And then you model the Fed impact of interest rates on the housing market, both in terms of new home construction, in terms of housing turnover, if you read the headlines, people being stuck in homes because of low interest rate mortgages, it’s had a direct negative impact there. And then, I also think, in the Consumer side, we’re seeing the last vestiges across the industry of maybe the COVID boom, where people did a lot of projects and redecorating, and as Mike said, headlines suggested that there is spending out there by consumers, but they are not goods, they are more on services. I think as the interest rate environment improves, you’re going to see improvement in both Consumer activity and in the housing activity, at the same time, we’ll be rounding significantly easier comparables.
And so, if we are — just to finish this, if we are seeing an interest rate environment that begins to modestly improve in the housing market, both in terms of new construction and turnover improved, you’re going to see our numbers pickup both in our Consumer DIY businesses as well as our Specialty Products Group.
Jeff Zekauskas: Okay. Great. Thank you so much.
Frank Sullivan: Thank you.
Operator: The next question is from Vincent Andrews with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Vincent Andrews: Thank you, and good morning.
Frank Sullivan: Good morning, Vincent.
Vincent Andrews: Could you talk a little bit about — a little bit far enough along in its reshoring and infrastructure activity that maybe you have some insight into how lumpy it’s going to be for your business in terms of, is there sell-in on these particular products — projects that you’re specked in on and as those projects are completed, do you have a very orderly handoff to another suite of projects that’s of the same volume or more, or how should we think about the potential lumpiness of this benefit to your business?
Frank Sullivan: Yeah. Sure. Back to my earlier comments. It feels like we’re in a mini-manufacturing renaissance. Because, while we’re being specified on a lot of these larger onshoring projects, in some cases, they haven’t even put a shovel in the ground. And so on some larger projects that could be multimillion dollars, they will add some lumpiness to our results, as you suggest. But that’s down the road. What we’re seeing now is just a pretty solid industrial capital spending number and a market share gains target to point to in terms of new products with our Construction Products Group or Performance Coatings Group. But there’s been a preference in some instances for our Stonhard flooring because we not only provide the material, but we supply the labor.
So, we do a turnkey project in an environment where labor has been challenging, that’s provided a competitive advantage for us. The same thing is true in our Tremco Roofing business with our WTI business. And so, having a labor component both in elements of Tremco and in the Stonhard division of our Performance Coatings Group has also helped us from a competitive advantage.
Vincent Andrews: And then as a follow-up, in areas like Consumer, where the volume is challenged, are you facing any pressure from your retail partners to either price promote more or to step-up media or ad spend or any types of things that might encourage foot traffic?
Frank Sullivan: Sure. We are facing pressure from customers across RPM businesses for modest price reductions here and there. As I mentioned, specific to Consumer, we absorbed over — that was our largest hit in terms of raw material costs. We absorbed about $500 million of rising costs over an 18-month to 24-month period. And frustratingly, it remains the one segment that’s still seeing some inflation. There are some tariff items around tin plate, which goes directly to metal cans, and a couple of other chemicals like acetone, that are — that have not experienced the meaningful raw material reduction that some broader chemical categories have, like epoxy resins or silicones.
Vincent Andrews: Okay. Thanks, guys. I appreciate it.
Frank Sullivan: Thank you.
Operator: The next question is from Mike Harrison with Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead.
Frank Sullivan: Good morning, Mike.
Michael Harrison: Hi. Good morning, Frank. I was hoping maybe you could give us a little bit more detail on the improvement that you’ve seen in the Construction business in Europe related to the more focused sales strategy and the benefits that you saw in Asia Pacific and Africa, and the Middle East in your Performance Coatings business, where there is some better coordination going on? Maybe just, again, some more detail on the changes that you’ve made there? And it sounds like you expect some additional improvement to come, just wanted to gauge your confidence around how much more legs you could have from those actions. Thank you.
Frank Sullivan: Sure. And it’s a great question. So, I think the — first, you got to step back and recall our 2020 MAP to Growth operating improvement program. We made a lot of good progress there, but our progress was interrupted by the COVID pandemic. Most of our early efforts in the first couple of years of the 2020 MAP to Growth program were focused on North America, and particularly in the — what we call MS168 operating focus. We were interrupted in getting at Europe. Post-COVID and with MAP ’25, we’ve had tremendous cooperation between our Construction Products Group and our Performance Coatings Group. But across all four of our segments, the President, the Group President of our Performance Coatings Group relocated with his family to Europe, and he’s providing direct senior leadership oversight on executing the simplest way to think about it, is a MAP to Growth initiative in Europe.
