PulteGroup, Inc. (PHM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, and welcome to the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of PulteGroup, Inc. My name is Todd Sheldon, Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary of the company. At the end of the formal meeting, we will have a question-and-answer period. Please submit your questions or comments on the online portal, and we'll do our best to get to your questions at the end of the meeting. If you provide your name and contact information with your question, we will contact you after the meeting if we're unable to answer your question during our time today. We also note that the time for shareholder proposals has passed, so ask that you restrict your questions to matters that are pertinent to the matters appropriately before the meeting today. Now I will turn the meeting over to Mr. Bryce Blair, our non-Executive Chairman.

Thank you, Todd. The 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of PulteGroup will please come to order. I'm Bryce Blair, Chairman of the Board of Directors of PulteGroup, and I thank you for joining us today. We'll be conducting the meeting in a virtual setting due to the ongoing impact of the coronavirus pandemic. And while conditions are improving, out of abundance of caution, we're conducting the meeting virtually again this year. And while our move to conduct the virtual meeting was driven out of necessity the last 2 years, there are benefits to this format as they can permit easier access to the meeting for our shareholders, and we will be considering this format for future years. After the formal portion of today's meeting, our CEO, Ryan Marshall, will provide an update on the company's activities. So I will act as Chairman of the meeting, and Mr. Sheldon will record the minutes of the meeting and will handle the meeting rules and procedures. Our rules and procedures have been posted to the web portal, and we will conduct the meeting in accordance with these procedures. I'd like to introduce the other directors of the company: Brian Anderson, Richard Dreiling, Tom Folliard, Cheryl Grisé, André Hawaux, Phillip Holloman, John Peshkin, Scott Powers and Lila Snyder. I'd like to also introduce the senior officers of the company who are in attendance, being Ryan Marshall, the President and Chief Executive Officer and also a member of the Board; and as you've previously introduced to, Todd Sheldon, the Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. So at this point, I'll ask Mr. Sheldon to discuss some procedural matters and to handle the shareholder voting.

Thanks, Bryce. First, our shareholders will vote on 3 proposals submitted to shareholders for consideration at this meeting. Following the voting on the 3 proposals, we will then adjourn the formal meeting of shareholders, and Ryan Marshall will give us a brief report on the company's recent performance. Following Ryan's remark, there'll be an opportunity to take comments and address questions through the online portal. On your screen, you should see a copy of the agenda for the meeting today. The annual report on Form 10-K for the company for the year ended December 31, 2020, together with a notice of annual meeting of shareholders, a proxy statement and a form of proxy for this meeting, were distributed beginning on March 25, 2021 to all shareholders of record at the close of business on March 18, 2021, which was the record date set by our Board of Directors. Copies of the 2020 annual meeting on Form 10-K and the proxy statement for this meeting are available through the online portal. On March 18, 2021, there were 264,476,239 shares that were issued and outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. According to the company's bylaws, the majority of those shares will constitute a quorum for this meeting. Broadridge has been selected by the company to tabulate the proxies and ballots and to certify the voting results. If you wish to vote and have not done so, now is the time to do so through the online portal. The polls are now open. [Voting]

If you previously returned a proxy card and do not wish to change your vote, you do not need to vote at this time. If you've not turned in a proxy card or if you are a shareholder of record and you'd like to vote your shares in a manner different than you indicated on your proxy card, please update your vote through the online portal. Polls will close immediately following the presentation and discussion of the 3 proposals, so it's important that your votes be cast at this time. We'll report the results of the voting after all the proposals have been introduced. Broadridge has previously reported to me that there are present in person or present by proxy at this meeting holders of at least 226 million shares of common stock of the company, and therefore, a quorum is present. In accordance with the notice of annual meeting, our first item of business is the election of directors. As indicated in the proxy statement, the 11 nominees for a 1-year term to serve and hold office until the Annual Meeting of Shareholders in 2022 are Brian Anderson, Bryce Blair, Richard Dreiling, Thomas Folliard, Cheryl Grisé, André Hawaux, Phillip Holloman, Ryan Marshall, John Peshkin, Scott Powers and Lila Snyder. We note that no other nominations were submitted as provided in the company's bylaws. Mr. Chairman, I move that these nominees be elected as directors.

Thank you, Todd. Is there any discussion regarding these nominations?

Hearing none, Mr. Chairman, the next matter to be considered by shareholders is the ratification of the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as our independent registered public accounting firm for the fiscal year 2021. I move that this proposal be approved.

Is there any discussion regarding this proposal?

Hearing none, Mr. Chairman, the third matter to be considered by shareholders is the approval of an advisory resolution on executive compensation. I move for the approval of this advisory resolution.

Is there any discussion regarding this resolution?

And there's none. There being no further discussion of this proposal or any other, I hereby declare the polls closed. Mr. Chairman, based on the tabulation provided to me by Broadridge, I can confirm the following. With respect to the first proposal related to the election of directors, I confirm that all 11 nominees have received at least 84% of the total votes cast, which is the majority of the total votes eligible to vote. With respect to the second proposal relating to the ratification of appointment of auditors, I confirm that over 211 million votes or 93.86% of the votes cast were cast for the proposal to ratify the appointment of Ernst and Young for the fiscal year-end 2021, and the proposal has been approved. With respect to the third proposal [Audio Gap] confirm that over 188 million votes or 92.30% of the votes cast were cast for approval of the advisory vote, and the proposal has been approved.

Well, thank you, Todd. And congratulations to the directors who are elected. So that covers all 3 proposals and concludes the formal business part of the meeting. I'd now like to ask Ryan Marshall, our Chief Executive Officer, to comment on the company's recent performance. Ryan?

Thank you, Bryce. Before I start, I'd just like to express the company's sincere appreciation and gratitude to all of the health care workers and front line employees that have helped to keep our nation open and working over the past 14 months. It's also with sincere gratitude and respect that I say thank you to all of our employees and trade partners that have done an amazing job working through the rapidly changing economic and public health conditions over the last 14 months. It's been a difficult and a challenging year on many fronts. But focusing on the business results and the profitability of this company, I would simply say they were outstanding. I'd highlight a few things shown on the slide on your screen, most notably the fact that we grew earnings by 42% to over $5 in the year 2020. Our cash flow generation was excellent, where we increased that over 66% over the prior year to $1.8 billion. We've invested for the future of this organization with over $2.9 billion invested in land acquisition and land development, which has set the company up nicely for future years of growth. And finally, a critical part of our well-articulated and committed capital allocation philosophy, we've returned over $300 million of capital back to shareholders in the form of our dividend and share buybacks. As we turn to 2021, we're off to an outstanding start, and I hope that most of you have had the opportunity to see the excellent results that were just posted for the first quarter of 2021. A few things that I'd highlight would be the 31% growth that we showed on a year-over-year basis in new orders that has taken our backlog up to just over 19,000 homes and with a value of over $8.8 billion. Further, we recently just paid down over $726 million of our debt, and we are now investment-grade rated by all 3 credit rating agencies. And our Board, in one of the most recent meetings, has increased our share repurchase authorization by $1 billion. On the business front, we're seeing nice growth opportunities with 2 notable expansions into new markets, the Denver metroplex as well as the Triad area of North Carolina. And finally, a highlight for 2021 as we start the year, PulteGroup was ranked by Fortune Magazine and the Great Place to Work organization as one of the 100 best companies to work for in the country. We're very proud of what that says about our company and the culture that we have here at PulteGroup. I'd also like to just highlight for a minute about the differentiated model that we're running and we've been implementing for the past 8 years. Most notably, we've got a differentiated and well-articulated capital allocation philosophy that starts with the way that we manage risk and the way that we manage the investment in land. We are buying shorter, faster-turning land parcels that are risk-adjusted for a number of factors before we make those investments into land. Further, we have created a more efficient land pipeline with over 50% of the land that we control today being controlled via option. The efficiency of our homebuilder is working as well as it ever has with commonly managed plans, good SG&A efficiency, high gross margins, high operating margins, which in turn is creating a very strong cash flow generation from the business. And as I highlighted last year, we were able to return over $300 million back to our shareholders, given the strong cash-generative properties of the business. Finally, I'd just like to comment on the current supply/demand environment. We believe that the industry is operating on very solid footing. Freddie Mac recently shared a study that estimates the housing shortage in the United States to be nearly 4 million new homes. We're estimating the need to be at least 1.5 million to maintain status quo with additional beyond that in order to cut into the 4 million new home deficit I just referenced through the Freddie Mac survey. So finally, in summary, I'd just like to share with all of our shareholders that we've built this company with a strategy that we believe is investable for the long term through cycle. We're diversified geographically as well as with the consumers that we serve. We've placed high emphasis on the quality of the homes that we're building and with the customer service and the customer experience that we're creating for our homeowners. We have amazing employees. We have one of the best cultures in the industry, and we're a great company to work for, and we're very proud to say that we're part of the Pulte team. We have a very experienced and talented management team and an excellent board with great governance. We -- to all of our shareholders, I'd simply say that we value your investment in our company, and we will continue to make balanced and prudent decisions to maximize shareholder value for the long term. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we're at the point of the meeting where we open the floor to shareholders who have submitted questions or comments through the online quarter portal. Mr. Chairman, it appears that there are no comments or questions for shareholders relevant to the purpose of the meeting. For the shareholders out there who we may have missed, we'll take your name and contact information and get back to you so as soon as we can.

Well, thank you, Todd, and thank you all for attending this year's meeting, and we very much appreciate your interest and support of PulteGroup. I will now adjourn the PulteGroup 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders.