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Chief Executive Officer — William Christensen
Chief Financial Officer — Samantha Stoddard
Vice President of Investor Relations — James Armstrong
Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for standing by. My name is Kelvin, and I will be your conference operator today At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the JELD-WEN First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to James Armstrong, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
James Armstrong: Thank you, and good morning. We issued our first quarter 2026 earnings release last night and posted a slide presentation to the Investor Relations portion of our website, which can be found at investors.jeld-wen.com. We will be referencing this presentation during our call. Today, I'm joined by Bill Christensen, Chief Executive Officer; and Samantha Stoddard, Chief Financial Officer. Before I turn it over to Bill, I would like to remind everyone that during this call, we will make certain statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
These statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, including those set forth in our earnings release and provided in our Forms 10-K and 10-Q filed with the SEC. JELD-WEN does not undertake any duty to update forward-looking statements, including the guidance we are providing with respect to certain expectations for future results. Additionally, during today's call, we will discuss non-GAAP measures, which we believe can be useful in evaluating our performance. The presentation of this additional information should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP.
A reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to their most directly comparable financial measures calculated under GAAP can be found in our earnings release and in the appendix to our earnings presentation. With that, I would like to now turn the call over to Bill.
William Christensen: Thank you, James, and good morning, everyone. Before turning to our results, I want to thank the teams across JELD-WEN. Even with continued market pressure, our organization is showing up every day with focus and urgency driving operational improvements, supporting customers and advancing the work needed to strengthen the company. A key element of that work is investing for our customers through improved service and customer experience. As a company, we continue to place incremental focus into service and responsiveness, and we believe that this will create value as the year progresses. The macro environment remained soft in the first quarter consistent with our expectations.
As a reminder, the first quarter is the seasonal low period, and we anticipate improvement as we move through the remainder of the year. During the quarter, we also implemented a number of pricing increases, and we expect those increases to begin flowing through more meaningfully in the second quarter and beyond. Overall, we delivered the quarter within our expectations and managed through a difficult volume environment. As seen on Slide 4, sales for the quarter were $722 million. As we have previously discussed, we took deliberate actions to align our labor with current market conditions, and we continue to adapt the cost structure of the business.
At the same time, we are balancing investments in our customers by maintaining the resources needed to deliver quality and dependable service. We are already seeing significant service improvements across the company including our On-Time, In-Full Rates. Adjusted EBITDA was a modestly positive $6 million for the quarter, and cash performance was generally in line with our expectations. As a reminder, the first quarter is typically the highest working capital quarter, and we would expect working capital to unwind as we move into the back half of the year consistent with the seasonality of the building products industry. As we look ahead, we continue to focus on what we can control.
As we mentioned last quarter, customers are very clear that consistent delivery and follow-through are what they value most. And we continue to direct investments towards these priorities. With the improvements we are seeing, we continue to discuss opportunities to regain volume, and we now expect improved execution and service levels to contribute to incremental sales versus the 2026 expectations we shared in the fourth quarter results call. We are strengthening the customer experience through better execution and consistency, and we expect that to support improved performance as the year progresses. At the same time, we are also seeing higher cost pressure, particularly in freight and pricing remains competitive in certain areas versus what we expected previously.
We are managing those dynamics, staying disciplined on what is within our control while continuing to prioritize customer service and operational execution. Finally, we continue to progress the strategic review of our European business. While the process is ongoing and we have nothing to announce at this time, we believe this review could provide meaningful liquidity and help further strengthen our balance sheet. We are also evaluating various alternatives thoughtfully with a focus on improving financial flexibility while preserving long-term value. With that, I'll hand it over to Samantha to review our financial results in greater detail.
Samantha Stoddard: Thank you, Bill. Turning to the financial results on Slide 6. First quarter net revenue was $722 million, down 7% year-over-year. The revenue decline was driven by lower volume/mix. While mix was down slightly year-over-year, most of the volume/mix decline was driven by lower volume. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $6 million, down 72% year-over-year and adjusted EBITDA margin was 0.9%, down 190 basis points year-over-year. The lower earnings performance was primarily driven by volume/mix, along with negative price/cost dynamics during the quarter as inflation was not fully offset by pricing. These headwinds were partially offset by significantly improved productivity year-over-year. Turning to cash flow.
Operating cash flow was a $91 million use of cash in the first quarter driven by lower EBITDA, combined with a $43 million use of working capital. As a reminder, the first quarter is typically the highest working capital quarter of the year, and we expect significant working capital improvement as we move through the remainder of 2026. As a result of lower EBITDA and the use of cash, net debt leverage increased to 11.3x at the end of the first quarter. Given the seasonal use of working capital, we drew $40 million on our revolver. We continue to manage the business with a disciplined focus on cash, cost and balance sheet flexibility. Turning to Slide 7.
The year-over-year change in net revenue was driven primarily by lower volume/mix. First quarter sales were $722 million, compared to $776 million in the prior year, and core revenue declined 10% year-over-year. Pricing was a slight positive, but it was more than offset by the volume/mix decline, which drove the majority of the year-over-year reduction. The comparison also reflects a $30 million tailwind from foreign exchange driven by a stronger euro relative to the dollar. Taken together, these factors explain the year-over-year change in revenue and are consistent with the market conditions we discussed earlier. Turning to Slide 8. Adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was $6 million, compared to $22 million in the first quarter of last year.
The year-over-year decline reflects a combination of cost pressure and lower volume/mix. Price/cost was a $21 million headwind as pricing was slightly positive, but it continued to be outweighed by cost inflation in areas like glass, metals and transportation. Volume/mix was also a $22 million headwind, and that impact was driven primarily by lower volumes year-over-year. These headwinds were partially offset by improved execution across the business. Productivity was a $22 million benefit year-over-year, and we also delivered a $6 million improvement in SG&A and other expense despite a $10 million other income headwind from prior year. Turning to Slide 9 and our segment results.
In North America, first quarter revenue was $453 million, compared to $531 million in the prior year. The year-over-year decline was driven primarily by lower volumes and the court-ordered Towanda Divestiture which had partial impact in the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for North America was $4 million, compared to $16 million last year. And adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 0.8% from 2.9%. Profitability was pressured by continued inflation and lower volumes, partially offset by significant year-over-year productivity and SG&A improvements. In Europe, revenue was $269 million, up from $245 million in the prior year, an increase of 10% year-over-year. The improvement was driven primarily by foreign exchange and slightly better pricing, partially offset by continued volume decline.
Foreign exchange contributed approximately 11.5 percentage points to the year-over-year revenue change. Adjusted EBITDA for Europe was $7 million compared to $11 million last year and adjusted EBITDA margin was 2.6% versus 4.3% in the prior year. Productivity was a slight positive, but those benefits were more than offset by lower volume/mix, along with higher SG&A expense. With that, I will turn it back over to Bill to discuss our updated market outlook and how we are positioning JELD-WEN for the path ahead.
William Christensen: Thanks, Samantha. Turning to Slide 11. I want to walk through our market outlook for 2026 and the assumptions underlying our guidance. Importantly, our view of the market has not meaningfully changed from what we outlined previously in our fourth quarter 2025 results call. We continue to operate in a challenging and uncertain environment and our outlook reflects a cautious view rather than any expectation of a near-term recovery. In North America, we expect the overall windows and doors market to be down low to mid-single digits. Within that, we see new single-family construction down low single digits and repair and remodel down mid-single digits.
We now expect U.S. multifamily to be up significantly year-over-year, while Canada continues to face more significant pressure with high single-digit declines, reflecting ongoing economic softness and continued weak housing activity. In Europe, conditions appear to be stabilizing. We expect volumes to be roughly flat year-over-year. Demand remains subdued, but we are not seeing further deterioration from current levels. At the company level, our volume assumptions are now more aligned with the underlying market. We continue to expect some impact from prior pricing actions but we are also beginning to see the benefits of improved service levels. Our guidance reflects a modest contribution from these service improvements while maintaining a clear focus on pricing discipline. Overall, our framework remains consistent.
Our guidance is based on current demand levels with pricing actions largely in place and a continued focus on margin protection and execution rather than relying on an improvement in end market conditions. Turning to Slide 12. I'll walk through our updated full year 2026 guidance. Overall, we are increasing our revenue outlook, holding our adjusted EBITDA range and maintaining cash flow expectations. We now expect net revenue in the range of $3.05 billion to $3.2 billion, up from our prior range of $2.95 billion to $3.1 billion. This reflects a modest benefit from improving service levels, which brings our company volume assumptions more in line with the underlying market.
April sales have been in line with our expectations, which supports the updated view we are sharing today. As a result, we now expect core revenue to decline between 3% and 6% year-over-year compared to 5% to 10% previously. The adjusted EBITDA range remains unchanged at $100 million to $150 million. While the higher revenues progress, we are seeing incremental price/cost headwinds relative to our prior assumptions, which offset the benefit from improved volumes. Our outlook continues to reflect higher pricing and a focus on execution in a still changing demand environment. On cash flow, we continue to expect operating cash flow of approximately $40 million and a free cash flow use of approximately $60 million.
We still anticipate capital expenditures of approximately $100 million that are largely maintenance in nature. Our guidance assumes no portfolio changes. However, as noted, we continue to evaluate strategic options, including our review of the European business, and additional actions to improve liquidity. Turning to Slide 13. This chart bridges our 2025 adjusted EBITDA of $118 million to the midpoint of our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance of $125 million. Starting on the left, market volume/mix remains a headwind of approximately $25 million, reflecting the continued pressure we see across our end markets. The next item is net share loss which we now expect to be a $30 million headwind, improved from our prior expectation of $60 million.
This reflects early progress on service and a more stable customer response as those improvements begin to take hold. We now expect a greater headwind from price/cost, which we anticipate to be approximately $40 million, compared to $10 million previously. The environment remains highly competitive and as our service improves, we've been more active commercially, including targeted promotional activity to regain traction with certain customers. In addition, we are seeing higher-than-expected cost pressure, most notably in freight. These external and commercial pressures are offset by actions within our control. We continue to expect approximately $75 million of benefit from rightsizing and base productivity, reflecting actions that are largely executed and will be realized over the course of the year.
We also expect about $35 million of carryover benefit from our transformation initiatives, including automation, footprint optimization and systems improvements as those efforts continue to move in a more steady state operating model. The remaining items include approximately $10 million of headwind from compensation and other timing-related factors, partially offset by foreign exchange and other items. Taken together, these elements bridge to the midpoint of our 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance. While the mix of headwinds has shifted, the overall earnings outcome remains unchanged, reflecting both the ongoing pressure in the market and the impact of the actions we are taking to manage through it.
Before we wrap up, I want to step back and highlight the progress we are making on service across our North America business. On Time, in Full delivery or OTIF, is a key customer metric and it is where we have been intensely focused. As you can see on Slide 14, our OTIF performance has improved significantly over the past year, moving to over 90%. This is a meaningful step change in how we are serving our customers, and we are seeing that reflected in the feedback we are getting across the business. Customers are noticing the improvement.
We are seeing better engagement, more consistent order patterns and importantly, increased opportunities to quote and compete for new business as our service levels improve. This progress is being driven by both stronger execution and deliberate investment. Operationally, we have now deployed our A3 management system across the network, which has improved how we identify issues, solve problems at the root cause and maintain consistency as well as ownership at the plant level. At the same time, we have made conscious decisions to prioritize service, including higher transportation spend, such as shipping partial loads when needed and maintaining staffing levels despite lower volumes. These are targeted investments to support service and rebuild trust with our customers.
We believe that as service continues to improve, that trust will translate into volume recovery and share gains over time. That said, we are not finished. Our goal is to consistently operate above 95% OTIF and reaching that level will require further progress, particularly with our vendor base and how we manage special order products. Overall, we are encouraged by the progress we are making. Service is improving, customers are responding, and we are beginning to see that translate into commercial opportunities. Turning to Slide 15. I'll close by stepping back and putting our progress into perspective. Over the past year, we've made significant improvements in how we serve our customers.
We have invested in service, strengthened our operating discipline and focused the organization on the metrics that matter most. Cash and liquidity remain a priority. We are taking actions to preserve cash, and we continue to evaluate opportunities to strengthen liquidity and maintain flexibility in an uncertain environment. Our strategic review of Europe is ongoing, and we continue to evaluate other opportunities to improve liquidity and strengthen financial flexibility. Across the business, we are also aligning labor with current market conditions while continuing to invest in the organization for the long term. That includes work to improve culture and engagement.
We recently completed a company-wide baseline employee engagement survey, and our managers are actively using that feedback to create individual action plans focused on local level engagement. Importantly, our customers are seeing the difference. Service levels have improved, performance is more consistent, and we are beginning to rebuild trust. That is showing up in better engagement and increasing opportunities to compete for new business. However, we are not yet where we need to be. There's more work to do and we know that this will not happen overnight, but we are moving in the right direction and starting to see the early benefits. At the same time, we are managing the business with a clear view of current market conditions.
We are aligning the cost structure to demand, maintaining pricing discipline and staying focused on execution. As I close, I want to recognize the work of our associates across JELD-WEN. The progress we are seeing is the result of their effort and focus every day. Our customers are noticing the improvement and it is important that we continue to build on that momentum. Overall, we are becoming a more consistent and disciplined company. We are improving service, rebuilding customer confidence and managing the business with a clear focus on cash and execution. With that, I'll turn the call back over to James for questions.
James Armstrong: Thanks, Bill. Operator, we're now ready to begin Q&A.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of John Lovallo of UBS.
John Lovallo: The first one is, at the midpoint, your outlook seems to imply 2Q adjusted EBITDA of about $31 million. That's versus about $6 million in the first quarter. Can you just help us kind of bridge the ramp from first quarter to second quarter?
Samantha Stoddard: John, yes, this is Samantha. I can help bridge that gap. So it's primarily driven by normal seasonality with the second quarter typically benefiting from higher sales volume and then better labor absorption as well. This year, we also expect to see the benefit of pricing actions that we implemented already in Q1, but begin flowing through more meaningfully at the start of Q2. And as you heard Bill say in the earlier remarks, we are already seeing the uptick in April. So we do feel good about going into Q2.
John Lovallo: Got it. That's helpful. And then on the North American decremental margin, it is around 15%, which was pretty favorable, and I think it speaks to the cost controls and the cost takeout you guys have achieved. I mean how sustainable do you think this level of decremental is? And maybe more importantly, how are you thinking about incrementals in an improving volume environment?
Samantha Stoddard: Yes. So I can start, and then I'll let Bill jump in. I think that in the short term, you are going to see us holding the line with the costs in particular. So you're right in that a lot of the transformational actions and cost takeouts that we saw in '25 going into '26 are going to continue. With the improved volumes from what I just spoke about, the seasonality as well as some of the higher price, that should then flow, I would say, our normal incrementals, 25% to 30% on the upside.
William Christensen: John, it's Bill. So the only thing I'd add there is what I'm really pleased with is if you look at our bridge coming out of our full year '25 guide to where we are now, we've removed about $100 million of headwind. And that speaks to the hard work that our teams are doing every day to really make things work for our customers. So we're starting to gain traction and reducing the rate of decline, which is great. So we do have some share loss that's lapping from '25, but we feel pretty good here headed into the last 3 quarters of this year.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Susan Maklari of Goldman Sachs.
Susan Maklari: My first question is on the improved service levels. It's encouraging to hear that you're seeing such a nice lift there. I guess, can you talk more about how you're thinking of the path from here, the specific programs that you are working on and putting in place to support that? And I know last quarter, we talked about standardizing some of your operating systems and processes to help with that service. Is this part of what's driving that? And where you are in that process as well?
William Christensen: Yes, Susan. Thanks for the question. So absolutely, standard work across our network of sites, both in Europe and in North America is progressing very well. And you can see, based on what we showed on Chart 14 with the improvement on the OTIF metrics, clearly, there's still work to be done. But we are in a pretty choppy demand environment. And so our network needs to be very flexible and as we noted in the prepared remarks, we have incurred some additional costs based on not in full shipments, but making sure we're doing everything we can to meet our customers' expectations. So that's progressing well.
I think the second thing I'd want to call out is that the teams are working extremely hard to connect with our customers and define areas of opportunity where we can lean in together with them to regain some of the share that we've lost in the last couple of years, and that's starting to show up as well. So we think this bodes well for the back half of the year, even though we still are expecting a pretty soft market environment as we outlined in prepared remarks.
Susan Maklari: Okay. That's very helpful. And then can you give a bit more color on the magnitude of the inflation? How we should be thinking about that path for price/cost this year? I know you mentioned that you're starting to see some of the realization on the first quarter increase. And with that, how you're thinking about that balance between volume versus price in this environment?
Samantha Stoddard: Yes. Let me go ahead and start that, Susan. So on the inflation side, I think the biggest area that we're seeing inflation is going to be around the freight and energy prices. So we're seeing that both in North America as well as Europe. On the better note, we are seeing slightly less tariff exposure that we did expect when we were starting the year. In terms of the magnitude, they're somewhat offsetting each other, not exactly, but materially, they're about offsetting. So when we think about the price/cost negativity, I think that there is some of that in inflationary pressures. And there is the affordability challenge from a price standpoint.
We are seeing competitive pricing in different areas of the market. So while we have already gone out with price, that is why we're calling down some of the price/cost that we initially expected to be around negative 10% from an EBITDA bridge, we are now seeing that to be a little bit higher.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Matthew Bouley, Barclays.
Anika Dholakia: Anika Dholakia on for Matt today. So first off, for Europe, you guys mentioned that you're not seeing any further demand pressure from current levels. So I'm curious if this suggests that pricing strength can continue in this region similar to 1Q? And then just kind of going off of that, how have some of the recent geopolitical dynamics maybe impacted the review of the European business, if at all? So yes, any color on that?
William Christensen: Thanks for your question. Yes. So we clearly are seeing more signals that we're at the bottom of the valley from a volume decline. So Europe has stabilized. We called it last quarter. We're seeing similar trends just to remind you, it takes 9 to 12 months post start to put our product in. So it's going to be a while until you see things tick up in the Doors world. On pricing, we've done a great job across many European markets of introducing price to offset inflation and headwinds. The macro reality is going to have a pretty significant impact in Europe on energy, feedstock input prices, transportation costs, et cetera.
We're already in market with pricing to offset a number of those headwinds. So I'd say we're feeling fairly balanced currently in Europe. And then the third comment is we wouldn't really comment specifically on where we are on the strategic review and what the influences would or wouldn't be as we said in the prepared remarks, nothing further process is ongoing, but no further details today.
Anika Dholakia: Okay. Great. That's really helpful. And then on the second question, so on the productivity initiatives on the $110 million, I'm curious, I think last quarter, you guys said 50% completed, 25% actioned, but hadn't hit and then 25% still needed to be actioned. Is this on track with what you guys expected? Or any updates to these numbers?
Samantha Stoddard: Sure. So breaking it down, the $35 million of the transformation carryover, that is 100% completed at this point. So these are structural costs. We talked about it on an earlier question that we are seeing the benefits of and they're 100% complete. On kind of the base productivity, rightsizing of the business, I would say we're greater than 80% of those initiatives that are done. So there's still a little bit of work to be done on some of the smaller initiatives, but the majority have been banked at this point, and we'll see that carry through in Q2 through Q4.
Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Stevenson with Loop Capital.
Jeffrey Stevenson: Can you talk more about the improvement in on-time deliveries you've seen over the last year and whether it's corresponded with the stabilization in your share position over that time period of service levels continue to improve?
William Christensen: Yes. So yes, that's the short answer. The longer answer is, obviously, we have a fairly broad portfolio in the North American market. So there's a number of different areas where we're performing very well and continue to do so. And there's other areas where clearly we weren't meeting expectations of our customers. And as we had described last year, there was some share loss, some pruning on our side, but also some share loss. And we're definitely regaining share in certain pockets that our North America team is very focused on partnering with our customers to give them the product at the right time at the right place. So we're pleased with the improvements.
And as I said, we've probably reduced by about half the headwind that we thought we would have this year from a top line standpoint. So we're making good progress, not finished. There's more work to be done, but I think that's a good signal that we're moving in the right direction, Jeff. I think that's the important message today on the call.
Samantha Stoddard: And Jeff, just highlighting back to the full year guidance bridge. As I talked about earlier with Susan, that the price/ cost, unfortunately, has become a little bit more negative but that share loss volume/mix, EBITDA impact, as Bill was talking about, has improved by about $30 million from last quarter.
Jeffrey Stevenson: That's very helpful. And then thanks for the update on the Europe strategic review. But previously, you talked about divestitures of smaller noncore assets as well, such as your distribution business in North America. And I just wondered if there are still opportunities across your footprint for other potential divestitures as well.
William Christensen: Yes. So Jeff, what we've said is we continue to evaluate other options in addition to the strategic review to improve liquidity, which clearly is a key focus point of ourselves given the current macro environment. And that includes assessing sale of other assets, potential sale-leaseback transactions. No further detail from our side. I think more importantly, we've said this a number of times, I want to reiterate, we expect to address our near-term maturities before they go current in December. And for the time being, as Samantha laid out in her prepared remarks, we have ample liquidity, and we're actively managing cash in this soft macro environment. So I think that important combination. We continue to evaluate options.
We have a number of options, and we're staying very close to the cash situation, combine that with improvements on service and better volume outlook from our side. We're feeling good about where we are currently.
Operator: There are no further questions at this time. And with that, I will now turn the call back over to James Armstrong for final closing remarks. Please go ahead.
James Armstrong: Thanks, everyone, for joining us today. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out. We appreciate your time and interest in JELD-WEN. Have a great day.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's call. We thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines.
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Jeld-wen (JELD) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool