Christopher J. Klein
Analyst · Zelman & Associates
Thank you, Brian, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. We had a very good second quarter with strong growth that met our plans for sales and exceeded our plans for profits. We continue to drive profitable growth in a market which, as expected, continues to recover at an uneven pace. Let me first spend some time on the second quarter highlights, and then I'll discuss our current thoughts on the full year. First, with regard to the market, both the overall home products market and the market for our products again grew mid-single digits in the quarter, in line with our assumptions. New construction was a bit stronger than expected in both single-family and multifamily starts. And the pace of Repair & Remodel spending slowed somewhat from the previous quarter due in part to continued consumer caution for big-ticket purchases like cabinets. Importantly, we continue to feel confident about our performance in this market and the execution of our strategies as we entered into the second half of 2012. Turning to our performance for the quarter, sales were up 5% from a year ago and up 8% excluding Cabinets as cabinet sales were negatively impacted by our disciplined response to high levels of competitor promotions in home centers. Moen continued its strong performance with sales growth of 12%, and also surpassed our sales and profit plans. Windows & Door sales were up 7% and the segment was profitable. Security & Storage grew 2%, surpassing our sales and profit plans, and within the segment, Security sales were up 7%. Cabinet sales grew around 1%, a bit below our estimates of the cabinet market growth in the quarter, which continued to lag the overall U.S. home products market in the second quarter. Importantly, our profits from Cabinets were up 22% in the quarter. And second quarter profits have already matched our full year 2011 profits for Cabinets. Now let me give you some top line highlights by segment. Plumbing sales were up 12% in the second quarter. Moen again saw gains in both the U.S. and in our international businesses, particularly China. Gains were strong at the U.S. wholesale business where we saw continued volume gains, driven largely by the pace of new construction. Our efforts over the past few years to build on leading market share with the top builders and wholesalers, expand the multifamily segment and upgrade many of our showroom displays again yielded strong results in the quarter. Moen also continues to see strength from our steady pace of consumer-driven practical innovations. Spot-resistant finishes are rolling out more and more sales and are now available in the wholesale channel. Our successful Reflex technology for pull-down faucets will soon be launched in pull-out versions, which provide exceptional reach and range of motion with dependable retraction. And Moen's latest innovation, MotionSense, a new hands-free, touchless kitchen faucet will begin shipping in the second half of the year. Internationally, sales in China, where there are now over 600 Moen branded stores, were again up double digits over the prior year, driven by new construction growth and our continued expansion into tier 3 and tier 4 markets. The team in China continues to expand our brand with wider range of price points and products. In Security & Storage, our sales were up 2% in the second quarter. Security again saw broad gains, up 7%, driven by innovative new products and broader placement in retail ahead of the back-to-school season, continued to outgrow within global safety solutions and strong international sales of padlocks. The Master Lock brand is strong and our innovation continues to hit the mark with products like our new electronic combination lock, Speed Dial. Our storage products were down in the quarter as promotional activity has shifted sales from the second quarter into the first quarter. Notably, for the first 6 months, storage products were up double digits to the prior year. Windows & Door sales were up 7% for the quarter. Door products, which are heavily driven by new construction, saw high single-digit sales gains. We saw incremental sales from a recently launched relationship with a major window and door company and growth at our wholesale distributors. Windows products were up mid-single digits, driven by a better market and some share gains from new products and growth in targeted channels. Sales for our Cabinets business were up about 1% for the quarter and met our expectations. We continue to perform well as the market leader in cabinets. As the pace of new construction picked up, we saw a particular strength with dealers and builders in our new construction lines. In the dealer channel, where we're the clear market leader, we continue to grow by leveraging our portfolio of brands, some new door style additions and our strong product and service reputation. In home centers, we saw some volume share losses because of our disciplined approach to promotional spending. While we did not increase our promotional spending relative to prior year levels, our competitors intensified their promotional activity. It's important to note that even though promotions can divert volume on a month-to-month basis, they have not resulted in a change in shelf space or program placement from us in home centers. We continue to focus on more sustainable long-term growth opportunities such as our recently introduced value price point door styles for the Thomasville line at The Home Depot and select enhancements to our vanities line at Lowe's. We expect these innovations and our enhanced designer services to help us outperform the cabinets markets in the second half of the year. Importantly, we grew our cabinet profits 22% in the quarter, which exceeded our plans and reflects our ability to successfully target growth in channels, markets and product segments that are not as promotionally driven. In the quarter, we once again demonstrated our ability to generate and grow profits in a business where some of our competitors still struggle to even breakeven. We believe that our market leadership, combined with our world-class operating platform and service levels, gives us the strategic flexibility to drive profitable growth to date and into the future as the cabinet market slowly recovers. So throughout the second quarter, the market continued to firm led by significantly stronger new construction in a Repair & Remodel market that while growing, remains uneven. I'm very pleased with our performance across the portfolio for the quarter and the entire first half. We continue to execute our strategies as we innovate to invest, to capture profitable growth opportunities and leverage our market-leading positions. Let me now turn to our current top line outlook for 2012, starting with our assumptions for our market. We will then take you through our specific full year outlook in a few moments. From a market perspective, we're seeing continued signs of improvement relative to a year ago and a firming of the overall market as we enter the second half. While challenges in the housing market remains, such as tight credit, foreclosures and some soft home prices in some parts of the country, new construction improved in the second quarter, particularly in single-family starts. Repair & Remodel continued to grow, albeit at a slightly slower pace than we would have thought as we enter the second quarter. As expected, concerns about the general health of the economy and the pace of the recovery are still weighing on consumers' confidence and their willingness to embrace larger ticket purchases like cabinets. Our updated full year plans remain built on an assumption that the total market for our home products grows at a mid-single-digit rate. Within that assumption, we now expect the Repair & Remodel growth rate of around 3% to 4%, and a new construction growth rate of about 20%. Given our exposure to the slower growth cabinets market, our plans assume that the market for our products grows a bit slower than the overall market but still within the mid-single digits range. So based on that market assumption, which includes stronger new construction and a little softer Repair & Remodel, we continue to expect our 2012 full year sales to increase at a high single-digit pace over 2011, although toward the lower end of that range. We believe our innovation and our execution are key competitive advantages that will help us to continue to outperform the strengthening market for our products. Importantly, we're reaffirming our 2012 EPS guidance in the range of $0.77 to $0.87 for the full year. So to sum up, driven by new construction, the overall market remains firm with strong first half results and we're confident in our ability to deliver on our full year guidance. We continue to execute our strategies and remain focused on outperforming the market. We strive to create value by capturing market share, expanding into adjacent markets and improving our operating platforms. We believe our strong brands, management teams and capital structure provide key flexibility to focus on profitable growth and should therefore position us to create value at any pace of recovery. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Lee, who will review our financial performance and provide more details on our full year outlook.