Earnings Labs

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (SMG)

Q3 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 4, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Q3 Earnings Conference Call. Today's conference is being recorded. And at this time, I'd like to turn the conference over to Jim King. Please go ahead. Jim King - Chief Communications Officer & Senior VP, Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs: Thank you, Noah. Good morning everyone, and welcome to the Scotts Miracle-Gro Third Quarter Conference Call. With me today here in Marysville are Jim Hagedorn, our Chairman and CEO; Randy Coleman, our Chief Financial Officer; Mike Lukemire, our Chief Operating Officer; and several other members of the management team. Jim is going to provide an overview of the current state of the business. He also will provide you an update on where we stand against our long-term strategic plan. Then Randy will walk through the financials and the implications of today's results on our full-year outlook. After their prepared remarks, we will open the call to your questions, but in the interest of time, we ask that you keep to one question and to one follow-up. If there are questions that we don't address, I'm glad to handle those offline with you after the call. One bit of housekeeping before we begin, we are currently planning to hold an Analyst Day Meeting in New York on Thursday, December 10. Obviously, we'll discuss this at much greater length during our fourth quarter call, but I wanted it on your radar now and ask you to hold that date. Moving on to today's business, I want to remind everyone that our comments today will contain forward-looking statements, and as such, actual results could to differ materially. Due to that risk, Scotts Miracle-Gro encourages investors to review the risk factors outlined in our Form 10-K which is filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission or our most…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we'll take our first question from Bill Chappell with SunTrust.

William Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, man.

William Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Hey, good morning. I guess first question on the quarter, one thing you had talked about was, I think, a 10% higher level of retail inventory. Is that just the retailers were more excited about the category – just trying to understand why the -still the difference between the POS and the organic growth? Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. Bill, this is Randy. If you recall back at the end of the second quarter, our retail inventories were down 5%. Now at the end of third quarter, they're up 10%. So it becomes difficult evaluating points in time and the impact of what that means; but obviously, being down on inventory going into the third quarter helped our shipments and helped our growth and the fact that inventories are a little bit high at the end of the quarter will likely mean that it could have a – or it could have a little bit of a shipment impact in the fourth quarter as we work our way back down towards the end of our fiscal year and really more so at the end of this season which is more so November, end of Thanksgiving time. But those are the beginning and ending goalposts and that's essentially what's driving shipments as well as - James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Look, I've got to say, I'm not particularly concerned about it largely because the retailers are super sensitive to inventory levels and they've been continuing to buy in and set up for their summer business and for their – starting to get prepared now for the fall business. I think that generally it's – it's not an issue, and the retailers are not complaining about it. I don't know, Mike, if you have a point of view on it. Michael C. Lukemire - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: No. I think with a heavy bug and weed season we loaded up to attack those seasons and so – on top of normal inventory, so.

William Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Got it. So not – not a concern. Switching to just the outlook over the next two, three months. Can you maybe give me an update on plans on locking in some of – are you going to hedge more or less the same on some of the commodities for next year? And then, Jim, on the acquisition front, should I read this to, look, we got three or four more in the hopper, and then we're done? And then it's back to 2016's maybe cash for non-M&A related type stuff? Or are you going to still look at other deals? James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Look, so I'll jump in just because I can't help myself and then I'll hand it back to you, Randy, okay. The answer to that is yes. I think that we're sort of in the terminal phases. I think we expect that we'll make some more acquisitions in the hydro space. I don't view that as huge dollars, by the way. So I view it as relatively small dollars. But the Hawthorne Team is, I think, ready to sort of come up for air. But we basically said – or at least what I said is that my appetite was probably higher to be a little more active in that space. I think it's – the integration work, it's gone well, but it's been hard work for that team. So I want to congratulate them on sort of keeping the business under control and getting it done. I think, we here, have basically said we're probably looking like six months out before we start fishing again in that space. We've said that peat's an important asset. I think in the comments we made, that Randy made, about peat pricing, I think…

William Chappell - SunTrust Robinson Humphrey

Analyst

Great. Thanks for the color on all those issues. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Jason Gere with KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Jason M. Gere - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Good morning. Hey, guys. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey.

Jason M. Gere - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets.

I guess two questions. One, I was wondering if you can dive a little bit more into Ortho and Roundup and what you've seen on the competitive landscape. Obviously, you've pointed to some really good growth that you've seen. And I know after last year you guys are going to be, I think, a little bit more competitive out there this – this year. So it seems like that's working. So as, one, I was wondering if you could just talk a little bit about what you're seeing out there, how the category's growing share, et cetera. And then I just have another question afterwards. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: And I'll take the Ortho conversation and maybe ask Mike to reinforce a little bit with it. I think we looked at Ortho and said it's a – unlike a lot of our categories, it was a much more competitive and crowded category. I think you had Speck on the opening price point, really with nobody going after them. And significantly more competition on sort of the value – or the value-added side with us; Central; Bayer; SCJ, who's with us – I don't know who I'm missing, but seems like someone. And I think in that context, I think we, or at least I'll say I, but I think Mike and I were in very much agreement, we just were not – we're just in the middle there somewhere. You had sort of, I'm going to say, Bayer on the own scientific professional side with like the German spectacles. You had Speck on the opening price point. And we're just kind of in the middle. And I think our labels were not as clear as they needed to be. I think our pricing was, to be…

Jason M. Gere - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Okay. Great. Just, I guess the next question – and kudos to you guys for the SG&A cost containment and how you guys have been able to kind of really limit that growth. And I was wondering if we could think about the next couple of years out, any type of bigger projects on the horizon that you guys can think of, structural changes that really can continue managing the SG&A as kind of a – I guess a constant especially as gross margin has been so volatile over the last couple of years in order to kind of drive some of that operating margin improvement? James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Look, I'm going to start by disagreeing with a little bit, if that is okay. We spent a lot of time talking about gross margin. Mulch has been a significant driver in our gross margin and our – sort of our internal challenge for sort of 40% gross margin. I think our view is if not for mulch, we would be there. Now, I'm not complaining about mulch. Mulch has turned into a sort of giant and rapidly-growing category, and we're playing really hard there. And I think our partners that have played with us have taken advantage in the – the consumer – it's a – it's awesome, I think, value for the consumer, but it does create mix issues for us. And the season this year with lawns, where you're down – I don't know what it was – 7% or 8%, definitely like contributed further to it. But I don't actually think that our margins have been that sort of choppy. I think mulch has really been driving sort of a wedge into our aspiration of where we want to get to on…

Jason M. Gere - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Okay, great. And while I have you, can you clarify just a comment you made earlier just on interest expense. I think you said it was going to be $4 million higher. Is that sequentially from the third quarter or is that year-over-year $4 million higher? Thanks, guys. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: The fourth quarter interest expense should be about $4 million higher just as we fund the payment being made to Monsanto in mid-August of $300 million as well as the build-up from some of the other acquisitions we've done this year. So it'll be $4 million year-over-year on the fourth quarter.

Jason M. Gere - KeyBanc Capital Markets, Inc.

Analyst · KeyBanc Capital Markets.

Year-over-year, okay, great. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from Joe Altobello with Raymond James. Joseph Nicholas Altobello - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Hey, guys. Good morning. I just wanted to - James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Joe. Joseph Nicholas Altobello - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Just want to start off with you, Randy, in terms of the gross margin, obviously, called it down a little bit this morning. Could we kind of dive into the different puts and takes there? How much of that is coming from mix? How much of that is coming from acquisitions and other items? Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Well, you think about mix entirely, including acquisitions, that's really the driver primarily of why we're down year-over-year, so it's about half. What Jim pointed out, where Lawns is down, mulch is up; and the other half is from the acquisitions we've done, that the year-to-date impact from integrating the deals. Some of them are a little bit lower on gross margin rate while equivalent on the operating margin rate. And with some deals, the first turn of inventory were not recognizing margin on just due to accounting conventions. So it takes a while for us to put that behind us. 2016 we feel good about. The acquisitions, everything appears to be on track at this point. And we feel like we're in a good place. Joseph Nicholas Altobello - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay, so it's half acquired mix and half organic mix, I guess, is another way to look at it. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Right. Joseph Nicholas Altobello - Raymond James & Associates, Inc.: Okay. In terms of the pricing for next year, you guys…

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Jon Andersen with William Blair. Jon R. Andersen - William Blair & Co. LLC: Good morning, everybody. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey. Jon R. Andersen - William Blair & Co. LLC: I wanted to come back to the top line for a minute, so year-to-date you've shipped ahead of consumption or point-of-sale, and you have, even if you adjust for kind of the inventory build that you talked about, so can you talk about some of the dynamics there? I know you mentioned strength outside the big boxes, maybe you can talk a little bit more about what you're seeing on a channel-by-channel basis and what's really driving again that shipment growth ahead of consumption, even after adjusting for the inventory build? Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Sure. So it ties back a bit to what Mike and Jim were talking about, around Ortho for example, where our shipment growth has outpaced the dollar growth. When you look at just dollar POS it can be – it's a little bit misleading at this point in the year. I expect that to remain the same for the whole year. So just, we've shifted more than what you'd think based on what's going out of the retailers. And then when we talk about POS, it's really only tracking against the big boxes. So we have had nice shipment growth outside. Really no big one win, but just across the board the team has done a really nice job across many channels and that's contributed about a point of growth. And then also Lawn Services caught up after a slow start, which is the same weather issues we faced in our Consumer business, but really the Lawn…

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Olivia Tong with Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Great, thank you. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey, Olivia.

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

First – hi, how are you? James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Good, you?

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Good, thanks. I guess first question just on the gross margin for fiscal 2016, because it sounds like you said raw material deflation coming through, looks like you're planning to take pricing, probably expect a rebound in mix. So as you sort of think about 2016, it sounds like gross margin's looking to be relatively good on a year-over-year basis, so maybe can you give a little bit more color on what may be the potential opposite side of that? Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah, Olivia, I agree. We're still in the process of putting together plans, so difficult to provide very many more specifics, but from a high level I think you have the story right. Top line, we'll still think more than likely 0% to 1% to 2% and prepare for more, but plan for that. And again, someday we'll have a perfect weather year and we should blow that number away, but that hasn't happened in quite a while and we won't, again, plan on that for next year. SG&A, we would expect to keep on top of that, probably grow similar to our sales growth, maybe a little bit higher depending on some investments we make. One of the challenges we'll have next year is with all the acquisitions that we've done, we will have a significant increase in interest expense next year and so that will be a headwind to EPS. And our share count will probably in increase a little bit as well. So I would expect our operating income growth to exceed our EPS growth next year. But again, I think basically for the reasons we've talked about earlier, solid business from an organic point of view and then the acquisitions that we've done we think…

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Got it. With that in mind, is 40% in total gross margin still the right aspiration over time? Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Certainly. If we're not targeting that, then we won't get there. I think we'll make good improvement next year. I think when you kind of look at it on a trend line, this year's an aberration. We made big strides, both in 2013 and 2014, took a pause more-or-less this year, and we'll be right back on the track in 2016. So we have not changed our outlook on that at all. It's just perhaps taken us a little bit longer to get there than we had thought a few years ago. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: In part because this is a competitive marketplace out there, and we've got to be able to compete at the same time. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: And, Olivia, one other thing to note, if we were to remove mulch from our P&L, we'd already be at that level. So it's growing really fast, the margins are mid-teens and it's having a dilutive impact, but if it's adding dollars then it's really important to how we go to business. But on a pro forma basis, for example, you'd argue we're already there. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: We're not arguing that, but it's (58:39).

Olivia Tong - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Got it. I guess two follow-up questions. Just first on Roundup, perhaps can you preview some of the potential things you may plan to do with the expanded Roundup agreement in place, particularly markets that you might want to expand into; and on the flip side, markets that you may potentially exit? And then just on the – on Bonus S, I wanted to understand the issue a little bit more. Just kind of like how did – how did it happen? Was there not enough R&D or consumer testing beforehand? How's the region doing now? What changes have you put in place to ensure that this doesn't repeat? And is there any risk in ability to recover on some of the insurance reimbursements? Thanks a bunch. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, the answer on the recovery part is yes, except for this $10 million. Okay. I think, Olivia, that the issue – because your questions – let's just talk to the Bonus S part – I think very reasonable questions. I think if you look at sort of our experience with the DuPont Active that we were really high on. Thanks goodness we didn't launch it as early as the pro people did on the golf course side, where I think there was billions of losses on DuPont's side from damage to trees. That said, it was a really good active. It's just nobody figured out that it killed mature pine trees and that, I think, really made it a unusable product. I think if you look at the active ingredient in the new Bonus S, I think that a lot of what – remember, because the old active is this Atrazine. A good product, not as effective as we'd like to see, not because…

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our next question from William Reuter with Bank of America.

William M. Reuter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Good morning, guys. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Hey. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hello.

William M. Reuter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

When you were talking about a handful of smaller acquisitions, it sounds like, that potentially could be completed, and then you mentioned moderate-sized acquisitions. Can you talk a little bit about what size you might be talking about? And then you mentioned four times with regard to leverage, I guess, is that the way we should be thinking about you guys going forward, that it's likely one of these moderate-sized acquisitions does get completed? James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I'm not trying to be like a secretive dude. What I'm trying to do is keep our cards clean because we're in discussions with people. But I would say if we didn't get one of these moderate-sized deals done, we would not see that kind of leverage. I don't know. I think that's a kind of simple way to say it. I think that you would not see this on some sort of peat adjacencies or some Hydro deals. You would not see that kind of leverage increasing. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: To get to four times, we would have to see at least a couple of the moderate sized and then some of the smaller all happen with the next 12 months, call it. So the range of likelihood on that, I don't want to try to estimate, but that's what would have to happen.

William M. Reuter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Okay. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: But I would say of two deals that I'm playing in, I would say one seems to have some legs. The other seems to be kind of falling apart, so. And that probably is the way it is. So but I think there's a point where we're not willing to stretch for something that doesn't make sense for us strategically. I think the comments that I made in regard to I really like this company and I think long-term Randy and myself and really the entire management team actually feel this is a pretty good company to invest in, and so all things being equal, we'll go shareholder-friendly. And I think that we don't need to reach for a deal that makes it hard for us to make our returns, that we have to make excuses with you guys down the road because we over paid. So it's not like we are feeling like obliged to do deals. I think that we very much view this balance as like what's the best thing for our shareholders in the long-term, and overpaying I don't think ever is. And therefore, if we can't get deals done on a basis that we want to do them on, you know what? We'll start buying ourselves back, and we're okay with that. And I think that as we've talked to our shareholders, they're pretty agnostic; dividend me some money or buy some shares back, I don't really care. And I think we're good with that. So we're not feeling like we're pressured into deals. I don't think we feel like we must go spend money and get to four times. I think we're basically saying if – this is a pretty opportunistic time and if things…

William M. Reuter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Okay. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: You're probably not talking to people we're talking to, so it's a little bit of a message.

William M. Reuter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Okay. And then my second question with regard to the POS that was down, you highlighted all the regional challenges with weather. I guess can you talk about how the POS was maybe in some regions – and I'm not even sure exactly which ones those would be but, that may have been less impacted by weather? James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Well, all I can tell you is California and Texas are big mondo giant states. And the rain in Texas definitely impacted our lawn sales. And the second half of the business for Lawns – remember, not a huge lawn market on the West Coast and California, but pretty eye watering down numbers post Brown. And I was there with him when he sort of announced these targets. Now, we've got some really interesting new actives for use in California that are highly used and tested in the pro side that we're bringing to the consumer market. But I would say Texas and California drove a lot of sort of sad numbers. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Right. So our best performing regions this year were the Midwest, followed by the South. And the South is more so Florida and the Southeast rather than Texas. We count that as part of the West. And the biggest challenge we had was still the Northeast. Even though we came back a lot, we still didn't get all the way back as we'd hoped. And again, you saw a lot of that in the lawn fertilizer POS.

William M. Reuter - Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Analyst · Bank of America.

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

We'll take our next question from Josh Borstein with Longbow Research.

Evan Barry - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research.

Hey, guys. This is actually Evan Barry here on for Josh this morning. I just wanted to see if you guys could maybe talk about a little bit more on obviously with all the record rainfall we saw in the Midwest, maybe just a bit about any product differentiation you guys saw as a result of the rainfall. And maybe what categories of the business kind of improved as a result of the all the rain that we saw. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Oh, dude, Bug and Weed. Bug and Weed are doing really nicely, and I think Lawns much more challenged. If you look at our business, the lawn business across the entire United States is very compressed. And even southern lawns in Texas and a lot of the southern states are going into dormancy. And they all come out in April. So about the time you've got lawn season hitting in the Northeast, it's also hitting in those southern markets where the lawns are coming out of dormancy. So if the weather just is really wet in that market, you're going to see – you're going to see challenges. So I think Lawns impacted the most on a negative side; Weed and Bug impacted the most on the positive side. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: I think it's interesting too when you look at lawn care, it's not just lawn fertilizer, so grass seed was down almost as much as lawn fertilizer. So it really just indicates consumers either couldn't get out in the yard because of weather, or it got so green so fast they didn't feel the need to, or they just moved on to summer. So I'd be more concerned if I saw a bigger gap between fertilizer and grass seed. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Now, we're aggressively going after this. One of our board members who is working with management – very responsible for our marketing efforts did say all these growth areas that we've had all had new and much more competitive advertising. The Lawns business will be getting a new campaign starting next year, and I think that – I told him don't let it go to your head because the grass seed and the fert sales are about the same negative, which I think is – goes back to what Randy said, which are just sort of indicative of the category – of the sort of turf category. But that said, we are going to be aggressively working on driving that business for next year.

Evan Barry - Longbow Research LLC

Analyst · Longbow Research.

Okay, great. Thanks, guys.

Operator

Operator

And we'll take our final question from Eric Bosshard with Cleveland Research Co.

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst

Good morning. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Yo, dude. Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: Hi, Eric.

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst

Hey. A couple things, first of all to go back on the POS versus sell-in or shipments comment, it sounded like for the year the shipments will be – or excuse me, the POS will be maybe up 1%. And, Randy, it sounded like your thought was next year 0% to 2%. I'm trying to square that with the shipments that sell-in, I mean, do you feel like you're in a period of time where the retailers will carry much more inventory than they have in the past? Or are the shipments more apt to line up with what the sell-in is? Thomas Randal Coleman - Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President: So, Eric, when we think about POS for next year, we've said for the last couple years, we think 0% to 2% is a good planning assumption. So I think that remains the same. I think what you're seeing here at the end of the third quarter is just an aberration again from a point in time on retail inventories. We don't expect anything different. We look forward again to the end of September, end of October or November, we'd expect it to be up low to mid-single-digits, so nothing remarkable by any means. But going forward into 2016, we do expect to maintain momentum with some of the strategies we've employed this year, as well as outside of the big box, we expect some continued momentum. So 0% to 2% is probably a good planning assumption at this point, and we don't know anything more at this point. James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Look, I do think it's worth saying that part of what's happening is we're taking shelf space. So this idea that we're done, I think – is as far as…

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst

But eventually sell-in will match sell-through. So if POS is up 1% to 2%, your sell-in should be up 1% to 2% through the season. That's the right way to think about it still? James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I think that's true. I also think that one of the things is we have these top-to-top meetings with our big retailers, and I'm also very happy with how that's going – is running out of inventory in season is pretty – like, is not really excusable. And so I do think that there is a point, while everybody wants to operate as low a inventory as possible, people also need to make sales. And if you lose a percent because we're out of product, that makes no sense either. And so there's been a lot of discussions in how we manage inventory, and I think those are good; but it probably does not mean you're going to see significant lower levels of inventory at retail. I think that we got to a point in past years where there were – the season is so violent, and that's part of what we've seen again this year is that you get three or four weeks of mondo violence and that kind of makes a season or not, and if you don't have the inventory – and I think part of what's happening is people are making sure that they're in stock in order to make the sales. Michael C. Lukemire - Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President: Yeah. We also have to remember that part of our increased shipments is outside of the big box where we have POS. So when you're looking at that, I wouldn't calibrate that we would lose all 5% of the top line.

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst

Okay. Secondly – and that's helpful. Secondly, on ferts, which I understand this has been a year where we've had volatile weather; but in terms of ferts, it seems like it's been a couple years where that, as your highest margin business, has struggled. And it sounds like you've got some incremental things next year and I understand some of the challenges you've had with Actives. But as you look out the next couple years, is the last couple years indicative of the reality of ferts? How do you think about the future sort of slope of the curve for that business? James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: Look, my view is I don't really know. I think that's the fair thing to say. I do think we were seeing unit volume growth over time and that was something that if we go back sort of three, five years ago, I think we'd be looking and saying it's kind of a declining unit category. I mean we took pricing, margin was enhanced, profitability of the line was better, but units were down. And one of the things we said, we got to turn that around. And I think we maybe have not gotten a lot of growth, but we're not seeing like big declines. I think this year is very much a weather thing. But I do think that if you look over like the last 10 years, unit volume on Lawns has been challenged. And this is something we've got to work on. I don't think we're going to sort of piss in the wind too hard on this because it's a really a nice business for us. But that said, I don't think it's in our interest. We have – this was part of the reason…

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst

Yeah. Yeah, that helps. And then the last thing I didn't totally understand that it sounds like there's a window of a year to make more acquisitions in the hydro space or in these other spaces, and then you return to sort of a focus on the shareholders, shareholder-friendly. Why is there this sort of window and maybe I didn't understand the statement properly, but if you could frame sort of what you think the - James Hagedorn - Chairman & Chief Executive Officer: I do think you understood it. In large part because I say so, and I don't want to sound totally arbitrary on it. I do think it's important for our shareholders who I think have been sort of relatively patient – and I'll speak my family as part of that – of saying, look, it's an opportunity to acquire that we haven't seen this sort of opportunistic period for quite a while, and we had the capacity to do deals that we think are value-added strategically to the company. I do think it's important for everybody, all of our shareholders, you know we have a good deal of long-term shareholder friends who've been in the stock and I think have enjoyed it, that we've made commitments to on this idea of shareholder-friendly. I think they get it that it's a time of opportunity. But I think their view is you guys have returned the most value when you have been focused on shareholder-friendly. And I think we agree with that. So I also think it's important for the management team to sort of say let's get some deals done and then we close the book and we move on and go back to where we were because we like that, and we like the equity when it's priced when we're very much focused on building sort of enterprise value. So I think it's a little bit that I just decided. Now again, I got to walk my board through it and get them to say we agree with Jim's point of view. I'm expecting they'll probably do that. But I think it's important for everybody to have their head around what we're doing and at what point do we say we're moving forward and this is part of our strategy. And so I don't know, it's a little arbitrary, but I think important for all of us here who run the business to understand what the windows are.

Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research Co. LLC

Analyst

Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And that does conclude the question-and-answer session. I'd now like to turn the call back over to Jim King for any additional or closing remarks. Jim King - Chief Communications Officer & Senior VP, Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs: Thank you, Noah. And in case we didn't get to everybody's questions today, feel free to call me directly later in the day or week. You can reach me at 937-578-5622. Currently, we're planning our fourth quarter year-end announcement for the first week of November. We'll be more specific on that in the weeks ahead as well. And otherwise, thanks for joining us and have a great day.