Bryan Fairbanks
Analyst · William Blair. Please go ahead
Thank you, Bill. Good afternoon everyone. We welcome you to our second quarter 2020 earnings call. Before we get into the quarter results, let me take a moment to thank the people who made this quarter's success possible. First, I commend the entire Trex team for their hard work and dedication to ensure we maintain continuous operations and we were able to sell our products in a safe and effective manner during the COVID-19 pandemic. We are also immensely grateful to our channel partners who in no small part contributed to the success we have seen this year. Despite the unprecedented challenges arising from the pandemic, they found ways to serve customers and keep their employees safe. Thank you again to the extended Trex team. We continue to drive improvements across the company with a focus on health and safety of our employees the needs of our customers and operational excellence. This disciplined approach allows us to execute through a challenging macro environment while we continue to invest in the future and generate further shareholder value. By all measures, this was a strong quarter for Trex. We increased revenue by 7%. It's fair to say that the resilience of the Trex customer far surpassed our expectations at the beginning of the pandemic when we saw key states with major population centers shut down large portions of their economies. We increased EBITDA by 32% to $67.5 million. We invested $40 million in the second quarter primarily for capacity expansion and we achieved a 33% increase in diluted earnings per share to $0.81. Our sales growth reflected both the strength of the fast-growing outdoor living category and the high demand for Trex decking and railing products. Our Trex Enhance decking products which appeals to the more cost-conscious consumer, have significantly expanded the size of our addressable market, and accelerated Trex' ability to take share from wood -- which today accounts for approximately 80% of decking materials used. At the same time, Trex Transcend and Trex Select decking continue to grow appealing to homeowners looking for advanced performance materials with market-leading aesthetics. We remain focused on allocating cash flow to our capacity expansion program which progressed considerably in the second quarter. By the end of the quarter, we started three new production lines at our Nevada facility. With these Nevada lines up and running, we will now direct our primary attention to our new production facility in Virginia with the first of those new lines coming online in the first quarter of 2021. We are also committed to our environmental, social and governance heritage. As we prepare to release our updated ESG report in the next couple of weeks, I wanted to share a few key improvements that we have made. As a reminder for those that may be newer to the Trex story, since inception our decking products have been made with 95% recycled material content. Recycled consumer and industrial polyethylene film and reclaimed wood are the primary material sources for Trex decking. In addition our aluminum railing is made with approximately 50% recycled content. Since our 2016 life cycle analysis, the environmental footprint for Trex decking has improved across all impact categories. We think this is particularly noteworthy given the increased production associated with the introduction of our new Enhance decking product, sourcing more materials to support higher volume, upgrading our manufacturing operations and improving the output on legacy product lines. We are very proud that the result of our water conservation efforts. Approximately 99% of the water used in our Virginia and Nevada facilities are now recycled. Additionally, Trex' safety program resulted in a 24% reduction in recordable incident rates over the same two-year period and we were able to achieve a 25% increase in retention of our hourly team during a period of very low unemployment rates. Do the right thing is our operating philosophy and I'm convinced that it helped Trex achieve a 150 basis point improvement in gross margins during the quarter. At Trex Residential, gross margin improved by 80 basis points primarily driven by a material reduction in our Enhance products, which more than offset the increased costs associated with start up of the new lines in Nevada. Trex Commercial improved gross margin as well, benefiting from the absence of low-margin legacy contracts coupled with the mix of higher margin contracts, better execution and manufacturing cost savings. We continue to be encouraged by the progress being made at the Commercial segment. I'd like to welcome Laura Rygielski Preston to the Trex Executive team as President of Trex Commercial Products. Laura came onboard last week and has an impressive record of driving growth and implementing operating and efficiencies in her prior 10 years with Trane Technologies and Johnson Controls. We are confident she will further accelerate the momentum that we're seeing in the business. In summary, this was a strong execution quarter for Trex, capping the first half where we saw 9% sales growth within a challenging operating environment. I'm pleased to report that the positive momentum we experienced in the second quarter has continued into the third quarter. Demand for our products and discussions with our channel partners and sales teams are providing us with increased visibility and confidence for the second half of the year. We estimate consolidated net sales of $215 million to $225 million for the third quarter, representing year-over-year growth of 13% at the midpoint. While we are encouraged by the current demand climate, we are further inspired by the opportunities for sustainable long-term growth. As many of you have heard me say in the past, we're in the very early stages of converting the large wood market to low maintenance Trex composite decking and railing. We will see many of year’s growth opportunities ahead. I'll now turn the call over to Dennis to provide additional details on our financial results, balance sheet and outlook.