H. B. Fuller Company

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the HB Fuller Q4 2020 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 the session, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. If you require any further assistance, please press star 0. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Barbara Doyle, Vice President of Investor Relations. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to HB Fuller's fourth quarter fiscal 2020 earnings call for the fiscal quarter ended November 28th, 2020. Our speakers are Jim Owens, HB Fuller President and Chief Executive Officer, and John Corcoran, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will take questions. Please let me cover a few items before I turn the call over to Jim. First, a reminder that our comments today will include references to non-GAAP financial measures and references to organic revenue, which excludes the impact of foreign currency fluctuation and the impact of acquisitions and divestitures. On this call, unless otherwise specified, discussion of sales and revenue referred to organic revenues and discussion of EPS, margins, or EBITDA, referred to adjusted non-GAAP measures. These measures are in addition to the GAAP results in our earnings release and in our forms 10-Q and 10-K. We believe that discussion of these measures is useful to investors to assist the understanding of our operating performance and the comparability of results with other companies. Reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to the nearest GAAP measure is included in our earnings release. Also, we will be making forward-looking statements during this call. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many of these risks and uncertainties are and will be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and any worsening of the global business and economic environment as a result. Actual results could differ materially from these expectations due to factors discussed in our earnings release, comments made during this call, or risk factors in our forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC and available on our website at investors.hbfuller.com. Now, let me turn the call over to Jim Owens.

Jim Owens Thank you, Barbara, and welcome to everyone on the call. Last evening, we reported strong fourth quarter results with organic revenue up 5 percent, EBITDA up 9 percent, and EPS up 21 percent. These results exceeded our expectations and each of our segments delivered positive organic growth and strong margin performance in the quarter. This performance is especially strong given its comparison against a pre-COVID environment and as a result of the work we've done to gain market share and reduce our cost structure. During today's call and in the months ahead, we will explain and demonstrate why you should continue to expect differentiated performance from HB Fuller. Throughout the year, our portfolio of innovative adhesive solutions in hygiene, health, and packaging has enabled HB Fuller to continuously meet high levels of demand for essential consumer products. We outperform the market in meeting these needs. During this time, we also work with customers in other markets to accelerate our product qualification processes for electronics and durable goods, And as demand around the world strengthened and global industrial production improved, we capitalized on share gains across our diverse markets to deliver fourth quarter results ahead of our expectations. We also realized significant operational benefits from the business realignment completed earlier in the year, which generated $30 million of annualized SG&A savings in 2020, including $10 million realized in the fourth quarter. resulting in strong profit growth and operating leverage. Our work in 2019 in advance of the pandemic to reorganize into three GBUs instead of five has enabled us to grow faster while reducing costs. Our strong cash flow performance continued in the fourth quarter. Cash flow from operations increased 27% year over year. and enabled us to pay down a total of $205 million of debt for the year above our original $200 million target. Our results in the fourth quarter and throughout the year reinforced the resiliency of HB Fuller's strategy. Our culture of collaboration, our broad adhesive technology portfolio, our applications expertise, and our global operational agility proved to be differentiators in this current environment. HB Fuller seamlessly supported the dynamic needs of our customers in a world transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, several priorities have remained constant for us, ensuring the health and safety of our employees, leveraging our technology investments to find new ways of working, and utilizing our vast global capabilities to ensure business continuity for our customers. All companies have had to learn how to work differently in 2020, But I can say that HB Fuller team has truly excelled in this environment. I can't emphasize strongly enough how proud I am of our employees around the globe for their unwavering focus on delivering our priorities throughout 2020. Our teams effectively collaborated with each other and with our customers to develop new products and solve supply issues. And they did it faster than ever. We leveraged our digital technology in new ways to remotely qualify new applications and troubleshoot complex issues. The result was an increase in the speed of our decision making, shortened sales cycles, and improved customer support. Our new organizational structure enabled greater collaboration across our global teams, faster decision making, and better flexibility. HB Fuller's dedicated focus on adhesive technologies and our global capabilities have positioned us to move first and fastest with a clear vision and mission. No distractions from other divisions, other priorities, or regional issues. These have proven to be critical competitive advantages, resulting in increased share with existing customers and business wins with new customers. With that as perspective, I'll move on to our segment results in the fourth quarter on slide three. Strong performance continued in our hygiene, health, and consumables segment, where organic revenues increased by 5 percent, including solid organic growth in most geographic regions. We continued to meet high levels of demand for essential goods in the quarter, and our portfolio of adhesive solutions that enable more sustainable consumer products drove strong growth in packaging, tissue and towel, and tapes and labels. HHC segment EBITDA margins were strong at 15.3 percent, up 270 basis points year-over-year, reflecting volume leverage, favorable mix, savings from our business restructuring, and good overall cost control. Construction adhesives organic revenue increased 1 percent versus the prior year, with improvements in year-on-year performance for all markets when compared with the second and third quarters of the year. Both the commercial flooring and roofing end markets improved in the quarter, albeit at a slower pace than residential construction markets. Construction adhesives EBITDA margin was solid at 12.4%, down 80 basis points versus last year, reflecting unfavorable mix and an increase in variable compensation accruals as a result of the stronger top line results in the fourth quarter. For the full year, EBITDA margin was roughly flat to 2019. New product introductions and improved product mix related to last year's portfolio repositioning, as well as operational improvements from the GBU restructuring, offset the impact of lower volume. These operational improvements position this business for strong margins as construction activity increases in 2021. Engineering adhesives continue to show strong improvement, with organic revenue up 5.6% year-on-year the quarter led by double digit growth in electronics recreational vehicles woodworking and panels and solid results in insulating glass and automotive engineering adhesives ebitda margin remained strong at nearly 17 percent down 80 basis points versus last year reflecting an increase in variable compensation as a result of the stronger top line results in the fourth quarter looking ahead to 2021 we will pursue growth opportunities and share gains in a business environment that is expected to continue to improve but remain below normal levels. Our planning assumptions at this time are that COVID-related shutdown impacts will continue to lessen as vaccines are rolled out around the world, although recessionary forces will continue to weigh on global economies throughout the year. We anticipate continued improvement in underlying demand especially for electronic storable goods and consumer goods, driving volume growth in 2021 versus 2020. Growth in some end markets, such as commercial construction and aerospace, will improve at a slower pace and may not yet return to 2019 levels of activity. Elevated demand for hygiene and health products, packaging, paper tissues, and towels will likely continue into 2021 as consumers continue to spend more time in their homes. The spikes in demand that we saw in the second quarter, however, are unlikely to repeat. We anticipate construction adhesives and markets to continue to show steady improvement throughout 2021, with commercial activity improving throughout the year and residential activity remaining solid. Engineering adhesive end market demand will likely remain at elevated levels in early 2021, reflecting increased production activity to meet some pent-up demand, returning to more typical activity levels in the second half of the year. In total, our base planning assumptions are for low- to mid-single-digit organic revenue growth in 2021, with stronger growth from engineering and construction adhesives versus 2020. We expect volume leverage and savings from our restructuring and our operational improvement programs to drive solid year-on-year EVTA margin improvement in 2021. Sales growth, improving margins, and continued working capital efficiency will enable us to continue to drive strong cash flow and deliver another year of strong debt pay down, with a target of paying down another $200 million of debt in 2021. Against a challenging economic backdrop, our performance in 2020 demonstrates that our business is diverse and resilient. Our operations are nimble, and we are executing our strategy well. and we expect to continue to outperform our markets again in 2021. Now, let me turn the call over to John Corcoran to review our financial results and our expectations for 2021 in more detail based on these planning assumptions.

John Corcoran Thanks, Jim. I'll begin on slide four with some additional financial details on the fourth quarter. For the quarter, revenue was up 5.2 percent versus the same period last year. Currency had a positive impact of 0.5 percent. Adjusting for currency, organic revenue was up 4.7 percent, with volume up 5 percent and pricing having a negative 0.3 percent impact year-on-year in the quarter. Year-on-year adjusted gross profit margin was 27.5 percent, down 10 basis points versus last year, as higher volume was offset by higher variable compensation and unfavorable absorption due to a reduction in inventory. Adjusted selling general and administrative expense as a percentage of revenue was down a full percentage point versus last year, reflecting savings associated with the business realignment and lower travel, which was partially offset primarily by higher variable compensation associated with strong fourth quarter results. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter of $123 million was up 9.4% versus last year and above the high end of our planning assumptions. reflecting strong top-line performance, particularly in engineering adhesives. Adjusted earnings per share were $1.06, up 21% versus the same period last year, as strong volume growth, lower SG&A, and lower interest expense associated with our debt reduction actions grow higher earnings per share than last year. For the quarter, cash flow from operations of $139 million is up by 27%, versus the same period last year, reflecting continued improvement in working capital performance. This allowed us to continue to reduce debt, paying off $205 million for the full year ahead of our $200 million debt pay down plan. With that, let me now turn to our guidance for the 2021 fiscal year. Based on what we know today and the planning assumptions that Jim laid out earlier, we anticipate full year organic revenue growth to be in the low to mid single digits and EBITDA to increase by approximately 10% as volume leverage, pricing, manufacturing and supply chain savings, and carryover of the restructuring-related savings in SG&A offset higher raw material costs, variable compensation rebuild, and higher travel expense. We expect our 2021 core tax rate to be between 26% and 28% compared to our 2020 core tax rate of about 25%. The higher tax rate is a result of forecasted income by region and the tax impact related to global cash management. Capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $95 million in the 2021 fiscal year, and we expect to devote approximately $200 million of our cash flow after CapEx investments and dividends to the repayment of debt. Now let me turn the call back over to Jim to wrap us up.

Thanks, John. In 2020, we proved our ability to consistently and effectively execute our strategy in the toughest of times. We reinforced the business resiliency that comes from our broad portfolio of adhesive applications and diverse end market exposure. Most importantly, we have created momentum as we head into 2021. Revenues increased and margins improved sequentially throughout the year. And in the fourth quarter, we delivered 5% organic revenue growth with positive organic growth in each of our segments. The momentum we have created is enabling us to outperform our markets and is a direct result of actions we've taken over the past few years to realign our organizational structure and strengthen our ability to grow. Our business realignment accelerated our market-focused innovation and enhanced our collaborative capabilities, enabling us to consistently meet customers' needs and capture growth opportunities. And the business realignment also enabled us to do this through a simpler, lower-cost structure. Looking ahead, we are only just beginning to see the benefits from these actions. Our customer wins continue to grow, and we are still in the process of implementing changes and optimizing the business, with a focus now on driving $20 to $30 million of efficiencies across our manufacturing network by the end of 2022. We are encouraged by share gains and new customer business we have won in 2020 that helped drive revenue growth as we exited the year. Our focus on innovation to drive new business continues in 2021, and our new product pipeline is stronger than it has ever been. We continue to expand our portfolio of adhesive applications that enable more economical and environmentally sustainable buildings and products. Some examples include our single-ply membrane sprayable roofing adhesive, our fast 2K pole and post-setting material, advanced adhesives for solar panels and insulating glass, formaldehyde-free low monomer emission adhesives to support low VOC structural wood products and panels, and a growing portfolio of adhesives for electronics, including applications used in smartphones and wearables, touch panels and keyboards, and interiors and exteriors in both traditional and electronic vehicles. In December, we announced our Advantra hot melt adhesive technology for extreme cold storage of vaccines and medical packaging, which provides a secure bond at minus 70 degrees Celsius. Demand also remains strong for sustainable packaging solutions, such as HB Fuller's closed sesame tapes that support easily returnable packaging systems, compostable adhesives, for paper and hygiene products, and our microsphere adhesive technology for removable signs and labels. This high level of demand reinforces the importance of our HHC solution in today's world. These are just a few examples of the innovation we are bringing to market. With our strong product pipeline and the continued optimization of our operations, we are confident in our ability to build on our success, driving further share gains and continued margin improvement. We exit an unprecedented year in 2020 as a much stronger company. And as the world's largest dedicated provider of adhesives, we are uniquely positioned to capture future growth opportunities and deliver for our shareholders strong, sustainable results in the months and years ahead. This concludes our prepared remarks today. Operator, please open up the call so we can take some questions.

As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1 on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound or hash key. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from Jeff Tsakowskis with JP Morgan. Your line is open.

Thanks very much. In your remarks, you said that if raw materials go up, you should be able to offset it with price increases. How much price do you need to offset your raw material inflation?

Yeah, so, Jeff, as you know, raw materials are starting to move here early in the year. Right now, it's commodity materials, things like – propylene and ethylene, you know, and only about 13% of what we buy is those materials. You know, we typically, 87% of what we buy is specialty materials, and those typically lag those commodity materials. So, we're seeing and anticipating a ramping up of increases. It'll probably hit us more in the second half than the first half. We have started some price increases here in February and March. So, So I'd say it's a fluid plan, Jeff, but I think for the full year, increases of 1%, maybe 2% for the full year, but that ramps. That starts at a pretty low number, and the second half of the year will be at closer to 3% or 4%.

Right. So shouldn't your organic growth for 2021 be higher than, you know, low to mid-single digits? If you're going to get, you know, a couple of percent from price alone, you know, if you grew at a low single-digit rate, that would imply no volume growth or not much volume growth. But surely you should do much better than that, no?

Yeah, you know, let me let John give you a little more color on it. But, you know, I think, Jeff, it's a fluid environment out there. So, you know, I think there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic, certainly given how the year end and the comps were up against. And certainly there will be some price impact of 1% or 2%. But, you know, I think it's a fluid world. So we're not going to anticipate exactly where it's going to head. until things play out here a little bit going into the start of the year. But, yeah, I think there's a case that organic growth could be a little higher depending on where the world goes. John, do you want to add to that?

Yeah, just on the point on pricing. So, you know, Jeff, we would probably expect that if we saw, you know, 1.5% to 2% in raw material inflation, we might get closer to 1% pricing, which would fully offset the dollar impact. So, you know, obviously a 1% increase in pricing would offset approximately a 2% increase on raw materials. Eventually, we want to get, you know, back to where we're getting that full 2% to get our margins back to where they were, but that sometimes takes a little longer. So I think as we think about a 1-2% raw material inflation world, we're probably, you know, around 1%, maybe a little bit lower than that from a pricing standpoint.

Okay. And lastly... The margins in engineering, construction in the fourth quarter were down year over year. And even though the revenue growth in engineering was really pretty strong, and you talked about taking out $10 million in costs. So, like, it didn't look like the $10 million in costs really came out of those two segments. Did it come out of HHC and engineering? You know, were you satisfied with your margins in engineering?

Yeah, I think broadly speaking, John, and I'll let John again – or Jeff, I'll let John give a little more color. It's really about this – accrual of variable compensation that was, because we overperformed in the fourth quarter, we need to build up some accruals that really impacted the last few quarters. So that was fundamentally what I think would have shifted margins to be more positive than they were. So We were happy to see 21% EPS and double-digit growth, but I think to your point with that organic growth, you would normally see even better numbers, and that was just about building up some variable comp. John, do you want to add to that?

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. I mean, really, the variable comp impact, which was probably $6 to $8 million in the quarter versus kind of the typical run rate because there was a catch-up impact, was all in engineering adhesives and construction adhesives, which had been harder hit by the COVID impact and performed much better in Q4. So that was a little bit of a catch-up impact in Q4.

Okay, great. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jeff.

Your next question comes from Mike Harrison with Seaport Global Securities. Your line is open.

Hi, good morning. Congratulations on the nice end to the year here. Good morning, Mike, and thank you. Wanted to start out with, I also have a question on the guidance. Maybe talk a little bit about your expected cadence of EBITDA growth in that 10% number and talk a little bit about your macro assumptions or I guess maybe COVID or vaccine assumptions because you refer to this guidance as as your base case um and i'm wondering if if that means it's maybe a little bit conservative or can you talk about maybe how you would think about uh the difference between base case and and maybe a best case or a worst case uh relative to that 10 number okay

There's a lot of questions built in there, Mike, but I'll try and give a high level. I think the – Sorry about that. That's okay. You know, in terms of cadence, you know, we're expecting double-digit EBTA growth here in Q1. We, you know, we're also – expecting, you know, if you think about that 10%, to be above 10% in Q2 and Q3 and maybe a little below it in Q4. So it's, you know, that's kind of the shape of the EBITDA growth. And admittedly, Mike, you know, we're not trying to crystal ball here a big rebuild of demand globally. Certainly there's a lot of good signs out there, and our results are very positive. plus we got some good share gains. So there's a lot of reasons why you could get more optimistic. But I think we've all seen that the world goes in fits and starts as things go forward. So just as we did last year, we built our planning assumptions, I think, on a practical view that recessionary impacts would affect our business. And, you know, I couldn't tell you what they are and where they're going to hit and when. You know, that's sort of our planning assumptions is is not some, you know, everybody gets vaccinated and the world takes off kind of scenario. So, John, you want to add to that some? I think that's exactly right. So, and in terms of best case, you know, I think if the world got a lot better, Mike, you'd see clearly higher demand would come forward in our business. We do have very good leverage, especially in EA and CA from a margin standpoint. You know, we're anticipating some buildup of costs. You know, things like, you know, we talked about bonus accruals. You know, obviously all of our bonuses are below target last year. We've got merit and we've got travel that will go up. But we'll have very good leverage if we see more volume growth. But we'll also see more raw material inflation. You know, I think the, you know, if the world gets very active, you'll see that. So, you know, we've got a plan to manage through all that if it goes through. But generally, if the world's a better place... we're well positioned to take advantage of it.

All right. Appreciate the color there. And then we're hearing that a lot of manufacturers in industrial and automotive and maybe some other markets are running at pretty low inventory levels. Can you talk a little bit about the potential restocking opportunity that you see across some of your key businesses? Sure.

Yeah, you know, I couldn't give you a full color on everything. You know, we're very diverse in our end markets. You know, I think we're feeling a little of that in Europe. I think Europe really destocked and you saw a lot of inactivity from a manufacturing standpoint over the summer. So, you know, markets like auto and insulating glass in Europe are definitely in a mode of restocking. You know, I mentioned RVs. RVs, the demand is very high there. but they've depleted all their inventories. I think you're going to see a pull to fill pipelines there for a long time just to catch up. So there are definitely some market segments that need, especially of more industrial goods, you know, durable goods. I think you see some inventories depleted in certain markets.

All right.

Thanks very much. Okay, Mike. Thanks.

Our next question comes from Eric Petrie with Citi. Your line is open.

Hey, good morning, Jim and John. Good morning, Eric. A question on the noted semiconductor chip shortage going on globally and, you know, the impact on your electronics business and auto. You're posting double-digit gains, you know, this quarter, last quarter. You know, so how do you see that growth momentum for both those end markets into 2021?

Yeah. So in terms of our own products, most of what we produce around the world, we produce with local raw materials. So we don't have a huge supply chain dependence on raw material shipping around the world. And we have local alternatives. So we're doing a great job of managing our supply chain to give product to customers locally. Your question is more about our end customers. Our wins in electronics are mostly share gains, so it's tough for us sometimes to sift through what the market's doing versus us winning there. So clearly, these shipping lane problems are an issue for a lot of industries and Some of our customers are managing through them. But we don't see a material impact on our business overall, you know, from what we hear from customers. But there are definitely signs of people having supply issues globally through shipping lanes. But our customers seem to me to be mostly managing through it with exceptions. John, anything, color you want to add there? No, I think that's exactly right. Okay.

helpful. And from my follow-up question, how do you see working capital in 2021 versus the source of cash this year or in 2020? And then what is your target leverage by year-end 21 compared to four times currently and the target that you gave when acquiring Royal of less than three by 2020? How does that stack up now?

Yeah. So, uh, so on the, well, I'll give some high level and then maybe John can, uh, yeah, working capital. I think we've, we've since over the last few years, we've, we've reduced it three, 400 points. John will give you the exact number, but we put a really big focus on that. And I think the team has done an outstanding job of managing working capital. And we see ourselves improving that another 50 to a hundred basis points again this year. So, uh, now we're going to have more capital demand as, as we grow off of 2020, but, uh, But I think as a percentage, you'll see that go down another 50 to 100 basis points where we continue to build that as a strength in the company. And then, as I've said many times to our investors, our objective is to get below 3.0. We set out a three-year target to reduce... to reduce debt by $600 million. We've delivered over $670 million in debt reduction. We've beaten our target every single year. You know, I'm going to be shooting to beat the target again this year. And, you know, as you point out, we'll be close to three by the end of this year and certainly below three in 2022. John, do you want to comment more, especially on the working capital or anything?

Sure, yeah, no, I think you're exactly right. We've taken our working capital as a percentage of sales from about 18% in 2017 to below 17% at the end of 2020, so about 100 basis points a year, and that's in the range of improvement we would expect to see in 2021. So based on that math, it would be a source of cash, maybe not quite as big a source of cash as this year when we also had the impact of lower sales, but... But, yeah, and then from a leverage standpoint, based on, you know, those numbers, we would expect to be, you know, at around 3.5 times debt to EBITDA or slightly below by the end of 2021. Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Gancham Punjabi with Baird. Your line is open.

Hey, you guys. Good morning. Good morning, Gancham. Good morning. Yeah, so going back to the EBITDA margins, specifically 4Q and HHC, did the margins there come in in line with your original plan? Was it better? It just was higher than our model. Just curious as to what drove the upside, if there was any relative to your initial plan. And just also more broadly, you know, as the lockdown started to expand during the quarter, during your calendar 4Q, How did that impact some of the exit run rates, if you will, from volumes for each of the segments, especially EA?

Okay, so... as far as HHC is concerned and the margin, Q3 was a little lower than we expected. Q4 was about what we expected, probably a little better. Andy and the team have done a great job all year. I think they've met a lot of demand, they've generated the growth, and then they've improved the margins in that business. So we're very pleased with it. I wouldn't say it's dramatically less than we thought in the quarter, probably a little better as they have done all year. So a really good quarter and year for our HHC business. And part of that is growth, right? The share gains that they're getting in addition to meeting all the demands out there in this environment has been really positive. And the second question was? Exit rates or volumes? Yeah, so John, did you want to comment on that?

Yeah. Yeah, I can for sure. So, you know, I don't really think we saw a significant impact from any lockdowns in the fourth quarter, either positive or negative. I think the trends in HHC and EA, you know, both moved in a positive direction as we ended the year. So I would say it's hard to it's hard to say for sure, but I don't really feel like we saw an impact.

Got it. And then in terms of, you know, back to the raw material question also, I mean, you know, there's a big concern about margin pressure for a lot of the companies in our coverage, including yours, as costs have risen, as, you know, the economy has bounced back, et cetera, globally. You know, you mentioned reformulation and some select pricing, but, you know, how would you kind of give us comfort that we're not going to go through a sequential margin compression phase as year volumes come back and then also some of the commodity, just the tightness in the commodity markets? to start to roll through your cost structure.

Yeah. Yeah, so, you know, I think one of the differences between us and a lot of other companies, Gontram, is we're not a purchaser of commodity materials, so we definitely see that lag as ROLs come in. So with only 13% of our ROLs being things like VAM and Acrylate and Ethylene, and so we're not seeing that big uptick that a lot of people see here early in the first half of the year. And also, I'd say it's a little more muted. I mean, if you look at what's happened to propylene and ethylene, it's really taken off. I mean, VAM, which is our number one raw material, is only 4% of our purchases. So that's one thing that's different about us than others. But I think we've shown over the years, and you can look back at other inflationary and environments, that we've gotten very good at anticipating where the world's going and then taking those bold steps on increases. And I mentioned briefly in Jeff's question, you know, we've got price increases that are going to affect in February and March in certain market segments. We've got a whole plan built around Q2 increases. And right now, we're sifting through exactly how big and the exact timing of those, but But certainly price increases will be a big part of the strategy as we look into the second half of the year. But we don't get that big shock to our system that other companies have. So we have a little time to plan for it. And it's pretty clear it's coming. So we're taking the steps. John, anything else to add there? No, man. That summarizes it great.

And Jim, if I could, just your exposure to freight, how big is that for you? And And, you know, the question I asked about raw materials wasn't just specific to your pure raw material basket, but also some of the logistics costs, including freight.

Yeah, again, if you think about adhesives, and especially as our portfolio has changed over the years, our business is not as bulk as a lot of companies. So overall freight is about 2% to 3% of revenue. So, you know, if you think about a 10% or 20% increase in freight, that's – you know, a 0.3 or a 0.6%. So it's something for us to manage. Just as labor is, you know, I think we're going to see a little bit of labor pressure here, but it's not the big driver. Raw materials are the big driver for us.

Okay. Very clear. Thanks so much.

Okay.

Thank you, Ganch.

Your next question comes from Vincent Anderson with Stiefel. Your line is open.

Yeah, thanks. And I just wanted to echo the congratulations on an impressive year. So, yeah, so just to nitpick 2021 guidance a little bit longer, you know, how much of the 10% EBITDA increase is accounting for the cost savings that you've achieved, net of whatever kind of, you know, cost inflation normalizing out of COVID?

Yeah, so, you know, I think if I were to think about it at a very high level, You know, the growth in currency impacts about $40 million of increased gancho. You know, our project GROW, our restructuring savings that we talked about, generated about $15 to $20 million in benefit. And then, you know, we have a lot of costs up. You know, we've got to rebalance our bonuses, which were below targets, merit, travel, and that's about a $20 million drag. And then you have this net raw material pricing and positive mix, which ultimately that nets out to zero. So those are the main elements of this, and that's how you get to the number.

Okay, that's helpful. And then, you know... Not to get ahead of ourselves, but maybe this is a year where the dollar isn't just a constant headwind. If we see the dollar weaken further, is it all translation for HB Fuller, or could we actually see some kind of impact to margins from a weaker dollar?

Yeah, so it's always interesting. In theory, it's mostly translation, but there have been in the past benefits when we see a weakening dollar, and we've had the pain. It feels like most of my term as CEO, we've had the other effect. So it should be a positive for us, and we factored some of that into this year, but a weakening dollar is generally good for us.

Thanks. And if I could sneak in one more. You listed quite a few new product developments. Maybe more broadly, are there any specific families that you're excited to see progress on commercialization as we get back to a more normal customer environment? And then maybe specifically, you had some recent success in aerospace earlier in 2020. Is that going to translate to much in the way of sales in 2021?

Well, I'm excited about all of our innovations, so it's tough for me to pick a couple. You know, I would say, and we haven't talked a lot about it on this. So this restructuring into three GBUs and then really the 28 segments below that is really driving a lot of our growth and our wins. So if you think about a business like ours, and those are roughly $100 million businesses, them getting $2 million and $5 million and $10 million wins is what this is about. So I can't point to one $20 million, $30 million win that's really driving the number. It's a lot of things. But what I really love is each one of our segments – has one or two very sizable wins where they're gaining some shares. So our work in solar, I'm very pleased with what we're doing there and some of the innovations there because that's such an emerging trend. Our work in electric vehicles and the electronics around vehicles. So we've targeted in the auto space anything to do with electronics. There's some really exciting wins there, and we're positioning ourselves as a leader there And then just electronics in general, that team continues to get stronger and stronger. And then finally, you know, under Andy's leadership, the part of why we set up HHC was to get a better handle on what some of the sustainability benefits were, and we got a couple nice wins there. So those are some of the ones I'm most excited about in terms of we're ahead of the trends, and they have momentum that's going to build on itself as the world evolves. All right, thank you.

Your next question comes from David Begleiter with Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning. Morning, David. How is organic growth tracking Q1?

Yeah, I'd say December was positive. So, you know, I think more of what we saw in Q4. So it's December, though. I'm always cautious not to overreact to December. But, you know, I would say more positive than not is what we saw in the first month of the quarter.

And do you have a read on January? Do you get weekly sales that give you insight into?

We do. Again, I'm really hesitant to talk about our average daily sales, but I don't think we see any big trend changes. We think it's going to be a positive quarter.

Got it. And if you see higher volumes than you currently forecast in your planning assumptions, what types of incremental margins should we see in those higher volumes?

Yeah, we typically say that our incremental margins are around 30% when we consider all the costs associated with it. So it's somewhere in that range, David.

Very helpful. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Rosemary Morbelli with G Research. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning, Rosemary. Congratulations. Thank you. So if we look at the growth rate in HHC and engineer adhesives, how much do you feel was from pent-up demand or inventory build versus normal type of demand level?

Yeah, so HHC we don't think was really resulting of inventory rebuild. We see good positive growth there and some good positive wins and not a big inventory shift or pent-up demand. And they were strong all year, so we don't see that. In engineering adhesives, Rosemary, it's a mix, right? So, you know, I think something like electronics, you know, we had a lot of good winds that came through. RVs, they're still not picking up on the demand they had earlier in the year. Auto in Europe certainly has some pent-up demand that's coming through. And then there's other areas, as I mentioned, things like aerospace that really aren't picking up as an industry. So, So it's a broad mix, market by market, but I think that's the beauty of our organizational structure. We have an aerospace team, an electronics team, an RV team, an auto electronics team. Each one of those teams is identifying the needs and making certain we capitalize on them as they come. But it's a mix.

Okay, thank you. And following up on your laundry list, if I can use that term, of innovations, new products, while you cannot really... you know, give us a dollar number because it is a combination of a lot of multiple small wins. If you look out two or three years, how much do you think on aggregate all of those new products could generate in terms of revenues?

Well, you'd have to go through the list and go through them one by one, Rosemary, which I'm not going to do. But I think sizable wins in our space, the kind that I would mention on a call like this, are $10-ish million. Sometimes they're a little bigger, sometimes they're a little smaller, but that's a good average number of how much adhesive, which is a lot of adhesive, $10 million worth of adhesive. So sometimes they're bigger, depending on the market segment and the nature of the innovation.

so but but in aggregate they add up to a a big number when you do that across 28 segments biggest driver for ebitda growth in 2021 yep so uh okay and if i may add one more uh what could be your uh what is your exposure to any potential infrastructure business uh infrastructure bill Would that have a big impact on your businesses or not that much?

Not a direct impact, Rosemary. You know, we have within our construction adhesive businesses, we have three businesses, a roofing business, a flooring business, and a utilities and infrastructure. So there's some opportunities in that business. So think about a third of our CA business is affected by that. So not a huge infrastructure. The infrastructure bill won't drive direct adhesive purchases from HB Fuller.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Your next question comes from Paritosh Misra with Barenburg. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good morning, Jim, John, and Barbara. So in your three business units, do they operate in a similar fashion in terms of how price hikes are announced or implemented? Just trying to get a sense of what percentage of your business may require you to push through these price hikes if raw materials go up this year?

Yeah. Yeah, so we'll – you know, I think I'd even think about it at a different level. There's 28 segments, and we'll manage pricings differentially on each one of them. Now, all of our businesses are similar in that they have – low-volume products or products that are specialty products that will take increases early. So you'll see some of that happening. That's part of what's happening in February. And then we have some products that some of those market segments that are tied more toward these commodity materials that are moving now, they're also moving more quickly. So it does vary by the market segment and the buying behavior of the customers. So it'll be a mix.

Got it. Thanks for that. And then for engineering, what would it take the margins to get to 20%, which I believe is the high end of your long-term target? Is that just more volumes or any specific end markets need to go back to where they were?

Yeah, I think 20% is the target in that business. I think what we've done is we've built a great infrastructure for growth. We've seen it before 2020 in terms of the double-digit growth and our ability to gain share there. And given the margins in that business, the incremental margins of that business are higher even than our other businesses, growth will drive a lot of value to the bottom line and margin expansion. So that's the biggest driver.

Got it. And last one quick, on the CAPEX this year, is there any major project that's worth flagging, or is it just regular small project?

You know, we always have a number of expansion projects going on. So in the Middle East, we've got a project in Egypt. We had a very old plant there. That's a growing area for our hygiene business. Our electronics business has a pretty sizable expansion going on in Egypt. China and and the business that supports our solar business that has an expansion project going on so so those are three of the bigger ones but most of our investment is smaller five ten two million dollar investments within facilities to drive growth or productivity thanks chip and all the best for 2021 thank you very much I think we have one more question

Your final question comes from Rosemary Morbelli with G Research. Your line is open.

Thank you for taking my follow-up. You have a target of three times net leverage. Should we expect that you will not have any M&A until you reach that level, or do you think that the market is such that you could still add bolt-on new technologies to your product lines?

Yeah, I think we've been pretty clear, Rosemary. Our goal is to get to that 3.0 leverage. We've committed that to our investors, and we're well on our way to do that. And there's two ways to do that, pay down more debt faster or improve the EBITDA, and we'll work on both of those.

Okay, thanks. And lastly, just following up on the margin target, you had a 22% margin target for construction. We are now at about 12.4%. Have you changed that particular level?

I'm not sure where the 22% comes from, Rosemary, but, yeah, we see a lot of margin expansion for that business. So we did some good repositioning of our portfolio. If you look at the margins throughout the year, especially given what happened in construction this year, they were very solid overall, and we expect good expansion in the next year.

All right. Thank you. Good luck.

Thank you.

There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Jim Owens for closing remarks.

Okay. Thanks, everybody, for your time today. Happy New Year, and thanks for all of your support for H.P. Fuller. That ends our call.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.