A. O. Smith Q2 2022 Earnings Report

A. O. Smith EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.82
• Consensus EPS: $0.81
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.01
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.73

A. O. Smith Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $965.90 million
• Expected Revenue: $959.82 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$6.08 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +12.30%

A. O. Smith Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q2 2022
• Date: 7/28/2022
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
• Conference Call Time: 8:26PM ET

A. O. Smith (NYSE:AOS) (NYSE:AOS) is a global manufacturer of water heating and water treatment equipment. The company serves residential and commercial customers with products including electric and gas water heaters, tankless water heaters, boilers, storage tanks, and related systems.

Its water treatment offerings include residential and commercial filtration, softening, purification, and disinfection products. A. O. Smith sells products under brands such as A. O. Smith, State, Lochinvar, and Takagi through distributors, retailers, contractors, and other sales channels.

Founded in 1874 and headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the company has evolved from an industrial manufacturer into a water technology business. A. O. Smith serves customers primarily in North America, China, India, and other international markets. Its leadership includes President and Chief Executive Officer Kevin J. Wheeler.

A. O. Smith Q2 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• In Q2 the company delivered 12% year-over-year sales growth and 14% adjusted EPS growth (to $0.82), driven by 2021 inflation-related price actions, the Giant Factories acquisition and higher North America volumes despite a 13% sales decline in Rest of World from China lockdowns.
• The North America segment posted $744 million in sales (up 23%), with price increases contributing ~89% of growth, water treatment, boilers and commercial heater volumes rising while residential water heater volumes fell versus a strong prior-year comp; segment margin was 21.8%, pressured by elevated material/logistic costs and mix from lower-margin Giant.
• Rest of World sales fell 13% to $230 million, as China consumer demand declined ~20% in Q2 (improving to down 5–10% in July) but India grew 79%; segment margin held flat near 8% through disciplined discretionary spend and cost controls.
• The balance sheet remains strong with $459 million cash (net cash $161 million), 1H free cash flow of $24 million and full-year free cash flow guidance of $450–500 million; capital return includes a $0.28 quarterly dividend and $400 million in share repurchases planned for 2022.
• Full-year guidance was reaffirmed at $3.35–3.55 adjusted EPS on expected sales growth of 12–14%, segment margins of 22.5–23% (North America) and 9.5–10% (Rest of World), mid-cycle steel prices and continued price-cost recovery actions.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the A. O. Smith second quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during this session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. Please be advised that today's call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Helen Gurholt. Ma'am, please go ahead.

[Helen Gurholt, VP of Investor Relations, Financial Planning and Analysis at A. O. Smith]

Good morning and welcome to the A. O. Smith second quarter conference call. I'm Helen Gurholt, Vice President, Investor Relations and Financial Planning and Analysis. Joining me today are Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer and Chuck Lauber, Chief Financial Officer. In order to provide improved transparency into the operating results of our business, we provided non-GAAP measures. Free cash flow is defined as cash from operations less capital expenditures. Adjusted earnings, adjusted earnings per share, adjusted segment earnings and adjusted corporate expenses exclude the impact of non-operating, non-cash pension income and expenses. Reconciliations from GAAP measures to non-GAAP measures are provided in the appendix at the end of this presentation and on our website.

[Helen Gurholt, VP of Investor Relations, Financial Planning and Analysis at A. O. Smith]

A friendly reminder that some of our comments and answers during this conference call will be forward-looking statements that are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include matters that we described in this morning's press release, among others. Also, as a courtesy to others in the question queue, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up per turn. If you have multiple questions, please rejoin the queue. We will be using slides as we move through today's call. You can access them on our website at investor.aosmith.com. I will now turn the call over to Kevin to begin our prepared remarks. Please turn to the next slide.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Thank you, Helen and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. I'm on slide four in our second quarter results. Our team performed well throughout the quarter, despite an uncertain macro environment, to deliver strong sales and EPS performance. Second quarter sales improved 12% year-over-year, driven by our 2021 inflation-related pricing actions, the acquisition of Giant Factories late last year, as well as water treatment, boiler and commercial water heater volume growth in North America. Our Rest of World segment performance decreased 13% year-over-year, driven by COVID-19 related lockdowns in China. However, we experienced sequential sales improvement in China through the quarter as restrictions began to ease. The acquisition of Giant Factories added $31 million to quarterly sales and $0.01 to EPS. We are pleased with the performance of the team and our integration is on track.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

We saw quarter-over-quarter improvement in our supply chain in the second quarter, which led to higher boiler and commercial water heater volumes. Please turn to slide 5. Our global A. O. Smith team delivered second quarter of 2022 adjusted EPS of $0.82, a 14% increase that was driven in part by a 12% increase in sales compared with the second quarter of 2021. Our strong second quarter performance resulted from our team's outstanding execution despite the backdrop of an uncertain macro environment, COVID-19 related lockdowns in China and softness in the residential water heater industry. I am proud of how my A. O. Smith colleagues worked together to overcome many challenges to deliver value to our customers across the globe.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Excluding the impact of Giant, North America water heater sales grew 19% in the second quarter of 2022 due to pricing actions implemented in 2021 in response to rising material and logistics. Lower sales of residential water heaters partially offset sales growth in the quarter. The residential industry saw record orders in the second quarter of 2021, creating a difficult comparison for 2022. With that said, we saw order rate softness as we exited the second quarter and into July as customers right-sized their inventories. We saw quarter-over-quarter improvement in our commercial gas water heater shipments as supply chain constraints eased in the second quarter, as well as our sales of commercial electric water heaters greater than 55 gallons as order rates normalized after the regulatory change impacted orders at the beginning of the year.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Our North America boiler sales grew 27% in the quarter, driven by pricing increases to offset higher material and transportation costs and strong demand. We again ended the quarter with a significant backlog, largely composed of commercial condensing boilers and we continue to see stable order rates for these market-leading energy efficient products. Our strategy to focus on innovation and decarbonization contributed to strong demand for our high efficiency condensing boilers. North America water treatment sales grew 19% in the second quarter as our independent water quality dealers continued to outperform the market and gain share. We also benefited from strong demand in the wholesale channel. In China, sales decreased 14% in local currency compared to the second quarter of 2021, primarily due to the expected impacts of COVID-19 related lockdowns.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Our sales improved sequentially through the quarter as lockdowns lessened and consumer demand improved. The steps that our China team have undertaken to rightsize the business and manage discretionary spend paid dividends this quarter as China held its operating margins flat to last year despite lower sales in the quarter. In the first half of July, we saw consumer demand down approximately 5%-10% compared to last year, a sequential improvement from second quarter consumer demand levels. Please turn to slide 6. As I mentioned on our January call, one of our key strategic priorities in 2022 is to expand our water treatment business through innovation, new product development and strategic acquisitions.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

In May, we launched our redesigned Aquasana Clean Water Machine, the first power countertop water filter to combine a sleek, compact, no-install design with four different methods of advanced filtration technology. The new Clean Water Machine is tested and certified to NSF standards for the removal of up to 99.9% of 77 contaminants, including lead, the forever chemicals such as PFOS and many more. Aquasana's patented Claryum filtration ensures industry-leading contaminant removal while retaining the beneficial and naturally occurring minerals in water such as calcium, magnesium and potassium for optimal hydration. In addition, we welcomed Atlantic Filter Corporation to the A. O. Smith family last month. Atlantic Filter is the fifth acquisition we made in the North America water treatment market since 2016.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

With a strong presence in Southern Florida, Atlantic Filter will expand our capabilities in this key area of the market. I'll now turn the call over to Chuck, who will provide more details on our second quarter performance.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Thank you, Kevin and good morning, everyone. I'm on slide seven. Second quarter sales in the North America segment rose to $744 million, a 23% increase compared with 2021. Pricing actions, largely on water heaters, represented approximately 89% of the increase. Sales in the quarter also benefited from higher volumes of water treatment products, boilers and commercial water heaters. That was more than offset by lower volumes of residential water heaters. Giant, acquired in October 2021, added $31 million to North America sales. North America adjusted segment earnings of $163 million increased 17% compared with the same period in 2021. The earnings benefit of inflation-related price increases was partially offset by higher material and freight costs and lower residential water heater volumes.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Adjusted segment operating margin of 21.8% declined compared with 2021, primarily due to higher material and logistic costs, production inefficiencies and the inclusion of Giant, which has lower margins than our legacy water heater business. Moving to slide 8. Rest of the World segment sales of $230 million decreased 13% year-over-year. Lower sales volumes, primarily driven by consumer demand headwinds in China related to COVID-19 related restrictions. Currency translation of China sales unfavorably impacted sales by approximately $5 million. Sales in India grew 79% in the second quarter of 2022 on strong demand compared to last year, which was negatively impacted by the pandemic. We view India as a long-term growth opportunity given its attractive growth characteristics and changes in demographics.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Rest of the World segment earnings of $18 million decreased 18% compared to segment earnings in the second quarter of 2021. In China, the impact of lower volumes was partially offset by lower selling, advertising and engineering expenses. Rest of the World segment margin was 7.9%, down 60 basis points from the same period last year. Free cash flow of $24 million during the first half of 2022 decreased from the first half of 2021 due to higher 2022 earnings that were more than offset by lower customer deposits in China, higher incentive payments due to record 2021 sales and earnings and greater cash outlays for increased levels of safety stock on higher cost inventory. Historically, we generate the majority of our cash in the second half of the year.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Our cash balance totaled $459 million at the end of June and our net cash position was $161 million. Our leverage ratio was 14% as measured by total debt to total capital. Our strong annual free cash flow and solid balance sheet allow us to continue to focus on capital allocation priorities and return cash to shareholders. Earlier this month, our board approved our next quarterly dividend of $0.28 per share. We repurchased 2.9 million shares of common stock in the first half of 2022, for a total of $190 million. I'll turn to slide ten. In addition to returning capital to shareholders, we see opportunities for organic growth, innovation and new product development across all of our product lines and geographies.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

The strength of our balance sheet allows us to pursue strategic acquisitions even in the event of an economic downturn. We remain focused on identifying water heating and water treating assets that meet our financial metrics, such as the recent acquisitions of Atlantic Filter and Giant Factories. Additionally, the strength of our balance sheet allows us to maintain our strong track record of delivering returns to shareholders. This has been done through both our dividends that we have increased for thirty consecutive years, as well as share repurchases that have totaled more than $550 million since 2021. Please turn to slide 11 and our 2022 full year earnings guidance and outlook. We reaffirm our 2022 outlook with an expected EPS range of $1.56-$1.76 per share and our adjusted EPS range of $3.35-$3.55 per share.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Our outlook is based on a number of key assumptions, including no further significant surges of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and that COVID-19 related restrictions in China remain approximately at the levels they are today and do not significantly impact our operations or our employees, customers or suppliers. Steel indices began to stabilize at the end of 2021 and have moderated towards the end of the second quarter. Our guidance assumes that the average steel price in the second half of 2022 will approximate the average steel prices in the second half of 2021. We continue to see elevated materials and transportation costs. We saw improvement in our supply chain in the second quarter. However, challenges still persist. We remain in close contact with suppliers and logistic providers to troubleshoot, manage and resolve bottlenecks but the environment remains unpredictable.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

We continue to see the benefit from multiple 2021 price increases compounding to approximately 50% for water heaters. We expect to generate free cash flow of approximately $450 million-$500 million. The range assumes that our inventories return to year-end 2021 levels. For the year, CapEx is expected to be approximately $80 million. Corporate and other expenses are expected to be approximately $55 million. Our effective tax rate is estimated to be between 23.5%-24% and we expect to repurchase approximately $400 million of shares of our stock, resulting in outstanding diluted shares of 156 million at the end of 2022. Based on these assumptions, the midpoint of our adjusted EPS range remains an increase of 17% compared with 2021.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

I'll now turn the call back to Kevin, who will provide more color on our key markets and our top line growth outlook and segment expectations for 2022, all while staying on slide 11. Kevin?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Thank you, Chuck. We project revenue growth for 2022 of 12%-14%, which is lower than our outlook in April as a result of softening demand in residential and commercial water heating. Our sales assumptions include after approximately 8% growth in each of the last two years, which is well above the historical average growth rate, we estimate U.S. residential water heater industry unit volumes will be down approximately 4%-6% from last year as industry demand normalizes. We project that commercial gas water heater industry shipments will be flat to slightly down for the year. However, we revised our full year outlook for the commercial water heater industry to be down 7%-9%, primarily due to weakness in the large electric greater than 55 gallons.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

The commercial industry started the year weaker than expected, primarily due to a regulatory change that temporarily impacted orders in that product category. COVID-19 related restrictions played out as we expected in the quarter. Therefore, we maintain our sales projection in China to be flat in local currency compared to last year as a result of the economic headwinds we are experiencing from COVID-related restrictions. Due to our strong backlog and stable order rates, we have increased our full year boiler sales growth projection from 18%-20% to 25% sales growth, driven by increased pricing in response to higher input costs and higher demand for our energy efficient products. We project North America water treatment sales growth inclusive of acquisitions to be approximately 15% in 2022 due to strong water quality dealer performance.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Based on these factors, along with the full impact of our 2021 price increases, we expect our North America segment margin to be between 22.5% and 23% and Rest of World segment margins to be approximately 9.5%-10% or 50 or 100 basis points higher than 2021. Please turn to slide 12. 2022 continues to present challenges that our global teams are meeting head on. We are a 148-year-old company that has continued to grow and innovate through all economic cycles. We believe A. O. Smith is a compelling investment because of our stable replacement business, combined with exciting growth opportunities in North America water treatment business as well as in China and India. We have premium brands and leading share positions in our major product categories.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

We estimate replacement demand represents 80%-85% of U.S. water heater and boiler volumes. The strength of our balance sheet and free cash flow generation support our ability to continue investing for the long term in automation, innovation, new products and acquisitions, as well as returning cash to shareholders even in times of economic uncertainty. As we have demonstrated throughout our long history, we're able to be successful in all economic cycles. We are focused on meeting the needs of our customers. Our portfolio of strong brands, combined with the investing in technology to drive innovation and new product development, further enhance our market leadership. I'm confident in our ability to navigate the complex macro environment and capitalize on opportunities while continuing to execute our strategic objectives.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

With that, we conclude our prepared remarks and we are now available for your questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Michael Halloran with Baird. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Michael Halloran, Managing Director at Baird]

Good morning, everyone. Couple questions here. First, on the China side, the margins and I think the demand have proven relatively resilient versus the magnitude of the lockdowns. Maybe just a little under the hood, how you think about the inventory levels there, how that tracked through the quarter, how you positioned in the back half of the year. Just a comment on the capacity side and the resiliency of the incremental, please.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Sure. Good morning, Mike. This is Chuck. We're really pleased how China performed for the quarter. You know, we on our last call talked a little bit about consumer demand being down 35%-40% in April and as you recall, that was really the heart of some of the severe lockdowns in Shanghai and Beijing. What we saw in consumer demand for the course of the quarter was that consumer demand was down about 20%. First quarter was down around 10%, so second quarter averaged down around 20%. As we came out of the second quarter and what we're seeing in July is we're down about 5%-10%. The consumer demand went through pretty well to kind of back to the first quarter.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Our assumption and guidance is that it stays at that level kind of for the rest of the year. Inventories, you know, they're flat to down a little bit in the channel from the first quarter to the second quarter, so they are, you know, in a really good position. There's about three-four weeks in the inventory channel and that's pretty normal for us. It's at a decently low point. I'd say we're pleased with 9% in operating margins for the quarter on that lower volume. Some of that was helped by discretionary spending, as we mentioned. That's probably $3 million or so of help on discretionary spending. I'm talking about promotions, advertising, very little travel for the quarter, as you can imagine, in the lockdown situation.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

We would expect through the second quarter or third quarter, similar ability to kind of demonstrate this, you know, controlling discretionary spending. Probably back to spending in the fourth quarter. As you know, that's our largest typical quarter in China. Probably, you know, our projection is to turn that back on and we would hope for a strong fourth quarter similar to last year.

[Michael Halloran, Managing Director at Baird]

Great. Super helpful. You know, Kevin, I think you were talking about the you know, last couple years being awfully strong on the North America residential water heater side and it makes a lot of sense that the volume side is down for this year against that year comparison. What's the house view on what that run rate's gonna look like from an industry perspective? You know, we're running high 9 million-ish kind of units right now. Do you guys have a sense from an industry perspective on where that settles in from a downside and what that might look like?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Well, I think, yeah, as we talked about, we're forecasting a 4%-6% downturn. We saw quite a bit of that in June, where we saw many of our customers, you know, bringing inventories down. Again, as we go forward and, you know, this year, we look at it starting to normalize and get into August, September and the rest of the year. You know, where it goes forward, I think it's gonna depend upon, you know, some new construction. It slowed down but we think it's gonna come back. It is gonna normalize somewhere down towards the lower level of that 9 million, I think, over time. It's just a matter of working through kind of some of the inventories and some of the economics disruptions that we're going through today.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Still, you know, you look at it's still gonna be 80%-85% replacement. Emergency is gonna be very resilient and there's always gonna be potential upside on the new construction if we can kind of get through the supply chain interest rate issue that we're kind of navigating through today as a country. Yeah, just a little more color on the tough comp, right? That Q2 shipments last year were and Kevin mentioned it on the call, a record but, you know, that's inclusive of 2,006. Really strong 2021 Q2.

[Michael Halloran, Managing Director at Baird]

Yeah. No, great. Really appreciate the color. Thanks, guys.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Thanks, Mike.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Nathan Jones with Stifel. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Good morning, everyone.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Good morning.

[Helen Gurholt, VP of Investor Relations, Financial Planning and Analysis at A. O. Smith]

Good morning.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Maybe just following up on Mike's question, on the resi heater business in North America and related to the channel inventories. You know, you talked about customers taking their inventory down. Do you think that inventory is corrected? How long do you think it takes to correct?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

I think it's in the correction right now. Certainly, we believe there was a big correction in June. We're seeing some of that in July. You step back right now and you look at overall in the industry, production has improved, lead times are down, so it's becoming a much more predictable environment. With that, I think all of our customers are gonna reevaluate. I still think it'll take part of July, maybe a little bit of August and then kind of normalize as we go through the balance of the year. Just it's quantifying the lead times too, 'cause we came into the year at 25-day lead times and we're pretty much on the residential side, back to normal 15-day lead times.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Kind of progression through the quarter, we went from 25 to 20 in Q1 and then at the end of Q2, we're, you know, in that 15-day range. Those normalizations have happened in the first half of the year.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Makes sense. People would need less inventory under those circumstances. I guess my follow-up question is gonna be around steel prices and how that could impact the pricing on your products overall. You know, prices on water heaters are up a lot. They needed to be because steel was up a lot. Cold rolled and hot rolled rolls are down probably about 50% from peak prices now. Can you talk about your expectations for how price goes from here? Obviously, it'll go on a lag. That should be accretive to margins. Just any comments you can have on how you're expecting that to go if steel prices are kind of stable from where they are now.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah. Just a little background and color on the steel pricing, 'cause yeah, you're right. Your reference of kind of the peak to where they've gone is a pretty big delta on steel pricing. Kind of the mechanics of what we see in cost is not necessarily the peak. You know, it's kind of a weekly average, monthly average, quarterly average that we see 90-100 days later. We're never really at the peak. We're probably never really at the trough, you know, so those are a bit muted from kind of the highlights, you know, top and bottom end. Then we see that 90-120 day lag. Q1, we had our highest cost. Some of the improvement we saw in Q2 was the result of just little improved steel pricing.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

We do expect that too, as you noted, you know, we've seen indexes come down. We pretty much know what steel will be for Q3 and we project that in Q4 it'll be down a bit too. We do expect to see some benefit on the steel pricing. It's a little muted from those peaks and troughs and comes a little delayed. You know, as far as pricing, you know, we always consider the competitive nature in the marketplace and, you know, kind of look at a fade and some pressure, not just for steel, for other costs. I'll just say kind of the other costs we're experiencing have been pretty resilient, pretty stable, that are still out there, including freight, logistics and the like.

[Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel]

Thanks for taking my questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Kaplowitz with Citi. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Quite significantly, from flat to down to down 7%-9%. I think you said last quarter that you were seeing your order volume stabilize.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Hey, Andrew?

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Yes. Can you hear me okay?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

No. You were muted for a while. Could you start over, please?

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Oh, yeah, no problem.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Sorry about that.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Yeah, no problem. You changed your outlook for commercial water heater volumes. You know, you're down 7-9, as you said and I think you said last quarter that you were seeing your order volume stabilize after the early regulatory change. Can you give us more color on why the change in guidance? Are you seeing more of a significant change in end customer demand there? Is it just a slow start to the year? Maybe a destock there? Any more color would be helpful.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

I'll take that. As we mentioned, we still think commercial gas is gonna be flat to slightly down. That's moving along. The regulatory change that we experienced in the first quarter, we're seeing our orders normalize. As we go forward, we believe of the 7%-9% that we have forecasted being down, almost 90% plus of it's gonna be in that light service commercial electric. We just don't see the industry rebounding from a slow start in a quarter. That's the backdrop of why we're going down. The rest of the commercial business is quite strong and doing well. Maybe just a kind of a reference point that the light service goes into homes and really, you know, kind of small businesses.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

When you look at our commercial overall business, there's about 4x or 5x to our commercial overall business, excluding the light service when it comes to price. It's on the lower end of our pricing curve but it does drive volume and we just see now with better visibility that we need to bring the industry down from a unit standpoint but feel pretty good about our commercial gas and condensing gas and where that's going.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Got it. That's helpful. Kevin or Chuck, maybe just I wanna understand the puts and takes. Overall, you maintained your EPS guidance but you did lower your revenue forecast a little bit, you know, maintain margins in North America. China looks pretty good, you know, versus expectations. What are the puts and takes here? Is it, you know, what's the positive that you're seeing? Is it price versus cost that is the major offset to the lower volumes? Any help there?

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah. You know, I'll start out and Kevin may add on a little bit after that. I mean, the puts and takes, you know, it's price versus cost and it's what we are seeing a bit of softening on the steel pricing, so we're getting a little bit of help there. It's not just the water heater side, it's also pricing that we're gonna have implemented in the fourth quarter on both the boiler side of the business and water treatment side of the business. We've got some second quarter announced price increases that are in the market that should help us a bit in the back half with the margins.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Also, you know, we had a bit of destabilization during the quarter on order rates on the residential side and we expect that the plants probably will run a little bit smoother during the back half of the year. We would expect a little bit of help there. Then there's a bit of mix opportunity, right? Residential is down in the quarter and residential we see, you know, for the year down 4%-6%. As Kevin mentioned, we still feel good about commercial, particularly gas commercial production down 4%-6%. As Kevin mentioned, we still feel good about commercial, particularly gas commercial product, being strong for the back half of the year. Boilers, you know, our backlog for boilers is still pretty resilient.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

You know, we expect and it's typical that the boilers are strongest and our boiler business is strongest volume in the third quarter. We expect help on the mix side also.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah. The only thing I might add is even though China has gone through some COVID-related knock-on lockdowns, we've seen our new products do well. We've seen trade up continue to grow. It's grown for the last couple years. We have some positive, you know, mix issues here. It's not only in North America but also we see that also in China.

[Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi]

Appreciate all the color, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Matt Summerville, Managing Director at D.A. Davidson]

Thanks. A couple questions. First on China, if you gave this, I apologize. What is your best estimate on the revenue impact you experienced in the second quarter from the lockdowns? Therein, did you see any sort of difference in out the door demand for water heaters versus water treatment in China? I have a follow-up.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah. I mean, it's hard to call out exactly what's COVID and what's the overall economy in China, so it's really hard to parse that. Clearly we were impacted negatively by COVID. You know, consumer demand out the door was down about 20%, so that was kind of out the door demand. You know, I would say just kind of within you know within our product categories, certainly the residential products were challenged most. I would say you know electric water heaters and water treatment were probably the most challenged during the quarter. Commercial water heating, commercial water treatment, the commercial side that's not sold through retail kind of offset some of that 20% down, which you know muted the number for overall sales volume.

[Matt Summerville, Managing Director at D.A. Davidson]

Got it. Just with respect to the boiler backlog, can you guys maybe put a finer point on that? How does that compare to prior peaks, prior cycles? Can you maybe talk about the magnitude of pricing you're looking for in boilers, in treatment to what you just mentioned, a couple of moments ago in the back half? Thank you.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah. I'll take the magnitude and maybe, Chuck, you can jump in on any of the pricing side of it. Certainly we haven't seen this type of backlog. We're in the three-four month range, to be honest with you and it's mainly commercial. What's important to note here in our backlog is we actually have ship dates for the vast majority of all our orders in-house. There may be a put and take that we see where a job gets pulled in, maybe gets kicked out a little bit. But overall, we see nothing that would cause a material change to the backlog. The market remains very active. The jobs continue to move forward. Again, labor gets in the way a little bit.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Overall, yeah, we have a lot of comfort in our backlog and primarily that it's mostly commercial condensing products, which are, you know, the heart of our business.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

On the pricing side, you know, on the water treatment side, you know, going forward for the boiler side and water treatment side, kind of expect to see it come in end of third quarter and in the fourth quarter. Water treatment, kind of mid-single digits to 10% price increases, depending upon product category. Similar for the boiler products, you know, in that 8%-12%, depending upon product category.

[Matt Summerville, Managing Director at D.A. Davidson]

Got it. Thank you, guys.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yep.

[Operator]

Our next question comes from the line of David MacGregor with Longbow Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[David MacGregor, President at Longbow Research]

Yes. Good morning.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Morning.

[Helen Gurholt, VP of Investor Relations, Financial Planning and Analysis at A. O. Smith]

Morning.

[David MacGregor, President at Longbow Research]

Good morning. I wanted to just explore further around the residential water heater business and maybe some of the weaknesses you've seen there. You know, kind of think about that market as, maybe at the risk of oversimplifying this a little bit, as really consisting of three buckets. You've got the new construction, the replacement demand and then of course, just changes in the channel inventory. It sounds like the channel inventory is fairly transitory and you expect that, as you pointed out, by August you could see that kind of normalizing. New construction, I guess, you know, we'll watch completions and that'll give us a good sense of water heater consumption there.

[David MacGregor, President at Longbow Research]

Maybe just speak to replacement demand and what you're seeing there and maybe, you know, not to be overly skeptical here but to the extent you think you may have lost some share in replacement demand this quarter, what gives you confidence that your share position remains strong? Thank you.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah. Okay. You know, when you talk about replacement demand, there's two components of it. You have kind of the proactive replacement and then you have the emergency replacement. You know, the proactive side, which is renovation, probably driven, you know, by kind of remote work had been pretty strong. We saw that it's coming down a little bit. We test that every quarter and have a good read on that. As far as the overall emergency replacement, that will always remain resilient. I mean, people just don't go without, you know, hot water for any length of time. So, yeah, the residential business has those components. Again, I just wanna remind people that 15% of our business is that new construction, so even if it drops a little bit, it's pretty nominal for us.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

It's a nice upside and as we go forward. That's how it plays out and we feel pretty comfortable with our 4-6%. Again, as I mentioned, I think a lot of the channel inventory, you know, adjustments would, you know, come out in June and July and a little bit of August. From a share perspective, we have really good data on that. We talked about this last year and into the quarter that we were a little bit behind. We really expected, I expected, that it would normalize, as you know, production came up and, you know, the lead times came down and that's actually playing out really well on the residential side. I would tell you we're slightly up, moving towards our normal historic market shares and I'll just throw in commercial.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Commercial, we're already back to our normal rates.

[David MacGregor, President at Longbow Research]

Good to hear. Thank you for that. Just as a follow-up, I guess, you know, everyone's concerned right now about the slowing macro and so I'm thinking about sort of where the strength lies in your business. It seems to be in the boiler business. It's always been sort of one of the stronger elements in the model. How cyclical is that business? How should we be thinking about kind of if 2023 is a soft year and we see sort of pervasive weakness across the market, how stable should that business be?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah, it's historic. Well, we expect it to be pretty stable. I mean, the replacement component of that business is very similar to the water heater side in that 80%-85%. So the replacement piece, you know, continues to be resilient. It usually you know, the commercial side would typically lag the residential side. You've got projects in progress. You've got quoting that's happening in advance. It's a little more stable and longer. I you know, the last recession on the boiler side, which was, you know, 2006, 2007, the boiler business was impacted but not as much as the rest of the business, particularly because of some of the underlying growth drivers that you have on the replacement and high efficiency.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Most of our product, just as a reminder, is highly efficient, energy efficient product that, you know, pretty resilient in downturns because of the energy efficiency nature that continues to wanna drive a replacement.

[David MacGregor, President at Longbow Research]

Just to be clear, when you say it's resilient in terms of the cyclicality, are you talking about units or are you talking about profitability?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Both. They are very similar.

[David MacGregor, President at Longbow Research]

Good. Thank you very much.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah, thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Jeff Hammond, Managing Director at KeyBanc]

Hey, good morning.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Hey, Jeff.

[Jeff Hammond, Managing Director at KeyBanc]

Just wanted to ask a similar question on, you know, as Dave did on the water treatment business. It's, you know, a newer platform and just trying to get you know, it seems to be something maybe a little more discretionary than a you know, water heater replacement. Just how you think that business would perform in a recession scenario.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah, I guess the first point of some of our water treatment is it's a much more affordable product, you know. This is our first time going through some type of cycle here. Certainly it will be some discretion there with people but the way we look at it is the penetration, the awareness is gonna continue to go up. There's a consumable part that we had that's continued to grow. It's about 15% of our business today. It's not as, maybe not as resilient as water heaters. It's not a must-have but it's got some built-in components that help offset some of the downturns but just people becoming more aware of having healthy and clean water. We think it's gonna perform fairly well through any type of you know economic cycle.

[Jeff Hammond, Managing Director at KeyBanc]

Okay. Seems like the new entrant in the water heater space kind of finally got their plant open and I'm just wondering if you're seeing them in the marketplace at all and, you know, if you think there's any, you know, pricing disruption around that, particularly as input costs roll over. Thanks.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah, I'll quickly touch base on that. Nothing new from our perspective. Yes, their plant is open but their market activity from our perspective and what we're getting feedback hasn't changed. In fact, if anything, they're moving away from our customers, our retailers and wholesalers and trying to maybe look at more builders and that type of thing. Can't anticipate what the future is gonna be with them but right now, you know, it's kind of not a big change from what we saw other than they're manufacturing a few products in their U.S. plant.

[Jeff Hammond, Managing Director at KeyBanc]

Okay. Thanks, guys.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Graham with Loop Capital. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Yeah. Hi, good morning.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Morning, Scott.

[Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

You know, to an earlier question, Kevin, I was very interested in your view on the residential water heater market kind of going from the 9.9% level, I think you said, to the lower 9s%. I'm curious if you could add maybe a little more color from your perspective as the market leader. How much of that do you think is the destock?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Again, that's gonna be very speculative. The reason I feel confident in the water heater market is I still go back to and again, I'm not sure when it's gonna normalize but you know, new construction, there's still a deficit out there and that's gonna continue to grow and move forward. That's what gives me confidence in the market, a stable replacement side of it. Again and quite frankly, as things get a little tougher, people do more renovation. I think if you look at our history, you know, the growth rate in the residential water heater market, it's been at that couple percent range. I think, you know, as I go forward, I just think it's gonna adjust down. We were in a very hyperinflated market, had a lot of money out there and everybody benefited from it.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

I think over time, that's going to just normalize to kind of a run rate that we've seen in the past. The great news of it, though, there's more water heaters out there today and that's gonna you go out 10, 14 years, that's gonna play really well for the industry and for our company. That's kind of the high level. It's really hard to get in much more detail than that, Scott.

[Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

That's fine. That was helpful. Thanks. In China, can you give us the sales split for the quarter, I know you combine both water heaters and treatment. Upper middle price point versus premium?

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Sure. I mean, the premium side of the market is so robust. The low end is about 40% premium on the electric water heating side. The high end is nearing 50% premium on the gas tankless and then water treatment's kind of in between. Not a great deal of change. A little uptick on the electric side. We introduced a couple new products, a good dual tank slim line product on the electric that, you know, we're hoping to get some traction on, which bumped that up a bit.

[Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Okay. You are seeing that number continue to incrementally progress.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Well, quarter-over-quarter for electric, it was up and we think it's, it is due to some new products. Hard to say a lot of movement but when we track the upper part of the market and what the industry is telling us from a third party, still positive movement, so still an uptick from the last quarter. Not a large uptick but only positive.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah, Scott, I'd just echo that. We talked about it. It's been about a couple of years now and so a lot of our premium products have feature and benefit that still consumers in China are willing to pay for. So we're very pleased with our new products and we're really pleased to see the upper end continue to move in that kind of northeast direction.

[Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Got it. Thank you. Just a follow-up. Share repurchases. I know you're kind of still locked in at that $400 million. I'm just, you know, just sort of wondering with the market weaker, resi conditions, obviously, you know, sliding, yet you're still having, you know, some fairly stable sales based, you know, on the replacement nature of them, including in China, good cash flow. What's holding you back from going higher on the share repurchases this year?

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah, I mean, we did have an uptick to $400 million. I think last year we were 380-ish or something like that and change. So we're, you know, we're still at a little bit of an uptick to historically. I think as we go into this cycle and, you know, we'll have to see how it plays out but there could be some real opportunities on the M&A side. We wanna make sure we're in a position to be able to capitalize on those opportunities. So that's one weight against it. The other is, you know, we're projecting to be at that $400 million now. You know, we don't have intentions to increase it on this call. You know, we'll continue to watch it as we have and see what the economy does and what our price does, so.

[Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Yeah. Chuck, I guess on that, I guess my whole thinking, of course, is that it's not just about the cash flow but it's also about the balance sheet. You guys have been running in that cash position for, like, a decade. It just seems like you have a lot of dry powder there and can still increase the share repurchasing. Are you looking at a couple of large-sized acquisitions? Is that kind of part of the equation?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah. I'll jump in here. That's always a possibility. You know, the way we looked at as we go into the year and, you know, things have changed as this year started and kind of evolved to where we're at today. The $400 million is pretty much a locked in number for us. Each year, we evaluate where we'd like to go. We'll take another look, as Chuck said, in 2023. We do think there's some opportunity as we get into the back half of this year with a number of our M&A targets. You know, things are changing and we wanna be prepared and to have the, you know, the balance sheet to take action if those opportunities come our way.

[Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets]

Okay. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Again, if you have a question at this time, please press star one one on your touch-tone telephone. Our next question comes from the line of Damian Karas with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

[Damian Karas, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Hi. Good morning, everyone.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Good morning.

[Damian Karas, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Thanks for all the detailed color around the market outlook. I have a follow-up question on margins. I was wondering if you could maybe just, you know, help us think about the bridge when you factor in some of the volume de-leveraging but the lower steel and input costs. Is there a good way to think about, you know, the decremental margins versus the price cost benefit? I guess just any perspective you might be able to provide on the additional margin you could capture, you know, later this year and next year, if sort of steel costs basically hold stable from here.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

Yeah, this is Chuck. You know, I won't go beyond this year but you know, when you think about kind of the decremental margins and we're really just talking about residential water heater decremental margin and then what Kevin mentioned, the light commercial. You probably think of that in the 35% decremental margin range. Steel costs, you know, we have visibility into those costs through the third quarter, for sure. We're starting to see visibility in the second. We feel pretty good about that. That's probably the next largest driver. Then the stabilization of order rates as we expect. You know, we had a little bit of a disruption in the end of June and in July here on residential order rates. We would expect plants to perform a little bit better during the back half of the year.

[Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO at A. O. Smith]

The commercial mix is also favorable. We expect some help on commercial mix. You know, if you kind of think about the cadence for the back half of the year, you know, our guidance is 22.5%-23%, right? We're kinda tracking below that right now. We do expect, you know, a decent uptick in the Q3 and then, you know, incrementally Q4 as some of those price increases I mentioned on water treatment and Lochinvar and boilers come in and as we see probably our most favorable, you know, steel for sure in the fourth quarter. That's how we kinda think about that margin expansion.

[Damian Karas, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Okay, that's helpful. Now, I wanted to ask you about your heat pump product. You know, we're seeing heat pumps gain traction in the broader HVAC market, you know, kind of on the air side that's really picking up. Was wondering if you could maybe talk a little bit about what you're seeing. I guess in theory, the economics have probably gotten a little bit worse just because of the steel inflation if you compare that product to the tankless. But maybe any thoughts on just how that is progressing. Do you think that the market, you know, that product could take off on its own or are you gonna, you know, ultimately need some government stimulus?

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Let me separate that to a residential heat pump versus a commercial heat pump because I think they're both different markets. The residential heat pump is still an upsell product. It's one of the best value propositions we have in our company but it's a 3-4x a regular, you know, electric water heater and there are some installation challenges. There are quite a bit of subsidies out there, whether it be at the state or city, which is helping and that's gonna continue to grow. I mean, there's no doubt that it'll grow. It'll grow at a moderate pace, I believe, unless it's regulated in. It's gonna continue to grow and it's going to be a long-term product for our company in our industry.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

It's still a relatively small part of our overall volume. Commercial heat pump is even. You know, there's a lot of activity out there but that's trailing the residential side just because it does have some size to the installation. It requires a tank. There's a number of things that have to go along with it and it's better for new construction than it is for retrofit. We see that growing. We see activity in it. We obviously have products that we participate in. I think both of those categories are gonna grow at a percentage rate pretty high. As an overall volume, still gonna be more of an upsell product unless there's some regulatory changes that come.

[Damian Karas, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS]

Got it. That makes sense. Really appreciate it. Best of luck.

[Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO at A. O. Smith]

Thank you. Thanks for joining us.

[Operator]

I'm showing no further questions and I would like to hand the conference back over to Helen Gurholt for any further remarks.

[Helen Gurholt, VP of Investor Relations, Financial Planning and Analysis at A. O. Smith]

Thank you for joining us today. Let me conclude by reminding you that our global A. O. Smith team delivered strong sales and earnings in the second quarter despite many challenges. We look forward to updating you on our progress in the quarters to come. In addition, please mark your calendars to join our presentations at four conferences in the third quarter. Northcoast on 8 August, Jefferies on 9 August, Stifel on 7 September and D.A. Davidson on 22 September.

[Operator]

Thank you, everyone. Have a great day. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.

Participants

Executives

• Chuck Lauber, EVP and CFO
• Helen Gurholt, VP of Investor Relations, Financial Planning and Analysis
• Kevin Wheeler, Chairman and CEO

Analysts

• Andrew Kaplowitz, Managing Director at Citi
• Damian Karas, Senior Equity Research Analyst at UBS
• David MacGregor, President at Longbow Research
• Jeff Hammond, Managing Director at KeyBanc
• Matt Summerville, Managing Director at D.A. Davidson
• Michael Halloran, Managing Director at Baird
• Nathan Jones, Managing Director at Stifel
• Scott Graham, Managing Director at Loop Capital Markets