Q3 2022 Simpson Manufacturing Co Inc Earnings Call
Greetings and welcome to the Simpson manufacturing company third quarter 2022 earnings Conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode.
A question and answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance. During the conference. Please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded it is now my pleasure to introduce your host Kim Orlando with Arrow Auto Investor Relations. Thank you Ken you may begin.
Okay.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Simpson manufacturing company's third quarter 2022 earnings Conference call.
Any statements made on this call that are not statements of historical facts are forward looking statements such statements are based on certain estimates and expectations and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties.
Actual future results may vary materially from those expressed or implied by the forward looking statements.
We encourage you to read the risks described in the company's public filings and reports, which are available on the SEC's or the company's corporate website.
Except to the extent required by applicable securities laws, we undertake no obligation to update or publicly revise any of the forward looking statements that we make here today, whether as a result of new information future events or otherwise.
Please note that the company's earnings press release was issued today at approximately 415 P M Eastern time.
The earnings press release is available on the Investor Relations page of the company's website at IR, but since then I'm F G Dot com.
Today's call is being webcast and a replay will also be available on the Investor Relations page of the company's website.
Now I would like to turn the conference over to Karen Colonias, Simpson's Chief Executive Officer.
Thanks, Kim and good afternoon, everyone and thank you for your participation on today's call.
I'm joined today by Brian Maxed out our Chief Financial Officer.
Before I begin I want to comment on our announcement last month regarding Simpson succession plan.
After much consideration I've decided to step down as the Chief Executive Officer at the end of this year after 38 amazing years with the company.
I'm thrilled that Mike Alaska will be succeeding me as Simpson CEO effective January 1st.
As a result of a strategic succession plan with our board of directors.
Mike has been directly involved with helping lead Simpson through its next phase of growth since joining the company in 'twenty 'twenty and has done a tremendous job.
It's been a great pleasure to work alongside him and I'm confident that Simpson employees.
Customers and stockholders will be in great hands.
To assist with the transition of my responsibilities over to Mike I will assume the role of executive adviser until my retirement on June 30th 2023, and will remain on the board until the 2023 annual meeting of stockholders.
I'm honored to have led Simpson as its CEO over the past decade, and I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to have helped strengthen our values based culture and value proposition to our customers over the years.
I'd also like to take a moment to recognize all of those who were impacted by hurricane in last month.
And to send our deepest condolences to those who have suffered personal losses from this tragic event.
It is an unfortunate events like these that have inspired Simpsons mission to provide solutions that help people design and build a safer stronger structures.
As he affected communities recover and rebuild we hope to be at the forefront to provide support at the local level as well as to identify product development opportunities to improve building performance.
I'll detail more of our involvement in these areas later on in the call.
Well hurricane impacted certain of our operations in Florida during the third quarter I'm pleased to report that none of our employees were injured in the storm and our facilities did not sustain any damage.
I'll now turn to an overview of our third quarter financial results as well as on updating you on our capital allocation priorities and key growth initiatives. Bryan will then walk you through our financials and updated fiscal 2022 business outlook in a greater detail.
Solid operational execution against our strategic plan during the third quarter led to continued strong financial results. Despite the challenging macroeconomic background.
Net sales of $553 $7 million increased 39, 6% year over year.
Primarily driven by product price increases that we implemented throughout 2021 to offset rising raw material costs.
As well as our acquisition of the Taco, which contributed $67.5 million to our top line.
Volume in North America was up over the prior year quarter and was mixed across our distribution channels.
Volume in our home Center channel, which includes both our home center and co op customers and is where we see much of a repair remodel and DIY business increased over the prior year quarter, which as you may recall was impacted by a re leveling of inventory by our customers.
Volumes from our contractor distributor customers were down slightly as a result of softer housing starts which was offset by improving volumes from our dealer distributors.
Overall volumes in Europe benefited from the addition of the Taco, which was offset by significantly lower volume in our other European operations as well as product price increases in response to rising raw material costs, resulting from uncertain macroeconomic climate, coupled with the negative effect.
From a strengthening U S dollar.
In Europe third quarter sales totaled 100.
And $11.9 million up 104, 1% year over year.
While the environment in Europe remains challenging as of today, we still believe we are able to secure energy that we need to run our operations, although at a higher cost.
Since acquiring at Taco on April 1st the integration of its operations and employees has been progressing well and on track with our internal plan.
To facilitate the process, we developed a project management office comprised of key executives from both Simpson anatomical.
Also paramount to our success has been blending of the highly complementary corporate cultures of both companies.
We believe we remain well positioned to capture meaningful benefits from our previously identified synergies in the years ahead.
Subject to changing macroeconomic circumstances, which we expect will delay some of our synergy opportunities Arkansas.
Our consolidated gross margin for the third quarter was 44, 2% compared to 49, 9% in the prior year period.
At Taco contributed $19 4 million to our gross profit on its $67.5 million of sales.
Net of $2 9 million in purchase accounting adjustments, which reduced our third quarter gross margin by approximately 210 basis points.
Compared to the prior year quarter and before considering the addition of the Taco our gross margin declined as expected as our average raw material costs caught up with the price increases we enacted and also partly due to higher factory overhead and labor costs.
Brian will further elaborate on the key drivers of our performance as well as our margin expectations for the remainder of the year.
I'll now turn to our capital allocation priorities, which are primarily focused on organic growth opportunities, while simultaneously returning value to our stockholders through quarterly dividends and selected an opportunistic repurchases of our stock.
Our capital return target remains 35% of free cash flow, which will enable us the flexibility to repay the debt we incurred to finance the acquisition of the Taco.
Well the integration of a chocolate remains our priority. We are also continuing to evaluate potential M&A opportunities.
That would align with our value propositions for the markets in which we operate.
Especially in areas that support our key growth initiatives.
Yeah.
In regard to organic growth, we are prioritizing facility expansion to ensure we have ample capacity to meet our customer needs as well as to improve our service.
Production efficiency and safety in the workplace, while reducing our reliance on certain outsourced finished goods and component products.
We are progressing forward with the expansion of our Ohio manufacturing and distribution facility and are continuing to review our footprint for other expansion opportunities to continue to deliver best in class customer service.
Other key investments into the business will be in the areas of engineering marketing and sales personnel and testing capabilities across the company to strengthen our business model Differentiators and shall remain the partner of choice.
I'd now like to turn to a discussion on our five end use markets residential commercial OEM national retail and building technology.
Which encompass our key growth initiatives.
We made solid traction throughout the third quarter in a challenging economic environment.
Beginning with the residential market.
As I alluded to at the beginning with adverse weather events like Hurricane and we have been involved in efforts to increase awareness of the importance of building resilience, including building beyond building code standards to achieve higher levels of structural integrity.
We conducted extensive training both in person and virtually to educated engineers homeowners and communities about safe building practices and are involved with many local and regional disaster preparedness organizations as well as FEMA to assist with toast disaster building.
Assessments.
We were pleased to be in the position to assist with recovery efforts following hurricane and tell those communities build back stronger.
In the OEM space.
We made more headway on our mass timber initiatives, our strategy of training and educating engineers and contractors has resulted in more specifications on new jobs and has led us to broaden our mass timber product line to appeal to customers in both the United States and Europe .
For instance, we were specified on mass timber jobs during the third quarter, including for a manufacturer in Austria as well as for the construction of a project near Seattle, Washington.
[noise] within National retail space, we've been focused on innovations to best service, the R&R and DIY market segment and to be the partner of choice for our customers two elements such as E Commerce technology.
Associate training display innovations and cross merchandising programs.
We're continuing to invest in our retail sales team to expand and build relationships at all levels.
In building technology, we've focused on creating solutions to help make our customers more efficient.
We updated our online customer portal during the quarter to enable online ordering for configurable product versus traditional more time consuming from older methods.
Further we were pleased to have been selected by a regional building supply company in the southeastern region of the United States.
To provide their customers and sales associates with the ability to design deaths per gloves and sensors using Simpson for outdoor living solutions software platform, where customers can obtain a complete bill of materials for the purchase at the local store.
Lastly, our technology platform was adopted by a highly regarded regional builder during the quarter to help them automate workflows options automatic pricing management for broad changes and to transition away from inefficient paper processes.
Yeah.
As we have mentioned in the past, we anticipate our structural steel initiative will take longer than the other initiatives as we continue to build the market as part of our progress on this front, we held a customer demo day during the quarter at our Stockton facility centered on this particular initiatives.
This educational event, we hosted various industry professionals ranging from design engineers to steel fabricators, along with Simpson employees from around the country to educate them on our highly engineered and tested structural steel product solutions aimed at converting traditional wealth connections to bolted connections to them.
Productivity.
In summary, we are extremely pleased with our strong third quarter financial results and continued execution on our strategic plan to.
Despite factors such as rising interest rates inflation labor and supply chain constraints that continue to impact the industry.
I believe the company is well positioned to grow and thrive in the years ahead, given the strength of our people culture, and our values as well as our diversified portfolio of solutions for our customers.
I am confident we can continue our above market growth relative to U S housing starts in fiscal 2022 and that we can achieve our 2025 company ambition, even when considering softer market forecast for housing.
The integration of the Taco is going well and we remain focused on investing in our footprint to support future growth and adherence to our superior customer service standards.
Now I'd like to turn the call over to Brian who will discuss our third quarter financial results and our revised 2022 outlook in greater detail.
Thank you Karen and good afternoon, everyone I'm pleased to discuss our third quarter financial results with you today.
Before I begin I'd like to congratulate Karen on her upcoming retirement as well as Mike on his well deserved promotion to CEO .
It's been a true honor to work alongside tariff for the past 16 years and learned from her basket level of knowledge and experience having worn many different couch Simpson I wish you all the best in your retirement.
Now turning to our third quarter results.
Unless otherwise stated all financial measures discussed in my prepared remarks today refer to the third quarter of 2022 and.
And include the results of the acquisition of the Taco on April one 2022 and.
And all comparisons will be year over year comparisons versus the third quarter of 2021.
Our third quarter consolidated net sales increased 39, 6% to $553 $7 million.
Within the North America segment, net sales increased 29, 3% to $437 $8 million, primarily due to the price increases we implemented last year, along with higher sales volumes.
In Europe , net sales increased 104.1% to $111 $9 million, primarily from a taco, which contributed $67 $5 million in net sales and to a lesser extent price increases intended to offset higher material costs abroad.
Europe's volumes without at Taco were down compared to the prior year quarter.
In addition, Europe's sales were negatively affected by $7 $9 million and foreign currency translation related to Europe's currencies weakening against the United States dollar.
Wood construction products represented 86% of our total third quarter sales.
Up slightly from 85% and concrete construction products were 14% of total sales down from 15%.
Yeah.
Consolidated gross profit increased 23, 5% to $244 $5 million, which resulted in a gross margin of 44, 2% compared to compared to 49, 9%.
On a segment basis, our gross margin in North America decreased to 47, 5% compared to 52, 1%, primarily due to higher raw material factory and overhead and labor costs, each as a percentage of net sales.
Which were partially offset by the product price increases we implemented in 2020 one.
Our gross profit dollars in Europe totaled $35.2 million and included $19 $4 million from a taco.
Which is net of a $2 $9 million nonrecurring fair value adjustment for inventory costs as a result of purchase accounting.
This adjustment was a significant factor as to why gross margins declined in Europe to 31, 5% from 37, 7%.
From a product perspective, our third quarter gross margin on wood products was 44, 2% compared to 52% in the prior year quarter.
It was 43, 8% for concrete products compared to 44, 6% in the prior year quarter.
Now turning to our third quarter costs and operating expenses.
Total operating expenses were $119 $9 million, an increase of $22 $5 million or approximately 23, 1%.
Operating expenses included $15 $7 million attributable to a taco and $1 $9 million for integration costs also related to a taco.
As a percentage of net sales total operating expenses were 21, 7% an improvement of approximately 290 basis points compared to 24, 6%.
Our third quarter research and development and engineering expenses increased 17, 3% to $17 $1 million, primarily due to personnel costs.
Selling expenses increased 21, 3% to $42 $5 million.
Primarily due to $5 $6 million from the Taco as well as personnel and travel related expenses.
On a segment basis selling expenses in North America were up 10, 1% and in Europe . They were up 79, 3%.
General and administrative expenses.
Increased 26, 2% to $68 $3 million.
Primarily due to $9 $6 million from a taco.
Which includes $4 $2 million in amortization of the acquired intangible assets.
As well as personnel travel and professional fees for the company overall.
So as a result, our consolidated income from operations totaled $122 $8 million, an increase of 22, 1% from $106 million due to higher consolidated gross profit.
Partly offset by higher operating expenses in.
In North America income from operations increased 27% to $127 $3 million, primarily due to higher gross profit given the operating expenses were essentially flat in.
In Europe income from operations decreased 18, 2% to $6 $1 million, which includes a tacos operating income of $1.8 million.
Net of the $2 $9 million.
<unk> fair value inventory adjustment I noted earlier as well as the aforementioned $4 $2 million of amortization expense on acquired intangible assets.
And $1 9 million in integration costs for a total of $9 million.
As we continue to integrate a taco into our European operations, we expect to incur additional costs in 2022 and 2023.
Please note that the purchase accounting adjustments are preliminary and subject to change as we finalize our purchase accounting through the remainder of 2022.
On a consolidated basis, our operating income margin was 22, 2% a decrease of approximately 320 basis points from 25, 4%.
I'll discuss our updated operating margin outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2022 shortly.
Our effective tax rate decreased to 25, 3% from 26, 1%.
Accordingly, net income totaled $88 $2 million or $2.06 per fully diluted share compared to $73 $8 million or.
Dollars 70 per fully diluted share.
Now turning to our balance sheet and cash flows.
Our balance sheet remains healthy.
September 30th 2022, cash and cash equivalents totaled $309 $3 million up $63 $1 million from our balance as of June 30th.
Our debt totaled approximately $677 million and $200 million remained available for borrowing on our primary line of credit as of September 30th 2022.
Yeah.
Our inventory position at September .
September 30th was $540 million, which was flat compared to our balance at June 32022.
We'll continue to focus on effective inventory management to ensure we retain our strong levels of customer service and on time delivery standards, especially given the rapidly changing economic environment.
During the third quarter, we generated cash flow from operations of approximately $120 million.
As Karen highlighted earlier, our primary uses of cash will remain centered on supporting the growth of our business while simultaneously repaying the debt we incurred to finance the acquisition of a telco and returning value to our stockholders through dividends and share repurchases.
During the third quarter, we invested approximately $10 million for capital expenditures paid $11 million in dividends to our stockholders and repurchased approximately 308.
<unk> thousand 500 shares of our common stock at an average price of $91.67 per share for a total of $28 million.
As of September 30th 2022, we had approximately $25 million available under our $100 million share repurchase authorization, which remains in effect through the end of 2022.
Additionally, on October 20, <unk>, our board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of 26 cents per share, which will be payable on January 26, 2023 to stockholders of record on January 5th 2023.
Now I'd like to discuss our 2022 financial outlook, which includes the acquisition of a taco three quarters of actual results and our latest expectations regarding demand trends raw material input costs and operating expenses.
Based on business trends and conditions as of today October 24th.
Our updated guidance for the full year ending December 31, 2022 is as follows.
We now expect our operating income margin to be in the range of 20% to 21%, which is more in line with our recent historical average versus our previous estimate of 19% to 21%.
Our revised guidance is attributable to better visibility on material costs and expected results from a taco, including approximately 16 to 18 million unexpected integration intrinsic transaction costs for the acquisition.
Further we continue to estimate the cumulative topline impact from product price increases we implemented.
Throughout 2021 to be approximately $300 million in 2022 versus 2021.
We also expect our cost of goods sold will continue to increase as a percentage of net sales as we work through our on hand inventory through the balance of 2022.
We expect interest expense on the outstanding $250 million dollar revolving credit facility in term loans, which had initial borrowings of $450 million to be approximately $9 $8 million, including the benefit from interest rate and cross currency swaps mitigating substantially all of the volatile.
<unk> from changes in interest rates.
Our 2022 effective tax rate is now expected to be in the range of 25% to 26%, including both federal and state income taxes, and assuming no tax law changes were enacted.
Lastly, we now expect capital expenditures to be in the range of $55 million of $65 million compared to our previous estimate of $80 million to $90 million due to extended lead times.
In summary, we were pleased with our strong financial results and operational performance during the quarter as we continued to integrated Taco and make strides in our key growth initiatives.
Our long term strategy remains intact, and we are dedicated to our strategic plan to be the partner of choice in the industry.
With that I'd like to turn the call over to the operator to begin the Q&A session.
Thank you we will now be conducting a question and answer session.
If you would like to ask a question. Please press star one on your telephone keypad, a confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You May press star two if he would like to remove your question from the queue.
For participants using speaker equipment and may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys.
One moment, please while we poll for questions.
Yeah.
Thank you. Our first question is from Daniel Moore with CJS Securities. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon, Karen and Brian Thanks for taking the questions just quickly I wanted to first off.
Go Brian's comments and congratulate you Karen in an exceptional career at Simpson and wish you. All the best you will your insights will definitely be missed on these calls.
Maybe just start with North America of course, how much of the roughly 30% growth in North America can you give us any more specificity on on revenue Oh, sorry volume versus price.
And just what kind of volume trends, you're seeing through the quarter and into Q4.
Sure Dan so.
Price, just a little bit less than 66 7 million.
And volume was about 12% as we measure it in pounds shipped.
Ill just talk just a little bit shy of 12% on volume and then.
Just under $60 million in price.
And can you is it possible to drill down a little bit more Brian in terms of you know what true end market growth looks like versus you had an easy comp last year obviously.
With the inventory fill so you know any thoughts reflections there and what were the trends as we sort of exited the quarter into Q4.
I'd call it kind of a mid single digit volume growth in the areas that were.
Not associated with the.
The retail.
As you noted that that comp was due to Q3 last year being.
But a couple of tough a couple of our large customers are doing some inventory rebalancing and the like.
Excluding that channel more of a mid single digit.
<unk> growth rate.
For everything else in North America.
Got it that's helpful.
Reiterated a restated the 300 million benefit for from price for the full year I think we're just about there through Q3, if I remember your comments from last quarter or so or we have we lapped most of the benefit of pricing at this point unexpected little incremental for Q4 or are we maybe a little conservative.
No I think theres a little incremental.
Less than $10 million.
In Q4, a lot of the price increases we took.
Last year were implemented mid quarter. So we were almost lapping them now.
Got it maybe just one or two moral don't jump back Taco.
Contributed about $68 million, how does that compare on a year over year basis and talk about their volume and.
And pricing trends as well.
Let's see four.
The Taco they were.
Yeah.
They were up about <unk>.
Approximately 10%.
On a from a due to price.
And volume offsetting that by.
Say, 3% to 4% approximately.
And not accounting for any kind of conversion that's in local currency there.
Got it and then we have the FX obviously.
Right.
Okay, and lastly, just the change in the Capex guide.
She really supply chain driven or is it at all reflective of any changes in the macro.
Just supply chain just continues to take a long time.
Two to source them.
Items and.
And that's that's the contributor there.
Alright, so presumably some of those maybe spillover into 223 of those projects out no doubt, yes, and when we excuse me when we provide our two.
2023 guidance.
We'll make sure to note that.
That we've had that happen in prior years. It is definitely a bigger impact this year rolling into next year.
Perfect I'll jump back in queue with any follow ups. Thank you again.
Thanks, Dan.
Thank you. Our next question is from Tim Weiss with Baird. Please proceed with your question.
Yeah, Hey, Hey, everybody get a good afternoon.
I'll Echo Dan's comments, congrats Karen and it's been good working with you.
Maybe on the guidance, the 20% to 21% EBIT margin I'm getting that that implies maybe.
10% to 12% type margin in the fourth quarter and I'm just trying to make sure that my math is kind of right I know seasonally it's maybe a little bit of a weaker quarter and I'm just trying to make sure that I've got my my math in a good spot.
Sure So you're right from a seasonality perspective, but there was that impact.
And couple that with.
So a couple of things or our expectations on top line volume would be.
<unk> to maybe slightly down.
Mix that in with D. A.
Another quarter of a taco being slightly less than that.
Prior to a Taco Simpson business merging all are combining all that gets us to that.
Cause that guide and obviously, we didn't take the high end of the guide, but we brought the low end.
That's about 100 basis points there based on those.
Those factors.
Okay, Okay, and then I guess on a taco the the $16 million to $18 million of integration costs now I think it was 20 to 25 million last quarter.
I I I think your moat through most of those one time costs already is that right and I guess you flagged some integration costs in 'twenty. Three I was just wondering if you could maybe size those.
There would be so a lot of the well the updated guide this year would be for for continued integration work. If there are any type of.
Restructuring costs.
That would impact that.
That number and that that's largely the.
The driver of that number coming down not having any anything significant likely to hit in 2022.
So again, when we provide outlook for next year to the extent that we've got some more color there.
And that in.
As well.
Okay.
And then I guess, what what are you hearing from your builder customers in terms of their planning assumptions for next year round.
And I guess, maybe single family.
Multifamily, maybe even you know kind of a modeling kind of end markets and.
I guess like what what kind of levers can you pull if we were to see a pretty meaningful decline in single family starts next year I mean, if if if revenue is down say, 10% or more.
How would how would SG&A or gross margins look in that type of scenario.
Yeah, Tim Let me give you some insight from that.
They fill their customers certainly we're seeing single family decrease.
Multifamily is still quite strong and then as we've talked about we put the content in both single family and multifamily.
And for multifamily, it's not so much a geographic location of that structure.
It is a single family. So they're definitely seen you know I think we talked about the second quarter. There were incentives that were being offered maybe some buy downs on mortgage rates that were being offered I think they are kind of sorting through that phase. So clearly they're seeing that same slowdown that we're seeing in the listed of the housing starts.
We are seeing a little bit of a catch up on the repair remodel the DIY type of business and then I'll turn it back to Brian as far as some of those levers with people so as volumes.
We had to scale back volumes in the factory.
Sure.
Pull back on overtime, we've run a lot of overtime today and that would.
I'll take that.
There, we would look at them.
No how where we are.
Sure.
Investments within the factories to the extent that we're looking to gain greater efficiencies.
We of course want to be the most efficient manufacturer a product that.
We feel it's a competitive advantage to be able to get product to customers are really quick.
To the extent that we're we're seeing volumes.
Pull back for an extended period of time might not might not need to add as much capacity capex equipment type type items or.
But those would be some of the main levers that we would look at of course, if volumes were down overhead.
<unk> is negatively impacted that would probably be the primary.
Difference that you would see.
Oh running through cost of sales of course, we've talked about material and how it had gone up significantly.
And.
The market is it's pulled back a little bit there that just would take a little bit longer for a material to flow through the P&L, but I would say the overhead of the overhead absorption would be the.
The biggest.
No impact on.
On margin there.
Okay, and I guess, what's your best guess on when most of that higher cost inventory.
Kind of flow through the P&L at this point.
I think we're.
We're pretty close to being there.
Okay.
Okay. That's good great.
Great well good luck on the rest of the year and I think it's again Karen.
Thanks, Dan Thank you Tim.
Thank you. Our next question is from Kurt Yinger with D. A Davidson. Please proceed with your question.
Great. Thank you and good afternoon, everyone.
Okay.
Just starting with with growth gross margin you talked about the better visibility on on costs and not being one of the drivers of the increased operating margin outlook.
I guess I'm trying to understand whether you think you've you've perhaps just overestimated the impact that that higher steel prices would ultimately have or or be that that impact has just been deferred longer than you might have thought or you know as your performance over I guess the last two quarters.
And pretty consistent with your expectations.
I would say the.
The deferral.
Of that would be part of that.
Coming into the year, we were expecting greater volumes and then what we've been seeing.
And that that would have used that up quicker.
But that in the volumes.
Well being.
Slightly less well is also contributing to and what we would have initially planned also contributes to how overhead absorb is absorbed and the like.
You know that being said.
With a slightly lower volumes as some of the those levers that we talked about.
So the prior.
My question was around.
Reductions of overtime and the like so.
You know those are all different impacts too.
Uh huh.
How do we see that the guide in the current quarter and so.
For the current for the year.
Got it okay that makes sense and just going back to a taco sort of a two part or is there much seasonality with that business and then second as you think of the roughly $70 million of sales. This quarter is that a reasonable run rate for Q4 and early 2023 or.
Or do you feel like you have that visibility there.
Little bit of seasonality there.
There the.
Q4, it would be a little lighter than what we just experienced.
Not much though.
From a revenue perspective.
Right.
Perfect.
Okay.
And then I guess lastly, kind of a bigger picture question around the 2025 objectives I'm looking back I think the outlook kind of assumed.
Operating margins would pull back to the mid teens, and then get back into the high teens towards the latter years or I guess, the middle part of the decade, I mean, given the pricing that you've pushed through and and you know what the business has done this year kind of absent a material demand shock.
Do you think that outlook.
Looks fairly conservative at this stage or do you feel like with the investments you're still trying to make on kind of the SG&A side with some of these different targeted growth areas, that's still a reasonable framework.
Well, let me just give us a general on that Kurt we were still.
Very aggressively tracking and working to get to our 2025 ambitions and as you mentioned you know that that's the first one of the first ones was above market growth compared to housing starts.
Thank you see that we've been able to do that at this point and that's really a function of our five additional markets that were really focused on that we talked about none of those which are associated with housing starts so.
We're very confident in the people that we've put in place to go after those market spaces.
And I think Oh, I'll turn it over to Brian , but that's that's one of the areas and why we feel very confident what we're gonna be able to do as far as that above market growth.
Follow up on that when we put the.
That commentary out back in early 2021 that was prior to all the price increases.
And that that leverage is on SG&A spend so although gross margin.
Call it mid forties percent on a longer term basis with the with.
With the operating expenses being a lower percent of revenue that that would lead us to think that that operating margin wouldn't necessarily be mid teens would it be higher teens, assuming no no changes in price.
Either up or down so it does.
<unk> that just a bit there because of the the top line.
Contribution relative to the operating expenses.
Right, Okay that makes sense well, great. Thanks, again, and Karen and my Congrats to you both and good luck here in queue for everyone.
Great. Thank you Kurt.
Thank you. Our next question is from Julio Romero with Sidoti <unk> Company. Please proceed with your question.
Thanks, Hey, good afternoon, Karen and Brian and Mike.
I guess starting on at Taco.
How are you guys thinking about these these labor strikes in France, you know does that impact at Taco at all and.
How does that change the way youre thinking about the integration of runway synergy targets et cetera.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, we at this point have not excuse me the labor.
Trikes and France have not affected our French legacy operation or are a tango operation. So we're in pretty good shape on that front.
And I don't believe we've heard of any.
Yeah.
Impacts on that for the rest of our business either.
I think just the general uncertainty in Europe .
That you're seeing there would contribute to a bit of the us pushing out when we achieve all of those operating margins operating income synergies that we talked about but still if you still feel that there are two.
To be captured.
Yeah.
Okay got it and.
Certainly reassuring at least on on the first part of that.
Thinking about the repair and remodel side of the business. Just you know what are you guys hearing from the big boxes in regards to.
The sentiment towards 23 to they seem to be looking at maybe change how much inventory, they're carrying at all just any insight you might have on that front.
Yeah.
Well, we haven't really seen sort of in it.
The change in the in the inventory I mean.
And traditionally as you know who we are when when housing starts tend to go down a little bit repair remodel tends to go up we are at this point are not seeing any really change in inventory status from those are from those customers.
So I think there is might be a little bit too early at this point to see how that's going to project.
Understood and on the Capex front, you mentioned some delays from.
Equipment deliveries does that change how you're planning for 2023 Capex at all and.
Secondly, any update on the Ohio facility expansion and how that's progressing.
Answer the second part first no real significant movement from last quarter on an Ohio.
A lot of majority of the spend and that was it was going to be next year anyway.
So from the <unk>.
The first part of your question, we would look at.
Where we can add them either capacity or efficiency improvements within our operations within our facilities and we'll continue to evaluate those especially given some of those are key to being able to scale up and our growth initiatives in areas.
So we want to make sure that were.
Hum.
<unk> to look at those as we go forward, but it just may accelerate them from having a larger capex spend next year versus where we thought it would've been three months ago is likely what we're looking at now.
Yeah.
Understood.
Thanks for taking the questions and I'll Echo everyone else's comments, Karen Mike Congratulations again.
Okay. Thanks.
This concludes today's conference.
You may disconnect your lines at this time, thank you for your participation.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.