Greetings and welcome to the NCI Building Systems' Third Quarter 2016 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Darcey Matthews, Vice President of Investor Relations for NCI Building Systems. Thank you, you may now begin.

Thank you, Melisa. Good morning and welcome to NCI Building Systems’ call to review the Company's results for the third quarter of fiscal 2016. The Company's third quarter results were issued last night in a press release that was covered by the financial media. In keeping with SEC requirements, I would like to advise that during the call, we will be making forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual outcomes may differ materially from those expected or implied. For a more detailed discussion of the risks and uncertainties that may affect NCI, please review our SEC filings, including the 8-K that we filed last night. We undertake no obligations to update any forward-looking statements beyond what is required by applicable securities laws. In addition, our discussions of operating performance will include non-GAAP financial measures. A reconciliation of those measures with the most direct comparable GAAP measures are included in the earnings release and the CFO commentary, both of which are available on our website. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to NCI's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Norm Chambers.

Thanks Darcey. Good morning, everyone. As you know, our third quarter earnings were released last night. This morning, I plan to provide a few brief comments before I turn the call over to Mark, who will offer additional details regarding our third quarter financial performance. After that we will be happy to take your questions. I’ll start by sharing with you key highlights from our third quarter. First, I’m pleased to say that thanks to our improved platform of manufacturing supply chain management combined with ongoing strong commercial focus and discipline, we have delivered a meaningful year-over-year improvement in gross profit margin EBITDA in our third quarter. Gross profit margin expanded 380 basis points and adjusted EBITDA increased by 50% on a year-over-year basis. This operational platform that we have created and successfully put in place over the past two years is allowing us to generate both top and bottom line growth on a more predictable basis. Second and directly related to my platform, we were able to deliver better than originally anticipated financial performance this quarter in a rising steel price environment, because of our manufacturing supply chain team's ability to convert higher volumes supporting the excellent job our commercial team did working with their customers. While demand for our products was good across all of our businesses, we do believe that rising steel cost prompted some of our customers to pull forward as much as $5 million to $10 million in sales that would have likely occurred in Q4. Over the years, similar pull forward is rather routine in a rising steel price environment. While this has no impact on our fiscal year, it does impact the individual quarters reported revenue, sorry. Our commercial team has done a superb job in remaining very disciplined in the face of…

Thank you, Norm. As usual, we have provided a review of our 2016 third quarter financials in both the earnings press release issued yesterday and the quarterly supplemental presentation posted on our website. I’ll now take a few minutes to add some additional insights to those results. Overall, the third quarter as within the range of our expectations and in line with the midpoint of the revised guidance we gave on July 18. Key drivers in the current quarter were similar to what we have seen so far this year, strong volume growth and solid margin improvement. As Norm mentioned, all of our business segments continue to benefit from the improvement initiatives that we began implementing about two years ago, including supply chain management, commercial focus in discipline and manufacturing and operational restructuring. In addition, during the quarter, we were able to successfully navigate a directional change in steel input costs, which began increasing and reached parity with the prior year during the last month of the quarter. As a result of these initiatives and a successful pass through of these costs increases, our gross margin grew by 380 basis points to 27.7%, which was at the upper end of the guidance we have provided. It should also be noted that this improvement in margin is net of some incremental residual costs related to the ramp up of our Hamilton insulated panel plant in Canada and the discontinuance and relocation of another insulated metal panel facility. Both of these plants reside within the component segment and together these costs [predicts] (Ph) margins by an estimated 60 basis points. These incremental costs are expected to dissipate overtime, as the facilities become fully operational. Our adjusted EBITDA rose by 51% or about $19.6 million to $57.8 million during the quarter in the…

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from the line of Bob Wetenhall with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Hi. Good morning. This is actually Mark Weintraub for Bob.

Hi Mark.

Would you talk about the improve mix within your insulated metal panel products and the length of the runway you see there. And then more generally, your component margin really stands out, even if you compare it to last year’s fourth quarter, it still looks like about 350 basis points improvement. How should we be thinking about the margin in that segment going forward?

Okay. So I’ll start, the insulated metal panel part of our business has shown really good growth in their backlog and we are particularly please, because the high-end, the architectural panels essentially ourselves have grown by something like 60% on a year-over-year in most part of that backlog and that’s a very good trend for us. And as you know, the century of backlog takes longer to get out, because the sales cycle in the building part of that - because the projects are larger. The growth that we have seen internally over the last five months again is up from the ICI, which is the industrial, commercial and institutional piece by something like 60% and again, we see that is a very good trend. Overall, our backlog is very solid in terms of insulated metal panels. When I think about the components part that’s really a function of all the stuff that that team has done over the last two-years on pricing ability, and systems, and process, sales force, a focus that the team are brining to that, next day delivery, working with the customers, the outward bound calls, all of the things that we put in place. And they continue to do particularly well and they advantage themselves more in the commercial and retail part of the business and that’s been very strong for us. So when we look forward, we continue to see the opportunities for growth, the Components Group continues to doing very well and we are pleased where we are there. Mark, do you want to add anything to that.

That’s pretty full Norman. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Steven Fisher with UBS. Please proceed with your question.

Thanks good morning. Just a couple of questions on backlog. Of that 10% growth in backlog. Can you clarify how of that is volume versus price?

I would say it’s about 75% volume and 25% price.

Okay that’s helpful. And can you just talk about what the duration of that backlog is, I know you guys has talked about sort of visibility through the first half of 2017. I’m just kind of curious as to how much that backlog gives you visibility through that timeframe and kind of when you might get some visibility into the second half of next year?

Well let’s start here, the second half of next year, we will be building that visibility in the first two quarters of 2017 that’s how that occurs in the Building’s Group, because as you know the backlogs snapshots the end of the period and we are booking all the time and adding to that. So that kind of growth is - what the market provides and what we are able to do will be visible in that period. In the insulated metal panel piece, particularly the [CENTRIA] (Ph) pieces just as I said that’s a longer time to get out of that. So that gives us probably more visibility into 2017. One of the things that I think is encouraging now is that that backlog really gives us a starting point that is very good and we take not comfort, but we are really pleased with that backlog. So we are very optimistic about our chances to continue doing exactly what we have been doing and that’s doing better than the market.

Okay, but just to be clear so you are current backlog will that have basically been burned by the middle of 2017?

So certainly, I would say something like three quarters of it will be burned that way and the insulated metal panels will be a little longer. So we say in the building backlog that it gives us a good two quarters view of direction.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Lee Jagoda with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning.

Just focusing on Slide 9 in your commentary where it talks about EBITDA and the bridge from last year to this year. There is a $14.4 million increase from what you are calling margin expansion. Given it’s the biggest delta there, could you provide a little more clarity?

Yes, there is an additional page, the primary driver is the improvement in gross margin with some benefits that is also seen in the ESG&A line, but the predominant factor is the 380 basis points improvement in gross margin. So there is a really good walk forward on that on Page 8 of the same presentation. And the same thing that we have been talking about in each of the first three quarters of this year driving that expansion and margin year-over-year and they are all intertwined in all of the efforts we have made to restructure the business, restructure our focus in commercial as well as supply chain and then start utilizing our assets and facilities with a much wider view of their capability. So I have broken than margin expansion down into its component pieces on Page 8.

So one of the things that’s important is to understand that the margin improvement as we go forward will be a function of all three parts of our business, meaning the commercial activities and the good, better, best approach that we have there in terms of our pricing and positioning of our products. The second thing is our ability to manufacturing to add value and supply chain doing a great job on transportation as well as their purchasing ability. And then finally, the cost reduction exercises that we are doing. That we are really in the fairly early stages of the part that we discussed in December of last year, we are probably 50% into that a little better in terms of the manufacturing side and then we have more to do there and get that run rate by 2018, it will be very important. And then, in addition to that we have the ESG&A approach that we are taking right now as well which is at the very early start of it. But together it's a combination of not just the pricing, not just the spread, it's across the whole platform that we are looking at to increase our margin expansion.

Okay. And then just one quick one on tax rate. Can you go through the factors that pushed tax rate lower in 2016 and how we can think about starting to model that in 2017?

Yes, the predominant thing that made our taxes lower is versus the prior years the fact that we have much stronger net income being produced and that makes available to us in the production tax credits that are available for manufacturing companies. And you can only have those deductions when you have relatively strong profits. So we are taking advantage of that and we expect to continue to be able to take advantage as long as that's in place.

Great, thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Alex Rygiel with FBR Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning Norman and Mark, nice quarter.

Thank you, Alex.

A couple of quick questions. First on the sales that were pulled forward, when you characterize those as sort of on the lower scale of margin opportunity or on the higher scale margin opportunity.

It's probably a wash and it's in that $5 million to $10 million range and that was predominantly occurring with our single skin business, our legacy business. And again, as I said in my script that's not unusual, we see stuff like that all the time in steel price increases and that's been the case over the last decade.

And then, as it relates to your backlog, you mentioned a number of different times there is a little bit of a mix improvement in backlog, I suspect that's because you have seen greater than anticipated growth in the IMP business, but if you could talk a little bit more about that improved mix that would be helpful in backlog.

We focus on three broad scopes of market IMP and this is in the good, better, best. The cold storage piece is very good to us in terms of the opportunities we have there, in terms of long runs and that's in our good product mix. And then the ICI, which is the part of the market, which gives us the greatest opportunity for growth and penetration and that's why I mentioned the internal aspects of that moving our products through our existing distribution channels that we have developed over the last two or three decades, grew in the last five months by 64% on a year-over-year basis. We really are pleased to see that and that complements our direct third-party sales that we have now as well. So we are very pleased with how that is coming together, the team is doing a really a first-class job.

And then last on your fourth quarter guidance. What could play out that could cause you to be at the low end of your range?

Well so Mark can probably as I open up on it, we want to be prudent, we want to be thoughtful and how we go about this, because we are clearly going to see the highest increase in steel costs in our fourth quarter. Now we are experienced in handling that, working with that and as you know over year’s period those increases are counter balance. So it’s a function of where we are in that steel price movement and cycle. So that’s the reason why we want to be thoughtful and improving about our Q4?

That’s helpful. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Trey Grooms with Stephens Inc. Please proceed with your question.

Good morning.

Good morning, sir.

Mark you mentioned in your comments opportunity for additional ESG&A efficiencies. I think you guys have touched on that in the past, but how should we be thinking about that, as far as kind of quantifying this opportunity and the timing there?

Sure. In the past, we have spoken about really two areas of focus. We have spoken about our restructuring views of manufacturing and efforts underway that really align our capabilities with what our customers’ needs are which is ongoing. And we have range that to be an opportunity between $15 million and $20 million of annual improvement in cost structure. And we are in the early stages of that.

About 50% on that one. Right?

50% in the actions, but in terms of the actual savings to the bottom-line, those are more backend loaded. So we will start to see that strengthen in 2017 and 2018, in which case, we will get about half of the improvement in each of those two years. So we are at the full run rate. And then the other area of focus has been on streamlining our processes and strategies with our ESG&A cost structure and those have a similar range of $15 million to $20 million of process related improvements that we expect to mine over that same period. A little bit more backend loaded there, where we will start to see some incremental improvements in 2017 and then a stronger improvement in 2018.

Okay that’s helpful. And as far as that second bucket there, the ESG&A piece. Have you made any progress on that yet or is that still all kind of on the come?

No, we have made a lot of progress with that one. Within this current fiscal year 2016, we expect, we will have achieved about $6 million of that $15 million to $20 million. And that’s a little bit covered up by the fact that our operating performance has driven our incentive compensation costs up, they don’t see it quite as well, but it has more than offset inflation and incentive compensation accruals during the current year.

Got it. And then my second question is. I don’t know how much granularity you can give us on this. But Norm, if you could talk about what you are seeing in the Texas market specifically. Last night, there was some kind of shaky data that came out from the Texas Controller’s Office around cement shipments in July specifically in Texas. I know cement is obviously not your business, but a big chunk of cement does go into non-res. So I didn’t know, if you could maybe comment on what you are seeing there in Texas specifically from a demand standpoint.

Yes, I mean we continue to see good business opportunities. We have had and I don’t know what the cement guys are talking about, but there certainly was a lot of rain, which is not great for cement business. But I will say that we are still very active, all our brands are showing great activity. In fact, we even saw a pickup in oil and gas, which was a little bit surprising, but it was a up about 2% and we don’t expect oil and gas to come back very strong, but it’s nice to see that it seems to be off the bottom.

Great, well superb helpful. Thanks a lot and good luck in the rest of the quarter.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Brent Thielman with DA Davidson Company. Please proceed with your question.

Hi, good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Norm, with the backlog up 10% at quarter end it doesn’t really appear there was a lot of pull forward at least by that measure. Is the comments around pull forward based more on what you have seen play out in terms of booking and quoting for August?

No. The pull forward was strictly things we shipped in the third quarter. So when we look at bookings up, our bookings continue to be pretty good, it’s still a choppy kind of environment, but our bookings last week were very good. I mean we continue to do well in the market we have. It in our expectations aren’t above that to the extent we get opportunities we have really tried to exploit them.

Okay, so that overall pace of order activity sort of sustained in August, is that fair?

Yes, absolutely.

All right. And then you are thinking about the building segment in particular, any signs in your internal bookings data or quoting that sort of indicates that industrial piece just been kind of a drag is flattening or sort of bottoming out?

It’s interesting that when I look at that, I mean we still have seen our industrial part of our business has been certainly slower than we have seen in the past. But if you just look at kind of our core manufacturing and warehouse and storage, it’s just still a big chunk of business. You know it’s down a little bit, but it’s still a big part of our business and continue to be very good to us. But we have seen improvement in things like governmental, churches, retail was up, [indiscernible] are up, commercial freight is up. So again, we are generalists, so we tend to people that sell our products are generalists and therefore they go wherever the action is. So we always find that some things have a headwind and some things have a tailwinds and that’s kind of the nature of our business and that’s what we are used to dealing with. And if anything we are much better off with the speed and efficiency of being able to take advantage of whatever part of the market is showing growth.

Okay. Thank you.

You are welcome.

Ms. Matthews there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back to you for final remarks.

Well great. Well thank you very much for joining us and we look forward to speaking with you at the end of the fourth quarter.