You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: Following our remarks, we will open the call for analyst questions.
Please limit yourself to one question with one follow-up.
We describe these risks and uncertainties in our risk factors and other disclosures in our Form 10-K and our Form 10-Q that we filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Our statements will also include non-GAAP financial metrics.
I'm proud of the way our team continues to execute in these dynamic times.
In the third quarter, sales increased to 11%, our fifth consecutive quarter of double-digit top line growth.
This was against a strong 16% comp from last year.
This growth came as we continue to face significant supply chain challenges.
Certain raw materials were hard to come by, such as resins, microchips and even pallets.
Freight congestion in ports and lack of trucking capacity contributed to increased delays in shipping and receiving goods and labor shortages, continue to be a challenge.
They have kept our plants running, and our customers supplied, resulting an outstanding top line performance.
Operating margin for the quarter was 17.5% as we executed our planned transition to a more normalized level of SG&A expense to support our brands, innovation and new products.
Moving to our segment performance, beginning with Plumbing.
Sales increased 15% excluding currency, led by exceptional growth in North America and international faucets and showers and our spa business.
These results highlight the strength of our plumbing platform diversity across geographies and channels.
To support our continued international growth, Hansgrohe recently announced plans to invest in a new manufacturing facility in Serbia.
This additional capacity will enable further growth and further strengthen Hansgrohe's capabilities to serve its customers.
We plan to invest approximately $100 million in this project over the next three years.
And our Decorative Architectural segment sales grew 4% against a robust 19% comp from the third quarter of 2020.
Propane had an exceptional growth of over 45% in the quarter, helping to offset moderating demand in DIY paint.
DIY paint declined mid single-digits against a tremendous comp of over 25% in the third quarter of 2020.
We continue to see indications of DIY paint demand stabilization as demand was fairly consistent throughout the quarter.
When compared to our third quarter 2019 sales, our DIY paint sales were up over 20%, a clear indication of a reengaged homeowner and strong home improvement fundamentals.
Lastly, Behr Paint was recently recognized as the Home Depot Partner of the Year in the paint department.
This recognition was a result of successfully keeping the Home Depot on stock during the DIY surge last year.
Our continued investment in our joint effort to grow the PRO paint category, and our commitment to bringing new and innovative products such as our recently launched Behr Dynasty to The Home Depot, each of these has contributed to tremendous growth for both Behr Paint and the Home Depot.
And this recognition is a testament to the strength of our partnership.
Moving on to capital allocation.
We continued our share buyback activity during the quarter by repurchasing 2.2 million shares for $128 million.
In addition, we anticipate deploying approximately $150 million in the fourth quarter, bringing our total share repurchases to over $1 billion for the year.
Now let me give you an update on what we are experiencing with inflation.
The second half of 2021 is largely unfolding as anticipated.
We experienced low double-digit inflation in the third quarter and we expect mid teens inflation in the fourth quarter.
We have taken pricing actions across both segments, and expect to achieve price cost neutrality by year-end.
It has been an extremely dynamic year and our supply chain and commercial teams have done an exceptional job managing through the many challenges.
Because of this outstanding execution and continued strong demand for our products, we are maintaining the midpoint of our previous guide and expect to achieve earnings -- full-year earnings per share in the range of $3.67 to $3.73.
This report demonstrates our commitment to environmental, social and governance responsibility.
During a year of unparalleled change, our team members remained committed to maintaining our strong reputation for ethical business practices, reducing our environmental impact and enhancing our DE&I efforts.
I'm proud of the hard work we are doing every day to ensure that our employees feel a sense of inclusion, belonging and support.
Our progress in ESG is a priority for our Board and our executive leadership team.
I hope you will take the time to read more about how our long-term sustainability influences the way we run our business, operate our facilities and contribute to the community.
As Dave mentioned, my comments today will focus on adjusted performance excluding the impact of rationalization and other one-time items.
Turning to slide seven.
Demand for our industry-leading brands remains strong and our teams executed exceptionally well in a dynamic environment.
This resulted in another strong quarter of double-digit top line growth.
Sales increased to 11% against an impressive 16% comp in the third quarter of last year.
Net acquisitions contributed 2% growth and currency had a minimal impact.
In local currency, North American sales increased 9% or 6% excluding acquisitions.
The strong performance was driven by outstanding execution to achieve volume growth in propane, faucets, showers and spas, and by increased selling prices.
In local currency, international sales increased a robust 15% or 18% excluding acquisitions and divestitures against the healthy 9% comp.
Gross margin of 34.2% is impacted by higher commodity and logistics cost in the quarter.
We expect this inflation will have peak impact on our P&L in the fourth quarter.
We will offset these costs with additional pricing actions and productivity initiatives.
We expect the exit this year price cost neutral.
SG&A as a percentage of sales was 16.7%.
As planned during the quarter, we increased certain expenses such as headcount, advertising and marketing to a more normalized level to support our brands.
We expect this increase to continue into the fourth quarter and these costs continue to normalize.
Operating profit in the third quarter was $385 million, with an operating margin of 17.5%, our earnings per share was $0.99.
Turning to slide eight.
Plumbing growth continued to be strong with sales up 16% against the 13% comp in the third quarter of last year.
Net acquisitions contributed 2% to its growth and currency contributed another 1%.
North American sales increased 16% or 10%, excluding acquisitions.
Delta led this outstanding performance, delivering another quarter of robust double-digit growth driven by strength in e-commerce and trade channels.
With strong brand recognition and channel relationships, Delta continues to drive consumer demand for its products.
Watkins Wellness also contributed to growth in the quarter with both demand and our backlog remained strong.
International plumbing sales increased 15% in local currency or 18%, excluding net acquisitions.
Hansgrohe delivered strong growth and demand continue to improve across Europe and numerous other countries.
Hansgrohe's key markets of Germany, China and the UK, all grew double-digits in the quarter.
Segment operating profit in the third quarter was $248 million and operating margin was 18.7%.
Operating profit was impacted by the planned increases in SG&A that I mentioned earlier, as well as an unfavorable price/cost relationship.
This was partially offset by strong incremental volume.
We anticipate additional SG&A increases in commodity inflation will most significantly impact this segment's operating margins in the fourth quarter.
We will mitigate the commodity inflation with additional pricing and productivity actions, we expect to be price cost neutral as we enter 2022.
For full-year 2021, we continue to expect Plumbing segment sales growth to be in 22% to 24% and operating margins of approximately 18.5%.
Turning to slide nine.
Decorative Architectural sales increased 4% for the third quarter and 3% excluding acquisitions.
Our DIY paint business declined mid single-digits in the quarter against more than 25% comp in the third quarter of last year.
Despite this decline, DIY paint demand appears to be stabilizing, as we have seen relatively consistent demand since July.
When comparing to Q3 2019, our third quarter DIY sales are up over 20%.
Our propane business delivered exceptional growth of more than 45% in the quarter, as paint contractors are applying top rated Behr paint to more commercial and residential projects.
We expect demand in this channel to remain strong as propane contractors report growing demand for their services.
When comparing to Q3 2019, our third quarter PRO sales are up over 35%.
Segment operating margin in the third quarter was 19% and operating profit was $166 million.
Operating profit was impacted by lower volume, with increased commodity costs and higher marketing expense to support the new Behr Dynasty product launch, partially offset by higher net selling prices.
For full-year 2021, we continue to expect Decorative Architectural sales growth will be in the range of 2% to 5%, and operating margin to be approximately 19%.
Turning to slide 10.
Our balance sheet is strong with net debt-to-EBITDA at 1.3 times.
We ended the quarter with approximately $1.9 billion of balance sheet liquidity, which includes full availability of our $1 billion revolver.
Working capital as a percent of sales, including our recent acquisitions, was 17%.
Finally, we repurchased more than 15.2 million shares in 2021 for $878 [Phonetic] million.
This is approximately 6% of our outstanding share count at the beginning of the year.
We expect to deploy approximately $150 million for share repurchases or acquisitions in the fourth quarter as we continue to aggressively return capital to shareholders.
And turning to our full year guidance, we have summarized our expectations for 2021 on slide 11.
We continue to anticipate overall sales growth of 14% to $16, and operating margin of approximately 17.5%.
Lastly, we are maintaining our 2021 earnings per share estimate midpoint, but narrowing the range to $3.67 to $3.73 growth at the midpoint of the range.
This assumes the 252 million average diluted share count for the year.
Additional modeling assumptions for 2021 can be found on slide 14 of our earnings deck.
Demand for our products and home renovation remained strong at at a much higher levels than experienced in 2019.
When you compare our third quarter performance to Q3 2019, revenue is 28% higher, operating profit is 29% higher, operating margin is 10 basis points higher and adjusted earnings per share is an outstanding 62% higher.
With our demonstrated supply chain excellence and our ability to offset inflation with price, we believe we are well positioned to carry this momentum into 2022 and deliver margin expansion and double-digit growth consistent with our long-term outlook.
We look forward to sharing our details for 2022 outlook on our fourth quarter call in February.
I'll now open the call up to questions.

user
q3 adjusted earnings per share $0.99 from continuing operations.
q3 sales rose 11 percent to $2.204 billion.
sees fy adjusted earnings per share $3.67 to $3.73.
q3 adjusted earnings per share $3.67.2021 expected earnings per share to be in range of $1.67 - $1.73.

assistant