Earnings call transcript: Hayward Holdings beats Q2 2025 expectations

Hayward Holdings Inc. reported better-than-expected earnings for the second quarter of 2025, with an EPS of $0.24, surpassing the forecast of $0.23. The company also exceeded revenue expectations, reporting $299.6 million against a forecast of $290.49 million. As a result, the stock price rose by 3.61% in pre-market trading. With a market capitalization of $3.35 billion, Hayward has maintained impressive gross profit margins of 50.53% over the last twelve months, according to InvestingPro data.

Key Takeaways

• Hayward Holdings surpassed both EPS and revenue forecasts for Q2 2025.
• The stock price increased by 3.61% following the positive earnings report.
• Record gross profit margin and improved EBITDA margins were reported.
• Strategic innovations and market share gains were highlighted.
• New pool construction is expected to decline, posing a future challenge.

Company Performance

Hayward Holdings demonstrated strong performance in Q2 2025, achieving significant milestones in financial metrics and strategic initiatives. The company’s focus on product innovation and market expansion, particularly in the commercial pool sector, contributed to its robust results. Despite challenges in new pool construction, Hayward’s strategic direction appears to be yielding positive outcomes.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $299.6 million, a 5% increase year-over-year.
• Earnings per share: $0.24, a 14% increase year-over-year.
• Gross profit margin: 52.7%, an increase of 170 basis points year-over-year.
• Adjusted EBITDA: $88 million, a 7% increase year-over-year.
• Adjusted EBITDA margin: 29.5%, up by 50 basis points year-over-year.

Earnings vs. Forecast

Hayward Holdings exceeded expectations with an EPS of $0.24 compared to the forecast of $0.23, resulting in a 4.35% positive surprise. Revenue also surpassed projections, with a 3.14% surprise at $299.6 million versus the expected $290.49 million. This performance reflects the company’s consistent ability to outperform market forecasts.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Hayward Holdings’ stock experienced a 3.61% increase in pre-market trading, reaching $15.21. This positive movement indicates investor confidence in the company’s financial health and strategic initiatives. The stock’s performance is notable, with a beta of 1.12 and an Altman Z-Score of 4.58, suggesting financial stability. According to InvestingPro’s Fair Value analysis, the stock appears slightly overvalued at current levels, though it maintains strong fundamentals and growth potential.

Outlook & Guidance

For the full year 2025, Hayward Holdings has provided net sales guidance between $1,070 million and $1,100 million, reflecting a 2-5% increase. The company anticipates an adjusted EBITDA of $280-$290 million and expects a positive net price contribution of at least 4%. These projections underscore Hayward’s confidence in its strategic direction and market positioning.

Executive Commentary

CEO Kevin Holleran expressed confidence in the company’s execution capabilities, stating, "We are confident in our ability to successfully execute in a dynamic environment." Holleran also highlighted the focus on mitigation action plans and a healthy pipeline of opportunities, reinforcing the company’s growth prospects.

Risks and Challenges

• Decline in new pool construction could impact future sales.
• Reduction in direct sourcing from China may pose supply chain challenges.
• Macroeconomic pressures could affect consumer spending and market demand.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about tariff mitigation strategies and gross margin expansion drivers. Discussions also centered on repair versus replacement market dynamics and capital allocation priorities. These topics reflect key areas of interest and concern for investors.

Full transcript - Hayward Holdings Inc (HAYW) Q2 2025:

Latanya, Conference Operator: Greetings. Welcome to Hayward Holdings Second Quarter twenty twenty five Earnings Call. My name is Latanya, and I will be your operator for today’s call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session.

Please note this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to Kevin Masca, Vice President of Investor Relations and S and P and A. Mr. Masca, you may begin please.

Kevin Masca, Vice President of Investor Relations, Hayward Holdings: Thank you and good morning everyone. We issued our second quarter twenty twenty five earnings press release this morning, which has been posted to the Investor Relations section of our website at investor.hayward.com. There you can also find the earnings slide presentation referenced during this call. I’m joined today by Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer and Ivean Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, the company may make certain statements that are considered forward looking in nature, including management’s outlook for 2025 and future periods.

Such statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in our most recent Forms 10 ks and 10 Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission that could cause actual results to differ materially. The company does not undertake any duty to update such forward looking statements. Additionally, during today’s call, the company will discuss non GAAP measures. Reconciliations of historical non GAAP measures discussed on this call to the comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings release and the appendix to the slide presentation. All comparisons will be made on a year over year basis unless otherwise indicated.

I will now turn the call over to Kevin Holleran.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Thank you, Kevin, and good morning. It’s my pleasure to welcome all of you to Hayward’s second quarter earnings call. I’ll begin on Slide four of our earnings presentation with today’s key messages. I’m pleased to report second quarter results exceeded expectations. Net sales increased 5% with growth across both our North America and Europe and Rest of World segments.

We delivered strong profitability with gross profit margins increasing to a record 52.7% and adjusted EBITDA margin increasing to 29.5%. This represents the tenth consecutive quarter of year over year gross margin expansion, a direct result of the strong performance of our commercial and operations teams. Robust sales growth and profitability coupled with effective working capital management enabled us to significantly reduce net leverage to 2.1 times. This is near the low end of our targeted range of two to three times and the lowest level in over three years, providing enhanced financial flexibility as we execute our strategic growth plans. During this period of tariff uncertainty, we continue to aggressively execute our plans to mitigate the impact of tariffs, support margins and deliver on our commitments to shareholders and customers.

We have a resilient business model with approximately 85% of our sales aligned with serving the aftermarket needs of the existing installed base. I’m confident in our team’s ability to navigate this dynamic environment. We are refining our guidance for the full year 2025, raising the low end of our guidance range for net sales. We now expect net sales to increase approximately two to 5% and we continue to expect adjusted EBITDA of $280,000,000 to $290,000,000 Turning now to Slide five, highlighting the results of the second quarter. Net sales increased 5% to approximately $300,000,000 driven by a 5% increase in net price, 2% lower volumes and a 2% contribution from the Core King acquisition.

By segment, total net sales increased 6% in North America and three percent in Europe and Rest Of World. End demand improved in June, resulting in customer orders generally in line with normal seasonal patterns for the quarter. Nondiscretionary aftermarket maintenance demand remains resilient, but the more discretionary elements of the market have been pressured. Consistent with the trend of prior quarters, homeowners building new pools or remodeling existing pools are increasingly electing to add technology to deliver the desired ambiance and experience rather than cutting costs to de feature their pool investment. Last quarter, we introduced you to OmniX, an industry first suite of innovative products for the aftermarket.

This automation platform provides a cost effective way to accelerate technology adoption in the installed base, increasing aftermarket equipment content per pool pad and advance our technology leadership position in the market. We are pleased with the initial dealer response to the new Omni X enabled variable speed pump and will launch other product categories with embedded Omni X control capabilities in the coming quarters. In addition, our commercial pool business continues to grow organically and benefit from the addition of the ClorKing acquisition in June 2024. As I reflect on our first full year of ownership, this has been a very successful integration for Hayward, providing a key building block as we expand our commercial pool business, delivering the expected sales and operational synergies. Year to date, our commercial sales in North America have approximately doubled while generating strong profitability.

Consolidated gross profit margins increased 170 basis points to a quarterly record 52.7%. Adjusted EBITDA increased 7% to $88,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA margin increased 50 basis points to 29.5%. We continue to make SG and A investments in the business to drive future growth. We are investing in advanced engineering and new product development to continue bringing innovative industry leading products to market. On the commercial side, we are increasing investments in customer care and executing targeted sales and marketing strategies to further increase our presence in high growth regions and capture market share.

During the quarter, Hayward sponsored the prestigious twenty twenty five Pool and Spa Network Top fifty Builder Awards event. As we continue to invest in the industry and build upon our unified customer first approach, we are seeing greater traction with higher end builders and servicers. Finally, adjusted diluted EPS increased 14% to $0.24 Turning now to Slide six. The tariff environment continues to evolve and will likely remain unsettled for some time. As of our last earnings call, the incremental tariffs were 145% for China and 10% for the rest of world.

Since then, we have seen movement in those rates, most significantly a reduction to 30% incremental for China. As a reminder, we are predominantly a domestic manufacturer with approximately 85% of our North America sales produced in The United States and increasing as I’ll discuss in a moment. However, we do source certain products from our Hayward facility in China and other third party Chinese suppliers who are also impacted by the tariffs. Based on the latest available information, we estimate total annualized tariff impact of approximately $30,000,000 with a partial year impact in 2025 of approximately $18,000,000 most related to China. This is down from an annualized impact of approximately €85,000,000 when the China tariff was 145%.

Our planning assumption is the current tariff arrangements remain in place and our outlook does not consider any changes that may potentially take effect in August. We remain agile and prepared to respond as needed. Our team is focused on aggressively executing our mitigation action plans. As previously communicated, we expect our direct sourcing from China into The U. S.

As a percent of cost of goods sold to decline from approximately 10% to 3% by year end. We intend to achieve that target regardless of the eventual tariff resolution as it derisks our supply chain and limits exposure to geopolitical uncertainty. On the pricing side, we announced a 3% tariff related price increase in North America effective late April. This will remain in place. However, we elected not to implement a previously announced second price increase after the 145% China tariff was reduced.

Our teams are working diligently to support our customers while protecting profitability. At this point, we expect to fully offset the current tariff related cost increases. And with that, I’d like to turn the call over to Ivan to discuss our financial results in more detail.

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: Thank you, Kevin, and good morning. I’ll start on Slide seven. As Kevin stated, we are pleased with our second quarter financial performance. Net sales increased 5% and exceeded expectations. We delivered strong growth and adjusted EBITDA margin expansion to 52.729.5%, respectively, and significantly reduced net leverage to 2.1 times.

Looking at the results in more detail, the net sales increase of 5% to approximately $300,000,000 was driven by 5% positive net price realization, 2% lower volume and a 2% contribution from the acquisition of CorKing. Gross profit in the second quarter increased 9% to 158,000,000 Gross profit margin increased 170 basis points to a record 52.7%, with a two twenty basis point increase in North America, offsetting a reduction in Europe and Rest of World. We took steps in recent quarters to improve the performance in Europe and Rest Of World and are pleased to see the sequential margin progress again this quarter, increasing three ninety basis points from 35% in the first quarter and seven fifty basis points from 31.4% in the fourth quarter twenty twenty four. Adjusted EBITDA increased 7% to $88,000,000 in the second quarter and adjusted EBITDA margin increased 50 basis points to 29.5%. As a reminder, we are strategically reinvesting in the business to drive future growth with targeted initiatives in sales and marketing, customer service and engineering.

Our effective tax rate was approximately 25% in the second quarter, consistent with our guidance. Adjusted diluted EPS increased 14% to $0.24 Turning to Slide eight for a review of reportable segment results for the second quarter. North American net sales increased 6% to $255,000,000 driven by 6% net price realization, 3% lower volume and 3% from the Claw King acquisition. Net sales in The U. S.

Increased 6% and Canada was down modestly. Seasonal demand increased as expected as we entered the peak of the 2025 pool season. Income and orders were healthy and consistent with our expectations for the quarter and strong in commercial, up double digits organically. Gross profit margin increased two twenty basis points to a robust 55.1, and adjusted segment income margin increased 110 basis points to 34.9%. Turning to Europe and Rest of World.

Net sales for the quarter increased 3% to $44,000,000 driven by 1% of favorable net pricing, 1% lower volume and 3% favorable foreign currency translation. Net sales reduced 4% in Europe and increased 16% in Rest of World. Certain Middle East and Asian markets were significantly impacted in the prior year by macroeconomic and geopolitical conditions, and we are encouraged by the improving year to date trends. We are pleased to see the continued margin progression in the quarter. On a sequential basis, gross profit margins increased three ninety basis points to 38.9% compared to 35% in the first quarter, and adjusted segment income margins increased 150 basis points to 18.1%.

Turning to Slide nine for a review of our balance sheet and cash flow highlights. We are pleased with the quality of our balance sheet and the significant reduction in net leverage during the quarter and over the last two years. Net debt to adjusted EBITDA improved to 2.1 times compared to 2.8 times at the end of the first quarter and 2.8 times in the year ago period. Reduced leverage provides additional flexibility as we invest in the business and execute on our strategic growth plans. Total liquidity at the end of the second quarter was $528,000,000 including $365,000,000 in cash and equivalents plus availability under our credit facilities of $163,000,000 We have no near term maturities on our debt as term debt and the undrawn ABL mature in 2028.

Our borrowing rate benefits from $600,000,000 in debt currently tied to fixed interest rate swap agreements maturing in 2026 through 2028, limiting our cash interest rate on our term facilities to six percent in the quarter. Our average interest rate earned on global cash deposits for the quarter was 3.8%. Our business has strong free cash flow generation characteristics driven by high quality earnings. Cash flows are seasonal, and the company typically has strong cash generation in the second quarter related to collection of early buyer receivables. Year to date cash flow from operations was 188,000,000 compared to $210,000,000 in the year ago period, largely reflecting strategic inventory management ahead of tariff related cost increases.

Our outlook for the full year is unchanged. CapEx of $13,000,000 in the first half was modestly higher than the prior year, reflecting strategic growth investments of Project Timing. Consequently, free cash flow was 175,000,000 Turning now to capital allocation on Slide 10. We maintain a disciplined and balanced approach to capital allocation, emphasizing strategic growth investments and manufacturing asset investments, tariff mitigation, maximizing long term shareholder returns while maintaining prudent financial leverage. We continue to pursue additional acquisition opportunities to augment our organic growth plans in addition to potential share repurchases.

Hayward’s Board of Directors recently authorized the repurchase of up to $450,000,000 in shares over three years to replace a similar expired authorization. Turning now to Slide 11 for our full year 2025 outlook. We are refining our guidance for the year, raising the low end of our guidance range for net sales. For fiscal year twenty twenty five, Hayward now expects net sales to increase approximately 2% to 5% to $1,070,000,000 to $1,100,000,000 and adjusted EBITDA of $280,000,000 to $290,000,000 We continue to expect solid execution across the organization, positive price realization and continued product technology adoption. We expect nondiscretionary aftermarket maintenance demand to remain resilient with pressure on the more discretionary elements of the market.

In April, we implemented an out of cycle price increase of approximately 3% in North America to offset the anticipated tariff related inflation. As a result of the partial year benefit of this increase, we now anticipate a positive full year net price contribution of at least 4%. Our guidance does not contemplate potential new tariffs effective on or after July 27. If these do materialize, we will take mitigation actions to offset as appropriate. We continue to expect solid cash flow generation in 2025 with a conversion of greater than 100% of net income and approximately 150,000,000 We are confident in our ability to successfully execute in a dynamic environment and remain very positive about the long term growth outlook for the pool industry, particularly the strength of the aftermarket.

And with that, I’ll now turn the call back to Kevin.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Thanks, Ivan. I’ll pick back up on Slide 12. Before we close, let me reiterate how appreciative I am of the team’s strong performance. In a continued challenging and uncertain environment, Hayward delivered another strong quarter, exceeding expectations. Net sales increased 5% and margins continued to expand including a record gross margin.

We significantly delevered the balance sheet 2.1 times while investing in the business to drive future growth. We refined our guidance for the full year, raising the low end of our net sales guidance and effectively implementing measures to counter the current tariff headwinds. As the macroeconomic and tariff environments continue to evolve, we are excited about the fundamentals that drive our business and confident in our ability to execute our growth strategies and create shareholder value. With that, we’re now ready to open the line for questions.

Latanya, Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now conduct a question and answer session. The first question comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Please proceed.

Ryan Merkel, Analyst, William Blair: Hey, good morning all and congrats on a nice quarter and tough market. Good morning. Thanks, Ryan. My first question is on gross margin. It really pops off the page.

Just curious on your thoughts on the outlook for the second half because it feels like you’re not really raising the expectations there. So a little color there would be helpful.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Good morning, Ryan. Yes, let me just first kind of highlight what drove Q2 and then we’ll transition into how we see the second half. It was great to report a strong result, which really was driven by that margin performance in the record at 52.7%. And it does represent great work collectively that the Hayward team across the operations and supply chain and the commercial teams are doing. In some ways, I really think what we just posted in q two shows the possibilities for what we can deliver.

We looked at it across kind of four main pillars. Firstly, we’ve talked about this publicly before, but just to reiterate, from a productivity standpoint, the things going on inside our four walls. They don’t really grab headlines and they’re ongoing, whether they’re our continuous improvement culture or weekly Kaizen, things that drive productivity and some investments we’re making in automation to be more efficient and more productive with the volume that we have. Secondly is really what we’re doing with the product line. As we’re rationalizing out some lower volume and some low margin SKUs at the same time introducing higher value, higher margin new products to the marketplace.

Q2 was better volume than we have kind of in Q1 or Q3. So again, we show there what can occur as we start utilizing more of our capacity in our global footprint. And then of course from a price cost standpoint, we continue to expect to be able to deliver price cost neutrality as we face inflation and more recently tariffs. As for the second half, I’ll and going forward, I’ll ask Aydin to address how we pull that guide and the outlook together.

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: Sure. Ryan, as we step into the second half, the incremental tariff price action that we took in April in North America, that will benefit the entire second half and is expected to offset approximately dollar to dollar the tariff that we expect to incur in the second half. That will keep the absolute gross profit margin dollars protected, but will obviously moderate the gross profit margin percentage given net sales is priced up and gross profit dollars remain the same as we anticipated. As we complete our operational mitigation programs, that will be the driver to open back up again the gross profit margin percentage. And as we’ve discussed, those programs will well progress and they will take through the end of this year into next year to fully execute.

I think what’s super positive is despite a moderating gross profit margin percentage in the second half, our full year guidance implies year over year gross profit margin percentage improvement, which we’re super proud of. And as Kevin mentioned, it takes a village here to tackle the entirety of what’s being thrown at us, and we feel really positive about how things have developed through the second quarter here.

Ryan Merkel, Analyst, William Blair: Thanks for that. That was great color. My second question is on the new pool outlook, I guess, a near term question and a long term question. So near term, what are you expecting for new pool for this year? And then it seems to me that the new pool market has been a category that’s corrected the most since COVID.

And do you feel like we’re at a durable bottom here at this point?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. In terms of our outlook, I think it remains consistent with our original guide, Ryan, and that is we were calling for modestly down PK data, as you well know, the industry source there in The U. S. Calculated or communicated low 60s last year. We believe and as we continue to look closely at the permit data, there’s a couple of sources for that.

But as we triangulate, I would say that it’s still tracking to sort of mid single digit count off year on year, but is improving as we’re working through the year. And again, the values I know it wasn’t asked in your question, but the value of what is being built continues to be positive as folks are doing it right and are putting features on their pools. As for where it can go from here, it’s a great question. This is near trough levels going back to immediately coming out of the GFC. It got a little bit lower.

At that point, I’d like to think that the macro today isn’t quite what it was back fifteen years ago. There’s an interesting thing we talk about here around new construction. And by no means are any of us proud of a 60,000 account, coming off, you know, the more recent highs. But if you go back ten years ago, you know, when when interest rates were very different than they are today, when housing market, or at least turn over existing homes, which is a big driver of remodeling activity, you know, was far different. We were building 60,000 pools then.

So I think, you know, while the homeowner is under much more pressure today, you know, in mortgage rates or call it 300 basis points higher than they were at that point, you know, we’re building the same number of pools, which I think really underscores both the migration that’s that’s taken place to warmer climates where a pool is desired or maybe even needed. And I just think that there’s a bit of a coiled spring here that as interest rates and housing market starts to improve, that we can inflect upward from the new construction standpoint.

Ryan Merkel, Analyst, William Blair: That’s really helpful. Thanks for that. I’ll pass it on.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: The

Latanya, Conference Operator: next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Hey guys, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe just one on the guidance to start off. I know the macro environment tariffs all of that’s pretty fluid. So last quarter you guys with the information at hand at that time it talked about net price increase of 5% to 6% for the year.

Now you’re talking about 4%. But in that same context, raised the low end of the revenue guidance range for the year. So presumably that’s coming from a better volume outlook. Is that a fair assumption? And is that coming from The U.

S? Is it coming from Europe? Is it aftermarket? Maybe walk us through sort of the revenue guidance uptick in the face of slightly lower net price increase view?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. I would say what you laid out there is accurate. This time a quarter ago, we were talking 5% to 6% price based upon that announced second off cycle increase that was really stemmed that was well, we backed off of that shortly thereafter when China incremental was changed meaningfully. So price correct you’re correct at 4%. And with less price being put into the marketplace, we did we do assume a stronger volume performance than we had, still slightly negative.

We were talking about negative kind of 2.5% this time last quarter to more of a negative 1% overall on volume. And I would say since the pricing that we’re talking about off cycle pricing was only going towards U. S. As that has moderated, that’s where we expect the volume gains to come back from as that price is no longer placed into the market.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Okay. Fair enough. No, that’s helpful. And then maybe just another question on the gross margin performance here because it’s so notable. Kudos to you guys.

It seems like there’s still a lot of torque in that though if you think about where utilization rates are for you and also some of these mitigation efforts, which it sounds like would put you on a path to start expanding margins again. But can you maybe quantify those two buckets, if you think they’re the right two buckets that could drive the most amount of incremental leverage on margins just sort of as utilization rates increase from this sort of I would think it’s 65%, 70% level, what’s sort of the drop through to the margin? And then also how are you thinking about I understand the time line on the cost mitigation and moving out of China, but what’s the actual margin implications? And over what time frame could we see that materialize?

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: Good morning, Brian. We have talked about this before. When we think about gross profit margin development, approximately 10% of our cost of goods sold, we would say, is fixed. So if we see a 10% growth on the top line, we’d expect 1% leverage to come through the business of the gross margin line. That’s the easy math on that one.

When you think about adjusted EBITDA, we have mid-20s in terms of combined research development and engineering SG and A. We do expect to continue to lever that as the top line grows. It’s not all fixed. Obviously, we’ll continue to make investments, but there will be leverage opportunity there. In terms of the second bucket, which is the mitigation actions that we’re taking to open up the margin again once we get through tariff management here, you know, there’s a range of outcomes there.

Our manufacturing teams, you know, step into each new year with targets to develop the gross profit margin through lean practices and supply chain management initiatives. We’ve said this previously that we’d expect somewhere around about a 25 bps increase year on year at a minimum coming from those types of activities. It won’t be linear. There’ll be years where we get more, years where we get more moderated results. But every single year, our team set about to improve the cost of goods sold outlook for our business.

Brian Lee, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: All right. Appreciate all that color. Thanks guys. The

Latanya, Conference Operator: next question comes from Sari Boroditsky with Jefferies. Please proceed.

James, Analyst, Jefferies: Good morning. This is James on for Sari. I just wanted to touch on the SG and A. So gross margin was very strong, but SG and A as a percentage of sales increased. So could you please share kind of what drove the higher SG and A and whether this level should be expected kind of going forward?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: We laid out earlier in the year our plan for some very targeted incremental investments around SG and A, and that’s what you’re seeing with SG and A percentage increase, specifically around some advanced engineering and some product development augmented by some additional resource around customer care and some commercial resources, both selling as well as marketing. So we laid that out. We’re spending that. We’re seeing benefits for it very strategically placed and that’s what’s driving the incremental SG and A.

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: Overall, we would continue to expect, as I just mentioned in the previous question, we’d expect to continue to lever our installed SG and A base. This is a period of investment to grow the top line and to make sure our new product pipelines are robust. But as we go forward, we will continue to lever that SG and A base. And I’ve been pretty vocal about our ambition here, which is to drive SG and A as a percentage of your sales in the lower 20s. Won’t happen this year, but we will continue to march towards that goal in the medium term.

James, Analyst, Jefferies: Great. Thanks for the color. And I guess I just wanted to get, like more color on this commentary that you guys put on the press release that like timing of the orders for 2025 season kind of impacted the volume. So can you kind of elaborate on these comments?

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: In terms of the order profile, what we typically see is Q4 is a strong order period for us as we get early buy orders coming in. This time last year, we had some additional orders come into Q4 related to some in season activity, including the hurricane. As we saw in the first half of this year, seasonal orders were as expected, which was great to see. In aggregate, the order profile coming into the business was sound. We don’t typically see a tremendous amount of orders in Q1 given the early buy orders that we had received in the previous quarter.

But in Q2 this year, the order profile came in as expected, which was growth year over year. So that was good to see.

James, Analyst, Jefferies: Great. Thank you.

Latanya, Conference Operator: The next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc. Please proceed.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Hey, good morning guys. Good morning.

Jeff Hammond, Analyst, KeyBanc: Can you maybe just talk about what you’re seeing on sell in versus sell through and just how you’re thinking about channel inventories as we kind of get into the second half of the season?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yeah. I would say the sales Q2 well, let me step back. Q1, as you know, is kind of finishing off early by. The year round markets are obviously open for business. As you get into Q2 is when some of the early buy inventories get sold through, you’re replenishing.

And then obviously, as we work through this quarter, Q3 is when those inventories will be drawn down from a days on hand standpoint, which really allows both the channel and the dealer network to consider the early buy program, which we’ll be publishing in the next several weeks and starting to deliver later this year into first quarter next year. In terms of what we see in terms of days on hand, we’re very pleased with the progress and how things look there. I think that we’re well positioned here in the upcoming quarter here in Q3, and we would expect inventories to be in a position for our channel partners and our dealers to participate at a historically normal level as we get into the early buys. So much more attention is paid today than maybe pre COVID in partnering with the channel to make sure we’ve got the right product at the right time in the right locations. And I’m very pleased with how that’s working to support the channel in the overall market.

Jeff Hammond, Analyst, KeyBanc: Okay. And then Kevin, I think you had a question on new, but maybe just update us on what you’re seeing on remodel upgrade. I know maybe you’re expecting that to be most challenged. And then I think one of the distributors talked about repair versus replace dynamic and more people repairing versus replacing equipment. Just wondering you’re seeing the same.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. On that last point, we are seeing parts as a percentage on a year over year basis is up pretty meaningfully. I do think that that points to the comment made last week around some of the aftermarket is looking to repair versus full scale sorry, to repair rather than replace. I think that happening to some extent. In terms of remodel, Jeff, I think it’s still a bit tempered, kind of like the new construction.

It’s still largely discretionary. As you know, the overall installed base is continuing to age. It’s somewhere up around twenty four years. So there is some kind of limit to how long it can be pushed to the right before some form of remodel takes place. And we think that, that is something that will improve as interest rates improve and housing market gets going again.

That is a big part of the remodel. I think folks maybe before they’re about to sell, spend a little bit of money sprucing up the backyard and the pool or certainly when a new when someone buys into an existing home, they look to put their own personal touch on that pool that they bought with the home. And I think that that’s going to improve as existing home sales starts to increase hopefully in the near future.

Jeff Hammond, Analyst, KeyBanc: Okay. Great, Kevin. Thanks.

Latanya, Conference Operator: The next question comes from Nigel Coe with Wolfe Research. Please proceed.

Nigel Coe, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for the detail. Good

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: morning, guys.

Nigel Coe, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Just want to follow-up on Jeff’s question on this repair dynamic because it’s something that Pentair called out as well. How long has this been sort of developing? Is it something that’s been a reaction to the latest price increases? And what we’re talking about here, we’re about reconditioning pumps. I’m just not sure I understand exactly number one, the extent to this is happening.

Based on sort of prior history, when we’ve seen this before? And is this like a multiyear thing? Or is it something you see as very temporary?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: I would say it’s the parts volume has been a couple of quarters now of I mean, we would expect our parts business to always increase. You know, it’s a it’s another revenue stream in the overall business. But I would say, you know, the example that you gave is is is perhaps the easiest to to to understand or to explain. You know, you can you can use the wet ends of a pump, and you can you can put a new motor on it or replace or repair a model sorry, a motor before you have to fully replace it. So that is being considered.

Think I don’t know if it’s if I would say it’s the most recent round of pricing increases. As you know, there’s been pricing put into the marketplace due to inflation before the more recent tariffs, Nigel. So parts have increased in revenue for several quarters. But I’d say over the last few, we’ve seen perhaps a little bit more escalation in the year on year part sales.

Nigel Coe, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Okay. So it sounds like some of the more higher value parts maybe a bit more repair activity there. And does that limit the ability to push through price next year? Do you expect next year to be a regular way 23% price increase on top of what we’ve seen? And then maybe if you could just address the reshoring of the China production to The U.

S. Does the unit cost of a U. S. Produced parts compared to the landed cost ex tariffs for the China stuff? Thanks.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. I’ll let Eivin address the second part of the question. As for next year, we would expect to be able to push through a price increase based upon what we see in terms of inflation. We’re starting to look at that pretty closely. We are seeing some of our input costs starting to feel a little bit of pressure around some the metals.

Copper is certainly out there in the headlines and we consume that in our basket of inputs. So but we would fully expect to be able to announce and to realize kind of price cost neutral increase next year, Nigel.

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. When it comes, Nigel, to the comparison of the cost of manufacturing in The U. S. Versus China, it does vary by product. I would say the landed cost of Chinese manufactured goods at the current tariff levels versus the cost to manufacture that product in one of our U.

S. Facilities is significantly more than it was ten years ago. And that now informs us it makes much more sense to diversify our product manufacturing away from China and utilize our under capacitated North American facilities. We’ve estimated the incremental COGS impact to reorientate the entirety of our supply chain away from China to be less than $10,000,000 or approximately less than 1% of net sales. We will recover that margin impact, as I mentioned, as we execute the operational mitigation programs, including investment into our North American facilities for greater automation.

And we’re moving down that line at a pace. As Kevin mentioned in his prepared remarks, by the end of this year, we expect greater than 90% of our North American product needs to be manufactured or sourced here in North America. But we’ve now determined that the differential between China and U. S. Manufacturing costs is de minimis enough for us to make these changes.

Nigel Coe, Analyst, Wolfe Research: That’s great color. Thank you.

Latanya, Conference Operator: The next question comes from Mike Halloran with Baird. Please proceed.

Pez, Analyst, Baird: Hey, good morning, everybody. It’s Pez on for Mike. Wanted to take a moment to ask about, what’s going on in commercial. I know, Kevin, I think you said that your commercial sales as a percentage of revenue have doubled. Can you maybe talk about how much pull through you’re seeing of Hayward legacy products, to Clor King customers and and vice versa?

You know? And then more broadly, we’re about a year out from close now. How are you thinking about the trajectory for that end market? And what types of level of outperformance do you think you’re experiencing against the market at this point?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. We’re really excited about what the commercial business for us has become and what it can continue to grow or how it can continue to grow in the future, Pence. It’s as you say, we are at the one year mark overall. The combined business, I say that because the Core King team and our existing commercial team have become one under a common leader, and it has doubled kind of overall. Organically, I would say it’s I don’t know if we’re if we disclose it publicly, but it’s a meaningful pull through and growth on what was our commercial organic business beforehand.

In terms of aspirations, commercial was kind of a low to mid single digit part of our business. As we round out 2025, we’re anxious to see if we can get that to double digit overall part of our mix. And overall, we’re kind of pushing or we’re striving for something in the teams overall. I think the size of the commercial market, our presence there, our team, the relationships, the product line that we’re building out, I think, gives us all the ingredients to be able to continue outperforming what we see in terms of commercial growth overall. As I’ve said many times, it was not a focal point of the business before the last few years, and we’re really excited about what the future holds for us in this commercial space.

Pez, Analyst, Baird: Excellent. No. I appreciate the color. And then, I guess, switching gears, I’ll I’ll I’ll ask the the required questions since nobody’s got to it yet. You know, balance sheet is is in a really healthy shape.

You know, maybe talk about how you’re thinking about the m and a pipeline, the actionability, and if there’s, you know, particular product categories that are are sticking out as attractive in the current backdrop.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yeah. We’re really excited to be where we, where we said we would be here with this kind of 2.1 times net debt. I would say our priorities remain as we’ve laid out to continue funding the organic first and foremost, whether that’s new product development or with some of the reshoring or onshoring of some production that was in China into our U. S. Facilities, that creates the opportunity for us to make some incremental investments around some manufacturing assets and some automation.

So that’s going to continue to be our top priority. But second is what you asked around M and A. We have a healthy pipeline of opportunities, ongoing discussions and information gathering. There’s opportunities, both domestic and international, for some bolt ons around our core residential business. As we just spoke around Cloroxing, that’s going to continue to get resources and interest.

Nothing for us to talk about publicly at this point, but know that it’s a that’s a healthy pipeline and good conversations, good opportunities that we’re that we’re weighing right now from the M and A standpoint.

Ivan Jones, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. I would just add, as you know, we we are very pleased again with what we’ve been able to do with the balance sheet, getting down to 2.1 times. The low end of our communicated range of two to three times is a great tick mark against a lot of team members that have worked diligently to improve the balance sheet to that level. We remain dedicated on our capital allocation policy to think about reinvestment into the organic side of the business first. Our CapEx took a tick up in the first half, and we’ll continue to invest both in automation and other initiatives around our manufacturing supply footprint.

And just to clarify on my previous remark, even though we are reorientating our supply chain away from China to service North America, we’ll continue to use that Chinese facility that we have, a great team there to support our Rest of World business. As Kevin mentioned, M and A remains a core thematic for this business. We are looking at opportunities, and we’ll continue to update you as those opportunities may develop. And then lastly, return to shareholder. Given the very strong cash profile characteristics of this organization, we will have the opportunity to return to shareholder, even satisfying organic and inorganic activities.

And as we mentioned in the call, we have instituted the next repurchase authorization for $450,000,000 over the next three years. And as the opportunities arise, we’ll execute if we feel it’s appropriate to do so. So again, super pleased with what we’ve been able to do, and we look forward to continued improvements.

Pez, Analyst, Baird: Thanks, everybody. I’ll pass it on.

Latanya, Conference Operator: The next question comes from Ralphie Jarowicz with Bank of America. Please proceed.

Kevin Masca, Vice President of Investor Relations, Hayward Holdings0: Hi, good morning. It’s Ray. Thanks for taking my questions. Hi, I wanted to just follow-up on the trends that you saw through the quarter on salad. I think you mentioned there was an improvement in June.

So just wondering what you saw in terms of end market demand through the quarter? What maybe drove that improvement in June? And is there any difference between discretionary and non discretionary in terms of the more recent trends?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: I don’t think we would point to any meaningful change in trend. As we look back on Q2, I know some other public comments mirror this. April was a pretty strong sell through into the marketplace, kind of May mid May, late May into early June was not great. And then it really did pick up kind of latter half of June. And while we’re not talking about the current quarter, July has kind of carried through with some of those trends.

So we are feeling really positive about what the pull through into the marketplace is. Maybe from an OEM standpoint, weather doesn’t impact an OEM quite like it may a channel or a retailer. The quarter in general was extremely hot and extremely wet, except for maybe the West Coast in terms of precipitation. So I think that that could have had some impact, at least the precipitation in the mid part of the quarter there. As I said earlier, we are seeing permit data improve.

It’s still not positive on a year over year basis. But the rate of permits filed has actually improved through the second quarter. So I think that that could well play into some of the pull through, Rafe, around new construction or some remodeling activity.

Kevin Masca, Vice President of Investor Relations, Hayward Holdings0: That’s helpful. And then can you talk about the market share versus the industry, how you think you’re performing? And then also, like, of the SG and A investments that you’ve talked about, like, where do you see opportunity to gain share? Where do you feel like you’re underpenetrated? And if you could just update us on those initiatives?

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: Yes. I mean, I’d say from a share standpoint, we feel good about the pull through and our performance overall. In terms of sales out, we believe we are net positive. Share gains in this industry are hard earned through relationship building, service levels, new product introduction, availability, etcetera. And I think we’re doing the team is doing a good job across all those different elements, Rafe.

In terms of where we think our opportunities lie, we’ve been pretty open in discussing where we think we’re under punching our weight historically. And we’re targeting some of those regions with some incremental investment, whether it’s with some of our hubs that we’ve spoken about for service and installation, training to some additional field sales and customer care resources to some targeted marketing programs. So I’d say that’s really what’s driving some of the very targeted SG and A investments that both Ivan and I have spoken about on the call here this morning.

Nigel Coe, Analyst, Wolfe Research: Helpful. Thank you.

Latanya, Conference Operator: Thank you. At this time, I would like to turn the call back over to Kevin Holleran for closing remarks.

Kevin Holleran, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hayward Holdings: All right. Thanks, Latonya. In closing, I’d like to sincerely thank our dedicated employees and valued partners around the world. Your hard work, passion and unwavering commitment are the driving force behind our success. Please contact our team if you have any follow-up questions, and we look forward to talking to you again on the third quarter earnings call.

Thank you for your interest in Hayward. And Latanya, you can now end the call.

Latanya, Conference Operator: Thank you. This does conclude today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation and have a great day.

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