A. O. Smith - Earnings Call - Q4 2020

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the A. O. Smith 2020 Results Conference Call. At this time, all participants' lines are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session, and instructions will follow at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touch-tone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Ms. Patricia Ackerman, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, CRS, and Treasurer. You may begin.

Patricia Ackerman (SVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability and Treasurer)

Thank you, Julie. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the A. O. Smith Full Year 2020 Results Conference Call. Joining me today are Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Chuck Lauber, Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin with Kevin's remarks, I would like to remind you that some of the comments that will be made during this conference call, including answers to your questions, will constitute forward-looking statements.

These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters that we have described in this morning's press release. Please advance to slide three.

In order to provide improved transparency into the operating results of our business, we provided non-GAAP measures, adjusted net earnings, adjusted earnings per share, and adjusted segment earnings that exclude the severance and restructuring charges related to aligning our business to current market conditions. Reconciliations from GAAP measures to non-GAAP measures are provided in the appendix at the end of this presentation and on our website.

Also, as a courtesy to others in the question queue, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up question per turn. If you have multiple questions, please rejoin the queue. I will now turn the call over to Kevin, who will begin our prepared remarks on slide four.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Okay. Thank you, Pat. Before we begin discussing our results and outlook, I want to send my deepest gratitude to the thousands of A. O. Smith employees who've been working under less-than-ideal conditions and who continue to keep our operations running, offices open, and customers in hot and treated water. To recap 2020, better-than-expected fourth quarter results drove our 2020 performance above our expectations.

North America Water Treatment grew 14% organically, driven by continued consumer demand for products promoting a safe home. The direct-to-consumer channel with our Aquasana brand, retail outlets with our A. O. Smith brand, and the dealer channel all contributed to solid 2020 growth. We believe industry shipments of U.S. residential water heaters, including tankless, surged to a record, exceeding 10 million units or 8% growth over the prior year. This assessment is based on our strong December shipments.

We believe the overall positive tone to new residential and Safe-at-Home remodel construction activity, including an increase in proactive replacement demand and channel inventories stocking related to extended lead times, resulted in above-trend growth in 2020. Due to construction project delays and postponements in North America, as well as pandemic-related weakness in restaurant hospitality, new construction, and replacement demand, we saw commercial water heater and boiler industry volumes decline by 8-10%.

We maintained our market share in both of these categories. Progressive year-over-year improvement in consumer demand for our products in China continued in the fourth quarter. As a result of higher volumes and diligent efforts by our team to reduce costs and reorganize, high single-digit margins were achieved in the second half of the year.

In North America, aside from the voluntary closure of our Mexican facility for several weeks in the second quarter, we remained operational throughout 2020 with no significant disruptions within our plants and our supply chain. Pandemic-related safety protocols remained in place in our facilities and our offices. Due to strong residential water heater demand coupled with self-quarantine-related absenteeism, our lead times remained above normal.

We continue to use temporary workers, swing shifts, and expedited logistics in some cases to take care of our customers. Before we begin discussing our results and outlook, I want to send my deepest gratitude to the thousands of A. O. Smith employees who have been working under less-than-ideal conditions and who continue to keep our operations running, offices open, and customers in hot and treated water. To recap 2020, better-than-expected fourth quarter results drove our 2020 performance above our expectations.

North America Water Treatment grew 14% organically, driven by continued consumer demand for products promoting a safe home. The direct-to-consumer channel with our Aquasana brand, retail outlets with our A. O. Smith brand, and the dealer channel all contributed to solid 2020 growth.

We believe industry shipments of U.S. residential water heaters, including tankless, surged to a record, exceeding 10 million units or 8% growth over the prior year. This assessment is based on our strong December shipments. We believe the overall positive tone to new Residential and Safe-at-Home remodel construction activity, including an increase in proactive replacement demand and channel inventory stocking related to extended industry lead times, resulted in above-trend growth in 2020.

Due to construction project delays and postponements in North America, as well as pandemic-related weakness in restaurant and hospitality, new construction, and replacement demand, we saw commercial water heater and boiler industry volumes decline by 8-10%. We maintained our market share in both of these categories. Progressive year-over-year improvement in consumer demand for our products in China continued in the fourth quarter.

As a result of higher volumes and diligent efforts by our team to reduce costs and reorganize, high single-digit margins were achieved in the second half of the year. In North America, aside from the voluntary closure of our Mexican facility for several weeks in the second quarter, we remained operational throughout 2020 with no significant disruptions within our plants and our supply chain. Pandemic-related safety protocols remained in place in our facilities and offices.

Due to strong residential water heater demand coupled with self-quarantine-related absenteeism, our lead times remained above normal. We continue to use temporary workers, swing shifts, and expedite logistics, in some cases, to take care of our customers. All these efforts result in inefficiencies and incremental costs. To align our business with current global market conditions, we reduced headcount and incurred other restructuring costs totaling approximately $6 million after-tax in 2020. The majority of these actions took place in China.

We published our second corporate responsibility and sustainability report in January. I'm very proud of our accomplishments since our first report, particularly in employee engagement, safety, resource reduction in our facilities, and a product portfolio that boasts some of the most efficient products in their respective categories. We introduced our first-ever public greenhouse gas emission goal. We strive to reduce GHG emissions by 10% by 2025.

I will now turn the call over to Chuck, who will provide more details on the full year and the fourth quarter beginning on slide five.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Thank you, Kevin. Full year sales of $2.9 billion declined 3% compared with 2019, largely due to significant weakness in the China business in the first half of 2020. As a result of lower sales, adjusted earnings declined 3% to $351 million, or $2.16 per share, compared with $370 million, or $2.22 per share in 2019. Please turn to slide six. Sales in our North America segment of $2.1 billion increased 2% compared with 2019.

Higher residential water heater volumes, growth in Water Treatment, as well as full year of water rights sales were partially offset by lower U.S. commercial water heater volumes, lower boiler sales, and a water heater sales mix composed of more electric models which have a lower selling price. Rest of the World segment sales of $800 million declined 14% from 2019.

Pandemic-related lockdowns and weak end market demand, primarily in China in the first half of the year, and a higher mix of mid-price products resulted in lower sales. Currency translation of China sales favorably impacted sales by approximately $9 million. Indian sales were also negatively impacted by pandemic-related economic disruption and declined to $31 million compared with $39 million in 2019.

On slide seven, North America segment adjusted earnings of $506 million increased 4% compared with 2019. The increase in earnings was driven by favorable impact to earnings from higher residential water heater volumes, growth in Water Treatment sales, a full year of water rights sales, and lower material costs. The impact to earnings from lower volumes of boilers and commercial water heaters and the mix skew to electric water heaters partially offset these factors. Adjusted segment earnings exclude $2.7 million in pre-tax severance costs.

As a result, adjusted operating margin of 23.9% was slightly higher than in 2019. Rest of the World adjusted segment earnings of $5 million declined significantly compared with 2019. In China, the unfavorable impact from lower sales and the higher mix of mid-price products which have lower margins than higher price products more than offset reductions in SG&A costs and temporary waivers for required social insurance contributions.

As a result of these factors, adjusted segment operating margin of 0.6% declined from 4.3% in 2019. Our corporate expenses of $52 million were higher than in 2019, primarily driven by lower interest income. Turning to slide eight, record fourth quarter sales of $835 million increased 11% compared with the fourth quarter of 2019. The increase in sales was largely due to higher residential water heater volumes in North America and higher sales in China.

As a result of higher sales and cost reduction initiatives earlier this year, fourth quarter earnings of $120 million, or $0.74 per share, increased significantly compared with 2019. Please advance to slide nine. Record fourth quarter sales in North America segment of $561 million increased 7% compared with the same period in 2019, primarily driven by higher residential water heater volumes.

Rest of the World fourth quarter segment sales of $279 million improved 19% compared with the fourth quarter of 2019. Currency translation of China sales favorably impacted sales by approximately $14 million. Constant currency China sales improved 15% driven by mid-single-digit growth in end market demand led by Water Treatment, replacement water treatment filters, and gas tankless water heaters, and a favorable mix between product categories compared with the fourth quarter of 2019.

On slide ten, record fourth quarter North America segment earnings of $138 million increased 7% from the same period in 2019. The increase in earnings was primarily driven by higher residential water heater volumes in North America and lower steel costs. These factors were partially offset by logistic costs. As a result, fourth quarter segment margin of 24.6% was slightly higher than 24.5% in 2019.

Rest of the World segment earnings of $31 million improved significantly from $1.5 million in the same quarter in 2019. In China, higher volumes, reductions in SG&A costs, and lower material costs drove higher earnings. As a result of these factors, fourth quarter segment margin improved to 11.2% compared with 0.6% in 2019.

Our corporate expenses of $16 million in the fourth quarter were higher than in the same period of 2019, primarily due to an increase in long-term incentives and lower interest income in the 2020 fourth quarter. Advancing to slide eleven, cash provided by operations of $562 million during 2020 was higher than 2019. Lower investments in working capital in 2020 were partially offset by lower earnings compared with the prior year.

Our liquidity and balance sheet remained strong. Our cash balances totaled $690 million at the end of 2020, and our net cash position was $576 million. At the end of 2020, our leverage ratio was 6% as measured by total debt to total capital. We are in the process of refinancing our $500 million revolving credit facility which expires at the end of the year. We currently have no borrowing on this facility.

We expect to repurchase $400 million worth of shares in 2021 through a combination of 10b5-1 program and open market purchases. Recently, our board increased the authorized shares on our share repurchase authority by 7 million shares. Turning to slide twelve, we introduced our 2021 EPS guidance this morning with a range of between $2.40 and $2.50 per share.

The midpoint of our range represents an increase of 13% compared with our 2020 results. Our guidance assumed the conditions of our business environment and that of our suppliers and customers are similar in 2021 to what we have experienced in recent months and does not deteriorate as a result of further restrictions or potential shutdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

We expect cash flow from operations in 2021 to be between $450-$475 million compared with $560 million in 2020, primarily due to higher earnings offset by higher investments in working capital than in prior year. In 2021, capital spending plans are between $85-$90 million, and our depreciation and amortization expense is expected to be approximately $80 million.

Our corporate and other expenses are expected to be approximately $51 million, slightly lower than in 2020. Our effective tax rate is assumed to be between 22.5%-23% in 2021. Average outstanding diluted shares of 160 million assumes $400 million worth of shares are repurchased in 2021. I'll now turn the call back over to Kevin, who will summarize our guidance assumptions beginning on slide thirteen. Kevin.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Chuck. Our businesses and the countries in which we do business continue to navigate through pandemic-related challenges, particularly in supply chain and logistics. Our outlook for 2021 includes the following assumptions. We project U.S. residential water heater industry volumes will be down 2%, or 200,000 units in 2021. We are encouraged by the positive tone in the new construction market, although we believe some destocking will occur during 2021 as we expect industry lead times to improve throughout the year.

The timing of the destocking is difficult to predict as we have two price increases announced, one effective in February and a second one in April. Destocking activity could be delayed until mid-year due to the pre-buy orders in advance of the price increases. Further note on the 2021 price increases. We have seen inflation across our supply chain, particularly steel and logistic costs.

Steel has increased nearly 50% since we announced our February 1 water heater price increase of 5%-9%. We announced a second price increase last week on water heaters effective April 1st, also between 5%-9% depending on the type of water heater. We expect commercial industry water heater volumes will further decline approximately 4% as pandemic-impacted business delay or defer new construction and discretionary replacement installations.

In China, it is encouraging to see consumer demand for our China products progressively improve in 2020 and into January of 2021. We accomplished much in China in 2020, which will allow us to profitably grow in 2021. Those accomplishments include closing 1,000 stores in Tier 1 and 2 cities while efficiently expanding in Tier 4 through 6 cities, implementing programs to save $30 million in SG&A, which will carry over into 2021.

We've lapped the negative impact to earnings from mid-price products. We expect positive mix in 2021 from new products, and we executed programs resulting in stronger and more nimble distributors. We expect year-over-year increases in local currency sales between 14% and 15%. We assume China currency rates will remain at current levels, adding approximately $45 billion and $3 million to sales and profits over the prior year, respectively.

We expect our North America boiler sales will increase by mid-single digits in 2021. Our expectations are based on several growth drivers. First, industry growth of 3% to 4%. We assume some pent-up demand after the industry decline in the low teens levels in 2020. The CAGR for commercial condensing boilers, which is over 50% of the boiler revenue, was 5% to 6% prior to 2020. We believe replacement demand is still 85%.

A potential government stimulus package targeting infrastructure investment may free up some jobs that were postponed or halted in 2020. The transition to higher energy-efficient boilers will continue, particularly as commercial buildings improve their overall carbon footprint. In 2020, condensing boilers were 39% of the commercial boiler industry. That represents our addressable market, which provides continued opportunity for our leading market share of commercial condensing boilers.

New product launches, including improvements to our flagship CREST commercial condensing boiler with a market differentiating O2 sensor, which continually measures and optimizes boiler performance, and the introduction of a 1 million BTU light-duty commercial Knight FTXL boiler. We project 13%-14% sales growth in our North America Water Treatment products.

We believe the mega trends of health and safe drinking water, as well as a reduction of single-use plastic bottles, will continue to drive consumer demand for our Point-of-Use and our Point of Entry water treatment systems. We believe margins in this business could grow by 100-200 basis points higher than the nearly 10% margin achieved in 2020.

In India, fourth quarter sales were similar to the prior year. We project 2021 full-year sales to increase over 20% compared with 2020 and to incur a small loss of $1 million-$2 million. Advance to slide fourteen. We project revenue will increase by approximately 10% in 2021 as strong North America Water Treatment and China sales enhanced by growth in boiler sales more than offset expected weaker North America Water Heater volumes.

Our 10% growth rate projection includes approximately $45 million of benefit from China currency translation. We expect North America segment margins to be between 23% and 23.5% and Rest of the World segment margins to be between 7% and 8%. To slide fifteen, please. 2020 was a challenging year. We are pleased with our performance through the pandemic.

Particularly in these uncertain times, we believe A. O. Smith is a compelling investment for numerous reasons. We have leading share positions in our major product categories. We estimate replacement demand represents approximately 80%-85% of U.S. water heater and boiler volumes. We have a strong premium brand in China, a broad product offering in key product categories, broad distribution, and a reputation for quality and innovation in that region. Over time, we are well positioned to maximize favorable demographics in both China and India to enhance shareholder value.

We are very excited for the opportunity we see in our North America Water Treatment platform. We have strong cash flow and balance sheet supporting the ability to continue to invest for the long term with investments in automation, innovation, and new products, as well as acquisitions and return cash to shareholders. That concludes our prepared remarks, and we are now available for your questions.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press the star and then the number one key on your touch telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. Your first question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc.

Jeff Hammond (Analyst)

Hey, good morning.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Morning, Jeff.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Morning.

Jeff Hammond (Analyst)

Just on the China business, clearly you have a really easy comp in the first quarter. Just trying to get a sense of how you're thinking about seasonality. Is it back to normal? Then just on the margin cadence and Rest of the World , you kind of were putting up high single digits, even above your guidance. Maybe just talk about margin cadence through the year for Rest of the World .

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, sure. I can do that. We were really pleased with the fourth quarter. Back to double digits in Q4, had a really nice favorable category mix, had some decent online volume in China. So we were pleased with the fourth quarter. When we look at 2021, I think we're back to a more normal cadence.

Always Q1 is a challenge for us. Q1 will be the lowest quarter. I would expect that we're going to progress progressively through the year like we have in the past. Maybe 2021 might be 45% of the revenue in the first half of the year, 55% in the back. Our best quarter will be Q4 again in 2021. Probably starting out the year, you're right, last year is not a—it was a pretty easy comp, right?

We would expect revenues in the first quarter to potentially double last year's revenues, low single-digit margins, and progress from there throughout the year.

Jeff Hammond (Analyst)

Okay, that's helpful. Then just on North America, I guess your unit volume expectation is down in both Commercial and Res. I think your guidance maybe implies mid-single digit growth. Is that largely a function of price, or are you baking in any kind of share gains or mix within North America? Thanks.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

What we're really baking in is that there'll be some destocking into 2021. We just came up a record year for the industry. As we look forward, as we said in our comments, we're very excited about the new home construction market. We still think there's going to be quite a bit of proactive activity at the DIY level.

Embedded in there is some inventory that as industry lead times kind of move back to normal, we see that declining and bringing the industry down from this last year by about a couple hundred thousand units.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I mean, then kind of the offset to that, a little bit of headwind on the destocking is we do have boilers projected to be favorable next year. In Kevin's comments earlier, we talked a little bit about some of the new products coming out, potential, some help on infrastructure.

We do see the industry with replacement being somewhat resilient. Maybe some of the work pushed back last year rolls into 2021. Water Treatment, we project kind of a back-to-back 13%-14% increase in Water Treatment overtopping that. Yes, we do expect price rolling into next year. We have our steel costs particularly leading our costs for 2021, and we have the two price increases, one February 1st effective and one April 1st rolling into next year.

Jeff Hammond (Analyst)

Thank you.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Yep.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson.

Matt Summerville (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks. Good morning. With respect to China, can you talk about the outgrowth you achieved in the fourth quarter relative to the market? I think you said you were up kind of mid-teens. Constant currency, the market up mid-single digits, maybe parse out that gap to the upside in your business?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of things. If you look at kind of industry data and look at share and some of the other metrics out there, what they're not capturing is what's happening in our specialty stores. We're really pleased with what kind of performance we had in our specialty stores in Q4. That was strong.

Consumer demand overall we saw in the mid-single digits, strong mid-single digits. The product category mix that we saw in Q4 was really helpful. We had a higher product you get higher sales costs on gas tankless. Our Water Treatment product has a higher sales price, decent commercial business in the quarter. The mix between categories was very helpful to our growth. That's probably the biggest pieces.

I mean, we're really pleased about the fact that our mix, we've talked in the past about some headwind on mix, and we really kind of lapped that, as we said in our comments, where we really wouldn't expect a negative headwind on mix in China going forward. We would expect it to be neutral or slightly positive. We're kind of at a stabilized point, we believe, on the mid-price products and positive to neutral going forward.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I would just add a couple of things onto that. We've done a lot of work on our mid-price products and our cost structure and so forth. Quite frankly, we have some really terrific products that are going to be launching or have launched a high input in our electric water heater category.

We're going to be the only brand out there with a category and Grade 1 noise level in our tankless, which is a huge factor for consumers in China. Noise is always an issue because it's inside the home. Our Water Treatment products have been doing quite well, and we have a number of new ones coming out that will continue to expand our higher flow rates and along with providing hot water.

Great work on the mid-price, but we haven't lost sight on our premium products because all three that I just mentioned are in the premium category.

Matt Summerville (Senior Equity Analyst)

With respect to, for my follow-up, with respect to the price increases you're putting in place, Kevin, does that cover you guys relative to where spot prices are today? I mean, given if you just look at steel prices, they've gone parabolic. I'm sure you're well aware of that. With this second increase you're putting in, are you effectively covered at today's spot prices, or do you need to contemplate later in the year maybe a third increase? Thank you.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Let me start out. I'm just going to give you some of the details. As you know, we tend to trail costs, but we always take action, and we have demonstrated that we can do that over time. We are going to be trailing for a while, and maybe Chuck can give you some comments on how we see the price increases working their way through the market.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah, I mean, our outlook and our guidance assumes that steel pricing stays kind of at where it is for the index right now and carries throughout the end of the year. Of course, we talk about our price increases. When we look at next year, we would see that those price increases are probably going to lag a little bit on what we're going to see on the cost.

We get a little bit of a runway of 90-120 days. To your point, steel pricing has gone up so dramatically, so quickly that we're probably going to be chasing the margin a little bit as we go forward. Without commenting specifically on particular achievement of price, I would just say historically, over time, we've been able to cover that.

Matt Summerville (Senior Equity Analyst)

Great. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Eitan Buchbinder with Citi.

Eitan Buchbinder (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning.

Eitan Buchbinder (Equity Research Senior Associate)

You mentioned stability in North America Water Heater manufacturing lead times. Can you talk about your visibility to the level of residential water heater customer inventory levels due to the impact of lead times and potential pre-buy ahead of price increases? How should we think about that affecting seasonality in 2021?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Let me take that. I mean, the industry on Residential is up about 8% over 2019. I think you really kind of have to think about, or I think about the jumping-off point in 2019, which is down about 2% from the trend line. I mean, the industry up in 2020 is really 6-8%.

When we look at inventories, we think about the fact that it's probably half of that might be taking inventories that have built up. If you're in that 3-4% of that increase as inventories in the channel, not all of that's going to come out of 2021, we don't think. If it's 4% and a portion of that comes out of 2021, we're maybe down to that 2% headwind that we see. Helped a little bit by what we think will be encouragement in the housing offset of that.

We still see proactive demand on water heaters being pretty strong. We kind of arrive at that 2%. When you think about kind of the cadence for the year, we do not believe the price increases that have been announced pulled much, if any, into sales into 2020. The first quarter, effective February 1st and effective April 1st we would expect some increased demand on the price increase driving some volume into Q1.

Eitan Buchbinder (Equity Research Senior Associate)

That's helpful. Thank you. In Q4, China saw healthy growth, 15% constant currency. Can you give us an update about how the expected 500 store openings in Tier 4 to 6 cities are performing? What are your expectations for store openings or closings in China during 2021?

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Let me touch on that, and then Chuck will give you some figures. One, when you start to look on Tier 4 and 6 Tier cities, I want to caution and make sure that we describe these are small counters, if you will. They're really not the type of stores that you're talking about and see in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities.

I just want to calibrate you as we open up those stores. They're really kind of counters with limited volume, but the ability to sell our product across those growing cities. From a standpoint, Chuck, our forecast is.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah, so the Tier 4 to Tier 6 cities, we're kind of parsing their stores a little different than what we have in the past.

We have talked historically about 9,000 or 9,500 stores, and we are parsing it really Tier 1 and Tier 2, and then back to what Kevin said, Tier 4 through Tier 6. The Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, if you go back to 2019, that would have been a little over 7,000 stores in those categories. The Tier 4 to 6 is around 2,000.

You kind of split it up into those two categories, and you get to the 9,000-9,500 stores. On the Tier 1 to Tier 2, our focus is really efficiency, looking at store efficiencies. We have talked about closing 1,000 stores, and we have. We went from about 7,400 stores at the end of 2019 to, at the end of this year, about 6,400 stores.

We have accomplished kind of where we were set out to do the closing of 1,000 stores. When we look into next year, not much change. We probably have a little bit of we're continuing to look and evaluate efficiency, but we did not expect much change in the Tier 1 to Tier 2 cities. Tier 3, or I'm sorry, Tier 4 through 6, as Kevin said, it's a different selling model, and our expectations are different.

How we're really measuring that is less about how many counters or footprints we have and more about the volume of sales going through there. That is what we'll probably be talking about more going forward. We have opened up more than that 500 stores that are target. When I say opened up, we have got relationships and counters and significantly more than the 500 stores.

We're going to be just kind of looking at volumes through those stores going forward.

Eitan Buchbinder (Equity Research Senior Associate)

Thank you very much. I'll pass it along.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Damian Karas with UBS.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Hi, good morning, everyone.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Morning.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Wanted to ask you a follow-up question on the China business and Rest of the World market in particular. Obviously, making some really nice progress there, and you talked about some of the factors with mix starting to come back.

Just wondering, kind of thinking longer term, where you are in the business today. I mean, are there any structural reasons why you think you wouldn't be able to get back to kind of those low double-digit margins on a consistent basis? Or is that achievable over time? If so, kind of what's it going to take you to get there?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I would tell you, I believe, and we've talked about getting back to those mid to low-teen margins, and certainly, we think we can get there. Structural changes, no. If you look at our strategy, our strategy is going to stay consistent. We're a premium brand. We use innovation to drive products into the consumer's market. We invest in high service levels. We're a high-quality company. That foundational part of our business is not going to change. In fact, it'll continue to be enhanced.

However, the market is changing. You have some online going getting larger. You have some changes in the retail sector in Tier 1, Tier 2. What we're going to do is we're going to remain nimble like we have, adjusting our model as far as store openings and how we go to market.

You'll see a big part of digital be a big driver for us as we engage customers going forward. The day of having somebody in every store, as the promoter we've talked about, are probably going to be limited. We'll use digital more, and we'll continue to expand into the other markets that those 4 and 6 Tier cities one day are going to be Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 cities. We need to have a position there.

Overall, I mean, our strategy, where we're at, getting to those types of margins we think are doable over time. We've been taking the steps in 2020. We'll continue to take those steps in 2021 and beyond.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, I'll just add that volume really does matter. Q4, we had decent volume, and we get that kind of volume. We've got a double-digit margin in Q4.

Over time, we would expect that we would continue to see consumer confidence driving demand and looking at kind of hopefully, we get back to the point where we've got more trading up to more high premium products, which, by the way, this year, we saw some positive trading up in water treatment, and the water heating side was stable to up slightly. We are optimistic about getting back to double-digit margins. Probably, we do not have it in our outlook for next year, but we see it that.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Got it. Thanks. You did a nice job kind of walking through your expectations for the U.S. residential market. I was wondering if you could perhaps give us a sense on how we should think about the cadence for the commercial market this year. I mean, that down 4%, are you sort of expecting declines through the year or maybe growth returning at some point? How should we think about that?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

The way I think about it, the way we think about it is we still need to see the economy's opening up. We need restaurants, capacities open up, and hotels and travel. We have a 4% decline built into our model. We hope as the vaccine comes out and herd immunity starts getting closer and closer, we see the restrictions in those type of restaurants and hotels to be less and less. Companies start opening up and traveling.

If anything, we've seen more improvement maybe in the back half of the year than we do in the first half as we continue to work through the pandemic and, of course, the vaccines being transmitted to the number of people that needs to be.

Damian Karas (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Thanks so much. Good luck with it all. I'll pass it along.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, thanks.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from David MacGregor with Longbow Research.

David MacGregor (President and Senior Equity Analyst)

Yes, good morning, everyone.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Morning, David.

David MacGregor (President and Senior Equity Analyst)

Just a question on the inventories in North America, and you've provided quite a bit of color around that, so that's greatly appreciated. What's the opportunity to sort of throttle up downstream kind of demand creation in 2021 as a way of kind of burning through that inventory surplus a little faster?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I would tell you that the way the inventories are going to be burned through faster is really just when the economy opens up. Again, we could see more improvement in the DIY side of the market where people are doing more to their homes as we saw in 2020.

Of course, new construction, depending on labor in the market. There are a lot of things that can happen that can drive demand. One of the biggest challenges for the construction business has been labor. Those are two things as things progress. Again, I keep going back to the economy opens up.

As we haven't had salespeople traveling for a year other than under emergency conditions where we're not spending time in the market as much as we like to, all that's going to matter as far as for us to drive demand, both from just the economic side, but also from us looking at getting some share.

There is more action that has to happen, but there also has to be some economic and some opening up of the economy for us to move that forward and bring the inventories down.

David MacGregor (President and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Understood. Okay. Thanks for that. Then secondly, just on the boiler business, you walked through quite a bit of detail on why you were feeling confident in that mid-single-digit growth number for next year. That as well is appreciated.

I just wonder if you could talk a little bit about what you're seeing in the backlog for that business that may be giving you confidence, or is this more just kind of assembling all these drivers in a theoretical construct, and this has got to lead to a better growth? Are you seeing hard evidence in terms of orders and backlog now that's giving you that confidence?

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

I can tell you what we're seeing today. We didn't see the delay in postponed projects as we saw back in last year. That's number one. Number two, the activity in the market is lower, but there's still activity going on there. Again, as we go forward, it's not just about some of the projects being released and the economy growing.

There's a component of new product launches that we have that are going to be important to our growth. It's a combination of those. I would tell you, I mean, we're excited about the CREST boiler with the O2 sensing is an important part of what we're going to do.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

We actually introduced several new products in 2020 that kind of got lost in the mix of the pandemic that I believe are going to help our business as we go forward. Yeah. I would say with regard to your specific question on backlog, our backlog is pretty similar to what it was at the end of last year before the pandemic. The backlog is pretty solid.

David MacGregor (President and Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay. Is there anything incremental to the distribution story on boilers that would be helping you next year?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Nothing specific. We still have strong distribution. Of course, we have our rep network, but I would say nothing that would be material to talk about today.

David MacGregor (President and Senior Equity Analyst)

Right. Right. Okay. Thanks very much, gentlemen.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Susan Maklari with Goldman Sachs.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Morning, Susan.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

My first question is on the Water Treatment side of things. You highlighted that you expect some continued really elevated sales there over the course of 2021. Can you talk a little bit about the margins? I know that you've made some progress there over the last couple of quarters, but how you're thinking about that on a go-forward basis and any kind of pressures or benefits that we should be aware of in that?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

No. We were pleased with the expansion of about 200 basis points of margin this year. We were just under 10% in 2020. Going forward with the help of leverage on some growth, next year we kind of see that growth being the 13%-14% again and continued work on costs, we would expect margins to expand actually over the next couple of years in that 100-200 basis points. We do expect forward progress on that as we continue to grow the base and continue to look at cost out.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

I would just add, Susan, volume matters there too. As that business continues to grow, we get to leverage our facilities, the operating leverage within them, which will also help us to improve margins on a long-term basis.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. That's helpful. My second question is just you mentioned that you are restarting your share buyback program this year. I think you kind of earmarked $400 million or so for that. Any color in terms of the kind of cadence of that, how we should be expecting it to come through, and then kind of any appetite at the higher or the lower end of that $400 million?

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

No. I mean, I would peg it at 400 right now. I would not really go higher or lower. We are probably looking at throughout the year is what we are kind of thinking of it. The cadence would be pretty evenly throughout the year.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Bryan Blair with Oppenheimer.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst for Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)

Thanks. Good morning, everyone.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Hey, Bryan.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Morning.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst for Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)

Chuck, I apologize if you've provided this detail. You have offered a lot. If we keep other variables constant for the year, what's the margin impact of normalizing Residential volumes in 2021? Just trying to parse that out, that relative hit knowing there are some offsets elsewhere.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah. I mean, there are so many, I mean, it's hard to say that it's going to be stable, right? There are so many moving parts. Our costs have gone up so dramatically in the last short period of time. When you look at those costs going up, you look at, you're right, there's a little bit of a decremental margin impact when you've got a couple hundred thousand units coming out of the industry. Yeah, there's some headwind there, but there are so many moving parts. It's hard to say.

I think we're going to, we're just going to, we're going to be chasing our costs a bit next year. As you said, the costs have gone up so dramatically that there's going to be, at least in the first half of the year, a little headwind on North America margins.

Bryan Blair (Managing Director and Senior Analyst for Industrial Machinery and Flow Control)

Okay. Understood. Great to see the momentum in your North American Water Treatment business. How is your M&A pipeline looking, particularly when it comes to targets to continue to scale that platform?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I would tell you that, as we always do, we try to be active, and we have certainly targets that we continue to stay close to and in contact with. The pandemic's made that a little bit more challenging, but we remain active in reaching out to the appropriate people. As we come out of this pandemic, I think there's going to be some opportunity. We are as active as we have always been and looking for the opportunities that make sense to our core business.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Nathan Jones with Stifel.

Nathan Jones (Managing Director in Diversified Industrials)

Good morning, everyone.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Hey, Nathan.

Nathan Jones (Managing Director in Diversified Industrials)

Morning. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on the Rest of World margins. Comment there that you don't have double-digit margins built into the model for 2022. I know in conversations we've had that you targeted getting the mid-price tier product margins in China up to the premium tier margins by the end of 2021.

With volume returning pretty nicely in ROW, why isn't it that you could get to double-digit margins in 2022? What are the top one or two things that would need to happen for you to achieve that double-digit margin in 2022?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah. The fourth quarter is always the strongest quarter in China. If you kind of look at the fourth quarter, you take out currency, you multiply it by four, we're back to a billion-dollar business, and the year just does not play out that way. Q1 is always weaker. Q1 is just going to be challenged on that. If you look at kind of the quarters building through the year, we're just not quite there yet on the volumes and on the cost out.

Now, the margins, you're absolutely right. Our goal is to get the contribution margins back up to a similar percentage to the premium side of the product. That is going to take a little time. It takes a couple of things. It takes cost out, which we're working on over time. We will not be in that position in 2021, but we are working on it.

It's going to take volume to help us kind of leverage that through the footprint in China.

Nathan Jones (Managing Director in Diversified Industrials)

Just a question on 4Q20 North America. You guys had anticipated some channel destocking in 4Q 2020. Doesn't look like that happened. Can you talk about what led to that happening? Was it just customers deferring destocking because their new price increases were coming? Fundamental demand picked up, sell-through picked up. Just any commentary you can provide on what changed between your assumptions when you were giving 4Q 2020 guidance?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah. I'm not sure I could describe it better than you just did.

When it's all said and done, yeah, when we were talking about destocking, we didn't have a pricing piece coming up. Quite frankly, demand stayed there. I think as we look back on it, our distributors probably want to be a bit heavy right now on their inventories just to make sure they can take care of their customer demand.

There are a few things that happened. You described them. We expect that sometime in 2021, probably in the latter half of the year, you'll start to see what we had said in the prior quarter actually happen.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Scott Graham with Rosenblatt Securities.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Morning, Scott.

Operator (participant)

Scott, your line is open.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Scott, are you there?

Scott Graham (Managing Director)

Hello. I'm here. Can you hear me?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

We can hear you now.

Scott Graham (Managing Director)

Oh, okay. I don't know what happened there. Okay. Congrats on the quarter.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Thank you.

Scott Graham (Managing Director)

First question is on China. Could you give us that percent of sales for the business, which I know you load up everything in there with the Water Treatment and everything, premium versus upper middle in the quarter?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah. It really hasn't changed much. It's pretty consistent with what we've been talking about. We still see the majority in the upper mid-price part of the segment of the market, and not a lot has changed since the prior quarters.

Scott Graham (Managing Director)

Got it. Thank you. Back to the North American business, I want to just try to square away some comments here, make sure I understand them. I think you said that last year Residential units industry were up about 8%, but you kind of called that a normalized 6-8% and that the inventory build was maybe half of that, but that not all of that will come out this year. Sounds to me like a 2 minus, that's a 2% headwind. Is that fair?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Yeah. That's fair. I mean, we think we've hit a little bit of help on new construction potentially in that category too. That's exactly the way we're thinking about it in our outlook.

Scott Graham (Managing Director)

Right. I only repeated your words. It's just hard to make sure I got it right, Chuck. Those were very clear comments. I mean, the follow-up question from that, if I may, is if you're thinking that the industry is down too, and it's essentially because of that reason, I guess I'm just wondering why you wouldn't expect sort of, let's call it normalized. Why would you expect it to be only flat?

Residential conditions are quite strong this year. I know you answered David's question earlier about labor and what have you. I mean, I think we've all experienced that trying to get a contractor in your house, you have to pay hard currency. It's a sans kind of thing. I understand that. Is it a labor thing, or are you just maybe being a bit conservative on that number?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I guess I think of it, Scott, is that we would continue to expect to see some pretty decent consumer demand next year and proactive demand to be only down 2. So, we need this year being up 6-8, next year being down 2. You still have that kind of baseline proactive replacement, strong residential replacement, some potential growth year-over-year, I think, in our numbers.

We do still expect it to be consumer demand fairly strong, relatively strong, similar to what we saw this year on that underlying proactive replacement. Yeah. Scott, I would also tell you we're coming off a record. Even what we're forecasting is going to be one of the strongest years in the past decade.

There is still a lot of optimism out there, but we just believe there is some stock that is going to come out that is going to make a difference.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. I mean, really, the big variable on how we look at next year is that 2% destocking or 200,000 unit destocking.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Saree Boroditsky with Jefferies.

Saree Boroditsky (Equity Research Analyst for Industrials and Technology Sectors)

Hi. Good morning. Thanks for fitting me in.

Kevin Wheeler (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning.

Saree Boroditsky (Equity Research Analyst for Industrials and Technology Sectors)

Could you talk through what you're seeing in the tankless market in North America and if you're seeing any other areas introduce legislation similar to California limiting gas use in residential homes, and how could that impact tankless sales going forward?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Tankless had a good year. We believe it's going to be up low double digits, kind of in line with the tank and so forth. It's kind of what we expected in the tankless market and so forth. As far as we talk about California, you're talking about decarbonization and so forth.

I'm not going to talk specifically about tankless. I would just talk about our position with regards to that. When you look at it, for us, it's important that we are part of the conversation. We believe that GHG emissions in residential and commercial buildings, we want to be part of reducing those. We're constantly talking to policymakers just to make sure that they're keeping in mind the technologies. There isn't a one-size-fit-all. You hear like California that they want to just go completely electric.

We do not think a one-size policy and fit-all is the right way to go. We think multiple paths are there. That is going to navigate its way through, and we are going to be part of the conversation to make sure that technologies are included, performance of the products included, and cost to the consumers included. From an A. O. Smith perspective, I think we are positioned well.

We have a full line of residential, electric, and commercial products in the market today. We have a full line of heat pump, Residential and Commercial, which are the highest efficient electric water heaters out on the market. I never want to forget that we have leading positions in condensing products, gas condensing, which can make a big difference in lowering GHG emissions just by going from a standard to a high-efficiency model. Wherever the market is going to go, we are in position.

Again, I would tell you we're part of the conversation, but we're also positioned well so we can be nimble in where the market goes. We have the products that can meet the demand for the consumer and, of course, the commercial market as well.

Saree Boroditsky (Equity Research Analyst for Industrials and Technology Sectors)

Thanks for that color. On the commercial, you talked about some uncertainty around that business, obviously forecasting it down for this year. Could you help us understand from a historical perspective, have there been many times where demand has declined two years in a row? Could this forecast prove conservative?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I've had taken a look at [bottom end] and the answer is no. I mean, there probably hasn't been down two times in a year in a row. I think the pandemic and the impact to, I'll call it restaurants, hotels, some of the higher-end, the higher usage categories that we participate in, it's really spreading across two years, right?

It started Q2, and it's still going. I think the down year-over-year is more related to pandemic than anything. We may see, I mean, Kevin's comments earlier about how that might play out. I think we're going to have to wait and see what the back half of the year shows and where we're at in the pandemic disruption.

Operator (participant)

Your last question comes from Larry De Maria with William Blair.

Larry De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)

Hey. Thanks.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

Hey, Larry.

Larry De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)

Hey, guys. Nice, Chuck. I know you talked about this kind of almost ad nauseam about the inventory destocking, etc. Just to be clear, and then the potential pre-buy, are we expecting sales to comp up first half, comp down second half, or could we sort of get closer to flat because of the price increases? Can you just kind of clarify that a little bit? North America.

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I guess it's kind of hard to parse it out that way. I'll say we expect unit volume to be up in Q1, and that's because we do have the two price increases out there, and typically there's a pre-buy before that. Historically, the back half of the year is stronger than the front half of the year. When you kind of look at it that way, I think maybe that'll help kind of frame the model.

Larry De Maria (Group Head of Global Industrial Infrastructure Equity Research)

Okay. I guess perhaps. And then maybe that's mostly obviously Residential, but it plays into North America. Commercial, obviously some headwinds there, obvious. Is there a how do you think about that market getting towards a bottom? Is that potentially bottoming on a just because of, if nothing else, easier comps later this year and start to think about maybe comping up off a low base, or do we expect that to be down all year?

Chuck Lauber (CFO)

I think it's going to come down to how the economy opens up. There's been a lot of positive feedback from some governors that had been shutting down economies and realizing now that they have to open them up. It comes down to restaurants have to be opened up. They have to be more than 25% capacity. Hotels have to have people who are traveling. I do think the pandemic's going to be a factor in how the commercial market returns. We'll have to wait and see how that plays out throughout the year.

Operator (participant)

I'm showing no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to the host.

Patricia Ackerman (SVP of Investor Relations and Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability and Treasurer)

Thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We plan to participate in two virtual conferences in the first quarter: Citi on February 18th and Robert W. Baird on February 23rd. Have a great day.

Operator (participant)

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation and have a wonderful day. You may all disconnect.