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Text: My name is Aaron Howald, and I'm LP's Director of Investor Relations.
All these materials are available on LPs investor relations website, www.
Rather than reading these statements, I incorporate them herein by reference.
Finally, in today's discussion and materials, we refer to Siding Solutions, where we would previously have said SmartSide.
This is an expanded descriptor, which in addition to SmartSide also includes newly developed Trim and Siding products, with different branding.
I should stress that this modification is consistent with and therefore does not require any recasting of any previously reported growth numbers for SmartSide Trim and Siding.
Q2 was another remarkable quarter for LP Building Solutions.
All our segments set records for sales and EBITDA in the second quarter, with over 150,000 housing starts in June, single-family mix over 70% and repair and remodel indices equally robust, we are encouraged that demand for LP's products remain very strong.
EBITDA was $684 million, generating $457 million in operating cash flow and $4.74 in earnings per share.
Siding Solutions growth is a significant component of these results, as slide seven illustrates.
Siding Solutions includes primed and prefinished SmartSide, as well as innovative strand-based Siding products sold under other brand names.
Revenue for Siding Solutions grew by 39% compared to last year.
This is composed of 27% volume growth, compounded by 9% price growth.
In addition to market penetration and share gains, Siding is growing through product innovation, the most innovative and value-added subset of Siding Solutions, which includes SmartSide Smooth, Shakes and ExpertFinish and LP's new builder series Siding, combined for 9% of total volume in Q2.
This is compared to 6% last year and these new products contributed more than one point to the 9% increase.
For LP's OSB segment, extraordinary prices generated impressive cash flows, but also overshadowed important gains in Structural Solutions volume.
OSB prices have pulled back in recent weeks.
We have not wavered from our strategy of growing structural solutions and supply market demand agility.
In fact, in Q2, we grew Structural Solutions as a percentage of total OSB volume by five points, compared to prior year quarter.
While not driving our strategy, OSB prices do of course continue to be a significant driver of LP's cash flow and share repurchases, about which Alan will update you in a few minutes.
LP South America segment also had a very strong quarter with OSB and Siding price increases more than offsetting raw material cost inflation.
South American sales almost doubled and EBITDA tripled compared to last year.
Let me briefly update you on our capacity expansion projects, beginning with the Siding conversion in hold.
While material costs particularly still, have been subject to inflationary pressures, the project is on schedule.
We expect to begin SmartSide production in Houlton in late Q1 of 2022.
We continue to work to accelerate the Sagola conversion and we are currently planning to start SmartSide production there in the first quarter of 2023.
Finally, we are implementing projects to optimize our production and distribution processes that should result in incremental gains in production capacity across our mills.
As for LP's Peace Valley OSB mill, I'm happy to announce that Peace Valley pressed its first Board of OSB in late June.
We have received APA Certification in our shipping product, including TechShield Radiant Barrier, a significant contributor to Structural Solutions growth.
In previous quarterly calls, I have discussed shortages of resin and adhesives as well as LP's operational responses to mitigate the impacts of these disruptions.
As the broader economy continues this on even recovery, we expect intermittent supply chain challenges to continue.
LP's Strategic Sourcing teams is working diligently to minimize disruptions.
This includes collaborating with our operations teams to allocate any scarce inputs consistent with our transformation strategy, as we did with MDI resin in the first quarter.
Most categories of the raw materials LP consumed saw significant price decreases in 2020, as demand fell in sectors of the economy more severely impacted by COVID than housing.
Many of those sectors are now rebounding with the result, the demand and therefore prices are increasing.
In some cases, availability has been hampered by supply chain interruptions elsewhere as was the case with certain resins.
Raw material prices are now back at 2019 levels or in some cases above.
Consumer and producer price indices generally trend upward.
The situation is fluid, but we expect these inflationary pressures to persist for some time as the US economy recovers and grows.
We recently completed environmental product declaration for SmartSide Siding.
We believe that SmartSide looks and performs better than competing alternatives.
We also believe the data shows that SmartSide is significantly more sustainable with a much smaller carbon footprint.
In coming quarters, we plan to disclose additional information under the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, or SASB framework.
Sustainability is central to our transformation strategy at LP.
We believe we have a good story to tell and we look forward to telling it.
As Brad has already said, all segments set new records for revenue and EBITDA in the second quarter.
Siding Solutions revenue grew by 39% and OSB and EWP prices were significantly higher in both North and South America.
In fact sales for EWP and LPSA doubled compared to last year with their combined EBITDA more than triple.
And Entekra delivered a record 324 units for $22 million of revenue, a tenfold increase over last year.
As a result, LP generated $1.3 billion in sales, $684 million of EBITDA, $457 million of operating cash flow, and $4.74 in adjusted earnings per share.
Inflationary pressures in wages, raw materials and freight, especially when compared to softer prices last year produced an EBITDA headwind of $24 million.
Maintenance and other spending account for the remaining adverse $31 million.
The waterfalls on slides nine and 10 show year-over-year revenue and EBITDA comparisons for the Siding and OSB segments.
Siding Solutions saw volume growth of 27% and price growth of 9% for revenue growth of 39%.
This generated an additional $81 million of revenue and $53 million of EBITDA and incremental EBITDA margin of 65%.
Notably the 9% price increase in the quarter includes four percentage points from annual list price increases and three points on the packet that is from reduced discounts and rebates.
The highest value-added subset of products, which includes ExpertFinish Smooth Shakes and Builder series punches well above its weight in terms of price accounting for just 9% of total volume, but over 100 basis points of the year-over-year price increase.
The $4 million increase in selling and marketing costs represents the ongoing return to pre-COVID levels of spend consistent with our growth strategy and reflects the anniversary of reductions made last spring.
With OEE flat to prior year still impressive 88%, the total Siding transformation impact is $81 million in revenue and $50 million in EBITDA.
Costs associated with the Houlton conversion are making their first appearance in this waterfall with $1 million incurred in the second quarter.
We have the last vestiges of the discontinued fiber sales this quarter with $10 million less revenue, but only $1 million less EBITDA.
This brings us to second quarter revenue for the segment of $291 million an increase of 32% and EBITDA of $77 million, an increase of 51% for an EBITDA margin for the segment of 27%.
Slide 10 shows the quarter in more detail for OSB and is obviously not to scale as OSB price increases dwarfed the other elements of the waterfall adding $554 million in year-over-year revenue and EBITDA.
Volume was up about 8%, driven by Structural Solutions growth.
High unscheduled downtime reduced OEE to 86% which contributed to the $18 million of unfavorable production costs.
The OSB segment was also impacted by input and freight cost inflation.
And lastly the restart of Peace Valley cost us $7 million in the quarter.
The net result of these factors dominated as I said by price are increases in sales and EBITDA of $574 million and $519 million respectively and yet another quarter of extraordinary cash flow generation.
As Brad mentioned and as you've all seen supply chain interruptions are impacting many industries.
In some cases, those disruptions impact building products specifically and in others the impact is more widespread particularly when it involves precursor materials consumed upstream by our suppliers or their suppliers.
Freight demand has also increased driving costs higher.
All of which is reflected in the Siding and OSB waterfall charts to the tune of $8 million for raw materials and $12 million for freight across the two segments.
Recall that last year saw significant drops in the same cost categories from which the housing industry benefited while demand elsewhere dropped.
Now as the broader economic recovery is underway raw material prices have flattened and are climbing.
On a blended unit cost basis, non-wood raw materials were down about 6% in 2020 compared to 2019, but are now up about 13% in 2021 compared to 2020.
This represents an inflationary CAGR or compound annual growth rate of about 4% over the period.
We expect inflationary pressures to continue and they are reflected in our third quarter guidance.
One potential contributor to supply chain concerns are the fires in British Columbia and elsewhere in the West.
So far, our employees and facilities are safe and we've seen minimal interruptions to inbound and outbound shipping.
We will of course continue to monitor the situation closely with safety as our highest priority.
Let me turn to LP's capital allocation strategy which remains to return to shareholders over time at least 50% of cash flow from operations in excess of investments required to sustain our core businesses and grow Siding Solutions at OSB Structural Solutions.
In the second quarter of 2021, we returned $481 million to shareholders through a combination of $465 million in share repurchases and $16 million in dividends.
Furthermore, since the end of June, we've spent an additional $140 million on buybacks which leaves $572 million remaining under the current $1 billion authorization.
And since LP embarked on its strategic transformation, we've returned over $1.8 billion to shareholders, repurchasing more than 5 million shares and bringing the current share count to a bit under 95 million.
In order to consistently reflect ongoing Siding growth and the decrease in share count driven by aggressive share repurchases, LP has declared a midyear increase in the quarterly dividend of 13% or $0.02 per share raising it from $0.16 a share to $0.18 per share.
Slide 13 shows updated guidance for full year capital investment, as well as revenue and EBITDA guidance for the third quarter.
We now anticipate spending $95 million in 2021 for the Houlton conversion an increase of $10 million of prior guidance largely due to increased costs for steel and labor.
The remainder of the project costs will be incurred in early 2022.
Spending for other growth capital, is expected to be $45 million and we anticipate spending about $120 million on sustaining maintenance for full-year total capital outlay of $270 million.
This assumes continued easing of travel restrictions and contractor availability the reversal of, which could result in some execution risk, which brings me to the revenue and EBITDA outlook.
For Siding Solutions, the third quarter should see year-over-year revenue growth of around 10%, which would be another quarterly record despite the much stronger comparative.
This will however, bring the business very near to full production capacity with the result that revenue growth for the remainder of the year will be primarily driven by price increases and mix shifts.
And if we assume 10% year-over-year revenue growth for the second half of this year Siding Solutions revenue growth will hit 24% for the year, which is double our long-term guidance.
However, the combined effects of the Houlton conversion and other growth projects increased selling and marketing investment and input cost inflation will result in third quarter EBITDA being below last year's.
But on a trailing 12-month basis, we still expect the EBITDA margin to meet our long-term guidance of 25%.
For the OSB segment although prices are exceptionally volatile right now our order file gives us some near-term visibility.
We also tend to lag price movements both when they are rising and when they are falling.
We're therefore guiding to OSB revenue being roughly 10% sequentially lower than the second quarter.
This includes the assumption that Random Lengths prices stay flat from last Friday's print throughout the remainder of the quarter.
And while this is obviously, not a prediction of future OSB prices, we hope it's a useful characterization of the impact of price movements so far.
And so with further caveats about certain changes in demand raw material price and availability or other unforeseeable events, we expect EBITDA for the third quarter to be at least $530 million, which will not be another quarterly record for LP but will be second only to the quarter we've just finished to report it.

user
compname posts q2 adjusted non-gaap earnings per share $4.74.
q2 sales $1.3 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $1.2 billion.
q2 adjusted non-gaap earnings per share $4.74.
sees siding solutions revenue in q3 of 2021 to be about 10% higher than q3 of 2020.
sees osb revenue in q3 of 2021 to be sequentially lower than q2 of 2021 by about 10%.
sees adjusted ebitda for q3 of 2021 to be greater than $530 million.
expect capital expenditures for 2021 to be about $270 million.

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