Whirlpool Corporation (NYSE:WHR) Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript October 24, 2024 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Scott Cartwright - IR
Marc Bitzer - Chairman and CEO
Jim Peters - CFO and CAO

Conference Call Participants

David MacGregor - Longbow Research
Susan Maklari - Goldman Sachs
Mike Dahl - RBC Capital Markets
Laura Champine - Loop Capital
Rafe Jadrosich - Bank of America
Eric Bosshard - Cleveland Research

Scott Cartwright

Good morning, and welcome to Whirlpool Corporation's Third Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded. Joining me today are Marc Bitzer, our Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Jim Peters, our Chief Financial and Administrative Officer. Our remarks today track with the presentation available on the Investors section of our website at whirlpoolcorp.com.

Before we begin, I want to remind you that as we conduct this call, we will be making forward-looking statements to assist you in better understanding Whirlpool Corporation's future expectations. Our actual results could differ materially from these statements due to many factors discussed in our latest 10-K, 10-Q, and other periodic reports. We also want to remind you that today's presentation includes the non-GAAP measures outlined in further detail at the beginning of our earnings presentation. We believe these measures are important indicators of our operations as they exclude items that may not be indicative of our results from ongoing business operations. We also think the adjusted measures will provide you with a better baseline for analyzing trends in our ongoing business operations. Listeners are directed to the supplemental information package posted on the Investor Relations section of our website for the reconciliation of non-GAAP items to the most directly comparable GAAP measures.

At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Following our prepared remarks, the call will be open for analyst questions. As a reminder, we ask that participants ask no more than two questions.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Marc.

Marc Bitzer

Thanks, Scott, and good morning, everyone. In the third quarter, we again delivered global sequential EBIT margin expansion, largely in line with our expectations. I'm pleased with our team's execution of our operational priorities, delivering 50 basis points of sequential global margin expansion. Our North American business even achieved 100 basis points of sequential margin expansion, led by our previously announced pricing actions.

Before I expand further into the results, I want to acknowledge what has been and will, at least in the near term, remain a challenging macro environment in the US. Consumer confidence remains low and is impacted by the uncertainty ahead of the upcoming elections. Despite the recent interest rate cut by the Fed, the US housing market is still constrained by elevated mortgage rates. As a result of this environment, demand in the US has shifted significantly toward lower margin replacement driven purchases and the higher margin discretionary demand continues to be weak due to historically low existing home sales. Although the timing of the US housing recovery is still uncertain, we are confident that the industry will have a multi-year recovery with the underlying housing fundamentals remaining strong. We are well positioned to benefit from this eventual housing rebound. While we await an anticipated multi-year US housing recovery, we are focused on executing our operational priorities.