Christopher J. Klein
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets
Thank you, Brian, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. Our teams delivered solid growth in the third quarter in the face of tough comps in a market that is currently running at the low end of our planning assumption. We continue to gain share and mix continues to improve and our core businesses are performing well. We're also taking actions to strengthen our portfolio and invest in capacity and capability as we prepare our company to deliver on higher growth as we expect our markets to continue to improve in 2015 and beyond. Let me first take you through some of the third quarter highlights and briefly discuss some of the steps we are taking to strengthen and focus our portfolio. And I'll comment on our view of the U.S. home products market and our 2014 outlook. Turning to the quarter, sales were up 5% and EPS was $0.55, up 20% from a year ago. This performance is particularly strong given the challenging comparison to the prior year quarter when sales increased 24% in a more robust market. Let me give you some highlights by segment. Sales for our cabinets business were up 1% for the quarter. Excluding the impact of both exiting builder direct business in the West and the comparison to a large bath vanity product launch in the third quarter of 2013, core cabinet sales increased 10%. Core cabinet sales growth was led by mid-teens growth in the dealer channel while big ticket remodeling activity remaining strong as well as high single-digit growth in the home centers. We again gained share in the dealer channel, where we continue to see growth across a full range of semi-custom and custom product lines, resulting in a better mix with higher price points. Our share gains are coming from deeper relationships with existing customers as well as new dealerships. Our new product launches, including our new Omega frameless custom line for dealers and new bath vanity offerings in home centers, continue to sell well and are driving share gains. Our refreshed Diamond line is performing well above expectations and new finishes in our Aristokraft, Homecrest and Kitchen Craft lines are also selling well. Despite a challenging third quarter comparison to product line review wins in the prior year, WoodCrafters performance has been solid. From a revenue perspective, WoodCrafters products are selling well. They have captured new program wins in home centers and begun to gain product placements in the dealer channel. With the integration nearly complete, WoodCrafters is also beginning to help our core cabinet business by producing lower cost componentry for our existing cabinet lines with its low cost North American manufacturing capacity. So overall, for cabinets, we continue to leverage our proven structural competitive advantages to generate sustainable momentum. Our teams execute well against a business model that is tough to replicate. Our share gains across channels with improving mix reflect the tangible impact of these advantages. Plumbing reported sales that were up 2% for the quarter led by growth in U.S. wholesale and retail. In the third quarter of 2014, Moen faced challenging sales in comparison to the wholesale channel. Wholesalers continue to reduce inventory versus our third quarter 2013, in which wholesalers carried inventory to support strong demand. Regardless, this year's mix was better, our sales grew and margins were strong. As a result, our U.S. Plumbing business grew high-single digits across wholesale and retail. We're encouraged to see consumers continue to select our innovative new faucet products for their new homes and repair and remodel projects, including new pull-out and pull-down faucets with reflex self retraction in our Brookshire, Hensley and Etch lines, sip beverage and filtration faucets and our Oxby bath accessories and faucets. Overall, we continue to see strength in the more premium end of the market supporting bigger remodel and renovation projects. International sales declined low-single digits, driven by weakness in Canada, which was negatively impacted by a stronger dollar and in China. China sales declined modestly over the prior year as new construction activity was weaker and direct to builder sales softer. However, our nearly 950 Moen stores continued to generate solid growth as we continue to add stores and rationalize lower performing stores to drive growth. We remain optimistic about both our long-term business model in China and the growth potential. Doors reported sales were up 13% for the quarter. For the first time, we are reporting doors by itself in this segment as we closed on the sale of Simonton windows in the quarter. In the quarter, door products saw healthy sales growth, driven by gains in new construction and ongoing distribution additions. We continue to see an increasing benefit from our expansion in the Western region that we put in place over the last couple of years. Mix also improved especially with consumers selecting our new decorative glass designs and new fiberglass door styles like our recently launched Pulse line of modern entry doors. The furniture brand continues to perform strongly across all channels. In the Security & Storage segment, sales increased 17% from the prior year quarter. Sales from the Sentry Safe acquisition added significantly to the growth, while organic security sales increased 4% and tool store sales decreased 3%. Master Lock security sales growth was led by mid-single digit increases in U.S. retail, high single-digit increases in international and solid double-digit growth in U.S. safety. Master Lock U.S. retail sales continued to grow as program expansions at retailers during the back-to-school selling season. And Master Lock Europe continued to gain share in a European market that saw mixed results. The Sentry Safe acquisition is on track and the teams are working hard to integrate the operation. We are excited about the opportunities we see between our Master Lock and Sentry businesses. So to sum up our results, our teams executed and continue to gain share in a lower-growth market. As we wrap up 2014, we remain positioned to gain additional share and deliver strong sales and profit growth in 2015 -- 2015 and beyond. First, in the third quarter, we decided to sell the Simonton Windows business and we're able to close on that sale more quickly than planned. The windows business was subscale within our portfolio and is better positioned to grow inside a larger Windows business. Meanwhile, we are very focused on driving profitable growth for our Furniture Door business, as you can now see more clearly with these third quarter results. Second, I'm excited about the growth opportunities that we have in our Security business with the addition of Sentry Safe. These opportunities include driving sales and innovation, averaging global distribution and generating cost synergies. Going forward, as we integrate Sentry, the security segment will operate separately from the Tool Storage business. As a result of integrating Sentry in the Tool Storage business, we are reviewing long-term strategic options given the challenges this segment has seen over the past few years. This business currently has annual sales of approximately $150 million and will be reported separately in the future. Third, we have continued to invest in capacity and capabilities to allow for additional growth beyond $6 billion in sales. We believe that the new construction market is gradually returning to historical levels in support of household formations and that the R&R market will grow annually at 5% to 6% in a steady-state. So in 2014, at the same time that we have been taking share and delivering growth in a market that has been growing slower than we assumed earlier in the year, we have also been taking a few steps to position ourselves for the growth we see in the future. Given our strong positions in these markets, even a modest improvement in market demand gives us a significant impact. Now let me turn to our updated full year outlook for 2014, starting with our assumptions for the market. In the near term, the pace of repair and remodel demand has been recovering more gradually than we expected earlier this year. New home construction, where our products are installed in the later stages, has also been slower to reaccelerate since last fall, but continues to pick up pace. And now we have a better view into a good portion of the fall season for both R&R and new construction. So while demand for both new construction and repair and remodel should still show growth for the balance of the year, we expect the overall U.S. home products market growth for the balance of 2014 will be lower than we assumed in July. Therefore, our updated 2014 annual outlook is now built on a revised assumption that U.S. home products market grows at a combined 4% to 5% rate in the fourth quarter. Based on that U.S. housing market projection, the assumptions we make for our other markets and continued share gains plus the Sentry Safe acquisition, we continue to expect solid top line growth for 2014 with our full year sales increasing at approximately 80% rate over 2013 and our Home Products business is again outperforming the market for our products. Based on this market and sales growth and the benefit of share repurchases, our teams are focused on delivering full year EPS of $1.84 to $1.86. So to sum up, we remain confident in our ability to continue to outperform the recovering home products market. We are gaining share. Our core businesses are strong and because of actions we are taking in 2104, we are well positioned to deliver even higher growth in 2015 and beyond as the housing market continues its recovery. We also continue to believe that our strong brands, management teams and capital structure provide flexibility to both focus on profitable organic growth and drive incremental shareholder value with our strong free cash flow. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Lee, who will review our financial performance and provide more details on our 2014 outlook and on our recent capital allocation actions.