Earnings Call Transcript - BLDR Q2 2020

Operator, Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Builders FirstSource’s Second Quarter 2020 Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Today’s call is being recorded and will be available at www.bldr.com. It is now my pleasure to introduce Mr. Binit Sanghvi, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Binit Sanghvi, Vice President, Investor Relations

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning, and welcome to the Builders FirstSource Second Quarter 2020 Earnings Conference Call. With me on the call today are Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer; and Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer. A copy of the slide presentation referenced on this call is available on the Investor Relations section of the Builders FirstSource website at bldr.com. Before we begin, let me note that during the course of this conference call, we may make statements concerning the company’s future prospects, financial results, business strategies and industry trends. Such statements are considered forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Please refer to our most recent Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other reports filed with the SEC for more information on those risks. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. The company will discuss adjusted results on this call. We have provided reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures to their GAAP equivalents in our earnings press release and detailed explanations of non-GAAP financial measures in our Form 8-K filed yesterday, both of which are available on our website. I will now turn the call over to Chad Crow.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Binit. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. We are incredibly proud of our team’s hard work and dedication to excellence over the past several months. A significant portion of our senior leadership as well as our regional and local managers have been with us for well over a decade, giving us a collective understanding of how to effectively manage during a crisis. Last quarter, we outlined our preparedness to address the unprecedented environment from a safety, operational and financial perspective. Our team rose to the occasion and delivered strong results all around. We proactively managed our business at the local level to quickly rightsize our operations where necessary to ensure that we continue to safely and effectively deliver critical products and services to our customers, all the while adjusting to an ever-changing market landscape and keeping as many of our team members as possible working through the pandemic. Our focused execution allowed us to take advantage of strong housing fundamentals to produce the highest quarterly adjusted EBITDA in our history. Order volumes recovered as we moved through the quarter, and we are pleased we were able to bring back almost all of our furloughed employees. Many states in the Northeast, Northwest and Midwest initially placed restrictions on homebuilding. Those limitations have now been lifted, so we are back to work in all of our locations around the country. The homebuilding markets have been resilient; improving housing starts, record low mortgage rates, and the shift towards suburban living are all positive fundamentals that continue to support demand for our products and services. In June, we experienced a sharp sequential rebound in sales, and we were appropriately resourced to capture that demand. The dramatic improvement as we ended the quarter gives us momentum as we enter the second half of the year. We acknowledge macroeconomic uncertainties remain with high unemployment and COVID hotspots slowing the recovery in certain regions. However, as we look across our national footprint, we believe we are exceptionally well positioned to take advantage of the homebuilding tailwinds that continued into July. We remain confident in our ability to outperform within our industry through organic and inorganic growth opportunities that enhance our ability to partner with our customers. We have the balance sheet to support our growth ambitions, ending the quarter with total liquidity of $1.2 billion, up $200 million since our last update in May. Our strong cash flow continued to strengthen our balance sheet while providing dry powder for future M&A. We were especially pleased to surpass the low end of our long-term targeted ratio of net financial debt to adjusted EBITDA, down to 2.5 times, achieving 2.3 times as of the end of the quarter. Moving on to our year-to-date update on slide four. It is important to note that we have been able to demonstrate the particular strengths of our strategy, team, and platform during this period of fluctuating demand. Our ability to deliver record adjusted EBITDA in the first half of 2020 is a direct result of our national footprint, unmatched scale, manufacturing capability, and exceptional sales force. The breadth of our product portfolio also supported higher demand in all three of our end markets. For the first six months of the year, sales volume grew by nearly 4%, of which approximately 3% was from our five tuck-in acquisitions completed over the past year. Value-added product categories increased in sales volume by an estimated 4% in the first six months, as we continue to realize the benefits from our years of strategic investment. Commodity inflation and one additional selling day each contributed approximately 1% of sales, which led to an increase in reported net sales of 6%. Despite the market volatility, we grew adjusted EBITDA by 5% compared to the same year-to-date period last year. Thanks again to our team's disciplined execution and quick reaction to the dynamic local market conditions. Our operational excellence initiatives remain on track. As we mentioned on previous calls, these best practices are being implemented throughout the organization and are making our company more agile and easier to do business with. Key initiatives in process include investments in distribution and logistics software, pricing and margin management tools, back-office process efficiencies, and information system enhancements. The rollout of our pricing optimization has been particularly successful now covering 15 of our major markets. Where implemented, we have provided our associates with faster and more accurate pricing information, along with customized marketing tools and analytics, enabling us to execute our strategy on a local level. Our delivery optimization system covers approximately 70% of our sales and has measurably improved our distribution network in terms of speed, uptime, and reliability. Our innovative customer portal, My BFS Builder, is designed to complement our first-class face-to-face customer service and continues to see higher adoption rates. Our expanding network of high-margin value-added offsite component manufacturing facilities remains core to our strategy. We intend to use a portion of our cash flow to continue investing in value-added growth capacity through both organic and acquisition opportunities. This includes our investment plans related to greenfield facilities, new trust lines, existing plants, store facility expansions, and machinery and systems in dozens of our value-added operations, such as our newly commissioned state-of-the-art truss plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Through consistent execution of our long-range strategic plan, we will continue to add our differentiated offering of industry-leading value-added capacity that enhance our geographic footprint, technological capabilities, and integrated partnerships with our customers. Our customers value our commitment to high-caliber service and, in particular, our ability to continually invest in service capabilities throughout the cycle, which we believe is a differentiator for Builders FirstSource. During the first half of the year, we tightened cash discipline to enhance our financial flexibility and liquidity. In the second half, we are focused on disciplined cash deployment to advance our growth strategy with a focus on value-added acquisitions that further strengthen our position within the industry. Before I turn the call over to Peter, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on the fact that today marks the five-year anniversary of our ProBuild acquisition. When I think back on what we have accomplished and the great company we've become as a result of that acquisition, there is much to be proud of. But I almost hate even using the word acquisition, because what we accomplished was only possible because thousands of our team members from both companies chose to forget which jersey they were wearing prior to July 31, 2015, rolled up their sleeves, and said, 'let's get this thing done.' And we did. I think what I am most proud of is the fact that we did what we said we were going to do from the start. If you recall, we were over six times leveraged when the deal closed, and a lot of people thought we were crazy and that we would never survive. From the start, we said our top priorities were to deleverage, integrate, and achieve our synergy targets. And we did, plain and simple. So to all our team members, thank you for what we accomplished over the past five years. And to all those who invested in us five years ago to make the transaction possible, thank you as well. Now, time for reflection is over. Everyone back to work. All yours, Peter.

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Chad. Good morning, everyone. Let me start by also recognizing our team's work to quickly adjust costs, adapt to local market conditions, and execute actively to deliver a record quarter. I will quickly review our second quarter results and then provide you an overview of how we intend to manage going forward. We had $1.9 billion in net sales in the second quarter with core organic sales declining 2.1%. Core organic excludes the acquisitions and commodity impacts from that sale to give an indication of the underlying performance of the business. As previously disclosed, during the month of April, we experienced a core organic sales decline in the high single-digit percent range. However, as the quarter progressed, order activity showed a smaller drop and a stronger recovery than we initially expected. In June, core organic growth rebounded up low single digits, reflecting what we believe to be a release in pent-up demand. For the quarter, our five tuck-in acquisitions completed over the past year added 2.5% to net sales. Commodity price inflation added another 1.8%. As a result, net sales in total increased by 2.2%. Demand for our value-added product categories continued to outperform within our respective markets. Although higher demand in most parts of the country was disproportionately offset by the impact of COVID-19 in the hardest hit areas. Our gross margin percentage was 26.6%, just over the high end of our previously communicated expectation of 26% to 26.5%, due to the disciplined execution and rapid adjustments by our team as the quarter progressed. The 60 basis point decline compared to the prior year period was a result of the expected normalization we had discussed in our calls, mainly in our lumber and lumber sheet goods products categories. Since May, we have experienced sharp commodity inflation in lumber and panel costs. So please keep in mind the mechanics of our margins as we have discussed on prior calls. Commodity cost inflation causes short-term gross margin percentage headwinds, and prices spike relative to our short-term pricing commitments that we provide customers. It usually takes one to two quarters for the margins to normalize at the new prices. As a result of the speed and magnitude of this temporary headwind, we expect our gross margin percentage to be pressured in the third quarter before recovering to more normalized levels over the typical one to two quarter lag. Ultimately, we will benefit from higher gross margin dollars generated from the inflationary impact on net sales. Interest expense decreased by $2.6 million to $26.8 million compared to the same period last year. Excluding the net impact of one-time items related to debt instruments and extinguishment in the prior year period, interest expense increased by $1.7 million due to a higher outstanding debt balance as we proactively increased our liquidity and financial flexibility in light of COVID uncertainty. Second quarter EBITDA increased $16.3 million from a year ago to $161.9 million, an 11% improvement. As Chad mentioned, this is the highest quarterly EBITDA in our history, driven by our cost management measures both at the corporate and local levels, combined with improving demand through the quarter. The reduction in variable expenses related to compensation, travel and entertainment, and fuel costs contributed to an 8.3% EBITDA margin compared to a 7.1% margin in the prior year period. Adjusted net income for the quarter was $79.2 million, or $0.67 per diluted share, compared with $71.4 million, or $0.63 per diluted share in the second quarter of 2019. The year-over-year increase of $5.1 million per share was primarily driven by the improved operating results, partially offset by higher adjusted interest expense. On slide six, I would like to highlight the strength of our business, driven this quarter by the focused execution of our team, allowing us to partner with customers to supply critical products and services as demand recovered. Economic slowdowns mainly in the Northeast, Northwest, Midwest, and Florida significantly impacted demand across our product categories, partially offset by growth in the remainder of our footprint. This was especially true in our manufactured product category, which was disproportionately impacted by the geographies most affected by the pandemic. Excluding those impacted regions, our manufactured products sales increased in the quarter. Overall, value-added organic sales declined by approximately 3%, offset by the contribution of our strategic acquisition. We are committed to continuing the expansion of our network of manufacturing components facilities strategically located across the country. As Chad mentioned, we are pleased to have added a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina during the quarter, extending our industry-leading position to 65 manufacturing facilities. We expect that approximately 25% of our total 2020 capital expenditures will be invested in our value-added growth initiatives and the expansion of our production capacity. Our second quarter core organic sales declined by an estimated 4% in the single-family new construction end market compared to a decrease of 13% in overall U.S. single-family starts. Although we performed better than expected in the majority of our market, the growth was limited by the impact of COVID in certain parts of the country. Core organic growth in the R&R and other end markets grew 4% as we saw relative strength in the western part of the country and began to lap the unfavorable tariff impact in the upper Midwest in the prior year period. Multifamily core organic declined by 2%, largely due to the timing of some large projects impacted by the shutdown. Turning to our financial flexibility on page eight, a key factor driving our value creation in recent years has been our strong cash generation. During the first half of 2020, we produced free cash flow of approximately $115 million. The aggressive actions we discussed last quarter to preserve cash, including an initial reduction in discretionary CapEx spending and increased vigilance around working capital, are key drivers in our year-to-date performance. On a trailing 12-month basis, operating cash flow continued to represent more than 90% of adjusted EBITDA. It just had a clear impact on net leverage, which improved by about half a turn versus the prior year to 2.3 times, representing the lowest levels since the 2015 ProBuild acquisition. Since our last call, our liquidity improved by an additional $200 million to $1.2 billion at the end of the quarter, reflecting our positive free cash flow. At the onset of the pandemic in April, our primary objective was to preserve cash. With better clarity around the market, and without ample liquidity, we are resuming our investment in capital priorities, including acquisitions, and growth CapEx primarily focused on value-added growth initiatives. Our deal pipeline remains robust, and we are focused on investing for the long term. Turning to our outlook on slide nine, our first-half results reflect our experience managing through cycles and the resilience of our business to generate growth. Our first-half results also demonstrate a positive overall homebuilding environment supported by a positive tailwind and rising demand across our diverse national footprint, which continued into July. Based on this backdrop, we are introducing an outlook for the third quarter. We expect adjusted EBITDA to be flat year-over-year at approximately $160 million. We anticipate core organic sales growth to be in the mid-single digit range year-over-year for the third quarter. New housing demand has proven to be resilient in nearly all localities where we operate, which provides the basis for our outlook. Amid all of the macro uncertainties, we are guiding to a balanced growth assumption while positioning our business to take advantage of potential upside opportunities. Keep in mind, our core organic growth outlook reflects our core sales performance and excludes the sales contributions from acquisitions as well as specific commodity inflation in the coming quarters. Over the past few months, we have been managing the rapid commodity inflation occurring in our industry. As I mentioned earlier, we expect our third-quarter gross margin percentages to be below our normalized levels due to that inflation. We anticipate our gross margin percentage to be in the low 24% range for the third quarter compared to our normalized levels of over 26% when commodities are at more stable prices. This margin decline is a temporary headwind as we have demonstrated in the past. We will see a quarter or two of margin pressure during the inflationary period along with increasing gross margin dollars. I'll note that we experienced similar pressure on gross margins in mid-2018 when inflation spiked. As the inflation subsided, we recovered that margin with above-normal margins during the deflationary period. Back since the beginning of 2018, through the second quarter of 2020, our gross margins tend to average approximately 26%, which is in line with our normalized level and is consistent with how we manage our business through commodity swings. Since 2018, we have generated nearly $1 billion of operating cash flow, and we fully expect to build upon that cash generation through year-end 2020. We continue to expect our cash interest will be in the $110 million to $115 million range for the full year of 2020. With our growth projects underway again, we now expect capital expenditures to be in the $100 million to $110 million range for the full year. Looking beyond 2020, the structural advantages of our business remain intact. We delivered solutions that make our customers more productive and efficient. We have deeper and more integrated relationships with our customers than ever before. We are much more than a supplier of commodity lumber; we are a highly valued partner to many very sophisticated builders, delivering labor savings and just-in-time delivery of critical building materials, helping them maintain a streamlined supply chain. These higher-margin value-added offerings represent the largest portion of our business and the focus of our growth. With our solid financial position, we believe we are uniquely positioned to accelerate our profitable growth through underlying market expansion, supplemented by targeted acquisitions, and operational excellence initiatives to accomplish our long-term objectives and capture underlying market growth. We therefore affirm our previously communicated long-range plan targets, which remain on track to be achieved by 2022. We have full confidence in our business to be the supplier of choice for building materials and value-added products in the months and years to come. Our strong financial position, coast-to-coast geographically diversified product offerings, national manufacturing capabilities, and strong partnerships with customers are unmatched competitive advantages in any market environment. I would especially like to thank our Builders FirstSource team for their dedication to our company, our customers, and our communities. Operator, we can now open up the call for Q&A.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. We can now go to our first question from Matthew Bouley of Barclays.

Matthew Bouley, Analyst

Morning everyone. Thanks for taking the question, and congrats on the results. Start off with a question on the guide for Q3. You're saying, I guess, core organic growth in the mid-single digit range and I think I mentioned, Peter, that June was up low single digits, just any color I got from how July organic is trended, and sort of just what are the underlying housing start expectations that are informing that guide?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. I’ll start off and let Chad finish up. The performance in June, July is obviously not done yet. But looking like it'll be right in that same range, maybe a little bit better. We had talked earlier about the potential for an air pocket, wondering what the recovery might look like if there were some pent-up demand from the sort of timeframe when everything was pretty much shut down. Things have been, not telling you anything you don't already know, surprisingly resilient. And we're very pleased with sort of the overall sustainability of the trend that things have come back. And as you've heard, as we have heard, from many of the builders around the country, there is a tremendous amount of optimism. There's been strength in that homebuilding market. So that's really the rationale that we're giving ourselves for that mid-single-digit third quarter growth number in that single-family space. It's still a little bit open in terms of where it will land; could be better. As always, there's enough volatility in COVID land where it could be worse, but we were feeling pretty good about it on balance and the order rates to what we're seeing.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Yes, I would like to add that in recent weeks, the feedback from builders has been very positive. Traffic and new orders are both on the rise. It's somewhat surprising how resilient the market has been, and there remains a lot of encouraging factors. Interest rates are low, and given the current situation in our country, people seem to want more space. Commutes are becoming less significant for many, which enables them to move further away from urban centers. Additionally, there are likely many individuals with aging parents who prefer to create space for them rather than placing them in long-term care facilities. There is a lot of positive momentum at the moment; people are traveling less and are putting more thought into their living situations due to the ongoing dynamics. As Peter mentioned, there is always the possibility of both upside and downside in any forecast. We strive to be cautious with our guidance and allow ourselves some flexibility, and this quarter is no exception. Overall, we feel quite optimistic about how things are developing.

Matthew Bouley, Analyst

Perfect. Thank you for that. And then I guess on the gross margin side, you can clearly see the progress over the years. The Q3 guide is better than where margins bottomed in the second quarter of 2018, and you mentioned this one to two quarter lag, back to normalization. And so my question is, with all the progress you've made, is there any reason that you think that the pace of margin recovery might not be any faster than what we saw at that time? Or should we think that, hey, look, it is what it is, lumber's inflating, and let's not get too ahead of ourselves on this? So really just asking about how we should think about that pace of normalization? Thanks, guys.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Well, I'll start out, Peter can add a few lines but. We've seen this movie before, right? 2018 was one of the most recent examples. We get compressed for a period of time, and then when things flatten out or we start to see deflation, we get paid back. And then so Q3 is going to be a quarter of margin compression, but with the tailwinds we are seeing in housing and the higher prices once we get our pricing up, it could set up to be some really nice quarters just like we saw it.

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

And we're certainly pushing ourselves to get better and better about managing price and doing so as efficiently as possible. Quite ready to sign up for faster than our one to two quarters. So I think that's probably the right way to think about it for now. But certainly internally, that's our goal for ourselves.

Mike Dahl, Analyst

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I echo the commentary around best results here in a challenging time. The first question I had is on manufactured products. I think, Peter, you made a comment about how some of the impact on the optics around growth there were potentially mixed related, but I think if we look at that – I mean we’re not off on acquisition contribution. I think the volume in manufactured products may have been down high single digits ish, which would have lagged the rest of the business. So good. Just want to clarify that. And then if you could provide some additional color on those mix impacts, but also just then on the relative growth trends you've seen over the course of June and July in manufactured products?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Yes, you understood correctly that the decline in manufactured products was around mid-single digits in that organic component. We did experience a decline, primarily due to a higher mix of manufactured products in the markets where we faced the most challenges. Unfortunately, this reflects delays in opportunities in those areas. For instance, in the northwest part of Florida, our manufactured products business is strong, supported by great partnerships and a proven value proposition, with a significantly higher percentage of the mix in those markets. Consequently, our focused efforts there have a noticeable impact on the organic numbers. However, I remain positive about the business; it's not facing any structural issues and continues to grow. In other regions of the country, it is equally or even more successful compared to our core and overall business.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Yes, and I'll just add. I agree with what Peter said; part of it was geographical. We were shut down in areas where we have a very strong component presence. But you've also got to consider when builders hit the brakes? Like homes that were already under construction, we kept shipping to new homes started dropped, and the first thing we lose there is the component business. So that's part of it as well. I'll tell you that moving into the pandemic, so around the first week of March, to the depths of the pandemic, as far as new truck orders coming in, we dropped over 50%. Our orders coming into the truss plants now are back to a level equivalent to where they were at the beginning of March before the pandemic, and a solid double-digit higher than where they were a year ago. So I have zero concerns about our components.

Mike Dahl, Analyst

That's great to hear. Thanks for that color. My second question is really around the reinstated long-term guidance, and it's nice to see that reinstated. On the other hand, I think prior on admission, there's still some uncertainty there. So the question is really if we look at the two key results through Q2 guide, it seems like you're tracking towards like $525 to $550 million in EBITDA this year. And that still takes 40% plus growth over the next two years to get that long-term EBITDA goal of $750. So has your high-level framework changed at all around kind of based business? What kind of market growth was internal initiatives and then what component would potentially be M&A included in that?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

First of all, it's exciting, and I'm looking forward to it. The fundamental structure of our earlier thoughts this year hasn't changed. When we revisit this, we realize that we're examining a variety of models to understand this business over time. We definitely have several levers to pull, alongside what I would categorize as a core underlying market. Clearly, we'll be significantly influenced by the single-family sector, and commodity prices will undoubtedly have an impact too, as that's central to our operations. Additionally, we have the capability to control our own destiny in many respects. The investments we're making in our core business through our value-add strategy have been quite effective. Now, with our leverage ratio being below our target, we have substantial liquidity, enabling us to pursue what we consider to be a very promising pipeline of M&A opportunities. Our focus on operational excellence continues to yield positive results, and we are making strides in improving our operations to achieve better outcomes each quarter. While we were prudently conservative by removing the 2020 guidance last quarter, after reviewing our numbers and considering our potential moving forward, we feel optimistic about 2022. We believe reaching that goal is entirely achievable, and we clearly see the path to get there. As I mentioned, it doesn't require everything to align perfectly for us to reach that number; we just need to keep doing what we excel at.

Mike Dahl, Analyst

That's great. Thank you.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Keith Hughes, Analyst

Yes. Can you hear me now? Sorry, I had to connection problem.

Operator, Operator

Yes. Please go ahead.

Keith Hughes, Analyst

Okay, sorry. Miss you again. On acquisitions, you talk about for some time doing tuck-ins, if you could talk about what regions, what products, things of that nature, you would look to do acquisitions? And what you, at this point in the cycle, be open to something larger than a tuck-in?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

We're always open to that. In many ways, one large one can be easier than 20 or 30 small ones, and we've seen both clearly. But yes, that's certainly always something we're open to. At this point in the cycle we do have a lot of liquidity. It may be using more equity at this point in the cycle would be prudent. But sure, that's something we've always been open to.

Keith Hughes, Analyst

Second question, on these smaller tuck-ins. Is there a region that you try to focus on?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

You sort of broke up there for a second, Keith. It sounds like you were asking what regions might we think about tuck-ins for?

Keith Hughes, Analyst

Yes, what regions. That's correct.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Well, you can look at the map and see whether there's holes in our footprint. So, part of our motivation is regional. But I think just as importantly as product mix. We're much more inclined to go after the company with a high mix of value add. So it's kind of a combination of those two factors. In general, we're under-penetrated in my view in the western part of the country versus the east. But as I said, value add is just as critical on my mind. Thank you.

Trey Grooms, Analyst

Hey, good morning.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Trey.

Trey Grooms, Analyst

So geographically, just kind of wondering, I think that definitely held in better clearly. During the earlier days of the pandemic, things varied pretty widely, as you mentioned. And your value-added products, it sounds like when you do see some geographic changes in demand that can have an impact there just giving your exposure. So I guess, my question is, can you touch on kind of the geographic areas now that things are starting to kind of move again? Where you're seeing relative strength or weakness now and geographically and what that means for that value-added mix?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Sure. Yes. So, just to recap what we were saying in the script, right, the Northeast, obviously, kind of the upper Midwest, the Michigan area, in particular, the Pacific Northwest, and then later on as we got past the initial impact, we also saw a slowdown in Florida. Those were all I would say the areas that were highlighted, and I think truly saw the biggest impact for us as a company. When it comes to recovery, I would say the Pacific Northwest has bounced back very quickly. I would say the Michigan and upper Midwest area have definitely stabilized and started to march back. The Northeast is still suffering quite a bit. I mean, there's no way around it. They continue to have very strict controls. I think the population in general has suffered more and has states slower. So that recovery is underway, but certainly not back to normal levels up there yet. In Florida, I think they're still perhaps in the middle of some of the uncertainty, given the exposure to tourism, they've certainly seen a lot of concerns and a lot of the declines for their core businesses. And so they are still, again, they're on the road back, but haven't been far to reach. When looking at the relative exposure in those areas for manufactured products, obviously, Florida is important to us. But so it's the Northeast. There are some corridors of real good strength there for us. So it will be a recovery that you'll see, and we're confident in that sort of growth over time in the manufactured products. But those couple of markets will be more of a progression back to normal rather than a quick snap back. But I think it's important to know that if you can look at the overall value-added products, if you exclude those target regions, we were up low single digits. So the rest of the country is still even with the suppressed start numbers and some of the concerns still growing as we would expect it to be over time.

Trey Grooms, Analyst

Got it. All right. Thanks for all the color. Appreciate it. And I guess as a follow up. So on the SG&A line, it was lower as a percent of sales than what we would have thought, especially given that strong top line you guys put up and just everything that we've done. But we'd be kind of understand some of the tailwinds may abate. But with that said, I know you guys have a culture of focusing on lower costs and running a tight ship. So I guess, is there any levers that you guys had pulled up in SG&A through this pandemic, and over the last several months that you could continue to see or continue to benefit from in the coming quarters?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

I'm glad you highlight that, Trey. I would say this is really just a testament to the discipline that our teams live and breathe each day. We went out with some messaging, sort of just some reminders and some playbooks to folks. When we saw that sort of concern in the shutdown setting, just coaching people on how to manage through it, right, and what our team just did a great job resizing the business when it was appropriate, making sure that we were cutting costs, being disciplined. And obviously, some of the things we did to give ourselves a little extra flexibility more broadly as a company we talked about that, delaying wages, salary cuts for executives, sorry, delaying wage increases, and salary cuts for executives. Those were things that we thought were necessary just to give ourselves that flexibility. Clearly we did very, very well as we went through that sort of pause period. Since then, with the recovery that we've seen, we've reinstituted the merit increases, we restored all those cuts that we made. The nature of the resizing of the business is very specific to the locations. So we try to retain the staffing, making sure we weren't hurting ourselves strategically. Our ability to compete, our ability to win, we didn't want to undermine that by being too aggressive because we don't believe that we've allowed ourselves to get fat in these markets. There wasn't a ton of a cut. So what you saw at the end of the day was I think some real flexibility in the core around comm; that some of that will come back, obviously, in terms of expenses. You saw about a third of our overall benefit being TBD. Now that one is a bit more time to play out. The question remains, will it ever get back to normal? Will we ever travel like we used to? TBD, but certainly we anticipate that will come back to some degree over time. Then third, that was really the fuel expense. And obviously, there's been some volatility in the cost of fuel. So that will normalize to wherever it's going to normalize to over time, maybe not right away on that one either. But we didn't go back through this organization and make any real structural changes or massive cuts. Our focus was on making sure we were responding and being ready to move forward. At this point that seems things played out pretty well.

Trey Grooms, Analyst

Great. Thanks a lot for taking my questions. And best of luck.

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Trey.

Seldon Clarke, Analyst

Good morning. Thank you. Could you provide some insights into what your long-term guidance considers regarding starts? I understand there are various approaches to reach your goals, but could you share more details about the type of support you will require from the macroeconomic environment?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. So, when we first brought out that $750 million EBITDA target we were referring to before. We were pretty explicit about putting a $1.1 million single family start number on there. However, earlier this year, we've come back and said, we have enough levers where we think we can get to that number even with just a healthy single family starts environment. It doesn't have to get to that million one number. So way we think about it is really those opportunities to control our own fate will be very, very impactful and perhaps as much as what we anticipate the continued recovery in starts today. So we talked about that, obviously, the M&A opportunities; what we are committed to staying within our stated range. We've got quite a bit of room there, where we have opportunities to grow our value-added with both greenfield and capacity work. Certainly that's a strong growth opportunity for us. And the operational excellence initiatives we've talked about, right, whether it would be getting better and more disciplined, the pricing getting better and more effective in our distribution and logistics management, or even just opportunities to reduce costs and become more efficient in the back office. We think there are certainly ways that it can get us to that. We're not 100% dependent on that single-family starts.

Seldon Clarke, Analyst

Okay. So on the M&A side, have you identified more opportunities? Are you seeing an increased willingness or lower valuations? What is driving the increased optimism there?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

The pipeline is full and has been for the past few quarters. There was a slight pause in our diligence activities during the shutdown, but we've resumed those efforts. There are many promising businesses available right now, and we have a solid balance sheet ready to pursue them. This is why we feel more optimistic about what we can achieve in terms of acquisitions in the coming years.

Seldon Clarke, Analyst

Anyway, you could just expand a little bit on what's driving that optimism?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

I’ll give you an example without naming any specific companies. Our internal valuation model, which we have been refining over the years, requires a solid understanding of our weighted average cost of capital to ensure that the returns we are seeing are reasonable, along with the risks associated with the deals. Currently, we are consistently reviewing deals approved by our regional management teams that involve attractive businesses that we believe would fit well with us across the country. These are tuck-in acquisitions. While they may not seem particularly exciting at first glance, we are witnessing a growing number of these opportunities, and when we analyze them through our models and engage with the leadership teams of these targets, we identify significant potential. The valuations appear sound, the returns are favorable, and the teams work well together. We believe this will contribute to our competitive advantages. We are combining our product portfolio model, our capabilities with our national reach, and opportunities to enhance or expand value in the market. This collection of factors is the source of our optimism regarding the pipeline of opportunities and how they are being assessed as we ramp up our focus on mergers and acquisitions. We are prepared to move forward.

Jay McCanless, Analyst

Good morning everyone.

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Hey, Jay.

Jay McCanless, Analyst

Hey, good morning. So I got a two-part question on lumber and then one as a follow-up. I guess, could you talk about what benefit you're seeing on the top line from commodity inflation thus far in the quarter? And then also maybe talk about when we think about your input costs for lumber? What's the spread between two before framing lumber versus sheet goods?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

So, maybe I can start. I would tell you that our Q2 results, the commodity is a slight tailwind. Keep in mind that dynamic; you saw a pretty good fall at the beginning of the quarter in prices and then a pretty good run out towards the end. So net-net it sort of averaged out, not a lot of impact and really started to accumulate if you've got into May. That's where the inflation really started to hit on May through today. Now the split of our exposure, and we talked about commodities being right around 40% of our sales and prior quarters obviously now increased a bit as those increase prices start to change the mix in our business. But if you look at that 40% of our overall sales being commodity exposed and internally it's 70/30 mix between lumber and panels. Again, anytime you got a highly commoditized component of your business, that can be the most pressure probably in that space, the most commoditized, and it's probably sheets products.

Jay McCanless, Analyst

Got it. That's helpful. For my follow-up question, did you quantify the one-time savings from the cost actions taken in the second quarter that are likely to be reversed in the third quarter?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Most of the $14 million increase in the second quarter was due to actions that will return over time. Some of these may come back quickly based on prior efforts linked to TBD, but others will take longer to reintegrate and are unlikely to recover in the third quarter. However, I am starting to see some improvements as conditions begin to ease in certain markets. You might have a better estimate of that than I do. Those are the main factors at play.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Hey, Jay, I just want to add a little follow up to your commodity question. When we look at Q3, and it's kind of difficult to estimate, but right now our best guess is Q3 sales will be positively impacted due to inflation somewhere between 5% and 7%. And then, of course, we'll probably have another 2% or so year-over-year growth due to acquisition. So I just wanted to make sure you have those components.

Jay McCanless, Analyst

Appreciated. Thank you. Thank you guys for taking my questions.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Jay.

Kurt Yinger, Analyst

Yes. Good morning everyone, and appreciate you taking my questions.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, Kurt.

Kurt Yinger, Analyst

I just want to start off - yes, good morning. On the gross margin front, you guys came into the year 26% to 26.5% kind of normalized. And I think lumber was maybe $400 per thousand. Obviously, it’s a moving target. But if we were to think about just structurally higher lumber price and maybe $500, what type of impact would that have on the normalized gross margin outlook, just with commodities naturally being a larger percentage of sales?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Yes. No, great question. As you know, we modeled that one quite a bit. It's about half to three-quarters of a point based on current spot. It's been a meaningful move this year. There's no question. We'll have to see how long it lasts and how it plays out. But it's certainly an important change and one that we welcome. We just hope it sticks around this time.

Kurt Yinger, Analyst

Well, it wasn't too bad on the other side of 2018 either.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Not bad at all.

Kurt Yinger, Analyst

And my second one, it seems like over the past couple quarters you guys have started to see some real tangible benefits from some of those pricing tools. And I'm wondering how much opportunity you feel is left there? And relatedly, could you talk about which product categories or what previous shortfalls these tools really address?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Sure. Yes. And I guess I just want to reiterate the fact that this pricing effort we're making is really just around being thoughtful, being organized, being efficient internally. I was describing areas where we're sort of closing the gaps. It's those moments when price changes will come through the good or bad from a vendor and it's not being filtered all the way through the system to the quotation we're giving our customers. And while I'm sure the academics might prefer the fact that you need to increase prices and also decrease in prices, that's important as well, because you need to stay competitive and make sure you're winning the business. We want our salespeople to have the best information, so they can compete and win in the marketplace. And when you're slow, you can put yourself in a position to fit out in profitability and in sales. So that's probably the biggest component. Being systematic always helps. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you've taken an approach that somehow harms a market or distorts the pricing. So that systematic approach we think is absolutely beneficial. As we look at it, it's been a difficult process to adapt all of the tools, the system, the architecture to the way that we want to approach it going forward. I'm very, very impressed with both our operations and our IT teams for what they've been doing to pull that together. We've seen some very good progress with a couple more phases to come over the back half of this year. The markets where we've implemented so far have been pretty manual. So thus I can changes over time. It is a fairly modest percentage of the overall company. I think the new pricing structure is put in place. So we do expect it to continue to accumulate for us over the next year as we get some of those permanent changes to the IT structure and allow the business to accelerate the use of that more broadly.

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

And I'll just add, even just 50 basis points of margin improvement, that's real money. And part of it is, to some degree, breaking old habits. I've always sold this with a 24% margin as well. Why can't it be 24.5? What can the market bear? So give them more tools to understand that. And then also knowing, bucketing your customers and knowing which customers are more expensive to serve and making sure you're getting proper margin and a net return on those customers. So a lot of it is just giving them the tools and the information to make those decisions much more quickly.

Kurt Yinger, Analyst

Right. Makes a lot of sense. All right. Thank you guys. I'll turn it over.

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Kurt.

Ryan Gilbert, Analyst

Hey, thanks, guys. First question is on the third quarter guide. So, I guess, looking back to prior years, and there's been commodity inflation. We've seen that pressure on the gross margin. Operating margin has typically been flat or even improved on the year-over-year basis. But then just looking at that market trying to kind of triangulate to operating margins and adjusted EBITDA and gross margin guide. It looks like you're expecting some pretty meaningful operating margin compression in the third quarter. And I'm just wondering why you think you can be flat or higher in Q3 2020 on an operating margin basis?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. The most direct answer to your question is the speed of change in commodities. The nature of those short-term fixed price contracts exposes us to certain risks for a period of time. These increases are unprecedented; we’re seeing 20 to 30 points a month, which is very challenging to manage. We are acknowledging this in the third quarter. You're correct that there is some nice leverage when the value of those commodities rises. This will positively impact our bottom line, and we definitely expect it to reflect in our profit and loss statement over time, but that’s a short answer.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I know. We could be looking at about a 300 basis points decline in gross margin Q3 this year over last year. That's pretty hard to overcome from an operating margin standpoint. But as Peter said, we usually more than make that up in the following quarters.

Ryan Gilbert, Analyst

Right. Completely understand. Okay. And then second question on structural components. Definitely good to hear that, you're up double digits on the year-over-year basis on trusses. I'm wondering just how the conversations with builders have been progressing in the third quarter, given that negotiating that backlogs are pretty full. Cycle times are extending. I'm wondering if you're seeing more builders coming to you, interested in using components to get those cycle times back up?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Yes, for sure. I mean, anytime labor's tight, as you mentioned, they've got all of a sudden the surge and their backlogs are bigger than normal. They're looking for ways to get those houses in the ground as quickly as possible. And so that just plays right into our strategy on the component side of the business. So that's why I said earlier, I have no concerns about our component business; I'm very optimistic about what the future holds for that.

Ryan Gilbert, Analyst

Okay. Got it. Thanks. And just lastly, if I could. I was wondering if you could just expand a bit on what's going on in Florida. I think most of the commentary we've heard from the builders has been that the demand's pretty positive down there. So has there been a change to that competitive landscape or anything in particular you want to call out other than what you could earlier?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

I guess, I want to be a little bit thoughtful about how I answer this. There were certain important customers who acted more aggressively and less aggressively during the downturn than others. And the nature of some of those decisions certainly gave us some pause there. Back in these certain markets, they were particularly impacted, at least out of the gate or some of the more tourism impacted markets. All those markets have absolutely come back to the degree. There is a recovery underway. And I don't see that as a long-term issue. But I do think there is a bit of a progression back to normal that is required for us to kind of see full help there. But we have a very strong footprint. Very good businesses. Our folks are doing a great job down there. It's certainly not a concern about the operation. It's just a matter of how quickly it ramps back to where we would consider to be strong again.

Ryan Gilbert, Analyst

Okay. Got it. Thank you very much.

Steven Ramsay, Analyst

Good morning. I guess, question on Greenfield openings. How many have you done year to date? Do you have plans for more this year? Or is it still more of a focus on M&A?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Year-to-date, we have had one opening that provided year-end timelines, so there may be one or two more. We have a few more that are being developed. Regarding timing and when they will open, it looks like one to two more by the end of this year. This is a good time to complete that work and start ramping up since it's generally a slower season for us. We are still focused on identifying areas for retail facilities and we plan to continue this effort moving forward.

Steven Ramsay, Analyst

Okay. And then on repair and remodel volumes, I know you guys have some unique geographic exposure that drives that a little differently than the broader market. But our trends have been more resilient, maybe even didn't see quite the dip that new single-family saw. Maybe just share the specific drivers for you guys in the quarter and if you have any visibility over Q3 into Q4?

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Sure. Yes. So the one thing I'll let you know. I'm sure you already know this, but just for the other listeners, that our R&R and other includes kind of the commercial business as well. So I can tell you that we have sort of a tale of two cities there, that where core R&R retail and remodel businesses is far stronger, more than doubled at 4% rate. And then the commercial businesses where we see some downturn, and that's definitely offset. So we've got that retail footprint. Southern California is a great example; business is doing wonderfully, really performing well, ready and responding to the homeowner needs. And those markets are doing very, very well. As we mentioned in the script, the Midwest market has sort of leveled out. We've seen a bit of a headwind there in past years and it's been healthier. Certainly also seeing that tailwind from the overall trends nationally in the R&R space. Even Alaska's R&R market has done well. But that commercial part of our business where we do have projects. Again, that's got some pretty solid Alaska exposure. That has been part of it, as some of those projects have been either delayed or paused for whatever reason.

Reuben Garner, Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my question.

Peter Jackson, Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Reuben.

Reuben Garner, Analyst

Most of the questions have been answered. I just have one quick question. If I missed it, I apologize for the technical difficulties. Has there been any change in labor availability, which has been a key factor in the slower recovery? Additionally, have you experienced any challenges in obtaining specific products? Do you foresee issues with commodity availability or the availability of other building products that could hinder growth or accelerate growth in the upcoming quarters if demand is present?

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Yes. Good questions. Haven't really noticed any changes in labor availability. Although I would not be surprised with the recent surge in new home orders that may get a little tighter and it may extend cycle times out a little more. We talked about that a little bit earlier on the call. From a product availability standpoint, most folks like us were running pretty lean as the pandemic hit, and we've stayed lean; prices have run, and that kind of incentivizes you to remain lean because you don't want to jump back in when prices are running if you don't have to. So there has been some spotty supply issues; the bills cut back on their production when the pandemic hit and kind of got us in a situation we are right now where demand is strong and supplies limited. But nothing that I would say is disruptive; it's just something we're having to keep a closer eye on and be a little more aggressive on the buying side in some markets where we're having trouble with some extended lead times, but nothing I would call significant at this point.

Reuben Garner, Analyst

Great. Thanks again, and congrats on the quarter. And good luck navigating through everything.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Mr. Crow for any additional or closing remarks.

Chad Crow, Chief Executive Officer

Thank you again for joining our call today. And we look forward to updating you on our future results. If you have any follow-up questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to Peter or Binit. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.