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

Jeff Hammond: So really I want to get at the decrementals. It looks like in your guide, your decrementals are kind of 35%, and you’re holding the line pretty well. And I guess, fourth quarter, it seemed like the decrementals were worse, and you got some of your SG&A savings. So I just want to understand kind of the confidence in holding the decrementals and what other offsets you’re thinking about, whether it be disinflation or less disruption, et cetera, kind of built into that.

Eifion Jones: Yes. It’s Eifion. Yes, you’re right. But that that we’re forecasting for next year at 35%, which is more in line with the historical movement we see on incremental decrementals. It was a bit more severe in Q4 last year. But as we’ve noted in the prepared remarks, it was really a period in which we recalibrated our cost base, both at the manufacturing level as well as the SG&A level. And as we enter 2023, we believe we’re in a great shape in the cost base, both at the factory level and in SG&A to deliver those limited decrementals to 35%. We do have, obviously, upwind — sorry, tailwinds and upside to the extent that we do see some further improvements in areas like freight costs, which have improved over the last 6 months, but that can be a tailwind to 2023. But at this particular point, we believe on the construct of our forecast, our manufacturing cost base and SG&A base are rightsized to deliver the outlook that we’ve provided.

Jeff Hammond: Okay. That’s helpful. Maybe just — can we just talk about normal seasonality? Because it seems like ’19, there was some destocking, 2022 was just odd. So I don’t know if you can frame how to think about kind of normal seasonality in that first quarter in particular.

Eifion Jones: Yes, you’re right. I mean, typically, when we think about a year — if we go back pre-pandemic and look at the preceding 5 or 6 years, our first half was about 48% of the full year and second half, 52%. We believe that is going to be our reality in ’23 with maybe a slight reduction in Q1, compensated by a little bit more in Q2. But we’re trending back to a normal seasonality, which is low Q2 higher — sorry, low Q1, higher Q2 as the season gets well underway, lower Q3 as the season comes to an end and a higher Q4 as we start to prepare for the forthcoming 2024 season.

Operator: The next question comes from Nigel Coe of Wolfe Research.

Nigel Coe: Just wanted to dig in a bit more to the ’23, the build, and in particular, the repair and maintenance. I think Kevin, you said maybe down 5% in ’23. Obviously, I understand the kind of the desire to be conservative. I think you commented that during the that you saw maintenance to actually grow during that timeframe. So I’m just wondering with unemployment of 3% in the U.S., it feels like we’re in a better position today than we were back then. So just wondering why the , that’s down 5%. And maybe there’s been some pull forward, et cetera. So just any thoughts there would be helpful.