Boise Cascade Company Reports Third Quarter 2021 Results

Boise Cascade Company ("Boise Cascade," the "Company," "we," or "our") (NYSE: BCC) today reported net income of $91.7 million, or $2.31 per share, on sales of $1.9 billion for the third quarter ended September 30, 2021, compared with net income of $103.2 million, or $2.61 per share, on sales of $1.6 billion for the third quarter ended September 30, 2020. Third quarter 2020 results include a $10.5 million after-tax loss on extinguishment of debt, or $0.27 per share, as the Company refinanced its senior notes.

“Strong sales of our engineered wood and general line products helped to mitigate the negative impact of historic declines in commodity products pricing during the quarter. Our associates’ performance was outstanding in the face of a very challenging backdrop," stated Nate Jorgensen, CEO. "Looking forward, we are optimistic about the demand environment for new residential construction for the balance of this year and 2022. In addition, we recently announced additional dividends to our shareholders, and our balance sheet strength provides us the ability to remain focused on the execution of our strategies, including future organic and acquisition growth opportunities."

Third Quarter 2021 Highlights

In the third quarter 2021, total U.S. housing starts increased 8% compared to the same period in 2020. Single-family housing starts, the primary driver of our sales volumes, also increased 5%. On a year-to-date basis through September 2021, total and single-family housing starts both increased 20% compared with the same period in 2020.

Wood Products

Wood Products' sales, including sales to BMD, increased $133.6 million, or 37%, to $497.3 million for the three months ended September 30, 2021, from $363.7 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020. The increase in sales was driven primarily by higher plywood prices, as well as higher net sales prices and sales volumes for I-joists and LVL (collectively referred to as EWP). In addition, improved lumber sales prices contributed to the increase in sales. Plywood sales volumes were flat compared with the same period in the prior year. Comparative average net selling prices and sales volume changes for EWP and plywood are as follows:

Wood Products' segment income increased $56.0 million to $122.1 million for the three months ended September 30, 2021, from $66.0 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020. The increase in segment income was due primarily to higher EWP, plywood, and lumber sales prices, as well as higher EWP sales volumes. These improvements were offset partially by higher wood fiber costs and lower margins on inventory purchased for resale through certain customer programs.

Building Materials Distribution

BMD's sales increased $283.6 million, or 20%, to $1,721.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2021, from $1,437.7 million for the three months ended September 30, 2020. Compared with the same quarter in the prior year, the overall increase in sales was driven by a sales price increase of 23%, offset partially by a sales volume decrease of 3%. By product line, commodity sales increased 7%, general line product sales increased 20%, and sales of EWP (substantially all of which is sourced through our Wood Products segment) increased 57%.

BMD segment income decreased $91.3 million to $16.6 million for the three months ended September 30, 2021, from $107.9 million in the comparative prior year quarter. The decline in segment income was driven primarily by a gross margin decrease of $100.5 million, resulting from a sharp decline in commodity prices during third quarter 2021. The negative impacts from commodity price declines were offset partially by higher sales volumes and gross margin percentages for EWP and general line products, as well as decreased selling and distribution expenses of $7.8 million.

Unallocated Corporate Costs

Unallocated corporate expenses decreased $6.1 million to $9.2 million for the three months ended September 30, 2021, from $15.4 million for the same period in the prior year. The decrease was due primarily to lower employee-related expenses of $3.0 million, most of which relates to incentive compensation. In addition, as part of our self-insured risk retention program, corporate absorbed approximately $3.2 million of estimated business interruption losses at Wood Products facilities in third quarter 2020.

Balance Sheet and Liquidity

Boise Cascade ended third quarter 2021 with $786.9 million of cash and cash equivalents and $345.3 million of undrawn committed bank line availability, for total available liquidity of $1,132.2 million. The Company had $444.4 million of outstanding debt at September 30, 2021.

We expect capital expenditures in 2021 to total approximately $90 million to $100 million. Included in our capital spending range is the completion of a log utilization center project at our Florien plywood and veneer plant, a new door assembly operation in Houston, and expansion of our distribution capabilities in the Nashville market. We expect our capital spending, excluding acquisitions, to be approximately $100-to-$130 million in 2022. These levels of capital expenditures could increase or decrease as a result of a number of factors, including acquisitions, efforts to accelerate organic growth, exercise of lease purchase options, our financial results, future economic conditions, availability of engineering and construction resources, and timing and availability of equipment purchases.

Dividends

On October 28, 2021, our board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.12 per share on our common stock, as well as a supplemental dividend of $3.00 per share on our common stock, both payable on December 15, 2021, to stockholders of record on December 1, 2021.

Future dividend declarations, including amount per share, record date and payment date, will be made at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend upon, among other things, legal capital requirements and surplus, our future operations and earnings, general financial condition, contractual obligations, restrictions imposed by our asset-based credit facility and the indenture governing our senior notes, applicable laws, and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant.

Outlook

After seeing fewer pandemic-related disruptions during second quarter 2021, we experienced short-term disruptions at many locations during the third quarter as COVID-19 variants spread throughout the United States. We continue to conduct business with certain modifications to mill and distribution center housekeeping and cleanliness protocols, employee travel, employee work locations, and virtualization or cancellation of certain sales and marketing events, among other modifications. In addition, we continue to actively monitor evolving developments, including the impact of COVID-19 variants, and may take actions that alter our business operations as may be required by federal, state, or local authorities, or that we determine are in the best interests of our employees, customers, suppliers, communities, and stockholders. Furthermore, we are monitoring the development of government mandates that companies ensure workers are vaccinated or tested regularly for COVID-19. While we educate our associates on the effectiveness of vaccines and strongly encourage vaccination for its long-term health benefits, the new regulation may have the near-term effect of increasing costs, straining company resources, interrupting operations, reducing employee morale, or increasing employee turnover, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, or financial condition.

Economic uncertainty due to the pandemic continues. However, low mortgage rates, continuation of work-from-home practices by many in the economy, and demographics in the U.S. have created a favorable demand environment for new residential construction, particularly single-family housing starts, which we expect to continue in 2021 and into next year. As of October 2021, the Blue Chip Economic Indicators consensus forecast for 2021 and 2022 single- and multi-family housing starts in the U.S. were 1.59 million and 1.57 million units, respectively, compared with actual housing starts of 1.38 million in 2020, as reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. In addition, the age of the U.S. housing stock and limited home inventory availability will continue to provide a favorable backdrop for repair-and-remodel spending. Although we believe that current U.S. demographics support a higher level of forecasted housing starts, and many national home builders are reporting strong near-term backlogs, labor shortages and supply induced constraints on residential construction activity may continue to extend build times and limit activity. In addition, the pace of residential construction and repair-and-remodeling activity may be affected by the economic impact of the cost of building materials and construction, housing affordability, mortgage interest rates, wage growth, prospective home buyers' access to financing, consumer confidence, as well as other factors.

As a manufacturer of certain commodity products, we have sales and profitability exposure to declines in commodity product prices and rising input costs. Our distribution business purchases and resells a broad mix of commodity products with periods of increasing prices providing the opportunity for higher sales and increased margins, while declining price environments expose us to declines in sales and profitability. Reflected in our operating results, lumber and panel pricing was very volatile during second and third quarters 2021, with rapidly rising prices in April and most of May followed by sharp price declines through the month of August before stabilizing in September. Future commodity product pricing and commodity input costs could be volatile in response to capacity restoration and industry operating rates, the impact of COVID-19 on residential construction, net import and export activity, transportation constraints or disruptions, inventory levels in various distribution channels, and seasonal demand patterns.

About Boise Cascade

Boise Cascade Company is one of the largest producers of engineered wood products and plywood in North America and a leading U.S. wholesale distributor of building products. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.bc.com.

Webcast and Conference Call

Boise Cascade will host a webcast and conference call to discuss third quarter earnings on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, at 11 a.m. Eastern.

To participate in the conference call, dial 844-795-4410 and use participant passcode 1675748 (international callers should dial 661-378-9637). To join the webcast, go to the Investor Relations section at www.bc.com and select the Event Calendar link.

A replay of the conference call will be available from Tuesday, November 2, 2021, at 2 p.m. Eastern through Tuesday, November 9, 2021, at 2 p.m. Eastern. Replay numbers are 855-859-2056 for U.S. callers and 404-537-3406 for international callers with a passcode of 1675748. The archived webcast will be available in the Investor Relations section of Boise Cascade's website.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

We refer to the terms EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA in this earnings release and the accompanying Quarterly Statistical Information as supplemental measures of our performance and liquidity that are not required by or presented in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles in the United States (GAAP). We define EBITDA as income (loss) before interest (interest expense and interest income), income taxes, and depreciation and amortization. Additionally, we disclose Adjusted EBITDA, which further adjusts EBITDA to exclude the change in fair value of interest rate swaps and loss on extinguishment of debt.

We believe EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are meaningful measures because they present a transparent view of our recurring operating performance and allow management to readily view operating trends, perform analytical comparisons, and identify strategies to improve operating performance. We also believe EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are useful to investors because they provide a means to evaluate the operating performance of our segments and our Company on an ongoing basis using criteria that are used by our management and because they are frequently used by investors and other interested parties when comparing companies in our industry that have different financing and capital structures and/or tax rates. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA, however, are not measures of our liquidity or financial performance under GAAP and should not be considered as alternatives to net income (loss), income (loss) from operations, or any other performance measure derived in accordance with GAAP or as alternatives to cash flow from operating activities as a measure of our liquidity. The use of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA instead of net income (loss) or segment income (loss) have limitations as analytical tools, including: the inability to determine profitability; the exclusion of interest expense, interest income, and associated significant cash requirements; and the exclusion of depreciation and amortization, which represent unavoidable operating costs. Management compensates for these limitations by relying on our GAAP results. Our measures of EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are not necessarily comparable to other similarly titled captions of other companies due to potential inconsistencies in the methods of calculation.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes statements about our expectations of future operational and financial performance that are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Statements preceded or followed by, or that otherwise include, the words "believes," "expects," "anticipates," "intends," "project," "estimates," "plans," "forecast," "is likely to," and similar expressions or future or conditional verbs such as "will," "may," "would," "should," and "could" are generally forward-looking in nature and not historical facts. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs and expectations of our management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. The accuracy of such statements is subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, and assumptions that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected, including, but not limited to, prices for building products, changes in the competitive position of our products, commodity input costs, the effect of general economic conditions, the effect of COVID-19 and related state or federal vaccine mandates, mortgage rates and availability, housing demand, housing vacancy rates, governmental regulations, unforeseen production disruptions, as well as natural disasters. These and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements are discussed in greater detail in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release. We undertake no obligation to revise them in light of new information. Finally, we undertake no obligation to review or confirm analyst expectations or estimates that might be derived from this release.

Summary Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements and Segment Information

The Consolidated Statements of Operations, Segment Statements of Operations, Consolidated Balance Sheets, Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows, and Segment Information presented herein do not include the notes accompanying the Company's Consolidated Financial Statements and should be read in conjunction with the Company’s 2020 Form 10-K and the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Net income for all periods presented involved estimates and accruals.

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