MAS
#The improvement is a combination of some favorable mix that we've seen in KraftMaid growing.
We certainly are performing better on the operational side and getting over some of the inefficiencies of ERP.
We've also taken some cost out.
So it's a combination of the usual suspects with regards to the improvement.
With regards to Joe Gross ---+ he's not a bond guy, he's Joe, and I'm [Bill] ---+ he's been with Masco for quite a number of years.
He came from our tool business, and then was moved into President of our rough plumbing business.
And all along the way, he's done a tremendous job.
He does have significant turnaround experience.
As I mentioned, he's worked in private equity for a good portion of his career.
So he brings a very good perspective in this business, and as I said, you will get a chance to meet him to talk to him, to have Q&A, et cetera at the investor conference.
<UNK>, with respect to your incremental margin question on cabinetry, yes, we do expect that there should be $25 million tailwind from just a lack of the incremental expenses that we incurred in 2014 that will benefit 2015.
So above and beyond that, in terms of just the volume benefit, we should expect about a 30% drop down on our contribution margin on incremental volume in the segment.
So that's how to think about profit growth in 2015 and beyond in our cabinet business.
As it relates to FX, right now all of our debt is US-based.
But to your point, given the attractive rate environment that we are seeing over in Europe, as we have upcoming maturities, and we have a significant maturity that's coming up in 2016.
If the rate environment stays similar to what it is now, we would definitely consider taking a look at [peer-ops] doing some Euro-based financing for that refinancing activity later next year.
Yes, I think I'm going to stay away from giving a number.
Our outlook has not changed.
We feel the same way about these businesses now as we did coming into the quarter and continue to feel good about the outlook for 2015.
As I talked about last quarter, our intention was to adjust our promotional strategy and pricing in cabinets.
We got more aggressive than the market would bear, as we talked about in past, and we made some adjustments to that.
We are competitive in terms of where we are in our strategy right now, and we saw good results from it.
We are committed to driving this business to profitability, and we are seeing some nice signs, as Joe and the new team start to get traction.
Yes, we continue to work on working capital, <UNK>.
And it is highlighted just great outcome that the team from operations, finance, and supply-chain execute upon.
We do incentivize all of our employees across the enterprise on working capital performance, so there is incentive to continue to improve that.
So there is a variety of things that we are working on.
Principally, in our own inventories we think there's an opportunity to continue to improve.
That said, I think, given that we are at record low levels of working capital, the improvement from here will be slightly incremental.
Don't expect major step change improvement from working capital going forward.
Endless Pools was a small acquisition for us.
It was about $25 million.
In terms of how it fits into the overall strategy, we are focused on bolt-on's rather than, per se, another leg, another platform for us.
We view plumbing and paint North American and global, so in that space is where our target is.
We are targeting in the range of $200 million to $300 million as the kind of acquisitions that we are looking on.
So Endless Pools is small, but it is consistent in that it is in plumbing.
It is where we see the potential to leverage either our technologies or our access to markets.
And that's what ---+ we've brought onboard a new VP of strategy and business development, and his role is to help manage our pipeline.
And we are working with our teams to do that.
So while it is small, it is quite consistent with what we are looking at in terms of our ongoing acquisitions.
Correct.
You're not going to hear from every one of our general managers, but, clearly, you're going to have people talking to about every segment.
We are going to go through and put the business leaders in front to talk about their growth strategies.
We are going to talk about specific actions, as well as performance milestones.
And we are going to talk about expectations.
Well, Cardell was purchased some time ago.
And really what we are focused on is trying to give our customers what they need to drive foot traffic and to be profitable for them and for us to be profitable.
So our strategy is a combination of market penetration with the strongest brand that we have, as well as getting our house in order with regards to performance and cost.
Well, there is always opportunity to accelerate or decelerate the share repurchase activity based on where we see the share price go.
As I mentioned in my remarks, we did reaffirm the fact that we would purchase between $400 million and $500 million worth of shares this year.
And so we will continue to evaluate opportunities to accelerate repurchases based on where the share price is.
Volume was up just a little bit, <UNK>.
Pretty good volume in that we saw as a result of the mix of ---+ so KraftMaid really led the volume charge in Q1.
As <UNK> mentioned earlier, both at the retail as well at our dealers, so that initiative has gone very well.
So we are very pleased with the volume growth at KraftMaid.
Yes, it was down slightly year over year.
