Earnings Labs

James Hardie Industries plc (JHX)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, May 22, 2018

$21.80

-2.02%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-1.87%

1 Week

-4.19%

1 Month

-6.28%

vs S&P

-7.06%

Transcript

Louis Gries

Management

Okay. Good morning. Thanks for joining the result. We are going to do it like we always do it. I will cover the business overviews and Matt will cover kind of all the financials in details behind that. We will start then on Slide 7. Yes, the result was good right across the board. I think it's a little bumpy at the start of the year, we will get into that. In North America, the only thing really worth going out is understanding how we got to where we got in volume, but our financials look pretty good at least from our perspective. In North America, price was solid right through the year, so we had that increase a year-ago April. Everything stuck tactically. The guys in the U.S have been doing better. So, not a lot of leakage in our price. Obviously, we are in a win back situation on some volume loss when we are capacity constraint, so we handle that well without using a lot of price to get there. The EBIT got better as the year went through, and that was all driven by manufacturing, so we talked about. Then you'll see a slide in a little bit, but manufacturing traction has been good, and also on the market side attraction is good. So how did we get 1% volume in the fourth quarter? I think when we talked early in the year, we acknowledged that having customers move over to other brands while we were out was a bit of a -- was creating a bit of a lag on our -- on the market side. All those customers weren't just automatically coming back once we got our capacity in place. So we were -- I think we had a below index count for the…

Matthew Marsh

Management

Hi. Good morning. Thanks, Louis. We will go through the financial results just like in a typical quarter. We will cover off on asbestos today, given the annual actual report is out and we could go. And so, overall the fourth quarter we thought was pretty strong. We had good operational management in North America in the second half the year that made up for kind of where we were coming in the last year as a result of the capacity constraint. And then the first half result wasn’t where we wanted it to be, but the second half close up pretty good in North a1merica. And Australia had a really good year overall, very strong revenue growth, gain market share and good returns. Cash flow for the year was really strong and solid. I will take everybody through that. Our capacity expansion plans continue to be on track as those are capital location strategy. So the last year and half has been a heavy focus in the business on getting capacity build out in North America and we’ve also announced projects now in Asia-p1acific. We declared second half dividend of $0.30 per share today. And you can see the adjusted NOPAT at $291 million compared -- was higher obviously than the guidance. That’s primarily driven by tax item at the time in the February result, I didn’t have good clarity on, and so I will take everybody through that. The underlying business also performed better as well. So we had strong results in the in the quarter and then we had a one-time item that you will see is going to show up the same way in the financials in FY '19. And that was as a result of an internal restructuring transaction that we did that we did,…

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, before we had questions, [technical difficulty] I will be retiring sometime in the next -- maybe a year, 18 months. The Board and myself have succession plans in place for going through a process. It's been tracking very well actually. So, we're all encouraged that sometime later this year, we will probably announce that I will be leaving Hardie and we will announced my successor and I would just stay for just a short transition period, maybe four to six months during the handoff. The reason I want to give you an update is during the two days I’m down talking to investors. I really don’t want to take questions on that subject. So that’s the update. All right. So we will go to questions now same as always in the room, then on the phone, and then if there's any media questions we will take them right at the end.

Q - Andrew Scott

Management

Hello. It’s Andrew Scott, Morgan Stanley. Just a few for me. Firstly, to your credit, you haven't called out the weather, but a number of your competitors and customers have. Can you talk to us about what weather impact you might have seen in the period?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes. We don’t factor it and it would be in the normal variance category for us. It wasn’t terrible winter that we’d call out. It might have impacted us a little bit. But we wouldn’t worry about it.

Andrew Scott

Management

Thanks. Secondly, just on PDG, I think you spoke to, I think you said exteriors you’re expecting 3% to 5%?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes.

Andrew Scott

Management

Can you tell us what you’d expect in interiors in aggregate?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, interiors is -- there's few things going on interiors both in the industry and the company, so I would probably be looking for flat to slightly up, say 1 to 3 points if we can get it.

Andrew Scott

Management

And Matt just two housekeeping ones, Prattville, you mentioned two sheet machines. Can you tell us the volume there?

Matthew Marsh

Management

Yes, it's about $600 million in nameplate capacity.

Andrew Scott

Management

Perfect, thanks. And then the European integration cost, I assume you will take those above the line?

Matthew Marsh

Management

The integration costs, yes. It will be above the line.

Andrew Scott

Management

Great. Thanks, guys.

Peter Steyn

Management

Thanks. Peter Steyn from Macquarie. Matt, could you just run us through the Fermacell numbers, and particularly the 10% EBIT margin. What you’ve taken into consideration there in light of your answer now on the integration cost, are we to think that, that’s above the line, i.e., the 10 is net of that? And then, what is the current state of the European business and its contribution and how does that influence the 10% outcome?

Matthew Marsh

Management

Yes. So the 10% is obviously a mix of fiber gypsum and fiber cement. I think we said before the -- I will start with fiber cement. So we’ve – historically, we’ve had about a €30 million business that's doesn't generate any cash, and so you can conclude pretty quickly that the EBIT margins aren't very good with that. The underlying Fermacell business is obviously above the 10%, so it's a low double-digit sort of EBIT returned business still below kind of Hardie level of returns, so we’ve got some work to do there to get the returns where we want them to be. The 10% is kind of the ongoing operations excluding any of the integration costs. We will invest fairly heavily in the business in the first couple of years as I think I’ve mentioned on either the February or the November result. We are carving out the Fermacell business from a private equity owned. It's been private equity owned for quite some time and a lot of the back office was a shared service. Organization for quite some time and that shared service organization is going to be transitioned to us via a transaction -- via a service agreement, but we will have to go through a process of standing up and carving out a back office and investing some applicable costs, and then we’re obviously incurring normal integration costs sort of on top of that, so we will give you a good visibility starting in August of what the underlying business looks like with and without those costs, so you can kind of see those and that they don’t sort of distort the underlying operation and you can see kind of where we’re investing money for the long term.

Peter Steyn

Management

Perfect. And then just in light of, Louie, some of your comments on plant performance and that you still see further upside for unit costs or I suppose downside, therefore, a positive margin outlook. If you think about your expectations for FY '19 margins at the top end of that range, a few moving parts there, but I think there's probably a general expectation that you hold above the 25% in the context of what you've achieved in recent periods, how would you think about that?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, I mean, it probably won't be too different than the way you described it. The key now in the US - we did have a bump -- bumpy road. We have to take care of which I think we’ve, but we got to build on our momentum in both the market and the plant. And then we are funding strategic initiatives for future growth, so we’ve actually moved forward and some pretty key initiatives that are shaping up, shaping up well. So we will be putting some money in those this year.

Q - Peter Steyn

Management

So, top of the range is fine now. And if we end up a little bit above, it's probably because things performed a little bit better than we thought they might.

Peter Steyn

Management

Okay. And then maybe just very quickly, is there anything we need to worry about in terms of price pull forward in this last quarter that could impact the short-term performance?

Louis Gries

Management

No, in fact I kind of indicated our order fall right now, it looks good So we are through the price increase, all that boards are at full price and orders are pretty good right now.

Peter Steyn

Management

Perfect. Thanks. I will leave it there.

Simon Thackray

Management

Thanks. Simon Thackray at CLSA. I just want to follow on that PDG, that usual -- Louie, we calculate it one way, you calculate it another way, in terms of market index, but your comment Matt, you expect a similar level of growth in detached housing starts. R&R looks like its growing 6% to 7%. It's a reasonable number. You’re talking 2% to 3% price. You’re talking to 3% to 5% PDG on top of market index. So I just want to be absolutely crystal clear, are you expecting double – close to double-digit growth in volume in North America?

Louis Gries

Management

I think if everything lined up, we could approach 10%, but we wouldn’t have our market index or strategy. So you said 6% or 7% for our R&R and we'd be more like a 4%. And forget we use -- we disclosed that we used, right?

Simon Thackray

Management

Got you.

Louis Gries

Management

So we'd say, hey, if the market index is 4% or 5% and we got 4% or 5%, you’re kind of closing in on 10%. But remember, interiors won't be at that level. So the headline number for the business in North America could be a bit lower. And I’m not -- we are early in the year, but the thing I would say and the market is, obviously we got -- we had a drag on our order flow and we’ve worked through that. We thought we would get back to market index, we did. And we thought it would be positive this quarter. Our quarterly variances are tough, but meaning you shouldn’t put too much. But we look good, but I think we can build momentum with the programs we have. So, speaking to you guys and the organization, I’d like to see us go harder in the market and I’m sure that’s what everyone is trying to do.

Simon Thackray

Management

And just -- there is a lot being met obviously, cost inflation in the U.S. I know Peter made reference to it just before across input costs, and a lot of the competitors in the commodity space, not necessarily competitors against you, but in building materials, just seeing this cost inflation particularly on frieght and disruptions in supply chain and lumber. So the back end inflation and price rise is that the industry are talking about, obviously are far and above the tactical pricing that Hardie refers to. I just wanted to understand whether in that final quarter, that -- actually dampened the pull forward of demand, given your installers and builder customers had broader inflation and we are looking elsewhere to secure volume?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, I -- before you the question, I never thought about it. We are pretty simple on our price increases. We allocate enough board to customers so that they can cover their commitment. So as soon as they’re throughout that allocated part, it's just -- it just flips it in new price. So we wouldn’t have made any big change in how we went around about price increase and like I said I don’t -- there is always some slop between quarters when you have a price increase, but I don't think it's material. I don’t think it dramatically slow down the fourth quarter or it's going to -- its not going to bump up the first quarter, it's just -- it worked pretty well.

Simon Thackray

Management

And then, finally on the delivered unit cost, we talked about it ongoing improvement as those plants continue to ramp up. Matt you made the point, better throughput we should be getting unit delivered cost down as well. Just is that enough to obviously offset the Tacoma commissioning increase as well? How should we be thinking about that with Tacoma?

Louis Gries

Management

I don’t know if I get that fine with it. I think Summerville …

Simon Thackray

Management

[Indiscernible] fund.

Louis Gries

Management

… I mean, lately at Hardie, it's been what you do well and what you do poorly and we did it -- we did a few good start ups poorly. Now that’s by our standards, maybe we are a little rough on ourselves, but we definitely thought we could have done Plant City better than we did it and we thought we could have done Fontana which Fontana is still not at the level we want it to be at. But having said that, we did Cleveland very well, we did Summerville well. And we’re coming up to Tacoma and I think that's going to be a pretty good startup. So I think the good news out of Tacoma is we will probably -- we should have a very good efficient startup. Like Matt said, we -- all of that recently we've kind of approached it in the right way both organizationally and how we’re going to spend our money doing first 180 days when you don't have the big denominators to offset the cost.

Simon Thackray

Management

Got it. And then just quickly on Fermacell, the integration cost, Matt, are they above the line or below the line? Just for the purposes of …?

Matthew Marsh

Management

For fiscal '18, the integration costs were taken out. They’re largely transaction costs as well as some due diligence and leading up to day one type costs, so those are all taken out of the result on the adjusted numbers in the appendix. So its $10 million in total that was taken out. Going forward we will put them above the line and then we will give you a good visibility going forward of what’s in -- of what’s ongoing versus what's one-time.

Simon Thackray

Management

And I know this is now beyond your tenure, Louie, but I'll ask you that whether that two-third Fiber Cement in Europe in a future state, does that imply higher R&D costs as we go forward beyond that?

Louis Gries

Management

Sort of I tried to cover in my -- what I tried to cover in my comments is buying Fermacell doesn’t -- it enables growth, it doesn’t deliver growth other than the acquisition growth. So its product development specific for Europe, market development specifically in Europe and then manufacturing in Europe. And your time frame is about right, its 5 to 7 years, all that stuff will happen in the next 5 to 7 years.

Simon Thackray

Management

Is that R&D for the Europe [multiple speakers]?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, R&D -- yes I don’t do platform development. I mean, it's a different market. Its masonry construction, there's some growth in frame construction, but we’ve got to participate in the masonry part of the market. So it will be speed of construction or ease of construction, not so much the same value proposition we deliver with frame construction.

Simon Thackray

Management

But at the back end, is it caught in the corporate R&D or will it be allocated specifically to …?

Louis Gries

Management

You’re out of my league now.

Simon Thackray

Management

[Indiscernible]. I can deal with that. But it goes up is the answer.

Keith Chau

Management

Good Morning, Louis, Matt. Its Keith Chau from Evans & Partners. So just a couple of quick questions. The first one on PDG, positive start to the year, 3% to 5% target. Strong order book, but is there anything you hear it from your sales team directly, so even one lap before the order book, which suggests that momentum can continue? Is the -- I guess, has the sentiment within the sales team in the U.S changed over the past 12 months?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, I mean, we don’t have -- they’re not trying to overcome the issue of capacity shortage. That's well behind us. So, I mean, our sales organization like most sales organizations would be very optimistic. So if anything you got a discount what they think rather than -- but anyway we're good. Management right across the company feels we are in a position to get back in the positive growth against the index and that’s what we are here for and that’s what we will do, that’s why we’re building capacity. We're not building capacity for our current market share, we are building capacity for future market share.

Keith Chau

Management

Sure. Thank you. And then, just a second one on pricing. In FY '18 average realized prices benefiting from a favorable shift in mix. As we look into FY '19, how does the mix balance out between geographies and markets, and obviously, a shift back towards interiors, or its going to be continuing favorable?

Louis Gries

Management

You know, I mean, we do have a few more things running around at price. I said we have a few good initiatives going on. We will be repositioning a few product lines and we will be taking increase on other product line. So the two to three is pretty good estimate. Now the difference between two and three is probably like you say, how much happens in the south versus the north, how much happens in back versus exterior, and that’s the difference between two and three. But the calculation right now is we kind of tuned up our pricing right through the businesses and we think we’re good to go. I think -- I don’t know if Simon's question had behind it. Hey, are you going to cover your cost? Will your price increase, cost increase as well as your price increase. I think the answer to that is probably yes, but I also think you guys know that’s not how we price. We never cost plus.

Keith Chau

Management

Thanks.

Louis Gries

Management

Okay. It looks like the questions in the room are finished. Are there any questions on the phone?

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Lee Power from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Lee Power

Analyst

Thanks. Thanks, Louie. Just on exterior's growing at the market index, do you think you got any benefit from the plant in transport issues that a few of your competitors have had in North America? Do you think they just comes down the wash?

Louis Gries

Management

No, I think everyone is ready to supply in the USA. I don't think there is any. Yes, there's no tailwind in growth above the market index. You are got to get customers change from what they’re doing and what we’re doing and it's a normal process. And I don't see any of that.

Lee Power

Analyst

And then you mentioned you were down at the Tacoma plant recently. It looks like just from your 3Q estimates, there's some slippage just around the timing at both Tacoma and Philippines just this quarter, is there -- I mean, can you talk to that, what drove that slippage over the last quarter?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, Matt and I are looking at each other here. We are not thinking about it as slippage. Right now we are -- we got the capacity we need. They’re timed to come online. Just a real short story and plant startups, they startup way cheaper when you don't need the board, then they startup when you do need the board. So basically on a situation like we have in the Philippines and now in the U.S., we cost optimize the startups. So the length that you run is basically how much -- what you’re trying to learn during that run. When you get into -- if you’re in a shortage and you’re starting up a plant, then the lengthy run stretches out because you’re trying to make board for customers that need the board. So we much prefer to be in a situation we are in with these two startups and that did cost some problems on our earlier startups, both Fontana and Plant City, where we started up when board was very tight. So part of the reason they cost us more is because we weren't able to cost optimize the startups. So we don't think of them as behind. So we are very happy with both sites and both startups.

Lee Power

Analyst

Definitely. And then just on Fermacell, have you -- I mean, is there any specific strategies or incentives you got in place around the existing Fermacell management to keep them kind of incentivized and on board?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, we've got all the normal stuff in place. I can say, I was with Jack last week in Europe before the Board meeting met with the managers at Fermacell and saw another one of the sites I haven't seen. And I believe that Fermacell organization is extremely pleased to have an owner like Hardie that kind of understands organic growth, understands how to add capacity, understands how to deliver financial returns. So like I said, the parallels between the business is two businesses are pretty amazing. So the fit right now looks really good, but we have all that normal stuff in place and just like our Hardie employees they will have their incentive plan for fiscal year '19 already in place. So that’s all been taken care.

Lee Power

Analyst

Excellent. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Sophie Spartalis from Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.

Sophie Spartalis

Analyst

Good morning, guys. Sophie Spartalis for Merrill Lynch. Just two questions from me. This year we didn’t see the usual seasonality that generally goes on throughout the year. Should we expect that in the FY '19 year? And then the second question, R&D was up 10% for the fourth quarter and the full-year, given the spend on the other businesses and the increasing number of projects, can you just talk through some of those initiatives, please?

Louis Gries

Management

I can talk through in general terms. As far as seasonality, you’re right. It's easy to make money in the summer in the U.S than it is in the winter. It did flip around on us this year and the reason for that was the delivered unit cost issue in the summer of last year, which I talked about. Now we had 25 third quarter and fourth quarter, I think and it's pretty hard to get at 25 third quarter, fourth quarter. But things were -- like I said, when you have positive momentum in the business a lot of times, you get to help and it falls at the bottom line and I think that’s probably what happened. Yes, I would expect this year to return more than normal where you sell the better part of your volume for six months a year, your financials are better and you get into the slower months and you take more down time in the plants. Now we didn't take any down time in the plants this year. We went into a new program, we call distributed inventory, which I think is something that we may do again next year, it seems to have worked very well. But I still would agree with you, normally first half is 2, 3 points better than the second half and I would guess that maybe the case again this year. As far as I think you said R&D was up -- there's two ways we spent R&D. The biggest way is market demand. So I said we had a couple of initiatives in the market that we are liking and we’re going to crank up some funding. Now that won't show up in R&D that will actually show up in our SG&A. But we would have spend a lot of money on those initiatives over the last several years that kind of get them to where they’re. The R&D stuff is product platform mainly and some of that product platform maybe replacement of raw materials as raw materials supply gets to be in question or too expensive. It could be new products. You guys know [indiscernible] modify. We are one of the few Fiber Cement producers that knows how to deliverable density and durability. So if our R&D is up, which I would hope it would be, it's because we're funding good projects. It's not -- we don't specifically try and tie R&D as a ratio to our revenue. We fund R&D and then expect that revenue increase in the future as the projects are successful. It's kind of a long line [ph] answer, but sorry.

Sophie Spartalis

Analyst

Should we expect the R&D expense to be at the level posted in FY '18 then?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, I think what I would do, if I was following the company, I would just have a positive trend line in R&D cost, I’m sure over time. We will continue to find more and more things to invest in our R&D that will deliver to returns in the future. So like I said we don’t have really handcuffs on the organization as tying it to a ratio. So I would expect that it will be up as a rule as we move forward, but not up dramatically toward starts impacting our financials.

Sophie Spartalis

Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you.

Louis Gries

Management

Yes.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from Peter Wilson from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Peter Wilson

Analyst

Thank you. Maybe just a follow-up -- follow on from that last question. I mean, you mentioned a couple of times, these market demand initiatives and programs that you got in place, can you maybe just give us a little bit of color on, if you can, what they’re and why you might have such confidence in the success?

Louis Gries

Management

Well, yes, I’m not going to take them [indiscernible] I mean we will probably cover -- we usually cover stuff like that in our September tour. It's pretty hard on a phone or just a short period of time to really get into what we think and drive for the market share gains in the future. But I -- just a quick reminder, Fiber Cement's whatever, about a 20 market share, we're very committed to see it get to 35. In order for it to get to 35, we have to open up more opportunities either through market development initiatives, and in some cases some product platforms where fiber Cement can deliver more in certain ways than it does now. So, yes, the market initiatives I referred to which are getting in their expensive part of their cycle, are the stuff that Sean Gadd and his team probably would have covered last September. So it's not so much new, it's just we got them to -- we have them to a point where we're pretty excited about they’re ready to go and putting a little more money and to put more resources in programs.

Peter Wilson

Analyst

Okay, fair enough. Thank you. And just on the Fermacell Europe, kind of revenue targets and breakdown that you’ve sketched out, can you just maybe -- for the growth in the existing Fiber Cement products, can you just lay out your vision a little bit? And what I mean by that is? Is it growth coming from just leveraging off Fermacell's existing distribution footprint and, if so, how and maybe what that growth in that segment would be?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, we will get a benefit of their market access. But that’s a small part of the equation. And we will get that, fairly quickly, meaning the first three years, starting this year and then maybe picking up little momentum second year and possibly third. But the big part of the equation is similar to what -- roll back the clock, what Australia has done down here as far as substituting for brick construction, offering architects design options that they couldn’t get to with other materials. And the U.S., same thing, we didn’t -- we were growing new demand for category based on a value proposition, which was very important in the U.S market, especially when we entered the market. And I think it's the same challenge in Europe. It's a really good market. Population is good. Their ability to spend money, their GDP per capita is good. Everything is good there, but it's just masonry construction. So we have to do the platform development to deliver value proposition that really starts to penetrate in the masonry construction market. So if you look at the, kind of like the stuff that’s right in front of you, market access will give us a bump in sales in our current products and then you look at the frame construction which is growing. Frame construction normally in the capital markets I’ve seen now is meaning factory built components rather than everything site built, like it's normal in the U.S. And we can do well with the frame construction increasing, but that’s like a 30 or 40-year penetration of frame construction against masonry. It's not going to happen fast enough. But that will be easier than a masonry construction. A masonry construction, there's a lot of possibilities and we just got to do to work to find out degree of difficulty versus size of the prize [ph]. We got to do work to decide which way we're going. And we get some good ideas and like I said one of the individuals we moved onto that team is again it did similar work for us in Australia. So, yes, we get a bump on the market access, we will benefit from growth in frame construction. But the big hit -- the hit that ends up being a $1 billion is more finer positioning for masonry construction.

Peter Wilson

Analyst

Okay, excellent. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from George Clapham from Arnhem Investment Management. Please go ahead.

George Clapham

Analyst

Yes. Matt, just on the CapEx which was increased sharply this year, what's the guidance for CapEx this year given Prattville and a few other expansions?

Matthew Marsh

Management

Yes, thanks for that question. I think the last couple of results we had profile for three years about $750 million over a 3-year period. And I think that's still about right. Obviously, we are now talking about an additional period, so I think for FY '19 CapEx will be in about the $350 million range. So we’ve under spent a bit -- a little bit in FY '18, you will see some of that carryover with the various capacity projects we have already announced. So $350 million in '19. We think that goes to $250 million in '20, and $150 million in '21. So, $350 million, $250 million, $150 million.

George Clapham

Analyst

Okay. And just guidance for your net debt at the end of this period with Fermacell acquisition, what would that net debt be?

Matthew Marsh

Management

Yes, depending on the period that you're speaking, I think we will be of our 1x to 2x debt range for six to eight quarters or so. So I think we are well into the backside of fiscal '20 before we are starting to come down below the 2x level, obviously, subject to business performance and market conditions, but we think we are above range for at least fiscal '19 and into fiscal '20.

George Clapham

Analyst

Okay. It's just absolute number there roughly?

Matthew Marsh

Management

Yes, I wouldn't guided -- I wouldn’t give you an absolute number. I just give you the range.

George Clapham

Analyst

Okay. And just finally, CapEx for -- does Fermacell require much in the way of CapEx?

Matthew Marsh

Management

The guidance that I gave on $350 million, $250 million, $150 million, does include some CapEx for Fermacell. So there is -- there are some things that we want to do in the business in order to be able to invest in it. We also see lots of opportunity in the business. So for now I would say the $350 million for next year does have some money set aside for Fermacell as well as $250 million in the following year, and as we get to a point where we are ready to talk about kind of material capacity projects or other related investments in Fermacell, those will be in future periods, but we will certainly provide visibility to those just like we do on large capacity related projects on the Fiber Cement business today.

George Clapham

Analyst

And just a final one, what’s the sort of impact of the skyrocketing lumber prices on your competition?

Matthew Marsh

Management

Yes, I wouldn't be in a great position to talk about the raw material input cost impact on our competition. For our business, raw materials almost across the board are all up in double digits. In fiscal '19 we probably had between frieght and raw material input costs somewhere in the vicinity of $25 million of fiscal '18 versus '17 type of inflationary pressure. I think that will -- the very different mix that was weighted towards freight last year. Both the freight market was very, very competitive and then we had a number of inefficiencies in our freight cost last year, particularly, in the first half of the year as we are coming through and out of the capacity constraint, we weren't obviously taking advantage of lowest landed cost at each of our plants and we were having to incur some expedited costs and then on top of that we weren't mode optimized like we would normally want to be. So frieght last year was probably half of the input cost inflation. I think that $25 million number in fiscal '18, could grow to as high as $30 million to $40 million fiscal '19 compared to fiscal '18 type of inflationary pressure. But the mix of that will be much more slanted towards raw material. So while the freight input -- while the freight costs are definitely up, the raw material cost on cement, pulp and utilities and some of our other raw materials are up to a pretty significant degree. So for us there is some additional cost pressure that we're going to have to make-up through performing really well on -- in the manufacturing plants and obviously some of that will get absorbed as a result of our growth.

George Clapham

Analyst

Thanks, Matt.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Your next question comes from Brook Campbell-Crawford from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Brook Campbell-Crawford

Analyst

Yes, good morning. There is not the question on interiors in the U.S., just picking up on your comment around volume growth to be flat to up modestly in FY '19, I think, is what you mentioned. Do you feel that the marketing product strategy you have in place is enough, or is there more you need to do, really, to get that business to where you want it to be?

Louis Gries

Management

Can you [indiscernible] the question.

Matthew Marsh

Management

It wasn’t for exterior specifically?

Brook Campbell-Crawford

Analyst

For interiors in the U.S., just picking up on the kind of flattish outlook for volumes. Interested to know, is there much that need to be done for the market or product strategy?

Louis Gries

Management

I’m still not getting. You want to take it?

Matthew Marsh

Management

Yes. Yes, so we don't think it's a product issue on the interiors business. When we came through the capacity constrain 18 months ago, like a lot of businesses that are under capacity constrain you kind of have to make strategic decisions about which products get prioritized and I think that helped us or caused us to kind of look at some of the product in our portfolio that we probably shouldn't have been looking at all along. And so we decided to exit on the interiors side, certain products and certain segments of the business that are good for kind of long-term returns of the company will certainly have a benefit on the long-term returns of the company. And so there is that component that certainly weighing on the overall result when you look at interiors growth last year. So if you look at kind of active products within interiors, we like kind of our product positioning overall and we don't think we have got kind of a product gap or overall product positioning issue on the interiors business that it's kind of being factored into the low levels of growth last year. So we expect to get back to kind of a growth game on interiors in fiscal '19. Obviously not to the same extent of the exteriors business, but overall we think we'll start to come out of this 4%, 5%, 6%, 7% negative comp on interiors and start to track back towards our normal growth rates on the interiors business.

Brook Campbell-Crawford

Analyst

Okay, thanks. And one more if I can, and hope you can hear me, but the margins of Fermacell, I’m talking about low double-digit, clearly, a lot lower than what you are used to operating at, but given the similarities of manufacturing between the two businesses, can you help me understand some of the key drivers of the margin difference? And, I guess, can you help the missed margins from where they are now?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes. I can take that. I guess, the first thing is Fermacell margins are good, they’re just not as good as Hardie. And I think our Hardie margins are a lot driven off market position, how we are going to market and how we create demand for our product. So I wouldn't put it all on manufacturing, I actually think we have some more performance to get in manufacturing and my first look at a couple of Fermacell factories, I think they have that same opportunity. But, again, our kind of bar for buying a business wasn't really what the short-term EBITDA margin or returns in that business would be obviously we wanted to be positive for our shareholders, but we didn’t -- if we set out only by businesses that hey, it's good at returns as ours, we couldn't buy any business and building materials. So they had good returns. There is definitely upside. There is definitely upside and organic growth. And normally when you grow new business, grow new demand for your product through market development, you do get better returns than your base business, so there's upside for the returns. But I don't want you to think that we think they should equal Fiber Cement U.S. I just -- that's the wrong way to think about it. Now what you should think about the way we want you think about is, will this -- is this a step in the direct direction for Hardie becoming large in Western Europe with good Hardie like returns and I think that’s we are pretty confident, we have made a good step in the right direction if we’re trying to deliver on that objective.

Brook Campbell-Crawford

Analyst

Thanks. Just one more if I can on particularly with Fermacell's, the comment from Matt around CapEx, and some of that is for Fermacell in the coming years. Is the idea to add some new lines into the existing Fermacell plant network or is it building a whole new plant for fiber gypsum?

Louis Gries

Management

Yes, we haven't had the business long enough to have a capacity strategy for Fermacell. One of the things, you sign up for when you set an organic growth strategy is you're going to build capacity. So you are going to need more capacity as you generate demand, more demand you need more capacity. They don't have a lot of excess capacity. So they fall on that category. As they generate more demand, they will need more capacity. Now there is three ways you can get more capacity, you can get through debottleneck in existing plants, you get through Brownfield investment in existing plants, so you can get through Greenfield investments. And normally that's the order you want to -- if you want to go in, normally your high -- highest return will be debottlenecking, second would be Brownfield and third would be Greenfield. There is some exceptions to that, I'm afraid, if you got a hole in the market frieght wise. But we just haven't had the business long enough. They have enough capacity to do what both the buyers and the seller case said we’re going to do over the next couple of years. So we don’t have a short-term problem with capacity in Fermacell and I think maybe down the path later this year or this time next year we will probably have the capacity plan for Fermacell when you talk about.

Brook Campbell-Crawford

Analyst

Appreciate the color.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions from the lines at this time. I will now hand back to Mr. Gries.