Earnings Labs

Canadian National Railway Company (CNI)

Q4 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Jan 26, 2016

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Transcript

Executives

Management

Janet Drysdale - Vice President-Investor Relations Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director Jim Vena - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President Luc Jobin - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President Unverified Participant

Analysts

Management

Kenneth Scott Hoexter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch Fadi Chamoun - BMO Capital Markets (Canada) Walter Spracklin - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc. Brandon Oglenski - Barclays Capital, Inc. Cherilyn Radbourne - TD Securities, Inc. Jason H. Seidl - Cowen & Co. LLC Chris Wetherbee - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. (Broker) Steve Hansen - Raymond James Ltd. (Broker) Allison M. Landry - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker) Matt Troy - Nomura Securities International, Inc. Benoit Poirier - Desjardins Securities, Inc. Brian P. Ossenbeck - JPMorgan Securities LLC Bascome Majors - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP J. David Scott Vernon - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC Turan Quettawala - Scotia Capital, Inc. (Broker)

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the CN Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2015 Financial Results Conference Call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Janet Drysdale, Vice President, Investor Relations. Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Drysdale.

Janet Drysdale - Vice President-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I would like to remind you of the comments already made regarding forward-looking statements. And in order to be fair to all to participants, I would like to ask you to please limit yourselves to one question. With me today is Luc Jobin, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Jim Vena, our Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and JJ Ruest, our Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. I'm also very pleased that our captain has rejoined the team and will be leading today's call with his very attractive new voice. And so more officially, it is my pleasure to turn the call over to CN's President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Claude Mongeau. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Janet. I'm not sure about the attractive voice, but it sure feels good to be back on the job. I thank you, all, for joining us today. I have to say that CN team did such an outstanding job closing out on the year, and I could not resist coming back to be on this call today with you. I have a new voice. It is a bit squeaky, but I'm full of energy and I'm looking forward to lead CN to new heights in the future. Let's talk about the results quickly. We had very strong Q4 result. We had declining volume trends. Our RTMs were down 5%, and our carloads were down 8%. But we continue with our swift response, and we're balancing operational and service excellence in a way that is quite remarkable given the challenges that we face. Jim will give you more details about that. We ended up delivering a diluted EPS of CAD…

Operator

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Mongeau. We will now take questions from the telephone lines. The first question is from Ken Hoexter at Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Kenneth Scott Hoexter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Great. Good morning. Claude, welcome back. Great to hear you again. I guess if I could just start out, given your outlook for mid-single-digit growth, can you maybe talk a bit about what you expect on the employee side a little bit. It accelerates the down 7%. Are there still more cost you look to pull out on the employee side? I guess on a resource side, it's amazing what we see on cost. I'm just wondering your thoughts there. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Jim, I'll let you answer this question. But we manage resources and we manage them in line with volume. And we don't know where the volume will be, but we are, as we did in 2015, committed to keep our efficiency levels up. But Jim? Jim Vena - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. So, Ken, we work on the framework of looking at the operation and be able to react quickly. So, there's some things that are – as you've seen in 2015, we reacted in the right way and took into account where the business level was and where the efficiency and what kind of assets we need to operate. We see that we're going to be able to react positively or negatively. Hopefully, we get surprised positively. But if it's different than what we expect, then we have some things going for us. We will do what we have to do with locomotives. And on the people side, we have an attrition rate that's a natural attrition rate that's running close to 8%. So it gives us a hedge there that we'll be able to deal with on whether we hire or we don't hire or we let the attrition handle itself as we drop the number of people we need. So, I think it's the same story as we've done in 2015 and the previous years into 2016, Ken.

Kenneth Scott Hoexter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you very much for the time. I appreciate it. Thanks, Claude. Thanks, Jim. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you. Thank you, Ken, and thank you for your kind words. I'm really pleased to be back.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Fadi Chamoun at BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Fadi Chamoun - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yeah. Good evening. And yes, great to have you back, Claude, on the call. So a question on the opportunities in the market. So I mean, you keep sort of reducing the cost curve year after year. And obviously, now, you have a little bit of a tailwind from the Canadian dollar. I was wondering whether these factors sort of can help you go after market or opportunities that would not have been the case before. I know you touch based on a couple of markets where you think you can sort of get some help from the Canadian dollar. But is there other things that are not necessarily just a factor of the Canadian dollar, but also a factor of your cost curve and your service improvement that you can potentially sort of begin to exploit that you haven't yet start going after them? Maybe if you can answer that, JJ. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, JJ. JJ has his eye on the future. Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. I mean the tailwind of the Canadian dollar is also coming with a headwind. The reason why the Canadian dollar is down is we suffer on the energy side of the commodity. It came in as a couple, not separate. Our role is really to exploit what the economy offers. The economy is not offering strong energy right now. It's offering a weak Canadian dollar. What do we do with that? The economy is still offering very cheap natural gas, so what do we with that? There was an announcement earlier this month of AltaGas who are starting to do more serious work about putting a propane export terminal in Rupert. This can only take place because the gas…

Fadi Chamoun - BMO Capital Markets

Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Walter Spracklin at RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Walter Spracklin - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yeah. Thanks very much. And Claude, I'd like to echo everybody's comments. It's great to have you back here. I guess my question is for JJ. I'm getting a lot of uncertainty and concern a lot of investors – on the part of a lot of investors with regards to the outlook on the economy and the demand level in general. I know you mentioned that first quarter is going to be another tough quarter on a comp basis. But you've got a real dichotomy in your volumes where you've got – it seems that the consumer is doing well, but anything industrial or bulk related is still struggling. When you look out beyond Q1 and you point to your slightly negative volume guidance, are you building in a rebound in the economy? Do you think the consumer – are you building the expectation that the consumer holds in that bulk recovers? Is there anything that is in that slightly negative that would be anything different from the kind of trend that we're going on right now, or would you consider kind of conservative and still focusing on more of the same in terms of the rest of the year beyond Q1? Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: So, maybe we can start with Q1. Q1 2015, you remember, our volume is still very strong because I guess the economy has not yet fully recognized where energy was going to go. So we're still moving a lot of carload of frac sand, crude, coal, and iron ore. In our first quarter result, you will see that these four commodities are now really reality has set in. We had an iron ore mine that shut down. We have some coal mine that shut down. Crude-by-rail is moving at this volume. It's partly back in the pipeline industry. And frac sand, obviously, you don't realize more it's for crude as you did actually at the same time. But the other segment, the manufacturing side is doing okay. The side that has to get the benefit of cheap gas is doing good. The U.S. consumer is doing good. The Canadian consumers, we're not sure. We're not really counting on that. And automotive sales and manufacturing are good. But these are, at this point, at least to our first quarter, they're not really quite big enough to offset the big carload change in short-haul iron ore and the longer-haul carload of crude-by-rail and frac sand. So we're not counting on a rebound in commodities. I'm not so sure anybody already is cutting a rebound in commodities that's a little bigger than what North America can. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. That would be a brave assumption if you were counting on it. Does that do the trick for you, Walter. Thank you.

Walter Spracklin - RBC Dominion Securities, Inc.

Analyst · RBC. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yes, yes. Thank you very much, guys Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is Brandon Oglenski at Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Brandon Oglenski - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Well, good evening, everyone. And Claude, same from us here at Barclays, great to have you back. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Brandon.

Brandon Oglenski - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

And it's an exciting time in the industry to be back, too, dealing with some pretty negative economic outlooks. But Luc, I wondered if you could comment on the CAD 6 billion shelf that you guys filed back in December or January. Is it common for you guys to file one that big? And I'm just wondering, are there big debt maturities that you guys are looking to refinance right now? I know you talked about a CAD 2 billion share repurchase. Is this an opportunity where maybe that could be upsized throughout the year? I saw you took the dividend up a lot. And frankly, is there any strategic alternatives that you're also thinking about here, just given some of the noise that's coming out of Calgary recently? Luc Jobin - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Brandon, okay, just to pick up on your question, the CAD 6 billion, you have to look – first of all, it's a shelf that's in place for just a little bit over two years. So our financing requirement is just on the basis of maturities over those two years. Plus the financing necessary to fulfill our stock buyback program and the like is significant. So in this year, we'll be looking to raise probably about CAD 2 billion worth, and I would probably look at a number not too dissimilar in 2017. On top of that, obviously, keep in mind that a lot of our debt is financed in U.S. dollars. And with the FX, obviously, this puts a little bit more pressure. So, it's really with that in mind that we've put the shelf – we've put the pin at CAD 6 billion just in terms of giving us a little bit more flexibility. Obviously, should some opportunities come along, we've always said that we wanted – and we have a great balance sheet and that we would be prepared to use it, but there's nothing imminent. And I think it's just in times where there perhaps is a little bit more uncertainty in the marketplace, we'll be looking to make sure that we've got sufficient liquidity and that we can deal with our maturities and continue to support the business. Thank you.

Brandon Oglenski - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Cherilyn Radbourne at TD Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Cherilyn Radbourne - TD Securities, Inc.

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thanks very much, and welcome back, Claude. I wanted to ask how you're thinking about mix in 2016. I would think that with the difficult comparables in crude-by-rail and frac sand. In Q1 at least, the mix would be a headwind. But how are you thinking about mix for the full year as you start the cycle with easier comps? Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: JJ did stuff in the current environment to figure out volumes. So it makes it even more difficult. But JJ's on top of his game. What do you see out there? Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: So, for what we could see and now that all of it is obviously clear, it is likely that our RTM will be weaker than our carloads at this point in time. So, if you're doing a model, RTM will probably be weaker than the carloads at least for the year.

Cherilyn Radbourne - TD Securities, Inc.

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. Thank you. That's my one. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you so much, Cherilyn.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Jason Seidl at Cowen & Company. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Jason H. Seidl - Cowen & Co. LLC: Thank you very much. And Claude, welcome back from everyone here at Cowen. You mentioned that if you adjust for FX and fuel, you guys met your low 60%s or our guidance that you gave a while back. Looking forward, if you just normalize fuel and normalize FX, talk about the improvements that you would expect for CN beyond, I guess, some of this economic turmoil that we're seeing now. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'll let Luc answer that one. But we certainly hope that the fuel price over time will be a headwind. That would be good for the business. We're not managing for ratio. We're managing for profit dollars. But Luc, you want to take that one? Luc Jobin - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. I mean I think, Jason, leaving aside for a second the fuel side, which is obviously very volatile, I mean what we're really focusing is on rightsizing the resources, managing tightly to continue to deliver great results, but not at the expense of growing our top line and pursuing these opportunities that JJ pointed out. So, I wouldn't necessarily look for something that has a five-handle on it. I think we've always said that we were intent on managing the business well and for the long term, and I think we've achieved, ex-fuel, the target that we thought was reasonable. Having said that, we're always looking for opportunities for productivity improvement. I mean Jim is always there on the prowl, and I think everybody on the organization is conscious of that need. So, I would still say…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Chris Wetherbee at Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Chris Wetherbee - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Hey. Thanks. Good afternoon and again, welcome back, Claude. Good to have you on the call. I wanted to touch a little bit on pricing, if I could. Maybe as you think about 2016 and the outlook, putting aside the grain cap for a minute, just wanted to get a sense kind of how you're thinking about pricing and maybe what the competitive dynamic might be looking like, specifically in Canada in 2016? Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: If I could say something before JJ gives you a more valuable or focused answer on your question, it's quite remarkable you have CN that is leading the industry, achieving new records in terms of efficiency. You have CP which, over the last four years, has done a remarkable turnaround and is in every core respect in terms of operating metric, is getting very close to our level of efficiency. There's something to be proud here. We have two Canadian railroad really leading the way in terms of performance. I hope that going forward, we will protect that profitability and use it to generate a capacity to invest in our networks and to grow the business and grow it against drops (39:01), grow it through innovation and not chase volume for the purpose of chasing volume. It's precious that we are able to achieve the efficiency level, and it's incumbent on us to manage for the long term. JJ. Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: Well said, Claude. Yes, so, Chris, as I said in my notes, we're targeting – including the impact of the Canadian grain cap roughly 3%, we would definitely at this point see 3% as above inflation as we see it for 2016. And remember, the Canadian grain cap as well as some of these index that are some railroad contract are likely to stay weak because the crude and the diesel right now is still very weak. So, we even think that the Canadian grain cap might be slightly negative for the 2015-2016 season. So, 3% including this index would be – it would produce well for the railroad for CN. That would be above inflation.

Chris Wetherbee - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst · Citi. Please go ahead. Your line is open

All right. Thanks for the time, guys. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you so much for your question.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Steve Hansen at Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Steve Hansen - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yes. Good afternoon, guys. I think one of the clear distinctions between you and your closest competitor of late has been the direction of the CapEx budgets. I think you suggested CAD 2.9 billion which is up roughly 7% I believe. And I know you broke it up by some of the three major buckets, but I'm just wondering if you could perhaps elaborate a little bit more on the need to stand that kind of capital in this macro environment and what you're going to get out of that specifically. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I will let Luc give you some more color, but we managed for the very long term. We are a very profitable company. We have an opportunity to do the work at the right time. There is no better time to work at our infrastructure than now. We can do it cheaper. We can do it faster and more productively, and we can gain long-term advantage that way. That's our mindset. Much of the increase is because of exchange. We're assuming CAD 8 that will be in the CAD 0.70 to CAD 0.75 with the U.S. currency, and the rest is long-term investment that we believe will pay dividends for many, many years to come. Every company has a different agenda, but we see the strength in our long-term view. Luc, you want to add some more color? Luc Jobin - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, maybe just a couple of additional comments. I mean I think if you look at our track record, we consistently look to CapEx in the range of, I'd call it, around 20% of revenues. Of course, there's a limited noise in there as of late with the fuel surcharge disappearing from…

Steve Hansen - Raymond James Ltd.

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Appreciate it. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Allison Landry at Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Allison M. Landry - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Good afternoon. And Claude, great to have you back. I wanted to ask a question on grain. So given that the last year's harvest, the Canadian crop came in better than your initial expectations, while also considering the impact of depressed commodity prices and elevated inventories, how do you see grain shipments playing out over the course of 2016? In other words, at what point do you think the grain has to move such that you would start to see positive year-over-year comps? Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: So, thank you. It's JJ. The final result of the crop side, the one that came out in December were actually showing that the crop was bigger in what we thought it was going to be in August or in October. But right now as we speak, the volume of grain that we move in Canada is slightly below last year. That is because probably the attractiveness of the export price is not quite what is at the liking of the owner of the grain, whether the farmer or the grain company who buy from the farmers and sell overseas. So that's basically revenue that eventually will come through. It might partly come true in the second quarter or before the next crop. Remember last year, the carryover was very small, and we had very weak revenue on Canadian grain for August and September at CN because the inventory in Canada were very, very low. So some of these increased crop that we saw last year – meaning, a little bigger than what we thought at first place – might just turn out to be that we will finish this year, this crop year with a higher carryover, and those revenues will come in maybe late in the year or to 2017. But one thing is for sure, when grain is harvested, eventually it'll be sold. And in Canada, the population is such that it will be be sold overseas. So, it will get to the port. It's a question of time. Allison M. Landry - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Thank you. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Allison. I look forward to see you on the West Coast again for a trip this year. Allison M. Landry - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): It sounds good. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Matt Troy at Nomura. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Matt Troy - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yeah. Thank you. I wanted a question about intermodal. Quite a divergence, your growth 5% versus your competitor down in the low-teens. I just wanted to get a sense of what's driving that growth. I know you provided some detail earlier. Is it primarily highway-to-rail conversion, or is there some market share gain in there? And then as an extension, if I think about the margin profile of intermodal historically being dilutive from a mix perspective, it was your largest growing category and it's the largest portion of your traffic base. Have you reached a critical mass now where the margin business is better than average? I just would like to understand, one, where the growth is coming from ahead of peers; and two, is the margin profile of this business, should we think of it differently going forward? Thanks. And Claude, welcome back. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you for that. And it's a very good question. You're making a full impact with that one question. Now, let me say that following the – for many years now, we've had intermodal's profitability very much in the average of our book of business. We have added new approach that allows us to be profitable in that business. And a lot of the growth, JJ will give you some colors. But it's the building blocks of all the initiative that we have put together over the last five years there to our innovation, the supply chain collaboration, the extension of reach, the chasing of opportunities, one container at a time. And we are in many markets with a great, great franchise, and that's what's allowing us to grow. But JJ, where do you see the growth into 2016? Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive…

Matt Troy - Nomura Securities International, Inc.

Analyst · Nomura. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you. Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: Thank you, Matt.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Benoit Poirier at Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Benoit Poirier - Desjardins Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yeah. Good evening, gentlemen, and great to have you back, Claude. On the intermodal side, your carloads are up 1.5% quarter-to-date. So could you maybe give some color on what we should expect this year in terms of volume growth given the soft economy but also given the port expansion you just talked about? And maybe also discuss whether the weaker Canadian dollar favors Canadian ports over U.S. ports. Thank you very much. Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: Okay. So we don't provide guidance for a business unit one at a time. The Canadian dollar, as I mentioned earlier, when you look at ports, they are a service provider for the U.S. Midwest. And if everybody plays their card properly, they should have a cost advantage versus the competing ports. The opportunity is more on overseas than on domestic. And the first three weeks of the year – we would like to see more growth in the first three weeks of the year, but it's only three weeks. Remember, last year, fourth quarter results showed that really we finished the year very current. Jim's team really cleaned out any backlog we had in any segment. We were current. So we've entered 2016 with a low backlog in the end. And I think our customers on the retail side also are – not necessarily replenished their warehouse right away. They're also looking at 2016 and wondering when is the time to stock up and put product in their warehouse. So first three weeks is only 3 weeks out of 52 weeks. We'll see how the rest of the year span out.

Benoit Poirier - Desjardins Securities, Inc.

Analyst · Desjardins Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. Thank you very much for the time. Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: Thanks very much. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: (55:32), Benoit.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Brian Ossenbeck at JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Brian P. Ossenbeck - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Great. Thanks for taking my question and welcome back, Claude. Just had a quick one on EPS, especially related to FX. Clearly, foreign exchange, Canadian dollar/U.S. dollar, it's been a big driver of volumes, a big driver of mix. And so Luc, when you talk about mid-single-digits growth for next year EPS off the adjusted base, I was just wondering is that attainable without a bit of a tailwind from FX? Maybe you can just tell us how much of that growth you're expecting from the currency market as you see them right now. Thank you. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Luc, you want to handle that one? Luc Jobin - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. Sure. Listen, Brian, the guidance that we provided of course, and we've laid out the assumptions so you can look at those, for FX, we're assuming a Canadian dollar to U.S. in the range of CAD 0.70 to CAD 0.75. So, that's the range that we have assumed in our guidance. And of course, we'll have to see how that goes. As a further – perhaps just to help you out a little bit, I mean I'll remind you that for every penny of FX change, that has an impact of roughly CAD 0.04 on the EPS. So, with that in mind, of course, there's still a fair bit of volatility in there. I think currently, the Canadian dollar is closer to CAD 0.71 and you've got forecast all over the place. But we have provided you with the range that we have for the full year, and that's CAD 0.70 to CAD 0.75.

Brian P. Ossenbeck - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Okay. Great. Sensitivity is helpful, too. Thank you very much. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you so much, Brian.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from Bascome Majors at Susquehanna. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Bascome Majors - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · Susquehanna. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yes. Good afternoon. Towards the end of the year, not just you guys, but a number of rails, saw volumes close the quarter fairly weakly. And clearly, there were some destocking there driving that. I'm just curious what you're hearing from your customers, and maybe you could separate it by retail and oriented and industrial. Where are they looking at their inventory levels today? Do you think the destocking continues well into the first quarter, or do you think we've done a lot of what we've needed to do and things can stabilize short term? Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's clear that, as you would expect, when things are uncertain, people are trying to find the right level in the last couple of months of the quarter. But in particular, in November-December are weaker. We are generally constructive. We may be wrong, but we think that things will stabilize and that beginning of the year will continue to be difficult. But that things will stabilize in the second quarter and the back end of the year. But JJ, you want to give a sense of what the customer feedback is in terms of that dynamics? Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: So, yes, Claude. In an environment where – let's say if we were to talk about commodities, in an environment where price tomorrow might be a little better than the price today, the buyer of the product might not want to carry inventory if he thinks he can get, say, potash next month at CAD 10 cheaper than this month. So that creates an impact on people, how much they want to gamble with inventory because once they've bought the product, they own it at that cost. But eventually, many commodity pricing are a lot lower, fairly low already. We're going to hit the bottom depending on each segment, where the buyer – whether he's in China or he's in North America – doesn't believe he can buy iron ore or potash at a cheaper price which will eventually be the signal. But as things start to reach bottom or eventually go back up, whether it's late this year or early next year, then they'll be tempted to buy a little more of what they need for the same reason as to why they may be tempted to deplete inventory right now because they think they can buy a little cheaper six weeks from now than currently. In people who play with big inventories, there's how much they need. And whether or not now is the time to buy and stock up or the time to buy less and destock, I think we're not sure exactly right now where we're at, but we're close to bottom potentially. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Very good question. Thank you.

Bascome Majors - Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP

Analyst · Susquehanna. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from David Vernon at Bernstein. Please go ahead. Your line is open. J. David Scott Vernon - Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. LLC: Hey. Thanks for taking the question. I think you talked a little bit about this on the intermodal side. But I was just wondering if there was some more granularity you could talk about in terms of helping to dimension some of the volume opportunity. You mentioned some pre-selling up in the West Coast ports as well as kind of what you're hearing about or thinking about the Gulf. Have you had any kind of more in-depth conversations that would help us put numbers on either the amount that you pre-sold on the West Coast or what you think could be coming in through the Gulf? Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: So, I don't have specific to offer to how much we pre-sold, but I can just remind everybody of the capacity that's going to be available for CN. So definitely, the Mobile rail yard would be ready sometime in the month of May. So, we start from zero. So everything from there's an upside where a new player, a new kid on the block, if you wish, in that part of the world. In the case of DP World, they've refined their construction schedule, and they believe they can have an extra 50,000 TEU available, extra capacity available for sale sometime in the spring. And they believe also eventually, construction schedule, they will have another 50,000 TEU over and above the spring 50,000 TEU that will come out available for us to go and sell jointly sometime in October of this year. And then in Vancouver, Jim is working extremely hard with our rail service…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our last question for today is from Turan Quettawala at Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Turan Quettawala - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yes. Good evening, everyone. And Claude, congratulations and great to have you back on the call. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It looks like, Turan, that you were able to squeak in at the end.

Turan Quettawala - Scotia Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

Yeah. Just the caboose in here, right? I guess one, just one question on the domestic intermodal business here. JJ, is it possible to break down how much of the 5% growth came in in domestic versus maybe the overseas? I'm assuming it's probably all overseas. And then also, you talked a bit about the Canadian economy here being weak. I'm wondering if you can give any color and whether you're seeing signs of broad weakness across the board, or is it still pretty much isolated in certain provinces? Jean-Jacques Ruest - Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President: The domestic intermodal is definitely much weaker than the overseas. I won't give you a specific number. And the cross-border is a bit of a challenge with the competition, with the truck. And the cross-border is fairly stiff. There's more driver than there was. And the fuel prices, the diesel price is not what it was years ago. And in terms of the east west, I mean Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan, they're not quite the booming economies today than they were 18 months ago, especially as it relates to how much capital investment there is there. And eventually, that find its way into even down to consumer. So Canadian domestic intermodal business is a little weak right now, and it might be a little weak for a while until we find a new level. Claude Mongeau - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, JJ. And I believe that closes the question-and-answer period for us. We try to stick to that one-hour timeframe. Let me just close by saying two things. We're very proud of how we finished the year. It was not an easy year, but we were able to meet our guidance and deliver, nevertheless. We're entering 2016. It's still an uncertain environment, but we feel confident that we have the right agenda, the right focus and the right theme to deliver. On a personal note, I have to say five months is a long time, but it allows you to step back. I was so impressed by how the team reacted. The leadership team, first and foremost, they stayed connected and they delivered as a team. The broader team of CN, I must have received a couple thousand e-mails of very personal supporting me, encouraging me. Many of you on this call, analysts and shareholders, reached out to me. I was looking forward to get back. I am very pleased I could not resist coming on this call. I will work on my voice. I have the energy. I feel good about our franchise, and we are marathon runners. We're investing for the future. I hope to be part of it for many years to come, if you will allow. Thank you and be safe. We will see you or talk to you on the second quarter call.

Unverified Participant

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead. Your line is open

All right.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, Mr. Mongeau. The conference has now ended. Please disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.