Good morning. My name is Jerome, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to Atkore's Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2021 E arnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed in a listen only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, John Deitzer, Vice President of Treasury and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm joined today by Bill Waltz, President and CEO, as well as David Johnson, Chief Financial Officer. We will take your questions after comments by Bill and David. I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we may make projections or forward-looking statements regarding future events or financial performance of the company. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties such that actual results may differ materially. Please refer to our SEC filings in today's press release, which identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in our projections or forward-looking statements. In addition, any reference in our discussion today to EBITDA means adjusted EBITDA. With that, I'll turn it over to Bill.
Thanks, John, and good morning, everyone. Starting on slide three, I'm pleased to report that Atkore again delivered outstanding performance and record results in the fourth quarter and for the full fiscal year. As we wrap up a truly amazing year, we also want to take some time in our discussion today to share some of our thoughts on the future. Looking forward into fiscal 2022, we are pleased to increase our expectations for adjusted EBITDA to a range of $650 million-$700 million. This is up considerably from the perspective we shared back in August, and we are confident in our ability to continue to execute despite the level of uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment.
As we look beyond 2021, we are committed to our 3 conduits of growth and believe we have the right strategy and capital deployment model to drive both near-term and long-term value creation. David will cover this in more detail, but we expect to deploy over $1 billion in cash over the next 2 to 3 years. Included within that amount is a new $400 million share repurchase authorization that our board of directors approved this week. We'd also like to share some insights into how we are driving our ESG commitment, along with highlighting the significant progress we made over the past few years. Beyond our own ESG efforts, I'll also speak to how Atkore supports the global drive to increase electrification.
As I hope you can tell, we are very pleased with our performance this year, but we're even more excited about building a long-term franchise for the future. We're thankful for the hard work and dedication from our 4,000 employees, and we want to recognize each of them for their amazing contributions to this year and their focus on always serving our customers as best we can. With that, I'll turn the call over to David to discuss the quarter.
Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 4, as Bill mentioned, we had record results in Q4, and we were up significantly compared to the prior year as well as the fourth quarter of 2019. During the quarter, a few key highlights to mention. We received a utility patent for our MC Glide product. We repurchased $25 million in stock to close out our previous share repurchase authorization, and we contributed $18 million to bring our pension plans above a 95% funding status. This was an amazing end to fiscal 2021. Moving to our consolidated results on slide 5. Net sales increased 93% year-over-year to $924 million.
Adjusted EBITDA increased to $293 million, which drove our adjusted EBITDA margin to 32% in the quarter, both up significantly versus the prior year. Our adjusted EPS increased to $4.39. Turning to slide six in our consolidated bridges. Net sales increased by $446 million due to higher selling prices and the contributions from several of our recent acquisitions. Through outstanding operational and commercial execution, our team grew adjusted EBITDA by $195 million. The profit growth was driven by our ability to overcome the impact from higher input costs, supply chain disruptions, and very tight labor market.
Labor continues to be our largest constraint, but our entire team from human resources to marketing to operations is working together to develop creative solutions to enable us to continue to satisfy our customers as best we can. Shifting to our segment results on slide 7. The electrical segment led our profit and margin improvement year-over-year with adjusted EBITDA up $192 million and adjusted EBITDA margins above 40%. We experienced volume growth both domestically and internationally, which increased our sales by $11 million in the quarter. In our safety and infrastructure segment, net sales increased by 78% from the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA increased 70% to $29 million. Now moving to our consolidated cash flow bridge on slide 8.
We generated $573 million in cash flow from operating activities in 2021, and we invested $64 million in capital expenditures, resulting in free cash flow of $508 million. In the fourth quarter, we also repaid $27 million of our new term loan in order to satisfy our future required amortization payments. With all the work that we've done this year, and over the past few years to strengthen our balance sheet, we are very happy with the position we're in today. We look forward to using our balance sheet as a lever to help us to continue to grow. With that, I'll turn it back to Bill.
Thanks, David. Turning to slide nine, Atkore delivered record financial results in 2021, with approximately $2.9 billion in sales and $898 million of adjusted EBITDA. Beyond the financials, one example that we are proud to highlight is that we just received the Great Place to Work certification in 2021. We are privileged to have an incredibly talented team across our business, and ensuring that Atkore is a place where they can be successful is an important focus and core to how we operate. It is their commitment and dedication that enabled us to deliver on our objectives for the year, complete three acquisitions that strengthened our portfolio, and receive 19 patents for 11 new products that provide innovative solutions for our customers. One of these products is MC Glide, which received the EC&M Product of the Year award.
MC Glide continues to be well-received by customers and contractors, reducing labor costs and the time spent on a job. Another award we received was the ENERGY STAR Achiever status for our Phoenix site, which means the site achieved a 10% or greater improvement in energy efficiency within five years of joining the challenge. Sustainability, both in our operations and our products, also remains a core focus, and we're going to talk about that later in the call. While we're pleased with our performance in 2021, we're excited for what's to come and look forward to continue to execute our growth plans in 2022. Turning to our full year 2022 outlook on slide 10.
For 2022, we expect adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $650 million-$700 million, adjusted EPS from $9.20 to $10, and net sales to be up in the mid-single digits compared to 2021. As we look ahead to what we expect will be more normalized operating environment beyond fiscal 2022, we believe an adjusted EBITDA level of approximately $600 million is the right baseline estimate for the business. Within that estimate, we expect that M&A will be a key contributor for our growth going forward. Now, let's dive deeper into our growth strategy. Please turn to slide 11. As we continue to position Atkore for long-term success, we see three conduits to drive future growth: new product innovation, focused product categories, and M&A.
Starting with new product innovation, we believe this is key to our ability to remain on the leading edge of the electrical and safety and infrastructure markets. We will continue to invest in the development of new products that deliver innovative solutions to our customers. Next is our focused product categories. We believe that there are significant opportunities for Atkore to gain share and become a leader in key adjacent product categories by increasing cross-selling opportunities across our product portfolio. For example, customers continue to come to Atkore for our leading steel and PVC conduit products. Both our strategy of one order, one delivery, one invoice, we have the ability to bundle several products together and provide value as a one-stop shop for our customers. Last but not least, we remain focused on strategically pursuing M&A.
To that end, while Atkore has historically conducted smaller bolt-on acquisitions, we believe there will be opportunities in the coming years for Atkore to strengthen our portfolio through acquisitions of varying size. All of this is underpinned by what we consider the foundation of our strategy, making ongoing investments across our business to improve our market positioning and operational capabilities in order to enhance our customers' experience with Atkore. Now, at the beginning of the call, I mentioned that I was going to talk about sustainability. At Atkore, we are firm believers in the benefit of operating sustainably and enabling our customers to do the same. A big part of this is supporting the global drive to increase electrification. Let's talk about how Atkore fits squarely into this trend. Please turn to slide 12.
In recent years, there has been a significant shift toward the electrification of buildings and vehicles as we look to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, according to a study from Princeton University and cited in The Wall Street Journal earlier this year, electrifying nearly all transport and buildings could contribute to doubling the amount of electricity used in the U.S. by 2050. As we expect these efforts to accelerate towards higher levels of electrification, we believe this will create further demand for new building construction and retrofitting, as well as the infrastructure needed to support this transition with projected growth in areas such as electric vehicle charging stations. There is regulatory pressure behind this as the world continues to take action to combat climate change.
Whether it's specific bills in the U.S. Congress or the recent United Nations Climate Change Conference, there are various initiatives around energy efficiency and electrification to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This also extends investments in alternative energy sources like solar, where the build-out of infrastructure is continuing to expand. Further, as we've seen and experienced over the last year with the rise in video conferencing, telemedicine, and e-commerce, the world is becoming more connected. This continued increase in digital activities require more digital infrastructure and physical warehouses. Our conduits, fittings, metal framing, cable tray, and armor cable products are quite literally what will connect these tailwinds to reality. We're excited not only to help our customers deliver on the sustainability targets, but to support the broader push for a more sustainable future for everyone. I'll turn it over to David to provide more detail about electrification trends in our markets. David?
Thanks, Bill. Turning to slide 13. With the exception of our water and some security-related products, which have their own strong growth megatrends, our end markets are supported by the megatrends of electrification and digitization. In terms of non-residential new building construction, we're seeing particularly strong trends for data centers, warehouses, and healthcare. Data centers are also a key driver for our international business. As Bill alluded to in terms of the push to retrofit buildings, the repair and remodel segment is benefiting from renovations of K-12 schools in certain regions of the U.S. In residential, we have seen an increase in our exposure to the market, primarily through our growing PVC conduit business, which is used outside of the home, but very important in the development of new home subdivisions. We're also expecting solid demand growth from the renewable end markets and warehouses from our OEM customers.
All this is to say that sales across the majority of our end markets are highly supported by these megatrends that will benefit Atkore over the long term. Moving to slide 14, I'd like to turn to our capital deployment strategy. Our objective is to leverage our strong position entering FY 2022 to make both organic and inorganic investments so we can further capitalize on the trends in the marketplace we've been discussing and drive enhanced growth across our businesses. First, we're planning to make investments in digital tools and capabilities to improve our manufacturing processes and drive increased efficiencies. We will also invest in new equipment to support the growing solar market. Second, we will continue to strategically engage our M&A pipeline to strengthen and expand our portfolio in current product categories and those in near adjacent markets. Third, we remain committed to returning capital to shareholders.
As Bill mentioned, our board has recently approved a new 2-year, $400 million buyback authorization program. This will give us ample capacity and flexibility to use funds directly for stock repurchases that are not allocated to either organic or inorganic growth investments. While we execute this strategy, we are still going to be disciplined in our approach and are committed to maintaining our gross debt to normalized adjusted EBITDA ratio at roughly 2x or below. Let's turn to slide 15 and take a more detailed look at our M&A criteria. Atkore has a proven ability to acquire, integrate, and successfully manage our portfolio. This starts with the way we approach identifying whether a company fits with Atkore.
We think there are opportunities in the market to expand our M&A pipeline to consider companies of varying sizes as part of this strategy over the coming years, and we will continue to execute against it to strengthen our portfolio. With that, I'll pass it back to Bill to discuss our commitment to ESG. Bill?
Thanks, David. Turning to slide 16. At Atkore, sustainability is central to the strength, safety, and longevity of our business and is built into everything that we do. For reference, in FY 2021, we had 14 more sites commit to the ENERGY STAR Challenge for Industry, and we've made significant investments in order to help us further reduce our consumption of other natural resources moving forward. As the impacts of climate change and other issues with natural resources continue to escalate, we know that Atkore and our product portfolio have an important role to play. As integral to what we do is who we are. At Atkore, we believe and know that diversity, equity, and inclusion, DEI, is vital to our colleagues and our business's well-being.
Over the past year, we've launched unconscious bias training and introduced DEI topics into our onboarding and immersion program, reflecting our ambition across all parts of our operations. To that end, Atkore prides itself on diversity at all levels of the organization, including the company's board of directors. As we look ahead, we remain committed to improving sustainability in our operations and continue to support our customers in reaching their own sustainability goals, which we believe will benefit not only our people, but the planet and society as a whole. Now let me pivot to slide 17 and our expectations for fiscal 2022.
I touched on our outlook for the full year earlier, but for Q1, we're expecting adjusted EBITDA to be in the range of $230 million-$250 million. We're very encouraged by what we've seen so far in the first few weeks of the start of the quarter. However, we expect to see supply chain disruptions and labor constraints internally and across the value chain limit some volumes in the quarter. Therefore, we expect volume decline in Q1 by mid- to maybe high-single digits% versus a year prior. Looking forward to the full year, though, despite the uncertainty driven by the pandemic, supply chain, and labor availability, we expect to generate modest volume gains for the full year, but it will be dependent on several factors within the value chain.
In terms of profitability for the year, we believe the estimate of $650 million-$700 million in adjusted EBITDA is reasonable at this time. However, if Q1 is stronger than expected and some of the favorable pricing trends that we are experiencing continue into the year, we could see earnings level in FY 2022 that are similar to FY 2021. As always, we will be modifying our view and keeping you updated as the year unfolds. To wrap up on slide 18, I just want to reiterate that we're firm believers in what we do here at Atkore and see the inherent value in our offerings. Driven by the Atkore Business System, we will continue to be disciplined in operations and focused on strengthening our leadership position in our markets.
Looking ahead, we see a clear path to advance our business forward into the future as guided by our three conduits of growth, new product innovation, focused product categories, and M&A. These multiple levers, supported by a strong financial foundation, will enable us to drive sustainable growth across the organization through both organic and inorganic investments. Before we turn it over to the operator for Q&A, I want to thank our incredibly talented team for all the work that we've done in 2021 and let everyone know how excited I am for 2022. With that, we'll turn it over to the operator to open up the line for questions.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask questions, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for just a moment to compile the queue roster. Your first question comes from John Walsh with Credit Suisse. Your line's open.
Hi. Good morning, everyone, and great quarter.
Thanks, John.
Thanks, John.
Wanted to try to come at the pricing question as we look forward. My back-of-the-envelope math is something like maybe a high single-digit percent is assumed for price in 2022. If I just think about where we are, even if my math is correct, we still kinda have a very strong pricing environment relative to pre-pandemic. Are we just at a structurally higher price point given availability of the product, or maybe some of the investments that you're making to drive productivity, so you're able to capture a higher price cost spread as we go forward? Just would really love to get kinda your thoughts around the sustainability of the ability of price.
Yes. Great question, John, and kind of the beginning to your suppositions. I would say yes to all the above. We're in a higher price environment with supply-demand constraints, and we are doing self-help with productivity, automation, new products that, you know, are more value add, and we have a better bundle in the one order, one delivery, one invoice. Lots of things going into that. That's why if you just look in the rearview mirror for a moment, we've driven from $327 million of record profit two years ago to $898 million. The reason why we have raised our forecast that we gave last quarter to, say, 2022 would have been $500 million-$550 million, now saying $650 million-$700 million, so a pretty big increase.
It's still a dynamic environment, and that's why we also want to be clear, while we're pretty comfortable with delivering $650 million-$700 million, depends on how the next several months play out. There could be a pathway that we, you know, obviously internally we're striving to repeat last year type of numbers, but that's way too soon. John, I would also finally triangulate in our prepared remarks that we said, "Hey, you know, eventually some of this price will go back, and therefore, as we drive productivity and new products in M&A, if I was an investor, I'd be thinking longer term, you know, as a normalized EBITDA around $600 million." Hopefully I used numbers and how we're thinking through it.
Yeah, no, that's very helpful. Then, you know, obviously this $1 billion of capital to deploy that you talked about, you did mention that there could be some larger deals in the pipeline. Just can you give us any more color around actionability, size, just what that looks like? Obviously, it's been an accretive lever for Atkore.
Yeah. It's a really accretive lever, and we're doubling down. The only thing you may have overrated is whether or not there's specific deals in the pipeline. We always have a good, robust, literally over 100 deals. As much as, you know, if you reflect back three, four years ago, if we had a debt to certain size deals we can do. For a large one, but $1 billion over the next couple years, the freedom to go over $100 million. I'm just picking a number we want to allude to from there, whether it's a $10 million dollar deal or three hundred million dollar, if it's the right. We can, you know, still debt responsible and we have the management bandwidth. I was, you know, we're moving forward 'cause to your point, it has been. It's really good for our customers.
We, you know, deliver value to our customers, I firmly believe is how we deliver value to our shareholders. Great. I'll pass the baton. Appreciate you taking the questions. Yep. Thank you, John. Okay.
Your next question comes from Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Your line's open.
Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the questions.
Good morning. Good morning.
Yeah, just wanted to make sure. I wasn't sure if I heard it correctly. In terms of volume growth for fiscal 2022, it's mid-single digits is what you're looking for. Did I hear that correctly?
Yes, that is correct. In Q1, like we said, it's probably gonna be a little bit lower than last year. A lot of that has to do with more of the labor availability in the construction market, and some of the projects just taking, you know, longer than they typically would, Chris. Yeah, if I can follow up, probably self-evident, Chris, but we believe back to the mid-single digits, there's enough activity out there. Dodge is strong. Architecture Billings Index is strong. The whole electrification, digitization we wanna walk through, we think it's mid-single digits. Right now at the end contractor level, if they don't get other products or they don't get other labor in, just the demand cycle has elongated. That may be good news for, you know, continued growth longer this way. No issue, and we're performing well.
Got it. You referenced, you know, supply chain. So all the companies that we work with have gotten hurt badly recently. Can you maybe get a little more specific in terms of some of the things you're seeing later in the year?
Yeah. Well, for us, I'm not concerned with us. I mean, not that I want to overplay that. Something could always happen. For today, almost all of our materials are longer lead times, so therefore we have to be more precise in what's called a SIOP process of forecasting and what inventory and when it's delivered and more flexible and make sure we have the labor. We're performing well in almost all those categories. Yes, we could use more employees like everybody else, but we're not the constraint, nor do I see ourselves in the future being a constraint. Chris, it's more, as I kind of mentioned with David's comment earlier, a lot of products is, I think everybody knows, not at Atkore, but come in from overseas. I think anybody realizes the issues with ports and getting products in.
At the end of the day, even if our products are there and they don't have some other product that all society, I think, is working through right now. Again, long-term trends. I would just say, look at the Dodge forecast even by category for starts for next year. Almost every category is up. We're optimistic going into the year. Chris, just one other comment is, you know, in general, we're not as labor intensive. When you look at our revenue, say around 3,000 or 4,000 employees or less, I mean, we're fairly automated as it is, and our supply chain is domestic for the domestic market, so it's in region for the impact on, like Bill said, the construction market.
Got it. Very, very helpful.
Cool. No, thank you, Chris.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Seaport Group. Your line's open.
One, and for the year, it looks like you're saying that you'll normalize at EBITDA close to $150 million per quarter after Q1 and then stay that way, which seems like anything that you're seeing that tells you that the business will normalize quickly after Q1. Or could it be more of a gradual step down? With the understanding that 150 is way higher than you recorded pre-pandemic, it seems like you're assuming electrical margin back in that sort of normalized mid- to high-20% range eventually. Does that assume that basically you give most of the pricing gains back as inflation comes off, and what's the probability?
Yeah. Andy, I'll start. A couple of things. Internally, this is not a rocket scientist statement here, but our job is to keep the promise as simple as possible. Therefore, again, in the last five years before the pandemic, excuse me, EBITDA had a compounded growth rate above 10%, and we had a record of $327 million. Now we're saying $600 million as a number in the future, which is a whole step function. I mean, 2x. To get that, we expect long term to maintain some of the efficiencies and delivery M&A. A lot of things going into that $600 million.
Now, short term, we're hoping it's just you look and go, if it's still a step function from $300 million to $600 million. This year, $650 million-$700 million and potentially a path to a higher number. You know, we're internally striving to get can we repeat last year would mean that even the following year, which we're not giving guidance on, could be higher than $600 million, to your question, Andy. We want to be as transparent that some of it potentially go back. But even again, $300 million of it, we think long term, just like we've always gotten price over cost as we've added more value in the previous years. Hopefully I've weaved our thinking through in different numbers for this year, previous years, and going into the future.
Yeah, Bill, that's helpful. Then in the presentation you mentioned in the breakdown of the 2021 sales, I think you talked about sort of weaker market trends in retail and hotel. I assume you started to see those markets pick up at this point. When you're thinking about the mid single-digit growth guide for the year in 2022, are you assuming, you know, data centers and warehouses still growing faster than the rest of your markets? Then I assume you're not assuming any help from the infrastructure bill yet in 2022.
Succinct answer is absolutely yes to everything. I could repeat your
All right. Easy enough. Just on inventory, could you give us more color into where you think inventory is in the channel? For instance, last quarter, I think you said PVC conduit lead times were in the 40 weeks time frame instead of more usual 2 to 3 weeks. Where are they now? Have you seen any evidence that your distributors are over ordering or thinking they need to get in line, you know, given the strong demand that's out there?
Yeah. I think inventories are probably similar to where they were before, maybe a little bit better. Give you an example, though. It's hard to estimate because every distributor is trying to do different things. If it typically was you had to order and have a lead time of a week and it went out to 6 to 8 weeks, now it may be 4 to 6. That's where it is getting slightly back to normal. That's why, again, we're holding on to price because it's far from normal. Then maybe as spring turns on and it could flip the other way. That's where it's hard to totally predict. Is it $650 million, your $700 million number, or is it, you know, last year's $898 or we're in between?
You know, we'll be able to update on January. It's getting slightly better. I don't see really any change in distributor stocking or anything. They can't get the product. Now what some customers have to do is you have to order longer out. To go, if you have a job in January, anybody should be thinking, I better get that order placed now to do it. You know, there's a little bit of not pre-ordering, but just planning for. It's no longer a week turnaround time. We're managing through that and so is the economy as a whole.
One other comment, like the counterargument to someone buying ahead because they're worried about supply is that the general assumption is at some point in time steel will moderate, if not go down. I think, folks are also a little bit wary of buying too much ahead, certainly if it's steel-oriented because of the assumption that steel cost in the next near term, call it, you know, two quarters or so, are supposed to eventually start to tail off.
As we've always explained, ours are pretty large products, so you're not going to put an extra 3 weeks of supply. You can't find the warehouse or the shipping-
Again, if you would like to ask a question on your telephone keypad. Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets, your line's open.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone.
Hey, good morning, Deane.
Morning, Deane.
Hey, and my congratulations. Hey, look, I know we've talked about this, normalization theme here, and if, you know, if we go back, about fiscal 2022 being the normalized period that we would enter and obviously that's being pushed out here nicely. I mean, that's a high quality problem. First fiscal quarter, the first quarter of the year might be, is there particular indicators that make, you know, the beginning of the year especially important in terms of the trajectory for the fiscal year? Maybe start there.
Yeah. No, I just think obviously, Deane, if we exceed any number we put up in this quarter, it's one for the hat trick. The only other reason I think our insight, especially as our competitors with a little bit lower seasonality take the backlog question that Andy just asked and go, "Hey, it's normally long compared to 4 days." Do they catch it up to 2 or 3 weeks? And if that's the case, maybe they're a little bit more price sensitive because again, if we could hold the pricing we have in this quarter all year, then I would tell you we'd probably repeat last year's profit. That's the reason, Deane, of the leverage of what how strong do our competitors get with the catching. I'm going to say supposition. We assume that this year would kind of be a normal year. We're down normal.
Good problem to have. Well, in the past was 500 to 550. Now it's, you know, we use a baseline of 600. Every type of metric we're giving from even August and obviously all from a year ago. At kore on our role in my mind, and we're investing heavily, you know, as David walked through from CapEx and G&A, we're definitely investing.
That's great to hear. Since pricing is such a swing factor and, you know, we saw north of 80% contribution, and I don't know. The question is how you would parse out that plus 80% this quarter. You know, if there are bigger buckets of how much is, you know, passing through raw material price increases. Another bucket is, you know, the influence of demand and supply constraints, frankly. Then look, there should be a third bucket about Atkore's value add, you know, Atkore Business System, the one invoice, all of that. If we just use those three buckets, pass through, supply industry constraints and then the unique value add for Atkore, how would you parse that?
If you go to slide 6 and you look at our you'll see our input cost changes went up $205 million for the quarter. You could argue that that is the portion of the $391 that would be considered, you know, pass through. The differential between those two numbers, the margin that we, you know, added to the bottom line, you would then have to come to a decision of how much of that is due to delivery service, new products and what have you. I would say, Bill, I mean it's all the with value props, delivery, the one order, one delivery, one invoice. There's the good thing also, by the way, is the glass half full.
It's not like we've totally, you know, squeezed the lemon on the opportunities with these things from digitization to the new, which is again, I'm so excited about because it's not we're riding one factor here versus seven or eight things.
Excellent. All right. I appreciate that color there. Just last question for me. It looks like you might have updated your slides for the U.S. reference to the charging stations where there's money being earmarked for some a national network of those. Then as well as grid hardening and you know the burying of power lines to prevent wildfires. Where and how might incrementally that create new demand for you that we might not have been talking about a year ago?
Yeah. Great question for a couple of things, Deane. To the question I think it was Andy Kaplowitz asked or he asked and we just said yes to, we did not build any infrastructure into these numbers. We talked about electric vehicle charging 'cause we're working on it. But that's not like, oh, now that could be upside to this. To your second part of your question, though, and by the way, I would wonder to get shovel-ready, that may be a better factor for the next. That's my opinion. Your second part, the hardening of the grid is, I think, a great secular trend for us. I'll give you two examples. You mentioned forest fires in California, and they are burying.
Someone can look out at the utilities out there and the amount of money they've suggested to spend. Now, by the way, is more than just buying PVC conduit to bury the lines. It's a huge number, and I think we're well positioned to support that initiative as we take and put electrical lines above ground, below ground. Another perfect example, I'm not saying this will happen, but I was in Louisiana talking about how when Hurricane Ida went through because of the great work over the last decade, the people in Louisiana were without power because all the electrical lines were above ground. Infrastructure and put those electrical that our citizens in this great country don't have to deal with power outages.
Again, there's so many different things, whether it's part of the infrastructure bill or just things that our, you know, society is going to do as a whole that I think Atkore really is, as we said in the prepared remarks, is the conduit to make these things happen.
Great. Thanks for all the color.
Thanks, Deane.
Thanks, Deane.
This concludes the question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back to William Waltz for closing remarks.
Before we conclude, let me summarize my three key takeaways from today's discussion. Incredible year and we have a strong second half. Second, we are focused on our three conduits of growth and implementing a strategy to increase value creation for all of our stakeholders. Deploy our new $400 million stock repurchase authorization. Look to return capital to shareholders with cash that is not being utilized to invest in the business or pursue M&A. With that, thank you for your support and interest in Atkore. Our next quarterly call. This-