I will now like to turn the conference over to Curt Worthington, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. Thank you. You may begin.
Good afternoon, everyone, welcome to the Fortune Brands Innovations first quarter 2026 earnings call. Hopefully, everyone has had a chance to review our earnings release. The earnings release, earnings presentation and audio replay of this call can be found on the investor section of our fbin.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 profit or margin, earnings per share or free cash flow on today's call will focus on our results on a before charges and gains basis unless otherwise specified. Please visit our website for our reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures. With me on the call today are Susan Kilsby, Chair of the Board, Dave Barry, our Interim Chief Executive Officer, and Ashley George, our Interim Chief Financial Officer. Following our prepared remarks, we have allowed time to address questions. I will now turn the call over to Susan, who will make a few comments on leadership and strategy. Susan.
Thanks, Curt. Before we begin, I'd like to take a few moments on behalf of the board to address the recent leadership and governance changes. Our board values direct, constructive engagement with our shareholders. Over the last few months, we have engaged extensively with shareholders to gather their feedback on the CEO succession process, ensuring the board is well informed on this important decision. As you are aware, we have reopened the search for Fortune Brands permanent CEO. We are focused on identifying a leader with proven ability to instill focus and drive execution, particularly across global supply chains and complex routes to market. Just as importantly, we are seeking a leader who can build on Fortune Brands' proud legacy rooted in its iconic brands, history of innovation and strong customer relationships.
Ideally, this leader will have a strong knowledge of the building products industry with the proven track record of driving leadership accountability and delivering sustainable sales and margin growth over time. We are very pleased with the high quality candidates we have seen in the process as we move with pace to select the next CEO. The board is excited to have Dave Barry serve as the company's interim CEO. Dave is an experienced, thoughtful and decisive leader with more than a decade of experience at Fortune Brands, including prior service as CFO and most recently as President of Security and Connected Products. Dave is intimately familiar with our strategic priorities, our business and our investor expectations.
He has the full support of the board to act decisively, drive meaningful progress in underlying business performance, and ensure Fortune Brands continues to build momentum while the search for a permanent CEO is underway. I would also like to welcome Ashley George as Interim CFO. Ashley brings nearly a decade of experience with Fortune Brands and has extensive knowledge of the company's financial operations, supply chain and commercial functions, and has a strong understanding of our systems, processes and commercial drivers. At this important moment for the company, strong and steady leadership is critical, and Dave and Ashley are well positioned to provide that stability. I also want to recognize our Fortune Brands associates. The board recognizes that the company is in a period of meaningful change, and we sincerely appreciate your commitment and the pride you take in delivering on our strategic priorities.
Turning to the board of directors, I would like to welcome Ed Garden, who joined the board in March. Ed's extensive investment and financial expertise, coupled with his significant public company board experience, brings a valuable perspective. We are looking forward to continuing our collaboration with Ed as we take action to improve our performance, enhance transparency and drive shareholder value. As part of our normal succession process, we are also conducting a comprehensive director search as we have two longer tenured directors who we expect to retire prior to our 2027 annual meeting. In closing, I want to reiterate the board's confidence in Fortune Brands' strategy, its people, and importantly, the strength of our brands. We have put in place experienced, decisive interim leadership who know this business intimately and are empowered to act.
The board is actively partnering with Dave and the entire leadership team. We are confident that the steps we are taking today will serve our shareholders, our customers, and our employees well. We look forward to sharing more on our progress in the months ahead. With that, let me turn it over to Dave.
Thanks, Susan, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining our call. I'll start by sharing my initial observations and priorities as Interim CEO and then briefly discuss our current market outlook. I'll conclude with a preview of our updated 2026 guidance and a recap of our consolidated results for the quarter.
Ashley will then cover our segment financial results and updated guidance in more detail. First, I would like to share that I am energized and humbled to step into the interim CEO role and lead our talented teams. While we have a lot of work ahead, we have clear direction and objectives backed by strong internal and external alignment. The support I've received gives me confidence in our collective ability to deliver. I am also extremely proud of all of our associates who have remained focused in the face of recent leadership transitions and have responded to a volatile market backdrop to serve our customers, drive performance, and make progress against our strategic priorities. I want to be clear, this leadership team has the Board's full mandate and alignment to act decisively now.
We have strong brands and a solid strategic foundation, but our recent execution and current level of profitability is not where it needs to be. Our immediate near-term priorities are centered around increasing our operational rigor and discipline, optimizing our structure to drive efficiencies, and focusing our resources on the highest return opportunities. We expect that accomplishing these goals will allow us to accelerate sales growth, strengthen margins, and improve cash generation. Turning to slide 5, before I dive deeper into my priorities as interim CEO, I want to share a few of my early observations on the company since assuming the role and how these are shaping our near-term focus. When I think about what differentiates Fortune Brands relative to our competitors, two things immediately come to mind: our leading brands and our talented workforce.
Starting with our brands, our flagship water brand, Moen, is a category leader built on decades of innovation, reliability, and trust with both consumers and pros. We have continued to build upon that foundation and enhance the brand positioning with our new brand campaign, Must Be a Moen, which just launched in April. It is the first major branding campaign for Moen since 2018 and reflects our commitment to focus our investments behind our leading brands. This campaign is expected to reinforce Moen's positioning in the market and allow us to win a larger share of wallet with younger consumers by focusing advertisements where we see increasing engagement. Early feedback on impressions and earned media shows the campaign is off to a great start.
In our outdoor segment, our Therma-Tru brand is backed by 60 years of innovation and performance and is the number 1 fiberglass entry door among builders. Today, the brand is known for its durability, energy efficiency, and lasting style. I'm proud to share that our Therma-Tru Veris modern grain entryway system recently won a Most Valuable Product Award from the National Association of Home Builders. In our security segment, Master Lock is the clear category leader, ranking number 1 in both awareness and purchase intent with consumers. The Master Lock brand also scores over 90% in durability, quality, and trust. This reputation for reliability and performance has built strong awareness and credibility with pro customers, driving consistent preference and repeat usage.
We see significant untapped potential in the Master Lock brand, and I am excited about the momentum we are building, including the launch of our innovative Master Lock Elite padlock in April and the growing enthusiasm behind our Master It brand campaign. We are committed to investing behind this iconic brand in a way that reflects its true potential. Now let's talk about the strength of our people. We are making meaningful progress in coming together as a cohesive, unified team in Deerfield. While the move of our headquarters did result in the loss of some valued team members, the move also allowed us to attract a number of talented individuals with deep industry expertise and fresh perspectives. Combining the caliber of our new talent with our experienced legacy teams, we are creating a stronger organization with a powerful foundation that balances new thinking with institutional knowledge.
As we continue to work through our transformation and bring our teams together, we are creating an environment that fosters greater collaboration, faster decision-making, and more effective sharing of best practices across the organization. I believe our long-term strategy is sound. We will be able to leverage our enduring strengths to reinvigorate profitable growth. That leads us to our immediate near-term priorities to improve performance, which fall into 3 key areas. First, increase our operational rigor and discipline. Second, optimize our structure to drive efficiencies. Third, focus our resources on the highest return opportunities. Starting with our operational rigor and discipline, recently we have fallen behind on 2 fronts that are critical to our success: the pace and quality of new product development and our ability to consistently serve our customers at a high level. Our team has recognized these challenges and has taken definitive steps to improve.
We are reinvigorating our new product development pipeline with a clear focus on accelerating speed to market and delivering features that align with evolving consumer and pro preferences. By sharpening our new product development around what matters most and delivering it to our customers faster, we expect to strengthen our value proposition with channel partners and drive incremental market share. While we are at the early stages of rebuilding momentum, we already have some recent wins that are worth highlighting. In outdoors, Therma-Tru recently launched a new line of three-quarter-inch shaker-style fiberglass entry doors. These new products are targeted at the fastest-growing portion of the entry door market. We are already seeing momentum with first quarter sales for this product coming in at approximately 125% of our plan.
Just as impressive, we were able to go from concept to design to production in only nine months, essentially cutting our historical commercialization timeline in half. In security, we launched the Yale Pro 2 product line in February, adding a suite of products engineered for multifamily facilities, providing a fully integrated smart access experience. Backed by the shortest lead time in the industry, Pro 2 ensures faster deployment so property managers can upgrade access control solutions without delay. Turning to our customer service levels, our sales and operations planning processes have not been as consistent or as responsive as needed to keep pace with the changing market conditions, which has contributed to inventory imbalances and service challenges in certain areas of the business.
We have made this a priority and are moving quickly to implement a more robust sales inventory and operations planning process that will improve agility, streamline working capital and enhance service to our customers. Turning to optimizing our structure, we are taking action to flex our cost base down in the face of continued challenging market dynamics, while also balancing capacity to capture growth when market conditions improve. This will happen in two key areas, operating costs and SG&A. On the operating cost side, we are evaluating our footprint and overall capacity utilization across our network. In recent years, we have made targeted investments to increase capacity and improve efficiency. In light of the market environment, we have an opportunity to scale our assets more effectively and optimize our fixed costs in the process.
Within SG&A, we are actively reducing duplicative costs that have occurred as part of our recent transformation. At the same time, we are taking action to ensure that our shared functions are as cost effective as possible while still supporting the scale and best practice sharing that is critical to our future success. We believe these actions will allow us to flex our operating costs more effectively and streamline our SG&A, which better enables our goal of being a BU-led organization supported by lean COEs. Based on the additional work we have done, we are increasing the annualized run rate of our cost savings estimates from the $35 million that we discussed last quarter to $70 million, and we now expect to capture $15 million of these savings in 2026.
The 70 million annualized run rate savings represents over 150 basis points of annual margin improvement before any strategic reinvestment. We are actively looking for additional opportunities throughout the business. That brings us to the third priority, focusing resources on our highest return opportunities. While the overall Fortune Brands' long-term strategy is sound, we recognize some parts of the business have not met our expectations. Our teams are undertaking a comprehensive review of those targeted areas to determine the best path forward, focusing on growth profile, strategic positioning, capital requirements, and overall value creation potential. This work does not happen in isolation. It is directly enabled by the execution improvements and cost structure discipline we discussed earlier. By driving greater operational efficiency and removing unnecessary costs from the business, we expect to free up the resources and organizational bandwidth needed to invest behind our strongest brands.
Regardless of the external environment, we will be positioned to deploy capital with precision, supporting the areas of highest potential and ensuring our brands have the investment they need to compete, win, and scale. Turning to slide 6, macro headwinds and inflation have intensified, which have impacted consumer confidence and housing affordability. This is driving increased market uncertainty, especially for single-family new construction, and has resulted in an uncertain start to the spring selling season. The increase in inflation is causing raw material and commodity prices to rise, with the biggest impact to us being in aluminum, copper, and freight. The cost reduction efforts that I just spoke about, coupled with additional commercial and operational levers, are expected to offset the higher input costs that we are seeing. Despite these near-term pressures, our view of the long-term fundamentals remain unchanged.
The U.S. housing market continues to be underbuilt, home equity levels remain elevated, and repair and remodel demand is supported by an aging housing stock. These factors, combined with the strength of our brands and our advantaged market positions, continue to give us confidence in our ability to drive above-market growth over time. Turning to our consolidated results. In the first quarter, total company sales were $1 billion, down 2%. Excluding the impact of China, sales were down 1%, driven by lower volume, which was partially offset by price. Our first quarter results reflect a U.S. housing market that continues to remain soft. While we continue to make progress in our retail and e-commerce channels, this was offset by weak new construction activity, which weighed on our wholesale channel.
Consolidated operating income was $112 million, down 18%, largely due to lower sales volume, higher raw material and freight costs, and the flow-through of peak tariff rates from the third quarter of 2025. As a result, operating margin decreased 200 basis points to 11.1%. Earnings per share were in line with our expectations at $0.53, down 20%, primarily due to the decline in operating income. Before I turn the call over to Ashley, I would like to spend a moment discussing the update to our 2026 guidance, which incorporates a measured reset for the remainder of the year in light of the increased market uncertainty.
First, and most notably, we are reducing sales for the full year to be in line with our market outlook. While outperforming our end markets and driving share gains through the cycle remain core elements of our strategy, we believe we must address the near-term action items that I outlined earlier to accelerate our level of outperformance over time. We are incorporating the impact of higher commodity and freight costs into our outlook, while also taking decisive commercial and operational actions across the P&L to offset these cost headwinds, including the $15 million of 2026 cost savings that I highlighted. Ashley will discuss the changes to our 2026 outlook in more detail later in the call. With that, I will now turn the call over to Ashley.
Thank you, Dave. As a reminder, my comments will focus on results before charges and gains, unless otherwise noted, and comparisons will be made against the prior year. I'll start on slide 8 with first quarter results for Water. Sales for the quarter were flat at $564 million. Excluding China, sales increased 2%. The increase was driven by sales growth in both Moen and House of Rohl, with pricing offsetting lower volume. In the quarter, Moen returned to sales growth in the retail and e-commerce channels, partially offset by declines in wholesale, which was impacted by weaker new construction-related demand. We also benefited from momentum in House of Rohl, which we expect to continue given its positioning with higher income consumers. Channel inventories in Water were stable in the quarter, but lapped a large inventory drawdown in first quarter 2025.
Water operating income was $106 million, down 6%. Operating margin was 18.8%, down 120 basis points, primarily due to lower overall volume and higher tariff and freight costs, which were partially offset by price realization. Turning to Outdoors. Sales for the quarter were $294 million, down 3%, driven largely by Fiberon, partially offset by strong demand in Therma-Tru. Channel inventories remained at historically low levels and were a modest headwind in the quarter as customer seasonal builds were below prior year, most notably with Larson. Outdoors operating income was $22 million, down 31%. Operating margin was 7.4%, a decrease of 300 basis points. These results reflect the impact of lower volume, higher tariff costs, and higher commodity costs, particularly for Larson.
In Security, sales for the quarter were $153 million, down 6%, reflecting volume declines partially offset by price. The commercial channel experienced sales growth in the quarter, which was offset by weaker demand in retail and e-commerce. From a timing standpoint, we have a number of new product launches in Yale and Master Lock, as well as a full retail packaging refresh for Master Lock that have occurred or will be occurring in the second quarter, and we expect those to benefit the remainder of the year. Channel inventories in Security declined low single digits as channel partners managed working capital in the quarter. Security Operating income was $22 million, down 7%. Operating margin was 14.2%, flat on a percentage basis. The decline in Operating income was a result of lower volume and higher tariff costs, partially offset by price realization.
Turning to the next slide, free cash flow for the quarter was negative $140 million, compared to negative $113 million last year. As expected, the first quarter is our lowest cash flow quarter, given seasonal inventory builds ahead of the spring construction season and the timing of interest payments. We remain focused on reducing our working capital levels as part of a multi-year initiative to optimize our inventory position across the business. We expect these actions will have a positive impact on inventory levels and working capital in the coming quarters. We ended the quarter with net debt of approximately $2.5 billion and a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.9 times. We remain focused on reducing net leverage to under 2.5 times in the near term.
We also maintain strong liquidity with over $900 million available, including approximately $695 million of undrawn revolver capacity. Further reinforcing the strength of our balance sheet, both Fitch and Moody's affirmed our BBB credit rating during the first quarter. We returned $75 million to shareholders through the combination of share repurchases and our quarterly dividend payout. We believe our balance sheet provides flexibility to execute our strategy, support disciplined capital deployment, and continue investing in long-term growth. Turning to our outlook for the remainder of 2026. As Dave mentioned, we have reduced sales for the full year to be in line with our market outlook. We have updated our guidance and assumptions to include the impact of higher commodity and freight costs, as well as the commercial and operational actions we are taking to offset these costs.
Beginning with our updated sales and EPS guidance for the year, we now expect full year net sales to be down low single digits and full year EPS is now expected to be in the range of $3.00-$3.30. Our updated sales and EPS guidance assumes operating margin of 13.5%-14.5%. We are also reducing assumptions around our full year free cash flow to reflect our revised guidance. Finally, I would note that our updated guidance includes $15 million of 2026 cost savings, which are part of the $70 million annualized run rate target that Dave referenced earlier, and our teams continue to look for more. Commodity pressures remain elevated, particularly in aluminum and copper, alongside continued volatility in freight costs.
At the same time, recent changes to IEEPA, Section 122 and Section 232 tariffs are expected to have a roughly neutral impact compared to our original guidance. We originally expected the combination of these headwinds to be approximately $140 million and now see them closer to $180 million. Taking a closer look at the impact from tariffs, the carryover effect of peak tariff rates from the second half of 2025 is expected to result in a price cost headwind in the first half of 2026. As year-over-year tariff related comparisons normalize in the second half, we expect price cost to be favorable, including the increase in commodity and freight costs. We are leveraging our revenue management, sourcing and productivity capabilities to mitigate these pressures and maintain a disciplined approach to cost management.
As a result, we expect second half margins to be up approximately 300 basis points compared to first half. While we do not formally provide quarterly guidance, I want to offer a few points to help frame the cadence of the year. Based on our updated full year outlook, we expect sales to be weighted close to 50% between the first half and second half, consistent with our historical performance. For EPS, we expect the first half of the year to be in the low 40% range and the second half of the year to be in the high 50% range, primarily due to a more favorable price cost relationship in the second half of the year and the $15 million of 2026 cost savings.
In closing, we remain confident in our ability to navigate the current environment through disciplined execution while continuing to invest in our strategic priorities and position the business to deliver long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn the call back to Curt.
Thanks, Ashley. That concludes our prepared remarks. We will now begin the question and answer session. 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, then re-enter the queue to ask additional questions. Operator, can you open up the line for questions? Thank you.
Your first question will be from Susan Maklari at Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. Dave and Ashley, congrats on the new positions.
Thank you, Sue.
Thank you.
My first question is, you know, Dave, as you come back or as you get into the CEO role and you sort of have looked across the different segments of the business, can you talk about what you're finding there, where you're sort of seeing relative opportunities and what your priorities are as you sort of think across Fortune and the current slate of businesses?
Yeah. Sue, happy to touch on that. I think I'd start by reiterating our foundation of the business is stable, our brands are healthy, and our strategy is sound. I actually feel really good about the engagement and focus of our associates. I think we're coming from a good place on all that front, but we recognize our performance needs to improve. We've been working very closely with the board on these efforts and really focusing on growth and profitability levers that are within our control. In the prepared remarks, I touched on things like increasing our operational rigor and discipline. This really, to me, is refocusing on our core growth. NPD is a piece of that. Commercialization excellence, both online and offline, is a piece of that.
You know, fixing our sales and operations planning process to really get best in class on service and inventory levels is a piece of that. You know, renewed focus, I think, just on the rigor and discipline in those areas, it will help drive performance over time. As I talk about optimizing structure, to me, you know, this is really about margin management and something that this company, Fortune, has been really good at, you know, through the cycle over time. I think we've gotten away from that a bit recently, but it's getting back to, you know, regardless of what's happening in the external environment, how are we controlling costs? How are we getting to the right asset base? How are we improving margins over time, regardless of the macro?
The final point around focusing resources on the highest returning opportunities. This to me is it's prioritization and focus around our investments and where are we gonna put those next dollars to drive the most value over time, and how do we continue to simplify and focus on our biggest brands and our best brands? You know, I guess I'd close by saying we didn't get to this position overnight, we're not gonna get out of it overnight either. As you all know, we've been driving a lot of transformation in the business, along our way we've lost, you know, some of that key execution fundamentals that's required to be successful. You know, since moving into this role and partnering with Ashley, we've identified root causes. We're driving actions to correct.
I think what's encouraging is all these problems are fixable and the work's underway to get after it.
Okay. That's great color. Maybe just following up on that, as you do think about the portfolio, can you talk about where you're seeing, you know, opportunities to perhaps really kind of drive that growth or hone in on things? Is there anything within the portfolio that is perhaps not core and may require more change down the road?
Yeah, I'm, you know, happy to talk about the positive momentum areas. I'd say, you know, as I touched on, really a lot of near-term focus right now, but a passion point of mine, especially coming out of the prior role, is to do a better job of leveraging our customer and channel strength to sell our full portfolio of brands together. This is not something that Fortune has really focused on in the past, for various reasons, but I really believe it's an untapped revenue opportunity, and we're in the early stages of developing the strategy, but I can share a few proof points where it started to pay off.
You know, one area, leveraging our strength and share position with single-family builders at Moen and Therma-Tru to win door hardware and connected locks, really sell that full portfolio into builders. I'd share that with Yale, we recently won a portion of business with a top 10 home builder. It's our 1st win in that space. You know, the teams learned a lot going through that bid process, and we'll continue to refine our approach. It gave us confidence that, hey, we can win here, and we can sell this portfolio and leverage these deep relationships that we have. You know, another area of focus that's starting to show some early results is our partnership with the pro arms of our big retailers.
Really being focused on selling our brands at pro-focused events that is helping us reach a different part of the market that otherwise we didn't play in or have access to. You know, the final example I'd give here is we recently had the first ever really FBIN-wide, Fortune Brands-wide strategy sessions with two major e-commerce platforms. They both came away incredibly excited about the cross-brand bundling opportunities that we have and what we can do together to really enhance the digital shelf. We see all these opportunities as where the power of this portfolio starts to drive incremental value. It's not something that we've really tackled before. I'm excited to spearhead this initiative going forward.
Okay. That's great color. Thank you, and good luck with the quarter.
Thanks, Sue.
Next question will be from Mike Dahl at RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Dave, Ashley, clearly a lot of moving pieces, both with the macro and within Fortune Brands. I appreciate some of the high-level color you just gave on kind of first half, second half. Can you walk us through that full year cadence for the guide in a little bit more detail, especially since there's, you know, the step-up in margins assumed in the second half, and maybe help us understand on a segment-level basis how that plays out?
Yeah, Mike Dahl, it's Dave Barry. I'll start and give some context, let Ashley George get into some of the detail. Just contextually, if I step back as we assessed, you know, I think our recent performance trajectory coupled with the external environment. We view this as a measured reset of guidance, where simply we've taken our sales performance or overperformance out and now expect in the guide to grow in line with market. You know, clearly our ambition is to beat the market over time, just being realistic about where we are today and the identified issues we have to work through, we thought this was the prudent path. You know, I'd say on the top line, importantly, this guidance doesn't rely on a second half ramp in the market.
You know, anything that might have been in there, it's been removed from that as well. On the margin side, and Ashley can give some color, simply the step-up first half to second half is an improving price-cost dynamic that we have line of sight to, given our inventory positions and the price we have in market, coupled with the cost reduction efforts that I've outlined, that will start to ramp across the second half. It's really those two things driving margin. I'll let Ashley provide some color on the cadence.
Sure. Hi, Mike. Maybe let me start with 2 points on the full year, then I'll talk a little bit about the phasing. The first point I make is I, you know, at its simplest terms, I think about the change as being driven by roughly 2.5-3 points of sales out at the midpoint. That gets us to sales performance roughly in line with the market at down low single digits. The second point I'll make on full year is just the incremental in-year inflation. The $40 million we talked about in the prepared comments, that is offset in the guide by commercial and operational levers across the P&L, which does include the $15 million of in-year cost out we talked about.
From a phasing perspective, we do expect net sales to be down low single digits both first half and second half aligned with market. Although I will add that we do expect to see some slight improvement in that year-over-year growth rate from first half to second half. You know, as we said, revenue expected to be split 50/50 first half, second half. That is consistent with what we've seen the last 3 years, historically. Worth maybe reiterating a point Dave made, I think, that uplift I talked about from first half to second half is mostly due to improved volumes from favorable year-on-year comps and mid-year initiatives. It does not rely on any inflection in the market in the second half. We talked about OI margin, margins improving about 300 basis points first half to second half.
That is price-cost relationship, primarily just timing of tariffs from Q3 second half last year hitting majority in the first half this year. Full year EPS split low 40% in the first half, high 50% in the second half. You know, I'd add we do expect a slight sequential improvement throughout the year there as well. From a segment standpoint, I'd say it's probably best to apply similar logic down to each of the 3 segments. All 3 down about 2.5-3 points in revenue, and then similar margin profile across the year from first half to second half.
Yeah, Mike, maybe I'll put a finer point on the second quarter, given the first half, second half trends we shared. You know, we see the second quarter ramping seasonally, but still seeing the impacts of weaker new construction, you know, and some of our near-term performance challenges. At the midpoint of the guide, you know, it implied second quarter sales down in that mid-single-digit range. We do see sequential margin improvement, though, you know, probably in the range of 200-250 basis points first quarter to second quarter. You know, this is the normal seasonal volume uptick. It's a minor improvement in price cost, but as Ashley said, you know, expect price cost to still be negative as we move through the year.
I do think importantly, though, to reiterate, as we move through the year and get to the fourth quarter, we expect actually to drive year-over-year operating margin improvement because we've comped the price cost headwind fully, and we've comped some of the share challenges from the past year, and then the initiatives that we have underway will start to deliver.
Okay. Thank you. That's appreciate the very thorough response there. I think just as my follow-up question, maybe specifically drilling down on the cost saves, and it's good to hear kind of the doubling of the cost saves. From a realization standpoint, can you just talk through, you know, it still seems like it's gonna take some time to get those actions into the P&L. Can you walk through kind of why the prolonged timing and if there's any opportunity to accelerate any parts of those?
Yeah. What I'd share, and I'd expect to have the full annualized $70 million realized by the first quarter of 2027. It will start to ramp. You know, we're doing the work now. It'll start to ramp across the second half of the year. I would frame it as opportunities across the P&L. It's not just, you know, SG&A focus, though we know there's opportunity in SG&A. I think there's opportunity in our manufacturing base to better align variable and fixed costs with our level of demand. There's opportunity through our trade spend and growth to net spend to be more efficient with promotions. The team, I think, is just taking a sharper view of where we're spending, where we need to get leaner, where we need to get more efficient.
You know, I'd also say we're not cutting muscle, and we're preserving investments to drive the performance change that we've outlined. This is really about complexity reduction, improving speed, reducing duplicative costs, and aligning the cost base to our current levels of volume.
Okay, great. Thank you.
Next question will be from John Lovallo at UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my questions as well. You know, maybe the first question I'll start with Susan if I can. There's, you know, obviously been a lot of changes at the top, and they're still, you know, kind of in the works. I'm curious if you could sort of elaborate on, you know, the new board dynamics as they stand today. There's been a couple notable changes there. Why you think this positions the company more favorably, and then what you're looking for in the two new directors that you're currently seeking.
Sure. Thank you. Well, since Ed Garden joined the board in March, we've had a very constructive engagement with him. He's been very actively involved both at the board level and also with the management team, getting to know them and learning about the business. He brings a thoughtful value creation perspective. He's asking all the right questions around performance, capital allocation, execution. He's integrated extremely well with the board. The dialogue has been collaborative. There's many more things we agree on than that we disagree on. We're all focused on driving the best outcomes for the company and for the shareholders. We're all focused on strengthening performance, enhancing accountability, and unlocking value of Fortune Brands. I look very much forward to continuing the partnership.
On the new board members that you've asked about, we're losing two long-tenured board members who have deep board experience, deep experience with Fortune Brands and are wise, I would say. What I'm looking for and what we're looking for are board members who can add that deep perspective of financial expertise, CEO expertise, and certainly building products expertise. We are in that process right now as we continue to evaluate candidates for the board.
Yeah, John, I.
Okay.
You know, build on that a bit from Susan. You know, we came out of a board meeting earlier this week and can say that the board is highly engaged and collaborative and have really been a great thought partner for me and for the leadership team as we navigate this interim period knowing that we need to make progress on our priorities. You know, I'd also add, really enjoyed getting to know Ed and working with him and his team. They bring a great deal of experience and a fresh perspective about what we can do better to drive value creation. We're all aligned to work together to do that.
Got it. Okay. That's helpful. Then, you know, wanted to dig into just the kind of the share dynamics in the Water segment. I think the Water segment for you guys, ex China, was up about 1.5% year-over-year. Your closest peer was up, I think, 7% year-over-year in local currency. I mean, what would you sort of attribute the, you know, the difference there to, and how are you guys addressing this?
Yeah, happy to touch on that, John. First, you know, as you kind of alluded to, we do have two different businesses. You called out the China mix. You know, I'd also highlight the single-family new construction mix that we had, which is probably a 200 to 300 basis point headwind in the quarter, given where starts and completions were last year that we're now feeling in the business. That said, you know, we need to improve our performance. I think the gap from, you know, the business mix to our peers' performance is really driven by our focus in retail and e-commerce and our need to drive better share recovery through those channels.
While I outlined some of the initiatives that are underway, you know, it's not broad-based enough to drive meaningful performance improvement, but this is where we're focused in the near term.
Understood. Thank you, guys.
Yep.
Next question will be from Trevor Allinson. Please go ahead from Wolfe Research.
Hi. Good evening. Thank you for taking my question. I wanna follow up on your views on pricing here. I think previously the communication was that your pricing was fully in place to cover tariffs. You've got some moving parts now on tariffs and also some other inflationary pressures. Are you taking incremental price here? Maybe just to quantify, what are you expecting in terms of pricing tailwind for the full year across your business?
Yeah. Hey, Trevor. I'll start, and then let Ashley provide some color. You know, take a step back, this business has faced a lot of inflation like others in our space, tariffs and others. You know, we led with the gross price last year, additional gross price this year. You know, my view of it, I think we've had over-reliance on gross price, and it's cost us some share positions, especially when you couple it with our lack of kind of meaningful new product innovations. We have to get back to executing the playbook that is using all levers at our disposal to offset inflation.
You know, in addition to price, we need to continue to negotiate with suppliers, continue to push on incremental continuous improvement, drive cost out of the business, and then where possible and where elasticities permit, take price. A couple examples I think that you'll see as we move through the second half of the year. House of Rohl continues to perform well, and those higher-end consumers continue to show inelastic price demand, and so there's opportunity to push some price there. There's opportunity in our outdoors business where inflation has been especially acute, especially in aluminum with Larson, that we look at pushing some price.
In our security business, especially on the commercial B2B side, which is actually now our largest channel in that security business, there's opportunity to take price again 'cause you're dealing with more inelastic demand. You know, you can expect our pricing for the balance of the year to be more surgical in areas where we believe we'll have much higher realization. Get back to working the full playbook to offset inflation as it comes. Let Ashley provide-
Yeah
some additional color.
Hi, Trevor. Let me just add a little bit from a P&L perspective and put some numbers around what Dave was saying. First thing I'll say is on a full year basis, we are offsetting inflation with price on a dollar basis. We do expect some margin dilution in the short term. I'd say we're not recovering fully in every quarter, just timing disconnects between tariffs hitting the P&L and price taken last year. To your question on price, for the full year, we do expect price to be up mid-single digits, and I see it fairly consistent at that level, both across the quarters, sequentially as well as each of the segments. It might be helpful just to talk phasing a little bit.
I know we touched on it earlier, you know, first half price cost head when we talked about mostly tariffs, those higher peak rates coming off from last year. Second half, tailwind, I want to clarify, most of that tailwind does come in Q4 when the comps on tariffs ease. You know, it's worth distinguishing too between timing of inflation on the P&L, right? We have that tariff impact almost all being felt in the first half, whereas the inflation, both commodities and freight, is about 1/3 in the first half and 2/3 in the second half. We're going to continue to action against all of our productivity initiatives, identify cost actions of which that $15 million is included. Again, more weighted to fourth quarter.
Going back to Dave's earlier point, we really start to see operating margin year-over-year improvement not until fourth quarter, and we get through some of those dynamics.
The other thing, Trevor, I'd just add, just to be clear, the guidance assumes that the current tariff environment persists for the full year, so that any 122s are ultimately replaced by 301s in kind. There's no kind of tariff benefit coming in the back half of the year from a change in environment.
Okay. Thank you for all that color. That was extremely helpful. The second question is on the lower margin outlook for the year. You just walked through a lot of the moving parts on some of the inflationary impacts in the first half, second half dynamics. You also, in your prepared remarks, you called out a couple of new branding campaigns as well. Are you guys, as part of that lower margin guidance, also assuming some additional brand spend and investment back into the business here, more so than you were previously anticipating?
I'd say at consistent levels, we will look to accelerate as we drive operational improvement, but we're preserving the levels and not reducing them even though the volume is coming down. I think about the margin impact from the reduced guide really being the flow through from volume, and then us offsetting the incremental inflationary headwinds, really preserving those investments in branding and product development where we need to accelerate.
Appreciate all the color, and good luck moving forward.
Thanks, Robert.
Thank you.
Next question is from Michael Rehaut at J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Thanks. Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. First, I just wanted to better understand some of the tariff dynamics. I believe you said that, if I heard it right, the net impact of the changes this past year was to actually increase your exposure. I think that's in a little bit of contrast to some of the other building product companies that we cover. I just wanted to understand if I heard that right and what the drivers are and if there's any, you know, points of distinction that maybe, you know, is creating this incremental headwind versus some other companies seeing a little bit of a net favorable impact.
Yeah. Let me Well, you might be confusing, like, the tariff versus the total inflation. Let me take that, and I can break it down simply. Total inflation inclusive of tariffs now $180 million. Our prior guide was $140 million. In both of those guides, the tariff piece is $100 million. The net of all the change in tariffs between the 122s and the 232s in IEEPA is effectively 0. There's no incremental tariff exposure. The change in total inflation is driven by commodities and freight.
Just to clarify then the difference between it being maybe net neutral versus other companies maybe seeing a little bit of a positive. Just kind of curious in terms of maybe what were the drivers of that. Before I get cut off, I'll also throw out my second question. I just don't wanna get cut off.
Sure.
It's more for Susan around the CEO search process. I was just kind of curious if there's any way to kind of give us a sense of how far along the company is. You know, Susan, you mentioned that you've seen a lot of encouraging high-quality candidates, if this is something that, you know, we should expect, you know, 3Q, 4Q of 2027, if there's any type of framework we could, you know, be thinking about there.
Yeah. On, on the tariff piece, Mike, I think a couple of things. As I mentioned, you know, we're assuming current regime, current environment, you know, persist through the rest of the year. We also had some incremental headwind from the 232s. I'd say not a material amount, but it offset some of the benefits from IEEPA. I think that's probably the two main things around tariffs, just to clarify. The last piece there, I would say important to note, we continue to progress with diversifying our supply chain out of China. By the end of this year, we'll be high single digit sourced COGS from China with plans to be approaching 5% by the second half of 2027.
Really good progress by the team to reduce our China-sourced exposure and pleased with progress on that front. I'll turn it to Susan to talk about the search.
Sure. Thanks, Dave. On the CEO search, unfortunately, I'm not providing exact timing of the search right now. I can assure you this is the top priority of the board, and we expect the process to continue to move with pace. Importantly, though, we're focused on making sure we identify the right candidate and the right person for the job. Again, moving with pace and focus.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question will be from Stephen Kim at Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much, guys. Appreciate all the color here so far. I guess I just wanted to understand your new guidance, the reduction in the sales guide. Is that primarily volume, or is there a pricing offset in the net reduction of, you know, a couple of 100 basis points?
Hi, Steve. Yeah. You are accurate. It is a volume reduction, no change in our pricing plans for the year.
With respect to that, I know that, you know, you've talked about the net impact of commodities plus tariffs. You were just talking about, you know, modest increase. Is there expectation that you are ready to increase price? Is there a certain chain of events that you're waiting for, or should we regard this as really just conservativism? Or is there, is there something that makes you think that this isn't really an environment to get price?
Yes. Steve, as I touched on a little bit ago, I think there's opportunity for surgical price in areas where there's more inelastic demand, House of Rohl, some pieces of security. To go back to it, we've leaned on gross price a lot. I think it's really working our full playbook across the entire P&L. All the levers that are available to offset inflation and really focus on how do we get our unit volume share back in the positive growth direction.
Yes, you did mention that. Thanks, Dave. Yeah.
Yeah.
I guess where I was going with it is that I know that in that environment, you've also talked about a reduction of costs and a focus on that. Maybe a better way to ask the question is there an opportunity here for you to address corporate level costs that could be taken out of the business? Is there a range of corporate expense, for example, that we might be thinking about for 2026 and a trajectory as we go through the year?
Yeah, I'd, I think about it, Steve, as we look at the cost reduction efforts. I think about SG&A in total, corporate being a piece of that SG&A, but we look at SG&A in total and where do we need to take the costs out. That's where the focus is right now. Some of that may show up in corporate. It likely will. Some of it will show up elsewhere in the business units, but it's really how do we get our structure to continue to be BU, business unit-led, supported by lean COEs. I think there are areas where we haven't gone far enough yet to get to the desired outcome.
Great. Well, best of luck with that, guys.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Next question will be from Phil Ng at Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. Dave, you talked about, you know, the desire to kinda improve service levels. Is that a function of you have to invest in more headcount? Is that just more focus, realigning incentive comp? I think, earlier question, you talked about perhaps ceding some share, or work more to be done on Water, particularly on the e-tail and the retail side of things. What exactly, you know, fell off and what you could actually improve on that, on that side of the things to kinda restore?
Yeah
share in that market?
I, yeah, I'll take both of those, Phil. Thanks. You know, on the sales and operations planning question around service levels and inventories, the team has dug into it. It's really around process gaps. We just weren't running a best-in-class process. We actually have the team in place. The investment has been made in the team. We have the tools in place. It's just putting the best-in-class process in place and following that rigorously. We've started down that path. It will take some time 'cause these things, they're monthly cycles that you go through, and you're working through the businesses, you know, starting with Water and going from there. It's really about process discipline and focus.
Which to me gives me confidence we can get this thing fixed and sorted, and I think you've seen us in the past be able to drive inventory off the balance sheet when needed to do so, be able to serve our customers at high levels. I think we can get back there. You know, on the retail, e-tail focus, I think it's a combination of a few things. One, you know, I touched a lot on new product development. We have to get better with our pace. We have to get better with our insights. And we have to get better using our entire supply base to do both of those things, get to market faster with better products that resonate with consumer and pro.
On the e-tail side, you know, I think commercialization is a big opportunity, right? Do we have the right product display pages? Do we have the right content? Are we bundling effectively? Are we bringing, you know, e-commerce specific SKUs effectively and really meeting that consumer where they are? I think it's, again, it sounds like a lot of blocking and tackling, but it's things that we have done well in the past and will continue to do well going forward as we get the team and the focus back in these areas.
Okay. On the security side of things, can you tease out, you know, how sell-out trends looked in the quarter and progress? I think there was an element of destock that was weighing on the business. When we kind of look out, through the year, I believe you have some new products in, you know, working through some, life cycle, phase down. How should we think about the momentum in that business?
Happy to touch on that. If you think about the down 6% in security, I'd say it's partial, inventory reductions coming out of the fourth quarter into the first quarter. A bit lower POS in retail and e-commerce. I'd attribute some of this to timing of those new product launches as they've moved from the first quarter into the second quarter. Some of that investment to launch moved with it, so that's why the margin performance was in a pretty good spot. As I look forward, excited about the momentum we're building in security. We have great brands there with Master Lock, SentrySafe, and Yale. You'll see new products coming with pace across all of those brands as we move into the second half.
We're launching a new commercialization of the entire Master Lock brand and shelf, which is gonna make it much easier for consumers and pros to shop that category and get the security that they need. I'm excited about that momentum, and we'll see that continue to build as we get through the year.
Okay. Appreciate the color. Thank you so much.
Next question is from Matthew Bouley at Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. You have Elizabeth Langen on for Matt today. Thank you guys for taking the question. Just to start off, I think I'll go kind of similar to what you were speaking about with the channel on security. I was wondering if you could touch on that maybe in both Outdoors and Water, you know, kind of what you're seeing. I know you mentioned that Larson has, you know, seen lower inventory levels. If you could give any, you know, other commentary or details around that.
Yeah, happy to. I'll start with Outdoors 'cause I think it's probably the most counter to what we would expect at this time of the year. You know, I'd actually start with saying we saw growth in Therma-Tru, which was really nice to see, and that's despite the new construction headwinds and despite a very limited channel inventory build ahead of the spring season. Inventory light in our Therma-Tru business. Then in Larson, we saw positive POS in the quarter, but we're lapping some pretty big load-ins of new products from last year as we reset the aisle at Lowe's. We did not see, you know, that same level of inventory build. It actually, you know, while sales were slightly down in Larson, we had positive POS.
You know, in the Outdoors business, we are winning share in doors, and channel inventories remain lower than expected at this time of year, given the seasonal nature of things. In Water, I'd say pretty similar. There has not been, you know, significant restocking in Water, across any of the channels, and I think it's really a function of the demand environment, and our customers not leaning into what is an uncertain spring season.
Okay. Thank you. I did have another question on fuel surcharges. Are you able to speak to your ability to maybe offset some of the freight impact that you're seeing? Could you quantify, you know, if of the incremental $40 million, how much of that is coming from freight versus, you know, inflated commodities?
Yeah. I think, you know, of the incremental 40, we're probably a quarter or so coming from freight. Our guidance assumes that these elevated oil rates persist through the balance of the year given the geopolitical conflicts. You know, freight surcharges are a lever we look at. They, you know, it's interesting, our customers tend to find them more cumbersome to implement, so they prefer gross price increases. That's where it's back to, you know, if we wanna focus on driving volume and unit share, we need to use all the levers available to offset the inflation and not just price.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session for today. I will now turn the call back over to Dave Barry.
Thank you. I just want to thank everyone for your time today and just reiterate that we are taking decisive actions to strengthen our execution, optimize our structure, and focus our resources on our highest returning opportunities. We believe these steps, combined with the strength of our brands and our people, will position us to drive improved performance over time. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to updating you on our progress next quarter. Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, this does indeed conclude your conference call for today. Once again, thank you for attending, at this time, we do ask that you please disconnect your lines. Have yourselves a good evening.