Mary Hall
Analyst · BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now live
Thanks, John, and good morning, all. And please turn to Slide 8, and I’ll cover Q2 2021. John, Ed and Mike covered revenue and adjusted EBITDA in some detail. So let me start with gross profit. The strong volume pickup you heard about benefited both revenue and COGS as we have relatively high fixed costs related to our planned operations and the significant increase in volumes helped leverage these fixed costs. These benefits and our improved product mix flowed through to gross profit, resulting in a gross margin improvement of 800 basis points year-over-year. Our SG&A was also up year-over-year, due primarily to labor-related expenses, which included filling open positions after delayed hiring in 2020 and investing in growth and innovation resources. We remain focused on prudent cost management while ensuring we can meet the rebound in business activity. Net interest expense for the quarter was $12.2 million, up a bit from last year as we replaced our floating rate revolver borrowing in the second half of last year with a fixed rate bond with an eight year maturity. Our tax provision on adjusted earnings was $16 million for the quarter, an increase year-over-year, reflecting increased earnings and also our earnings mix across different geographic locations. Our adjusted tax rate in Q2 was 20.5%, and we estimate our full year 2021 adjusted tax rate will be in the range of 22% to 24%. Diluted adjusted earnings per share of $1.55 are up almost 2.5 times from $0.63 in Q2 last year. Turning to Slide 9, you’ll see our continued strong financial position that reflects our solid business performance, combined with our discipline in managing the balance sheet. We generated good free cash flow of approximately $42 million in the quarter due to our strong earnings, even though we built working capital, particularly accounts receivable and inventory, as sales picked up. Our leverage continued to improve, with a net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio of 2.1 times at the end of Q2, down from 2.4 times at the end of Q1, and down from 3 times at the end of Q2 2020. Our average cost of debt was approximately 3.7%, and we have no meaningful debt maturities until August of 2023. As we previously stated, we will continue to be opportunistic with share repurchases in 2021. In Q2, we repurchased about $29 million of shares, and year-to-date repurchases totaled about $68 million or 884,000 shares. This leaves approximately $344 million available on our share repurchase authorization. In summary, our balance sheet is strong. We are balanced and disciplined in our capital allocation, and we have ample liquidity to support our organic and inorganic growth initiatives. And now back over to you, John.