SiteOne Landscape Supply Q2 2024 Earnings Report

SiteOne Landscape Supply EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.63
• Consensus EPS: $2.50
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.13
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.71

SiteOne Landscape Supply Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $1.41 billion
• Expected Revenue: $1.39 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$24.93 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +4.40%

SiteOne Landscape Supply Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2024
• Date: 7/31/2024
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, July 31, 2024
• Conference Call Time: 8:00AM ET

SiteOne Landscape Supply (NYSE:SITE) is a leading distributor of landscape supplies and irrigation equipment in North America. The company serves a broad range of customers, including independent landscapers, lawn and garden retailers, municipalities and other commercial landscape professionals. Its product portfolio spans irrigation and lighting controls, pipes and fittings, fertilizers and soils, lighting fixtures, hardscapes, outdoor lighting systems and related installation accessories.

In addition to core product lines, SiteOne offers agronomic services designed to optimize turf and plant health, as well as online tools and training resources to help customers plan, specify and manage projects more efficiently. The company operates distribution centers and retail yards, stocking over 35,000 product SKUs and leveraging a just-in­-time delivery model to support contractors and growers with timely inventory replenishment and technical expertise.

Headquartered in Roswell, Georgia, SiteOne serves markets across the United States and Canada through an extensive branch network. As of the most recent count, the company operates several hundred branches spanning nearly all U.S. states and multiple Canadian provinces, supporting regional needs in both residential and commercial landscape construction, maintenance and renovation projects.

SiteOne was formed in 2015 through the combination of leading regional distributors and pursued an initial public offering in mid-2018. Under the leadership of President and Chief Executive Officer Andrew M. Jacobi, the company has continued to expand its geographic footprint and invest in digital platforms, supply chain optimization and customer service initiatives. SiteOne’s scale and specialized offerings position it as a key supplier to the landscape and irrigation industries.

SiteOne Landscape Supply Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• SiteOne reported Q2 net sales of $1.41 billion, up 4% year-over-year, with organic daily sales declining 3% and flat volume, while acquisitions added 8% growth and adjusted EBITDA was $210.5 million (14.9% margin).
• Persistent commodity price deflation—especially in PVC pipe and grass seed—drove a 3% price decline in Q2 and is now expected to persist through 2024, creating near-term headwinds for gross margin.
• The company completed five acquisitions in the first half of 2024 (adding about $155 million of trailing sales) and has closed 96 deals since 2014, underscoring M&A as a key growth lever.
• Operational and commercial initiatives—including expanding digital sales, increasing bilingual branches to 60%, improving CRM-driven sales productivity and turning around the bottom 20% of branches—are aimed at long-term margin expansion.
• For full-year 2024, SiteOne expects low single-digit organic daily sales declines, slightly lower gross margin, diluted SG&A leverage from acquisitions and adjusted EBITDA of $380 million to $400 million.

Presentation

[Operator]

Greetings, and welcome to the SiteOne Landscape Supply Q2 2024 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief 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. At this time, I would like to hand the call over to John Guthrie, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Thank you, sir. You may begin.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We issued our Q2 2024 earnings press release this morning and posted a slide presentation to the investor relations portion of our website at investors.siteone.com. I'm joined today by Doug Black, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Scott Salmon, Executive Vice President, Strategy and Development.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's press release, slide presentation, and the statements made during the call include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. Such risks and uncertainties include the factors set forth in the earnings release and in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Additionally, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. A reconciliation of these measures can be found in our earnings release and in the slide presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Doug Black.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Thanks, John. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. As we announced in early June, we are experiencing softer demand driven by a weak repair and upgrade end market and more persistent commodity price deflation in select products like grass seed and PVC pipe. We now believe that these trends will continue through the full year and will have a negative effect on our organic sales growth and Adjusted EBITDA margin.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Against these headwinds, we were pleased to achieve solid results for the Q2, with only a 3% organic daily sales decline and Adjusted EBITDA that was comparable to last year. We were also pleased to add four high-performing companies to SiteOne during the quarter and one in July, including Devil Mountain, which is an exciting new platform for growth in our nursery product line in the western U.S.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

These companies have talented teams and strong customer relationships and expand our product lines and market presence in their respective markets. Through our commercial and operational initiatives and our acquisition strategy, we continue to build SiteOne for the long term as a world-class market leader. While we manage through the short-term headwinds, we're also building and perfecting our underlying capabilities, strengthening our teams, and expanding our branch network to serve our customers with the full range of landscaping products across the U.S. and Canada.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

With our well-balanced business, strong balance sheet, exceptional teams, improved capabilities, and robust acquisition pipeline, we remain confident in our ability to execute our strategy and create superior value for our stakeholders. I will start today's call with a brief review of our unique market position and our strategy, followed by some highlights from the quarter.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

John Guthrie will then walk you through our Q2 financial results in more detail and provide an update on our balance sheet and liquidity position. Scott Salmon will discuss our acquisition strategy, and then I will come back to address our latest outlook before taking your questions.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

As shown on slide four of the earnings presentation, we have grown our footprint to more than 710 branches and four distribution centers across 45 U.S. states and 6 Canadian provinces. We are the clear industry leader, over three times the size of our nearest competitor, and larger than 2 through 10 combined. Yet we estimate that we only have about a 17% share of the very fragmented $25 billion wholesale landscaping products distribution market.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Accordingly, our long-term growth opportunity remains significant. We have a balanced mix of business with 65% focused on maintenance, repair, and upgrade, 21% focused on new residential construction, and 14% on new commercial and recreational construction. As the only national full product line wholesale distributor in the market, we also have excellent balance across our product lines as well as geographically.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our strategy to fill in our product lines across the U.S. and Canada, both organically and through acquisition, further strengthens this balance over time. Overall, our end market mix, broad product portfolio, and geographic coverage offer us multiple avenues to grow and create value for our customers and suppliers while providing important resiliency in softer markets.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Turning to slide five.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our strategy is to leverage the scale, resources, functional talent, and capabilities that we have as the largest company in our industry, all in support of our talented, experienced, and entrepreneurial local teams who consistently deliver superior value to our customers and suppliers.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We've come a long way in building SiteOne and executing our strategy, but have more work to do as we develop into a true world-class company. The current challenging market conditions require us to adopt new processes and technologies and to be even more intentional in driving organic growth, improving our productivity, and mastering the details of our business across all our product lines.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Accordingly, we remain highly focused on our commercial and operational initiatives to overcome the near-term headwinds, but more importantly, build a long-term competitive advantage. These initiatives are complemented by our acquisition strategy, which fills in our product portfolio, moves us into new geographic markets, and adds terrific new talent to SiteOne.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Taken all together, our strategy creates superior value for our shareholders through organic growth, acquisition growth, and EBITDA margin expansion.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

If you turn to slide six, you can see our strong track record of performance and growth over the last eight years, with consistent organic and acquisition growth and solid EBITDA margin expansion. From a return on sales perspective, we benefited from extraordinary price realization due to the rapid inflation in 2021 and 2022. In 2023, and now in 2024, we are experiencing headwinds as commodity prices come down. We believe that commodity prices will stabilize as we move into 2025.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We also believe that we're consistently outperforming the market in terms of organic growth, and we continue to have ample opportunities to increase our gross margin and improve our operating leverage through our commercial and operational initiatives.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

As mentioned earlier, the short-term challenges are helping us to accelerate our adoption of new processes and technologies, including digital, which we believe will further improve organic growth and Adjusted EBITDA margin for the long term.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We have now completed 96 acquisitions across all product lines since the start of 2014.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our pipeline of potential deals remains robust, and we expect to continue adding and integrating more new companies this year to support our growth.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

These companies strengthen SiteOne with excellent talent and new ideas for performance and growth. Given the fragmented nature of our industry and our modest market share, we have a significant opportunity to continue growing through acquisition for many years to come.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Slide seven shows the long runway that we have ahead in filling in our product portfolio, which we aim to do primarily through acquisition, especially in the nursery, hardscapes, and landscape supplies categories. We are well connected with the best companies in our industry and expect to continue filling in these markets systematically over the next decade.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

I will now discuss our Q2 highlights as shown on slide eight. We achieved 4% net sales growth in the Q2, with an organic daily sales decline of 3%, offset by 8% growth due to acquisitions. Organic sales volume was flat compared to the prior period as our teams continued to gain market share, offsetting soft end market demand.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Overall pricing declined 3% for the quarter, a slight improvement from the 4% decline that we experienced in the Q1. The price decline continues to be driven by double-digit declines in select commodity products like PVC pipe and grass seed, while the prices of most of our products remained flat with last year.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We had previously expected commodity prices to normalize in the H2 of the year as we lapped the declines from last year, but PVC pipe has dropped further, and grass seed has declined significantly going into our important fall seed season.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Accordingly, we now expect prices to be down approximately 2%-3% in the H2. We expect sales volume to be flat to slightly down in the H2 as we consistently outperform the market. Gross profit increased 4% driven by our acquisitions, and our gross margin decreased 10 basis points to 36.1%. This was in line with our expectations as the ongoing price deflation in commodity products continues to be a near-term headwind to gross margin. This was partially offset by our gross margin initiatives and a positive impact from acquisitions, which operate at a higher gross margin and higher SG&A.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our SG&A as a percent of net sales increased 60 basis points to 24.3% due to our acquisitions. With strong cost control, we achieved modest operating leverage in our base business despite the organic sales decline. With organic sales continuing to be negative, we now expect SG&A as a percent of sales for the full year 2024 to be higher than the prior year, primarily driven by our acquisitions. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $210.5 million, which was comparable to the adjusted EBITDA for the Q2 of 2023 of $211.2 million.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Adjusted EBITDA margin for the quarter declined 70 basis points to 14.9% due to negative organic growth, lower gross margin, and only modest SG&A leverage in the base business, combined with the dilutive effect of acquisitions.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our acquisitions typically perform at a similar adjusted EBITDA margin as the base business. However, with the addition of Pioneer last year with over $150 million in annual sales, operating well below our adjusted EBITDA margin, we will experience meaningful adjusted EBITDA margin dilution from acquisitions this year.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We are executing a systematic turnaround plan for Pioneer, and we expect to improve the profitability of this business to match SiteOne over the coming years. In terms of initiatives, we continue to grow sales with our small customers faster than our company average, while also driving growth in our private label brands and improving inbound freight costs through our transportation management system.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

These initiatives are helping to mitigate the gross margin decline that we are experiencing in 2024 and should contribute to expanding gross margin in the future. We continue to increase our percentage of bilingual branches now at 60%, and are executing focused Hispanic marketing programs to create awareness among this important customer segment. We are also making great progress in our sales force productivity as we leverage our CRM and establish more disciplined revenue-generating habits amongst our over 600 outside sales associates.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

The continued adoption of MobilePro and DispatchTrack allows us to offer better customer service while also increasing the productivity of our branch staff and delivery fleet. The acquisition of Pioneer has allowed us to gain new functionality in bulk material delivery and in our point of sale system, which we plan to develop further and leverage with our existing businesses.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

During the quarter, we continue to make good progress in growing our digital sales and cultivating regular users of siteone.com. The growth in digital sales is encouraging to see as it increases connectivity with our customers, helping us increase market share while allowing our associates to focus more on creating value for our customers and less on transactional activity at the branch. We continue to introduce new functionality for siteone.com and are ahead of our goal to double online sales in 2024.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Finally, with the near-term headwinds that we have experienced over the last two years, we have branches within SiteOne that are underperforming. We are intensely managing these focus branches to ensure that they have the right teams, the right support, and are executing our best practices to bring their performance up to or above the SiteOne average.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We expect to gain a meaningful return on sales lift as a company as we turn these branches around. Taken all together, we are continuing to improve our capability to drive organic growth, increase gross margin, and achieve operating leverage through our initiatives over time.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

On the acquisition front, as I mentioned, we added four excellent companies to our family during the quarter and one in July, with approximately $155 million in trailing 12-month sales added to SiteOne. With an experienced team, broad and deep relationships with the best companies, and a strong balance sheet and an exceptional reputation, we remain well positioned to grow consistently through acquisitions for many years.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

In summary, our teams are doing a good job of managing through the near-term headwinds, leveraging our many opportunities for improvement, and building our company for the long term.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Now, John will walk you through the quarter in more detail. John?

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Thanks, Doug. I'll begin on slide nine with some highlights from our Q2 results. We reported a net sales increase of 4% to $1.41 billion for the quarter. There were 64 selling days in the Q2, which is the same as the prior year period. Organic daily sales declined 3% compared to the prior year period due to price deflation and flat volume.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

As we reported in our 8-K filing on June 4th, organic daily sales started the Q2 soft, trending down 4%-5% on price deflation and volume declines. As we progressed through June, we saw volume recover somewhat due in part to drier weather, which allowed us to finish the quarter with organic daily sales down only 3%.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Price deflation in the Q2 was driven by commodity products like PVC pipe, which was down approximately 23%, grass seed, and fertilizer, which were down 14% and 6% respectively. Fertilizer pricing is starting to stabilize with a lower decline in the Q2 than in prior quarters. Price deflation is trending in the right direction but has proven stickier than we originally forecasted due to additional price reductions for certain products like PVC pipe and grass seed. We now expect price deflation to persist throughout 2024 and expect price deflation for the full year to be approximately 3%.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Organic daily sales for agronomic products, which includes fertilizer, control products, ice melt, and equipment, decreased 1% due to price deflation, which more than offset positive volume growth. Organic daily sales for landscaping products, which includes irrigation, nursery, hardscapes, outdoor lighting, and landscape accessories, decreased 4% for the Q2, primarily due to price deflation and weakness in the repair and remodel end market.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Geographically, only three of our nine regions achieved positive organic daily sales growth in the Q2. We saw modest growth in some southern markets like Texas, but weakness more broadly, especially in northern markets, which outperformed in the Q1 due in part to an earlier spring.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Acquisition sales, which reflect sales attributable to acquisitions completed in 2023 and 2024, contributed approximately $103 million, or 8%, to net sales growth. Scott will provide more details regarding our acquisition strategy later in the call. Gross profit for the Q2 was $510 million, which was an increase of 4% compared to the prior year period.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Gross margin decreased 10 basis points to 36.1% due to lower price realization, partially offset by the positive impact from acquisitions. Price deflation continues to be a headwind to gross margin, so its negative impact is decreasing each subsequent quarter. Selling, general, and administrative expenses, or SG&A, increased 7% to $344 million for the Q2.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

SG&A as a percentage of net sales increased 60 basis points in the quarter to 24.3%. The increase in both SG&A and SG&A as a percentage of net sales reflects the impact of acquisitions. Excluding acquisitions, SG&A for our base business decreased approximately 3% on an Adjusted EBITDA basis, reflecting the actions we have taken in response to our lower sales.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

For the Q2, we recorded an income tax expense of $40 million, which is the same as the prior year period. The effective tax rate was 24.9% for the Q2 of 2024 compared to 24.4% for the prior year period. The increase in the effective tax rate was primarily due to a decrease in the amount of excess tax benefits from stock-based compensation.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We continue to expect the 2024 fiscal year effective tax rate will be between 25% and 26%, excluding discrete items such as excess tax benefits. Net income attributable to common shares for the Q2 of 2024 decreased 3% to $120.2 million due to increased SG&A expense from acquisitions and lower gross margin.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our weighted average diluted share account was approximately 45.6 million for the three months ended June 30th, 2024, compared to 45.7 million for the prior year period. We repurchased approximately 129,000 shares for approximately $20 million in the Q2.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Adjusted EBITDA decreased $0.7 million to $210.5 million for the Q2 of 2024 compared to $211.2 million for the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA margin decreased 70 basis points to 14.9%. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter includes adjusted EBITDA attributable to a non-controlling interest of $0.9 million. Non-controlling interest reflects the 25% share of equity in Devil Mountain retained by its president and minority owner. Scott will provide more details on the Devil Mountain acquisition later in the call.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Now I'd like to provide a brief update on our balance sheet and cash flow statement as shown on slide 10. Working capital at the end of the Q2 was approximately $1 billion compared to $903 million at the end of the prior year period. The increase in working capital is primarily due to the additional working capital from acquisitions.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Excluding the impact of acquisitions, we were pleased to see inventory turns for our base business continue to increase due to improved replenishment and reductions in excess inventory. Net cash provided by operating activities was approximately $147 million for the Q2 compared to approximately $254 million for the prior year period.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

The decrease in operating cash flow primarily reflects seasonal timing differences in working capital. We made cash investments of approximately $113 million for the Q2 compared to approximately $35 million for the same quarter in 2023. The increase reflects higher acquisition investment compared to the same period in 2023. Net debt at the end of the quarter was approximately $524 million compared to approximately $385 million at the end of the Q2 of 2023. Leverage at the end of the Q2 was 1.3 times our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA compared to 0.9 times in the prior year period.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

As a reminder, our target year-end net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage range is 1-2 times. At the end of the quarter, we had available liquidity of approximately $543 million, which consisted of approximately $72 million cash on hand and approximately $471 million in available capacity under our ABL facility. On July 2nd, subsequent to the end of the Q2, we took advantage of favorable market conditions and refinanced our term loan, extending the maturity by two years to March 2030, reducing the interest rate by 25 basis points to term SOFR plus 175 basis points, and increasing the size by $25 million to approximately $393 million.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our priority from a balance sheet and funding perspective is to maintain our financial strength and flexibility so we can execute our growth strategy in all market environments. I will now turn the call over to Scott for an update on our acquisition strategy.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Thanks, John. As shown on slide 11, we acquired four companies in the Q2, plus an additional one in July for year-to-date combined trailing 12-month net sales of approximately $155 million. Since 2014, we have acquired 96 companies with approximately $1.9 billion in trailing 12-month net sales added to SiteOne.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Turning to slides 12 through 16.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

You will find information on our most recent acquisitions. On April 26th, we acquired Eggemeyer, a single-location wholesale distributor of bulk landscape supplies. The acquisition of Eggemeyer Supply complements our recent acquisitions of Whittlesey Landscape Supplies & Recycling and Adams Wholesale Supply, allowing us to provide bulk landscape supplies to our customers in the high-growth markets of San Antonio and Austin, Texas.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

On April 30th, we acquired a 75% ownership interest in Devil Mountain Wholesale Nursery, a wholesale distributor and grower of nursery products with 14 locations across the state of California. The addition of Devil Mountain makes SiteOne the leader in wholesale nursery distribution in California and completes our full product line offering for our customers in the state.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Devil Mountain is a high-performing company with a terrific team that will help spearhead our nursery growth not only in California but also across the Pacific Northwest and mountain states where we currently have a very low nursery market share. The transaction includes put and call options whereby we can acquire the remaining ownership interest in future years.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

On May 31st, we acquired Hardscape.com, a wholesale distributor of premium porcelain pavers with four locations in South and Central Florida. The acquisition of Hardscape.com expands our ability to provide hardscape products to our Florida customers and is a great addition to our existing premium hardscapes offering nationally. On June 7th, we acquired Cohen & Cohen, a single-location wholesale distributor of hardscapes in Ottawa, Canada. The acquisition of Cohen & Cohen marks our entry into the growing Ottawa market and expands the range of products we are able to provide to our customers from Ottawa to Montreal.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Lastly, on July 1st, we acquired Millican Nurseries, a wholesale distributor of nursery products located near Concord, New Hampshire. The addition of Millican extends our already strong nursery position in the Northeast to better serve the greater Boston and New Hampshire markets.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our acquisitions continue to add terrific talent to SiteOne and move us forward toward our goal of providing a full line of landscape products and services to our customers in all major U.S. and Canadian markets.

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Summarizing on slide 17, our acquisition strategy continues to create significant value for SiteOne. With a strong balance sheet and a robust pipeline across all lines of business and geographies, we are confident that we will be able to continue adding more outstanding companies to SiteOne this year. I want to thank the entire SiteOne team for their passion and commitment to making SiteOne a great place to work and for welcoming the newly acquired teams when they join the SiteOne family. I will now turn the call back to Doug.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Thanks, Scott. I'll wrap up on slide 18. We are now halfway through 2024, and year-to-date our organic daily sales have declined 2%, with 1% volume growth offset by a 3% decline in pricing. Looking into the H2 of 2024, we expect our sales volume to be flat to slightly down, with softer end markets as our teams continue to gain market share.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

As mentioned, we expect price deflation to continue in the H2, with prices down approximately 2%-3%. In terms of end markets, we expect new residential construction, which comprises 21% of our sales, to be roughly flat in 2024. Despite higher interest rates, builders are optimistic for the full year, capitalizing on the continued shortage of homes and solid home demand. This should support stable demand for landscaping products in this end market in the H2.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

New commercial construction, which represents 14% of our sales, has continued to be solid in 2024, and we believe it will remain steady for the full year. Bidding activity from our project services teams continues to be slightly positive compared to the prior year, which is a good indicator of continued demand.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Our customer backlogs remain solid, and we believe the commercial end market will be flat this year. The repair and upgrade market, which represents 31% of our sales, continues to be soft this year, and we expect this end market to be down high single digits in 2024.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Lastly, we've seen good volume growth in the maintenance category, which represents 34% of our sales. However, the maintenance category is where we have seen significant price deflation in certain products like fertilizer and grass seed.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Accordingly, while we believe sales volume and maintenance will be positive, we expect overall sales growth to be negative due to price deflation. With this backdrop, we now expect our organic daily sales growth to be down low single digits for the full year 2024, with price deflation of approximately 3%. We now expect gross margin in 2024 to be slightly lower than 2023, with the negative effect of price deflation more than offsetting our initiatives and the impact of acquisitions.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We expect SG&A as a % of sales to be higher for the full year as acquisitions, including Pioneer, dilute our operating leverage. Accordingly, we expect our Adjusted EBITDA margin in 2024 to be lower than 2023.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

In terms of acquisitions, as Scott mentioned, we have a strong pipeline of high-quality targets, and we will continue to add excellent companies to the SiteOne family as we move through the year. With all these factors in mind, we now expect our full-year Adjusted EBITDA for fiscal 2024 to be in the range of $380 million-$400 million. This range does not factor any contribution from unannounced acquisitions. In closing, I would like to sincerely thank all our SiteOne associates who continue to amaze me with their passion, commitment, teamwork, and selfless service.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We have a tremendous team, and it's an honor to be joined with them as we deliver increasing value for our stakeholders. I would also like to thank our suppliers for supporting us so strongly and our customers for allowing us to be their partner. Operator, please open the line for questions. Thank you.

[Operator]

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 that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. We ask that analysts limit yourselves to one question and a follow-up so that others may have an opportunity to ask questions. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we pull for questions. Our first question comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Please proceed with your question.

[Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head–Industrials at William Blair]

Hey, guys. I wanted to start with the outlook for price deflation. I think you said 2%-3% down in the H2. I guess, Doug, how did you think about that guide? We've been chasing that lower for a while now, and I'm just wondering, did you try to kitchen sink it, or did you just extrapolate the prices that you're seeing today into the H2?

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

No, good question, Ryan. Obviously, we've learned a bit as we've gone. And like we said, pipe has taken another leg down. It seemed to stabilize, but there's obviously uncertainty there. Fertilizer has stabilized, so that's a good thing. It's still lower than last year, but it's at a kind of a firm base, we think. And then seed is down roughly 15%-20%, but the seed price is the same as it was in 2020. So it's kind of returned to where it was pre-COVID. And so I think we factored in some uncertainty on that.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Certainly, it could go a bit further south, and that's why we're saying down 2%-3%. 2 would be, I'd say, kind of current trend. 3% would be something new.

[Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head–Industrials at William Blair]

Okay. Got it. And then as it relates to the guide on margins, it's coming in a little lower than I thought, and I'm trying to figure out the main source. Would you say that the update to EBITDA margins for the year did you have a bigger negative impact from SG&A deleverage, or are you taking down gross margins?

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

I would say both of them have been impacted. It's primarily the takedown has been. It's primarily sales-related. We have taken SG&A expense out more than we had in the original guide, but we haven't been able to completely offset the drop in sales. Margins are still trending in the right direction.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We would probably expect that margins with acquisitions would probably be positive in the H2. But I would say going into the year, we thought they would be more positive than they are right now. Still, that stickiness of the price is delaying, it's going in the right direction, but it's delaying getting where we originally thought we were going to be.

[Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head–Industrials at William Blair]

Got it. All right. Thanks. Pass it on.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from David Manthey. Please proceed with your question. Thank you.

[David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Good morning, everyone. My question is on the organic SG&A. Doug, in your monologue, I think you said the company achieved leverage on organic SG&A, and that would imply that if organic average daily sales was -3, then your core SG&A was down more than three. Number one, did I hear that right? That's pretty remarkable if so.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Yeah, you heard that right. We were very pleased to get leverage in the base business. It was just a little bit of leverage, so not a lot. Kind of call it 3+ a bit. But one thing to consider as we go in the H2, I mean, we really started pulling back significantly last year. So the H2 comp for SG&A in order to beat it is tougher than the H1. And so we're assuming that we delever a little bit. With the sales continuing to be down, most of that's driven by price. We're going to keep the screws as tight as we can on the base business to get ourselves through the H2. But we're expecting a slight deleverage in the base business in the H2. And we'll see if we can beat that, but that's what we would have built into our guidance.

[David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

Yeah. I mean, it's tough to do in a declining market, so it's an achievement anyway. Could you talk about Pioneer? It sounds like operationally the issues here are related to acquisitions, namely Pioneer. If you could talk about the magnitude and timeline of improvement there. And then maybe just a related one for Scott. Are EBITDA margins consistently better for older acquisitions? If you look back through the rings of the tree, how far back do you need to go to see consistent double-digit EBITDA margins among a tranche of acquisitions done in a given year?

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Right. I'll take the H1, touch on that H2, and then Scott can jump in. So yeah, Pioneer, we purchased that late last year. Because of the timing of that purchase, it lost money in the Q4 last year and for the year.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Coming into this year, we expected a significant improvement in that. Two things have happened. We're still getting improvement. We're actually happy with the pace, but they're suffering from the same kind of market headwinds that we are. That's dampened what we thought we were going to get. The other thing is Pioneer has a terrific point of sale system for the bulk materials that, quite frankly, we wanted for us. We are building their point of sale into our system. Instead of integrating, say, in February, we're integrating in September. It's just taken us longer to do all that IT development. When we get that done, we can take out another tranche of SG&A. We can certainly get a lot more efficient than we are now in that kind of tweener stage. A couple of things that have impacted.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

One is a long-term play to build our business, and then the other is short-term headwinds. So we're not getting as much improvement, but we're very happy with the deal. And over the next couple of years, we see it going up to the average. In terms of acquisitions, certainly, yes, they do. If you look at return on sales and if you look at return on invested capital, those both improve with age, like wine. So I would say, in general, that's the case. Scott, anything to add to that?

[Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

No, I was going to say the same thing. Within each tranche or year, there's maybe, what, between 8 and 16 acquisitions that you're looking at in a class. So you're going to see some variance in performance, but certainly the trend that is most visible is the longer they're with SiteOne, the better they perform.

[David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird]

All right, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from Keith Hughes with Truist Securities. Please proceed with your question.

[Keith Hughes, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Thank you. Out of the plastics market, there's just been some signals that PVC resin producers are trying to raise price. Are any of your pipe suppliers seeing that, or are they talking about maybe an attempt at a price increase later in the year?

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We haven't heard that. We do believe PVC price, from what we're hearing from our pipe suppliers, we haven't seen as much pressure upwards or pressure down as we did this time last year. So a big thing with regards to PVC pipe will just be getting past the price decreases that happened in the third and Q4s and even filtered into our business and into the H1 of this year. But certainly, the level consistently dropped quarter-over-quarter that we were seeing last year. We're seeing a much more stable market on PVC pipe this year and looking forward to getting past that volatility.

[Keith Hughes, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Okay. And just around the topic of deflation on the grass seed market, is that just a situation of just supply greater than demand, or what's continuing to cause the pressure there?

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

It's been a combination of both. I think there was probably a little too much supply grown. And frankly, there was a good year this year as opposed to the past couple of years for growing grass seeds. So supply has increased, and demand is probably—I think if you actually looked at it, we would probably say we're going to sell more grass seed in tons of product this year.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

So the market's taking it, but probably supply is—they're probably a little heavy now, which has caused back to kind of go back to normal. And actually, the pullback in kind of the market for the growth of grass seed is probably adjusting from kind of the go-go years of right around COVID.

[Keith Hughes, Managing Director at Truist Securities]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Matthew Bouley with Barclays. Please proceed with your question.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. On the deflation outlook, the 2% to 3% in the H2, a very helpful color there on kind of what you're seeing in terms of current trends and baking in some conservatism there. But I'm just trying to understand the kind of cadence in the Q3 and Q4 if you're kind of looking at it similarly at this point.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

What I'm really trying to understand is, given the exit rate in the Q4, is there any risk that deflation at this point kind of persists into Q1 of 2025 or H1 of 2025? Thank you.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We wouldn't think it would be a big 2025 issue. Obviously, I just talked about PVC pipe, which has been the primary, the largest driver, has stabilized in fertilizer. But obviously, we'll have to see. With regards to Q3 and Q4, I would expect Q3 would be at the higher end of that range, and Q4 would be lower still, maybe even less than 2% from that standpoint. I mean, fall is the next 90 days is when we sell most of our grass seed. So that's really a big Q3 event, and we'll be working through that inventory during that time. Yeah.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

One other, John, I want to weigh in. One other factor that's going on here is that the rest of our products' prices are flat this year. So we're not getting any help from the other 80%-90% of products. And we feel like 2025, those manufacturers will go for price increases. So one factor to think about is 2024 has been commodity deflation with everything else flat. We expect a lot less going into the, let's say, the Q1 next year of commodities, and then we expect kind of normal price increases from the rest of our products.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Yep. Perfect. That's very helpful. Thank you. And then secondly, just looking at the R&R end market, I think you said it now, you think it'll be down high single digits this year. I guess the question is, I mean, what do you think is driving that? Is it kind of lack of existing home turnovers? Is it just consumer confidence, pulled-forward activity, some combination of all three? Because what I'm trying to—what I'm trying to get at is, as you—if it's kind of slipping further here into the middle of the year, does it look like that end market might still be a headwind in early 2025 and kind of what it would take to turn that corner? Thank you.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Yes. I think it's all the factors. It's consumer confidence. I think inflation has got the consumer pinched, and they're deferring projects. Interest rates are high. So housing turnover certainly impacts that negatively with less housing turnover. And so really, it's all those factors at work. And so—and don't—this is something that we flagged back in early June. I mean, the spring, as we went through April and May, really for that remodel market didn't develop.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

So we saw the softness really through the spring, which we signaled in early June, and it's kind of continued, right? So I think lower interest rates will help the situation. Inflation coming under control will help the, all these things for the future of remodeling. Remodeling is a terrific market and is usually very robust. And we think it will be in the future. It's just right now, there's a lot of elements coming at the consumer. And what we see is that the high end of remodel is solid. It's the middle-income part of remodel that's really kind of taken a hit this year.

[Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays]

Got it. Thanks, Doug. Good luck, guys.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Andrew Carter with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.

[Andrew Carter, Managing Director at Stifel]

Hey, thanks. Good morning. First thing I want to ask is, in terms of. I think you said underlying SG&A down three, volume was flat. How sustainable is that? And I guess, how long a lead time do you have to put in place to plan? Is it real-time? Are there a lot—can a lot of things happen variably? Or is it just a really big ship to move to get that kind of leverage? It's tough to react to the environment. Thanks.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Yeah. I'll take a first shot at that. I mean, we have fast and flexible local teams, right? And so they move depending on what's going on in the market. And so it is, and most of our SG&A is associates, right? So there's a field element that can be very flexible. Where we have to be intentional is on kind of some of the field support and some of the functional teams where we've got to keep them at the right size for the markets we've got.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We're looking at that all the time to make sure that we're playing that. So I think we can continue to be flexible. What we don't want to do is damage our long-term growth for a short-term gain, right? And we won't do that. So we'll get to a size that is as good as we can for the current market conditions, but we're still building for the future. And that's very important.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

And then the second, in terms of the focus branches you mentioned, could you give us a scope of kind of how many are kind of in focus there? If there's any kind of potential opportunity associated with building the margin, is it just cost? Is it sales improvements? And also, could it be working capital? And I know you noted that goal to move that continually lower. Thanks. Yeah.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

I guess I'll take the first shot there. John can add. It tends to be a lot of factors. Just to give you a scope, we're focused on the 20% bottom end of our branches. It could be that those branches don't have the right leader. We may consolidate some of those branches into other branches just to get the synergies of a larger branch. It could be lack of organic sales or product mix is not the right mix. It's really focused around team mix and driving organic growth and getting those branches up to speed. It could be SG&A reduction. Their SG&A is just too high, and they need the right size. They've been slower to do that. It's a number of factors.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

We've created a white hot light on them, and we really think that there's no reason we can't get these branches up to our average. And in that, raise the whole company. And it really, during COVID times, everybody tended to look good. As we've come through these headwinds, we've seen some branches that have not performed as well, and we're taking strong action on those.

[Andrew Carter, Managing Director at Stifel]

Thanks. I'll pass it on.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Mike Dahl with RBC Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

[Michael Dahl, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Thanks for taking my questions. I'll stick with a couple on margins. I think you mentioned that the negative headwind to gross margin from the deflation has been lessening. Can you just quantify kind of what the gross margin headwind was in the Q2 and what your guide assumes in the H2 as far as the negative gross margin impact from deflation?

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Well, we don't fully break that out from that standpoint. We will share the fact that in the Q2, we got roughly a pickup in gross margin from acquisitions of about 40 basis points. And the difference is primarily due to the negative is due to the price impact.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Okay. Yeah. That's so helpful. And that kind of dovetails into my second question, which is - and this is rough math - but I think at the high end of your full-year guide, you'd have to have second-half EBITDA margins about flat year-over-year, which you've articulated a lot of moving pieces, which on the organic side are still some headwinds.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

So in terms of getting to that 400 or getting it for the full year or getting to second-half EBITDA margins flat year-over-year, just walk us through kind of what has to happen to drive that versus, say, the midpoint or lower, which, yeah, it just seems tough with deflation continuing and bringing SG&A to get enough leverage there.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

I mean, I think what's going to drive it is the market. If we have positive upside in volume in the H2 of the year, that's what will be the primary driver. SG&A is while we're evaluating it, I think we've pulled a lot of the levers there. We're continuing to evaluate items, but the primary area of focus for us is continuing to gain more market share and potential upside in the market itself.

[John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

And that would come through primarily in volume, which would bring us to the top, to the high end of the guidance.

[Michael Dahl, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets]

Okay. Appreciate that. Very helpful. Thanks.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from Jeff Stevenson with Loop Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.

[Jeffrey Stevenson, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Hey, thanks for taking my questions today. So has the pickup in June volumes you experienced from earlier in the quarter continued into July due to any benefit from bump-up weather-

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

related demand? Yeah. The trend we've seen in July is similar. Sales are down, call it 3%-4%. They were down 3%, obviously, for the quarter. So it's been a little less. And this year has been very choppy, where we've had March was a good month, April, May, not so good, June, good, July in the average, I guess. So that's the trend we're seeing in July.

[Jeffrey Stevenson, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Okay. No, that's helpful. I'm trying to get a better idea of the variance between your original positive organic volume growth expectations this year and your current assumption of flat to down, low single-digit organic volume declines in the back half. Is it solely due to softer R&R demand, or are any other end markets coming in softer than your prior expectations?

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Yeah. No, great question. It's softer remodel, but it's also flat residential. We thought at the beginning of the year, the way the bullishness of the builders and housing starts were up, we felt like that was going to give us some upside in the H2 of the year. We're really seeing more of a flat residential market, and we think that's going to continue.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

So the market softness, I'd say, has been in new residential that's flat instead of up in the H2, and then remodel, which is much weaker. And then obviously, there's the price factor that has been much more sticky and has lasted well into the cycle, or we think will last through the full year as opposed to taper way off in the third and Q4. So those three elements are really the elements that have caused us to have weaker sales for the full year.

[Jeffrey Stevenson, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Very helpful. I appreciate it.

[Operator]

We have now reached the end of our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the floor back over to Doug Black for closing comments.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

Okay. Thank you all for joining us today. We very much appreciate your interest in SiteOne and look forward to speaking to you again in the next quarter.

[Doug Black, Chairman and CEO at SiteOne Landscape Supply]

I'd like to also thank our associates who continue to fight hard in these tough times, and certainly our customers and our suppliers for being partners with us as we work through 2024. Take care.

[Operator]

This concludes today's teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time.

Participants

Executives

• Doug Black, Chairman and CEO
• Scott Salmon, EVP of Strategy and Development

Analysts

• Andrew Carter, Managing Director at Stifel
• David Manthey, Senior Research Analyst at Baird
• Jeffrey Stevenson, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets
• John Guthrie, EVP and CFO at SiteOne Landscape Supply
• Keith Hughes, Managing Director at Truist Securities
• Matthew Bouley, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Barclays
• Michael Dahl, Managing Director at RBC Capital Markets
• Ryan Merkel, Co-Group Head–Industrials at William Blair