Earnings Labs

Masco Corporation (MAS)

Q1 2016 Earnings Call· Tue, Apr 26, 2016

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Masco Corporation's First Quarter 2016 Results Conference Call. My name is Stephanie and I will be your operator for today's call. As a reminder, today's conference call is being recorded for replay purposes. I will now turn the call over to Director of Investor Relations, Irene Tasi, Director of Investor Relations. Irene, you may begin.

Irene Tasi - Director-Investor Relations

Management

Thank you, Stephanie, and good morning to everyone. Welcome to Masco Corporation's 2016 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Joining me today are Keith Allman, President and CEO of Masco; and John Sznewajs, Masco's Vice President, Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer. Our first quarter earnings release and the presentation slides that we will refer to during the call are available on the Investor Relations portion of our website. Following our prepared remarks, the call will open for analyst questions. As a reminder, we would appreciate it if you would limit yourself to one question with one follow up. If we are unable to take your question during the call, please feel free to call me directly at 313-792-5500. I'd like to remind you that statements in today's presentation will include our views about Masco's future performance, which constitutes forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. We have described these risks and uncertainties in our risk factors and other disclosures in our Form 10-K and our Form 10-Q that we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Today's presentation also includes non-GAAP financial measures. Any references to operating profit, earnings per share or cash flow on today's call will be as adjusted unless otherwise noted, with a reconciliation of these adjusted measurements to GAAP in our quarterly press release and presentation slides, which can be found in the Investor Relations section of our website, www.masco.com. With that, I'll now turn the call over to our President and Chief Executive Officer, Keith Allman. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you, Irene, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide four, we carried last year's momentum into 2016 and we're off to a strong…

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Samuel Eisner with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Yeah, good morning everyone. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning, Sam. Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs & Co.: So, on the Cabinets business, your guidance is for 8% to 9%. It seems as though expense timing already gets you toward that high end of that range based on your guidance. And so I'm just curious, can you walk through what the puts and takes are for the remainder of the year perhaps touching on some of the already announced cost savings as well as underlying incrementals for the Cabinets business going forward? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sam, as we mentioned, there was a deferral of marketing spend of about $4 million. So, that's certainly benefited us in this quarter and then we will have that expense in the following quarter. We are focused on growing this business. We're making a pivot here, and we're investing behind that growth. So, we will be seeing further investments as we drive growth. And you can expect to model this business going forward in that 30% to 35% level of contribution margin dropdown in incrementals. Samuel H. Eisner - Goldman Sachs & Co.: Got it. And then just a follow-up on paint. You've seen some of your other competitors talk about traction with TiO2 price increases in the market. Can you comment a bit about what you're seeing in the market and also the implications that it might have on your 2017 goals? Thanks. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, we're pretty confident that the material costs have bottomed, and we are experiencing significant cost pressure from our major suppliers on TiO2 and resins as well. I think when you look at where we're driving growth in particular with this business and the Pro channel as we have talked before, we are doing a nice job there of driving that growth. And it is lower margin for us while a great return. So, we're going to continue to invest behind that. So, there is some margin pressure that we're seeing both in terms of the commodities as well as our mix as we drive that growth.

Operator

Operator

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

Michael Jason Rehaut - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Thanks. Good morning, everyone, and nice quarter. First question I had was just kind of taking a step back and looking at the progress here and thinking about the 2017 goals that you've laid out. It would appear that with all the progress and certainly the positive margin momentum that you're on your way, I just wanted to get a sense of – I think last quarter you reiterated your outlook for your ability to hit that goal. I wanted to know if that was still the case and just kind of talk through any of the puts and takes on that goal as we sit here today relative to when you issued it about a year ago. Thanks. And also then I have a follow up. Sorry. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Sure. We're positive on the underlying fundamentals driving the business. When you look at our expectation at R&R growth rate of about 5%, there may be some upside to that, but I think it's a little too early to call. I'd like to see a little more time before we move off of that expectation in terms of the R&R growth. We are seeing good new construction growth. Our estimate is 10% compared to 2015, and we're seeing that. And we're seeing a shift in that market mix in new construction to be more single family laden versus commercial, and that helps us. We have higher content per unit in that and better mix in that. So the fundamentals are strong. R&R is 80% of our businesses. Home prices are appreciating as we talked about. Demographics are improving. Affordability is still very favorable. And our capacity is in shape as we talked about in the past. We're ready for this uplift. So,…

Michael Jason Rehaut - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Nice. That's helpful. Thanks, John. I guess just secondly, you mentioned the timing of expenses both in Cabinets and Delta, and the Plumbing business. I think you said that you expect the Cabinet – that timing of expenses to impact 2Q. Is that the same for Delta and is there any other type of timing issues that we should anticipate for the second quarter? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Yes, no other timing issues, Mike. I would tell you that the $4 million, while not a huge number, will probably be spread across a couple of quarters. There's just some products that will be coming to market and those are really launch costs related to those new products. And so depending on when those come to market, we'll incur those. The Delta $5 million, yes, I think will largely be deferred into the second quarter of the year. But beyond those two, nothing else of a timing issue.

Michael Jason Rehaut - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst · JPMorgan. Your line is open.

Great. Thanks. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Yes.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Kim with Barclays. Your Iine is open.

Stephen S. Kim - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your Iine is open.

Yes, thanks very much, guys. Good strong quarter. I wanted to ask a little bit if I could just follow up on those timing charges. I think you itemized I think $9 million or whatever, $5 million in Delta and another $4 million in Cabinets. I was curious if we sort of back that out, the impact on the overall margin, gross margin, doesn't seem like it would be that significant, only about 50 basis points or so, which still leaves your gross margin this first quarter at a very high level. Historically it seems that the first quarter gross margin is generally the lowest of the year, and so I was curious as to whether or not you felt that was also likely to be the case this year, or if there was something else that was likely to drive that gross margin down later in the year. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Well, I think, Stephen, as you take a look at several things that impact our gross margin, I think the one that probably most dramatically impacted the favorable gross margin in the first quarter of this year was the commodity environment that we find ourselves in. As you probably realized, most of the commodities bottomed in January of this year as the year got off to a pretty choppy start with the overall stock market and economic environment. And since that time, we've seen a pretty consistent rise in both base metals, some of the hardwood, and as Keith reference add couple minutes ago, we're seeing it also in TiO2 that goes into our paint business. So, I think, with raw materials slowly inflating, they're not dramatically inflating but starting to inflate, I think, that will add some pressure on our gross margin going forward. That said, to your point, the first quarter is seasonally typically our slowest quarter of the year, and as we enjoy the seasonal volumes that come with the second and third quarters, I think, there's potential to have stronger gross margins as the year continues to unfold. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I would add to that, Stephen, that while we are seeing some upward pressure on the raws, our mix is holding quite well, and that's also a driver of some of that favorable gross margin. When you look at our Windows business, which is obviously a big ticket, our wellness business and spas, I think that's a good indicator of the stability of our mix. So, there's a couple things going in opposite direction there. We think we're going to hold our mix. We don't anticipate that slipping, but we are experiencing pressure in raw materials.

Stephen S. Kim - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your Iine is open.

Okay. Well, that sounds like it's, all things combined, going to be a pretty positive. You'll still wind up on the positive side of the ledger. I guess my next question relates to your comment about the Cabinet incremental investments and your guidance for 8% to 9% this year in margins, which seems a little low relative to what you did in the first quarter. I was curious if you could talk a little bit more about what you meant by pivoting to growth and if you could talk about, is that something that has changed in your view or just sort of the next step in your strategy for Cabinets and if your thinking has evolved at all about whether or not the segment is core in your opinion or not? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: As we've talked about for some time now, our focus and the team's focus in Cabinets is to improve our profitability and the quality of the earnings and get that business in shape to compete. We've worked hard on our processes underlying how we work, we've worked hard on our product assortment, and we certainly have made significant improvements in our leadership team there. And as is often the case, I think, in situations like this, to get in shape that sometimes means you need to get better before you get bigger. And we've done, I think, a pretty good job of doing that. So the change in focus on growth is really more of a next step and an evolution of our thinking based on how we've gotten ourselves fit and ready for the ring and ready to get in there and compete for growth. And that's how I'd characterize it, more as a next step as we've earned the right to grow.

Stephen S. Kim - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst · Barclays. Your Iine is open.

Okay, great. Well, thanks very much, guys. Looking forward to it Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Stephen.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dennis McGill with Zelman & Associates. Your line is open.

Dennis Patrick McGill - Zelman Partners LLC

Analyst · Zelman & Associates. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. Thank you. I guess, Keith, just carrying on that last comment you made there, just to clarify, the $60 million that you detailed, John, on the walkaway business in Cabinets, does that include the actions that you took in the third quarter or is that just related to the actions from this quarter? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: That includes, Dennis, the actions we took last year. So, as we laid out on the fourth quarter call, we thought we'd have about $20 million of incremental lost business. So think about it as an incremental $40 million to that $20 million, so a total of $60 million.

Dennis Patrick McGill - Zelman Partners LLC

Analyst · Zelman & Associates. Your line is open.

Okay. And then I guess in conjunction with going on offence, if you back that out then in this quarter, it still looks like the organic growth in the segment was low-single digits, probably trailing the overall market by a fair amount. So do you look at these actions that you've taken so far as being the last of the culling of the revenue? And from this point forward, once we lap that, you'd envision to be trending at least back towards market growth? That's the offensive component, or could there be more pruning as you continue to fix up the business? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Dennis, I think this is really the final pruning of the sales portfolio within this business. We are doing a similar exercise at our UK Cabinet business as well, so there might be a little bit of headwind with that later in the year. That said, I just want to remind you that our dealer sales were up high-single digits in the quarter and our retail business was up low-single digits in the quarter. So we did have pretty good growth in both aspects of our non-direct-to-builder business in the first quarter of the year.

Dennis Patrick McGill - Zelman Partners LLC

Analyst · Zelman & Associates. Your line is open.

Okay, great. And then on the paint side, can you maybe just detail – split out the volumes that you're seeing both on the DIY side and any variance you might be seeing between point-of-sale and inventory management there and then on the Pro side? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Obviously, Dennis, the first quarter is a little bit of an unusual one just given the ramp-up towards the end of the quarter to go into the spring selling season. And so we did see very good sell-through as well as sell-in into the quarter. As I mentioned in my prepared remarks, very strong exterior paint and exterior stain sales in the quarter driven by the favorable weather that we saw in the first quarter. And we also saw, as Keith mentioned, some – we launched some new products in the quarter; very good sell-through in that product category as well. So as we go into sort of the second quarter, inventory levels are right where we want them to be, very consistent with where we saw them at this point last year as we go into the spring selling season.

Dennis Patrick McGill - Zelman Partners LLC

Analyst · Zelman & Associates. Your line is open.

Okay, great. Thanks. Good luck, guys. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bob Wetenhall with RBC. Your line is open.

Robert Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, and fantastic quarter, Keith and John. You guys have made some tremendous headway in a relatively short amount of time. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Robert Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC. Your line is open.

Wanted to ask you on the paint business, you had a lot of – it seems like there's a bunch of things going on top line, like, you had some pull-forward into 4Q, yet you still had really good growth up 9%, and it sounds like the exterior business is strong. How should we think about organic volume growth during the quarter? And how do we think about top line moving forward given the fact you have a really tough comp? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yes, that's an important point you brought up, Bob, in terms of the comps that we're facing. Q2 of last year was a record quarter for us, up 6% last year. So that's a tough comp for us to lap. In the quarter that just completed, it's hard for us to estimate with extreme accuracy the effect of weather, but clearly that quarter that we just finished was one of the lightest winters we've seen nationally in a long time. So there was probably a couple points of benefit there. As we try to figure out what that is, we look at the exterior sales and they were extremely high when you look at the quarter over quarter comps. So there's a component of that. But we expect to continue to take share, particularly in our core business, as well as we've done consistently in our Pro business. And having said that, we do face a tough comp coming up. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Yes, and Bob, I would remind you, though, I don't think there's a ton of pull-forward into the first quarter of the year. If you recall, the fourth quarter was a relatively flat quarter for us last year and that had to do with some timing issues due to the preceding year 2014. So I think overall, the fourth quarter from an organic basis was a pretty solid quarter.

Robert Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC. Your line is open.

Okay. And then just taking off that, if you're hitting a tough comp volume-wise year-over-year, so you're not going to get a lot of incremental volume growth on a gallon basis and you cited some mix headwinds and some cost pressures on TiO2. How should we think about your operating margin moving forward? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: I think from here operating margins, because of what Keith cited, as a result of some of the pressures we're facing on the commodity input side, that I think you'll see that our margins come under some pressure over the course of the next several quarters as we deal with those cost pressures. That said, hopefully as we get into the spring selling season, our MARQUEE volume has been very strong, which is a nice favorable mix for us. And if we see a better paint selling season than we saw in 2015, that kind of volume could help us negate some of those. But generally speaking, I would think about margin pressure in the near term and the longer term in this segment. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think, Bob, more in line with what John said in terms of the pressure that we're seeing combated somewhat by the MARQUEE mix benefit that we have that we are seeing more gradual pressure than we are any kind of cliff or falloff of the margin.

Robert Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst · RBC. Your line is open.

That's helpful. John, you've taken net leverage down to 1.8 times, and I think in your prepared remarks on capital allocation, you guys mentioned acquisitions. I was hoping either yourself or Keith could just touch on what the pipeline looks like, the size of a deal you would do, and your appetite versus buybacks and reinvesting in the business. Thanks and good luck. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'd characterize, as we have consistently, our capital allocation strategy, Bob, is balanced. We have good generation of cash flow. And we expect M&A to play a part of our value creation as we go forward. We're focused and continue to be focused on bolt-on acquisitions with our pipeline targeted towards plumbing and paint, although we would look at others if it helped drive organic strategies. In terms of how we toggle back between buybacks and acquisitions, we have the flexibility if we saw a good deal and if that deal was bigger, we could certainly do it. But I'd tell you that we're being conservative in how we evaluate them. They need to be on strategy for our portfolio and they need to be strong returns. And we certainly evaluate those returns against what we think we can get with our own buyback. So I'd say that we haven't changed our focus to acquisition. We're working hard in developing the pipelines and contacting potential acquisitions and we're working the process. But we remain committed to balance, flexibility and our focus is on bolt-ons.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Susan Maklari with UBS. Your line is open.

Susan M. Maklari - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Good morning, Susan.

Susan M. Maklari - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

One thing that you've mentioned over this call is that you're definitely seeing an improved mix where you're getting consumers that are trading up to some of your better, best kind of options there. Can you just talk about those trends that you're seeing and maybe how is that contributing to the margins that we should be thinking about, especially in Cabinets? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I'll talk about some of the trends, and then, John, you can touch on some of the impacts on margin. Susan, it's broad-based. We're seeing consistent move-up in some of our lower-price per unit products. If you look at faucets, we're seeing a move up in the showroom to more expensive, more featured products, both in terms of finish as well as functionality, be it our touch technology or magnetized docking or our in2ition showers, all those higher margin, higher contented products. At that price point, we're seeing a move up as we talked about with BEHR MARQUEE. So in the lower price point range, we're seeing a mix up. In the bigger ticket items, we're also seeing it. Our KraftMaid Vantage program is doing very well and it's helping the consumer move up in terms of wood species, the finish level, content in terms of drawer guides, et cetera. So I would characterize it clearly as broad based across the continuum. From a channel perspective, we're also seeing it. We have favorable mix in retail. Clearly in our Plumbing wholesales, we're seeing the favorable mix. We've talked about our dealer network in wellness, and we've got a couple new spas that are out. And people are willing to pay for that value. So I would characterize the mix move-up across really all of our segments and across…

Susan M. Maklari - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Okay. And then in terms of Milgard, you've noted that you're gaining some share there. How sustainable do you think that is and who do you think you're actually taking that business from? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Milgard's got a fantastic position in the Western U.S., Susan, as I think you're very well aware. And as we grow that business in the Western U.S., I think we're taking share from a number of competitors. Clearly, it's a highly fragmented business, and we're taking share from some of the smaller competitors, but at the same time, just given our growth, I feel like we're probably taking share from some of our more mainline competitors as well. The Milgard team has done a great job of refocusing the business away from the production builders and really more toward remodelers and the custom builders, and so we've really enjoyed very nice growth with both of those customer segments in the last year to year and a half.

Susan M. Maklari - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst · UBS. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America. Your line is open.

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open.

Hi, everyone. Good morning. Thanks for all the details and congratulations on the progress so far. Two questions for you: First, for you, John, we always talked about the SG&A leverage that the company has been exerting over the last number of years, and once again you had SG&A as a percentage of sales down. Does there come a point where you have to start investing in corporate and SG&A in general to keep up with the revenue growth? And a related point, how much did FX serve to trim in dollar terms the SG&A level that you had in the first quarter? Second question in Decorative Arch and in particular in paint, you mentioned that you have to invest in the business. You have some initiatives to invest within in the second quarter. Is there any way to size what level of investment you're considering there or what the focal points are for that in 2Q and 3Q? Thank you. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Yes, George, you're right. We're really proud of how the entire team has responded to our SG&A initiatives. And we have done a nice job of controlling costs as we've grown the business. What I'm most proud of particularly in the first quarter is the fact that we did a nice job of holding SG&A as a percent of sales or having it decline despite the fact that we're investing in some of the programs that impact SG&A. For instance, I think we are now up to about 150 Pro sales reps in the BEHR organization to call on the Pro-oriented contractors. So incremental costs, yet the fact that we were able to bring the SG&A as a percent down really I think it gives a sense of how…

George Leon Staphos - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America. Your line is open.

Thank you, Keith. Good luck in the quarter. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Thanks, George.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl with Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Michael G. Dahl - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Hi. Thanks for taking my questions, and nice job in the quarter. I wanted to go back to Cabinets and maybe kind of frame the margin discussion around some of the long-term objectives. And you had outlined 7% to 10% I think last quarter, you stressed that that wasn't necessarily a ceiling, and clearly the 8% to 9% today, and people previously pointing out that that may even sound conservative. It doesn't take that many years of 30% to 35% dropdown to get back to a mid-teens margin in this business. So how are you thinking about just the next couple of years and the opportunity, especially with some of the improved mix and what's realistic as far as the path for that business? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think working this business over the next couple years to mid-teens is realistic, and we're driving in that direction. And importantly as I mentioned earlier, I really like the team there. And they're doing a great job, and the nature of the improvements that we're seeing are broad based. It's SG&A. Certainly it's manufacturing, conversion costs. We're working a lot on our wood yields and our finishing yields. We've invested into better quality system and our quality costs are coming down. And we're doing it – Joe and the team there are doing it with a process orientation. So, as I look at how we're doing it as far as what's been done, I'm confident that it's sustainable. And now as we start to work harder on our growth initiatives and we're seeing the results of that –…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Chan with Baird. Your line is open. Josh K. Chan - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Hi. Good morning and congrats on a great quarter. We talked a little bit about weather in the Decorative business, but I was just wondering about what are your thoughts on how much weather might have helped in Q1 and maybe what trends you're seeing in April and that trajectory there? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Yeah, Josh, it's John. Beyond paint, it's really tough to get an assessment of how much weather benefited us in the first quarter in our other segments. As you would expect, most of our Plumbing business is focused on the remodeling channel and repair, and so when your faucet breaks, you repair it on a timely basis as opposed to weather. We may have had a little bit of benefit on the new construction side as I think the builders were able to button up a few more homes in Q1 than they normally would, but beyond that it's really tough to get a true assessment just given the nature of the products that we have. Josh K. Chan - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. Any color on whether the trajectory has continued into April? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: On the – I'm sorry, the weather or... Josh K. Chan - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): The demand trajectory. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: The demand trajectory? I'd say demand has been pretty consistent. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, we have – there's no – I think, Josh, you're talking…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Wood with Macquarie Capital. Your line is open.

Mike Wood - Macquarie Securities

Analyst · Macquarie Capital. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. A follow up to the trade-up (51:45) question you answered earlier. Can you compare the product mix you're selling now compared to where you were when housing was more normal historically? Thus, I'm asking, are you still cyclically depressed in terms of product mix? John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: So you're asking, Mike, just so I'm clear, you're asking maybe compared to 10 years, 11 years ago and what we're seeing today versus what we're seeing then?

Mike Wood - Macquarie Securities

Analyst · Macquarie Capital. Your line is open.

Yeah, basically how much more room is there in terms of product mix to get to a more normalized mix within portfolios like Plumbing and Cabinets? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think we're pretty close to normal right here. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Yeah. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Clearly when we went through the crash, there was a reduction in content per unit, cabinets per house, bathrooms per house, houses got smaller, et cetera. And there was a mix down. I think we've come back from that, and I would say that we're at about normal levels.

Mike Wood - Macquarie Securities

Analyst · Macquarie Capital. Your line is open.

Got it. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: It's tough to put a very finite metric on that, but, yeah, it feels like we're back to the normal levels.

Mike Wood - Macquarie Securities

Analyst · Macquarie Capital. Your line is open.

Okay. What are you doing now, like what stage are you in the Pro paint initiatives? Anything that you're working on right now to keep growing that? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I would say we're in the early stages of it because we see a lot of headroom. In terms of what are we doing to continue to grow that, in a nutshell we're leveraging one of the best partners in the space in The Home Depot, and one of the best supply chains in the space, which is BEHR's supply chain, and one of the best products. So we're continuing to do that on all fronts. We're putting in more resources in terms of focused Pros in the stores; we're putting in focused hub stores and high-speed tinting capabilities in our distribution centers so that we can deliver large quantities to the job site when required; we're working on the experience of the Pro in the store together with Home Depot. So we're continuing to move a ton of levers to drive this demand and it's working. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: Remember, Mike, our ultimate goal with Home Depot, whether it's on the DIY side or the Pro side, it's grow paint gallons. And that's their objective, that's our objective and we're aligning very closely with them to meet that goal.

Mike Wood - Macquarie Securities

Analyst · Macquarie Capital. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Keith Hughes with SunTrust. Your line is open.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust. Your line is open.

Thank you. Just one final question about the pivot to growth in Cabinets. Do you think your success will come more from the big box channel, the dealers? What area are you really focusing on first looking for growth? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Dealers is our focus, Keith. That being said, we have the leading share position in both retailers, and we're not resting on that. We're continuing to try to add more value so we're the best choice for more consumers through that channel and the best choice for those customers. So we're working on it. But as you know, the dealer segment is fragmented. It tends to be higher mix, and it tends to be a better channel for us. We think we have and we know how to grow in that channel. Now that we've got our assortment and our performance and the quality of the earnings back, so our focus is on the dealer, Keith, but of course we're not sleeping on big box.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust. Your line is open.

So looking at the dealers, you referred in another answer on assortments. Do you not need to improve the assortment particularly towards the upper end of the range? I mean, you got out of countertops which is a little bit different business, but is there going to be investment that's going to need to come there in order to hit that market harder? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: A big part of our upper end assortment with KraftMaid Vantage has been addressed and we've had that in the market for a good year now. And – or a little better. That helped us in a number of ways. Number one, it gave the ability to differentiate our dealers, the ability to differentiate from other channels because of the offering was directed towards them and was an exclusive offering to them where you can get, while not infinite, practically infinite heights and widths and depths. So it's a good point of sale for the dealers. And then we also bundled with that a pricing scheme that made it easier to sell and upgrade. So that's really what's been driving the benefit for us is that combination of exclusivity and ability to more easily get a consumer to step up in terms of price to go for that higher content. So I think that being said, we're not going to stop being on trend on some of the higher end finishes and continue to work in that area. So I think we're okay with KraftMaid and the upper end. We are working on the lower end, and we're working to continue to improve our Merillat assortment. The Merillat dealers are back and growing with us now, which I'm really happy about. The performance issues that we had are behind us, and then the long memories are starting to get behind us as well. So I don't know so much that it's targeted on the upper end as it is more broadly across the whole spectrum.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst · SunTrust. Your line is open.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

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

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Hey, guys. With two of your competitors in paint merging, what type of impact do you see in your business? I'm not expecting much, but I'm just curious to get your thoughts on that front. And would you be interested in any of the assets if there were any that were divested? Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Well, I'll meet your expectation, Phil, and not give you much. This deal hasn't gone through yet. It's very early in the transaction. So we're pleased with our paint brand. We think we're a tough competitor, and not a lot of comment on that. But I will tell you that as we have said before, our M&A pipeline is focused on bolt-ons where we can add value to organic strategy and bring synergies. And that specifically is focused, while we look at other segments, we're focused on paint and Plumbing. So should there be something available here, we could very possibly be interested.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Got you. John G. Sznewajs - Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer & VP: I would add to Keith's comments and say, hey, look, we think we've got a very good recipe for success within our paint organization. While we pay attention to the industry broadly, we're very focused on executing on our strategy of growing our paint business with our channel partner The Home Depot. And so while we're not blind to competition, we're focusing harder on our DIY products but we're also focusing very hard on our paint initiative because we think we've got great opportunities to continue to grow our paint franchise for the years to come.

Philip Ng - Jefferies LLC

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. And you mentioned Home Depot a big partner of yours. I believe they acquired Interline Brands last year which is a big Pro channel guy. Is that an opportunity down the road having more – a larger avenue to sell your business on the Pro channel side and would you be open into targeting a new channel outside of Pro as well as DIY down the road? Thanks. Keith J. Allman - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: I think Interline is a great opportunity for BEHR. When you look at our supply chain and our product assortment in the Pro, we think that we're tailor-made to add value to that. And we're working with The Home Depot to figure out how to do that, and I think that would be a great leverage for our product assortment and our supply chain. Okay?

Irene Tasi - Director-Investor Relations

Management

That concludes our call for today. Thank you, everyone.

Operator

Operator

This concludes Masco Corporation's first quarter 2016 results conference call. You may now disconnect.