Louisiana-Pacific - Q2 2024

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Louisiana-Pacific Corporation Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question-and-answer session. To ask a question during the session, you'll need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your speaker for today, Aaron Howald, Vice President, I'm sorry, Investor Relations and Business Development. Please go ahead.

Aaron Howald (VP of Investor Relations)

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us to discuss LP's results for the second quarter of 2024, as well as our updated outlook. My name is Aaron Howald, and I am LP's Vice President of Investor Relations and Business Development. With me this morning are Brad Southern, LP's Chief Executive Officer, and Alan Haughie, LP's Chief Financial Officer. After prepared remarks, we will take one round of questions. During this morning's call, we will refer to a presentation that has been posted to LP's IR webpage, which is investor.lpcorp.com. Our 8-K filing, earnings press release, and other materials are also available there, including our recently published 2024 Sustainability Report.

As always, I will caution you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements and non-GAAP financial metrics, as described on slides 2 and 3 of the earnings presentation. The appendix of the presentation also contains reconciliations that are further supplemented by this morning's 8-K filing. Rather than reading those statements, I will incorporate them by reference. With that, I will turn the call over to Brad.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Thanks, Aaron, and thank you all for joining us this morning. LP Siding and OSB businesses built on a strong first quarter, executing our strategy and delivering continued growth, share gains, and margin expansion in the second quarter of 2024. I will summarize a few of the highlights of the quarter, which are detailed on page 5 of the presentation, and discuss the factors that contributed to these results before turning the call over to Alan for more detail on the business's performance in the quarter and an update on capital allocation. LP's net sales in the quarter reached $814 million, up 33% compared to prior year. Siding sales grew by 30% in the quarter, the result of 22% higher sales volume and 6% higher prices, both of which were helped by another record quarter for ExpertFinish.

In OSB, higher prices and improved mix of Structural Solutions, value-added OSB, contributed to strong revenue growth. At the same time, leverage from increased volume and operational efficiency improved margins. As a result, LP more than doubled adjusted EBITDA, operating cash flow, and adjusted earnings per share compared to the second quarter of 2023. With the capacity expansion projects of the past two years now complete and the new facilities fully operational, CapEx was a comparatively light $36 million in the quarter. This left a greater proportion of LP's operating cash flow available to return to shareholders. Therefore, consistent with our capital allocation strategy, $120 million were spent on dividends and share repurchases through the quarter. Share repurchases have continued since quarter end, as Alan will detail in a moment. On the lower left of page five, you will see some other highlights.

First, and most importantly, our business is operated safely. LP wins more than our fair share of industry safety awards. In fact, we were just named the safest company in our category by the APA – The Engineered Wood Association. But the best reward is sending everyone home safely every day. I want to thank our operations teams for achieving an outstanding total incident rate in the second quarter of 0.6. Siding and OSB both delivered impressive operating efficiency in the quarter, which we measure with OEE. The Siding business held OEE flat at 77%, despite the complexity of ramping up the most recent Siding conversion in Sagola, Michigan, and our Greenfield prefinish facility in Bath, New York. The OSB business increased OEE by 3 points compared to last year. This high level of operating efficiency was a major contributor to the business's cost performance in the quarter.

Finally, LP published our 2024 Sustainability Report in July. As detailed in the report, SmartSide is significantly more sustainable than competing siding technologies, and most of LP's products are carbon negative. I want to thank everyone at LP who contributed to the report and to the impressive story it tells. On the left side of page 6 in the presentation, you will see an updated chart showing normalized growth of Siding volume and revenue compared to U.S. housing starts. The 2024 data for Siding reflects the midpoints of our increased guidance for Siding growth, while the housing data is based on FactSet's consensus for housing starts in 2024, which is currently at 1.4 million. As you can see, Siding growth continues to exceed that of the underlying housing market as LP gains share in residential construction.

The repair remodeling market is more difficult to track, but the general consensus is that R&R spending overall is down by mid-single digits compared to last year. With a record quarter for ExpertFinish, our prefinish siding designed for the R&R market, LP's Siding business also seems to be gaining share in the R&R segment. In 2024, we expect ExpertFinish to be close to 10% of total Siding volume, and given its higher price point, at 10% of volume, ExpertFinish would account for roughly 14% of Siding revenue. ExpertFinish margins improved in the quarter as well, helping Siding to achieve a 25% EBITDA margin in the quarter. We believe we have a long runway for growth and share gains in the new construction, R&R, and off-site segments of the Siding business, and with both primed and prefinished SmartSide.

We intend to continue developing new products, expanding our addressable markets, and executing our sales and operation strategies to drive future growth. With that, I will turn the call over to Alan for more detail on LP's financial performance in the quarter before taking your questions.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Thanks, Brad. As Brad said, it was a strong quarter, and as the waterfall charts on the next two pages of the presentation show, it was also a refreshingly straightforward one in terms of year-over-year comparisons. Page eight shows the performance of Siding compared to the second quarter of 2023. With last year's capacity addition projects and channel inventory destocking both now behind us, the waterfall tells a story of volume growth, price increases, and some much-anticipated operating leverage. Sales volumes grew by 22%, boosted by share gains in new residential construction and repair and remodel, and a record quarter in ExpertFinish, all admittedly riding on a relatively soft comparable. But this higher sales volume generated $71 million in additional revenue and $28 million of EBITDA, at an incremental EBITDA margin of almost 40%, before considering the impact of price increases.

Speaking of which, list price increases and favorable mix combined roughly equally towards 6% in higher prices, worth $24 million. Increases in selling and marketing investments were almost fully funded by the non-recurrence of last year's mill conversions, resulting in a net $2 million of investment costs, while lower logs and resin prices supplied a useful $5 million tailwind. Finally, as a result of ramping up the more automated prefinishing facility in Bath, New York, and investments in similarly advanced equipment in our Green Bay prefinishing facility, there has been, as Brad said, a significant improvement in ExpertFinish margins over last year. Now, ExpertFinish margins are not yet equivalent to the business average, but they're getting closer and closer. Incidentally, this improvement shows up in other costs on the waterfall because our methodology is to value change in volume at the prior year margin.

The net result of all this is $415 million in revenue, up $95 million, with a near doubling of EBITDA to $105 million. Naturally, this pushed Siding's EBITDA margin up by 7 points to 25%. The waterfall on page 9 also tells a simple and effective story of consistent execution by the OSB team. Prices were 34% higher than last year, adding $73 million in both sales and EBITDA. Unlike Siding, OSB prices are largely outside our control, but what the OSB team can control, however, is volume, mix, and operating efficiency. Like Siding, the OSB team delivered an exceptional quarter on all of these fronts. Sales volumes in the quarter were 100 million sq ft higher than last year, made possible in part by an impressive 3 percentage point increase in operating efficiency.

52% of volume in the quarter was higher value-added Structural Solutions. This incremental volume generated an additional $40 million in net sales and $23 million in EBITDA. OSB ended the quarter with $351 million in sales and $125 million in EBITDA, and as Brad mentioned earlier, they did so safely. Clean quarters of sales growth and operational excellence in both Siding and OSB make for a similarly straightforward cash flow, as slide 10 shows. After starting the quarter with $244 million in cash, LP earned $229 million in EBITDA, paid $59 million in taxes, and saw a seasonally normal reduction in working capital that brought in a further $39 million.

With the resulting $212 million in operating cash flow, we executed our capital allocation strategy, as we have consistently done, investing $36 million in CapEx and returning $120 million to shareholders. During the quarter, we paid $102 million to repurchase 1.2 million shares at an average price a little over $84 per share. The $17 million in other investing and financing is mostly the sale of LP's 50% ownership of a joint venture, a remnant of our investment in Entekra. For avoidance of doubt, this gain was excluded from Adjusted EBITDA, as you can see in the reconciliation in the appendix. LP ended the second quarter with $317 million in cash.

As of yesterday, the sixth of August, LP has paid a further $64 million for share repurchases, bringing our outstanding shares to about 70.3 million, and a remaining board authorization, as of yesterday, of $270 million. Which brings me to guidance on slide 11. I'd like to briefly remind you that when we updated our guidance on our first quarter earnings call, we increased the full year guidance for Siding by the sum of the first quarter beat and the increase in the second quarter outlook. At that time, we had insufficient visibility to adjust guidance for the second half. But 90 days hence, with a Siding order file that continues to be robust, we can now offer updated outlook through the year-end. As Brad said earlier, demand for SmartSide continues to outperform a moderately weak repair and remodel market.

Based on new volume records for both primed and prefinished SmartSide in the second quarter, we now expect year-over-year revenue growth in the third quarter of between 16% and 18%, for revenue between $390 million and $410 million. An EBITDA margin of about 25% would yield Siding EBITDA in the third quarter of between $95 million and $105 million. We continue to see typical seasonal patterns in demand, which usually means that the fourth quarter delivers weaker sales volumes as the building season winds down. If the third quarter turns out as we expect and typical seasonal demand patterns emerge, the resulting full-year revenue growth for Siding in 2024 would be between 14% and 16% to a bit above $1.5 billion.

Increased volume should boost the EBITDA margin up a point or so from our prior guidance to about 24%, yielding full-year EBITDA for Siding between $355 million and $375 million. In summary, this is a beat and raise for Siding, with a third quarter that so far looks very much like the second. OSB is a different story. Prices fell significantly at the end of the second quarter. The bulk of that will be felt in LP's third quarter due to the time lag in our order file. Assuming prices remain flat at last Friday's levels, published by Random Lengths, the OSB business would earn somewhere between $10 million and $20 million in EBITDA in the third quarter. As always, this is not a price prediction, just an attempt to offer useful modeling.

For the fourth quarter and full year OSB outlook, and to reflect the reality that OSB demand and prices rarely increase meaningfully in the fourth quarter, we will extend the flat from Friday prior approach through year-end. Therefore, holding prices flat at current levels and assuming seasonally lower OSB volumes, would imply EBITDA for the fourth quarter of about $10 million below that of the third quarter. So assuming the year plays out as I've just described, and as usual, treating LPSA earnings and corporate expenses as mutually offsetting, total EBITDA for LP in the third quarter would be in the $105-$125 million range, and full year EBITDA would be between $580 million and $620 million. And with that, we'll be happy to take your questions.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, please press star one, one on your telephone. We also ask that you wait for your name and company to be announced before proceeding with your question. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. One moment for the first question. Our first question will be coming from Steven Ramsey of Thompson Research Group. Your line is open.

Steven Ramsey (Senior Equity Analyst)

Good morning. Maybe to start with the Q2, Siding EBITDA margin just slightly above the first quarter, despite much higher sales. Maybe talk to the puts and takes. I'm sure some of that is the ExpertFinished growth, which I know is an incremental drag if that volume is growing better than the core smart side product. But just overall, the puts and takes on, the Q1 to Q2 Siding EBITDA margin.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Sure. There's not a great deal to add. You captured one of the factors. The ExpertFinish margin is significantly improving, but it is below the average. We have, in some instances, added shifts to help make sure that we keep healthy lead times healthy. And the, you know, the mix changes slightly in terms of the top line in terms of pricing, and that obviously affects the margin a little bit. But other than that, there's nothing really of any great significance other than, as you said, ExpertFinish growing, slight addition of labor and changes in top line mix.

Steven Ramsey (Senior Equity Analyst)

Okay, that's helpful. Then also thinking on Siding, the Builder Series rollout. Just curious on general updates on how that is going with the current partnership with Lennar and how you're thinking about potential partnerships with other large builders, how that could play out over the second half and into next year.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Very pleased with the growth in our Series product line, you know, particularly now coming in from Lennar. But we do have initiatives with, you know, several other national and more large regional partners to secure additional volume there. Only the Builder Series volume that's directly measurable, to be competitive with the big builder. We are seeing really good and select product pick up in those regions as well. Our trim and soffit SKUs are pulled along as a result of the Builder Series lap product, you know, allowing us to secure a position with the builders.

So, you know, the growth, you know, a lot of the growth that we're seeing currently, on Siding can be attributed directly to the big builder initiative that we have. We expect, and the second part of your question, we expect continued success there as we move through the rest of this year into next year.

Steven Ramsey (Senior Equity Analyst)

That's helpful. Thank you.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Welcome.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from Kurt Yinger of D.A. Davidson. Your line is open.

Kurt Yinger (SVP and Research Analyst)

Great. Thank you, and good morning, everyone.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Good morning, Kurt.

Kurt Yinger (SVP and Research Analyst)

Brad, I just wanted to follow up on the last comment around the strength in the big builder business. Is that primarily, you know, a Builder Series dynamic at this stage, just that product, or are you seeing, you know, solid takeaway on prime product as well and kind of big builder as we think about it to be sort of a collection of those products as opposed to just Builder Series?

Brad Southern (CEO)

Yeah, dead on, Kurt. The, you know, the Builder Series lap certainly makes us competitive from a, or has helped to make us competitive from a lap standpoint. But, you know, we're as we are successful converting builders with our lap offering and Builder Series, we have, generally speaking, the house is also trimmed. The soffit is ours. Any panel or shake product that is used is an LP product, and we are seeing, you know, in the regions, in the geographic regions where we are seeing success, that is measurable?

You know, directly on stability can be attributed to the fact that additional market share pulls those other products along well as well. So yes, we've got good growth on Builder Series, but we've got good growth on all primed SKUs that go into the single family new construction this year.

Kurt Yinger (SVP and Research Analyst)

Okay. That makes sense. And then on the ExpertFinish front, I mean, the answer seems kind of obvious, but I'll ask it anyways. I mean, does the performance and strength that you're seeing there, are you seeing any offset from lower volume to others who might have been, you know, prefinishing the products themselves and selling them under a different brand name? And then, you know, on the margin front, how should we sort of ring fence the long-term vision in terms of what ExpertFinish should be? Is it, is it reasonable to think that, you know, just given the price point, it could be, you know, higher than the company average over time, or just given, you know, the operations and infrastructure around prefinishing operations, you know, is, is meeting the company average kind of where your head's at, at this stage?

Brad Southern (CEO)

Yeah. So the first part of that question is a good one around, I think, Kurt, what you're asking, are we cannibalizing historical partners that were prefinishing our product, our prime product and, you know, selling it? And, I mean, certainly some of that has happened with as we've gone into this ExpertFinish initiative, but we still have a significant amount of lap siding going into other prefinishers, you know, for conversion. So, I would say, certainly as a whole, our addition of ExpertFinish on portfolio has been overall additive to our lap sales. But certainly there has been some cannibalization, you know, that's the impact there, but certainly positive.

On the margin side, look, from our you know, we if you recall, we you know, we used to have a CanExel product line in Eastern Canada at the time. It's one of the highest margin products in the entire LP portfolio, and I certainly believe that ExpertFinish can be above, at, or should be, an above product margin for us. You know, it will be... And we're getting there, you know, as Alan reported, we're getting to be where it's, it's not a drag any longer.

It will be, you know, it is one of those things, though, that as we ramp into the incremental volume, at times there will be inefficiencies associated with those, that continued growth that may delay the ultimate achievement of higher than average margin for ExpertFinish, but our expectation is ultimately that's where we'll end up. They should be—We should be getting paid more than normal margin amounts to paint the product, given the quality of the end product as a result of our finishing.

Kurt Yinger (SVP and Research Analyst)

Right. Okay, that makes total sense. Thanks, Brad, for the color, and I'll turn it over.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from Mark Weintraub of Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.

Mark Weintraub (Analyst)

Thank you. First, congrats. Very strong quarter, good outlook. One question is, obviously, we had this big destock in siding last year. Do you think customers have just continued to hold inventories very low, or does some of the strength potentially represent some restock to, say, more normal levels, or how would you have us think about that?

Brad Southern (CEO)

I would say that we discuss this internally a bunch, and we feel like we are at normal inventory levels for this time of year, and normal being prior to, you know, prior to last year, back in the days when things were normal, which Mark was kind of a long time ago, given we were on allocation and COVID and all that. But we feel good about current inventory situations as far as our distributor partners.

I mean, you know, we are still in the building season, so product's moving and, you know, inventories are being maintained, but there has been no, you know, no material build in inventory, nor do I believe it's necessarily light. I just think it's where it needs to be right now to service the market conditions that we have in siding.

Mark Weintraub (Analyst)

Okay, thank you. And then, good on ExpertFinish, great on the Builder Series. Any update on the Smooth SmartSide initiative?

Brad Southern (CEO)

Yeah, I mean, we, you know, with those products have been launched, that's a significant—There was, you know, some of a, I won't say significant, but a meaningful part of the Lennar program was, you know, availability of Smooth. And then that is a key component to our East Coast prefinish or ExpertFinish strategy. And so we're, we're pleased with that new product. We'll continue to innovate around that product and others that are needed, you know, especially in the repair/remodel SKU selection for the homeowner. But it's going well, and we're pleased with our—with the sales of that product so far this year.

Mark Weintraub (Analyst)

Super! And then just last, kind of tie two together. One, so if I look at the full year guide for Siding, I know you said it's seasonally weaker, but I think the math is it goes from $100 million at the midpoint to, like, $70 million of EBITDA for 4Q. Seems pretty, like a pretty steep drop off, so I was curious if there's anything else embedded there, maybe just a bit of conservatism. And then also just, I know you made some OSB in the Siding operations in the first quarter. I'm guessing you did in the second quarter, too. Maybe a bit more color on what happened there and/or whether you're assuming now that OSB is weaker, whether there's OSB still being produced in Siding in the second half of the year. Thanks a lot.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Yeah, thanks, Mark. The actual part of the answer ties to the question you asked about Brushed Smooth. We're ramping up production of Brushed Smooth in the fourth quarter, given its success. And again, rather like ExpertFinish, it is currently an inefficient manufacturing process, given that it's in its infancy. So there is some non-material capital investment planned next year to help us automate that process more efficiently. So part of the drag is that. Another aspect is that, we did, as I said in an answer to an earlier question, add labor to the Siding network in Q2, which will be maintained through Q3 and through Q4, with Q4 being a slightly lighter, most likely a lighter revenue quarter.

That labor is gonna be diverted to some essential maintenance, including, you know, a month down at one of our mills to replace a furnace. I was chatting to one of the engineers about this, and he used the perfect phrase. He said, "We don't have to do this now, but in 2025, we'll wish we did if we don't." And therefore, that's what we're doing. Well, that's what we're doing. Thirdly, yeah, there was some OSB production in Siding in Q1, a lot less in Q2, less in Q3, and that level staying roughly where it is in Q4. But if that's not.

That's, you know, $1 million or so, but by no means the line showed the change in EBITDA. It's mostly the maintenance and the Brushed Smooth costs. And as you gave me the out, so I'll take it. And yes, of course, we try to give out a target that we're confident we can beat, so there's a bit of conservatism baked in there, as always.

Mark Weintraub (Analyst)

Much appreciated. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from Mike Roxland of Truist Securities. Your line is open.

Mike Roxland (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, Brad, Alan, and Aaron, for taking my questions, and congrats on a good quarter despite the backdrop. First question I had was just in terms of the selling and marketing expenses. You mentioned, you know, adding, increasing headcount, adding additional selling and marketing expenses. I'm just wondering how much you, you incurred in the quarter and whether that—what's left to spend in the balance of the year?

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Oh, gosh! Well, we added about $5 million of selling and marketing costs year-over-year in Q2. How much is left to spend? Depends on the opportunities. I would like to see us continue to investing at a relatively heavy rate, so I think you should expect to see similar type year-over-year variances for the remainder of the year, and they're fundamentally baked into the forecast.

Mike Roxland (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

At that point now, do you think that you've—you're fully staffed accordingly to, to meet the selling demand that's out there, or is this something that's gonna be ongoing, particularly as you continue to grow your innovation, your, your pipeline, and the like?

Brad Southern (CEO)

Yeah. No, you should expect the absolute number to continue to grow. You know, this market share strategy that we have requires, you know, contractor builder conversions, which requires human interaction. And so the, you know, we're going to support, we're going to support our sales team appropriately, both on the sales front and the technical group behind the, you know, that provides the structure on installation. And then also, as we continue to grow ExpertFinish, which means, you know, higher market share and higher and aspirations for even higher market share in repair and remodel, that does require, you know, marketing support. Those are. That's an in-home sale initiative, straight, you know, straight with interaction with the consumer.

And so, you know, as it, as R&R becomes a bigger part of our mix, that segment requires a bigger investment in marketing. And so we should expect absolute growth in our sales and marketing expense, but hopefully find leverage if you ratio that against revenue. I mean, obviously, there should be a good bit of leverage there, but we're not done investing in sales and marketing. We're not done-

Mike Roxland (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Those two things go hand in hand.

Mike Roxland (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Got it, Brad. Thank you for the comment. Just one quick one on OSB. You know, could you share where your OSB operating rate stood in 2Q, where it stands currently, where do you think the industry stands? And really, any sense that curtailments could be forthcoming as prices continue to be under pressure? Thank you.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

The operating rate in Q2 of this year is around about 86%, I believe. We're forecasting it to be slightly lower in Q3.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Look, we will run our OSB business to match our customers' demand, and do everything within our power for inventories to stay, and actually in OSB, I would call it slightly lean right now. We will match our capacity going into Q4 and beyond to the customer demand.

Mike Roxland (Managing Director and Equity Research Analyst)

Good luck in the second half.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from Sean Stewart of TD Cowen. Your line is open.

Sean Steuart (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning. A couple questions. With respect to the siding business, given the positive momentum and positive revision guidance, or guidance revision rather, for that segment, Brad, can you give us a sense of what you would need to see, either in terms of margins at the segment or with respect to, order file pull, to make the decision on, the next capacity expansion for, that segment?

Brad Southern (CEO)

Yeah, Sean, we're you know, we are beginning to talk about that more robustly than we were six months ago. And so, certainly, you know, we want to be in a situation to stay ahead of demand this year, as our reporting has been you know, a really good year as far as growth, and we expect to continue to build on that next year. So, you know, we are actively back into the scenario planning around the next incremental capacity.

That, you know, as we learn about which SKUs are growing, that conforms, you know, the configuration of the, the configuration of the next expansion, and that puts into play not only Wawa, but some of our existing facilities where, you know, an additional press line, you know, may be the best, the best way to, to, to get the next increment of capacity. So we're actively in the planning stage there, not spending any significant or meaningful CapEx yet as a part of that, that, but, you know, this year's growth has, you know, has put that back on the, the planning horizon for us.

You know, we're—you know—as we look into next year, and which we're not obviously at all, haven't done the budget yet or certainly not giving guidance to, you know, but we could see us beginning to do engineering for the next expansion, you know, sometime next year.

Sean Steuart (Senior Equity Analyst)

Thanks for that detail. Appreciating you don't give 2025 guidance, but with the current footprint, can you give us a sense of how much incremental volume and siding you expect to be able to produce and ship with the current footprint beyond what's implied in 2024 guidance?

Brad Southern (CEO)

I would say, you know, because we're, we are not fully shipped at all the facilities, but because of the, you know, the pullback last year. So I would say we could probably from where we are today add capacity around shift additions that would give us another 200 million-300 million feet of capacity. So, you know, we've got a good bit of headroom, given the fact that we just converted Houlton and Sagola. Sagola being a big facility as well. So it's not like we're at all on edge, but we do want to stay ahead of it, Sean, as you know, to try to not go back into a managed order file situation like we were in two years ago.

Sean Steuart (Senior Equity Analyst)

That, that makes sense. Okay. That's all I have for now. Thanks very much.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Welcome.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from Matthew McKellar of RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.

Matthew McKellar (VP)

Hi, thanks for taking my questions. First, I'd like to ask if you have an updated view on how high siding margins can go before the next capacity addition. I think you previously talked about 25%. You've been there for a couple of quarters. You got into the same range. ExpertFinish margins seem to be improving pretty rapidly. So just any updates on that front would be helpful. Thank you.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Yeah, it's a great question, one that I'm reluctant to answer. So as you know, we try to give ourselves more than enough room to operate what we describe as this rising sine wave. And at this point in time, particularly given the introduction of Brushed Smooth, which I said is going very well, but at this point is relatively inefficient. We're making great gains in ExpertFinish. I think we are, with increasing certainty, capable of hitting this 25% mark with this excess capacity that we're carrying. So yeah, the trend is upwards, Matt, but I'm not willing to commit yet on where that upside is.I think that we need to see how the next few capacity additions play out and the timing of those. So yeah, probably best that I don't say any more on that.

Matthew McKellar (VP)

Okay, thanks. Fair enough. And then just one last cleanup for me. I was wondering if you have any color you could give around expected impact to, you know, siding production levels and margins as a result of the new forestry plan under development in the Swan Valley, Manitoba area.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Yeah, good, good question. You know, that's something we're actively working. I would say from a siding margin or for, or for that matter, you know, there is cost associated with those management plans, but it's really not material to the numbers when we talk about these costs of normal, as far as our, the impact that

Matthew McKellar (VP)

Thanks very much for the help. I'll turn it back.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from Jeff Stevenson of Loop Capital. Your line is open.

Jeff Stevenson (VP of Equity Division)

Hey, thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the nice quarter. I was wondering if you could talk about whether there was any variance in siding demand trends in the home center channel compared with your overall siding results? And then also how we should think about your expanded partnership with Home Depot regarding your trim product, you know, as far as an impact on channel demand moving forward.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Yeah, there is, so we did see meaningful growth, a year-over-year growth in our retail business, and expect that momentum to continue in Q3. Some of that has been just strength in panel that has been historic SKU there. But as you have mentioned, the trim placement, particularly in the Home Depot, has been all incremental volume for us, and that has been a meaningful part of the growth that we saw in Q2 and expect to see in Q3. So, as we are, we're continuing to grow with the home center, particularly Home Depot, by, you know, being a good partner as far as that SKU there, particularly around trim, some lap in certain places.

And that has gotten us in a position where, you know, we're, we have the ability to grow with Home Depot beyond just the traditional panel play that has been of the historic basis of the relationship. And I guess you were asking a little bit, are we seeing cannibalization as a result of that? And the answer is not of any... No, not seeing. The trim order file is so strong right now across the board, that I don't think there's been any significant loss of our channels.

And then placing that in stores at Home Depot still, you know, that's a strong DIY, still a strong DIY or also ultra small contractor customer base there. And so it's small in scale.It's giving us the ability to have the product presented, you know, to a customer base that we probably didn't have access to the product, you know, as it was, distribution in lumber yards.

Jeff Stevenson (VP of Equity Division)

Right. No, thanks for the color there. And then you mentioned that, you know, price mix was roughly an equal contributor to the, you know, 6% growth in the second quarter. Would you expect a similar contribution from price and mix as we move through the back half of the year? Would one be, you know, more than the other?

Alan Haughie (CFO)

We kind of... It's hard to predict the mix aspect. You know, the 3% net from list price increases, yes, that's relatively safe. The mix is a little more variable depending on the mixture of products. So it'll—I think it'll be our friend, whether it's as much as three points is so demand specific that it's hard to predict with any great precision. They'll become, it'll be positive.

Jeff Stevenson (VP of Equity Division)

Okay, understood. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from the line of George Staphos of Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

George Staphos (Managing Director)

Hi, thanks so much. Thanks for taking my questions, guys. You mentioned, you know, the progress that you're seeing in Expert and, and the progress you're seeing with Builder Series. Would it be possible for you to give us some additional color, and perhaps you already did, but, and I, I missed it, in terms of the guidance raise, how much of that was from the progress that you're seeing in single family and your, and your, and your progress there, and also then within repair and model? Similarly, you talk about the share gains. Is there a way to give us some order of dimension? Sounds like you're doing very well with Expert. How much of that is coming, again, from single family, from Builder versus, repair and model and, and that distribution channel?

And then, you know, questions that we've received today from investors, is it possible at all, recognizing it's an open mic conference call, to talk about where you think you're getting your share relative to other products that are in the market? Is it more coming from, you know, vinyl? Is it more coming from fiber or cement? Anything that you would have us take away from that.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Okay. So let's speak to the where's the growth coming from question first. And I would say if you, when you look at the, you know, wrong growth we got, I would put about, I mean, in general terms, George, about half of that growth and big-

George Staphos (Managing Director)

Hey, Brad, your phone is cutting out on our side. I don't know if you-

Brad Southern (CEO)

I'll switch to the speaker and see if that helps. Let me know if it does. So if you take the growth that we reported, about half of that I would attribute to single family new construction. Look, let me just back up. There's a little growth in there at shed and in retail. Okay, so but, but the meaningful growth is about half and half between single family new construction, and I would say about half of that is driven by the initiatives around the big builder focus that we have. And then the other for that would be repair and remodel, which is just, you know, transparent here, converting contractors and getting the siding installed on homes. You know, it's just that's a great initiative there.

But certainly, you know, we would not have had as good a quarter before casting, as good a Q3, if it wasn't for the success we're seeing in single family new construction or repair and remodel. The shed and retail has just been a nice little bump to have year-over-year. Where is it coming from? I would say it's coming from across the board. You know, there is still opportunities, particularly in repair and remodel, but certainly also in new construction as we compete against vinyl. And I would think most of the success in repair and remodel is probably against vinyl. On the single-family new construction side, then you get into some competitive hard sidings as well as vinyl as the competition.

So, you know, as we gain share there, you know, it's coming from someone, if it's not coming from growth with an existing, a big builder customer. But obviously, what we would be replacing would be either vinyl or a competitive hard siding. But there, there's still, you know, a lot of opportunity to go head-to-head against vinyl, with, you know, with our product being certainly an upgrade, perceived upgrade to vinyl, or being not perceived, actually, a upgrade to vinyl. And so we have competitive there because that's where the big market share is. So there's a lot of focus on, you know, on us, you know, making sure we have and can explain our, in a good way, the value proposition, you know, against vinyl, but also against other hard sidings.

George Staphos (Managing Director)

Just closing the loop, and I think I know the answer, but if basically you're getting half of the progress from single family and half from repair and remodel, would that also be the equivalent driver of the guidance raise within siding? And then separate, and I'll turn it over: can you remind us what's left to attack in OEE in terms of margin opportunity across the businesses? If trends are as you expect over the next year, and I recognize there are no guarantees in life, you know, what could that mean for your profit dollars, Alan, over the next year or two years? Thank you.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Well, I'll answer. Yes, yes, on the revised Q3 guidance is predicated on the strength we're seeing in the repair and remodel and single-family new construction order book, and there is still upside on OEE, and I'll challenge Alan to articulate that.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Since we've quoted EBITDA numbers that relate to percentage points increases in OEE, and I'm reluctant to do so today. The way to think about OEE is that what it can fundamentally allow us to do is meet thresholds in terms of shifts. And so, it's obviously more efficient when we're managing our capacity up or down, to be able to generate more, obviously, output without adding a shift, and/or we're lowering output to be able to take out a whole shift. OEE gives us that leverage. As you can imagine, I've discussed it before, it's leverage that we don't sort of use in the siding business, because the idea with the siding business is to try and maintain this sort of more consistent, stable, and growing workforce, as we grow volumes.

But it's the opportunities it gives us to operate the system with increased flexibility, and we make braver decisions a little earlier in terms of taking out capacity when we feel demand is not there. To my mind, that's the real benefit of OEE, and of course, that manifests itself in terms of increased operating performance. But I'm gonna refrain from reintroducing a pure EBITDA dollar against the percentage point of OEE.

Brad Southern (CEO)

George, I'll just add to that, you know, what's been remarkable about our OEE journey to me is, as we—you know, we're way ahead of where we thought we would be five years ago, but we still see opportunity for improvement as, you know. And so it's kind of probably will be a never-ending journey of finding ways to be more efficient and more productive. And of course, CapEx helps that. It could actually, you know, increase the baseline. And then when we launch a new product, like Brushed Smooth Siding, there's all kind of OEE opportunity there as we learn to make the product more efficiently.

So we're on a never-ending, never-ending, continuous journey on OEE, and I feel like we'll be talking about that 10 years from now, and still see plenty of opportunity. That's kind of the beauty of, you know, of the industry and the way that our machines work at the facilities.

George Staphos (Managing Director)

To some degree, it's the beauty of growth. But, anyway, thank you, guys. I'll turn it over.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Amen. Yeah. Yeah.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. One moment for the next question. Our next question will be coming from the line of Susan Maklari of Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. I wanted to start with digging a little bit more into the R&R side of things. Can you just give some perspective on what you're hearing around the consumer and sell-out trends on the ground? And what level of sell-out do you think the channel's positioned for in the back half, given the inventories that they're carrying?

Brad Southern (CEO)

Okay. Well, I think the channel is adequately stocked for the second half for any reasonable demand expectation on repair and remodel. So I have, I have no concerns about ability to serve, and I don't have concerns about there being any kind of overstocking in repair and remodel. These one-step distributors are experts in managing inventory in that channel. Look, I think that I, I do believe demand is dampened for, you know, siding. A siding remodel is a big-ticket expense, many times financed. And so, you know, with interest rates where they are, with the economic uncertainty that's out there, there is, I think, R&R spend for re-side is constrained.

So I'm really proud of the fact that we're seeing the growth that we are seeing, because that has to mean, and if I'm, if that hypothesis is true, that that's market share gain. But, you know, with interest rate reductions, if that happens, if we get through, you know, as Alan and Aaron and I were talking about this morning, a soft landing or quasi soft landing, the pent-up demand around potential siding re-side projects could be pretty significant.

So I think we're in a really good position to have our product commercialized, building credibility around the offering, expanding geographically our access to market through picking up some really high quality distribution to where we're—when we see repair and remodel spend come back and financing loosen up a little bit so that a homeowner can, you know, afford to do a big ticket remodel on siding, we're gonna be in a really good position.

And that's why we're so, you know, encouraged about the future for our siding business is, repair and remodel just is, we're so underpenetrated, from a market share standpoint, if we, you know, if we continue to be able to gain market share while the market also gets stronger, that sets us up for, you know, some really good growth over the next several years.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, that's very helpful. And then you did see a bit of a raw material tailwind this quarter. Can you talk about the outlook from that perspective and how we should think about that flowing through over the next couple of quarters?

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Yeah, I think it may be a little, maybe it may not be quite as positive as it has been in Q2 for the remainder of the year, but we still expect a raw material tailwind.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Primarily, resins and logs. So, we're optimistic.

Susan Maklari (Senior Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. All right. Thank you for the color, both, and good luck with everything.

Alan Haughie (CFO)

Thank you.

Brad Southern (CEO)

Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That does conclude today's Q&A session. I would like to turn the call back over to Aaron for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Aaron Howald (VP of Investor Relations)

Okay, thank you, operator. With one round of questions, we're going to call those there and give everybody a couple of minutes back in their day. Stay safe, and we'll look forward to connecting with you. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you, everyone, for joining today's conference call. You may disconnect.