Good morning. My name is Rob, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the JELD-WEN Holding, Inc. Q4 2021 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. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. Thank you. Chris Teachout, Director of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. We issued our earnings press release this morning and posted a slide presentation to the investor relations portion of our website, which we will be referencing during this call. I'm joined today by Gary Michel, Chair, President, and CEO, and John Linker, our CFO. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we will be making certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our earnings release and provided in our forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. JELD-WEN does not undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements, including the guidance we are providing with respect to certain expectations for future results.
Additionally, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable financial measure calculated under GAAP can be found in our earnings release and in the appendix to this presentation. I would now like to turn the call over to Gary.
Thanks, Chris. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Over the past few years, we have focused on deploying operational and commercial excellence initiatives as the strategic foundation to propel JELD-WEN's long-term growth strategy, leveraging our premier performance culture as a competitive advantage. Those efforts paid off for us in 2021 as we delivered an excellent year of financial performance with record revenue and core revenue growth. End markets were strong, driving robust customer demand for our world-class brands. Our operations were healthy, allowing us to maintain market-leading lead time. And we successfully navigated a challenging year of sharply accelerating inflation. And as we will discuss in a few minutes, we made significant progress on growth initiatives that we expect will position us for a breakout year of financial performance in 2022.
I wanna thank our global associates and our channel and supply chain partners for their unwavering dedication to serving customers with the highest quality products and delivering this record-setting performance in a challenging environment. To summarize our 2021 performance, net revenues increased 12.7%, driven by a 10% increase in core revenue, with all segments contributing to core revenue growth. Our adjusted EBITDA grew 4.2%, driven by favorable price realization and positive volume mix, which was partially offset by headwinds from inflation. We successfully offset material and freight inflation with pricing actions. However, the net impact compressed our margin rate. We head into this fiscal year knowing that the foundation of our operations is strong, our commercial excellence initiatives are driving business, and the company is primed for sustainable growth and margin expansion, which I will touch on shortly.
Please turn to page four as I share a few highlights from the Q4 . In Q4, demand remained strong in each of our end markets, reinforcing the strength in new housing starts and replace and remodel or R&R markets. Consolidated core revenue growth accelerated to 12% with a positive core growth in each operating segment led by North America. This marked our sixth consecutive quarter of consolidated core revenue growth. Adjusted EBITDA increased 4% to $120.1 million, driven by positive volume and productivity actions. We also progressed our capital deployment initiatives, repurchasing $45.7 million of our stock in the Q4 , bringing the full year total to nearly $325 million or approximately 11.5% of shares outstanding.
In North America, core revenue grew 15% from sequentially improved volume throughput and pricing-related actions. Quarter-end backlog in North America increased sequentially and year-over-year with strong order rates, book-to-bill, and market-leading lead time for the majority of our product categories. We made investments to attract and retain labor to meet strong customer demand while ensuring more long-term stability in a tight labor market. These investments, combined with our productivity initiatives, drove an approximate 8% sequential increase in average shipments per day compared to the Q3 , while on a year-over-year basis, throughput accelerated as the quarter progressed. Our teams also delivered cost controls and pricing-related actions to mitigate inflation. In Europe, core revenue grew 10%, a significant acceleration driven by sequential improvements in price realization.
And in Australasia, core revenue grew 6% and adjusted EBITDA margin was the highest of all segments at 14.7%, improving 100 basis points. In Australia, we are capitalizing on record levels of new housing demand, although volume mix is being tempered slightly by supply chain and builder labor constraints that have extended build lead times by more than 50%, which we expect to moderate this year. Please turn to page five. We really like the setup for 2022 as all segments execute plans to accelerate top-line growth through new customer-centric innovation launches, capacity expansion, throughput improvement, and channel initiatives.
Across global operations, including our 14 model value stream sites, associates are focused on the rigorous deployment of our business operating system, the JELD-WEN Excellence Model, or JEM, which is a competitive advantage, enabling us to increase throughput, maintain market leading lead times, and reduce per unit cost. The results are greater customer satisfaction, share gain, and margin expansion for JELD-WEN. Through the work done at our 14 model transformation sites, we've reduced labor requirements by an average of 25% and unlocked approximately $45 million of incremental capacity. The benefits from these transformation efforts extend beyond throughput capacity and lower labor requirements. At the sites that have started their transformations, associate engagement is 5x higher than at facilities that have yet to begin. This is incredibly powerful because it impacts every factor that influences our transformation, including reducing associate turnover.
We expect to accelerate capacity for site transformations in the coming year, including deploying 3x the number of rapid improvement events across our global operations. In Europe, we plan to drive growth through increased market penetration with existing products, expanding in underserved geographies, and launching new and innovative products across the region. This year, for example, we're planning to bring a new line of technical doors to the U.K. market that is already a part of our portfolio in other parts of Europe, which we expect will be a meaningful contributor to growth. In Australasia, we've developed what we believe is an industry-leading lineup of ENERGY STAR-rated products for the Australian market as the country prepares to roll out energy efficiency standards and ENERGY STAR ratings this year. We expect our suite of energy-efficient products will contribute growth and be accretive to margins.
And in North America, we have several product lines that we expect to contribute meaningful growth with accretive margins. We're already seeing significant interest from developers up and down the East Coast from our recently opened VPI manufacturing facility in Statesville, North Carolina, which at full utilization doubles our capacity to serve multi-family and commercial customers. Our exterior fiberglass doors are poised for growth as we've further broadened our industry-leading style options, innovated to make our fiberglass doors even more wood-like in appearance, brought value to our builder partners by creating integrated door systems, and added capacity needed to satisfy this increased demand.
And this year, we will launch a full suite of our Auraline composite windows and patio doors that not only combine a wood-like appearance with the durability and thermal benefits of vinyl, but do so at an attractive price point and with more visible glass than competing options. The Auraline products also support consumers' desire for more sustainable material options and help deliver on our commitment to reduce our environmental footprint. Our global operations are positioned to deliver increased productivity, and we expect to deliver our unique growth drivers to accelerate performance in 2022 and beyond, giving us confidence in our 2025 revenue and margin targets. Finally, before I hand it over to John, I wanna highlight the measurable progress we're making in building a values-based, premier performing culture.
In 2021, we continued to advance our ESG strategy, including marked increases in employee engagement scores, diversity measures, and overall safety metrics. This past quarter, our team in the U.K. was honored for its safety innovation when it received the prestigious British Woodworking Federation Health and Safety Award. As we begin 2022, I wanna emphasize that our focus on the safety and well-being of our 25,000 global associates remain at the forefront of our decision-making in all that we do. Now, I'll hand it over to John to give you more detail on the financials.
Thanks, Gary, and good morning, everyone. I'll start on page seven. Q4 net revenue increased 11.8% to $1.3 billion, driven by a sequential improvement in both pricing and volume mix. This is our sixth consecutive quarter of core revenue growth. Adjusted EBITDA improved 4.0% to $120.1 million, while adjusted EBITDA margin compressed due to the impact of inflation. EPS and adjusted EPS increased 7% to $0.45 and $0.48, respectively. Relative to the outlook we provided on our last call, improved throughput and price realization drove revenue growth that exceeded our revenue outlook range, while sharply higher than anticipated inflation held EBITDA at the low end of our outlook range.
Full year net revenue was $4.8 billion, an increase of 12.7% overall and 10% on a core basis, excluding the impact of foreign exchange. This core growth rate exceeded the target range of 6%-8% annualized growth established at our investor day and a pipeline full of innovation. We are well-positioned to continue this momentum revenue growth. Full year adjusted EBITDA improved 4.2% to $465.1 million. EPS increased 91% to $1.72, and adjusted EPS increased 15% to $1.80. By all accounts, 2021 was an extraordinary year as our team overcame unexpected headwinds to deliver for our channel partners and customers. The commitment of our team members enabled us to deliver these strong financial results with revenue and earnings growth against a challenging operating environment.
Page eight provides detail of our revenue drivers. I'll highlight the record pricing realization of 11% in the quarter and 7% on a year-to-date basis. Q4 pricing improved sequentially as we realized the benefit of additional rounds of price action to offset raw material and freight inflation in Europe with 10% and Australasia with 2%. Volume mix increased 1% in the quarter as our throughput improved sequentially from the labor availability headwinds that we faced in the Q3 . By pace and magnitude of inflation in the year. For the full year, we successfully offset material and freight inflation with price, which required multiple rounds of increases to stay ahead of this curve. Over 75% of the inflation hit in the second half of the year, with over 40% in the Q4 alone.
Looking into 2022, we are well positioned to continue covering inflation with price in dollar terms. Similar to the Q4 , early in 2022, we expect the net price cost impact to be dilutive to profit margin rate before transitioning to a margin rate tailwind in the second half of the year. Please move to page 10, where I'll highlight the segment performance focusing on the Q4 . Net revenue in North America increased 15.1%, driven by pricing and improved volume mix. The pace of growth accelerated as the quarter progressed, with North America exiting December with revenue growth above 20% and a book-to-bill ratio of approximately 1.07. North America adjusted EBITDA margin declined 190 basis points due to the impact of sharply higher inflation.
Despite the increase, North America offset material and freight inflation with price in dollar terms, but it was dilutive to margin rate. Partially offsetting this, volume, mix, and manufacturing efficiencies were all positive margin drivers in the quarter. Europe revenue increased 7.7% overall and 10% excluding the impact of foreign exchange. Strong pricing drove the revenue growth while volume mix was flat. Our order books remain healthy. However, our volume throughput was limited by labor availability headwinds related to the November-December COVID surge across Europe. Europe adjusted EBITDA declined 370 basis points, which was below the expectation we set in our last call. We achieved the pricing that we expected. However, inflation was sharply higher than planned, particularly in certain raw materials and utilities. Additionally, channel mix did not improve as expected.
We continued to see greater activity in the lower margin retail channel as compared to our higher margin project-oriented business. Australasia revenue in the quarter increased 5.9% overall and 6% in local currency versus prior year against a healthy market backdrop. Pricing improved year-over-year and was flat sequentially. We have implemented additional price actions to mitigate inflation pressures in 2022. Australasia adjusted EBITDA margin expanded 100 basis points in the quarter as positive volume, price, and manufacturing efficiencies were partially offset by inflation. For the full year, Australasia expanded EBITDA margins by 10 basis points. Please turn to page 11. Adjusted operating cash flow totaled $288.4 million for 2021, a decrease of $84.7 million.
The decrease in cash flow from operations was due to inflation on our raw material purchases as well as inventory investments to support our customers and position us for growth in 2022. Adjusted free cash flow declined $87.5 million to $188.7 million, while capital expenditures remained relatively unchanged compared to prior year. The balance sheet and liquidity remain in fantastic shape. Our cash balance sits at $395.6 million, which is a healthy position even after using approximately $325 million in cash to repurchase our shares in 2021. Liquidity sat at $837.8 million at the end of the year at 0.8 x, which gives us the operating flexibility to invest in initiatives that will drive future revenue and earnings growth.
Net leverage stepped up slightly this year above our target range of 2-2.5 x due to the compelling opportunity to repurchase our shares at an attractive valuation. We remain focused on deploying our cash in a disciplined, returns-focused manner and compounding the returns on that cash over time. Looking to 2022, we are well positioned for growth and margin expansion. With that, I'll turn it back over to Gary, who will provide closing comments.
Thank you, John. Please turn to page 13. Let me share our outlook for market growth. We expect housing fundamentals to remain favorable in each of our end markets in 2022, driving increased demand for our products. In North America, we expect residential new construction and R&R activity to remain robust, driven by continued strong homeownership trends and consumers' desire to improve their homes. Fundamentals remain supportive, including historically low interest rates, healthy consumer discretionary budgets, and record home equity accumulation. We also expect labor availability and supply chains to improve throughout the year, allowing build times to normalize, helping to alleviate pressures on home affordability. In Europe, we expect housing activity to remain positive, but market growth will moderate toward pre-pandemic levels in the low single digits. Economic growth remains positive. We believe this will drive positive activity for our end markets and channels.
In Australasia, activity should remain robust as the market continues its recovery from a multiyear housing recession. Solid economic growth is a positive backdrop for performance this year. Given the recent strengths and housing we expect some moderations of. In summary, we expect favorable housing fundamentals in each of our regions to accelerate above-market growth. Please turn to page 14. We expect between 7% and 10% for 2022, which includes a small headwind from foreign exchange. This revenue outlook is supported by core growth from all three segments, with North America delivering the highest growth rate. Additionally, we expect to deliver full-year adjusted EBITDA in the range of $520 million- $565 million. Our margin improvement from product launches, our strong pipeline of productivity projects, and the benefit of pricing offset continued inflation.
In addition, we expect our capital expenditures to range from $130 million-$150 million. As we look ahead, we are laser-focused on delivering new market-leading product and service innovation and growth for our customers. Our multifaceted growth platform, world-class brand, and premier performing culture, combined with a favorable housing backdrop, will deliver more organic growth, margin expansion, and compounding cash flow. Thank you for joining us this morning. John and I will now take your questions.
At this time, I would like to remind everyone, in order to ask a question, press star, then the number one on your telephone keypad. UBS, your line is open.
Good morning, guys, and thank you for taking my questions. The first one is maybe, you know, Gary, can you get into some of the specific levers that you guys can pull in addition to pricing that could help you in 2Q margins to be down on a year-over-year basis? And maybe just along those same lines, is there any change in the cadence-
Great ones. Yeah, let's talk about 2022. Obviously, we are seeing price offsetting inflation. We actually, you know, kind of saw that number occur in the Q4 , accelerated Q3- Q4 and into this year. We'll see that accelerate as the year goes on. Really what's driving our, our, our growth and our guidance here in 2022 are, you know, strong markets for sure. The ability to get price to offset inflation. And then some genuine specific payouts for us on investments that we've made in growth. So this is like our VPI multifamily business, where we've just recently opened an East Coast facility, which has the potential to double our capacity for that business continue to expand-
In our exterior door business, which has been growing significantly over the last couple of years and will continue to grow this year. As well as our introduction patio door product, which again, is also an accretive margin product, and one that we're very, very excited to have out in the marketplace. That I talked about in the prepared remarks in Europe and Australasia are also margin accretive. So if you think about price offset more than offsetting inflation throughout the year, accelerating and those accretive growth initiatives and capacity expansion.
Okay, that's helpful. Can you help with just the magnitude of the new price increases in 2022 and maybe, you know, how much carryover should we expect from towards, you know, lower priced products given, you know, given the amount of-
There will be some carryover. We, you know, did have some price increases that took effect. Talk about sort of that third round of pricing actions. But I guess what I'd say is, at this point, we've got visibility. They're, you know, already taking carryover and/or new pricing actions that we've already implemented, and communicated to the market. Those are all out there. And we, you know, at this point, we don't need to see the pricing that's embedded in our outlook. And in terms of, you know, quantifying sort of carryover versus new price, I'm not sure we're gonna parse that out of the guide.
And I would say any notable sort of trade down in terms of lower priced product just really seems to be in an environment where, you know, the manufacturers who have product, who have inventory and who can meet lead time, that seems to be sort of trumping, you know, the price of products at this point. You know, consumers and builders just need product and we're seeing less sensitivity towards price.
Got it. Thank you.
Your next question comes from a line of Deepa Raghavan from Wells Fargo Securities. Your line is open.
Hey. Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my question factoring in any slowdown in the North American segment, either in the new build market or R&R activity in the second half, any thoughts how you think the current backdrop would, the interest rates being high, could or could not influence?
Hi, Deepa. Thank you for that question. What we're seeing is a very strong backdrop. But you asked specifically about North American residential. Strong backdrop. We just spent some time with customers over IBS and over the last several weeks. And, you know, what we're seeing is strong demand continuing in residential construction. R&R market continue. There's, you know, low housing stocks across most of the country. High equity positions and strong consumer budgets right now. They continue to focus on upgrading and remodeling as well. So we think there's a pretty strong backdrop there. We haven't seen events that are curtailing that at this point. Obviously, we'll look out for that.
But I think on the builder side, what we're seeing is the backlog of new orders is certainly there, sufficient to carry us through this year. And, you know, we're looking at constraints and supply chain constraints loosening up in that channel in order to have those-
Okay, that's helpful. And just, you know, you mentioned labor constraints. So just, and you also mentioned your sequential throughput has improved in August. Can you talk through what your expectations are in 2020? You're expecting that, I mean, you obviously are expecting labor constraints to improve, but, you know, is it a couple percentage points on the top? Is it like one percentage point on the volume line that you'd expect to add to 2020-
In the last, I was mostly referring to the residential construction and in the trades. So I think that's going to start working its way through. There's challenges there, obviously. In our own operations, we saw the biggest challenge is kind of last summer. And we started to work. We actually used our own JEM tools, our own JEM Excellence Model tools around problem-solving and looking at how can we attract, develop, retain people within our operations. And we sought to staff our facilities, and that's really what helped us drive that sequential throughput improvement through the remainder of last year and will continue into this year. We watched things like COVID, you know, the COVID-19, this Omicron, which I think is mostly behind us at this point.
But we're starting to continue that sequential throughput through the year. I don't know that my visibility is good enough to put a 2% improvement or a number on that, Deepa, for you. But I will tell you that we use the tools that we put out there to staff our facilities appropriately and to make sure that throughput continues to improve, which is a fundamental output of our JEM.
Okay. Sorry, just a quick clarification question for me. You're assuming, just to be clear, you have only taken prices that have been implemented so far in your guide, right? Not any upcoming price increases.
Yes. There's prices that have been implemented but haven't actually started the application dates in certain markets. In terms of actions and making the communications, no, that's correct. We've you know taken the actions that we need to deliver the pricing the full year. It's not all hitting the P&L yet in Q1.
Great. Thanks so much. Appreciate it. Good luck.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Bouley from Barclays. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. Kaizen efforts. You know, that was helpful color you gave up top on sort of the benefit to capacity and labor productivity. I think I heard you say you plan to deploy three times the number of events across your operations this year globally. Curious if you could put a little more color around that. You know, how many more sites will you deploy this model to, and is there sort of a benchmark we can look to around annual capacity expansion that you're-
Thanks, Matt, for the question, and good morning. Yeah, we're really excited about the movement that we've made. We've been talking about JEM for, you know, well, three and a half years or so. And, you know, after the first kind of deployment of basic problem-solving tools and some basic tools across the entire enterprise, you know, we obviously have seen some great benefits there. In 2021, we identified our 14 model value streams, which really is an end-to-end look at portions of our business, and deploying what I guess you might even call something like JEM 2.0, a deeper look on a more narrow part of our business that actually makes a big difference in how we perform.
Where you're seeing a lot of that work is around cycle time improvement in our facilities that are showing up as competitively advantaged lead times in, in, in our business. We've been able to talk about, you know, significant improvements in lead time last year and throughput compared to our competitors in the area of vinyl windows, for example, and in interior and exterior doors. So it's really given us capacity expansion without, you know, having to deploy a whole lot of capital in those areas. So as we talk about taking our, what we call rapid improvement events, some might call them Kaizen events, we're deploying those across those 14 value streams at all points, right? From order entry all the way through to cash collection.
A lot of the focus is on our operations. We take the same type of work and deploy that to other operations, but the major focus is on these 14 value streams that have the biggest push. Once we start to get the advantage out of that math, we'll take those 14 and obviously expand them to further value streams across the company. You know, we have targeted numbers for that. We know where we'll go next, but we really wanna make sure that we make a difference, that it sticks, and that what we learn in the 14 model value streams is applicable and we can look across the rest of our operations to take standard work to them.
Got it. No, that's really helpful color there, Gary. Thank you for that. Second one on just back to the guide and revenue guidance for the year. The 7%-10% revenue growth in 2022, I know you're not quantifying carryover price versus kind of any new price. But your high level, is there a split between price and volume that you're assuming that you can speak to? And, you know, is there any cadence to the volume side through the four quarters that we should be aware of? Thank you.
Sure. In the 7%-10%, as Gary mentioned in the prepared remarks, that's the all-in including FX number. So there's about a 2% estimate right now for the headwind that we have from FX. So on a core basis, you know, we're implying that, excluding FX, that the core revenue growth is more in the 9%-11% range if you kind of strip out that 2%, or 9%-12% range if you strip out the FX.
I would say certainly pricing is you know will be you know positive on the volume mix, but has you know risk of being flat just given what we're seeing in some of our markets right now, still on labor availability in Europe and in Australia related to COVID. We are certainly hopeful that that gets behind us so we can meet the demand we've got. You know, we've got a strong backlog and you know strong order book, just anxious to be able to push that out to customers. And so the volume will come as the year progresses.
Got it. Well, thanks, John. Thanks, Gary, and good luck.
Thank you, Matt.
Your next question comes from the line of Philip Ng from Jefferies. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. John, I've kind of lost track of the amount of price increases you guys have announced since last year. So it'd be helpful to kind of refresh us since the last call, late last year, what incremental price increases have you announced in your bigger markets, and how did that kind of layer in? And then I guess a follow-up on the margin side of things. You said margin's up year-over-year, but should we expect it to inflect positively year-over-year by 2Q? It sounds like 1Q you still have some catch up.
I would say that in terms of the price increases, yes. A lot to keep track of just given the number of markets that we're in. We'll focus on North America because that's probably of interest. You know, the most recent change was in the wholesale channel, which was a you know all products price increase that took effect the beginning of the year. That was effective as of January 1. And then our retail price increases are in line like that. That would be the most recent round of pricing that was done. And then as you get into Europe and Australia, the timing is different given the. In terms of margin cadence, yes.
I mean, margins, we do expect margins to be down in Q1, primarily in dollar terms. It's still a headwind to Q2 , you know, probably getting closer back to flat margins and then seeing-
A question for Gary. Valuations are obviously pretty depressed here. Just curious, how are you thinking about capital deployment, you know, maybe doing more M&A as well. Curious, what are you seeing out there from a pipeline standpoint? Just any core markets you've seen some multiple compression here.
Yeah. Thanks for the question, Phil. We have opportunities, as we talked about in our Investor Day, for a strategy for growth in areas that we were most interested in, potentially bolt-ons in our pipeline. Without getting specific, you know, we're always nurturing those, and you know, presented itself last year, and we'll continue to look at that. And we've got a number of great projects internally that continue in 2022 a little bit as a payout year for some of those investments.
You know, as we talked about earlier, both in the capacity expansion side of the equation, you know, look at VPI, you know, the acquisition a couple of years ago, really paying off as we're about to see the benefits of doubling the capacity in that business, which is part of that strategy. So we're looking forward to, to add onto our strategy that we laid out back last year.
Thanks a lot. Great color.
Your next question comes from a line of Mike Dahl from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open.
Hi, it's actually Christopher on for Mike. Thanks for taking our questions. Just half the year, realize you guys would go out with incremental pricing, but you know, what are you assuming in terms of year-over-year inflation and cost and the cadence of that between the first half and the back half year?
Certainly we'll have some favorable comps on inflation as we get into the back half of the year. As you think about what the curve looked like in 2021, you know, we still expect inflation in Q3, Q4, but the magnitude will be much less than what we expect here in Q1, Q2. But, you know, I'd say in, you know, from a percent standpoint, on both kind of that material and then freight bucket of cost, I would say that, you know, the inflation will be slightly less than 2021, and on a percentage terms.
But, you know, in dollar terms, in terms of the dollars we have to cover inflation, the magnitude is pretty close to the same in 2022 in terms of 2021. But it's still a, you know, big challenge that we've got to overcome, and we're well positioned to do that.
The price-cost and your outlook there obviously is. I think you guys said you're expecting it to be a positive this quarter, ended up costing in the other way, you know. Obviously, it's a volatile situation there, but just your confidence on achieving price-cost favorability in that region, given all the moving pieces.
You're asking specifically about Europe?
Yeah, Europe.
Yeah. Yeah, I think the biggest unforeseen challenge that came out of Europe is on the utilities side. You know, utilities and natural gas sort of spiked in Q3, Q4, and we did not have visibility to the magnitude of that fully. And I would say price costs in Q1 would be similar to our other regions in terms of being neutral in dollar terms. You know, I wouldn't really call out anything really unique about that. It's just the magnitude of the utility inflation. We're also seeing a bit on the logs side that goes into our sawmill.
And then metals, you know, continue to be an area of inflation as well, just given the steel that we use in our steel door, steel frame business.
Got it. I appreciate the color.
Your next question comes from the line of Susan Maklari from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My first question is around the special order products that you have. Can you just give us a bit more color on the order trends that you're seeing there and how things are coming together as we enter 2022? And then I guess with that, can you also talk a little bit about the various channels and how you're thinking about some of the volume and mix that will flow through the retail side versus the wholesale side for this year, where those inventories stand as we come into 2022?
Good morning, Susan. Thank you for the question. You know, I'll start with the retail question. You know, retail and really R&R markets have been fairly stable and growing for the last several years. They continue to be pretty strong. We have seen a mix shift or a strong mix towards stock units as you pointed out over the last couple of years. That mix has been changing over 2021 and improving towards special orders, which are margin accretive for us. We're seeing that trend continue. Stock levels are getting to be in pretty good shape. We're, we're in that season now where we expect to true up stock units, stock units in, in aisle units in retail.
So we're gonna, you know, keep our eye open for that. We are seeing special orders continue to trend more favorably and, you know, hopefully we'll get back to pre-pandemic levels sometime in 2022. On the, on the traditional channel, wholesale channel, we've actually seen significant acceleration in orders, orders really over the last several quarters. They've really been growing in North America. You know, part of that's from builder and some of that's from R&R. So that's been trending in the right direction. And we've been pretty excited to see that happen as well. And you know, just like I said earlier, general strength in both residential new construction and the R&R markets is really driving all that.
Okay, that's very helpful color. And then, you know, when we look at the CapEx guide, the $130 million-$150 million for this year, it is, you know, somewhat of a step-up relative to where you've been the last two years. I know you kind of talked a bit about some of the projects that you're seeing in terms of capacity adds and those sorts of things. You know, any sort of color on anything specific to highlight within that and how you think about the ramp that'll come through in there and what's maybe baked at the lower end versus the higher end of that range?
Think about 2021, how the year played out, our guide for CapEx at this point, you know, as the year progressed, just like a lot of industries, you know, lead times for equipment and things got pushed out. And so we did not accomplish all of the projects, you know, in 2021, safety and maintenance type projects. And so I think that moving up to a more normal would be great opportunities to invest in our payback projects, you know, for productivity type initiatives, as well as some selected capacity expansion projects and target products.
Outside of that, there's really nothing unique to call out in terms of the phasing other than you know, getting back to a more normalized spend as you know, these large equipment purchases get back to more normalized levels.
Okay. Gotcha. Thanks for the color, and good luck with everything.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Mike Rehaut from JP Morgan. Your line is open.
Hi. Thanks. Good morning, everyone. Mike Rehaut. First question, I wanted to go back to that. Appreciate the earlier color where you said that the 9-12 core being driven more by price. I think you said more than half of it from price. You know, then, you know, so on the volume side, I was trying to get a sense, you know, Gary, you kind of laid out earlier in the call, you know, different types of initiatives you've been implementing, you know, capacity expansion, investment in labor, also various new products. I was trying to get a sense, particularly in North America, if we could zero in there for a moment.
You know, if there's any way to quantify what that impact of the different, you know, either capacity expansion or new product initiatives, what that impact represents in terms of the, you know, overall thought for volume growth. Let's say if volume growth perhaps is less than half of the 9%-12%, let's say maybe something in the 2%-4% range. I'm just putting a number out there. Is, is that 2%-4%, or let's say 3%-5%, you know, primarily driven by end market growth? How much is driven by, you know, these, you know, different, you know, company initiatives like capacity and new products?
Yeah. I think you've got the basic elements. Obviously, you know, putting the price aside, we've got some unique initiatives or unique developments within JELD-WEN that are driving growth. I'd speak of it a little bit as a payout year for us on some of the investments that we have made. You know, clearly gaining share in some of our categories has required us to put in some of these capacity expansions as well, you know, in the sheer desire and demand for our products. If you think this expansion, the investment in expansion around our exterior fiberglass door business. You asked specifically about North America, so that's been growing incredibly over the last several years, gaining share.
Again, new door systems that builders and customers really like because they add value in their ability to save labor, easier to install, plus their modern style. The expansion in our VPI business. We said we were going to move that business east. You know, it's just a incredible the amount of attention, the amount of demand we're now getting up and down the East Coast, you know, based on opening our new facility in Statesville, North Carolina. Again, the opportunity to ultimately double that size of that business. The expansion and the addition of our Auraline composite business this year will also add revenue. All of those are accretive as well to our margin position.
You know, if you think about kinda you know what those you know in addition to share gain and price, it's probably about $100 million of additional growth just related to those initiatives alone in North America. You then add on, you know, what we're doing in Europe and Australasia, and you get the additional growth of the company.
Okay. No, that's helpful. Appreciate that. I guess secondly, you know, just kind of looking at the margin progression, when you think about, you know, this year, or rather in the Q4, you were able to, you know, neutralize material freight with price, and yet you had the margin contraction driven by other factors. You know, quarter margins flat and then, you know, expansion in the back half. Ostensibly, you know, but from a price cost standpoint, how should we think about the Q1 and Q2 ? Should it be more neutral and then more positive in the back half?
Or, you know, the other factors that you've kind of mentioned driving, you know, the margin contraction in Q4 or the last two or three quarters, you know, those kind of also turning around.
I'd say for the progression, you know, price costs in Q1 should be sort of in dollar terms, you know, in that neutral area for pricing material and freight inflation. And that, that, you know, that's neutral in dollars. That is still a headwind to margin rates, though. I'd say getting slightly better in Q2, and then it's really Q3, Q4, where that price cost becomes accretive to margin in the back half of the year. And I think, you know, in terms of our other margin drivers, I mean, we've got positive productivity and manufacturing efficiencies baked into the plan from all the work we're doing on JEM. You've also got favorability from the leverage on the volume that Gary just outlined.
And then, you know, we're anticipating this mix, you know, situation that was a headwind in Europe in Q4 was a headwind to margins, but that will at some point give us some relief. So there's a lot of visibility to the levers that will drive margin improvement. And but certainly in the first half of the year, that's getting diluted by you know inflation in terms of a rate standpoint.
Great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Truman Patterson from Wolfe Research. Your line is open.
Hey, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. Just first for clarity, embedded in your 2022 guidance, are you all baking in costs where we sit today at the end of December or February, or are you all expecting some further cost inflation?
I'd say we do expect year-over-year inflation throughout the year. I wouldn't say we're expecting the inflation to get worse, you know, from where we are today.
Okay. And then you all mentioned that pricing, you know, is offsetting material and freight inflation here in the Q4 . And I'm looking at gross margins, they, I think, fell over 400 basis points. I'm just trying to understand how much labor inflation might have impacted that number and just some of your expectations for the labor component to trend in 2022.
Yeah. Labor inflation in the quarter was certainly significant. I mean, I think we're from a terminology standpoint, you know, we're thinking of that more as an investment. I mean, we are, you know, doing targeted wage increases in certain plants to make sure we can attract and retain the right labor. And so it is an inflation cost headwind, but it's also, you know, we view there's a payback on that, right? If you get the right labor and retain it, then you can get the volume throughput and get it out. But I'd say in Q4, you know, in dollar terms, labor inflation was, you know, in the $15 million range, something like that.
If you wanna try and put a number on it, which would be my best estimate.
Okay. Okay, thanks. And then final one for me, just trying to understand SG&A a little bit. As a percent of sales, it had been increasing earlier this year, but then here in the Q4 , I think you all were able to walk it down by 400 basis points or so to some of the lowest levels that you've had. On a blended basis for the full year, it was in the low 14% range, I believe. I'm just trying to understand, you know, your expectations for SG&A in 2022, given some of the, you know, accelerated investments or overhead spend. Just trying to understand, you know, what level you all are comfortable running in.
Yeah. There's certainly a lot of areas that we'd like to make investments in, and use, you know, some of the pricing that we've been receiving from the market to not only offset inflation, but fund R&D, innovation, growth. And so I think on an absolute basis, you're right, we did a good job sort of managing cost control in 2021. But if you were to sort of think about JELD-WEN relative to other peers, you know, there's an opportunity for us to really invest more in SG&A as a percent of sales. And so as we think about, you know, the future, we'll be looking for those highest payback sort of investments that we can make. A lot of it is tied to funding growth.
And so we think about what's baked into the plan in 2022. There's definitely some increased SG&A year over year. Those are, you know, projects that we can toggle on and toggle off depending on how the business is performing. And all of them would be, you know, those new initiatives tied to sort of driving more growth in the future.
All right. Thank you.
Your final question comes from the line of Steven Ramsey from Thompson Research Group. Your line is open.
Hi, good morning. I wanted to think about Australasia for a minute. In 2021 passing the 2019 levels and getting closer to the 2018 recent peak. Do you think you reach 2018 sales levels this year or is that something next year? I would expect new construction activity rebounds and the progress in R&R allows you to surpass those levels in the coming years. Just any color there.
Yeah, we're pretty excited about what's going on in Australasia, in Australia in particular. We've seen, you know, 2021 was, I believe, a record year in orders and new home orders. We do expect the order rates probably, you know, be off a little bit this year. But the issue is some of the build times, the build cycle times there in Australia are pushed out, you know, months. I mean, they have a huge backlog of unbuilt demand. So what we're, we're you know, for the very same reasons we were talking about here, labor availability, and, and supply chain. We're in, you know, a really good position to supply the residential new construction market. We think that their backlog's pretty well known.
We're gonna see growth in starts and finishes this year. It'll be dependent on how the builders and contractors are able to stay good at jobs and complete them. So I think it's kind of smooth sailing for residential new construction in Australasia this year. The border's just reopened. You know, things are starting to get back to normal. You know, they were probably hit the most by full shutdowns of anywhere in the world. So as that opens back up and labor availability starts to find its way to home building, those orders are gonna turn into starts. So we're, we're pretty bullish on where we are in Australasia. The results are certainly sequentially improving. I think after a two-year recession in housing, we're pretty excited about where we are.
Great. And the thinking about Europe increased market penetration, I guess, what are the key ways you intend to do so through this year, and how much of the benefits there hit in 2022, or does it build and have a fuller impact in 2023?
Yeah. So we've been, you know, we, we, we laid out our strategy for Europe last year at our Investor Day really around a few things, but one around taking the various product categories that we already make and sell in certain markets and moving those into markets that we currently sell other products so that we can complete our product portfolio lineup there. I talked in the prepared remarks about technical doors or fire-technical doors from Central Europe, for example, into the U.K. That'll be a dramatic driver for us. You know, additionally, we've got the opportunity, and we've been doing some nice innovation in Europe, particularly around sustainable doors, connectivity and the like. There's some pictures there in our deck of some of that.
Some of that work is definitely driving growth and will drive growth in 2022 and beyond in Europe, but it also becomes the platforms for work that we're doing around the world. And then we've got opportunities where there's additional geographic expansion that we can do where, you know, there are markets that we underserved, well, today where we can take our full product portfolio. It looks a lot like what we sell in other countries and other regions and take that across other countries in Europe. So that's our overall strategy in a nutshell for Europe. We will see growth in 2022 and it will continue to accelerate as new innovation comes along and we continue to transfer products across markets.
Excellent. Thanks.
This brings us to the end of our question and answer period. I turn the call back over to the management team for some closing remarks.
Well, thank you all for joining us today, and thank you for your continued interest in JELD-WEN. You know, as we said earlier, our markets are strong. We like the layout for where we are in 2022. Our operations continue to be healthy, giving us competitive lead time in many of the categories and markets that we serve. Obviously, we're navigating the inflation challenges with price offsetting material freight inflation. We expect that to accelerate, be a benefit for us in 2022. And we've got a number of JELD-WEN specific initiatives that are driving growth and productivity in 2022. So we're pretty excited for the setup. We look forward to spending more time with you know, as the quarter progresses and updating you on our progress.
Again, thanks for joining us today, and thank you for your great questions.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.