Griffon Corporation

Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Brian Harris, CFO. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning. It's my pleasure to welcome everybody to Griffin Corporation's second quarter fiscal 2024 earnings call. Joining me for this morning's call is Ron Kramer, Griffin's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Our press release was issued earlier this morning and is available on our website at griffin.com. Today's call is being recorded and replay instructions are included in our earnings release. Our comments will include forward-looking statements about Griffin's performance. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that can change as the world changes. Please see the cautionary statements in today's press release and in our SEC filing. Finally, some of today's remarks will be adjusting for items that affect comparability between periods. These items are explained in our non-GAAP reconciliations included in our press release. With that, I'll turn the call over to Rob.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. The first half of fiscal 2024 is off to a great start and has exceeded our expectations. Second quarter was highlighted by continued solid operating performance from home and building products and improved profitability at consumer and professional products. For the quarter, home and building products, revenue, and EBITDA came in better than expected as the typical Q2 seasonal residential volume simply did not materialize. For our consumer and professional product segment, second quarter revenue decreased 11%, primarily due to decreased volume driven by reduced customer demand in North America and the U.K., partially offset by increased volume in Australia. EBITDA improved 2% to $20 million in the quarter, with the EBITDA margin improving year over year, primarily as a result of decreased North American production costs. I'm very pleased to tell you that our previously announced initiative to expand CPP's global sourcing strategy remains on schedule and within budget. We continue to expect the initiative to be complete by the end of calendar 2024. Since May 2023, when we announced the initiative, we have ceased operations at all four affected U.S. manufacturing facilities and four wood mills. These actions have reduced our manufacturing footprint by over 1.2 million square feet. As we've emphasized before, the global sourcing expansion at Ames is a key element of our strategy to improve the margins of CPP. Turning to our capital allocation, during the second quarter, we repurchased 1.8 million shares totaling $117 million, or an average of $65.09 per share. As of March 31, 120 million remains under the repurchase authorization. Since April 2023 and through March of this year, we've repurchased 7.6 million shares at an average price of $44.56 for a total of $338 million. These repurchases have reduced Griffin's outstanding shares by 13.3% relative to the total shares outstanding at the end of the second quarter of fiscal 2023. Also yesterday, the Griffin Board authorized a regular quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share, payable on June 20th to shareholders of record on May 29th, marking the 51st consecutive quarterly dividend to shareholders. Our dividend has grown at an annualized compounded rate of 18% since we initiated dividends in 2012. Turning to our guidance for the year. Based on our first half robust performance and expectation for the remainder of the year, we're raising our full year guidance. We now expect revenue of $2.65 billion, an increase from previous guidance, of $2.6 billion, and we are increasing our segment-adjusted EBITDA by $30 million to $555 million. In summary, the increased fiscal 2024 guidance and capital allocation actions reflect Griffin's board and management's confidence in our strategic plan and outlook, as well as our commitment to enhancing long-term value to our shareholders. I'll turn it over to Brian for a little more financial detail.