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QXO, Inc. (QXO)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Fri, May 8, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Beacon Roofing Supply's Fiscal Year 2015 Second Quarter Conference Call. My name is Audrey and I will be your coordinator for today. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. We will be conducting a question-and-answer session toward the end of this conference. At that time, I will give you instructions on how to ask a question. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded for replay purposes. This call will contain forward-looking statements that fall within the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company, including the company's financial outlook. Bear in mind that such statements are only predictions, and actual results may differ materially as a result of risks and uncertainties that pertain to our business. These risks are highlighted in our quarterly and annual SEC filings. The forward-looking statements contained in this call are based on information as of today, May 8, 2015, and except as required by the law, the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any of these forward-looking statements. Finally, this call will contain references to certain non-GAAP measures. The reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures is set forth in today's press release. On this call, Beacon Roofing Supply may make forward-looking statements, including statements about its plans and objectives and future economic performance. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including, but not limited to, those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the company's latest Form 10-K. The company has posted a summary financial slide presentation on the Investors section of its website…

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Thanks, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Now I'll highlight a little more detail of the few key financial results and metrics that are contained in our earnings press release and the second quarter slides that were posted to our website this morning. As Paul mentioned, we had solid top-line growth of 7.4% for second quarter sales of $413.2 million. Gross margin increased over the prior year by 80 basis points. Our operating expenses were down as a percentage of sales as we were able to cut costs even with the backdrop of our investments in greenfields and acquisitions from the prior quarter. Operating expenses did increase in dollars due to our acquisitions and greenfield costs as we continued the investments in growth. But, in fact, if you factor out both of those investments, our dollars of expenses are actually down year-over-year. The teams did an excellent job of lowering operating expenses during the winter season. In the quarter, we lost $0.20 in EPS, an improvement over the prior year by $0.05. For comparison purposes, there were the same number of days in Q2 of fiscal 2014 as in Q2 of fiscal 2015, 63 days. Paul already went through our Q2 sales results in detail, so I'll not repeat any of that information here. But I will go through our monthly sales trending. As compared to the prior year, our average sales per day at an existing branch basis were higher in two of the three months of the quarter. January started good with sales up 13.6%, followed by a softer February due to winter weather, with sales down 2.3%, but finished the quarter in March with continued harsh weather, but sales still up slightly over the prior year by 1.2%. On another positive note, the gross margin rate was 23.4%,…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. We'll go first to Luke Junk at Robert W. Baird. Luke L. Junk - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Good morning, guys. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning. Luke L. Junk - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): So, the first question, Paul would just be, curious to get your perspective on the underlying shingle market here. Obviously, you've had some weather-related ups and downs to start the year, but the April number obviously stabilizing and seeing some good growth through the end of the month. Relative to kind of the full-year outlook for shingle volumes one of your public suppliers is kind of leaving (21:22) expectation out there that the market would be kind of flat in calendar 2015 here. Just curious to see where your view might differ from that positive or negative for the full year outlook. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. It's a good question and very pertinent. As we or as I make the rounds and have conversations with different entities, there is a view with some that the shingle market will grow slightly above the $107, whether it's $110, $111 in that range. And I realize the commentary on the flat market. That being said, it's difficult, Luke to predict what the market is going to do. That's why we have to stay focused on our plan, right, to grow the greenfields, really take share, continue to work on the acquisition piece, because we can't rely on the fact that the market will grow to $115, $118 or even $112. There is a lot of optimism, though. Store volume is, let's say, slightly down from last year, but there's still an awful lot of time left in…

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

The other piece that I would just add on to that as well too, because your question is a lot around the EPS guidance and range as Paul described in this call as some of the things that drive towards the second half of the year improvement is – we've talked about – and Paul mentioned the gross margin numbers, right? We've seen some good solid improvement in our gross margin in the first half of the year. And as Paul said, we expect that to continue into the second half of this year, too, so good margin improvement. Plus on the cost side, we've talked about this quarter some of the benefits we've seen on the cost from how – again, part of our continued strength is managing our cost structure and you saw that come through again this quarter. So that's another variable which plus the 6% to 9% growth that Paul talked about, gross margin, operating expenses, all those pieces are what – are the variables that make up our thoughts on the second half of the year forecast. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. And we did not put any – really any price in the back half. We assume flat year-over-year, and I think you folks know where we ended the last two quarters last year. Luke L. Junk - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. (Broker): Okay. That is very helpful. Thank you, guys. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay. Thanks, Luke.

Operator

Operator

We'll move next to Trey Grooms of Stephens.

Drew Lipke - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Yeah. Good morning. This is Drew Lipke on for Trey. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Good morning.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Hey, Drew. How are you doing?

Drew Lipke - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

I'm pretty good. First question was just you've done a good job in terms of rightsizing your inventory on a per-branch basis. You talked about that being down over 20% year-over-year after being down 9% last quarter. We're going into the busier selling season here. Do you expect to see a sequential increase in your inventory as we move into the third and the fourth quarter of your year?

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Yeah. I mean, for third quarter, without getting into exact numbers, we will see an increase in the per-branch inventory. And I think that's a natural build. It happens most second to third quarters most, I say. Obviously, last year it went down because we were so high in Q2. So, we did a good job of reducing inventory and ended on a net of $361 million, but in that is about $40 million of acquisition and greenfield inventory that as of right now aren't generating anything in the way of EPS. So if you take those out, the numbers from a net basis is good. Q4 typically we drop inventory. We have – we're very consistent. We get closer to the $1 million per branch at the end of September. So we feel very good about the way we're controlling inventory right now. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. This quarter's inventory per branch, we talked about – we got more in line with where it has traditionally been, if you look back two years and three years ago. And I think you'll see that same kind of strategy unfold for us when you look at third and fourth quarter, too. So the inventories that we've traditionally had and inventory per branch in third and fourth quarter, those are probably more of the levels where this year we'll head towards as well.

Drew Lipke - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. And then, the decision to have no pricing in your back half of the year guidance, and then we know the manufacturers have the price increases out in the market, what – just kind of what's the rationale for not including any additional pricing? And what level of price increases have you guys put out there and what do you feel you might be able to realize?

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Yeah. We put out, in general, 3% to 5% kind of to follow and mimic manufacturers. We just – I won't say we're conservative, but just given the – even though we've done better, right? Q1 we lost in total, we went down 2%, 2.8% in Q2 of last year. We do realize we have – we were down 2.6% in Q3 and 2.3% in Q4. So there is some optimism that even in the absence of gaining price that some of the actions we've taken we could some something positive, I guess, we just didn't feel positive enough to bake it into the forecast. So, we're working very hard to push the increases through. But, it's yet to be seen. It's gated by how competition acts, how demand is for the next couple of months. I mean, we know have some hyper regions, the Northeast. It's coming off of a very difficult winter. So, they have a lot of volume right now. Maybe it'll be easier for them to get some price. We'll just have to see. And, of course, there's been a lot of storms out in the mountain area in Colorado and maybe there's an opportunity there. But in general, we just didn't think it was prudent to bake it into any forecast that we would talk to the Street about.

Drew Lipke - Stephens, Inc.

Analyst

All right. I appreciate it, guys. Good luck. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Thanks, Drew.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Ken Zener at KeyBanc.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Ken.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Good morning, Ken.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Appreciate your commentary, as always, guys. In terms of what you're seeing out there, could you tie off your – the notion of you being one of the larger distributors, largest public distributor, with your same-store branch being down 20% year-over-year in this last quarter versus ARMA shipments were down 35%? Could you kind of – I mean, realizing (30:44) you are not the industry, but there's a difference there between what you destocked and what ARMA indicates for shipment. Could you kind of highlight what that might mean to you broadly about inventory levels? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I think, one, it's – first, I'll say we are not concerned at all by any delta between that and our shipments. I think there's no doubt as we did not see the sales that we saw in the back half of March that had an impact. And then there was some other actions that we took related to different pieces and channels of our business where we did have to add some inventory. So, we're not – we knew what we were doing. We knew the control points. We're not concerned at all about any delta. You'd have to get in and pluck out the Vs (31:32) on every manufacturer on what they shipped and why they shipped it. And I think there's very little correlation other than directionally, we're aligned very well with the reduction. And based on business need, we think that the 20-plus percent is a good number for us.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Okay. The other elements which I find interesting is your gross margin. It's 23%-and-change. You're looking for that same level in the back half? If I could just – have you – if I missed it in the commentary, be explicit around that. It seems like you said you're going to be going up in the back half. Is that correct? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. No, no...

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

(32:14)? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: ...I mean, in my – yeah. In my comments I gave the ranging we always give.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Right. The 22.5% to 24%. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Always, right, because there's a lot of unknowns and I won't give you any details by quarter because we typically – well, we wouldn't give guidance by quarter.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Sure. Let me... Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: But there's a view that we would be above 23% in the back half with gross margin. I don't think it would get as high as 23.5% but we feel fairly comfortable, even in the absence of no price that we could be above 23% in the back half and that's what we're working towards. Obviously, we're working towards more, of course.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Right. And I ask you that – go ahead, Joe.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

I was going to say we made great progress in the first half of the year, as you saw. Mix helped us kind of tremendously through that. So that's the piece we'll watch as we go through the second half of the year when we may see a little bit more commercial kind of pickup in the second half of the year which will have an impact on that mix number to us.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Good. Thanks for (33:20). I mean, if commercial comes back, is that kind of a difference between you being above 23% and being perhaps below because res is obviously at its higher margin, or is it you're expecting your res gross margin, whatever it is, to actually go up?

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

No. I don't think – one, I don't believe the commercial increase, which we do expect, right? I mean, there's no doubt we have a lot of branches in the North. They were impacted. As I said in my prepared remarks, I'm not concerned at all about commercial growth. We're seeing a lot of strong growth right now in those regions commercially just because of the pent-up. So, as you look at our mix from first half to second half or second quarter, let's say, they are probably – there could be a shift back to more normalized, a little higher commercial, a little lower on complementary and resi. But I still think we could have strong complementary mix given Applicators and some of the other initiatives we have to grow those complementary lines. And, of course, we're bullish on the fact that we're going to be able to continue to shift residential products. So, no, I don't think if commercial – to get to your question, if commercial increases that guarantees that margins are going to be below 23% at all.

Kenneth R. Zener - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thank you, guys. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Bob Wetenhall at RBC Capital Markets.

Robert Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Hey. Thanks for all the color. I wanted to understand your comments on commercial, which it would seem to come in kind of more sluggish, and you guys highlighted weather. Is this a situation where it's not demand destruction and you're going to see the volume recover in the next quarter, or how should we think about commercial volumes? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I mean, in my prepared remarks, 5%, 6% growth in Q – in the back half, we'll call it, could be more. It's very difficult to predict how much is going to come up. No doubt there is a lot of compression during – well just stick to Q2 – during the January to March timeframe. We thought we'd see more come out at the end of March. It didn't. A lot of delays, as you – I think everybody knows what happened up in Boston and points kind of South, a little bit West, even North of there and that's where we have a big commercial business as well as the upper Midwest, right? And I think that just got delayed, push down those projects, and they're going to come back out. So maybe the 5% is conservative. I know Carlisle talked about bigger numbers, but we're also in different geographies than Carlisle. So that's kind of the lay of the land for the second half.

Robert Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Got it. And help me think through. We're obviously in a deflationary asphalt environment and I looked at your pricing on the resi side and I'm thinking what's it going to take either from a demand standpoint or from an OEM to distributors standpoint to reverse negative pricing trends? And historically, what's going on with pricing when you do have these lower asphalt costs and how do you manage with that? Thanks very much and good luck. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Thank you. There's been a lot of fluctuation, just in the last six years on asphalt, right, going from $400 to $800 back down to $600, now earlier, at least from the August-September timeframe, it's gone down to maybe $400 a ton. The last seven weeks, eight weeks, I think it's been – in general, if you look at the total contribution. It's been relatively flat. So that's good news. Of course, a good percentage of asphalt gets pulled and you'd be using paving. We'll just have to see what – how much paving does pop and then what that means for pricing. There's a view that if it is a strong paving season, that will help stabilize and bring it up. I mean, to date, we have not seen any deflation as a result of asphalt. If we were to, we would deal with it. We would deal with our manufacturer partner and figure out how to reduce our input costs, but do some offsets. But it's not right now is worrisome, especially in light of the comments that the manufacturers have made about intending to keep any deflation they see as profit given the difficult year they had last year, which is really just fine with us.

Robert Wetenhall - RBC Capital Markets LLC

Analyst

Terrific. Thanks very much. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Keith Hughes of SunTrust.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Yeah. I had a question on acquisitions. You spoke a little bit in the prepared text and in the release. But, I guess, looking more specifically, the last couple of years, given the tough industry conditions, is that starting to push more particularly smaller owners to the table? Are they more willing to sell, given what's happened to the industry of late? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. It would be difficult for me to generalize because we see selling in both periods, strong demands, strong results, and down markets maybe weaker results. So, I think, Keith, there's no set rule. Our pipeline is very, very large. We continue to talk to owners but it's always paced on it, and that's not an answer intended to baffle you. It's really what we see. It goes both ways. It really does.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Okay. Second question, on the price increase. There was a delay by one of the manufacturers around what's been discussed (39:24) to be a systems issue. Have you seen any changes of behavior of late of any of the manufacturers around their announced the increase? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, none. None at all. I mean, they're all been firm about price going up and we're going to follow that and hopefully, the industry does because the bottom line is regardless of how we look at, where we're at, demand points, squares of shingles, all you got to do is look at our pricing for the last six quarters and it's not been positive, hasn't been grossly negative, but it's been negative. And on, the residential side, of course as you know, it's been more. And I think what I've heard from the manufacturers that they also heard, as I said earlier, last year, maybe even the year before. So I think the industries do to increase prices and get the increases. And then I think just that means we – all I can do is control Beacon, of course. We have to be firm with the fact that especially to our great customer base that it's time to raise prices and we need to do that.

Keith Hughes - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll move next to Kevin Hocevar at Northcoast Research.

Kevin W. Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Hey. Good morning, everybody. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Kevin.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Hello, Kevin.

Kevin W. Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Looking just specifically at the commercial side of the business, pricing seemed to hold up. It was pretty flat. It looked like both from your procurement standpoint and to your customers. And I know that industry is similarly seeing lower raw materials from the lower oil prices. So, I'm just wondering, what – do you expect that to continue to be relatively flat going forward or do you expect that to change at all? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: No, I don't – I mean, we don't have one concern about it going down. I mean, think about the quarter we just came out of. Some of our biggest commercial work comes from the northern climates, as I said earlier, and we did fairly well on pricing. I also think we have, relatively speaking, manufacturers that are very disciplined. I know Carlisle has talked about any deflation they see, they're going to want to keep. I would assume they're going to do that based on what I know about Carlisle. And again, that doesn't bother us. So I'm – if anything, as volume increases, I would hope, no guarantee of course because I can't predict the future, I would hope that we would see some little bit of positive pricing on the commercial side. There's no reason to think bad.

Kevin W. Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. Got you. And then not to beat a dead horse, but on the inventory per branch, just so I'm making sure I'm hearing you right, it sounds like you expect it to be similar to maybe two, three years ago level. So, on the whole, as the year progresses, you would expect to have a lower year-over-year inventory per branch, essentially having leaner inventories all year this year compared to last year. Is that fair to say? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. The same or slightly lower, yes.

Kevin W. Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. All right, guys. Thank you very much.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

We feel good about our inventory control process.

Kevin W. Hocevar - Northcoast Research Partners LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thank you. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Okay.

Operator

Operator

We'll go next to Michael Rehaut at JPMorgan.

Jason A. Marcus - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. It's actually Jason Marcus in for Mike. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Jason.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Hey, Jason.

Jason A. Marcus - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

My first question is just going back to the gross margins. I know obviously mix helped a lot in the quarter, but it sounds like at least a portion of the improvement was driven by higher year-over-year gross margins in the complementary products. So I just wanted to see if you could give a little more color on some of the trends you saw there and if there are any specific product categories that stood out? And then as you look into the back half of the year, if that year-over-year improvement you think can hold in complementary products? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Good question. Complementary, in general, has been a pleasant surprise for us. If you look at pricing for the last three quarters, it's been positive. And along for the last two quarters, we've seen a little bit of product cost increases. So what it means is the manufacturers' price increases, we're kind of pulling those through. Remodeling index is up and then you throw Applicators which is a very strong company, up in Maine, and that's why we bought them, right, because they have great mix of complementary products, mostly vinyl siding and windows. They're very strong. So – and we're working very hard in all of our other regions to push complementary products which would include vinyl siding, windows, doors and to a lesser extent, waterproofing. I think though the biggest portion of that LOB for us, line of business, is vinyl siding, which just seems to be very strong. So I mean, I wish I could predict that we'll see two points of price for the next two quarters, I can't. But if you look at last year, we were negative in Q3 in pricing and slightly positive in Q4. So I mean, there's some optimism there that if the demand continues as we've been seeing it, then we could see positive pricing.

Jason A. Marcus - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Okay. Thanks. And then, just looking at your balance sheet, I think leverage has come down a bit over time and at pretty low levels right now. And I know you've made a couple medium-sized acquisitions over the last six months, but if you think about longer term, your appetite for maybe making a significantly larger acquisition, how would you think about that in terms of leverage on the balance sheet and what would you be comfortable with? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, I'll let Joe answer that.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Sure. You're right and thanks for kind of pointing out the good work that we've kind of done, focused on our leverage and keeping our balance sheet kind of clean. You're right, at that 1.68, we're in good shape. I think, as we've always traditionally kind of talked about, keeping it under 2 in a regular recurring operation for us is a comfortable spot for us to be, although in times of acquisition, you have seen us go up to the 3, 4, and with a plan to work out and get it lower after that point in time. Beyond that, we would have to think more difficultly of growing above that kind of threshold of leverage really because of a lot of the seasonality in our business and want to keep flexibility as well, too. But right now, based on the clean balance sheet we have, again, we think we have a lot of capability to continue on our path of growth through acquisitions here. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. And the other part of your question, we do have an appetite to potentially do a larger deal. We have access to funds, equity, so I think we're in great shape from that standpoint.

Jason A. Marcus - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

All right. Thank you. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Brent Rakers at Thompson Research Group.

Brent D. Rakers - Thompson Research Group LLC

Analyst

Yes. Good morning. I wanted to talk a little bit about price maybe in a little bit different way. We've been talking a lot about absolute price and all that, but I'd like to talk a little bit about relative price. Could you talk about – I think this is the first quarter maybe in the last five or six where in the residential category you've had at least parity between what your costs have done versus what your pricing has done. Can you talk to that maybe specifically about what Beacon is doing, but maybe also about if there's some sort of change in discipline at the distributor level in the channel? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I mean, Brent, I wish I could say there's a discipline change at the distribution level. I can only surmise that all of my competitors are tired of losing price or being in a very difficult pricing market, but I really can't comment on it because I don't know. I think we did see some stabilization relatively speaking, although there's still a lot of pressure in different regions, the Southeast, we talked about and really Southwest focused mostly in Texas because of being on backside of storms. I don't – of course, we continue our supply chain efforts with a lot of intensity and we do have great manufacturer partners. I don't think we've really changed anything. Some of it could be timing of the inventory we pull through on the cost side. Although, like I said, I think we're getting even better on the supply chain piece. But to me, it's good news that pricing has stabilized somewhat. We'll find out now in Q3 and Q4 as we round out the deeper negative comps from last year, what happens on the residential side. You would think naturally that with increased volume, increased demand and some of these smaller storm markets, that we've seen some activity in Oklahoma, West Texas, Colorado, even down in the Gulf area and maybe, there'd be some pressure there to help. But it's yet to be seen.

Brent D. Rakers - Thompson Research Group LLC

Analyst

Paul, when you talk about some of the demand challenges in the Southeast and Southwest and how that's created some pressure on price, does the reverse work as well? So when you see some of your stronger numbers in the Western region and then some of the upper Midwestern markets in the quarter, do you see prices firm to even improving a bit in those regions because of the stronger demand? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Without getting into a lot of detail, we do typically see that, yes.

Brent D. Rakers - Thompson Research Group LLC

Analyst

Okay, great. Thanks. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thanks, Brent.

Operator

Operator

And our next question comes from Ryan Merkel at William Blair. Ryan J. Merkel - William Blair & Co. LLC: Thanks. I guess first, just a clarification. Paul, did you say that the second half of April and early May is tracking at that 6% to 9% organic? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Second – say it again, Ryan. The second half of April? Ryan J. Merkel - William Blair & Co. LLC: Yeah. You said the second half of April, it picked up. And then into early May, I think you made a comment that things had stayed pretty strong. It's dangerous to extrapolate any one given month, I get that. But I'm just curious if that, the last four weeks are sort of tracking organically up 6% to 9%? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah, I mean in keeping with what we've talked about in the past, I don't want to go too deep into the quarter because we always just talk about that first month. I guess, I can summarize and say, we feel pretty confident right now about the volume of late, right. And so, that should parallel my comments about the 6% to 9% in the back half. Ryan J. Merkel - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay. Fair enough. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Otherwise, it's too deep in the quarter, yeah. Ryan J. Merkel - William Blair & Co. LLC: Okay. And then, secondly, can you remind us what you're assuming that the greenfield are going to add this year in terms of organic growth? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. Well, I mean, if you look at the splits for the full…

Operator

Operator

And we'll go next to Garik Shmois at Longbow Research.

Mark Zikeli - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Hey, this is actually Mark Zikeli on for Garik today. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Hey, Mark.

Mark Zikeli - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Just touching on the residential price increase for May, I mean, you said you needed to be firm with your customers and you're just talking about good backlogs here. I mean, can you just talk a little bit about the receptiveness of your customers to this price increase? And it seem like they're in a good position now to pass along inflation or would you say you're getting some pushback? Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Yeah. I think regardless of how I feel, how we feel and then of course, our position, it's too early. We just came out of a very rough winter. And I think for me to make a comment about tens of thousands of customers that we have and make a blanket statement, it wouldn't be appropriate, because I haven't taken data points from 50% of them. I think though in general, most of our customers would understand that we've taken it on the chin for a couple of years and given that the manufacturers, as of right now are pushing very hard that they want to increase pricing. I would hope, right that they would see the value in us pushing that and the competitors pushing that through the channel allowing them to get that same pricing. Of course, that's gated by – with their end customer. That's always gated by strong or weak volume in any particular region.

Mark Zikeli - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Okay. And just quickly on gross margin in the quarter, did you quantify what the impact of – just lower direct product cost versus the savings you got from diesel this quarter?

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Sure. You are right, another good question around the cost side of it. From a diesel perspective, last quarter, we started to see an impact where we had a couple of hundred thousand dollar minor impact to it. This quarter, it really started to step up quite a bit. We saw much better benefit. We saw almost an $800,000 year-over-year benefit from lower kind of fuel cost in our cost structure. In fact, if you look across our total cost structure, as I mentioned, I mean going from $104 million to $111 million, greenfields drove about $5 million increasing, acquisitions drove about $5 million increasing. We had several other cost increases, standard business increases for everything from compensation increases, insurance, other kind of business increases, depreciation, other costs that cost about $3.5 million. But the efficiency was the good part. Things like the fuel costs, we had almost $4 million in efficiencies from other areas we were able to kind of save our operating expenses during the course of the quarter. So, a good quarter from a operating expense perspective. I've been waiting for somebody to ask, so I can give you all that detail. So, thanks for bringing that up.

Mark Zikeli - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst

Yeah, no problem. Best of luck this quarter.

Joseph M. Nowicki - Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analyst

Thanks. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude the questions. Now, I would like to turn the call back over to Mr. Isabella for his closing comments. Paul M. Isabella - President, Chief Executive Officer & Director: Great. Thank you. I just have a couple of minutes here to close it out, and some of these are repeats, but they're worth repeating. Our second quarter sales up $413 million, up 7.4% from the prior year and most of it was attributed to the greenfield and acquisition investments. And we said, we had smaller existing growth. We continue doing a very good job of executing our growth plan, combining new branches, acquisitions and existing branch sales as growth levers and we're going to continue to work that to improve it. Residential sales grew nearly 10%, complementary nearly 14% in total, while commercial was up slightly at 1.2%. And really the repeat on this is this is a great example of our product diversification and placement across the country. Gross margin improved 80 basis points versus the prior year. This is significant when you consider we lost 80 basis points in the quarter due to price. We were able to reduce product costs offset the price decline and also benefited from the mix shift towards residential and complementary products, as we've talked about on the call. I think we did a good job here, considering that it was a tough weather demand quarter. Mentioned the five greenfields that we've opened up so far, with a plan to open up approximately 10 and we'll give you more updates on the next call on that. We're very excited about that. Operating costs as a percent of sales were down even with the additional costs from the investments of greenfields and acquisitions. Joe talked about our balance sheet. It's in excellent shape. Our disciplined buying approach on inventory this quarter has not only strengthened our already strong balance sheet, but will benefit us in the future. And, kind of in summary, we're in a great market. I've said this before. Roofs fail, and we're going to get some great complementary growth, I believe. And it's going to – the market is going to continue to grow. We're well positioned to capitalize on this growth with our branch count and product placement. And we are executing the elements of our strategic plan and we'll continue to do so. I think our future is very, very bright. I want to thank all of our investors for their interest in our company as well as our great customers and employees for their loyalty. This concludes our earnings call. Thank you.