Hayward Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:HAYW) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

And we’ve got a lot of plans in place to drive it down there. In terms of the free cash flow figure that I quoted of $150 million, yes, there is upside to that if we can continue to drive inventory out of the balance sheet, which is our plan. We want to be cautious about that. We want to be fully prepared to support the ’24 season. We recognize the guidance we have given is cautious, but we remain very optimistic about the start to next season. And we will gauge our level of inventory as we enter Q4 as being appropriate or not, to support ’24. But at this time, Andrew, there is upside, the $150 million, that is predicated upon what we believe our inventory needs to close out at ’23 prepared to the ’24 season.

William Carter: Second question I would ask is I believe last quarter, you said pricing net of material cost inflation was positive. That was in 3Q. I’m not sure if you said that today. So was it a positive? Did it accelerate? And kind of how are you thinking about gross margin pricing relative to your cost for next year? Also recognizing, I know you’ve got a very long inventory position. So we’ve seen some favorability in COGS that might take away flow through.

Eifion Jones: Yes. That’s exactly right. I mean when we think about — let’s talk about margins in Q4. They were impacted by the higher acquisition cost of raw materials at the back end of Q2 and into Q3. That roll through our cost of sales in Q4 and that’s behind us. Now we did start to see some tempering of inflation. I want to be clear, we didn’t see de-inflation, but we saw some tempering of inflation in Q4 which will start to benefit our 2023 period, because we’ve also instituted now a price increase of 5%, beginning January 1. So we believe based upon now the institution of that new price, the rightsizing of our manufacturing cost base, continued reduction in freight costs over this time period that our gross margins will start to elevate back into the high 40s by the time we get through the end of Q2, and it will carry at that level through the end of the full year.

So we’re very comfortable in the projections that we put forward for high 40s gross margin for this year, predicated upon their price and normalization of freight, coupled with a tempering of inflation in raw materials.

Operator: The next question comes from Rafe Jadrosich of Bank of America.

Rafe Jadrosich: I just — Kevin, I want to just follow up on some of your comments on sell out earlier. Just on the 11% for 2022, can you clarify if that was revenue or units? And then the same question for the 2023 outlook of, I think, in aggregate, you’re expecting sort of down 10%. So can you just clarify between the revenue and volume?

Kevin Holleran: On the 2022, that was the rate — sorry, could you restate the second part of the question, Rafe?

Rafe Jadrosich: Yes, so the sellout comments, you answered the first one that the 11% was on units, not revenue. For 2023, what are you expecting on revenue and units for sellout? I think you said 10%, was that a volume number or a revenue number?

Eifion Jones: So yes, to be clear, when we’re thinking about the ’23 guidance, all of the metrics we quoted 20% to 25% new construction, remodel and the discretionary element of the aftermarket, those were all unit-based figures. Those will be offset by the — partially offset by the 5% price increase that we’ve put through beginning of 2021. When we think about — . When we think about the full year sellout, we’re guiding down high single digits as an aggregate in the business, and that is a revenue sellout reduction year-upon-year.