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Newell Brands Inc. (NWL)

Q2 2012 Earnings Call· Fri, Jul 27, 2012

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Newell Rubbermaid's Second Quarter 2012 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded. A live webcast of this call is available at newellrubbermaid.com, on the Investor Relations home page, under Events and Presentations. A slide presentation is also available for download. I will now turn the call over to Nancy O'Donnell, Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. O'Donnell, you may begin.

Nancy O'Donnell

Analyst

Thank you, and good morning. Welcome to the Newell Rubbermaid Second Quarter Earnings Call. With me today is Mike Polk, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Juan Figuereo, Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind you that as we conduct this call, we will be making forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. A discussion of these factors may be found in the company's annual report on Form 10-K and in today's earnings release. Also, our press release and this call contains non-GAAP financial measures that include, but are not limited to, normalized operating income, operating margin and normalized earnings per share. We believe that these measures are important indicators of our operations, and they're provided to facilitate meaningful year-over-year comparisons. A reconciliation of those measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures is included in the Investor Relations area of our website, as well as in our filings with the SEC. With that, let me turn it over to Mike.

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

Thank you, Nancy. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining our call. This morning, we reported a solid set of Q2 results with good underlying growth trends across most of our portfolio, a 40 basis point increase in normalized operating margin, driven by a 50 basis point gross margin increase, an 11% increase in operating cash flow and $0.47 normalized EPS, $0.02 ahead of consensus and 4.4% ahead of year ago. Through the first 6 months, core sales increased 2.5%, right in the middle of our 2% to 3% full year guidance range. Normalized operating margins expanded 20 basis points, which is at the high end of our full year guidance range of up to 20 basis points. Normalized EPS was $0.80, up 8.1% versus prior year and above the high end of our full year guidance range of 3% to 6%. And operating cash flow increased over $70 million versus prior year and is on track to deliver in our full year guidance range of $550 million to $600 million. So a pretty good set of numbers at the halfway point in the year. Importantly, at the same time that we're driving delivery, we're driving change. During the first half of 2012, we deployed a new simplified group in GBU structure, launched our new customer development organization, executed the European SAP EPC transition, closed a significant Rubbermaid Consumer factory, initiated a new indirect procurement partnership with IBM and gained traction around on our working capital reduction program. I'm proud of the team's effort. We're driving the business towards more consistent performance, and we delivered in a very tough environment. Perhaps as importantly, they believe in our new vision and strategy and are resolved to strengthen our company and accelerate performance as we move into 2013 and beyond. There's still…

Juan R. Figuereo

Analyst

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Net sales for the quarter were $1.5 billion, a 1.9% decrease versus the prior year. Core sales, which exclude the impact of foreign currency translation, increased 0.4% or a 2.3% increase after adjusting for the EMEA SAP pre-buy. In North America, net sales grew 2.2%, and core sales grew 2.5%, led by very strong growth in our Professional and Baby & Parenting segments. The Consumer segment's North American core sales were essentially flat in the quarter as challenges in the Décor business were offset by stronger back-to-school sell-in. Outside North America, net sales decreased 13.1% or 5.4% excluding ForEx. Both Latin America and APAC, which as you know are priority growth markets for us, delivered another quarter of double-digit core sales growth, with Latin America increasing 14.9% and APAC increasing 12%. In EMEA, core sales declined 20.9% mainly due to the SAP implementation, including the previously mentioned pre-buy, plus the temporary halt in merchandising efforts related to the cutover period, all exacerbated by the impact of the worsening tough macro environment in Western Europe. Gross margin was 38.3%, representing 50 basis point improvement over the prior year ago quarter. Pricing and productivity more than offset a 90 basis point negative impact from input costs inflation. Normalized SG&A expense decreased $4 million compared with the prior year and on a percentage of sales basis, increased 20 basis points to 24.7%. A stronger dollar drove $10 million of the expense decrease. On a constant currency basis, SG&A spending was up $6 million, all driven by strategic spend which rose 40 basis points as a percentage of sales. The increased spending focused on demand creation activities in focused growth areas. Sales force expansion in the Newell Professional segment, where we are showing continued strong growth trends was…

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

Thanks, Juan. It's hard for me to really believe that a year has passed since I started in this role. Time has just really flown by. We packed a lot in, and I think there's a lot of be proud of. Despite a very tough environment, operational issues on Baby and Décor, SAP implementation in Europe and the change associated with Project Renewal, over the past 12 months, we've delivered 3% core sales growth, expanded normalized operating margin by 50 basis points and increased normalized EPS by 10.7%. In the same time frame, we've strengthened the balance sheet by paying down $0.5 billion of bond maturities, increased our access to credit at attractive terms through a new $800 million revolving credit facility, improved the capital structure of the company by refinancing our QUIPS at more favorable rates and deployed a more tax-efficient business model into Europe. We also increased the dividend payout by nearly 53% versus the prior 12 months and returned an additional $87 million to shareholders through our new $300 million, 3-year share repurchase authorization. These outcomes are a credit to the team and demonstrate that we're capable of delivering results, driving change and creating value for our shareholders. All that said, my focus is on the future. I am clear today that the possibilities for Newell Rubbermaid are greater than I imagined when I first took the role last July. My confidence in our ability to play for the upside strengthens with every hurdle we clear. I don't expect an easy ride given the state of the global economy. And as a result, we'll continue to assume and build plans that contemplate tough macroeconomic times ahead. Of course, the big picture for Newell stretches well beyond macro pressures with the quarter-to-quarter issues in the business. The strategic…

Nancy O'Donnell

Analyst

[Operator Instructions] So operator, we'll take the first question.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Bill Schmitz with Deutsche Bank.

William Schmitz - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

My first question. Can you give us just some color on what you think the SG&A ratio for the year is as a percentage of sales?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

We've said we're going to -- we may end up anywhere between 25.5% and 26%. I think 26% is what we've said the last time we talked. We're sort of right in line with that through the first half. I think our SG&A ratio in the first half is about 25.9%.

William Schmitz - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

Okay, great. And then just a follow-up, kind of unrelated. But is there any change -- have you seen any change in either sell-in or sell-through patterns towards the end of the quarter, early into July?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

We had a little bit of stronger sell-in to back-to-school on Writing & Creative Expression than we did last year. One of our customers made the choice to take their back-to-school -- a portion of their back-to-school inventories earlier than we did last year.

William Schmitz - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

Okay. And then no change in the sell-through?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

It's too early to know in back-to-school. I mean, we're just really kicking in now. I'm -- look, I think the headlines here are, we've got better sell-in than we had last year. We've got better share momentum on the 3 big brands that will get merchandised heavily in back-to-school season, which is Sharpie, Paper Mate and Expo. In fact, our writing shares as a percent of the total writing market are up nearly 150 basis points in the first half of the year. And Paper Mate went from being the #3 brand in the total writing category to the #2 brand in that total writing category in the first half. And we have that momentum sustained right through, right through the month of June the last share numbers I saw. So we're coming into back-to-school, and we have better merchandising placements, better -- higher displays, et cetera. So we're better positioned. But as you know, it's about converting all that stuff that you do upfront to purchase from the consumer, and then it's about our retailers' point of view on their inventory positions as to whether we get replenishment orders after the back-to-school season. So there's a lot to unfold over the next 3 or 4 weeks, 5 weeks.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of John Faucher with JPMorgan. John A. Faucher - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Mike, I think you said that the impact of the lower merchandising on the European business was 2%, right? So it was down 4. It would have been sort of down 2 without the extra merchandising. Can you talk a little bit about sort of how you're layering the normal level of merchandising back in? And sort of following up on Bill's question, are you seeing any difference in the cadence over time in terms of European demand either on an underlying basis sort of either decelerating or accelerating from that standpoint?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

It's a good question. Remember, what I -- I think I've said this a couple of times along the way. We're not going to try to make up for lost merchandising from the first half of the year in the second half of the year. I don't want to do that because I worry about the competitive response to increased frequency of merchandising or greater depth of price points in the second half-year. So rather than have that money flip into the merchandising when we flip into the back half of the year to increase frequency, we're just going to get back into our normal rhythm. And we are -- I think we'll be fine in terms of being back in that rhythm we are right now than we will through the third quarter and into the fourth year. John A. Faucher - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division: Got it. And then sort of any sort of the change in cadence over the course of the quarter or into the third quarter in Europe or is it just all pretty much...

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

The only underlying -- look, there's a lot of pressure in Europe. And as you recall, our sort of underlying declines are around 3% to 3.5% as we exited last year and into the first quarter. Part of it -- part of the issue in the optics of our numbers in Q2 have to do with the SAP pull forward. So you don't have to -- I wouldn't overreact to the double-digit decline in EMEA that you see. So if you adjust out for that, it's about an 8% decline in the quarter. A portion of that has to do with the lack of merchandising. It's not a small amount, so roughly in line with what you said, about 2 percentage points. We have some timing things that happened at the end of the quarter. We didn't shift the last 3 days of Q2 in Europe as part of our SAP transition in the first hard close in an EPC environment. So part of that is artificially -- has artificially pressured our results in Q2, as well as in EMEA. But the fact is that we have some underlying issues in Europe related to the macros, and they are most acute in our Fine Writing business. And what's interesting about it is it's the smaller stores, so that represents probably about 40% of our revenue in Europe, and it's actually the price points that are less than $100, where we're having the issues. And it makes intuitive sense if you think about it. If you're a wealthy person in Europe, you have money to spend. So if you want to buy a $250 or $300 pen, you can. And our business looks fine in that segment. Our under $100 offerings are sort of tweeners. It's the best way to describe it between everyday writing instruments and prestige writing instruments. And that's where the pressure is. And those tend to get sold at some of the smaller stationary stores, which represents about 40% of our business. That piece of our business is really feeling the heat. And that accelerated in the first half of the year. And we've in our guidance range, contemplated that for the back half. But that's something we need to figure out because at the moment, despite really strong double-digit growth in Asia on our prestige Fine Writing business, we're losing it all, giving it all back in Europe on this sort of mid-tier segment that's under pressure. And that's a real issue. That's going to cost our roughly 3.5% underlying performance to be worse as it was towards the second half of Q2. And we have made the assumption that, that carries forward with us into the second half of the year.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Ferrara with Bank of America.

Christopher Ferrara - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Bank of America.

So I wanted to move to the U.S. And very recently, we've heard a lot of discretionary -- semi-discretionary companies talk about this cadence that Bill and John were referencing except more in the U.S., right, falling off and you've seen demand destruction. And I noticed kind of in the 4 things you named for what would affect where you landed in your guidance, the U.S. wasn't one of them or U.S. macro wasn't one of them. And frankly, your U.S. macro or your U.S. growth accelerated this quarter, right? So exclusive of back-to-school, like, I get back-to-school sell-in was good, but generally, your categories, your businesses outside of back-to-school, I mean, what are you seeing in the U.S.?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · Bank of America.

Look, part of our professional momentum is driven out of excellent execution on industrial products and services in the Irwin brand, so Lenox and Irwin, in the U.S. And so we've seen strengthened momentum there. Some -- and we have continued momentum on Rubbermaid Medical, good double-digit growth. I really didn't call that out. And then of course, I think the positive data in the second quarter -- the most positive data in the U.S. in the second quarter has got to be our Baby performance, where we're seeing very good consumption gains and share gains despite all the headlines you read. I don't know if you saw the report this morning on birth rates, some negative report on birth rates in the U.S. suggesting they're at the lowest levels in 25 years. So despite that, and I honestly -- some of these macro issues I tend to -- European things are really acute. But things like the birth rate data, that's just sort of the cost of doing business. So your brand has got to carry the day. You have to have better innovations. And we are starting to see that. So I think the U.S. -- I'm pleased with the U.S. results. We need the U.S. to perform well, and we're getting that from Baby and from Professional. We've got some challenges in the Consumer segment aside from our Writing & Creative businesses -- Creative Expression businesses, and that's largely in Décor. But I can't say that I'm disappointed. I'm actually pleased, and I think part of this is a reflection of the strength of our brands, and part of it is the impact -- the early impact of the CDO.

Christopher Ferrara - BofA Merrill Lynch, Research Division

Analyst · Bank of America.

Great. And again, I guess, as an unrelated follow-up, I get -- like, it's obviously currency, you're offsetting that drag. Can you talk about commodities. How was your outlook on commodities changed from last quarter to this quarter? And I'm sorry if you've said it already.

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · Bank of America.

No, I mean we've got a slight improvement in our resin outlook for the back half of the year, but we still believe we're going to experience about 100 basis points of inflation in the back half, an adverse impact in gross margin. And while resins more favorable, we continue to have pressure in metals and source goods and in the other commodities that we're dealing with, like paper in the packaging. But yes, moderated because remember, we talked about at the beginning of the year about 150 basis points of negative impact in gross margin related to inflation. Back half of the year, we'll be closer to 100 as resin inflation has moderated. The thing about our resin -- the resin impact for us is we think we see some benefit in Q3, but we don't see much benefit in Q4, at least in our outlook. And the other thing to note is we lose the pricing leverage in gross margin as we move through Q3 into Q4 because remember, most of our pricing benefit in gross margin relates to 2011 pricing actions and the carryforward of that. So I think our comparisons get a little easier on gross margin in the back half of the year. I think our gross margin is about where we would hope it would be. I'm pleased with it, the progress. And we're going to need to count on productivity mix and strategic pricing where we can get it to compensate for what will still be about 100 basis points of inflation in the second half in gross margin, albeit less than what we have originally anticipated. On your ForEx point, Chris, I mean, the thing to note on ForEx is that we're in the range that we suggested we would be on the full year. We said there would be about $0.04 to $0.05 of impact when we guided back in -- when we first guided back in January. We actually did better on the ForEx line in the first half year, so some of our EPS overdelivery in the first half is related to -- to relative to our forecast -- is related to a more favorable or a less -- the best way to say it, it's a less negative impact in the first half than we've originally anticipated. So it's about $0.01 of adverse ForEx impact in the first half. The dollar has strengthened since late April, pretty substantially. And I know it's bouncing around quite a bit; it bounces around every day. But part of that favorability reverses out -- part of that first half favorability versus the guidance reverses out in the second half. And that's why I've said the flow sort of shifts. We anticipated $0.03 adverse in the first half, $0.02 adverse in the second half in EPS. And it's really -- it's likely to end up if things hold as they are today, $0.01, $0.04.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Bill Chappell with SunTrust.

William B. Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · SunTrust.

I would actually just follow up on Chris's question. As you look at commodities for next year, I mean, is there a tailwind? Are you looking into kind of locking in some of the costs now? Or are you just going to wait as the year progresses?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · SunTrust.

We've got a pretty -- and I mentioned this, Bill. You and I have talked about this a little bit, and I mentioned this on prior calls. We've got a pretty sophisticated resin buying office here, given the amount of resin that we buy. And so we'll leverage all the options at our disposal, that are financially prudent for us to leverage. We're not going to -- I don't want to be in the trading business or take the risks associated being in the trading business. But I'm quite happy with the way our resin commodities are bought. The thing that -- it's more of a drag on us at the moment, it's our source goods inflation. And if you recall from earlier conversations we've had, we had a bunch of contracts that expired, that were long-term contracts, at the beginning of the year, and we had to lock in at higher labor rates. And so as a result, you end up with an inflation impact on our source goods that flows through the full year. And I think at some point, you may want to lay out a little more detail how significant our source goods are in cost of goods because it's a pretty important variable for us. And when we have inflation there, we end up with a pretty significant impact on the total company.

Juan R. Figuereo

Analyst · SunTrust.

So the source goods will be about half of the inflationary pressure on the second half. It's quite significant. And on the -- so on the buy forward, Bill, just to be clear, we do go out -- we typically don't go out more than once a year. We usually go longer on the metals because that's where you have the exchange trade of metals. You can go longer. The resin tend to be shorter, but this year, we have done some into next year.

William B. Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · SunTrust.

Great. And just a following-up. We're still kind of new to the 3 categories of Incubate, Win Where We Are, and I guess, Win Everywhere. I'm just trying to understand...

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · SunTrust.

All the time. It's where we wanted to be, Bill. It's Win Where We Are, it's Incubate, and it's Win Bigger.

William B. Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, Inc., Research Division

Analyst · SunTrust.

I mean, how should we look at the fact that Incubate was the fastest growing this quarter? I mean, in particular, at some point there's infant -- Baby and Infant kind of get out of the Incubate category. Are they out of the woods? And should I worry that one is growing faster than the other in a given quarter?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · SunTrust.

No, I mean there are couple of -- there's a bunch of businesses in there. I mean, Baby is by far the biggest piece of our Incubate categorization. And as you recall, we put Baby in there for a different reason than we put the other ones in there. We put the Endicia and Mimio and Rubbermaid Medical in there because they really are ventures and we don't want them subsumed into the operations of their bigger parents. So we want them insulated so that they can build their repeatable growth models. And they're doing well. Double-digit growth on Rubbermaid Medical. Very, very strong growth on Endicia, which is a competitor to Stamps.com. Great business. We were just out there in Palo Alto. And then Mimio's dealing with all the headwinds associated with the pullback in municipal investment associated with budget management, et cetera, in the education space. So we've got 3 different businesses that are insulated as incubators. And then we've got Baby there. And we put Baby there because it needed an intervention. And we made that intervention both at the management team level and then in the reporting structure. So we brought it directly into me, and I've gotten closer to that business than I am in other businesses as a result of the problems we had in the first half of last year. Strategically, I expect us to leave it there for the foreseeable future because despite our efforts to get it back into recovery, which we are going to be able to do, we have a challenge in our portfolio which is because of the margin structure in this business, you would not make a big investment behind it if it caused you to mortgage other Win Bigger categories, like our Professional portfolio and our…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Lauren Lieberman with Barclays.

Lauren R. Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst · Barclays.

Just a follow-up on the Baby conversation. So one, was just a surprise at it's still being so strong not just because you've sort of been fairly cautious after the last quarter. But we had thought there probably have been some effective pull forward just by virtue of how big the Walmart promotion was in Q1. So can you just talk a little bit about where the surprises were in North America this quarter? I know you're saying the birth rate -- you've got to grow regardless of what the birth rate is. But this is a dramatic change and not just -- you've got easy comps, but you also -- it is a really difficult sequential situation.

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · Barclays.

Yes. We've got -- there's 2 things that have happened that were pleasing in the second quarter. Number 1, and I'll talk outside the U.S. for a second. In Q2 of 2011, we saw our first step-up in Aprica performance in Japan. And probably the most pleasing thing that occurred in Q2 to me as we lapped what was double-digit growth in the prior Q2 period, we delivered double-digit growth in the current period. So Aprica is on a roll. I mean, I think that's one headline I will give to you. I think it gets tougher as we move through Q3 into Q4 because we're beginning -- I was surprised that our competition hasn't responded very aggressively in Japan yet. And we know, through the normal ways you do competitive intelligence, that they're coming with some stuff in Q4. So we're going to have a tougher comp, not just driven by the year-ago comparisons, but as a result of in the back half of the year, stronger competition. All that said, I love what's going on in our Japanese Baby business. It's got a great leader there in Mayada-san [ph] working for a great leader in Kristie, and these guys are all over it. So I do think it gets a little bit tougher in the back half of the year, but I'm pleasantly surprised by the Q2 results on Aprica. I mean, there's other good news in Baby, which is the FastAction innovation and some of the other innovations we've got executing in and flowing into the marketplace in Q2 are having a good impact. Our POS is up in the U.S. pretty nicely in the second quarter. So yes, you're right, the Baby Days event was a Q1 event, which was earlier, but we've got -- and so Walmart had a very strong Q1, and hence the comp a less strong Q2. But we've got momentum in other places in the U.S. as a result of a really good effort on the part of the customer development organization and strong engagement from the leadership with their retail partners. And we have better innovation. So it's the fundamentals that are starting to kick in. Does competition respond more quickly in the U.S. than it did in Asia? Probably. It's a more dynamic market but on balance, we're feeling a little bit better about the first half. Now the only thing I would say about our first half performance is you should recall that the first half of 2011 is by far the easiest comp we're going to have. So we delivered 13% core sales growth in the first half of 2012, up against 12% declines in the first half of 2011. So it obviously gets harder from here. Q3 '11 was a down quarter, but not nearly as down as the first half of '11. And Q4 was an up quarter in 2011. And so, it gets tougher, but that's why we pay Kristie the big bucks.

Lauren R. Lieberman - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Analyst · Barclays.

And then just following up, the profitability there that you were speaking about on the last question, so how much of that do you think is really, like, operational improvement versus better volume leverage?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · Barclays.

It's combination of both. I mean, we've done a lot of things on the cost side and structural SG&A really quickly. We're not -- we haven't made a big bet on Baby. Whether we can hold double-digit operating income margin or not in the second half year on that business, actually don't worry about it because I want to make sure we invest to sustain the growth momentum there and get the fixed cost leverage. So we'll see what happens in the second half year, but we're going to start to spend a little bit more behind this business because we have better innovation coming. We actually have better innovation coming at the end of this year into Europe as well. So if you look at our business, 3 geographies really matter. It's North America, it's Asia, but that's really Japan, and it's Europe. 2 of the 3 are beginning to do really well. One is doing extremely well. One is beginning to get its sea legs, that's North America. Europe is still a drag on the business, and that's going to continue until we get to the end of the year when we get the innovation out. But I want to make sure we're spending enough to make that innovation land with impact and so we may give a little bit it back on operating income margin on that business in the second half of the year.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joe Altobello with Oppenheimer. Joseph Altobello - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Just a couple of questions, actually. First, just wanted to go back to the U.S. for second. And I know you guys have touched on this a little bit earlier in the call. But in terms of what you saw on the part of your retailers and their willingness to carry inventory either late in 2Q, early 3Q, have you noticed an increased cautiousness there at all?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

Look, I mean, we -- as you know, Joe, the thing that impacts revenue is the change in the change in inventory behavior, not just the inventory pressure. There's always inventory pressure on businesses because retailers are -- their key metric is return on the invested capital, so it's obviously an important thing for them to leverage. There, the drum beats out there. I think the negative headlines on the macros tend to cause retailers to be more cautious. And there we've seen at points in time where our -- because we have visibility to this. We have POS data. We know what our retail sales are by customer. We know what our inventory positions are by customer. When we get out of balance, we see retailers adjusting to get us back in balance so that the rate of inventory growth relative to the rate of sales growth is in sync. So there's -- in any given moment, you've got those normal fluctuations going on. There are some retailers that are pressing harder in Q2 on inventories, but I don't like to talk about it unless it's a huge deal. We felt that a bit in our Décor business, and we felt that a bit in our Cookware business. And I suspect in both of those categories in the second half of the year, we'll see and feel that kind of pressure continue. But it will be a question mark on Writing & Creative Expression, and it will be reflected in the replenishment orders we get post back-to-school as to whether the office superstores and the mass guys who have taken strong positions upfront, whether they are as confident in the category sustaining its growth rate going beyond back-to-school. And that will influence the choices they make. So we have to be prepared for that risk at the end of Q3 and into Q4 in Writing & Creative Expression. And we can't control it, so we just try to manage the sell-in against what we think the sell-through is going to be, so that we get the consumption to play out and we get that balance, such that we get the replenishment orders. But it's not science; it's art. And we can get that wrong, and we won't know how that story is going to play out until the consumption, the sell-through, occurs in the month of August into the middle of September. Joseph Altobello - Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., Research Division: Okay, that's very helpful. And then on the SG&A line, the strategic investment this quarter, I think it was up 40 bps. It was up 90 bps in the first quarter. What are you expecting for the second half and what's baked into your guidance?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

We don't guide on -- and I haven't really commented, Joe, on the forward-looking numbers. That said, we've begun to invest renewal savings in the second quarter behind selling systems in Latin America, largely on the Professional business, but also on Writing in Brazil. And we will begin to broaden that investment to include the investment behind the creation of new digital assets for our e-brand building and e-commerce initiatives in the Consumer segment. But I'm cautious about going hog wild on that investment until I see how the macros play out. I'm more conservative here than maybe you guys think I am. I'm not going to throw the money out there until I'm really sure. Now that said, I would expect strategic SG&A to be up in the second half of the year versus prior year. The one thing I would say in some of those numbers is you have to remember that part of that will reflect the true-up dynamics on our management incentive programs versus prior year. So it's not all working money because remember, our product marketing folks and our selling resources are in strategic SG&A. So last year, we paid out our bonuses very low. We've got the true-up that's in our back half numbers in the third quarter, and that a part of that, not all of it, but a part of that is sitting in strategic SG&A. So some of the increases that you might see will be sort of artifacts of that dynamic.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Budd Bugatch with Raymond James. Budd Bugatch - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: I just would like to go through looking at the Professional and Baby & Parenting. You had revenue increases in Professional from quarter to quarter, from first quarter to second quarter, and flat in Baby & Parenting. And yet the operating income in each declined, so the contribution pull-through didn't look like it was there. Can you kind of maybe give us a little bit of drill-down as to where that was and what caused the operating income to decline in each of those?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

Yes, I think the thing to remember, Budd, is that on the reported numbers, you have the SAP effect, so you have the revenue that has been shifted. And the gross profit, obviously, that was connected to that revenue shifted from Q2 to Q1. But to be -- so that's a big chunk of it and probably the most significant chunk of it on Baby. On Tools, though, we are investing in selling systems -- on Professional, sorry, we're investing in selling systems, largely in Latin America -- Brazil on our Tools business, across Latin America on IP&S, in China on IP&S in Latin America on Commercial. And we are also putting some money behind Rubbermaid Medical in terms of selling resources in the U.S. So the drag on operating income margin, once you net out the SAP effect on the Professional portfolio, is related to those investments. And that's part of that Renewal money that's going into that. Budd Bugatch - Raymond James & Associates, Inc., Research Division: So just to be clear, if I parse those out of the expenses into gross profit or cost of goods sold and SG&A, you're saying in Professional, it's basically the strategic SG&A investment that's building it? In Baby & Parenting, it was a reduction in gross margin due to the SAP shift? Is that the way to look at it?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

Yes -- no, gross margin didn't go down. It's absolute -- it's about the absolute -- it's about the fixed cost leverage of not having the revenue and gross profit dollars in Q2 on Baby. On Professional, it's a combination of that and what I described as the incremental SG&A that we put -- strategic SG&A that we put behind the business. So it's 2 things on the Professional portfolio.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Jason Gere with RBC Capital Markets.

Jason Gere - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

Mike, I guess, I just want to first talk about -- I know the layout of the year was the first and fourth quarters are going to be strongest. So from a sales perspective and the kind of the buckets that you've laid out for some of the incremental pressures, it feels like the third quarter sales will probably come in a little bit lighter than expectations just because of the Décor business and the turnaround there. So as you think to the fourth quarter on the Consumer side, are there any incremental merchandising plans that you have in place? And I guess, what gives you that confidence that the sales can really accelerate, especially when you have the toughest comp? And then I just have a couple of follow-ups. :p id="79344716" name="Michael Polk" type="E" /> Yes, I mean we've got a good underlying share momentum in our businesses for the most part. So if I look -- I think that's one of the big contributors on the Consumer side as to why you'd expect the momentum to continue. Remember, InkJoy just began to sell in the second half of the year. So we've got some dynamics like that, that are positive. We've got a dynamic on Calphalon, where we have to lap the inventory pipeline on JCPenney. And we've got the JCPenney issues on Décor that will be offsets to that. We've got good merchandising plans set on Rubbermaid Consumer. Remember, we were shutting down one of the big Rubbermaid Consumer factories and moving machinery from Texas to Kansas and Ohio in the second quarter. So we weren't really pressing that business very hard because you disrupt availability. And we've created capacity dynamic. And the service issue we wouldn't want to do. So we've got that transition, which in the factory landscape that we've executed in Q2 that's behind us so we have a little bit more flexibly on Rubbermaid Consumer in the second half of the year. And I would expect us to be able to deliver some more progress. So I mean, there's a lot of different moving parts in our numbers. And then we've got Baby momentum. So Baby is certainly stronger than a year ago in Q3, and we'll have to see about Q4 how that plays out. We don't buy by quarter, Jason, as you know, but I think that we should -- you should think about what we said with respect to our full year guidance along those 4 -- along the 4 different metrics that we guide on. And hopefully, we can do a little bit better on some of them. But at this point, I think that's a good reference point.

Jason Gere - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

Okay, good. And then I'm wondering if you could provide some update on One Newell. I know that's probably a couple of months under your belt, but maybe just some of the wins, some of the learnings along the way that have come in maybe better than expected?

Michael B. Polk

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets.

Yes, so with Project Renewal is the first step in simplifying our structures, and we're seeing the benefits of that beginning to flow through. We did some important things that were tough for the organization in Q4 and into Q1 of 2013 on the GBU architecture and group design. And those are largely done and behind us. We then shifted our focus in Q2 to the manufacturing and distribution center component of Project Renewal. And we've done the factory closure, which obviously, was quite traumatic in Texas for people. And we've moved the equipment now and are starting up that equipment in Kansas and in Ohio, in those factories. And that's been exciting and disruptive but positive. And so we're focused on the manufacturing distribution center side of things. And then we've got some more to do to close off Renewal in the back half of the year and into next year to put a punctuation point on that. That's Project Renewal. When we talk to you about One Newell initiatives, that's above and beyond Project Renewal. And what that's about is about improving the indirect procurement costs in our business and getting on with the working capital opportunities. And that is nothing to do with restructuring. That has to do with really tightening down on how we spend our money. One piece of that is the indirect procurement partnership that we formed with IBM to access their $50 billion buying pool, and that's focused on U.S. indirect procurement, which if you recall, is $1.2 billion of spend. And that's where we said we would expect to get $50 million of savings by 2013. We're making great progress there. I'm really happy with the work and the team that's leading it and the energy that it's created within the total…

Operator

Operator

Your final question will come from the line of Bill Schmitz with Deutsche Bank.

William Schmitz - Deutsche Bank AG, Research Division

Analyst

My follow-up is already answered.

Operator

Operator

This concludes our question-and-answer period. If we were unable to get to your question, please call the Investor Relations team at (770) 418-7075. I will now turn the call back to Mr. Polk for any concluding remarks.

Michael B. Polk

Analyst

My last comment, I guess, would be simply that I characterize the first half of 2012 as a step in the right direction. I'm really pleased that we're starting to get this business back into a consistent cadence of delivery. And the real opportunity going forward is to pivot the organization and its resources against the growth game plan and start to activate that game plan and drive it into action. So with that, I think we'll just call it to close, and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

Today's call will be available on the web at newellrubbermaid.com and on digital replay at (855) 859-2056 or (404) 537-3406 with an access code of 10707444, starting 2 hours following the end of today's call. This concludes our conference. You may now disconnect.