W.W. Grainger (GWW) Earnings Call

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the W.W. Grainger Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce Kyle Bland, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Thank you. You may begin.

Kyle Bland

Good morning. Welcome to Grainger's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. With me are D.G. Macpherson, Chairman and CEO; and Dee Merriwether, Senior Vice President and CFO.

As a reminder, some of our comments today may include forward-looking statements that are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Additional information regarding factors that could cause actual results to differ materially is included in the company's most recent Form 8-K and other periodic reports filed with the SEC. This morning's call includes non-GAAP financial measures, which reflect certain adjustments in previous periods as noted in the presentation.

There were no adjusting items in the second quarter of 2026 period. We have also included organic revenue adjustments in the presentation, which normalized sales growth to reflect our exit from the U.K. market, including the Cromwell divestiture and the closure of Zoro U.K., both of which were completed in the fourth quarter 2025. Definitions and full reconciliations of our non-GAAP financial measures with their corresponding GAAP measures are found in the tables at the end of this presentation and in our earnings release, both of which are available on our IR website.

We will also share results related to MonotaRO. Please remember that MonotaRO was a public company and follows Japanese GAAP, which differs from U.S. GAAP and is reported in our results 1 month in arrears. As a result, the numbers discussed will differ from MonotaRO's public statements.

Now I'll turn it over to D.G.

Donald Macpherson

Thanks, Kyle. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining today. Building on our momentum from the start of the year, we delivered strong performance in the second quarter by executing well and delivering exceptional service to customers.

Despite ongoing uncertainty, sales remain strong in both the High-Touch and Endless Assortment segments, and core operating profitability was in line with expectations. While the external landscape remains fluid. We're confident in our ability to manage the impact or remain committed to our pricing tenets.

We also saw continued strength in the demand environment during the period with most end markets showing acceleration. As I spend time with customers, I can see this playing out in the way we serve them on site and inside their operations. Recently, I visited several manufacturing customers where our teams are closely connected to the day-to-day work.

We're helping them manage inventory in ways that fit their specific needs, and that is contributing to strong year-over-year growth at these locations. More and more customers are asking us to help them run their operations more efficiently and solve specific challenges, including areas like safety. In one customer, our safety expertise was the catalyst for accelerating that partnership.

We're also seeing solid growth from our national accounts in both the U.S. and Canada. On Canada specifically, we have seen tremendous improvement over the past several years as it seems to stay focused on 2 things: serving customers well, and building a stronger, more profitable business. They've made great progress improving service, resetting their sales force, and revamping their website, while also diversifying their customer end markets and product offering.

These efforts have driven strong sales growth and operating margin recovery at the highest levels we have seen in nearly a decade. Now turning to our second quarter results. We delivered another quarter of strong growth and profitability.

Results benefited from ongoing operational execution across both segments and an improving market, which helped accelerate volume growth in the period. We are pleased with what we are seeing from our High-Touch growth engine and from our efforts within the EA segment to continue propelling the flywheel. Total company reported sales for the quarter were up 10.3% or 13.7% on a daily organic constant currency basis.

Operating margin was strong at 16.1%, and diluted EPS finished the quarter up over 20%, inclusive of the impact of IEEPA tariff refunds recognized in the period. Operating cash flow came in at $444 million, which allowed us to return a total of $341 million to Grainger shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. Lastly, we are excited to announce that our new Northwest Distribution Center in Oregon began outbound operations in July.

This new technology-enabled building gives us another way to get more of the products customers need closer to where and when they need them. Overall, we're encouraged by the progress we've made across the business. And after a strong first half performance and continued momentum, we are increasing our outlook for the year.

With that, I'll turn it over to Dee for a closer look at our financials from the quarter.

Deidra Merriwether

Thanks, D.G. Turning to Slide 7. You can see the high-level results we had in the second quarter with total company sales of 10.3% or 13.7% on a daily organic constant currency basis, which included strong growth across High-Touch solutions and Endless Assortment. Gross margin for the quarter was healthy at 39.5%, up 100 basis points versus the prior year period as we saw expansion in both segments and recognized a 90-basis-point tailwind from IEEPA tariff refunds on products directly imported by Grainger.

Operating margin was 16.1% up 120 basis points year-over-year as gross margin flow through and leverage Endless Assortment contributed to results. Both gross margin and operating margin benefited from our exit of the U.K. market. If you were to normalize for the tariff refund benefit realized in the period, operating margins were in line with our verbal guide, aided by better-than-expected top line leverage.

Overall, results were strong for the quarter, and we delivered diluted EPS of $12.01 which was up over 20% versus the prior year period. Moving to segment level results. The High-Touch Solutions segment delivered sales growth of 11.9% on a reported basis or 11.7% on a daily constant currency basis.

Results were driven by strong volume growth and healthy price contribution to revenue and also benefited from some project-based spend. From an end market perspective, MRO market demand continued to improve in the period. For Grainger specifically, we saw a broad-based acceleration across nearly all customer groups with strong contributions from manufacturing and government sectors.

This was alongside outsized growth in our contractor and retail end markets, which are both benefiting from data center activities as new facilities are stood up. On profitability. Gross profit margin finished the quarter at 41.8%, up 80 basis points versus the prior year.

Results were driven by the benefit from IEEPA tariff refunds and slightly positive mix, although mix came in less favorable than expected on a higher volume of lower-margin products and project-related spend. These impacts were partially offset by private label cost headwinds and unfavorable freight as we absorb the higher costs in the period. Price cost was roughly neutral during the quarter.

On SG&A, we delevered slightly year-over-year as strong sales and productivity were offset by continued marketing investment and higher payroll and benefits expense, including higher incentive-based compensation given our strong top line results. Taking all of this together, operating margin for the segment finished at 17.3%, up 70 basis points versus the prior year quarter. All told, we are pleased with the continued strength across the High-Touch segment as we move into the second half of the year.

Now focusing on Endless Assortment segment. Sales increased 13.5% on a reported basis or 20.6% on a daily organic constant currency basis, which normalizes for the closure of our Zoro U.K. business, and adjust for an impact of the depreciated Japanese yen. Zoro U.S. was up 18.4% on a daily basis, while MonotaRO achieved 24% growth in local days in local constant currency.

At a business level, Zoro saw strong growth from its core B2B customers, along with higher customer retention rates as our marketing program, both targeted and efficiency continued to improve. The team remains focused on delivering our core foundational capabilities to improve the assortment, search experience, pricing, and delivery. At MonotaRO, sales were strong with continued growth from enterprise customers, coupled with solid acquisition and repeat purchase rates with small and midsized businesses.

Additionally, MonotaRO benefited from customer prebuying of certain petroleum-related products ahead of anticipated shortages due to the conflict in the Middle East. This behavior has fully subsided and our updated guide reflects slower growth in the back half of the year as this benefit moderates. On profitability, operating margins increased by 160 basis points to 11.5% with favorability across the segment. guide MonotaRO margins were strong at 14% and of 80 basis points and Zoro margins improved to 7.6%, up 180 basis points with both businesses benefiting from healthy top line leverage.

Overall, another great quarter for the Endless Assortment team. As we look to the back half of the year, I want to share a brief update on the inflationary environment. We continue to manage the business with the goal of maintaining price cost neutrality over time.

With ongoing shifts in the tariff environment, we've had to remain nimble. With this, in the second quarter, we adjusted prices to reflect the changing tariff landscape, including the rollback of IEEPA tariff pricing and offsetting Section 122 tariff impacts. While we made several changes across our assortment, our May pricing actions were net neutral in total.

Also in the quarter, we recognized refunds from the federal government for previously paid IEEPA tariff where Grainger was the importer of record. The majority of this benefit was recognized during the second quarter as a reduction to our cost of goods sold with the small remainder expected to flow through over the next couple of quarters. When considering these refunds, it's important to remember that they relate only to tariffs paid directly by Grainger and represent only a small portion of the mini tariff costs that we faced over the last 1.5 years.

Importantly, these refund proceeds and the price pass on these SKUs only partially offset the costs we absorbed in 2025 related to IEEPA. Separately, we continue to face inflationary pressures from rising freight and product costs due to the conflict in the Middle East. As these pressures persist, we expect to take additional pricing actions in September to help mitigate this impact.

Our September pricing actions will also reflect adjustments related to the recent Section 232 tariff modifications in addition to new Section 301 tariffs, though we anticipate that these tariff-related changes will be minimal. Following our September pricing actions, the majority of known cost increases will have been addressed. And although the situation remains highly fluid, our team continues to stay focused on adhering to our 2 core pricing tenets: To maintain market relevant pricing, and to achieve price cost neutrality over time.

Now turning to our guide. We are raising our guidance to reflect the strong sales momentum, along with the impact of tariff refunds. On the top line, this translates to expected daily organic constant currency sales growth between 11.5% and 13% reflecting our second quarter performance and expectations for continued solid MRO market demand in the second half.

Our updated operating margin range has increased versus the prior guide to 15.8% to 16.2%. This includes the tariff refund benefit most of which was recognized in the second quarter and improved sales leverage, but is partially offset by anticipated mix headwinds and cost timing pressures as inflation builds ahead of our September pricing round. Lastly, rounding out our guide, you can see EPS is expected to be between $45.50 and $47.25 or up over 17% year-over-year at the midpoint.

This represents an improvement of over $1 at the midpoint versus the prior guidance range. We've also updated our supplemental guidance in the appendix, which includes a slight increase in total company operating cash flow at the midpoint compared to the prior guidance. We've continued our strong momentum into the third quarter with preliminary July sales up north of 13% on a daily organic constant currency basis.

This start supports our expectations for third quarter sales north of $5 billion or up over 12% on a daily organic constant currency basis, which is 380 basis points lower on a reported basis when normalizing for the U.K. market exit and currency headwinds. We expect operating margins will be down sequentially in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, largely driven by the lap of tariff refunds. With this, we anticipate third quarter operating margins will be in the mid-15% range for the total company.

I'll now hand it back over to D.G. for his closing remarks.

Donald Macpherson

Thanks, Dee. To wrap things up, we feel good about how the business is operating, and we're confident in our strategy. I'm encouraged by our ability to continue growing profitably in this ever-evolving environment, while staying focused on creating value over the long term.

Before I turn it over to Q&A, I want to take a minute to acknowledge the news we shared yesterday that Dee Merriwether has made the personal decision to step down to pursue another opportunity, effective September 4, 2026. On behalf of the company, I want to thank Dee for her many contributions to Grainger. Dee has been a trusted adviser guiding us with deep knowledge and sound judgment during her tenure.

With this transition, Laurie Thomson, VP Controller and Principal Accounting Officer, has been appointed interim CFO effective September 5. She will also maintain our existing controllership responsibilities. Laurie brings strong financial expertise and guidance, and I'm confident in her leadership.

Yes.

Deidra Merriwether

And so -- yes, so if you kind of really just start with where we're at. We noted that the impact in the quarter was about 90 basis points. But if you look at it on a full year basis, the tariff refunds account for, call it, 23 basis points on the year.

That was offset by what you hear us talk about higher volume on lower gross margin products or project-based sales that we're incurring with some of our new large customers as we ramp. That offsets that. So that nets to about 15 basis points.

And then we see some continued net headwinds as we go through the year, mostly related to fuel and freight, related to the crisis. And then secondly, we do expect to have less of a mix benefit in the second half. So we expect that to have some headwinds.

And so that nets that benefit down that we're receiving from the tariff refund.

Donald Macpherson

I would just add that I think the mix benefits, oftentimes, we see, if you look historically, when we are in really hot market times, big projects come through. We've seen quite a bit of that actually from customers. And so those tend to be at lower gross margin.

They're strong contribution margin. So we expect that to -- that's a big part of the change actually that we're talking about. And so a bit of a drag on gross margin but not on profitability overall.

And then the freight, if you thought about how we managed tariffs last year, we didn't increase price immediately. We were patient with customers. We started rating them in September substantially, and we got sort of price cost neutral by January.

We're actually price cost neutral in the quarter this time. But that same pattern will play out in September, we'll start to recover some of that headwind we're seeing from freight and Middle East products.

Operator

Ryan Merkel

I want to start on gross margin for the quarter. It looks like ex the tariff refund, it was a little bit below what you guys expected. So was the surprise the fuel and the freight and maybe you could quantify what that impact was?

And then it also sounds like maybe large projects and mix was the other reason.

Donald Macpherson

Yes. I'd say it's more mix actually than freight, but it's a little bit of both. So both of those were the complete driver of that.

The other thing is, arguably, we knew the tariff refunds are coming in. We did not want to get aggressive with freight increases. Because that doesn't make sense competitively.

So we're holding that purposefully, and we'll make that up as we go through the balance of the year. But mix is the bigger part of it actually with really big projects and product sales.

Ryan Merkel

Interesting. Okay. And then SG&A, and I'm focusing on High-Touch, but it didn't lever in the quarter, and it sounds like maybe incentive comp is the main reason there.

So that's the first part of the question. And then should you see better SG&A leverage in the second half? It looks like that's implied in the guide, but just want to know how you're thinking about it.

Donald Macpherson

Yes. So any year when we get the forecast incorrect and the market is stronger than we expect or we performed better than we expect, we have headwinds in both management bonus and commissions. We also spent more on marketing in the quarter.

We're seeing good returns on that. So those are the 3 SG&A elements that were higher than we would have expected at the start of the year. None of them are concerning to be frank.

In the back of the year, we expect some moderation in the outsized cost there, and we expect to be more in line.

Operator

Your next question comes from Chris Snyder with Morgan Stanley.

Christopher Snyder

I was just hoping for maybe a little bit more color on the sequential bridge from Q1 to Q2 just to better understand some of the moving parts. I guess it was down, I guess, maybe like 140 bps sequentially ex -- if we kind of adjust out the tariff refund, if my math is right. So just kind of wondering the seasonality on that mix.

I mean, anything you could just help us as we kind of think about the recovery opportunity into the back half?

Deidra Merriwether

Yes. As it relates to gross margin specifically, we saw normal seasonality from a gross margin perspective related to price running off. But as we've kind of talked about, we've had some leakage related to fuel costs.

So that also was a factor from Q1 gross margin to Q2 as well as additional private label inventory costs -- we've had, as D.G. kind of articulated and as we talked about on the call, a lot of moving pieces as it relates to that. So that was also a negative impact. As you noted, the tariff refunds were not known at the time.

And so that was a benefit, but then that was offset by mix. And so that gets us down about 50 basis points Q1 to Q2.

Christopher Snyder

I appreciate that. And then just any color, and I don't know if you talked about this when you were talking about some of the Q3 moving parts, but just any color on the Q3 versus Q4 gross margin just as we kind of think through the -- I guess, Q3 is behind on price cost, Q4 catches up. I would imagine some of the mix headwinds get better as the year goes on, just given the hard to predict nature of that.

But just kind of -- would appreciate any color on just kind of the back half gross margin.

Deidra Merriwether

Yes. As we talked last time, we expect the U-shape to continue with our gross margins. And don't forget, we won't have the tariff impact in Q3 that we have now.

And then we'll pick up and have stronger supplier rebates as we end the year.

Donald Macpherson

Given the volume.

Operator

Your next question comes from Christopher Glynn with Oppenheimer & Company.

Christopher Glynn

I was wondering about how the private label headwinds in the cost of goods is phasing here. Is it sort of a steady state from here? I know that there was an adverse bridge from the second -- in the second quarter from the first.

Just curious how long that lasts, and if that starts to phase better later in the year?

Donald Macpherson

Yes. So it'll still be a headwind. It won't be much different than it was in the first quarter -- first half of the year.

It's -- the issue is, of course, to some degree, private brand has been hit by tariffs, but it's also compressed some of the cost. I would say we've launched the Grainger brand, and that has shown good growth. And so we're excited about what we're seeing in terms of private brand going forward with many of our products converting to Grainger branded items.

Christopher Glynn

Yes. D.G., could you spend a little bit more a minute -- another minute about that, like what private label brands are being retired? Is this more of a margin play or an incremental growth play?

Donald Macpherson

Yes. It's probably more of an incremental growth play to be fair, but we had 14 brands previously that were sort of historical built over decades and decades and decades, I guess. Some of them didn't have customer appeal or even didn't even know that they were Grainger related.

And so brands like Dayton will certainly remain, but a lot of the other categories will shift to Grainger and we'll probably end up with 4 or 5 brands at the end of this process, but we're well into that shift at this point.

Christopher Glynn

Okay. Great. And what's just the latest on the cadence of supplier price increase announcements?

Have those stabilized?

Donald Macpherson

I would not say we are going to shift to be a project-focused company. But we do serve customers in a lot of different ways, and we're always doing projects for customers. This year, it's just a bit more given some of the market dynamics.

Operator

Your next question comes from Guy Hardwick with Barclays.

Guy Drummond Hardwick

I'm wondering if you could maybe expand a little bit more about the impact of large projects. I mean, does that give you more second half visibility on top line? Does it give you some visibility on next year?

And if that's the case, is that a headwind to gross margin, but maybe the cost to serve those contracts is less SG&A. So maybe are they neutral to EBITDA margin or enhancing to EBITDA margin or they would still be dilutive?

Donald Macpherson

No. Yes. You've got it right.

They're dilutive to gross margin, but they're not dilutive to operating margin. Part of the reason we're raising revenue and I think maybe a lot of people are raising revenue targets right now is because of the project spend and just the race to get a lot of data centers up and get the electrical infrastructure built. And so we are certainly seeing a part of that.

Like I said, it's not really our focus, but we do support our customers in those efforts. It will be a tailwind from revenue for the remainder of this year, and I would argue maybe further than that, given the cycle that this is going to take.

Guy Drummond Hardwick

And Deidra, just it looks like the full year guidance implies maybe a 6% increase in SG&A, which kind of implies maybe 5% growth in the second half. How -- what are the kind of the risks to achieving that 5%? I know you have an easy comparative to Q4 because you have some unusual health care expenses.

But maybe you could expand a little bit on the dynamics of the second half OpEx trends?

Deidra Merriwether

I would say there's 2 things that we feel really comfortable with the guide, one of which you noted. The other one, as you recall, we also had some slowdown in government business last year. And so we don't expect that because of the shutdown.

We don't expect that to happen again this year or have no view of that in our guide. And so that will also help us from a leverage perspective.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Chris Dankert with D.A. Davidson.

Christopher Dankert

I guess the point of clarification, Dee, and apologies if I missed it. But on the third quarter guidance from a top line perspective, can you just give us a sense for how July was trending preliminary basis versus that growth rate?

Deidra Merriwether

Yes. We kind of noted on the call that we expect July to be up 13% and then on the quarter, be up around 12%. Some of that is normal seasonality as we flow through a particular quarter on the top line basis, but we expect Q3 still continue our strong performance, and that's on a daily constant currency basis, the numbers that I just provided to you.

Christopher Dankert

Perfect. I appreciate it. And then just on -- if we could move to Zoro, the SKU optimization that we did about a year ago now, I noticed the SKU count is kind of drifting back up.

Are we making -- or continuing to prune at the same time? Are we trying to keep that assortment optimized? Or is this kind of just creep?

Maybe just kind of give us some color on the SKU count over at Zoro.

Donald Macpherson

Yes. So a lot of the SKU pruning was around items that just never sold and weren't going to sell, and that were not really core to what we're trying to do. We are in a constant pruning period now.

We're growing SKU count, not nearly as fast as we had planned in the past, but we expect it to continue to grow for the next couple of years, but just more modestly.

Operator

Your next question comes from Tommy Moll with Stephens.

Thomas Moll

D.G. I wanted to ask about some of the September pricing specifically around freight and fuel. Should we think of this as part of the regular cadence of negotiations you have with customers? Or are these surcharges that may require some kind of force majeure discussion here?

Donald Macpherson

These are mostly going to be normal course discussions, price increases with our customers, it's not going to be a force majeure.

Thomas Moll

Okay. And then on the competitive environment and share. Noted, we're not going to split hairs on how many bps of share in any given quarter.

But I did just want to circle back in light of some of the strong top line performance. Any anecdotes or update you could give us on how you think your share is trending, how the competitive marketplace has been, particularly on the High-Touch side?

Donald Macpherson

Yes. I mean we think that we've gotten benefit on the top line from pricing from the market demand and share gain. And we think, all of those have been reasonably strong.

Year-to-date, we would expect that to continue through the balance of the year. The market has turned from negative for several years to clearly positive and maybe low single digits, but maybe not so low single digits now. But it's almost like you're in -- you're trying to figure out where the puck is moving.

But certainly, it has gotten stronger as the year has gone on.

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Connor Cerniglia with Bernstein.

Connor Cerniglia

Great. Earlier in the call, you mentioned that the IEEPA tariff was a small impact, I guess, on the total tariff costs you've experienced. Is that more of a hint that you could see more refunds in the future beyond the $43 million you mentioned this quarter, and I guess, the next 2 quarters?

I know it's probably pretty difficult to size, but do you expect more refunds from IEEPA going forward?

Donald Macpherson

No. No. We think that was more just a point to make the point that the overall tariff increases were much larger than that, that we've taken.

So it's a small portion of the total that we took. But we don't think there's going to be a lot more refunds.

Connor Cerniglia

Okay. Helpful. And I guess, switching back to data center large capital projects.

Have you all tried to attempt to size the contribution from a volume perspective from these large projects? Is it too small to size it? Or kind of any color or refining points on the actual contribution to volumes for data centers could be helpful.

Donald Macpherson

Yes. I mean, we think the project spend this year has been increased our growth rate about 90 basis points. High-Touch, not for the company, but for High-Touch, we don't see project spend.

So yes, that's the sizing of it at this point. And like I said, we always look at overall profitability on those projects. We want to make sure it's profitable.

So that's sort of looking at a net margin perspective and they generally are.

Operator

And there are no further questions at this time. So I'll hand the floor back to D.G. Macpherson for closing remarks.

Donald Macpherson

All right. Thank you. I appreciate everybody being on the call.

I'll just reiterate, we think that we are taking the right actions and making the right moves to continue to grow, gain share, grow profitably. There's always puts and takes in the external environment that generally we try to focus on the long term. We continue to invest in creating better solutions for customers, and that's going to be our focus.

And I'd like to thank Dee, once again for her time and wish her luck. And I hope everybody has a great rest of the summer. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. This concludes today's call. All parties may disconnect.

Have a good day.

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W.W. Grainger Earnings Calls | GWW

Earnings Calls

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W.W. Grainger Earnings Call Transcript - Q2 FY 2026

Operator

Kyle Bland

Donald Macpherson

Deidra Merriwether

Donald Macpherson

Operator

David Manthey

Deidra Merriwether

David Manthey

Deidra Merriwether

David Manthey

Deidra Merriwether

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Jacob Levinson

Deidra Merriwether

Jacob Levinson

Donald Macpherson

Jacob Levinson

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Ryan Merkel

Donald Macpherson

Ryan Merkel

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Christopher Snyder

Deidra Merriwether

Christopher Snyder

Deidra Merriwether

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Christopher Glynn

Donald Macpherson

Christopher Glynn

Donald Macpherson

Christopher Glynn

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Deane Dray

Deidra Merriwether

Donald Macpherson

Deane Dray

Donald Macpherson

Deane Dray

Donald Macpherson

Deane Dray

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Guy Drummond Hardwick

Donald Macpherson

Guy Drummond Hardwick

Deidra Merriwether

Operator

Christopher Dankert

Deidra Merriwether

Christopher Dankert

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Thomas Moll

Donald Macpherson

Thomas Moll

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Connor Cerniglia

Donald Macpherson

Connor Cerniglia

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Donald Macpherson

Operator

Operator

Kyle Bland

Donald Macpherson

Deidra Merriwether