Good morning, and thank you for joining The Sherwin-Williams Company's review of the 1st quarter 2022 results and our outlook for the 2nd quarter and full year of 2022. With us on today's call are John Morikis, Chairman and CEO, Al Mistysyn, CFO, Jane Cronin, Senior Vice President, Corporate Controller, and Jim Jaye, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Communications. This conference call is being webcast simultaneously in listen-only mode by Issuer Direct via the Internet at www.sherwin.com. An archived replay of this webcast will be available at www.sherwin.com beginning approximately 2 hours after this conference call concludes. This conference call will include certain forward-looking statements as defined under the U.S. Federal Securities laws with respect to sales, earnings, and other matters.
Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date of which the statement is made, and the company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. A full declaration regarding forward-looking statements is provided in the company's earnings release transmitted earlier this morning. After the company's prepared remarks, we will open the session to questions. I will now turn the call over to Jim Jaye.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Sherwin-Williams delivered 1st quarter results in line with our expectations in an environment characterized by strong demand, ongoing cost inflation, and choppy raw material availability, which began improving meaningfully in the final weeks of the quarter. Sales in the quarter grew by a high single-digit percentage against a double-digit comparison a year ago, and we delivered sequential improvement in consolidated gross margin and segment margins in all of our businesses. Our margins remained under pressure on a year-over-year basis as significant pricing actions previously announced in all businesses have not yet fully caught up to highly elevated raw material costs near term. This remains an area of volatility. Our team is operating with confidence and momentum as we begin to enter the painting season. Our strategy is clear, and we remain focused on delivering solutions that help our customers succeed.
Let me briefly summarize the quarterly numbers before turning to John Morikis, who will provide some additional commentary on the quarter and our outlook. Comparisons in my comments are to the prior year period, unless stated otherwise. Starting with the top line, 1st quarter 2022 consolidated sales increased 7.4% to $5 billion. Pricing was in the low double-digit range. Volume was lower in the Consumer Brands Group and the Americas Group, primarily due to challenging prior year comparisons, along with anticipated raw material availability challenges, which are largely behind us now. Consolidated gross margin decreased to 41.1%, driven by lower sales volume, primarily due to raw material availability issues and cost inflation outpacing our price increases near term. Our gross margin improved each month during the quarter and compared to last year.
On a sequential basis, gross margin improved by 160 basis points, due primarily to additional pricing actions taken in the 1st quarter. SG&A expense decreased to 28.2% of sales. Our SG&A expense was 2.3% below 4th quarter 2021, and on a sequential basis was 200 basis points better. Consolidated profit before tax decreased 9.4% to $461.1 million. Sequentially, profit before tax improved by $152.2 million or 49.3%. The quarter included $70 million of acquisition-related depreciation and amortization expense compared to $75.6 million a year ago. Diluted net income per share in the quarter was $1.41 per share versus $1.51 a year ago.
Excluding acquisition-related depreciation and amortization expense and the Wattyl divestiture, 1st quarter adjusted diluted net income per share was $1.61 per share versus $2.06 per share a year ago. On a sequential basis, adjusted diluted net income per share increased 20.1%. EBITDA in the quarter was $693 million or 13.9% of sales. Moving on to our operating segments. Sales in The Americas Group increased 5.6% against a high single-digit comparison as low double-digit pricing offset lower volume related to challenging comparisons and to raw material availability, which improved significantly over the last few weeks of the quarter and has continued to improve as we enter the 2nd quarter. DIY volume was impacted the most as we prioritized serving the professional contractors, which make up the largest part of our business.
Segment margin decreased to 16.8%, resulting primarily from lower sales volume and higher raw material costs. Partially offset by selling price increases and good cost control. Segment margin improved 170 basis points sequentially. Sales in the Consumer Brands Group decreased 10.1% due primarily to lower sales outside of North America and an impact of six percentage points related to the Wattyl divestiture. This was in comparison to an extremely strong quarter a year ago, where sales were up 25%. Adjusted segment margin decreased to 12.1% of sales, resulting primarily from lower sales volume and higher raw material costs and supply chain inefficiencies, partially offset by selling price increases. Segment margin improved 580 basis points sequentially.
Sales in the Performance Coatings Group increased 20.4% against a double-digit comparison and were driven by volume and price increases. Adjusted segment margin decreased to 11.8% of sales as operating leverage from the higher volume, selling price increases, and good cost control were more than offset by higher raw material costs, where inflation was the highest among the company's three operating segments. Adjusted segment margin improved 290 basis points sequentially. Let me now turn the call over to John for some additional commentary on the 1st quarter, along with our outlook for the 2nd quarter and the full year 2022. John.
Thank you, Jim, and good morning to everyone listening. Before getting into some color on our three segments, I'd like to frame today's call with some themes we're seeing across the business. First, demand remains very strong across most of the business. Our teams are highly engaged and focused on growing volume through new accounts and share of wallet, as well as reactivating customers that may have shopped elsewhere to meet the needs of a specific project over the past year due to product availability challenges. Second, raw material availability improved meaningfully late in the quarter, and this has continued into the 2nd quarter. We do not expect lack of raw materials to have a material impact on sales going forward. To be clear, the supply chain is not completely recovered as the bottleneck has now largely moved from suppliers' production to their transportation and logistics.
In the near term, we're speeding this recovery by employing our own fleet and tank wagons to supplement suppliers' delivery capabilities. Our ability in this area is unique among our competitors. We're also focusing on SKU prioritization and formulations to make the most of the raw materials that are available to us. Additionally, the Specialty Polymers acquisition is meaningfully contributing to our resin needs. Third, inventory in our stores and distribution centers is in a markedly better place than it was at the end of December. The 50 million gals of incremental architectural capacity we brought on in the 4th quarter is up and running. As the supply of raw materials improves, we are quickly converting those materials to paint. In fact, we made more architectural paint gals in March than in any previous month in our company's history.
We expect to run this additional capacity at a high rate to keep up with demand through the painting season, and then begin building inventory in our 4th quarter as we typically would. Looking to the future, we announced a $300 million investment to begin expanding production and distribution at our Statesville, North Carolina architectural facility that serves both TAG and CBG, which will be completed in 2024. Finally, inflation remains significant and is trending toward the high end of the guidance we previously provided. In addition to raw materials, we've seen increases in other elements of the cost basket, including freight, energy, and labor. As we've said in the past, our continuous improvement efforts are focused on offsetting these increased costs. Additionally, we've been aggressive with pricing actions in all of our businesses to offset these costs and will continue to do so as necessary.
As far as our 1st quarter, I'll keep my comments brief in order to get to our outlook. In The Americas Group, sales growth in the 1st quarter was led by Protective & Marine and property management, both of which were up by a double-digit percentage. New residential repaint, and commercial were up by a mid-single digit percentage. DIY was down double digits as we faced a strong double-digit comparison and prioritized sales to professional contractors. We've also begun to see margin recovery in the business as segment margin expanded sequentially. From a product perspective, exterior paint sales performed better than interior sales, with interior being the larger part of the mix. We realized a low double-digit increase in price in the 1st quarter, with volume remaining under pressure. The 12% price increase we announced February 1st is going in as planned.
We opened four net new stores in the 1st quarter and still plan 80-100 for the year. We also continued our growth investments in sales reps, management trainees, innovative new products, e-commerce, and productivity enhancing services. Moving on to our Consumer Brands Group. While this business faced a very challenging comparison, we're encouraged by our sales in North America, which were nearly flat as we continued to focus on supporting key strategic retail partners in growing our Pros Who Paint initiative. Sales were softer in Europe and China as we faced double-digit comparisons and COVID-related lockdowns. Note that we have now anniversaried the Wattyl divestiture, which was a drag on group sales of about six percentage points in the quarter. Pricing was positive in the quarter and in the high single-digit range.
Segment margin expanded significantly on a sequential basis, benefiting from increased volume, leverage on SG&A, and incremental pricing. Last, let me comment on 1st quarter trends in Performance Coatings Group. Group sales increased by 20.4% in the quarter, including high single-digit volume growth against a double-digit comparison. Price realization was in the low teens range, and all regions and all divisions generated growth. As in the other groups, we saw meaningful sequential margin improvement during the quarter. Regionally, sales in the quarter grew fastest in North America, followed by Latin America, Asia, and Europe. Every division in the group grew, with nearly all by double digits, driven by robust underlying demand, new customer wins, share of wallet gains, and pricing. Packaging was strongest, followed by coil, general industrial, auto refinish, and industrial wood, respectively.
Before moving to our outlook, let me speak to capital allocation in the quarter. We returned approximately $558 million to our shareholders in the quarter in the form of dividends and share buybacks. We invested $407 million to purchase 1.45 million shares at an average price of $280.77. We distributed $150.9 million in dividends. We also invested $106.3 million in our business through capital expenditures, including $77 million in core CapEx and $29 million for our Building Our Future project. Additionally, the acquisition of Sika's European Industrial Coatings business closed on April 1.
We ended the quarter with a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 3.3x as we increased short-term borrowing to fund our share repurchases and the Sika acquisition. We expect to be closer to the high end of our 2x-2.5x range by the end of the year. Turning to our outlook. As I referenced earlier, we continue to see very strong demand in North America, Pro, Architectural, and Markets, though we are facing a comparison to a strong double-digit growth quarter that was driven by very robust post-pandemic recovery. Comparisons will ease in the back half of the year. Rising mortgage rates have not made an appreciable dent in the demand for our new residential customers to this point.
Should new residential demand slow, we remain extremely well positioned in multiple architectural segments, including residential repaint and property management, which have proven to be more defensive in nature. We expect industrial demand will remain strong as the year progresses based on the outlook our customers have shared with us. Comparisons will be challenging over the remainder of the year. Demand remains strongest in North America, our largest region. European demand also remains strong, although we continue to closely monitor for potential impacts from the war in Ukraine. For the record, our sales in Russia and Belarus are well below 1% of the total company sales, and we are suspending operations in these regions. In Asia and in China particular, demand has been dampened near term by the latest COVID-19 wave.
On the architectural and industrial sides, we'll continue to leverage our strengths in innovation, value-added services, and differentiated distribution as we expect to grow at a rate that outpaces the market. From a supply chain perspective, we believe we are through the most challenging aspects. As I described in my earlier comments, we expect this to continue improving and to have a minimal impact on sales going forward. On the cost side of the equation, we are maintaining our low double-digit to mid-teens raw material inflation guidance, though we are trending toward the high end of the range, driven primarily by Performance Coatings Group. There is considerable short-term volatility in the market, and our visibility beyond a quarter or two is limited. We do expect the level of year-over-year inflation to remain elevated, but to moderate in the back half of the year.
Our pricing actions remain on track and we're prepared for additional increases if necessary. For the 2nd quarter of 2022, we anticipate our consolidated net sales will increase by a low double-digit to mid-teens percentage compared to the 2nd quarter of 2021, inclusive of a low double-digit price increase. We expect The Americas Group to be up by a high single-digit to low double-digit percentage. We expect Consumer Brands to be up by a high teens to a low 20 percentage , and we expect Performance Coatings to be up by a low double-digit to mid-teens percentage. Our full year guidance is heavily 2nd half weighted due to stronger volume, the impact of pricing actions, and weaker 2nd half 2021 comparisons.
I'll remind you, we began 2021 with great momentum, including 1st half sales growth of 14.7% and adjusted EPS growth of 26.6% before the natural disasters, supply chain, and COVID issues derailed the 2nd half of the year. For the full year 2022, our guidance remains unchanged. We expect consolidated net sales to increase by a high single-digit to low double-digit percentage. We expect The Americas Group to be up a mid- to high single-digit percentage, with North American Paint Stores at or above the high end of the range. We expect Consumer Brands Group to be up a low- to mid single-digit percentage, and Performance Coatings Group to be up by a high single- to low double-digit percentage.
We expect diluted net income per share for 2022 to be in the range of $8.40-$8.80 per share, compared to $6.98 per share earned in 2021. Full year 2022 earnings per share guidance includes acquisition related amortization expense of approximately $0.85 per share. On an adjusted basis, we expect full year 2022 earnings per share of $9.25-$9.65, an increase of 16% at the midpoint over the $8.15 we delivered in 2021. The additional data points we provided last quarter on full year currency exchange, tax rate, CapEx, interest expense, depreciation, and amortization are unchanged. As we enter the heart of the painting season, we remain confident in our strategy, our capabilities, and the differentiated product and service solutions we bring to customers.
The 61,000 employees of Sherwin-Williams are focused on the tasks at hand, and there is no better team in the industry. Our business remains extremely well-positioned, and we are emerging as an even stronger Sherwin-Williams following the challenges we faced the last two years. I'm excited by the momentum we're gaining as we progress towards what we expect will be a very strong 2nd half of the year. In addition to today's call, I'll remind you, we will provide additional commentary on the market and our business at our upcoming financial community presentation event scheduled for Wednesday, June 8 in New York City. Details are available on our website, and we're very much looking forward to seeing many of you in person. That concludes our prepared remarks. We'll be happy to take your questions at this time.
Certainly. Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Please hold while we poll for questions. Your 1st question is coming from Vincent Andrews from Morgan Stanley. Your line is live.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm wondering if you could just talk about your volume possibilities in TAG in the 2nd quarter. You know, if I sort of back out the price we think you're gonna get in the 2nd quarter to sort of imply some volume, I'm just wondering how much better you might be able to do versus that, and if you're concerned that maybe, you know, I know you had big volume production in March, but, you know, is there any limit at all to the amount of volume you could flow through the stores in the 2nd quarter?
Yeah. Vincent , maybe the way I'll go at this is just to take a quick run through the different segments and give you a little bit of color on the demand, 'cause I think that speaks to what you're asking here. Let me start with Res Repaint and tell you that our customers are experiencing really strong backlogs. There's a positive mix shift in quality that's also taking place, and we believe that plays really well to our advantage. When you talk about volume, our ability to grow our volume faster than market also includes the ability to drive greater productivity throughput for our contractors as this quality that we're providing them helps to provide the finished product that a more experienced painter or applicator might be able to apply.
We're helping them do that with through product. If you look at this area, you would clearly see home appreciation driving demand. LIRA, the forecasting for growth in 2022 is in double digits. If you look at the NAHB remodeling index is strong, well above 50. Existing home sales have slowed year-over-year against a very strong comp and lack of inventory. Overall, it's a very strong market for us. We expect to continue to see a good strong demand market in residential repaint. Our contractors are telling us, as I mentioned, many of them are looking through the end of the year with a pretty solid backlog of projects.
We're gonna grow with those customers, but this is an area that we absolutely expect to continue to grow market share at a pretty aggressive rate. Property maintenance is really underlying demand is solid here as well. There's been delayed maintenance that's now being addressed, and we see improved areas in apartment turns, along with a return to travel, office, even school that's driving demand. I'd say in this area as well, there's an increased awareness of the need to keep these assets fresh, current and clean. As you know, paint is inexpensive, yet impactful solution in this area. Commercial, I would say the underlying demand here is also solid. Projects are resuming, albeit at varying paces, but the starts are positive. Customers are reporting labor constraints and material shortages on these projects are acting as governors of growth.
You know, any aspect of this project that, you know, could be anything from drywall to roofing products, anything could have an impact here that could be significant. Dodge Momentum Index here is strong, as is the Architecture Billings Index, which has been positive for straight months. As you know, that tracks the current billing by architects, which generally leads to the commercial construction spending 9-12 months out. The other area, obviously, that we're really focused on is new residential. We've got a great position here and growing, by the way. Starts and permits remain strong year-over-year, with multifamily stronger than single. Both really terrific markets for us. Completions are softer due to material availability here, in some cases, labor as well.
We've not seen a meaningful slowdown, as I mentioned earlier, from rising mortgage rates, which are still low in comparison to other periods. This is an area we've gotten a lot of questions about throughout the quarter, and I thought I'd just highlight one area. This article by U.S.A. Today that I think captures kind of the sentiment that we have in new residential. They talk about the housing unit shortfall ranging between 5.5 million-6.8 million, despite an annual average of 1.5 million new housing units completed and a 1.7 million spike in 2020 alone. New construction would need to accelerate to a pace that's well above this current trend to more than 2 million housing units per year to close this gap.
Even if building were to continue at the current level, the most rapid pace in more than a decade, it'd still take more than 20 years to close the 5.5 million unit gap. As I mentioned, we've got a strong position here. We're determined to get stronger here. I would tell you that regardless of what happens in these professional areas, the way that we've been driving this company for years now with our strategy development and strategy deployment is to be in position to capitalize on it whichever way it tilts. If any one of these areas should, for some reason, slow down, we've worked really hard to position ourselves to be able to capitalize on whichever way the market might shift to, and we believe that we'd be able to capitalize on it.
I'm gonna touch on one more area, then I'm gonna ask Al to talk on the volume and a little bit further is DIY. We did talk about the fact that DIY behaved as we expected, as demand continued to return to more normal level, and this was against, as I mentioned earlier, a difficult comp. We also prioritized our professional contractors and our key strategic customers and our consumer brands business that impacted this DIY business.
Yeah, Vincent, this is Al Mistysyn. You know, as a just as a level set on our January call, we talked about our expectation for the 1st half architectural volume, which includes Consumer and TAG, to be flat to down low single digits, primarily because of the difficult comps that John talked about. In our 2nd quarter with our TAG sales projected to be up high single to low double digits with price up low double digits and volume flat to down slightly. That's a sequential improvement for the 1st quarter. We talked about the 1st quarter being down mid-single flat to down slightly in the 2nd quarter. That leads you to the momentum on an easier comp in the 2nd half.
We talked about the full year TAG sales up mid- to high-single-digit with North America Paint Stores at or above the high end of that range. When you look at price, low-double-digit in our 1st half. As you annualize the price increases we took in the 2nd half of last year, our price in the 2nd half will trend for the year to be at mid- to high-single-digit, which gets you a low- to mid-single-digit volume growth in TAG and North America Paint Stores, and I fully expect that to be the case.
Thanks so much.
Thank you, Vincent.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Jeff Zekauskas from J.P. Morgan. Your line is live.
Thanks very much. Can you comment on the effects of raw material shortages on volumes in the 1st quarter? Can you talk about your volumes in the 1st quarter and residential repaint and new residential and commercial? What was the business like excluding the volume contraction in DIY?
Yeah, Jeff. On the raw material availability, what I would say is, you know, we talked about on our year-end call that we thought it might be a low single digit to mid headwind. You know, the way the quarter rolled out with availability, we saw some choppiness in January, it improved in February. As John talked about, it was significantly better into March and it continues to improve in April. The data points that I have to show that is, as John talked about, March was the single largest architectural production volume month in the history of the company. We significantly improved our architectural gals from December year-end through the end of March. It's not at our historic levels, but it is a significant improvement, 20+ million gals increase.
I think, you know, just to pinpoint exactly how much availability had on the quarter, it's really tough because I look at how much of that would've been in sales versus how much we could have put in inventory. The fact is the availability behind this, we have a lot of confidence to fill our 50 million gals of additional capacity along with the help of SPI. The other data point I would highlight is our expectation for architectural inventory through our seasonally highest 2nd and 3rd quarter sales quarters to be flattish from the 1st quarter. As you know, Jeff, historically, our inventory would decline through the summer quarters because you can't keep up with the volume.
Because of the capacity we put in, we're gonna be able to keep up with the sales volumes and increase our inventory in our 4th quarter, getting back similar to where we were back in 2019 and significantly higher than the last two years.
Yeah. The only thing I'd add to that, and it's a great response. I think the trend of manufacturing will continue, to your point, all the way through till probably this time next year. We'll run our assets hard to build that inventory back up. The only maybe clarifying point that I think is important is that to your question about volume or on each of those segments, Jeff, I don't need to break them all down because they were all very similar. They all improved as the quarter improved or the quarter went on.
Were they higher for the quarter or lower?
year-over-year, they were lower.
Yeah, Jeff, they'd be lower, primarily 'cause of the more difficult comps that we had. Res repaint, new res, DIY were all up strong double digits and new res and commercial were up as well. It was tougher comp in our 1st quarter.
Okay. For my 2nd question, are you done with price increases in The Americas Group? You've commented in your slides that you have more pricing actions to go in Consumer Brands Group and Performance Coatings Group.
Mm-hmm.
I didn't see that in Americas. Are we done in Americas for this year?
Yeah, Jeff, I wouldn't say we're done. I would say, you know, when we look at the visibility and the volatility we have in the market around, not just raw materials, but other input costs, that visibility is out, you know, one quarter at best. I think what you'll see us do is like we have in the past. We'll monitor those input costs very closely, and if we see a meaningful change in them, we're prepared and disciplined to go out with additional price similar to what we did last year. We went out August 1st, 8%, then we went out in September with the surcharge. We have to monitor the situations closely and really react to what we anticipate.
Great. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Jeff.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Josh Spector from UBS. Your line is live.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just on the consumer side, I mean, it kind of goes to some of your prior points on the Americas Group. Just wondering, how much of the 20% growth would you say is volume refill versus pricing moving up from the high single-digit level?
If I look at, you know, you say the 20% growth in our 1st quarter? Josh, are you talking about our 2nd?
Sorry, in your 2nd quarter guide.
Sorry. Thank you. When you look at the high teens, low 20%, I expect price to be up a similar amount as TAG. We have significantly easier comps, which was down strong double digits. You know, I think when you look at our inventory build, we had an inventory build in the 1st quarter through our strategic partners, as you would expect. We were in a similar situation that we talked about as the 3rd and 4th quarter went on. We drove our inventories down across the chain, both the TAG, Consumer, and our retail partners. We did have to build some inventory at store level with these partners. But really, we did have a weak comp. We expect North America to be strong.
We do expect with Asia and Europe to be softer in our 2nd quarter. That's about 15% of our sales and pretty strong comps outside the U.S. and Europe and Asia. You know, I don't have an exact number to say how much was building versus sell-through, but rest assured, we had to build inventory in our 1st quarter in our retail partners.
Thanks. I guess just as a follow-up, are you seeing any change in the consumer channel or in the DIY channel, either your own stores or in your Consumer Brands Group? I guess as pricing goes up, is there any trade down or, you know, are things generally pretty stable?
I'd say they're pretty stable. I'd say, as it relates to the consumer side of our stores and in our consumer brands customers. I'd say in our professional side, as I mentioned earlier, we are seeing more of a positive mix shift, moving into higher quality, rather than shift down.
Thank you.
Again, that's driven mainly off of labor and the desire the painting contractor has to be as productive as they can so they can attack the backlog that they're facing.
Thank you, Josh.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Chris Parkinson from Mizuho. Your line is live.
Great. Thank you so much. You hit a little on the raw material shortages. Can you just hit on your own as well as probably the industry's efforts to further backward integrate into certain resins and also some additives? Just where do we stand with that, and when should the investment community see the effects from those efforts? Thank you.
Well, importantly, our customers are starting to see the effects. As we purchased this SPI with the idea of really trying to leverage that asset, Chris, I think it's doing that, and it's only going to get better for us. I don't think you should expect us to continue further upstream. We believe we've always had a resin strategy, and we've always manufactured resin. SPI was a toll producer for us. Terrific people, terrific assets, and an opportunity to get in there and get the most out of that set of assets. It also, as you mention, as we mentioned when we announced this, it helped us to deleverage, if you will, a little bit of the dependence on the Gulf Coast.
These manufacturing facilities are on each coast and, you know, to get a little bit away from some of the hurricane risk, while they're on the coast, they're inland and, terrific assets. We're already starting to see more productivity out of these assets. We expect that to continue. There'll be some investments in there, but very reasonable with great return. Don't expect us to get into the additives, TiO2 business. That's not where we belong.
Got it. There's also been a lot of chatter just, you know, in the investment community, at least in the past quarter or two, just regarding market share shifts, potential market share shifts, in some part due to finished product shortages. You know, now that you have the opportunity to speak to all of us, you know, what's your public response to those debates, and what confidence level can you convey to us regarding your ability to maintain or likely build market share, you know, once everything normalizes in the supply chain? Thank you so much.
Yeah, Chris, I appreciate that question, and I'd tell you that our confidence level is very high. We can only speak to our strategy, and I would tell you that we're blessed with a controlled distribution model that serves us well. We leverage this model, and that includes a strong and very consistent brand strategy. We think that branding strategy and the consistency of it is equally important. We have an innovation program designed to develop segment-specific products. Because we have a controlled model, we're able to talk to each of these segments to understand what are the needs of these customers, what are the challenges, and we develop products that are specific for these segments.
We do the same with our services so that we have a very good understanding of what the needs are of these painting contractors, and we build the services to help them make more money. Finally, the reason I have probably the most confidence is our people. I believe we have the best people in the industry, and I'm not apologetic about making that claim. We hire around 1,400 to 1,500 college graduates a year to enter our management trainee program, and we recruit outstanding talent. We train and develop this talent, and we retain this talent. These are the people that serve our customers. For nearly 40 years, we've been investing in this program. This training program is 40 years old. We now have thousands of graduates from our management trainee program throughout the company.
In just our TAG business, as an example, four of our five division presidents were management trainees. Our group president was a trainee. Throughout the company, we have over 26 vice presidents that were management trainees, and by the way, one CEO that was a trainee. We think this is important. Our customers, they're buying more than a gals of paint. In fact, we tell our people constantly that companies don't compete, people do. 70% of our field leaders are graduates of our management trainee program, and they provide the leadership and direction to our tenured organization. They know what to do, they know how to win. I say tenured because over 7,000 of our employees are, have greater than 20 years service. That's nearly 15% of our workforce has 20 years or more of paint experience.
These leaders create an environment where people win, and they wanna stay. One half of our rep force has over 10 years of service. Turnover of our customer-facing reps and managers is still in single digits in this environment. We're hanging on to the most important assets we have, and that's our people. Our people wake up every day, they focus on two things, paint and making painting contractors successful. This specialty store format, it works for painting contractors. We've always talked about avoiding complacency in our company. In fact, we often say that complacency kills. We're working to get better every day. We were working to make our painting contractors better every day. I'll say this, I do believe this will come down to our people versus others. We have a 40-year head start, a lot of drive, a lot of determination.
We're not gonna win by a little bit. I'm looking forward to competing against any model.
Great color. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Chris.
Of course.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Ghansham Panjabi from Robert W. Baird Co. Your line is live.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I guess just, you know, going back to your earnings guidance reiteration for 2022, you know, the macroeconomic backdrop seems a bit less certain, especially in Europe and China, along with any, you know, potential supply disruptions in these regions as well. Now, understanding that you have a wide earnings range still for the year, what would you call it as sort of incremental positives relative to your initial view that are offsets to some of the risks on the global macro? You know, is it as simple as just better raw material access visibility, or what else would you have us think about?
Well, I'd say 1st, we just talked a lot about people, and, say, that's a clear advantage, but I'd also say that if you look at the assets we've talked about that we've deployed, the responsiveness that we have. I will say this, you know, our Chief Procurement Officer, Colin Davie, and his team are working really well with our customers. I've learned to appreciate the demonstration of rewarding suppliers who have stepped up to serve us, and these suppliers have been creative in responding to our needs. The assurance of supply, to your point, continues to be an important element in this market. Once you have that supply, I think we demonstrated in the month of March that we had a record month in the company's history of producing product.
You know, what I'd say is that it's not one thing, it's the entire ecosystem. It's everything we're doing, everything that we bring, and it's all focused and starts with one thing, the customer. We're looking through that lens and we're working back, and this large 156-year-old company is learning to be nimble and quick and respond. I'd say that if I'm looking at it from the outside in, I'm looking at a lot of assets that are really positioned well to be able to respond to a high demand market.
Ghansham, I would just add to that. You look at our sequential gross margin and operating segment improvement, sequential improvement across each of the operating segments and all the hard work that those teams have done. I'll highlight one in particular, Performance Coatings Group, that took really the brunt of the raw material increases in the 2nd half, have been out with price on multiple occasions. You look at our 1st quarter adjusted operating margin, about flat year over year. If you recall, significant increases we took for raw materials for that segment were primarily in the 2nd half. That team has done just an absolutely terrific job, getting price, holding price, and it's showing.
We're gonna see that continued improvement in our gross margin in the 2nd quarter. We expect to see sequential improvement in our gross margin and across each of the operating segments, albeit Consumer from a historic low operating margin and the adjusted operating margin in the 4th quarter. The pricing actions, the volume, and all the continuous improvement efforts across each of the segments that are helping to drive our bottom line faster than our top line. That's what gives me confidence that we're gonna continue to see improvements as the year goes on.
Okay. Thanks for that. Then if we just switch to Performance Coatings, you know, several of the businesses in there, packaging, coil, et cetera, have had a very, very good run volumetrically. You know, there's lots of evidence of kind of mean reversion of consumer habits that have occurred post-COVID as mobility sort of normalizes. So as you kind of think about these various individual businesses within PCG, how do you expect the volume trend line to unfold over the next few quarters?
Well, we're really excited. To your point, we've got a lot of momentum in these businesses, and there's no expectation for less, if that's the question. We sit in this room, this boardroom, and we talk with our teams regularly about the confidence that we have. Maybe I could walk through quickly, if you'd like, on each of these segments just to give you a little bit of color because, you know, there is a lot of strength, but boy, there's so much opportunity. If you look at our packaging, we had a strong double-digit growth in the quarter. In fact, each of the last three quarters we've had record quarters in this business, packaging sales, with sales of around 30% per quarter for the last three.
You know, if you look at this business, the demand is very robust in food and beverage. Our non-BPA coatings continues to gain traction. Both we and our customers are investing in capacity expansions in anticipation of a strong demand year here in 2022 and beyond. We're thrilled about that business, the differentiation that we have and the technology and the people we have. They're just phenomenal. This is a nugget that came obviously with the Valspar acquisition, as is coil. We had a double-digit growth quarter in coil. That's the 4th straight quarter we've had sales of double-digit growth here, double digit in every region, led here by extrusion and metal buildings. We're excited about this business going forward.
Our general industrial, again, double-digit growth in the 1st quarter. That's the fifth straight quarter with double-digit growth in GI. Every region was positive, led by North America, and our LATAM business. Transportation and general finishing were strongest here. Our auto refinish had double-digit growth. Miles driven here are below but nearing pre-pandemic levels, and we continue to leverage our technology, which is the key here. We brought in some wonderful technology from Valspar that works terrifically with our Sherwin technology, and we're growing share here pretty aggressively. In industrial wood, we had a high single-digit quarter. We've got very good momentum here. The furniture, kitchen cabinetry, and flooring, which obviously correlates to similar positive trends in new residential construction.
We saw increases in all end markets, most by double digits. You know, clearly really pleased with packaging and coil, but all of them were strong. By region, North America, our largest region, grew the fastest, and LatAm, Asia, and Europe right behind. Expectations of this team remain really strong. We've got a terrific leader here as well. Karl Jorgenrud came to us from Valspar. Got a lot of division presidents beneath Karl that are really experienced as well. We talk a lot about our TAG organization and the retention of people and the importance of that in TAG. But the same stands true in PCG. Our average division presidents average 29 years between Sherwin-Williams and Valspar.
Again, when you look back, we talked openly about this greatest infusion of talent when Valspar and Sherwin came together. We've been terrific in the retention of those people. Our turnover still, and this is, you know, years after the integration, is below 7%. On the architectural side, you know, I think if you look at the legacy Sherwin and the talent we had on the architectural side, we're pretty strong, always could get better. They brought, obviously, some talent came in from the architectural side of Valspar. In fact, our new Chief Operating Officer came through the architectural side of Valspar.
When I look at the PCG side and the benefits we've had on the talent that's come in from Valspar and our ability to retain it, yeah, it gives us terrific confidence going forward. Fundamentals, we've got great assets, we've got great technology, we've got great people, and we have great customers, and we're gonna leverage that for everything we get.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ghansham.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Greg Melich from Evercore ISI. Your line is live.
Hi, thanks. I wanna follow up, a little more detail on the gross margin progression in the quarter. I think you mentioned that gross margins were down year-over-year, more due to volume than the raws price. Could you give us the number on that? Do you think that continues, that mix of gross margin pressure in the 2nd quarter?
Yeah, Greg. You know, the volume, as you know, and what we've always talked about is the single biggest driver of not just gross margin, but operating margin. That clearly is a higher impact if you look at year-over-year in our 1st quarter, or if you look at price cost in our 1st quarter. We're still chasing a little bit. I think we get on top of that as we get towards the end of the 2nd quarter, so it'll be less of a drag. Also in our 2nd quarter, you see a seasonal increase in our architectural volume as you normally would. That's gonna help drive our gross margin. It's gonna help drive our operating margin.
Granted, still tough comps against TAGs, but you look at the volume down mid-single digits, that's a significant drag in our 1st quarter. To be down flat to down slightly in our 2nd quarter is gonna be a positive mix shift as well in our 2nd quarter that's gonna help grow the margin.
Got it. When we look to the back half, if price is on top of raws by the end of the 2nd quarter, for the back half, do we need another round of pricing to stay on top of the costs, given what we've seen year to date with, I guess, raws now right at the higher end of the range?
Yeah. Greg, I think what we're looking at is more on the industrial side right now. I think when we talk about the basket moving to the high end of the range, it's more on industrial. As you know, industrial price increases aren't as uniform, so there may be, you know, I talked about on our year-end call, some in the 1st quarter, some that roll into the 2nd quarter. I think the timing of those are pretty much the same. It's just the amount or the percent increase that may have had to get adjusted. Like we talked about earlier, I think our visibility is one quarter out at best, a lot of volatility, and we'll continue to monitor that. You know, based on the last year and a half, I'm not gonna say we don't need more. We're just gonna have to monitor it and go out and react accordingly.
Yeah. What we will say is that if we need to, we will. There's not a hesitation.
Maybe, John, just to follow up on that, given the volume shortfalls, especially in the back half last year, are you a little more reluctant to hike prices again within a quarter? Like, I'm just thinking in the past, I think you've waited about four months. You know, now as you're trying to rebuild that volume and share, do you think obviously you'll get the pricing, but is there a tendency to wanna wait an extra month or two just to be sure? I think we have. You're right, Greg. Good for you, 'cause I know you know our company well.
We have done that, and I think what's different now is that we're a little bit further into the volatility portion of this cycle, and we've been communicating to our customers with greater clarity about the volatility. I don't know that we need to wait as we've had in the past because we've been communicating to the customers that, you know, our intent is to try to keep the price increase to a minimum, but with that, we're not building a buffer to be able to absorb the volatility, and if there is more volatility, that we'll need to be out quicker with additional price. I think we would be moving quicker, and to your point, it's nothing we prefer to do or enjoy doing. We've yet to get a thank you note from any of our customers for it, but you know, if the need be, we're gonna do it, and we're gonna do it quickly.
Great. Thanks, and good luck.
Yes, you bet.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from John McNulty from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is live.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. You'd mentioned early in the call that you were using your own fleet and the flexibility that you have with that to help your customers from a logistics perspective. Can you help us to understand, one, is that something that you actually incrementally charge for, or is it just kind of part of the service that your customers are appreciative of? I guess on top of that, how should we think about the, if it is just more of a, "Hey, it's part of our service," then how should we think about the cost of that and how that might decline once the, you know, all the big logistics issues kind of get put in the rear view mirror for us all?
Yeah, John. Let me 1st go back to your question and the comment that we made earlier. What we were speaking to specifically there was suppliers, not customers. We do work with our suppliers mainly to bridge gaps to ensure that we have the product when we need it, where we need it. It's not our intent to do their jobs, but we're in this together with them, trying to work with them. As you would expect, when that happens, there's a discussion about what it costs that goes along with the fact that we're going to do that. Right now, you know our company, our focus is on taking care of the customer. The fact that we've got our fleet, it is a point of differentiation. We do leverage those.
There are times when we're less efficient doing that. For example, one of our largest customers on the consumer brand side was very adamant about a south to north recovery approach that was a little less efficient than we would have liked to have seen, but important to our customers. We took that undertaking and served our customers in a way that allowed us to respond to their needs, not which was most or least expensive to us. That's our DNA.
If it's to use our fleet of trucks to help in the pinch to be able to get raw materials to a plant, or in some cases right now, we're producing where we can get the raw materials, and we're shipping it in some cases across the country to ensure that we have supply where we need it. It's a little less efficient than what we would like. We have this terrific footprint. We wanna optimize our supply chain to its fullest, but when it comes down to it, we're gonna choose serving our customers. Over time, that efficiency will work its way back in. We're not just waiting for that to happen. You should expect that as a leadership team, we're very focused on it. Our teams understand that. We also understand that servicing our customers is the highest priority we have.
Yeah, John-
Thanks very much.
Yeah, go ahead. The only thing I would add to that is we did call out that supply chain comment that John talked about on our Consumer Brands Group being a little bit of a drag in our 1st quarter. That's to John's point, that's an investment we are willing to make in servicing our customers better. That drag, if you look at the operating margins and what they were down, volume is still number one, and consumer is driving that operating margin lower year-over-year. Probably a 3rd is the supply chain efficiencies, just to make that clear.
Got it. Thanks. Thanks for the call. Appreciate it.
Thanks, John.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Steve Byrne from Bank of America. Your line is live.
Yes, thank you. The inventory build at the end of the quarter is noteworthy. Is that largely driven by the raw material costs, or do you really have much more volume than previously? You know, you might have been low going into the quarter, but you commented that March was a big volume production month for you. Is that if it's volume driven, is that a reflection of what you're seeing your pro contractors have as backlog? And is that what is giving you this confidence in such a strong 2nd half?
Well, Steve, let me be very clear. We have incredible confidence in the 2nd half, hard stop. We're growing inventory sequentially each month of the 1st quarter because raw materials became more available. We added 50 million gals of capacity. It's online. It's supporting the demand, and we're building inventory. We don't have the inventory that we normally would have had coming out of the 1st quarter, but given the additional capacity that we have, we're able to serve our customers, and we're going to utilize that additional capacity and everything we have between now and likely this time next year to run full speed, all out, building inventory to be able to continue to serve our customers. If we have to put a little more in working capital to be able to serve our customers, we're going to do that.
Perhaps relative to historical splits between 1st and 2nd half sales, how much stronger do you think 2nd half this year could be?
It's going to be a much stronger part of our success this year, partially because of the comparisons that we have, for sure. Second, you know, we've just talked, you know, the ability to make a record year or record month of production in March says that we have product. We have raw materials. The demand is strong. We have raw materials. We have capacity. We're gonna have a good time in the back half.
Maybe just one quick one. What fraction of your consumer sales are Pros Who Paint, and how do you get that data? Is that from your partner?
Yeah. We're not gonna comment about our customers' mix of business. I will tell you that it's overall a relatively small but very important and growing area. We've been talking for a number of quarters about the investments that we're making here, the commitments that we're making here. In fact, even the fact that we just came through a pretty challenging time, and we were prioritizing that business with raw materials, I think it should speak volumes. You know, we love this controlled distribution model through our own stores. We are very excited about this Pros Who Paint model. You know, we have, through our own stores, had you know, if we look at it, marginal success because there are customers that prefer a home center channel.
They want to be able to get in, and they wanna be able to buy, you know, a full array of products that are only available at a home center. In the marketplace, you know, there's been a limited amount of competition in this space for too long. We believe along with our strategic partners that there's a terrific opportunity, and we are determined to help our strategic partners win in this space.
Thank you.
You bet.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from P.J. Juvekar from Citi. Your line is live.
Yes. Hi, John. You know, you talked about raw material shortages and supply chain issues for a while. Do you think adding any new stores is gonna add to that complexity, or do you think, you know, you have this new capacity and excess inventory that you can load in these new stores? Also, what's the cadence of new stores? I think you opened, you said only four new stores in 1st quarter. What's the cadence of that?
Well, let me finish or start with your finishing portion. We're gonna be between 80 and 100 stores this year. The answer as to why perhaps in a market like this to add stores is we believe in the model. You know, we play a long game here. We didn't predict that the world was coming to an end because we couldn't get the raw materials. We knew we would, and we continued to invest in every aspect of our business, including, if you look at it, in our manufacturing. We invested in labor to have people in our facilities so that when raw materials became available, we could convert them. We did that, and I think March demonstrated that.
Now you follow the pipeline a little bit further and you say, "Okay, now we're producing products." I'm not gonna be sitting here saying, "Boy, I wish we would've had the courage to invest in stores when things got a little bit tight." Maybe it comes with the 37 years of scar tissue that I have and the 30-plus years that Al has and our other employee. We've seen this movie before. We know how it works. We've got confidence. When you have confidence, you look adversity in the eye, and you say, "We're gonna run right at this." During these tough times, we knew that others would do exactly what they do, close stores, close territories, get in their bunker, and we're going after. We're bunker hunting right now, and we're gonna continue to do that.
Great. Also about the cadence of the new stores?
Yeah. four in the net four, I think it was in the 1st quarter. We'd like to see a little bit more than that, but you know, it's gonna ramp up here between now and the end of the year. We'll be in the 80-100 before the end of the year.
Great. One of your competitors has a new partnership at Home Depot to target pros at the big boxes. Have you seen any impact of that on your business?
Well, as I mentioned earlier, we have a model that we believe is the right model in the market. It certainly is for us. We believe painting contractors thrive in a specialty store format with people behind the counter that have, you know, 10, 20, and 30 years of experience with products that were built for them in their specific areas and services that are focused on making them as productive as possible and as profitable as possible. I would just say we welcome, with no arrogance, the competition. Competition makes you better. I'm gonna bet really big on Sherwin.
Great. Thank you. Good to see your confidence. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Mike Leithead from Barclays. Your line is live.
Great. Thanks. Good morning, guys. Maybe to start, John, in the release, you talked about the worst of the supply chain challenges being behind us. Was that mostly a U.S. architectural comment, or I guess when you look at your international operations or maybe the legacy Valspar businesses, are you seeing conditions there meaningfully improve as well?
I wanna give. Earlier I mentioned Colin Davie, our CPO, and also Heidi Petz, our Chief Operating Officer. I wanna give her credit as well. She started in her role March 1, and I don't think she came up for air throughout the balance of the quarter out of this area. I mean, terrific work by the entire team of really ensuring that we had the raw materials we need, and importantly, where we had it. When you look at what's been happening, you know, the impact on our architectural business outside of the U.S. is obviously a very small part of our business, not significantly impacted by this.
The confidence that we have by working with our suppliers and in a partnership way, I think is why we have this confidence. Again, the talent that we have in procurement and, you know, another fellow that has to get the attention here, Joe Sladek, our President, Global Supply Chain, is the one that takes all these products and quickly is turning those into finished goods and getting them to our stores and to our customers in a very nimble and quick way. It's amazing, you know, behind the scenes, the things that are happening to be able to convert quickly and take advantage of these opportunities. We expect that to continue going forward.
Great. Super helpful. Second, I was just hoping to drill a bit more into the raw materials basket. Obviously, there's a lot of focus on oil-based inputs, but just curious what you're seeing on the inorganic side, both in TiO2 and colored pigments. Thank you.
Yeah, Mike, this is Jim. What I'd say on the oil prices, you know, we talked about probably going to be at the higher end of our guidance this year, and part of that is because of the oil prices that we've seen. I think it remains to be seen how long those oil prices are gonna stay sustained. I'd remind you really that propylene is more meaningful as an input for us for our resins and solvents than is oil. Yes, oil and propylene are connected over the long term, but in the short term, we've seen disconnects in the past. I think as Al said earlier, we'll continue to monitor all of these things. If we need to go out with more there in terms of price, we will.
Your question on the TiO2 side, you know, we've seen inflationary pressures there given the strong demand. There's tight inventories and, you know, certainly rising energy costs, which are used to convert the ore into TiO2. We haven't had any availability issues really there. We're in a good place with our suppliers, I think. So really on the supply chain, you know, we'll continue to monitor it. We will get pricing as necessary, and we expect it to, from an availability perspective, that's really behind us.
Great. Thanks so much.
You're welcome, Mike.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from David Begleiter from Deutsche Bank. Your line is live.
Thank you. John, there have been some reports that Sherwin is discounting paint prices in the U.S. Are those reports just inaccurate?
Yes.
Very good. The same trend of the 12% pricing you announced for February 1st, how much are you getting, and how does it compare to historical levels?
Yeah, David, you know, the price increase has been actually a little bit better than the price increases we went out with last year. The effectiveness has been maintained and improved as the months have gone on, as it has been filtered through the market, and we feel very good about where that is at right now.
Thank you very much.
Thanks, David.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Kevin McCarthy from Vertical Research Partners. Your line is live.
Yes, good afternoon. Two questions on performance coatings, if I may. You know, 1st on the margin side, John, it looks like you made some nice sequential improvement there of 290 basis points. At one time, though, I think you had a goal of high teens or low twenties. Is that still the case for PCG margins? And if so, you know, it looks like volumes are running pretty nicely nowadays. You know, what do you think the path is to get there, over the medium term?
Yeah, Kevin, it absolutely is, and we have great confidence in our ability to do that. I think you're gonna continue to see that with volume. We've obviously seen the pickup in raw material costs has had an impact on it. As the price that has been announced rolls through, that's going to have an impact. We've also talked publicly about some of the other synergies that are available to us that we're continuing to emphasize and attack. Some of that includes the simplification of our product lines, our raw materials, less complexity going through our plants. I wanna be very clear in our confidence in our ability to reach those metrics that we've been talking about. We were gaining some ground on it.
Unfortunately, with the raw material spike, we gave up a little bit of ground in this, but this isn't just, you know, bravado. We're gonna do it. We've got confidence, we've got plans, and we're executing on those. We're going to deliver on this.
Okay. Secondly, you acquired Sika's Industrial Coatings business just recently on April 1st, I believe. I realize it's not a huge deal, but can you speak to, you know, what the opportunity is there and why you chose to do that?
Yeah, it's a, I think a great example of our M&A strategy, which, you know, we've always said we're not trying to be everything to everyone everywhere, and that we don't need practice. We're creating shareholder value. When you look at the opportunity to acquire a strong position in protection in Germany with local production, Sherwin-Williams is strong in fire protection in the U.K., also with local production. Our ability to leverage the strength of each and production capabilities in each in the primary markets and drive new corrosion protection and fire protection sales together and then really connect the dots is a terrific opportunity for us.
I think it's a great example of our ability to identify assets, work with owners and to really really capture the best of both. The leadership team, just as we've talked about with Valspar, the leadership team of Sika has also joined us. Thomas Kurfürst is a very strong leader in the Sika business that's joined. We believe that the combination of the legacy Sherwin and the new Sika assets and people is going to provide a great platform for growth.
Great. I appreciate the thoughts.
Yep, you bet.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Arun Viswanathan from RBC Capital Markets. Your line is live.
Great. Thanks for taking my question. Real quickly, I guess, just curious, when you think about that mid- to high single-digit sales growth for the year, you said TAG would be at the upper end or even above that. I think you already covered this, but is there a possibility that that should be more weighted towards price, I imagine. When we look at same store sales, should you expect that to remain in that 3.8% and above level as we go through the year?
Yes, it'll improve as the year goes on. Arun? Arun, you still there?
Your next question is coming from Garik Shmois from Loop Capital Markets. Your line is live.
Oh, hi. Thanks. A couple big picture questions for me. You talked about a number of positive leading indicators for TAG, and you're sounding obviously pretty bullish about the outlook. Just curious, you know, if you're anticipating any impact from the increase in interest rates and how you could see TAG volumes evolving, you know, beyond existing contracts and backlogs.
Well, you know, I'm sure that you're all getting tired of me talking about leadership, but I would say I'm gonna start here with we've got a terrific leader in our Group President, Justin Binns there that, you know, has this team really positioned very well. I'm gonna take your answer slightly differently than what you've asked and start with the fact that our team is positioned to be able to capture market share in any situation. If new residential slows down, we're gonna capture it on residential repaint, in property maintenance or any other way that it tilts. That said, given my comments earlier about just the shortage in new residential housing and the demand, we expect that there's going to be a strong demand, and it's going to continue.
The home builders that we're working with, they've described this as, you know, a bump in the road here, but they're driving through it. I suspect that as demand continues, there's going to be more and more starts, and we're going to be there. If it does tilt another way, we're okay. We're gonna be right on top of it, whichever way it tilts.
Just to put some perspective on that, Garik, just to remind you, I mean, new residential is sort of a mid-teens type percentage of our TAG business. While it's meaningful to us, as John points out, we're strongly positioned in all these other segments as well.
Yeah. No, got it. Makes sense. I guess a follow-up question is just with respect to the 50 million gals capacity increase. Just to be clear, is that fully ramped at this point? Just given the surge in production, particularly in March, or is there more capacity that you're going to be able to get out of that project?
Well, it's up and running. But to say is there more capacity to be captured, the answer is yes. Joe Sladek, as I mentioned, the Global Supply Chain President, he and his team are constantly working on debottlenecking and finding more capacity in every asset that we have. But the 50 million gals that we spoke to is up and running. I also mentioned the $300 million we're investing in Statesville in that facility to add additional capacity. That'll be coming up, I believe, in 2024, it'll be coming online. We're looking ahead. You know, we expect to continue to drive volume, and we're ahead of the curve. Again, speaking of the confidence and determination we have, we're not gonna look back and wish we would've. That great determination and confidence in the execution of our strategy, and we're gonna have the capacity to be able to take care of it.
Great. Thank you.
You bet.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Adam Baumgarten from Zelman Partners. Your line is live.
Thanks for taking my question. I think you said you expect input costs to decline or moderate, at least in the 2nd half. Is that the case?
I think what we've talked about for input costs, yes. We said the 1st quarter would probably be the highest inflation of the year. Second quarter, we expect it to moderate and then come down a little bit further in the back half based on what we see now. You know, as Al mentioned, we've got best visibility is maybe about a quarter or so. Yes, that's correct. Our current outlook. Show us moderation in the back half.
Okay, got it. Just on the positive mix shift in quality, you know, how much of that's related to simply more higher quality product availability given the SKU rationalization and then maybe some weaker DIY demand versus a true mix shift in the business?
Well, I would say it's a very good question, except that we've been witnessing this for some time now, and it's only continued. I would attribute it largely to more of a labor issue than availability. These painting contractors, you know, when you recognize that labor represents 80%-85%, sometimes 90% of their cost, if you can make that per man hour more productive, you have more projects that you can complete, less callbacks, the opportunity cost issue is resolved, and so more and more people are moving up in quality. We have the full breadth of products, and I would tell you, even going back to when I was in a store, you know, we rarely did you see people that would stay in that lower price.
Typically, what you'd find is people that would be very price conscious would get in there, and there are some applications for it. You know, the ceilings of a closet or so, you know? Okay, well, I get that. But what you find is they learn that they can spend a little bit more on a higher quality product and get more productivity, better touch-up, get off the project with no callbacks and go on. It's well worth it. When you look at the cost, if it's a high-cost market, you know, the per man hour expense, I mean, it's not a big investment to pay a little bit more for a higher quality product and get on to the next project for sure. Our people are trained in that.
They understand how to do that. Again, it speaks to the tenure of our people. Again, you know, Justin and his team, all our division presidents, this is a program. We don't just wait for this to happen. We don't open doors and hope people walk in. We don't hope that they just move up the food chain in quality by themselves. These are programs that we execute, and it's working very well.
Got it. Thanks a lot.
You bet.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Eric Bosshard from Cleveland Research Company. Your line is live.
Thank you. Two things. First of all, on raw materials, inflation broadly seems like it's worse versus 90 days ago. You talked about energy and oil and TiO2. Is the proper read from today you're still comfortable with that original guidance for raws? Is there something incremental you're doing to manage to stay within that original range in an environment that seems a bit more difficult than 90 days ago?
Yeah, Eric, as we said on that range, we are trending towards the higher end of that low double-digit to mid-teens range. What we feel right now, as I mentioned on my previous answer related to oil and propylene and some of the other things, we're comfortable in that range right now. If it moves beyond that, I think you've heard multiple times today, we'll be ready to react with more pricing as needed.
Eric, I would just add to that. You talk about what are we doing in response to. It's not a response to any short-term tweaks that we see in our raw material basket. Our labs, whether it's in industrial, working with marketing, working with procurement or architectural, working with marketing, working with our procurement, really drive our platform consolidation, simplification so that we can drive more volume through a smaller base of raw materials. That's an ongoing effort and not a response to the current environment.
Okay. Secondly, John, you talked about reactivating customers in the architectural business. In this environment, I don't know that I've heard you talk about that before. If you could just give us a little bit of color on what that looks like, that would be helpful.
Yeah. I might give you a more of a description of what we're doing than what it looks like, for obvious reasons. We'll tell you about it after we've done it and show you the scoreboard on how we've achieved it. What I wanna be very clear on, Eric, is that it's not through price. We bring solutions and we bring profitability to our customers, and we do it in a way that people are willing to pay for. Earlier, there was a question about, you know, There was rumors about, are we discounting to be able to do that? I wanna be very clear and very direct that that is not the case. What we are doing, though, is leveraging what I just spoke to.
You know, the quality of people, the products and services that we have booked, and they have a strong desire to complete as many projects as they can and protect their reputation. If you could imagine all the activities you would do if, you know, you were a store manager or a sales rep of Sherwin-Williams and building relationships, building trust, the connectivity and consistency is important. Every day, over 3,000 sales reps wake up, Sherwin-Williams reps, determined to go be a better partner for their customers. Our ability to reengage with those customers and be responsive to their needs, have the products they need, you know, anticipate what challenges they might have, shifts in weather to project delays, whatever it might be, all align in helping us to reengage.
While we don't think we lost customers through these challenging times, we do feel as though we've lost some sales. We take great pride in our controlled model of anticipating what products they're going to need and having them there. There were times where it may have gotten there late, or we couldn't get it there when they needed it, and they might have had to go somewhere else. Well, you could rest assured of one thing here, we're not going to just assume they're coming back. We're gonna be very deliberate, very active, and engaged with these customers to ensure that they are back in our stores. Start with a cup of coffee, make a friend, use our paint. We're gonna be after it pretty regularly.
Okay, thank you.
You bet.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Mike Sison from Wells Fargo. Your line is live.
Hi, this is Richard. Thanks for taking my question. Just one point on the Americas Group. When you look at volumes which were down, you know, largely due to raw material availability. Now that you have that easing and you have new, like, more capacity that you can bring on, do you expect to increase production on the DIY side? Or are you gonna focus majority of production on building inventories on the architectural side?
Well, we're gonna be converting these precious raw materials into finished goods and pursuing all segments of our business. I think at this point, that's the extent that we wanna talk about. We'll talk about what we did next quarter, but we see a terrific opportunity to utilize the capacity that we have.
Okay. Just related on that, in terms of SKUs in your stores, I know in the past you've talked about potentially limiting the number of SKUs in order to get more production out. Is that still happening? Or, is there any SKUs that are getting, you know, increased demand that you wanna focus on and-
This was a challenging time. It did give us an opportunity to look at our SKUs and rationalize some of those down that will never return. There'll be simplification opportunities in what we come out as a product line with. I would suspect that what you'll see in the very near future is a little bit of expansion beyond, you know, what we had coming through last year. You know, we're not going to just jump back to where we were. We're gonna be a better company, more efficient with our working capital. We'll have the inventory we need, but it may not be spread out as wide as it has in the past. We'll have what our customers need.
Great. Thank you.
You bet.
Thank you. Your next question is coming from Jaideep Pandya from On Field Investment Research. Your line is live.
Thanks a lot. I guess it's sort of a two-part question to the same topic. You know, this cycle, you yourself and a lot of your peers have done a phenomenal job on pricing, increasing prices very dynamically in the last sort of four to five quarters. In the previous cycle, whenever you've sort of had inflation, the gross margin progression in the subsequent two years increases quite dynamically in the region of sort of 4%-5%. Do you expect in this cycle, you know, when you catch up with raw materials with your pricing and other inflation with your pricing, we should sort of see gross margin expansion in year 2023, 2024 the same magnitude? Do you think that because prices, pricing went up so dynamically in this cycle, you will have to give back some of this price increases as raw materials stabilize and potentially go down, you know, if demand weakens in Asia and Europe? Thanks a lot.
I'd say this, that you're right. If you look historically, there's been an opportunity there, but there's also been the opportunity to invest back in the business. I would answer your question this way. Our determination is to make our successful and help them make more money. There are other costs that go into this, labor, you know, transportation, all of these things that we're doing that might not necessarily hit the gross margin line, but are investments that we invest in to help our customers in their profitability.
I'd say that each one of these, we you know take a very in-depth view and very thoughtful view in how we can continue to ensure that what happens as a result of all these investments, all the pricing, everything that goes into it, is that our customers win. When they win, we win. If for whatever reason, we you know we got piggish and tried to put pricing in that didn't help our customers to achieve their goals and be more profitable, then we don't deserve that business, and you're not gonna see us do that. Our investments, our commitments, and the ability to help customers be successful will be the drivers.
Yeah. Jaideep, I'd just add to that, we do believe we're in a similar environment whereas raw material costs go up and we put pricing in and pricing starts to catch up with the raw material costs and we see a short-term margin contraction, then you start seeing recovery. You saw s equential improvement in our gross margin in our 1st quarter. Our expectation is that we'll see sequential improvement in our 2nd quarter. Then as I talked about on our year-end call, we'd expect to start seeing recovery in the 2nd half with, you know, at the midpoint adjusted EPS up 16%. We talked about we need to see gross margin expansion for the year. Then going out, you'd expect to start getting back to that long-term gross margin target of 45%-48%, which we are not coming off.
Thanks a lot. Just one follow-up on Valspar, really. I appreciate there's been so much that has changed, but if you go back to your original plan, you know, it's been sort of five-ish years since you did the deal. Yeah, what are the areas where you're running well ahead, and what are the areas which, you know, in hindsight you could have done better and actually there's still more room for us to be positively surprised on the deal?
Well, I'd say where we're well ahead, I think is, you know, the leverage of talent is number one. I mentioned starting at the top with our new COO, Heidi Petz, all the way through to group president in Performance Coatings and throughout the company. I'd say there's a terrific infusion of talent. I'd say the assets and the technology and the leveraging of the customers has been exciting. I mentioned earlier automotive, the combination of some technology there is. I think it was with one of our larger automotive refinish customers who asked if that's why we bought Valspar for the automotive finish. It was that good. I'd say there are terrific opportunities there.
The brand itself is a very strong brand and growing in relevance and importance, and I think that's a terrific opportunity and one that I think we're ahead. I'd say if I look back and say, you know, what we could have done differently or faster or better, I do think that coming out of 2016 when there was some hesitation on the previous leadership of Valspar to put pricing in, it took us years to recover that. I think we learned from that. I think that's a big part of why you see the determination, or at least I hope you hear the determination that we have not to allow that happen.
Part of that is so that we can remain healthy and serve our customers, so that we can continue to invest in our business. I think the working capital is another area. I think we've gotten to it. I think there's still more opportunities, as there are asset utilization of the plants. We are proud of what we've accomplished there. I would tell you, just as we mentioned earlier, complacency kills. We're not done. There's still plenty of opportunities, and we find ourselves still prioritizing. That speaks to, I think, the quality of the company that we acquired and the quality of the people that came along with it. We're just getting started. There's still a lot of work to be done there.
Thanks a lot.
You bet.
Thank you.
Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session. I will now hand the conference back to Jim Jaye for closing remarks. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Matthew, and thanks everybody for joining the call. I hope you heard today that, you know, we're operating here with a lot of momentum, a lot of confidence, and we're really focused on driving results. Before we sign off, I'll just remind you about our upcoming financial community presentation. That'll be June eighth in New York City, and we look forward to seeing many of you there. Thank you once again, and as always, I will be available along with Eric Swanson for your follow-up calls. Have a grat rest of your day.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.