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Unifi Inc. (UFI -0.62%)
Q2 2019 Earnings Conference Call
Feb. 04, 2019, 8:30 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
See all our earnings call transcripts.
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Unifi's Second Quarter Conference Call. Leading today's call is A.J. Eaker, Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations. A.J.?
A.J. Eaker -- Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations
Thank you, operator, and good morning everyone. On the call today is Kevin Hall, Chief Executive Officer; Tom Caudle, President and Chief Operating Officer; and Chris Smosna, Vice President, Treasurer and Interim Chief Financial Officer.
During this call, management will be referencing a webcast presentation that can be found at unifi.com and by clicking the Second Quarter Conference Call link.
Management advises you that certain statements included in today's call will be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Management cautions that these statements are based on current expectations, estimates and/or projections about the markets in which Unifi operates. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve certain risks that are difficult to predict.
Actual outcomes and results may differ materially from what is expressed, forecast or implied by these statements. You are directed to the disclosures filed with the SEC on Unifi's Forms 10-Q and 10-K regarding various factors that may impact these results.
Also, please be advised that certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA and adjusted working capital may be discussed on this call, and non-GAAP reconciliations can be found in the schedules to the webcast presentation.
I will now turn the call over to Kevin Hall.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks A.J., and good morning everyone, and thank you for joining us today. During the second quarter, we faced the highest polyester raw material costs in calendar 2018 coupled with significant regional market pressures. As a result, we experienced a tough operating environment that further weigh down our performance.
We did see some revenue growth from our International segment, but it was muted by shortfalls in the Americas. Our miss in the Americas was primarily due to a few factors: one less shipping week in the North and Central American region due to the timing of our seasonal shutdown; the recent spike in global polyester raw material costs, which also contributed to a softer demand environment; continued competitive pressures in the Americas, with demand softness; and a weaker sales mix.
While each of these factors separately impacted our profitability, the combined impact was even more profound. We remain focused on growing the topline and expanding profitability to drive long-term shareholder value. Leveraging both our PVA and core non-PVA platforms, we are confident in our Partner, Innovate and Build Strategy to achieve success.
Our PVA sales reached 47% of consolidated sales for the quarter. We continue to believe that the investments we're making to drive long-term growth across the globe are important and are working, but need to focus diligently on competing both internationally and domestically. I'll start with an overview of the quarter and then Chris Smosna, our Interim CFO, will share more granular details on our financial performance.
As we talked about in our first quarter earnings call in October, we had already seen the spike in our raw material costs beginning in September and they continue to rise and peaked in early October. By November, we had begun to see a pullback in those cost, but we had already experienced a meaningful short-term impact on our gross margin performance.
Further compounding the effects of this rising cost environment was the continued soft demand in the domestic market, which was exacerbated by competitive import pressures and the typical soft seasonality in the second quarter. This environment has made for a difficult setting in which to maintain a superior margin profile in our regional markets.
We saw particular margin pressure on our high-value textured yarn products and the timing of our holiday shutdown exacerbated these issues. As a result, we didn't get the pull-through and fixed-cost absorption necessary to keep margins where we need them. As we look forward, it's difficult to predict cost and demand in the short term, but we are seeing signs of a more normalized and less volatile raw material cost environment.
If these trends continue, the same lag that acted as a headwind for the majority of calendar 2018 should turn in our favor as we look to the second half of fiscal 2019. Therefore, we expect the benefit of lower cost and seasonal volumes to create a step up in our recent margin profile.
Now, moving on to a high level review of our operational results during the second quarter; international topline performance again excelled with sales growth of 14% over last year, driven primarily by increased volume and more filament programs pulling through. Chip and staple fiber continue their growth -- their growth paths, but it is exciting to see our broader sales effort taking hold with more high-margin filament sales in Asia.
This gives us confidence that our portfolio is creating the stickiness needed to move customers up the value chain onto higher margin platforms. However, international sales expansion was partially offset by unfavorable foreign currency translation impacts plus ongoing economic weakness in Brazil.
In the domestic market, our sales efforts did not generate growth in polyester products and we saw continuing decline in the domestic nylon market in our Nylon business segment overall. The decline in the Polyester segment reflects the lower volume because of competitive pressures, a shorter shipping period, and suppressed demand which were partially offset by recent pricing actions.
As it relates to the recent trade petitions that we announced in mid-October regarding polyester textured yarn in our US market, there are no material updates to provide at this time, especially in light of the recent government shutdown. When we are in a position to provide further updates, we will do so accordingly.
From a marketing and commercial standpoint, our progress continues. Last week, we announced our 2018 REPREVE Champions of Sustainability Awards, which recognize our brand and textile partners that have achieved plastic bottle recycling milestones as a result of their use of REPREVE Performance fibers.
Now in its second year, a total of 68 companies are being recognized as REPREVE Champions of Sustainability, which includes 18 New Brand and Retailer award winners. This year, Nike and Target are joining Polartec in the Billion Bottle Circle for recycling more than 1 billion bottles each, and many of our partners reached significant new milestones in 2018.
Unifi and REPREVE will also have a presence at New York Fashion Week in early February, where we will be presenting Mara Hoffman with the REPREVE Champions of Sustainability Leading the Change Award. Mara Hoffman is a well-known and respected fashion designer who had converted her entire line to sustainable fabrics back in 2015, and she uses REPREVE Performance fibers in her textured swimwear collection.
Unifi will be hosting a celebratory event to honor Mara Hoffman on February 11th during the Fashion Week festivities. To support the growth of REPREVE, we've introduced three new performance technologies at the Outdoor Retailer Snow Show which was just completed in Denver.
These include REPREVE TruFlexx Engineered Stretch, which is made with 100% Polyester for a more sustainable stretch option that is spandex free, thereby enabling a 100% closed loop recyclable stretch polyester fabric. Another innovative performance product introduced at the show is TruClean, an antistatic yarn, which inhibit static and cling. Key applications include denim where the technology keeps dark jeans looking clean and dark; and in apparel and home furnishings for pet owners by repelling pet hair and lint and other small particles.
And finally REPREVE nylon staple fiber, which is a new sustainable option for spun yarns that can be used to improve the hand and strength of fabrics. This new product will allow us to better penetrate targeted end-users such as performance apparel, intimate apparel, denim and sports uniforms. And we are also excited by a significant new Circular Economy Partnership announced last week. This partnership takes back bottles from the Atlanta Airport and Mercedes-Benz Stadium for Unifi to convert into REPREVE fiber, which is used in jackets worn by volunteers at the Atlanta Airport.
The jackets include the REPREVE logo and bottle count on the sleeve and help drive awareness for the brand as visitors and sports fans travel through Atlanta. Our progress is exciting and aligns perfectly with the recent on-boarding of Al Carey as our new Non-Executive Chairman of the Board. His experience is tremendous and his insight and capabilities will be invaluable as we move forward with our strategic initiatives, including exciting possibilities on REPREVE and Circular Economy Partnerships. Lastly, our CFO search is under way and we will provide an update in due course.
I'll now pass the call to our Interim CFO, Chris Smosna to go into more detail on our financial results. Chris?
Christopher A. Smosna -- Interim Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Kevin, and good morning everyone. As Kevin noted, results this period are disappointing. I will dive into the drivers of our performance in my discussion today and we'll begin on Slide 3 of the webcast presentation where you can see a high-level overview of net income.
Moving from left to right, net income declined from $11.8 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2018 to $1.2 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2019. In the prior second quarter, we recorded a tax benefit of $3.8 million due to tax optimization actions, and correspondingly the Company's ability to reverse the valuation allowance on certain historical net operating losses.
Additionally, the impacts of implementing tax reform in December 2017 led to a $4.5 million remeasurement of our deferred tax balances and a $1.7 million provisional charge for the tax on deemed repatriation of foreign earnings. These items combined to reflect the $6.6 million net tax benefit in the prior year second quarter.
In the current year second quarter, optimization actions allowed us to recognize a $2 million tax benefit relating to tax returns from prior fiscal years. Both items are presented here separately as they are less relevant to our ongoing tax rate. As we move to the remaining items in this bridge, note that each are tax affected at a 25% tax rate, which approximates the prior-year tax rate when excluding the $6.6 million of benefits described earlier. With no material increase in net sales from the fiscal 2018 second quarter, the next impactful item was the decline in comparable gross margin, and I'll provide a margin bridge on the following slide.
Next, operating expenses, including SG&A, increased approximately $500,000 on an after-tax basis, when excluding the benefits of foreign currency changes. Stronger earnings from Parkdale provided an improvement to net income of approximately $600,000 on an after-tax basis, net of lower earnings from our Nylon joint ventures. And lastly, the benefits of foreign currency impacts were partially offset by higher interest and taxes. As Kevin said earlier, it was a quarter full of headwinds and you see that here with diluted earnings per share of $0.06.
Moving to Slide 4, we have provided a bridge for gross margin. Consolidated gross margin was 8.4% for the second quarter of fiscal 2019 compared to 13.5% for the second quarter of fiscal 2018. The decrease in gross margin was primarily driven by lower regional yarn volumes contributing to weaker fixed cost absorption and elevated inventory stocks with a less favorable sales mix.
This was exacerbated by the spike in raw material costs leading into the second quarter as raw material pressures were seen around the globe. The weaker sales mix results from the disproportionate growth of lower margin product and softer sales of certain higher value textured and covered yarns. These items all contributed to a decline in overall gross margin, driving the significant underperformance seen in this quarter. On the Slide 4, we have labeled the major drivers for each segment.
Slide 5, shows the sales and gross profit highlights for the second quarter. Total segment net sales were up $200,000, while gross margin declined 520 basis points. Sales results in our International segment continued to be a bright spot, and drive overall revenue growth.
Sales of recycled staple fiber continue to grow in Asia and these sales are a key component to our long-term brand relationships, based on sustainable solutions. The International PVA portfolio remains strong as our strategy there continue. However, this growth was muted by both foreign currency translations and softness in the Brazil market.
In our Polyester segment, we saw declines in higher-value yarn and PVA volumes in this quarter, partially offset by incremental volume in our flake business and the impact of selling price increases implemented during calendar 2018 in response to rising raw material costs. Overall, Polyester volumes were down 10.9% due to 1 less shipping week and increased competition.
Nylon sales performance also reflects the impact of the holiday shutdown plus an ongoing decline in the overall demand for Nylon products, partially offset by improvement in some of our Nylon textured yarns. The market and competition remain difficult.
For gross profit and gross margin performance, we covered the significant items on the previous slide. Here, I will highlight the impacts to each segment. Polyester was primarily impacted by weaker fixed cost absorption, weaker sales mix and raw material cost pressures; Nylon was primarily impacted by weaker performance in high value yarns and fixed cost absorption; and the International segment faced some raw material pressures along with a slightly weaker sales mix.
Slide 6, shows equity affiliates. Pre-tax earnings from equity affiliates increased approximately $800,000, driven by comparably better performance at Parkdale due to better operating leverage and a more favorable raw material and pricing environment. Distributions in the quarter totaled $120,000 while the year-to-date amount is $630,000.
Slide 7 covers balance sheet highlights. Working capital was $196 million and adjusted working capital was $176 million. Adjusted working capital as a percentage of sales reached 26.6%, driven by higher inventory stocks in combination with lower regional sales volumes and the seasonal shutdown period. We ended the period at $131 million in debt principal and net debt was at $104.5 million. During the quarter, we utilized some of our cash and cash equivalents against our domestic credit facility and subsequently amended the facility.
As a result, higher adjusted working capital, primarily for inventory, offset the reduction in debt principal. By amending the credit facility, we were able to extend the maturity date to 2023 and generate an average step down in pricing of 25 basis points. As of December 2018, revolver availability was $64 million, while total liquidity moved from $98 million at June 2018 to $91 million at December 2018.
As a reminder, using swaps that terminate in May 2022, we have effectively fixed LIBOR at approximately 1.9% on $75 million of our debt principal. At December 2018, our weighted-average interest rate was 4.1%. Consistent with our October 2018 announcement, $50 million remains available for share repurchases.
I will now turn the call back over to Kevin.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Chris. I would like to provide some color on the outlook for the remainder of fiscal 2019, and then we will open it up for your questions. Looking to the rest of fiscal 2019, we are adjusting our outlook to account for the poor results from the second quarter and the macro environment we are still experiencing.
While we believe our strategy is the right one and will deliver profitable growth as the raw material and demand environment stabilize, there's work to do. We expect revenues to finish the year at mid-single-digit percentage growth range.
For our second half margin profile, we do not expect to recapture all of the lost margin from the recent raw material cost increases as the difficult regional competitive dynamics will remain for the foreseeable short term, especially as we defend our competitive position on our regional commodity business.
So the second half of 2019 is expected to improve over both the recent first half and versus fiscal 2018 second half, and thus we expect fiscal 2019 operating income between $19 million and $23 million and adjusted EBITDA between $42 million and $46 million. Our expectations are for capital expenditures of approximately $25 million for the year and an effective tax rate in the mid-40% range, and they have not changed. From an investor's point of view, it is critical to again reiterate that our strategy to Partner, Innovate and Build with our high-quality programs remains a top priority.
At the same time, we are renewing our focus on our commodity business to ensure that we maintain our significant market position in the North and Central America regions and support our significant asset base and abilities to drive innovation and sustainability for our regional and global customers.
Our current products and those that we are developing can help our customers innovate with the solutions that today's consumer's desire, which in turn will help them improve their topline opportunities. So, we will remain focused on positioning our business for the long-term growth and executing our strategy, while we simultaneously enhance our short-term returns.
We will now open the lines for your questions, operator?
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you, sir. (Operator Instructions) Our first question will come from the line of Chris McGinnis with Sidoti & Company. Your line is now open.
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Good morning, thanks for taking my question.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning Chris.
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Just a -- just to kind of dig into the pricing pressure a little bit, is that more of just a slowdown in purchasing by customers and just a simple supply and demand issue? Do you expect with higher volumes that we would get past that, the kind -- the current environment?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Hey, Chris. Yes, let me -- I think there is a couple of factors that played into the quarter and, as you say, there is things that we're leaning to as we go forward. You know, if we dial back and go, as we headed into Q2, we had that huge spike in our costs and I think we've been chasing the increasing costs for a year and I think on any kind of a sustained movement like that, all the times it end in a crescendo if you are at the top (inaudible), you know we experienced it in September and October. We had a pretty big move up in the costs.
And so, if you overlay that, our quarter two is always -- is our lowest demand quarter. And one of the reasons for that is, we sell a lot into apparel and footwear and it's -- if you think of the calendar year, they sell a lot starting at calendar year, starting the new sets, you go into back-to-school, then you load in for holiday, and then as you come into that quarter two, you're really -- you're coming to an end of the holiday build and you're starting to look for new sets for the following year.
This year, the retailers and the brands went into the holiday season pretty strong, actually. I think as we listen into some of their results, they had good inventory positions. They mostly had strategies to win versus e-commerce on being in stock and being where the consumer wanted them to buy and it was a good start to the holiday season.
With this cost increase and as we went into our quarter two, we definitely saw a reduction in a lot of the retailing brand demand going forward. I think that some of the brands bought less; some of the brands just decided to stop and call it a holiday and end with lean inventories going into the next year; a lot of them want to watch and see what happened; some pushed demand out and even starting up on their new sets for this year, just kind of wanted to get that final read on holiday.
If you look at the holiday season, it was a good one though and so I think -- and most have ended with pretty good inventory positions. And so, as we're coming into our Q3, their first quarter, we are seeing seasonal demand pick back up globally. We're starting to see a pick-up in all markets. It's still a tough macro end market. The costs have come down. They're still elevated, but they have come down from that spike position. So when you lay all that out, the maneuverings or going through the quarter, there was just less demand in the overall market and what was there, we were having to fight for with elevated cost and it just -- it made for an environment where we were not able to get enough demand in here to cover our fixed costs and that really was -- had a negative impact across the business.
We do feel better about where we're at now. I'm glad to say that for the first time in a long time, we're not chasing increasing costs as I -- I do want to reinforce we're not out of an elevated cost environment. We're still in that, but the costs have come back to more where we're priced at. And so it looks better from that standpoint.
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Appreciate that color. Also -- and if you answered this and I didn't understand that I -- just wondering around existing contracts and how those are priced in a more competitive environment. Does that impact your or can you maybe just dig into that a little bit because this is kind of a little bit of a newer nuance to the story?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
You mean like in the index pricing?
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Yes, the prior year, yes exactly.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So the way to think of index pricing, as we said, it's done on a quarterly basis, it's like a quarterly average, and so when you get these moves up like we were chasing, you're always kind of averaging -- catching up to that average, if you will. So in this environment, as we went into the second quarter, we have that huge move up. Those average costs were above where our average pricing was at.
They've kind of started to come back down now. So they're averaging back down a little bit. And as I say, we're kind of getting into a good price-to-cost ratio right now, where we need to be. We never did really fully recover that full two month spike because of some of these dynamics. It just happened so quickly up and so quickly down, so that was one of the things that hurt us and might be you know -- so that will be there, but as we look -- go forward, our index pricing looks like it's going to be in a pretty good place.
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Okay. And so that's the driving factor, I guess, for the current contracts you have in place say with like a shoe or something (inaudible) is the -- the bigger pricing, OK.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So if you think about where we're pricing now and where indexes are, as I said, the price is -- the cost kind of came back down to where they're matching where our pricing is.
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Okay. But you wouldn't see competitive pressures on that, would you? Since you're already in on the program, is that, that's where I was trying to get. I apologize.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So that's always going to be partly demand and we'll always have pressures, but that's going to be part demand driven too and that's why I'm glad that the seasonal demands are moving back up.
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Thanks very much, I appreciate that. I'll jump back in queue.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Alright, thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And our next question will come from the line of Daniel Moore with CJS Security. Your line is now open.
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Thank you and good morning. Maybe drill down a little bit more when you describe increased competitive pressures in the region. So Brazil specifically in the CAFTA region, are you seeing new entrants? Is there something going on in the supply side as well as a little bit of demand pressure?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. Thanks Daniel. So, let me start with Brazil. Brazil continues to be a good market for us, it's volatile. We have a strong leadership team down there and we always talk about Brazil being volatile and it definitely was in Q2. It was an environment where they had currency fluctuations. They were hit hard by FX. They had their different political environment situation going on there. It's calmed down go -- now going into Q3. So that's good.
But we definitely were impacted by FX and some movement there and some of the impacts on our gross margin, less so, I guess, as you kind of bring it all the way down to total EBITDA because there actually some impacts on the SG&A side of it, but it was clearly an impact on our gross margin side.
We're cautiously optimistic there as we go forward. The team feels like they have the plans in place and it is much -- it's a different environment right now, knock on wood it -- hopefully it stays there. When you look at this region, we do have strong competition in Central America. We have there -- new tax have coming online in Honduras. At the same time you do have more brands still talking about more business in that region, and so we still believe that there's going to be a great opportunity to partner with them and move more REPREVE-based our product offerings to them in that region.
So we need to do both. We got to compete on the commodity side to run the assets down there as we start to increase the mix toward REPREVE and we think that's going to be the right long-term strategy.
North America, it was just a tough demand environment here and I think in that you got more people buying spot and on these imports and again we're approaching that differently. We've got, it's still the same premise, which is we've got to get very, very close to each of our customers, we got to partner with them and we got to know what they need and when they need it. So even on our commodity side of our business, it's about high-quality, it's about speed and it's about getting products to them in a way -- in a better way than they'd be able to get out on the open market.
So those are the things we're focused on. We've got -- the only other thing I'd add Dan is, we've really worked on getting strong local leadership into each of our regions, and so that would include, in Central America we've got a much strengthened team there and we're really going to push to make sure that we own these local markets.
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Got it. And then my follow-up, you may have answered some of it there Kevin, but in terms of being or competing more aggressively on the commodity side of the business beyond simply price, some of those levers that you are thinking about that you can pull?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So a big part of what we do is high quality, speed. If you think about some of these large commitments that need to get made on some of the season builds, it's large production and there is a value to making sure that you're getting that delivered into their supply chains in a high-quality, dependable way. So we're going to make sure we partner with those customers to make -- to get that done.
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Got it. One more and I'll jump back. But, if we think about the guidance for the remainder of the year on the -- at least on the EBITDA front, looking at some pretty healthy growth year-on-year in terms of H2 in the 10% to 30% range, maybe just talk about your visibility and comfort and what gives you confidence in that type of growth on a year-over-year basis?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, I think the two macro pieces right now are seasonal demand coming back in to play and right now we're not chasing increasing costs. We're at a place where that has kind of calm down and we're matched where we need to be. So that's really what we're looking at, Chris I don't know if you have anything else to add?
Christopher A. Smosna -- Interim Chief Financial Officer
Yes, I would just say, Kevin, about the favorable index pricing rolling in the second half will help as there is that one quarter lag. And overall improved sales and production volumes from the seasonality that typically lifts our second half will drive the improvement.
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Got it, appreciate the color.
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) And our next question will come from the line of Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is now open.
Marco Rodriguez -- Stonegate Capital Markets -- Analyst
Good morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. I have a quick follow-up on one of the prior questions there in terms of the competitive environment. I just kind of want to dig down a little bit more, I'm trying to follow-through some things here. The overall cost environment for you guys, the raw material costs supposedly should impact most of the players the same way. I understand the important aspect, but I'm just trying to understand here, from North America region and Central America, is there an issue with just your competitiveness in terms of the cost structure or sales aspects? I'm just trying to kind of understand that a little bit better?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Well, a big part of this quarter, Marco, really was overall demand in the region both North America and in Central America just went really low, and so that was something that we're going to have to deal with. We are -- we do have to watch our costs, we have to manage our -- on our cost side very aggressively and we're going to have to do that in both Central America and North America as well as Brazil and Asia. I mean we don't -- we don't actually get a pass from that anywhere.
Moving into more differentiated yarns is going to be critical and we've talked about that. I think getting into more REPREVE is going to be critical for that. The nice thing there is what you're going to hear over the next six to 12 months as more and more brands making their commitments. So we're positioning ourselves to be able to supply that in all regions, including in Central America at a cost competitive way as brands want to move into move REPREVE.
So, lot of work to do. We've got to continue to focus on costs. But it's one of the things that I think we'll always have to do as we move forward. Again, Chris, do you have anything else that you'd add.
Christopher A. Smosna -- Interim Chief Financial Officer
No, I think that covered it.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Alright.
Marco Rodriguez -- Stonegate Capital Markets -- Analyst
I guess what I'm still trying to kind of understand here is your cost structure, perhaps a little bit less favorable to you guys in the North -- in the Americas or is there a -- kind of a lack of focus on this commodity as such because you're obviously geared more toward the PVA and moving that for a long-term perspective?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yes. So Macro, I think we've talked in the past, we do have very aggressive imports here and aggressive pricing on them. So we do have -- we do face that. Again, they tend to be more spot oriented, but in certain situations they're able to pick up business. And for people really want to partner on big runs, we need to be able to compete versus that. But the imports are an issue that we have.
Central America, with new tax coming on, they're very cost competitive -- they're a low cost competitors there, and we'll have to play very sharply. But again, in a seasonal demand environment, we think we can do that. And right now, things look pretty good.
Marco Rodriguez -- Stonegate Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got it, understood. And then also, if you could maybe talk a little bit on the working capital aspects. Just kind of looking at your inventory here, it has been kind of accelerating year-over-year for the last few quarters versus your sales growth, obviously understand some of the impacts on sales growth. But if you can talk little bit about that elevation there on inventory levels and how that sort of is going to be impacting you in the second half of the year?
Christopher A. Smosna -- Interim Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. Hey Marco, this is Chris. Adjusted working capital increased from about $152 million in June to $176 million in December. And as you noted, a big piece of that was inventory. So going through the back half of the year, we expect adjusted working capital to remain relatively flat or maybe even down a little bit as reductions in inventory due to anticipated lower raw material costs and a converted effort to lower on-hand inventory levels will be offset by an increase in accounts receivable due to the expected increase in sales that typically occurs in the second half of the year with the seasonality. So that's kind of where we see things going.
Marco Rodriguez -- Stonegate Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got you. And last, just a quick housekeeping item here. I'm not sure if I missed this on the call, but did you give a percentage of your total sales on PVA and growth rate?
Christopher A. Smosna -- Interim Chief Financial Officer
Yeah. The total sales for the quarter were 47% and the growth rate, without the FX impact is -- or sorry with the FX impact is about 2% to 3%.
Marco Rodriguez -- Stonegate Capital Markets -- Analyst
Got you. Thanks a lot guys. Appreciate your time.
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And we got follow-up questions coming from the line of Daniel Moore with CJS Security. Your line is now open.
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Thank you, again. If I might ask for just a little more granularity from the -- on the guidance front in terms of SG&A, what are your expectations for growth dollars in back half of the year? And are there any initiatives marketing otherwise that it might be pulling back a little bit on just given the difficult environment right now?
Christopher A. Smosna -- Interim Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, we expect small improvement in SG&A as we look for opportunities to reduce unnecessary spending, but the growth rate will be fairly stable in the back half and just down slightly.
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Got it. And then touched on inventory, maybe just quickly on Parkdale, what you see in there that's driving the improvement in environment or net income and how sustainable is that as we look into the back half?
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. So if you look at the Parkdale results, they actually have their spike in raw cost in the second quarter of the calendar year, our Fourth quarter. So if you look, that April, May, June time period is where they really have their strong run up in cotton. So it's come back down, things look good. As long as it stays there, I would expect that they're going to have good performance.
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Got it, thank you.
Operator
Thank you. And I'm showing no further questions at this time. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation on today's conference. This does conclude our program and you may all disconnect. Everybody have a wonderful day.
Duration: 33 minutes
Call participants:
A.J. Eaker -- Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations
Kevin Hall -- Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer
Christopher A. Smosna -- Interim Chief Financial Officer
Christopher McGinnis -- Sidoti & Company, LLC -- Analyst
Daniel Moore -- CJS Securities, Inc -- Analyst
Marco Rodriguez -- Stonegate Capital Markets -- Analyst
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