Hayward Holdings, Inc. (HAYW) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] Eifion Jones, CFO; and Stuart Baker in Strategy. So gentlemen, thank you very much for being here. Just want to say that I'll be direct in the Q&A on the fireside chat. But Kevin and Eifion will have 3 slides, and I'll hand off to them in a second. [Operator Instructions] So with that said, Kevin, over to you. Thanks very much.

Great. Thanks, Nigel. It's good to be with you this morning. As you said, we just have a couple of slides that will give an overview of what's driving our growth, and I hope this gives a good backdrop for the discussion that follows. Next slide, please. I want to start off by saying Hayward is a pure play in the pool space with over 95% of our business stemming from residential and commercial pools. The top left, we're highlighting several macroeconomic trends that are favorable to investment in outdoor living and pools specifically. Deurbanization, migration to warmer climates, hybrid work arrangements are driving interest in home investment. This interest is expected to remain elevated with employment, wages and home equity high. While new construction has ticked up the last couple of years, we're still only now approaching the 35-year median of 110,000 in-ground pools in the U.S. And the installed base is aging and now being north of 22 years, resulting in the need for increased remodel and upgrade activity. Moving to the right. Competitively, Hayward is very well positioned to continue our growth. We have an incredibly strong and trusted brand with a huge installed base from our complete product line for all pool types. Second, we have a large group of partners ranging from builders and services work in the backyard each day to channel partners, such as distributors, retailers, e-sellers and authorized service centers, helping us sell and service our equipment. Third is our operational excellence. We're vertically integrated and manufacturing automated factories in market. We can continue tapping into available capacity with modest CapEx investment. And finally, is our product innovation. We have clear leadership in many product categories and protect our interest with a large portfolio of IP. Products are our lifeblood, and we resource accordingly. In the bottom left, I want to highlight a few conversions occurring in our industry. The first is digital conversion from control -- with controls and automation replacing manual time clocks on the pool pad. Second is the movement to more natural forms of water treatment and sanitization, salt clearing generators and UVOs on products are becoming more familiar and popular. Finally, conversion to more energy-efficient products like variable speed pumps and color LED lights. What's interesting is the much higher take rate for these products when building new versus the installed base. The aftermarket will continue to be driven by these higher mix conversions as folks upgrade and remodel their pools. Finally, in the lower right, you can see how these conversions are playing out in Hayward's year-to-date numbers through 3 quarters shown. Our core products defined as products necessary to operate any pool, things like pumps, filters, cleaners are growing at a 60% clip. In most times, that would be the headline, but this pales to the mix upgrade seen with lifestyle products as defined by products that extend the pool season or products that improve the swim experience or overall ambience of the backyard. This includes controls, natural water, sanitizers, LED lights, water features and heaters. These products are growing at over 100% year-over-year. When you overlay the 2, it results in 71% growth far outpacing market growth. This illustrates the leadership of our offering and the share gains we've captured. On the next slide, I want to point out that we remain committed to the importance of ESG, to our stakeholders and our business and are driven by our core values. We'll be publishing our first ESG report in early 2022. We've continued to focus on the energy efficiency capabilities of our products and throughout our operations, for which we've been awarded the 2021 Energy Star Award for Excellence in Product Design. We strive to promote a diverse, safe and inclusive workplace, and we pride ourselves on a strong company culture and recently completed our global employee engagement review. We've improved the diversity and independence of our Board with 2 new members as well as the diversity of our executive team and management team at the VP level and above. We have more work to be done but feel really good about the improvements we've made since becoming a public company. Lastly, our commitment to community remains a priority. And we recently became a platinum sponsor of the Step Into Swim charity organized by the Pool & Hot Tub Association. The association uses its resources to provide swimming lessons and access to pools to underprivileged children who wouldn't normally have these opportunities. The charity's mission is to create 1 million more swimmers. And at Hayward, we're excited to be part of realizing that goal. We look forward to enhancing our approach to ESG and to engaging our stakeholders to define Hayward's most material ESG topics. With that, I'll ask Eifion to walk through the final slide. Thanks.

Thanks, Kevin. Good morning. The updated financial outlook includes net sales growth now projected to be 59% to 62% year upon year. This compare to our prior guidance range of 54% to 58%. We've reaffirmed our adjusted EBITDA outlook to $405 million to $425 million, which is up 75% to 84% year-over-year. Again, this is unchanged since our prior guidance. This outlook reflects very strong year-to-date results. And with the backlog at the level it is, it includes increased visibility now into 2022. Clearly, the inflation environment is higher than expected. Our guidance does take into consideration the recent inflation dynamics, both in terms of material inflation as well as labor and logistics. We do continue to see a broad-based level of strength across both our products and new technology adoption. Vitality index, which is our measurement of new products introduced, has increased by 60% year-over-year from below 10% now to just above 15% of all products sold on new products. Our trade customer backlog, so those are the backlogs of builders and services, they also continue to be very healthy and extend well into 2022. So with that, I'll turn the conversation back to Nigel to move to Q&A.

Great. Thanks, Eifion. Thanks, Kevin. That was a good way to lay the table. We've got one question in the queue, so feel free to add some more as we go along. I just want to kind of ask a very high-level question before we get into some of the more specifics. But Hayward has gone from a family-owned business 5 years ago to a PE portfolio company and then rapidly into a public company. I'm just curious, in a very general sense, what's -- what are the key changes that have happened to the organization over that time frame? And what changes are coming underway? You've talked about, obviously, the ESG and the Board governance. But I'm curious, at the organizational level, what's changed?

Yes, it's a great question. I think that there's -- I, of course, wasn't around during the family. I was brought in under private equity. But things that I saw, and we really look to continue is that customer service mindset. It exists. We continue to emphasize that, knowing that nothing good happens until someone buys our product. And we're really, really strong operationally and technically from a product development standpoint and from a manufacturing standpoint. What I've really focused on, Nigel, in my 2-plus years is really the top line. Continuing to identify what those product innovations are that we feel will really pave the way for industry and our future growth as well as working on some channel enhancement initiatives. There's 4 different means to the market, all critically important in our eyes. We've created some specialization in our sales and marketing efforts. And I think that, that's really shown great dividends here during the pandemic over the last 18 months or so. Eifion came in about 7 months after I did, so why don't I ask him to maybe just touch on some of his observations?

Yes. Thanks, Kevin. I would say outside of the top line, we focused on the quality of the income statement, both at the gross margin level and an adjusted EBITDA margin level. We've done quite a bit of rightsizing of the organization over the last 3 years. We've closed 2 manufacturing sites and amalgamated that product lines -- or those production lines, I should say, into other Haywood facilities. We've also tuned up the SG&A base to support the focus that Kevin was suggesting on the top line and new product introduction. I'd say outside of the quality of the income statement, we've then turned our attention to cash flow conversion, which includes looking at the discipline across the balance sheet. We had a large use of working -- sorry, we had a large source of working capital last year. We expect to have only a modest use of capital on inside working capital this year. And that free cash flow generation really has enabled us to delever the organization very rapidly. We're now down below 2x leverage at the end of Q3, which gives us, as a management team, that optionality to deploy capital both organically, inorganically and then progressively to shareholders. So we're really pleased with the outcome of both the margin structure and the income statement as well as the cash flow generation and the discipline on the balance sheet that we've been able to bring as an exec team here over the last 2 years.

No question. No, absolutely no question about that. So let's address the top du jour, the subject on everyone's lips, supply chain inflation. I think it's fair to say that Haywood's coped with these pressures as good as, if not better than most of your competitors. But -- so just curious in terms of real time, what you're seeing today. I mean do you think we've seen the worst of it? Or are we currently going through that kind of the trough of this? How do you see the supply chain pressures evolving going forward?

Kevin, you're on mute.

Sorry. Nigel, I wouldn't say we've seen much retreat, yes, as evidenced by the fact that we recently announced another price increase, which takes effect in January. With each announcement we've made through 2021 and now into early 2022, it was based upon inflationary pressures that we were feeling at the time. That said, we would expect things to more normalize at some point in 2022. But we're not ready to say when or at what rate that, that's going to start to abate. So what's great is this industry has the ability to pass price through the channel and out into the end market. That's been shown in this environment -- in this unprecedented environment. From a supply chain standpoint, we continue to see some shortages, whether it's around resins or on some metals, some specialty metals, for that matter, electrical components. And as 60 Minutes documented last night on port congestion, it's very real, and it's very expensive right now to secure ocean containers. So no, I don't think that we're through the woods yet, but I think that we've acted very responsibly, very measured in our announced pricing increase out into the marketplace.

Since you mentioned price, Kevin, it's probably not a bad time to maybe take the question here from the audience. Do you think that the pricing actions you've taken should turn positive in 2022, i.e. do we start to become positive on margin? Do we -- is the price increase you've announced enough to lead to an expansion in EBITDA margins?

Yes. As I just highlighted, this slide, I didn't mention it was our third announcement. One back in March, which took effect in May, one in the third quarter, and then this one takes effect in January. We saw some price. It didn't necessarily bolster margins in Q3. But as we now start reaching into the order file and start building and filling orders that have realized 1 or 2 of those price increases, we'll continue to see more price. That said, from a material standpoint, we have some overhang on our balance sheet on material that was procured in Q3 that hasn't worked its way yet through our cost of goods. So there is still some pressure on the material or on the cost of goods side, but a lot more price is going to start flowing through in Q4 and beyond. Anything to add to that, Eifion?

I do think it will be a little lumpy here as we go through Q4 into Q1. Our pricing actions are structured to get back to that positive price/cost position. But if inflation continues, which it did in October, then we'll have to reevaluate the situation. But the ambition, Nigel, certainly, is our pricing actions that we've taken year-to-date do get us back into a price cost positive position next year. And the expectation is that adjusted EBITDA margin start to open up next year, back to where we believe they should be. But again, nobody has a magic crystal ball at this time and inflation continues to surprise, but we're handling it. And I think, as Kevin suggested, the industry has been very adept at pricing through, and consumers are willing to pay for the products at this current time. We thought about this before. Pool equipment and new construction only represents about 10% of the overall installed cost. So it's not the major driver of the consumers' decision to put in the pool. And in the aftermarket, it tends to be nondiscretionary because the cost of not maintaining is significantly more than purchasing that replacement item. What we have seen is a major investment into upgrades and remodels. And that has been despite the inflationary pass-through through price in the marketplace. So we're encouraged that despite the inflationary environment, there's very strong demand, which continues to drive the top line. And margins will catch up. That's a certainty, but it will be a little bit lumpy over the next 2 quarters.

Sure. So I think you had 7% price realized last quarter. You've got a full quarter of the 3Q price increase rolling through into 4Q. You've got another price increase hitting. How should we think about setting up our models for next year in terms of price contribution? Do you think it'll be above the 7% in 2022?

I do, Nigel, yes. If you think about the pricing actions that we've taken year-to-date, they aggregate to about 11.5% for the first 2. Most of our pricing came through in quarter 4. So we've got like 1/3 -- sorry, 1 quarter benefit this year, and we'll carry forward the balance into next year. And so that simple math would say it will be higher than 7% year-over-year, just with the pricing actions that we've taken thus far. And then as Kevin mentioned, there's another price action that's coming into play in January. That's collectively 8%, 4% price action, 4% surcharge. We do recognize that some of the freight environment is most probably transitory. And maybe that surcharge is relieved or taken back once the freight environment normalizes. But when you think about the 4% plus 4%, plus the 11.5% that -- good 2/3 of that will carry into next year as year-over-year growth. Very quickly there, you can do the math to say a price tailwind will be higher than 7% year-over-year.

Okay. That's great. So moving on to the growth outlook. You alluded that customer backlogs continue to support healthy demand. But you're coming off a 60% growth year, which is extraordinary by any stretch of imagination. How do you get comfortable? And how should we get comfortable, more importantly, on how the demand outlook is shaping up for next year and maybe beyond that?

Yes. I mean, certainly, the comps are getting increasingly difficult after nearly 20% growth in 2020 and, call it, 60% this year. When you look at the components of it, though, I think it will continue to add to a growth story in 2022. We just touched on price, so I won't rehash that, but there's a lot of price flowing through in 2022. Add to that new construction. I'll start there. PK data kind of called from 2020 to 2025 growth of 7.8%, so just shy of 8%. We'll realize kind of 20% -- high teens to 20% in the first 2 years of that CAGR period there. So -- and again, the fact that we're still only at a 35-year median when we know that there is much greater demand for new pool construction than is able to be fulfilled right now in conversations with our Totally Hayward builders, we're confident that 2022 has further growth in the, call it, 110,000, 115,000 where we expect to land here in 2021. But really, what's going to continue fueling this is the aftermarket. There is some pent-up demand around remodels. With each remodel, last time they were in the market was 15 or 20 years ago. There's a whole new complement of equipment to put on their pad, things that didn't exist back then, things that give them more functionality, more control of the overall experience. And people are plusing up the content each time they're remodeling and upgrading their pools. So you saw on my first slide, this difference between the installed base and what people are opting for with new construction. That's going to continue to play out in a richer mix of content through the upgrading and through the remodeling activity. So you put all that in the soup. And while we're not giving guidance yet for 2022, we are very confident that 2022 will be another growth year for us and for the industry.

So even when we take out the price contribution from next year, do you still think that the volume units would actually increase as well?

I think that both new construction will plus up, and I think aftermarket has growth in it. So yes.

Okay. Market share has clearly been a factor in your growth. I mean just from the numbers we look at, it looks like maybe 15 points above market, at least in 2021. Can you maybe just recap on some of the market share drivers? And maybe can you touch on some of the contract conversions that you've managed to achieve as a driver of that?

Yes. I think the share gains have been well earned by the team, and I think it really comes from 3 different factors. I think, firstly, would be some great new product launches, some things that took product leadership positions and reemphasized that from a Hayward perspective. I can touch on some of those if there's a follow-up. I think, secondly, would be around our channel efforts. As I mentioned earlier, there are 4 channels to the market. We have unique strategies for each of those, whether it's distribution, which is the largest and frankly, most important, but complementing that is e-commerce. There is some dealer direct selling to some buying groups as well as the large retailers out there, namely, Wesley's. We sell through all of them, and they've all grown nicely for us. And then certainly we can't ignore the fact that I think we managed the supply chain and the production ramp better than most. And by us being able to get after the backlog, I think it kind of built on itself that people were looking to do business with those who could satisfy the orders. So on that -- I think the latter part of your question, Nigel, with some of the dealer conversions, that's been a great story. And I think that that's something that's going to have multiple years' return on it. This Totally Hayward program is our loyalty program. It's been in existence for roughly 2 decades. And it's grown to a nice complement of dealers, loyal dealers in the backyard, servicers and builders advocating Hayward product. That population has grown nearly 17% in 9 months this year. So it's kind of a mind-blowing number when you consider the fact they got to X over 20 years, and it's grown 17% in less than a year. So I think it really does speak to the product plan that we have as well as our ability to manage our factories and our distribution capabilities to fulfill market demand.

Just touching on the 17% growth rate because it is extraordinary. To what extent do you think this is really booked in the sales force, incentivized in the sales force to add dealers? And how much do you think is -- because you're able to handle this ramp-up better than some and therefore, you have product when others didn't, I mean how would you characterize those 2 forces?

Yes. I think it's a question worth asking, Nigel. I think that some of the specialization around some business development resources has certainly helped. People getting up every day with clarity certainly drives behavior and results. But make no mistake, we gave them something to sell. We've given them a great product line, and we've enabled them and empowered them to have some new products out there that clearly illustrate leadership. As for that opportunistic pickup because we could supply, there are some minimal requirements to become a Totally Hayward dealer. And if this was the result of someone being in a pinch and needing 3 variable speed pumps, we wouldn't go through -- they wouldn't go through the process. We wouldn't go through the process for that. So there's a deeper level, both time commitment and future business commitment to each other that I think would have washed out long before we got across the finish line with those 17% that have kind of come under the Hayward tent over the last 9 months.

Okay. So a question that we get is, okay, we recognize the share gains, but how sticky will that share gain be? And to what extent could that be given back once these supply chain pressures normalize? It sounds to me like you're fairly confident these share gains are sticky.

We're very -- yes, we're very confident in -- I mean, not only in continuing to hold on to the share gains that we've realized, but I mean we're not spiking the football, Nigel. We're expected -- this leadership team is expected to execute beyond market growth in the future. So the only way you do that is you hold on to what you've already got and you continue outpacing the market through, again, those 3 pillars: product development, channel initiatives and continuing to ramp production and be able to work hand in glove with our supply partners.

Kevin, you mentioned product vitality and new product introductions as a key driver. Maybe just recap in terms of where the focus has been. Perhaps, I don't know, sprinkling some investment color as well. And how does that look going into 2022, 2023? I'd be curious to what degree that vitality is being focused in international markets.

Yes. So vitality is one of the -- is a KPI that we keep very close tabs on and measure ourselves against. It's grown nicely year-over-year. It's been a meaningful jump for us. I don't think I'll quote that publicly right now, but it's exceeding our expectations. In terms of development, we kind of target about 2% of sales. We think that, that will probably start -- we'll want to push that upwards going forward, particularly as we continue to underscore the need around connectivity and automation and sustainable solutions into the marketplace. So we'll continue to keep after that, not just spending money for spending's sake but to make sure that it's materializing and manifesting itself into market-leading products. As for the spread between sort of North America and Europe, Rest of World, we do try and share platforms. Any investor, I would expect us to be able to leverage common design however we can. But obviously, there are some nuanced differences between what's consumed in North America and Europe, Rest of World. So we have design resources in both regions. We have manufacturing in both regions, and we'll continue to place emphasis on what the unique market demands are. As you know, we're kind of underpunching our weight in some international markets. So in addition to product development, we need to develop some scale there and continue with our channel initiatives to become a greater share of those international markets where we're sort of high single digits to maybe 10% share, significantly lower than what we enjoy in the North American markets.

I do want to address capital allocation and perhaps some of the M&A options you have, especially in international markets. But I did want to just discuss the margin dynamics, Eifion. And I remember, at the time of the IPO, 30% EBITDA margins seems a target out there. You got there pretty quickly in the first half of the year, and we've seen some sequential moderation from there. I'm just wondering what is the pathway back to that 30% level, recognizing obviously that the inflation environment's very dynamic, but just wondering how you're thinking about that.

Yes. So we do expect to get back to a 30% adjusted EBITDA. That's a consequence of a couple of things, not least the price/cost dynamic moving to positive in 2022 as inflation abates and our pricing catches up through the backlog. Outside of that, look, we continue to drive new products into the marketplace. That has been a very important factor stepping up '21 over '22 -- sorry, 2021 over 2020. That -- Kevin didn't quote the exact number. But it's been a meaningful increase in the amount of new products that have been put into the marketplace during this fiscal year. As you saw from the earlier slide, we've seen growth in key lifestyle categories, up 100% year-over-year, and those products typically come with higher price attachment and higher margins. So our margin development will continue to grow as we continue to bring good-quality products into the marketplace, which have a great win-win attribute. And when you think about our salt chlorination systems, they provide very rapid payback to a consumer in lieu with them having to spend money on chemical chlorine. High energy efficiency variable speed pumps, they come with very rapid paybacks, particularly in some bulk regions, 2-year paybacks on those products. So good, well-informed products are going to be the key to our margin success as well as great discipline across the income statement. And we are very thoughtful in the investments we make into the income statement, both at the manufacturing level and at the SG&A level. The consequence of that is going to be continued leverage across our manufacturing and SG&A base. So price/cost continue driving well-informed products, which have higher margins and then continued leverage, will all result in us achieving our ambition of greater than 30% adjusted EBITDA on a consistent basis.

I've got 2 more questions. One, on the smart home side of the story and, in particular, Omni app and how that's changing the relationship with the customer and the selling process and to what extent has that changed to mobile pull as opposed to push kind of sales. So just curious, any metrics you're tracking there you can share with us?

Yes. I'm not sure I would yet say we've crossed the threshold to where it's becoming a pull. But as Omni controls and SmartPad, in general, becomes more popular, I do believe that, that will continue to create a user experience and a stickiness that's going to have great benefits for us going forward. We highly value our market-leading position. The reviews are just great in terms of interface and just ease of use. And the fact that people are interacting multiple times per week launching the Hayward Omni app continues to drive equity there. Obviously, a full pad of Hayward equipment works best with the Hayward products. So I do think that, as future generations are developed, it's going to continue. I can see the day where homeowners are actually picking a servicer or asking a servicer if they will put Hayward product on the pad to replace with Hayward product when something breaks because of just the ease of use through the Omni app. So great reviews, and I believe automation and controls will ultimately determine winners and losers in our space, and we're resourcing accordingly there, Nigel.

Fantastic. And then a good place to finish off will be on capital allocation. The balance is in great shape. I know you've been building a pipeline of opportunities. So just curious on any thoughts there.

Yes. We are very pleased with the way we've been able to delever the balance sheet. We're not surprised, but we are pleased, obviously. And now we're trading below 2x our net leverage at the end of Q3. Look, our priorities remain, Nigel, to grow the business both organically and inorganically. We've laid out several key projects with inside the company to progressively automate our manufacturing facilities as well as making some select IT-based investments. M&A is a clear focus for us. We have a healthy pipeline of opportunities ranging across the broad 3 theses that we look at, which is the full white space on the pad, geo diversification and then in and around the backyard as we can leverage our technology platforms to access the broader backyard. And so we remain focused on those 2 areas. Provided we can satisfy those 2 areas of growth, then we've always said we'll return capital to shareholder. And we're beginning to develop thoughts around that. And as we come forward with the policy, we'll be sure to let you know. But those remain our priorities.

Great. Well, we're slightly over our time limit here. So let's stop there. Kevin, Eifion and Stuart, thank you very much for your time. Good luck. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Nigel. Always good to be with you. Thank you.

Bye.

Thanks. Bye-bye.