Operator
Operator
Good afternoon. My name is Victoria and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Fortune Brands Second Quarter 2018 Results Conference Call. After the speakers' remarks there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brian Lantz, Senior Vice President, Communications and Corporate Administration. You may begin your conference call. Brian C. Lantz - Fortune Brands Home & Security, Inc.: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Fortune Brands Home & Security Quarterly Investor Conference Call and Webcast. We're pleased to be here today to provide an update on our progress for the second quarter of 2018. Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to review the news release issued earlier. The news release and the audio replay of the webcast of this call can be found in the investors section of our fbhs.com website. I want to remind everyone that the forward-looking statements we make on the call today, either in our prepared remarks or in the associated question-and-answer session, are based on current expectations and market outlook and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated. These risks are detailed in our various filings with the SEC such as our Annual Report on 10-K. The company does not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements, which speak only to the time at which they are made. Any references to operating profit, earnings per share or cash flow on today's call will focus on our results on a before charges and gains basis for continuing operations with the exception of cash flow unless otherwise specified. With me on the call today are Chris Klein, our Chief Executive Officer, and Pat Hallinan, our Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will allow some time to address questions that you may have. I will now turn the call over to Chris. Christopher J. Klein - Fortune Brands Home & Security, Inc.: Thank you, Brian, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. I'm very pleased with our results for the second quarter and feel confident in delivering the strong performance we have targeted for the year. Our teams delivered solid results overall, which was again on plan and met our overall expectations. The momentum inside of our Plumbing and Doors businesses continues to be very strong. Our Cabinet transition is going well and we took concrete actions to accelerate the repositioning of the business. Across the company, price increases continue to roll through all segments and are countering the increased material and labor costs we saw in the first half. Our progress in these areas positions us well for stronger operating leverage in the second half of 2018 and into 2019. In addition to our financial results, we successfully executed a number of important actions to set up the business for a stronger second half and longer-term growth. I'll have more to say on these strategic steps in a moment. Let me first spend some time on our view of the U.S. home products market. Next, I'll provide my perspective on our business performance in the second quarter. Pat will then provide more details on our second quarter performance and 2018 outlook. Starting with our view of the U.S. home products market; in the second quarter, the market for our home products grew at about the pace we planned. Market growth was better than the prior quarter despite a slower start to the second quarter due to wet and cold weather coming out of the first quarter. We estimate that repair and remodel activity grew close to 5% and that new construction grew high-single digits, roughly in line with our full year expectation. New construction and R&R activity picked up throughout the second quarter. And the second half is setting up to be stronger than the first half with demand remaining strong and builders and contractors working against solid backlogs. Now, let me provide some perspective on our business performance. For the second quarter, sales increased 5% in total. Total company operating margin was solid at 14.6%, but lower year-over-year as inflationary pressures were a headwind in all segments as we expected. Operating margin is expected to improve as we move through the year as our prices actions typically lag inflation by six to nine months and we've now rolled through price increases in all segments. Turning to the segments beginning with Plumbing; the Global Plumbing Group continues to perform as envisioned with low-double digit sales growth at our target 21% operating margin. For the last five quarters in a row, we have delivered above-market organic sales growth while maintaining industry-leading margins, a clear sign that the strategy is working. Results in both our core businesses and new platforms continue to be outstanding, and we're actively investing in new routes to market, digital capabilities and the product portfolio. For example, we recently formed a new dedicated hospitality and project sales team, bringing together sales professionals from our acquired and legacy plumbing businesses with a full suite of products and brands across price points. This team has already won incremental business that is shipping this year and has developed a significant pipeline into 2019 of double-digit millions in sales. It is an example of true synergy created by the GPG platform, as our more recently acquired brands like ROHL and Riobel are paving the way for access to the whole portfolio. Additionally, we've been leveraging our enhanced digital and analytic capabilities and are using those insights to bring new growth opportunities to our customers. This data has been informing our product, pricing and channel decisions, primarily in retail and e-commerce. Lastly, we're accelerating the pace of our innovation. We've rolled out new product categories, including disposals and water filtration in select markets, introduced matte black, gold and other new finishes, and integrated some of our smart products with virtual voice commanded assistance. Sales from new products launched in the last three years now total about 25% of overall sales and we continue to pursue engineering, design, and productivity improvements to push this number to 30% over the next three years. So, in Plumbing, we're off to a very strong start to the year and are carrying good momentum into the second half. POS was strong in the quarter, and some channel partners exited the quarter with lower inventory which could be a slight tailwind for us moving forward. We will continue to position our Plumbing business for accelerated growth consistent with our strategy. Our $1.7 billion Plumbing business is very much on track to grow sales organically and through acquisitions to our targeted $3 billion by 2021. With industry-leading operating margins at around 21%, the platform should drive about 60% of our total company operating profit growth over the next three-plus years. In Doors, our performance accelerated as we continued to take share in the door market. Our growth strategy and focused approach drove strong double digit growth through both the wholesale and retail channels. In wholesale, we continued to convert new builders, particularly in geographies with strong new construction activity in the South and West. We're pressing our advantage in fiberglass with new product launches and leveraging our national fabricator network. In retail, our high service levels, leading product quality and strong multi-year performance has compounded our growth in the channel. Special order sales continued to strong and in-stock sales tied to our remerchandising efforts in the aisle have exceeded our initial expectations. Across our channels, innovation is driving a stronger cadence of new product introductions. Increased focus on regional styling and a more contemporary lineup has helped grow our sales. In the Security business, our core U.S. retail sales grew 5% in total and we lapped the last quarter of a commercial business line we exited in the prior year. Price lagged metal inflation in the quarter, but is expected to reverse in the second half as shipments now reflect the full impact of our pricing actions. Turning to the combination of Doors and Security, on the last call, we stated our intent to grow the Doors business more aggressively, both through acquisition opportunities and new internal initiatives. At the end of the quarter, we internally announced our plan to combine the leadership of our Doors and Security units into a single segment under our Doors leader, Brett Finley. Starting in the third quarter, this will be a division with roughly $1.2 billion in annual sales and operating margin approaching 16%, with the potential to grow organically to over $1.4 billion in sales and a margin approaching 18% over the next 3.5 years. As we make progress towards these targets, this new structure will give us additional operating leverage across the businesses. We should also see greater capacity for growth through accelerated product development and enhanced acquisition integration capabilities, similar to what we've created with a common back office inside of the Global Plumbing Group. Brett is an outstanding leader, who's driven strong results across the Door segment over the last 2.5 years. He'll create a common platform with newly enhanced scale that can more effectively leverage investments, talent, and innovation across a larger business unit. I am confident in Brett's ability to grow and create value through the new structure, and we'll begin reporting results for the combined segment next quarter. Turning to Cabinets; early in the year, we provided more clarity on our plan to strategically pivot our Cabinet business. Throughout the year, we've been executing against our plan with a number of impactful steps still to come. To give you some context around our actions, we began the year with 27 cabinet manufacturing facilities across North America. Four that manufactured premium cabinets, eight producing mid-tier semi-custom cabinets, and the remaining 15 supporting our value semi-custom, stock and in-stock cabinets and vanity businesses. In the quarter, we took actions to further align our supply chain against our strategy. Specifically, we responded to some softness in the segments of the cabinet market and consolidated our footprint of plants that manufacturer mid-tier semi-custom cabinets, closing two of the eight plants that produced these products. We redirected the volume at these price points over the strongest of our remaining six plants to generate greater operating leverage going forward. At the same time, we undertook a set of actions to increase capacity and launch new products in areas where we are experiencing growth including in-stock cabinets and vanities, decorative laminate veneer products for builders, and value semi-custom cabinetry at affordable price points. These actions included expanding our in-stock cabinets and vanities footprint in Mexico and Texas by ramping up a new manufacturing facility and expanding several existing facilities, expanding capacity of our existing builder stock and DLV facilities in the Midwest and Carolinas, and adding to our automated paint capacity in value semi-custom. We will continue to take aggressive actions over the next four quarters as we execute on our pivot strategy, which will add tangible value to the business in the second half of this year and into 2019. These actions will position us to resume margin expansion beginning next year and provide the setup for continued expansion over the next three to four years as we drive a healthier, more predictable mix of business through our industry-leading dealer network, our large homecenter partners, and key builder relationships. With the significant capabilities and ability we have to flex our supply chains and the improvements to our cost structure and margin from the actions we took in the second quarter, we're making solid progress down the path we laid out in May to achieve 14% operating margin by 2021 with consistent mid-single digit sales growth. So, to recap the second quarter, it was solid overall with mid-single digit sales growth and nearly double digit EPS growth even as inflation continued to run ahead of price in the quarter. Despite these headwinds, the pricing and other actions we've taken to offset inflation are on track and we're well positioned to see the benefit of margin expansion as the year unfolds. We also took important strategic steps to position us well for the second half and longer term, especially in our Cabinets business. I'm very encouraged with the progress we have made in the quarter in our Cabinets pivot plan. And regarding the combination of our Doors and Security businesses, this change will position us to deliver a new level of innovation, acquisition capabilities and profitability to this part of our portfolio for years to come. Before I wrap up, let me review our capital deployment in the quarter and our broader plan to create long-term incremental value. Year-to-date through July, we've spent over $600 million on share repurchases for about 10 million shares so far in 2018. As we announced in a press release last week, we have remaining authorization for another $500 million in repurchases. So, we feel good about our 2018 outlook and are comfortable with our plans to drive value over the next three years. We're maintaining our current sales outlook and increasing our EPS outlook based on share repurchase activity. While we see significant value in FBHS shares, we also remain very active in exploring potential acquisitions. We are currently engaged in discussions with potential acquisition targets and are working on a robust pipeline of opportunities that we see coming to market in the next 12 months. While we do not have anything to announce today, we'll provide further commentary as the second half of the year unfolds. As a reminder, over the next three years, we continue to believe that we have the power to deploy an additional $3 billion to $4 billion to make strategic acquisitions, repurchase additional shares and increase our dividend to create meaningful incremental shareholder value. Now, I'd like to turn the call over to Pat, who will review our financial performance and provide detail on our EPS outlook for 2018. Patrick D. Hallinan - Fortune Brands Home & Security, Inc.: Thanks, Chris. As Brian mentioned, to best reflect ongoing business performance, the majority of my comments will focus on income before charges and gains from continuing operations. Starting with our second quarter results, sales were $1.4 billion, up 5% from a year ago. Consolidated operating income for the quarter was $209 million, down 2% or $3 million compared to the same quarter last year as inflation was a headwind as expected. Total company operating margin of 14.6% was in line with Q2 expectations. We remain well-positioned to deliver our 2018 outlook as operating margin and leverage accelerate in the back half of the year, driven by pricing and continued progress in our Cabinets pivot. EPS were $1 in the quarter versus $0.92 the same quarter last year, an increase of 9% and in line with our Q2 expectations. Our progress through the first half of the year has been solid and consistent with our plan. We continue to expect our results to be back half weighted with significant year-over-year EPS growth in the third quarter and especially into four quarter. Now, let me provide more color on segment results beginning with Plumbing. Sales for the second quarter were $484 million, up $49 million or 11%. Our GPG strategy is driving solid growth across channels, and we saw especially strong growth in U.S. wholesale, China and the acquired businesses in the quarter. Our organic sales continue to outpace the market as sales excluding acquisitions were up 9%. This demonstrates our strategy for the new Plumbing platform, continues to produce strong results even in a quarter where some channel partners pulled down inventory. Plumbing operating income was flat at $101 million with an operating margin of 20.9%, in line with our strategy for this business. Year-to-date Plumbing operating margin is also about 21% and consistent with the first half of 2017 despite significant inflation. Doors sales were $160 million, up $27 million or 20% from the prior-year quarter, driven by strong sales growth with big builders and share gains at retail. Operating income increased $5 million and was up 24%. Operating margin for the segment was 17.5%, a 60-basis-point increase from the prior year as strong sales leverage and pricing offset inflation in this business. Security sales were $147 million in the second quarter, up 3% versus the prior year. Sales were solid in our core U.S. retail locks and safes businesses. Segment operating income was down $2 million, due to metals inflation and the time lag associated with pricing actions taken in the retail channel. Heading into the third quarter, we have been successful in implementing price across all channels and are on track for second half and full year margin improvement. In Cabinets, sales for the second quarter were $638 million, down $16 million or 2% versus the prior-year quarter. Excluding the select homecenter and low margin Canadian business exits, Cabinet sales were up 1%. Excluding business exits, sales of in-stock cabinets and vanities grew mid-single digits on continued solid demand for these products. Builder sales were up low-single digits and were impacted by a slow start to the quarter due to weather in the Midwest and East where we have a significant portion of our business. Dealer sales increased 1% and saw a modest uptick in premium from the prior year. Homecenter special order sales were down, reflecting the impact of our planned pullback on promotions. Sales in Canada were up 6% as the changes we made in the business last year began to deliver benefits. In Cabinets, we anticipated a year of transition as we executed the structural changes outlined in our pivot plan. These significant improvement initiatives executed during the second quarter have improved our cost structure and began having a margin impact. Operating income in the quarter was $81 million, down 8% and operating margin was 12.7%. While lower on a year-over-year basis, these results represent substantial improvement from Q1 and are in line with the plan to get the business to 14% operating margin by 2021. Our pivot execution is off to a good start. We expect further improvement in the second half as additional operational improvements and pricing drive margin improvement. To sum up consolidated second quarter performance, sales increased 5% and EPS were in line with our expectation at $1. We are positioned well for a strong second half and full year. Our Plumbing and Doors businesses continue to outperform the industry and we have taken the pricing and strategic steps necessary to accelerate our performance through the balance of the year and into 2019. Turning to the balance sheet, our June 30th balance sheet remains solid with cash of $345 million, debt of $2.1 billion, and our net debt-to-EBITDA leverage is 2.1 times. We currently have $350 million remaining on our $1.25 billion revolver and we continue to have substantial capacity and flexibility to fund potential acquisitions and share repurchases. Year-to-date, we have repurchased over 10 million shares for approximately $600 million. Our approach to share repurchase continues to be opportunistic and focused on where we can generate significant returns. We have approximately $500 million remaining on our current share repurchase authorization. Turning last to the details of our outlook for 2018; as Chris mentioned, we are increasing our 2018 EPS outlook to the range of $3.62 to $3.72 versus $3.08 last year. Due to first half business performance in line with our expectation, pricing actions taken, progress in our Cabinet pivot, and our share repurchase activity, we are encouraged by the positive demand signals we continue to see in the U.S. housing market and our business performance. We expect 2018 free cash flow of $500 million to $525 million with a conversion rate of over 90%. The annual EPS outlook includes the following assumptions: interest expense of around $68 million; a tax rate of approximately 25%; and average fully diluted shares of approximately 147 million. In summary, our teams did an excellent job navigating the inflationary environment and have positioned us well for a strong second half. Demand indicators remain strong and we delivered solid sales and earnings despite inflation headwinds and a weather-slowed start to the year. We also remain well positioned to use our balance sheet and cash flow to drive incremental shareholder value through acquisitions, share repurchases, and dividends. I will now pass the call back to Brian. Brian C. Lantz - Fortune Brands Home & Security, Inc.: Thanks, Pat. That concludes our prepared remarks for the second quarter of 2018. We will now begin taking a limited number of questions. Since there may be a number of you that would like to ask a question, I'll ask that you limit your initial questions to two and then reenter the queue to ask additional questions. I will now turn the call back over to the operator to begin the question-and-answer session. Operator?