Latham Group (NASDAQ:SWIM) released first-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Tuesday. Read the complete transcript below.

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Summary

Latham Group reported a 5% increase in net sales for Q1 2026, with a 3% organic growth and 2% contributed by the Freedom Pools acquisition.

The company confirmed its 2026 guidance, anticipating 9% revenue growth and 13% adjusted EBITDA growth despite flat pool starts.

Strategic initiatives include expanding in the sand states, particularly Florida, and increasing awareness and adoption of fiberglass pools.

The integration of the Freedom Pools acquisition is on track, expanding the company's presence in Australia and New Zealand.

Operational highlights include a 6% increase in cover sales and a 9% increase in liner sales, driven by effective marketing campaigns.

Management is addressing rising transportation and commodity costs with temporary fuel surcharges and is closely monitoring geopolitical impacts.

The company is investing in its commercial organization to enhance sales strategy, operations, and execution to support growth.

Latham Group is focused on increasing consumer awareness of fiberglass pools through targeted marketing and branding campaigns.

Full Transcript

OPERATOR

Good afternoon and welcome to The The Latham Group first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Casey Codery of Investor Relations Representative. Please go ahead.

Casey Codery (Investor Relations Representative)

Thank you. This afternoon we issued our first quarter 2026 earnings press release which is available on the Investor Relations portion of our website. On today's call are Latham's President and CEO Sean Gad and CFO Oliver Glow. Following their remarks, we will open the call to questions. During this call, the Company may make certain statements that constitute forward looking statements which reflect the Company's views with respect to future events and financial performance as of today or the date specified. Actual events and results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward looking statements due to risks and other factors that are set forth in the Company's Annual report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed or furnished with the SEC as well as today's earnings release. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward looking statements except as required by applicable law. In addition, during today's call, the Company will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of the directly comparable GAAP measures, to these non-GAAP measures, can be found in the slide presentation that is available on our investor relations website. I'll now turn the call over to Sean Gad.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Thank you Casey. And thank you all for joining us today to review our first quarter results and discuss our business outlook. Our first quarter results represent a good start to 2026. We are especially pleased with our performance given the adverse weather conditions that plagued most of North America. There are several key takeaways from the quarter that are worth noting. First, there was another quarter, during which we saw year on year sales growth in each of our product lines. Latham's category leadership position across our product portfolio and our geographic diversification are key competitive advantages for us. Secondly, we continue to effectively execute our sand state strategy showing double digit sales gains in fiberglass pools in our priority Florida market. We are taking further actions to accelerate our growth in this region. Third, we expanded our margins benefiting from operating leverage inherent in our business model and from the lean manufacturing and value engineering initiatives that continue to yield very positive results. Oliver will provide additional detail on this later on in the call. And lastly, we are pleased to confirm our 2026 guidance which anticipates significant sales growth and even stronger growth in adjusted EBITDA within a challenging macro environment and where pool starts will be about flat from last year. Our guidance includes moderate increase in transportation and commodity costs due to today's high oil prices which we are mitigating with temporary fuel surcharges. We are closely monitoring the dynamic situation in the Middle East and the potential impacts on costs and consumer demand. Taking a closer look at our first quarter results in ground pool sales increased 3.5% and virtually all of that growth can be attributed to the one month contribution from the Freedom Pools acquisition. Adverse weather was definitely a factor in our organic performance, keeping organic in ground pool sales steady year on year. However, April sales trends were in line with our expectations and we are on track for fiberglass pools to approach 80% of our full year in ground pool sales in 2026. The Freedom Pool acquisition we completed on February 26th is integrating as expected. As we've noted, the acquisition expands our presence in Australia and New Zealand markets where fiberglass pool models have a strong foothold and borders are reaching to new markets in Western Australia including Perth which is the fastest growing city in the country. We recently spent a week in Australia bringing together the Narellan and Freedom teams. In addition to this transaction being immediately accretive to Latham and giving us a market leading position in the country, we anticipate achieving considerable revenue synergies from this combination over time as well as gain first hand experience from the direct to consumer business model. Cover sales advanced 6% in the first quarter driven by growth in order cover demand as consumers increasingly recognize the safety and economic benefits of this excellent product. Our industry leading auto covers are compatible with all in ground pool types in many parts of the US that provide the homeowner with an alternative to fencing while delivering additional cost savings from reduced evaporation and chemical usage. Educational marketing campaigns including our partnership with Olympic gold medalist and pool safety advocate Olympic gold medalist and pool safety advocate, Odie Miller and his wife Morgan to promote pool safety have served to build consumer awareness and increase attachment rates. Order covers are being attached to new pool installations. First quarter line of sales were up 9% year on year reflecting increased demand and buying in advance of the pool season. We continue to gain traction with our sand state strategy in the first quarter and are moving forward with plans to accelerate our growth in this important region. Many of the investors and analysts whom I've met since taking on the CEO role in January have asked Me where I see the major growth opportunities ahead for Latham, what our playbook is for capturing that growth. Let me start by saying that the opportunity is substantial. We do not need to wait for the recovery in the US pool market to drive growth. There are enough pool starts for us to go and attack the same states now given our relatively low penetration in that region. The key here is that fibreglass is a growing category and we are the number one player in it in the US and so we are best positioned to gain share. Fiberglass pools are an excellent fit for the sand states for many of the same reasons that the category is growing nationally. Fast and easy installation, lasting durability, low maintenance and we have an exceptional design, range of sizes and options to choose from, many of which are smaller rectangular shaped pools with attached spas that are perfect for our target communities. Latham has laid a good foundation for growth in the sand states. There is definitely increased brand awareness among consumers and dealers in Florida thanks to several high profile marketing campaigns paired with local activations. In 2026 we plan to build on that foundation to set the stage for accelerated long term growth. As you know, I have many years of experience successfully selling against the standard in the building product industry. When I apply that experience to Latham's current position in the sand state, I have identified several actions to capture consumer demand and provide additional value to our dealers. First, we're building out a commercial organization with the key pillars being sales strategy, sales operation and sales execution with responsibilities to design and drive sales plans, product leadership and sales effectiveness. Our goal is to provide a world class commercial organization that supports our growth not just in Florida, but across all the sand states and all of North America. Second, we have introduced a new market development framework and approach at Latin that I believe will make us even more effective at capturing share. The key element of this framework is segmentation, meaning that we'll be very selective with our targeted sand state markets determining the specific sections and neighborhoods that offer the greatest opportunity for us. In essence, it's all about neighborhoods. We're looking for neighborhoods with a large number of homes with home values, lot sizes and household incomes that fall within our parameters. These can be in, adjacent to or outside of master plan communities. Third, we'll be adding sales resources in the field to make sure we stay close to the consumer throughout the pool buying process. In this way we'll be able to assist our dealers in converting more leads into sales and getting greater understanding of the consumer journey. We know that consumers are looking for designs that fit their lifestyles. We believe that LACEM has the best range of products to meet those needs. In 2026, we are increasing our investment in branding and marketing in a very targeted way to capture greater consumer awareness together with our network of trusted dealers who are able to fulfill the demand we generate. In support of all this, we are revamping our marketing and advertising campaigns to give homeowners a full understanding of the true benefits of fibreglass. The why it is the right solution for their backyard to enable their dreams of creating wonderful memories to come true. With that, I will turn over the call to Oliver Glow, our CFO for a financial review.

Oliver Glow (Chief Financial Officer)

Oliver thank you Sean and good afternoon everyone. I am pleased to report on what was a solid start to 2026. Please note that all comparisons we discussed today on a year over year basis compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2025. Unless otherwise noted, net sales for the first quarter of 2026 were 117 million, 5% above 111 million in Q1 of 2025, of which 3% represented organic growth and 2% represented the one month benefit of the Freedom Pools acquisition we completed at the end of February. Organic growth was led by the continued strength of auto covers and increased demand for our pool liners by product line. In ground pool sales were 60 million, up 4% from Q1 2025, with virtually all the year on year growth coming from Fraen's fiberglass pool sets. Cover sales were 33 million at 6% and liner sales were 24 million, up 9%. Compared to the first quarter of 2025, we achieved a first quarter gross margin of 32%, reflecting a 220 basis point increase above last year's 30%. This performance is primarily due to volume leverage along with production efficiencies driven by our lean manufacturing and value engineering initiatives. SGLA expenses increased to 37 million, up 20% from 31 million in Q1 of 2025. This was largely tied to strategic investment in sales and marketing to accelerate fiberglass adoption, digital transformation initiatives and acquisition and integration related costs which includes 2.3 million of performance based compensatory earn-out expenses related to our Coverstar Central acquisition in 2024. Target synergies have been realized for Coverstar Central and we are pleased with the contribution from the acquisition which has exceeded our initial expectations. This Earnout will total roughly 9 million over the course of the year with similar impacts in each remaining quarter. In 2026, net loss was 9 million or $0.07 per diluted share compared to a net loss of 6 million or $0.05 per diluted share for the prior year's first quarter primarily due to the before mentioned increase in SGA expenses. First quarter adjusted EBITDA was 12 million 9% above 11 million in the prior year period, primarily resulting from volume, leverage and efficiencies gained through our lean manufacturing and value engineering initiatives. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 10.4%, a 40 basis point expansion compared to last year's first quarter. Turning to the balance sheet, we continue to maintain a strong financial position, ending the first quarter with a cash position of 27 million in line with our expectations. Net cash used in operating activities was 48 million, reflecting a seasonal increase in working capital needs ahead of peak food selling season. We ended the quarter with total debt of 311 million and a net debt leverage ratio of 2.8, also in line with our expectations. Capital expenditures were 23 million in Q1 2026 compared to 4 million in the prior year period. The increase is primarily due to the purchase of four key fiberglass manufacturing facilities in Florida, Texas, California and West Virginia for 18 million including a 12 million deposit made in 2025 that was settled in Q1 2026. Additionally, we incurred 5 million of CapEx relating to ongoing projects in line with our expectations. As a reminder, we expect CapEx to range between 42 and 48 million in 2026. This includes 25 million of maintenance CapEx expenditures related to the purchase of the fiberglass manufacturing facilities that I just mentioned and investments to upgrade our newly acquired Freedom Pools manufacturing facilities. While the beginning of 2026 was affected by adverse weather conditions across North America, we are encouraged that April sales trends have been in line with the historical seasonal ramp. We continue to monitor geopolitical developments and their potential impact on our freight and raw material costs, but we believe we are well positioned to manage effectively through this pool building season. We are pleased by the steady progress we are seeing from our fiberglass awareness and adoption initiatives, highlighted by strong consumer engagement with our branding and marketing campaigns and continued gains in Florida, our initial state target market. Based on our performance to date and our current visibility into the remaining season, we are pleased to reaffirm our guidance for 2026 revenue growth of 9% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 13% at the midpoint amid expectation for new U.S. pool stocks to be flat with last year. With that, I'll turn the call back to Sean for his closing remarks. Thanks Oliver.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

In summary, we are pleased with our first quarter performance, encouraged by recent order trends and excited by the growth opportunities we see on horizon. Latham is firmly on track to outperform the market for new US pool start again in 2026. And we intend to take advantage of soft markets to accelerate our sand state strategy and strengthen our execution. I see tremendous opportunity for Latham to drive market penetration in the sand states as well as the rest of North America, Australia and New Zealand. And with that. Operator, please open the call to questions.

OPERATOR

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. Our first question comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair.

Ryan Merkel (Equity Analyst at William Blair)

Hey everyone. Appreciate the question. Wanted to start off with sort of the fiberglass backlog and orders as you enter the season. How is that looking? And then have you seen trends pick up now that the weather is cleared?

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Yes, thank you for that question, Ryan. In terms of backlog, I think we're seeing what we would have expected to see coming out of the first quarter. The order backlog in April looks strong to us and looks like it is picking up per the season. And we feel good enough that we obviously have reaffirmed guidance. But generally we are seeing a pickup in orders and so pretty good trends.

Ryan Merkel (Equity Analyst at William Blair)

Got it. Okay, thanks for that. And then my second question is the fiberglass conversion is key to the story, Sean. You know that and you're adding a bunch of resources, it seems. I'm curious, what are the biggest tweaks that you're making to the strategy and then any early results or maybe it's a little too early.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Yeah, we are definitely making some tweaks. It is. I will tell you it is too early. The main thing and I talked about earlier on is we are segmenting the market a little bit differently to how we have done it in the past. We've got our criteria now built up where we know. We feel like if a neighborhood fits that criteria, the likelihood of them going to Latham and then to fiberglass is higher. So we like that. We're starting to test that and if we get those right with the right dealers, we'll be able to start building out more and more neighborhoods. And so we're early, but I feel like that's definitely on a good path for us. The second thing we're doing is adding heads and really I'm trying to organize the commercial organization into sort of three areas. Sales strategy, which is really just understanding where is the opportunity, doing more of the segmentation, becoming little bit smarter around sales and then sales operations, which for me is really about converting what we think about the market into real game plans that the sales team can execute, then measuring that sales team and then sales team execution. So just getting a little bit more organized so that we get the most out of our sales organization. And that's really across the whole US but including the same space.

Ryan Merkel (Equity Analyst at William Blair)

That's great. That's interesting. Okay, appreciate that. I'll pass it on. Thank you.

Greg Palm (Equity Analyst at Craig Hallam Capital Group)

Our next question comes from Greg Palm with Craig Hallam Capital Group. Yeah, thanks. You know, wanted to piggyback on the first question a little bit since a lot has happened in the last couple months since you, since we last spoke. It doesn't sound like demand environment has changed like all that much I guess relative to maybe what you would have thought a couple months ago. So maybe you can just confirm that again. But from an input cost side of things, you mentioned freight. Wanted to get your sense on how you're dealing with that. And also anything else that's on your radar, whether it be increasing resin prices, are you seeing any availability shortages of key inputs like that? Anything else that should be be on our radar.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Thanks, Greg. I'll start by talking about the market a little bit. We still see the market overall for this year look likely to remain flat. Our assumption for that hasn't changed, but we are seeing some green shoots coming out and we feel good about that. Like I said, our order trend for April looks strong and into the start of May, so we feel good about that. PK would have indicated that PK data would have indicated that some more growth starting to occur with cheaper pools. Again, we like that. That's a good sign for us. Obviously pools are getting smaller, so that is good. Obviously the volatility is not helping. But I think we have a sound game. I know we have a sound approach, so I think we'll work through that. And then from a dealer perspective, when we caught up with the dealers, what they'll tell us is it's pretty competitive. Four or five quotes per job, which is generally up. But from what I from my take is, you know, it's certainly uncertain, but I believe less people will be traveling with price of gas doesn't help. And so they're staying at home. And I think that's the opportunity. I think that's what the green shoots are that we're seeing is that People will rather now spend time at their home and hopefully that's that. Build a pool.

Oliver Glow (Chief Financial Officer)

And Greg, let me, let me address the second part of your question with regards to the conflict in the Middle east and some of the updates here on input costs. Let me start off by saying we don't see availability to be an issue as of today. And then partially that's due to our supply diversification coming out of COVID Done a lot to be multi sourced and be as diversified as possible. But we are seeing obviously headwinds in cost. Right. That comes in two forms. One is transportation, the price of the pump. And especially in the world of fiberglass, we are obviously incurring transportation costs. It's expensive to ship those fiberglass pools across the nation. In terms of mitigation, what we've done on that side is to introduce temporary fuel surcharges that we plan to fully mitigate us when it comes to transportation costs. I think it's too early to tell what the impact is going to be on the commodity side. Obviously suppliers are reaching out. We are exposed to again the conflict in the Middle east as we consume a lot of oil derivatives in the world of resins, vinyl and so forth. Again, I think it's too early to tell. Certainly currently in discussions with the suppliers, I think we're making the first purchase orders as we speak under slightly higher price levels. We'll have to see the very dynamic situation evolves. But I'm confident in the playbook that we have, we have applied that playbook during COVID We have applied that playbook certainly last year. And I think we have confidence that the playbook will also work this year as we work through commodities.

Greg Palm (Equity Analyst at Craig Hallam Capital Group)

Okay, great. And then on some of these initiatives that you talked about, resegmentation, adding sales resources, I'm curious, how do you feel about your current dealer network right now and how important of a lever can that be, not just adding new and more dealers, but but also leaning into some of your more successful ones. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that as well. Yeah, sure.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Our dealers are very important. They are obviously the extension of us as they sit across the kitchen table. And so we need them, we need them to basically close themselves. Right now what I will tell you is I believe we've got the opportunity to get more out of our current network, which is goal number one. So I'm talking really about our core, what I would call our core markets, Midwest, Northeast, Canada, and that's really about account management. And we're going to be defining what Account management looks like for Latham and making sure our organization is trained around good account management. So I expect to get more out of our current network then I think about adding where we got white space. We're always going to be looking for dealers to take on white space. If our current dealer network doesn't get us there, that is going to be part of the strategy. And then, and then when I think about the sand states and material conversion, we have a good network of dealers there right now that we are going to be feeding as we go into these neighborhoods and they will be able to get the benefit of referrals and everything else that comes out of those neighborhoods. So feel good about the network in the sand states, particularly Florida. But our intention will be over time to grow there. Yeah, fair enough. Okay, I will leave it there. Thanks.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from Timothy Boyce with Baird.

Timothy Boyce (Equity Analyst at Baird)

Hey guys. Good afternoon. Maybe just first question just on the. Just kind of the re segmentation of, of the salesforce and things like that. Is the plan that there's incremental investments in terms of dollars that's going into some of the initiatives or are you just kind of reallocating what you have?

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Do a little bit of both. We are definitely going to get ahead a little bit because we need more people on the ground and actually thinking about our game plan. So that is the additive. But our intention will be, if you think about SGNA as a percentage of sales over the medium and long term, that should stay the same. So we will continue to find that as we grow and then we will look at opportunities to sort of trim back on the backside of the business to give us some space to spend on the front side of the business and invest.

Timothy Boyce (Equity Analyst at Baird)

And then Oliver, just on the price cost question, I guess it's not totally clear if higher resins are kind of in the guide or is it kind of a wait and see approach right now. And if you do see higher resins, you guys have the ability to, you know, take cost out or improve efficiencies or pass them on. Price is that kind of the main message? That's probably.

Oliver Glow (Chief Financial Officer)

It's probably more the latter. I think transportation cost is relatively foreseeable what that means to us. And that's in the guide, right? With commodities, I think it's too early to tell.

Timothy Boyce (Equity Analyst at Baird)

Okay. Okay, sounds good. Thank you guys.

Andrew Carter (Equity Analyst at Stifel)

Our next question comes from Andrew Carter with Stifel. Hey, thank you. Good afternoon. Wanted to ask and just double click to make sure we Understand exactly what the pricing is for the year you are putting in temporary, temporary fuel surcharges. Can you give a magnitude of how much that's kind of incremental to the old guidance. You are not taking any price increases on products for resins. Just want to make sure and triple check that. And I think you said we're well prepared for materials during the season. So I'm guessing is that a comment that everything's good for now and you take a price increase later and then kind of finally if you have to take a price increase, can you take one mid season or does that mess things up or just how those dynamics work around when you have to make a decision on pricing.

Oliver Glow (Chief Financial Officer)

So Andrew, I would say the transportation cost and the temporary surcharge I'd say for the year is probably worth 60 basis points. But again it's very, it's very dynamic and volatile. Right. And obviously as the headwinds change that the temporary surcharge can change over time as well. Right. But that's just order of magnitude. Right. I think again for commodities, too early to tell. Quite frankly, we haven't even ordered or just about to start ordering materials that would be subject to a change in pricing. So it's really early to tell. And then obviously the materials get shipped to all sites, work their way through inventory ultimately as they consumed in the pnl. But we again we have our playbook and we'll react in time as necessary. And if I remind you, last year we actually did do a mid season price increase catering to the environment last year that came in in June. So it's not preferred but it's also not unheard of.

Andrew Carter (Equity Analyst at Stifel)

Thanks, I'll pass it on.

Scott Stringer (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research)

Our next question comes from Scott Stringer with Wolff Research. Hey guys, thanks for the question. I'm just wondering if the adverse weather mentioned in one Q pushes some sales into the second Q quarter and the guidance obviously implies some acceleration through the rest of the year. Right. So guess it would just be helpful to know the tailwind from sales being pulled into 2Q.

Oliver Glow (Chief Financial Officer)

If that is the case, I would say, you know, the adverse weather really means, you know, we had a lot of snow ice on the ground in January and February. If you think of our annual organic growth of 6%, we certainly didn't quite achieve that in Q1. It was probably half of that. And I would attribute that to weather. If you translate that to shipping days, that equates to about a shipping day in today's seasonality. So you Know, I'm not reading too much into that. The season is young. Q1 is A, is a comparatively small quarter. Again, translating our under proportional organic growth in Q1 vis A vis the annual guide into shipping days. It's one day. I think that's another way of saying, you know, we put in the prepared remarks that really the trends and in April have been, have been as expected. We are seeing this seasonal ramp. Whether we catch up on that one day in Q2 or in Q3, we will see it early in the quarter. But certainly nothing we have seen in Q1 end in our ramp in April that would make us change our view on 26 and the guide.

Scott Stringer (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research)

Okay, got it.

Scott Stringer (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research)

And then I think you guys talked about this a little bit earlier, but just curious on the visibility into 2Q and 3Q for in ground pool installs, is that pretty much set or just curious how much variability is there over the next two quarters for that segment.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Well, I'll start and I'll hand it over to Oliver. I think from a Q2 perspective, we're all but set. I mean based on our lead times currently. But that looks like, you know, as said, we've started the quarter really, really well. Q3 still, obviously we've got, while we've got orders that do fall into Q3, it's probably too early to tell. But again, from what we're hearing inside of the market, from what we're seeing, we still feel very confident of what the order file looks like and will continue to hold.

Oliver Glow (Chief Financial Officer)

And if I compare today's order book versus prior years, really nothing that would cause us to think differently about the seasonal pattern visa vis the last year again, all confirming guide today. Got it. That's helpful.

Scott Stringer (Equity Analyst at Wolff Research)

Thanks for the time, guys.

Matthew Boley (Equity Analyst at Barclays)

Our next question comes from Matthew Boley with Barclays. Good afternoon, guys. You have Oinkou on for Matt Boulay today. So for my first question. Good afternoon. For my first question, I'm just curious, like, what are the top concerns you're seeing from buyers today? Like between rates, economic uncertainty, you know, just the need to step up more consumer awareness of fiberglass pools.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

What's kind of the biggest challenge today? From what I've heard, you know, the number one thing would be which is tied to interest rates is, you know, basic financing is difficult to get. So anybody who hasn't got the cash or is able to get got a good FICO score is unable to get financing. We're hearing that a fair bit, which isn't all that different to what I would have heard last year. And then I think the other part would be the dealers are saying that they're fighting. They're having to fight for the sale a little harder than they would previously. So when I. When I mentioned 45 quotes, it's typically two to three quotes. So everyone's fighting for the business pretty hard now. Reality is, you know, we feel in an environment where things are tough, I actually feel good about fiberglass pools because obviously pools are getting smaller. That fits our trend. Pools have low maintenance, so the actual cost on an ongoing basis is lower. Then I'll identity alternatives out there. So the expenditure on chemicals and like I said, on evaporation is low, especially if you have an auto cover. And the dribid of the pool means that there's no ongoing expenses going with the pool. So while we see the market as a little tough, we still see it not adversely affecting us relative to last year. And in terms of your increased branding and marketing spend, can you walk us through the cadence of what that might look like through the year and its impact on sga? And also, what does this sort of look like? Is it a targeted brand program for dealers? Is it more salespeople on the ground or is it more unlike the ads and marketing spend? Thank you. Yeah, it's a bit of both. Right now, running a national campaign, the national campaign is good because it lifts all markets up, which is great. The other good part of our national campaign is when you think about the sand states. There's a trend of people moving from the Midwest, northeast into the sand states. We like that because fiberglass is the standard in those markets. So we like the marketing campaign being a national format, the increase. And I'll just start with the timing. The start of the timing is really set for the pool season. So we started sort of February, mid to late February, and we're moving all the way through to sort of July, August. That's with the time frame for the net for the national campaign. And then when I think about my neighborhoods, that's going to be way more tactical in nature. So I'm talking about things like digital marketing. I'm talking about door hangers and marketing around the homes. I'm talking about doing events at the home to inspire the neighborhood. So those are pretty tactical, small expenses that will run in every neighborhood. So when it comes to the increase and the cadence of the increase, we said earlier on, I think over the foreseeable future, SGNA as percent of sales will roughly be flat. It was 22.5% last year. We expected to be a similar amount this year. And the majority of that is spent as you heard from in the sales organization and marketing. There's a little bit of digital transformation in there and obviously inflation on the core gna. But again the majority is going into the sales organization and marketing. There's also a little bit of increase in the absolute dollar number as we bought Freedom and that comes with about 3 million of SGA. So that gives you the 22 and a half million. But I would like to remind you that in addition we have the earn out expenses for Coverstar Central. That is about 9 million. It's tied to 2026 so it won't recur in 2070. That didn't occur in 25. So that is an earnout expense that is tied to 2026. But with regards to Cadence it's roughly the same as usual. You will see that Q1 and Q2 are a little bit heavier and that is because we are running our marketing campaign, our national TV campaign, earlier and longer in 26 versus 25. Great, thanks. I'll pass it on. Thank you. Our next question comes from Susan McClary with Goldman Sachs. Hey everyone, this is Charles Perron in for Susan. Thanks for taking my question. First I'd like to shift gear a little bit and talk about the auto cover and the opportunities that you see in this market considering the changing macro dynamics. Is there any impact you're seeing in terms of the adoption and any efforts you can do here to further expand the penetration over the coming years? Yeah, I'll start with that. I think the answer is no. We're not seeing a decrease in adoption. We had a pretty good quarter in order covers and covers in general. We think we had very large growth last year. We expect it to grow this year and we expect it to grow in the coming years as well. It's really about awareness for us. Reality is most people still don't know that auto covers are available. Auto covers can fit on every pool so it doesn't really matter if it's a fiberglass pool or not. So the market is actually very large for us and we've got our value added resellers set up to take advantage of that. And then we also are now getting our sales organization, latent sales organization around that product and it's still early for that to happen. So we see that as more upside as we go. But the product is got. Product is a good product. It does what it needs to do. Consumers who have it love it. And I think we just got to make sure we continue to drive the awareness and I don't see that that trend changing. Okay, that's helpful, Sean. And then switching gear. I appreciate all the callers so far on the call on input, cost and inflation, but should we see more unfavorable dynamics coming through from a cost perspective? Can you talk about the opportunities to further lean on your lean in manufacturing and value engineering initiatives to further protect your margins? So I think lean and value engineering continues to be a key contributor to our P and L. Like you heard me on prior calls, the contribution is about 2, 2.5 million per quarter. In Q1 it was 2 million. And that's just because Q1 is a light quad and lean and value engineering programs go up and down with volume. I think, you know, as some of those programs mature and you know, you'll see the tailwind that's really now getting into our DNA. This is how we lead our plants and factories and you know, it's part of the everyday cadence. So you'll see a lot more programs maybe not of the same magnitude because the lowering improves are being cleared here and that's more common for lean manufacturing. Whereas value engineering, we're really in the beginning of the journey. I think there are still some low hanging fruits out there that our team of PhD level scientists is pursuing. So again, both initiatives under full scheme and certainly in Q1 delivering what we expected them to deliver. And there's no change in our thoughts for the rest of the year. Thank you for the color guys and good luck with the quarter. Thank you. Our next question comes from Sean Callan with Bank of America.

Sean Callan (Equity Analyst at Bank of America)

Thank you for taking my question. Just first, the double digit growth in Florida was quite impressive. What do you think has led to the success in Florida versus the other sand states? And can you talk about what lessons you can take from Florida to apply to the other sand states? Yeah, I'll start with. It is obviously our largest focus of all the sand states. We are set up quite well from a sales number perspective. We're working on dealers now over the last 18 months. So we've got a set of dealers that are really the right dealers for us to help fulfill the demand that we're creating. We've been running our marketing in general campaign for now, 18 months and we've seen the flow of that. And then we have got, I mean we've got a really good strong proposition value Proposition relative to concrete. And we're getting deeper and deeper into the market and getting, being able to communicate it. So we are seeing good growth and we feel good that. And I feel good that, you know, if a homeowner understands the benefit of fiberglass over concrete, there's a really high chance that would go with fiberglass. We're just very early still in the adoption curve. So our mission is to make sure our awareness goes, continues to get driven up and that we have the connection between that awareness and our view that's positioning at the kitchen table. And then I just remind you at the end of the day, while we are very pleased with the numbers, will we look to accelerate that? And in reality we're still working on pretty small numbers. We think about Florida. Okay, great. And then just one cleanup question on the surcharges. Are you aiming to offset the higher transportation costs on a dollar basis or a margin basis? On a dollar basis. So you know, the headwind is as as we incurred is being passed on with the temporary search process. Okay, great. Thank you. Thanks, Shawn.

OPERATOR

Our next question comes from Andrew Carter with Stifel.

Andrew Carter (Equity Analyst at Stifel)

Hey, thanks. Just I wanted to double click and make sure on that incentive cost you're not backing that out. So if you were to put that back in the incremental here is still 28 to 38 in investment year. I just want to understand that. Double click. No, it's not. I'm sorry. The earn out. The earn out around Coverstar. So the SG. So the earnout is included in SG&A and will be sitting on top the 22 and a half percent as of revenue. But as it is an expense tied to an acquisition for EBITDA purposes, it's back down. Okay. So it is just not excluded. It is within guidance that expense. Just double checking. It's an add back to EBITDA and Sorry about that. Thank you. Thanks, Andrew.

OPERATOR

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the call back over to management for closing remarks.

Sean Gad (President and CEO)

Thank you very much. I just want to thank everybody for getting on the call. We felt like we had a strong quarter, obviously marred a little bit with weather, but the momentum's there. April looks strong and we feel confident about our guide. With that, I want to conclude the call. I look forward to seeing all the folks on the call over the coming weeks and months at different types of events. And again, thank you everyone for attending. Thank you.

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