SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Feb. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Taylor Morrison Home Corporation (NYSE: TMHC), one of the nation's leading homebuilders and developers, announced results for the fourth quarter ended Dec. 31, 2021. Reported net income of $273 million and $2.19 per diluted share increased 189 percent and 204 percent, respectively, compared to the fourth quarter of 2020.

Highlights from the Company's fourth quarter 2021 included the following, as compared to the prior-year quarter:

• Homes closed increased 39 percent to 4,283 homes and 61 percent in value to $2.4 billion.
• Home closings gross margin improved 330 basis points to 21.6 percent.
• Net sales orders and monthly sales per community declined 16 percent to 3,124 and six percent to 3.2, respectively.
• Backlog increased nine percent to 9,114 sold homes with an average sales price of $632,000, up 26 percent.
• SG&A as a percentage of home closings revenue improved 180 basis points to 7.8 percent.
• Homebuilding lot supply increased 10 percent to approximately 77,000 total lots owned and controlled.
• Controlled lots as a percentage of total lot supply increased approximately 700 basis points to 38 percent.

Full year 2021 highlights included the following, as compared to 2020:

• Homes closed increased nine percent to 13,699 homes and 22 percent in value to $7.2 billion.
• Home closings gross margin improved 370 basis points to 20.3 percent.
• Total revenue increased 22 percent to $7.5 billion.
• The Company repurchased 9.9 million shares outstanding for $281 million.
• Return on equity improved 960 basis points to 17.5 percent.

"In the fourth quarter, we delivered record financial results, including a 204 percent year-over-year increase in our diluted earnings per share and nearly-1,000 basis point improvement in our return on equity—each to new Company highs. This strong performance was driven by a 330 basis point improvement in our home closings gross margin and nearly 200 basis points of SG&A leverage as we benefited from our ongoing operational enhancements, acquisition synergies and robust pricing power that more than offset the inflationary cost pressure and delay of some anticipated closings into the new year caused by ongoing supply chain constraints," said Sheryl Palmer, Taylor Morrison Chairman and CEO.  

"These results capped off a transformational and record-breaking year for our organization, in which we completed the integration of our 2020 acquisition of William Lyon Homes; made meaningful progress against our strategic priorities of product refinement, process streamlining and asset-lighter land investments; and achieved new Company highs across nearly all of our key operating and financial metrics. Following these achievements and with further visibility into our strong backlog of over 9,100 sold homes, in 2022, we now expect to generate a home closings gross margin of at least 23.5 percent and return on equity in the mid-20 percent range while delivering between 14,000 to 15,000 homes," said Palmer.  

"From a demand perspective, the market remained favorable in the fourth quarter with solid activity across our consumer groups and geographies that drove a healthy monthly absorption pace of 3.2 net sales orders per community and a 23 percent year-over-year increase in our average net order price. With demand continuing to significantly outpace supply, we maintained our disciplined sales strategy by managing sales in the vast majority of our communities to align our sales and production cadence and maximize community performance. Housing fundamentals remain attractive across our diverse market portfolio and price points that serves entry-level, move-up and active lifestyle homebuyers, as well as single-family rental households with our growing Build-to-Rent operations."

"In addition to our strong operational performance, in 2021, we made significant progress in strengthening our balance sheet and executing on new asset-lighter land investment strategies that further improve our ability to invest in future growth, mitigate long-term risk and enhance expected returns. We invested $2.0 billion in land to support future growth, repurchased 9.9 million shares outstanding for $281 million and deleveraged our balance sheet by nearly 500 basis points. With another year of strong cash flow generation anticipated in 2022, we expect to further reduce our net debt-to-capital ratio to the mid-20 percent range this year while also continuing to opportunistically pursue share repurchases after investing approximately $2.3 to 2.4 billion in homebuilding land acquisition and development," said Lou Steffens, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

Business Highlights (All comparisons are of the current quarter to the prior-year quarter, unless otherwise indicated.)

Homebuilding

• Home closings revenue increased 61 percent to $2.4 billion, driven by a 39 percent increase in homes closed to 4,283 and a 16 percent increase in average closing price to $558,000.
• Home closings gross margin increased 330 basis points to 21.6 percent, reflecting operational enhancements, acquisition synergies and pricing power in excess of inflationary cost pressure.
• SG&A as a percentage of home closings revenue declined 180 basis points to 7.8 percent, primarily due to improved operating leverage and lower broker commissions.
• Net sales orders of 3,124 were down 16 percent compared to the seasonally-strong fourth quarter of 2020 due to a 10 percent decline in average community count and a six percent reduction in the average monthly absorption pace to 3.2 net sales orders per community. The Company continued to strategically align sales with production capacity and manage the length of its backlog amid continued strong demand across each of its markets and consumer groups.
• Among its consumer groups, the greatest year-over-year improvement in net sales orders and absorption pace was driven by the move-up segment, which represented 51 percent of total net sales orders versus 44 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020.
• Average net sales order price increased 23 percent to $648,000, reflecting robust pricing power as well as a greater penetration of move-up and 55-plus active lifestyle transactions versus entry-level sales compared to the prior-year period.
• Backlog at quarter end was 9,114 sold homes, up nine percent, with a sales value of $5.8 billion, up 36 percent.

Land Portfolio

• Investment in land acquisition and development totaled $514 million in the fourth quarter and $2.0 billion in 2021.
• At year end, total homebuilding lot supply was approximately 77,000 owned and controlled homesites, up 10 percent.
• Controlled lots as a percentage of total supply was 38 percent, up from 31 percent.
• Based on trailing twelve-month home closings, the lot position represented 3.5 years of owned supply and 5.6 years of total supply.

Financial Services

• The mortgage capture rate equaled 82 percent.
• Borrowers had an average credit score of 752 and debt-to-income ratio of 36 percent.

Balance Sheet

• At quarter end, total available liquidity was approximately $1.6 billion, including $833 million of unrestricted cash and $810 million of undrawn capacity on the Company's corporate revolving credit facilities.
• Net homebuilding debt-to-capital equaled 34.1 percent.
• The Company repurchased 1.4 million of its outstanding shares for $45 million during the fourth quarter. For the full year, the Company repurchased 9.9 million shares for $281 million, which represented approximately eight percent of diluted shares outstanding as of Dec. 31, 2020. At quarter end, the Company had $230 million remaining on its share repurchase authorization.

Business Outlook

First Quarter 2022

• Ending active community count is expected to be between 310 to 315
• Home closings are expected to be between 2,600 to 2,900
• GAAP home closings gross margin is expected to be approximately 22 percent
• Effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 25 percent
• Diluted share count is expected to be approximately 124 million

Full Year 2022

• Ending active community count is expected to be around 350
• Home closings are expected to be between 14,000 to 15,000
• GAAP home closings gross margin is now expected to be at least 23.5 percent
• Average sales price is expected to be at least $600,000
• SG&A as a percentage of home closings revenue is expected to be in the high-8 percent range
• Effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 25 percent
• Diluted share count is expected to be approximately 124 million
• Homebuilding land and development spend is expected to be between $2.3 to 2.4 billion

Earnings Webcast

A public webcast to discuss the fourth quarter 2021 earnings will be held later today at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. A live audio webcast of the conference call will be available on Taylor Morrison's website at investors.taylormorrison.com under the Events & Presentations tab. For call participants, the dial-in number is (844) 200-6205 and conference ID is 223761. The call will be recorded and available for replay on the Company's website later today and will be available for one year from the date of the original earnings call.

About Taylor Morrison

Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, Taylor Morrison is one of the nation's leading homebuilders and developers. We serve a wide array of consumers from coast to coast, including first-time, move-up, luxury and 55-plus active lifestyle homebuyers under our family of brands—including Taylor Morrison, Esplanade, Darling Homes Collection by Taylor Morrison and Christopher Todd Communities built by Taylor Morrison. From 2016-2022, Taylor Morrison has been recognized as America's Most Trusted® Builder by Lifestory Research. Our strong commitment to sustainability, our communities and our team is highlighted in our latest annual Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Report available on our website.

For more information about Taylor Morrison, please visit www.taylormorrison.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This earnings summary includes "forward-looking statements." These statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause our actual results, performance, prospects or opportunities, as well as those of the markets we serve or intend to serve, to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, these statements. You can identify these statements by the fact that they do not relate to matters of a strictly factual or historical nature and generally discuss or relate to forecasts, estimates or other expectations regarding future events. Generally, the words ""anticipate," "estimate," "expect," "project," "intend," "plan," "believe," "may," "will," "can," "could," "might," "should" and similar expressions identify forward-looking statements, including statements related to expected financial, operating and performance results, planned transactions, planned objectives of management, future developments or conditions in the industries in which we participate and other trends, developments and uncertainties that may affect our business in the future.

Such risks, uncertainties and other factors include, among other things: the scale and scope of the ongoing COVID-19  pandemic; changes in general and local economic conditions; slowdowns or severe downturns in the housing market; homebuyers' ability to obtain suitable financing; increases in interest rates, taxes or government fees; shortages in, disruptions of and cost of labor; higher cancellation rates of existing agreements of sale; competition in our industry; any increase in unemployment or underemployment; inflation or deflation; the seasonality of our business; the physical impacts of climate change and the increased focus by third-parties on sustainability issues; our ability to obtain additional performance, payment and completion surety bonds and letters of credit; significant home warranty and construction defect claims; our reliance on subcontractors; failure to manage land acquisitions, inventory and development and construction processes; availability of land and lots at competitive prices; decreases in the market value of our land inventory; new or changing government regulations and legal challenges; our compliance with environmental laws and regulations regarding climate change; our ability to sell mortgages we originate and claims on loans sold to third parties; governmental regulation applicable to our financial services and title services business; the loss of any of our important commercial lender relationships; our ability to use deferred tax assets; raw materials and building supply shortages and price fluctuations; our concentration of significant operations in certain geographic areas; risks associated with our unconsolidated joint venture arrangements; information technology failures and data security breaches; costs to engage in and the success of future growth or expansion of our operations or acquisitions or disposals of businesses; costs associated with our defined benefit and defined contribution pension schemes; damages associated with any major health and safety incident; our ownership, leasing or occupation of land and the use of hazardous materials; existing or future litigation, arbitration or other claims; negative publicity or poor relations with the residents of our communities; failure to recruit, retain and develop highly skilled, competent people; utility and resource shortages or rate fluctuations; constriction of the capital markets; risks related to our substantial debt and the agreements governing such debt, including restrictive covenants contained in such agreements; our ability to access the capital markets; the risks associated with maintaining effective internal controls over financial reporting; provisions in our charter and bylaws that may delay or prevent an acquisition by a third party; and our ability to effectively manage our expanded operations.

In addition, other such risks and uncertainties may be found in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our subsequent quarterly reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as such factors may be updated from time to time in our periodic filings with the SEC. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or changes in our expectations, except as required by applicable law.

Reconciliation of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

In addition to the results reported in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States ("GAAP"), we have provided information in this press release relating to: (i) adjusted income before income taxes and related margin, (ii) EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, (iii) adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share, (iv) net homebuilding debt to capitalization ratio, and (v) adjusted home closings gross margin.

Adjusted income before income taxes (and related margin) is a non-GAAP financial measure that reflects our income before income taxes excluding the impact of inventory impairment charges, transaction expenses and loss on extinguishment of debt, net. EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA are non-GAAP financial measures that measure performance by adjusting net income before allocation to non-controlling interests to exclude interest expense/(income), net, amortization of capitalized interest, income taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), non-cash compensation expense, if any, transaction expenses and inventory impairment charges. Adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share are non-GAAP financial measures that reflect the net income available to the Company excluding the impact of inventory impairment charges, transaction expenses, loss on extinguishment of debt, net, and the tax impact due to such items. Net homebuilding debt to capitalization ratio is a non-GAAP financial measure we calculate by dividing (i) total debt, less unamortized debt issuance premiums, net, and mortgage warehouse borrowings, net of unrestricted cash and cash equivalents, by (ii) total capitalization (the sum of net homebuilding debt and total stockholders' equity). Adjusted home closings gross margin is a non-GAAP financial measure based on GAAP home closings gross margin (which is inclusive of capitalized interest), excluding inventory impairment charges. Beginning with the third quarter of fiscal 2021, we are no longer excluding purchase accounting adjustments from these non-GAAP financial measures, and prior period measures have been recast to exclude this adjustment. 

Management uses these non-GAAP financial measures to evaluate our performance on a consolidated basis, as well as the performance of our regions, and to set targets for performance-based compensation. We also use the ratio of net homebuilding debt to total capitalization as an indicator of overall leverage and to evaluate our performance against other companies in the homebuilding industry. A reconciliation of our forward-looking net homebuilding debt to capitalization ratio to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure cannot be provided without unreasonable effort because of the inherent difficulty of accurately forecasting the occurrence and financial impact of the adjusting items necessary for such reconciliation that have not yet occurred, are out of our control, or cannot be reasonably predicted. In the future, we may include additional adjustments in the above-described non-GAAP financial measures to the extent we deem them appropriate and useful to management and investors.

We believe that adjusted income before income taxes and related margin, adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share, as well as EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, are useful for investors in order to allow them to evaluate our operations without the effects of various items we do not believe are characteristic of our ongoing operations or performance and also because such metrics assist both investors and management in analyzing and benchmarking the performance and value of our business. Adjusted EBITDA also provides an indicator of general economic performance that is not affected by fluctuations in interest rates or effective tax rates, levels of depreciation or amortization, or unusual items. Because we use the ratio of net homebuilding debt to total capitalization to evaluate our performance against other companies in the homebuilding industry, we believe this measure is also relevant and useful to investors for that reason. We believe that adjusted home closings gross margin is useful to investors because it allows investors to evaluate the performance of our homebuilding operations without the varying effects of items or transactions we do not believe are characteristic of our ongoing operations or performance.

These non-GAAP financial measures should be considered in addition to, rather than as a substitute for, the comparable U.S. GAAP financial measures of our operating performance or liquidity. Although other companies in the homebuilding industry may report similar information, their definitions may differ. We urge investors to understand the methods used by other companies to calculate similarly-titled non-GAAP financial measures before comparing their measures to ours.

CONTACT:

Mackenzie Aron, VP Investor Relations
(480) 734-2060
[email protected]

SOURCE Taylor Morrison