Barry Hytinen
Analyst · Stifel. Your line is now open
Thanks, Scott. Net sales for the second quarter were $804 million, up 5.2% versus the second quarter last year and on a constant currency basis, they were up 6.6%. Adjusted gross margin improved 250 basis points to 41.9% and adjusted operating margin improved 340 basis points to 12.6%. On a segment basis, North America net sales increased 6% and were up 6.4% in constant currency. Both the Tempur and Sealy U.S. businesses grew mid-single-digits. Sales in Canada’s were strong, increasing 15% on a constant currency basis and high single-digits at reported rates. North America bedding products sales increased 5.2% and 6% at constant currency. Bedding units were up 2% in total. However, excluding floor models, they were up 3% as our launches last year had more floor model units. Sales growth was driven by higher demand for our Tempur products, particularly our new Breeze mattresses. Our Sealy Posturepedic and new Stearns & Foster products were also key drivers of growth. National accounts were below fleet performance. While that was a headwind to our revenue, it was a tailwind to our gross margin. Year-over-year average selling price was positively impacted by pricing actions taken earlier this year and positive merchandising mix for both Tempur-Pedic and our Sealy brand products. Our North American other channel grew 70% in the quarter. This channel is predominantly made up of our hospitality and high-margin Tempur direct-to-consumer business. As I look at our results, a personal highlight for me is that our internet sales increased over 40% as compared to the second quarter last year. Other product sales were up 25%, primarily driven by our joint venture, and offset by lower sales of Tempur-Pedic pillows. The decline in pillows sales is an area that the team is looking at very closely and may have some upside in 2017. Now I would like to briefly mention our new Cocoon by Sealy product line which was not material to sales but has been ramping. As the global bedding leader, we’re always trying to leverage our assets, so I am pleased that we are launching Cocoon into a couple of European markets in the third quarter with more to follow. In North America, Cocoon was about a $1.5 million drag on EBITDA in the second quarter, which was consistent with our plans. We feel confident that our product is by far the best in its class, and we continue to learn and fine tune our approach. We view Bed in a Box online as a niche market in a relatively small segment of the broader bedding industry with some companies overspending on customer acquisition cost with the global trend to higher quality bedding, the vast majority of consumers continue to prefer testing beds in store and buying from retailers. We have posted out company to be able to effectively respond if this is the way consumers want to purchase beds in the future. North America adjusted gross margin improved 340 basis points to 40.0% both Tempur and Sealy improved and were primarily driven by operational efficiencies, pricing actions and product mix. This was slight offset by increased launch cost associated with new products. Sealy U.S. gross margins improved a little over 200 basis point primarily driven by the four-wall improvement. As new products continue to rollout through the back half of the year, we will have some additional launch cost of approximately 5 million to 10 million incremental to last year to complete our North American rollout, but all of this will set us up very well for 2017. North America adjusted operating margin improved a robust 430 basis point to 15.5% driven by the improvement in gross margin and operating expense leverage. Operating expenses were up about 300 million year-over-year primarily due to new product launch cost. Now turning to international, net sales increased 1.6% and on a constant currency basis they were up 7.6%, bedding products sales increased 1.9% and on a constant currency basis increased 9.4%, unit increased 2%. Net sales increased as a result of growth across all of our major regions with particular strength from our Tempur-Hybrid launch, direct sales in Asia and Sealy branded sales in Latin America. This was partially offset by unfavorable foreign exchange rate particularly in Latin America. While we don't normally breakout this level of detail, given global attention to Brexit, I would like to note that the UK is only about 2% of sales and so far it's holding up well. Other channel sales were up 16.5% on a constant currency basis, driven by strong internet sales and positive double digit comps in our company owned stores. International adjusted gross margin decreased 120 basis points to 51.1%, compared to the prior year 52.3. Our gross margin declined was driven by cost associated with new product launches and product mix. Offsetting these factors, we continue to see benefit from those incremental sales through the more profitable direct distribution channels. International adjusted operating margin decreased 110 basis points to 17% driven by adjusted gross margin. Operating expenses were flat year-over-year. Consolidated unadjusted EBITDA was 124 million, up $47 million or 62% from last year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was 125 million, up 34 million or 38%. Adjusted EBITDA growth was driven by operational improvements, increased sales and pricing. These were partially offset by launch associated cost, foreign exchange and variable compensation. Adjustments to EBITDA decreased to $1 million from $14 million in the same quarter last year. In the second quarter, we recorded onetime $47 million loss on extinguishment of debt associated with the completion of our new credit facility and senior notes offering. The loss included 23.6 million premium associated with the prepayment of the 2020 bond, $15.8 million non-cash write off of deferred financing costs, and $7.8 million of lender fees. As you recall these transactions greatly improved our capital structure and flexibility. GAAP operating income, including debt extinguishment costs, increased for the third consecutive quarter. Without these costs GAAP earnings were robust. GAAP earnings per share were $0.35, up from $0.34 in the second quarter of 2015. Adjusted EPS, a much better measure of our operating performance, was $0.92, up from $0.53 last year or a 74% increase. We realized about $0.03 of benefit from our share repurchases so far this year. For the 12 months ending June 30, 2016, our adjusted EBITDA was $504 million, an increase of $87 million or 21% over the same period last year. Now moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow items. At the end of the second quarter, net debt was $1.6 billion. Our leverage ratio on a trailing 12-month basis was 3.2 times as the end of the second quarter, stable with level at the end of the prior quarter even after big launch costs and share repurchase. Again highlighting the company in the industry with great cash flow attributes. This is down from 3.8 times in the same period last year. As you know, we have established a target leverage ratio of approximately 3.5 times and we’ll continue to monitor our leverage. Operating cash flow in the second quarter was $71 million versus $8 million in the second quarter last year, driven by EBITDA growth and improved cash cycle. As previously reported, we had a lot of capital structure activity. We replaced our senior credit facility, we issued $600 million of 10-year senior notes, and called our notes that were due in ’20. These transactions significantly extended the maturities of our long-term debt, lowered our interest costs, mitigated exposure to increases in future interest rates and increased our flexibility to return capital to shareholders. Overall we clearly reduced enterprise risk and feel great about our balance sheet. During the second quarter, the company repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares for a total cost of approximately $122 million. We ended the quarter with $59.7 million shares outstanding after giving effect to dilution. In July, through yesterday, we have bought about 600,000 shares for a total cost of approximately $34 million [ph]. After giving effect for the additional authorization that Scott mentioned, we have $344 million available for future share repurchases. After quarter end in July, our 8% PIC notes matured, which we funded primarily through a delay draw on our term loan in the new credit facility. This resulted, based on today’s interest rate and an additional $6 million in annual interesting savings I would like to provide a brief update on the situation with the Danish tax authority. We continue to work through our negotiations with all parties. We anticipate making a payment in the third quarter consistent with our reserve position. We feel we have fully accounted for the exposure based on what we know at this point and expect to have more information on this issue on the next earnings call. Now, turning to our financial guidance, today we are raising the low-end of our adjusted EBITDA guidance from $500 million to $525 million, and maintaining the high end at $550 million. The midpoint of the new range of EBITDA guidance, which increased from $525 million to $538 million, represents an increase of $82 million or 18% versus prior year. We expect to experience some sales headwinds from a noisy U.S. election cycle, continued uncontrollable events internationally, and some unfavorable FX. This combined with our first half sales performance of 1.4% net sales growth, we anticipate low single-digit growth for the full year. With that, I'll the turn back to Scott