Earnings Labs

Fortune Brands Innovations, Inc. (FBIN)

Q2 2019 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 2, 2019

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. My name is Jason and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Fortune Brand's Second Quarter 2019 Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Brian Lantz, Senior Vice President of Communications and Corporate Administration. You may begin your conference call.

Brian Lantz

Analyst

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Fortune Brands Home & Security quarterly investor conference call and webcast. We are pleased to be here today to provide an update on our progress during the second quarter of 2019. 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 a 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; Nick Fink, our President and Chief Operating Officer; and Pat Hallinan, our Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we have allowed some time to address questions that you may have.I will now turn the call over to Chris.

Chris Klein

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Thank you, Brian, and thanks to everyone for joining us today. In the second quarter, our teams continue to execute at a high level in self market. I'm proud of the progress we have made, particularly in a market that looks as if it will now grow only in the 2% to 2.5% range in 2019. Although we anticipated a soft first half market, the market overall was softer than we expected in the second quarter particularly in Canada.Despite the market, we're making solid progress on the business plans we communicated in February which were centered on delivering shareholder value even through periods of more moderate market growth. [Indiscernible] great discipline on capital expenses and I'm very pleased with our progress for the first half of the year. By continuing to manage our businesses tightly with investments focused only on those areas needed to support new business and growth, we put ourselves in a solid position to grow in the second half of the year and into 2020 as the market begins to reaccelerate.We will first take you to our updated view of the U.S. home products market, next I will provide my perspective on our business performance in the second quarter. Then Nick Fink, our President and Chief Operating Officer will provide some insight into how we are driving our businesses for growth and performance improvement followed by Pat who will provide more details on our second quarter and 2019 outlook.Starting with our updated view of the U.S. home product market. In the second quarter, the market for our home products were softer and came in below even the moderate pace we have planned for. We estimate that the market for our products grew below 2% in the quarter, but the repair and remodel market growing around 3%. The…

Nicholas Fink

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Thanks, Chris, and good afternoon, everyone. Since March, I've been working closely with the operating teams to execute on the plans to be highlighted at our Investor Day to deliver long term shareholder value by driving unique strategies for profitable growth, all in the backdrop of a modestly growing U.S. housing market.Our actions are driving significant improvement across the company and are positioning us to capture more predictable growth as we head into the back half of the year in 2020. As I've worked with the teams across our businesses, I'm impressed with the aggressive actions we are taking specifically the ongoing sets we're taking to build up the brands, capabilities, product portfolio and partnerships in our global continues to leverage competitive advantages and lead the industry from both the sales growth and margin perspective.The pivoting of our Cabinets business towards innovative product and value price points primarily through expansion capacity in Mexico to support growing sales of stock Cabinet that have run ahead of projection [indiscernible], our entry price point product for the dealer channel and reducing fixed cost in capacity in semi-custom. So the repositioning business takes more value in the face of changing consumer takes and competitive threats.In Doors & Security, the targeted smart investments that we are making in the business such as in Therma-Tru where we are making incremental investments to support new product launches and our continued investment in Fiberon is zero-tear [ph] 100% made in the USA business that uses 94% recycled content in this manufacturing. Like Therma-Tru, this business benefits from the accelerating trend towards performance materials and material conversion away from wood, plus the opportunity to grow significantly in channels in which we already have a strong presence.And finally, the competitive repositioning across our company from some of our supply chains…

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open

Thanks, Nick. 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. Let me start with our second quarter results. Sales were $1.5 billion, up 5% from a year ago and 1% on an organic basis excluding Fiberon. Consolidated operating income for the quarter was $212 million, up 1% or $3 million compared to the same quarter last year.Total company operating margin was 14.1%. We remain on track to achieve our goal of around 50 basis points of full-year operating margin improvement despite a softer market and the increased tariff rate of 25% on imports from China.EPS were $1.03 for the quarter versus $1 of the same quarter last year, an increase of 3%. EPS were in-line with our expectation and we are pleased by our team's continued ability to grow sales and earnings during the period of softer market growth, the persistence of a challenging trade environment and while navigating significant supply chain transitions within most of our businesses.Now let me provide more color on segment results, beginning with plumbing. Sales for the second quarter were $506 million, up $22 million or 5% and mark the first $0.5 billion quarter in plumbings history. Excluding currency, sales were up over 6% in the quarter, which was above our expectation given the 9% organic sales growth rate during the same period last year. Mid-single digit USPOS [ph] and continued strong growth in China drove the quarter with reported sales results muted by Canadian housing market weakness and unfavorable FX.Plumbing operating income increased 13% to $114 million. Operating margin was 22.6%, an excellent result driven by cost discipline and sales leverage in the U.S. and China. We continue to be on-track with our full year outlook in…

Chris Klein

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Before we begin the Q&A session, let me build on Pat's closing comments and leave you with two high-level thoughts as well. We are operating at a very intense level right now across our company, transforming supply change, executing pricing actions, simultaneously ramping up and taking down capacity to reposition businesses, launching innovation, expanding and growing categories and channels, integrating acquisitions and partnerships and winning new business.Over the past nine months we've been doing this in a deccelerating market with tech controls and expenses in capital. As we turn the quarter and move into a gradually accelerating home products market, in the latter part of this year and into 2020, we will see some significant leverage and an even higher degree of impact from all of the actions we've taken to position the business for the next wave of growth.And while I'm pleased with our first half results, I'm even more excited about the growth in margin opportunities in front of us.With that, I will now pass the call back to Brian.

Brian Lantz

Analyst

Thanks, Chris. That concludes our prepared remarks on the second quarter of 2019. We will now begin taking a limited number of question. Since there may be a number of you who would like to ask a question, I'll ask that you limit your initial questions to two and then re-enter 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?

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Timothy Weiss from Baird. Your line is open.

Timothy Weiss

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Good afternoon, everybody. Maybe just to start off first on the market. I guess I'm curious what you thought Q2 was really representative of. Is it just kind of the delay from some of the weakening metrics that we've seen in housing over the last couple of quarters. Do you feel that would be just underlying R&R market is maybe just a touch softer. I'm just curious if it's more of a timing issue in your mind or if it's something that's maybe that growth curve is maybe just a little less?

Chris Klein

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Effectively, the second quarter was softer and delayed because of the reacceleration we expected. We're seeing that now. I think we lost a quarter along the way here where we would have expected the kind of activity that we're feeling right now and late April-May, that's what we're experiencing. So that will lead to we think a healthy fall building construction in R&R. But we've incorporated that loss level of activity in the second quarter and slower ramp into the third quarter into what we're guided. I think the market is still healthy if you look at overall demand both for new construction, especially at the entry level point and R&R, it's still strong. I think there are parts of the country that it was tough to do R&R work especially outdoor R&R work in late April and all of May and that didn't start picking up again until June, so that impacted things like decking, doors and other outdoor activity. But we think that 3% plus on our growth for the year accelerating into the normal 4% to 5% in the next year is a healthy market.Clearly the existing housing stock turnover was a little softer. The impact of lower rates will eventually help that as housing price appreciation has moderated both in new construction and in the existing housing turn. So all those things set up for a better second half and we think a pretty healthy market. We're not calling for an honest acceleration here, we're calling for modest acceleration into the second half and that's what our guidance has indicated.

Timothy Weiss

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Okay, great. That's helpful. And then maybe I'm curious to review just on your high-level view on inventories, just kind of what you're seeing with your customers. You did note a pretty good POS in plumbing. So just curious in some of your stock businesses, how you fill your customer inventories book right now.

Chris Klein

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

I'll let Nick address that.

Nicholas Fink

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Sure. Hey, Tim. How are you?

Timothy Weiss

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Good. You?

Nicholas Fink

Analyst · Baird. Your line is open

Well, thanks. Yes, I would say if you look across, inventories are pretty much leaned up. In the first half, I think they've worked to it and pulled back a fair amount. The way we see it is pretty lean. We're now tracking some POS. I would say that's been ahead of shipment. We just like to feel encouraged by the underlying market and that pointed us for some really nice acceleration. As it picks up, we'll get some leverage up off of inventories coming back on.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open.

Justin Speer

Analyst · Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open

Good afternoon, guys. Thank you. Just a couple questions. One, in terms of the guidance revision. How much do you estimate that revision was from tariffs and how much from slowing growth and willfully apparently is a list for tariff on the table, how should we think about that in the context of this guidance as well.

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open

Justin, it's Pat. Our guidance adjustment is virtually 100% market-driven. We have adjusted our market outlook to 2% to 2.5% versus the original 2% to 4%. So roughly by 100 basis points and have adjusted our topline by roughly 100 basis points and we're flowing it through at a leverage rate of about 21% which is consistent with the leverage weight we had for our full year plan and outlook. But the adjustment is really a market adjustment. The range around it reflects a little bit of the timing on certainty with some of the OrePac distribution gains and when inventories will or won't flow into that new distributor. But that's really what's driving the change to our outlook. In terms of the list for tariffs which reemerge under the radar screen this afternoon, it's obviously something we've been tracking for a couple of years now. We've been dealing with tariffs of one form or another consistently since 2017. We've been attacking them very actively and aggressively with a balanced cost out and price approach. The list for tariffs, I'm sure there will be more emerging in the coming days in terms of specifics, but our tracking of them here is that anything coming out of that will be smaller than the amounts we've dealt with with list one, two, three and [indiscernible] with tariffs we would expect to manage them as effectively as we've managed previous tariffs.In 2018 we offset roughly $45 million to $50 million worth of tariff expense in total inflation. This year we'll have about $60 million of total tariff-only inflation and we'll offset this year and navigate it. There's no change at the guidance that's driven with tariffs. The 25% tariff uptick was three, was something we obviously were aware it could happen this year. It came about probably a bit more abruptly than twe would have thought of, but we're dealing with it with cost out and with pricing.

Chris Klein

Analyst · Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open

With that said on our approach here, we've taken a very methodical balanced approach to move our supply chains and de-emphasize China we think is a long term trend, so we've been working this for the last two to three years and then we talk before our incremental approach to pricing. So we take frequent smaller price increases and that combined with our supply chain changes have offset the tariffs and positioned us well in the market to continue to grow. So we're competitive in our market, we're growing ahead of our market while at the same time offsetting the impact of the tariff. We think that's a really competitively sound approach and we've had a lot of success with it.

Justin Speer

Analyst · Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open

Okay. And one follow-up question for me if I can get to sneak one in. On the Doors & Security business, how much of that headwind to the margins from investments. I don't know if you're going to pack that with some investments in the business versus the tariffs and the mixed drag in terms of the full year expectation just thinking about the phasing of these new investments and then maybe the actual revenue benefit. Maybe help us think about how you think that phases in this year or next year?

Chris Klein

Analyst · Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open

I would say that really, we tuned up the margin expectation on that business only slightly due to both some of the weather losses; we don't fully expect to recover this year and some of the investments [indiscernible] expect to make at the end of the year. When we came out with our original guidance for that whole segment, we're sitting on roughly 100 basis points, the margin improvement versus 2018 which was roughly 14% and we'll be in the 13.5%-ish for that business -- call it 50 basis points. But it's really driven by a weather softened second quarter and some of the investments were going to be both making in capacity and feel the sales and marketing as we roll out some new distribution agreements. Going forward, that segment in total should be tracking to 15% plus over the next three years with the decking business swimming along right at the average of the whole segment.

Justin Speer

Analyst · Justin Speer from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open

Thank you, guys. Really appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Michael Dahl

Analyst · Michael Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is just around the Cabinets business and understand the comments around the guy that just specifically related to Cabinets, the scenario where as you pivoted, there have been some concerns about the ability to really ramp up growth and margin. It was never going to be quite linear yet tough comps here as well. But can you just give us a little more detail about what you're seeing that gives you confidence that the plans that you have laid out in the investor day are still on-track here?

Chris Klein

Analyst · Michael Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Yes. I'd say we're pretty excited about where the Cabinet business has gone the first half of the year. The stock value part of the market which is now for us about half of our business grew 12% of the quarter. That's much stronger than what we had anticipated and it's a success of position in that market. We're taking share, executing well, that's just not in stock in home centers, that's also through dealers that's the builder market. Where we're going to is accelerating faster. The soft part of the market which is semi-custom premium special order declined high single digits which is consistent with where we think the market was overall. That's our plan. So we call that out a couple of years ago and that part of market is decreasing. That decrease in this softer market overall accelerated a bit. So our reaction to that is we're investing more in capacity in Mexico and then our DA system in the U.S. to support that stock business and we're moving even faster to take capacity out in the part of the market that's not growing in that semi-custom part of the marketplace. Actually, everything is consistent with where we've been driving this business for the last two years and if anything accelerated in second quarter, we think it will continue to move into the second half.One thing I've noticed, we've talked a bit about the China imports. We think the impact of some of the tariffs that are already in place are slowing that and we await the -- out of the commerce on the anti-dumping and we think that's beneficial as well. We've noted in the market that less of that product is coming into the market and that will work its way into less relevance down…

Michael Dahl

Analyst · Michael Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Thanks for the comprehensive answer. Chris, that is helpful. And then my second question, just if I brought it out a bit, Nick, I think this is your first time on the call. You outlined in your prepared remarks a number of different initiatives. I think some of them have been under way. Some of them are newer. Can you talk a little bit more about as you've gotten deeper into your new role, what are few of the initiatives that you highlighted where you'd look at those and you really point out some that are real needle movers and then what are some of the other things that you've seen over this past few months that maybe you do differently moving forward?

Nicholas Fink

Analyst · Michael Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Sure. I'm happy to talk about that. I'll sit back for a second and just say and be in this role and looking across, it's hard not to be excited by how well our teams are executing across the businesses in the softer market while they're also moving some really big growth initiatives going forward and making significant. If you look at all of that happening in the results; while they're really moving those big initiatives, that sets itself to accelerate really quickly as the market accelerates. So that's just a great and a lot of times [indiscernible], but then as you mentioned in addition, we're also working on a number of initiatives across spending more time with the customers together. We're sharing insights, we're leveraging the relationships that we have across business to open up new points of distribution and new types of programming.We're also I think doing a better job leveraging across the business in doing things like developing our ecommerce flexibilities which we've grown up in different parts of the segment geared towards different parts of the market that are very leverageable capability. Same applies also for connected home products. We've bulked that up in different parts of Security and plumbing. Those teams are now working more closely together to develop the next gen of products leveraging the capabilities that we felt.The cost side, we're also driving incremental value here by really leveraging our indirect spending power much better across the entire enterprise and then you put those into the backdrop of just working hard at the strategies that are articulated during our investor day in Boston which I think is proven to be spot on. [Indiscernible] constantly looking for opportunities then on and accelerate those strategy a lot of time there. And then as we move through the strategic planning cycle, really working on what is the next horizon of growth. So you sum all that together, really encouraging to have really solid performance in the soft market while building initiatives which set us up to accelerate really nicely if the market picks up.

Michael Dahl

Analyst · Michael Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Phil Ng from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Phil Ng

Analyst · Phil Ng from Jefferies. Your line is open

Hi, guys. Can you give us a sense where you are with your price increases for the full 25% tariffs? The reason why I'm asking is because of yours report, it seem like they saw a bigger list on margins with costs associated with the tariffs not really coming in later in the year and they got pricing now. Not sure if your approach of smaller increases had an impact.

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Phil Ng from Jefferies. Your line is open

Phil, it's Pat. There are a few areas where we're working price increases in on the 25% range, but our approach is balance. So we have been aware at 25%, was a potential outcome for the year, then we're going to cross all of our businesses on a mix of cost and price and there's a few areas where people have some second half pricing coming in, but it's not the only way we're addressing the 25% tariff. Consistent with our guidance at the beginning of the year and our guidance coming out of the first quarter, we're going to address inflation inclusive of tariffs with a mix of cost in freight. The total amount of inflation for the year inclusive of commodity, inflation, tariffs and logistics is around $100 million and we'll address as I mention, the balance cost and price approach by the end of the year.

Phil Ng

Analyst · Phil Ng from Jefferies. Your line is open

Got it. Okay, that's helpful color. And just given the success you've had in the pivoting Cabinets, I think if I heard you correctly, you're expecting growth or Cabinet. Your Cabinets business to track more in-line with the market. One, did I hear you correctly, I would have thought helps you outpace the market and given how strong the value side of things has been, are you planning to make an even larger pivot going forward? Thanks.

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Phil Ng from Jefferies. Your line is open

Well, we're certainly accelerating the pivot as Chris was mentioning on both prepared remarks and some Q&A response. I think we've been surprised this year at the strength and demand of the segments to which we're pivoting as a softness and the custome and semi-custom arena. We're pivoting strongly to address both of those dynamics. We've said all along that our focus is first and foremost on driving margin improvement and growing with the market and that's still our strategy. We expect the Cabinet market to be in the low single digit this year and we expect our Cabinet business to go 1% to 2% this year, somewhat is being muted by Canada, but we feel like that's broadly in-line with the markets in which we play and we're going to be focused on margin improvement. And we signal both at the beginning of the year and on the second quarter call which we usually don't try and signal too much quarterly guidance. We knew in the middle of the year we'd be going through transitions as we ramped up new capacity in Mexico, as we brought in a new entry price point product line as a dealer channel and as we transition a big chunk of supply chain out of China and had to address some inventory build associated with that. All those dynamics are coursing through the margin in the middle of the year, it's in-line with our expectations and a business that generated first half margins around 9.3%. We'll generate back half margins in the 10.5% to 11% range and finish the year around 10% and we've guided people to think of our Cabinet progressions more half-year increments sending quarterly increments. I would say that's going to be the case not just in fiscal 2019, but even as we go through fiscal 2020.

Phil Ng

Analyst · Phil Ng from Jefferies. Your line is open

Got it. Okay, thanks a lot.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Michael Rehaut

Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan. Your line is open

Thanks. Good afternoon and thanks for taking my question. First I just wanted to try and get maybe a little bit of a finer point around from a segment level what's driving some of the changes in consolidated guidance because overall, I believe when you think about the segment, top line guidance, seems like you reiterated plumbing on the top line as well as doors in Security, maybe Cabinets now of 1% to 2% maybe versus prime, maybe up 3% to 4%. Are we also to take it that in terms of just backing into the overall consolidated sales growth going down by about a point or so that in plumbing in Doors & Security that high teens growth for Doors & Security to mid-high single digits for plumbing, maybe that's skewing a little bit more to the lower end?

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan. Your line is open

Mike, there has been adjustment across all of the segment. It's a bit less-pronounced in plumbing just because plumbing competes in China and China has remained strong. But I think you're generally in the right direction. I think you should think of Cabinets for the full year in the 1% to 2% range. You have plumbing. You should have the 5.5% to 6.5% range and Doors & Security I would say you're in the 15.5% to 16.5%, maybe 17% range depending again on how some of the distribution gains play out. And that's going to get you in the 5.5% to 6.5% range for the enterprise in total, but there's no single big adjustment in one chunk of a market. I think we're acknowledging in the decking world where you have an ultra-rainy second quarter. You don't get that back and plumbing doesn't adjust as much as maybe some of the others because it has China exposure, but other than that, it's pretty much across the board.

Michael Rehaut

Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan. Your line is open

It's helpful. Thanks so much, Pat. I guess secondly, I just wanted to focus in on some of the investment and new distribution sign ups for the Fiberon. Just trying to get a sense, number one, what type of drag that might represent on the doors and securities segment in terms of the investment that's [ph] drag that might have been if it has had an impact on Q2 and the second half of the year and then conversely in terms of your new customer or distributor signups. How should we think about what that impact -- how that might impact the segments growth prospects for 2020?

Chris Klein

Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan. Your line is open

Sure, happy to address that, Mike. The Fiberon business we've owned for, I guess about 10 months now. And when we bought the business, we said, is a very solid operating company. But you know, they didn't have a strong presence at all in wholesale and didn't have a strong brand and could use some help on innovation. In the last 10 months, we've done some extraordinary things there. We've signed up a number of new distributors and really leveraging the Therma-Tru distribution system. And so it's not just -- we announced on last week, which was of significance but if you take all the new business that we've contractually signed up in the last 10 months, it ramps to over $100 million dollars incrementally. Kind of business that we bought that'll do about $200 million this year. So it's a 50% increase over the next 3 years. So it’s massive. As it sits here today, we're blown away with the success we're having at Fiberon. It's a big deal.So we're having to put more capacity and the support business out west, some business in the east, expansion of the product line. And so it had modest impact in second quarter. It'll have a little bit more impact in the second half or to start ramping a lot of this product distribution coming out of the -- into the fourth quarter, but more importantly in the 2020. And we'll give full detail of that when we give the 2020 guidance but this is not incremental and kind of interesting. This is setting up to position us as we thought all along as a really strong number 2 in the market overall. That's why we bought the business. We've had more success than we thought so I think that's kind of the general. I don't plan on giving any more detail on the incremental impact. But to the context of -- I've said all along, the best investments we make with our capital is into organic growth. And I haven't seen this kind of tremendous opportunity in organic growth in our company in a really long time. So every incremental dollar I can put into capacity in this market right now, I'm going to vector into it. And so [indiscernible] have a little bit of a drag. It's a great drag. I love it. I am usually enthusiastic if you can pick that up.

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan. Your line is open

Yes, I mean, Mike, to put it in context for the year we'll spend an incremental mid-single-digit millions but we're doing it to take a $200 million business and make it a $300 million business in the course of 3 years. And as I said, we would expect in that time frame for it to be driving and ROI margin north of 15% if not on the high side of that percentage range. So we feel like these are wise investments with short payback. We've signed up some great channel partners and we fully anticipate supporting them with capacity inventory and field resources so they can be successful.

Michael Rehaut

Analyst · Michael Rehaut from JPMorgan. Your line is open

That's great to hear. And obviously, these types of investments that you've made in the past it played out very well. So thanks for all the detail.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open.

Michael Wood

Analyst · Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open

Hi, thanks for taking my question. I wanted to ask you about ad spending in plumbing and second quarter just how is fair relative to your normal cadence and how that might look in the second half relative to the current run rate?

Chris Klein

Analyst · Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open

Sure, ad spending in the second quarter for plumbing? That was the question?

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open

Yes. I don't know but I could say the number with precision. All of our businesses have been focusing their expenses thoughtfully. And the plumbing business has been prioritizing innovation and ad spending on the hero for water campaign. We tend to be on a full year basis spending in the 10s of millions less than 50. And there was nothing about the second quarter that was higher or lower than what we typically expected throughout the course of the year.

Chris Klein

Analyst · Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open

When I look at all about the hero for water campaign, is it has driven some really impressive results. Millennial and female consumers and so we will continue to invest behind that campaign and it really is moving the needle, particularly then when coupled with some of our innovation which really drive holistically to support the brand and it's required that we kind of move this thing forward.

Michael Wood

Analyst · Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open

Okay. And also you talked about the direct impact that you're managing well from tariff. How are you thinking about the cumulative impact that's having on the consumer and how that might impact housing demand later this year and into next year?

Chris Klein

Analyst · Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open

Sure. I think there is a limit on pricing that you can push through. And that's why we've taken a balanced approach over the last couple of years, both aggressively moving on supply chain and then incrementally taking price so that you're not overwhelming the consumer with big price increases. I think our channel partners are taking an equally measured approach. So I think effectively, we're kind of working through it. You got to balance it in terms of affordability, as well with lower interest rates. There is wage inflation that's increasing so the consumer is taking home a bit more, especially with the lower taxes. So in terms of overall affordability, those metrics look a lot better this year than they did at this time last year, and so I think, we're moving through it. I don't think this latest round is going to have us toward a tipping point. And I think for us in particular, we're going to remain very competitive, given the measured pace that we've taken on pricing.

Michael Wood

Analyst · Michael Wood from Nomura Instinet. Your line is open

Great, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your final question comes from the line of Jon Rovello from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Jon Rovello

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Guys, thank you for squeezing me in here. First question is, there is a lot of talk about Canada on the call today. I was curious if you see the market kind of in a similar light to what's going on in the US where some of the data on the new construction site at least in Canada seems to be improving a bit? And if you think that it's just a matter of a quarter or two before we start seeing a little bit of improvement on the R&R side. And then maybe along those same lines, if you could just help us kind of dimension the exposure you guys have to Canada in each of your segment.

Chris Klein

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Yes, just on the macro part. The Canadian government, going back over a year, put in place some measures to discourage foreign investment in the housing market and really tried to suppress the bubble that they saw emerging, especially in some of the hottest markets. And it worked. So they've been very effective taking the housing market down. And so that'll eventually annualize and so we'll see some signs of improvement there. As it annualizes those actions were kind of looking at this kind of one time actions to deflate the market. So we'll live it for the balance of this year. Let that needle stabilize as it annualizes. Pat, you want to give any more.

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Yes. I mean, Jon, we have about 10% of our total enterprise exposed to Canada. That has driven 15 to slightly more than 15 in plumbing and a little bit more than 10 in cabinets. So it's really driven by cabinets and plumbing. And for plumbing, it is a big important market for us. We have a very high share in that market. Every bit as high as our US share, if not higher. And then cabinets -- we participate, particularly in new construction and particularly in the western part. And as Chris was mentioning, their housing dynamics have been flowed more with foreign buyers and natural resources in particular oil. So we don't read the Canadian market as a proxy for the US market. They have their own set of dynamics. I do think we'll start copying those much more easily by the fourth quarter of this year but I still expect them to be low growth in the fourth quarter and into next year and with a really tough in the third quarter. But I think Canada will work its way out of its housing market situation based on how it navigates foreign buyers and based on the price of oil and other natural resources. I think it's not analogous to the US.

Jon Rovello

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Okay, that's helpful. And then maybe just one last one here. You took the top-line expectations in slightly and also the EPS expectations. I didn't hear anything on EBITDA. Was there any update there?

Pat Hallinan

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

It's proportional. We would have guided you to around 950 at the start of the year and 930-ish now but it's all proportional to the sales and the EPS adjustments.

Jon Rovello

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Got it. Thanks, guys.

Chris Klein

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

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