Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Brian Nagel, and I'm a senior equity research analyst here at Oppenheimer. Very pleased to have you joining us this morning. This is actually a continuation of our 23rd annual Oppenheimer Consumer Conference, and I'm very pleased to have with us today, presenting, the senior leadership team of Lowe's. CEO, Marvin Ellison, CFO, Brandon Sink, and Investor Relations, Kate Pearlman-Cohen. Everyone, thank you for joining us.
Thank you, Brian. Glad to be here.
We're gonna structure this as a informal fireside chat with me asking questions and Lowe's answering them. I mean, to the extent there are questions from the audience, please shoot them through the chat, and I'll be happy to work them into our conversation. Again, thank you, everyone, for joining us. Just to kick off here, you know, Marvin, I thought before we jump into all the specifics and all the dynamics occurring at Lowe's, I would love to get, you know, yours and Brandon, too, I mean, your perspectives on just the overall backdrop right now for Lowe's and home improvement. There's a lot of discussion within the investment community, the demand dynamics within home improvement, you know, particularly post-pandemic. I guess the question is really open-ended at this point: What are you seeing right now?
Yeah, well, hey, well, Brian, it's always great to be with you. I think the best way to answer the question is, when you look at the overall consumer from a discretionary spend standpoint for large ticket, I would say the consumer is a bit cautious just based on what's happening in the macro. When we take a look at those historical demand drivers for our business, they're still pointed in a positive direction. Let me remind you, those demand drivers are home price appreciation, the age of housing stock, and personal disposable income. If you think about those three, specifically the age of homes, I mean, we're in a unique time where we have the oldest homes on record currently in the U.S. That's for a lot of unique factors of historically low rates.
You know, people locked in at fixed rates, they have no real motivation to pivot out of those fixed rates to go into a higher rate environment. As homes get older, that really bodes well for our business. I mean, as a reminder, also, two-thirds of our sales are non-discretionary. In other words, when things break, whether it's a refrigerator or water heater, you can't, you know, postpone those purchases, and that really drives demand to our business. Home price appreciation, we estimate, you know, versus pre-pandemic, we're up 35% home prices, which also is important because one of the key determining factors between a purchase for your home being an expense or an investment has to do with where you are from a home price appreciation.
Being at a roughly a 35%, you know, plus rate versus pre-pandemic still incentivizes those customers to invest in their homes 'cause they believe they're gonna get a return on that investment. Although we're seeing some near-term pressure, especially versus last year, on personal disposable income, customers and homeowners still feel good about their current financial situation, especially if you compare it to a pre-pandemic, you know, from a what's in your savings account.
having said all that, you know, when you sit home, and you feel good about your employment situation, you have really good home price appreciation, you have a fixed, you know, relatively low mortgage rate, and then you still hear all of the narrative, you know, on the news, on the financial press, about something looming around the corner from a macro standpoint, it gives you a bit of hesitation. We're in a really unique environment that gives us a lot of confidence in the medium to long-term view of Lowe's and home improvement, and we remain, you know, really bullish relative to our business. Not only because of those demand drivers, but we've made a lot of investments in our Total Home Strategy, and I feel we've put one of the best teams in retail together.
We believe that regardless of what we face from a macro standpoint, our strategy, our execution will give us the ability to continue to perform well, to continue to hit some of our financial targets. Again, we're really incredibly, you know, bullish about the future, and we just have to wait until we get through some of these near-term headwinds.
Yeah, that's very helpful, Marvin. Just to reiterate, the point being is, we look at the structural drivers of home improvement demand, it's intact. Those factors are very much in play.
That's, I think that sums it up really well. I mean, we feel really good about those things. Again, we can look back historically. Those three things I cited, you know, correlate higher than things like housing turnover. They correlate higher than interest rates. As we look at those three things, it gives us a lot of confidence that from a structural demand driving components of our business, that we're still headed in the right direction. We just have to work our way through some of the near-term macro challenges that we're facing. Again, we remain incredibly bullish on the medium to long-term view of Lowe's and home improvement.
Just one more moment, just on the nearer term pressures. Like, maybe if you could add just a little bit more color on what you're seeing there. I mean, is it? Again, the question I would ask is, are you seeing any type of regional differences in areas where, you know, maybe housing pricing has begun to moderate more than others? Are you seeing more pressures there? Then, the question, one question I wrestle with a lot, and I talk with my companies, my cover companies a lot, is, you know, how much of this near-term pressure reflects a consumer that's, you know, reacting to cyclical pressures versus maybe a, you know, maybe us just working past the pandemic and some of that outsized demand that occurred during the pandemic?
I'll give you a view. I'll let Brandon jump in and give a perspective. Also, I think for us, you know, we really believe that what we're seeing is just reflective of consumers being remotely cautious based on uncertainty. It's not necessarily what's impacting them real time, but what they believe could be looming around the corner relative to other things happening. You know, some of our customers, you know, feel great about their employment situation, but when you're looking at the press and you see tech companies, you know, creating layoffs, then you have a little bit of hesitation. I mean, one interesting data points that we use is over 90% of our homeowners either have their houses paid for or they have a fixed low mortgage rate, and those are our customers.
Our customers are in a really, really solid financial situation. As we look at a geographic spread, I mean, there are really no what I would call measurable differences between markets, where you saw a really aggressive run-up in home prices and you're seeing that moderate somewhat. I mean, you know, they're the usual suspects. It's Austin, it's South Florida, you know, it's Arizona, parts of California. When we look at the data, there are no real distinguishing factors relative to housing prices that ran up during the pandemic and now that they're moderating. The most distinguishing factors we saw in Q1 was more weather-driven than anything.
As we've moderated through some of that, we hope when we look at H1 , the Q1 and Q3 combined, we'll get a much better view, not only of the health of the business, but the impact of the macro environment. Brandon?
Yeah, Brian, I would just add, you know, in the near term, Marvin mentioned, you know, some of the pressures, more cautious consumer. From a necessity standpoint, we're seeing that take up a larger share of wallet. So think spending on food and gas and where customers are engaging and spending from a discretionary standpoint, they're tending to spend more on the services side, you know, travel, airlines, those sort of areas, as opposed to goods. You did mention the dynamic with, you know, reversion and pull forward. We have seen categories when we look at pre-pandemic 2019, we've seen a number of our categories revert back to those levels. There are nuances within that. We've grown our Pro business substantially.
We look at categories like building materials, rough plumbing, even in the DIY interior area, you know, categories like appliances. We've actually taken share, grown units, grown transactions in those categories. We do feel like based on where we are today, we have a new baseline, you know, by which we can manage the business, and we continue to be confident in those categories where we're taking share. You know, that we're going to continue to take share and grow those businesses going forward. That, that's how we're sort of thinking about, you know, current dynamics and where the business is going moving forward.
No, that's very helpful. Let's jump in now and to talk some more specifics on Lowe's. You know, Marvin, you joined the company as CEO back in 2018. You know, I think you've done just a phenomenal job of, you know, repositioning the company, you and your team, and repositioning, you know, Lowe's here. The question I want to ask on that front is kind of where are we? I mean, as you look at the Lowe's business model now, I think we've had, you know, significant progress measured in different number of different ways. Probably the best way would be your operating margin now, but where are we in terms of the repositioning? From your standpoint, what still needs to...
What can happen or what still needs to happen in order to drive further improvement at Lowe's?
You know, it's a really good question, and I'll take the first part of it, and I'll let, you know, Brandon provide some financial support, you know, to the strategic initiatives. Look, overall, we've made incredible progress, and when I look back, and I'll be celebrating my fifth-year anniversary in about a week, which is amazing how fast, you know, time just kind of flew by, you know? I think when you're busy, as you know, man, time goes by pretty quick, and we've been, we've been really busy. You know, when I think back on what we tried to address, Brian, I mean, it was really getting back to what we themed retail fundamentals.
We were doing a lot of initiatives, but they were not really aligned around some of the key things that really matter in business, and that is: How do you grow share, and how do you create more profitability, and return, you know, for your shareholders? For us, we feel like that we're in the early innings of this was a baseball game. We think we're in the early innings because there's tremendous upside remaining, in every element of our business.
We believe that the work that we've done, to invest in information technology, our e-commerce platform, our Pro customer, and really addressing some of the productivity-related issues that we had in our stores, as well as getting our merchandising assortment adjusted and corrected, you know, has already started to pay dividends from an operating profit, from a return on invested capital perspective, and that's reflective in our share price performance. The good news is we have a lot of upside in front of us. I mean, as I compare where we are to other major, what I would call world-class performing retailers, we have, you know, enormous opportunity in areas like improving space productivity in our stores, continuing to modernize our supply chain, continuing to connect our physical and digital footprint so we can have a true omnichannel environment.
What we have in front of us for our Pro customer remains a unique opportunity for growth, and we think that is one of our most unique areas, that we can not only grow top line, but we also can leverage operating profit because the relative expense required to grow top line in that customer segment, you know, will create more profit flow through. We feel like we're in early innings, and we have a really clear line of sight of what it's going to take for us to get from where we are to where we'd like to be. Brandon, I'll let you share anything-
Brian, I would just, you know, talk about the path that we outlined in December to get to the 14.5% operating margin. The building blocks, you know, still very consistent, very focused on driving top line sales productivity, as Marvin mentioned, trying to get to $520 per square foot. Clearly, our sales growth opportunities are going to be in the, in the Pro and in the online space. We've improved those businesses dramatically. Pro penetration's up 600 basis points. We've doubled our online penetration, but there's still, you know, when we look specifically within the Pro businesses, we unlock some of the digital tools, continuing to invest in inventory, fulfillment capabilities.
Same thing online, the improving the digital experience, selling the omnichannel experience, selling the endless aisle in our stores, and also very heavily investing in fulfillment capabilities that we're unlocking in the store. From a sales productivity standpoint, confident we're making the right investments and seeing the right progress. Underpinning all of that is really what we're driving across the organization, Brian, from a productivity standpoint, and that's every group, every team, every function. Specifically within merchandising, we've talked about clawback activities with commodities, with transportation, private brand penetration opportunities, pricing initiatives that we're deploying there.
As we look at supply chain, Marvin mentioned continued investment, automation, robotics, to improve productivity, and then a number of things going on within the store environment, from transforming the front end of our stores to, you know, our store tech modernization that's happening. Combination of both top-line activities, investment, bottom-line productivity, PPI, initiatives that are going to fund those things, all give us confidence that we're on the right trajectory and that we have that 14.5% in front of us.
That's very helpful. Before, I do have some real specific questions on the Pro, but just one more bigger picture question here. As you're talking about this, you know, this continued progress at Lowe's, is it more a continued operational tweaking or, are there points of investments need to be made in order to kind of drive these productivity unlocks?
Look, I would say that our capital commitment, you know, we've outlined roughly $2 billion of CapEx spend, you know, year-over-year. We don't see any dramatic increase in that. Everything that we're talking about to get us to that 14.5% operating margin is really already factored into our capital spend. In other words, Brian, we don't see any big investments looming on the horizon that we have not communicated as part of our overall, you know, capital strategy. We think it's a combination of operational tweaks with our PPI initiatives, continue to have this repetitive, ongoing flywheel of productivity improvements across every area of our business.
In addition to making sure that we're making the right investments in IT and the right investments in our assortment, so that we can better serve certain customer segments, like the Pro customer, and as we discussed on our Q1 call, going after that rural customer in a more direct and in a very specific way, just to get a larger share of their wallet. All those things are factored into our capital spend, and we feel really good about the strategic plan we've laid out over the next three to five years to get us there.
Got it. Let's discuss more Pro. I mean, that's clearly with the commentary here in which you've said recently, I mean, that's a big focus for Lowe's. Lowe's has shown some success there. Look, I guess the question I'll ask is, you know, what's the is there a big unlock with Pro, or is it more just kind of ongoing processes to continue to drive, to better serve those professional customers and drive over time, that Pro penetration higher for Lowe's?
It's another good question. I would say, first, it's important to look at the addressable market. In the U.S., we estimate that the addressable Pro market for us is roughly a half a trillion dollars. That's a big market. Although we talk a lot about us and our largest competitor, it's a really fragmented market also. When I take a step back, and I mentioned earlier that I'm going to be celebrating five years here pretty soon. My first day on the job, five years ago, was at a Pro Desk in Dallas, just trying to understand where we were relative to, you know, our competitors from a fundamental, how are we serving the Pro customer?
Trust me, we've come a long way, but we've got a long ways to go. One of the first things that I did after realizing how far behind we were from a focus on this really important customer, we conducted a series of surveys, focus groups, and town halls with Pros who had stopped shopping at us. Not the current customer, but the customer that had walked away from us to understand why. At a high level, they gave us some pretty basic things. Number one, you're always out of stock. Number two, your training of your associates and your commitment to having consistency in your service levels are all over the place. Number three, I can never count on you to have loading assistance, which is basic and fundamental.
You know, number four, you can't distinguish me from anyone else. I'm in line with a traditional DIY customer, and we're paying the exact same price for the same items, yet I'm spending hundreds of thousands of dollars with you. Why can't you distinguish me as a more valued customer? The next one was, I mean, your brands. You guys have walked away from national brands, and you're chasing these private brands, and Pros are very brand loyal. At a high level, those were the things that they said, "Until you guys fix these things, don't expect us to show back up." Our strategy was, okay, let's get back to the fundamentals to serve this customer. We addressed every one of those challenges just to get a baseline.
The good news is from that date until now, we've improved our Pro penetration by 600 basis points, and we've improved our Pro customer service by 500 basis points. We're headed in the right direction. Your question is, okay, what's required to continue to get to what's next? We're investing into what's required. We're investing in our new loyalty program, that is important for us to have some degree of stickiness to get a larger share of that customer's wallet, and we're extremely pleased. You know, about a year into this, with what we're seeing and how we're continuing to evolve it. We rolled out a new CRM platform that gives us visibility to these customers, so we can communicate with them more directly, but more importantly, we can understand who they are.
I mean, two years ago, I couldn't determine an electrician, you know, from a painter, but now we have the data that we can do that, we can serve them better, communicate with them better. Third, private, I mean, national brands, I mean, we just announced recently we have Klein Tools as an example. Klein walked away from us years ago for a variety of reasons, now we're gonna be the largest seller of Klein product of any home improvement retailer, that's the number one brand for electricians and HVAC professionals. We're gonna continue to work on things like fulfillment, which is another big one, and creating a more digital platform for our pros, which is also critically important in fulfillment.
All of the things that I just outlined, you know, Brian, gives us a lot of confidence that we're gonna be able to continue to take market share at 2x, you know, the market, which is what we've laid out. As Brian will outline, this is critical to our ability to not only grow top line, but to get to that 14.5% operating margin.
Marvin, as you look across your chain, you know, and that, again, it's a great roadmap here for the, you know, as we think about the professional business. But as you look across the chain, are there areas, you know, markets, maybe even stores, where the Pro you're seeing an even a better performance in Pro that we could base, you know, as investors, we're thinking about your business, we could use that as a roadmap of where the total chain could ultimately go?
Well, I would say the short answer is yes. you know, We, as you know, we pilot a lot of different things. We piloted different fulfillment mechanisms. We've piloted, you know, dedicated fulfillment distribution centers. We piloted different sales force. What we're trying to do, you know, is test and learn, and try to be very methodical, but also very disciplined around how we address the needs of this customer. There are geographies where we've implemented different things and tried different things, where we've seen green shoots that really informed us around our strategy. It's also informing us around what the future strategic initiatives should be.
A lot more to come on that, but we're gonna be outlining, you know, probably the latter part of this year, early next year, some other key initiatives that we think will allow us to accelerate, you know, our Pro market share. For us, because we've been very disciplined around the small to medium-sized Pro, we feel really confident that what we're doing today will give us the ability to serve those customers at a high level. Then we have some future initiatives that I mentioned, that we'll be deploying here in the future that we think will allow us to continue to grow the share of that customer, and then at some point, start to go after that larger Pro.
Yeah. Brian, I would just add that the small to medium Pro really is where the focus is, no matter the market. That's where we feel like we have the right and the ability to win. That's where we're seeing the most traction, where we feel like we're taking the majority of the share. Just to add on a couple, you know, nuances within what Marvin called out, digital tools, which is what, you know, is in the process of rolling out this year. The ability for, you know, a small to medium Pro online, to get a quote online, schedule a runner into our store, schedule job, site delivery, those are new capabilities that we're seeing a lot of traction, a lot of momentum.
The fulfillment side of this, as Marvin mentioned, is we're looking at assets that we already have in distinct markets, whether that's assets out of the back of our store in terms of how we fulfill. We have flatbed distribution centers that today singularly flow product from vendor to store. We're looking at unlocking capabilities where that can go direct to job site. Again, those are leveraging the assets that we have, and that's where we feel like the biggest unlock is from a sales productivity, sales per square foot, where we can take share and where we can ultimately drive both operating profit and operating margin.
Okay. Okay, shifting gears a bit, I mean, I was on the last conference call, I think, in this year you mentioned this, the rural market strategy, which I was impressed because in my mind, what this says is that Lowe's is now at a point-
Mm
... where you can start looking even more specifically at these groups of stores within your larger chain to unlock productivity. Maybe we can just discuss, I mean, the opportunity you see in the these rural market stores. For us, kind of the timetables to unlock those improvements. Also, as you step back, are there other cohorts of stores within your larger chain where you can make specific adjustments like you're doing in your rural stores now?
Well, you know what? As I said, man, we're in this test and learn environment, this is just another example of just trying to be more customer-centric and listening to the customers. We had rural customers saying to us, "We love shopping in your stores, but there are items that we have to go other places to buy, that would be great for us if you sold, you know, these items under the same roof as your core home improvement products." One of the things that we learned as we start to think about this journey to this 14.5% operating profit, we started to look at our entire footprint of stores. As I've mentioned, you know, initially, we looked at these rural and remote stores as competitive disadvantages.
We came to the realization, as I said on the earnings call, it's a heck of a lot more efficient for us to operate a store in Philadelphia, Mississippi, than in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from an expense standpoint. If we can be efficient, you know, in a Philadelphia, Mississippi, we're gonna create a lot more profitability, along with top-line potential, just based on the competitive set and based on serving that customer with more things that they require. Taking rural specifically, I mean, we identified roughly 300 stores that kind of fit the profile, and through a lot of testing and learning, we identified some assortment changes and additional products that we're gonna start to put in these stores as we reset them, thinking more along the lines of the rural customer.
We've been really pleased with what we've seen in the early stages. Really, if you take a step back, Brian, this is really all about localization. It's about us being a lot more aggressive around understanding the customer, understanding the demographics and the needs, and making sure our assortment fits the need of the customer.
When I say that, I'm sure there are a lot of observers that could say, "Well, I mean, there's nothing new about localization, that's been going on for decades with retailers." I mean, we were decades behind because our systems and our assortment planning tools were so inefficient that the merchant team basically assorted every store the same way, irrespective of geography and demographic, because they didn't have the ability to do any unique tweaks based on assortment planning. We've put in a better set of tools so we can address the rural customer, we can address the urban customer.
One really specific point that I'll make that gives you a view of the opportunity in front of us: as you know, I ran stores for our closest competitor for six years, and so I still have, you know, relatively solid knowledge on the sales volume of some of those locations. It is not uncommon for me to go to certain urban markets and have one of our stores literally six blocks away from a competitor, and we're doing 50% of the volume with a larger physical store. The question is, why is that? I mean, so it's not a demographic issue.
It comes down to three things: the assortment is totally wrong for the demographic of the customer, we have a significantly lower Pro penetration than the competitor, and that's driven in large part based on some of those fundamental things I talked about that we're addressing, and we haven't really captured the physical and digital syncing of that omnichannel that we will with improve technology and focus. The good news is we know exactly what we need to do to fix our assortment. That work is underway.
We know exactly what we need to do to improve our Pro penetration, we know exactly what we need to do to continue to make sure that we are connecting the physical and the digital stores, which gives me confidence that we could get a heck of a lot more productivity through not only rural stores, but urban stores, with just the execution of basic things like assortment planning that's done locally, and all the other things I talked about. When I say we're bullish about the future of our company, it's really more about understanding what we need to do to just create more productivity in the locations we have, and there's no mystery around how we do it. We just have to be very disciplined and very methodical around the investments we make.
We have done that, and we think they'll continue to pay dividends for us.
Yeah, Brian, I would just add, the rural customer in particular, you know, very mission-based, mission-focused, right? Driving a lot of times long distances, looking for value, convenience, one-stop shop. Really pleased. We're seeing assortments, categories, lawn, outdoor, ranch, really starting to pop. As Marvin mentioned, we'll have 300 stores rolled out by the end of the year, and these are already stores from a profitability standpoint and operating margin standpoint that are above the company average. Leaning in, localization, better sales, productivity does nothing but grow and enhance that. Again, these are all markets where we know these customers, and we feel like we have the right and the ability to win. Really excited about seeing the acceleration here.
Yeah, very helpful. Maybe shifting back maybe a little bit nearer term. Inflation, again, this is a topic of conversation I'm having a lot with our clients and a lot of the companies I cover, including, you know, you. The question I have is, I guess maybe an update, is, I mean, what you're seeing from a inflation standpoint, you know, probably more most specifically on the shipping cost side. I guess the question I have is, as you think about Lowe's and the dynamics of Lowe's, as we head into what's likely to be, I mean, maybe not deflationary but disinflationary, how will the dynamics at Lowe's change as that occurs?
Yeah, sure. Brian, I'll take that one. inflation certainly been a large component of our comp sales over the last several quarters. We still expect that, you know, to impact our results as we look here in 2023. A lot of wrap still from price actions that we took in H2 last year, so expecting that to impact our average ticket. We messaged across most all of our merch divisions. We saw average tickets still up in Q1. We expect that to hold for the most part, as we look across the year, again, mostly due to the wrap from pricing actions that we took last year. The one caveat to that is really what we're seeing with lumber and commodities.
We mentioned in May, roughly expecting 150 basis point impact on the year, so that's gonna be the one category, negatively impacting average ticket and where we expect to take a step back. You mentioned more broadly, you know, transportation cost, commodity cost. We have a really big set of activities and actions internally with our merchandising partners and with our supply chain partners, as we look at commodities and transportation costs that have moved up. Over the last several years, we've been very diligent in tracking those, you know, down to the item level. We're seeing as these markets roll over, we're prepared to re-engage. We're negotiating, we're taking these costs out, whether it's commodity, whether it's transportation. The wage piece has proven to be a little bit more sticky, but seeing great success there.
Just as a reminder, as we get those costs out, they do have to roll through, turn through inventory before we start to see the benefits flow through margin. Again, very much a part of merchandising PPI. It's included in our gross margin expectations for the year. It also puts us in a leadership position. Right, as we look to continue to support our everyday competitive price strategy with the merchandising organization, we can invest, we can take price leadership when needed, but we're always gonna do that, you know, as we continue to manage margins. That's just an overall landscape in terms of where we are with inflation, cost clawback activities, and how we're managing that across the portfolio.
I guess the follow-up question, Brandon, maybe a couple of quick ones. I mean, one is, you know, in the areas that are not as commodity driven, like such as lumber, I mean, I just want to, I guess maybe help to emphasize this. I mean, the anticipation is that Lowe's will likely not be lowering prices, correct?
That's correct, Brian. Outside of commodities at this point, we do not expect to see disinflation and a significant step back in average ticket. That's as we look out to 2023 and also beyond. Outside of commodities, we're not expecting significant step backs or significant disinflation there.
I guess there's one more quick one from a consumer standpoint. Maybe, Marvin, this is where we started our conversation this morning, but as you're watching your consumer, do you think the unit demand could actually improve as inflationary pressures subside?
It's a good question. You know, we hope so. I think it's a wait and see for us. This is one of the most unique convergence of macroeconomic factors and home improvement factors that we've ever seen. We're cautious about predicting how the consumer is gonna respond, because it's just such a unique set of factors that are converging together. Having said that, you know, we believe that as we work our way through the remainder of 2023, we're gonna obviously have a much better view of the consumer, and we're gonna have a much better view of when we're gonna see our growth trajectory come back.
Again, we're approaching the end of the first half, which will give us a really clear set of data points, and then as we get into the back half, we'll get another clear set of consumer data points, and then that's gonna inform us, you know, more intelligently regards to where the consumer is trending and what we can hope will occur, you know, next year and subsequent years.
Brian, I think it gets back to, you know, earlier comments that we were making around reversion, right? We look across the portfolio. You mentioned when you look at units and transactions, we've seen those down now for several consecutive quarters in a row. We are back to pre-pandemic levels as it relates to a number of those categories. We do feel confident, you know, that we have a new baseline by which to manage the business. When we look out beyond in the more, you know, more normalized home improvement environment, we do expect that more typical relationship between, you know, transactions, units, and average ticket to start to return. That's what we're expecting when we look forward.
I'm getting the notification our time is running down. Maybe I have one quick final question. Lowe's has been a, you know, a very solid allocator of capital or returner of capital to its shareholders. Just maybe an update there on how you're thinking about uses of excess capital.
No change to our previously stated capital allocation strategy. Continuing to invest in the business in high return projects, targeting a 35% dividend payout ratio and returning, you know, excess through share repurchases. We do expect to get to our 2.75x leverage target by the end of this year. Just as a reminder, based on that, we will see a normalization in share repurchases when comparing 2023 to 2022. A couple other things I'll also mention, just from a cost of capital standpoint, continue to be really competitive there. Our weighted average interest rate is at 3.95%. 100% of our debt portfolio is fixed, so very little exposure, you know, to the interest rate environment that we're in.
We look at debt maturities this year and next, pretty insignificant when we look at 2023, as well as 2024. The last thing I'll mention, just as we look at the current interest rate environment, share repurchases as we continue to lean in, those are still accretive to EPS, as we look at and forecast and project what we're looking at for 2023.
Yeah, and Brian, one of the things that we're in, you know, incredibly pleased with, not only is our improvement from a customer service and an operating income, but also return on invested capital.
Sure.
Brandon and his team have really done an incredible job of maintaining a very disciplined, very focused approach to how we allocate capital and how we return, you know, capital to our shareholders. That's something we're gonna continue to do.
Marvin, Brandon, Kate, thank you all very much. We appreciate your time. Congratulations on the ongoing success of Lowe's.
Thank you. Always great to be with you.
Thank you, Brian.