All right, good morning once again, everybody. This is Dan Moore, Director of Research at CJS Securities. For those of you just joining, for the first time this morning, welcome to our 25th annual New Ideas for the New Year conference. It's my, our next presentation is from Simpson Manufacturing. It's my pleasure to introduce Mike Olosky, President and CEO of Simpson, as well as Matt Dunn, Chief Financial Officer. We'll start with a brief 10-15 minute update and overview from management. Following that, I'll host a series of Q&A. As a reminder, please feel free to submit any questions you may have through the portal, and we'll do our best to make sure we cover them. With that, Mike, Matt, thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today. Dan, thank you very much. We appreciate the opportunity. Do you want us to get started? Please do. Yeah, you know, just give us kind of the high-level overview of the business and update, and then we'll jump into Q&A. So, Dan, we pulled four slides from our investor deck just to give everybody a quick intro to Simpson. And let me start at the 30,000-foot level. So, Simpson Strong-Tie, we are a leading provider of structural solutions for the building construction industry. We basically have the metal that goes into the house. And, Dan, when you look at our products, they typically are way less than 1% of the bill of material, but our products are very much critical to the structural integrity of the building that goes into. That's how they resist the earthquake. That's how they resist the hurricane forces is the structural content that we provide into those markets. So, if you look at our go-to-market model, we've got five sales teams, Dan, that are organized by five end-use markets, and you can see it on the slide here. So, our first market and the biggest share of our business is residential. So, this is both single-family and multi-family homes. We believe roughly 50% of the total business is linked to U.S. housing starts. So we track that very closely, and that's our main benchmark. We also have a team completely dedicated to commercial. So, here in this space, think retail, think office, think hotels, dorms, especially commercial buildings that are wood, that are constructed from wood. That's a real good fit for us. Our third, market-facing sales team is original equipment manufacturers, so OEM. So, here, think about things that are made in a factory. So, manufactured housing, sheds, tiny homes, you know, similar structures where you have wood-to-wood connections. That's also a good fit for us. So, that's our OEM business. And the third one is national retail. Sorry, the fourth one's national retail. So, this is the big-box retailers. It's the same product line that we sell through our residential and lumberyard builders, that we're selling through the big-box retailers. Here, we're going after the DIY space. And then the fifth market segment is component manufacturers. So, here, think truss yards. And a lot of those truss manufacturers are the same people that we supply through pro dealers to eventually get to the home builders. So, five end-use markets, when you look at our business. And then we take, basically five product lines to those end-use markets. And we think we've got the broadest, deepest, and most innovative product line of structural solutions. And that really, Dan, makes us a one-stop shop for structural solutions. So, when people are in that space, they're thinking, how are they going to provide the structural integrity? We believe that they think about us first, so the specific products that are included in that, these are engineered, thoroughly tested, validated, connectors, and the connector market we developed, and we've got a 75% share there. It's fasteners, it's anchors, it's truss plates, but it also more and more, Dan, is becoming digital solutions, and those digital solutions help sell hardware, and we do, over time, want to monetize that, sell some of those digital solutions and provide some services around there. We believe those digital solutions make us easier to do business with. It makes it easier for our customers to select, specify, and design in our products, and it makes that whole relationship with them a little bit more sticky, so those are the five markets. Those are the five main product lines, but what we think really makes us unique is our business model. This business model has been developed over the last 65-plus years. We think it is a driver of significant competitive advantage. That starts with us having long-standing relationships with engineers and code officials. I mean, our teams grew up with these guys. We've trained them. We provide continuing education credits. We spend a lot of time educating them on how to use our solutions and how they can design and build safer, stronger structures with a very broad range of innovative products on our end. So, all that work with code officials and all that work with engineers, that creates specifications, and that creates a lot of demand for our products. Then we pull through that demand by working with builders. And the same kind of thing, Dan, we're working with the builders to help them understand how our solutions can help them design and build a safer house. And we have agreements with approximately 300 builders representing roughly 50% of the housing starts where those builders tell their supply chains they want Simpson solutions. So, that takes the demand created by the engineers and the codes and the specs, and that really pulls it through to the end-use customer, which is the builders. And that creates, again, part of a really sticky relationship. And then the guys that are in the middle, these are our channel partners. So, lumberyards, pro dealers, contractor distributors, they appreciate our help developing the business. We have very good relationships with them. We provide great service. They place an order today. They hopefully get it tomorrow, the next morning. So, that means they don't have to carry a lot of inventory. And together, we work to really develop the business. So, if you take the code officials, the engineers, all the specs, you take the builders, training them, the builder agreements, the great relationships of the lumberyards, it creates a very, very sticky business model. And then we layer over the top of that all the software and services that make us easier to do business with. And we believe that creates an even closer relationship with our customers. And what's the result of that? Well, it's this slide. If you look at Simpson Strong-Tie over the last eight years, we've grown roughly 250 basis points. Our North American business has grown volume roughly 250 basis points above U.S. housing starts. And we think U.S. Housing starts is a very good financial benchmark for us. But over the last two years, we've really ramped that up. We've invested a lot in the business. The COVID supply chain problems really emphasized the need for service and reinforced a big part of our business model. That's helped us accelerate growth above the market, roughly 800 basis points the last two years. And so, we've made really good progress in a declining housing market. And I think the declining housing market gives us a chance to really illustrate how we've developed the business over the last four years. So, latest forecasts of official numbers aren't out for 2024 yet, but for the most part, we believe housing starts are going to be below 1.4 million units. The last time we were below 1.4 million units was in 2020. So, just to kind of compare the financials from 2020 to 2024, roughly a flat market, less than 1.4 million housing starts. In 2020, we had a roughly $1.25 billion business with an operating income around 20%. That was a step up from 2019 because of the, the COVID bump. So, this year, four years later, again, roughly the same size housing starts, we'll have added roughly $1.2 billion on the top line and roughly $1.2 billion on the bottom line. Flat market, plus $1 billion top line, roughly plus $200 million in operating profit. And we've done that through pricing. We've kept $450 million of pricing, and we believe we'll keep that going forward. We acquired a company in Europe, Etanco. That's another $300 million. And then we've had $250 million in share gains that we believe we'll keep. So, we've made tremendous progress, we believe, in a relatively flat market. Of course, we can always get better. We are working to make our business model even stickier and working to continue to drive that above-market growth. We are doing this with the belief that the housing market is going to turn around. Is it going to be the first quarter? Is it going to be mid-year? It'll be determined. But we do believe in the housing market mid to long term because we think there's a housing shortage there. And we are going to be ready to support our customers as that market picks up and help them rock and roll going forward. Perfect, Mike. Great overview and intro. Greatly appreciated. Dovetailing on that, what are maybe the biggest company-specific milestones, catalysts, drivers that you're focused on this year to help you continue to drive that above-market growth that you've just described as accelerated over the last couple of years? And on the flip side, what are the biggest, you know, risks or, you know, things that you've got your eye on, entering 2025? Yeah. So, Dan, we're really focusing on the things that we can control. So, it's all about driving above-market growth at a good profitability level. We've got very specific product playbooks. We've got very specific market playbooks. We know what our top opportunities are. We do a good job at cascading that down into the teams to make sure everybody's focused on the biggest and best opportunities. But the reality is we have a super fragmented business, 10,000+ products, 10,000+ ship-to locations, no customer, no product over 10%. I think that's a great way to build a business. But it does mean we got to be really good at hitting a lot of singles and doubles. So, just executing on those plans is. We want to continue to get better at that. But when you look at the overall biggest risk, I mean, Dan, I think really it's the market. I mean, if we have a broad base continued slowdown, that just makes it harder for us to hit the numbers that we want to hit. So, I think the market is our single biggest challenge we have to work through. Got it. And you know, as you alluded to, no official forecast at this point. Sounds like, you know, you do expect some level of growth from the housing perspective. Do you see that a little bit more kind of back-end loaded as we enter the year a little, maybe, you know, a little softer following Q3, Q4? Yeah, good, good question. So, when we were doing our budgeting fourth quarter, we were thinking market growth in the U.S. roughly 3%-4%. And we were thinking market growth in Europe roughly 1%. And we were thinking that that was going to be pretty even across the board. I think, you know, just given how interest rates have changed a little bit, there's some questions on tariffs and pricing. I personally think that's going to be a little bit back-half loaded and more to come when we do our official 2025 guidance in a month or so. Understood. Look forward to it. You know, from just a high-level question that we're asking all of our companies, but in terms of the new administration, how are you preparing for shifting, you know, gears operationally, for any of the uncertainty, be it tariffs, you know, immigration, knock-on effects of immigration in terms of housing, Dodge, etc.? What's the biggest area of topic of conversation internally? Yeah, I'll take that one, Dan. This is Matt again. You know, staying focused on what we can control. You know, we've always believed in local manufacturing. That's, that's in our DNA. We buy all of our U.S. steel for our connectors. So, it's all sourced in the U.S. We make almost all of our connectors in the U.S. for our U.S. business. We do import some fasteners and anchors, but we have made a pretty significant investment in our Gallatin, Tennessee facility where we're doubling the size of that to be able to onshore some more of that. And overall, the imports aren't a significant portion of our overall business. So, from a tariff standpoint, feel like there won't be a significant impact to the negative, potentially a tailwind depending on what competition does and what happens with pricing in the market. In terms of the administration change related to immigration, potentially some risk if the construction workforce were to be impacted by significant changes there, and then longer term, you know, if there were significant immigration policy changes, may impact housing formations, which wouldn't be good for overall housing market, but again, I think that's a bit of a longer-term play, and again, remains to be seen what exactly happens with the new administration, so overall, don't feel like there's significant headwinds in the short term, and potentially some opportunity behind tariffs. Got it. And how would you describe, you know, just your visibility entering, you know, into end-to-market demand and how that might be impacting your planning and budgeting entering 2025 relative to maybe the last couple of years? Yeah, short answer, Dan, not great. And I, I think that was part of the challenge we ran into in 2024. The forecasts were fairly optimistic. We go to the Builders' Show in January. We hear from all the big production builders. Things are going to be good. We over, it is a people-intensive business model. We over-indexed, from an SG&A perspective so that we're ready to support our customers as they ramp up. And clearly, that growth didn't materialize last year. And that's why, from a margin perspective, we're not where we want to be. When we do look at kind of our overall 2025 story, I mean, we get visibility in certain parts, but we don't really get one comprehensive, holistic view except for the market prognosticators. So, we get point-of-sale data and we get some forecasts from our national retail customers. Our larger production builders are giving us housing start forecasts. We can use that. Matt mentioned earlier, we quote multifamily jobs. So, that helps us kind of get a feel for that. I mean, we're talking with our customers all the time, trying to roll that up into, into one story. The reality is it's volatile. I mean, last year we had a good month followed by a bad month followed by a good month. So, we are taking a little, a little more conservative view, at least on the first part, but we do believe in the long-term, mid-term to long-term market. And we're going to make sure we're ready for our customers when the growth story picks up. Understood. And maybe, switching gears a little bit, just update us on macro conditions in Europe, you know, particularly in commercial construction in those geographies where Etanco has the most concentration. And then longer term, you know, in terms of offensive synergies from the deal continue to be pushed out a little bit, but are they intact? And, you know, what's the playbook for, you know, reinvigorating growth there? Yeah. How about I do the first half, Matt? You do the second. Yep. Yeah. So, Dan, we use Euroconstruct and just, again, same thing, a lot of input from our customers to get a feel for the market. Getting one kind of comprehensive, accurate number that fits with the European multiple country scenario and the product mix we have in different markets is a little complex. When we look at last year, we think the market combined weighted for our mix and our products. So, residential, commercial, and a couple of other markets was down mid-single digits. And the residential feel for the places areas we were in was probably down high single digits. So, we believe our European businesses outperform the market. For 2025, most of the segments looking like low single digits. We've got modular construction, mass timber offsite construction that's maybe looking mid-single digits. But when you add all that up with our footprint and the commercial story, which is low single digits, we think total market kind of benchmark or set up for our footprints roughly 1% for 2025. We do think that's trending up slightly. Again, we do believe in the European market. There's a housing shortage there. So we're hoping that midterm that we start to pick that up to mid-single digits. But 2025 market growth, our view on that is about 1%. Yeah, just adding to that question on the synergy. So, when we acquired Etanco, we talked about $30 million in operating income synergies. About half of that was offensive and half of that was defensive. At the time, we were assuming low single-digit market growth, which, as Mike mentioned, we aren't seeing, so a little bit slower growth than what we expected. The defensive synergies are still on track. We're probably 70%-75% of the way through those, and a lot of the costs of those were in 2024 as we've talked. We put a bit of a pause on the offensive synergies until the market bounces back a little bit, but from a big picture standpoint, our target for Europe in the midterm is to have above-market growth and get to a 15% operating income, so once that market growth kicks back in, that will certainly accelerate. But even the defensive synergy we work that we've been doing is contributing to improving margins overall in Europe. Perfect. Maybe this goes a little bit into and dovetails with, with some of the tariff questions, but talk about, you know, the likely impact of steel pricing over the next several quarters, both from a revenue and margin perspective. If prices were to hold where they are today, and I know the futures are indicating, you know, a little bit of an uplift maybe the back half of the year, your outlook. Yeah. So, we buy about 150 different flavors of steel. So, kind of looking at one, you know, indicator on like hot-dip galvanized doesn't tell the whole picture, but that is, you know, that price has come down a bit, but we do expect steel costs to come back up. And other costs are kind of increasing around steel costs, which is partially offsetting some of our productivity, but really keeping our sales team focused on, our customers on added value, added pricing, kind of regardless of what's happening with the cost of steel. And, you know, generally, we think that gross margin in the mid-forties is a good number. So, I think potentially, we'll have to see what happens with steel pricing with tariff, but I don't expect a significant change if steel prices stay where they're at today. Understood. From an opportunity perspective of your five targeted end markets for increased penetration, where are you seeing the most opportunities, you know, maybe top one or two, and any tangible examples over the next 12 to 24 months? Yeah. Dan, we have each of those five markets focused on above-market growth. And each of the five have an independent benchmark that we're using. So, for example, Dodge for the commercial business, Cleveland Research for national retail, and then U.S. housing starts obviously for the residential part of the business. So, we're expecting all five to grow above the market. When you add it up and you look at some of the biggest opportunities, we think component manufacturing is probably our top opportunity. And then we think just ramping up the new product development engine, getting new products out there and increasing the sales of that across all five market segments is probably our second biggest growth opportunity. Really helpful. Appreciate that. As a reminder, if you do have any questions, feel free to submit it through the portal and we'll try to get them covered. In terms of, you know, building codes and standards, which is, you know, for a long, long time been a big driver and differentiation of, of your business, any latest trends, changes both North America and, and Europe, any meaningful tailwinds, that you, you see on the potential horizon over the next kind of several years? Yeah, you know, building codes and standards, they're, they're pretty slow to change, maybe very slow to change in both North America and Europe. So, I think if you look over a long time horizon, there's a small tailwind as those things evolve and, you know, structural integrity becomes more important in, in the codes in more places. But I think trends like more mass timber construction in the U.S. and building envelope, you know, facade regulations in Europe that are, you know, also potentially starting to make their way to the U.S. some, you know, those are favorable trends, you know, for our business over the mid and long term. Yeah. And Dan, the last hurricane that came through Florida was super sad and really unfortunate for a lot of people. It also did highlight the benefits of the updated codes. So, several of our larger builder customers had very specific examples where neighborhoods built with the new codes came through the hurricane in relatively good shape, right next door to neighborhoods that were built with the older codes that had not retrofitted the house at all. And it literally is $400 or $500 worth of structural tie-downs that would make a big difference. So we do believe there are a lot of examples out there that show the benefit of the codes just in terms of an overall resiliency. But as Matt said, it's just slow to take off. Understood. You know, switching gears a little bit to a cash flow perspective, I know you'll give more details in terms of outlook, you know, probably in a month or so, but just remind us, you know, where we've been from a working capital and CapEx perspective, 2024 and 2025, and, you know, what the longer-term algorithm for cash flow should look like. Yeah, we'll give a formal guidance, like you said, in a month or so. I think from a, you know, working capital standpoint, I don't expect significant changes from where we've been from a CapEx standpoint. You know, we've got two significant expansions that are ongoing during 2024 that we've talked about in Columbus, Ohio, and Gallatin, Tennessee. Columbus will be finished up here in Q1 from a CapEx standpoint. The Gallatin facility still has about, we're about halfway through as the end of 2024. So, there's pretty still some significant CapEx in 2025 for that. We continue to have strong, organic investment ideas that we want to invest in, whether it's innovation or, productivity, and again, continued maintenance on, you know, our facilities and things like that. I don't think a significant trajectory change, maybe a little bit, coming down from a high on some of our CapEx that we spent the last couple of years. But again, we'll give more guidance here in a month or so. Very helpful. Going back to the margin discussion, if more gross margins are able to hold in the mid-forties and given that you described you over-indexed perhaps a little on SG&A entering 2024, from a kind of an op margin perspective, is there opportunity to get some of that back, a little bit of that margin degradation back in 2025, even in a sort of, you know, low, lower growth environment that you described at the outset? Yeah, we, we've talked before. I think, you know, we want to be at that 20%, which I think is a good spot and versus our, you know, kind of proxy peer group and where we think is a, a good place to be if we're continuing to drive above-market growth at a strong profitability level. We, we are going to need to see some, market growth to get to that 20% in 2025. We believe there is, there is market growth to be had as we talked earlier. And, and on the SG&A front, like we've talked, we did, you know, probably get a little bit ahead of ourselves in 2024 expecting the market to grow and it didn't. So, we're going to need to grow into that a little bit. So, a little bit more cautious as we move into 2025 until we really start to see that growth take off. So, we'll get formal guidance here in a bit, but still believe that, you know, around that 20% mark is kind of where we want to be, you know, midterm. As long as we believe in the market midterm, we're probably not going to make a significant structural change in our SG&A. If we do all of a sudden get a little bit concerned about the midterm, then I, I think we'd be talking about tightening down, more tightening down a lot more than we are now. But as we, as you know, we're single sourced. When things take off, we need to be ready to support our customers when it takes off. And that does take people and investments. Understood. Very helpful. Maybe talk about priorities for capital allocation, you know, in this environment and how that might change if housing either becomes a little bit more challenging or opens up a little bit, you know, M&A, buybacks, returning cash, et cetera. Yeah. First and foremost, you know, we'll continue to invest in the organic growth as long as we see strong ROI opportunities. Some of the things Mike mentioned, you know, mid and long term, believing in the housing market, returning capital shareholders, via dividends and share repurchase is still a priority. We repurchased $100 million in shares in 2024, and we've got approval to repurchase another $100 million in 2025. M&A activity is going to continue to be opportunistic and more of a small tuck-in type. There aren't a lot of, you know, significant targets out there. We do still have some debt, but, you know, well less than one times leverage from the Etanco acquisition that comes current in 2026. We'll evaluate that based on market conditions when we get to the end of 2025. You know, generally, I think we'll just be a little more cautious on incremental investment if the housing market remains challenged in the short term without sacrificing the growth and opportunities that we see in the midterm. Again, if things change on our outlook on the midterm, then we'd make some different choices. You know, continuing to return capital to shareholders, opportunistic M&A, and then certainly invest in our organic growth opportunities is kind of where we'll be. Very good. One question, goes back to a little bit, you know, around the margin question, but just talk about the competitive landscape, you know, what you're seeing, from a sort of, you know, a core North American housing market, and sector market, given your, you know, really strong share and position, any competitive responses if, you know, from some of the increased penetration in some of the newer markets, that you've been able to generate and, any changes or shifts in, as we think about the landscape in Europe as well. Yeah. So, in the U.S., no. In fact, in both U.S. and Europe, no real changes from any of our competitors. As you said, in the connector space, we've got north of a 75% share. That is the franchise. And we continue to add connectors. We continue to add fasteners and anchors and other products to the bag of the salespeople going to visit the lumber yards and the home builders. And so when you look at our business, those areas we continue to get good growth out of. And when you look at the competitors in the fastener and anchor side, really no significant difference. We do believe our customers, meaning our pro dealers and national retailers, are getting really good point of sale data for our products. We believe they're making good money on it. We think when we benchmark them versus that, that those particular segments we're doing well. When you look at Europe, we do not have the same position just because it's a more fragmented market, but we really haven't seen any significant change from a European perspective. We continue to think there's a lot of opportunity from a market and product perspective in our core to drive good above-market growth for the foreseeable future. Very good. I just had one question come in from those in the audience as well, as it relates to kind of the margin question. Is there a housing starts level below which, you know, it would be difficult to hold the line or operating margins, or how much SG&A leverage would there have to be to improve margins in 2025 if starts were below, kind of long-term, below a certain threshold? Yeah, I think, you know, if we're going to end this year, 2024, you know, a bit below 1.4 million housing starts. Like we said, we're expecting some low single digit growth. I think if housing starts were to go significantly lower than, you know, mid 1.3s, something like that, then that's definitely going to put some pressure on the margin. We'll have to look at some other levers on certainly being super diligent on cost. I don't think we would do a, you know, a restructuring type move or anything like that if we still believe in the midterm and long term. So, we might see a little bit of hurt in 2025 if that market doesn't grow. If the midterm outlook changes, then obviously we'd make some different decisions. But I think there are other levers as well. It depends on what happens with tariffs, what happens with steel prices. There, there's some other things that can happen even if housing starts are down a little bit that, you know, we can have multiple paths to get to maintain the operating income levels that we're at. and we added, so again, recap 2024, going into it, we were pretty optimistic, went to the builder show in January, very optimistic. So, we had added a significant amount of SG&A under the assumption we were going to get growth, and we were continuing to work on our footprint under the assumption of future growth. So, a lot of that, Dan, does carry over into 2025. So, that's one of the reasons why we said we need a little bit of volume growth to help us get up to that 20% floor. But mid to long term, we think driving good above-market growth more than that 250 basis points at a 20% operating income is a, is a good way for us to invest back in the business and return capital to shareholders. Very helpful. I'll ask one more and then turn it back over for any closing remarks. But you playing out, you know, as you mentioned, the leverage is quite low. The cash generation, you got some internal investments today, but, you know, cash flow should accelerate when we look beyond the next kind of 12-18 months. What was your kind of target leverage ratio and would you be, you know, comfortable letting cash start to build on the balance sheet playing it out a couple of years or are there, you know, would you more likely be increasingly aggressive in terms of, you know, returning cash to shareholders, in the event that there weren't meaningful M&A opportunities given all the organic growth potential that you've got in front of you? Thanks again for taking the questions and the time today. Sure. From a, you know, leverage standpoint, we don't necessarily have a target leverage in a cyclical business like we are. We want to make sure that we're, you know, staying in a place where we can write out any years where there are down housing markets like we've seen the last couple of years. So, yeah, I would say target leverage is, you know, only lever up when we actually need it for a strategic acquisition or something along those lines. I think, you know, we do believe that we're going to have strong cash generation. And I think we have a lot of organic opportunities that we believe we can continue to fund and, you know, have some footprint work that we're doing that we've talked about in Columbus and Gallatin. So I think from that standpoint, if we'd like to maintain a lot of dry powder, if a great acquisition opportunity came down, again, there aren't a lot of significant ones that are out there that are potential. But if one did come down, we certainly would want to have enough dry powder for that and access to debt if we needed it. But I think at the end when, you know, we see tailwinds in the market, we start to continue to grow above market, we deliver strong operating income, we are going to generate some cash and we will look to do some, you know, additional opportunistic share repurchase when that opportunity is available. Dan, I'm going to do a quick wrap up then. Perfect. Mike, Matt, yeah, absolutely. Feel free. You know, I'll hand it back to you for any closing remarks and thank you again. Great. Thanks, thanks again, Dan, for the ability to do this. So, I guess when you look at the business, we believe we've got a really strong business model. We believe we're in really good shape from a market perspective in part because we have invested so much into the business. Now we need to grow into that investment we've made. And when the market picks up, we believe we're going to be able to provide even better service to our customers, continue to drive that good above-market growth at a good profitability level. So, we're optimistic about the future and we're taking the short term a little cautiously, cautious until we start to see things pick up. But, mid to long term, we're super excited about things. Perfect. With that, thank you again. Look forward to any follow-ups and we'll talk very soon. Thank you.