Earnings Call Transcript - MWA Q3 2024

Operator, Operator

Welcome, and thank you for standing by. Today's call is also being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn today's meeting over to your host, Mr. Whit Kincaid. Thank you. You may begin.

Whit Kincaid, Host

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us on Mueller Water Products' Third Quarter Conference Call. Yesterday afternoon, we issued our press release reporting results of operations for the quarter ended June 30, 2024. Copies of the press releases are available on our website, muellerwaterproducts.com. I'm joined this morning by Marietta Zakas, our Chief Executive Officer; Paul McAndrew, our President and Chief Operating Officer, and Steve Heinrichs, our Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we will address questions related to the information covered on the call. As a reminder, please keep to one question and a follow-up and then return to the queue. This morning's call is being recorded and webcast live on the Internet. We have also posted slides on our website to accompany today's discussion. They also address forward-looking statements and our non-GAAP disclosure requirements. At this time, please refer to Slide 2. This slide identifies non-GAAP financial measures referenced in our press release, on our slides and on this call. It discloses the reasons why we believe that these measures provide useful information to investors. Reconciliations between non-GAAP and GAAP financial measures are included in the supplemental information within our press release and on our website. Slide 3 addresses forward-looking statements made on this call. This slide includes cautionary information identifying important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those included in forward-looking statements. Please review Slides 2 and 3 in their entirety. During this call, all references to a specific year or quarter, unless specified otherwise, refer to our fiscal year, which ends the 30th of September. A replay of this morning's call will be available for 30 days at 1-800-813-5525. The archived webcast and corresponding slides will be available for at least 90 days on the Investor Relations section of our website.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Thanks, Whit. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our earnings call. I'll start with a brief overview of our third quarter results. I am pleased with our performance this quarter, as we reported record quarterly results that exceeded our expectations. We achieved record quarterly net sales with 9.2% year-over-year growth, with healthy order levels during the quarter supported by steady end market demand. Our commercial and operational teams overall executed at a high level, including delivering benefits from manufacturing and supply chain efficiencies. Thanks to their great work, we delivered our second consecutive quarter with a gross margin above 36% and a 620 basis points year-over-year improvement. During the quarter, we continued to maintain our disciplined approach to SG&A spending. This discipline, along with a record quarter for net sales and a strong gross margin, resulted in record adjusted EBITDA of approximately $85 million, which represents an increase of nearly 57% compared with the prior year. We also achieved record quarterly adjusted net income per diluted share of $0.32, an increase of around 78% compared to the prior year quarter. In addition to driving efficiencies to expand gross margins, our teams are focused on growing free cash flow through working capital improvements with disciplined capital spending. They also continue to look for opportunities to invest in our business to drive organic growth in sales, margins, and cash flow. As a result, we increased our year-to-date free cash flow more than $100 million compared with the prior year period. I am highly encouraged by the progress our teams have achieved this year based on their unrelenting focus on customer service and operational efficiency. Our teams continue to perform at an improving level while controlling costs and driving manufacturing, material, and freight efficiencies. These results include strong performance at both our iron gate valve and hydrant manufacturing facilities. The improvement in our margins, which are above pre-pandemic highs, is a testament to the operational progress we've made to date. Our gross margin for the latest 12 months is above 34%, and our adjusted EBITDA for the latest 12 months reached a record high with more than a 21% adjusted EBITDA margin. We are on track to achieve record annual results and accordingly are raising our guidance for 2024 net sales and adjusted EBITDA. This guidance includes nearly a 36% annual gross margin at the midpoint of our updated annual guidance range for net sales and adjusted EBITDA growth. While the external environment remains dynamic, we believe overall end market demand the rest of the year will remain resilient, and we are confident in our team's ability to execute while we look forward to 2025. We focused on ramping up our new brass foundry and continue to expect to close our old brass foundry by the end of calendar 2024. With this tailwind and our ongoing operational improvements, we will look to leverage our leading market positions and investments to drive future sales and margin growth.

Steve Heinrichs, CFO

Thanks, Martie, and good morning, everyone. For the third quarter, consolidated net sales of $356.7 million increased 9.2% compared with the prior year, mainly due to higher volumes of Water Flow Solutions and higher pricing across most product lines, which were partially offset by lower volumes at Water Management Solutions. As we've mentioned in earlier quarters, our lead times and backlogs for iron gate valves and hydrants are normalized. So the differences in year-over-year volumes between our segments are primarily related to the timing of backlog normalization and channel and customer destocking in 2023 for these products. In the third quarter, gross profit of $131.4 million increased 31.3% compared with the prior year. Gross margin of 36.8% increased 620 basis points compared with the prior year and reflects the second consecutive quarterly gross margin above 36%. The year-over-year increase was driven by favorable manufacturing performance, increased volumes, and favorable price cost which were partially offset by the impacts of the Israel-Hamas war. Similar to last quarter, the improvements in manufacturing performance were mainly driven by improved productivity, including labor, material, and freight efficiencies. For the quarter, total SG&A expenses of $61.5 million were $900,000 higher than the prior year. Lower personnel-related costs associated with our restructuring activities and lower third-party fees were more than offset by higher incentive costs and inflationary pressures. Operating income of $67 million increased 88.2% in the quarter compared with the prior year. Operating income includes strategic reorganization and other charges of $2.9 million in the quarter, which have been excluded from adjusted results. These are primarily related to our leadership transition, severance, and certain transaction-related expenses, as well as a noncash asset impairment at Water Management Solutions. Turning now to our consolidated non-GAAP results for the quarter. Adjusted operating income of $69.9 million increased 77% compared with the prior year. The increase was primarily due to favorable manufacturing performance, increased volumes, and favorable price cost, which were partially offset by impacts of the Israel-Hamas war on Water Management Solutions. Our adjusted operating margin improved 750 basis points to 19.6% compared with the prior year. This margin also yields a sequential improvement of 70 basis points and is the highest quarterly margin since the third quarter of 2016. Adjusted EBITDA of $85.2 million increased 56.6% in the quarter. Our adjusted EBITDA margin improved 720 basis points to 23.9%. This is a 60 basis point sequential improvement and also equals the highest quarterly margin since the third quarter of 2016. Historically, the third quarter has been our strongest quarter, reflecting the seasonality of the business. For the last 12 months, adjusted EBITDA was $267.6 million or 21.1% of net sales, a 690 basis point improvement compared with the prior 12-month period. Our third quarter adjusted net income per diluted share of $0.32 increased to 77.8% compared with the prior year and is another quarterly record.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Thanks, Steve. I want to highlight a few key items before opening it up for Q&A. I want to thank all our employees around the world for their tireless efforts and passion for helping our customers and communities. They are the reason for our success and why Mueller has become a trusted partner for water utilities for over a century. We are moving forward with confidence and strength with leading brands, improving manufacturing operations, a large installed base, and strong channel and end customer relationships. As we look ahead, we are well positioned to benefit from the investment to address the aging North American water infrastructure and the incremental spending associated with the federal infrastructure bill, including lead service line replacement projects. We are focused on executing strategies in four key areas. We will continue to drive operational improvements to deliver the benefits from our capital investments and expand our capabilities. We have positioned ourselves to accelerate sales growth and capture the benefits from favorable long-term end market growth trends through product innovation and service. We are making changes to increase collaboration and teamwork throughout the organization to create a culture of talent development, enabling us to execute on our strategic opportunities and make Mueller a preferred place to work. We are well positioned to execute on our strategies to improve margins and increase free cash flow to support future investments and growth. With our fiscal 2024 coming to a close in a few months, we are refining plans in our strategy for 2025 and beyond with the ramp-up of our new brass foundry close to completion, and with our improved execution, we are confident that we can build on our momentum to continue to drive net sales and margin growth. As a reminder, we look forward to sharing our forthcoming annual ESG report and engaging with stakeholders on our progress as we work to become a more sustainable, innovative, and impactful organization dedicated to being a leader in the water infrastructure industry. That concludes our comments. Operator, please open this call for questions.

Operator, Operator

Sure. Our first question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Bryan Blair, Analyst

Good morning, everyone. Very solid quarter. I'm hoping to dig in a little more on what's contemplated in your implied fourth quarter EBITDA guidance. I understand the last few years have been operationally noisy and that might complicate year-on-year in stacked comp analysis, but with operations in a better place, somewhat normalized plus early-stage efficiency benefits that are reading through. It seems reasonable to think about normalized seasonality and sequential trends. And through that lens, there would be a fair amount of upside implied versus the $59 million to $63 million that's not built in the guide. Just looking for more detail on the discrete items that represent sequential headwind versus just continuing to win conservative in the outlook provided?

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Very good. Well, let me kick off with that. And as we look out to our fourth quarter, certainly, we'll highlight that it's off a record third quarter that we have just announced. As we look into our fourth quarter, we think that although we'll see some year-over-year volume growth. As we think about the sequential moving from the third quarter to the fourth quarter, we do expect that short cycle orders will be sequentially lower. This is typically what we see with a normalized seasonality. Also in our fourth quarter, we have planned fewer production days. Now as a reminder, this largely impacts the short-cycle products, which are certainly our iron gate valves as well as our fire hydrants. And so that will flow through some on a margin basis. Additionally, as we look out to the fourth quarter, we expect the price cost to again be favorable as we saw in the third quarter, but it could be to a slightly lower degree as we expect some higher inflation looking out to our fourth quarter. I think the other key area is projected or forecasted SG&A as we look to the fourth quarter. As we think about it, both on a sequential basis as well as a year-over-year basis, we do expect SG&A expenses to be higher largely due to higher incentive compensation, personnel investments, and continued investments to support our repair product lines during the fourth quarter. And then I think that overall captures what we are expecting as we look into our fourth quarter.

Bryan Blair, Analyst

Okay. Appreciate all the detail there. And I respect that you don't have a fiscal 2025 guide out yet, but based on current end market visibility and your operating position, is there any reason to think that top and bottom line growth is not in play for next year? And then looking forward, given all the work that's been done and the operating momentum that your team has, are you willing to speak to a new medium-term EBITDA margin targets or entitlements margin, anything of that sort?

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Yeah. So certainly, as we've said in past years, our 2025 guidance will be provided with fourth quarter earnings. But overall, just to address your question, look, we do think we've got the right strategies for sales and margins growth next year. Certainly, looking at the first nine months of 2024 as well as the outlook that we've given for the full year, we think we have demonstrated a notable improvement with our margin performance and are on track to see record sales. As you know, we initially expected that we would not see sales growth, largely due to some of the year-over-year comparisons and the fulfillment of the backlog we had in 2023. But I think with our most recent guidance, you see that we are forecasting very low, but sales growth for the full year. The adjusted EBITDA margin has improved notably as we look through the first nine months. And we are certainly seeing improved operational performance with our second quarter gross margin above 36%. Looking to 2025, I think one of the areas that we've called out is we do expect to be in a position to close our old brass foundry as the ramp-up of our new brass foundry should be substantially complete. We have mentioned we expect that to be at the end of calendar 2024. And once the old brass foundry is closed, that should give us the benefits of what we have been carrying as duplicative costs with both of the brass foundries open. So I think we'll have continued commercial execution. We'll be focused on our price costs, looking to continue to benefit from the operational improvements that we've had. With respect to our end markets, and that could be a little more challenging at this point in time to project where that goes. Thus far, we felt that the municipal repair and replacement market has been fairly resilient with respect to residential construction. I think it's certainly improved in 2024 versus 2023, and there are at least expectations in the market that we will see an interest rate cut coming up shortly, which certainly could impact mortgage rates. We, as a team, remain very focused on what we can control. We are very focused on our overall customer experience, continuing to strengthen our customer relationships. We are continually focused on how we can improve our operations as we go forward, and then I think the one other piece that I want to touch on as we think about 2025 will certainly be any benefits that we might see from the infrastructure bill. As we've said, we really did not expect to see any benefits from that in 2024, looking for that to come sometime probably in 2025 and particularly first with benefits coming from the lead service line replacement. So I think that will be another factor that we could see in 2025.

Bryan Blair, Analyst

Understood. Appreciate all the color. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Mike Halloran with Baird. Your line is open.

Mike Halloran, Analyst

Hey, good morning, everyone.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Hey, good morning, Mike.

Paul McAndrew, President & COO

Good morning.

Mike Halloran, Analyst

Hey, thanks. So you talked about the resilience of demand. Maybe you could just point to what you're seeing in the marketplace that gives you confidence to say that. I mean, maybe the order commentary in the quarter. Was this about orders? What are the customers saying? What are you seeing from a backlog perspective? Funding from a regulatory perspective, what are land developers saying? Any kind of context beyond just the order comments you gave would be great?

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Yeah. So let me say what I can do, just to give you probably maybe a little bit more context and around it. If I break it down into the market, I think in and around the municipal repair and replacement. As I just said, we think it's fairly resilient, I would say, less cyclical market. I think certainly, the aging infrastructure, and that's obviously a theme we've been talking about for a long time. But I think certainly the aging infrastructure and certainly, as you see stories across the US where various cities are experiencing the challenges when they see water main breaks and other things that certainly impact all their citizens. As you know, the funding for water really comes at a very local level. So it's certainly looking at a lot of those local factors for the municipalities, which the aging infrastructure we've talked about, whatever the population dynamics are, overall, the health of the funding as well as it could be water sources as well for those local municipalities. I will comment briefly with the upcoming election, and I think what could we think about with any uncertainty given the upcoming election, I think overall, the infrastructure bill, as we think about it, generally, both parties have been supportive of the bill. Both have been, I think, emphasized the lead service line replacement. But I think as we are in that period, it could be sort of a very, very short-term uncertainty in and around that. To try to delve a little bit deeper on the residential construction market, I think as we overall look at where housing starts are and I know some of the more recent broad-based forecasts in and around housing starts, we're probably slightly lower for 2024 from where they previously were. But I think within that single-family housing starts have been stronger than multifamily. We look very closely at the homebuilders and where they are with their lot investments and inventory levels. And I think we don't see an overbuilding or get a sense that there's overbuilding with a lot of availability at this point. Probably the one other thing that I'll call out on the residential side. Certainly, with residential construction, we see stronger pockets across the US, probably with the South, Southwest, and parts of the West, certainly being the stronger areas in terms of residential construction activity. And I think probably the challenge that is out there for the longer term is really the employee construction availability as we look to where demand could be for residential construction as well as demand that could be there with the overall infrastructure bill and the increased construction demand that could come from that.

Mike Halloran, Analyst

Great. Super helpful. And then, net leverage below one, your finish lines is in sight on some of the major capital projects that have been pretty consuming in the last couple of years here. How are you thinking about capital deployment on a forward basis, prioritization change at all? Obviously organic first, but what about the buyback, M&A side and on the side, what the funnel might look like today?

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Yes. So Mike, on that, I'm going to ask Paul to take the question in terms of looking out at overall our views in and around capital investment.

Paul McAndrew, President & COO

Good morning, Mike. This is Paul. I think you hit the nail, we've made large investments as they come to an end. So obviously, we are vertically integrated as a manufacturing organization, so we have to continue to invest within our four walls of manufacturing facilities. So I think we're in a good position now to continue investment roles, continue to grow from an organic perspective. From an inorganic perspective, obviously, we're looking at all opportunities to deploy our capital to get the best returns. And I think we will continue working those relationships. But in terms of our manufacturing capital, we're going to get back to a kind of normalized level running kind of mid 3.5% to 4% of sales in terms of how we invest, to reinvest in our facilities and new product development.

Mike Halloran, Analyst

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Our next question comes from Deane Dray with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Deane Dray, Analyst

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Maybe we can start with a little level set on some of the demand dynamics this quarter. If you recall, in this last quarter, your fiscal second quarter, you talked about some potential benefit of pull-in from this fiscal third quarter because of a price increase. So, if we were looking for any evidence of that, we certainly didn't see it today in the fiscal third quarter, there wasn't like a gap where sales have been pulled forward. So, just how did that dynamic play out? Does it say anything about the fourth quarter? But be really interested in starting there. Thanks.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Yes, I'll start with that. You're absolutely correct. If you look back at our second quarter call and the price increase we announced and implemented for most of our iron products during that quarter, we mentioned that we believed there was some advance demand that pulled into the second quarter. This was primarily due to orders that came in as a result of the price increase and our capability to handle those short-cycle orders, especially for iron gate valves and hydrants, since we were able to normalize our lead times. Regarding the third quarter, with the strong net sales growth of about 9%, we observed a stronger end market demand than we had anticipated back in May.

Deane Dray, Analyst

Got it. And then, can we put the spotlight on Krausz. This has been a fabulous investment. And just when we think about all the dynamics of the aging water infrastructure, water main breaks, that's exactly where Krausz shines. But how do you address the geopolitical risk given their location? This is not a one-time phenomenon, but you can project this out for multiple years. So, how do you derisk Krausz in terms of where they're located today? And are there any near-term plans to address it?

Paul McAndrew, President & COO

Hey good morning Deane, this is Paul. Yes. So, just a reminder, the Krausz product line is less than 10% of our consolidated sales and the team have done a fantastic job of derisking not just within country, but other manufacturing location sources perspective. But longer term, we have seen significant improvements in terms of the output from the Krausz facility and we internally are going to need to look at how we can derisk as much as possible. But you are correct in terms of this is a great product line, great acquisition for the company. But the team in Israel has done a fantastic job in terms of how they've been able to pivot and flex and increase production over the last few months.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Yes. I want to mention that we have decided to make additional investments to meet our customer demand. We are focused on investing more in this area specifically due to that demand. Looking ahead to the fourth quarter and beyond, we anticipate continuing to increase our investment in the Krausz product line.

Deane Dray, Analyst

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Joe Giordano with TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Joe Giordano, Analyst

Good morning everyone. As you consider what 2025 might look like, the fluctuation in guidance over the past year has been quite significant due to supply chain issues and developments related to the asset refresh. Do you feel more assured in your ability to fine-tune your projections now? It seems that while guidance has been changing frequently, the underlying markets are stabilizing. What are your thoughts on this and your capacity to establish a more refined range for next year?

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Well, look, I think, overall, we are very pleased that we've seen the sales growth and the strong margins that we've seen, particularly in our second and third quarter this year. I think some of the outperformance, as I just discussed, versus the May guidance that we gave, was driven largely by a few things that I'll tie in. One, as I just said, we think that the end market demand was stronger than we had expected. Coupled with that, I think from an execution perspective, we were able to meet that demand largely with our short-cycle products, focusing here on iron gate valves and hydrants. And I think importantly, with that, the ability to see the order levels come in to have the execution from an operational perspective represents an important piece of our mix. And so I think that is largely what was one of the factors for the performance that we had in the quarter. So certainly, as we just discussed, we have seen through the first nine months of this year, a notable improvement in our margins, and I think that improvement is indeed something that we will look to retain and grow from where we are. We had talked a lot about getting back to our pre-pandemic margins. And I think you've seen with the performance through the first nine months of this year, that we are above our pre-pandemic margins, looking at gross margin as well as looking at our EBITDA margin at this time.

Joe Giordano, Analyst

Now that you have the permanent team in place and a very flexible balance sheet, how do you envision the company's growth moving forward? It's reasonable to point out that some of the high-growth technology applications have not quite met expectations in terms of scaling and their overall impact on the organization. Given the strong foundation of core businesses with significant market share, how do you plan to evolve the company in the future?

Marietta Zakas, CEO

As we consider the future, it's worth noting that historically, we've seen net sales growth of about 6% over the past six to seven years. This growth reflects both strong market conditions and our effective pricing strategies during that time. Regarding our brands, we hold leading positions in the market and are committed to enhancing customer relationships and experiences. Looking ahead, the federal infrastructure bill emphasizes the necessity for investment in aging water infrastructure, and the growing challenges faced by many utilities underline the critical nature of these investments. We're nearing the completion of our significant domestic capital projects, which align well with federal initiatives like the American Iron and Steel Act and the Build America Buy America provisions. This puts us in a strong position moving forward. Our technology businesses and infrastructure capabilities will continue to develop, reinforcing our infrastructure in the long term. From a financial perspective, we are in an excellent position, with no debt maturing before 2029 and our fixed-rate debt at 4%, allowing us a flexible financial structure and capacity for capital allocation and deployment.

Joe Giordano, Analyst

Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Brian Lee, Analyst

Hey. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the questions.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lee, Analyst

I have a couple of modeling questions. When we look at the strong performance in the third quarter and the guidance for the fourth quarter, you're indicating a high single-digit year-over-year revenue growth. I understand that pricing remains solid across all product lines, and you're also noting a healthy order environment. Can you clarify the differences between the volume growth you're experiencing now compared to the typical pricing increases? I'm trying to understand the balance between price and volume at this stage.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

I think it’s important to break this down a bit. For the full year, our most recent guidance shows an increase between 0.7% and 1.5%. However, we did see a decline in net sales year-over-year in the first quarter. This decline was mainly due to continued destocking by distributors. When we look at our pricing, we implemented a price increase across most of our iron products during the second quarter. We also observed higher prices across many of our product lines this quarter. Additionally, we experienced strong volume growth in our Water Flow Solutions. However, there were some challenges in the Water Management Solutions sector, particularly related to hydrants in the third quarter. The decrease in hydrant volumes can be attributed to year-over-year comparisons, as we were still addressing a significant backlog in 2023. Looking ahead, we believe that we have mostly worked through the backlog for hydrants by the end of the third quarter. Therefore, as we move forward, orders and shipments for short-cycle products are becoming better aligned. Regarding our guidance for the fourth quarter, we expect to see advantages from both pricing and volume on a year-over-year basis. As we look to 2025 and beyond, we are optimistic about the end markets, which continue to show resilience and demand growth. Our teams remain focused on maintaining the price/cost relationship to preserve margins, ensuring that pricing offsets any inflation we encounter.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. The next question comes from Walt Liptak with Seaport Research. Your line is open.

Walter Liptak, Analyst

Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Just wanted to ask about …

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Good morning, Walt.

Walter Liptak, Analyst

Good morning. Just wanted to ask about the demand trends were pretty good this quarter. And you called out customer service levels and doing focus there. I wonder, if you are winning back some market share or if you think the municipal markets are seeing more money flows and more projects?

Paul McAndrew, President & COO

Good morning, Walt. This is Paul. You're right; we observed strong demand in Q3. From a customer service standpoint, we have returned to normal lead time levels for most of our business. We are also reducing the service gross backlog and expect to reach normalized levels by the end of Q4. In terms of customer experience, our orders and sales are now mostly aligned as we have successfully reduced our backlog. Regarding end user demand, we are seeing robust residential demand, and we believe we have positioned ourselves well to provide our customers and end users with the level of service and experience they expect. This has been reflected in the strong demand we are experiencing.

Walt Liptak, Analyst

I wanted to ask about the $25 million cost reduction you mentioned a couple of quarters ago and whether we are now experiencing the full benefits of that reduction. Also, when do we begin to see the anniversary of those benefits?

Steve Heinrichs, CFO

Walt, this is Steve. Yeah, you're right. In the third quarter of 2023, we do a restructuring that impacted many areas of our business, including our sales organization and our corporate organization. We took actions to streamline our expenses and also to improve the way we manage our business, giving our business leaders a connection to the sales force and end markets better. We do believe that we achieved the $25 million in annual SG&A savings that we mentioned at the time, mainly in lower personnel-related expenses and third-party fees. Our annual guidance for total SG&A prior to announcing our cost actions was $260 million at the midpoint, which is obviously about $10 million higher than our updated fiscal 2024 SG&A guidance.

Walt Liptak, Analyst

Excuse me.

Steve Heinrichs, CFO

Higher than our fiscal 2024 guidance. Going forward, we're going to continue to look at SG&A with discipline and make appropriate investments in our SG&A over time. And so we do believe that we deliver and achieve that. As you can see in our guidance, we are guiding between $248 million to $250 million of SG&A. And we're experiencing some inflationary pressures in the fourth quarter, as you can imagine, related to higher incentive compensation and personnel investments that we're experiencing in this quarter. But net-net, we've got improved SG&A performance year-over-year.

Walt Liptak, Analyst

Okay. Great. And maybe just a last one for me. It sounds like you're winding down the old brass foundry probably right about now or soon. Are there any risks in the fourth quarter with inventory levels or costs or anything like that as you go through that final wind down?

Paul McAndrew, President & COO

Hi, Walt, this is Paul. You're correct. We're going into the final wind down now, just as a reminder, the new foundry is running the majority of our volume part numbers. The team continued doing a fantastic job as we transition from the old foundry to the new. So we anticipate between now and the end of the calendar year, we will continue the tooling development and the piece part approval of the remaining part numbers being run in the old foundry. And obviously, it will be a step change then we would take the one ship that we are running in the old foundry and stop that production with the anticipation of doing that by the end of the calendar year. So from a cost impact, we don't see anything in our forecast. But from cost benefit down as we move into FY 2025, Q2 and beyond, I kind of modeled in the anticipate 80 to 100 basis points improvement to the consolidated financials once we close the South End.

Steve Heinrichs, CFO

On a gross margin basis.

Walt Liptak, Analyst

Oh, that's great. Okay. Yes. Thanks very much for that detail.

Marietta Zakas, CEO

Great. Well, look, we certainly thank and appreciate everybody's participation today. As we said, very pleased with the third quarter results that we posted and our updated and increased guidance as we look out to the full year. I really thank the Mueller team for their continued dedication and hard work. We have made progress operationally, and we will continue to look to make improvements as we can across the business and control what we can control and certainly look to benefit from the federal infrastructure bill as that looks to come into play as well as importantly addressing the aging infrastructure across North America. Thank you.

Operator, Operator

Thank you. And that concludes today's conference. You may all disconnect at this time.