Call highlights
Hayward reported Q2 FY2026 net sales of $318.4 million, up 6% year-over-year on positive price realization and stable volume, with adjusted diluted EPS up 8% to $0.26, and is maintaining its full-year 2026 guidance of approximately 5% net sales growth and 9%-13% adjusted diluted EPS growth.
- Net sales rose 6% to $318.4 million in Q2 and 9% in the first half, with positive price realization and stable volume, including positive volume growth in North America.
- Adjusted diluted EPS increased 8% to $0.26 in Q2, and adjusted EBITDA increased 5% to $92.7 million.
- Net leverage reduced to 1.5x, the lowest level since the 2021 IPO, while the company increased share repurchases.
- Completed a debt refinancing that extended maturities, added financial flexibility, and reduced cost of capital by approximately $6 million on a full-year basis.
- Commercial pool and industrial flow control both delivered double-digit net sales growth in the first half, and discretionary categories (salt chlorine generators, automation, lighting) saw continued solid demand.
- New product vitality is up to 23% with increased RD&E investment, and AI in customer service is answering 98% of North America calls within one second.
- Europe and rest of world net sales declined 8% due to macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical disruption related to conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
- Gross profit margin declined 50 basis points to 48.7% in Q2 due to tariffs and incremental inflation in specialty metals, freight, and resin costs.
- Net income increased only 2% to $45.6 million and interest expense, net, increased 24% to $17.0 million, including $5.2 million of debt financing costs from the refinancing.
- Full-year 2026 guidance is being maintained rather than raised, with growth expected of approximately 5% in net sales and 9%-13% in adjusted diluted EPS.
- RD&E expense increased 25% to $7.7 million, raising RD&E as a percentage of net sales by 40 basis points to 2.4%.
- No IEPA refund benefit is included in guidance, and any return of approximately $8-$10 million of refunds to customers would carry incremental cost.
Guidance
from the 8-K filed Jul 29, 2026| Metric | Period | Guided | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Adjusted diluted earnings per share
Initiated
Fiscal Year 2026
|
$0.84 – $0.87 | Non-GAAP |
Welcome to Hayward Holdings' second quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Robert, and I'll be your operator for today's call. At this time, all participants are on a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. During the question-and-answer session, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Maska, Vice President, Investor Relations, and FP&A. Mr. Maska, you may begin.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We issued our second quarter 2026 earnings press release this morning, which has been posted to the Investor Relations section of our website at investor.hayward.com. There you can also find the earnings slide presentation referenced during this call. I'm joined today by Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Ivey and Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, the company may make certain statements that are considered forward-looking in nature, including management's outlook for 2026 and future periods. Such statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in our most recent forms 10-K and subsequent forms 10-Q filed with the Securities an exchange commission that could cause actual results to differ materially. The company does not undertake any duty to update such forward-looking statements. During today's call, the company will discuss non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of historical non-GAAP measures discussed on this call to the comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and the appendix to the slide presentation. All comparisons will be made on a year-over-year basis unless otherwise indicated. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Halloran.
Thank you Kevin and good morning everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you to Hayward's second quarter earnings call. I'll begin on slide four of our earnings presentation with today's key messages. I'm pleased to report another strong quarter. Net sales increased six percent in the second quarter and nine percent through the first half with positive price realization and stable volume. This performance reflects the resilience of our installed-based aftermarket business model coupled with focused execution across the organization. Our teams are advancing strategic initiatives to strengthen our market position and drive profitable growth even as we navigate macroeconomic, geopolitical, and inflationary challenges. We are clearly gaining traction and I'm proud of the team's performance. During the quarter, we completed a comprehensive of debt refinancing, extending our maturities, reducing our cost of capital by approximately $6 million on a full-year basis, and adding financial flexibility to support our strategic priorities. Ivan will provide further details on the refinancing in a moment. We also made further solid progress on the balance sheet, generating cash and reducing net leverage to 1.5 times, the lowest level since our IPO in 2021. We achieve this while increasing share repurchases, demonstrating our confidence in the business and our commitment to disciplined capital allocation. Given the first half performance and our visibility into the second half, we are maintaining our guidance for full year 2026. We continue to expect next sales to increase approximately 5% and adjusted diluted EPS to increase approximately 9% to 13%. Turning now to slide 5, highlighting our second quarter and first half results. Net sales increased 6% to $318 million in the second quarter. North America increased 9%, driven by positive contribution from both price and volume, as demand remained resilient across our installed-based aftermarket. Europe and rest of the world declined 8%, as certain regions continued to be impacted by macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical disruption related to the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. We were pleased to see continued solid demand for some of our more discretionary product categories, such as salt chlorine generators, automation, and lighting. Commercial pool and industrial flow control delivered solid growth again this quarter, with net sales for both businesses up double digits in the first half. Gross profit margin declined modestly in the second quarter and was approximately flat to the first half, consistent with our expectations. As previously communicated, we anticipated second quarter pressure from incremental inflation in specialty metals, freight, and resin costs before our mitigation actions are fully implemented. Importantly, margins remain near record levels. The second quarter 2025 represented Hayward's highest ever quarterly gross margin as a public company, and second quarter 2026 was the second highest. I'm pleased with how our sales and operational teams maintain strong profitability despite these new pressures. Similarly, adjusted EBITDA margin in the first half remained healthy and consistent with the prior year as we continued to make targeted investments in product innovation and customer initiatives. Adjusted diluted EPS increased 8% to $0.26 in the second quarter. Combined with our outstanding first quarter performance, we delivered a strong first half with net sales up 9%, adjusted EBITDA also up 9%, and adjusted diluted EPS up 18%. Our performance reflects the strength and execution of our strategy. Let me highlight some of the initiatives gaining traction and helping position Hayward for sustained profitability growth on slide six. The focus of our strategy is clear. Support our customers with superior products and services to drive share gains while sharpening our operational excellence to enable profitable growth. Starting with the customer side, innovation continues to be our engine. We've increased our RD&E investment, and it's paying off with new product vitality now up to 23%. Our proprietary OmniX platform is leading the way, especially in the aftermarket, and we will introduce more OmniX-enabled product categories to expand the connected ecosystem. We're also deepening our reach with the trade through our Hayward Hub training centers. These hubs are reinforcing our position in our strongest markets by further developing existing dealer capabilities while also supporting dealer conversions in targeted growth markets. We look forward to opening our sixth center in Atlanta in the fourth quarter. We're increasingly using AI to raise the bar across the organization. One use case in customer service resulted in 98% of our North America calls now being answered within one second by an AI agent, and 80% of those calls resolved with no need for escalation to a live technical service representative. That's a better experience for our customers and greater efficiency for us. On the operational excellence side, we're staying disciplined and proactive. We're taking continued cost actions, investing in automation and productivity, nearshoring and increasingly dual sourcing to mitigate tariff and geopolitical risk, and driving value engineering across our processes and products. Internally, we're managing our own inventory tightly across both finished goods and raw materials and accelerating SKU rationalization and product platforming. We maintain visibility in the inventory levels and sell through across our primary North America channel partners through regular communication and reporting. Current channel inventory remains consistent with seasonal patterns, including the normal second quarter reduction and is aligned with our assumptions for end-market sell-through and product availability. Finally, the Power of Us campaign reinforces all of this. This is a compelling message and is resonating across the industry. As a proud American company since 1925, approximately 90% of our products sold in the United States today are manufactured or assembled in our domestic centers of excellence. The takeaway is simple. We're driving both growth and productivity. The combination of customer intimacy and operational excellence driving market share and profitability is exactly how we intend to outperform our industry and create long-term value. And with that, I'd like to turn the call over to Ivian to discuss our financial results in more detail.
Thank you, Kevin, and good morning. Turning to slide seven, I'll walk through our second quarter financial performance in more detail. We delivered another strong quarter of sales and earnings growth, with net sales increasing 6% to $318 million against a 5% growth comparison in the prior year period. Growth was primarily driven by price realizations to offset inflation, with volumes stable in the quarter. I am particularly pleased to see positive volume growth in our primary North American market, which reflects the impact of the investments we have made in our sales, marketing, and customer care teams to strengthen customer engagement, improve execution, and support sustainable demand generation. Gross profit increased 8% to $155 million, while gross profit margin declined 50 basis points to 48.7%. As communicated last quarter, we anticipated sequential second quarter gross margin increases to be more moderate than the prior year due to the timing of incremental inflation and the partial quarter benefit of our surcharges and other mitigation actions. As Kevin noted, we were pleased to deliver our second highest quarterly gross margin since the IPO, suppressed only by the prior year period, despite facing challenges over the past 12 months, including tariffs, commodity inflation, higher transportation costs, and the management effort required to nearshore production from China and establish dual sourcing to continue to improve supply chain resilience. Adjusted EBITDA increased 5% to 93 million, with adjusted EBITDA margin increasing 700 basis points sequentially from the first quarter and declining 40 basis points year over year to 29.1%. We continue to make targeted investments in sales and marketing, advanced engineering and customer service. The effective tax rate was 23% and adjusted diluted EPS increased 8% to $0.26. Moving to slide 8 to discuss our segment performance for the second quarter. North American net sales were up 9% to $278 million, driven by 7% price realization and 2% volume growth. Within the region, U.S. sales also increased 9% and Canada was up 2% given and the weather-related slow start to the season. Gross margin reduced 90 basis points from the prior year to 50.4% due to inflationary pressures and timing of our mitigation actions. Similar to the consolidated result, the North American gross margin trailed only the segment record performance in the year-ago period. Sales in Europe and the rest of the world declined 8% to $41 million with positive contributions from price and FX offset by reduced volume. Europe sales declined 4% and rest of the world declined 16%, impacted primarily by the geopolitical disruption related to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. That said, we were pleased to see continued margin improvement in the segment. Gross margin increased 50 basis points to 37.9%. An adjusted segment income margin was consistent with the prior year at 18.1%, driven by improved operational execution. Moving to slide 9. Our first-half segment performance was strong. North American net sales increased 10%, driven by 8% price realization and 2% volume growth, with both the U.S. and Canada delivering double-digit gains. Europe and rest of the world was flat overall, as 5% growth in Europe offset a 9% decline in rest of the world, again primarily reflecting the disruption of the Middle East conflict. Adjusted segment income margin remained consistent with strong prior levels in North America and expanded 130 basis points in Europe and rest of the world. Overall, we are pleased with our first half performance. Turning to slide 10, during the quarter, we successfully amended our existing term loan B, extending the maturity profile, reducing our interest rate, and enhancing financial flexibility. The amended term loan B of $960 million now matures in 2033 compared to 2028 previously, and carries a 61 basis point lower spread. This reduces annual run rate interest expense by approximately $6 million, leaving total debt substantially unchanged. We also replaced our $425 million ABL revolver due 2028 with a new undrawn $425 million five-year cash flow revolver maturing in 2031, providing full availability without a borrowing-based limitation. The refinancing was well-received with Moody's upgrading our corporate family rating and S&P affirming its rating with a positive outlook. Together, these actions strengthen the balance sheet and support organic investment, strategic M&A, and capital returns while maintaining disciplined leverage. Turning to slide 11, our financial position remains a source of strength and gives us meaningful flexibility to execute our plans. We continue to strengthen the balance sheet during the quarter, reducing that leverage to 1.5 times, the lowest level since our IPO from 2.1 times a year ago. We ended the quarter with a combined $483 million of cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments. Combined with availability under our credit facilities, that's over $900 million of total liquidity. Cash flow from operations was strong in the second quarter, resulting in $172 million in the first half of 2026, compared to $188 million in the prior year period. Free cash flow was $154 million, and our outlook for the full year is unchanged at approximately $200 million. To sum it up, with low leverage, ample liquidity, and strong cash flow, we are well positioned to support continued organic investment, pursue strategic M&A and return capital to shareholders. Turning to slide 12, capital allocation. We balance strategic growth investment with stockholder returns while maintaining prudent leverage. As an OEM, we prioritize organic investment into our manufacturing and supply chain footprint, followed by strategic M&A, while remaining opportunistic with respect to share repurchases. We accelerated our share repurchase activity in the first half, deploying approximately $64 million to repurchase 4.4 million shares. Turning to slide 13, given our strong half performance and current visibility into the second half, we are maintaining our guidance for full year 2026. We continue to expect next cells to increase approximately 5%, with adjusted diluted EPS increasing approximately 9% to 13% to a range of $0.84 to $0.87. We continue to expect free cash flow in the region of $200 million, exceeding 100% of net income. This outlook includes net interest expense of approximately $45 million, a normalized effective tax rate of around 24%, and increased capex of approximately $40 million as we continue to invest in upgrading our operational capabilities. Overall, we're confident in our ability to execute and remain positive on pool industry growth, supported by the strength and the resilience of the aftermarket. With that, I'll turn the call back to Kevin.
Thanks, Ivan. Before we open the line for questions, let me close by reinforcing the key messages from today's call. Hayward delivered another strong quarter and first half, underscoring the durability of our installed-based aftermarket model, the strength of our brand and product portfolio, and the consistency of our execution. We grew sales and protected profitability in a dynamic cost environment. At the same time, we continued advancing the initiatives to define Hayward's next phase of value creation, deepening customer relationships through innovation and service, expanding our connected product ecosystem, and operating with even greater efficiency and discipline. We also reduced leverage to the lowest level since our IPO. accelerating our share repurchase activity, and completed and important refinancing. Looking ahead, we remain confident in the long-term fundamentals of the pool industry and in Hayward's ability to deliver results through a range of market conditions. With that, we're now ready to open the line for questions.
Thank you. At this time, we'll be conducting a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. We ask that you please limit to one question and one follow-up. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. All right, first question comes from Andrew Carter with Stiefel. Your line is now live.
Thank you. Good morning. Given the news in the industry with Pentair's declines and channel rightsizing, could you step back and kind of give us an estimate of what your readout is, like your sellout to customers, also potentially how much that sellout varies by customer? And then I guess the second part to build on that, how many days of inventory are in the channel now? Is that meaningfully different than what it was, say, pre-COVID, because you've obviously got the quicker supply chain? And then what are your estimates for days inventory in the channel by the end of the year? Thank you.
Uh, morning, Andrew. Um, I mean, might have some of those statistics you were, you were, uh, asking about. I mean, overall, we feel really balanced with our, uh, inventory in the channel ending Q2. I would call it very normal. You know, as expected, Q2 is a big sellout quarter for us, traditionally the biggest net reduction in inventory after the channel builds inventory in Q4 and Q1 getting ready for the season. And as we move into Q3, we would expect another net reduction, although historically not normally at the same level that we see in Q2, all culminating with lower inventories and what we would expect to be a very normal participation from the channel come early by time. You know, you mentioned COVID. There were certainly lessons learned coming through the COVID experience through supply chain disruption and demand profile. You know, we embarked on a much improved process with our largest North American channel partners of sharing information around inventory levels, out the door sales, what we expect them to be moving forward. And I would say our conversations with our largest channel partners are very productive. In general, we all feel very balanced. We're aligned on what we believe the go-forward sales out figures are in Q3 and Q4. We're not hearing any kind of divergent opinions on what we expect Hayward sales out to be, nor are we hearing from the channel partners, you know, any expectations to make step-level reductions in their days on hand that they've had historically. So, you know, I think all of this is supported by the fact that we're proud of the reliable supply chain and the domestic centers of excellence with shorter lead times that really negates any reason for the channel to order ahead or to increase stocking levels. So we feel really good exiting Q2, and we see very balanced inventories across our largest channel partners.
Yeah, and good morning, Andrew. If you look at the entirety of the channel across North America and take into consideration primary European markets, we typically operate at this time of year just over four months worth of inventory in the channel uh and in aggregate that's kind of where we're at exiting out of out of uh out of june some channel partners who have got stronger balance sheets may go a little bit higher others lower between now and the end of the year we typically start to see inventories climb as folks start to take in their positions for the early buy, particularly in Q4. As Kevin mentioned, normalized inventory across the channel coming out of Q2, and I feel really good about how we're set up for Q3, stepping into Q4 as well.
Thanks. I'll pass it on.
Our next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is now live.
Good morning, guys. Good morning. Hey, so maybe sticking with the competitor news and dislocation, I'm just wondering maybe any color where you think you might be benefiting from some of that dislocation. I think they talked about some customer share loss around 80-20 implementation and then maybe like-for-like replacement on older pool pads. I'm just wondering what you're seeing there and any opportunities.
Yeah, good morning, Jeff. As I've said pretty consistently for several quarters running, we feel good about our share gains. We think that it's been over a longer period of time perhaps than was seen by the market. I think that's a little bit more apparent, apparent, maybe in the current period. I'd say our team is executing a playbook. We've had basically the grow greater than market has been a consistent theme in the organization since I joined in 2019. And I think it's multi-prong. I think we're playing offense and that the investments that we've made around SG&A and RD&E are paying off from a product and innovation standpoint, it's a steady pipeline of products that touch a number of different themes, Jeff, whether it's like-for-like replacement or bringing automation and upgrade to the established installed base or filling in some product gaps that we may have had historically, like a four horsepower, or bringing some products to market that can drop in on some competitive products. Those are kind of the prongs around products and the innovation. There's a long list around commercial excellence, whether it's brand building, making sure that our brand, you know, is resonating with all builders and servicers, to some reorganization around our field organization, bringing sales and technical service together under common leadership, adding some business development folks to tell the Hayward story and to start recruiting into the family, and then some dealer support, whether it's some education or whether it's the hubs, the OmniPro app, et cetera. So I think all of that is really wrapped up again with a comment I made to Andrew's question around supply chain capabilities.
And I think having shorter lead times manufacturer in the U.S. and our centers of excellence all supports a multi-pronged share playbook that we've been executing for several years, and we continue to see uh to see gains from it okay great and then um just on you know gross margins i know you you guys telegraphed pretty well that you know you had a tough comp in the gross margin you'd be down year over year and there were some maybe some price cost transition issues can you just speak to how you see gross margins trending you know into 3q 4q you know you know, as you look year on year and, you know, maybe how you're working through those price cost issues and how price is translating.
Yeah, thanks. I'll keep off and Kevin can correct me where needed. But you're exactly right. You know, stepping into Q2, we expected to have a lower sequential gain than we did in the prior year. I was actually more pleasantly surprised with the amount of gross margin gain that we actually achieved. But nonetheless, when the announcements on the wall came through in Iran in February, that obviously accelerated inflation, came out as quickly at the end of Q1. We immediately reacted and announced a surcharge to be effective on all this mid-quarter and given the order-to-invoice lag to be effective on the invoice sometime later in the quarter. That played out. Maybe we've got a little bit more on the invoice than we were originally expecting in terms of timing, but that played out exactly as expected. So at the end of Q2, we would say we're all caught up now on that particular inflationary pressure. As we look into the balance of the year, normally we see margins decrease in Q3 as it's a lower leverage period for us. And then in Q4, margins open back up again as we get more leverage from volume in that particular quarter. Right now, as I said at Q1, we believe, based on the activities that we have in place right now, that we'll be able to maintain gross margins for the full year approximately in line with last year. The guys are doing an eps in the operational supply team, battling all these headwinds, and then with the assistance of the commercial team in pricing action, in some cases discrete pricing action, they're able to hold our gross margins. Last year's level, which is a great position to be at, last year was a record level. So, feeling really good about the balance of year and the ability to deliver another good margin year in 26.
Great. Thanks, guys.
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. One moment, please, while we poll for questions. Our next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.
Hey, guys.
Hey, guys. Good morning. This is Brian. Sorry for technical difficulty. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess first, just a follow-up to the prior question around kind of the price-cost actions and gross margin trajectory, that's a helpful caller for the balance of the year. How should we think about, and I know you get this question every now and then, the ability to continue to leverage price here, are you getting any flat pushback from the channel? I know it's been a good kind of tailwind for the past couple of years. How should we think about your ability to continue to capture price and kind of what magnitude as you head into the next year? I know it sounds like the second half you're recalibrating pretty well there and you're seeing good momentum. But beyond that, I guess just being sure how should we be thinking about the price right here?
Yeah, there certainly, hey, Brian, there certainly has been a lot of price pushed through the marketplace over the last several years due to inflationary or tariff pressures that we've all felt. And we're actually contemplating as we speak what some of those inflationary assumptions are as we make the turn into the second half of this year. And it's always part of our early buy program where we announce what those impacts are heading into the next year. So we're going through that as we speak right now, Brian. But to your question, I feel confident in our ability to continue to pass along at least dollar for dollar what those impacts are. You know, we're all hoping for a little bit more muted inflationary environment going forward. But we are confident that we can pass dollar for dollar. And what we have done more recently is we take it on ourselves to take on cost out and productivity and efficiency projects internally to protect that structural margin. We think that that's the right thing to do, given some of the pressures, pricing pressures that have been pushed into the market over the last three plus years. So that's our approach.
Ivan, you have anything to add around? broad price price cost no i mean you know as kevin mentioned here you know we've we have the ability uh at the beginning of each season here to adjust pricing in line with inflation several periods here try to protect dollar for dollar and then use our manufacturing facilities and supply chain to return structural gross margin, and that's played out as expected. So it's a disciplined industry with that ability, but we're conscious that a lot of prices have gone in over the last several years, and we're doing our darndest here to make sure that we're limiting price increases as we continue to go forward, only those that are necessary, to protect dollar-for-dollar and leveraging our facilities to return structural margin.
Helpful caller, guys. The second question for me, and I'll pass it on, you know, just in terms of, you know, the market share gains, as you mentioned, Kevin, you've said that consistently over the past few quarters, I guess, you know, kind of come to light that that does seem to be playing out based on what we've seen from some of your peer group in the recent past. So when you think about, you know, the share gains you've seen, I'd imagine some of that's through technology, some of that's through innovation, but some of that maybe just through kind of how you're interfacing with the dealers and the channel. How do you envision kind of being able to maintain those share gains, maybe even accelerate them? Kind of what are some levers you think you can put forth to kind of keep those sticky?
Thanks for the question. I mean, I think they're very durable, very sticky. You know, these share gains have been won, you know, by our commercial operations team, you know, doing a better job of telling the Hayward story. You know, we've been focused on this industry for decades, and we're bringing great products that resonate, that are dealer-driven, things that they're telling us that they would like to improve. we take to heart, and we work through our product management and our design teams, I think we really continue to focus and impress upon the dealers out there that we are looking to help them be successful, help them with, you know, as some small, some, you know, large business owner operators, You know, what we can do from the OEM side to enable them to be more successful in the profession and in the business that they operate. So, you know, we, given the fact it's multi-pronged, whether it's around the commercial side, around the supply chain side, and listening to our dealers bringing product innovation to life, I think we have a lot to offer, a lot to sell, and the momentum is gaining. So our expectation is not to cede back, but to continue the positive trajectory that we've been on over the last several years.
Great. Appreciate the call. Best of luck. Thanks.
Our next question comes from Raph Jadarish with Bank of America. Your line is now live.
Hi, good morning. It's Rafe. Thanks for taking my question. The first one is just on IEPA refunds. Is there any benefit that you're seeing in the second quarter or later this year or what's sort of embedded in guidance or what's your expectation there?
Hi, good morning. No, at this particular point, we're still in the process of substantially receiving IEPA refunds as we stepped into Q3. I think the first tranche of IEPA refunds are now in. Currently, we're evaluating what's the most appropriate way to return to customer. That would be our ambition. There's complexity to that. Obviously, whatever we would return would be natural cost to be incurred for those refunds. But right now, we're still in the process of claiming those refunds in the aggregate, the less than $10 million for us. Some of that is a consequence of the great job that we did recalibrating the supply chain last year to get away from the impact of those IEPA refunds. But right now, our line of sight is to approximately $8 to $10 million worth of refunds. We have ambition to return to the customer, still working through that complexity. I will update you at the end of Q3 on how that played out.
Okay, so nothing in guidance or anything like that?
There isn't.
Okay. And then just in terms of sellout, there's an earlier question on that. Can you just tell what you think, like, industry sellout was in 2Q? And if I were to go back 90 days ago to when you reported 1Q, like, what's your full year expectation for the end markets and have they changed at all? Like, what are you expecting for new construction, R&R, international? Just how do we think about how the sellout has evolved and your outlook for the back half of the year? Thank you.
I think the best proxy for what sellout was in the second quarter, Rafe, would be the largest distributor that reported last week, who I believe reported plus three in the equipment category over second quarter. Um, we, um, across our largest trade partners, um, Hayward sales out was, uh, was a bit better than that. Uh, actually traditional distribution, uh, saw even, uh, a bit better than that of Hayward product, uh, as well. So we were, we were encouraged with what we saw through our largest trade partners in Q2 in terms of Hayward sales out vis-a-vis the broader equipment category in general. In terms of first quarter, do you have that, Freddie?
Yeah, I mean, we were mid-single digits in the first quarter on the sellout. I mean, we don't get perfect information across the wider channel, but based on the reporting distributors, we were at mid-single digits. Thank you. Very helpful. Ray, let me just also clarify an early point that I made that was asked by Andrew, which may be part of your question as well. I mean, typically what we see in the channel inventory position is during Q2 and Q3, sales out exceed selling, so you see decreasing absolute inventories. inventories. As we get to the end of Q3, you typically see days on hand start to increase, even though those absolute dollar values are lower in terms of inventory. And then as you step into Q4, you see the absolute inventory climb as we get ready for the season, which then takes place, obviously. Typically, days on hand are going to be the highest at the end of the year, given that inventory pull-in by the channel.
We have reached the end of the question and answer session, I'd like to turn the call back over to Kevin Holloran for closing comments.
Thanks, Robert. In closing, I want to thank our employees and partners around the world. Your dedication and hard work continues to be critical to the progress we're making across our business. We're encouraged by our strong first half year to remain confident in our strategy. If you have any follow-on questions, please reach out to our team. We appreciate your continued interest in Hayward and look forward to speaking with you again on our next earnings call. Robert, you may now on the call.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and we thank you for your participation.