Conference Transcript - SWIM 2026-06-04

Mike Francis, Analyst — William Blair

Hi everyone, thanks for being here. My name is Mike Francis and I am a research associate with Ryan Merkel here supporting covering building products and distributors. I'm required to inform you that a complete list of disclosures and conflicts of interest is available at our website at williamblair.com. Today with me is Oliver Glow, CFO from Latham Group. Latham is the largest in ground pool manufacturer in North America and leader in fiberglass as well as vinyl liner backed by seven years of craftsmanship and industry-leading warranties. With over 500,000 pools installed, they partner with a nationwide network of dealers and builders to help owners design and create their dream backyard escape. Oliver? Thank you very much and welcome to

Oliver Gloe, CFO

Latham. As you said, we are the largest manufacturer of in-ground pools. We are in North America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and you know our growth story is really about two product categories one is fiberglass pools and the other one is is auto covers fiberglass pool think back about 15 years ago one in 10 pools is sold in the us installed in the us was a fiberglass pool today that's one out of four pools we have been driving that what we always call fiberglass conversion based on the unique attributes and advantages that a fiberglass pool has over, let's say, a concrete pool. First one being upfront cost. A fiberglass pool is about 25% less expensive than a comparable like-type size pool made by concrete. And that cost advantage over the lifetime of the ownership only increases. A fiberglass pool, we always call it set in and forget it, comes with a lifelong warranty, whereas a concrete pool after some years needs an acid wash and after a decade maybe needs a resurfacing. Our pools again said it and forget it. The other advantage is our pools we can install a pool in a day even a comfortable install it happens within a week whereas a comparable concrete pool you have a crew of six to nine people in your backyard for a number of months so we minimize the the disruption to the homeowner to the family life and certainly if you made that decision to buy a pool you have you might have small younger kids they look forward they want to have that pool and certainly fiberglass delivers on that promise the other leg of our growth is is auto covers two key benefits is really the safety the peace of mind to the homeowner especially if if you have young kids, right? Once the auto cover is closed, nothing and nobody can fall inside, as well as savings to your energy bill, your heating bill, your chemical bill. So those two drivers, next to some other good initiatives we are driving at Latham, has helped us to comfortably outgrow the market. Josh will talk about an initiative that we are driving in the sand states. In the sand states, still today, one of 10 pools is a fiberglass pool, but two-thirds of the market sits in the sand states. That's for us, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California. So a huge potential for us, it's a white space, huge potential for us to spread the message of the advantages of fiberglass pool, and we see early signs of an increased adoption. As you then go into our P&L, how we manage our cost basis, our plans are focused on value engineering and lean manufacturing initiatives, they pay stable dividends. We're disciplined on SG&A, investing in our sales and commercial organization to drive those growth projects. And so, you know, finishing off the slide really by saying your position for accelerated growth, right? The industry right now is at a trough. You know, there's certainly the opportunity for the industry to recover. We will over proportionally benefit in that. But while we are waiting for that to happen we are certainly driving our industry driving our growth opportunities driving fiberglass driving fiberglass in the sand states as well as auto covers and growing our top line and with that over proportionally growing our bottom line with that Josh about fiberglass and thank you very much just the green button to move forward it's the green button yeah yeah thank you very

Josh Rickaby, Other

much everybody my name is Josh Rickaby I am the director of fiberglass for the sand states but I also have a lot to do with product development and fiberglass around the whole country. I'm gonna start this by asking who's got a pool? Fantastic, those of you who didn't raise your hand see me afterwards I know a guy. How was the experience and how much do you use it? Has it added to your lifestyle? Do your family use it enjoy it? That's what a swimming pool is it's a lifestyle choice, it's a lifestyle product but a lot of people have horror stories when they talk about it. Fiberglass Pools is the solution to giving your family a lifestyle choice that allows them to make memories and allows you to be able to do things that perhaps your parents weren't able to do and also allows you to keep the kids in the backyard when they turn 16, 17, 18 so you know what they're doing. They're not down at the local 7-Eleven getting into trouble. So the big benefit of fiberglass is that it solves so many problems for the consumer but also solves a huge amount of problems for the home builder itself. Latham is the largest manufacturer of in-ground pools in North America, Australia and New Zealand. We have the broadest portfolio and we are known for durability and aesthetics. One of the big things that we have seen with fiberglass pools and we've seen with resale value in homes is simplified shapes feature-rich inside. So you have a square pool which is really rectangle pool sorry is where the market has been going to but inside those they have tanning ledges they have safety ledges for your children to be able to get out on. They are smoothed walls as opposed to the old swimming pools that you would scratch yourself on or you would have black algae growing on those sort of things. We have non-slip surfaces for our consumers we can put bubblers. We can do anything that a gunite pool can do, but we have all of the other aesthetics and benefits, and we have the most beautiful finish in the marketplace. I've had customers describe it to us that it's like the Milky Way when the pool light comes on at night versus their old gunite pools. So we have invested and grown our product. So from 2000 to 2025, our product has continued to evolve in quality, it's continued to evolve in R&D and technology, while the rest of our industry has stood still. We will continue to evolve this product. We will continue to make it better, stronger, more durable, more cost-effective, so we can bring that pull back to middle America, but also make it more feature-rich. Make it so it has more features to grow with your family as you go along. Market leader in fiberglass and auto covers which are our two growing product categories. The beauty of fiberglass is that it continues to grow because we continue to get people moving around the country who've had experience with fiberglass pools so we don't have to push as hard to educate. The beauty of auto covers for us is that auto covers can go on any pool and one of the things that we're able to leverage there is we now have a relationship with a gunite builder that maybe has never thought about fiberglass before. So we can go in and say you use our auto cover, have you considered creating a synergy with our fiberglass pool that you can put three fiberglass pools in in the time you only put one gunite pool and you can make the same margin. That's a value proposition that the builders start to leverage and then they start to sell out on to the consumer. We have our executing Sandstate strategy to advance our market share gains. The Sandstate is a huge white space for us. It's a super competitive environment but we believe that we're bringing a value proposition to the consumer and also to the pool builder that allows them to increase revenue, create happier customers and get customers swimming faster than they ever have before and And that's why we're not so scared about going into that market, because we believe we have the solutions to the pain points and the risk points that consumers have when it comes to making the second biggest purchase in their life. We're pulling multiple levers to drive operating efficiencies, Oliver talked about that as well, and positioned for accelerated growth, profitable growth and volume increase. We are moving above the market and we're going to continue. And I'll show you a slide that helps you with that. So we have that premium quality and exceptional design. One of the things that a fiberglass pool has that no other pool has is it looks like it was crafted in a world-class manufacturing facility. I don't think anybody here would accept a Ferrari that was built in their backyard. I don't think you'd accept a new wave boat that was made, a $9 million boat that was made in your backyard. backyard. It's the same thing with the fiberglass pool, the second biggest investment a consumer is going to make. So we have this product that is built to ICC standards, it is bought onto a job site and it's installed rather than constructed. So we're the least invasive product when it comes to a backyard upgrade or a backyard renovation. One of the things I love is it's like selling a car. You have the shape of the car and then it's feature rich and that's what we sell. The other thing with a car is you can walk in, buy a car and go home today. A fiberglass pool, you can walk in, choose your fiberglass pool because you already know what it looks like. Then we wait for permits. From the moment we come into the backyard and start to dig, we have builders that can have that pool filled and swimmable in a day. Now you have to have landscaping and a few other things but we can have you swimming. If you ask a homeowner how patient are your children? And they all look at you with this horrified look on their face and they say, there's absolutely no way my child will allow a concrete hole to be in my backyard for 12 to 16 weeks. But if I could show you a way that you could be swimming tomorrow or be swimming in five days, do you believe that's something that you would rather invest in? And that's where we start to solve the problem for the consumer from getting them into, getting that gratification, in that Amazon culture that we have where we press a button and something shows up immediately. People are always considering how much things cost. They are always looking at not just what am I paying up front, but what is my long-term investment? What am I going to invest in this? A fiberglass pool, because it is not an osmotic environment, costs less on chemicals. and I actually myself have been in a room where I have seen the wife who is all keen about the pool and the dad is sitting there and he is not impressed he wants nothing to do with this and I've turned around I've said so you don't look like you're happy why don't you want a swimming pool well my dad made me clean my swimming pool and look after it when I was young and I've never want to do that again so the beauty of a fiberglass pool is that you will spend less time maintaining it you will spend less time spending money on it and more time making memories with your family, which is really what we're trying to do with a lifestyle product. The lower cost now and then for a lifetime that we have up on the board, a fiberglass pool could even cost $5,000 more than a gun-eyed pool. But over the lifetime of a pool, and I'm talking only 10 years, and people, homeowners who are at 2.99% interest, they're locked into their homes for a lot longer than the average seven-year turnover that we used to see. We now have the ability with our fiberglass pools to save homeowners substantial amount of money over the lifetime of the ownership because there's no acid washing, there's less chemical usage, there's less time and maintenance that the homeowner has to put in but the big one is we don't have to resurface the pool and I am hearing costs of resurfacing gunite pools of up to $20,000 dollars in under 10 years. So we can be up to $25,000 cheaper over a 10-year period in terms of cost of ownership. Now when you're talking to a customer and you break that down that actually turns into serious dollars. So over 10 years we're $20,000 I'm saving you $2,000 a year. That $5,000 that we were talking about initially I've just erased that and we put an auto cover on it and we reduce the cost even more. So that's a huge benefit and a huge weight off a consumer's mind with this second biggest investment and it's built to last. One of the things that we're able to sell or our builders are able to sell is that you have a product that is built in a controlled manufacturing environment to ICC standards, we actually exceed the ICC standards substantially, that allows you to know that you're going to get peace of mind with your investment because we provide a lifetime warranty on the shell we provide a lifetime warranty on the surface which means the customers investment is protected but they're also working with a global manufacturer of fiberglass pools who is backing that warranty this is not just a small GC that is backing the warranty of a bunch of subcontractors so that gives peace of mind to the consumer that when they make this investment, we're taking the risk and the fear out of it because we're protecting them long term and they know that they are investing in something that's going to last because we wouldn't be putting a lifetime warranty on something especially for a company that's been around as long as we have almost 70 years. So our products are built to last, they're lower cost, fewer chemicals, easier for dad to look after the pool, throw a robot cleaner in and it's done you can get customers swimming quicker in the most beautiful swimming pools in the marketplace and our designs continue to evolve with the most advanced products in the marketplace. It's not even a fiberglass pool anymore it's an advanced composite technology. I have this slide up just to show you the opportunity that we have as a company but also how the market is perceiving fiberglass pools. If you have a look at the very bottom slide you'll see new U.S. ground residential pool installations and you'll see we peaked at 2021 in COVID at 117 and then we started to taper down and we're at probably our trough or our lowest point as an industry right now at around 58,000. But you'll see on the top left, 21, we were 18% of the market. 22, 21%, all the way to 2025, fiberglass pools have continued to take market share because consumers are seeing the value in the product. They're seeing the value in the speed to market, they're seeing the value in the surface, they're seeing the value in the beauty and the shapes, and they're seeing the value in the lifetime warranty. So while the rest of the market is on a decline, we are continuing to still take market share and we're still continuing to provide the best value proposition to consumers. The other thing that is a good thing to note, we're only at 24%. France are at 35% of all pools put in the ground are fiberglass. Spain 40% and in Australia great place to live 70% of all pools that go in the ground are fiberglass. Now that is because of innovation in shape, it is because of speed of installation and it's because of the value proposition. We're so into it now that we're even hiring Australian people to come and start working for us to be able to take advantage of it but we also have two great companies in Australia. We're taking the learnings from what's made Australia successful and we're bringing them to the United States because there are a lot of climates, there are a lot of markets that are very similar and we're able to take the learnings, implement them here and be able to continue to drive market share and continue to drive our products whether they are on a regional basis or on a national basis to be able to compete with Gunite because we don't look at the other fiberglass manufacturers as our competitors. We have nine manufacturing facilities, our next biggest competitor in the fiberglass industry has two. We have a national footprint and we have the ability to service the total market. You'll see here over 60% of all pools are sold in four states. Now we are under represented as you can see on the graph to the right, we are underrepresented in the sand states which is why it's a great opportunity for us to go into that market and take share and take share very quickly. We're really heavily investing in it and our goal is to do Florida, create that adoption there, create the adoption in Texas and then continue to move across the rest of the United States into Arizona and California which are also large markets. bearing in mind rising tide lifts all ships so as we take share in these markets and then the industry starts to come back we're just going to see continued growth continued acceptance so that is why we're making a huge effort in the sand states which is our premier strategy for our company so expanding share in the sand states this has been an evolution of a concept that started ice I started working on it two years ago we started out with MPCs we started out with the current dealers that we had and we really needed to make some changes. We started out by changing the dealer relationships. We removed exclusive territories so we created hunger with our dealers but we also put more dealers in to provide a better experience for consumers. We made all of our dealers start going through boot camps so best industry practice was followed. By doing that we made sure that the consumer was getting the same experience time after time after time. The evolution has now gone to the point where we're looking at expanding our commercial organization. We have sales execution, myself and my team, on the ground making sure that we're getting the right dealers, making sure that we're understanding the market, making sure that we're looking at the regional needs of each individual sand state because what Florida needs is not the same as what Texas needs. So we've had to change our product mix to be able to go into those markets and be successful. We're looking at developing a sales strategy which is mostly focused on products to make sure that we have the right product at the right time in the right locations. We're looking at a sales operation. The biggest thing that I was told a long time ago is as a salesman you need high fidelity data. So our sales operation organization is taking all of the bits of data whether it be Zonda, whether it be HBW, whether it be PK data, pulling all of that together, scrubbing that data down and giving us the most high fidelity data so we can make the smartest decisions on where we put our assets, where we invest in marketing, where we need new builders and where we maybe need to change molds. So we are investing very heavily in that top top end of the commercial organization, We're updating our market development framework. One of the big things that we're starting to realize is that not everything is happening in one area. So an MPC for instance is a great market to go into because they've been around a long time and we can get great penetration there but we need to be more laser focused. So we're looking at segmentation as a way to become more laser focused but actually expand our reach outside of the MPCs. So we're now looking at customer demographics, lot sizes, we're looking at time of ownership. If somebody moves into the market from New York the chances are they're going to purchase a home within 12 months, sorry purchase a pool within 12 months. We're seeing through Zonda data that 60% of all new home purchases in Florida are looking for access to water whether that be their own pool or whether that be an HOA pool. Most of them get sick of the HOA pool very very quickly when they can't find anywhere to sit or use. So we're dialing in with segmentation and locking ourselves down in markets until we own that area. Then we move on to the next area and we start to own that market. So we're being very laser focused and we're partnering with the right people to be successful with that. We're also investing in field level resources. In a time when our competitors are actually cutting back on their field sales teams, cutting back on marketing, cutting back on all of those things, we're doubling down, we're investing. We see now is the time and the opportunity to really go after the market and show the builders the value proposition, show the consumers the best value for money and give everybody what they need which is cash flow and the ability to swim in your own backyard. So the final thing that we're looking at is increasing our investment and our brand marketing. Latham Pools has spent a lot of money and effort in raising awareness of our product and it's to the point where we have had a top-down strategy and a bottom-up grassroot strategy but we can go into master plan communities like Babcock Ranch and people will walk up to us and say I know Latham Pools. This is the first time we've ever seen a product in the pool industry where people are coming and saying I want that product. I'm not saying we're the apple of the pool industry yet but we are starting to get consumers asking for our products because we're creating consumer demand and that is a big thing in the pool industry because it used to always be you got given what the pool builder offered you. You really didn't have a choice. He said this is what you're going to buy, this is what I'm going to put on. We are now having consumers coming to us saying who is your pool builder? I want your product because I've seen the lifestyle branding, I've seen the awareness, I believe in the product, and I really want to be a part of it. The other thing we're also finding is that because we're doing a lifestyle branding, unlike the rest of the pool industry who is stuck in whatever the market is, 58,000 pools, we're seeing people in other discretionary markets now looking at a swimming pool as an option. So they might have been considering a Malibu boat, but now they're looking at a swimming pool. So those are the things that we're investing in and this is the way that we believe we're going to take the sand states grow market share and turn fiberglass into the preferred option for all consumers in the united states and i'll hand

Oliver Gloe, CFO

it over to oliver to talk about auto covers perfect thank you josh um so auto covers there are two two kinds of covers you can put on your pool right one is the off-season winter safety cover whereas i'm speaking about the in-season automatic safety cover right the cover you push button it nicely rolls open in the morning you go swimming afterwards you close the pool nothing and nobody can fall inside afterwards right it's the better product versus a fence because you can always jump a fence open a gate right um this is the ultimate safety for your for your for your pool and the peace of mind for the home and especially those with small kids right and in a number of jurisdictions here in the us actually the if you have an auto cover that gets you over the need to build a fence, right? So it's a very nice value proposition as the investment in that auto cover competes with the investment in a fence. On top of it, the auto cover is kind of a thermal barrier. If you think of water evaporation, chemical use, your heating bill, we always say an auto cover pays itself back based on those savings in about five to six years. Today, the attachment rate is, we're in the early innings, probably one in five pools gets delivered with an auto cover. Our auto covers go on a lathem pool, non-lathem pool, concrete pool, we prefer to be a lathem fiberglass pool, right? But our covers go on any pool. We've done a number of acquisitions in that space and together with those acquisitions we actually grew 25 versus 24 by more than 30 percent with the majority being organic and the minority being growth by acquisitions. I already spoke about productivity and lean manufacturing and value engineering. You can see kind of very nice and stable contribution from lean and value engineering think about lean being working on the process taking waste out of the process making ways through the factory shorter making machinery more efficient and value engineering is really the same concept but working on the product changing something in the bill of material to make our product more aesthetically pleasing higher quality higher durability but also lower cost right um so very nice contribution from from from those two programs and it's getting really into the DNA of how we run our facilities. Quick stop at our midpoint guidance this year. Year-over-year midpoint guidance top line net sales is 9% in a market which we think is going to be flat. The 9% has two components, 3% is an acquisition we did early February, that's the acquisition Josh was talking about in Australia and New Zealand, manufacture of fiberglass pools, but that leaves 6% to organic growth in an environment where we think pool starts are to be flat this year versus last year. That 6% comes primarily from fiberglass, the journey through our sense states, as well as the continued growth and excitement around the order cover category. We have everything we need from a capacity standpoint, which means any additional volume falls right through to the bottom line, compounded by value engineering, lean manufacturing, but also net of sum investments we are doing primarily in the commercial organization. So the adjusted EBITDA on a 9% top line growth will be up this year at midpoint guidance of 12.7%. Sometimes at this point in time, I always get asked about, you know, the headwinds from the Middle East conflict, right? That comes to us in two tentacles, right? One is the price at the pump. You can imagine a fiberglass pool doesn't transport economically very well, right? It's expensive. We've implemented a transportation surcharge. And then for the commodity headwind, always compare it to the headwinds last year. order of magnitude roughly the same you know the headwinds from tariffs last year we have a great we have a good playbook working through you know working with our suppliers there was a little price increase you know mid-year last year and I think with the same execution we've we've we've mitigated the tariffs last last year we have confidence in in the mitigation already also this year with regards to the higher oil price and then I'll finish off with this slide I like showing the slide it's it's it's one and a half years old by by by now whereas at the end of 2024 we actually for the first time since our IPO five years ago we allowed investors to see a an outlook beyond just the financial year beyond just the guidance and we it's on the left chart the the right bar set of bars here we didn't label it with a specific time stamp right we called it future but in the meeting we said it's probably gonna be more than three years probably going to be less, hopefully going to be less than five years. And what that future represents is two things. One is the market recovering from today, where we think we are at the trough at 58,000 pool starts here in the US, to a pre-COVID level of 78,000 pools, which we had in 2019, just our last sort of normal year, right? And then the three to five year execution of the strategies that we have online today is primarily in fiberglass and auto cover. that will result in a company of 750 million in revenue and 160 million in EBITDA. And the last time, as I said, we were at that 78,000 pool start level was pre-COVID 2019, where the company was 318 million in net sales and 61 million in EBITDA, which means over the timeframe, 2019 to that future time period, again, three to five years, we outgrew the market by the factor of 2, 2, and of X. That's the power of our business model. That's the power of the growth opportunities that we see, again, in fiberglass, auto cover, but those are not the only two. And as a proof point, again, this was done at the end of 2024. We came in at 509 million and 80 million in net sales and EBITDA at a pool level start of 62,000 pools in the US. And the last time we were at that level was all the way on the left, 2015. We had 61,000 pool starts, and our company was 223 million in revenue and 23 million, 36 million EBITDA. Again, an outperformance by two and a half, two, two and a half X, both top line and bottom line. With that, where do we go for the breakout session?

Mike Francis, Analyst — William Blair

We'll take you up there. It'll be upstairs, but we're at time, so.

Oliver Gloe, CFO

Thank you very much for your interest.