Good afternoon. My name is Donna, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Fortune Brands Third Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. You may press star one on your telephone keypad if you would like the opportunity to ask a question. If you require operator assistance during the event, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Dave Barry, Senior Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Thank you, sir. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the Fortune Brands Home & Security third quarter 2022 earnings call and webcast. Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to review the earnings release issued earlier. The earnings release and audio replay of the webcast of this call can be found in the investor section of our fbhs.com website. I want to remind everyone that the forward-looking statements we make on the call today, either in our prepared remarks or in the associated question-and-answer session, are based on current expectations and market outlook and are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those currently anticipated. These risks are detailed in our various filings with the SEC. The company does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by law.
Any references to operating income or margin, earnings per share or cash flow on today's call will focus on our results on a before charges and gains basis unless otherwise specified. Joining me on the call today are Nick Fink, our Chief Executive Officer, Pat Hallinan, our Chief Financial Officer, and Dave Banyard, President of our Cabinets business. Following our prepared remarks, we have allowed time to address some questions. I will now turn the call over to Nick.
Thank you, Dave, and thank you to everyone for joining us on the call today. Our teams delivered a very strong third quarter with 20% EPS growth and improved margins across all segments in a shifting demand landscape. During the quarter, we saw a softening in U.S. single-family new construction and R&R as the Federal Reserve's continued action on interest rates started to have its intended effect on housing demand. We remain strong believers in the medium to long-term market opportunity, underpinned by attractive demographics and a significant shortage of U.S. housing. Our third quarter results demonstrate both the strength of our portfolio and the team's ability to deliver results regardless of the environment. Despite these increasing challenges, we once again made operating margin progress in each segment versus last year. We expect second half margin expansion versus the first half of the year, inclusive of our digital investment.
Our strong performance demonstrates our ability to outgrow the market, increase margins, and make focused strategic investments in the challenging macro environment. We are expecting a soft start to 2023 and are focused on driving our performance while executing a tight set of strategic priorities. We remain strongly positioned and are well ahead of schedule in executing our planned separation into two world-class companies. Our teams are working hard towards finalizing the separation before the end of this year. I've invited Dave Banyard, who will continue to lead the Cabinets business following the separation, to join the call today. Dave will provide an update on the progress of the separation and give his perspective on his team's transformational work, as well as the exciting potential for the Cabinets business as a standalone company. Dave, thanks for joining the call today.
Turning to our third quarter performance, our teams delivered impressive results in a shifting macro environment, including 20% EPS growth versus the prior year. Sales grew 3%, reflecting strong price realization offset by the continued normalization of channel inventory, coupled with comping against an exceptional third quarter of 2021. As the unprecedented supply chain and demand environment of the COVID years begins to dissipate, on a trailing basis, our three year organic sales and operating income CAGRs of 10% and 17% respectively are proof points of the sustainable long-term value created over this period. Importantly, our consolidated operating margin was up 150 basis points over last year, with each segment making year-over-year operating margin improvement. Price and continuous improvement outpaced inflation in the quarter, and we continued to invest in key strategic priorities such as our digital transformation.
Our digital initiatives are already yielding tangible results, including increased e-commerce sales, improved app ratings, and accelerated procurement savings. Our results are further testament to the strength of our brands, the hard work of our teams driving transformation, and the power of our Fortune Brands Advantage capabilities. While our third quarter results were impressive, we are facing increasing headwinds from shifting consumer behavior in response to housing affordability and macroeconomic uncertainty. The Fed's tightening monetary policy is having the intended impact on capital goods, including housing. Rising interest rates are impacting single-family new construction permits and starts activity, and our wholesale and retail channel partners are destocking inventory as customer traffic slows and lead times normalize. The pace of impact is accelerating, and we are revising our full year guidance to reflect the current environment.
We have managed through similar headwinds before and are taking thoughtful yet decisive action to protect our business while prioritizing investment in a tighter set of key strategic priorities to win for the long term. Pat will provide more detail later in the call on how we intend to manage the P&L and balance sheet through the anticipated period of softness while protecting our long-term growth and market leadership positions. We constantly challenge ourselves to do better, regardless of the macro environment. We recently announced a redesign of the new Fortune Brands organization, which will better position us to realize the many opportunities to drive growth and margin progression at an accelerated pace. At the center of this exciting evolution, we are transitioning from a decentralized structure with separate businesses to a more aligned operating model that prioritizes activities that are core to brand, innovation, and channel under Cheri Phyfer.
Additionally, we have aligned all of our global supply chain resources under Ron Wilson as our Chief Supply Chain Officer to fully leverage the scale and execution excellence of our total business. This new operational focus structure will better align the company's resources with our growth and productivity priorities following the separation. This organizational redesign increases our ability to leverage best practices across the whole organization. We will be able to further leverage the Fortune Brands Advantage to drive increased productivity and capture additional growth at higher margins. We look forward to unveiling more of this Advantage strategy at our highly anticipated Investor Day, expected to take place on December sixth at the New York Stock Exchange. We hope that you can all join us.
As is well documented, there's a fundamental long-term need for housing in the U.S. as a deficit of millions of homes exist and the current age of homes today remain at or near multi-decade highs. We believe the importance of the home remains as strong as ever as consumers continue to invest in priority areas of the home, including the kitchen, bathroom, and the outdoors. Our portfolio is targeted at the heart of the market and is exceptionally well positioned to navigate the challenges ahead and capitalize on consumers' continued desire to upgrade their homes. Our brand power, innovation, and best-in-class service provides a unique value proposition that greatly resonates with the consumer and our channel partners. These attractive attributes, coupled with market leadership positions and advantage channel exposure, will provide stability and opportunity as we proactively manage the business through the near-term macro environment.
Now, I will turn to each of our segments to provide some color on what we are seeing. Beginning with Water Innovations, sales were down 14% in the quarter as channel inventory reductions and a soft China market more than offset mid-single-digit POS growth in the U.S. Upgraded Moen and House of Rohl showroom displays are driving double-digit POS lift, and our investments in brand and innovation continue to resonate with consumers and customers. In our core U.S. market, channel destocking accelerated ahead of our expectations during the quarter and is continuing into the fourth quarter. In addition to continued destocking at our major customers, down channel inventory held at production plumbers, builders, and smaller wholesalers grew as lead times extended. As our service levels recovered and construction and consumer activity slowed, this additional inventory has started to work its way out of the channels at an accelerated pace.
In China, economic and pandemic headwinds continue with new construction activity down almost 40% year to date. Our team is doing an outstanding job rightsizing our cost structure relative to the demand environment in China, and we remain positive on the opportunities for further innovation and long-term growth in this market. It is important to note that while the Water Innovations top line has been impacted by inventory destocking in China over the last 2 quarters, U.S. POS has maintained mid-single-digit growth throughout the period. Additionally, the segment has delivered a three year organic sales CAGR in the high single digits while expanding year-to-date operating margins by nearly 300 basis points over 2019. We expect the destocking dynamic to normalize in early 2023, and our sell-in should approximately equal our sell out.
Notwithstanding the top-line challenges, our Water Innovations team took action in the quarter to preserve operating margin and delivered 10% incremental margins, resulting in third quarter operating margins of nearly 25%. We continued to prioritize strategic investments, including the purchase of Aqualisa and its leading smart water and valve technology. The business remains well positioned to outperform over the long term through strong brands, innovation, and industry-leading service. Turning to Outdoors & Security business, sales grew 6%, driven by our powerhouse Therma-Tru brand, which grew at strong double digits. As one of the most recognized builder brands in housing, Therma-Tru continues to convert homeowners to advanced material fiberglass door systems from traditional wood and steel alternatives. Larson sales grew mid-single digits as we continue to capture synergies as we integrate Larson offerings with the rest of our outdoor portfolio.
Security sales were down mid-single digits, driven by retail inventory reductions, partially offset by commercial sales growth. Decking sales were down low double digits as destocking continues in the wholesale channel, while retail POS remained positive during the quarter. We continue to believe the value proposition of material conversion will drive long-term secular growth in composite decking. Outdoors & Security operating margin was 16.1% and improved 70 basis points sequentially and 50 basis points versus prior year as price and cost actions continued to more than offset inflation. Finally, our Cabinets business delivered another exceptional quarter with sales growth of 20% as our transformational efforts continued to deliver and pricing actions become more fully realized in the P&L. Our service levels and product offerings have enabled continued share gains across the channels.
The business will continue to work down excess backlogs through the fourth quarter and expects to end the year at normal levels. Cabinets operating margin was up over 400 basis points versus prior year. Price and cost actions more than offset inflation, and our team is strategically positioning the business to enter 2023 as a standalone public company with a cost structure that reflects the macro environment. The transformational work continues as MasterBrand drives its lean culture through its operational and supply chain strategy. Cabinets' tremendous results this year are the product of several years' work to re-platform the business into a world-class performer. The transformation is remarkable, and yet we believe there are still plenty of opportunities to pursue further value creation following the separation. Our stakeholders should be excited about the increased agility, resilience, growth, and profit potential of this market leader and its future journey ahead.
To summarize, it's been a strong quarter, and our value creation algorithm remains fully intact. In 2022, we expect to deliver another year of above-market growth and margin progression, even in the face of multiple headwinds. We are already taking action in anticipation of softening demand and are laser-focused on maintaining our margin journey and driving cash generation. We will proactively manage through the short term and are actively positioning both New Fortune Brands and MasterBrand to win for the long term with above-market growth and higher margins over time. We are well prepared to face any future challenges and will work to deliver on our commitments to all of our stakeholders.
Before Pat addresses our quarterly financial performance and financial guidance update in greater detail, I would first like to turn it over to Dave Banyard to give his perspective on Cabinets' progress towards the separation and provide some insight into the transformational journey he has led over the past three years. Dave?
Thanks, Nick. It's great to be joining you here on today's call. I appreciate the chance to provide you all with an update on the separation and highlight some of the exceptional work that the cabinets business has accomplished. I trust you'll see why I'm proud of our current performance, but I'm equally as excited about MasterBrand's future. As Nick said, we're progressing well ahead of schedule on the separation. The team has diligently worked to develop the infrastructure required to be an independent, publicly traded company, which includes building on our current leadership team and adding key roles. Our search for the best talent extends to MasterBrand's future board, as we're finalizing a world-class, independent, and diverse board of directors. As we prepare for the separation, we continue to make progress on our strategic transformation which began three years ago.
MasterBrand has a great history as a market leader, but there was an opportunity to improve. Our culture of continuous improvement, part of what we call the MasterBrand Way, focuses on efficiency and the best use of our scale, which has allowed us to both increase manufacturing flexibility and improve margins. We continue to better align around customers and channels with products specifically tailored to the needs of each part of the market. This realignment has improved service levels, increased customer satisfaction, and delivered stronger financial performance. These improvements were made during times of immense disruption to global supply chains and labor markets. This demonstrated performance in challenging times gives us confidence in our ability to deliver as market conditions change.
Because of our strategic transformation, we've already aligned the cabinets manufacturing network in anticipation of the future demand environment, and we have flexibility to adjust further as market conditions change. This flexibility will help preserve financial performance and allow us to continue to invest in our strategic initiatives, including in areas such as digital and e-commerce, which will help drive incremental future growth. I look forward to showcasing more operational success stories from our strategic transformation and details of our strategy at our upcoming Investor Day. I speak for the entire team when I say how excited we are knowing the best days of MasterBrand are ahead of us. I'll now turn the call over to Pat.
Thanks, Dave, and thank you for joining the call today. As a reminder, the majority of my comments will focus on income before charges and gains in order to best reflect ongoing segment performance. Additionally, all comparisons will be made against the same period last year, unless otherwise noted. Let me start with our third quarter results. Sales were $2.1 billion, up 3%, and consolidated operating income was $335 million, up 14%. Total company operating margin was 16.3%, an increase of 150 basis points. EPS were $1.79, up 20%. Operating margins in the quarter improved in each segment as price and cost actions more than offset inflation.
Our third quarter sales growth reflects a challenging top-line comp from a year ago, greater than anticipated channel destocking, softness in China, and decelerating U.S. new construction and R&R activity. Our teams did an exceptional job managing expenses amid this dynamic demand environment to deliver strong margins in all segments and exceptional EPS growth. Looking forward, we are committed to delivering a healthy and robust long-term future for what will be two strong, independent public companies. We are keenly aware of the impact that the rapid rise in interest rates is having on the consumer in the near term. We are acting now to maintain our strong margin focus and to convert inventory to cash, as pandemic inventory cushions are no longer merited. We have successfully navigated slowdowns before and have the experience to deliver results against any market backdrop.
Now let me provide some more color on our segment results, beginning with Water Innovations. Sales were $635 million, down $106 million or 14%, and also down 14% excluding the impact of foreign exchange and our Aqualisa acquisition. Sales were impacted by destocking across all North American channels, continued market softness in China, and a change in U.S. new construction and R&R activity in the quarter. Importantly, U.S. POS was up 5% in the quarter. Operating income was $157 million, down 6% or $11 million. Operating margin was 24.7%, the result of better price realization and proactive expense management in both North America and China. The team proactively managed the business to deliver an impressive 10% decremental operating margin.
As our POS performance indicates, consumers continue to gravitate to Moen as the leader in the future of water in the home, and the House of Rohl continues to delight consumers with its collection of artisan brands. Our recent acquisition of Aqualisa reflects our commitment to invest in leading secular innovation to support continued above-market growth. Turning to Outdoors and Security. Sales were $560 million, up $32 million or 6%, 5% adjusting for foreign exchange and acquisitions. Therma-Tru sales were up strong double digits, driven by higher price and continued material conversion tailwinds. Larson sales were up mid-single digits in the period, driven by price. Larson continues to work with Therma-Tru to achieve synergies as the two market leaders innovate offerings together across channels. Decking sales decreased low double digits in the period.
Destocking in the wholesale channel continued throughout the third quarter and has continued into the fourth quarter. Our teams are working with channel partners to right-size wholesale inventories. We expect wholesale inventory adjustments to be complete by early 2023. Retail POS remained strongly positive in the quarter. We remain very confident in the long-term conversion opportunity from traditional wood products, as we have seen a similar conversion to Advantage materials play out over decades at Therma-Tru. Security sales were down mid-single digits in the period. Strong commercial and connected product sales partially offset retail destocking and softening safes demand. Master Lock remains a high-visibility brand through which we can drive long-term growth via the next evolution of safety and connected security products.
Outdoors & Security segment operating income was $90 million, up 9% or $8 million, and segment operating margin was 16.1%, up 50 basis points. Turning to Cabinets. Sales were $858 million, an increase of $142 million or 20%, driven by price. Stock Cabinets grew in excess of segment performance, while make to order grew mid-teens. During the second and third quarters, Cabinets benefited from a strong backlog and orders. During the fourth quarter, we expect to work through the excess backlog and for typical seasonality and market conditions to be driving revenue by year-end. The team continues to take proactive steps to prepare the business for 2023. Operating income was $119 million, up 71% or $49 million.
Operating margin was 13.8%, representing a 410 basis point improvement over last year. This margin performance is indicative of the team's transformation efforts, and we expect a similar year-over-year margin result during the fourth quarter. The Cabinets team has done an amazing job improving the competitiveness and margin production of the business. As a public standalone company, this team is poised to unlock even greater potential. Turning to the balance sheet. Our balance sheet remains strong with cash of $345 million, net debt of $3 billion, and net debt to EBITDA leverage at 2.2x . We finished the quarter with $537 million of total liquidity on our revolver. Since the end of the second quarter, we have repurchased approximately $75 million in common stock, including $36 million within the third quarter.
Year to date, we have repurchased approximately $580 million in common stock. We remain committed to efficient and effective cash and balance sheet management. Among our top 2023 priorities are maintaining our margin strength and converting our working capital investments to cash. As mentioned earlier, the Fed's interest rate actions are producing the intended outcome, a near-term slowing of consumer demand for capital goods, including home products. While we delivered a strong third quarter and our execution this year is commendable in the face of numerous headwinds, we are seeing U.S. new construction and R&R demand softening and continued channel destocking. With these market factors in mind, I'll now provide an update to our 2022 guidance. Our full-year 2022 global and U.S. market outlook is being revised downward based on the factors outlined in my preceding comments.
Our global market outlook now reflects growth of 2%-4%, with the U.S. expected to grow 3%-5%. Within the U.S., our expectations are for single-family new construction to grow between down 1% and up 1%, and R&R to grow between 4% to 5%. Given the changes to our market outlook, we have reduced our full year net sales growth guidance to 4.5%-5.5% to reflect our strong year-to-date results offset by a softening market environment.
We remain committed to achieving OI margin expansion this year and beyond, and are targeting around 50 basis points of margin improvement, resulting in an operating margin of around 15% for 2022. We are updating our 2022 EPS guidance to $6.20-$6.30 per share to reflect the softening market and continued inventory destocking. On a segment basis, we now expect for 2022, Water Innovations net sales down 5%-6% with operating margins around 24%. Outdoors and Security net sales growth of 5.5%-6.5% with operating margins of 14.5%-15%. Cabinets net sales growth of 14%-15% with operating margins of 11.5%-12%.
This updated EPS outlook for 2022 includes the following assumptions. Corporate expenses of about $130 million, including digital transformation investments of around $20 million and separation costs of up to $15 million. Interest expense of $122 million-$124 million. A tax rate around 24.5%-25%. Average fully diluted shares of approximately 131 million. As our sales forecast reductions have occurred within supplier lead times and transit times have shortened materially, our inventory levels remain higher than previously targeted. As a result, we expect 2022 free cash flow of approximately $400 million-$450 million.
Our free cash flow forecast includes capital expenditures of $250 million-$275 million as we adjust the rate of investment to reflect current market conditions while continuing to enable future growth. As we look to 2023, we acknowledge the impact housing affordability and macroeconomic uncertainty is having on the consumer. It is not prudent to provide 2023 guidance today. However, today we can share, we are preparing for a 2023 characterized by a global market decline of low to mid-single digits, with the first half more challenged than the second half. Our teams are preparing to drive industry-leading margin performance, including decremental margins should a global market decline occur. Also, our teams are focused on converting inventory to cash rapidly without compromising supply chain resiliency.
If 2023 market declines are mid-single digit or better, we expect to deliver decremental margins of between 20% and 30%, depending on the magnitude of market change and pace of inventory reduction by quarter. Given our business model improvements and recent impending efficiency actions, we expect 2023 to be another proof point demonstrating our margin performance strength. In summary, our strong quarterly and year-to-date results are reflective of what will be two strong companies focused on leveraging unique advantages, powered by brand, innovation, and channel in the case of Fortune Brands Innovations, and continued transformation and operational excellence at MasterBrand, with both companies driven by an advantaged global supply chain and a focused organizational realignment. Both companies will have strong balance sheets and ability to enhance returns via capital allocation.
Further, both companies have strong cultures and commitments to strategic priorities primed to unlock a new level of earnings potential. I will now pass the call back to Dave Barry to conclude our prepared remarks and open the line for questions. Dave?
Thanks, Pat. That concludes our prepared remarks on the third quarter. We will now begin taking a limited number of questions. Since there may be a number of you who would like to ask a question, I will ask that you limit your initial questions to two and then reenter the queue to ask additional questions. I will now turn the call back over to the operator to begin the question and answer session. Operator, can you please open the line for questions? Thank you.
Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad at this time. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Again, that is star one to register a question at this time. The first question today is coming from Adam Baumgarten of Zelman & Associates. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone. I guess my first question is about maybe, Nick, if you could touch on, you know, the current demand environment out there and maybe some color on how the business performed throughout the quarter, that would be really helpful.
Sure. Happy to, Adam. I'd say if you looked at the demand environment in the quarter, you certainly saw an inflection point inside of the third quarter, inside of the macro housing data. As you well know, building orders turned sharply negative. Permits and starts have been on a downward trend. As we look out to the year, we'd expect single-family new construction to be roughly flat. First half of next year down, and second half of this year down. It was very interesting to look then at the R&R retail and POS data, which had been remarkably resilient through the course of the year. I think notwithstanding some pretty big laps inside of that.
Post Labor Day, we saw that come off quite a bit. You know, I think question remains to be seen, you know, how much of that is consumers pulling back, how much of that is a return to regular seasonality, you know, has come off versus last year if you track it against 2020, where the back half is still pretty strong, it's kind of hanging in there. You know, we'll see as that unfolds. As you heard, you know, in my comments and Pat's comments, you know, we'll plan for it to be challenged as we go into the first half of this year. You could definitely see that step off as you got into the kind of post-Labor Day environment.
You know, as we think about that, you know, the question then for us is really, so we know the long-term backdrop is excellent for housing, right? We know all the fundamentals. You're well-versed in them. How do we manage the business to continue to be set up to grow and take share and build incredible brands over the long run, but take it through this, you know, short-term headwind? You heard a lot of our remarks around that. You know, we will operate in a very lean, you know, very tight P&L management way, but we will not compromise on the key strategic investments we need to make, things like digital, in order to continue to be healthy and win in the long run. We believe we've got the levers to do that.
I think the, you know, margin performance this quarter demonstrates that. You've seen us do it in the past, and we'll do it in the future, and we'll continue to drive above-market top-line performance and, you know, industry-leading margin appreciation. That's really a flying formation as we look at, you know, this data. We look forward and build a plan to kind of get through the shorter-term headwinds and into, you know, all the good stuff that's coming in the longer run.
Great. Thanks. Then, you know, maybe on Water Innovations margins really, you know, quite strong in the quarter. Maybe some more color would be helpful on how you were able to keep margins so elevated in the face of, you know, volume deleverage, input cost headwinds, and, you know, if the incremental, or I should say, decremental margin profile in that business is maybe different than what you outlined, for next year, because of some of the actions you've taken.
Yeah. I'll kick off and then Pat will give us some specifics. I mean, I'd just say philosophically, we'll touch on as you think about some of the transformational changes we've made to the way we operate the business. We're really leaning more and more on our scale and our ability to drive excellence throughout the organization and take our capabilities and drive them. As you get that scale play, you get a lot more flexibility and levers throughout the business. You're seeing business there that has had headwinds obviously from China. I think eventually those will come around. Housing's too important a part of the Chinese economy over time.
A lot of inventory destocking, and frankly, some of which we, you know, we hadn't seen was sitting at the professional plumber, you know, not just where it traditionally had sat. It is able to respond to that environment, continue to, you know, grow POS and invest behind that, but act, you know, very rapidly to manage its cost basis, with a tighter set of strategic priorities, I'd say, but still investing and then managing for, you know, for the future. With that and partial mix, as you got a bit less, you know, China, which is still, you know, just as a reminder, still in a double-digit operating income margin, but, you know, less than the U.S., you got some mix effect in there.
Really, you know, pulling on these levers, knowing how to manage the business, types of strategic priorities, and that's what's leading to this kind of margin performance. Pat, you wanna give any more color?
Yeah. Adam, you know, I'd kind of put into perspective how we got from the high teens, low twenties to the mid-twenties, and that is twofold. A lot of the Fortune Brands capabilities around procurement leverage, design for manufacturability and design for value and revenue growth management, along with SG&A leverage have been, in combination, the key from taking that business from a high teens margin business to a mid-20s margin business. To your question of how, in a time of toughness, are we able to preserve the decremental margins? That's just people being very perceptive of what's happening in the demand stream and being very quick to react on discretionary SG&A without compromising the key priorities.
Key among that has been our business in China staying profitable despite, you know, a couple quarters where they're down around 25%. That's been the key to that. I think longer term, as we look into next year, why we have a broader range is as we do rightsize inventory, which we haven't done enough of yet, we're gonna have a different overhead absorption dynamic go through the system as we rightsize inventory. You know, when we get towards the end of the year, and we're providing the detailed guidance for 2023, we can narrow that range a bit, but that's the difference between what you're seeing in the current quarter and what you would see on a full year basis for 2023.
Got it. Thanks. Best of luck.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Philip Ng of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Congrats on good results in a choppy backdrop. My question for you, Nick. I've always thought of Fortune as a decentralized model, and it's obviously worked for you guys quite well. The results speak for themselves. The news on the realignment on the org structure. Help us understand the thought process on why now, what that unlocks, and also any color on the cap structure or anticipated dividend from the spin.
Okay. I'll take the first part, and I'm sure Pat may weigh in a little bit on the second part. I'll take the first part first. You know, why now? Then I'll talk a little bit about what we're doing. You know, I'd say why now? I appreciate the comments on the quarter. We pride ourselves in acting with urgency. It's a big part of our ethos. You know, agility is one of our three key values. As you look actually at data around companies that have gone through separations and spins, there's actually some fascinating data about companies that move to reorganize themselves well ahead of the separation date, outperform the market over time.
I think it sort of speaks partly to the culture, but also to, you know, getting that flying formation into place early and then out of the gates as you go. That was for the timing. You know, then the overall structure, and you're right, you know, the decentralized structure served us very well over time. You know, over the last few years, you've seen us introduce, you know, Fortune Brands Advantage across the portfolio. We've been able to get a lot of value out of that, right? Taking sort of key areas that could really drive incremental value and then leveraging across the portfolio. As we saw that work, you know, we could see the fact that you could get value out of doing things across the portfolio.
We could also see that we could go faster and harder on some of these initiatives, if we didn't have the structural impediments that we had. You know, as early September, we announced this move from a decentralized org to a more closely aligned operating model. You know, what do we expect that'll do? That'll do two things. It's gonna drive growth, right? Because you're going to have our best-in-class capabilities across the whole portfolio. You know, we could see pockets of things we were doing really well all over the portfolio, but being able to do them everywhere is going to drive growth, and it's going to drive productivity because you're gonna have better capabilities and less duplication, right? You should get greater productivity, and it should help us drive incremental fuel for investment as well as our margin journey.
So that's the, you know, that's the idea behind it. You know, we'll share, you know, quite a bit more at the Investor Day, but we're really excited. The organization's energized, and you can already see, you know, some of it just taking hold as people grab onto some of these opportunities. The last thing I'll note about it, and I think this is a little bit different to if people are thinking we moved just purely to a, you know, centralized organization or full matrix organization. A lot of these, you know, high-performing functional areas will not report to me. They're gonna report closest to the market, which kind of stays true to that decentralized ethos, right? So Cheri Phyfer is gonna have a global marketing function.
She's gonna have a global innovation function, a global engineering function because they're needed across, kind of the corporate level. You know, supply chain, everywhere. HR, everywhere, right? Those, you know, still reporting to me. We really wanted to drive these as close to the market as possible to retain that agility that you've seen from a decentralized structure. Hopefully, you know, we're gonna get the best of both worlds out of this. You know, as you can hear, I'm pretty excited about it.
Philip Ng, in terms of the cabinets' capital structure and related dividend, you know, we're well underway with that. You know, as we said in the script and with the press release, we're ahead of schedule and working hard to get everything done this year, including the capital structure and related dividend. We're working with our existing Fortune Brands bank group. They've been great and very supportive of this transaction, and we're appreciative of that. It's obviously been a very tumultuous time in the credit markets. As we've expressed in prior calls, we're expecting to pursue all bank financing, a mix of a revolver and a Term Loan A.
We would still expect the dividend to come out of that to be in the range that we've communicated previously of $500 million-$1 billion, likely towards the higher side of that range. We still expect to get that done this year, and to leave Cabinets with an appropriate amount of financial flexibility to navigate 2023, which you heard us express. You know, we certainly expect some challenges, at least the first half of the year, if not the full year. The Cabinets business has been exceptional at doing their part to drive profit growth and margin. You know, they're likely to finish this year with pre-tax operating income in that $390 million- $400 million dollar range.
Depreciation and amortization, that's probably about $60 million on top of that. You know, it's their job to drive the profit that supports that capital structure, and they're doing a great job of it. I think it'll be coming across the finish line much as we expected, you know, when we talked on the second quarter.
That's great color. Just one last one for me. On the decremental margins, guidance you called out for 2023, Pat, it sounds like the front half is gonna be probably closer to the top end as you kinda work through, inventory destocking and maybe as you kinda fine-tune your, fixed cost profile, I guess. Then the back half, maybe, on the lower end. Are we thinking about that right? Then certainly you're starting to see your raws fall, like metal, PVC, and hardwood. Is that, you know, something you guys have accounted for? Is that, you know, a potential upside from a margin standpoint? Thanks a lot, guys.
Yeah. I would say you're thinking about it correctly, and I think the raws are contemplated within that. You know, the challenge for us will be, as we position ourselves for the longer term market and given the labor market dynamics, how much capacity do we hold on to thoughtfully, and how quickly do we unwind that inventory while potentially leaving some capacity less utilized than it might otherwise be. That's why we have that range. When those raws flow off our balance sheet and into our income statement, we'll have a better line of sight to what, not a perfect line of sight, but a better line of sight three months from now.
We'll provide an appropriate update when we provide official guidance, but I think that range is appropriate for now, and I think you're thinking of it correctly, with it being a bit higher in the first part of the year and a bit tighter the back part of the year.
Philip, I'd just add a lot of the cost actions to which you referred, we will have taken this year, right? Reading the same print you're reading, try to get after it as quickly as possible and moved on a number of things this year. You know, our aim is to get as much of that into good shape as we round out the year and kind of start next year in a good spot.
Got it. Gotcha. Very helpful. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Michael Rehaut of JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks, good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to, you know, zero in on a couple areas. First, just on the, you know, Water Innovations on the top line and talk about destocking and China. You know, it's now a quarter or two, maybe even where there's a decent amount of contrast between your top line results and your largest competitor that reported this morning. It sounds like, you know, I think you had mentioned that POS was still trending positive, so, you know, perhaps you haven't lost market share. Certainly, we didn't see or hear of inventory destocking, as well as the declines in China, that you're reporting, you know, from across the aisle, I guess, if you wanna say.
I was hoping if you could just kind of drill down into a little bit of perhaps what those differences are, why they're occurring. I think you're also expecting quite a moderation of those trends in the fourth quarter, if you're talking about full-year sales down 4%-5%, I believe you said, that would imply something in the fourth quarter closer to flat.
Hey, Michael, it's Pat. I'll start, and then maybe Nick will add to the color. It is, you know, certainly unusual for us to report a sales decline in our Water Innovations business. I think the important thing is, you know, first is the brand healthy and competing in the marketplace? We saw that with mid-single digit positive POS in the quarter.
I would step back from that and say, you know, as a business over the three years, you know, using 2019 as a basis, you're talking about a business that has, you know, by the end of this year, even if you cut it off in the third quarter, but it'll be about the same at the end of the fourth quarter, a three-year sales growth CAGR of about 9% and a profit CAGR of about 14%. The business is performing over the long term. I think what you're seeing in the results that are reported in this quarter and in the previous quarter is really more to do with the strength of our supply chain over the back half of 2020 and 2021 and some of the unique mix dynamics of our business.
You know, in the U.S. and North America broadly, you know, we have really strong share in new construction. You know, that business, there was lots and lots of angst around supply chain hassles and new construction over the last two-plus years, and that drove a lot of wholesale inventory build up, even in lower levels of the value chain outside of our main wholesalers, production plumbers and so forth. You're seeing that come out of the system now. In China, we're mostly a residential new construction business. We're not a hospitality new construction business in China. You're seeing most of the pressure the government is putting on, the construction in China is in residential new construction.
I think those are some unique mix elements of our business, and I think the unique supply chain strength we had in 2021 and the second half of 2022, or rather 2020, are what's driving what you're seeing in the second and third quarter of this year. For example, in this quarter alone, of our 14 points down, 12 points was North American destocking. It's mostly about, in this quarter, North American destocking, but the brand is performing. You're seeing that in the POS. And then your comments to the fourth quarter, roughly correct, though recall, our Water Innovations business and our O&S businesses have a 53rd week in there. It's roughly flat to down 1% on a reported basis, but you have about 2 points in the quarter that's the 53rd week.
It's more like, on a like for like basis, about three or four down in the quarter. That's a deceleration of the destocking you're seeing. Lots of moving parts there. I'd step back and say the brand's performing as you see in the POS. The three-year CAGR of sales growth and profit is outstanding, and a lot of what you're seeing in these quarters in the middle of this year is really the strength of the supply chain last year.
Yeah. Well, I think Pat nailed it. I mean, I'd say, Michael, just, you know, we've stayed focused on the long term, that market outperformance, you know, the nine on the top, the 14 on the bottom that Pat referenced, the almost 300 basis points of operating margin improvement over that time that the business has been able to deliver. As we've always said, you know, we'll outperform the market, we'll grow margin. We've done it, and we continue to do it. And that, you know, just to give you a bit more color, you know, that supply chain difference that Pat referenced, those service levels, which we're pretty proud. You know, we were beating ourselves up a lot of last year because, you know, we were hitting like a 70% fill rate.
In toward the end of the year, our biggest customers were telling us the industry average was closer to 40. You know, so you had that huge dichotomy there that allowed us to serve customers and consumers, which is, you know, one of our top focus areas. You know, they were building some inventory downstream to serve builders and make sure that a house never got held up because of plumbing, right? As that's slow, you see that inventory come out, it'll correct. But as Pat said, you know, we keep looking to that healthy POS and know that, you know, over time, this is a very, very strong growth business with, you know, a lot of value generation. You know, it's somewhat done, will continue to do that.
Then China, you know, our business is large and broad, right? It's going to have broad exposure to the Chinese economy. As Pat said, the team's kept it profitable, and they are amongst the most agile teams we have. They, you know, they will quickly pivot to where the growth is gonna come as that market starts to, you know, settle down now and return to growth, and we'll be there to capture that.
No, that's great. Appreciate the detailed answer that definitely helps a lot in piecing it together or deconstructing. You know, secondly, you know, I just wanna drill down also on the comments around 2023 in decrementals and kind of working off of Philip question before. I was a little surprised to hear that, you know, the 20%-25% decrementals are inclusive of any likely raw material tailwind that I think you'd likely experience next year. You know, are those decrementals therefore a little better, excuse me, than you would normally see? In other words, I think maybe you've already typically framed the decrementals, I wanna say closer to 25%-30%.
Maybe if you could just kind of guide me there a little bit, because, you know, if you're talking about full year decrementals in the 20%-25% range, and you don't have that raw material lift, it would seem like obviously you're talking about margin contraction next year, unless there are other factors that, you know, would prevent that.
Yeah. Michael, I would tell you in calmer seas where both the market gyrations and the inventory changes are less, we would typically probably be aiming for somewhere in the 20%-25% range. You know, next year we're, you know, one, we're not giving tight guidance today, and second, we're giving ourselves some room to maneuver for the inventory destocking. You know, we put, you know, since the pandemic broke somewhere on the order of $500 million-$600 million of working capital investment onto our balance sheet, which is pretty considerable considering we started with a base that was around $900 million- $1 billion in total.
The reason I'm saying that there's some raw materials deflation held within that is it'll take us a while to bleed off the inventories and get to that raw materials deflation. It won't be hitting us right away. When you look at what's really come through the system in terms of deflation year to date, while there's been some deflation, it's been mostly around ocean freight and parts of ground freight where, you know, everything else has been pretty modest to date. We're not yet in a what I would call a significant deflationary wave, especially at the rate it's flowing through our P&L, because we have quite a bit of inventory still on our balance sheet.
All you're picking up there is we have a meaningful amount of inventory to work off the balance sheet next year, probably in the $200 million-$400 million range, somewhere in there, depending on how the year unfolds and what's the most appropriate way to manage our capacity and our vendor relationships. That will affect the rate at which any kind of raw material change impacts our income statement.
Not just that, we don't bank our business on deflation. You know, if, like we see what we see today, and I sense where you're going. If the global economy slows, could there be more expected deflation? I think there probably could. If that comes, that'll be a positive impact probably in the later half of next year as we work through the inventory that Pat referred to. You know, we gotta deal with the set of facts that we've got, particularly in the environment that we've experienced, which has been incredibly volatile over the last couple of years, where we sort of wouldn't bank the business on anything and work within what's within our own gifts really, and the levers that we have to deliver the best result. Those are the assumptions under which we run.
If things end up, you know, being a bit better 'cause the economy slows faster and you see increased deflation come through, then you know that won't be a bad thing for the P&L.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is coming from Stephen Kim. Kit, I'm sorry, Stephen Kim of Evercore ISI, please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks very much, guys. I appreciate all the color so far. Just on the destocking issue, was wondering if there was any impact from the, or effect, from the new distribution center that you opened up. Then also when you talk about the decremental margins, I was wondering whether there'd be any meaningful difference, or variability across the segments, in terms of that 20%-30% range you gave.
No, I'll take the first one, and Pat can touch on the second one. You're pretty astute to remember that distribution center, so good for you. I guess, yes, in the sense that that distribution center absolutely allowed us to keep service levels very high last year. You know, I mean, when things were just getting crushed, we opened that thing. It performed right off the bat at really high levels of both, you know, moving service levels as well as efficiency. You know, it's a known factor we've experienced in the past year where we are able to provide really high service levels. We tend to be the first place that, you know, our customers will go when they need to manage inventory.
It's sort of the, you know, no good deed goes unpunished in our thing. That's fine. You digest it, and you move through it. You know, those service levels and that distribution center being part of those service levels I think certainly allowed our customers more flexibility.
Yeah. I'd say on decrementals, all businesses will be working towards similar objectives. I think what will differ is how each of them is experiencing demand relative to capacity, relative to inventory right-sizing quarter by quarter. I think that if you see a difference, it's because the circumstances that the businesses face are unique to the business as opposed to they're inherently structurally different or pursuing different objectives.
Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Talking about the circumstances and the set up next year, I believe you kinda gave some commentary about single-family resi. Was wondering whether you had a handy way of describing your outlook in terms of single-family starts, let's say, and existing home sales, as you look into fiscal 2023. What kind of ranges or levels are you kind of thinking about as you contemplate your guidance?
Yeah. Steve, I'll kind of remind you and others, we used to always on the new construction side of things just lag starts three or four months. For the last three or four years, we've kind of been using an average of a lagged starts plus completions. Think of it simply as starts lagged three months, you know, plus completions divided by 2. It's kind of like been our simple algorithm because builders to us appear to be swinging labor between starts and completions. What our expectations, this is early days, you know, we reserve the right to update this as we get towards the end of the year, is, you know, starts next year, single family starts in the U.S. likely down in that 15%-20% range.
The completions, because of the backlog, somewhere closer to flat. I mean, could they be down a bit? Maybe, but closer to flat. You kind of put those two things together and you're, you know, you're down like minus 10 new construction. And then R&R somewhere from flat to down low single digits, you know, maybe mid-single digits, but low single digits. If you think of just the simple algorithm of our business of a quarter to a third new construction and the balance R&R, you know, that kind of gets you to about a mid-single digits. I wouldn't tie a specific existing home sales into that, where, you know, existing home sales is one of many variables we look at for R&R.
That's the simple high-level math we're using right now that kind of gets us around that mid-single digits or better, because, you know, a full year with R&R down 3% would be a pretty significant development. Certainly think, you know, starts will contract pretty significantly the first half of the year just by the order rate we're seeing today is kind of directionally in that same order of magnitude.
Yeah, that's very helpful, Pat. If I could just follow up on that specifically, though, on the existing home sales or the EHS. You know, across the marketplace, or I could say across the investing landscape, there's a lot of folks who are focused on the fact that mortgages that are in the installed base, you know, the average rate that homeowners have is much lower than the prevailing rate, and so therefore, you're gonna have a bit of a locked in effect. That's something that I know folks are very focused on, and so that has led people, some people to think that existing home sales could be down very dramatically. You know, sort of plunging to levels that we have not seen, you know, really in the last 20 years.
I'm curious if you are sympathetic to that idea or if you believe that we should not be you know too extreme in our views around how low EHS can go. That was really kind of one of the things I was hoping you could maybe touch on you know in your comments. I've just noticed that 40% of homeowners don't have a mortgage at all. Another 10% probably don't have very much that they're borrowing you know on their balance. You know, I'm sort of thinking that existing home sales may do a little better than folks think, but I just wanted to get your sense on that.
Yeah, I don't know that I have a specific number in mind, like relative to 5 million, 5.5 million that would normally transact. You know, what I would say is, we would agree that because of the near-term effect of mortgages locked in many well below 4%, that friction is gonna exist for part, if not all, of next year. How low it will plunge that level, I don't know. You know, that to us has often resulted in if people are more committed to the homes they're already in because of their mortgages could translate into reasonable set of R&R activity, and two-thirds of our business is R&R activity. I don't wanna say we're indifferent. It's one of the many variables that's swirling out there.
People staying in their homes is not per se bad for our product demand. The confidence they have in their homes and how important their homes are in their life, which in a hybrid work environment has certainly changed. It's a variable we have our eye on. You know, it'll play out, but it could end up playing out to be favorable to R&R. I don't think we sit here and say it's definitively a bad thing no matter what. That's not where we are.
Yeah. I'd just add to that, I mean, one of the things that we look at is we pulse consumer interest by, you know, Google search of home renovation. That activity is still 25% higher than it was pre-COVID on our latest reads. You still got your 25% more activity. This is not dollars. Activity around, you know, home renovation searches, people doing work. Where it quite goes between existing home sales, you know, people are in homes, need to renovate those homes, you know, looking at the $29 trillion of homeowner equity and how, you know, that might be deployed, I think it'd be some of the fascinating stuff that we learn next year.
That consumer interest to us is still very, very important as, you know, as you plan to next year and see how this all unfolds.
Yeah. Thanks very much, guys. That's really helpful.
Sure.
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