How Summit Materials performed in the first quarter

Summit Materials reported its first-quarter results, noting that aggregate net revenues increased 4.8 percent versus the prior-year period.

Summit’s aggregate adjusted cash gross profit margin decreased to 36.3 percent in the first quarter versus 41.8 percent in the first quarter of 2021. Aggregate sales volumes dropped 0.8 percent in the first quarter, as the company says volume decreases in certain markets due to divestitures more than offset organic volume growth in several markets.

The average selling prices for aggregates at Summit increased 4.8 percent in the first quarter.

Additional insights

Companywide, Summit reports that its net revenue decreased 1.5 percent in the first quarter. The company’s operating loss increased 36.9 percent in the quarter, as it says the timing of price increases temporarily lagged increased costs from inflation, the timing of repair and maintenance expenditures and certain stripping activities, and unplanned downtime at a few locations.

“We would characterize current market conditions as favorable towards the potential for additional price increases this year in all lines of business,” says Anne Noonan, Summit CEO. “We are diligently moving forward with portfolio optimization moves, implementing our ‘Value Pricing’ principles, and pulling all available self-help margin levers to improve performance, offset inflation and upgrade our quality of earnings.”

According to Noonan, Summit communicated price increases across all of its markets and business lines.

“We expect those increases will be fully reflected in the second quarter of 2022,” she says.