Rebuilding the infrastructure in the United States is long overdue

in this week's rebuilding america series we are speaking to key executives and leaders who are looking to rebuild and improve the country's infrastructure yahoo finances brian sauzi leading the charge for us on that discussion and brian i know you spoke with the ppg industries chairman and ceo what specifically did he have to say that's right akiko building a series here at yahoo finance but ppg industries they they sell a lot of auto paint they sell a lot of industrial coatings that will eventually be used on bridges once an infrastructure bill does get passed and they also now make highway road paint so i caught up with uh chairman and ceo of ppg industries michael mcgarry talk about all these things as you know we're long overdue for this i figured how many bridges across the u.s something like 50 000 bridges across the u.s are structurally deficient our infrastructure roads are you know graded out at d plus at best and it is a little embarrassing when you travel the globe as much as i do although not in the past nine months about how much more money our peer countries put into infrastructure that we haven't been putting in so from my standpoint this is long overdue i'm glad you mentioned uh you are a global company uh because you've really been uh buying a lot of companies that are focused on on overseas infrastructure how would you compare and contrast let's say infrastructure in europe as it stands today but uh compared to u.s infrastructure well infrastructure in europe as you know you know you've got the options to move around on trains you have the option to fly short distances very quickly uh the roads you know they have a lot more toll roads in europe and so the roads are in better shape um i mean uh think about switzerland and france they both have a basically a toll tag that everybody has to buy so it it provides income in addition to what we would have here in the states which is a a usage tax for every gallon that a gasoline you buy so they're putting more money into their infrastructure which leads to lower logistics costs it provides them a competitive advantage and the last thing you want to do is when you're in the us is have a competitive disadvantage when you're competing globally in your estimation what's the area in the u.s infrastructure that that really needs the the quickest improvement or needs some form of additional funding right now is is it bridges is it roads is it tunnels i would say bridges for sure there's uh you know as you know the roads uh they can manage to move people off under the shoulders so they can keep the traffic flowing but bridges are clearly uh a problem and i would also say locks on the rivers are an issue uh you have to we move a lot of goods on the rivers not ppg in general but a lot of our raw materials come in that way and so you you want to manage both the uh the bridges uh from a trucking standpoint as well as the locks uh as well what's the most important things you would like to see in any infrastructure bill well the first one is speed uh you know we're late uh the second one is a commitment to an a standard because you have varying standards around the us and i think it needs to but also focus on the future so when you think about mobility um you know one of the things that we recently bought was a company uh ennis flint that does road markings and you'd be amazed at the inconsistency on road marking standards across the u.s something that should be much more uniform it's certainly not and the the ability of getting a consistent performance in road marking is is important in my opinion talk to us about that ennis flint acquisition it was a big one uh i know wall street has very has been very excited that you did make that acquisition what will that help you do well the first thing it's a very um consistent business so even during the pandemic it was only down three percent uh so that's the first thing so very consistent generator cash we'll be able to put that cash to work to buy in more things the second thing it was an industry leader and not by a little bit by a lot it was a by by far the industry leader in road markings across the u.s the next one is that the in the future we're looking at trying to tie the striping on the road into mobility to help cars on move to more autonomous type of driving and that's going to help so instead of having a four inch stripe it might have a six inch stripe instead of the stripes being you know maybe uh 25 feet apart they might be uh less distance between the stripes and that would also be a benefit um so as you can imagine on one hand while we're happy to see some minor fender benders to help our refinish business on the other hand we're looking at the long term where these road markings can help drive uh and facilitate autonomous driving it's pretty it's pretty cool stuff uh michael are lawmakers have you talked to them about this technology how far apart because i see you guys trying to move the ball forward in a significant way but what has been the response from lawmakers well i'd say it's always been too far down their priority list they've always been much more focused on right now they're focused on the pandemic this could create a lot of jobs and as you know when you do road work those jobs can be socially distanced and safely done and so we would very much like to see this done uh i mean at the end of the day whether you're republican or democrat this is good for the economy and it's good for business and it's good for the country i do want to go back to your business for for one second how are you playing in in the roll out of electric cars uh well that's been a it's been a great success story and it's only going to get better so when you think about an electric vehicle you know you have a battery box underneath it that battery box needs to be electric coated and painted then the top needs to be sealed inside the battery box you have to have protective coatings because the batteries if they're damaged they can lead to what they call thermal events we call fires and then inside the battery itself there's thermal gap fillers that you keep the anode and the cathode separated and ultimately in the batteries itself the anode and cathode coatings we think we can add a lot of value so what we're finding is that a an electric vehicle consumes two to four times as much paint as a internal combustion engine so if you say a hundred dollars per car for an internal combustion engine this would be uh two to four hundred dollars per car for an electric vehicle as you know that market's only going to grow china has recently passed a law that 20 percent of their cars have to be electric by 2025. europe has an aspirational goal and i'm sure the biden administration will come out with some kind of aspirational goal as well before we let you go michael well i've always enjoyed covering ppg i really enjoy your earnings calls and one reason why i do among many is that you actually talk about the state of the economy in in real language uh and you give it to investors straight what is your what's your read on the u.s economy right now the u.s economy is actually in very good shape uh the the stimulus money so for folks unfortunately that have been negatively impacted they are getting stimulus dollars and there's other folks that are in that are still have their jobs they're getting stimulus dollars so they're spending the money so housing is going to continue to grow de-urbanization if you will is going to continue so housing is going to be strong the car market is very strong right now they can't make enough cars they have the chip shortage so we continue to see that and ideally if infrastructure gets going then you'll have another leg to the economy so i'm very bullish on the u.s economy worth noting here uh off of that interview and as we start to talk to more of these executives for this rebuilding uh america series ppg's stock is really the only among the few that has started i think price in any infrastructure plan out of the body administration stocks of about 50 over the past year u.s steel perhaps the only other name that has begun to play in here that stocks up about 100 uh the past year or so zach so again a lot of people i think are starting to position for this eventual plan but again you know good story out of ppg so far all right brian sauzi bringing us the latest on the rebuilding america front appreciate that

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Id: g8RJOyJ-ZOk

Length: 8min 51sec (531 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2021