Earnings Labs

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company (SMG)

Q2 2020 Earnings Call· Wed, May 6, 2020

$65.71

-3.06%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

This is The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company's second quarter conference call. Today's call is being recorded. Mr. King, you can now begin.

Jim King

Management

Good morning everyone. I am Jim King, Executive Vice President and Chief Communications Officer in the The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. And I want to welcome all of you this morning to our second quarter earnings conference call. I am joined this morning by our CEO, Jim Hagedorn and CFO, Randy Coleman as well as our President and Chief Operating Officer, Mike Lukemire and finally, Chris Hagedorn, General Manager of Hawthorne Gardening Company. Our call today will take a slightly different approach than normal. While we always strive to be comprehensive in our prepared remarks, are comments today are likely to go further than normal. We will discuss not only our results but our full year outlook and the longer term implications we currently anticipate as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Therefore our commentary will be longer than normal. Jim and Randy have both prerecorded their prepared remarks today. At the conclusion of their remarks, we will rejoin the call for a live Q&A session. We want to answer as many questions as possible. So I am requesting your assistance in asking just a single question and a related follow-up. I already scheduled calls with members of the sell side and buy side community throughout the balance of the week and you have my assurance that I will be reachable in the days ahead at (937)-578-5622. One bit of housekeeping before we start. Randy and I will be participating in a virtual investor conference sponsored by William Blair & Company on June 9. We have historically use the timing of this event to update the financial community on our performance and outlook for the month of May and that is our intention again this year. We currently anticipate issuing a press release before the event and intend to provide some additional commentary during the virtual conference itself. So with that, let's get started. I want everyone to know that our comments today will include forward-looking statements and that our actual results could differ materially from what we have said today, based on a variety of risk factors. A comprehensive list of those risk factors are contained at the end of today's press release as well as within our 10-K which is filed the Securities and Exchange Commission. I also want everyone to note that this call is being recorded. An archived recording of the call as well as the transcript to the call will be stored on our Investor Relations website, investor.scotts.com. Without further delay, I now want to turn things over our CEO, Jim Hagedorn,

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Thanks Jim and good morning everyone. As you can imagine have a lot of ground to cover this morning. It's probably obvious to everyone listening that I am extremely pleased with our performance so far. What's most obvious is I am not just talking about the numbers. Before I get into the details, I want to acknowledge the challenges we are all facing as a society. Yes, we are fortunate here at Scotts Miracle-Gro that our business is doing well. But I know thousands of businesses are struggling and that millions of our fellow citizens are too. Our thoughts and prayers gout to those who have lost loved ones during this crisis and those who will as the virus lingers. And our best wishes go out to those companies who take the long road to recovery. Above the door in my office is a saying my father always liked that luck is where hard work and opportunity meet. Like my dad, I am not a big believer in luck. Our results in the second quarter and our outlook for the balance of the year is the result of the intersection of our talent, of planning and our corporate culture. The culture we have built and carefully nurtured here has proven to be our most valuable asset as we navigated this crisis. That's a credit to all of our people, starting with Mike Lukemire and the rest of my team. I am hard-pressed to identify a major weakness in the organization right now. not only has every part of the company stepped up to the challenge, it feels like every associate had taken this crisis personally. And of course, it doesn't hurt that we are engaged in a category where participation has actually increased despite current events. You probably aren't hearing…

Randy Coleman

Management

Thanks Jim and good morning everyone. I am going to start by quickly running through the numbers, but mostly at a pretty high level. While our March 26 announcement was focused on anticipated topline results, I am sure most of you came pretty close to extrapolating the bottomline impact in your own modeling efforts. After I get through the quarter, I will share some thoughts related to our full year guidance. I also want to give you an update about how we are thinking about leverage, our current priorities for uses of cash and liquidity. So for Q2, the one surprise versus our March 26 announcement was that Hawthorne sales growth of 60% was actually higher than we outlined in the press release. Frankly, we were seeing unprecedented shipment levels in those final days of the quarter and that pushed us higher as we crossed the finish line. While gammas in daily orders continue to be quite as high as they were during those last few days of March, we have seen the weekly shipments trend continue to be strong from March into April and also into early May. The 11% growth in U.S. Consumer and the 16% company-wide growth was in line with what we had projected. The gross margin line, however, requires a good bit of explanation this quarter. The adjusted rate was 40%. That's up 20 basis points from last year. But there are quite a number of moving parts to explain. Let's start with the impact of our Roundup commission. Beginning this year, we received 50% of the profit from Roundup beginning from the first dollar of earnings. In the past, we received nothing until the business earned $40 million. So for the full year, that's an incremental $20 million of Roundup commission. That change in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] We will take our first question from Joe Altobello with Raymond James.

Joe Altobello

Analyst

Great. Hi guys. Good morning. I just wanted to start with Hawthorne. And obviously, very strong topline, margins are improving. But I am a little surprised you didn't see better margins this quarter or maybe better margins for this year. Maybe help us understand what's going on in that business in terms of pricing increases, et cetera?

Randy Coleman

Management

Yes. Joe, this is Randy. I will take this one. We are actually pacing ahead of where we thought we would be at this point. So we are very satisfied. We did back off on some of the promotions early in Q2. And we took some pricing increases on certain products, a little bit in February and also in March. So when you look at our margin rate improvement, both gross margin rate and operating margin rate, the acceleration from Q1 into January and then February and then March and then April, the trend is really positive. And we are definitely on track to reach our 10% operating margin guidance for the year. We could do a little bit better, but I am really pleased with the way things are going right now.

Joe Altobello

Analyst

Yes. I guess that's where I was going, Randy, was the topline is now 30% to 35% growth versus what we are seeing is 10%. That's where I was trying to get at. That's all. Just I guess secondly, in terms of your channel. You mentioned earlier, Jim, I think that channels like hardware have outperformed some of your larger retail partners. So you have seen a bit of a switch recently. Maybe we can get a little bit more color on what you are seeing in April and early May in the DIY channel in the category?

Jim Hagedorn

Management

I think they are getting their heads back in the game. They have taken it pretty seriously, this issue of being responsible as an essential player. And I think the crowd's, protecting their associates, protecting their customers. But if you look at the orders, just the last few days, primarily driven by our biggest quarters by far we have ever had on any single days. They are largely coming from our largest customers. So I would say they are getting their ammo base loaded up, ready to play in a serious way that is happening right now. So I think, Mike, I don't know what you feel. We are actually having this conversation. We are all like scattered across the room. So I don't know how you feel, Mike, but I think that --

Mike Lukemire

Analyst

Yes. They are expanding their store hours back because they had consolidated that and we are starting to see more garden doors open up as they follow the cases across the country. But they were really very sensitive about the number of people in the store and keeping their essential status, which it's easier for hardware, the smaller stores, smaller footprints to react to that.

Joe Altobello

Analyst

Got it. Okay. Thank you guys.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Thank you. I hope you are well, dude.

Joe Altobello

Analyst

You too. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from William Reuter with Bank of America.

Mary Gresla

Analyst · Bank of America.

Hi. This is Mary on for Bill. Thanks for taking my question. So my first just on your customer base. It seems most are considered essential. But given that it does vary by region, do you have any that are closed or were closed for a period of time?

Mike Lukemire

Analyst · Bank of America.

So there were no specific retailers that come to mind that jump out. I think people are probably familiar with what happened in Michigan and also in Vermont. And we also saw some curbside pickup in Canada as well. So if you look at the POS in those geographies, they were down versus everything else in Michigan and Vermont. Interestingly, we are not seeing the same thing in Canada. So our POS there has actually ticked up despite what's going on. But to specifically answer your question, there aren't any retailers that come to mind that are closed. It's good stand out, right?

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Yes. It's hard to hear in this room. So Jim Hagedorn here. Look, when Vermont got tight, there was still snow on the ground when that happened and had nothing to do with us. It happened to do with sort of general merchandise at Walmart and the Governor up there. And the ex-Governor of Vermont's on our Board. So I am pretty familiar with what occurred there. And in Michigan, Whitmer backed off that in about two weeks. But again, it was still extremely early in the season. And so it really didn't have that big an effect on us. And so the gardening business in Vermont is great. I mean that's where Karli and I are domiciled right now. And the Michigan numbers also look good. So those were the areas that I think at the height of the sort of questions of essentiality, I think it was Vermont and Michigan that got tight and started closing up departments. Now a lot of the retailers just modified their merchandising setup, given the importance of lawn and garden to what was happening. And even if they closed their garden doors, they brought back into the main part of the store gardening products. So it was not quite as impactful to us based on merchandising decisions that retailers made in order to sort of protect the business. And that, I think, happened without any sort of compliance issues in those states.

Randy Coleman

Management

And it's also difficult to tease apart, like Jim said, weather versus the impact of COVID. But if you look at the city of Detroit and compare it to the city of Cleveland, our year-to-date POS in both of those cities is nearly identical and just down a couple of points as we sit here today. So again, difficult to tell. It definitely wasn't helpful. But I think credit goes out to the people working in the stores. They were trying to bring the products out to the people and --

Jim Hagedorn

Management

I think at the end of the day, the crisis has caused people to make sort of fundamental decisions about how they spend their time and that's been good for us. It hasn't changed the weather. And so I think for those of us, for my first time in a couple of months here in Ohio, people are saying it's been kind of wet and dewy. It's been cool in Vermont, where I have been. And so if you look at Northeast sales, I don't know if they are down, but they are not up for sure. And this is a good thing for us because the sort of strength of the business is kind of everywhere, but the Northeast, if you include kind of West here to Ohio. And the coolness, I think, is going to act as something of a buffer that during this sort of debate over essentiality, which I think made people nervous, especially people who are running retail companies, large footprint retail companies. This gave us time where the season didn't pass us by and it just seems to me looking at the weather that this is going to result in a somewhat extended season, which is exactly what I think we were kind of hoping for in that region, especially with the dominance of big box in up there. So I think it's actually really good for us.

Mary Gresla

Analyst · Bank of America.

Got it. Thank you And then just one other, particularly on some of your small independent customers. Have there been any delay in payments? Or are there any concerns with regards to your receivables?

Randy Coleman

Management

No. Our payment terms are such that we typically get paid early to mid-June. But at this point, we are not seeing any kind of late pay. And even when you think about Hawthorne, which is much more fragmented group of customers, at this point we don't have any issues either. So definitely something we are keeping our eye on and we are on top of, but we haven't seen anything yet that would give us a lot of concern other than this, the general need to stay on top of it.

Mary Gresla

Analyst · Bank of America.

Got it. Thank you so much.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Bill Chappell with SunTrust.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · SunTrust.

Thanks. Good morning. I hope you and your families are well.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Thanks Bill. Good to hear your voice, dude.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · SunTrust.

It's nice to hear yours too. Two questions. So one, help me understand on the Hawthorne business, why the business surged kind of in March and it doesn't seem like it was all just stockpiling and it continued into April. I say that you don't sell actual cannabis. And so I understand the run on that. But you are selling supplies that will help cannabis production over the next like six, nine, 12 months. So I am trying to understand why there was that surge? And why it sustained into April and May.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

When this whole thing started, I will let Chris answer most of the question. I just want to, this is the question that I ask kind of like as we were, I guess this was probably beginning of April. And so I have made a few friends in the industry by just traveling with Chris and some of his team. And so this question is, where are these sales going? By the way, the sales have been great the entire time. It's not just been like one month. We were briefing members of the Board up yesterday and Mike just said, Chris and sales reports are just like a [indiscernible] broken record. It just continues to be positive. So it's not like it was one month. But as we saw numbers just kind of go bananas, I said, let's call some of our friends up that own retail channels, which we did and super connected guy, a guy who doesn't hear much from me, but he's got my number in his iPhone. So as soon as I call him, he picked up and he said, "Holy mackerel, dude, like I need product bad." So we had thought maybe it's like stocking up kind of figuring the demand was going to come and that maybe people couldn't ship, which I think has been a problem in the industry, not with us, as some people had COVID in some of their warehouses, some of our competitors. But he said, "Dude, everything, it's going. I am low on product. It's been a pain what's happening here." And I think just a lot of retailers just upped their production. A lot of people, what we call traditional growers reentered the space, especially in California and just needed product. And a lot of it was nutrients and grow media, which are the consumable side of the business, which is really nice to see. I don't know, Chris, where do you go from this. But it's not flu.

Chris Hagedorn

Analyst · SunTrust.

Yes. So I mean, I am not sure how much meat you left on that question.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Sorry. My bad, dude.

Chris Hagedorn

Analyst · SunTrust.

Hi Bill, it's Chris. I think everything that Jim said is correct. There was an element of pantry loadings. I think that was really something we experienced kind of second, third week in March when we saw pretty extreme spikes in volume that I do think had something to do with pantry loading as people were concerned that our service levels wouldn't be able to keep up. Now luckily, they have been and I can't give enough credit to the supply chain team for Hawthorne and the support we get from Scotts. Those guys have done a phenomenal job and battled through some tough conditions. But as Jim was alluding to, we joked when all this started, not that it's a laughing matter, but you got to find levity where you can that what were people going to do when quarantine hit the whole country is they are going to sit at home and smoke pot in garden. And I think in all seriousness, there's a lot of truth in that statement. So demand for the kind of end-consumable product clearly has gone up. We have seen that both anecdotally and in data that we have gathered through the industry. So just massive surge in demand for the end product has driven surge downstream to us. Now that increase in demand appears to have had been pretty sticky. Certainly, it's carried through until now and we are doing everything we can to keep up. And that was talked about in our reported remarks at the top of the call that the supply chain guys are running hard right now. We are shipping more out the door at Hawthorne than we ever have before. It just speaks to the benefits of SAP, the benefits of further integration with Scotts and their supply chain and just the quality of the people that we have top to bottom within Hawthorne and the team that I am lucky enough to get to be part of. But yes, I think there's a little bit of pantry loading. I think there's a lot of just really high demand for cannabis as this quarantine continues to drive new consumer behavior.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · SunTrust.

Great. I appreciate the astonished as part of the response. It does give me a sense of normalcy on this call, so I do appreciate it. Just switching real quickly to the consumer business. I have always heard or thought that the garden season starts in the South at Easter and North on Mother's Day. So it would imply that we still really have kind of a big part of the season in front of us. And so how much, if any, is pantry loading in the Northern half that you have already seen? Or how much of it is really, it seems like May has set up fairly well with most of your retailers now really open. Everybody is still working from home, school is out. It seems like it's, other than weather, which it's found on the North half and it sounds [indiscernible]. Now is that a fair way to look at it?

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Yes. I think what we are seeing though, Bill, is in the Southern markets because gardening is so hot, the South and the West are over-indexing right now. And the North is just getting started. We saw a little bit of pantry loading back at the end of March, but North is now just waking up and we have seen some really good results even in New York last week. And your thoughts on Mother's Day and beyond for the North, I have been around this business a long time. I have seen where April has been bad in the North and then they come back with the storm. So we are kind of set up that the South and West are over-indexing and the North is going to come on strong. We are seeing that trend right now. And I think it will go through the end of June in the North.

Bill Chappell

Analyst · SunTrust.

Great. Well, thank you. Stay safe.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Thanks dude.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Eric Bosshard with Cleveland Research.

Eric Bosshard

Analyst · Cleveland Research.

Good morning.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Hi dude.

Eric Bosshard

Analyst · Cleveland Research.

Two things. First of all, in terms of the guidance for consumer, holding that up 1% to 3%, knowing where you sit now through March to April growth through the first handful days of May. I was just curious in why leave that number where it is rather than raise it to reflect what you have seen. And then my second question is, if you could just parse the last five or six weeks, you talked about some record $100 million plus weeks and record days of orders and also the April number down 8%, I think you said. It feels like there's some different periods within that. And so curious if you could give us a little bit of color on what the last two weeks over the last six weeks, each of those periods might have looked like. Those two things would be helpful. Thanks.

Randy Coleman

Management

Sure. Eric, this is Randy again. 1% to 3% was our original guidance. And I can tell you I feel a lot better today than I did a week ago. But this business can be incredibly volatile and seasonal. And I would remind you, a couple of years ago, we were down 12%, I think, year-to-date at this point of the year on this Q2 earnings call and we ended up back to flat. So at this point, there's still half of the season ahead of us. And mid-June, we will have two-thirds of the year complete. We still have a third ahead of us and we will have a lot more insight and confidence at that point. But I will say that sitting here today and we are confident than I would have been a week ago or a couple of weeks ago and May starting out extremely well, like Mike Lukemire pointed out. So see you in a month.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

The only thing, Hagedorn here, that I would say, Eric, is that Randy will be only like a pretty serious dude. And I can just tell you that the sales over like last week have been like pretty crazy. I mean, I had to and so you might just comment on it, Randy. It's came in this morning, it's a joke. Calm down son, like remember, he is a CFO, but kind of what you are seeing in regard to this volatility, but how positive it is right now.

Randy Coleman

Management

Yes. Well the reason why I was enthusiastic this morning is, I believe this is true and we have it validated, but I think yesterday, it was the biggest order day for U.S. Consumer that we have ever seen. So it wasn't the biggest, it's darn near the biggest and that gives me that a lot of, I guess, confidence that the retailers are going to fit in there. We probably won't see the level of promotional activity that we have seen in years past, but people are definitely trying to sell product. Consumers want to get out. They want to get out in the yard. It's good for their physical health. It's definitely good for their mental health. And I think the season starts to break here in the Midwest and Northeast where we really haven't seen that much activity yet. It just gives me even more confidence. So I am feeling good about that. The other thing I would point out, though, is POS, trying to reconcile POS dollars to our shipments is a bit complicated as well. So by having less promotions in the month of April, our POS numbers are inflated in dollars versus units. And eventually, everything comes back to units and inventories at retail and our shipments and the POS dollars, I will have to reconcile to a degree. But keep that in mind as well, but I am feeling really good.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Kind of two interesting stories there. Number one, we went into this call as we prepped yesterday. We just said there's no way somebody is knocking us off of our stance on holding fast with the numbers, even if people said to us, dude, how can you sandbag that bad? I think compared to what's happening to other companies and just the general environment out there, I think it's a correct place for us to not get knocked off our guidance at the moment. The fact that we are maintaining it, even if it's a little bit not so credible based on the positivity of the business. I think just given what we know a few weeks to sort of get smarter is probably, I would say bear with us on that. I don't know what else I can say. But was there a part two?

Eric Bosshard

Analyst · Cleveland Research.

Yes. The second part was --

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Hold on. I just came back to see, Eric, is this issue that Randy was talking about is dollar volume versus unit volume. This is one of the things that we are seeing, that we are trying to sort of talk coherently to our retail partners about, which is with the almost complete lack of promotion that we would normally be seeing this time of year, sales are really good. That doesn't mean that promotion isn't important, but it does mean that as we look back on the sort of so-called Black Friday events that are not like Christmas as the one day, but sort of two or three major promotions throughout a season that take a lot of our promotional dollars, what we have seen is they are pretty early. The last few years, they have been up against kind of crappy weather. And more and more, we have been thinking they could be much more productive in sort of this rifle shot that we talked about in the script, which is that promote when certain products are in calendar in areas where the weather is good and the inventory is in the stores. And we have been playing with that with the retailers last year to see if we can increase the effectiveness of these promotions and not spend as much money blindly, especially in this shitty weather as we have seen in the past. And so we felt pretty strongly coming out of last season that the demonstrations we did with them show that we can produce equivalent results in a much more targeted way. And so those discussions are going to happen and that's what we were alluding to. And I am hoping that we will find retailers much more willing to sort of, because foregoing Black Friday events for retailers, it's scary. It's how they get customers in. If they get customers in, they tend to be sticky through the season. Because it didn't happen this year and by definition, we are doing much more targeted work and it's not really them. It's us doing that work this year. I think we have got a lot more data to talk about next year. And so I don't know what it means. Randy is talking about dollars versus units. I think we are going to end up the year with a sort of much better dollar story and much better margin story on both sides, on our side and their side, which we then have to say, okay, what does that mean next year and beyond.

Eric Bosshard

Analyst · Cleveland Research.

Okay. That's helpful. The other question I wanted to ask is your business historically has set a below average business in terms of online penetration relative to what Depot and Lowe's do in other categories. That's changing this year, maybe. As you look to the future, does it matter to you if more of this is done online? Do you have to run the business differently? Does it change the profit opportunity? How does this business look different if it becomes more meaningfully online ordered and executed?

Jim Hagedorn

Management

I will mostly hand that to Mike because I don't think it's a maybe. I think it's for sure. We don't talk a lot about Amazon. And relative to our entire business, it's not that big. Amazon has been an important partner to us this year. And I think we have been an important partner to them. So I think that there was, I don't know. I have been pretty negative on Amazon, at least from lawn and garden point of view that kind of their attitude. I think this is one where they have seen lawn and garden is important. They have seen our ability to deliver. We help them pretty hard. They needed bottles of stuff to convert bulk cleaners and stuff for their warehouses and they reached out to a bunch of vendors to help, if they could, with packaging and we were able to put Ortho packaging their direction. But I think so there at Amazon, I think, a much higher respect for the power of lawn and garden this time of year. And within our conventional retailers, just record weeks after weeks that lawn and garden, I don't know. I will probably screw this number up. But I think the number is like 15% of our lawn fertilizer business is going out online now. And a lot of our retailer business is drop-ship business and that's a model issue that Mike can talk better about than I can, where we are shipping directly to consumers for even our traditional retailers. But I think there's no doubt that the online business will represent a larger percent of our overall business this year. And I think that doesn't change. I think that for sure, consumers are just pushing a button and it shows up at their house. So Mike, I don't know, what do you think it means to the business? And what about margins?

Mike Lukemire

Analyst · Cleveland Research.

Well, I think the margins will improve for us and the retailer. We are building the capability of the supply chain that we built years ago with a home center to be able to drop-ship and it's an acceleration, in my mind, five to 10 years where we thought e-commerce would be. And I think it will stay. I think it will help the stores with their assortments to be more efficient for curbside pickup and delivery. And we will be able to provide that supply chain network that they are not building warehouses. From our existing warehouses, we are transitioning to a direct-to-consumer capability using the same inventory. It will be more efficient. And we will be able to provide that for any platform out there. So to me, it's actually taking us where we thought we would be in five to 10 years. I think it's here now. I think it's a great way to do business. And I think we are the perfect ones to be able to do it nationally in lawn and garden to support a retail platform or even our own platform.

Randy Coleman

Management

And then this is Randy again. I would add just to put some numbers around this. Our Amazon business is about the same size as our online business for our largest retailers. So that's about the same. And then our own SMD sites are much smaller, but growing fast as well. When we think about our market share, we actually have the highest market share in the channel where consumers buy online and then pick up in the store. I think that logically makes sense when you think about people searching online and playing ahead, but they are naturally going to gravitate to national brands and we have a national fulfillment. So I think that, that's good for us and that's good for our large retailers as well. And we have the lowest share, by far, in trying to just sell online through our own website. But that's where you might see some smaller competitors trying to compete. But I feel really good about our competitive position and our ability to work across all channels and with all those customers and help them win too.

Eric Bosshard

Analyst · Cleveland Research.

Great. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

We will take our next question from Carla Casella with JPMorgan.

Sarah Clark

Analyst · JPMorgan.

This is Sarah Clark, on for Carla Casella. Apologies if this is already said. We had to hop on a little bit late. But have you had to pay any of your employees bonus payments or incurred any additional costs for pooling or employee management costs or any additional expenses due to COVID? Can you just talk a little bit about that and what you are seeing in terms of transportation costs?

Randy Coleman

Management

Sure, Sarah. This is Randy again. So this was info provided earlier. But just to reiterate, we spent about $4 million through the end of March. Our full year forecast is in a range of $30 million to $35 million. And the way I would break that down is the first $25 million is premium pay for our associates who are working in stores or working in DCs and warehouses or factories as well. And then about the next $5 million is an outlook for incremental cleaning and maintenance costs. And then beyond that, we plan to spend maybe $4 million to $5 million in face shields that we are manufacturing in our Temecula, California facility and the start-up costs for that and then the cost to manufacture and then giving all those pieces of equipment away to various places across the country as an act of goodwill. So all that combined is how we will get into our $30 million to $35 million estimate. And I especially feel good about the last part with the $5 million for the face shields, but also the premium pay. I think we are treating our associates extremely well.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

And the rate were that adjusted.

Randy Coleman

Management

Yes.

Sarah Clark

Analyst · JPMorgan.

[indiscernible]. I am sorry.

Randy Coleman

Management

And our expectation and clearly, our plan is to adjust that out given the onetime nature of all that. And we have run that by our auditors and they are we are very comfortable with that. And we have talked to our banks as well for leverage ratio. So everybody understands and it's consistent with what we are doing.

Sarah Clark

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Of course. Thank you for that cost breakdown. That was really helpful. Have you disclosed what percent of your costs are fixed versus variable?

Randy Coleman

Management

No, we haven't. I can tell you, the way we plan is, on the way up, we don't gain a lot of absorption just because we plan for certain sales levels. I will tell you on the way down, it is a lot more punitive. So we probably, it's hard to use a very good rule of thumb. But I would say at this point in the year, as we lose sales, we probably will lose 10% to 15% of margin on the way down if we don't hit our sales expectations. So I don't know if we provide that specifically in the past, but I think that's a reasonable rule of thumb.

Sarah Clark

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Okay. Helpful. Thank you. And then one more from me. You highlighted that you have seen continued strength in April. But we are just wondering if any of this quarter's strength maybe pull forward from next quarter as people shelter in place and look to buy products than what you were mentioning on the Hawthorne side. So any commentary around that?

Randy Coleman

Management

Well, I think we have addressed the Hawthorne piece pretty thoroughly already. And on the consumer piece, time will tell. I know that consumers are gardening more than they have in the past. We have research, I would say, 30% of our gardening consumers this year are either new or lapsed consumers. So I think that's good for the long term health of the business. And we will see, but we are really confident about our outlook for this year and think why that's going to stick as we look beyond 2020.

Sarah Clark

Analyst · JPMorgan.

Awesome. Thank you.

Jim King

Management

Lauren, it's Jim King here. Let's just, in the interest of time, we will stick it to or let's have just one more question and then I can follow-up with people offline later. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Alex Maroccia with Berenberg.

Alex Maroccia

Analyst · Berenberg.

Hi. Good morning guys. Thank you for taking my question. Your guidance implies your thoughts on continue doing incredibly well, but the financial issues we have seen among some of the larger producers that you alluded to earlier. Can you pinpoint where you are seeing the biggest growth there in terms of geographies such as legacy producer size?

Chris Hagedorn

Analyst · Berenberg.

Yes. This is Chris. So we are seeing growth really across the board. It's a mix of some of our more kind of legacy big states. California is up pretty significantly over 75%. In Michigan, which we have talked to you guys about in the past and our second biggest state, we are seeing growth in Michigan over 100% year-over-year. But then you have also got newer states in there. Florida, Alabama are both up significantly above average. Oklahoma is up over 230%. So we are seeing strong growth really across the country. Like I said, a combination of our more established markets like California, Michigan, Colorado along with newer states. As far as the customer mix, Jim has talked a little bit about this earlier, but our visibility is limited once we go past the retail level. If you look at the sizes of some of the SKUs that we are selling, our inference is that we are seeing growth, both among the large-scale multi-state operators and large commercial growers as well as some of the more traditional smaller-format growers.

Alex Maroccia

Analyst · Berenberg.

Okay. It makes sense to me. And second question is a clarification on the accounts receivable mentioned earlier. You mentioned June payment terms. But I am just asking because AR is at its highest as a percentage of sales since Q2 2017. You think this is a unique phenomenon to 2020's receivables cadence due to the surge in March?

Randy Coleman

Management

Well, clearly, AR is up when we sell more. And like I said earlier, we don't have any specific issues yet with customers paying late, something we are on top of. Our orders to cash team is very much on top of that. But at this point, we haven't seen any cracks at all. And I guess, we will see. But it's not a big watch out. It's a concern on top of, but it's not a huge concern.

Alex Maroccia

Analyst · Berenberg.

All right. Great. Thank you guys. Stay safe out there.

Jim Hagedorn

Management

Thank you.

Jim King

Management

All right. I am going to jump back in here. We are going to wrap up with the call today. I know there are some folks that may still want to ask questions. So a couple of ways to reach me. You can call me directly at (937)-578-5622 and we will set up a time to follow-up or send me an email at jim.king@scotts.com. And just as a reminder, Randy and I will be participating in the William Blair event on June 9 and we will probably have a communication out prior to that event. So thanks everybody for joining us today and be well, be safe. Thanks.

Operator

Operator

That does conclude today's conference. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.