Mohawk Industries Inc Q1 FY2023 Earnings Call

Good day, and welcome to the Mohawk Industries, Inc. First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to turn the conference over to James Brunk. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Dave. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Mohawk Industries' quarterly investor call. Joining me on today's call are Jeff Lorberbaum, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer; and Chris Wellborn, President and Chief Operating Officer. Today, we'll update you on the company's first quarter performance and provide guidance for the second quarter of 2023. I'd like to remind everyone that our press release and statements that we make during this call may include forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, those set forth in our press release and our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This call may include a discussion of non-GAAP numbers. For a reconciliation of any non-GAAP to GAAP amounts, please refer to our Form 8-K and press release in the Investors section of our website. I'll now turn the call over to Jeff for opening comments.

Thanks, Jim. For the first quarter of 2023, Mohawk's net sales were $2.8 billion, down approximately 6.9% as reported or 5.9% on a constant basis, and our adjusted EPS for the quarter was $1.75. All of our businesses are adapting our strategies to a more challenging environment. We're managing our costs while investing for both short- and long-term growth. We exceeded our earnings expectations with the businesses maintaining higher pricing and mix and Flooring Rest of World outperforming the other segments. The commercial channel continues to be stronger than residential, with home remodeling projects being postponed and new housing construction being impacted by higher mortgage rates. Our balance sheet remains strong, and we generated over $125 million of free cash flow. We strategically invested in new product innovation, enhanced merchandising in customer trade shows to improve sales. We are continuing to reduce costs across the enterprise by enhancing productivity, streamlining processes, and controlling administrative expenses. Our customers remain conservative in their inventory commitments and all of our operations are running at lower utilization levels, creating higher costs from unabsorbed overhead. We see increased competition as industry capacity utilization and input costs decline. In Europe, natural gas prices have dropped dramatically, though they remain at almost double the historical levels. We expect consumer spending to improve as wages rise, inflation slows, and energy costs fall. Our new product introductions provide more value options for budget-conscious consumers. In the U.S., limited supply, high interest rates, and persistent inflation have suppressed the housing market. Lower home sales and changing consumer spending habits are impacting the remodeling category. We are maximizing our commercial business with new introductions, marketing initiatives, and targeted promotions. In our other geographies, demand is similarly slowing, with residential more affected than commercial. Though the Mexican economy faces challenges, our business there is holding up better, while Brazil slowed more with higher interest rates and reductions in consumer inventories. Our restructuring actions are on track in the Flooring North America and Flooring Rest of World segments and should improve the results of our business. We are limiting our other capital investments to those providing significant sales, margins, and process improvements. We're expanding our constrained category that has the greatest growth potential when the economy recovers. These include LVT, premium laminate, quartz countertops, porcelain slabs, and insulation products. We completed 2 acquisitions in ceramics in Brazil and Mexico that had combined sales of approximately $425 million, almost doubling our existing market share in those geographies. We are developing strategies to increase our sales by providing a broader product offering and using combined brands to satisfy all price points. In each country, we're beginning to consolidate the businesses to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, and optimize production. We also continue to improve the small bolt-on acquisitions in Europe and the U.S. that we completed last year. Despite falling energy prices, natural gas and electricity inflation remained a headwind in the first quarter, though our future results will benefit as lower costs flow through the P&L. Our sustainable strategy includes investments in both production of green energy from biomass, wind, and solar, which reduces our carbon footprint and our expenses. Our 2 biomass energy plants lowered our cost and improved our results in the quarter. We also purchased some of our European energy at various times to reduce future cost volatility. Italian energy subsidies have been extended at reduced levels through the second quarter. I'll turn the call over to Jim for his review of our financial performance.

Thank you, Jeff. Sales for the quarter were just over $2.8 billion. That's a decrease of 6.9% as reported or 5.9% on a constant basis, driven by a reduction in volume and unfavorable FX as compared to Q1 2022, which was still benefiting from the COVID pandemic rebound in residential remodeling activity. The decrease was partially offset by favorable price, mix, and acquisitions. Global Ceramic, with a larger percentage of commercial and new construction, had the strongest quarter. Gross profit as a percentage of sales was 22.9% as reported and excluding one-time items was 24.1% versus 26.6% in the prior year. The year-over-year decline was due to the impact of inflation, lower volume, and the related temporary plant shutdowns and unfavorable FX, partially offset by stronger price, mix, and productivity gains. The actual detailed amounts of these items will be included in the MD&A of our 10-Q, which will be filed after the call. SG&A as a percentage of sales was 18.4% as reported. The year-over-year dollar increase in SG&A was driven by inflation, primarily in employee expenses, increased costs in product development and marketing to drive future sales, volume, and unfavorable price mix, partially offset by favorable FX and productivity initiatives. Operating margin, as reported, was 4.5%. Restructuring, acquisitions, and other charges were $36 million in the quarter, of which $6 million was cash. These charges are primarily related to the previously announced initiatives, mainly in Flooring North America and Flooring Rest of the World. Operating margin, excluding charges, was 5.8% and similar to gross margin. The year-over-year decline is driven by higher inflation, lower volumes, and related temporary plant shutdowns, partially offset by favorable price, mix, and productivity gains. Interest expense for the quarter was $17 million, increasing year-over-year, primarily due to the higher interest rates. Our non-GAAP tax rate for the quarter was 22.6% versus 22.3% in the prior year. We expect Q2's tax rate to be approximately 19% to 20% and the full-year rate to be between 21% and 22% with quarterly variations. That leads us to an earnings per share as reported of $1.26 and excluding charges of $1.75. Turning to the segments. In Global Ceramic, sales were just shy of $1.1 billion. That's a 0.5% decrease as reported and 1.2% decrease on a constant basis. Volume declines across all regions were only partially offset by favorable price, mix, FX gains, and acquisitions. Overall, the U.S. business had the strongest year-over-year performance as commercial and new home construction outperformed residential remodeling. Operating margin, excluding charges, was 6.3%, declining year-over-year due to the slowing economies and higher interest rates impacting all geographies, resulting in lower volumes and short-term plant shutdowns, partially offset by favorable price, mix, and productivity gains. We are focusing on expanding markets, integration of our acquisitions in Mexico and Brazil, differentiated products, and growth CapEx to drive future results. In Flooring North America, sales were $953 million. That's an 11.1% decrease as reported and on a constant basis. We saw weakness across all product categories compared to a very robust Q1 of 2022, led by residential soft surface products, as our commercial and laminate businesses, while still down versus the prior year, had the strongest year-over-year volumes in the segment. Operating margin, excluding charges, was 0.5%. The decline in operating margin was due to the weakening in the housing market with consumers deferring home improvement projects and trading down to meet constrained budgets, leading to lower volumes and temporary plant shutdowns. In addition, the segment's margins were compressed as it absorbed peak material costs from prior periods. In the quarter, we also invested in new product development and marketing initiatives to expand future sales. These headwinds were partially offset by favorable price, mix, and productivity gains. And finally, Flooring Rest of the World with sales of $793 million. That's a 9.7% decline as reported including unfavorable FX and 6% on a constant basis as housing-related purchases significantly declined, negatively impacting our flooring products as compared to our installation business, which maintained a positive year-over-year growth, driven by the push to further conserve energy. Operating margin, excluding charges, was 12.6%, declining versus prior year due to higher inflation, lower volumes, and temporary plant shutdowns, partially offset by favorable price, mix, and benefits from our green energy production. We are implementing selective promotion, executing our restructuring actions, and increasing supply chains outside of Europe to drive sales and margin growth. Corporate expense and eliminations were $10 million, in line with the prior year, and I would expect full-year corporate expenses should be approximately $45 million. Turning to the balance sheet. Free cash flow for the period was $129 million versus a $75 million use of cash in the prior year. Receivables were just shy of $2.1 billion, with DSO at 56 days versus 54 in the prior year, but improving from 60 days as of the end of the year of 2022. Inventories were just over $2.7 billion. Now excluding the impact of acquisitions, inventories decreased $114 million versus Q4 of 2022. Inventory days stand at 128 days versus 111 in the prior year, but improving from 138 days at the end of 2022. Property, plant and equipment was just over $4.9 billion, and Q1 CapEx was $128 million, with D&A at $170 million. Full year, our '23 forecast includes CapEx of $570 million and D&A of approximately $600 million. And finally, gross debt of $3.3 billion and leverage at 1.7x adjusted EBITDA gives us the strength and flexibility to manage through this uncertain market. Now I will turn the call over to Chris to review our Q1 operational performance.

Thank you, Jim. The Global Ceramic segment spans many countries with each having their own unique economic conditions. All of our regions are being impacted by slowing economies and higher interest rates. The commercial channel is strongest and new home construction held up better than residential remodeling as consumers reduce discretionary purchases. In this softening environment, our customers are lowering their inventory levels with significant differences in each region. As industry volumes decline, we are facing additional competitive pressures in our markets. Our pricing has lagged our cost changes, though we are seeing decreases in energy and material expenses, which should benefit our future results. The U.S. is performing better than our other ceramic markets due to our greater sales in the commercial sector. Our domestic production is more reliable than imported alternatives, which is benefiting our sales, particularly in our premium collections, which compare favorably to European alternatives. We are shifting our sales force focus to target opportunities in the multifamily and exterior channels and are expanding our commercial and builder distribution with curated collections for immediate delivery. To increase our countertop volume, we are expanding our business with national accounts, contractors, and kitchen and bath retailers. We are reengineering our entry-level quartz countertops to lower our cost and enhance the value. To manage through the slowing environment, we continue to reduce our costs across the business, including overhead and discretionary spending. Our ceramic business in Europe remains under pressure as demand has declined due to ongoing inflation and higher interest rates. We maintained higher average selling prices than we anticipated, partially due to our new introductions.

We have lost our speaker connection. Please stand by while we reconnect.

David, have you reconnected him?

I have now brought Chris Wellborn back in, and the conference can continue.

Pressure as demand has declined due to ongoing inflation and higher interest rates. We maintained higher average selling prices than we anticipated, partially due to our new introductions. Our overall volumes were down in the quarter with all markets impacted by slowing residential remodeling. As the market slows, competition is becoming more aggressive in all channels. We are increasing porcelain slab production to support continued sales growth through enhanced visuals and specialized textures. A drop in fourth quarter energy prices benefited our costs in this quarter and subsidies from the Italian government helped to offset the impact of energy inflation. We continue to focus on cost containment, including productivity projects and R&D initiatives. Our other ceramic markets are slowing, and we are reducing our production to align with demand. Sales trends improved as we progress through the quarter, and we expect these markets will continue to improve. Our 2023 product launches with new sizes, unique visuals, and polished finishes are being well received in the market. The integration of our acquisitions is progressing, and we are implementing specific sales, marketing, and operational plans to improve the businesses. This year, we will convert the acquisitions to our information systems to enable operating as a single business and enhance efficiencies. In our Flooring Rest of World segment, our European businesses have been compressed as high energy prices and inflation have impacted consumer budgets. In the first quarter, higher volumes reduced shutdowns, lower energy costs, and production of green energy improved our business from the fourth quarter. The contraction in the housing market has reduced volume levels in our industry as consumers change spending priorities and customers adjust inventory levels. We are increasing promotions to attract additional volume and expanding product options for more constrained consumer budgets. We have increased controls to manage our costs and reduce our inventories. We are reengineering our formulations and expanding our supply base to improve our competitive position. We are executing our restructuring actions to adapt to the current environment. As input costs decline, we anticipate greater competitive pressures in the market. As consumers have deferred residential remodeling projects, our flooring category was most impacted during the quarter. Both laminate and LVT volumes were lower in the quarter, and we are controlling our costs and production levels in response. We have begun the conversion of our residential LVT from flexible to rigid and are preparing to restructure the operations. Our sheet vinyl increased in volume as consumers sought options to lower remodeling costs. We are improving the product offering at our new Eastern European sheet vinyl acquisition with updated styling as we enhance the facility's production efficiencies. Our panels business has slowed with market and inventory reductions in the channel. Our margins are higher than anticipated due to stronger pricing, lower input costs, and benefits from our biomass energy plans. We are making progress on achieving our planned synergies of our French panels plant and our recent mezzanine flooring acquisition.

Thanks, Chris. Our industry is operating in a completely different environment than a year ago. Around the world, Central Banks are raising interest rates to slow their economies and reduce inflation. These actions lower our industry volume as new home sales and residential remodeling are postponed. The commercial sector has remained stronger than residential, though higher interest rates and tighter lending requirements could affect business investments as the year progresses. We're maximizing our sales and distribution by focusing on better performing channels, introducing differentiated products and providing enhanced service and value. We are proactively managing our spending and cost structures to optimize our results. We anticipate that industry volume and pricing will remain under pressure across our markets. We expect seasonal improvement in demand along with reduced energy material costs to improve our future results. Given these factors, we anticipate our second quarter adjusted EPS to be between $2.56 and $2.66, excluding any restructuring, acquisition, and other charges. The industry's downturn is unique with employment remaining high, businesses continuing to invest, and homes maintaining their valuations. We are conservatively managing the near term while we invest in long-term growth through product innovation, capacity expansions, and acquisitions. Our strong balance sheet enables us to navigate the current downturn as we prepare for the industry rebound that follows. Longer term, all of our regions require the updating of aging homes and significant new home construction to satisfy market needs. With our strength across regions, markets, and products, we anticipate capturing increased opportunities when the recovery occurs in the housing market and the economy. We'll now be glad to take your questions.

The first question comes from Joe Ahlersmeyer with Deutsche Bank.

Congrats on the solid start to the year. Jeff, the headwinds impacting results and the reasons to continue to be cautious as we go forward here, those reasons are well understood. And even as we look to make our own predictions about your business, it's probably not fair to expect you to make any definitive predictions beyond what you've given us in the guidance for the upcoming quarter. But you've also said in the past that managing the business as it emerged from contractions gives you the confidence that it will recover, but that also means you're probably among the best positioned to help investors conceptualize those scenarios realistically. So especially, since you've no doubt contemplated this as you've taken actions to position your business and you touched on this a bit in your conclusion to your prepared remarks there. But my first question is simply, without necessarily getting into when specifically, we see a recovery, can you just offer some thoughts on how that might realistically manifest maybe by category, your end market or geography?

When you go through a cycle, our industry always goes through a similar direction. So going into the cycle, the first thing that slows down is the residential remodeling because the consumers can immediately postpone it, and it's followed by the new housing construction and then by the commercial businesses that take longer to execute. When you come out of the cycle, it comes out in the same order for the same reason. So their remodeling piece should pick up first and do better. This cycle is not typical of the other cycles. Historically, by this point, employment would be down significantly, and it still remains strong. You have wages still increasing. We have housing is in short supply, and mortgage rates are limiting people's ability to move. These things, combined with aging homes and higher home values, should support more remodeling and commercial projects continue to be initiated. So when you take all this together, we're expecting the rebound on the other side to be stronger and faster than it has in past cycles because we're not under the same compression that we've been in these areas we just discussed.

All right. Thank you, Jeff, for those thoughts. Jim, we've discussed in the past the trade-offs and running the business with respect to choices you make around price cost, market share, production, and inventory levels. And then it's probably unrealistic to assume that as the industry recovers, you'd face earnings headwinds from all of these things at once. And so without making this a specific question about your volumes or price cost relationship in any one quarter, particularly beyond the next quarter, are you able to give investors any guardrails around Mohawk's annualized earnings power once we've maybe seen markets recover, we see a more typical input cost environment, but after you've then made choices around market share, pricing, and production capacity?

I believe you should start by looking at the relationship between materials, energy, and pricing, as you mentioned. The costs began to gradually decrease for us in late 2022, and it typically takes about 3 to 6 months for that to impact the profit and loss statement. In 2023, we expect inflation to lessen its negative impact and possibly turn into a benefit in the second half of the year due to weakening prices and mix along with increased competition from declining industry volumes. In the first quarter, we experienced lower volumes compared to very strong comparisons from the previous year, with pricing being influenced by inflation. Additionally, we did not build inventory as we normally would, and some shutdowns impacted our margins, although we saw improvements sequentially. In the second quarter, we expect higher production levels and fewer shutdowns. As I mentioned earlier, all the specific details will be provided in our 10-Q regarding the various elements involved. Another important point concerns our growth investments. Our current expansion projects are centered around future sales opportunities and addressing capacity constraints, particularly in laminate, LVT, quartz countertops, ceramic slabs, and their installation businesses. We are delaying other investments until market visibility improves, but these investments, along with acquisitions, should position us well for 2024 and beyond.

Maybe just the first question I had, as you kind of think about energy prices, how would you expect that to kind of mechanically work through the P&L? I would imagine maybe you get some benefit early and then pricing kind of starts to react to that. But how quickly do you think pricing reacts to energy prices? I mean is it pretty immediate? Or do you think it's more like what you would see with oil-based inputs in Flooring North America, for example?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, it takes some time for the changes to reflect in the profit and loss statement. Looking at the sequence from Q4 to Q1, we observed some improvement in input costs. I anticipate that the improvement from Q1 to Q2 will be even more pronounced, particularly because Flooring North America had to handle most of the peak material costs in the first quarter. This includes raw materials as well as energy costs due to inflation. Therefore, you can expect to see that improvement from Q1 to Q2. However, pricing and product mix will continue to face challenges as competition increases, especially given the lower industry volumes.

Okay. So is it fair to say it would kind of be like normal input costs? We just haven't seen this type of energy inflation before. So that's what I'm trying to ask.

Yes, even though it's down, I expect you'll notice some challenges in Q1. However, from a year-over-year perspective in Q2, it should improve. If it continues on the current path compared to last year, the energy situation should become beneficial in the latter half of the year.

There’s also a third option to consider regarding our expectations, and we are attempting to anticipate future outcomes. Consequently, we are adopting a more cautious approach in our forecasts, taking all factors into account. We ended up being a bit more conservative than necessary. There is ongoing pressure on pricing and product mix. In light of lower industry volumes, companies, including us, are likely to face more competition and promotional activities. However, we expect input costs to decline, and as we move into the next quarter or two, we anticipate that some of these savings will be reflected in lower pricing across the industry.

Don't forget also, you were seeing falling ocean freights, which is reducing the cost of imports to the U.S. So the weaker dollar certainly will partially offset.

My first question is, appreciating that you've got limited visibility to the second half. But can you talk contextually about how you're thinking about the operating environment as it relates to housing activity, R&R, commercial, and then even maybe the U.S. versus Europe? And are you still expecting that we will see more normal seasonality as we move through the balance of this year?

The visibility remains quite limited. We anticipate that economic growth will continue to face pressure throughout the year. Currently, we expect remodeling to improve somewhat. We believe the new housing market will stabilize, while we foresee a slowdown in commercial activity. As previously mentioned, we expect pricing and product mix to remain under pressure, although plant utilization is improving from the low levels seen in the first quarter. In Europe, many analysts suggest that consumer demand might rise due to the significant impact of high energy costs. Additionally, wages in Europe are increasing at a faster pace compared to the United States. Considering typical seasonal trends, it's important to note that the third quarter usually sees disruptions in the U.S. due to vacations, and we anticipate the usual seasonal decline as the year progresses. Looking further ahead, we expect a recovery as our industry typically rebounds; purchases that are postponed are not lost. During this down period, we foresee a substantial upturn on the other side, as has historically been the case. At present, we are making more growth investments than we did in previous cycles, which should better position us for the recovery, and the new acquisitions we are pursuing should start benefiting us in about a year.

Okay. That's helpful. And then focusing in on the Flooring North America segment. Obviously, that's been under pressure recently, just given the reduced production there. But as you think further out and the strategic initiatives you've been taking, the cost actions, all the various things that have been going on there. Where do you think that margin can get to? And any thoughts on how that might compare to what we've seen more recently from that segment?

The segment faced greater challenges due to oil and energy costs compared to other businesses, which affected material expenses across the board. We increased inventories to support customers during the first half of last year, resulting in high stock levels. We did not foresee the subsequent collapse in the market. Our pricing has not returned to peak levels, and promotions are leading prices to adjust quicker than material costs in the first quarter. We anticipate a turnaround in the second quarter as margins improve. Additionally, in most categories, we expect cost reductions to assist in recovering the margins we missed in many areas last fall. We expect margins to rise as we progress through the year, and we foresee better performance across all businesses for the remainder of the year.

The first one on SG&A was a little bit higher than we were looking for in the quarter. And I think you guys noted a few items, including higher employee expense and some investment spend. But is there anything in the first quarter SG&A number that you think won't repeat? And maybe if you could just help us think about SG&A dollars or as a percentage of sales as we move into the second quarter?

First, you have to remember on the comparisons, we came out of '21, the inventories were low. We were having trouble getting materials. We were hitting limitations with employees. So we went into the first quarter of last year with low inventories, and our customers also had low inventories. So we didn't put out as many new products. We didn't spend as much in marketing and merchandising. And so this year, we're going back to a more normal level. It's always heavier in the first quarter, and then we expect it to come down as we go through the year. We're putting investments in new merchandising and product categories across the businesses, trying to upgrade the product and mix and maximize the opportunities that are here in the environment that we're in.

And we're also doing that with balancing the administrative side and trying to control that cost, making sure that we emphasize the selling and the marketing aspects as we go forward.

Makes sense. Okay. And then just on the commercial channel remaining pretty resilient here in the first quarter. There's obviously some growing concern of slowing activity in U.S. commercial. And Jeff, I think you talked to your expectation that that could slow a bit. Are you seeing any signs right now that things are moderating on the commercial side in Mohawk's business?

There is some slight slowing in the category, but it's still doing reasonably well. Hospitality is outperforming the other categories. You have health care and education are still strong. But the cycle, there's other categories that aren't performing as well. We like you are looking at the architectural billing index, and we see some weakening in it. So we're assuming that it's going to weaken with lower investments as we enter the second half of the year, but we'll have to see.

I believe you mentioned in the multifamily business or in the F&A business that you were sort of leaning into multifamily increasing your participation there. I was curious if you could describe what kind of actions you're taking there? And then related to that, multifamily completions are really lagging multifamily starts, and the pipeline is still growing, it appears from the national numbers. And so I think your products tend to go in later, kind of closer to completion. So does that mean that the surge in demand from this multifamily category is still ahead of you? If you can just sort of talk about how you'd see the shape of demand there.

Usually, you go into cycles, the multifamily will slow down as well and then people start having to move around as jobs get harder. We haven't seen that here. So what you have is the multifamily. The vacancy rates are still reasonably low. You still have more completions coming in, and we're trying to maximize our share in what we think is going to be one of the stronger parts of the business this year.

Are you planning to expand your sales force or make any other changes that you could share with us?

In the multifamily sector, the products tend to be lower in value as they aim to keep rental costs down. We offer a wide range of options in carpet, LVT, laminate, and sheet vinyl. We haven't changed our product offerings significantly since we already provide a broad selection to meet demands. Instead, we're focusing on aggressive sales strategies.

Okay. That makes sense. And then secondly, you've been pretty active on the acquisition front, not so much the big ones, although I know you just bought Vitromex and Elizabeth. It looks like they are closing in 1Q. So a couple of questions regarding acquisitions. First of all, I think, Vitromex and Elizabeth, you said $425 million in annual sales. What was the purchase price combined for that? And then secondly, I think in the last couple of years, you've spent about $330 million on acquisitions of various kinds. Can you quantify what the general annualized sales benefit you think are coming from all of those businesses?

So in the first quarter, you're right, we closed on Vitromex and Elizabeth. The purchase price is just over $500 million combined. If you step back, we did about 5 bolt-on acquisitions last year in 2022, plus 2 ceramic acquisitions that we just completed. And to frame it from a sales perspective, it should be in the $600 million range on an annual basis given normal conditions. Obviously, the markets are a little bit tighter in Brazil and Mexico, like they are in other geographies. So what we gave you was their sales from the prior year.

Got you. And that's including Vitromex and Elizabeth's $425 million, right, in that $600 million?

Yes. All in, it's about a little over $600 million.

So there were small acquisitions, but then some of the sales are also included in last year.

You had said in the prepared comments, taking fewer down production days in the second quarter versus the first. Is that just a function of seasonality or do you have inventories kind of where demand is, and that's not quite as necessary in the second quarter?

Combination of everything. First is that we did take some inventories down. The second is we expect an improvement from seasonal improvements from one or the other, so where there are fewer shutdowns across the business all over.

Okay. And one other question. You said in answer to another question, in the second half of the year, energy turning. I think you said energy turning in your favor. I just want to make sure you're talking about energy. Are you talking about energy and input costs?

I was speaking about the question, Keith, was on energy. That was the comment on energy.

What's your view on raw material cost? Is that something where we could see some deceleration in the second half of the year?

In total, if you take energy and raw materials, again, that should be really a declining headwind as you go through from Q1 to Q2 and becoming a benefit in the second half of the year. And that's also leading to some price/mix weakening as well with competition with lower input costs and volumes being lower.

First, I just wanted to, if possible, get a little bit of quantification on how you're thinking about the incremental benefit from lower energy costs in 2Q itself? And you talked about it turning into a tailwind in the back half. So how much do you expect energy costs, if you could kind of quantify it, would benefit margins in 2Q versus 1Q? And incrementally, what would flow through further into the back half?

I believe you're asking about the comparison from Q1 to Q2 regarding energy costs. The savings from lower-cost energy should improve from the previous quarter. Therefore, it will provide a benefit in the second quarter compared to the first quarter.

And I appreciate that, but any way to quantify that benefit?

The headwind that you're going to see. Well, let me put it in terms of the total inflation again, from a year-over-year perspective that we saw in the first quarter, it was about $158 million. So you'll see that detail later today. And so I would expect that total inflation from a year-over-year perspective to be significantly lower than that in the second quarter.

Could you provide any way to quantify the financial benefits of the restructuring in 2023 and how far along we are in realizing those benefits in the second quarter compared to what you anticipate for the year-end?

We announced two restructuring plans early last year, with total costs estimated between $135 million and $140 million, of which only about $25 million is cash. We expect to achieve annual savings of over $60 million, which will ramp up throughout this year. Most of the savings will come from Flooring North America, and you will see these improvements reflected in the results for Flooring North America in Q2 and Q3, continuing through the end of the year. The restructuring actions in Flooring Rest of the World, which focus on phasing out our residential flexible LVT to concentrate on rigid products, will take longer to implement as we progress through 2023.

Okay. One last quick one, if I could squeeze it in. As you look at the sales patterns for the rest of the year given that you have easier comps in each of the next 3 quarters, if you were to take current sales patterns today or sales trends today, would you expect first quarter's 7% decline to lessen and potentially even turn positive as you get to the fourth quarter?

It depends whether you're looking sequentially or year-over-year. So last year, you had, it slowed down. So as we go through the year, year-over-year.

Year-over-year, Jeff?

Yes, year-over-year, the volume will improve as you go through the year with the comparisons.

Yes. We face a challenging comparison in the first half of the year, but it will ease in the latter half. Therefore, if our recovery continues as it is, you can expect those percentages to decrease as we move through the second half of the year.

Our next question comes from Adam Baumgarten with Zelman.

I believe you guys talked about some European ceramic competitors shutting down production when natural gas prices were spiking. Have you seen those competitors reenter the market at this point?

The gas prices have declined substantially. Each of the competitors have different purchasing strategies. So I don't know exactly where the costs are today. And when they purchased the gas prices, but Europe, the market is still under pressure because the demand from the consumers is significantly down. Chris, you want to add some more?

I would say that particularly those competitors operating at the low end, such as in Spain and other regions, have faced significant pressure due to natural gas prices. While a few competitors have exited the market, we don't have clear insight into that situation. However, none of the major players have gone out of business; only smaller ones have.

Okay. Got it. And then just on LVT, just given some of the declines you guys talked about on imported product. Maybe just if you could help us walk through your cost competitiveness of the U.S. and Mexico capacity that you guys are now bringing up?

Well, on the LVT, we have a broad offering for both residential and commercial and all price points are rigid and flexible. And our local production is valued for faster, more consistent service. We're improving our operations and differentiating it with features. And our West Coast plant efficiencies will increase over time.

And overall, the market is tough as resetting prices with the materials and freight costs moving. There's still a significant inventory in the channels. And then right at the moment, there's this thing we talked about, about the U.S. government stopping some shipments impacting service, and it's really difficult to tell what impact that's going to have on the supply and the marketplace today.

The next question comes from Mike Dahl with RBC.

Jeff, following up on that, regarding the import situation, it’s difficult to predict how it may resolve. Can you quantify how much supply is currently halted at ports and whether this issue has significantly affected the flow of ships en route to the U.S. at this time?

That's about the only thing I can tell you is one of the largest suppliers in the United States has stocked all those products. The question we don't know is how many others are going to be affected. On the flip side, we also don't know what it will take to get them released and returned. So we're really just at the beginning of this, and we need to see what happens with the government.

Okay. Got it. And then as a follow-up to kind of the price conversation. I mean, you mentioned that price/mix came in better than you guys had forecast during the quarter. Wondering, as you went through the quarter, have you seen price/mix evolve in a way that was closer to your expectations, i.e., you have referenced still seeing some pressure. So are you seeing the pressures that you initially expected now coming through? Or is it still better than you expected? If I could kind of add a second part to that question in response to Mike's question around volumes. Presumably, the price/mix comp will get worse as the year progresses even as the volume comp gets better. So from a total revenue standpoint, just should we think that the declines in total revenues also get better? Or does the worsening price mix offset the easier volume costs?

How to answer that one? Initially, we weren't sure about the extent of the decline in channel inventories and how much further they might drop. Additionally, pricing and mix played a role. Overall, it wasn't as depressed as we anticipated. The pricing and mix are becoming more challenging due to lower volumes. Depending on the category, areas with significant capital investments tend to maintain their investments, which can drive prices down. Increased competition and promotions arise as input costs decrease, along with a disconnect between inventory flow-through and pricing. We're trying to factor all these elements into our estimates simultaneously.

That's the bottom line. If we're discussing sales, there has been an improvement in comparable sales due to increased volume, which is beneficial, along with the acquisitions we mentioned. These factors contributed positively to our revenue.

Most people in Europe expect that, due to the significant drop in energy costs, consumers have drastically cut back on their heating and energy usage because those costs became very high. They anticipate that demand will improve as the year progresses, and we share that expectation.

Two things. First of all, Jeff, I think you made a comment that you had a more favorable view on North American remodel activity in the second half. I just want to clarify, did I hear that right? And what are you seeing that supports that viewpoint?

We believe that the postponement of projects has become significantly pronounced at this time, with people not moving as frequently as usual, possibly due to a growing comfort with interest rates. We perceive the situation to be at a low point. We anticipate some improvement as the year progresses, but we'll have to wait and see.

And I would just add to that, that the activity in the Daltile service centers has been higher. And the comment would be that the people coming in are very serious about getting projects done.

And probably one last thing, Eric, as Jeff said earlier, this cycle is a little bit different with employment remaining strong, wages increasing, and housing obviously remaining in short supply and people staying in their homes. And as they get more comfortable from a consumer confidence standpoint if that evolves, then they would come back to the remodeling.

Jeff, not necessarily looking for guidance here. Always enjoy getting your kind of big picture view on the cycle and everything. I'm just hoping you can help us think through 2024, how that might trend primarily on the residential side? Do you think we're kind of in the eye of the storm here in 2023 with the volume declines and you're expecting or positioning the company for some improvement in '24 volumes? I'm just trying to see where your head is at here because clearly, there's a lot of moving parts with inflation, Fed actions, war in Europe, but there's still a pretty healthy job and wage gains right now. So I just want to kind of wrap my head around that.

What, I guess, multiple parts. One is what you know as well as I do, there are different views on what's going to happen with the economy. One is that the economy is going to slow down and that the Fed is going to start lowering rates at the end of the year, the first of next year and start the improvement in the whole housing cycle. The second says it's going to take longer, and they're going to keep rates up longer. I can't tell you when it's going to occur. I know that every time that this happens, all these consumers that pull back that don't like the way their houses look, they postponed the purchases. And if you go back historically, the volume increases substantially in the first 2 years coming out of a downturn because of this. We've been in a downturn now for close to 9 months, and the rest of the economy hasn't reacted as much. We're in an industry that is really affected by interest rates as people postpone things. So we're looking that when it does occur, that it's going to be greater than normal. We are investing in the categories that are the highest growth categories and constrained growth, and we expect to get benefit out of all those as it comes up.

Jeff, your comments on demand feels like things have bottomed here and in general a little more upbeat about the back half. When you think about the recovery within your end markets, products or regions, the other view where you think things could potentially pick up faster. And then from a pricing standpoint, any markets in particular that you have more concerns that prices will fall a little more significantly?

Happy to go around the world. I mean Europe was so impacted by energy costs, which they're still double what they were before we started. But if you go back to 5 months ago, they were 10, 12 times where we started. So the energy impact on Europe has been dramatic. How to figure that in with the war and what's going on, it's hard to guess. The other side that's different, we're seeing in Europe, the increase in wages is generally higher than in the U.S. There are some countries that we know the wages are going up 10% or more there. So as the wages increase, it's possible that they have less impact on their consumption. And we're assuming that it's going to get better as we go through this year. All the other markets, they've all gone through a similar downturn. The interest rates are being raised everywhere. As in every market, the residential fell off substantially in all of them, and the commercial is trailing. Some of the areas like Mexico, the economy has held up better. There's things moving in as we have problems with China. So the Mexican market is doing better. The Brazilian market, for instance, turned down later, but it turned down later. And in our marketplace, the last quarter, there have been huge changes in the inventories in the channel as we go through. So each one is different, but it looks like the whole world is more interconnected and they're more closely aligned than they have been in the past 20, 30 years.

In any markets where you see more pricing pressure on products?

There is pricing pressure across all markets. As the markets slow down, companies with significant capital investments seek ways to reduce unabsorbed overhead. Typically, we respond to decreases by accepting lower margins, as we have in previous cycles, and I expect this situation to be no different.

Our ceramics business has held up very well. What's relative strength? You see that business holding up pretty good from here and now. Pricing in particular has been strong. You've had a nice pricing umbrella from inflation. Now that energy prices and ocean freight container prices have come down, how are you thinking about competition or pricing pressure from imports on the ceramic side of things?

Well, on the ceramic side, we have performed better than our other ceramic markets in the U.S., one due to a greater mix of commercial. Our domestic production has been reliable, or is reliable, more than the imported alternatives, and that's helped us. We've developed premium collections that have been used versus Italian imports, and we're increasing our focus on the multifamily exteriors, kitchen and bath channels. And we're also enhancing our commercial and builder markets with curated collections. Having said that, the imported ceramic prices are decreasing with freight, which has partially been offset by a weakening dollar. We do have more of our sales in the mid- to high-segment, which has insulated us a little. But no doubt, it will be under pressure as we go through the year with imports coming down.

I wanted to just follow-up on some of the comments on the import restrictions on LVT from China. Can you remind us sort of your exposure to Chinese imports on the LVT side? Maybe how does that compare to competitors? And just given your higher domestic production, and if there are additional restrictions, is there a share gain or pricing opportunity there?

Our imports from China are fairly limited, but it's affecting not only the local producers. They've extended this back to the raw materials, and some of the surrounding countries use raw materials out of China, and that's also causing the problem with the supply outside of China.

Got it. Okay. That's helpful. And then on commercial, can you remind us of your exposure overall? And then is there any regional difference you hire commercial exposure in Europe relative to the U.S.? Then what's the typical lag time between when a commercial project starts and when your products go in? So if commercial is slowing today, like when would we actually expect that to have an impact on your revenue?

From a percentage perspective, it varies by segment. We have significant commercial exposure in global ceramics, particularly in the U.S., where over 35% of the business is in commercial ceramics. Following that, Flooring North America has the next largest share, while there is limited exposure in Flooring Rest of the World.

The commercial sales typically fall off later because, and it depends on which projects, they can take anywhere from 12 months to 3 years to complete. So all these different projects have started. It tends not to fall off for at least about a year after residential starts falling off. And this one is different because you have really sectors in the commercial business that are still going up like the hospitality pieces. So it's really an unusual environment.

This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference over to Jeff Lorberbaum for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much. We appreciate all of you joining us. We're navigating the current environment, and we're investing to optimize our results when the economy improves. Thank you for joining us. Have a good day.

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.