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Text: These beliefs are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties.
Many of which may be beyond our control, including those detailed in our periodic SEC filings.
Please note that the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated, and we undertake no obligation to update these statements.
There will be an opportunity for Q&A at the end of the call.
I'm proud of our performance in the first quarter of fiscal 2022.
Our team delivered sales growth of 17%, expanded our operating profit margin by 160 basis points, and increased diluted earnings per share by 57%, despite global supply chain challenges and unpredictable market conditions.
Our performance demonstrates that by prioritizing customers, we are driving sales growth and turning that into operating income, while continuing to invest in the long-term growth and transformation of the company.
I want to start today's call by taking a deep dive on the current market conditions.
As you are aware, this is a dynamic market with a fair share of paradoxes.
Demand across our end markets remain strong.
At the same time, the availability and cost of key inputs remain challenging.
In short, it's the best of times and the most challenging of times.
Business is strong both in ABL and in spaces.
Within ABL, demand is strong across all of our channels to market, except retail, which we expect to improve this calendar year.
In this dynamic pricing environment, we have been prudent and successful passing on price increases, while at the same time, providing as much consistency as we can to our customers so that they can plan and execute their projects effectively.
At the same time, input costs and availability remain unpredictable, and we expect this to continue.
Obviously, everyone is dealing with this.
Our strategy for managing through this has been consistent: prioritize satisfying customer demand and ensuring the health and well-being of our associates.
So now let me spend a minute on what we mean by satisfying our customer demand.
First, we have chosen to honor pricing on all of our placed orders.
As I've said before, it is important to me that we are known in the industry for doing what we say.
There is a gap in time between when we receive orders and when we fulfill them in normal times, and that is even greater now.
Therefore, we believe that this position will serve us well in the long term with specific customers and with the industry.
From there, we are also doing everything that we can to fulfill these orders as quickly as we can.
While we don't disclose backlog, what I will say is that it is meaningfully higher than during normal periods.
This is the result of higher demand, coupled with changing component availability and the general supply chain and transportation challenges.
Again, these are not unique to Acuity.
To combat these, we have prioritized three key activities.
First, we have focused and invested in our strategic relationships with manufacturers and suppliers to procure as much of the available component supply as possible.
We benefit from being the largest and most consistent in the industry.
Second, we have empowered our teams to source components in the spot market, and we have prioritized speed and access over cost.
This allows us to maintain higher levels of production at the expense of some higher cost.
Third, our product, engineering and manufacturing teams have been continuously redesigning and reengineering existing products based on what components are available.
To give you an idea of the magnitude of that effort, our Distech engineers spent over half their time in the last quarter dedicated to this type of redesign.
Our ABL team made the same commitment in addition to changes and improvements in our manufacturing processes to ensure consistent production.
These efforts also extend beyond our company into our broader ecosystem.
We have been working with suppliers to help them find necessary components and make engineering changes in the products that they supply to us.
The overall effort has been herculean, and our teams continue to remain flexible and to adapt to an ever changing environment.
The changes that we have implemented over the last two years have enhanced our ability to see across our business, work across our stakeholders and improve our service levels.
So where are we on our transformation?
One of the points that I stress to our team is that transformation is a process, not a destination.
In challenging times, sometimes, the first reaction is to revert to what you know.
In our case, we are using these times to redouble our transformation efforts.
Let me start with the ABL business.
Trevor and his team are focused on maintaining high product vitality, continuing to elevate industry service levels and continuing to use technology to differentiate us.
During the first quarter, we launched several interesting products to drive our portfolio expansion, products like the STACK PACK and STACK Switch products.
These are the next generation of center-element LED lay-in lights for commercial indoor spaces.
The STACK has a lower profile and more efficient packaging that saves on transportation costs.
It also has an adjustable lumen output that can be reconfigured at any time through the STACK Switch.
This means that there is no time wasted on a job site if there need to be changes to the configuration.
In controls, we introduced the CLAIRITY link.
This is part of our nLight lighting controls platform that offers remote connectivity capability.
The remote capabilities reduce the need for in-person visits, offering quick troubleshooting resolutions and a reduction in maintenance cost.
This product fundamentally changes the way we service projects and is an important step forward for our customers.
Now moving to the Intelligent Spaces Group.
The mission of ISG is to use technology to solve problems in spaces in order to make them smarter, safer, and greener.
We do this in two ways.
We collect data through hardware, for example, the Distech controller; and then analyze and take action on the data through software applications powered by Atrius.
Our ISG group had an eventful quarter.
As I mentioned, even though the engineering team at Distech spend over half their time focused on redesigning Distech products for the available components.
We continued to roll out several important products and product enhancements.
The Distech ECLYPSE APEX was introduced in the first quarter and is the most advanced version of our controller for HVAC and building automation.
The APEX introduced artificial intelligence to the edge and increases compute capacity in buildings, which helps customers manage energy usage more effectively.
We also further expanded the availability of our Atrius Building Insights service by enabling it for additional languages and local privacy requirements.
Atrius Building Insights is now available in the U.K., Ireland, France, Germany, Spain, and Norway.
We are currently and expect to continue to be operating in unpredictable times.
Input prices and availability can sometimes feel like a game of whack-a-mole, and we are dealing with omicron, which materialized only a few months ago.
As we face these challenges and new challenges we will maintain our focus on satisfying customer demand in ensuring the health and well-being of our associates.
I remain optimistic about 2022 and our ability to effectively manage in this environment.
We have a great team who are executing today while also remaining focused on the long-term growth and transformation of the company.
And then I'll be back for the Q&A and for some closing remarks.
I continue to be impressed by our team's dedication to our transformational priorities while we continue to navigate the day-to-day performance of the business.
We delivered a strong first quarter performance.
Net sales were $926 million, an increase of 17% compared to the prior year.
This performance was driven by our improved service levels, a continued recovery in the end markets of both of our business segments, and the benefits of recent price increases.
Gross profit was $386 million, an increase of $53 million or 16% over the prior year.
This improvement was driven by revenue growth and by offsetting the significant increase in material and freight costs through price increases and product and productivity improvements.
Gross profit as a percentage of sales was 41.7%, a decrease of 30 basis points from 42% in the prior year, a significant achievement given the cost environment.
Reported operating profit margin was 12.4% of net sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2022, an increase of 160 basis points over the prior year.
Adjusted operating profit margin was 14.4% of net sales, an increase of 120 basis points over the prior year.
The majority of this was the result of improved operating leverage as we continued to balance cost management and growth investments.
The effective tax rate for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 was 19.6%.
In the same period of 2021, the rate was 24.7%.
The decrease in the effective income tax rate was primarily due to favorable discrete items recognized in the first quarter of fiscal 2022 related to excess tax benefits on share-based payments.
We expect our tax rate for the full year of 2022 to normalize to around 23% absent these discrete items.
Finally, we saw a significant improvement in diluted earnings per share for the quarter of fiscal -- for the first quarter of fiscal 2022.
Diluted earnings per share of $2.46 increased $0.89 or 57% over the prior year.
And adjusted diluted earnings per share of $2.85 increased $0.82 or 40% over the prior year.
Our share repurchase program favorably impacted adjusted diluted earnings per share by $0.07 and the tax impact was approximately $0.16.
Moving on to our segments.
During the quarter, our Lighting and Lighting Control segment saw sales increase 17% to $884 million versus the prior year.
This was driven by improvements within our independent sales network, which grew 14%, and the direct sales network, which grew about 12%.
These increases were a direct result of our strong go-to-market efforts and an improved demand environment as well as the favorable impact of price increases.
Our corporate accounts channel saw an increase in sales of approximately 62% compared to the prior year, as large accounts began previously deferred maintenance and renovations.
The performance in this channel is dependent upon our customers' renovation cycles and can be uneven quarter to quarter.
Sales in the retail channel declined approximately 16% in the current quarter.
ABL operating profit for the first quarter of fiscal 2022 increased 30% to $128 million versus the prior year, with operating margin improving 160 basis points to 12.4%.
Adjusted operating profit of $138 million improved 28% versus the prior year, with adjusted operating margin improving 140 basis points to 15.6%.
Now moving on to the results for our Intelligent Spaces Group.
For the first quarter of 2022, sales in spaces increased approximately 14% to $46 million versus the prior year, reflecting continued demand primarily across our building and HVAC controls.
Spaces' operating profit in the first quarter of 2022 increased approximately $2 million to $2 million versus the prior year.
Adjusted operating profit of $6 million increased approximately $2 million versus the prior year as a result of the strong sales growth.
Now turning to cash flow.
We continue to generate solid cash flows.
The net cash from operating activities for the first three months of fiscal 2022 was $84 million.
This was a decrease of $40 million or 32% compared to the prior year and reflects an increased investment in inventory to drive growth.
Additionally, cash flow was impacted by the timing of income tax payments and the prior-year deferral of withholding taxes as a result of the CARES Act.
We invested $9 million or 1% of net sales in capital expenditures during the first three months of fiscal 2022.
During the quarter, we continued to execute on our capital allocation strategy and repurchased approximately 300,000 shares of common stock for around $53 million at an average price of $176 per share.
We have approximately 3.5 million shares remaining under our current board authorization.
Our capital allocation priorities remain the same.
We will continue to prioritize investments for growth in our current businesses, to invest in acquisitions, to maintain our dividend, and to allocate capital to share repurchases when there is an opportunity to create permanent value for our shareholders.
I would now like to spend a few minutes addressing current topics of note.
First, on the pricing environment.
As Neil said, we are managing price aggressively while at the same time balancing the relationships with our customers.
We announced another price increase this week effective for orders placed in February.
We will continue to be deliberate in our strategic approach to pricing.
Next, I would like to update you on the OSRAM integration.
We have made significant progress in our integration of OSRAM.
We bought the OSRAM North American DS business to ensure control over the technology, to expand our OEM channel and for the benefit it brings through the integration into our supply chain.
The addition of OSRAM contributed over 300 basis points to our sales growth in this quarter.
There was also a relatively small dilutive impact to gross profit margin, but OSRAM was an overall positive contribution to operating profit.
The acquisition is delivering on our expectations and we are very excited that the OSRAM team is now part of Acuity.
We have included EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA in our tables of reconciliation to enable easier comparisons and to improve the consistency around reported adjustments.
As we continue to navigate 2022, we will continue to prioritize our customers to drive sales growth and operating income.
We will also continue to allocate capital in a way that drives long-term growth and that creates permanent value for our shareholders.

user
q1 adjusted earnings per share $2.85.
q1 earnings per share $2.46.

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