Vulcan Materials（火神材料公司）: Rock On
Q & A
Q:Speaker - Can you introduce us to Vulcan and the construction aggregates market?
问：您能向我们介绍火神材料公司（Vulcan）和建筑骨料市场吗？
A:Rob Hansen - Vulcan Materials is a pretty basic business. I take big rocks and crush them into small rocks, and then those rocks are used for different things. It's almost like the foundation of the United States because you need this underneath a highway. For example, you might have 21 inches of aggregates under a highway. It's also used in asphalt and concrete. It's a very, very important material and it's really used everywhere, even though you might not think about it at all.
答（Rob Hansen）：火神材料的业务非常基础——我把大块岩石破碎成小块骨料，这些骨料用于各种场景。它堪称美国发展的基石，比如高速公路路基需要铺设21英寸厚的骨料层。骨料还用于沥青和混凝土，是一种无处不在的关键材料，尽管人们很少意识到它的重要性。
Q:Speaker - Does Vulcan actually own quarries, and how does the industry structure fit around them?
问：火神材料是否实际拥有采石场？行业结构如何围绕其布局？
A:Rob Hansen - Yes, Vulcan is the largest aggregates producer in the United States, and I own quarries. I've got about 400 locations, and my quarries are located within 60% of the United States population. The TAM for this industry is about $35 billion, primarily used in asphalt and concrete. Asphalt is 90% aggregates by weight, and concrete is 80% aggregates by weight. If you're building a mile of four-lane highway, you need about 38,000 tons of aggregates. For a home, you need about 400 tons. Depending on the market, it costs about $10 to $25 a ton.
答（Rob Hansen）：是的，火神是美国最大的骨料生产商，我们拥有约400个采石场，覆盖全美60%人口的居住区域。该行业总市场规模约350亿美元，骨料主要用于沥青（占重量90%）和混凝土（占重量80%）。例如：修建一英里四车道高速公路需38,000吨骨料；建造一栋房屋需约400吨骨料。根据市场差异，骨料价格约为每吨10至25美元。
Q:Speaker - Is there a split between government-funded versus private market-funded projects, and has one been a significantly better business than the other?
问：政府投资项目与私人市场投资项目是否存在业务差异？其中哪类项目收益更优？
A:Rob Hansen - From the company's perspective, it almost doesn't matter who's paying for it because they all pay the same price. The government-funded stuff is a lot more steady because you're constantly fixing roads and building roads. 75% of the spend on the government side actually comes from state and local government. The non-res side, the privately funded side, all of that is coming from businesses and general construction, so it tends to be a byproduct of economic activity. The public side tends to be very steady, and the private side has a little more cyclicality.
答（Rob Hansen）：对公司而言，付款方差异几乎不影响业务定价，两类项目单价一致。政府投资项目通常更稳定，因为需持续修复和新建道路——其中75%资金源自州及地方政府。私人投资侧（非住宅领域）则完全由企业及常规建筑需求驱动，本质是经济活动的副产品。公共项目稳定性高，私人项目周期性更显著。
Q:Speaker 1 Can you provide some background on Vulcan, how it became a market leader, and what key milestones led to its leadership role today?
问：请介绍火神材料成为市场领导者的背景及关键里程碑。
A:Rob Hansen Vulcan is a very, very old business, started in 1909 as Birmingham Slag Company. There were a few different iterations, but the business continued to operate. In June of 1956, President Eisenhower put funding for the federal highway, interstate highway system. So these families came together, merged, and then went public on January 2nd of 1957 to take advantage of this government money. By 1970, I had about 70 aggregate operations in eight states. Today, I have 400 aggregate operations in 22 states and about 16 billion tons of aggregate reserves, which is about a 60-year supply.
答：火神是历史悠久的百年企业，1909年以"伯明翰矿渣公司"之名创立，历经多次重组持续运营。1956年6月，艾森豪威尔总统签署联邦州际公路系统拨款法案。为把握政策机遇，多家家族企业合并后于1957年1月2日上市。至1970年，业务覆盖8个州约70个骨料开采点；如今已扩张至22个州400个开采点，储备骨料约160亿吨，可满足60年供应需求。
Q:Speaker 1 Are there certain geographical spots that quarries are most dominated in?
问：采石场分布是否有地理集中性？
A:Rob Hansen They're pretty much everywhere. The bigger governor is really of the cities and towns because no one likes these things. But there is an important fault line, I think it's called the Brevard fault line that runs from DC down the mid-Atlantic through Texas where you can't get as much rock. And then you have Florida where there really isn't any rock at all, so all of that has to be shipped in by boat. But everywhere else in the U.S. there are plenty of them. I think in the U.S. in total there's around 10,000 quarries.
答：采石场基本遍布全美，但选址受城镇规划制约（因居民排斥采石作业）。关键地质限制是布雷瓦德断裂带——从华盛顿延伸至得克萨斯州的中大西洋区域，该地带岩层储量有限。佛罗里达州则基本无岩石资源，需全部依赖船舶运输。全美采石场总数约10,000座，其他地区资源供给充足。
Q:Speaker 1 Is there a difference in quality between the different quarry locations, and does that impact the cost and price?
问：不同采石场的骨料质量是否存在差异？这种差异是否影响成本与定价？
A:Rob Hansen There are some differences, and that's why it's crushed stone, sand, and gravel. So there are different types of rock that are used for different things, and some of them are more specific. There's certain sands that are used in oil and gas. But for the most part, a lot of it can be very similar. It just depends on where you are. Not a ton of differentiation, which is why when I look at this business, you're like, this is a commodity product in a pretty fragmented industry and that's capital intensive.
答（Rob Hansen）：质量差异客观存在，这正是骨料分为碎石、砂石和砾石的原因。不同岩矿适用于不同场景——例如油气开采需特定砂质原料。但多数情况下岩矿性质相似，差异性主要取决于地理分布。由于产品高度同质化，该行业呈现资本密集且市场分散的特征。
Q:Speaker 1 How does the business think about the cost profile of what they're doing, and what are they required to do in terms of transportation?
问：企业如何评估运营成本结构？运输环节有何刚性要求？
A:Rob Hansen Opening a new quarry is very time intensive and it's very capital intensive. You need to have maybe $50 million if you want one that's close in, and it's going to take you 10 to 20 years to get this permitted through the environmental piece. It's a scarce resource, too. It's got to be close to a population center because this is 10 to 20 bucks a ton, so it doesn't travel very far. Every 40 miles you travel by truck, the cost doubles because it's about 25 cents per ton mile. Transportation of this material is hugely important.
答：新建采石场需极高时间与资本投入：近城区选址需5000万美元启动资金，环保审批周期长达10-20年。骨料运输成本具决定性影响——每吨价格约10-20美元，陆运半径通常不超过40英里（约64公里）。卡车运输每增加40英里，吨成本因0.25美元/吨·英里的费率而翻倍。
Q:Speaker 1 Has geographical focus essentially led to local geographic monopolies where certain players are just dominant in the areas that they have the quarries?
问：区域布局是否导致地方性垄断？头部企业如何控制市场？
A:Rob Hansen These local monopolies are hugely important, and you want to be numbered one or number two in a market. I have 10% share overall, and the number two player probably has a nine, 10% share as well. Markets where you have one to four players, the margins tend to be 25 to 40% for aggregates. Markets where you have five or greater players, the margins are 10 to 25 percent. In my case, in 90 plus percentage of the markets I'm in, I'm number one or number two.
答：区域垄断格局显著，核心策略是占据市场前两位。以火神为例：全美市占率约10%，主要竞争者占比相近。市场份额与利润率强相关：寡头市场（1-4家企业）：骨料毛利率达25%-40%；充分竞争市场（≥5家企业）：毛利率降至10%-25%。当前火神在90%以上市场保持前两名的控制地位。
Q:Speaker 1 From a sales perspective, what percentage of the business is the aggregates, and what percentage is asphalt and concrete?
问：从销售构成看，骨料业务占比多少？沥青混凝土业务占比如何？
A:Rob Hansen Aggregates are 60% of sales, but 90% of gross profits. So it's really an aggregates-dominated business, and you're going to lead with your aggregates and fill in on asphalt and concrete in the markets where you need to be. You need to ask yourself, am I aggregate led? And the second piece is for asphalt, are my contractor customers, do they do asphalt? And if the answer is yes, then you don't want to be in the asphalt business because you don't want to compete with your customers.
答（Rob Hansen）：骨料占销售收入60%，但贡献90%毛利。因此核心是骨料驱动型业务——企业以骨料为主营，仅在目标市场补充拓展沥青与混凝土业务。战略层面需明确：第一是否以骨料为主导；第二需评估承包商客户是否涉足沥青业务。若客户已开展该业务，企业应避免进入沥青领域形成竞争。
Q:Speaker 1 How has the volume trended over time, and is there anything from a volume perspective that is unique?
问：骨料需求量有何历史趋势特征？
A:Rob Hansen The long-term volume trend is about 3% going all the way back to 1900, according to USGS data. If you look at the last 10 years, it's a little more like 2%. The industry in general, if you think about growing about 5, 6%, just in general for the entire United States. Now, if you're in a good market where there's population growth, employment growth, household formation, then you should be getting a higher growth profile than that.
答：根据美国地质调查局（USGS）数据，1900年以来长期需求年增速约3%。近十年增速放缓至约2%。全行业通常维持5-6%增长水平。若布局人口增长、就业扩张及家庭数量增加的市场，增速可超越行业均值。
Q:Speaker 1 What is driving the consistent price increases in the aggregates industry over time?
问：骨料行业持续涨价的驱动因素是什么？
A:Rob Hansen If you think about it, it's a very fragmented customer base. And then the other thing is that supply is less. You can turn off the aggregate facility in 15 minutes if you need to. So it's not a factory where you just have to keep pumping out things. That's one key difference between cement and this business. It's really just the fragmented customer base, the fact that you can turn on and off the factory, so to speak. And then, like I mentioned too, another factor is just the being number one or number two in the market.
答：核心在于客户群分散且供应弹性高——骨料产线可在15分钟内关停（水泥行业则无法快速调节）。另一关键因素是区域市场垄断地位（需保持市占率前两名）。
Q:Speaker 1 Is there anything else that Vulcan can offer to a customer that maybe a smaller player wouldn't be able to offer?
问：火神相比小企业有何独特服务优势？
A:Rob Hansen Yes, for sure. These guys have done a really good job at incorporating technology into their business. The way it was done before is you have your paper ticket, you get the weight, you tell them what you want, where to deliver it, whatever. It was very slow and then you end up delivering it maybe at the wrong address and it costs you money. These guys have been able to incorporate this technology right down to the customer level and into their plan. For example, I have technology where I dump the rock at the customer site and the customer will take it and do what they want with it when they need it, and I can monitor that.
答：技术整合能力是核心差异。传统模式依赖纸质单据，易出现配送错误导致成本损失。火神开发了客户端监控系统：骨料送达工地后，客户可自主安排使用时间，企业实时监控库存动态。
Q:Speaker 1 When you split out cost per ton, what other big buckets are there besides transportation, and how have you thought about that trend line over time?
问：吨成本结构包含哪些主要项目？其成本趋势如何？
A:Rob Hansen I'm going to attack this from a little bit different of a perspective. In the aggregates industry, these guys were very much at least a pioneer in talking about it more publicly, which is cash gross profit per ton. So you're excluding the depreciation, amortization and the depletion, which comes with your quarry. There are some input costs like diesel is about 10%, labor at 30%, and supplies and fixing the machines is another 20%. But as I mentioned, the biggest piece of that is that they call it the Vulcan way of operating, honing in on all those costs, becoming way more efficient, and running those crushers with much better throughput.
答：行业首创"吨现金毛利"指标（剔除矿区折旧/折耗/摊销）：柴油成本约10%，人工成本约30%，设备维护约20%。通过"火神运营法"优化流程，提升破碎机处理效率以控制成本。
Q:Speaker 1 Has pricing ever come back to bite Vulcan where pricing has lost them business or there's been any snapback in terms of how far they can go on the pricing side?
问：涨价策略是否导致客户流失？
A:Rob Hansen To my knowledge, not really because everybody's doing it at the same time. One of their competitors talks about a value over volume strategy and they've raised prices over 20% this past year, so a little bit higher. The other aspect is aggregates are 5 to maybe 10% of the cost of the job. So if it's up 10%, it's not going to have a humongous impact on your overall cost.
答：尚未发生实质性流失：全行业同步涨价（某竞争者推行"价值优先于销量"战略，去年提价超20%）；骨料仅占项目总成本5-10%，10%涨价对整体成本影响有限。
Q:Speaker 1 How much of that cash gross profit per ton actually trickles down through the earnings, through the income statement, all the way down to the earnings line and potentially bringing it all the way into free cash flow?
问：吨现金毛利有多少比例转化为自由现金流？
A:Rob Hansen I convert about 75 to 100% of net income into free cash flow. It's a very good business in that respect. Incremental EBITDA margins, when things are normal, are really around 60% on each incremental ton of volume. So it falls down very fast. The problem is sometimes I end up doing M&A transactions or little deals, and so all of a sudden you'll see in my income statement my years and you're like, why did gross margins just go down by 4%?
答：净收入75%-100%可转化为自由现金流。正常工况下，每新增吨产量的EBITDA利润率约60%，但并购交易可能导致毛利率短期波动（如某年度突降4%）。
Q:Speaker 1 Are there large capital outlays related to new quarries, and when you think about capital expenses, what do those typically look like?
问：新采石场资本支出规模？资本开支结构如何？
A:Rob Hansen CapEx in general, let's call it high single digits, maybe 10% of sales. When you break that down even further, the most important piece of that is actually investing back into your business, updating your crushers, investing in the technology that I have. There's a very big piece of that, just the operational CapEx, and that's probably about 60% of that. Now the other 4% is actually for growth and that's that very long term investing in future quarries.
答：资本支出通常占销售额高个位数百分比（约10%）。其中维持性资本支出（维持现有产能）占比最高，扩建次之，环保设备投入占比最低。
Q:Speaker 1 In terms of what determines a good outcome from that capital spend opening up a new quarry, is it the demand that's ultimately attached to that?
问：新采石场资本支出的成败关键是否取决于终端需求？
A:Rob Hansen That's definitely a small risk, but I do spend a lot of money looking into this, doing these geological surveys and studies to really make sure there's X feet that we can go and get out of this thing. The risk though, I mean, you could spend a lot of that money and then the town just says, no, sorry, that's it. We don't want that.
答（Rob Hansen）：需求风险确实存在但可控。公司投入大量资金进行地质勘测，确保可开采储量达标。最大风险在于地方政府审批——即使完成前期投资，城镇可能直接否决项目。
Q:Speaker 1 Is M&A a key part of the DNA with this business, acquiring other businesses and consolidating the industry?
问：并购是否构成行业核心发展模式？
A:Rob Hansen Yes, definitely. M&A is hugely important for all of the companies. It's an interesting industry where sometimes you might have a decent asset, but you're not the right owner. And sometimes you sell it to somebody else and it's better for them and you can use that cash for something else and buy something that will help your portfolio in a better way. The key piece is really being able to optimize your logistics.
答：并购对所有企业都至关重要。行业特性决定资产需要流动：当某资产在现所有者手中未能发挥最大价值时，出售给更适配的企业可实现双赢。交易所得资金可优化投资组合，而物流链整合才是并购的核心价值。
Q:Speaker 1 Are you expecting more M&A going forward, and how core is it to the thesis of the business and the opportunity?
问：未来并购预期及战略地位如何？
A:Rob Hansen Ideally, I'll keep buying small operations. Just this last year, I spent around 500 million bucks on four or five different companies. It's absolutely core to my business. It's core to my growth. It's core to me making more money and servicing my customers better. So I will definitely continue. In an ideal world, I would love to just keep picking off small quarries here and there because this is a highly fragmented industry and there are tons and tons and tons of quarries.
答：持续并购小型企业是核心战略。仅去年就以5亿美元收购4-5家企业，这直接驱动业务增长、利润提升及客户服务优化。在高度分散的市场中（全美约10,000座采石场），逐步收购小型标的仍是理想路径。
Q:Speaker 1 What are the lessons that you can take away from this business and apply elsewhere?
问：该商业模式的可迁移经验是什么？
A:Rob Hansen I think one thing that's super important is that mundane is good. Often everybody's after the next fad, BV this or cryptocurrency that and get really excited, but you could just own this and not have to worry too much. It's crushed rock. It's not sexy, but it can really work over a long period of time. And I think this is also a company that is ideally suited to just set it and forget it. If you're confident you have the right management team, we're going to make the right capital allocation decisions. There's not a whole lot you have to worry about too much.
答：我认为关键在于基础行业的持久价值。人们常追逐新风口——区块链或加密货币之类令人亢奋的概念，但持有这类资产（指骨料）反而无需过度担忧。它就是碎石骨料，虽不"性感"但具备长期稳定性（长期创造价值）。这正是一家理想型"买入后无需频繁关注"的企业——只要确信管理团队优秀，能做出正确的资本配置决策，投资者便无需多虑。