John G. Sznewajs
Analyst · Robert W
Thanks, Tim, and good morning, everyone. If you could please flip to Slide 9, please. As Tim mentioned, revenue in the third quarter was flat compared to the third quarter of last year. Excluding the impact of foreign currency translation of about $46 million, sales were up 2%. And the real story behind our third quarter numbers is evidenced in most of our segments: There is significant difference in performance between our North American businesses, which are in the aggregate strengthening, and our international operations, which are a little bit more challenging. Overall, sales in North America were up 4% in the quarter as we saw increased revenues in our businesses selling into the new home construction market, including our Installation business which was up 9%. We also had increased sales in North American plumbing products and we realized selling price increases. As Tim mentioned, sales to key retailers were up low-single digits in the quarter. International sales were down 12% in U.S. dollars in the quarter, a decline of 3% in local currencies. The adjusted gross margins expanded nicely to -- by about -- by 110 basis points compared to the third quarter of last year to 26.5% due to improvement in our plumbing and decorative architectural businesses. We are also pleased with our bottom line performance as adjusted operating income increased 11% in the quarter to $142 million, with an adjusted operating margin of 7.2%, the strongest quarterly company-wide margin we have reported in several years. And our adjusted EPS was $0.13 per share, an improvement of $0.04 per share from the quarter a year ago. If you could please flip to Slide 10, you can see the components of our operating income improvement in the quarter. We see net price/commodity improved $31 million in the quarter, largely driven by our Plumbing and Decorative Architectural segment. This $31 million reflects favorable year-over-year impact of our commodity hedge which was approximately $12 million positive in the quarter, with the balance of the improvement roughly split between our Plumbing segment, particularly our European plumbing businesses, and our Decorative Architectural segment. The $16 million reduction in net volume/mix was principally driven by the negative mix impact of approximately $16 million in our Plumbing segment which, as we have mentioned in the past, largely relates to Hansgrohe as they continue to penetrate new international markets. This was partially offset by increased volume in our Installation segment. We captured $52 million of profit improvements gross in the quarter, in line with our expectations, and these were realized across all of our businesses. These improvements were offset by higher employee-related costs and expenses across all businesses, including benefits and compensation, specifically equity-based compensation given the increase in our share price, as well as incremental promotional and program costs related to new product introductions as we continued to invest to grow our company. We are pleased with our year-to-date profit improvement initiatives totaling $140 million and believe we are on track to achieve the $175 million for the full year, as we discussed in our second quarter earnings call. If you could please flip to Slide 11. You can see that, in our Plumbing segment, sales declined 4% in the quarter principally due to foreign currency translation. Excluding the impact of $37 million of foreign currency translation, sales increased 1% in the quarter. European sales in the segment were down 11% but flat in local currency for the quarter despite a challenging economic environment. North American plumbing sales were up 1%. One thing I should probably mention is that we are up against a very tough comp and sales, as reported in the Plumbing segment in the third quarter of '11, increased 12% due to both strong North American and international sales last year. This said, we continue to experience very solid North American growth. And several of our most important faucet brands -- Delta, Peerless and Brizo -- saw sales in the quarter increase high-single digits in both the retail and wholesale channels as they continue to gain share due to new product introductions. Tim mentioned we are very excited about the launch of a Delta-branded toilet program in the quarter. While this program is in its early stages, we are very pleased with the initial response to these terrific new products. This said, we lost some business in both our shower-surround and tub and along with our plumbing connections units, which aggregated approximately $15 million in the quarter. We would expect to incur an additional approximately $50 million in lost sales in each of the next 4 quarters. From an operating profit perspective, the favorable price/commodity relationship in the segment offset the negative impact of mix. Margins in the segment were challenged by 2 items in the quarter as we experienced incremental costs for the new programs of $5 million, including the toilet program I just mentioned, and the negative impact of foreign currency of $5 million. Removing the impact of these 2 items would improve adjusted operating margins to approximately 12.4%. Now turning to Slide 12. You can see revenue in our Decorative Architectural segment grew $26 million or 6% in the quarter, driven by strong sales of Behr's Premium Plus Ultra products, our Paint & Primer in One products, along with selling price increases. The new formulations Behr introduced earlier this year are performing well, exceeding expectations. As a result, we believe we have likely gained some share in retail in the quarter. Operating margin improvement was due to the benefit of improved results from our builders' hardware business, which had a tough 2011 and has seen good results here in 2012, and a favorable price/commodity relationship in the quarter partially offset by incremental investment. The price/commodity relationship in the segment was approximately $10 million favorable for the third quarter. On a year-to-date basis, we have realized a favorable $5 million of price/commodity relationship in this segment. Even with the recent pullback in the price of certain commodities, prices of these commodities remain in very elevated levels, though slightly off their Q2 peak and are, at today's levels, still higher than they were in the third quarter 2011. Despite the favorable price/commodity relationship in Q3, given the steep run-up in TiO2 and other input costs over the past several years, we have not recovered the inflation we have experienced in 2010 and 2011. If you turn to slide 13. You can see the environment for cabinetry remains challenging as our segment sales declined 5% in the quarter. Excluding the $8 million negative impact of foreign currency translation, Cabinet sales were down 2% in the quarter. Our European sales decreased 12% in local currencies and 21% in U.S. dollars. Cabinet sales in North America, however, were up 2% in the quarter. We experienced solid sales growth with our countertop initiatives. Our home center sales of cabinets increased 4% and our direct-to-builder sales were up low-double digits percent. This growth was partly offset by declines in the dealer channel. We continue to experience a sluggish demand for big ticket repair/remodel products, especially cabinets. The promotional environment in retail continued in the third quarter at the same levels we have experienced year-to-date, and we anticipate that our full year and second half 2012 promotional spend will be at levels very consistent with what we experienced last year. We improved our operating loss in the quarter by $1 million, and $20 million year-to-date. We realized $11 million of profit improvements gross in the quarter driven principally by our North American unit through our current year initiatives as well as the benefits we have realized from prior year restructuring activities. These benefits were offset by other inflation and negative price/commodity and the loss of leverage as a result of declining volumes in our European businesses. As Tim mentioned earlier, the new team at our North American Cabinet business continues its turnaround effort, resulting in the announced plant closure and headcount reductions, which should generate $20 million of improved operating results in 2013. If you turn to Slide 14, you see our Installation segment. And we are very pleased with the continued improvement in both the top and bottom line performance of this segment. We essentially broke even in the segment in the quarter, something we have not done since 2008, when housing starts exceeded 900,000 units. Segment sales grew 9% and were fueled by higher sales volumes across all lines of business: residential new construction, retrofit and commercial. Sales were negatively impacted from the previously announced closure of branch locations and the mix shift to multi-family starts, which on a combined basis reduced sales in the quarter by approximately 3%. Well, we continue to focus on increasing our Installation sales across all lines of business and we are well positioned to grow with the big builders, particularly D.R. Horton, Pulte, Lennar and KB. Installation contracting sales increased nearly 20% in the quarter. In addition to solid top line performance, management's strong execution delivered significantly improved bottom line results, adjusted operating profit improving by $12 million and adjusted operating margins expanding by more than 400 basis points. This segment exhibited very strong operating leverage in the quarter, delivering nearly 50% incremental margins resulting from increased fixed cost leverage as well as the benefits from our prior profit improvement activities, which are driving improved operational efficiencies. If you turn to Slide 15, you can see that our Other Specialty Products segment sales declined by 3% in the quarter. Excluding the exit of certain U.S. window markets late last year, segment sales would have been up 1%. Our North American window sales increased 9% in the third quarter due to increased sales in both the new home construction and replacement window markets, as well as new product introductions. We are particularly pleased that our new -- that our replacement window sales increased, reflecting share gains driven by new products despite what we believe is a replacement window market in the Western U.S. that declined mid-single digits in the quarter. We did experience some top line declines in our fastening tool business in the quarter, which we attribute to the soft replacement roofing market and some new inventory balancing in retail. We believe we have experienced no loss of share, though, in this business. And the segment adjusted operating margins improved by $2 million or 160 basis points, benefiting primarily from rationalization activities in our U.S. window business in the third and fourth quarters of 2011. With that, I'll turn the call back to Tim.