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Mohawk Industries, Inc. (MHK)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, Aug 7, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Mike, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome, everyone, to the Mohawk Industries' Second Quarter 2015 Earnings 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. As a reminder, ladies and gentlemen, this conference is being recorded today, Friday, August 7, 2015. Thank you. I would now like to introduce Mr. Frank Boykin, CFO. Mr. Boykin, you may begin your conference.

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Mohawk Industries' quarterly investor conference call. Today, we'll update you on the company's results for the second quarter of 2015 and provide guidance for the third quarter. I'd like to remind, everyone, that our press release and statements that we make during this call may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are subject to various risk and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those set forth in our press release and our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This call may include discussion of non-GAAP numbers. You can refer to our Form 8-K and press release in the Investor Information section of our website for a reconciliation of any non-GAAP to GAAP amounts. I will now turn the call over to Jeff Lorberbaum, Mohawk's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Jeff? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you, Frank. During the second quarter, Mohawk's performance was strong, particularly when considering the currency headwinds we faced. For the period, our earnings per share were $2.69, excluding unusual charges. The highest quarterly adjusted EPS in the company's history. On a constant exchange basis, revenues grew across all segments with second quarter net sales increasing approximately 7%. Our adjusted operating margin was approximately 14%, an increase of 21%, or 240 basis points, compared to the prior year, due to the performance of our differentiated products, higher volume, improved productivity and costs across the enterprise. In May, we completed the purchase of Kai, the leading position in the Bulgarian and Romanian markets as well as positioning us as a low-cost producer. In mid-June, we completed the acquisition of IVC, providing us with leading position in luxury vinyl tile, and sheet vinyl…

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Thank you, Jeff. Net sales for the quarter were $2.042 billion, slightly down at about 0.3%. They were up 4% on a pro forma basis using a constant exchange rate. All segments grew in local currency with FX reducing sales of approximately $141million in the quarter. Our gross margin was 30.1% as reported, or excluding charges 31%, that's up 260 basis points from last year with increased volume, better productivity and lower cost driving the improvement. SG&A, as reported, was $359 million, excluding charges, it was 17.2% of sales. That's up 20 basis points over last year as we are investing back into the business by expanding our sales force, and increasing sampling, and merchandising. Restructuring and acquisition costs were $27 million with about $19 million in cost of goods sold and $8 million in SG&A. Of the total, $14 million related to the IVC and Kai acquisitions, with the balance for plant closures in the Flooring North American segment and continuing integration plant closures with the Spano and Unilin businesses. We estimate $35 million to $40 million of additional restructuring in the last half of 2015. Our operating margin, excluding charges was 13.8%, up 240 basis points with FX impacting results by approximately $25 million, compared to last year. Our interest expense was $17 million, it's down about $4 million, due to the redemption of $254 million of our 2016 bonds last year, and the introduction of our U.S. commercial paper program, both yielding lower rates. Other expense was $3 million, unfavorable to last year by $4 million, due to transactional FX impacts. The income tax rate for the quarter was 24.3%, compared to 24.5% last year. We estimate the full-year tax rate to be 22% to 23% for 2015. And in 2016, we're estimating 24% to 25% as…

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of James Armstrong from Vertical Research.

James H. Armstrong - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on a good quarter. First question is, in U.S. flooring, costs were down in the quarter, like you said, for many of the grades. Did you see the impact of lower wood costs and do you expect to have to pass those lower costs along, or do you anticipate keeping the delta in those costs for the foreseeable future? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Was that a wood question or carpet question or both?

James H. Armstrong - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Wood question. It's a wood question and a little bit of both. So, if you could address wood and oil as well maybe. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Okay. Our U.S. wood sales and margins are growing. We're seeing growth in the engineered woods with new products improving our sales and mix. The market prices in the wood and carpet seem to be relatively stable at this point. Although, there are continued promotions, as well as competition in the commodity categories, as well as some mix decline in the various categories.

James H. Armstrong - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay.

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

We had a slight benefit from input costs in that segment.

James H. Armstrong - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay, so just a slight one. That helps. And then switching gears a little. In the Russian market that you compete in, what do you believe your market share has grown to at this point? And do you think there's still room for significant market share gains in that region? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Listen, the market in Russia is fractured. And we're the largest and we're somewhere in the mid-teens or a little more. So there's huge opportunities over there to grow the business.

James H. Armstrong - Vertical Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. That helps. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Stephen Kim from Barclays.

Stephen S. Kim - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks very much guys and congratulations on a strong quarter. My first question relates to the acquisitions that came in this quarter, KAI and IVC. I was curious if you could give us a little bit more color about what drove the upside to your previous guide. If you could give us a sense for – maybe update us on what you're expecting for the remainder of the year from the combined two. And with respect to IVC specifically, do you think there's the kind of operational improvements similar to what we've been seeing you doing in Marazzi at IVC? Or is it a different kind of a story there? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: So the acquisition results were slightly better than we expected. But our expectation, there is a lot moving parts when – at the time, we hadn't even closed the piece and knew what it was. So to give you a better view of the future, the acquisition earnings for the third quarter embedded in our guidance is about $0.20 a share to $0.25 a share to give you some basis to understand the future. With that, the organizations are really working well together. We're implementing best practices in-line to cross it. At the same time, we are absorbing start-up costs for the new LVT plant and new laminate manufacturing plant in the IVC acquisition. The IVC acquisition will not have the same synergies out of taking costs out. They were a highly efficient organization, so increasing the market share, broadening the business and selling more with it. We think the synergies, there are synergies, though, in leveraging the business relationships, the design capability, the transportation and distribution and then all the best practices across both businesses we'll learn from each other.

Stephen S. Kim - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. I appreciate that color. And then I guess the second question relates to your commentary about the sales growth. I think you had mentioned that you expected to see sales growth improving in all your segments. But did you mean if you zoom in on the Flooring North American portion, do you think that you're going to see sales growth in, let's say, resi commercial, resi remodel as well? And that comment about sales growth improvement in all three segments. was that ex-acquisitions or inclusive of acquisitions? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: No, I think that we'll see sales growth in all the categories. We've put a lot of effort into the carpet business to put out products and things that are improving. I think we're well positioned going into the fall with the pieces. So we think the rugs and hard surface categories are growing in the marketplace and we're growing our share within them. Offsetting that a little bit is the polyester products. The more we sell polyester relative to other products that swap them out, we and the industry end up with a lower revenue line because they sell at lower prices. So that's impacting both us and the industry.

Stephen S. Kim - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Great. Thanks very much, guys. Good job. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Wood from Macquarie Capital. Your line is open. Mike Wood - Macquarie Capital (USA), Inc.: Hi. Excellent execution, guys. Over the past three years, your SG&A has gone up by less than half of the sales increase. I imagine that's driven by a combination of that capital spending you've done and also integrating the acquisitions. I guess the question is, with SG&A having leverage over the past few years, what inning are you with the pay-off of that CapEx? I guess it's been about $1.1 billion over the past two years. And what attractive returns are you seeing in the proposals that the division presidents are giving you today from when you first started this accelerated CapEx? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: CapEx projects across the piece, some of them are in the expanding the capacities of the business like the new plant in the ceramic business or somewhere else. We also put in new capacity to manufacture more polyester product. So a portion of it's going to align the business with the revenues and the mix changes that are going in them. Then over the pieces, the projects range anywhere from typically two-year paybacks to five-year paybacks across the business, and they're all over. We think that we'll continue getting benefits from all these things over the next year. The large projects typically take x months to put them in plus get benefit. The ceramic business for instance, you start putting in a plant, it takes a year and half or so to put it up, it takes another year to ramp it up and get the benefits out of it on an existing business where we have the sales. You go into a new product…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Laura Champine from Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is open.

Laura Champine - Cantor Fitzgerald Securities

Analyst

Good morning. If we go back just for a hot second to the old segments, would the carpet business have shown a greater EBIT margin improvement, or would that be the Unilin North American business with stronger margin improvement in Q2? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, Laura, what we tried to do to stay out of this scenario here is to give you guys in the 8-K we filed restated prior quarters in the current format so that you can understand the business a little bit better. And we're not getting into that level of granularly in terms of different product categories within the new segments right now.

Laura Champine - Cantor Fitzgerald Securities

Analyst

Got it. I guess the point of the question is to see, and I know this – you get a bigger benefit in later quarters, but is to see how much the benefit of lower costs in your carpet business in the U.S. helped you into kind of gauge that versus the productivity improvements, I think you're seeing in other parts of the business in North America. So any comment you could make on that would be great.

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah. Yeah. Let me try to address that. So, we're in the North American segment, the largest driver of the margin improvement was productivity with input cost being the next largest. And we expect that business in all of our segments actually from a margin standpoint to improve as you compare year-over-year this year to last year. And then, I think the other thing is that the raw material benefit, the input benefits that I'd mentioned earlier in my comments in that segment was about $14 million, and we're expecting the input benefit from carpets to improve as we move through the year. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Just as a comment, the inputs include labor, they include materials, they include energy, they are offsetting up and down in all the different pieces.

Laura Champine - Cantor Fitzgerald Securities

Analyst

Got it, thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dennis McGill from Zelman & Associates. Your line is open. Dennis P. McGill - Zelman & Associates: Hi, thank you. I just wanted to go back to the comment you made on the accretion from the acquisitions. I think you said $0.20 to $0.25 in the third quarter. And I guess taking an assumption on annualizing that, it would seem like a 50%, 60% increase from your initial guidance. I just wanted to confirm then if that's directionally right. Maybe you could piece out a little bit what's so much stronger now, whether that's revenue or expenses now that you've been in the businesses? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: It has increased significantly from where we started. At different points in time, we have the accounting that you have to do and where you apply it and what the costs are going to be and what the depreciation and things are going to be. So we now know what's it's going to be versus a few months ago we were guessing at what it was going to be. And then at the same time, I think that the businesses have done a little better than we anticipated, than we had expected in the various pieces.

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

I would just say be careful about just taking that number times 4 to come up with a full year accretion – number of accretions we've got, seasonality and things such as that that would impact that differently. Dennis P. McGill - Zelman & Associates: Yeah, I was getting to a smaller multiple, but I guess when you think about the accounting differences there or adjustments that you talked about. Is the cash or kind of the core cash flow basis a lot stronger as well? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Your question is are the revenues and the margins better, I guess with cash? And from what our original estimates were, I think probably a little better. Dennis P. McGill - Zelman & Associates: Okay, very good. And then just one other, if you think about the incremental margins that you've talked about, Frank, in the past, even with all the investments that you've highlighted today and in prior quarters in the business and a lot of different sales efforts and so forth, the incremental margins I think continue to be very strong, even if you back out any raw material benefits. I'm just wondering if, as you look forward over the next couple of years, is the incremental margin opportunity stronger than maybe what you've talked about in the past as you brought a lot of these organizations together? Or is the investments, that you are making, going to be something that's consistent and so the incremental margins remain at these levels?

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

I would say our current thinking on incremental margins for the three segments today, as we've restructured them, is in the North American segment, those margins would be kind of in the low 20% range. Ceramic stays as is at about 25% and rest of world is around 30%. Dennis P. McGill - Zelman & Associates: Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Dahl from Credit Suisse. Your line is open. Michael G. Dahl - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Thanks for taking my questions. The first question I had is just on the recasting of segments. You've talked about how there are some benefits across kind of the combination of management and distribution and capacity. Can you size up the overall benefit that you are expecting from this realignment? And how much is purely management or head count related as opposed to some combination of distribution and other assets? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The reason we changed the segments was because we felt that with the product categories we could coordinate the sales groups better. They were different of the – there were – before in the segment, one segment will be making the product and then we have the sales group in another segment and coordinating those two together to optimize them, was not that easy to do. And so by putting them all together, we should be better coordinated in optimizing the assets better. In addition to which, when you have lines of responsibility driven, something gets fixed and so by putting together the things in distribution, the things in engineering staffs, the things in purchasing, they can overlap each other in distribution. So, we think there's opportunities in all of those – it's just a small part of a whole piece to make the whole place work better. Michael G. Dahl - Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC (Broker): Okay. Thanks. And then second question, I think, in the opening comments, you noted that home centers are increasing the focus on ceramic. You are obviously growing share there. I think they've also increased the focus…

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Kathryn Thompson from Thompson Research.

Kathryn Ingram Thompson - Thompson Research Group LLC

Analyst

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions today. First, on LVT, obviously it's been a fast growing product category, particularly in the U.S. And with that increased demand, you're seeing a greater capacity being brought up in the North American market. Could you pass some thoughts on how you manage pricing in an environment where you have greater capacity coming online and just to clarify for listeners, where you participate in the price scale for LVT products? Thank you. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The market is somewhere approaching a $1 billion. It's expected to grow at about 15% compounded rate in the U.S. to be more or less. There is new capacity coming in. So what we expect to happen is that the local producers will supply most of the growth, as well as reduce imported products into the marketplace. Within that, you're going to have different competitors with different strategies and different strengths going after different parts of the marketplace. And we see China losing share. So all that's going to be going on over the next, I don't know, two years or three years as the capacity comes in and changes. We think we're well positioned. We have the most knowledge in the category. We have a plant that's significantly larger and more backward integrated in the U.S. than others. And we have unique knowledge in – from our total businesses of creating style, design, and performance attributes that we think will give us advantages in the marketplace. So, I like where we are with it. In most new categories, as you go through the productivity increases and style and design increases and the same thing's going to happen here.

Kathryn Ingram Thompson - Thompson Research Group LLC

Analyst

As we've seen with some Chinese produced products for wood flooring, laminate flooring, could that bear a scar or could that be a black eye and be a benefit to the LVT product category too? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Listen, that is a concern of some people. At the same time, you have the – we believe that we will be more focused on what the consumers want in this marketplace, to be able to bring the style and design that they expect. You take out the long lead times and working capital required to do it. The obsolescence costs and things, so we think we'd bring to the market competitive things and if you look at our products, I mean, in ceramic, almost, I don't know 50% of the market's imported. I mean, we well understand how to compete against imported products.

Kathryn Ingram Thompson - Thompson Research Group LLC

Analyst

Okay, great. Final question. We know that operating and cost efficiency is a constant process with any business. But that said, given the tremendous work that you've done in Europe to that end with your acquisitions, what inning are we in terms of the broad stroke production and efficiency changes and what could we expect as we look forward over the next 12 months to 18 months? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The big ones we're still implementing are we're replacing – we've just replaced a chunk of the ceramic assets. They're just getting in the second phase that we have. Those will pay benefits mostly next year. We have another phase that we're looking at that we have – are getting ready to put in in that one. We have closed plants in the board businesses, we're putting new assets in those as we speak. And then there's hundreds of projects below those as we go through. We have a saying in the business, congratulations you're half way there, and that's where we are.

Kathryn Ingram Thompson - Thompson Research Group LLC

Analyst

Perfect. Thanks so much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of John Baugh from Stifel. John A. Baugh - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Thank you and my congrats as well. Just a couple of things quickly. Could you – I know IVC is ramping capacity both in LVT, and I believe in sheet vinyl. Could you help us? I think they did $735 million in revenue last year and then I realized there's some FX headwinds on the European part. But the U.S. part, which I think was 20%, could you give us a feel for how that's going to ramp in, say, 2015 and 2016 with the expansions coming on? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: The startup is progressing. We're in the midst of training employees and speeding up the piece. So the volume of the plant is going to be approaching $175 million to $200 million when it's running, when we're utilizing all of it in the U.S., so that's ramping up. It'll take, I don't know, through next year and probably into the next year is that to go through. It depends on various strategies and how we modify the imports that we're doing or not. In the European business you have, the Mohawk plant that's ramping up and they're helping ramp it up faster and reach higher capacities and we're going to put more investments in it, and then it'll take the same – it'll take at least a couple of years to get through it. The sales in that one is the smaller plant, will be probably about a $125 million over time and that one as we go through, and then we're going to be looking for other alternatives to invest in the business and grow it even faster in all categories and geographies. John A. Baugh - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Great. I'm halfway there with my questions. Russia local currency EBIT, is it now trending south year-over-year, even though you're gaining revenue there locally?

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

In local currency, the EBIT was slightly up over last year, both sale and EBIT were solid. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: But I don't want to mislead you. We are doing, what we have to do to grow the market share and we are so that EBIT in the quarter was up slightly, but the margin percent is going down as we do what we got to do to take market share and we're going to continue going down that path. Now at the same time, you heard we're considering adding new capacity. So as we look out, we're looking out with the capacity about two years out, so to keep driving market share and then have the capacity, when this thing turns to support it, at the same time, we have a large share of the mid-to-high end marketplace, and so, with the imports from Europe, which is most – a lot of high-end, we see other opportunities in driving the high-end piece. But you do have to understand that the market is in complete turmoil. John A. Baugh - Stifel, Nicolaus & Co., Inc.: Understood. Thanks. Good luck.

Operator

Operator

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

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you. In the prepared segments, you discussed Marazzi and some of the big manufacturing changes going on there. And you made a reference to the next phase for them. And I was going to ask you a question. What is the next step for Marazzi after all the work that you've already completed? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: We changed almost all the assets in the Italian plants. There is some other assets in our Spanish plants that we're going to upgrade. And then what've been doing up to now is trying to do a good job, the goal was to basically try to maintain the volume and get out of the bad products and bad margins and drive up the margins. We're only partway along achieving it, but we have made the changes in the product, we're bringing new innovation to the marketplace, we're changing the mix within it and we're lowering our things substantially. So all those things are happening will continue. And then now for the first time since we owned it, we're looking at, do we want to increase either our capacity or go into some different markets that have opportunities and products and volume where we've been constraining it a little bit? Now, we have the new Eastern European business with KAI and there is a lot of synergy between the assets there and they tend to make low to mid-end products. And the other assets we're focused on mid to high-end products. So we think that there's opportunities to export products from Bulgaria into other parts of Europe. And we have some new capacity coming in now, just came up with it. So we think there's a lot of opportunities to dramatically increase the margins. And now we're just looking at things, how to move to top line in the market that we're hoping just getting ready to start improving.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

All right. Thank you, Jeff. Second question. As your answer talked about, a lot of stuff going on in this company right now. We're heading into the cash rich part of the year in the second half of the year, so leverage should fall. Are you still open in the market for the right acquisition? And is there a size limit which you would not go above given a lot of moving parts in Mohawk at this point? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: In our models, we believe the marketplace that our business is going to continue getting better. Our margins are going to increase, our profitability is going to continue to increase. We should be able to generate a lot of capacity to invest and our ratios of debt to cash flow will go down quickly. So our balance sheet will handle a lot of debt if we choose to use it. More importantly is, I'm not interested in being big, I'm interested in having a right businesses and getting the returns we want. So we have to find the right things and the right businesses that we like, and we're always looking. Some of them take years to get together when you do it and some take months. But we just finished the other ones, and we're starting to focus again on future opportunities.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question is from the line of Robert Wetenhall from RBC Capital Markets.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Hi. This is actually Collin (55:30) filling in for Bob. Thank you for taking my questions. A real quick on the margins for each of the new segmented categories. In the past you laid out long-term goals. Do you have any long-term goals that you could share with us for each of these categories?

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah, higher. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yeah, I would say in the North American segment, low to mid-teens in ceramic. And Rest of World segments in the mid-teen range.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Great. Thank you. And then on the potential for future acquisitions, are there anything in the pipeline you guys are looking at? And are these going to be like more bolt-on or maybe the same scale as the past acquisitions have been? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Listen, we're open to anything. We don't have a formula to do it. We look for the best businesses in the category and new things, be it new geographies or new products. When we go into areas where we have strong management, either geographically and/or within a category, we will look at businesses that are under great stress and we're quite confident that we can improve them. So we're willing to do either/or. We've proven that we can move into different international markets and help those businesses and drive them and help them better, so getting into the new geographies. We're open to anything as long as we can compete on an equal basis with non-U.S. public companies in those geographies. So we're very careful about deciding where we go into it because, on an equal basis, we're quite comfortable and compete with anybody. But we don't want to be constrained with different rules than they do, is a significant part of how we think about things.

Unknown Speaker

Analyst

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Stephen East from Evercore ISI.

Stephen F. East - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, guys. Frank, I guess the first question for you around some raw materials. One, could you clarify, the $14 million in North American flooring, you said that that had gives and takes. So they weren't all positive contributors to that $14 million bump?

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Correct. I was saying that the different items that are included in there, which is raw materials, labor, energy, SG&A, some benefited and some went the other way.

Stephen F. East - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Okay. And then on ceramic, one, was nat gas a meaningful benefit, or do you expect it to be? And I know you all haven't seen any incremental from the drop in oil prices. If you look at more recent cycles, how long would it take for you all to start, if you were going to see some purchase opportunities, how long after oil drops would that come through? And then I just had one follow up on product mix. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: It depends on each product and category. It can take anywhere from a two months to six months for it to show up for us and then it can take anywhere from one quarter to two quarters or more to flow through our piece. It all depends on what it is and where it is.

Stephen F. East - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Got you. Okay. In the nat gas, was there any benefit on that? And then, Jeff, the other question I have is, you're seeing mix shift up on the ceramic side in North America. You're not seeing it in the carpet side. Why do you think the consumer is willing to mix shift up on ceramic, but not on the carpet side? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: There is higher selling products going on. Part of the difference is that the carpet business, the growth is coming in the new construction and multifamily businesses, where the remodel is slower. And so what's happening is you're getting a mix change there. And then at the same time, you're getting the polyester prices as we shift from nylon to polyester. We're reducing the selling prices of the industry's products with both.

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

And then on your question, Stephen, for nat gas, they have declined somewhat, but those declines have been offset by increased labor and healthcare and freight costs.

Stephen F. East - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. I appreciate that.

Operator

Operator

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

Susan Marie Maklari - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Hello. Just in terms of Russia, you've mentioned in your comments that you're raising prices about 10% there but you're still really not fully offsetting the inflation that you're finding. How do you think about your ability to continue to raise prices, especially while you also want to gain share? And how long do you think that that can sort of hold for? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I mean the reason I also said that my margins declined, so as we're trying to gain share, but even without gaining share, our market is in turmoil, people lower prices. So, the margins are coming down. We are positioned as the leader in the industry in the mid to high end part of the business place, which is a good place to be. With that, our new introductions are doing well, and our higher margins on the other hand to drive share, we're competing more in lower value products than we have historically. And, so that's offsetting some of it. You should expect that my competitors are going to get under more stress, and the prices are going to get under more pressure, and our margins will have to absorb that. Now I believe that, we're a very low cost producer in the marketplace, and I think, when this thing, whatever it turns out on the other side, we're going to have a much bigger, better business when we get to the other side, because of all of this, but the margins in between are going to be what they are going to be.

Susan Marie Maklari - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. And then as we look out longer-term, how should we think about CapEx going forward, given all the acquisitions and the investments that you're making? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I'm going to invest in anything that gives me the returns I want, given the cash flow we have, I mean we are looking to find internal projects, which gives the highest returns, the lowest returns, at the lowest risk. And so, we're going to keep investing on. We haven't set the level for next year yet, so the last two years, it's been about $450 million to $500 million as it's been, and we'll invest more if we can find the right places to put it.

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

You know, Susan, as Jeff had mentioned earlier, we think we're going to generate a lot of cash flow and also our debt capacity should go up over the next few years. So we'll have a good bit of dry powder to invest in CapEx Greenfield projects or M&A.

Susan Marie Maklari - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Great, thanks.

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Okay.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of David MacGregor with Longbow Research.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Yeah, good morning, congrats on a great quarter. Thanks for taking my questions. Just Jeff, or Frank, I'm sorry, you gave that $14 million number for North American flooring and input benefits. Is there any way you could share with us numbers for rest of world in ceramics?

Frank H. Boykin - Chief Financial Officer

Management

Yeah the input cost in ceramics was a positive $4 million, input cost in rest of world was a positive $7 million.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Positive $7 million. Okay, thanks. And then I realized just late in the call, but I wonder if you could just talk a little bit about competitive environments. You discussed the competitive situation in Russia in some detail. But just as you go through your other segments, obviously you're gaining share. You've got a lot of commercial momentum right now. Can you just talk about how competitors are reacting to this? Your thoughts there would be great, would be appreciated. Thanks. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I don't have too many markets that aren't competitive. As everybody is trying to get their share of the different marketplaces. Let see now. I'll walk you through it, the North American market is typical. I think that a lot of the companies including us, over the last five years when we were in the downturn, everybody is trying to get their margins back to where they were before historically. I think we're doing better than most, we're well positioned. So, having the competitors wanting to improve their margins is a good thing in the marketplace. At the same time, everybody is got capacity they're trying to use. In the Mexican marketplace, we're growing our share significantly, as we expand our distribution footprint. I think that we're bringing to the marketplace new style and design, which is giving us something to sell other than price. There are also some large players and we provide another really strong alternative in the marketplace in Mexico. In European business, the ceramic business, we've been moving our business from where they were at a significant share in the lower end part of the marketplace. We're focused on driving our product mix up and significantly lowering our costs both of which we're doing. In that marketplace, we're leading the marketplace in wood designs, which is growing rapidly, and we've been doing that, we're bringing in new style and designs and really small thing at the same time. So we are selling new looks and leading looks in a marketplace, while at the same time lowering our costs. As competitors get into those different categories, we're bringing out new product categories and then as you'd suspect that things get more competitive, we're maintaining our market share by moving the prices as acquired. In the European marketplace, the laminate business is still competitive. There is a lot of excess capacity, but less. Board businesses, it seems to be some volume moving up and there is opportunities for the margins to expand dramatically as people get more comfortable with the asset utilizations over the next few years, it could happen. Russia, we already talked about, what did I miss?

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

No, that was pretty thorough. Do you expect any sort of exit of capacity from any of these major markets for you? Are there players that are going to get shaken out because they are just too high up on the cost curve? Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think in Russia, there's several under stress in it. And the answer though is typically assets unless they are really bad, just change hands, is it, so for assets to get out is rare, is that they just change who owns them.

David S. MacGregor - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Got it. Thanks very much for the detail.

Operator

Operator

The next question is from the line of Phillip Lewis from Security Capital Brokerage.

Phillip Alexeev Lewis - Security Capital Brokerage, Inc.

Analyst

Hey guys. Good quarter. My questions have already been asked, so thanks. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: No problem.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Lorberbaum, for closing comments. Jeffrey S. Lorberbaum - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you very much. We had a really good quarter. We think the economy in the U.S. and around the world is going to keep helping us. We think we're doing the right things to maximize our participation in the marketplaces. And we're looking for other ways to expand further. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.