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Text: We will reference this information during today's call.
Today's earnings call will begin with Ward Nye, whose remarks will focus on the state of our business in light of the Coronavirus pandemic, the actions we have and are taking and the strength of our positioning to manage the current environment.
Jim Nickolas will then review our first quarter 2020 financial results and liquidity position, and then Ward will provide some closing comments.
A question-and-answer session will follow Ward's closing remarks.
First and foremost, we hope that you and your families are and remain safe and healthy as we confront the challenges and uncertainties presented by COVID-19.
I also want to extend my sincere gratitude to our Martin Marietta team.
I'm tremendously proud of how everyone is working together to manage through this unprecedented time and how the character of our employees has shown through.
Day after day, Martin Marietta employees are safely and resolutely meeting the critical needs of our customers.
They're also supporting their local communities in both large and small ways donating vital supplies and equipment to healthcare workers and first responders, helping neighbors by picking up groceries and ensuring our colleagues are well cared for and safe.
Our team has shown great courage, determination and resilience as we successfully meet our stakeholders' needs while never losing sight of our core values of safety, integrity, excellence, community and stewardship.
These values define us and our character.
We look at these foundational principles to guide our daily and long-term actions and decisions, particularly during difficult times.
Martin Marietta remains open as an essential business.
That designation means we're continuing to provide heavy building materials and services to our customers even in those areas with shelter-in-place orders.
Communities across the nation must maintain their vital infrastructure and we're working hard to support that objective in a safe, efficient and responsible way.
Through the end of April, our workforce, operations and supply chains have seen little disruption.
We believe this is largely due to our company's decisive steps early to respond quickly to this pandemic, our domestic focused approach to sourcing supplies and materials and our expanded safety procedures, all of which are designed to protect Martin Marietta employees and the organizational health of the company.
During this pivotal time, our focus is threefold: communication, resource management and business continuity.
We've implemented new robust protocols and practices, including remote working, social distancing and enhanced equipment and facility cleaning, consistent with guidelines for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the medical professionals who partner with the industrial hygienist familiar with our operations.
These protocols were updated on an ongoing basis as public experts provide additional guidance.
We also established a COVID-19 Planning and Communications task force, canceled all nonessential business travel and in-person meetings and established contingency plans with respect to staffing, and we've been actively engaged enterprisewide to enhance the substance and frequency of our communications to ensure the flow of the most accurate and timely information about our operations, thus enabling our employees, customers, suppliers and other stakeholders to stay fully informed.
Our operations teams have shown considerable agility, flexibility and perseverance while keeping our business running smoothly.
Among other things, they've taken timely and responsible steps to clean and disinfect their facilities, while carefully screening necessary third-party visitors to minimize any COVID-19 exposure.
Additionally, for our colleagues that typically work in doors in close proximity to one another, we're utilizing a combination of social distancing as well as work-from-home protocols.
Our employees are dutifully meeting their job responsibilities and remaining fully accessible.
Importantly, whether working at an operating site, an office or remotely, our employees are empowered and encouraged to look out for one another.
With our team's safe and employee engagement high, we can be attentive to our other stakeholders, our customers, suppliers, creditors, shareholders and communities as we have an essential business to run.
Jim will discuss these results with you shortly.
Let me first say that we're proud of these results, which underscore our commitment to operational excellence and to our disciplined strategies.
While we had a promising start of what we believe would have been a record-setting 2020, we recognize this year will now be filled with an unprecedented level of uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic and related economic and societal outcomes continue to unfold.
Accordingly, while we remain confident in the fundamental strength and underlying drivers of our business, we have withdrawn our 2020 full year guidance issued back in February.
We've not yet seen contractors and customers delaying or canceling building projects in a material way.
While we typically do not comment on intra-quarter trends, these are atypical times.
We're making an exception and as highlighted on our supplemental information slides 13 and 14, we are sharing preliminary April shipment and pricing trends to provide greater transparency as to what we're now seeing in a COVID-19-impacted month.
Specifically, for the month of April, aggregate shipments remained elevated in most areas but did not match the near-record April 2019 volumes.
We saw notable growth in North Texas, Colorado and Indiana.
Cement shipments continue to be strong and are currently trending close to prior year levels.
The one notable exception is oil well cement shipments as demand continues to decline due to volatile and historically low oil prices.
Ready mixed concrete shipments are also trending near April 2019 levels, even as some homebuilders temporarily pause construction activity.
April revenues for the Magnesia Specialties business are $10 million lower than the comparable prior year period.
Demand for our lime and periclase products has slowed dramatically as steel-producing customers temporarily idled their facilities in response to the COVID-19-induced shutdown of certain domestic auto manufacturers beginning in mid-March.
In terms of April pricing trends, aggregates pricing improved mid-single digits over April 2019 as announced increases were broadly implemented earlier in the year.
Cement pricing is up, even with several competitors announcing plans to delay price increases until June 1.
Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, we were highly confident in realizing the full announced increase of $8 per ton implemented April 1, given overwhelming market support in a tight Texas cement environment.
Ready mixed concrete pricing is slightly higher than April 2019 levels.
We'll have a clearer picture of ready mixed concrete pricing trends for the remainder of the year as the phased reopening of the Texas and Colorado economies unfold.
Though ours is a basic and durable industry, it does not mean that we're immune to the disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Our economy is interconnected and dislocations in consumer behavior or other industries may impact Martin Marietta.
As such, looking beyond April, we anticipate product demand will soften in the coming months, with the private sector feeling the effects sooner than the public sector.
The timing, duration and extent of weaker demand levels are presently unknown.
Infrastructure, particularly for aggregates-intensive highways and streets, is expected to be the most resilient of the company's three primary end uses in the near term.
The vast majority of state departments of transportation are operational and continue to advertise and award projects.
Nonetheless, we expect many state DOT budgets will face temporary headwinds from lower fuel taxes, tolls, user fees and other related revenue collections as much of the nation has been sheltered in place.
The impact of lower funding levels is expected to become more meaningful in the second half of 2020, absent congressional action and will vary considerably among the states.
Florida DOT, for example, has accelerated over $2 billion of critical transportation projects to leverage construction efficiencies resulting from lower vehicle traffic, including closing additional travel lanes and performing more daytime hours work.
To help mitigate state DOT funding risks, industry representatives are actively engaging with Congress to address surface transportation in the Phase four emergency relief and economic recovery COVID-19 legislation.
The first recommendation is the federal backstop of nearly $50 billion in immediate flexible funding to offset the estimated 30% loss in state transportation revenues over the next 18 months.
The second recommendation is the passage of a comprehensive major surface transportation reauthorization package.
We believe our industry is better equipped than in recent history to execute on an infrastructure build given the backlog of fully designed projects.
Nonresidential construction activity on existing projects has broadly continued in most regions.
However, many commercial projects and the engineering or planning stages are being delayed or canceled, particularly for office, retail and hospitality.
Some industrial activity, on the other hand, is not expected to experience significant near-term disruption from COVID-19, warehouses, distribution centers and data centers are expected to perform relatively well in the current environment, as businesses increase e-commerce activity, secure regional supply chains and become more reliant on cloud and network services.
Similarly, large energy sector projects along the Gulf Coast of Texas that are already under way are expected to continue.
The residential market is expected to experience the most rapid and perhaps steepest decline from the impacts of COVID-19 as unemployment and general economic instability of home buyers and home developers to delay plans.
However, in contrast to the Great Recession, we do not anticipate a prolonged period of reduced residential activity.
Today's housing inventories remain near all-time lows despite notable population gains in Martin Marietta states and to benefit from historically low interest rates.
As we prepare for the secondary effects of the economic fallout from the Coronavirus, we rely on our values-driven culture.
As I emphasized earlier, the safety, health and well-being of our employees, customers, communities and other stakeholders remains our top priority.
With established protections in place to accomplish this, we're focused on our business priorities of generating cash flow, preserving liquidity and adjusting costs to align with product demand.
Our team has developed extensive plans for a variety of economic scenarios, and we're ready to implement them with immediacy and integrity as warranted.
In addition to strengthening our balance sheet through a timely $500 million bond offering in early March, we've cut nonessential costs, reduced capital spending for discretionary projects and implemented hiring restrictions.
We're tightening our belts and aligning our capacity with demand consistent with our commitment to being prudent stewards of shareholders' capital.
We will reevaluate these actions as visibility improves.
Having the right strategy, making the right decisions at the right time, and being able to safely execute them does matter a lot.
And Martin Marietta will do just that.
We're well positioned geographically, financially and otherwise to successfully manage through today's unprecedented environment and emerge more resilient and capable.
First, Martin Marietta has a much stronger geographic and competitive position today compared with any previous downturn in our more than 25 years as a public company.
This is noteworthy, considering we navigated through the Great Recession and remain profitable throughout, never suspended or cut a dividend and emerged with a healthy balance sheet.
Today, we continue to generate record profitability on aggregate shipment levels much lower than our peak volumes in 2005, and with a geographic footprint that we've not only considerably expanded but also improved.
Moreover, we continue to thoughtfully execute on our strategic plans, carefully positioning our business through aggregates-led expansion in high-growth markets with attractive fundamentals and leveraging strategic cement and targeted downstream opportunities.
These strategic plans not only provide Martin Marietta with new growth platforms, but also opportunities to expand our footprint to complement existing operations and build critical mass.
We now have leading positions in 90% of our markets, up from 65% a decade ago, which supports favorable pricing trends, economies of scale and cost flexibility.
Second, we have experienced teams with decades of collective industry knowledge and expertise.
Together, their leadership and contributions have produced strong and sustained financial returns for Martin Marietta and our shareholders as recently demonstrated by our one, five and 10-year cumulative shareholder return performance.
This is largely the same leadership team that successfully formulated our operational response and prudently addressed our business needs during the Great Recession, the most challenging economic environment our industry ever experienced.
In uncertain evolving times, proven cycle tested leadership and experience is critical.
In brief, Martin Marietta has the right strategies, priorities, experience and teams to responsibly manage us through these challenging times.
I will briefly highlight our first quarter results as well as provide a summary of our financial and liquidity positions, both of which support our near- and long-term strategies.
As detailed in today's release, our first quarter financial and operational performance exceeded our expectations, particularly considering the record-setting prior year quarter that benefited from carryover work from an extraordinarily wet 2018.
On a consolidated basis, total revenues increased 2% to $958 million, a first quarter record.
Gross profit was relatively flat.
Selling, general and administrative expenses improved 10 basis points as a percent of total revenues.
Diluted earnings per share was $0.41 and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, depletion and amortization, or adjusted EBITDA, decreased 6% to $149 million.
The Building Materials business achieved record first quarter revenues.
Across our geographic footprint, product demand trends remain strong, even in the Texas and North Georgia markets that experienced record or near-record precipitation levels.
Aggregates, cement and ready mixed concrete pricing also improved, with all divisions contributing to the solid growth, a testament to the strength of our markets, and the disciplined execution of our locally driven pricing strategy.
Building Materials gross profit improved slightly.
Key takeaways include the following: aggregates product gross profit decreased $5 million, largely due to our quarterly update of inventory standard costs.
Our per ton production costs have been trending downward over the last 12 months as cost control measures and operating efficiencies have their desired effect.
All else equal, this would result in higher operating margins going forward.
But in this quarter, it also resulted in a $4 million expense as we reflected the lower cost in our updated inventory valuation.
In contrast, during the first quarter of 2019, we recorded an $11 million inventory valuation adjustment to reflect the higher production costs experienced during the weather-impacted year in 2018.
While this cumulative $15 million year-over-year inventory standard variance reduced quarterly product gross margin by 260 basis points, lower unit production costs will provide future benefits.
Cement product gross margin expanded 1,170 basis points driven by improved cost absorption from higher production levels as well as increased shipments to the San Antonio, Austin and Houston markets.
Pricing gains, combined with lower maintenance and energy expenses also contributed to the improved margin.
Gross profit for the ready mixed concrete business declined $9 million.
Pricing improvements and double-digit shipment growth in Colorado were more than offset by lower Texas volumes from record rainfall, delaying projects in the Dallas/Fort Worth area as well as increased raw material costs.
For the Magnesia Specialties business, product revenues decreased 13%, consistent with expectations as chemicals customers continue to reduce inventory levels for reasons unrelated to COVID-19.
Notably, product gross margin improved 500 basis points despite lower revenues, driven by ongoing cost control measures and lower energy costs.
We still currently anticipate the destocking trend of our chemicals customers to be transitory in nature.
Our consolidated results included several items that affect comparability with the prior year quarter.
To provide additional clarity, we included a slide in the Q1 2020 supplemental information posted on our website that provides a normalized view of pre-tax earnings with the items affecting comparability removed from both current and prior year quarters.
In addition to the aggregates inventory standard adjustments discussed earlier, these items also included $6 million of other nonoperating expenses to finance third-party railroad maintenance in exchange for a federal income tax benefit of approximately $7 million, which drove the low-income tax rate for the first quarter 2020.
Lastly, we incurred a noncash expense of $2 million to implement a new paid time-off policy for our employees.
As you will see on slide five, first quarter 2020 earnings before income tax, absent items affecting comparability, improved $15 million.
Moving on now to our capital structure.
Throughout our history, Martin Marietta has operated with a growth mindset, while maintaining a healthy balance sheet to preserve our financial flexibility.
As a result, we have ample liquidity for the foreseeable future.
Given today's environment, that is an enviable place to be.
We will continue to balance our long-standing, disciplined capital allocation priorities to maintain that flexibility.
Our priorities remain value-enhancing acquisitions, prudent organic capital investment and the opportunistic return of capital to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases, all while maintaining our investment-grade credit rating profile.
Our approach is intended to ensure our cash flows are sufficient for a range of scenarios.
In today's uncertain environment, that range of scenarios is broader and actions to enhance cash flows and preserve liquidity are even more important.
Before the extent of the economic disruption became better understood, we repurchased 211,000 shares during the first quarter.
Since then, we have temporarily paused share repurchases.
We will continue to closely monitor the situation and as circumstances change, we will revisit this pause in our share repurchase program.
To further bolster cash flows, as Ward mentioned, we are reducing our capital spending for discretionary projects.
We now estimate full year capital expenditures will be $325 million to $350 million, down from our original guidance of $425 million to $475 million.
We demonstrated our ability to pull back on capital spending in safe and prudent ways that did not damage the business in the long run during the Great Recession.
We are doing that again now as appropriate.
We've strengthened the company's balance sheet and cash position with our timely bond offering in early March, issuing $500 million of 10-year senior notes at a 2.5% coupon.
Proceeds will be used to repay the $300 million of floating rate notes that mature later this month, with the bulk of the remaining cash preserved on the balance sheet.
Looking forward, as you can see in our supplemental information slides, after satisfying the May repayment, we will have no additional bond maturities for more than four years.
We are confident in our liquidity position.
Net cash, combined with the nearly $760 million available on our existing revolving facilities, provided total liquidity of approximately $880 million at the end of the quarter.
Additionally, at 2.3 times net debt to the consolidated adjusted EBITDA, we remain well within our target leverage ratio of two to 2.5 times at the end of the first quarter.
In summary, we are pleased with our solid first quarter performance and enhanced liquidity.
In regards to our 2020 full year guidance, we will reinstate earnings guidance once we have sufficient visibility to do so.
That said, we remain confident that the attractive underlying market fundamentals and long-term secular growth trends in our key geographies, both of which underpin the company's record 2019 performance and strong first quarter 2020 results, remain intact and will be evident once again as the U.S. economy stabilizes and recovers.
Martin Marietta is well positioned geographically, financially and otherwise to responsibly navigate today's extraordinary environment and drive sustainable long-term growth and shareholder value as we move forward.
We have thoughtfully developed and consistently executed on our strategic plans positioning our business as an aggregates leader in attractive high-growth geographies, aligning our product offerings to leverage strategic cement and targeted downstream opportunities and prudently allocating capital while maintaining financial flexibility.
In doing so, we have built a business that is durable, resilient and stronger than ever.

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martin marietta withdraws 2020 outlook in light of covid-19 uncertainty.
withdraws previously-issued full-year 2020 guidance in light of covid-19 uncertainty.
shipments and pricing increased across majority of building materials business in q1.
qtrly earnings per share $0.41.
martin marietta materials - while co is not immune to impact of covid-19, believe co is well prepared to meet current & coming challenges.

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