Alan J. M. Haughie
Analyst · Bank of America Securities
Thanks, Brad. I'd also like to add my congratulations to everyone who contributes to LP's strong safety culture. Safety is, of course, it's a reward, but a full trophy case is a nice bonus. Okay. On Page 17 (sic) [ 7 ] of the presentation, you'll see that the second quarter for Siding was one of continued growth. But beyond that, there aren't that many other moving pieces. Revenue increased year- over-year by 11%, with 2% from price and 8% from volume. The volume increase added $35 million of revenue at nearly a 50% incremental EBITDA margin. Both the housing and repair and remodel markets were softer than off-site construction, which includes sheds and manufactured housing. And this mix shift slightly dampened the price benefit of another record quarter for ExpertFinish. But the pure price bar on the waterfall is really the only place where this adverse mix shows up because it was actually margin accretive in the quarter. We invested $2 million more in sales and marketing and saw another $2 million in minor inflationary costs with freight and labor inflation offsetting improved raw material costs. And of course, the tariff situation remains unchanged from the first quarter, and it is tariffs that comprise the bulk of the $4 million in the other bar. Looking through the fairly straightforward waterfall, it was a record quarter for SmartSide volume, revenue and EBITDA, with growth and leverage generating margin expansion. The EBITDA margin of 27% was not a record because LP's Siding mills are still not fully utilized. Continued growth in share gains with the corresponding leverage from higher utilization rates should, all else equal, drive margin increases. That is until they are temporarily dampened again by the cost and lower utilization associated with the starting of the next mill. In the grand scheme, this is, of course, a good thing, but it's a phenomenon we like to describe as the rising sign wave of siding margins. The OSB waterfall on Page 8 is once again dominated by commodity OSB prices, which, as I'm sure you're all aware, have fallen to multi-year lows. Even the $7 million of other in the far right bar on the waterfall is mostly the impact of price on inventory valuation, so price by another name. However, EBITDA of $19 million in the quarter meaningfully outperformed LP's algorithmic guidance, mostly due to exceptional cost control measures at the mills and the lag effect in price realization induced by our order file dynamics. In other words, when prices fall steadily as they did in the second and third months of the quarter, this lag provides a small but temporary silver lining. The current demand and pricing environment for OSB is unusually difficult, likely exacerbated by tariff uncertainty and elevated interest rates. We obviously have no control over commodity OSB prices. But as Brad said, we've consistently demonstrated that LP has the strategic clarity and operational efficiency to manage our capacity with discipline and agility, and we'll do our best to navigate the soft OSB market as we have done in many previous down cycles. So the cash flow slide on Page 9 is also pretty clean with seasonal reductions in working capital, net of tax payments, adding $20 million to the $142 million of EBITDA for operating cash flow of $162 million. This cash flow juxtaposed against current commodity OSB prices is a remarkable testament to LP's transformation and highlights the value of Siding's consistent growth, pricing power, and margin expansion through operating leverage. And we use this cash for consistent execution of our capital allocation strategy. We invested $68 million in CapEx in the quarter and returned $19 million to shareholders through dividends. With $1.1 billion in liquidity, including $333 million of cash as of June 30, LP is comfortably positioned to invest as needed in new siding press capacity, increased pre-finishing capabilities or other options to support and accelerate growth in Siding and execution in OSB, which brings me to our updated guidance on Page 10. Based on the order file we see before us today, we are reaffirming our full year Siding guide of about $1.7 billion in revenue and about $430 million in EBITDA. We continue to anticipate a normal-ish seasonal demand pattern with volume roughly flat to last year's third quarter, which you recall was the peak demand quarter in 2024, plus about 3% higher prices. This would produce about $430 million in third quarter sales revenue for 3% growth despite housing and repair and remodel outlooks that remain quite challenging. EBITDA of about $110 million would result in an EBITDA margin of roughly 26%. As for OSB, well, commodity prices are exceptionally low, especially for this time of year, which would generally be the peak of the building season. In fact, adjusted for inflation using the CPI, today's OSB prices are the lowest in at least 20 years. Now while we cannot control prices, we are doing everything we can to control costs and manage our capacity with agility and discipline. Current prices are well below our EBITDA breakeven level. And while we certainly hope that the price assumption in our algorithmic OSB guidance does not play out, we also think there is value in maintaining a consistent approach to OSB guidance in order to provide as much clarity as we can. So in the event that random length prices remain flat at their current record low level through the year-end, the OSB segment would see negative EBITDA of around $45 million in the third quarter and a bit worse than that in the fourth quarter as the price benefit of the time lag dissipates, which would bring EBITDA for the full year for OSB to a negative $25 million. Now I'd like to stress that this is a model, not a prediction and certainly not a signal that we're anything but relentless in our efforts to reduce costs across our OSB network. In fact, part of the cost control efforts in OSB will show up in reduced capital expenditures in the second half of the year. This will lower our total CapEx to roughly $180 million for growth, which is still mostly in Siding, of course, and $170 million in sustaining maintenance for a full year total of $350 million, which is about $60 million lower than our prior CapEx guidance. Before taking questions, I would like to close with this. The demand environment is weakening somewhat, most acutely in OSB. But this only highlights the value of LP Siding segment, where growth driven by material conversion, product innovation and share gains lets SmartSide continue to outperform the market, rain or shine. And with that, I'll open the call for questions.