And so the claims in March were down significantly. That affected Q1. And frankly, we’ll also carry in effect Q2 which is why we’re partly why we’re saying mid — mid-single digits on sales for Q2. The other factor in Q2 is we did have a very strong Q2 last year. That said, I’ve spoken and Jancy who runs that business for us, has spoken to our key end users here in the last weeks and they’re all saying the same thing about Q1, but we are all expecting, I would say, a return to more normal growth in the second half of 2024. So we just got to get through Q2. To your question on industry versus 2019, set March aside from a claims standpoint because it’s a bit unique. Other than March, we’re down low single digits, mid-single digits versus pre-COVID as an industry, but we are seeing things like mouse-driven ticking up, we are seeing more and more return to downtown areas, if you want to call it that.
So long and short of it, down a bit in Q1, down a bit in Q2 because of onetimers here from a weather standpoint and a claims standpoint, confident in the second half of the year and confident for the long-term health of this business. And that’s if we don’t gain share, but we are continuing to gain share through our digital tools, as I mentioned in my opening remarks.
Vincent Morales: Yes. And Vincent, this is Vince. Just a point of clarification. The claim data, Tim referred to, these are industry claims, which are down again low double digits. The current reading was down low double digits for the month of March. So these are industry collision claims that set the entire industry.
Timothy Knavish: Yes. Prior to March, they were down low single digits.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Stephen Byrne with Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is open.
Stephen Byrne: Thank you. Yes. Tim, I’m trying to get my head around why the U.S. architectural business has been just barely profitable on average for five years. Has that trend been improving? — is there — has there been any benefit from the Home Depot partnership? I asked because I had 1 of your store managers tell me you have to match the pricing in Home Depot, which clearly would not be good for his margins. But underlying all that, is it the number of stores? Or is it is that do you need to move to more of a concessionaire model in this business like COMEX and like [Benmore] (ph).
Timothy Knavish: Thanks, Steve. So as far as what it’s done over the last couple of years, it’s been a little ups and downs, but it has been below company average, and we have been investing, particularly in the Home Depot model. But why has it been at the low level of profitability over the last several years? A number of things, the macros aren’t great. You’ve got this post-COVID hangover across the whole industry. As I mentioned, we have been investing — and through — you mentioned our own stores, through our own stores, that’s a high fixed cost model, and you need velocity through those stores and with all the factors in the macro and in the post-COVID that velocity has decreased. Now the Home Depot Pro initiative is certainly working and gaining momentum and is positively contributing.
But at this point, it’s not far enough in that ramp-up curve to offset those macros, particularly what’s happening on the DIY side. So the reason we’re doing this now is we do have momentum in this kind of omnichannel model with the combination of the Home Depot, our stores and our independent dealers. And — but we need a partner to make that go faster to get this to company average profitability. And so that’s why we’re open to a number of different scenarios for this business.
Operator: Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jeff Zekauskas with JPMorgan. Your line is open.
Jeff Zekauskas: Thanks very much. I think in your Performance division, in the first quarter of the six categories that you look at Aerospace, Refinish, Architectural, all of them came in lower than you expected on a sales basis. And my impression is that things weakened in March globally. So if we forget the second half for a moment, is your expectation now that the second quarter is a little bit weaker than you thought it would be before as you began the years? And then secondly, as far as the share repurchase goes, I think over the past five years, your average purchase price is about $130 million. And so how do you evaluate the success? Or what are you trying to achieve in taking $3.4 billion and repurchasing your shares? How will you gauge the success of that allocation of capital?
Timothy Knavish: Okay. Jeff, thanks for the question. I’ll take the kind of momentum question that you asked, and Vince can take the repo one. But — so I mean full transparency, there were a couple of things that were weaker in Q1 than what we expected. We expected the Walmart — lack of a Walmart load in, right? So that’s the straight math. We expected some negative Easter timing impact. I would say that was higher than what we expected. And we are actually, again, it’s only halfway through the first month, but we’re seeing a bit of post-Easter snap back, okay? So that was worse in the first quarter, but that will be just shifting to the second quarter. Two other things. Europe was softer than we expected. And industrial production, combined with the launching of some of our share wins was weaker than we expected.
So if you think about all of those and roll forward to Q2; obviously, the Walmart load-in comp isn’t there. I mentioned we’re getting Easter snapback on Europe, early days, but we’re comfortable with what we’re seeing in April. So I’m not saying it’s going to have a snap back, but it’s — we don’t see it getting worse. And on the industrial side, we are seeing — we are launching a number of those share gains that we executed throughout the second half of last year, in Q2. And then finally, the Refinish factor that I just mentioned. Refinish, particularly in March, was a bit slower than we expected, but we’re expecting a strong second half for Refinish.
