All right. Good morning, and welcome to James Hardie's 2026 Investor Day. Thank you for everyone that is joining us in person today. It was a huge turnout. We have an extra room over there for the spillover, and thanks for everyone for joining online. A big thanks to those people who have traveled far. We have a pretty big contingent from Australia with us today. Let us see here. Safety note. You came in these doors right here. There is an emergency exit to the left there, and the Convene staff will be there to help you if needed. Let us go through the FLS, the fun stuff. Please note that today we may refer to non-GAAP financial measures and make forward-looking statements. You can refer to several related cautionary and other notes in this slide. Forward-looking statements made today speak only to the date of this presentation.
Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties and could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Accordingly, investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. In addition, non-GAAP measures should be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures discussed are found in the presentation in the appendix. Let us walk through the agenda here for today. Okay. We are going to start with Aaron Erter, then we will do Jon Skelly, John Madson, Sam Toole, and then we are going to do the first Q&A session where all those speakers will come up. We will take a short break. During that break, you are welcome to go out there and see the demos again. Then we will come back with Ryan Kilcullen, then Ryan Lada.
Then Aaron will do a short close, and then we are going to bring the whole group up for a final Q&A. Then what we have is, then we are going to have the leadership luncheon, which is what you saw there. We will have lunch out there, another chance, an hour for you to check out the demos. Just one little note here, we are doing a decking teach-in. For those of you who want a primer on decking, it is not on the schedule here, but we are doing a teach-in for decking. That will start at 1:15 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. That is optional, of course, if you want to do that.
That, again, the main demo area will shut down about 1:00 P.M., a little bit after, and then we will start the decking presentation for those of you that want to do that, 1:15 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. All right. Let us get started, and we are going to queue up a video.
Some moments mark a turning point. A company with deep roots, trusted products, a category it helped define, and then something new. Two industry leaders, one shared vision, built to lead what is next. The combination of James Hardie and The AZEK Company did not just add brands. It built something the market has never seen. Number one and number two brand positions across every category we serve. Siding, trim, decking, railing, outdoor living structures, the home of resilient beauty. Beneath it all, a manufacturing and circularity platform that no competitor can replicate. The largest vertically integrated recycler of PVC in North America, with over 3.5 billion pounds of otherwise landfill-bound material reclaimed since 2019. Built on innovation that runs deep, from material science and proprietary technology to design leadership that keeps us ahead, the momentum is real.
The best sales team in the industry, deep relationships across every layer of the value chain: contractors, home builders, dealers, retailers, and homeowners. One Hardie is not an idea, it is who we are. We are at the beginning of something extraordinary. The material conversion opportunity across siding, trim, and outdoor living is measured in the tens of billions. The housing stock is aging. A new generation of homeowners is arriving, and they want products that look beautiful, that last, that they can feel good about choosing. James Hardie is positioned to lead that conversion with the brands, the innovation, the manufacturing scale, the commercial relationships, and the team to make it happen. For our shareholders, this is durable, long-term value creation. For our employees, our customers, and our communities, it is something more. It is building a better future for all. This is the new James Hardie.
All right. Good morning, everyone. What a voice on that announcer there. That is the Hardie Operating System in action. All right. Hey, good morning. It is great to see everyone here. Also welcome to everyone who is on the webcast here. We got a packed house and a beautiful day here in New York City. Also want to thank our team. We have some of our leadership team that you will hear from here today, and then also you will get a chance, if you have not already, meet many of them who are out there manning some of the product stations.
Also, I want to thank our team across the globe. This is a monumental moment for us as we think about what we have been through over the last year. It has been 14 months since we came together with AZEK, and there has been a lot of ups, a lot of downs. Integration is never perfect here. Here is really the message I want everyone to take away is this is working. What we said was going to happen over a year ago, putting these two companies together, this is working. I think the important point here is we are just getting started. Part of the thesis of bringing the two companies together is really what our Investor Day theme is here, and it is Built to Outperform, Resilient by Design.
So what I would like to do here now, and you are going to hear the rest of the day here, is this thesis and how we are going to make this happen. Let me dive right into it. Look, as we brought these two companies together, the idea was to be able to outgrow the market no matter what. Certainly, the market is challenging right now. One quarter does not make a total thesis right, but like I said, we are on our way, and it is working. I think the other thing, as we brought the two companies together, was to accelerate growth, and you will hear some of the initiatives that we have and we only have by bringing these two companies together.
The other piece of this, which is not unique to our industry and building products, but you see more and more consolidation within our industry. That happens every day. You hear about a deal. That is not going to stop happening. If anything, as the market picks up a little bit, we think that is only going to accelerate, and that is why having the strength of brands, the team, the products, makes this much more important for us to do. We are sitting in a really good place here right now. Look, the five pillars that we are going to dive into here today is delivering growth above the market. That means it is not dependent on, okay, when housing comes back, we are going to be able to grow. We are going to be able to grow no matter what.
That is what putting these two companies together, and we are able to do that because you will see from the team, we have fiber cement, we have DR&A initiatives that are going to sustain long-term growth for us. The other piece which we are excited about, and we have made a lot of progress. I know when we announced this deal, there were many naysayers about our $500 million in commercial synergies. That is going to happen. We are well on our way. I would even say at least $500 million of commercial synergies for us. You will hear Jon and John bring some of this to life. But our customers are aligned with us. They want to do business with us. Our contractors want to use our products. That is point number one. If I think about point number two, it is the enduring competitive advantages.
I will spend some time on this, but you can see on the list here, we said products, brands, manufacturing, Hardie Operating System, deep relationships, our commercial strategy. If a company had one or two of these together, they would feel pretty good. We hit string all of these together. This is very hard to compete with. The other thing we are going to unveil here, I know in these investor days, and certainly many years past, I have done it before, people have done it before, is you put three-year, five-year targets out there. The way the market is, how could any of us predict what that is going to be?
What we feel comfortable with and what you are going to see, I am going to take you through it at the end of my section here, Ryan will dive more into it, is we have a compelling growth algorithm. Think of it as a differentiated type of portfolio, growth stack of things that we are going to do, that we are going to be able to outperform the market no matter what. Right? So outperforming the market, whether the macro is tough, right? There is inflation, there is more consolidation. You will see that. Look, what is exciting is we continue to enhance our cash flow. We are delevering pretty quickly. You see our margins continue to build. We are going to have a lot of cash.
I think what is really interesting here and what is exciting is the optionality we are going to have as Ryan takes you through the capital allocation. The other thing which I am most excited about is us being able to consistently execute. I know that is what you look for, right? Are we able to do this day in and day out? As I told my team last night, many of you are here. You want to see if you understand the strategy. You want to understand if you have confidence in it. But then there is do you have confidence in the team that is going to go out and execute upon that? I think we have the best team in the industry.
Yo u are going to hear more about these investment pillars, if you will, but let me go right to what I just mentioned and talk a little bit about our team, because one of the things that I am most excited about is for you to hear from this team. Look, I will not go through all their backgrounds because they can take you through it. As we decided to bring these two companies together, there is different approaches you can take, and I have been through a few of these. You can say: Okay, we are the acquired. We are going to do whatever. It is going to be the legacy team that is going to run the business. We took a different approach. We said: These are very similar type of companies. Right?
The best approach for us as we move forward in, this is what we have done not only with the team, but we have also done this with the way we have set up the entire organization, our processes, is we are going to take the best of both. That is what we have done here. There is really no coincidence why, as you look at the backgrounds here, you have equal amount of legacy AZEK, equal amount of legacy Hardie here. Jon Skelly, who runs our largest business, he is going to come up after me. You can see the breadth of experience that he has. John Madson, who is our Chief Sales Officer, new to that role, but certainly not new to the industry, is a legacy James Hardie guy since 2004.
Sam Toole, who is legacy AZEK, but deep experience in marketing with consumer brands companies. Ryan Kilcullen, legacy James Hardie guy. Then my partner in crime there, Ryan Lada, who is legacy AZEK that we were able to bring him back. Look, we have a very strong leadership team. With that context, what I would like to just breeze through here quickly is, who is James Hardie today? Okay. I will not go through this in detail because I think many of you are familiar with this. James Hardie, we are listed in New York Stock Exchange, listed on the ASX. You can see our last year's sales, EBITDA, and EBITDA margin.
One of the things to talk about, and I know sometimes this can seem like fluff, but it is very important to us and was very important as we brought these two cultures together, is about our purpose, vision, mission, and values. What we always start out with when we talk to a customer or we talk to a supplier is we talk about our purpose. We think it differentiates us. Our purpose is building a better future for all. You saw a little bit about that in the video. That is what unites us.
Of all the different things our teams are doing, our purpose unites us because we want our team to look through that guise on how are we building a better future for our stakeholders, whether that be our customers, our suppliers, the communities in which we live and work, and also certainly for our investors as well. You can see the split out of the business. Obviously North America, the lion's share. This is pre-divestiture. We have Europe and Australia, New Zealand, you can see is about 10% each. Then getting more into North America, since we have come together with AZEK. Repair and remodel accounts for about 57% of our business, new construction 43%. Then diving a little deeper into North America, you can see the product or the segment breakout. The legacy Hardie business, fiber cement is still 60% of our business. Okay? All right.
Let us take a little bit more of a dive into North America, and Jon and Ryan are going to cover more of this. Our business in North America, this is the growth engine. It is split out in siding and trim, and it is split out in DR&A. As we mentioned, siding and trim is the largest part of our business. The other thing to take note from this slide is you just see the footprint of our manufacturing locations. When we talk about enduring competitive advantages, this is really key, because we have about 26 manufacturing locations across North America. They are close to our customers. This is on purpose. About 90% of our customers are within one day's haul. This matters, right, for quick turnaround. This is a competitive advantage for us.
As I said, the team is going to dive more into North America. Let me cover our international business here very quickly. Australia and New Zealand, and Europe, and I will get to Europe here in a second. One of the questions I anticipate, and I will cover it right now, is, are you committed to Australia and New Zealand? Yes, absolutely, and I see some of our friends from Australia here laughing. Yes, we are committed to Australia and New Zealand. We love this business. This has been a great business for us. John Arneil and his team do a great job. You talk about difficult operating conditions. That is what is going on in Australia right now, and these guys continue to deliver growth. We like this business. It is our most profitable business. We have good market share there.
Our brand is iconic in Australia, and we see growth in Australia. One of the things that we are starting to do because of the strength of our brands, the strength of our position within the channel, is we are getting into more building products. It was really just fiber cement. We just launched this past year autoclaved aerated concrete. It is called Hardie Gravis. We expect next year to take some of the AZEK technology and get into outdoor living in Australia. Great business for us. We like this business a lot. Going to Europe. Look, we announced the divestiture of Europe, and I know with many investors, this is always the question of what are you going to do with Europe? Look, the European team is a stellar team. They have done a great job.
If I look over the last four years, their ability to grow the business in a down market, accretive margins, they have done an excellent job. What we wanted to do is shift our focus where we think we have the best right to win and the greatest opportunity. That is Australia, New Zealand, but primarily in North America. You can see the sale of Europe, $980 million, EBITDA multiple around 12. We think this is going to close the first half of next year, and certainly, you saw the announcement, we are going to use some of the proceeds to accelerate our debt paydown, and then we announced board approval for a share buyback. Okay. A little set up on the business, and I have got to keep moving here, stay on time. We talked about this in the beginning.
A 14 months since the close of The AZEK Company acquisition. I talked to many of you. It feels a lot longer than 14 months. Sometimes it feels like this has been years- upon- years, and that is usually how integrations go. Our team has worked relentlessly in making this a success. Again, after being through a few of these, this has been a success, is the way we put these two companies together. Certainly, nothing is ever perfect, but I think the numbers speak for themselves in what we gain by bringing the two companies together. I mentioned the commercial synergies. We will unpack that a little more. We feel very, very confident in our ability to be able to deliver on those commercial synergies.
I think all of you are going to walk out of here and be like: Geez, it is only $500 million? The other thing, our cost synergies, is we said that we were going to do this in three years. We are going to finish it at the end of this year. We are going to be at our $125 million in cost synergies by the end of this year. That is a testament to the team and the work that they have done. Does it stop there? No. Where we shift more towards, which we always do, and Ryan will talk more about it, is our Hardie Operating System, which I like to say is our inflation mitigator, but it is our cost savings arm. Right?
We are always in continuous improvement, so we certainly see more opportunity, but what we stated out there publicly, we are going to be finished with, hit that goal at the end of the year. I think the other thing that is really exciting, and I am going to get into here in a moment, is bringing the two companies together. Again, this is the point of stronger together versus separate, we increased our opportunity, our TAM, by more than double. We now have a serviceable addressable market that goes from when we were just James Hardie, $10 billion, to now $23 billion. So that is pretty exciting if you are sitting there as an investor. Certainly exciting to us as we think about the opportunities out there. I am not going to get into the commercial because John is going to cover that.
Jon and John will cover that, and Ryan is going to cover more of the operational piece. Look, it is exciting to see, again, taking the best of both. One of the things that we have done is taken our Hardie Operating System and started to implement that in the AZEK plants, and we are seeing a tremendous amount of efficiency here. Let me shift more towards what is the opportunity for us. Look, it is large. If we think about this. It is really set up well for us, for having resilient, beautiful product. Customers are more, when you think about repair and remodel, for instance, it is just not turnover repair and remodel, it is preference repair and remodel. They are choosing what they want. A lot of them who are more affluent, who are buying our products, are choosing to have resilient, beautiful product.
Product that stands up to water, stands up to pests, stands up to fire. If we look at our portfolio, we are really the only ones who can claim that out there. So that is a big part of what we do, is material conversion, and our opportunity is to convert share from inferior, less resilient products. You can pick the product or the substrate. Inferior products, we are working with homeowners and contractors to convert them. I think we do have some tailwinds here. If you look at the aging housing stock, you look at for repair and remodel, 35 million homes 20 - 40 years old, they are ready to be repaired. You go around here in the New York City area or where I am from, Chicago, you go to the suburbs, it is just endless.
The vinyl homes, the wood homes, that are all ripe for our 500-person sales team and all of our partners to be able to go out there and convert. You look at the number of decks that are older, and the team will talk about this, but certainly another opportunity to convert inferior products like wood to our PVC and composite materials. Look, the other thing that is more prevalent here in the U.S. is you think about one-third of the U.S. homes are in WUI zones. So, I know I am going to get this wrong. I do every, wildland and urban interface zones. Think about wildfires, and if you are rebuilding, you need to use materials that are fire resistant. As I talked to, our materials are perfect for that.
That runway is meaningful because we now have the portfolio to capture more of the exterior. Let me just show you how this comes together, and I am not going to spend a lot of time on this, but you can see siding, trim, decking, railing, accessories, all outdoor living. I think the point here, and we went back to talking about consolidation within our industry. This completeness that we have to offer now changes the conversation that we used to have as James Hardie, and AZEK used to have as AZEK. Now, we have more to offer, whether that be our contractor, our homeowner, our dealer partners. That is very important as we think about what is going on in our industry. Look, a complete portfolio matters, but what is even more important, too, is having iconic brands.
That contractors are demanding, that they want because homeowners are asking for. I will not go through all the ones and twos, and I do not like to see twos, and we are going to change those here very soon. But you can see from siding, we are the brand out there. Decking, we are the brand with the Pro. You can see trim, exteriors, we are the brand. Pergolas, structures, railing, and then even recycling. This is very important for us. We call them iconic brands. I think about them as hero brands. Look, these brands are really important, but part of bringing the two companies together, what is really important and a big part of our strategy, is having the right distribution model. The team is going to go through this more in detail, but we announced this about 45 days ago, our two-step distribution partnerships.
Now, just step back here very quickly, and tell you this. This has been part of our plan for well over a year. As we think about the two companies coming together, and here is the list of actions that we are going to go out and do to make the $500 million synergies a reality, to be able to go out and service our customers better. This has been part of the plan. We were able to do this by coming together. Certainly, Boise has been a longstanding, great partner of James Hardie for years. We utilized that relationship, talked to them about decking, talked to them about trim. We did some test markets. It worked. Exceeded their expectations. This is full alignment with what we think is the premier national two-step distributor.
That plays well to our strategy of having our product readily available and more available to more of our customer partners. Coupled with that, because of our AZEK relationship, is the best-in-class regional two-step distribution partners. We have been talking so much, I will give you a for instance, about our desire as James Hardie to go out and spread fiber cement in the Midwest. That has not been an area that we focused on for years. We were focused on more new construction areas, but that is a hotbed of repair and remodel for us. We have, for instance, and all of these are outstanding two-step regional distributors, but we have a partner in Lumbermen's who knows that market better than anyone, who are now going to bring in James Hardie fiber cement for the first time, getting rid of a competitor, and they are all in with us.
I will let John talk more about this, but this is really, really exciting to us on our future and how we are going to be able to achieve our goals. As I start to wind down here, how are we going to win, right? How are we going to defend? We started to think about what do we do that no one else can touch, right? I talked about this in the beginning, but really enduring competitive advantages. The leading brands, resilient product portfolio, scaled localized manufacturing. Our Hardie Operating System, deep relationships across the value chain, and this is really important because we talk about 500 sales reps, but John will take you through this here in a moment. You start to compound that 500 with all the relationships we have, the thousands of one-step distributors.
Boise Cascade with 750 people on the street, and it just compounds. They are all out, unified with us, aligned in selling our product portfolio. Then certainly, we think about the differentiated commercial strategy. Again, and just to take note of this, you have one or two of these, it is a differentiator. You have all of these together, this is very hard to compete with. You translate these to the team of what are you going out and what are you doing each and every day? This is what our teams focus on. Number one, accelerate material conversion. Everything really leads into this. That is converting inferior product to our product. Drive channel expansion. As we talked about some of the deals we just mentioned with Boise, regional distributors. We will talk about ABC, we have talked about Lansing. The list goes on and on.
Make our product more available out there. John will cover advanced product innovation. This is, again, bringing the best of both together, and we think we have a long runway and some exciting innovation that we are going to be able to offer our teams. Continue to extend our brand leadership, and then this is really who we are when we talk about enhanced homeowner and pro journey. This is all about being homeowner-focused, customer and contractor driven. How do we make it easier for all of those in the value chain? Look, this all leads up to where we think we can take this business, and ultimately, we are judged by the points we put on the scoreboard. What we are doing is we are targeting organic growth of 4%-7%. That is not market-dependent. The way I like to think about this is a differentiated portfolio.
Certainly, we have the long runway of material conversion that I just mentioned. We have growth initiatives, and we have our revenue synergies that we would layer with this, and then certainly, net price that we come out with every single year. If you ask me to break this up, I am not going to. This is a differentiated portfolio because one year, one may be more than the other, but in balance, we are confident that we can get to that 4%-7%, not market-dependent. Then if we think about opportunity here on top of this for growth, certainly bolt-on M&A, and if we get some tailwinds from the market. In closing here, our investment thesis for all of you is, look, we are going to deliver growth above the market. It is not cycle-dependent. We have a list of competitive advantages.
Put them all together, very hard to compete with us. A compelling growth algorithm with compounding earnings. It's going to increase and enhance our cash flow. It's going to give us optionality as we think about moving forward, what to do with that cash. Then we have the team that's going to deliver consistent execution to really build on long-term growth. Okay? Look forward to spending the day with you. I'm excited to introduce here our President and General Manager of North America, Jon Skelly. All right. Jon.
Cheers. All right. Good morning, everybody. Wow, what a room. It's great to see so many familiar faces and get to share with you a little bit about the North American business. My goal, my objective here is to get you a layer deeper. I really want to focus on how we execute, how we win. That's going to be the agenda today. Appreciate the introduction from Aaron. I joined AZEK in 2018. Prior to that, I had leadership positions at Grainger and The Home Depot. I was president of the AZEK business prior to taking that role here as the President and General Manager of North America. I'm just one individual. I think what's most important is the full team that we've put together. I think we have a team that has a proven ability to execute and drive share gain and value creation.
We work together hand in glove. The operating cadence, the capabilities, what we do as a team is really different. You put that team on top of the platform that Aaron just mentioned, that's how you drive value creation. If I leave you with nothing today, it's not just a differentiated platform, it's not just an individual. It's a team of individuals massively aligned around a vision, a mission, and a purpose, and we're here to deliver value creation and share gain. In terms of the four key points that we'd like to focus on today, it's pretty simple. First and foremost, we're in a highly attractive market. Aaron talked to you about the $23 billion opportunity that we have in front of us. We have a massive opportunity around material conversion. What does that mean? That means we don't need a new strategy.
We don't need to create new growth categories. We have a $23 billion opportunity that we have to execute against, and we're already doing that. We're winning, we're putting points on the board, we're delivering. Second, we have a great strategy. It's simple, five things. We're focused on it, and again, back to the team, we know how to take that strategy and drive execution against it. A lot of people look good on paper, but what really matters is do you get results? And we're going to talk to you about how we get those results. Third, we have unique advantages. Aaron touched on it. I'm going to go deeper on that today. When you look at the brands, you look at the manufacturing capabilities, you look at the downstream conversion capability. It's just massive.
I am going to show you a slide later that I want everybody to pay attention to. It has puzzle pieces on it. It is going to talk about how it all comes together, creates sustained strategic advantage, and it is very difficult to replicate. Fourth, with that platform, what you are going to see that is a little different about us is we do not have a spread the peanut butter, one size fits all approach. We have focused regional execution and strategies to win. What resonates here in the Northeast is not necessarily going to resonate in California or Texas, and we are going to have a focused strategy to win and focused execution in each of those markets from a product perspective, from a sales perspective, from a manufacturing perspective. It all comes together, delivered locally at scale. Let us talk a little bit about the opportunity.
This is the breakout of the $23 billion by our product lines. When you take a look at this, what is most important is we have a lot of opportunity across each and every one of our product categories. So whether it is in siding, decking, or trim, we have 70%-80% opportunity to convert. Again, back to the earlier point here, we do not have to go look and say: What is a new growth channel for us to grow? We have these opportunities. They are massive. Siding, $12 billion. Other exteriors, an additional four. Decking, six. So you look at the size of these market opportunities, you think about our presence, and then think in each and every one of these, as Aaron mentioned, inferior materials.
People do not want wood that rots on their home. They do not want vinyl that fades in three-to-five years. They do not want stucco that cracks. We have solutions and opportunities to address each and every one of these inferior materials and convert them to our value-added, beautiful, and resilient materials. I think when you think about the long-term opportunity for this business and why material conversion matters so much, one point, if we can drive one point of material conversion, and if you look at our history over the last several years, we have driven massive material conversion. Every point of material conversion drives four points of category growth for us. That leverage effect is really important. So when you look at that opportunity, when I say 70%-80% of the market can still convert to us, each point drives four points of category opportunity for us.
That is massive opportunity. What is our plan to win? This is it. Five pieces, and this is what we are going to execute. I am going to give you a slide on each of these in the future. We are going to walk through each one step by step. What is really important here is we have a proven track record. Again, I talk about that team. This is not a dream. This is reality. Each and every one of these pillars, we have already made significant progress against, and I will talk to you about how we are going to continue to drive that growth in the future through them. First, foremost, material conversion. We have to accelerate that. It is about education, awareness, and driving contractors, dealers, and homeowners to understand the value proposition, why they should use our products and not something that fails.
It is pretty simple. Replace things that fade and rot with things that are long-lasting, beautiful, and resilient. Channel expansion, this is just getting our product more available and on more shelves for more customers to buy. We are going to go into detail on this, whether it is pro, big box, whatever it might be, we want our products to be available everywhere, and we want more of the portfolio to be available everywhere. Third, advanced product innovation. This is core. This touches on the best of both principle that Aaron shared with you. This is bringing the AZEK innovation engine to the entire one James Hardie and accelerating our ability to bring products to market that solve customer problems. Fourth, extend brand leadership. The best brands drive the most traffic at our customers. The best brands are what are trusted and desired by homeowners.
We have those leadership positions, and where we are not number one, we are going to get to number one very quickly. Finally, enhance the homeowner and pro journey. This one is really important. The easier we are to do business with, the easier it is for you to repair your home, the easier it is to install our products on a home, the more we win. We are going to continue to improve the opportunities for homeowners and contractors to work with us and drive more value creation for the business. This is all underpinned by the advantages we generate around HOS, the technology investments that we have made, and the entire support system that works with the business, the commercial organization, the product team, the manufacturing teams to get fully aligned and drive our strategic priorities. Okay, so material conversion.
This is by far our biggest opportunity. I shared with you the numbers, the conversion opportunity, 78% opportunity. If you look at the macro here, if you look at the setup, it is all about education and awareness. So again, whether you have an aging home, whether you have some of those climate issues such as fire or hurricanes or moisture, all of those trends, we have consumers' attention. The homeowner cares about these things. What is beautiful about our portfolio is it fits perfectly against those macro trends, and that is going to help us accelerate material conversion. If you have had an issue with a fire, if you have had an issue with a flood at your home, the last thing you are going to do is put wood back on it. You are going to find a product that comes from James Hardie to solve your problem.
So we have the consumer's attention, and we are capitalizing on that to drive accelerated conversion. With that awareness, we take our 500 salespeople, we take our thousands of partners to drive that message. We cross-sell the full portfolio. If we get somebody's interest in siding that is fire resistant, how would you like to buy fire-resistant decking to go along with it? That allows us to unlock the cross-sell and this full portfolio sell. What our team does that is really unique back to local strategy is you have 500 salespeople on the ground. I call those the ground troops. So they are out there market- by- market, and not just market- by- market, block- by- block. If you flip one home in a neighborhood to Hardie, and the guy next to you has got vinyl, the guy is looking over his fence and saying: I want that.
So that is market development. We do it market by market. Take the ground troops, bring in our world-class marketing organization. That's our air cover. Whether it's a national campaign, a local campaign, they are getting down and dirty, working closely with the ground troops to say: Hey, if you're in California, you're probably going to get messaging about fire. If you're in the Southeast, you're probably going to get messaging about rotted, pressure-treated lumber. It's a tailored approach delivered at scale, and that's something that's really unique to us. We have the capability to have the right messaging, the right product offering that's going to connect the most with that consumer based on your region. Then what we do with the product organization and the innovation engine is we take feedback.
What are our gaps? What are our opportunities from a product perspective? We're talking to builders, we're talking to architects, we're talking to contractors. How do we improve our product offer? We take that back to our lab, back to the R&D, drive the innovation of the new product that we then launch to solve that customer problem. So it's this positive flywheel effect that you have in the business that allows us to take additional share. When you look at that local relevance, you take that big $23 billion opportunity to say: Okay, how do I boil that down to local market? Couple examples here. Fiber cement in the Northeast. Look at that conversion opportunity. It's massive. Then you go down to the South and you look at all that pressure-treated lumber, and you look at the opportunity to convert all that pressure-treated wood to TimberTech decking.
It's huge. What's really unique about our business, if you look at the Midwest, and Aaron touched on this with one of our partners, Lumbermen's, but if you look at the legacy TimberTech and AZEK relationships in the Midwest and Northeast, we are the brands. We're the winners. We have the locations. We have the customers. We have the contractors. What are we doing? We're pulling through fiber cement R&R in that market. Same is true for James Hardie in the South. They own the South. Now they're helping pull through decking and railing through those relationships that they've established in the South. When you talk best of both, and when you say, "What is a synergy?" That's a synergy brought to life, where you take relationships, presence, and a broader portfolio, and you drive cross-sell in two very important markets with large conversion opportunities.
Okay, this is the aforementioned really important slide. I want to spend some time on this. When you think about what is sustained competitive advantage, like what can this company do that no other competitors can do, this is it. Let's dig in a little bit here. Channel expansion. What this means is, again, how do I have my products closest to the customer to drive value creation and share gain? It starts with Ryan Kilcullen will come up here and tell you a little bit more about the manufacturing network. Aaron showed you the map. Look at that platform of manufacturing that we've created. We have billions of dollars of investment against this. For those of you who don't know, it's not cheap to build a fiber cement plant. We have them incredibly close to our customers across the U.S..
You take that product from those manufacturing facilities with high service and great quality, then you deliver it to the best-in-class distribution network that Aaron just showed you. We have the best of the best in terms of service. They have the most salespeople. They have the most demand generation. They are taking our product, then they are delivering it close to the customer. Who is the customer? It is close to 4,000 big box locations and 14,000+ dealer locations. Those distributors, and again, they are not just delivering product. What they are doing is those distributors are bringing that product to those retail locations, to those dealer locations. In the case of Boise, they have 750 salespeople. You just compound that by all those other distributors, and you have a massive force of downstream demand generation happening at the customer level.
They are doing things like quoting, they are merchandising, they are training. Make no mistake about it. These are not delivery drivers. These are value creators. Then they are educating those dealers, along with our sales team. John will talk more about this. You have this massive training and massive coaching opportunity where the inside sales teams and the outside sales teams of all these locations, or even the in-store sales associate at a place like The Home Depot or Lowe's, they are being trained, educated, and we are merchandising all those locations. When you walk into one of those locations as a homeowner, you are seeing this massive amount of TimberTech, AZEK, James Hardie, and you are being sold to by an educated salesperson that we have trained and the distributors have trained. We then attach that to our Pro network.
A 30,000 Pros are in our program. We have about 300,000 total in our system. These Pros, as some of you have heard before, they bleed green. They are completely connected to our business. We think that that is 10x the size of any competitor in terms of people in the program. When we offer things like additional labor warranties, when we offer them training and coaching and development, when we offer them leads. We will talk about it later. We delivered last year 40,000 homeowner leads to that contractor base. I do not know about you, but if you are a contractor and you are trying to grow a business, do you want to work with a company that gives you 40,000 leads a year? That has market-leading brands? That stands behind you when you have an issue with a product, if you have a warranty claim?
That is who I want to work with, and that is why our customers are so sticky with us. Then we attack millions and millions of homeowners. We touch them every day, local marketing, national marketing. We are driving the trends in the industry. They see the beauty, they see the aesthetics, they see the capabilities of the company, and they say: I want James Hardie on my house. No one else can replicate this. No one can. This took decades to create. When you talk about why does scale matter, this is when scale matters. The scale that we are able to operate this at and then deliver it locally, it is incredibly unique. We think this is sustained competitive advantage. We think this is virtually impossible for anybody else to recreate. Innovation.
At the end of the day, I think it is really important to remember that the reason we exist is because we are a product company. That is where it all started. We developed beautiful, high-aesthetic, high-quality products that solve customer problems. What we have been able to do is we have been able to evolve over time, both James Hardie and legacy AZEK sort of started from a premium position. That is where you always want to start. You want to start at the highest quality level, and then that gives you a lot of optionality. What we have done is we have expanded into good, better, best, and premium. Why does that matter? That allows us to meet the customer at whatever value point is important to them. That allows us to be more important to more consumers and to more contractors across North America.
We have a very focused product development strategy and a very focused R&D agenda. This is the best of both. We have consolidated our R&D groups, our product groups, and we are reigniting the innovation engine across James Hardie. There again, sustained competitive advantage, the ability to continue to produce products that consumers ask for, take those insights, bring them back into the business, create new products, and then go back out with our downstream sales and marketing execution and drive share gain. We are making significant investments here. Aaron talked a little bit about the recycling capabilities that we have. This allows us to not only do good things for the environment, but at a very favorable cost position. Brands. You are going to get a lot of this from Sam in a moment.
I love these charts. Up to the right, big plus signs, lots of big numbers. I think you get the point, right? A brand is really important to driving success in this business. Contractors, again, want a brand they trust. Homeowners want a brand they trust. Our ability to activate these brands is second to none. Sam is going to tell you a little bit about it. We insourced our entire marketing team. We do not rely on outside agencies. Everybody who does marketing for James Hardie does it 100% of their time. They are focused on our brand message. They are focused on our creative. They are focused on our execution. This is what is going to allow us to be number one across all categories. We are getting close. We have a lot of momentum.
We have been driving massive brand awareness and preference over the last several years. We are the clear number one in siding. We will be number one in decking. What really matters here, again, is this whole trust concept. We have to stand behind our products. We have to deliver value at each point of the value chain across our businesses, and we have been doing that. Again, I said it earlier, if you have a warranty claim, if you have a product question, if you have a color question, whatever it might be, we are going to be there for you. We are going to stand behind you. This is why the contractors are so sticky with us. They know that we stand behind our products. They know if there is an issue, we are going to take care of them.
They know that once they install the product and they leave the home, that the product is going to withstand and still look beautiful for years to come. The contractor's biggest nightmare is getting a call back. That is time taken away with no additional money. We stand behind it. That is what our brand means. That's what our brand stands for. I think you're going to be really excited to hear some of the things that Sam and her team are doing to execute against this. Homeowner and pro engagement. I talked a little bit about this earlier. Again, our massive advantage that we have in terms of the contractor base. We work with 300,000. We have 30,000 in the network. Each time we convert one of that 300,000 into the 30,000 and grow that becomes a really positive flywheel.
John's going to talk to you about some of the specific wins. My words on this would be simple, we're hitting a lot of singles. Every day, 10, 20, 30 contractors are, I'm putting in siding, I walk into the house, I'm sitting down at the kitchen table with a homeowner, and I show them that their deck's rotting. What am I going to do? I'm going to talk to them about TimberTech. I see that the trim's rotting around the windows. I'm going to talk to them about AZEK. This position that we have, the breadth of our contractor network, the depth of our contractor network, that gives us an opportunity that nobody else has. We are at the kitchen table with the homeowner. We're talking to them about the beauty of their home. We're talking about the resilience of their home. We have their attention.
We have their access, and now we have more products to sell them. It's a huge advantage. Talked about those 40,000 homeowner leads that we have. It's massive. One of the other things that we have to do here is reduce any friction that's involved in the business, from trying to get to an inspiration, an idea of what my home could look like, to a completed project. We're investing massively against that, whether it's visualization, digital tools. We are driving more engagement, and we are driving an easier process to get either your home resided or to create the outdoor living space of your dreams. Massive investments against that. It's working. We'll talk more about it. This is just, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this, but just a quick snapshot.
John's going to come in and talk more of this. This is a vision of how we execute regionally. Again, different approaches, different strategies by region with dedicated playbooks that allow us to win in what's locally relevant across. What's really exciting here is just pick your geography. A $1.3 billion opportunity around fire in the West. A $1 billion opportunity around fiber cement R&R in the Midwest and Northeast. Anywhere you go, we have multi-billion dollar opportunities to win and convert inferior products, whether it's wood, stucco, engineered wood, brick, you name it. We've got a plan to win, and we're executing that plan, and we're putting the points on the board. I'll end with where I started. Four key points.
We got a great business and a great market, and we know how to take share. We have a five-pillar, simple, executable strategy. What you've been seeing from our recent results is we're putting points on the board, we're delivering against that strategy. The product innovation and scale capabilities are unmatched. We have the ability to bring new products to market, drive downstream conversion, and generate wins. We are doing that locally, in a locally relevant way by region, and again, proven results, and we really, really think our opportunity to continue to drive share gain and market development across North America is unmatched. Thanks so much for your time. I am going to hand it over to John Madson. Thanks, everybody.
All right. Good morning. My name is John Madson. It is good to see a few familiar faces in here. I have been with this organization for 22 years, and it is a pleasure to have done many of the roles that I am going to talk to you about today. Some of the markets that I have worked in are where we are really attacking differentiated positions in North America. Before we get started, I want to walk away with some of our key messages. One, we have been through a tremendous lift over the course of the past 14 months.
We have done things to pull this team together. When you have the opportunity to lead an organization inside of this industry that we get to work in, where you have two companies that are coming together that are anchored in material conversion and in hunger to grow and take share from the competition, then you get to put them together, it is no easy feat. We are talking about how we built that organization, built on commercial excellence, focused on the customer, believing in the value that is our number one value, that it starts and ends with the customer. Then we have got to take the game plans into our regional playbooks. Each market is different. What we do every single day, what type of competition we are against, what the customer needs are, how we develop and train our leaders that develop and train our teams.
Each day, we have a playbook that we are running, and we are operationalizing. We have got to take those teams in a specialized way to deliver value to our customers, knowing that the needs at a particular dealer location could span exteriors, outdoor living, and their targets, and how do we activate that the most effectively with the teams that we have in the field, driving that position and pulling through and converting material every single time we go and work with each of these dealers, and how we drive that. Finally, leveraging the portfolio. Aaron and Jon talked about our opportunities that we are already well underway with our revenue synergies.
My job here is to ensure that you understand that there is proof behind this because we are out working with our customers, developing those team members, and converting inferior materials through the access that we have with those customers and driving that shelf space gain with each of our product lines. I am going to take you through what we have built over the course of the past 14 months, and it has been not easy. We started this back in July when we came together. We began the integration of the two teams, and we started with the customer. It was focused specifically on what the customer's needs are, what their voice was saying, and how we deliver the most value to them. When you look at what we have built, we have over a 500-person sales force. We have one point of contact at the channel level.
We took this new role, which is the channel manager, and they are the quarterback at the channel. We have six divisions across North America. We have 13 regions. We have 36 different districts. In those districts, you can see these market directors are leading teams that have a channel manager that work with our dealer partners every single day. They work on different needs that the customer may have, whether it be a pro one-stepper that has a space constraint, and we are looking at how we deliver that material more efficiently and effectively. The targets that we are driving to grow exist, expanded category or market share. That particular channel manager takes those needs, identifies joint targeted opportunities, and passes them to the specialized sales force that we have in those regions. We have specialized our teams around siding and trim and/or outdoor living game plan.
Those particular individuals are dedicated to downstream demand conversion. They are identifying targets with their customer partner, their dealer partner, and they are identifying them and taking the value propositions that we have regionalized to each of those opportunities so that we are creating value at the contractor level that answers the call of our homeowner journey and then pulls that back through our aligned partners in a way that it is differentiating our position, creating value at the dealer level, and enabling them to sell more and make more selling James Hardie's suite of products than any of their competitors. When you look at the outdoor living and DR&A specialists, they work in tandem with that channel manager. But we enable it on the site so that we can convert that product line with our technical specialists.
We have created technical sales across the business for many years, but this team continues to enhance in a way that is differentiated versus our competition. We have got technical sales leaders that oversee a region. They work with contractors in the companies as they identify new opportunities with their builder or R&R communities, or R&R contractors. We have technical sales managers that drive that relationship in those districts. They work closely with them on the technical aspects of putting the materials to the wall or to the joists.
They really drive our opportunity to leverage the labor in the marketplace with our technical sales specialists, a group of bilingual individuals that are activating our capabilities on the wall so that we can take more opportunities against vinyl or inferior materials, create efficiencies to drive that growth, and ultimately move a market from an inferior material like vinyl to James Hardie. This organization was handpicked. We have the best two companies in our industry coming together. There are capabilities across both sides where we balanced our six divisions. As Jon and Aaron both stated, we took the best of both. We have a perfectly balanced three regional vice presidents from the legacy AZEK organization, three regional vice presidents from the legacy James Hardie organization.
Each of their particular regions in the market are well-balanced between legacy leaders in each side of the business, taking the capabilities, the strengths, and the development opportunities and putting them into action with our sales team. Many of our frontline leaders are unchanged. Our frontline sales folks are unchanged. They had an expertise in outdoor living or an expertise in exteriors, and they are taking and harnessing that with the channel manager to drive that growth back to the dealer level, pulling that material conversion back through, gaining shelf space share, and delivering value through the channel manager to enable our ability to be the most effective partner with our entire value chain.
I am going to show you a slide here in a little bit that articulates that value chain and walks you through how that force multiplier that Aaron referenced is activated with this team and how we designed it. When you look at the regions, it is not a one-size-fits-all approach. The West is a wildly different market. I worked in Seattle for a number of years. I came from the Northeast and said: We should be selling color in the West. We have got this. When you have a high category share opportunity and you have a tremendous opportunity against wood conversion, you have differentiated positions that you have to attack it based on the needs of the market. One of those needs is the wildland-urban interface that we have talked about, and I will touch on that here in a bit.
There is so much opportunity to shift our market based on what the events that are happening in the market. When we look at the West, outdoor living is a tremendous opportunity for us. John mentioned where we have very high share of TimberTech, we have opportunities to grow with Hardie. Where we have very high share of Hardie, we have opportunities to grow TimberTech. What we have is trust and credibility at that dealer level and with our two-step distribution partners in a way that we are gaining access at those dealers. We're telling the value proposition of our full portfolio of products, the opportunity to be able to engage a contractor and develop their business in a market that isn't as buoyant as years past, but still is rich in opportunity for us to go out and convert material.
When we develop these contractors around our regionalized playbooks and develop the market around the go-to-market strategy or where we aspire to change that market, we have a unique skill set and developed salespeople that are out there to attack it. When I look at this as a very clean strategy around material conversion, shelf space gains through our dealer partners, and activating it with the homeowner, we are creating that level of value to change the marketplace. You get down into the Southeast, we're driving material conversion with each of our business partners and how we take a challenge against stucco and convert that to fiber cement with a very robust game plan around developers, municipalities, engineers on block versus frame construction.
How in a market where people are trying to build more affordably, more efficiently, we can change the construction style from a block construction in Orlando to a full frame construction, and we engage every member of that value chain so that we have more addressability on the wall. Each of these markets, each of these playbooks are uniquely differentiated and enabled by our team that is backed by our segments and operations team that are dedicated to each of the functions that we drive every single day. We have a team for outdoor living. We have a team for exteriors. We have a team in L&D that develop the sellers to deliver the value by the region in the differentiated way that we execute it in the North American market.
I mentioned fire. You take a market like Denver. This is a market where the wildfire or wildland-urban interface is continuing to expand its presence with the consumer. Over 50% of that market is in the WUI zone. There is opportunity where we have a differentiated position versus our competition where our products are either Class A flame spread in our Vintage line of decking PVC or non-combustible with fiber cement, which is a requirement. As that gains traction in each of these markets, we have a very valuable value proposition that we can share with the entire community of builders, contractors, but more importantly, the homeowners, and how we take that air cover that Jon was mentioning and drive it into our marketing message back to the contractor and really capture our capabilities in a market like Denver or the Colorado market and the entire West.
You get into flood. I mentioned the Florida market and what we're doing differently. Our products don't rot. Our products don't have challenges with the high climate contents that we would see in floods, hurricanes, wind risks. But we have this momentum behind us, and our composites and PVC decking are going to sustain the performance in those marketplaces, and we have a tremendous opportunity to continue to tell that message around rebuild, preventative approaches, and true value to the regions that we have. This is the slide that I mentioned, and this has been a ton of fun over the course of the past year because we saw this opportunity when we came together. You had two great companies that have great distribution networks, but very few of them were harmonized between the two companies.
As we came together, we needed the easiest path to market with the best-in-class two-step distribution. We lived by our principles of two best-in-class in market. This is a consolidating space that we wanted to give a long runway for growth for our partners to be able to develop our markets, work with us closely to drive that force multiplier of our sales force of 500, their sales forces of dedicated exclusive partners. You have a partner like Boise Cascade that both Aaron and Jon discussed. These guys are dedicated to what the call of our history is with James Hardie, and we've been a partner with Boise Cascade for the past 25 years.
When you look at what their presence is now with James Hardie and the full TimberTech, James Hardie, AZEK suite of goods, they are a force to reckon with, and they're complemented by our regional distributors in Capitol, Dixie, Lumbermen's, Parksite, and Woodgrain. Then you pass that over to our pro distribution partners in ABC, QXO, BFS. These are entrenched in what we've done over the course of the past history with James Hardie and in the partnerships that we have with our independent lumber yards like Riverhead or Interstate and the slurry of those independent lumber yards across the country. TimberTech was well-positioned, and AZEK was well-positioned with both of them. James Hardie's been well-positioned with the one-step channel.
As you've heard, ABC and Lansing have developed into new relationships with James Hardie, and I'm going to part on ABC here in a bit, with what we've been able to drive as a partnership and answer the calls of their challenges to really drive a value proposition back through our channel. On the right-hand side, this is where the specialists are activated. The channel manager works with the two-step distributors, the one-step distributor and retailers, and with the specialization, we are targeting single-family builders, contractors, and installers every single day. We're working with them to create the value proposition so that they're selling in the home a more effective approach with that exterior envelope. With the builder community, as the market changes, we have the positions with our good, better, best model to be able to drive our capabilities with each member inside of the builder community.
We're fortunate to have earned a position with 23 of the top 25 national home builders. What that drives is a scaled position back to our dealer partners so that they have the turns on our product line. That turn allows them to work with the contractors in the R&R space so that they have a robust position around our product groups and are enabled to be able to sell that in every different segment that they operate in. I want to take you through the example of our two-step distribution synergy with Boise Cascade.
Aaron mentioned that we have been in this for over a year, and when we look at the partnership that we have had with Boise Cascade for the past 25 years, the fragmentation of two-step distribution prior to our two companies coming together, and the opportunity to grow that between a full line James Hardie product group, we started in Baltimore and Pittsburgh. We had that fragmented distribution around each of the categories and were able to harmonize through a test with Baltimore and Pittsburgh. We have the solution that was anchored in our two best-in-class management philosophy, and a go-to-market strategy where exclusivity prevails over our previous history. This enables our outside sales reps to be able to drive a position where we win, they win.
When they win, we win. It is this accountability between our partnership that enables our groups to go out and sell every single day. Our solution for our two-step distribution strategy was a very clear two-partner approach in every market. It gives them the reach, the connection, and the capability to be able to sell more effectively. The outcome was one national partner. We have over a 1,250-person combined sales force. That means when we are working with them in the field, they are developing an opportunity, and we are taking that back to the channel partners they sell to every single day. Retail, pro lumberyards, volume lumberyards, national distributors, and the pro distribution like ABC Supply.
I am super excited about this, but when you look at our partnership, it is best heard from the customer themselves. I would like to introduce Joanna Barney, the Head of Distribution for Boise Cascade, and hear it in her own words.
James Hardie and Boise Cascade have a partnership that can be measured in decades. We are in constant communication about market performance, design trends, changes in the industry that we believe will drive future performance. As a national distributor that services every market segment from independent and national dealers to retail and home center channel, to the one-steppers, the big players in the multifamily segment. In order for our business to grow, we have to be partnered with the best-in-class suppliers, those who manufacture and consistently innovate and bring the top products to market. James Hardie has been one of those companies for many, many years.
And with their purchase of the AZEK and TimberTech brand, we saw that as a strategic move with a bold vision for where they can take the whole exterior product category in the future, and the value their portfolio of products can create up and down the channel, which is a future that we at Boise Cascade believe in as well. And one that we are excited to support. Frankly, it's a vision that we believe we will make inevitable with the combined strength of our organizations, the sales forces that will come together with one common goal, the trust that we have each built through the channel with our customers, and with the quality of the James Hardie, TimberTech, and AZEK products.
We are excited to be on the forefront of where this bold vision is going and the success we believe this partnership will generate long into the future.
That bold vision is shared between all of their outside sellers and ours to drive that value back to the customers. One of those customers is truly a differentiator above the rest. When we partnered with ABC about 10 years ago, it was a growth algorithm for converting vinyl. They created an alignment around that value, and it expanded beyond just the vinyl markets. When our two companies came together, we were faced with an opportunity that we took head-on. They had a fragmented position around PVC. It was an owner decision at each individual branch level. Our partnership with James Hardie enabled us, or our partnership from the past as James Hardie, enabled us to have that trust and credibility with their leadership to create a solution for ABC Supply that's going to expand into beyond a billion-dollar partnership.
Over the course of the past year, we've integrated into their business with a one Hardie exterior portfolio to include our AZEK PVC line. This enables us to get into locations that we wouldn't have formerly been in in the North, where PVC was fragmented, and they were using a competitive product. Over the course of the past year, they've consolidated that to one product line, and that gives us that opportunity to reach into vinyl locations that would have PVC on the ground, create credibility with the branch leader, get the trust of the outside sellers, and earn the opportunities to meet with builders that are buying vinyl and PVC by James Hardie AZEK, and get that as a conversion opportunity for future fiber cement growth.
Our partnership is just getting started with ABC Supply, and we couldn't be more proud of what we've done so far. We've got more opportunity to continue to drive that as we expand our entire portfolio with their business. You look at the challenges of expanding that portfolio, and you see that we have to make this very easy for our contractors to be able to purchase our full line of products. ColorPlus, as a contractor, was a multiple product line that was purchased by distribution through the dealer, potentially through a Dream Collection. We need to simplify that for an offering that enabled vinyl contractors to sell James Hardie in the home more efficiently and more effectively. We launched our Statement Essentials collection.
That's 55 SKUs that enables a dealer to have the on-hand materials of at least 80% of what people buy every single day, that doesn't take a tremendous footprint but allows them to grow effectively and offer to their customers what they need. You expand that through our partnership with Boise into our master distribution profile, where we have five locations across the Northeast and Midwest that have a robust position of over 600 SKUs on the ground. This is same day or next day type of delivery to these dealer partners, so that as the customer gets more engaged with the product line at the contractor level, sells a differentiated position to a consumer that wants more than our Statement Essentials, they have that availability through our two-step partnership and our full extended statement position.
Beyond that, we have our made-to-order collection, which is future products like TimberHue, our Dream Collection, all enabled through our manufacturing capabilities, sold through our two-step distribution partners and dealers, and giving each of our consumers a differentiated position. As you make it easier to purchase, you also need to make it easier to install. We enabled a new tactic that you'll be able to see out in the pro lab offering in the other room there, which enables contractors to be more efficient. We've talked on the wall cost for a long time, but really to compress it, we need to make contractors more efficient. We've used our teams in technical sales.
We've partnered closely with our dealers, where we're identifying labor. We're using the contractor and the dealer to create a host site for us to train in the masses how you can more efficiently put Hardie on the wall and get the gap to vinyl closed. We do that through our partners at ABC, our partners at the pro channel, and then take that over into our Hardie Trim-Over Method in the field with our tech sales specialists that drive that on-the-wall cost through efficiency and taking days off of the wall with our score and snap technology. Only fiber cement can be scored, snapped, and trimmed over in the way that you will see in the room down the hall that enables us to take days off the wall.
When you are taking days off the wall and compressing it against vinyl, you now have that opportunity to attack that billion-dollar plus R&R market in the Northeast and Midwest, and turn it into an opportunity with single-family new construction, where you are gaining that throughput at the dealer level that allows our dealers to put all their energy and focus on James Hardie fiber cement and AZEK exteriors and TimberTech. I want to use this example with D.R. Horton that takes trim over, the pro lab, Statement Essentials, and into real life with America's largest home builder, D.R. Horton. In Omaha, Nebraska, our price band was in the north of $500,000 range. We had about 10% of their starts. Under that were their vinyl homes.
They had 90% of the market was vinyl, 10% was Hardie, but they were struggling to sell their homes as efficiently as their Hardie houses. We used our opportunity to introduce trim over, which enabled the contractor on the vinyl side to score and snap, not taking technical tools to the site, calling down numbers. They were able to use a tactic that it allowed them to be more efficient on the wall. As a result, that simpler install, coupled with the increased speed, enabled the cost to be more effective against vinyl. This converted that entire market from vinyl to Hardie, and then they acquired a builder named Celebrity Homes that added another 700 homes to their profile.
That was a competitive hard siding manufacturer that supplied that particular product to Celebrity, and as Celebrity became part of D.R. Horton, that material conversion transitioned into James Hardie, and now Omaha, Nebraska, with D.R. Horton, is a full wrap exterior solution by our James Hardie's line of products. This then creates a wake. It creates a price band differentiation. You now have vinyl being substituted at a price band that would not have historically been done, and as the number one home builder, it gives us that opportunity to create that wake behind it. Finally, a contractor synergy where we have tremendous upside for our future. We have over 30,000 contractors in our network. Those contractors are dedicated to our lines of products.
This particular example is RPS Remodeling, a gentleman by the name of Rick James out of Northern California. He is a long-term James Hardie ALLIANCE contractor, but his ability to add decking was sporadic. Once we announced our acquisition and partnership with AZEK TimberTech, he quickly added that to his portfolio of offering, answering the need of the wildfire or wildland urban interface, but demands also of the consumer as he grows his business. What you will want to hear from Rick is that he saw this as an opportunity to really drive growth through his business.
When I found out that James Hardie was coming together with TimberTech, I got so excited. It just gives me more confidence in offering this complete package. Particularly in California, because of the fire resistance ratings, we can offer homeowners something that is going to be code compliant as well. Now they are going to have a product that is going to match ease of maintenance with industry-leading warranties. We have completely satisfied customers, which leads to more referrals, and it has really helped our business to grow.
Rick is one of many examples, and we are going to do this continuously. We are just getting started when it comes to our contractor conversion, and we have got countless examples that this occurs every single day. I look forward to taking this team to the next level and working closely with our product teams, our manufacturing teams, and continuing to deliver this integrated sales organization. We have deployed these regional playbooks. We are in a position to go out and win, and we have got an activated, specialized sales force that is the expert in outdoor living and siding and trim to create the demand with our partners, pull through solutions with each of our channels members, and deliver value every single day to the contractors, consumers, and builders that we work with.
Thank you for your time this morning. I look forward to talking to you more out in the hall.
Thank you. Okay. Hello, everybody. Now we are going to talk about marketing. Before we get into it, I want to share a little bit about my background. I have spent most of my career building brands and helping consumers make long, complicated purchase decisions in and around the home. In the last five years at AZEK, and then James Hardie, I have seen firsthand the power of what brands do to give customers confidence around that, and how we can help use marketing to drive material conversion and growth. The story is pretty straightforward. With a brand advantage like that, we have the opportunity to expand the way that we think about these journeys and the purchase decisions around home products. It is not just a marketing story, it is a growth story.
We are helping homeowners choose Hardie, helping contractors install and specify Hardie, and increase our share overall. The key messages I want to make sure you walk away with today, or I am going to talk about, first of all, is the brand. The brand creates a significant competitive advantage, as I said. Second, the unified architecture we have built around the brands makes our portfolio easier to understand and more powerful in the marketplace. Third, the localized marketing and digital experiences help accelerate the material conversion and the way that we are able to grow through those two things. Maintaining our leadership position with the pro is still really critical. Pros are critical to specification, loyalty, repeat business. They are really integral to everything.
As I move through the presentation, and particularly, I have a video at the end that will bring all of this together, I want you to pay attention to how all these things relate with one another. All these pieces work together. The brand creates the demand, the digital experiences, and the localized marketing help homeowners understand what it means to them and how to make decisions. The pros convert all that into projects. Before I get into that, I want to spend a minute talking about the team. You heard John talk about the momentum that TimberTech has built. This slide represents the team that was responsible for that. TimberTech grew in awareness 20 points in five years where our nearest competitor essentially remained flat. That momentum did not happen by accident.
We helped create one of the strongest brands in the industry and drove awareness, that growth that outpaced our competitors, by in-housing a lot of our capabilities, by building that world-class capabilities in-house across creative, media, digital experience, analytics, growth marketing. As you heard Jon talk about, we are not using agencies for that. We own that internally. The people that are driving, owning the brand, are shareholders in the company. They understand our customers. They are really committed to what we do. We brought all those capabilities into James Hardie now. It is not just about AZEK team joining the Hardie team. What really excites me is that we are bringing the best, the best of both teams, to increase the talent and the capabilities, the expertise that we can offer across the whole James Hardie portfolio.
We are really all organized around one common growth strategy. What that does is it makes us more nimble. We are more able to execute faster. We have greater accountability. We do not have the delays of telephone tag between different parties on the outside trying to understand what we are trying to do and move quickly. You will see some of our strategies that rely on localized, specialized messaging. We are able to deliver that quickly because we have that internal team. This slide represents the strategic importance of our whole portfolio. We believe we have defined where the category is going. As you have heard, homeowners increasingly want products that combine durability, resilience, low maintenance, long-term value. Those are exactly the attributes that all of our brands stand for.
The home of resilient beauty is not a marketing slogan. It is not just a tagline. It is actually a strategic framework that brings together what is unique about our products all in one place. It brings together what homeowners care about emotionally. They want a home that is beautiful and that is built to last. Combining that with what they care about functionally, right? They want low maintenance. They want performance, durability, confidence that their investment is going to last. Importantly, every brand in our portfolio supports that promise. As climate resilience becomes more important, as building codes change, as we are creating a stronger consumer understanding of our portfolio, that all gives us a meaningful competitive advantage.
By pulling this all into one place, as I said, it makes it easier for customers to understand and makes us just more powerful in the marketplace in a way that really, there is no other competitor that has this range and this breadth of product that delivers against those promises. Let us talk about the homeowner. We see a really strong alignment, we have all referred to it, I am just going to hit it more directly, between what homeowners care about and the strengths of our portfolio. Climate resistance, you have heard. I live in California. There hasn't been a fire immediately near me, but believe me, it's on my mind all the time. One in three homes are in a WUI zone. This is just the way we live now. It's what everyone is thinking about.
Homeowners also care about long-term value. They want to make good investments. They care about the design of their home and the curb appeal. They want it to be beautiful. It's not enough just to be high performance. It has to also be really beautiful. They also really care now about outdoor living. I was speaking to someone earlier in the reception area out there around how people want to live outdoors. COVID changed the way we think about how we live in our houses. We're not going back. We want to cook outside. We want to live outside. We want our kids to play outside. We want to work outside. We want to have an outdoor living room. This whole idea of living outdoors is really powerful, and that's exactly where homeowners are right now, what they're thinking about.
What's important that these aren't creating sort of headwinds for us. All these things are creating tailwinds. This is all helping us. Our products are purpose-built for all the things that homeowners increasingly want. This gives us the opportunity to convert aging wood and vinyl and participate in more of these exterior decisions, as you've heard. Once we create the homeowner preference, the next question is, how do we convert it? You heard Jon and John outline all of the opportunities, the billions of dollars of opportunity regionally across the U.S.. Well, that requires different marketing tactics to activate all of those. The national brand gives you strength and consideration, but it's the localization that really is what really converts it. Different markets have different housing stock, different climate, as you know, different competitive dynamics, all the things.
We are able, by tailoring our media and messaging to activate in those local markets, we create a stronger homeowner buy-in to what our promise is because it's more relevant to them. We can't do the peanut butter spread, as Jon says. We have to be specific to the right message, to the right customer, at the right time. With our internal team, we're able to be nimble. We're able to activate. We're able to learn quickly because our analytics are quick. We know what's working. We know how to adjust it as needed, and we know how to move from a message in the Northeast that's maybe about vinyl or about an upscale product that you want for your home to what you need in the West when you care about more resilient products.
Yeah, I think that's enough on that. Owning the pro. Now let's talk about the pro. Homeowners initiate the product, or the project, but contractors are the ones who are really critical to the specification and to the installation. I like to think of it as we're creating homeowner pull, so they know our products, and they're asking for us by name, and we're allowing all of our contractors and customers, dealer customers to be ready to push, to be there to deliver it. Right? Maintaining our position with the pro is very strategically important. How do we do that? Our goal is really simple. We help contractors grow their business. We help them be more profitable and more successful with all James Hardie products, and that creates their loyalty and stickiness to us that you heard John and John reference. We do that.
How do we do that? We do that by delivering better leads, creating stronger match between a homeowner and a contractor, by building capability through training and certification, and reinforcing that loyalty through our loyalty programs like the Board and ALLIANCE. We have also created efficiencies through integration, right? These programs used to all be separate, now we are bringing them all together. Now we are even more powerful all together. We are aligning training, we are expanding education to include the whole portfolio. We are bringing together loyalty capabilities, and digital engagement is getting simpler and easier to access. Over time, we are creating a more connected contractor experience, and the same philosophy applies to warranty, to service, to support. Contractors want it all in one place. They want one relationship. They want one ecosystem. They want one trusted partner across the whole exterior.
When we deliver that experience, we increase their loyalty, we strengthen our share of wallet, we create a greater material conversion opportunity. All of this adds up. These are not just contractor support marketing programs. It is actually a growth strategy to be this close to the contractor and maintain our number one position with them. This slide is the capstone of my section. This is what really brings it all together. I talked about the homeowner, and I talked about the contractor. In repair and remodeling, homeowners and contractors do not operate separately. Their journeys intersect repeatedly throughout the whole decision process, and success requires creating an experience that works for both.
For homeowners, their journey is probably familiar to you, right? It starts with inspiration, then they do a little research, and they pick their materials, they find a contractor, and they go through the project, they agree on that, and they move forward, and eventually they recommend that to their friends. For contractors, it is a little different, but similar. It starts with the lead generation, then specification, and purchase, and installation. They go through warranty and advocacy at the end. Their journeys intersect consistently throughout that. Digital is what connects those journeys. Things like inspiration and education through digital means. Visualization tools are really important. Contractor matching, guidance, and education. It is one of the most highly researched categories, anything around the home.
By delivering all of that, giving the customer that information to take that next best action is really, really important. Because if you think about it, when a homeowner is more informed, and they understand the value, the pro has a better lead, better chance of closing. When the pro is more equipped, homeowners have more confidence. They feel more good about the decisions. They have an easier time making these decisions. A lot of that friction that John referenced gets removed if you have a really strong digital journey. As I like to think about it, they are consistent and mutually reinforcing. We spend a lot of time here because removing friction here is really an unlock. It is really a key to how we grow and how we unlock more opportunities for all of our products across all of our customer sets across the full portfolio.
Now I am going to bring this together in this video, and as you watch this, what I want you to pay attention to is how the themes that we have discussed come together here. So you are going to see the importance of trust for the homeowner. You will see what resilience, and durability, and low maintenance, and long-term value, what that looks like from a homeowner's perspective. And you will see the role the contractor plays in guiding the homeowner through this process, and how the digital tools and education help create this confidence along the way. This is exactly what we mean by material conversion. It is really about helping homeowners make better decisions and helping contractors deliver successful projects.
Our home is finally going to look the way that it is supposed to look.
It is going to look that way for a really long time. James Hardie products are so solid. They just really last. It was like coming home to a brand-new home.
I recommended Hardie Siding as soon as I came to this house. It is a low maintenance, pest resistant, fire resistant product. The homeowners wanted that cottage feel, so we added AZEK molding on the top of the windows to give that look that they wanted.
Once we heard about TimberTech decking, that it was low maintenance, cool to touch, looks like real wood.
We jumped on it.
Having TimberTech decking, Hardie Siding, and AZEK products under one roof made everything so much easier. The fact that we can mix it all together, I am able to offer the complete package.
The vision that I had in my head was perfectly executed.
You always have to look at your house as an investment. A 10 years from now, 20 years from now, the value of our home is going to be retained because of the durability of those products.
James Hardie, the home of resilient beauty.
Okay, so I'll close where I started. The key takeaways are pretty simple. We have the best brands, and those brands represent a significant competitive advantage. We're accelerating the demand through the unified brand architecture that makes everything easier to understand and more powerful. We're driving the material conversion through localized marketing and digital, and we got to maintain our number one position with the Pro. What really gives me confidence is our ability to execute in this with the combined team and all of the talents and deep expertise we have around that team, and how all those things work together. Now I'm going to bring up Bill. Thank you for your time.
All right. We're running a little behind schedule, so we're going to make an adjustment to the schedule. We'll start a break right now, be back by 10:35 A.M.. The team's going to be out there to answer questions as well. Yeah, be back by 10:35 A.M.. Of course, we've got a longer Q&A at the end of the day. Thanks.
[Break]
All right. Good morning. Welcome back from break, everybody. I'm Ryan Kilcullen, COO of James Hardie. Happy to be here this morning to walk you through our operations update. A little bit about myself before we get into it. I have been with the company for 19 years. I started as a pretty junior engineer. My first job was a night shift supervisor on one of our fiber cement production lines. I am pretty excited to talk to you about making fiber cement today. The past couple of years, I led some of the larger transformational efforts in our operations, our lean manufacturing implementation, a lot of the foundational work in our supply chain. My last role, I was EVP of Global Operations and led the implementation of the Hardie Operating System into our international business units.
Then, a year ago, I stepped into the COO role, with the acquisition of AZEK. Honestly, the last 12 months have been the highlight of my career so far, and I am really excited to show you the capabilities it has brought us, what our teams have accomplished, and I think more exciting, what is in front of us. Before I jump into that, I thought coming back from break, it would be useful to put this section in context from what you just saw from my colleagues. You guys just saw Sam really bring our brand to life. She does an amazing job at that. One of the things you hear so loudly in our brand is the confidence in our product performance.
The source of that confidence is really directly in the expertise and the IP that we own in our manufacturing and R&D organizations, and you will see that brought to life here. Secondly, you heard Madson talk about winning with our customers. We enable that in operations with a really unique advantage in our local supply chain, as well as a lot of investment in the technology that helps us directly integrate with our customers. We will see that. You also heard Skelly talk about the really exciting addressable market that sits in front of us. Capturing that share takes capacity. What you will see is we have already invested ahead of that share capture with capacity, and we have got plans in place to get more out of what is already on the ground.
That will be a good segue. I will lead into Ryan Lada will talk about how we translate the Hardie Operating System, and those incremental capacity gains into margin improvement and free cash flow. So that is how this fits into the day. I will make those connections as we go through here with these four key messages. One, we have got two really significant structural advantages in our operations, our local supply chain, and the technology that sits inside our factories. Next, we have got the Hardie Operating System. You guys have heard a fair amount about that already so far, which is great. What I will try to do is bring that to life. That is our productivity engine, and when I say productivity engine, what you should all hear is margin expansion and inflation offset. So we will bring that to life.
Then finally, we have got capacity on the ground to support the growth that Jon and John talked about, and we are going to deliver more out of what is already there through our advanced manufacturing program. Before we get into the operations, I want to start with our most important foundational value in the company. That is zero harm. Zero harm is our safety culture. It is how we describe our aspiration to have a zero-incident work environment. You can see one way to talk about how good your safety is to measure yourself to peers. You can see we benchmark very favorable with significantly fewer incident frequency than peer companies in the space. That is important. What really matters here for us, is that this is about a commitment to our people. You saw John and John talk about the incredible people on our commercial teams.
You will see more about them in operations. They deserve to work for a company that aspires for zero incidents. Then finally, we just think that if you want to consider yourself a truly great industrial business, you got to prioritize safety excellence, and we firmly believe we belong in that category, and this is really important to us. So with that, we will start clicking into the operations here. Here is a setup slide with our operational footprint for North America. You can see 26 factories that either make product or recycle material into stuff we make out of product. It is across the full portfolio, decking, railing, siding, trim, across the U.S.. We will double-click into each of those networks here. I want to talk really specifically about the 4,500 operations professionals that work across our business. This team is incredible. They are passionate.
The brand that Sam talked about, the brand promise, they take that personally. They are also continuous improvement zealots. So there is a lot they have to be proud of what they have accomplished over the years, and you will see some of that here. But at the same time, they wake up every day trying to win the day, trying to make the place better. A lot of what we try to do with the Hardie Operating System is standardize the way that those teams work so we can get them working together and connected. When we do that well, they can really move the needle quickly. We will show you a couple examples of really great results from that team. Then finally, we are trying to give you a sense of scale of what this network actually looks like when you are inside it.
One of the ways to do that is to talk about what it would cost to replace it. So if you rebuilt this network new at today's cost, it would take about $8 billion to rebuild this factory network. That gives you a sense of scale. From a competitive lens also, it gives you the daunting figure that would be in front of you if you tried to replicate what we have. I think what makes this figure even more daunting is that would just get you the factories, not the significant mountain of IP and capabilities that sit inside those walls. That is a good transition to how we will start to talk through some of the differentiated capabilities that exist in Hardie operations. I will highlight three of them here.
Our localized supply chain, our proprietary manufacturing technology across both fiber cement and our decking platform, and our continuous improvement engine. I think each of these independently are pretty significant. What really differentiates us in building products is our ability to put all three together and do it day in and day out, and that will come through over the next couple slides. We will start. So we describe, and this example is our fiber cement network. We describe our supply chain as being a local supply chain advantage. Okay, so what does that mean? Most building materials companies, when they decide where to build a factory, they are stuck with a choice. Do I build it near raw materials, or do I build it near the market?
No matter what they choose, what they end up with is typically a pretty long and complicated supply chain. They compensate for that by pushing costs to the customer, so long lead times, excessive working capitals, stringent mixing rules on how you can order from them. Within our fiber cement network, we do not have to make that choice. Okay? So the vast majority of the weight of the product that goes into fiber cement is available in free supply at high quality across the whole U.S.. Okay, so we are free to choose to build our factory wherever we want to. What this slide shows is where we choose to build factories is right in the backyard of our customers and right down the street from our suppliers. The result of that is there is a couple structural advantages that that creates.
One is proximity, which ultimately for a customer means we are simple and fast. Okay, you heard Skelly talk about industry-leading lead times and service, where 90% of the factories are a day away from the customer, 75% of the raw materials are right down the street within 150 mi. We are very responsive to customer demand. Secondly, we are flexible without giving up efficiency. Okay, so our products can be made at all factories, across the U.S.. We do not put stringent mixing rules on customers. Customers can transact with us in a way that works for their business and how they are driving their needs. Those are two pretty important structural advantages, and we double down on those with a really strong integration approach to our customers' supply chain. So we have invested in technology.
Hardie Link is an example. That is a portal that all of our customers interact with us. We have got internal supply chain technology that we use to optimize this network. Then we have organizational integration. So you saw all the logos from Madson's presentation of our customers. A number of those large customers, we would have dedicated supply chain teams that wake up every day and do nothing but think about how we enable those customers to achieve their objectives in our network. Okay. That creates that combination of real structural advantage, and then an integrated approach to supply chain management creates a really durable advantage, in our network. If we go from the network and now we will drill in inside the four walls of the factory and talk about the proprietary manufacturing advantage that we have in fiber cement.
The sort of the punchline here is that we own all of the significant technology associated with making fiber cement in a high throughput, high product capability environment. We own all of it. You cannot find fiber cement factories that look like ours anywhere else in the world, certainly nowhere else in the U.S.. The source of that differentiation, a lot of it comes from just decades of really deep organizational expertise. You can see up there, we have over 150 central scientists, R&D professionals, engineers, outside of day-to-day manufacturing that do nothing but wake up every day and think about, how do I move the fiber cement manufacturing and technology platform forward? That is really deep focus and expertise for a single product line, single manufacturing platform.
What do you get from that is probably the question. So one example is a significant scale-up in the throughput of a fiber cement sheet machine. So from the time the company came to the U.S. to now, there has been a massive scale-up in the technology. One of the easiest ways to bring that to life for you is talk about the most recent factory we built in Prattville, Alabama. That plant will produce when it is fully ramped, will produce over $1 billion a day worth of revenue. I probably told you a year, day would be really big. We are working on that. A $1 billion a year of revenue under one roof. That is a really high scale factory, a really unique level in building products.
Another way to think about the capability and the advantages that expertise has produced is you saw a lot from Jon and John, the regional approach, and how different regions in the U.S. have different climate requirements, different product needs. We are able to engineer our product in our factories from a formulation and process engineering standpoint, customized to those regions with very few changeovers and inefficiencies. On the same machines, we can make product specifically engineered for different markets, and you would not really notice it if you were in the factories watching it run and change between those products. It is hard to describe. You have just got to trust me. That is really hard to do with fiber cement.
It has taken decades to build that, and certainly nobody else in the U.S. does that. So that is decades of expertise that we have turned into really durable advantages in technology inside of our factories. Let us shift gears into decking. Our decking, and talk about the technology that sits in our decking plants. Our decking plants are modular and flexible, the production lines that make them. We are able to get product. It is a high changeover efficiency process. And you saw the innovation from Skelly's presentation. We are able to go from innovation to the market very quickly with our ability to move things in these lines. The top end of that, a lot of it comes down to our ability to mimic the look of high-end real wood.
And that capability exists in pretty unique places in the TimberTech decking factories. It has taken years to build. And then finally, you have heard a lot about PVC decking today. You are all experts on WUI now, I think, and fire resistance. And certainly, we are years ahead of competitors when it comes to the ability to deliver PVC product that performs like that across the U.S. Next, we will shift into recycling, which is a really key component of our decking operations and exteriors. One thing to think about, you guys are very aware of the sustainability element of recycling. On this slide, I would ask you to think about it from a cost lens. The biggest cost inputs to composite decking are the raw resins like PVC that go into it.
Our ability to use to replace that raw resin with recycled content is really important for our continued margin expansion. It also provides a buffer. Those commodities are pretty volatile. It provides an inflation buffer. The challenge with using recycled as a lean manufacturing is you get a lot of variation from recycling. Being the largest vertically integrated PVC recycler in the country means we have a lot of control over that variation, and we are able to do lots of things in how we source it, process it, and then run it through the factory. That allows us to make really high-quality product with recycled material and gives us a lot of confidence that we have got a really long runway ahead of us to continue to increase the percentage of recycled content in those materials.
We have a great team on the recycle side. Many of you probably met Dave. He is out there talking to. He is not shy. If you want to learn more about recycling, go talk to Dave, he will educate you. We have got a team of experts on that. Hardie Operating System. This is a really important slide for us. You have heard it a number of times throughout the day, so I will park here for a couple of minutes on it. You heard about, I have just described some of the really structural advantages we have in our network and technology. Those are great. I think the most exciting thing about this business is the runway in front of us. Across all manufacturing platforms in our supply chain, there is significant headroom to improve our productivity.
Again, when I say improve productivity, you should all think margin improvement, cash flow. Hardie Operating System or HOS is our productivity engine. It is how we do that. There are four main value creation levers. They are up there. Lean manufacturing, procurement excellence, it is how we buy efficiently, formulation value improvement, and supply chain efficiencies. I will bring a couple of them to life, starting with lean manufacturing or what I will probably call HMOS, which is what we call it internally. Before I get into that example there, a little about how we think about it. Lean manufacturing for us is not just a bunch of buzzwords. It is how we operate. To bring that to life for you a little bit, I want to talk about our daily management system. It is 11:00 A.M. in New York.
That means by now we have executed our tiered daily management system at all 26 factories across the U.S.. It started at 5:00 A.M.. Our leaders went out on the floor. They understood what happened on night shift, and then we have executed three standardized tiered meetings where every level of our factory has already talked about what their plan is to win the day. At Hardie, winning the day means achieving their productivity targets. As those teams achieve their productivity targets across the 26 plants, that rolls up to our network productivity target, that delivers margin expansion. This is not a bunch of buzzwords. This is how this team operates. They are relentless. They do it every day, and it is what drives really significant operating leverage and improvement across the business.
An example of that to bring to life, we show a chart that describes the progress we have made in our fiber cement plants on OEE, or just kind of your highest level of productivity measure in the factories. Pre-lean, we show you where we were. For the six years following lean implementation, we improved our OEE in fiber cement by 14 percentage points. That is really big improvement in a network of this scale. Again, back to this idea of this is a proven productivity engine with lots of runway. We have got a similar level of improvement opportunity still in front of us in fiber cement. We think that is really exciting. Another part of HOS to bring to life is our product reformulation value improvement.
Here we have got teams of between the product management group, R&D, process engineers that build long-term roadmaps and how we reformulate our product to give the same performance at lower cost. The magic of HOS for us is we are able to take those roadmaps with that deep expertise and then break it into small pieces that we run through our factory, and the team is able to achieve lots of small improvements every day that add up to big change over time. We are pretty guarded with our formulation secrets, but what I would tell you is we have got a really big runway ahead of us, particularly on the decking side, on how we can continue to take cost out of our product to offset inflation and drive margin expansion. That is a bit of our Hardie Operating System brought to life.
Another way to show you the highlight of this, and this is why I say that the 12 months has been one of the highlights of my career. This has been awesome to see the two teams work together, the legacy Hardie, legacy AZEK, to implement Hardie Operating System into the legacy business. You will meet our two manufacturing leaders, John Ashworth and Scott Van Winter. Their teams are working together and doing an incredible job implementing lean manufacturing, our procurement and supply chain best practices, and reformulation efforts into the legacy AZEK business.
Lean has been a pretty new concept in AZEK, and their teams have just fully bought in and embraced it, and that is one of the big reasons why when Ryan gets up, he is going to talk about our being ahead of schedule on our cost synergies and our confidence that that is an engine that is going to keep going. These guys are on track to deliver over $50 million in synergy savings, and I think they are just getting started. That has been really fun. The teams are super energized, and I am really excited to see what they continue to do with bringing HOS to life in our legacy AZEK network. We will shift gears a little bit here as we close and talk about capacity. As I mentioned, we have got ambitious growth plans. That requires capacity ahead of those share gains.
We're in a really good position with investments we've already made ahead of those share gains. We show you the utilizations there. You can see 70% on the fiber cement, 65% in decking and 60%. We've already got assets on the ground ready for that growth. A fair amount of that opportunity to continue to increase utilization sits in brand-new state-of-the-art facilities. I already talked about the Prattville plant and then our new state-of-the-art decking facility, in Boise, Idaho, which is an ideal position to support the growth you saw, from Jon and John in the western part of the U.S.. We're in a very good spot in capacity. We're ready to enable that share growth, without the need for near-term investment.
Lastly, I'll close with, I think the most exciting part of this is also not only do we have capacity on the ground, we've got a plan to get a lot more out of that capacity. This is our advanced manufacturing strategy that we're in execution mode on. The punchline is we see an opportunity to step change increase the line speed of our fiber cement manufacturing lines. As we've started to execute HOS, those lines are showing the sprint potential to go at faster speeds. Now we've built a team and created a plan to implement technology into those factories to allow us to sustain at those sprint levels. As we do that and realize that full potential, that'll deliver the equivalent of a billion dollars worth of capital offset out in the future. We got a ways to go.
The teams have done really good work. We're up 5% already in line speeds over the last 12 months, and I'm really excited to see where this keeps going. That takes me to the close. I'd summarize our Hardie operations. We've got real structural advantages in our local supply chain network and the technology that we've built over decades with deep experience. On top of that, we've got an asset base of $8 billion that we've already invested in. We've got a proven productivity engine in HOS that drives margin expansion and cash flow and lots of headroom to keep going. Then we've got the capacity already in place to support the share growth you saw from John and John and a plan to get more out of what we've built.
I told you it's been the highlight of my career working through this integration with these teams. They're just getting started. A lot of headroom to go, and what that'll turn into is continued margin expansion, and free cash flow, and that's a good transition, over to Ryan, who will take you through the financials.
I just stand up. Thanks. Appreciate it. Well, thanks, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for being here today. Thanks, Ryan, for the handoff. I am going to connect the story you heard today to the financials. From our competitive advantages to our commercial initiatives and synergies into the scale and leverage of our supply chain and manufacturing, and why we believe these will help us generate sustained growth, cash flow, and returns. Let's get into it. Five key messages I want you to leave with today. Our execution is driving above market growth, and the housing recovery would only add upside to this. Two, the AZEK synergies are delivering, commercial is on track, and cost is ahead of schedule. Three, we are generating strong free cash flow as a business. This funds a clear de-leveraging path and provides us capital allocation optionality.
Four, the growth algorithm drives sustained market outperformance, and regardless of housing cycle, it still works. We believe this is a compounder model poised to generate strong long-term shareholder returns. Let's begin with the market backdrop. To Aaron's point earlier, we are not assuming housing conditions improve in our algorithm, but the setup is more constructive than the mood suggests. In new construction, starts have been below the 60-year average most of the last decade, with strong stretches near trend. This shortage in housing is a product of a decade plus of under-building versus household formation. We are not counting on a snapback story, but we believe rates and affordability will help set the pace of recovery. Structurally, this could be a multi-year tailwind, not in our algorithm. Next, the U.S. housing stock is aging.
Roughly half of the homes were built pre-1980 with a meaningful share carrying 30-year-old plus vinyl siding that is ready for repair and remodel. At the same time, elevated mortgage rates create a lock-in effect. Owners are staying put, not trading up, but investing in their property. This can be seen in the R&R growth and resilience, even through the cycle troughs. In 2015, $277 billion was the rough R&R number. The last five years have been north of about $500 billion, and we expect that to continue. What is unique about Hardie's setup is we win both ways. R&R continues to deliver now, and when new construction returns, it is upside. Let's move to synergies, starting with the commercial side. As you recall, our target of $500 million of commercial synergies recognized over five years through the portfolio combination of James Hardie and AZEK.
We are on track to reach at least a $125 million exit run rate by the end of full year 2027. On the activated side, the recently announced Boise Cascade and regional distribution agreements provide meaningful steps towards that target and build upon previously announced Lansing and CBUSA deals. The forward-looking pipeline is just as tangible. As John Madson discussed earlier, we continue to expand coverage in one-step dealers, builders, contractors, independent lumber yards, and retail. In new construction and multifamily, where a lot of runway remains, we are expanding deck rail and accessories. Internationally, we are preparing to introduce decking into the Australian market. Switch gears to the cost side.
We were targeting $125 million of cost synergies over three years, and we are excited to update you that we plan to exit the full year run rate of $125 million by the end of full year 2027, which is one year ahead of our original schedule. From a cost to achieve perspective, we are under budget, and we did not sacrifice service or execution quality to get there. What is remaining is, you heard the team talk about earlier, deploying Hardie Operating System into our AZEK plants, leveraging our procurement at scale across our global business, and then system consolidation that makes us more effective. We will continue to update you on realization. Turning to cash flow, over the years, we have made heavy capacity investments, which have positioned us well for future growth. CapEx as a percentage sales was 10% in 2025, roughly 7.8% in 2026.
This year, we are estimating 6%-7% for 2027, normalizing in the 6%-8% range in the near term. As Ryan discussed earlier, our plant and equipment is substantially in place. We do not expect any large new projects in the near term, and we will work to optimize our current state through advanced manufacturing. For free cash flow, the full year 2026 dip to $425 million was driven by roughly $207 million of deal and integration costs that do not repeat. Our full year 2027 guide expected roughly $500 million of free cash flow. We are raising that target to roughly $600 million+ now based on the cash the business is generating this year. From a conversion perspective, you could see 2026, we are roughly 30%, jumping up to 38% this year. We anticipate 40%+ moving forward for free cash flow conversion.
Before I turn to capital allocation, I will spend a minute on what Aaron highlighted around our EU business. We recently announced the divestiture, which is a full exit of our European business that involves selling our fiber gypsum business and closing down the EU fiber cement business. The agreed sale price is roughly $980 million on a USD basis, which represents a 12x multiple on 2026 EBITDA. We expect the deal to close in the first half of 2027. In the interim, Europe will move to discontinued operations beginning in Q2 2027. Our guide is also updated to reflect this. We expect this divestiture to be accretive to the overall margin by roughly 150 basis points, and we plan to use the proceeds, roughly $600 million for debt paydown, and roughly $250 million share repurchase, which was authorized by our board of directors in August.
This directly accelerates deleveraging while sharpening our growth and return profile. On that note, where does the free cash flow go? This is the priority order of our capital allocation funded by the strong free cash flow we are generating. First, we will invest in organic growth. This will fund sales initiatives, product innovation, and channel expansion you heard Jon and John talk about earlier. Second, we will continue to deleverage. Our target of 2.4x by the end of the financial year 2027 and under 2x by 2Q full year 2028. We will accelerate this using the $600 million debt paydown that we discussed related to the EU deal. Third, we will provide shareholder returns through opportunistic repurchases. We are currently authorized to execute a $250 million buyback once the EU deal closes.
Finally, fourth, we will look at bolt-on M&A via our structured playbook once we hit our leverage target. This is a clear, disciplined capital allocation framework that we will apply consistently as we generate more cash. Now let's walk through our Q2 and fiscal 2027 guidance. Note, just as I mentioned earlier, this consolidated guide now includes Europe, which is moving to discontinued operations. We are reaffirming our Q2 and full year 2027 guidance, but we are raising our free cash flow guide from $500 million+ to roughly $600 million+, given our strong free cash flow generation. As discussed, our guidance does not assume any macro housing recovery, and we remain cautious on housing until we see key indicators meaningfully improve. In addition, we've seen no relief on fundamental costs, including freight and diesel.
We are encouraged by our initiative traction, we are driving material conversion, and we are realizing our synergies. The demand for our products remains strong, and we are focused on executing and driving above-market growth. Next, our growth algorithm that Aaron touched on earlier. This is the engine behind everything we've walked through. The North America target is roughly 4%-7% organic growth above the market, built on three levers. The first lever is material conversion. As a rule of thumb, one point of conversion equals roughly 4% of growth for the industry. This has been a durable multiyear contributor for our business we expect to continue. Jon and John discussed earlier, but we have a long run rate of conversion ahead of us across our portfolio. Second lever is the product of our growth initiatives and the $500 million of revenue synergies you heard us discuss.
Third lever is net price realization. This is based on the strength of our value proposition across our portfolio and is supported by a multiyear history of price value-based increases. Together, we expect roughly 4%-7% growth above market with a 35%+ adjusted EBITDA flow-through. This does not underwrite or rely on a market tailwind to work. Outside the core stack, both on M&A and any housing recovery add upside. Let's review what this means in three scenarios that test this. This is not tied to a specific year, rather the positive impact of growth on our financials. This is for illustrative purposes only and is not intended to be our full year 2028 guidance. As a reminder, the full year 2027 estimate is the midpoint of our guidance, excluding Europe. We use three market scenarios: down 1.5%, a +0.5%, and a +2.5%.
Our market definition is based on roughly 60% repair and remodel and 40% new construction, which includes single-family and multifamily. Our above-market outperformance is held constant at 5.5 points, which is the mid-range of our 4%-7% outgrowth. Our EPS benefits from margin improvement, debt paydown, and share repurchase. Assumptions include roughly 35% EBITDA flow-through, roughly 40%+ free cash flow conversion, roughly 22% tax rate, and 580 million shares. For EPS, this also assumes $600 million of debt paydown at a 5.5% blended rate and $250 million of share buyback at 31%. What this model generates is assuming the mid case at 0.5% market, we see 6% sales growth with margins expanding roughly 60 basis points. This outpaced sales growth while improving free cash flow, ROIC, and EPS. There's upside to this model if there's any outperformance to the mid-single digit range we highlighted.
This does not include any additional bolt-on M&A we may choose to do, and this does not include any incremental debt or share repurchase outside of what we have already announced. Even in a down market, we can deliver sales growth, margin expansion, and improve free cash flow and ROIC. That resilience across markets is the core story, but there are other catalysts that could have a positive impact. Index inclusion is a positive benefit worth touching on. We became a U.S. domestic filer in April and filed our first 10-K in May. This opened the door to U.S. index inclusion. As you know, index ownership is where a meaningful pool of incremental demand exists. An average of 23% of S&P 500 shares are held via U.S. index today, and only roughly 2% for James Hardie. We are encouraged by our early wins.
We are now in the MSCI Small Cap Index, as well as the S&P Completion Index. As we move forward, we believe we have an opportunity to be in the S&P MidCap 400 as well as others. Which brings me to where this leaves the stock. We believe our growth and margin profile sets us up for multiple expansion over time. This chart is a simple comparison of three-year average EBITDA margin to valuation versus a group of peers. This peer group includes building product peers and what we consider best-in-class industrial peers. We have maintained and grown margins through the cycle and believe we have a meaningful opportunity to continue to improve margin and to close the valuation gap, which we intend to do through sales growth, margin expansion, deleveraging, and disciplined capital allocation. Now I will bring this back to where we started, the five key messages.
We are reaffirming our guide, executing above market despite the macro, and a housing recovery only adds upside that we are ready to capitalize on. Two, we are delivering on our synergies with cost ahead of schedule. Three, our business is generating strong free cash flow that will allow us to deliver quicker and gives us capital allocation optionality. Fourth, our growth algorithm is resilient and outperforms across housing markets. Putting this all together, durable growth, expanded margins, strong free cash flow, disciplined capital allocation, and a valuation that has not caught up. We believe we have a compounder model set up to deliver strong long-term shareholder returns. Thank you. With that, I will hand it back to Aaron to close this out.
Thank you, Ryan. Okay, we will quickly close out and get to Q&A. A couple of goals that we had here for today is to have you all walk away with understanding our strategy. Then second is having confidence in our strategy, and then third is that we have the right team to be able to go out and accomplish that strategy. We are understandably very confident in our ability to be able to go out and do this. And I think we have some proof points here as one company since we have been brought together. We have made a lot of meaningful progress over the last 14 months. Certainly, as you look at our track record on what we have been able to do on revenue synergies, which we are just getting started on, feel very confident of. Achieving our cost synergies a year ahead of schedule.
Setting up our footprint and the right cost structure. We are on the right path as far as de-leveraging the business. Certainly, our ability to focus on the areas where we have the right to win and make the tough calls. I think we did that and exhibit that by what we are doing with Europe. Again, I started out by saying this, the last 14 months, we have done a lot. This is working. This is working, and we have a long road ahead of us. That is what gets me excited, and hopefully all of you as investors get really excited about this. I think you should get confidence that as we look at two separate companies, AZEK was able to outgrow the market. James Hardie, on our long stretch, we have been able to outgrow the market.
Now we are putting two teams together that have a proven track record with enduring competitive advantages. That is why when we think about why to invest in James Hardie, you can see this investment thesis here. Obviously, we talked about this, but we are not cycle-dependent. What is going on right now, certainly we have proven that, and we have to prove it quarter- after- quarter, but there is enough opportunity for us to go out and convert the market with our resilient, beautiful products. We have enduring competitive advantages. I have said this over and over, but any company would love to have one or two of those. We have multiple ones, which makes it very hard to compete with. Ryan just went through it. I talked about it. We have got a growth algorithm.
Think about it as a diversified portfolio where we are going to outgrow the market 4%-7%, and then there is upside to that as we think about certainly the optionality of having bolt-on M&A, but also you get a little tailwind from the market out there. We continue to improve the profitability of our business. Ryan just talked about the efficiency and our reduced CapEx spend. We are going to continue to be able to generate a lot of cash, and that brings optionality for us in what we do with it, including returning to shareholders. Then I think the thing that gives me the most confidence is the speakers you heard from here today. Their ability, proven track record to go out and execute.
This truly is a new James Hardie, and it is a new James Hardie and a better James Hardie because we brought together the best of both. I think it is exhibited by our team, not only here in the room, but who you are going to interact with out there. Look, I will end with what we started out with, and really is the theme of this day and the thesis behind bringing the two companies together is we are built to outperform, resilient by design. Thank you, appreciate the time. We will now move into Q&A here. Ask the team to come on up and give you all a chance to ask. You always get to ask Ryan and I questions, so it gives you a chance to be able to talk to the whole leadership team here.
Yeah, I know. Let me grab
Whoa. Hopefully that's mine.
Got a chair. Chair guy. Which one are you taking?
Do we have enough chairs here?
Yeah.
I got one coming.
Oh, you got it? Zero harm, Bill. All right.
Okay, so we have some mic runners, so please raise your hand. Just one note on the webcast. For those people that are on the webcast, there is a portal to ask a question. We will filter it through, and they will send me the question up here. All right, let us go in the front with Trey.
Hey. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for all the info.
Yeah.
This has been great. Aaron, I know you didn't want to get into the super granular around the growth algo, but if you look at the historic market outperformance of both sides of the business, then you look at the revenue opportunity, synergy opportunities, 4% - 7% looks pretty conservative.
Mm.
Maybe if you could, any details you could get or give us around what could get us to the low end versus the high end, or even above the high end of the range of 4% - 7%?
Yeah.
Thank you.
Appreciate the question. Look, first of all, I think any company to be able to grow in this building product space of 4%- 7% would be having a pretty good year, to outgrow the market 4% - 7%. With that said, there certainly is opportunity to outgrow that, right? When we think about having bolt-on acquisitions, we have some of our growth stack perform a little better than others. What we want to present to you is, this is something we think we can do no matter what the market delivers to us. That gives you confidence on consistent performance. We've talked about this before. This is something that AZEK regularly was able to do. James Hardie, absent the last couple of years, was able to do consistently. So we feel very confident in what we put out there.
Okay, let's go to the other side here. I can't. Yeah, Michael.
Hi, [Mike Rehart], Melius Research. Thanks for the presentation. The question, I guess, on the commercial synergy opportunity, you outlined by region.
Mm-hmm.
By home builders, end markets. Is there a way to think about maybe from a, let's say, a disproportionate perspective, either regionally where you see the greater opportunity, that $500 million? I would also love for you to dive into the $750 million home builder opportunity, because I know historically AZEK was kind of underrepresented as the industry was in the new construction channel. Thanks.
Yeah. I will start out, and then I will send it over to Jon and John here. Look, again, I will just reiterate, we are very confident in that $500 million. I say $500 million, it is really $500 million +. I think the team laid out a good sampling of where we are going, right? Certainly as we think about the Boise Cascade alignment, also a regional distributor alignment, that is significant synergy opportunity. That really spans across the whole United States out there. I think Jon or John had it up there, but when we look at it from a segment standpoint, certainly we see a tremendous amount of opportunity of leveraging some of the Hardie relationships with contractors, with two-steppers, with one-steppers to be able to get TimberTech and AZEK in there, and we have exhibited that.
But just as much, we see the opportunity in being able to get James Hardie. I think some of the two-step regional distribution is a perfect example of that. Some of the lumber yards in areas like the Northeast and the Midwest are perfect examples of that. I would say it is nationwide, and it is pretty well representative for each of our product groups. But John, you want to chime in here and then talk about the regional building opportunity?
Yes. I think it was well said, Aaron. When you look at the northern markets, AZEK, TimberTech had really good penetration in those marketplaces where we are still emerging as a fiber cement manufacturer. At the same time in those northern markets, there is also really strong independent lumber yard partnerships with TimberTech and AZEK. And we have, from a fiber cement standpoint, very strong partnerships at the one-step. You go to the South, you have the inverse of that. Very strong penetration from a fiber cement standpoint and a lot of growth opportunity against pressure-treated wood in the South, underpinned by really strong partnerships with the volume lumber yards and independents as well. As we look at this, we create the value on that side on the north with more opportunities in independent lumber yards that reach both single-family new construction and R&R.
And then specifically in the north against vinyl, it is truly a partnership with the one-steppers and our AZEK product line to give them a good, better, best portfolio as people graduate from their first home through the reside of their existing or long-term home. So that is where we feel that there is a ton of strength through our two-step partnership, their reach to independent lumber yards, our partnerships collectively with the volume national partners, and how we take that and pull it all the way back through to include retail, where James Hardie fiber cement is well established in the retailers, and we are emerging with TimberTech between both retailers.
You want to cover the regional home builder?
Yeah, absolutely.
The opportunity.
When you look at the $750 million of regional home builder activity, we have really strong share within the top 300. The top 300 is anybody over 100 homes annually. When you look under that 100 homes annually, there's so many different single-family opportunities with those home builders where we have our Hardie Trim-Over Method, plus our full portfolio enables a one Hardie solution that allows that regional home builder to compete with the nationals and differentiates them from that. Our teams are built to deliver that with each of those types of builders and/or contractors on the smaller scale and the large scale through national accounts or with the infield team.
I think one of the synergies that we've had up there before that really supports what Jon's saying is our alliance with CBUSA, which is the largest regional home building buying group out there. The other thing, just to build off that, when you think about one plus one equals three, is these regional home builders, a lot of them are shopping. They're getting their materials in places like lumber yards, which AZEK has traditionally been very strong at. It also has access to those contractors. So that's an example of the synergy that AZEK is bringing James Hardie. Kind of to tie your whole question back together.
Appreciate it.
Thank you.
All right, let's go Keith.
Be mad at Bill, because I'm not calling on anyone, it's him.
Yeah.
Thanks.
I'm just going to go front to back.
Thanks. It's Keith Hughes from Truist. Just doing some rough math on your margin gain, it looks like maybe 35%-40% contribution margin on the forward view that you gave. That's a hell of a number, given what the capacity utilization in your presentation, Ryan. That seems like another kind of conservative number. Is that fair? Is there something else going on that I'm not thinking about that keeps it lower?
Yeah, I think if you look at the averages of the businesses, we always saw fiber cement kind of in the low 40s on incremental volume. On the DR&A side, it's kind of that 30%-35% range. So we kind of brought those together in a blended rate of 35%. Yeah, there could be incremental to that, but we figured in almost any environment on the flow-through, we could achieve that.
I assume as volume improves, it would probably be above that number for a period of time until the capacity solves that.
Yeah, absolutely. With where we are from a utilization perspective, that leverage on our fixed cost, you can take that all the way up through the utilization range.
Yeah. Thank you.
Hey, Tim Wojs from Baird. Thanks for all the detail. Maybe just looking at just the vinyl R&R and recapture opportunity. I think the average lifespan of vinyl is about 30 years, and if you look at the census data, it seems like you would almost be just entering that replacement cycle. Would you agree with that, and how would you track that opportunity or present that opportunity to us? Because it does seem like there is a pretty sizable, basically from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s of installed vinyl that has yet to really convert.
Tim, have you been listening to us for the last year? I am just kidding, but this is really what we have been talking about, really, primarily over the last year as our largest opportunity. Some of the stats we put out there support exactly what you are saying. When you think about the aging housing stock, you have this many homes, 20 - 40 years old. So they fit in that sweet spot of what you are talking about. Then since the 1990s, I think over 10 million homes clad in vinyl. So that is why we see this as a tremendous opportunity. We saw it years ago. I think that we finally are bringing together, the right product proposition, being able to reduce the install time so we are decreasing that differential between us and vinyl.
On top of that, being able to have some of the support in key regions that have been vinyl regions, that we get from the AZEK acquisition. Not only people, access to contractors, but also access to customers. We are at a great time to be able to go out and get after that, and that's why we list this as our number one opportunity. We think Northeast, Midwest, it's a billion dollar opportunity. John was just talking about for the team, we have objectives that are more locally focused, right, versus: Hey, we're going to do this across the country. For Northeast and Midwest, you ask some of our sales team out there and what their goal on, it's how are we going to displace vinyl? We are set up the right way to be able to get after that.
As far as how do you track it, how do we know we're winning? On some of our earnings calls, right, we've talked about some of the reach we've had with trim over, right? How many homes, the percentage increase, and we'll continue to do that. We're making good progress. But I think the thing that is really encouraging is we're in our infancy here in being able to go out and get after it. You may ask: Well, why? Why didn't you get after it before? Look, from a James Hardie perspective, we had a tremendous amount of opportunity in certain regions of the country to really get after new construction. We'll take that all day long, and we've been very successful with that.
Now as we look at, okay, what are other opportunities for us as a new James Hardie, repair and remodel in some of those regions of the country are top of mind.
On the growth algo, has anything changed on the net pricing contribution relative to what the organization has done historically?
Look, we usually say roughly two on, we think of DR&A, and we think north of three, on fiber cement. It goes back to what I said before, some years, these are going to be different. Each one of those growth stacks. Right now, that is our thinking, we will target that. I think it is to look at the growth algorithm in totality here of that 4%-7%.
Okay, great. Yep, Phil. Yeah.
Great job, guys. Phil Ng from Jefferies. Ryan, the presentation on operations was really impressive. The two things I wanted to really tackle was on the speed, pick up 5% for fiber cement, aspirationally call it three-to-five years. What is a good target? Would that require a lot of capital? The other piece I wanted to really tackle on is the reformulation piece, right? Is there an area to kind of reformulate fiber cement in particular to reduce the install cost, right? The changeover method was really impactful, but is there opportunity to reduce that install cost and really open the TAM and go after that PVC market? Thank you.
Yeah, sure. Thanks, Phil. I will take the first one. Line speed. The question was line speed, fiber cement, what is a three- to-four -year view of that? Was that the question?
Yes.
Yeah, okay. The second part of it was how much CapEx is required. I will take the CapEx, I would expect a level of CapEx you guys won't notice. Most of that will come, there is instrumentation and tech stuff on the line, and then de-bottlenecking work. As we get the sheet machines ramped up, you will run into everything, but I think the headline will be a number that is not really meaningful for you guys. It will be a lot of work for the team. What is reasonable over the next three to five years? We won't get the full billion over the three to five years, I will tell you that. I think we will get a good chunk. We gave you what we have done over the last 12 months.
I think that is a good indication of a potential run rate. We are pretty early. It is pretty hard stuff. If I had a range, my range would be pretty big for you, but we are making progress. I think if you took that, what we have done the last 12 months, coupled with we are not going to get it all in three to five years, you could get a sense of where we think we will land with the thing. Reformulation for fiber cement. I think we have got run room on it. We have been doing it a long time. I think the way to set expectations there is I don't see a reformulation lever that resets our cost position dramatically, but there is a lot of runway to keep contributing to that annual productivity inflation offset, that kind of activity.
I would see bigger probably step change opportunity on deck reformulation that exists on fiber cement, but there is still plenty of juice to squeeze. It is going to come incrementally on fiber cement and help us roll up to that annual productivity change.
Phil, here is what I would say. The way we have set up the organization, again, best of both. We have a product organization under Jon, right? We have general managers who are dedicated to product. They have a P&L. They are working hand-in-hand with an R&D organization, right? What they are constantly trying to do, not only go out and sell more product, but how do we make it more profitable as well? The other thing on top of that is we have a group that is solely dedicated to reformulation and what I call VI, value improvement. It is part of the competency of Jon's team of product managers to not only develop more product, go out and sell more, but how to make it more profitable as well. This is one of the things that we used to do at Hardie.
Now we're doing that, we're instituting across the whole company here. We should continue to see when Ryan put up there the HOS type of savings target out there, is to deliver on that year in and year out.
Got you. If I could sneak one more in.
Sure.
On the AZEK reformulation side, that's the bigger opportunity. What are the one or few things that would really excite you where you could really unlock value on the AZEK side?
Jon, probably take that.
Phil, it's just going to be a continuation of what we've been working on before. But I think we're able to accelerate our efforts now with the combined R&D organization. Simply put, we have more credentialed, proven scientists in partnership with the combined one Hardie R&D organization. And to Aaron's point, we created a separate organization within an organization, a team 100% focused on this formulation and cost savings opportunity, that historically was purely focused on fiber cement, and now they're focused on the full portfolio. And so when you think about just the expansion of the capability, and the depth of that team, we just think everything we were working on before, we're now going to be able to get there faster. And I think that came through in Ryan's presentation in terms of the acceleration of the $50 million+ in synergy capture from operations.
That's a direct result of that kind of consolidated best of both R&D team.
Okay. We're going to move, is anybody in the Oh, okay. Let's go right here then. Yep.
Thanks, everyone. Matt Bouley, Barclays. The commercial synergies, I think you said it a handful of times today that there's upside to the 500. You didn't say exactly how much upside. Curious, if you have a number, would love to hear it, but really what I'm wondering is—
We're not giving that far out, guys.
—well, just got to give it a shot. Maybe if you can tick off some of the top opportunities or examples. You roll back 12 months ago, you laid out the $500 million. What's new? What do you really think there's an opportunity on that that has changed? Thank you.
Let me start out, and Jon, maybe you'd be good to take this, because I've talked a lot about this. One of the things, because we always give these headlines, right? Certainly, they're very important. Boise, ABC, Lansing, I could go on and on and on. I think an important piece to remember is go back to John Madson's slide on RPS, and Rick James, easy name to remember. What we've done with Rick James, who's a contractor, that's been done thousands of times, and it will compound on each other. That is where the real thesis of this deal, I do not want to say magic because it is not magic, it is a lot of hard work, but that is the work that is ongoing, and it will continue over and over again.
We can give you the headlines, which are certainly, I think impressive. But that is what I want to get across, is that example of that contractor, there are hundreds of thousands of those. Skelly talked a little bit about it, and so did Sam, is we have 30,000 of those in our network that are signed up. We have 300,000 of them in our network. You start to think about some of the reach and the power that we have, and the relationships we have, not only with our contractors, but as we try to get more contractors converted to our materials, look at the reach from our customer base, and they are aligned with us. Boise, for instance, our regional distributors, Boise is not selling any other decking or railing, or trim besides our product.
So they are going out and trying to convert. It is a force multiplier, I think one of the guys had said it before, but I want to start with that because I think that is really important, but maybe give it to Jon to talk a little more here.
Yeah. Aaron talked about one of our objectives is about establishing confidence and credibility in our execution, right? Nothing we showed here today does not have a plan with a team assigned with clear accountabilities and clear targets. Everything we have talked about today, we had a playbook we are executing against. Everybody likes to talk about the home runs. It is great to talk about Boise. ABC is a great win where you are consolidating their entire PVC business across hundreds and hundreds of locations. As a leader, I get just as excited about those singles, like that contractor flipped, right? That dealer flipped. Just keep getting people on base, keep scoring runs, keep delivering, and those small wins, they compound, right?
It is just win, win, hit a couple over the fence here or there, but, we have a proven track record of delivering those quick wins, those long-term wins. It is this portfolio of actions that we are taking, we are holding the team highly accountable to, and that is what is delivering the share gains, right? There is no new secret recipe that we developed overnight when we put the companies together. It is just the integration, I think, has allowed us to accelerate a lot of our initiatives faster than we would have gotten to individually on our own, right? That is what I am holding the team accountable to.
Got it. No, that is great to hear. Then second one is a quick clarification on the margin guide. So that 35% flow through, I think I saw in the slides that you had 1.5% of revenue targeted for HOS savings every year, then obviously you are guiding to net price every year. So is that 35% just volume, and are those other two areas potentially incremental to that?
So think of HOS as more of an inflation mitigator for us. That is why we have a target at that, but do you want to take any more?
Yeah, I would say that is definitely on the incremental piece, as you mentioned. But, to your point, HOS is a mitigator of inflation. We have normal inflation, our labor force, freight, everything else. Then on top of that, we do take price, but that is value based and that does help fund some of our growth initiatives and things like that. So I would think of it as the 35% can be used in both.
Okay. Got it. Thank you.
Yep. Thanks.
All right. Let's go. I know it's a hike, but in the back there.
Brian.
Great, thank you. It's Rafe Jadrosich at BofA Securities. Just following up on Matt's question, just where are you on the integration of the Hardie and AZEK sales force and buying programs? Can contractors bundle the purchases together yet? And then, how could a consolidated buying program have an impact going forward?
Yeah. You sure?
Sure thing.
take that, John?
We're in the evolution. The Board is our TimberTech, AZEK program, and James Hardie ALLIANCE is the legacy fiber cement program. There is a best of both approach between those and two different contractor types that participate in them. But for those that participate in the ALLIANCE, as we bring this together, we're focused on creating a center of excellence for those two affiliation programs. But in the near term, our partners on the ALLIANCE side are able to accumulate their purchases of AZEK or Versatex PVC as a part of their ALLIANCE program.
When we have that group of contractors that is 10,000 ALLIANCE members deep, a total of 30,000 contractors, when you look at the combination of the two, that allows us to take that back with our dealer partners that I mentioned on my slides and emphasizes our position with them on what they have on the shelf, and the pull-through that our contractor ALLIANCE program creates for each of those dealers. So they're able to utilize PVC on the exterior of a full wrap James Hardie home as if it is a one Hardie solution, and then create the affiliation points and utilization based on the full Hardie exteriors portfolio.
We're working on the TimberTech side of our overall integration, and we're keeping them independent because of the type of contractor, but we're keeping in the center of all of that our ease of doing business tactics and our education platforms and our capabilities around improving your business by being a partner of James Hardie is at the center of all of that. The affiliation component and how you track your materials is broken up between outdoor living and exteriors.
Okay. Let's move to this side. Okay. There we go. Yep. Oh. Done.
Got it.
Nice. Cheater.
Thanks. Ryan Merkel with William Blair. My first question is on the big boxes. Can you talk about the share gain opportunity, and how that is worked so far?
Yeah. I will start out, and Jon, you dive in here.
Yeah.
Look, we have good footing at the big boxes. We have incrementally improved that since we brought the two companies together. John likes to talk about, I love the term, singles. We have James Hardie there in siding, backer board. We have TimberTech within Lowe's, and we got it back into The Home Depot, special order in some stores. We keep building upon that. I think what we look at is, from a big box standpoint, we are under index from our perspective. So we think that we have opportunity to continue to grow in the big boxes, and certainly as they try to get more pro business. We talked about the pull that we have, and we think that is appealing to them. So we are working closely with them. But Jon, you want to talk about some of our recent success?
Yeah. I think what you are seeing is there is a lot more than words with this customer base in terms of the stores operating differently from the pro, and what they have done specifically with their acquisitions. So we are now having holistic conversations with those organizations about the full breadth of their portfolios as well. As they try to execute and win on the pro, when we are sitting down and having a conversation with The Home Depot, it is The Home Depot and SRS in the room, and we are having that dialogue jointly to talk about how we win together across our full portfolio. So, we think that that is a huge advantage for us, given our pro legacy.
There is not too many homeowners who I think are trying to hang fiber cement siding on the weekend on their own. So it is clearly a pro category. TimberTech is clearly the leader in the pro brand from a decking perspective. As they try to fulfill their aspiration of growing with a pro, we're a key partner in that. We've continued to hit singles. We're doing some PVC decking tests in certain stores. We've been expanding the AZEK PVC trim opportunity in stores. We've been expanding our fiber cement opportunity in stores. We just continue to put people on base there, and as most of you know, it's pretty lumpy business. There's line reviews that stretch across years, and we'll be well positioned to win when we have those opportunities.
Awesome. Thanks. My second question on trim over, it seems you're having some great success, but it seems pretty early. How much is it adding to growth, and how many markets is trim over in right now?
You want to talk to the reach?
Sure. We really are focused on vinyl substitution markets. Think Carolinas up to Maine, over to the Dakotas, down to Kansas City. That is the target area. When you look at the Midwest, where we started about 14, 15 months ago, we are seeing double-digit sell-through growth in those markets, and outpacing that with ColorPlus and trim products. When we took that to the Northeast, Midwest at the beginning of the calendar, or the Northeast from the Midwest at the beginning of the calendar year, and followed it with the Carolinas early in the summer, we are already starting to see that builder target list continue to accumulate in different price bands. That is how we really measure it. Are we moving left in our price bands by being able to access this capability in each of the given markets?
As you know, going from Raleigh, North Carolina to Philadelphia, the price bands where vinyl is acceptable are varying. As you get down into Raleigh, it is on homes that are less than $400,000, and anything north of that becomes more akin to Hardie Siding. When you get into Philadelphia, it is north of $1.5 million and still have a vinyl exterior on it. It is a different product for the type of home as we continue to penetrate that market, but we are seeing those early stages of double-digit growth in those markets as well.
That is good.
Philip. Okay. Yeah, Peter.
Thanks, Bill. Peter Steyn, Macquarie. Sorry, I am going to see if I can ask a question of the whole panel. We have heard a lot of good news on the integration. I would be interested, per functional area, what are the biggest challenges you either have faced or are facing, and how you are solving for that or solved for that over the last year?
That counts as six questions.
We can cut it to four. We can do sales, marketing, product, ops.
You do not have to hear from me. Sam, why don't you begin?
Yeah. Our team was one of the first ones to integrate, actually. The marketing team's been pulled together since last November. I think the biggest challenge at first was in-housing. Our creative team was able to expand to take over servicing all of the brands. We've been able to do that really efficiently, largely with the team that we already had, but brought in a couple new people, but not very many. As a process change, for the team, when you're used to working with an outside agency, there's a lot of process there that had to all switch around. That, I think, was probably the biggest thing. We're largely through it now. Same with our other in-housing of media buying or marketing analytics or digital or that kind of stuff. I think that's really been the biggest thing.
Good. Ryan?
My view. To start, maybe, Peter, I'd say the thing we haven't struggled with in operations, the group has come together to work together really effectively. I've mentioned some of the leaders we have that you guys will meet today, and they've just been instrumental. They've come together really quickly. I think the challenge, and if you look at my presentation, there's a ton of opportunity. I think the challenge has been how do you make sure we temper that, prioritize critical few, and keep working on those and don't try to bite the whole thing. That's been our biggest challenge and opportunity. The opportunities are obvious. They're exciting. Everybody wants to work on everything at once. Obviously, we have to make choices. Keeping that discipline in the business has been on the operations side.
Jon.
From my standpoint, it's all about the people, right? At the end of the day, we're a product company, but the people run this business. That's who touches the customer every day. When you think about, Ryan said it well in his presentation, this has been the most challenging 14 months of my career, but also the most rewarding. That is compounded across the entire organization. What we're asking out of our products teams, out of our sales teams, out of our R&D teams, it's a lot of work, right? But we're in the position where we're putting points on the board, we're getting wins, and that momentum is contagious, right? That's what drives people to stay in the boat, stay with us on this journey, and produce results, right? The competition, they see our talent, they try to take it.
But if we can keep people aligned around that vision and mission, we can keep getting those wins, we can keep turning that momentum into sustainable results. That is how you build sustained competitive advantage. I have been spending an exorbitant amount of my time making sure we have the right people in the right positions to win, and then we put the points on the board, and we just continue that momentum.
That is great. Madson?
Yeah. We had our full integration of the sales organization on the March 17th. We chased that two months later with our national sales integration meeting, and that was the chasm that we crossed culturally. We have a really awesome opportunity with the culture that we have. When you have hungry, driven winners that want to go out there and hunt and win every single day, the biggest challenge is making sure that you are prioritizing your focus and ensuring that they have all the data and tools that they need to go out and be successful and apply those from what I formerly did to what I am doing today. When we think of that high-energy culture that we have, that is a tick.
Now it is making sure that we have that priority and focus really well set, and we will continue to work on that and develop that every single day as we get our path and game plan operationalized throughout the future.
You want to talk to it? Because I think Ryan is really unique in that. Well, you're unique, just—
Thank you.
—because of being who you are. Ryan, as we put the two companies together, left, and then we brought Ryan back.
Yeah.
Maybe you can talk a little bit to it.
Yeah, I think on the financial side, as anytime you bring two larger companies together, there is a lot of systems and consolidation and things that just need to happen. Those are not fundamental, like changing out ERP, but even consolidating financials in a common platform. That was one thing we got across the line a couple of months ago. Simple things like Concur not being on the same platform. All those things take time, and I think there is an endless list of those that we continue to work on. I think the opportunity and why I came back. I was really excited about the business prior to the exit. Everything I learned from the Hardie side during diligence. When the opportunity came up, I started talking to Aaron about it, just really made sense and really believed in the story.
Was excited to get the opportunity to come back to get to work on all these things.
All right. Right back there. No, you. Sam.
Yeah.
Thanks for the presentation, guys. Sam Seow from Citi. Just want a quick question on your one and two-stepper strategies. I think the opportunity is pretty clear for AZEK, and congratulations on some of those deals. Just on the fiber cement legacy business, could you perhaps double click on what the benefit is from some of the deals you have got there? Really, was availability of supply in some of those regional distributors in the Northeast, what was holding you back? Thanks.
Jon?
Yeah. I think Aaron touched on it a little bit in terms of, we are a data-driven organization, and there is pretty crystal clear data in terms of who is winning in the marketplace, right? What we report to you all a lot is what was our sell through, what was our sales growth in consolidation. We had to double and triple click to know, okay, which distributor in that market, which dealer in that market is winning more share and why. When you look at that, then you look at, Aaron mentioned, Lumbermen's in the Midwest. They were selling a considerable amount of a competing siding product. They are now going to sell our siding product. So we knew specifically what their reputation was and what their capabilities were around selling TimberTech decking and selling AZEK trim.
They were doing very well selling a competing siding line. They are now selling our siding line, and they are dedicated to us. So in that region where we just showed you the billion-plus opportunity, we now have the best local distributor who knows how to win in siding, pulling for James Hardie. That is the advantage. That is what we built in terms of the opportunity on the fiber cement side, and that is across every region. Then you double click on the dealer side, and I am watching this daily. I am looking at a Riverhead. We put the logo up there. I am watching what are their fiber cement sales each and every day, year-over-year, right? Strong base.
They work with Versatex trim, TimberTech decking, and now I am watching the fiber cement grow as we make that a key lever of our business to drive R&R growth and custom builder growth in the Northeast. So that is the data. It is guiding us, and then we are taking our advantages, we are taking our new partnerships, and then we are attacking our strategic priorities in a tailored approach with the best partners in the market to allow us to win.
Okay. Yep.
Morning, everyone. Thanks for the presentation. Keith from MST. Aaron, just want to ask either you or two Johns a question around this distribution change. Obviously a big deal. Boise has been bought in, and on the other side of that, there are distributors, two-steppers, national and regional, that are being dropped, competitive products being dropped as well. To what extent are you confident that any competitive response from those that have been dropped can be manageable? I guess, to what extent have you proactively planned for a step-up in competition from either the distributors that have been dropped or the competing products? Thank you.
Yeah. Keith, really good question. As I mentioned, and I think the guys mentioned as well. This is not something that we just decided to do a month or two ago. This is something we have been working on over the last year. If we think about, we said: All right. We are going to close on this acquisition, have the two companies come together. There were a series of moves, which still are some moves that we have to make that are key for our success as it relates to what is our number one fundamental, and that is material conversion. So we have contemplated, and you cannot do everything. And you are always paranoid of your competition. But we have gamed this thing out among us as far as, okay, we do this is what happens. You have to do that, because the stakes are very high here.
I think it comes down to is the confidence level that we have in the partners that we have aligned with, and then our ability with John's team, John Madson's sales team, Sam's support from a marketing standpoint, Ryan from a manufacturing supply chain standpoint of our ability to be able to go out and execute. And we have made, I think, the best choice. Because we have now partners that are 100% aligned with us. We win if they win. So we have certainly contemplated all of that.
Yeah. I would add, again, we are using that data to manage that because it is a risk. We know specifically which dealers are buying from distributors we used to work with that have now left. We can prioritize those accounts to understand that, okay, they used to buy from somebody else. We need to ensure that we facilitate the transfer, the handoff to retain that business. Then more importantly, like we talk about that 500-person sales force, we have not outsourced our relationships to anyone. Our 500 salespeople have deep relationships at the dealer level, at the retailer level. We have not outsourced that to our distribution partners. The distribution partners are a force multiplier. They are a partner with us, but we own the relationships at those accounts. We have not outsourced that and let somebody else lead those relationships for us.
At the same time, the teams are relentless hunger to go out and drive that connection. Right now, there is at least half a dozen trainings with those partners happening somewhere in the country today, down in Tennessee at one of our facilities where it is a shed for on-the-wall cost and on-the-wall training. We have Lumbermen's there today. We are headed to Texas tonight to work with Boise and their manager training. We are doing all of this to get that ground game in preparation for the season of buying as we get ready for the calendar year.
As we do this transition, our objective was starting at the lowest level, that ground level with our field sales, understanding what joint targets are, where are the opportunities to retain, grow, and continue to expand that, and it is down to the street level through Salesforce, developed, tracked, trained, and executed.
Thank you. Maybe just a quick one for Ryan. I just want to be explicitly clear, Ryan. The $500 million of commercial synergies, is that included in the 4%-7% above-market growth target?
Yeah, it is. It would be in the growth initiatives, plus the synergies bucket. Yep.
Okay. Thank you.
Yep.
Hi, Jeff Stevenson from Loop Capital. Last year, you had roughly 550 million in recycled waste and scrap. Just wondered, how should we think about the timeline to get to your long-term $1 billion annual target, and whether there would be any interest in bolt-on vertically integrated acquisitions—
Yeah.
—similar to what AZEK did in the past to boost its recycled content levels?
Yeah. Jeff, I think we had 550 million pounds, right?
Yes.
I think you said dollars.
I am sorry.
It would be pounds. As we think about where we have Amanda Cimaglia, who is our new Head of ESG, we are working with Ryan's team, also with the product team, to decide what can be appropriate for us as far as a new target out there. I know there was an aspiration to $1 billion recycling. We have that and more, but before we go out with some target, we are going to make sure we do our homework and understand what is possible for us. Yes, we want to still continue down that line. As we think about bolt-on acquisitions, some of the things that we have talked about in the past is, how do you take some fragmented categories, like we always mention railing?
Well, also, if there was some recycling opportunities and they were the right ones, that certainly would be something that we would bolt on as well. Good question.
Right here. This is good. Yep.
Thank you. Ketan Mamtora, BMO. On material conversion, clearly a lot of opportunity. I am just curious, as you think about the different products that you all have, where would you say you have got the most opportunity among the key products, and which one is proving to be, let us say, more of a battleground, and kind of why?
I will start and John, please dive in here, or anyone. Our number one dollar opportunity is still siding. You just look at the addressable market, you look at the penetration. Even though we have made a lot of progress throughout the years, we put up the opportunities, it still is in siding. So that is our largest opportunity. Look, certainly decking comes a close second, but our two biggest categories, we have a tremendous opportunity. We put up there, I think $23 billion was our TAM. So siding is the biggest opportunity. Look, I said this before, and I think it is really important for everyone to understand this, new to the James Hardie story, tremendous amount of progress. These two gentlemen have been there for a lot of it.
With James Hardie, we focus on regions of the country that were big time new construction, and that has benefited us. Certainly as that comes back, it is going to benefit us. But we see a tremendous amount of opportunity in repair and remodel in certain regions. You saw John put up some of the penetration rates in the Northeast and the Midwest. Those are some of our largest opportunities out there. Guys, you want to chime in? Anything?
I bet, and within siding, it is vinyl. That is the biggest opportunity. It is an inferior product. We have a very strong value proposition against it. In decking, it is wood. But do not just think entry level. We are converting cedar, we are converting redwood, we are converting Ipe at the high end as well, given the aesthetics and the quality that we have. So, it is just those are two massive, long-term structural changes that are going to happen in this industry, and our goal, simply put, is 10, 15, 20 years from now, you are driving around, you do not see a wood deck and you do not see vinyl on a house.
In addition to that, the amount of railing that there is to capture on the existing sales and future sales, it makes a perfect relationship for the dealer, for the two-step distributor, and the contractor to have that singular message specifically around our railing products as we continue to grow that. So when you think of those three components of how we can grow, we've got tremendous attachment opportunity.
Thank you.
All right. We'll take a few more now.
Yeah, right there.
Daniel Sykes from Jarden. I just wanted to ask a little bit about the conversion of the contractors. If you look at the example you gave around ABC Supply on the PVC trim, obviously if you taking those to be in all the stores rather than a third of the stores, how do contractors react to that, and how should we see that play out in the numbers? Is it something we should expect that revenue opportunity to grow straight away, or is it something that you still need to do a bit of work with the contractors in converting them on stock material?
You want to take it, Madson?
Happy to take it. Regardless if it is a push or a pull strategy, every member of the value chain needs a level of account management, and our teams are built to have that account management. So in the example of ABC, the channel manager in that particular area is working those opportunities. We do not ever want to just blindly sell somebody something that they are not expecting. So that gives us an opportunity to partner with our siding and trim specialist in that market, create value for that outside seller that has been selling something previously, and generate that value back to the branch that states why the organization has made this decision to partner.
That market level account management at the contractor, at the dealer's location, and then partnering with their sellers so that they are a part of this, is a critical component to making sure that happens. When we do that right, it is not about what product we are switching, it is about what experience they are having with James Hardie, and how we can create a better business that we are partnering with on that contractor.
Okay, we will take a final question. Anybody on this side that has not asked?
Oh. Yeah, right there. Yeah.
Trevor Allinson of Wolfe Research. Jon, a follow-up on a comment you just made on railing. It was not a huge emphasis of the presentation today. That is something that historically you guys have talked about. Any color on your expectations for decking growth versus railing growth moving forward? Any color on any initiatives you are implementing to help grow that?
Skelly, do you want to take it?
Yeah, sure. I think it is very important. Please spend some time with Jim Harrington. He will be outside afterwards, so he can take you through the full portfolio. If you look at what we have done there, and we talked about it from a product innovation standpoint, we now have a complete offer from railing. Good, better, best premium. I think that was a gap historically for the business. It is something that we have filled the gap. So whether it is entry level or the most premium, we are in the game. We are in the game with a differentiated product. When you look across the portfolio, given that we have entry level all the way to premium, our margin profile is very similar to our decking business, so it puts us in a position where we can aggressively go take share.
Our railing business has been outgrowing our decking business because we have a low attachment rate, and we've continued to improve that attachment rate, and it's a huge opportunity for us. We have a lot of opportunities as a business. Rail is a very important one for us. But as we talked about in the growth algorithm, we have multiple ways to win. We have a portfolio approach. Just because we're not talking about it all the time doesn't mean that we're not aggressively targeting share gain in rail. We've been winning in rail. Again, we share with you our sell-through numbers on deck rail and accessories, and you can see the growth that we've been able to generate there. The additive piece is that currently railing is accretive to growth, for our entire decking and railing business.
Yeah. Trevor, I think that's the good thing that you just pointed out. We didn't necessarily spend a ton of time on it. There's a lot of things that we can talk about that are pathways to growth for us, and that's why you look at the growth algorithm, it's a differentiated portfolio, just like our business. All right. Hey, that's it, everyone. Really appreciate the time and interest, and I know we got lunch.
Yeah, lunch, product showcase, and then—
Product showcase—
—decking teach-in at 1:15 P.M..
If you didn't get to ask a question, please grab any of us. We're happy to talk. We're going to have some lunch, and then we have our product stations. Please stop by. We have a talented team out there that is anxious to talk to you. Appreciate the interest. Thank you, everyone.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.