumes were essentially flat year over year in this segment for the quarter with pricing down approximately 1% and positive foreign exchange translation impact of about 3%. For the full year, we reported net sales of $230,700,000 in our European Fenestration segment, a decrease of 7.9% compared to $250,800,000 in 2023. For the full year, we estimate that volumes declined by approximately 7% year over year in this segment with pricing down by approximately 2% and positive foreign exchange translation impact of about 1%. Adjusted EBITDA declined slightly to $16,500,000 in this segment for the quarter versus $16,700,000 during the same period last year. For the full year, adjusted EBITDA came in at $54,800,000 in this segment, which represented a decline of 8.5 percent, but note that margin was essentially flat.
We reported net sales of $52,800,000 in our North American Cabinet Components segment during the quarter, which represented growth of 1.7% compared to prior year. We estimate that volumes declined by approximately 3% and price increased by approximately 5% in this segment for the quarter. For the full year, we reported net sales of $198,400,000 which represents a decline of 7.9% year over year. We estimate the volumes declined by approximately 6% with price declining approximately 2% for 2024 versus 2023. The price movements for both periods were largely related to index pricing tied to hardwood costs.
Adjusted EBITDA was $3,300,000 $9,300,000 in this segment for the quarter and full year respectively. The time lag related to our hardwood index pricing mechanism in this segment negatively impacted profitability in 2024 after helping us on that front in 2023. The Timing business reported net sales of $203,400,000 for the Q4 of 2024. Since we didn't own this business in the Q4 of 2023, there is no comp in the earnings release. However, revenue was down approximately 11% for this segment in the Q4 of 2024 compared to the Q4 of 2023, mostly due to soft market demand in all segments, which is consistent with what we saw in the legacy Quanex business, but also due in part to the conscious decision to exit low margin business in China.
Adjusted EBITDA came in at $34,500,000 for the quarter, which yielded meaningful margin expansion compared to Q4 of 2023, driven by cost synergies related to the closing of Timon's legacy home office in London, exiting low margin business in China and more efficient operations in North America. Operator, I think operator, can you put yourself on mute? Moving on to cash flow and the balance sheet. Cash provided by operating activities was $5,500,000 for the Q4 of 2024, which compares to $44,500,000 for the Q4 of 2023. Cash provided by operating activities for the full year 2024 was $88,800,000 which compares to $147,100,000 for the full year 2023.
We maintained focused on managing working capital throughout the year, but the Q4 was impacted by layering in the Timan acquisition as the legacy TiMEAN business is very much a make to stock business and the legacy Quanix business is very much make to order. We generated free cash flow of $51,700,000 for the full year in 2024, a decrease of about 53% compared to 2023. The main driver for the lower free cash flow in 2024 is the one time cash costs related to the Tymon acquisition. If you adjust for these one time cash costs, free cash flow would have been about $89,000,000 for the full year of 2024 on a normalized basis. As a reminder, we borrowed 770,000,000 dollars 500,000,000 for a term loan A and $270,000,000 on the revolver to acquire Timon on August 1, 2024.
Since that time, we were able to repay $53,750,000 in debt during the Q4 of 2024. As of October 31, 2024, the leverage ratio for our quarterly debt compliance was 2.3 times. The debt covenant leverage ratio calculation is defined in Amendment number 1 to our 2nd amended and restated credit agreement, which was filed with the SEC on June 12, 2024. This debt covenant leverage ratio excludes real estate leases that are considered finance leases under U. S.
GAAP and is calculated on a pro form a basis to include last 12 months adjusted EBITDA from the Timing acquisition. Also includes credit for $30,000,000 of EBITDA for the synergy target related to the acquisition and cash only from domestic subsidiaries. The debt covenant leverage ratio would be 2.1 times if calculated using the full cash and cash equivalents amount on the balance sheet as of October 31, 2024. The 2.1 leverage ratio is in line with the leverage ratio referenced in the presentation we published on our website when we announced the deal on April 22, 2024. As George mentioned, we will host an Investor and Analyst Day at the NYSE on Thursday, February 6, 2025.
At that time, we plan to unveil the new Quanex, which will include details specific to each operating segment along with initial guidance for fiscal 2025. In addition, we will disclose more about our profitable growth strategy going forward. Since guidance for 2025 and detail related to the new operating segments won't be rolled out until early February, please use the following cadence for the Q1 of 2025 versus the Q1 of 2024. As a reminder, due to the typical seasonality of our business, our Q1 is usually the weakest quarter of the year, but we do expect a meaningful uptick in demand in the second half of twenty twenty five as consumer confidence improves and pent up demand starts to unwind. With that said, on a consolidated basis, we expect revenue to be up 50% to 52% in the Q1 of 2025 compared to the Q1 of 2024, driven by the contribution from the Tymon assets.
However, consistent with recent market dynamics, we do expect volumes to be down in the Q1 of 2025 compared to the Q1 of 2024. On a consolidated basis, adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be up about 25 basis points in the Q1 of 2025 compared to the Q1 of 2024. In addition, a tax rate of 23.5% is reasonable with interest expense of approximately $15,000,000 in the Q1 2025. Operator, we are now ready to take questions.
Conference Operator: Thank you. And at this time, we'll conduct a question and answer session. Our first question will come from the line of Steven Ramsey from Thompson Research Group. Your line is open.
Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Hi, good morning. Good morning. Wanted to think high level wanted to think high level a bit given the market remains pretty stagnant and seems pretty well known out there. I guess my first question would then be on portfolio adjustments. Now that you've got timing in and synergies are coming in at a nice clip.
How are you assessing the portfolio broadly? Basically, are you considering any moves to divest anything that maybe is less core now that you have this bigger foundation?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks for the question, Stephen. The answer is yes, we are evaluating the entire portfolio. I think the scale of the acquisition gives us an opportunity to do that. The approach that we'll take is we're going to obviously look at this from a customer perspective and see what pieces of portfolio add value to our customers and can help them grow. Secondly, then we'll look at what that means to potential growth, as well as the profitability.
I think we will use it as an opportunity to potentially divest non core assets that do not add value to our customer that can drive margin improvement through just subtraction of the revenue. So nothing too specific at this point, but I think it's fair to say that that will be a priority in some of our views as we go forward here in 2025.
Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: Okay. That's helpful. Also wanted to think about the EU segment. You've had 2 consecutive years with margin in the 23%, 24% range, very strong. Do you view this as kind of the normalized level to operate from or even build off of?
Or would you say there are some this is maybe a peak level for current dynamics that's helping that?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes. No, it's a great question. I'm extremely proud of what our teams have done over the past years on margin improvement and really operational performance. I think as we re segmented these businesses into these new segments, we were trying to accomplish a few things. One was to really address most of our businesses take a global approach and by separating or segmenting them the way we did in the legacy Time and business or excuse me, legacy Quanix business, we kind of split them up geographically, which I think made it difficult or limited the opportunities to maybe get some sharing of best practices or synergies internally.
So although we did a good job, I think it potentially put a little governor on those opportunities. I think taking more of a global approach and for example our spacer business or some of the new businesses from time and looking at it from a global perspective, it gives us the opportunity to set these things up, share best practices across the globe. So my anticipation, Stephen, long answer here is that I don't think we're tapped out on margin improvement opportunities driven by internal projects. I think that there's still some runway and that was part of the reason that we've established these segments the way we did. 1, focused on what best delivers for our customer and then 2, how can we continue to tap into the opportunities to improve margin organically.
That was the basis around our restructure.
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: The only thing I'll add there, Stephen, is as markets improve around the world and volumes tick up, at some point you're going to get operating efficiency gains that will help margin longer term as well.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: So I think you can see we're pretty excited about the potential that these new segments can drive more to come, but we're pretty optimistic about that.
Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: No, that's great perspective. Maybe something to quickly ask there, Scott, that you alluded to better volumes and the margin benefits from that. Can you maybe talk to the kind of historic incremental margins from legacy Quanex? And given as you put these two businesses together, where could incremental margins get better as volume starts to improve? That's a very difficult question to ask only because you would have
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: to go product line by product line to see fixed cost versus variable costs and where we could where the operating leverage is better obviously is as volume ticks up in a fixed more fixed costs, you're going to reap the rewards better than you would have variable cost?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I think if you look at the way we've segmented in extruded solutions segment for example, the nature of extrusion process alone kind of lends itself is very much a volume driven type of business. So I think you would see the most volume benefits in that type of segment and that type of process as markets improved.
Steven Ramsey, Analyst, Thompson Research Group: That's great color. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Thalhimer from Thompson Davis. Your line is open.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Hey, good morning guys. Congrats on a record year.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thank you.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: I wanted to ask first about the time and synergies. How comfortable are you getting to the $30,000,000 of synergies? And do you still think it takes 2 years to capture those?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Great question. So as we've embarked on this, I think you're always apprehensive about giving a number when you go into such a transformative type of deal. But as we've progressed and now that we've launched the new segments, I think our comfort level around the stated $30,000,000 is very strong and high. We have very strong confidence in achieving those levels. I think as the teams move through, the focus has started.
We focused on the consolidation of the corporate offices, which we've talked about already and that's gone according to plan and maybe a little quicker than anticipated. Now that the divisions are starting to operate within the new segments, I think we're very pleased at the results that we're seeing these newly created teams generate and the amount of opportunities that they're creating helps to offset any potential downsides and unknowns that you don't know. And then finally, I think we become even more convinced that longer term commercial types of growth synergies that are created from this combination will be there. So again, another long answer to your question, but I think we're extremely confident in meeting and hopefully beating the guidance that we've given.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Okay. And George, you talked about sluggish demand over the holiday season and in the winter. I'm curious what is that a continuation of the trends you've seen in fiscal year 2024? Or are you contemplating incremental weakness?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I'll start off and then I can let Scott add any color to it. 1, I think what we've said, this is not an abnormal type of thing that we see every year in terms of softness in our fiscal Q1. I think in certain markets, for example, the cabinet market that we serve, I think you see our customers using it as an opportunity to adjust their inventory levels and using the holidays as an opportunity to reconcile volumes before the build. So I think that has had a little bit of an incremental impact. I think it's a continuation on for the most part, it's a continuation on what we've seen this year and being emphasized on our normal seasonality pattern.
It's nothing that we've not anticipated. And I think it's playing out exactly as what we've modeled and anticipated previous. Scott? Yes.
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I mean, I would agree with everything George just said and we are expecting volumes to be down year over year in 1Q, 25 versus 24, but not by a significant amount. And we do expect markets to tick up starting in the spring selling season once we feel like consumer confidence improves.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I'm not sure we've talked to one customer at this point that doesn't have that same I think that there is a fairly strong optimism that the back half of the year, we'll see it. Again, the market indicators and the need for housing as the Fed continues or it's anticipated that they'll continue to cut rates as inflation starts flattening a little bit and hopefully turning the other way. I think we will see consumer confidence and grow and the market both R and R and new build, there's pent up demand that's ready to be released. And I think we're hearing that optimism from almost every customer that we talk to.
Adam Thalhimer, Analyst, Thompson Davis: Okay. Thanks guys. See you in New York.
Conference Operator: Thanks.
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thank you. Thank
Conference Operator: you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Reuben Garner from Benchmark. Your line is open.
Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: Thanks. Good morning, guys, and congrats on the strong growth to your fiscal year. Good morning,
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: everyone.
Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: To start, tariffs has been a big question of late. I think last go around, you guys might have saw some benefit in your cabinets business from kind of reshoring opportunities. With the timing acquisition coming along, can you just talk about any exposure that they have to imports and whether or not maybe any competitors that they have would be at risk, I guess, from bringing products in overseas?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I think as we look at the timing organization, we spend a lot of time talking about the risks from tariffs as well as the opportunities. The timing team has done a phenomenal job of building a supply chain organization that is built to capitalize on those opportunities as well as provide opportunities to source locally, should there become any sort of retaliatory or any sort of tariff force. So I think we feel very good about the steps that the Tymon team had taken and feel that we've got a pretty good balance to really address situations, should it become a trade war or should any of the tariffs provide opportunities. I think we're ready to capitalize on that and are well protected for any of the negatives. Obviously, Ruben, you know our business well.
And I think from the cabinet side of the business, specifically in the North America, tariffs have tended to help that market and I don't see anything changing that should that so that would be a potential opportunity for our business should there be any additional tariffs on wood type of products.
Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: Got it. And then from just a big picture pricing perspective for you guys, Scott, I know you gave some pieces about this quarter and this year and you had a couple of things working against you. Like when we think about the full year going forward and I know you're not ready to give guidance yet, but would you expect at this point that pricing would be like neutral to up even or is there more kind of headwinds on the way?
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I mean there's potential for pricing to be neutral to up. The way we usually model is we don't bake in a lot of expectation that pricing is going to go up or down. It's more driven by volume expectations, but it's really good. It's going to depend on what's going on with the macro and raw material by raw material.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes. I think this goes right back to your first question. We're being pretty cautious on any sort of pricing guidance because the impact of tariffs, anything there, what that does to any sort of inflationary pressure and the impacts that potentially have on labor wages and anything there. There's so many moving pieces. I think we're being very cautious in terms of our guidance around price.
I think over the past few years, I think we've and it's proven out in the legacy Quonix numbers that where we have been able to get price, we've done it. We're not abusing our ability. And I think we'll be a focus on being a fair supplier in the world, but it will be dictated by the input prices of what we see.
Reuben Garner, Analyst, Benchmark: Got it. Congrats again. Thanks guys. Have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thank you.
Conference Operator: One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Julio Romero from Sidoti and Company. Your line is open.
Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Thanks. Hey, good morning. I wanted to ask about the macro a little bit here. Some of your peers have called out affordability constraints. You talked about waning consumer confidence and kind of mortgage rates kind of persisting higher.
Can you guys just talk about what you're seeing on that front and maybe help us think about why your viewpoint might be a little nuance compared to some peers?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Yes. I think we see the same things. And in talking to our customers, I think the R and R market has been hit hard, especially in certain segments like for us, our cabinet business, which tends to be much more of a discretionary item than a window or door. With that being said, as interest rates start dropping, I think and potentially the overall affordability of housing, if the price flattens and the interest rates drop, that type of movement does tend to spur on R and R and then people buying new homes will do more of the discretionary projects, the kitchens of the bath remodel some. So yes, I think, to answer your question, Julio, we are seeing it.
I think that there are it has been sluggish in all of 2024. I think that that's built into our forecast and why we're saying that we think volumes will be sluggish over the next few months. But I think most of the macro indicators are when that affordability comes down a little bit and the interest rates drop, it will spur on some pretty pent up demand. We see it and we're pretty confident in it.
Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Got it. That's very helpful there. And then can you maybe just compare where consumer confidence is right now in North America versus Europe, maybe compared to like 3 months ago?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: I think what we started to see is that there's a little more confidence coming back in certain parts of Europe. I think we've seen signs that the UK, which led the downfall, to be honest, they started seeing a slowdown much earlier than North America did. I think we've seen maybe slight signs of improvement there. The hard part there is that that will always be tempered by some of the geopolitical things going on in Eastern Europe with Russia and Ukraine. If for whatever reason that conflict were to come to an end, I think you're going to see probably the European markets improve fundamentally faster.
But again, I just qualify that based on there are things happening over there that are out of normal market controls. I think that the European markets are a little further along in potential recovery. But North America, the market is so large and the consumer mentality here is a little quicker to take risks and be a little more open with spending. So any sign of improvement, I think could spur on a faster recovery in North America than you would in Europe.
Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Very helpful there. Maybe turning to your re segmentation, you've obviously been very thoughtful about the new segment structure. Can you maybe peel back the onion a little bit about the strategic rationale for the 3 new segments? And then secondly, in the prepared remarks, I believe you called out maximizing synergy ops and positioning for growth as 2 key items there. Are those 2 kind of the North Star for the new segments and the new leaders?
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: So as I peel this back a little bit, one, we do try to our strategy all along is trying to let people know, yes, we serve the window and door markets and yes, we serve the cabinet markets and they're a big part of what we do, but we make not one window or door or not one finished cabinet. That's not who we are. We are a manufacturing company that has a broad set of core competencies. And so our segmentation is really based on that. We don't even want our internal organization to sit here and look and view ourselves as a window and door company or cabinet company.
It limits our potential to go after new markets, new systems, new opportunities. So I think for us segmenting in this way, 1, I think it opens our development teams to think much bigger than we currently are. 2, it gives us the opportunity to really build off of what is the strength of Quanix and that's our manufacturing capabilities. And I think we proved that over the last 5 to 7 to 8 years that we're pretty good operator. So it gives us an opportunity to capitalize on that, which when done that way, then it fuels the inorganic opportunities much faster.
So I think that's the way we approach this, Julio, is really, 1, what's going to drive the fastest growth, and then 2, how do we use that those new segments to really optimize what we do. And I feel really good about the new segments. Each one of these then combines some of the legacy Tiemon and some of the legacy Quanics. So when you've got people from both organizations working together, you're able to see and create new things rather than being so blindfolded into what you've always done. So each of these segments include a little bit from both organizations and we think that that was really important and we're extremely excited about the potential that that's going to drive.
Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Thanks for all the color, George. And if I could sneak one more in maybe for Scott here is, I appreciate the Q1 kind of outlook of interest expense of $15,000,000 Is that kind of a fair quarterly run rate to maybe assume for now for fiscal 2025? And then are you kind of assuming any debt pay down at this point for fiscal 2025?
Scott Zielke, Senior Vice President, CFO and Treasurer, Quanex Building Products Corporation: We absolutely assume we are going to pay down debt throughout the year. I mean, that's a clear priority for us. So $15,000,000 for the Q1 trending down a little bit thereafter and we'll give more detail on at the Investor Day. But I think 15 will be the high watermark for interest expense this year.
Julio Romero, Analyst, Sidoti and Company: Excellent. Thanks very much guys. I'll pass it on.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you. And with that, I would now like to turn it back over to George Wilson for any closing remarks.
George Wilson, Chairman, President and CEO, Quanex Building Products Corporation: Thanks everyone for joining. We're extremely excited about the future of Quanix and look forward to providing more detail about the combined company at our Investor and Analyst Day at the NYSE on February 6, 2025. I'd like to wish you all a safe and happy holiday. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.
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