Eagle Materials Inc. reported financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2024 ended Dec. 31, 2023. The company is reporting record revenue of $558.8 million, up 9% and record net earnings of $129.1 million, up 10%.
Revenue in the Heavy Materials sector, which includes Cement, Concrete and Aggregates, as well as Joint Venture and intersegment Cement revenue, was up 18% to $366.4 million. Heavy Materials operating earnings increased 43% to $107.3 million, primarily because of higher Cement net sales prices and sales volume.
Concrete and Aggregates revenue increased 5% to $57.8 million, reflecting higher Aggregates sales volume and record Concrete pricing. Operating earnings for Concrete and Aggregates decreased 35% to $1.8 million, primarily because of higher input costs.
Cement revenue for the quarter, including Joint Venture and intersegment revenue, was up 20% to $308.7 million, and operating earnings were a record $105.6 million, up 46%. These increases reflect higher Cement sales volume and net sales prices as well as the contribution of approximately $11 million of revenue from the recently acquired Stockton Terminal.
The average net sales price for the quarter was up 13% to $151.32 per ton, reflecting Cement price increases implemented in January 2023 and again in July 2023. Cement sales volume increased 7% to 1.8 million tons. Excluding the recently acquired Stockton Terminal, Cement sales volume increased 3%.
Commenting on the results, Michael Haack, president and CEO of Eagle, said, “We are pleased to announce another exceptional quarter against the backdrop of shifting, albeit constructive, market conditions as interest rates moved materially lower during the latter half of the quarter. In the third quarter, we achieved record revenue of $559 million, produced record EPS of $3.72 and expanded gross margins by 130 bps to 32.3%. We generated strong free cash flow, repurchased 558,500 shares of our common stock and returned $106 million of cash to shareholders, bringing total cash returned to $276 million in the first nine months of the fiscal year.
“We continued making progress on our environmental stewardship goals, expanding the production and sale of our eco-friendly Portland Limestone Cement and other blended cement products,” Haack continued. “In December, we announced an agreement with Terra CO2 granting us exclusive rights to use Terra’s technology to build and operate plants that would produce low-carbon supplementary cementitious material in three of our core cement markets. Once fully developed, this technology has the potential to not only reduce the carbon intensity of the cementitious products we sell, but also to fulfill the needs of our customers and meet the expected increase in demand for cement and supplementary cementitious materials.”
Haack concluded, “Eagle’s heartland geographic footprint remains well-positioned for long-term growth, supported by trends in population growth, well-documented housing production deficits and supply shortages, and a multi-year federal highway bill further enhanced by state-level infrastructure spending. We expect that our portfolio of businesses will continue to deliver leading financial results, and our capital allocation strategies will continue to generate superior shareholder value for the foreseeable future.”