Scott Thompson
Analyst · Wedbush Securities. Your line is now open
Thank you, Aubrey. Good morning, and thank you for joining us on our 2019 second quarter earnings call. I'll start with comments on the quarter's operating performance, then Bhaskar will review our financial performance with you in more detail. Finally, I'll wrap up with an overview of our long-term corporate initiatives.A strong momentum from earlier this year continued into the second quarter and beyond. In fact, from adjusted EBITDA perspective, the second quarter was just short of our best second quarter in the company's history. For the second quarter 2019, net sales increased double-digit.Adjusted EBITDA grew 21% and adjusted EPS was $0.79 a share, a robust increase of 39%. The adjusted EPS growth was driven by growth in operations not share repurchase. Our results have been propelled. Our premium brands in our industry-leading product quality and services combined with our powerful worldwide omni-channel platform.Now some highlights. First, we grew our relationships with existing third-party retailers in North America. During the quarter, we grew North America wholesale channel by 7%, including significant growth from our Tempur-Pedic brand, which was benefited from the strength of our new TEMPUR-Breeze products.As a reminder this is the first quarter that our full lineup of the new Tempur-Pedic products were in market. These new products continue to receive rave reviews on the basis of their innovation and product quality. Total North American Tempur-Pedic sales grew 17% in the quarter and excluding floor models grew 30%. Clearly, we're expanding the high-end mattress market and taking a good bit of market share.Sealy, including Stearns & Foster, continued to outperform our expectations during the quarter, growing 7% versus the second quarter last year. We were particularly pleased that the Sealy growth was broad-based across all price points. The Sealy Hybrid continues to perform exceptionally well, even against very difficult comps and our new Stearns & Foster line has exceeded our expectation and it has been successful in driving average retail sales price.Perhaps the biggest positive inflection this quarter was Sealy's return to growth within the challenging sub $1,000 price point. I believe Sealy's performance was driven by internal initiatives targeting new channels of distribution, market-leading product quality and the recent favorable tariff rulings. We believe this momentum will continue.The second highlight is our global direct channel, which grew a robust 55% in the second quarter. In North America, our direct channel grew 78%, which was above our expectation. Excluding the recently acquired Sleep Outfitters business, North America direct channel grew a very robust 37% in the quarter. This was driven by strong growth in both our e-commerce business and our company-owned stores.During the quarter, we opened three new Tempur-Pedic stores bringing our total to 47, and we expect to be approximately 60 by year-end. In terms of our recent acquisition of Sleep Outfitters, I'm pleased to report the integration is complete and the turnaround of that business is running a good bit ahead of point.In addition to driving sales growth, our North America direct-to-consumer web team has continued to focus on marketing efficiencies, keeping our customer acquisition costs low, resulting in a very profitable business. This is the second quarter in a row we've experienced declining customer acquisition costs and expanding profit margins.The third last highlight I would like to discuss is our record second quarter gross profit margin. Our gross margin expanded over 200 basis points versus the same period last year. After several quarters of ongoing efforts to offset significant headwinds from commodities, launch cost and unfavorable merchandising mix, we're now reporting the positive impact of our efforts. Drivers of margin expansion are the completion of our Tempur-Pedic product launch, all our price actions implemented in 2018 been fully set to market, our continued efficiency efforts and our expansion of our direct channel.One area that was a bit of a challenge during the quarter was international. Although we experienced 7% net sales growth on a constant currency basis, this was slightly below our expectations. Our internal operations dealt with an unprecedented heatwave in Europe, uncertainty of Brexit, unrest in France and a slowing Asia business. I think all these items are industry or country specific issues.I believe our international team is performing well considering the environment. This quarter points out one of our strengths. Diversity of operation, which mitigates regional issues that makes Tempur-Sealy a stronger enterprise.Let me save someone a question regarding current trends. Third quarter, from a sales perspective, overall, have started off well with growth rates in North America being similar to the second quarter and international a bit slower, but in line with expectations. We are very pleased with our market position and our recent financial performance.It is interesting that this quarter is just short of our best second quarter in the company's history with or without Mattress Firm as a customer. As you know, we are now working on rolling out our full array of brands to Mattress Firm and expect to ship in the fourth quarter of 2019 through the first quarter of 2020. We expect this incremental volume will fund increased advertising, improved operating leverage and enhance our relationship with our component suppliers all over the world.Now I will turn the call over to Bhaskar to review our financial results with you in more detail.