I would now like to turn the conference over to our host for today, Barry Hytinen, Chief Financial Officer. You may begin.
Thanks, Sonia. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for participating in today's call. Joining me in our Lexington headquarters is Scott Thompson, Chairman, President, and CEO. After prepared remarks, we will open the call for Q&A. Forward-looking statements that we make during this call are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements, including the company's expectations regarding sales, earnings, adjusted EBITDA or net income, and anticipated performance for 2016 and subsequent periods involve uncertainties. Actual results may differ due to a variety of factors that could adversely affect the company's business. The factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those identified include economic, regulatory, competitive, operating, and other factors discussed in the press release issued today.
These factors are also discussed in the company's SEC filings, including, but not limited to, annual reports on Form 10-K and the company's quarterly reports on 10-Q under the headings "Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and/or "Risk Factors," as well as the company's press releases. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made. The company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements. This morning's commentary will include non-GAAP financial measures. The press release contains reconciliations of these non-GAAP financial measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures, as well as information regarding the methodology used for constant currency presentation. We have posted the press release on the company's website at tempursealy.com and have also filed it with the SEC. Our comments will supplement the detailed information provided in the press release.
Now with that introduction, it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Scott.
Thank you, Barry. In the second quarter, net sales increased 5.2%, adjusted EBITDA increased 38%, and adjusted EPS increased 74%. This is Tempur Sealy's best second quarter in the company's history for sales, adjusted EBITDA, and adjusted EPS. Additionally, our use of capital continued to improve. Our return on invested capital over the last 12 months on a GAAP basis improved to 16.4%, and on an adjusted basis, 18.3%. Our focused execution has driven this improvement through a combination of increased revenues and cost reductions while holding invested capital essentially flat. I think it's noteworthy the team achieved this in a worldwide economy that I would describe as just okay. I'm personally very pleased with the strong performance by the entire worldwide team as they focused on what matters and passionately attacked a broad array of issues and opportunities.
The quality of earnings is very high, with strong conversion to cash and no unusual adjustments. Despite this initial progress, I can comfortably say we all feel we can do more, and we are engaged in the areas that are underperforming. The organization continues to focus on our key initiatives. Let me highlight just a few of our initiatives. First, our ability to develop the best bedding products in all the markets we serve. In the first quarter, we launched the new TEMPUR-Breeze and the Stearns & Foster product lines in North America. The new Stearns & Foster line including 19 models with an average retail price that's up significantly over the old line. Both the new TEMPUR-Breeze and Stearns & Foster product line are driving traffic into our retailer stores by targeting specific needs that are resonating with consumers.
For those who sleep hot, we offer new and improved cooling technology with the TEMPUR-Breeze. For those seeking high-quality innerspring mattresses, we offer the craftsmanship of Stearns & Foster. These products are being supported by creative and impactful marketing. Internationally, where we roughly get 25% of our EBITDA, the Tempur-Hybrid is being launched and has been performing above our expectations. I should foreshadow that the international team has a full plate of launches over the next 18 months, and I'm looking forward to updating you on those products as they hit the market. The second initiative I'd like to highlight, our ability to expand North American margins without sacrificing market share. North American adjusted operating margin improved a robust 430 basis points as compared to the second quarter last year, the third consecutive quarterly increase.
During the quarter, we benefited from operational improvements, price increases, positive merchandising mix, and operating leverage on SG&A, expanding margins even as we continue to invest in marketing and advertising, as well as new products and innovation. Both the Tempur and Sealy brands drove price and mix benefits, with Stearns & Foster performing exceptionally well. Stearns & Foster is comping positive over last year at a higher price point, and it is not completely rolled out to all customers. As many of you know, we've been focused on gaining efficiencies from our Sealy assembly plants. In this quarter, we are pleased to report we made another step forward in what we call four-wall margin. This is a measure that takes out the impact of commodity changes and focuses on what is controllable at the plant.
To quickly refresh, in the third quarter of 2015, we reported a 100-basis point decline in four-wall profitability. In the fourth quarter, it was flat, in the first quarter of this year, we reported a 100-basis point improvement. I'm pleased to report that we realized a 200-basis improvement this quarter. There's still a lot of work to do and opportunity to go after, I think you can clearly see we're on the right track. Another key initiative I'd like to highlight is grow market share internationally. Our international business net sales increased 7.6% on a constant currency basis, slightly below our expectation, but understandable considering the global events and markets. These are truly interesting times we live. The world is full of change for sure.
Brexit or the recent tragic events in France and Germany being just a few example of the challenges our international team has had to deal with in the last three months. High-performance companies learn to accept change and rapidly adapt. We expect to continue to grow our international sales despite these uncontrollable issues by focusing on new product innovation, expanded distribution, and compelling marketing programs. I'm proud of the progress the entire team has made on all of our initiatives to service our customers, drive innovation, and expand profitability. People from many different areas of the company have worked together to deliver this quarter. This continues to be a journey that the team is passionate about, I feel fortunate to lead. Before turning the call over to Barry, I'd like to make a few comments about our share repurchase program.
We continue to believe the best way to deploy excess capital is to give it back to the shareholders in the form of share repurchase activity. As we said in February, we see this as a long-term strategy that is consistent with the outstanding earnings and cash flow attributes of our business. Thus today, we announced that our board of directors has again authorized another $200 million share repurchase. Barry, will you please give the details of financials for the quarter?
Thanks, Scott. Net sales for the second quarter were $804 million, up 5.2% versus the second quarter last year, on a constant currency basis, they were up 6.6%. Adjusted gross margin improved 250 basis points to 41.9%, adjusted operating margin improved 340 basis points to 12.6%. On a segment basis, North America net sales increased 6% and were up 6.4% in constant currency. Both the Tempur and Sealy US businesses grew mid-single digits. Sales in Canada were strong, increasing 15% on a constant currency basis and high single digits at reported rates. North America bedding product sales increased 5.2% and 6% at constant currency. Bedding units were up 2% in total. However, excluding floor models, they were up 3% as our launches last year had more floor modeled units. Sales growth was driven by higher demand for our Tempur products, particularly our new TEMPUR-Breeze mattresses.
Our Sealy Posturepedic and new Stearns & Foster products were also key drivers of growth. National accounts were below fleet performance. While that was a headwind to our revenue, it was a tailwind to our gross margin. Year-over-year, average selling price was positively impacted by pricing actions taken earlier this year and positive merchandising mix for both Tempur-Pedic and our Sealy brand products. Our North American other channel grew 70% in the quarter. This channel is predominantly made up of our hospitality and high-margin Tempur direct-to-consumer business. As I look at our results, a personal highlight for me is that our internet sales increased over 40% as compared to the second quarter last year. Other product sales were up 25%, primarily driven by our joint venture and offset by lower sales of Tempur-Pedic pillows.
The decline in pillows sales is an area that the team is looking at very closely and may have some upside in 2017. I'd like to briefly mention our new Cocoon by Sealy product line, which was not material to sales but has been ramping. As the global bedding leader, we are always trying to leverage our assets, so I am pleased that we are launching Cocoon into a couple of European markets in the third quarter with more to follow. In North America, Cocoon was about a $1.5 million drag on EBITDA in the second quarter, which was consistent with our plans. We feel confident that our product is by far the best in its class, and we continue to learn and fine-tune our approach.
We view bed-in-a-box online as a niche market and a relatively small segment of the broader bedding industry, with some companies overspending on customer acquisition costs. With the global trend to higher quality bedding, the vast majority of consumers continue to prefer testing beds in store and buying from retailers. We have positioned our company to be able to effectively respond if this is the way consumers want to purchase beds in the future. North American adjusted gross margin improved 340 basis points to 40%. Both Tempur and Sealy improved and were primarily driven by operational efficiencies, pricing actions, and product mix. This was slightly offset by increased launch costs associated with new products. Sealy US gross margins improved a little over 200 basis points, primarily driven by the four-wall improvement.
As new products continue to roll out through the back half of the year, we will have some additional launch costs of approximately $5 million to $10 million incremental to last year to complete our North American rollouts. All of this will set us up very well for 2017. North America adjusted operating margin improved a robust 430 basis points to 15.5%, driven by the improvement in gross margin and operating expense leverage. Operating expenses were up about $300 million year-over-year, primarily due to new product launch costs. Turning to international. Net sales increased 1.6%, and on a constant currency basis, they were up 7.6%. Bedding product sales increased 1.9% and on a constant currency basis, increased 9.4%. Units increased 2%.
Net sales increased as a result of growth across all of our major regions, with particular strength from our Tempur-Hybrid launch, direct sales in Asia, and Sealy-branded sales in Latin America. This was partially offset by unfavorable foreign exchange rates, particularly in Latin America. While we don't normally break out this level of detail, given global attention to Brexit, I would like to note that the U.K. is only about 2% of sales, and so far, it's holding up well. Other channel sales were up 16.5% on a constant currency basis, driven by strong internet sales and positive double-digit comps in our company-owned stores. International adjusted gross margin decreased 120 basis points to 51.1% compared to the prior year, 52.3%. Our gross margin decline was driven by costs associated with new product launches and product mix.
Offsetting these factors, we continue to see benefit from those incremental sales through the more profitable direct distribution channels. International adjusted operating margin decreased 110 basis points to 17%, driven by adjusted gross margin. Operating expenses were flat year-on-year. Consolidated unadjusted EBITDA was $124 million, up $47 million or 62% from last year. Consolidated adjusted EBITDA was $125 million, up $34 million or 38%. Adjusted EBITDA growth was driven by operational improvements, increased sales, and pricing. These were partially offset by launch-associated costs, foreign exchange, and variable compensation. Adjustments to EBITDA decreased to $1 million from $14 million in the same quarter last year. In the second quarter, we recorded a one-time $47 million loss on extinguishment of the debt associated with the completion of our new credit facility and senior notes offering.
The loss included $23.6 million premium associated with the prepayment of the 2020 bond, $15.8 million non-cash write-off of deferred financing costs, and $7.8 million of lender fees. As you recall, these transactions greatly improved our capital structure and flexibility. GAAP operating income, including debt extinguishment costs, increased for the third consecutive quarter. Without these costs, GAAP earnings were robust. GAAP earnings per share were $0.35, up from $0.34 in the second quarter of 2015. Adjusted EPS, a much better measure of our operating performance, were $0.92, up from $0.53 last year or a 74% increase. We realized about $0.03 of benefit from our share repurchases so far this year. For the 12 months ending June 30th, 2016, our adjusted EBITDA was $504 million, an increase of $87 million or 21% over the same period last year. Now moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow items.
At the end of the second quarter, net debt was $1.6 billion. Our leverage ratio on a trailing 12-month basis was 3.2 times as of the end of the second quarter, stable with the level at the end of the prior quarter, even after big launch costs and share repurchase. Again, highlighting the company's and the industry's great cash flow attributes. This is down from 3.8 times in the same period last year. As you know, we have established a target leverage ratio of approximately 3.5 times, and we'll continue to monitor our leverage. Operating cash flow in the second quarter was $71 million versus $8 million in the second quarter last year, driven by EBITDA growth and improved cash cycle. As previously reported, we had a lot of capital structure activity.
We replaced our senior credit facility, we issued $600 million of 10-year senior notes, and called our notes that were due in 2020. These transactions significantly extended the maturities of our long-term debt, lowered our interest costs, mitigated exposure to increases in future interest rates, and increased our flexibility to return capital to shareholders. Overall, we clearly reduced enterprise risk and feel great about our balance sheet. During the second quarter, the company repurchased approximately 2.1 million shares for a total cost of approximately $122 million. We ended the quarter with 59.7 million shares outstanding after giving effect to dilution. In July, through yesterday, we have bought about 600,000 shares for a total cost of approximately $54 million. After giving effect for the additional authorization that Scott mentioned, we have $344 million available for future share repurchases.
After quarter end in July, our 8% PIK Notes matured, which we funded primarily through a delayed draw on our term loan in the new credit facility. This resulted, based on today's interest rates, in an additional $6 million in annual interest savings. I'd like to provide a brief update on the situation with the Danish Tax Authority. We continue to work through our negotiations with all parties. We anticipate making a payment in the third quarter consistent with our reserve position. We feel we have fully accounted for the exposure based on what we know at this point and expect to have more information on this issue on the next earnings call. Now, turning to our financial guidance. Today, we are raising the low end of our adjusted EBITDA guidance from $500 million to $525 million and maintaining the high end at $550 million.
The midpoint of the new range of EBITDA guidance, which increased from $525 million to $538 million, represents an increase of $82 million or 18% versus prior year. We expect to experience some sales headwinds from a noisy U.S. election cycle, continued uncontrollable events internationally, and some unfavorable FX. This, combined with our first half sales performance of 1.4% net sales growth, we anticipate low single-digit growth for the full year. With that, I'll turn the call back to Scott.
Thank you, Barry. Great job. While the quarterly financial numbers were solid, delivering several financial records for the second quarter, I also want to highlight the improvements in several non-financial internal metrics. Operationally, the Sealy U.S. Assembly group had the lowest staff turnover in the last two years. It was a record quarter for plant safety, something I feel very strongly about. We set a record for on-time deliveries to our retailers, something we're all very proud of. From a corporate standpoint, the corporate turnover has been cut in half. Another important observation is that although we certainly are proud of the progress that we're reporting today, there are still areas in the company that are clearly underperforming. Three that come to mind include national accounts, Germany, and pillows. The team has already developed plans to re-energize these areas.
Lastly, I get asked about our 2017 aspirational plan in almost every investor meeting. I'm not going to give 2017 guidance in 2016, no matter how many times you ask me. I can say the team is working hard on what we can control or influence, and what is out of our control currently looks very manageable. I can also say that I feel better today about our ability to achieve the aspirational target than I have at any time since joining the company. With that, operator, please open up the call for questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star then the one key on your touch-tone telephone. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press the pound key. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. If you have a follow-up, please reenter the queue by pressing star one. Our first question comes from John Baugh from Stifel. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Good morning. Congratulations on a nice quarter. Just a couple of things quickly. Could you roughly break out what the like-for-like product pricing influenced Q2 revenues, update us on what ad spend was in Q2 and the plan for '16? Per the 650s, any update on accruing any of that? When and why would you begin doing that? Thank you.
Why don't you take the first part and I'll take the accruing.
Sure. Pricing, John, was very strong. We had about, call it, $10 million of benefit at EBITDA. The way I would think about that is sequentially, that was more benefit than we had in the first quarter. As you know, we took some pricing on Tempur and Sealy in the first quarter, and on the Tempur side, that started rolling in in January, and on the little bit that we took on Sealy started in March. We had the full benefit of that in the second quarter, and we'll have that benefit likely through the balance of the year and into 2017, at least just for those price increases, see what we do go forward. As it relates to-
Advertising.
Advertising, I think you're asking about the direct advertising. The way to think about the direct advertising, it was essentially flat on a dollar basis year-over-year.
Great. On the accrual of the aspirational plan, now I'm going to give the layman version, I might not be perfect on this. As the way I understand it, and I did have a face-to-face with the auditors to make sure I understood the accounting, is the threshold for accrual is that it has to be probable. Probable in their terminology, as I worked through that, sounds like it has to be like a 75% kind of probable. What I would tell you is the bar is pretty high before there would be any accrual, and I can't tell you exactly when that would be. It seems to me like it's probably a 2017 kind of item when the threshold is probable. That's my best guess, but it's a judgment call at the time.
Thanks. I'll defer to others. Good luck.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Jessica Mays from Nomura Securities. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning and congrats on a nice quarter.
Good morning. Thank you.
My question is about North American market share. I was wondering if you could give any color about how you think your North America sales increased compared to the general market.
Sure. As you probably know, the information's not precise, I'm going to give you my general feel. I think from what we can tell, if you go back to the first quarter, now that we've been able to look at all the data for people who report after us and the information we get after our earnings call, I think we feel very confident that we took market share in North America in the first quarter. We don't have a lot of data yet on the second quarter, but my perception from talking to retailers, that the numbers were reported today, that we probably clearly took market share in the second quarter. I will tell you that we always like market share, and you always like revenues.
The way we look at it is the strength of the products and the advertising will drive market share, as opposed to from a pricing standpoint, going after share.
Great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Mark Rupe from Longbow Research. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys. Great quarter. Scott, you had called out three items of areas of weakness in the quarter, national accounts in Germany, and pillows. Germany, I know, has been under pressure for a few years and national accounts, at least for the second quarter in a row. Is there any new developments there that cause you to be concerned?
No. I wouldn't say there's any new developments that cause me to concern. I think what I was pointing out is sometimes, you report a quarter and you look at it and you say, "Geez, we hit on all eight cylinders, and we're peak earnings or something." I think what I wanted to make sure I pointed out clearly on the call is there are some pretty major buckets that are within the company that are still underperforming. We've got action plans around those items, and we're optimistic that in 2017 we'll begin to have good news. There's nothing new that I would say in those particular buckets. You're right, they've been underperforming for a few quarters.
Perfect. Thank you.
Thank you. Again, ladies and gentlemen, if you have a question at this time, please press star then one. Our next question comes from Curtis Nagle from Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks very much for taking the call. If you guys could, I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts in terms of where you guys see the best opportunities in terms of expanding your retail footprint and I guess where that stands now after three quarters under the new management team.
I assume you're talking about our direct stores kind of retail footprint. Clearly overseas, where some of the retail infrastructure is not as well developed in the U.S., we're expanding stores in, what do we have, Barry, 200, give or take? Give or take 200 stores internationally. I expect that we'll grow those short of double digits, but we'll continue a very consistent program of growth internationally. I should point out that those stores are comping close to double digit or double digit? Double digit. Internationally, the stores we open comping double digit, as you might guess, the return there is very good when you go direct and comp double digit. But we're in those markets because the retail infrastructure is either not developed or there are barriers to entry for us from a product standpoint.
If you're coming back over to North America, we've got three, four stores. We'll open up a few stores, and when I mean a few, I'm talking about two or three stores, maybe a year is kind of the plan. That's really just to keep us close to the customer. They're kind of an advertising asset. We do make good money in the stores, and they're comping very well. Quite frankly, our retail partners are doing a great job, and we just need a few stores so that we are close to the customers. We also, as I think we've talked about numerous times, is that we're investing a little bit more in the Tempur webpage, and we're doing some more direct sales. I think Barry mentioned web sales were up 42%. Correct.
A lot of that, in fact, most of that is really growth in Tempur as opposed to the Cocoon, which we're still learning, and as we've mentioned before, we continue to see that as kind of more of a niche market. Hopefully that helps.
It does. Thanks very much. Just, I guess a quick housekeeping question. Looks like inventory was up a little bit, so I'm assuming that's build into the next quarters. I guess maybe just a little more detail in terms of where you're seeing some build across, I guess, products and the two segments.
What I would tell you, Curt, is from a cash cycle basis, year-over-year, it's actually improvement in days. If you're looking at it on a dollar basis, it's up, on a cash cycle basis, it's actually an improvement. If you're looking at it from year end, yeah, normally seasonally we're up because with launches and with the seasonal cadence of sales. I'd tell you in this industry, I think there's minimal risk in inventory.
Right. Okay. That's great. Thanks very much.
Thank you. In the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourself to one question. If you have a follow-up, please reenter the key by pressing star one. Our next question comes from Keith Hughes from SunTrust. Your line is now open.
Thank you. Kind of working off rough numbers here, but it looks like the Tempur-Pedic business put up one of the best gross margin we've seen, well in excess of 50%. About four or five years. You've highlighted generally some things that have helped margins out in the quarter, but specific to that, what were the biggest drivers for such a good result?
Let me frame some of that for you. First of all, I would say the Tempur margins are near record. I would also point out, though, that the Sealy margins are 400 basis points off historical numbers.
Correct.
To put things in historical perspective, the Tempur plants are running close to a record, and Sealy is still running 400 basis points behind what would be their historical peak margin. From an opportunity standpoint. Obviously, we're happy about the volume, and the people in the plant have been doing a very good job. I also tell you, and Barry, you can correct me, because I don't think we've talked about this specifically, but from everything I've seen in the Tempur area, that I don't think we think we're at peak margins in the Tempur plant. Although right now we're having record ones, we do think there's some more upside in the Tempur margins.
Thank you.
Keith, I would just add that we've seen benefit, obviously, from pricing. We've seen the operational improvements that Scott mentioned, we're seeing continued improvement from product mix and brand mix within Tempur. The TEMPUR-Breeze has been improvement. So there's a lot of opportunity within Tempur, but to Scott's point, there's a lot of opportunity within our Sealy business, just from operational improvements, but also within mix. We've talked a lot about the fact that our Stearns & Foster collection last year, we needed to turn that business around, and we're seeing just really great performance from Stearns & Foster. Those accounts that have taken it on the floor, it's comping really well, and that helps both their margins and ours.
Probably to put that in perspective, what are we, about 75% rolled out in Stearns & Foster?
That was the large portion of the back half incremental launches that we expect. Yeah, there's more to go there.
Just a clarification on your earlier answer. You talked about your internet sales being up 40%. The majority of that increase is Tempur-Pedic sales. Is that correct, Scott?
Correct, Keith. Yes.
Yeah.
Those are very high margin sales, I would assume, right?
They are.
That's right.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Seth Basham from Wedbush. Your line is now open.
Thanks a lot, good morning.
Good morning.
Can you give us a little more insight onto Sealy North America revenue growth breakdown between price versus units? Then as a follow-up to that, you can talk about some of the areas of weakness and what you're doing to address those.
Why don't you do the first part, Barry?
Yeah. Both Tempur and Sealy had positive units. Tempur was actually a little bit stronger on unit performance. As you know, Seth, Sealy units are a much larger percent. Even with them just slightly below in total, it still was good unit performance, especially as compared to the market. Pricing was firmer, there was benefit on positive price. As we said on the prepared remarks, both Tempur and Sealy were up mid-single digits in aggregate, it was positive for price and mix for Sealy, since you're asking that, and positive price and mix for Tempur. Scott?
Yeah. I think you asked to kind of expand on the areas that were underperforming, some actions around them. The three I called out were national accounts, Germany, and pillows. If you look at national accounts, we're working with each of the national accounts sales teams, working with them individually, I think that that's going to be fruitful. If you're talking about Germany, that was a complete redo of our distribution strategy in Germany. It's taken us about six months to roll that out, we're going to see the results of that. Really, we're not going to see the real results of that till you get to the fourth quarter of this year and starting the first quarter of next year. That plan is well along from an execution standpoint.
From a pillows standpoint, there is a lot of R&D activity on our product, we're re-looking at our pricing strategy and our marketing strategy throughout the pillow industry. We're working very closely with some large retailers to make sure that we're going to service them in a way that they need to be serviced.
Got you. That's helpful. I was referring to Sealy and just the Sealy lines, the area of weakness was Optimum, [Stearns & Foster].
If you want to go into the detail of Sealy. Stearns & Foster, as we said, robust. Posturepedic, very strong. Optimum, we continue to see some weakness in that product. That product has got some age on it. As I think you know, it's been in the marketplace for quite a while. Until we get the new Optimum out, we would expect to see some deterioration in the Optimum sales, although they are not material to the overall Sealy revenues.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then one, and we ask that you limit yourself to one question. Our next question comes from Peter Keith from Piper Jaffray. Your line is now open.
Hey. Thanks. Good morning. Good results. I was wondering if you guys could just give us directionally the trend through the quarter, particularly because it sounded like April started so strong. It seems like there's been some mixed signals out of the retail environment, maybe some peak-ish sales around the holiday. The general trend, and then as a follow-up, could you help us understand how Tempur-Flex is now performing in its second year since you've lapped that rollout? Thank you.
Sure. In general, I'm not crazy about giving monthly sales numbers, I do need to reconcile because we gave some of them in the second quarter. In the second quarter, as I remember, let me do my numbers, we were flat in the first quarter from a revenue standpoint. We did call out the second quarter started strong. I thought that was important because it was such a big trend change from what we were reporting. You're correct. The first part of the quarter started out strong, what I'd say is it leveled off some. I think as we talked about in the first quarter when there were some concerns about sales being flat, we thought there were some inventory build or some sell out of inventory in the first quarter, we probably benefited a little bit on inventory build in April.
I'd say after an initial very robust start in April, it leveled out from a positive standpoint.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Budd Bugatch from Raymond James. Your line is now open.
Hi, guys. This is Bobby filling in for Budd. Congrats on a good quarter, and thanks for taking my questions.
Thank you.
Quickly on the Sealy plants, are you seeing the improvement broad-based across all the plants, as in, is the top-performing plants improving as well as the bottom-performing plants?
Yes. Having said that, like always, when you have a large number of units, you're trying to bring the bottom up more. I would say yes, the plants that have been performing well continue to do better. Where the real opportunity is in what I'll call the bottom quartile.
Okay. I appreciate that detail. Real quickly, Barry, can you maybe just update us on your view on raw materials for the back half of the year?
Yeah. Sure, Bobby. It is fairly consistent with what we thought for the full year at the beginning of the year. We thought that the full year we'd see roughly, I think we said about a $20 million tailwind for commodities for the full year. Through the first half, we're right on track with that expectation. Incidentally, we also said that we thought we'd see about a headwind of $10 million from FX, and we're probably running a little bit more than that. In the first quarter, we saw on FX about a $2 million headwind for EBITDA on FX, and we saw about a $4 million headwind, a little bit more than that, to EBITDA from FX in the second quarter. In light of where rates are, it's probably a little bit beyond that. That's all embedded in the updated guidance.
I appreciate the detail, and best of luck going forward.
Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Bradley Thomas from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Good morning, Scott and Barry, let me have my congratulations as well on a great quarter here. Wanted to ask about the outlook for North America revenue in the second half of the year, if you could just give us a little bit more color on your underlying assumptions for the outlook. Then just a quick follow-up on that strong internet performance, maybe anything that you think may be driving that or new steps or initiatives that you have in place to take advantage of opportunities in that channel. Thank you.
Sure. Let me take a stab at it, Barry will fix it after I talk. When we talk about detailed revenue forecast for the back half of the year, probably not going to go too granular on that. I would tell you that North America feels pretty good. Doesn't feel great. As I've talked about it over the last really six months, it's really the same story. It feels good, then it feels weak, then it feels good, then it feels weak. I think that's just the reflection of a sputtering economy that may have a GDP of 1.5%-2%. That's what we continue to expect. We may be a little conservative. We are nervous, I guess is the word, about what we think is going to be a noisy election cycle in North America, with the Olympics.
It's been at least my experience that that kind of noise can crowd out your message. That's a call-out. That's really the only thing we're seeing in North America that I'd say we're concerned about. You asked specifically about the internet sales, I always hesitate to give growth percentages because it is a smaller base. We're not a dotcom company trying to raise capital, I don't like to quote off of numbers that really aren't going to be material to the overall consolidated numbers. I did want to point out that it's growing, it's growing specifically because initiatives that we've taken, both investments in technology and changes in our marketing program in that area. The team's doing a very good job.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Carla Casella from JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
Hi, this is May on for Carla. Quick question about the 4th of July. Typically, it's an important promotional season for bedding. Can you give us some insight into how you were positioned for this holiday versus last year, and if any of that benefited 2Q?
Sure. Hi, May. Thanks for the question. I would say that from a promotional standpoint, we were fairly consistent, even a little bit less promotional. The industry has been, I'd say, fairly stable to less promotional over the last several years and it's generally been a little less promotional. Not that there aren't promotions. Obviously, there are always consumer promotions to drive traffic, but I think as an industry, it has been a little bit less so.
I think I'd just add on a little bit from that point that Barry's making. From a strategy standpoint, we'll be promotional at times, and we'll certainly compete in the marketplace. I don't see any reason to be overly promotional because, again, there's not a share grab strategy here. It really is a discipline strategy to get our proper share that our products should get in the marketplace based on their quality and the advertising, and drive cash flow.
Thank you. Again, if you would like to ask a question at this time, please press star then one. Our next question comes from William Reuter from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open.
Morning, guys. I guess I just have a question in terms of whether you guys see any acquisition targets. Obviously, you have your Cocoon product, but I didn't know whether there could be any bed-in-a-box competitors that would ever be someone who you would consider buying. That's it. Thanks.
Well, you never say never, I always start with that. Two, we aren't supposed to comment on any future acquisition activity, or the lawyer sends me a nasty gram afterwards. Having said those two things, I'll still talk about it. Look, we got return on invested capital of 18%. I don't know what we would be buying if we were buying an internet company that has a webpage. I would say that I think we've got plenty of assets, we've got plenty of brand quality, and I don't think we need any help in that area.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Karru Martinson from Jefferies. Your line is now open.
Good morning. You guys have gotten some great traction with Stearns & Foster and kind of the higher price points. When you look at those entry levels and midpoints outside of Optimum, where are you seeing that market going? Are you seeing the same robustness there, how does that kind of factor into the guidance you've given for the year?
You're right. Look, we've moved the Stearns & Foster product line up, quite frankly, we've got some of it that's bumping into the Tempur market. To be fair and balanced, there's probably a little bit of cannibalization that we're also cannibalizing ourselves with the Stearns product, with some Tempur products. We've got a little cannibalization there. If you go down the price grid, for lack of a better way of saying it, look, I think we're doing okay there, I think we've got some issues there that we need to work through, I think that's really more of a 2017 kind of discussion. In the current market, Posturepedic is performing very well, I do think there's some more opportunity there that we're not capturing. That's going to be a 2017 issue.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Laura Champine from Roe Equity Research. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Wanted to chat a little bit about the Sealy margins, which are obviously improving. You mentioned, Scott, that they are down 400 basis points from the historical peak. Can you give us more insight into what exactly drove that decline and what's driving the improvement? I know you mentioned that turnover is down and safety is up, what is driving the improvement, what happened to reduce profitability so much in that Sealy segment?
Yeah, kind of staying pretty high level, one of it's going to be product mix both when you reconcile to the historical margins to today and as part of the turnaround. Product mix, merchandising mix. Certainly labor and the efficiency within the plant has been an issue. Scrap has certainly been an issue, and we've improved on that. I think the other thing I should call out is global sourcing. Global sourcing, one of the advantages of the merger is we've been able to negotiate better global sourcing for our material, and I think materials are 75% of the bed, Barry, give or take.
Correct.
It's a big cog, and we've done a reasonably good job in negotiating those contracts, and that's ex-commodities when I talk about that, just to be clear. I also got to say, I think there's more opportunity in global sourcing, and I don't think we're finished there. I don't know, pick your inning. Fourth inning, fifth inning of a nine-inning game, maybe. I think we'll continue to do better there.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Carla Casella from JP Morgan. Your line is now open.
Hi, this is May on again for Carla. Just a quick question about your other products category. It seemed very strong in Q2, both in North America and international. Was there a timing issue here, or did you pull some sales forward from Q3? How should we think about that business for Q3 and the back half?
Yeah, May, I mentioned on the first quarter call that that other products line in North America can be lumpy. That's our joint venture in North America. It was actually down quite a few million in the first quarter. We said, "Hey, look, it's lumpy. There's some timing there," and that it would be up in the second quarter meaningfully. Obviously it was, despite the Tempur-Pedic pillows that Scott mentioned as an opportunity that we're working on, the team's focused on. I would look at that as a first half kind of number. In the second half, we continue to see opportunity there, but it's a lumpy kind of number.
Yeah, I mean, I think that runs through their hospitality, right?
On the other products line, it's mostly the JV. On the other channel would be hospitality, May, that you were also asking about. On the other channel line, that was up 70%, and that's where the hospitality line is, as well as the internet sales and the direct-to-consumer. That line, I would say, is a line that we're clearly very focused on and trying to ramp with our high-margin Tempur to consumer line of business, as well as hospitality, where the team has been very focused on. We see a long-term secular opportunity to grow those lines of business.
Operator?
Thank you. That does conclude our question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call back over to you, Scott Thompson, for any further remarks.
Thank you. To the 7,000-plus employees worldwide, thank you for what you do every day to make the company successful. To our retail partners, thank you for your outstanding representation of our brands. To our shareholders and lenders, thank you for your confidence in Tempur Sealy's leadership team and its board of directors. This ends our call today. Thank you, operator.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This concludes today's program. You may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.